Moral Compass

April 7, 2020 – Better Call Saul, Season 5 (2020) AMC

Work has been insanely busy. I have all the usual things to do, plus trying to figure out how to respond to the pandemic. We put out this Passover seder supplement asking Californians to call on Governor Newsom to reduce the prison population to help stop the spread of the Coronavirus. I shouldn’t complain. I am lucky to have work at all in these hard times, and I am grateful. But it has left me without as much time as I hoped to watch films. Despite the workload, I have managed to keep up with Better Call Saul, one of my favorite TV shows. This is the story of a lawyer (Bob Odenkirk) and a former police officer (Jonathan Banks) who lose their moral compasses. Rhea Seehorn gives an amazing performance as well as another lawyer and the girlfriend of the titular Saul.  This show is so well-made and smart. 

Stylish Then and Now

April 4, 2020 – Diva (1981) Criterion Channel

This thriller was stylish in 1981, and it is stylish now: opera, mopeds, Paris, a cool loft, murder, and corruption. Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix, who also directed Betty Blue, a movie I liked back in the day that may soon make an appearance in this film festival diary. It was a nice world to disappear into for a while.

Not What I am Looking For

April 4, 2020 – Pain and Glory (2019) Screener

When I think of Pedro Almodovar movies, I think of bright colors, high energy, sex, and melodrama. The latest Almodover film is Pain and Glory, and it is not the work of a young man. This movie is about an aging filmmaker who suffers from writer’s block and chronic illness. The movie is well made, but not the comfort or distraction I am looking for in these troubled times. I prefer there be no illness in my Shelter-In-Place Films. 

Wind Through the Trees

April 4, 2020 – Devs, Season 1 (2020) Hulu

I took a break from movies to watch this great new show.  Nick Offerman stars as the Elon Musk/Mark Zuckerberg figure at the head of a big tech company working on a mysterious new project.  Part mystery, part philosophical inquiry, part five-minutes-in-the-future science fiction, this show is unpredictable and strikingly beautiful. Though it moves at a contemplative pace, it has held my attention for every single moment. It is not as weird or as challenging to watch as Twin Peaks, but the haunting shots of the wind blowing through the trees recall this 1990s favorite.  Devs is better than many of the movies we have watched in this film festival.

Fake News

April 1. 2020 – Talking instead of watching

Wendey (reading from the internet):  “It says they have canceled all sales of liquor in California.”

Lee (thinking to himself): Panic!  I don’t think I can survive this pandemic without alcohol.

Wendey (reading further):  “Oh, never mind.  It was an April Fool’s joke.”

Lee (thinking to himself): I need a drink.

Lively and Sexy

March 29, 2020 – Chico & Rita (2010) Kanopy

I love this animated love story about a piano player and singer in Cuba in the 1940s who travel to the U.S. to seek fame and fortune. The animation is great – lively and sexy (the movie has brief nudity and sex – this film is not for children) – and the film’s music is amazing. Bebo Valdes plays the piano and wrote the original songs, and Idaina Valdes sings for Rita. If you like Jazz and Cuban music, I highly recommend this movie. The soundtrack has been in steady rotation on our sound system.

Charming and Meandering

March 29, 2020 – Local Hero (1983) Criterion Channel

This was a favorite back in the day, I am pleased to say that it still holds up. This is a charming, meandering tale of a Houston businessman who comes to make his fortune in a small Scottish town but instead finds a meaningful life.  Directed by Bill Forsyth (Gregory’s Girl and the great underrated Comfort and Joy) and starring Peter Reigert, Burt Lancaster and a ton of great, unknown Scottish actors.  This was a very pleasant way to spend a quarantined Sunday afternoon. 

Too Long (To Stop Now)

March 27, 2020 – The Monterrey Pop Outtakes (1968) Criterion Channel

I recently watched the Monterrey Pop, the film of the famous concert, directed by D.A. Pennebaker, one of the better concert films I have seen.  The Criterion Channel has a bunch of outtakes from this movie, featuring performances of songs that didn’t make it into the movie. Today, I watched Otis Redding’s entire set, backed by Booker T and the MGs. It was one of the last sets he performed before he died, and it was amazing throughout.  I also watched songs sung by Buffalo Springfield (with David Crosby replacing Neil Young), The Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, The Who, and the sadly underrated Laura Nyro, who reached The-Fugitive-Kind-levels of intensity. 

Gothic Intensity

March 27, 2020 – The Fugitive Kind (1960) The Criterion Chanel

This Gothic drama is the kind of intense, dated movie that I both love and hate at the same time. It was directed by Sidney Lumet from a Tennessee Williams play and starred Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward, Anna Magnani, and many others acting their hearts out.  There is more acting per square inch in this movie than in a hundred movies at your nearby multiplex.  I found the movie fascinating for a while – the performances are so over-the-top as to be transfixing – but I eventually grew tired of the movie and abandoned it halfway through. 

Screwball Escape

March 24, 2020 – A Song is Born (1948) The Criterion Channel

This was a fun movie, perfect to escape from our pandemic woes.  A Song is Born is Howard Hawks’ musical remake of the great screwball comedy Great Balls of Fire, about a group of linguists whose lives and work on an encyclopedia of slang are disrupted a fast-talking floozy played.  In the remake, it is a group of ethno-musicologists who are doing an encyclopedia of  music.  The encyclopedia’s field research (and the movie’s soundtrack) features appearances by Louie Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and many other jazz greats of the age.  The movie loses steam in the last third when it is less music and more plot. But the first half to two-thirds of the movie are so good, you barely notice.