Random Thoughts

The Searchers. John Ford. 1956. ⚃

There’s sure a whole bunch of westerns on this survey, padner. I got this one from a 20 disc box set some years back. I think it was this? That’s a pretty solid collection.

This is the only John Ford movie on the list, which is somewhat surprising. And if I remember correctly, this isn’t the most visually striking of his movies…

But perhaps I misremember; it’s been decades since I saw this movie last.

[…]

Or perhaps I have never seen it before, because (I’m half an hour in), and nothing seems familiar.

It is pretty startling seeing the white made-up guy playing the lead Native-American role.

[another half hour passes]

OK, I don’t quite get it. I usually love John Ford’s movies, but this is all kinds of … squicky? Around the edges? Like the funny bits where the comedy sidekick accidentally buys a Native-American wife (for the price of a hat)? It’s… in a different, more goofy context, that would still have been pretty odd, but here? Where they’re searching (note: title) after a guy that’s killed (and heavily implied, raped) a whole family, and kidnapped a little girl, it’s…

Weird? Slightly squicky? Especially when the comedy sidekick’s “comedy” spouse abuse sets in?

The mood swings in this movie is enough to give you a whiplash. The deranged cowboy set on revenge and the homey interludes…

OK. On the positive side, it does looks quite nice. I wish I had this on 2K instead of DVD, but it still looks surprisingly spiffy. John Wayne is, as ever, iconic, and the rest of the actors are… present…

I do not understand, at all, why this movie is on this “best of” list in preference over… a dozen other movies by John Ford.

Well, that’s a varied list of directors voting for the movie.

OK, I was bored, so I googled around seeing if anybody had a full data set of all the Sight & Sound polls. Nobody has, but this guy has done an interesting analysis of the available data.

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.

Pickpocket. Robert Bresson. 1959. ⚅

Oh, I’ve got this both on DVD from Artificial Eye and bluray from Criterion…

I’m watching the Criterion release.

OH MY EMACS! Bresson is straight from the screen into my pretentious mind. Those affectless deliveries! The moral quandaries! Those French hairstyles! It’s just pure fabulousness. I’m there from the first frame to the last.

It’s 230% riveting. This movie is PURE EXCITEMENT! MY HEART IS POUNDING IS IT THE COVID NO IT”S THE MOVIE.

[…]

THIS IS A LIE.

It’s the most thrillerey thriller ever.

Bresson is still hyper-modern; i.e., his style hasn’t arrived yet, but it must some day.

OK, the last fourth is a bit of letdown.

Oh, this one has a lot of leftover liqueurs. It’s all liqueurs! I B Damm’d.

Hm… I had expected something super-flavourful, but the liqueurs weirdly cancel each other out.

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.

Pather Panchali. Satyajit Ray. 1955. ⚄

There aren’t a lot of movies on this list from outside the US/Europe/Japan/Hong Kong axis. Is this the only one? Haven’t made a survey, but it kinda looks like it? Uhm… Oh! It’s got Close-Up by Abbas Kiarostami, too. (From Iran.) That one’s really good. My guess is that the next survey (scheduled for 2022, if the world hasn’t ended by then) will include a lot more, like, for instance, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

This is Indian, by the way, and is in Bengali.

I am not a conne… conos… connersue… I don’t know much from Indian movies. I watched a bunch of them last year for my Netflix blog series, and… I guess they weren’t any worse than the American movies, really? I mean, not much.

This is not a Netflix movie. (Note: Insightful comment.)

I really like this. I mean, on a scene by scene basis: I really love the pacing; it’s languorous and slippery, and every scene of picaresque poverty is exquisitely framed. The actors are great; not exactly naturalistic, but every look speaks volumes. It’s not that far from contemporaneous Italian cinema, I guess?

But…

I have to admit growing distracted after an hour or so. There’s some excellent, heartbreaking scenes here, but there’s a bit too much time spent on stuff that is less interesting than the movie assumes it would be. There’s like no… tension? In those scenes?

It is a lovely movie, though. I laughed, I cried.

The scenes with the cats feel quite 2020, I’m sure.

This leftover recipe (Bikini Martini) depletes both my stock of Peachtree and blue curacao, but not by much.

It’s OK? But it’s very alcohol-forward. After diluting it a bit more, it’s nicer.

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.

Man With A Movie Camera. Dziga Vertov. 1929. ⚅

I think… when English translators are translating from certain languages… they always end up with “scenario” being “SCENARIO” instead of “script”, which is what it means… At least that’s my impression after reading a book about movies translated from French to English the other month. And this just reinforces that impression.

ANYWAY.

This is an experimental silent movie from 1929 (when the silent era is almost over), and as usual with silent movies of this era, I loathe the music. The music does underscore the action (as it is), but it’s just not very good.

There aren’t a lot of experimental movies in this “best of” list. I think it Un chien andalou? And this? Which intrigues me, because this was voted the 8th best film ever by the critics.

And it is, of course, a subject beloved of people in movies: It’s about film, really. But it’s also about everything else… I mean, everything. It’s not a narrative movie exactly, but we get to see scenes from everybody’s lives, and things sorta interconnect. Slightly.

The thing that surprised me was that they hadn’t slowed the movie down. Everything happens 10% faster than natural, which I imagined was an artefact of how they used to transfer old movies. But they’d certainly fixed that for the 2K version of Potemkin I watched the other month. Here everybody’s moving around way too fast. I find it hard to believe that it was originally shown at this speed. But perhaps it was? It’s all about the bustle of modern life.

OK, I had to get rid of the music on the bluray, and I’m now listening to Boris in concert instead. That makes a whole lot more sense for this movie.

Right; I get it now. It’s just an exuberant, meta, nerdy movie enthusiast thing: Every shot is either funny or charming. Or both. There’s trick photography; there’s backwards photography; there’s moving-the-camera-around-a-lot photography (I’m sure there’s a term for that), there’s slo-mo athlete photography (“thirsty”, I think the technical term is)…

It’s just inexplicably fun. At least it is when you get rid of the annoying violins.

Ooops! There’s a teensy teensy hint at they end that the music’s by Michael Nyman! Well, OK. I’m not a fan of his, but I had no idea that he’d made something this bad ever.

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.