Spring into Cinema

Something about the change in weather has me watching more films. While everyone else has crawled out from their Winter holes to enjoy the warm sun, I've felt the pull to escape from the sun into cold, dark, digital pictures.

Every few months I've tried Filmstruck again. In the past, I just couldn't get a good stream from them. Part of it was/is surely my slow country DSL connection, but mostly Filmstruck was just not ready for release. Any time I'd try to watch something, I'd get buffering a couple times a minute. It was impossible to watch anything that way. Anyhow, this time the streaming is working well with hardly any issues. I'm going to trust that the connection problems have been solved. I'm signing up for the full year plan, boys. A year of Filmstruck. If I only watch an average of one film a week, that comes out to about $2 a movie, which is about what I was paying for a VHS rental in the 90s, so I think that I can live with that.

What have I watched so far?

Shorts
The Acquaintances of a Lonely John (Safdie, 2008)
The Burden (von Bahr, 2017)
The Marathon (Goulding, 1919)
Old Man (Shore, 2012)
We're Going to the Zoo (Safdie, 2006)

Features
Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969)
The In-Laws (Hiller, 1979)
The Man on the Eiffel Tower (Meredith, 1949)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Donen, 1954)
Thirst (Bergman, 1949)

That's 5 shorts and 5 features in less than two weeks. There's no way that I'll keep up this pace, but I am really enjoying watching movies right now. Easy Rider was a re-watch. The rest were new to me. The Man on the Eiffel Tower was the best of the lot and the only one that I think would make any sort of Top list (that's why we watch movies right, to put them on lists?). I'm thinking of doing a Brandon-style march through 1949, then writing about it. I can't access Brandon's old blog, but I think he wrote about 1949 at one point.

Here's my old '49 list from a few years back:

1949

1. Colorado Territory (Raoul Walsh)
2. Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius)
3. The Set-Up (Robert Wise)
4. The Inspector General (Henry Koster)
5. Hellfire (R.G. Springsteen)
6. I Shot Jesse James (Samuel Fuller)
7.
8.
9. Border Incident (Anthony Mann)
10. Reign of Terror (Anthony Mann)

Mentions: A Run for Your Money (Charles Frend)

I don't remember anything about A Run for Your Money. I remember not liking the two Mann films. The Fuller Jesse James picture wasn't all that memorable either. Hellfire was a weird low budget c-western that I think was on NWI a while back. I remember liking it, but it hasn't stuck with me. I confess that I don't remember anything about The Inspector General. But the Top 3 for the year are still solid. All three of them made it on my Top 30 of the 40s list and even bigger, all three of them made it on my Top 100 list. Remember that great Top 100 project that we all finished? Yeah, me too.

So, back to The Man on the Eiffel Tower. It's pretty great, though I'm sure that what I love about it frustrates others. Laughton plays a wonderful version of Maigret, as the plot has him doing pretty much nothing to solve the crime beyond letting the criminal unravel and give himself up. The most climactic moment of conflict in the film involves a decision to back away and not confront the criminal. I found it all satisfying. This film is based on the first Maigret novel that I ever read, the novel that made me really love Simenon's Maigret books. Contrary to noir connoisseurs, I've hated every one of Simenon's non-Maigret crime novels that I've read, but the Maigret books are cozy fun. Lots of pipe smoking and beer drinking and a detective that loves his enemies in order to understand them. What's not to love?