When We Were Men

Harlem, 1959.

Changing the World

 

Like the greatest novels, or paintings, or pieces of music, Kiarostami's films have an intellectual weight, an emotional intensity and a truthfulness that give them almost an intimidating quality. Rigorous, but lively, austere, but not ascetic, his films are both of the world and apart from it, accepting of what is beautiful in life and critical of everything false and cruel. The experience of Taste of Cherry does not end when one exits the cinema, as is the case with the majority of films, even many so-called art films. The work continues to inspire thoughts and feelings, to challenge one intellectually and morally, for days, perhaps forever. This is the sort of film that changes people.

-- David Walsh

 Taste of Cherry (1997).

Good Boys, Good Girls

Four shorts from the great Abbas Kiarostami.

Bread and Alley (1970)

Experience (1973)

Two Solutions for One Problem (1975)

The Chorus (1982)

Husband and Wife

"Ray Murdock's X-Ray," one of the best episodes from The Dick Van Dyke Show. And what a beautiful series it is, maybe the best ever: kind, gracious, graceful, elegant, very funny, modest, super smart, humane -- with (like the time of the show itself) always the good speaking.

At the center of the series is the loveliest and most realistic of TV marriages. Rob and Laura Petrie truly are the "marrying kind" -- and both are taken, by each other. End of discussion.

Flesh and Blood

Dex

The richest character ever played by the greatest movie actor of all time ~ in The Philadelphia Story (1940), C.K. Dexter-Haven embodies everything: weakness, sympathy, anger, tension, joy, sorrow, addiction, fear, freedom, elegance, bravery, secrets and remarkable openness. Above all, naturalness. He has been destroyed by the woman he loves, to the point of collapse and alcohol sickness. In a movie of astonishing self-aborption, Dexter-Haven absorbs all. He is always listening and watching, off the edge of the frame, humanizing all around him with his generous-hearted presence. He is never not sorrowful in the picture, while bringing the only joy into this otherwise arch and joyless romp. Everything is elevated by his broken ardor. His physical grace and attraction are immense, yet he uses his powers to put others at ease, to relinquish control. Grant's love comes at us slowly, like a slow dark wave. Yet always in perfect isolated darkness, outside the world.

Here are Dex's 46 minutes, with all the rest of The Philadelphia Story cut out.

 

The Last Liberal

50 years ago today, Richard Nixon said goodbye.

Was he the last man standing against corporate totalitarianism and the complete political takeover by the National Security State (yes, on the backs of millions of dead Southeast Asians)?

Three views.

And Chris Floyd's masterpiece essay.