Khobs by Issam Hajali … I don’t speak Arabic but there’s something nice about this song, I dig it:
Movies Watched -- The Breaking Point (1950)
97 minute running time … this was good, I enjoyed it … Manó Kertész Kaminer (Michael Curtiz) was a great director … I’m not a big fan of Jacob Garfinkle (John Garfield), but the other actors were all good, and the writing was really good (based on a Hemingway story) … interesting that this movie was “disappeared” after Garfield was blacklisted, and a real shame since it’s probably Curtiz’s best movie (much better than the overrated Casablanca). Thanks to John Farr for the reco. This is a green-go.
Give a little … roll with it … relax!
Movies Watched -- Rosetta (1999)
In French. 95 minute running time. This won the Palm d’Or, but there ain’t that many French-language movies every year so there are some real clinkers that have won the title… this was a depressing tale about a teenage girl who has an alkie mother and no father … they live in a trailer park … the girl suffers from terrible menstrual cramps and is always running from one place to the next … she’s desperate to find a job though it doesn’t really ring true given the European welfare state … she’s pretty, she has good bones as does her alkie mom (again this doesn’t really ring true) … friendship and betrayal touched on. I wasn’t thrilled with this. SPOILERS: I did appreciate the humor of the botched suicide attempt.
You have a normal life. I have a normal life.
We Will Walk Hand In Hand
Bill Frisell’s version of “We Shall Overcome” … I dig it.
Movies Watched -- Brooklyn Castle (2012)
92 minute running time .. sweet documentary about the chess team at a public middle school in Brooklyn (I.S. 318) … the kids are mostly black and Hispanic and they have won every middle school competition at the national level for a long time … two white teachers, John Galvin and Elizabeth Vikary, lead the chess club … Vikary is interesting for sure, she seems to be somewhere on the autism spectrum (FIDE std 2149) … they try to dramatize things with budget cuts threatening the program post-GFC (not able to fly 57 kids around the country twice a year, plus the train trip to Saratoga) … I enjoyed it.
The answers really aren’t clear to anybody
Movies Watched -- L'Eclisse (1962)
In Italian. 125 minute running time so at least 30 minutes too long. Monica Vitti is nice to look at but I wasn’t interested in the boring? love? story (despite the stock exchange scenes) and fast forwarded through it. Next!
Movies Watched -- Amores Perros (2000)
In Spanish. 153 running time so way way way too long … three overlapping stories of people living in Mexico City, which is sort of a gimmick … one story low-lifes and dog fighting, another story about a man who leaves his wife for a model who is then in a horrific car accident, the model, not the man), and the last story is about a former college professor who is now a bum / hit man. Amores Perros is translated as “Love’s a Bitch,” so they’re all love (and betrayal) stories of sorts, but none of the characters is likable … I got what the director was doing (“the anguished nature of love”), I only wish he had been able to do it in 100 minutes or so….
Andrew O’Hehir wrote a good review … “cruelty and violence … are always evil and always corrosive.”
Name the baby Octavio
Feel Like I'm Born To Lose
Son Little with “Neve Give Up” … big fan of Son Little and love the way he ends this one:
Movies Watched -- A Special Day (1977)
In Italian. 105 minute running time. I have no idea how this ended up in my queue but I’m glad it did since I LOVED this movie … it’s a great story shot in interesting ways, just really well done, absolutely a green-go. Ah, it was John Farr who recommended it, which figures, and I agree with him 100%. Bravo, Ettore Scola!
“You’re not like the others, you’re here with me,”
Ain't Got Much Goin' My Way
Soul Scratch with “The Road Looks Long” … I dig it: