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| New Yorker Cartoon |
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| The sticker says Handle with Care. |
- Jan 7. THE IDIOT (DVD) by Kurosawa. Stark black-and-white film about the obsession of two men for a beautiful woman,
one of them a gangster, the other an idiot who loves everyone and thinks well of everyone. Some criticism of the exaggerated
gestures and facial expressions. In this aspect the postwar film mimics the old silent films. Memorable.
- Jan 10. CHRIST
STOPPED AT EBOLI (DVD) by Rosi. The story of Carlo Levi, a writer who was exiled by the fascists in the thirties to Gagliano,
a primitive town in the mountains south of Rome. Eboli is where the train-- and modern Italy-- stops. Beautifully photographed
in the mountains, carefully and painstakingly told, sympathetic to the peasants who live and work hard just to survive.
- Jan
11. HOW TO KILL YOUR NEIGHBOR'S DOG (DVD), starring Ken Branagh. KB plays a British writer in LA who has a wife desperate
for a child, a stalker who uses his name, and writer's block, which is holding up the completion of his latest play. Also,
the dog next door barks all night long. He is brought back to life by helping the crippled little girl next door.
Jan
24. ISLE OF THE DEAD AND BEDLAM (DVD). Boris Karloff cult favorites in the forties. A woman buried alive (but above ground)
breaks out of her coffin, but in a mad rage kills two superstitious locals. Bedlam (St Mary's of Bethlehem) was a notorious
London madhouse in the 19th century. The heroine is thrown in the insane asylum after she offended a lord and his fawning
director (Boris Karloff). Not for Marian's eyes!Feb 7. BBC VIDEO: THE NOEL COWARD COLLECTION, including PRESENT LAUGHTER.
A side-splitter!Feb 14. ZODIAK (DVD) based on a true story of a serial killer in California, who plied his trade from
the sixties to the nineties. An unsolved case, in spite of obsessive work by a police officer and a cartoonist for the San
Francisco Examiner. The suspense is killing. Highly recommended, unless you are squeamish. Just shut your eyes early in the
flick.Feb 18. DEEP WATER (DVD) Story about the 1967 Around the World race via sailboat. Donald Crowhurst, an amateur sailor,
shipped so much water as he approached Africa that he could not continue. Instead of returning to England, he sailed to Brazil,
fixed his boat, and then waited for the other sailors to round the Cape, so he could slip in behind them without acknowledging
his hoax. As the others dropped out, he realized that his story was unbelievable, so he committed suicide, probably by drowning,
and let his boat drift into the Sargasso Sea. His family was left poor and destitute. A complete bollix.Feb 26. AWAY FROM
HER (DVD) A movie about Alzheimer's disease, the great scourge of the elderly. Julie Christie plays Fiona, the elegant, restrained
victim; Gordon Pinsent is the scruffy, wooden husband. A highly sanitized account of this horrifying ailment. In this movie
Fiona is hospitalized quickly following a few lapses of memory. More of the misery needs to be shown, but obviously the director
and producer wanted someone in the audience. Hilary Clinton was right: this is a feel-good version of Alzheimers. Mar
20. LA DOLCE VITA (DVD). Fellini's caustic critique of the Italian upper classes in post war Italy. Impossible to sum up this
masterpiece in a few phrases. One charming episode that I had forgotten was the sweet young girl that he met in a workman's
cafe early in film. She spots him after he comes out of the castle after an overnight orgy and examines a monstrous one-eyed
sea monster. She waves to him across a marshy stretch, but he can't understand her and goes off with his woman of the hour.Mar
20. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (DVD) Violent Texas outback where you flag down a car for a ride and kill the driver with a high
pressure cattle gun. A suitcase of 100 dollar bills and a van full of drugs drives the finder (Tommy Lee Jones), a gang of
Mexican druggies, and a soulless killer (Javier Bardem) to find and destroy each other. The local sheriff, Josh Brolin, outgunned,
as he says, decides to retire.Mar 29. A DELICATE BALANCE (DVD), starring Katherine Hepburn and Paul Scofield. A dull filming
of Edward Albee's play. There is plenty of conflict in the marriage of Tobias and Agnes, especially when their three times
divorced daughter comes back home. Additional conflict appears when their best friends Harry and Edna come to live in their
home, because they are terrified. What they are terrified about is never made clear, but in one episode there is some talk
of The Bomb. Fear of nuclear anihilation? Apr 2. L'AVVENTURA by Antonioni (DVD). Jaded socialites visit a barren volcanic
island off Sicily. One of them, a girl named Anna, disappears. Her lover and her girl friend wander about Italy looking for
her. They have an affair, but he quickly seduces another woman. June 6. INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS.
Certainly the worst film I have seen in years. Most Indiana Jones films allow a half hour or so of believable activity, before
the thrills begin. This one goes bonkers from the get-go. Completely and totally unbelievable. June 8. VENGO , a film
featuring poignant Flamenco dancing and singing. The scene is southern Spain, where two gypsy clans continue a long-standing
vendetta, leading ultimately to the death of the leader of one clan, who gives his life to save his nephew. June 10.
NOSTALGHIA, by Andrei Tarkovsky (DVD). Follows a Russian poet on a research trip to Italy. Amid dark, rainy, lonely surroundings
in a Tuscan town he interacts with his beautiful Italian guide and a local madman who locked his family up for seven years
and who now lives in a wet hovel.June 27. AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS, directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. A shipment of gold from
the Ukraine to Moscow just after the Civil War is stolen by bandits. A Cheka official,Stilov, was drugged and duped during
the robbery. The film relates his heroic efforts to recover the gold. Perfectly mirrors the paranoid Bolshevek state that
saw everyone as a potential turncoat, deserter and wrecker of the socialist state.Sept 22. THE WHITE SHEIK by Fellini
(his 2nd film). Two newly married hicks from the countryside go to Rome on their honeymoon. They plan to meet the pope and
their relatives with connections to the Vatican, but the wife sneaks away to meet her favorite comic strip movie character,
known as the White Sheik. He entices her to go on a boat trip that makes her a day late for the pope. The lead man, Leopoldo
Trieste, is priceless as the befuddled husband. I giggled my way through the movie at the Princeton Library.Nov 11. COPYING
BEETHOVEN, starring Ed Harris as B and Diane Kruger as his copyist for his last symphony, the ninth. It's completely fictional,
since his copyists for the ninth were men, but quite interesting and emotional. Then there is the divine ninth in the background.
Recommend.
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