8 1/2 (1963) dir. Federico Fellini, starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee, Sandra Milo, Claudia Cardinale. The story of a film director who, with an entire crew and cast awaiting, realizes that he has no idea what to do next. While dodging the everyone’s demands of him and managing his complicated love life, he daydreams about his childhood and imagines scenes for his floundering film.
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Last night I watched this epic, directed by and starring Laurence Olivier, backed up by a cast of thousands. This lavish production was made while Britain was still at war, in fact it was partly financed by the British government as a morale booster, and Churchill himself had input in the script revisions. (Besides shortening the play for time, several instances were cut in which the King does some extremely not-nice things. Apparently they wanted to keep the film as uplifting as possible.) Henry V was a good choice for a rousing, patriotic picture, with Henry’s memorable pre-battle speeches (“Once more unto the breach! Dear friends, once more…” and “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…”), not to mention a plucky British army beating all the odds to win a decisive victory over a foreign foe.
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Directed by Howard Hawks, starring Garry Cooper. I knew this was a very highly regarded film, and despite a little patriotic hokum, I enjoyed it a lot. It’s the true story of Alvin C. York, the Tennessee farmer and sharp shooter who applied for conscientious objector status during WWI, was denied, and then went on to become one of the most highly decorated heroes of the conflict.
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More cheerful fare for your isolating days. These three comedies are currently showing on the Criterion Channel but you should be able to find them elsewhere.
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Here’s a little self-isolation game for you. It’s like ‘Where’s Waldo’ but way more intellectual…
(* and yes, I know I’m conflating Surrealism here with Dada and general Avant-gardeism, but I liked it as a title! Enough with the quibbling!)
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Filed under Isolation Picks, Miscellaneous Fun-ness, Movies
