Topaz. Alfred Hitchcock. 1969.

Just… what… what was Hitchcock aiming for here? This late-60s thing about Russian spies is just beyond tedious. The actors are leaden and the storyline is without interest. The 2K restoration looks nice and colourful. There’s some striking scenes in here where that certainly helps.

But it’s just … portentous and boring. It seemed to go on forever… and it’s one of Hitchcock’s longest movies at 2 hours and 5 minutes.

I wonder what the story behind this turgid mess was. Was he paid to do a propaganda piece or something?

:

Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it “the same damned spy picture he’s been making since the thirties, and it’s getting longer, slower, and duller.”

Indeed.

The Gleaners and I. Agnès Varda. 2002.

I was talking to the film-buffest of film buffs a couple of weeks ago, and I mentioned Varda, and he said “oh, I love her documentaries”. I’ve never seen any of them, so here we go.

And it’s wonderful: It’s so playful and funny, but also with a real emotional depth. It’s both about Varda playing with her new digital camera as well as salvaging foods; i.e., gleaning.

I love the stream-of-consciousness structure of it all; how Varda seems to slide from one (related) subject to another. It’s captivating.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask. Woody Allen. 1972.

I bought a DVD box set of Allen movies, and I’ve been diffidently watching them at random. There’s two reasons: The first is that I don’t know whether I like Allen’s movies that much any more. The second is because these DVD versions don’t… really look that good. It’s weird that they didn’t make a 2K version of the set.

Hm… Oh! The French have. Three Blu-ray box sets for €€€. I should have gotten that instead, but now I don’t want to re-buy these all…

Anyway!

This is pretty amusing but I haven’t laughed yet (and we’re at the two thirds point). Perhaps the most successful section is the one with Gene Wilder and Daisy? Many of the other parts feel like straight-up skits.

Allen delivers his patter in his usual way, and that’s nice.

I spoke too soon: The mad scientist/blob parody is hilariously stupid.