I'm a man who knows how to manipulate the power of the remote.
I can wield a remote with complete and total abandon, making for massive plot holes and abrupt and horrid continuity in any film, big or small. I try not to indulge in using it too often, as I had all too many years of movie watching ruined due to late starts (think popcorn and wide awake kids)and marred by all too many uncertain endings (thank you Bacchus and work related fatique). These days I just get, well, not bored, but restless. Dinner, or wine, or dessert or the net, something lures me downstairs, away from the set. It's odd because if I am watching a movie with a friend, or one of my kids, or with just about anyone it bugs me to no end to break a film in the middle, but since I am on my own to start or stop a movie whenever I want is a sort of freedom that you can't have in a theater or with company.
Tonight I bucked the trend. I found a VHS copy of Zinneman's The Day of the Jackal earlier in the week at Goodwill. Non-descript box, pan and scan. I thought that tonight would be a good night for a thriller, and I was more than pleasantly surprised at what I found. The print was crisp, the editing was so incredibly sharp I thought I would get papercuts from watching it. In a world still caught up post-MTV style the editing in tonights flick turned out to a textbook case for what the new generation of film students need to study and emulate. It was tale that unspooled at a rapid yet lanquid pace. You could follow the story of the cat and the mouse, of the assassin and the police commissioner, pursuing each other without needing to take on a neck brace by the end of the flick from rapid fire editing whiplash. Great acting, tight direction, wonderful location work, the whole ball of wax. Can't recommend it enough.
I found out afterwords that the film is out there in widescreen. Something else to seek out at Hollywood Video, one more film to lay up and store away for a rainy day. Kind of pathetic, in a way, but hey, that film jones of mine just yielded another treasure tonight, a baubble for me and an excuse for you to bug your local librarian to lay in a copy of this stellar thriller. Old school, yes, seventies style paranoia, sure, but timeless and worth your while, believe me. And why should you, you might ask? Well, I never used my remote tonight to stop the film, not once.
Action!
Allmovie review: Day of the Jackal:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-day-of-the-jackal-61917
I can wield a remote with complete and total abandon, making for massive plot holes and abrupt and horrid continuity in any film, big or small. I try not to indulge in using it too often, as I had all too many years of movie watching ruined due to late starts (think popcorn and wide awake kids)and marred by all too many uncertain endings (thank you Bacchus and work related fatique). These days I just get, well, not bored, but restless. Dinner, or wine, or dessert or the net, something lures me downstairs, away from the set. It's odd because if I am watching a movie with a friend, or one of my kids, or with just about anyone it bugs me to no end to break a film in the middle, but since I am on my own to start or stop a movie whenever I want is a sort of freedom that you can't have in a theater or with company.
Tonight I bucked the trend. I found a VHS copy of Zinneman's The Day of the Jackal earlier in the week at Goodwill. Non-descript box, pan and scan. I thought that tonight would be a good night for a thriller, and I was more than pleasantly surprised at what I found. The print was crisp, the editing was so incredibly sharp I thought I would get papercuts from watching it. In a world still caught up post-MTV style the editing in tonights flick turned out to a textbook case for what the new generation of film students need to study and emulate. It was tale that unspooled at a rapid yet lanquid pace. You could follow the story of the cat and the mouse, of the assassin and the police commissioner, pursuing each other without needing to take on a neck brace by the end of the flick from rapid fire editing whiplash. Great acting, tight direction, wonderful location work, the whole ball of wax. Can't recommend it enough.
I found out afterwords that the film is out there in widescreen. Something else to seek out at Hollywood Video, one more film to lay up and store away for a rainy day. Kind of pathetic, in a way, but hey, that film jones of mine just yielded another treasure tonight, a baubble for me and an excuse for you to bug your local librarian to lay in a copy of this stellar thriller. Old school, yes, seventies style paranoia, sure, but timeless and worth your while, believe me. And why should you, you might ask? Well, I never used my remote tonight to stop the film, not once.
Action!
Allmovie review: Day of the Jackal:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-day-of-the-jackal-61917
No comments:
Post a Comment