Random Thoughts

Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock. 1960. ⚅

Oooh! Psycho! I haven’t seen this for quite some time! And now in a restored 2K version!

Oh, it’s not in “acedemy” ratio? That’s the way I remember it, but perhaps it was pan-and-scanned when I watched it on VHS in the 80s…

Hitchcock was a fucking asshole and apparently traumatised (and
sexually harassed Leigh?), but, dude, this is a great movie… on a
shot by shot basis. I mean, it doesn’t make much sense (why buy a new
car with the cop watching?), but…

Anthony Perkins is so wonderful and extremely believable in this. It’s no wonder that the movie derailed his career completely, because you can’t look at him without thinking that he really is Norman Bates. Being gay and THE REVEAL probably didn’t help much, either.

This leftovers cocktail has three things I want to get rid of: Colleen Bawn.

And it’s delicious! OK, I’m really drunk now, so don’t rely on my judgement, and, indeed, a cocktail that consists of a full egg and whisky does sound really nauseating, but it’s good. Mmm.

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

Blow Up. Michelangelo Antonioni. 1966. ⚄

Whu uh. I thought I had seen this movie before, but in my mind it’s in black and white, and it’s set in Italy. This is in colour and is set in the UK. From the first five minutes, I would have guessed that this was a Nick Roeg movie.

Ok. *reset brain*

This movie would have been more enjoyable to watch if the lead hadn’t looked like consumptive Dickens urchin gone to weed. Uhm… David Hemmings.

OK, I’m shallow, but that’s basically the problem I have with this movie. I can watch endless scenes of 60s ennui: Vanessa Redgrave is great here, and the cinematography is fun and 60s and pop-art-ey, but it really comes down to me not liking Hemmings on the screen, I think.

But… despite that, this is really watchable. The centrepiece of the movie is a very nerdy “ENHANCE! ENHANCE!” sequence, and it’s kinda gripping. Very analogue, and somewhat paranoid. It’s like an action movie without much action. I’m not surprised that De Palma remade this with more photogenic actors.

Love the ending.

This uses more Benedictine, so that’s a good thing. Bobby Burns cocktail (Craddock’s recipe) calls for Dewar’s, but I substituted with Chivas. *gasp*

And I didn’t have shortbread, so I substituted with an oatmeal cookie.

Delicious!

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

Gertrud. Carl Theodor Dreyer. 1964. ⚅

Oh, wow — a Dreyer movie from 1964? I had no idea he lived that long. Hm… Ah. It’s his final movie.

I’ve seen the fabulous Joan of Arc he did back in the 20s, but not a lot of his later movies.

This is some grade-A bizarre acting. In the opening scene, I started wondering whether they’d filmed everything backwards, and then reversed the direction, but I think probably not. They moth move in a very stylised way, and seem to look off the frame of the camera (for direction?) from time to time, and they talk with deep ennui as if reading from a page.

I love it.

It’s kinda like L’Argent? Like later Nouvelle Vague…

It was not well received by the straights:

From the outset the film divided both critics and audiences. Immediately following the Paris premiere at a Dreyer retrospective where it was booed the film was frequently referred to as a “disaster” in the press; after the Danish premiere the reception became more nuanced but still divided, and the film caused a big debate in Danish media.

[…]

In Esquire Magazine, Dwight Macdonald wrote that “Gertrud is a further reach, beyond mannerism into cinematic poverty and straightforward tedium. He just sets up his camera and photographs people talking to each other.” An article in Cinéma65 wrote that “Dreyer has gone from serenity to senility…Not a film, but a two-hour study of sofas and pianos.”

Hipsters (the people who mattered) loved it:

Jean-Luc Godard rated the film number one in his list of the best films of 1964. As well, Cahiers du cinéma voted it the second-best of 1964, beaten only by Band of Outsiders.

Somehow in my mind, I want to compare this movie to Ingmar Bergman, but it resists all comparison. It’s not like it’s 180 degrees to Bergman, it’s like it’s 360 degrees, but rotated in the fourth dimension. Or… a perpendicular hypercube.

That is, while there are some obvious similarities (the focus on female characters and self-determination, as well as the long, well-composed takes), there isn’t a single frame of this movie that could have come from a Bergman movie.

Still plowing my way through the Benedictine recipes… Between the Sheets (Wondrich’s formula) only uses 1.5cl, though.

Tasty!

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