Criterion Month Day 15: Céline and Julie Go Boating

Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974)

Though I did not pick a distinct theme for my Criterion films this year, I feel like I inadvertently picked a number of films that pair nicely with each other. I had the lonely women going on vacation movies (Now, Voyager and Summertime), the bunch of dudes have to work together to pull off a job movies (Big Deal on Madonna Street and The Flight of the Phoenix), and now I have my young women getting into shenanigans movies (Daisies and today’s pick). I would say Daisies and Céline and Julie Go Boating might be good double features, but they also might not, since they have kind of the opposite approach to filmmaking. Where Daisies is kinetic and abrasive, Céline and Julie is about as loose and carefree as it gets, to the point where I sometimes had a hard time grasping what I was watching, but maybe that was the point. Continue reading →

Criterion Month Day 14: The Night Porter

The Night Porter (1974)

Ugh, Nazis. I hate those guys. It’s fucking insane that even today those guys have defenders. Why are some people drawn to those fascist dorks? My best guess is that most people hate ambiguity. They want order, with clear rules, a “strong” leader barking commands at them. The problem is they’re willing to overlook the stripping of human rights and murder of others to achieve that “order.”

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Criterion Month Day 13: Destroy All Monsters

Destroy All Monsters (1968)

Fourteen years after the original Godzilla, director Ishiro Honda, special-effects supervisor Eiji Tsuburaya, and composer Akira Ifukube reunited to potentially end the series. Sort of like the first Avengers, the idea here was pretty simple and very much scraping the bottom of the barrel: what if the characters from all those other movies teamed up to fight a bunch of forgettable aliens? That’s right, Destroy All Monsters is an 11-kaiju extravaganza, featuring everyone from Anguirus to ‘Zilla himself. But is it any good?

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Criterion Month Day 12: Belle de Jour

Belle de Jour (1967)

I’ve seen three Luis Buñuel films now; today’s film, which is about a rich lady who becomes a prostitute, the one with the rich people trapped in a mansion they can’t escape, and the one with the slicing of the eyeball (it is unclear whether or not the eyeball is rich). But considering Buñuel went on to write and direct a film called, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” it’s safe to assume the guy had some thoughts about rich people.

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Criterion Month Day 11: Weekend (1967)

Weekend (1967)

1967’s Weekend (or perhaps “Week End”) is Jean-Luc Godard throwing up his hands in frustration. The cacophony of cars honking horns outside his window have made it clear: all is lost, and things are going to have to get a lot worse before they can get better. I knew that was going to be the vibe going in, but I was hoping there’d be something more here – some insight into how things got so bad or a vision for how we all get through it – since these days I’m kind of feeling the same way. But actually what I came away from it with was a sense that I’m still pretty far from being a Marxist French misanthrope.

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Criterion Month Day 10: Daisies

Daisies (1966)

Sometimes, it’s worth giving a film a second chance and your full attention. My only previous experience with 1966’s Daisies was watching a snippet of it in a film history class back in college, I believe of the opening scene of the movie. The film starts off in such a strange, disorienting place that I wasn’t sure I liked the unhinged absurdity the film was going for. So I put off revisiting it for a long time, despite the fact that I’ve made a concerted effort to seek out important films by women filmmakers over the years. Well, turns out I just needed to watch the whole damn film, as its very particular, anything-goes nature takes a while to get used to, but once you do, it makes for one of the more singular films I can recall seeing. Continue reading →

Criterion Month Day 9: The Flight of the Phoenix

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

A group of men must band together in order to complete a job that will hopefully save their lives. It’s a simple premise that has gotten used plenty over the years in various films and one that is at the heart of 1965’s The Flight of the Phoenix. Somehow, this film was not a huge hit when it came out, despite the fact that it feels like a real crowd-pleaser and has an amazing cast (though the box office vitality of a bunch of character actors and an aging Jimmy Stewart may have proved faulty). It’s a little hard to believe also because it fits so nicely along “team of dudes” movies from this era like The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, or director Robert Aldrich’s next film, The Dirty Dozen. But maybe the film was too ahead of its time, as it also brings to mind the disaster movies of the 70s as well as one of that decade’s biggest hits, Jaws.

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