The Son* Dardenne Bros, 2002
This was the second Dardenne film I watched (the first was
L'Enfant) and it kind of threw for a loop. The film is about watching Olivier Gourmet work and teach. It is about observing what he will do because he doesn't even know himself. Observation is narrative. It's a resolutely
physical film, though a much less violent one than
Rosetta (the camera tries and fails to keep up with its subject), grounded in work, process. There's this one scene where Olivier Gourmet is eating a sub and the kid keeps bugging him about he knows how to measure stuff just by sight and somehow Gourmet eating his sub counts as character development. Something needs to come from this. Something.
Aprili Otar Iosselliani, 1961
I liked this best when it was just the young lovers trying to sneak into secluded areas to kiss and less when it grows heavy-handed about ionno materialism or whatever draining the life out of meaningful relationships. Either way, it's wonderful when a kiss can power a whole household. Alternative energy!
The Glass Bottom Boat Frank Tashlin, 1966
Doris Day works at some random science research place as a tour guide. Rod Taylor more or less owns the place and has come up with some crazy formula to do something something space-related. Crazy hijinks ensue, Russian spies abound, Day gets to sing a few songs and sex it up, mistaken identities, blah blah blah. The spy stuff never reaches the heights of
Artists and Models. Meaning, it lacks people dressed in mouse costumes. Mostly the film seems to be about Tashlin having fun with random gadgets and how each gadget can malfunction: a machine that cleans the kitchen floor, an automatic egg beater, a boat run by remote control. Sadly, none of these top the killer lawnmowers from
It's Only Money.
I Love Melvin Don Weis, 1953
Crazy awesome. Debbie Reynolds is a backup dancer type in Broadway (she plays the football in a football musical). Donald O'Connor is a photographer for some random magazine that routinely gets ignored. Being stunned by her beauty, he tries to win her over by promising her a spread in the magazine. Who cares about that though. There are so many numbers. The fantastic meet-cute in the beginning where each character is introduced from opposite sides of the frame, Reynolds flying through the air as a football, O'Connor copying Kelly in
The Pirate and then skating round and round. The songs are punchy, fast, they zip by and leave a smile on your face. Best of all, whenever O'Connor tries to kiss Reynolds he messes up, thereby commenting on the ridiculousness of his leading man status. Great movie.