Week In Review - oo8/12

MOVIES

My Kid Could Paint That - Mildly interesting. The child's paintings are exceptional, if indeed she independently painted the canvases. The dad seemed pretty suspect to me. The local art dealer was a creep, politicking and retrofitting his perspectives at every turn. In the end, I think the filmmaker declined to make a very strong argument. There are a lot better films to spend 75 minutes with.
I thought they missed a pretty common idea for which Picasso is famously quoted - "Every child is an artist until he learns not to be." If I could see and render as effortlessly and clearly as my children, I would be quite pleased.

Pepe Le Moko - This 1936 Julien Duvivier film starring Jean Gabin is one I have seen beforeand hope to watch again and again. It's a gangster film with virtually no crime, focusing instead on atmosphere and emotion. Since I was a child I always paid more attention to milieu than plot. I love to enter worlds and this film takes us into the Casbah of Algiers. Jean Gabin is, as always, irrepressible. My favorite film star of that era and one of the all-time greats. In one scene his jacket opens and reveals a monogram on his shirt pocket - J.G. I never noticed it in previous screenings, but found it charming in so many ways.
There's a scene in the end where Pepe finally leaves the Casbah. He walks on a treadmill and they rear project street scenes blurring past at a different pace than his. They're tilted in Dutch angles, very expressionistic. Finally he arrives at the sea, another projection. These representational elements were emblematic of the poetic realism movement. I'm a huge fan not only of the pre-war French films by Renoir, Vigo, Carne and Duvivier, but of the two movements French poetic realism inspired - Italian neorealism and Le Nouvelle Vague.

La Maitresse - Awesome. Once again, atmosphere. I'm getting so all I want to watch are French films. The art direction and wardrobe are amazing. But it's the simple acting of a simple story of complex emotions that I most appreciated.

Serpico - Sidney Lumet was a master of putting the old gritty New York City of the 70s on the screen. Not just the architectural textures, but the whole vibe of the city. And Pacino really goes for it without chewing the scenery back in pre-yelling days. Seems like back then he let his emotion come through his pores rather than his mouth. I would really like to work with an actor that brings so much someday.

Army of Shadows - Another amazing French film, this time from Jean-Pierre Melville. The acting was phenomenal. Both heightened and nuanced. Talk about mood and tone! Personally I could have happily spent more time with the Underground operatives doing more mundane tasks like procuring German vehicles and uniforms - I love that Hogan's Heroes stuff. Melville renders the heroes larger than life and at the same time very ordinary. The sound is amazing. The opening of the doors at Gestapo headquarters and the sound of shoes on the sidewalk running away are still very clear in my ears.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot - I first saw this film at a drive-in with my dad and his girlfriend back in 1974. I was in the back of his station wagon and was supposed to be sleeping. I was watching Dumbo on one of the other screens and sneaking peaks at the Michael Cimino caper film starring Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges. It was pretty sexy to my seven year old eyes and ears. I've always been partial to irreverent and flippant buddy movies. I loved it. I have the same sense of nostalgia for it that I have for the first Playboys I saw. I found the DVD on sale several years ago and watch it every so often. It never disappoints.

BOOKS

I don't think I even read the newspaper last week. I've been insanely busy with securing our new home, obtaining financing, preparing taxes, teaching, woodshedding, editing, recording the Made Crooked song, preparing to move and to remodel our building - all while Nicola worked 15 hour days on Twilight up in Kalama. Where I found the time to watch movies is beyond me. Oh yeah, I didn't sleep much this week.
I'm sure I sound like a bitter old fart when I say this, but I really love it when single people in their 20s tell me how busy they are. Because included in the above are lunches and coffees with friends, meetings with colleagues and shopping, cooking and cleaning for three kids. The one thing I didn't do was laundry, which is going to happen today - everybody's laundry baskets are overflowing.

Fiction, where are thou?