It’s a fairy tale without any Disney sentimentality or comic humor. It’s a war movie without the glorification. It’s violent without lulling you into the cartoon detachment of James Bond. It’s horrific, tragic, and incredibly uplifting—although i expect i’m a rare viewer who finds it uplifting. (I may find it uplifting not for the story but that such such storytelling exists.)

Brief but fascinating.

The version via netflix is the Image print, and had the titles in the style of the original release and the odd tinting of the scenes which added a level of mood that straight black and white doesn’t quite address. Netflix also notes, “The print is seriously flawed, but then again, it is 80 years old. On an audio level, there’s a choice of a re-created score or full commentary by film scholar Mike Budd, who talks at length about the film’s artistic, technological and social context. “

I did enjoy the commentary, although it was a bit dry. O’ve just watched one of the documentary extras on the Netflix disk of “Metropolis,” and it began with a brief context and review of “Dr Caligari” as the first German Expressionist film—“Metropolis” being the last.

A colleague’s daughter complained, “You all must have been on drugs if you thought this was a good film.” It’s certainly true the aesthetic is different from today’s films, but in the aesthetic context of “Easy Rider” (1969) and “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), this is definitely an excellent (although far from delightful) cinematic creation. I think it’s a better film than “Easy Rider.”

I suspect that some of the video montages must have been breathtakingly original at the time, and i found the constant memory flashbacks of Joe Buck to be compelling. The brilliance of the film is by taking the story arc of a western and translating the story of the naive but talented gunslinger and the crusty experienced washed-up mentor from red rocks to urban canyons. Watching them eat soup in the squat, watching them talk by flickering candle light, i can’t help but think of a western trail camp site. And the emotional tone of the end of the film seemed so familiar—resonating with the finality of a number of westerns.

I’m left pondering this homage to the western and the contemporary “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969).

We down loaded this short from iTunes the other night. It was quite enjoyable, even though i squirmed through some of the awkward family moments. Do read the disclaimer at the very end!

I picked this up from the book trade table in my work place. I’ve enjoyed reading the stories and slowly they worked their magic on me. Perhaps it’s the very last tale in conjunction with the afterward and the notes about specific children dying in the tsunami, or surviving, and looking at the statistics. (and, now that i think of it, the Brian Herbert Dune tale also echoes something about children and the sea.)

Maybe it’s because tomorrow is the second anniversary of the tsunami.

If you’re lucky enough to read this collection from a library or from a used book store, consider also making a donation to Save the Children’s Emergency Children Fund, and honor the spirit that brought such a collection together.

Obliquely i’ll say that it offers an interesting meditation of the moral repercussions of WWII.

I watched Keaton’s “The Paleface” and “The Play House” from the feed at http://publicdomainmovies.info/. Wonderful material to have such simple (with high bandwidth) access.

I started “Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari” and was quite intrigued, especially after watching some of the early Frankenstein and Dracula films earlier this year. A little web research revealed that there is a DVD release with remastered images and a new soundtrack. I went to add it to our Netflix list—and it’s already in the queue. I may wait to finish watching it with the contemporary soundtrack.

I’m not sure i can bring myself to finish this. I’m watching the movie from the http://publicdomainmovies.info/ feed. It is remarkable to watch Angela Landsbury in her role, since i know her b from Murder She Wrote. The enforcement of the traditional American military values of, “leave no man behind,” seems a bit heavy handed, perhaps because i’m more familiar with slightly more sophisticated treatments of the issues.

I haven’t seen the submarine yet. Christine’s counting this as a submarine movie for this year.

I have read the “Houston, Houston” short story before, and always glossed it as a male-female comparison. This time when reading, howver, i was struck by a comment one of the future humans gave about getting a colony around Saturn (i think it was). Something along the lines of, “Why rush, we have plenty of time.” I realized that, while the future humans didn’t study history as we did, they kept the detailed story of all those in the genome and studied that. In a way, they considered the sisters in their genome to be more like self than we might consider our own siblings.

I’m embarrassed it took me so long to find this reading, because so much of the story folds differently when looking at the contrast between individuals vs these multi-individual beings who live for centuries.

Read Souls 2006-11-12