This movie had a kind of unique effect. Eric Rohmer's films are famously slow and short on plot. AKA "arthouse favorites." And this one was about an awkward and at times not very likeable young man and his self-inflicted romantic foibles. At one point I even hoped that he might fall into a well or a sinkhole, to make the movie shorter. But the funny thing about A Summer's Tale is how it resonates (for me, anyway) days after. I don't remember the people as much as the weather, the setting, the beaches and the plain, patient way the human plot was filmed. Maybe the lesson is that we waste time calculating and not being present. Or to quote Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the story was the wave, not the water. And the moments of warmth and kindness in the movie stand out.
And what's cooler than a one-off showing of a slow arthouse flick on a Sunday afternoon in August?
After watching mostly tv shows for a while now, I got David Thomson's Have You Seen...? book out again and picked up where I left off, in the B's. Of all the movies I've watched so far in my workmanlike, alphabetical commitment to recommendations from the book, the four I'd pick as my favorites: Act Of Violence; Aguirre, Wrath of God; Andrei Rublev, and Ashes and Diamonds. The last of those four left the strongest impression.
The Band Wagon started off competent, fun, and straight ahead, then took off into unabashed Disneyland creativity and outright weirdness: "Triplets" is a number that will hit you like a sock full of oranges.
Spotify hooked me up with a weird James Blood Ulmer & Rodolphe Burger record on my run this evening. This is all or mostly live with lots of electronic churgle and some deep n grimy grooves. There's tons more and I aim to check them all out.
Here's Volume Two of Just Woke Up, an audio podcast featuring music I dig, plus experiments with Garage Band sound effects in service of professional FM radio voice-overs. Frogs and rain and so forth.
Guided By Voices: Keep It In Motion Stew: Love Like That Carbon Silicon: The Magic Suitcase Dinosaur Jr: Almost Ready John Doe: Little Tiger The Soft Boys: I Love Lucy The Underlings: Rock Deductions Tommy Keene: Compromise Redd Kross: Stay Away From Downtown You Am I: It Ain't Funny How We Don't Talk Anymore Mates of State: Basement Money Marnie Stern: Put All Your Eggs In One Basket Meat Puppets: Bad Love (Live at University of Santa Barbara 2/6/88) Muddy Waters: I Just Want To Make Love To You Paul Westerberg: Gimme Little Joy The Pedal Jets: Giants of May Bob Mould: Keep Believing Volcano Suns: Truth Is Stranger Than Fishing Excerpt From The Bitter Lemons of Cypress, by Lawrence Durrell
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Once Upon A Time In Anatolia might be one of the slowest-paced films I've seen, and I liked it alot. I'm trying to think of another film where the landscape is a main character--maybe Dersu Uzula. A best supporting actor nomination goes to the wild apple that rolls down a ravine into a creekbed. That was an amazing shot.
Two indie films that I enjoyed this week. Rare Exports came up on Netflix after I watched Troll Hunter. The two make an excellent European double feature of dark fairy tale magic, wry humor, and creature feature horror.
Choking Man tells the story of a shy Ecuadorian immigrant in his late teens, washing dishes in a diner in Queens. The intensity of his introversion and his crappy living conditions are almost gothic; the diner balances that with slice-of-life daily living, gives him some warmth and human interaction and a chance to break out a little bit.
The Golden Motors gig at Camp Putt was as nice a summer night as anyone could hope to have while playing guitar, bass, and drums and/or putt-putting around the mini-golf course. We set up by the lagoon near hole 18, and threw down as many numbers as we could. We're told we doubled the average early September Friday night draw--and there were a number of holes in one. Our photographer friend Claire Flint took some pictures:
After plumbing the depths with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, I continued my Bergman run with Sawdust and Tinsel. There were a couple moments in this film where the anguish on screen matched the intensity of the images and maybe this was his signature style fully emerging, something he did more fluidly and with more confidence later on. An ability to show the grotesque with compassion. Definitely not workmanlike cinema taking the middle road for a paycheck.
And so that brings us full circle, to this scene from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels:
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