I’d totally forgotten that the Jacques Tati box set had a disc of shorts. But these shorts are pretty long — 20 to 30 mins.
This first one seems very lightly restored: It’s been stabilised (there’s no judder or shifts), but there’s plenty of scratches, dirt and stuff.
Well, OK. This is an early Tati short, and not directed by him. So I’m not expecting a lot. But this is really clunky.
Not to mention a bit cruel. But, I mean… I do think you can see the glimmer of his later films here. He insists on this gold fish gag way longer than you’d expect — and it’s not a good gag, but the sheer insistence on it does say something.
That is, right from the start, he’s not doing naturalistic stuff — it’s all very mannered and slightly surreal.
Nice statue.
It’s always hard to throw the die on these types of films. Is this an interesting thing to watch if you’re a Tati fan? Sure! If, not, is this actually a, like, good movie? No. There’s like a handful of gags in here, and a couple of them are good.
I don’t really enjoy documentaries that are like one line from one guy, and then half a line from another guy, and then some zoomed-in stills… but this looks like it’s that kind of docu. And I’m not a Stooges fan — I like them fine, but it’s not my thing.
But I do like Jim Jarmusch, so I got this movie, and it looks like it’s Jarmusch’ first (and only) bad movie.
Oh, Amazon.
This isn’t just bad — it’s embarrassing. So of course:
It’s a letdown that a singular director like Jarmusch has produced such a conventional film. In its totality, though, it’s still better than most movies of its kind because he never forgets to foreground the unique individuality of his subjects…
Anyone expecting anything formally inventive from this usually boldly iconoclastic filmmaker will be disappointed
OK, I’m getting less annoyed with this now. I mean, I still annoyed, but with no expectations that it’s going to be, you know, “good”, there’s some anecdotes they’re telling that are pretty amusing.
Huh! Well I never!
OK, it’s a traditional talking head music documentary. But even as tiresome as that is, it didn’t really work well on that level, either — I still don’t quite know how many guitarists (or bassists) they had. And the old concert footage looked really badly upscaled; as if Jarmusch had just punched “4x” on the player and filmed the screen. And it feels really dishonest — I mean, I don’t know much about the Stooges, but even I know that there’s stuff of drama and interest that was left out.
So it’s disappointing on any scale. But there’s some OK anecdotes, so:
This is the final movie on this Bob Hope box set, which covers about the first decade of his career.
And it’s been really fun — from this time period, I’ve mostly watched “classics” (i.e., big name actor/director movies) or B movies from studios that have gone out of business (and are therefore in the public domain). You know — “50 Screwball Comedies for $11” box sets.
But it’s been an eye opener watching so many “jobber” films from a major studio (Paramount, in this case). All these films feature veteran directors who’ve worked in Hollywood since the 20s, and most of them have careers that look like this:
I.e., churning out a handful of movies per year. We’re not talking precious auteurs, but people working for the studios on the films they’re assigned — given reasonable budgets and a really, really professional crew from the cinematographers on down.
So we’re talking, er, like, “standard Hollywood fare”… and these films don’t show up on anybody’s radar (unless they happen to feature an actor that would later become a star).
And… I’m just surprised at how good these Studio movies are. Well made and professional, but also (mostly) done with intelligence, zip and vigour (which is quite different from today’s churned-out popular movies). And probably done with a lot of coke (some things don’t change).
What I’m saying is that the Hollywood Machinery is something to behold, and I want to watch more of these films.
Anyway, back to this movie…
That’s Calamity Jane, see?
EEEEEK!!!
That was the most brutal dentistry scene ever film. Makes the Marathon Man scene look like Teletubbies, so no screenshots!
This movie really leans into the silly, and I love that. (I mean, the mass slaughter of Native Americans for yucks is… a thing, but still.)
Lots and lots of good gags in here, even if most of them seem really obvious, like? I would have absolutely loved these bits when I was like 11, and I still quite like them.
But the movie does seem to drag slightly in the last third.
Jane Russell is amazing in this, and I laughed out loud several times while watching this, so I guess I have to go with:
