Movies for the August Heat and Cold Waves

I hear Hollywood is on strike. I sympathize with their concerns about AI, but there’s still 125 years of film and 70 or so of television out there that I haven’t caught up with yet…

La Tulipe Noire (1964)

arte Mediathek, Deutsch
Alexandre Dumas gets a writing credit for the title, but this period swashbuckling pic is not related to his novel about breeding flowers at all. The Black Tulip is a Count-turned-highwayman played by Alain Delon, robbing the other French aristocrats and banging their wives. He has an undeserved reputation as a local Robin Hood, but he’s keeping all those jewels for himself. After his face is cut by a sheriff, he calls in his naive, sweet younger brother Julien, also played by Delon, to impersonate him. While out on a mission, Julien meets a hot Revolutionary girl named Caro, and turns the Black Tulip brand legit.

Lots of exciting sword-fighting and trick-riding action (Caro slices up a few men), sumptuous sets and costumes, the adulterous affairs plod on a bit (I caught my mind straying to The Scarlet Pumpernickel), but on whole an enjoyable light adventure film.

The Godfather (1972)

Netflix, original English/Italian
When I saw this on cable twenty-odd years ago, with commercials, while baking and quilting, I didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about. But this month, sitting on the couch with my cat, drinking bourbon, focused on the screen–it’s a good film. Long, but all the set-up for the baptism at the end was necessary.

The thing I didn’t catch on the first watch is that it’s not actually about Vito, even though he’s the face on all the posters. It’s about Michael *becoming* a Godfather. If you know this, it all makes sense.

(Sonny should have had Carlo killed immediately. Changes the whole story, but depresses me less. And Kay is a moron.)

Sigh: There’s not many stores left, are there? I would sell certain people to get one of their taco pizzas delivered to my current address.

Christine (1958)

arte Mediathek, Deutsch
Romy Schneider stars as the title character, an aspiring young Vienna opera singer who falls in love with a military cadet, played by Alain Delon. It’s mutual, but he’s been banging the wife of the Baron of Eggersdorf, and she will not give him up easily. The Baron is also displeased.

In the first act, Christine turns down free tickets to Romeo and Juliet because she doesn’t like how the story ends. This should have tipped off the shock ending, but I was distracted by the sets, costumes, and music. Excellent detail paid to all, except the makeup–Romy is a 1950s glamour star, after all, she can’t be filmed looking like 1906! She and Alain began their love affair while filming this picture; I don’t know if that matters but knowing makes you see them differently.

Random: Did you know the Kaiserhymne, the anthem to honor the Austro-Hungarian emperors, is the same Haydn tune as the current (and former *cough*) German national anthem? I didn’t, and so I was very confused during a scene where Franz Josef attends the opera. Lol.

Hustle (2022)

Netflix, original English
Another very good Adam Sandler drama (we saw Uncut Gems last year, but I was too lazy to write about it) about a basketball scout who finds a phenomenal young streetballer in Spain and spends a lot of time and money to get him a shot in the NBA. I stopped paying attention to pro basketball shortly after the retirement of Reggie Miller, so I didn’t recognize any of the player-actors except Dr J, but it’s not necessary to be a fan to enjoy this story about family life and redemption.

Some swears, but a good movie night for a junior high team-building activity.

Wie Feuer und Flamme (2001)

Netflix, original Deutsch
A story about the punk scene in Soviet Germany in the early 1980s, and a love affair between two unlikeable stupid young people. Nele from West Berlin is nearly killed entering illegally in a garbage barge, after being put on a “no-entry” list for lying on a visa application. Captain, a punk rocker from the other side of the Wall, intentionally smashes his own hand with a hammer to get out of going to trade school. They were so childish and ridiculous, I couldn’t feel bad for them when they got caught up by the Volkspolizei, and I hate the writers and director for making me take the wrong side.

Bits of the story were lifted from real events. Punk bands really did play in churches, I learned this from a Toten Hosen documentary. Costumes were fun, music was god-awful cacophony, cinematography insisted upon itself.

Katharina Luther (2017)

BR, original Deutsch
A movie from the ÖRR for the Lutherjahr, the nationwide commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the 95 Theses. This one chronicles the life of his wife, Katharina von Bora, who was given to a convent by her father at age 5. She begins to doubt a cloistered life was God’s intention for her after reading some smuggled pamphlets written by Doktor Martinus Luther, and leads an escape of young nuns who share these doubts. Husbands were found for the others but at the doddering age of 26 Katharina was hard to place, and anyway she had no interest in farmers or merchants: she was there to support the Reformator.

A lot of effort was put into this one, excellent casting (major TV and movie players of the era), costumes based off actual paintings by Cranach, but the cinematography was extremely annoying. After every minute and a half of dialog, they cut in unfocused shots of random objects or body parts at awkward angles. Yes, yes, you are a serious artist and too good for mere television. You are also distracting your audience from the story being told.

(It was released in the US with English subtitles as Luther and I, and you can find it on Prime.)

Guglhupfgeschwader (2022)

ARD, original Bayerisch
The eighth movie of the Eberhofer-Birkenberger cozy murder-mystery franchise (read about six of them here; number seven here), and after excitedly looking forward to it for months, I was a bit disappointed. The characters were all up to their usual madcap antics, but the murder investigation felt like an afterthought, and everybody’s getting old without evolving. Might be better on the rewatch. The new dog is cute.

There is an official music video. Do wern s‘ d‘ Aung aufreissn!

The Straight Story (1999)

arte Mediathek, original English
I missed this when it was new–my in-laws saw it in a Kino in Hamburg, their first introduction to Iowans (they think we’re nice). It was better than I expected, but with all the amateur theater groups around the state, couldn’t they have cast real Iowans in the small speaking roles instead of Hollywooders?

I thought about going down the film industry’s Iowa tax fraud rabbit hole, but here’s some photos of the Grotto instead.

The Goodbye Girl (1977)

Cable (Warner Film), original English
“Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl” chirps the voice of a Des Moines-area radio commercial from some indeterminate era of my past, inside my head, taking up valuable bytes that I need for storing which verbs use the dativ.

A tale of an unemployed former dancer, squatting in an apartment that had been sublet to an actor after the man whose name was on the lease goes back to his wife. The characters yell at each other a lot, there is some terrible experimental Shakespeare and creepy fixation on a 10-year-old girl, and their NYC apartment full of decorative objects that apparently belong to no one. This is a weird place with weird people, and why are people who say they have no money buying name-brand saltines?!

The dialog may have been funnier at the time; some of the conversations that were written to be supportive of gay men and women’s liberation in 1977 could unleash a shitstorm if you quote them in 2023. FYI.

As far as Neil Simon goes, I liked Murder By Death better.

(“Maybe rom-coms aren’t your thing, Radish.” I don’t know, I liked Tarantula.)

Sedmikrásky (Daisies) (1966)

arte Mediathek, original Czech with English subtitles

Generation TikTok thinks they invented attention-seeking through acts of wanton waste and destruction. Hah! That shit’s older than I am.

But after thinking about this for a week or so…there is a scene where the girls gleefully destroy a laid-out banquet buffet, including plates and glasses, because they’re bored and entitled. They then “fix” with the “hard work” of piling up the remaining bits into unappetizing piles of gravy and ceramic shards, and declare it’s as good as new. What a great metaphor for that contemporary surgical-pharmaceutical-political movement aimed at children.

(I might have enjoyed watching the film if it had been visually consistent, but it looked like an end-of-semester student project, where the assignment is include at least three editing techniques covered in the class, and if three is good, all seventeen must be gooder!)

Mystic River (2003)

Netflix, original English
After A Perfect World, I’ve been looking around for more Eastwood-directed films. Watched this one all way through but there’s nothing I want to say about it, other than it was sort of depressing.

(I was wondering how a Boston crime drama gets made with no Wahlbergs, but I found one in the credits.)

Der Glockenkrieg (1981)

Bayerischer Rundfunk, original Bayerisch with German subtitles
A cute film adaptation of a novel about a feud between two neighboring villages in Niederbayern around the turn of the 20th century. Eventually the men on the city councils put a complete ban on contact between residents, which interferes with the plans of several young couples who had planned to marry. They appeal to the court, and the church, but not until their mothers and the councilmen’s wives get involved can the marriages take place.

BR needs to be showing this sort of thing more often. I need to be watching this sort of thing more often.

Notes from the credits: Part of it was filmed in Freising, so now I have to watch it again and obsess over finding the location. And one of the wives was played by Eberhofer’s Oma, but she didn’t have any close-ups, so I didn’t recognize her.

Heat (1995)

Netflix, original English
arte is showing this in the Mediathek as part of an 80th birthday tribute to Robert DiNiro–but for “protection of viewers under 16” it’s only available between 10pm and 6am. I ask you, who is more likely to start a 3-hour movie at 10pm: a 14-year-old or a 40-year-old?

At the risk of offending all my readers, I must confess that I cannot discern any noticeable difference between the voice and appearance of middle-aged Pacino and middle-aged DiNiro. They’re styled and costumed the same, they have the same delivery…I spent much of this movie confused about who was who. And it could have been shorter, there was a lot of brooding that didn’t add to the plot or character development.

DiNiro’s LEO squad’s total and complete lack of concern for public safety–they shoot up a city street in the middle of the day, bullets flying into cars, businesses, by-standers–ruined the story for me. It didn’t matter what good things he did after that. I hated him and his whole division.

arte and Netflix are also both showing Taxi Driver. I saw it in the red-envelope era and need never see again. FWIW.

Confidential to the Moron Horde: Ashley was puffy far earlier than we realized.

How the West Was Won (1962)

Cable (Warner Film), original English
I was really looking forward to seeing this star-studded epic, because the theme music is the theme music to IPTV’s coverage of the Iowa State Fair, soundtrack of my childhood–but was disappointed by the stories and characters, which ranged from unbelievable to annoying to boring.

The photography is beautiful, the scenery marvelous (although the mountains of the Badlands are very obviously not Ohio), and the technological effects impressive. The buffalo stampede was also incredible, I scrolled back and watched it twice. But it was all in support of a bad script. Sigh.

Nosferatu (1922) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

arte, original Deutsch and Netflix, original English
I was finally able to watch these back-to-back, and I need to make a separate post.

Excalibur (1981)

Cable (Warner Film), original English
I could get past the anachronistic suits of armor worn by the Knights of the Round Table, but not that the royal armorers cobbled them together out of disposable aluminum pie tins–wooden sticks went right through. FFS.

A retelling of the Arthurian legends that sticks pretty close to the original French manuscript as far as I know, from his conception to his death. There’s a green light effect around the sword I found annoying, but the acting was good and the story kept us engaged.

Fun screen appearances: Jean-Luc Picard is Arthur’s father-in-law, and he was raised by the long-suffering Richard.