DVDs From the Library-“Old Joy”

DVDs From the Library

In the library there is a bin full of DVDs. One may take up to five and keep them for a week. Don’t forget to return them on time or you will pay a hefty over-due penalty, or worse, they will develop a terminal mold and eat your furniture, flooring and, eventually, your brain. Join me now as I take a look at one…

“Old Joy”

A film by Kelly Reichard

Staring Will Oldham and Daniel London

This is a film about two close-to-middle aged, hip, grunge types who reunite after a period of separation to go on a short camping trip.  There, you have the entire plot from beginning to end in almost complete detail.  If you like small talk by stoned hippies around the campfire while they shoot BBs at tin cans you will love the dialog.  If you like lingering (and I mean l-i-n-g-e-r-i-n-g…) scenic shots of water flowing or overhead wires passing by the car window, you will love the visuals.  But, if you expect to go anywhere with a storyline or solve any of Life’s mysteries you will be disappointed.  I was not entertained.  It was all I could do to keep my wife from throwing a shoe at the new flat screen before the end of the film.

The camera work is clear and clean.  The music suitably haunting.  The acting (not the best description for what the two characters do) is minimal to the point of non-existence.

 I usually don’t read other people’s reviews prior to writing one of my own but in this case I did.  I just couldn’t help wanting to see if anybody wrote a positive review.  It seemed impossible to imagine one but I was surprised.  Four out of five stars?  “Haunting”?  What film were they watching.  But Hey! this film won the Narrative Film award at the Sarasota Film Festival!!! Wow! 

Don’t even start this DVD unless you have at least four cheap beers at your disposal. They will help mask the stink of 4 Smelly Socks, which is my rating for this pic.

 

Old

Siscal and Ebert Review - "Old"

In my opinion

the break-out scene

was the one where the son (played by Jackie Coogan)

said to his father (played by Edward G. Robinson)

-you remember he was lying on the couch

his wife (played by Myrna Loy)

was on the other couch knitting-

Coogan said

“…an old man…”

“How old?” asked his father.

Indignantly, or a bit too off handedly,

“I don’t know!

Like you.  Sixty four or sixty five.  Old.”

Robinson sat up slightly and

brushed his hand over his

beard and then through his thinning hair.

“That’s not old”, he said, “I am not old.”

“Yes it is.” 

Myrna Loy could not help herself

and could not conceal

a slight smile. 

The camera caught it in a fleeting close-up

of her lips.

As Coogan gathered his coat

and made for the door

to his car outside,
 to meet his friends.

The camera came to rest

on Robinson’s face.

The most expressive face God ever formed

and without a word

it said,

“I am old.”

DVDs From the Library-"Notes on a Scandal"

DVDs From the Library

In the library there is a bin full of DVDs. One may take up to five and keep them for a week. Don’t forget to return them on time or you will pay a hefty over-due penalty, or worse, they will develop a terminal mold and eat your furniture, flooring and, eventually, your brain. Join me now as I take a look at one…

“Notes on a Scandal”
Staring- Judi Dench & Cate Blanchett

I have trouble with British films.  The problem is in the translation from whatever language it is they speak and the one I speak.  They are both called ‘English’ but I have a great deal of difficulty in understanding the dialog.  This film was no different in that respect but after a half hour or so I got used to the ‘lingo’ and got into the plot. 

The plot was wound around a young teacher’s (Cate Blanchett) affair with a fifteen year old student which is discovered by one of the teacher’s coworkers (Judi Dench).  At first it is not very clear what the older spinster-coworker is aiming at by manipulating-in fact blackmailing-her younger friend but that is what she does.  Dame Dentch proves to be a very distasteful old bitch and I could barely watch the closeups of her sans make-up,  Really revolting.  It is later revealed that Dentch is very unbalanced and spiteful and when her own advances are repulsed by Blanchett,  Dentch ‘drops a dime’ on Blanchette and the pedophile is arrested.  Cast out of her own home and, having no where to turn, she is still blind to Dench's betrayal, and she moves in with her older 'friend'.  Blanchette finds the spinster's sick and twisted diaries revealing the manipulation and betrayal and…well that’s enough of the plot.  I refuse to give up the very end.

Once I got past the thick British accents the actors came through nicely and the plot kept me mildly amused for an hour plus.  It was slow sometimes.  I’d recommend you have a couple of ‘Stouts’ available if you want to get through this one.  In fact, that is what I give this film…two cheap beers. If you want a 'four cheap beer' movie about pedophiles better go with James Mason and Sue Lyons in "Lolita".