Etc. and Netflix Reviews

Let me tell you. I love the Netflix Friend Feature. You look at some movie, for example, the recommendation of the movie Primer, based on my liking to the Life Aquatic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (I almost typed The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Shirt), and then it says something like "Ben Dietz HATED it."

It's kind of like in Mortal Combat when Dan would come from the corner of the screen and yell Toasty! all of a sudden. If it were expected it would just be boring. But instead, it's a surprise "Hated IT!"

So apparently I am very slow to watch movies I receive. Here are my research findings thus far:

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Okay, so this one was recommended to me by JR Randolph, a person I worked with for about one month at a coffee shop. He went to film school (something I wish I had done so as to come away with SOMEthing from my education), and wrote a list of movies on a guestcheck. I watched only one before losing it in my paperphiliac bedroom.

This movie would technically fall into the category of German New Wave. But Who Gives A ?

The point of this movie is to watch German people playing Spanish people searching for F'ing El Dorado and being dumb greedy idiots. The Scenery is beautiful, but maybe I had been watching too many action movies at the time, because I found the beautiful imagery to be slow as balls and sleep-inducing. Then, again, so are most things.

In any case, if you want to see the best ending of your life and perhaps turn it into a Play for Theatre, or somehow be Aguirre for Halloween, be my guest. This is also playing at the Film Forum on 10.30 and 10.31. Oh Werner Herzog, You Grizzly Man.

In the end, I rate this movie: 2 bananas.

Moving on....

Sherman's March

This movie was recommended to me a few years ago by Gallatin Adjunct Professor of a Class called "Self Fashioning in Film, Movies, and Literature" or something like that. His name was and still is Christopher Packard. I believe he writes books and is also at the New School University.

Well, this one is a serious must-watch. This is likely old news for many of you, but for those of you who would like to see why mockumentarys are so effective, watch this DOCumentary and see the lines of fiction and reality blur into one big crazy pot of human stew.

PLUS: you get to see people's refuge forts for the Apocalypse they are awaiting. You can copy off of them. OR be an Apocalyptic Nuclear War Shelter for Halloween based on the movie. Moving on...

In the end, I rate this movie: Four Bananas.

The Brothers Quay Collection

This movie was something I got into after reading one of my favorite novels published in recent years: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. It's in the front of St. Mark's Bookshop by the register if you want to pick it up. And you SHOULD, because the amount of money you spend on beer and food should at LEAST rival what you spend on movies, books, and any other thing that encourages people to continue to be useful geniuses. Subjectively speaking.

Anyway, I wanted to see The Street of Crocodiles, one of the short animated films done by this pair of Genius Brothers. But I had the same problem that I had with the WHerzog film. I was BORED to tears despite how beautiful and inventive this animation was. Also I was in the Poconos with a bunch of people who had been drinking way too much beer. Not the right time. So I read the book instead. My favorite part of the book was the introduction about the author, Bruno Shulz, who is an example of a buried genius who was killed and discovered by what could be called arbitrary luck or fate, words I find often to be interchangeable since I'm not God.

Overall, I rate this film: Five Bananas if you're not Drunk, No Bananas if you Are.
Overall, I says, (not a typo), read the book too!

Please be my netflix friend if you have Netflix. I think it's radical.


In the next blog:

Rear Window
Rashomon
Barton Fink
Teen Witch
Strangers on a Train
North by Northwest
The Gleaners and I
and... Delicatessen

Or at least two of them.. you know how I am.

By the way: I really really really like comments. Like... a lot.