Old Movies and New with Josh Lubarr: May 2015

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Repo Man, 1984

Written and directed by Alex Cox
Starring Emilio Estevez, Harry Dean Stanton, and Tracey Walter

This is the kind of movie that made me start this blog in the first place: it came out a while back; it has its flaws, but it's completely delightful in its own goofy way; it's not the kind of movie that most people think of when they think of a movie from its time; and yet it has its own special place in movie history. (Also, Mike Nesmith of the Monkees produced it, and the first entry here is Head.)

Yes, it's got a pretty flimsy plot. Yes, there is some not-top-shelf acting. Yes, it's decidedly low budget. Still, Tracey Walter's speech about time travel and space aliens is like nothing else (except, perhaps, Bill Murray's Dalai Lama speech from Caddyshack). Harry Dean Stanton's performance alone is worth the price of admission. The music completely captures something of that time. And the scene with the gift-wrapped money on the highway has a certain something that is both completely, frustratingly entertaining, and also exactly exemplifies what is such a pleasure about this movie. Also, the generic everything.

"Couldn't enjoy it any more, Mom. This is swell."

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The places to hear from me:
Food – josh lubarr food stuff
Geekiness – geekiness(josh lubarr)
Movies – Old Movies and New with Josh Lubarr
Politics – Progressive Politics (per Josh Lubarr)
Silliness and comedy – Le Repository du Silliness, avec Josh Lubarr
Favorite movies – The Pantheon
Places – Good Things around Boston, and Elsewhere
Me generally – Josh Lubarr’s web site extraordinaire
Also also – Josh’s Part of lubarr.com

Friday, May 22, 2015

The Public Enemy, 1931

Directed by William A. Wellman
Written by Kubec Glasmon, John Bright, and Harvey F. Thew
Starring James Cagney, Jean Harlow

Not just the movie that made Cagney, but a gangster classic. It's a little stagey, which isn't surprising given its vintage, but it takes a little getting used to. The framing has a disingenuous feel to it ("For your own good, you need to see these bad people doing bad things."), but maybe that let them be a little less sentimental (but it has a dose of that already). It looks great, most of the performances are right on. Plus, when you next see the image of the grapefruit, it won't just look iconic -- you'll see what a jerk Cagney's character is being.


Just a little malevolent.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975

Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones
Written by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin
Starring the same

This is a movie that I cannot think of without smiling. From the first of bit of overly serious music under the Swedish-themed credits to the intentionally and unbelievably successfully irritating ending, it is relentless. This is the kind of movie for which it is hard to pick only a few things to praise. Given that, here are more than a few:

Guido Le Whopper and "I told him we've already got one"
Sir Robin's minstrels' song about what he does not fear
"Huge tracts of land" and "What, the curtains?"
"That's easy!"
"You're foolin' yourself. We're living in a dictatorship."

and of course the utter absurdity and aggressive iconoclasm of King Arthur repeatedly crying "Jesus Christ!" in moments of panic.

Yes, we've all heard "I'm not dead yet," "Tis but a scratch," "She turned me into a newt," "Ni!," and "The airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow" over and over, but they're still really funny.

Of course it's in The Pantheon. And there's also this.

Oh, those credits.

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The places to hear from me:
Food - josh lubarr food stuff
Geekiness - geekiness(josh lubarr)
Movies - Old Movies and New with Josh Lubarr
Politics - Progressive Politics (per Josh Lubarr)
Silliness and comedy - Le Repository du Silliness, avec Josh Lubarr
Favorite movies - The Pantheon
Places - Good Things around Boston, and Elsewhere
Me generally - Josh Lubarr's web site extraordinaire
Also also - Josh's Part of lubarr.com

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke
Starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, and Douglas Rain

I saved this for last in my Kubrick retrospective. It was not an entirely satisfying conclusion. I'll just assume that anyone reading this has already seen the movie, or at least knows its story, so be prepared for spoilers.

The part of this movie about the Jupiter mission (culminating with Dave shutting down Hal's higher functions) is a fantastic short science fiction film. I thought that everything with Dave, Hal, and Frank is great. The section on the moon, just before that, is also quite compelling, though it builds to something that was ultimately, for me, unanswered and unsatisfying. The opening section, at the "Dawn of Man," makes for an interesting faux documentary, but I can't say much about it as a piece of narrative film, except that Kubrick presented what I think is a one-dimensional and rather stark view of aboriginal human nature; to me, that seems limited. I found the ending incomprehensible. Unfortunately, that it makes hard to piece the whole film together.

I could say that, like the dark, blank screen at the beginning and end of a film, Kubrick's obelisk throws us back upon ourselves. It is our task to piece together the meaning of humanity and our own lives from our inception to our ultimate destination, and the obelisk represents that demand, which is different from, but related to, the void of space. This is the purpose of the obelisk, and it is also the purpose of film, and all art. Yes, I could say that, and it might even be true. As I consider it, there may be something to it. I just wish his point of view were more explicit and less oblique. I'm not looking for cowboys in white hats killing cowboys in black hats, but something that had a little more in common with Paths of Glory or even Barry Lyndon or The Killing would be more approachable.

Who would have thought that a light could be so frightening?

Old Movies and New with Josh Lubarr