A LIST! A LIST! MY KINGDOM FOR A LIST!

PANICS AND PANDEMICS to be concluded on Rick’s Flicks’ next blog.

MEANWHILE:

Justin Chang who writes on film for the LOS ANGELES TIMES wrote a thought-provoking article on movies for Passover and Easter.  A true man of film, Chang compares going to the cinema with going to synagogue and church, then offers his annotated list (a super! list) of films he recommends for the season  —

Pasolini’s GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW

From Bresson’s “Au Hasard, Balthsar” to Rosenberg’s “Cool Hand Luke,” “Europa Europa” to “Uncut Gems,” Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ,” Pasolini’s beautiful “Gospel According to St. Matthew” and more.

Given the creative quality of most of the choices, one is startled to find DeMille’s “Ten Commandments,” but Chang also chooses Kieslowski’s brilliant “Dekalog” and mentions the two most outstanding films in that series, “A Short Film About Killing” and ” A Short Film About Love.”

All the works listed are so outstanding (the DeMille excepted) as to make for a year-round viewing list.

I found Chang’s article in my local paper on Passover/Easter weekend.  You can find it   online:  http://www.latimes.com.>people>justin-chang.  “From ‘Ten Commandments’ to ‘Uncut Gems’ Here Are 12 Great Movies for Passover and Easter,”  April 10.

NEXT FRIDAY POST May 8

Until then,
Stay in and view a movie,
Rick

PANICS AND PANDEMICS — Continued

MORE RICK’S FLICKS’ FAVORITES AND/OR RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THIS TIME OF CRISIS

JEZEBEL  1938  Bette Davis redeems herself in 19th century New Orleans by caring for her betrayed lover, quarantined in a yellow fever epidemic.  This role brought the great Davis her second Academy Award.  It was the first of three pairings with director William Wyler, each of which would bring Academy Award nominations.  Davis in Jezebel is faced with the expressionless George Brent (see below, the 1934 Painted Veil)  but has good support from Henry Fonda and Fay Bainter, also awarded an Oscar for her performance.

The Painted Veil    2006    Directed by John Curran

Again:  salvation through epidemic; reconciliation and

Garbo in The Painted Veil

atonement through disease and suffering.  The marriage of Walter and Kitty Fane (Edward Norton and Naomi Watts) is on the rocks because of her unfaithfulness and his inability to forgive it.  He is a colonial British doctor in a remote rural area of China, and she stays with him as he struggles with a cholera epidemic.  Gorgeously photographed by Stuart Dryburgh  —  and it’s really all too pretty for the ugly story.  Fine acting.  Also stars Liev Schreiber.

The Painted Veil    1934    Directed by Richard Boleslawski

In appropriately somber black and white, this earlier version of the Somerset Maugham novel is in some ways less sophisticated; but, as always, Garbo elevates the material and the vehicle  —  and she really has to with wooden George Brent supporting her.

A third version The Seventh Sin (unseen by Rick’s Flicks) was made in 1957, directed by Ronald Neame and starred Eleanor Parker.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

MOVIES ARE EVERYWHERE

. . .including great mystery novels by Lawrence Block.

Block’s private eye Matthew Scudder is in a Manhattan bar:

L. A. (Language Alert)  “There was a movie playing on one of the cable stations,a colorized version of an old Warner Bros. gangster movie.  Edward G. Robinson was in it, half a dozen others I recognized but couldn’t name.  Five minutes into the movie the bartender went over to the set and turned down the color-level knob, and the film was magically restored to its original black-and-white.
‘Some things should be – – – – ing left alone,’ he said.”

NEXT FRIDAY POST April 24

Until then,
Stay home and watch a movie,
Rick

 

 

 

DELAYED POST

Today’s scheduled post delayed until Monday April 13.

Sorry.

Until then, Rick