Nausicaa

This is included as an extra on the One Sings, The Other Doesn’t bluray — but it’s not listed in the table of contents. I guess perhaps because it’s not been restored or something? It’s a movie made for TV in 1971, and it seems to be about the Fascist coup in Greece and refugees from Greece?

It’s an odd movie — large portions are straight-up interviews with Greek refugees, but then there’s a fictional narrative in between those bits (that’s also about Greek refugees, but also about this woman).

It’s good! It’s interesting stuff, so I wonder why it hasn’t been restored? Perhaps the extras on the disk will explain… (There’s no Wikipedia entry for the film.)

But it’s really unrestored — not just all the dust and stuff, but the film skips and jumps and it’s pretty annoying to watch in parts… Surely there’s a low cost option to at least stabilise a movie?

Oh, this was never shown — and it wasn’t completed, either. So this is a work print of the incomplete film? The liner notes in the booklet that accompanies the discs says it was “suppressed”, but it doesn’t say much more.

So it sounds like Varda was on the outs with the TV station?

But what happened with the fictional narrative? We haven’t seen anything from that bit for quite a while…

OK, now we’re back with actors, but … different ones?

Perhaps this was supposed to be edited differently.

Er… I think I missed who these people are…

And now… Hm. Well, OK.

Well, OK, it’s a work print. It looks like it may have become a compelling movie, but as it stands, it’s a sketch towards a movie, I guess?

So how do you throw the die on something like this… I mean, it’s unfinished. But it’s kinda interesting? Perhaps the end result could have been great? I’ll just go with what it was like to watch it now, which was both frustrating and occasionally riveting:

Nausicaa. Agnès Varda. 1971. ⚂

Cry-Baby

This is the movie that convinced a generation that Johnny Depp and Ricki Lake were cool. (Well, for a while.)

Hey! That’s Iggy Pop!

But this movie is pretty odd in that it doesn’t seem to have any of Waters’ usual actors? I mean, not even Mink Stole?

Oh oh wait — Mink Stole plays Hatchet Face’s mother…

But that’s it?

Hm… Oh, there’s more, but it teeny tiny roles. And Patricia Hearst. OK, there’s more than a couple.

This was even better than I remembered!

The last fifteen minutes are simply glorious.

Cry-Baby. John Waters. 1990. ⚄