Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

Sometimes marketed as Shoot the Pianist, this François Truffaut film had sat among the Netflix suggestions for me for a long time before I agreed to add it to my queue. I had found the title alternately intriguing and off-putting. Oddly enough, nobody in the film ever says the title (or its French equivalent), and enemies don't spend much time trying to shoot the title character.

That character, a former celebrity brought down emotionally by a personal tragedy, now makes a living playing in a dive. He'd rather have nothing to do with his career criminal brothers, but desperation leads one to beg for his help. One little favor is all it takes for him to gain further, much less welcome attention, like he might get in a Hitchcock classic....

Journey to Italy (1954)

For once, I went to an event with both a Meetup group and my dad. Why he declined to register as my plus-one or participate in the group discussion afterward, I may never know. The important thing for my review is that I had access to multiple relevant opinions, from people I know both well and not so well. And we all had pretty much the same reaction: "What?"

I'd seen a little of Roberto Rossellini's directorial work before. IMDb reports that I'd given an 8 out of 10 to Rome, Open City, but I can't remember a single moment from it. The Flowers of St. Francis has some appeal to the pious, but I'd be very selective in recommending it. I'd sooner rewatch either than JtI, making this an even bigger source of disagreement with the BFI list than in my last review. This time I can hardly fathom their thought processes.

Andrei Rublev (1966)

This may be the longest movie I've seen since I started this blog. Running nearly 3.5 hours with no overture or intermission, it feels like it could easily have been edited down to less than half as much. Even for a Russian classic, that's a lot.

It had also been one of the British Film Institute's favorite films that I hadn't seen yet, at #27 on their list of 50 greatest. But that did nothing to get me psyched for it. I have to say, the BFI's taste doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as the AFI's. Perhaps I'm something of an ugly American after all.

The Candidate (1972)

Hard to believe it's not an election year, what with all the attention to who's running. In light of that, I moved the most obviously political movie to the top of my queue. I hear it's popular with politicians -- at least Democrats, seeing as the protagonist is one. (James Stewart declined a role because he disapproved of the opponent's portrayal.)

As grown-up as the focus is, the plot remains easy to summarize, as the laconic Netflix jacket reveals. Improbably named Sen. Crocker Jarmon (R-Calif.) seems to have a reelection in the bag. Election specialist Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle) thinks the best he can do for the Dems is make a good impression, not secure a win. He chooses Bill McCay (Robert Redford), because McCay is both much younger than Jarmon and the son of a former governor (Melvyn Douglas), thus possibly appealing to different generations. Lucas tells McCay up front to say pretty much whatever he wants. This works out better than anyone predicted, which ironically leads to some pressure for McCay to start doing things more by the book....

Shaun the Sheep (2015)

Had it really been ten years since I last watched a feature film from Aardman Animations? I'm afraid so. After the success of Chicken Run and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, they had a string of less promising releases: Flushed Away, Arthur Christmas, and The Pirates! Band of Misfits. Fortunately, I had seen several episodes of the "Shaun the Sheep" TV series and thus knew it to be more in the vein of the Wallace & Gromit franchise. It was easier than I'd hoped to talk both parents into watching.

OK, the movie wasn't entirely a safe bet. Each episode streams less than 20 minutes, including the opening sequence, the end credits, two plots, and a little dance in the middle for filler. Maybe the studio just didn't want to spend any more time and resources on stop-action than necessary. But there was further room for doubt: Episodes consistently kept the setting to a little farm and, with only one human character, had absolutely no dialogue. Even in this 85-minute romp, which moves much of the action to "the Big City," humans say very little; and when they do, it's basically Simlish. Apart from the background music, I've heard more spoken English -- heck, more verifiable words in any language -- from Jacques Tati animations.

The Blood of a Poet (1932)

The Criterion Collection advertises this as part of "The Orphic Trilogy," which is a little odd as (1) the next in the series came two decades later and (2) it makes no mention of Orpheus. I'm more concerned about the deception on Netflix's part: I thought that TBoaP alone would run nearly three hours, but it's less than an hour. Had I known, I'd've arranged to see it during the week. But this confusion is arguably appropriate for one of the most surreal films I've ever seen.

My only past taste of Jean Cocteau was Beauty and the Beast (1946), which, though whimsical, did nothing to prepare me. TBoaP came long before any of his other screen works. Thanks partly to being an early talkie and partly to having his avatar-protagonist interact rather little with other characters, it features exceedingly little dialogue. Possibly a little more narration.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Looking for a heartwarming romance? Be warned: This is very much film noir, a genre in which "strange" typically doesn't work out for the better. Even examples with relatively happy endings will probably not raise your opinion of humanity.

Most of the movie takes place in its year of release, but the opening events of 1928 do a lot to put the rest in perspective. Early teen Martha has been suffocating under a strict aunt. Her efforts to run off with the help of Huckleberry Finn type Sam have failed repeatedly. On the night that Sam plans to leave town forever with or without Martha, her aunt provokes her into a mortal blow. (It's not clear to me -- maybe not even to Martha -- whether she meant to kill or just hurt.) Her tutor-turned-guardian, Mr. O'Neil, and his timid son, Walter, join her in perjuring against an uninvolved criminal to defend her. But this is no pseudo-familial kindness: Mr. O'Neil covets the Ivers fortune (they live in Iverstown, for crying out loud) and wants Martha and Walter to marry even if neither likes it. Nothing like a secret scandal to make them more receptive to the idea.

Mr. Holmes (2015)

I've seen many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes in movies, TV shows, and plays. After a while, I felt that the next would have to be pretty innovative for me to bother. Well, Holmes at 93 in the year 1947 is one innovation. None of his traditional acquaintances are still around; he hasn't taken a case in about 30 years, despite ongoing offers by those who read Watson's accounts (which made up the deerstalker hat and pipe); and while he can still tell what someone's done lately by examining their appearance, he's getting slower and flakier.

Sir Ian McKellen is now 76, a bit less than halfway between the two ages he depicts in the film. At 59, he played a famed 68-year-old with neurological issues in Gods and Monsters. I'm not surprised to learn that the same director, Bill Condon, took the helm.

The Stunt Man (1980)

Cult classic time! I had never heard of director Richard Rush (appropriate surname on an action flick) or any of his other works. Nor had I heard of star Steve Railsback (incredible surname). Some of his other roles are as real-life serial killers, so it figures he'd be cast as a fugitive, albeit not as bad as the police make him out to be.

The fugitive, Cameron, accidentally runs onto a movie set, has a misunderstanding with a stunt man, and evidently sends him to his death in self-defense. The intrigued director, Eli Cross (a middle-aged Peter O'Toole), decides to shoo off the police by claiming that Cameron is that same stunt man and treating him as such, more or less, thereafter. Just about everyone on the set knows he's a fugitive, but none of them squeal or even give him much grief for it. He merely comes to understand how precarious his situation is, which doesn't stop him from getting a little unruly. Or developing a relationship with main actress Nina (Barbara Hershey).

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

Here I am already reviewing another mid-'40s war movie in which the objective is to blow up a bridge. One key difference is that this one takes place in the Spanish civil war. Which doesn't stop the protagonist, Robert "Roberto" Jordan (Gary Cooper, at Ernest Hemingway's insistence), from being an American, present only on principle. Nor does it stop most of the Spaniards from being played by members of other nationalities, including quite a few born in the Russian Empire.

Nowadays, the film may be best remembered for its accidental influence on a bigger classic. It was somewhat important to the plot that Maria (Ingrid Bergman, also at Hemingway's insistence) had unusually short hair, as she was recovering from a shave of shame. Because of this, it was too late to redo certain Casablanca scenes in a timely manner, so "As Time Goes By" didn't get cut as planned.