The World According to Garp (1982)

Directed by George Roy Hill with Robin Williams, Glenn Close, and John Lithgow. Adapted from John Irving’s novel of the same title.

“You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I'm going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life.”

Well, I reckon that I’m glad that I finally watched this movie that I’ve been hearing about for years. It was an entertaining romp – charming, whimsical, dark, and full of foreshadowing. Glen Close and Robin Williams probably get more attention for their lead roles, but if it weren’t for John Lithgow in his role as a trans woman this film would not be nearly as interesting. After watching it, I thought about Dustin Hoffman’s cross-dressing character in the film Tootsie, which I loved as a kid, and which, incidentally, was also released in 1982. I'm no women’s studies scholar, but I do think it is interesting that these two well-loved films, released in the same year, present feminist ideas to main-stream audiences with a dose of humor. A spoonful of sugar, you know.

An Angel at My Table (1991)

Directed by Jane Campion

I regretted that with our parents’ lives spent almost entirely in feeding, clothing, sheltering us, we had little time to know and be friends with them.

One of the many wonderful things about the early stages of a  new relationship is the pleasure found in discovering the things this other person brings to the table. Especially those things that they are passionate about. So it is with this film. I saw Jane Campion’s The Piano back in the day and loved it but never went on to explore her other work. An Angel at My Table is a film about New Zealand author Janet Frame’s life. It is based on Frame’s autobiography. It is also one of Kai’s favorites so I was excited to watch it with him. He also promised to tickle me if I started to fall asleep. It is a rather lengthy film having been originally produced as a TV miniseries but I only had to be tickled once. 

The story of Frame’s life is heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. Campion has the patience to let it unfold at an unhurried pace and we are allowed to revel in the beauty of a childhood that is graced with love and affection if not wealth and material goods. She has the wisdom not to dwell on the awful parts giving us just enough of a glimpse to effectively illustrate how writing truly saved Frame’s life. And, she has the eye to captivate us with a lushness of detail - every scene is a visual delight that I just want to sink into. I had never heard of Janet Frame before. After seeing this film I am inspired to seek out her writing.

Tokyo Drifter (1966)

Directed by Seijun Suzuki

"I need no dreams; if it's a flower, flowers scatter, dreams dissolve, the flower of man scatters after all; I threw away love, for honor... ah, Tokyo drifter"

I adore Seijun Suzuki’s take on the yakuza story. That powder blue suit that Tetsu “the Phoenix” wears gets me every time. He’s the hippest gangster ever to capture my adoration. Tokyo Drifter has been described as a Day-Glo noir hanging on a tenuous plot thread. Indeed, I could watch it without subtitles and enjoy it just as much. Except, I really love the song that returns throughout the movie and I think its lyrics are more important than following along with the gangster plot. Suzuki is a visionary director. This film is absurd; surreal. It is pop art; pop culture; candy. It’s a cartoon. It’s devastating when he walks away from Chiharu, the woman who wants to love him so desperately. Listen to the theme song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2GvUvaDy4

To Catch a Thief (1955)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Grace Kelly and Cary Grant.

“For what it's worth, I never stole from anybody who would go hungry.”

When I lived in dreary old Bostontown with its interminable winters, I would often put on a movie that is set in a beautiful sunny location to escape the gloom outside of my window. To Catch a Thief was definitely one of those films that I employed to cheer me up during those bleak days. The French Riviera locale is certainly gorgeous and watching Cary Grant and Grace Kelly light up the screen with their easy style and grace is a delight. Then there are the wild vivid technicolors, the fireworks, and Edith Head’s wonderful costuming. The thing that ties it all together for me is the witty mischief that runs throughout the film from Robie’s opening escape from the police to his final entrapment with Frances and her mother.

The other thing about Hitchcock that is so fun is looking for his cameo appearance. In To Catch a Thief, he makes his appearance rather early on in the film as a passenger on the bus sitting next to Cary Grant. It’s one of the most blatant of his cameo appearances - there is no missing it. Cary Grant gets a good long look at him in the scene while Hitchcock stares straight ahead, expressionless. I also like the cat and the canary reference. It makes me wonder about Hitchcock’s persona and recognizability. When did his image become as well known as his movies? Which came first the chicken or the egg?

In the famous Truffaut/Hitchcock interview he says this of his cameos:

[the first cameo in The Lodger] was strictly utilitarian; we had to fill the screen. Later on it became a superstition and eventually a gag. But by now it's a rather troublesome gag, and I'm very careful to show up in the first five minutes so as to let the people look at the rest of the movie with no further distraction.

This is a fun and generous film. The perfect pick-me-up for a bleak winter day in New England or a clear autumn evening in New Mexico.

Wake In Fright (1971)

Directed by Ted Kotcheff

I cannot accept your premise, Socrates. Affectability... progress... are vanities spawned by fear. A vanity spawned by fear. The aim of what you call civilisation is a man in a smokin' jacket, whiskey and soda, pressing a bottom... button, to destroy a planet a billion miles away, kill a billion people he's never seen.

I am fairly notorious for falling asleep during the best films but I am surprised that I slept through the action of this wild ride. I was all in when Kai suggested that we watch this together. I had never heard of it before and he’s got good taste in these things. He’s also got nice arms and when he wrapped them around me, off to sleep I went. This morning, I picked up where I left off - right when things start to come completely unhinged for our schoolteacher hero John Grant. This is the tale of a seriously lost weekend - the kind that simply just appears; sucks you in as though you have no will; spills out like a pile of hot guts and leaves you forever altered (the experience of watching the film is kind of like that too). The kind where you live a lifetime in the course of a few days and then are deposited back as an alien in a familiar landscape. Doc Tydon (played by Donald Pleasence - from Halloween!!!), is the cultured savage, our Virgil, who takes John by the hand and leads him through the Inferno of Yabba. And in the final scene, as John returns to his post at Tiboonda, is that God himself sitting on the porch smiling?

The Life of Brian (1979)

Directed by Terry Jones

What’s Latin for “Roman”? Indicative, or imperative? How many Romans?

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Also: https://eidolon.pub/turning-the-tables-on-dominance-and-diversity-in-classics-2467fe45734c

Playtime (1967)

Directed by Jacques Tati!!!

How do you say "drugstore" in French?

Tati is always a delight and this movie is his masterpiece. The day after watching Playtime, I came across the phrase or concept “cognitive dissonance in isotropic spaces,” which is attributed to the artist William Fox. Mr. Fox is referring to the loss of orientation that is experienced in the vast openness of desert landscapes. My mind, however, went straight to the isotropic cityscape that Tati created for this film. A world that baffles our lovable Monsieur Hulot and delights the viewer with its absurdity. There is so much going on in Playtime that it is good for multiple viewings - you’ll always see something you didn’t catch before. It’s also more fun to watch with a friend. I watched this with Kai, who noticed that there were black and white cardboard characters in some of the cubicles in the office scene. This time around, I was rather taken by the fella who is trying to find his way home by reading the veins in a marble column as though it was a map. Good stuff that!