I’m guessing this had its origins in a vaudeville show or something? The skits seem really well-rehearsed — and they’re solid skits. But does that make this a good short? Hm…
This is better than the previous short, and again, it’s fun to watch Tati doing his stuff. But is this good?
Fun Sunday. Jacques Berr. 1935. ⚁
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.
Brute Wanted. Charles Barrois. 1934. ⚁
*gasp*
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:
Everybody loves it.
Uhm:
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…
He does?
What:
With this punchy documentary
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:
Gimme Danger. Jim Jarmusch. 2016. ⚁
