Present Joys

Francisco de Zurbarán. Agnus Dei. 1636–40.

If you haven’t noticed, I watch a lot of old movies, and I’m trying really hard to keep track of them. In chronological order, here’s a list of all the movies I’ve seen in the past month or so:

• The Spanish Cape Mystery, an Ellery Queen mystery film from 1935. Donald Cook played an absolutely fantastic Ellery Queen: suave yet eccentric. Cute plot, glamorous west coast setting, really witty repartee between characters—just what I’d expect from a mid-30s mystery film.
• 5 Steps to Danger, a 1957 thriller featuring the inimitable Sterling Hayden, who wears a big-shouldered odd jacket and drives a cool car across America with a strange woman who may or may not be mentally unstable. The “thriller” component in this movie relies on fear of the Cold War and doesn’t have the same dramatic punch 50 years later. Despite this, it’s worth watching only to see Sterling Hayden Act Like a Man™.
• Black Sheep, a charming 1935 film set on a trans-Atlantic cruise. There are a lot of 30s-cut dinner suits and it is all perfectly glamorous. The fashion kept my interest more than the plot, though, in which Edmund Lowe plays a kind, lonely man who takes a young gambler under his wing. This film was my introduction to Edmund Lowe, who I’ve grown to like quite a lot.
• The Trial, from 1962. What can I say about this one? It’s an Orson Welles adaptation of a Franz Kafka story, so obviously it’s about as weird as it can get. Absolutely stunning cinematography, set design, and storytelling. In addition to directing, Orson Welles also plays a character and does a really great job. The plot is difficult to follow and the end is really unsatisfying, but that shouldn’t scare anybody away.
• The Star, a fantastic 1952 film starring Bette Davis as a washed-up movie star, constantly trying to break back into the limelight. Sterling Hayden plays his usual role of the sensible, dependable man, and is fantastic. Bette Davis’ performance is incredible. Highly recommended.
• Mr. Moto’s Last Warning, from 1939, starring Peter Lorre playing a Japanese detective. The plot centers around interwar European geopolitics and is thus very difficult to follow. Because the film is set in Suez, there are some cool sets, but besides that it wasn’t really worth watching.
• The Hurricane, from 1937, which was so good I wrote a whole post about it.
• Plunderers of Painted Flats, a 1959 western in color! A good reminder why I really don’t like westerns. Edmund Lowe is in this but even that does little to save the boring plot and cheesy, anachronistic costumes.
• Wolf of New York, a 1940 movie starring Edmund Lowe as a crooked lawyer turned honest. There is a funny car chase scene and Edmund Lowe is great throughout. A tender movie about redemption and forgiveness with a tiny bit of intrigue.
• Bulldog Jack, a British thriller from 1935. No real stars except for Fay Wray, but a really cute little adventure movie. More slapstick than I expected it would be, with great characters.
• The Killer is Loose, a 1956 thriller about a boring guy (Wendell Corey) who goes psycho after his wife is killed by a police officer. A really good performance by Corey (who was also in The Big Knife), and, as always, Joseph Cotten was great.
• Diary of a Lost Girl, a German silent film from 1929, starring Louise Brooks. This movie was too long (2 hours), and—even without sound—Louise Brooks, the archetypical flapper, was gross and unappealing. I enjoyed the story, though, and I loved the whole bizarre German silent film aesthetic. Seeing this made me want to watch a bunch more Weimar-era silent films, something I will probably end up doing this summer.

From the concert archives: a few weeks ago (9 mar 2012), I went to see Buckwheat Zydeco play at the Athletic Club of Columbus with Ian and my accordion teacher (who also happens to be Ian’s old piano teacher). It was fun to go to a show at the Athletic Club because it was really fancy and exclusive-feeling. I took this picture during the first song, after which the big open space became filled with people “dancing”. Most of the audience was white people over 50 who’d had too much booze. So, as you can imagine, the dancing was dreadful. It was fun nonetheless. I didn’t know most of the songs they played, but that was okay because it was more of a jam thing anyway. Songs lasted a very very long time.

As an accordion player, I found Buckwheat’s accordion totally amazing. In person, it looks gigantic—definitely larger than a normal full-size. He spent about half the time playing accordion and the other half playing Hammond B-3, which was equally cool and amazing.

• Stayed up late sunday night to register for classes; had some problems with my account and didn’t get into a bunch of stuff.
• Spent most of monday trying to fix registration. Also: tuesday, wednesday, and thursday.
• Skipped the visiting “artist” (read: contemporary poet) lecture and had a good old-fashioned friendship lunch.
• Left my laptop at home on tuesday morning and had to go the whole day without it. It was difficult, but my bag was definitely easier to carry around.
• Looked at paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites in my 19th century art history class, which was, as you can imagine, super great.
• Talked to Julie Taggart, who turns out to be pretty cool. Even though she crushed my dreams of taking a screenprinting class with Dana in the fall.
• Used all three hours of my team ad class to talk about board games in great depth. It was intense and helpful and headache-inducing and great all at once.
• Spent of wednesday working in Corel Painter with a tablet. Non-messy and fun.
• Was compared to Richard Aschenbrand and Artie Isaac by two different people in the same day. I can only take that as compliments.
• Watched some of the Revolutionary Road movie in my American lit class (it is not very good—Meryl Streep isn’t in it at all). While this was going on, I started swatching for a new, ten-color fair isle jumper.
• Presented finals in Burleigh’s class and got info on our last project of the semester. We made a word cloud in class during which I was mocked for having no friends (in a friendly way, natch).
• Went to visit Mr. Felton, the copywriting teacher, who graciously let me into his class. Phew.