Welcome to The Penny-Pinching Cinephile, a weekly spotlight of the best free flicks on the web. ‘Cuz sometimes you gotta eat.
1) Night of the Living Dead/The Night of the Living Dead
Ah, what a difference a “the” can make! That’s not the only difference between the original and the remake, of course, but what was surprising for me is how useful it is to watch the two films back to back. You gain a better understanding of where Romero’s and Savini’s films are located in time, space and genre. Tom Savini’s 1990 remake, especially, looks better evaluated as a post-modern statement on the zombie flick, itself. Both films have serious comments to make about race, society and the human condition, but each make their points in specific and unique ways. These differences are amplified–and appreciation deepened–when watching them both in the same sitting. Of course, you can always just enjoy (The) Night of the Living Dead(s) as straight zombie horror. The stripped down terror of George A. Romero’s original, especially, remains impressively chilling even forty-five years after the fact.
Watch on Archive.org and YouTube
The Criterion Collection is quite possibly the single greatest gathering of films ever amassed by humans. This week they’re streaming some of their catalog’s choicest selections for free on Hulu. Art-House Touchdown includes stellar picks like The Seventh Seal, Pickpocket and Tokyo Story. My pick of the litter, however, is Francois Truffaut’s New Wave classic Jules and Jim. I think the reason I picked this film to recommend over the others is the way it sneaks up on you. Truffaut’s indulgent artifice (jump cuts, freeze frames, hyperactive voice over narration) belies some complex emotional weight to what is, in the end, a tragic love story. Jules and Jim is one of the most human New Wave films; although as cheeky, flighty and discombobulated as its characters, there is a painful underlying humanity to the film which is absent in many other films of the movement. That being said, I would recommend all the films in the collection–it’s an incredible group of cinema classics.
3) Orson Welles: The One-Man Band
This must-see documentary for Orson Welles fans is kind of a grab bag of late Wellsian genius, little bits of odds and ends that were never completed mixed in with a whole lot of ham acting he had to do near the end of his life to fund his unending roster of “to do” list projects. Completed with the help of Welles’ partner Oja Kodar, One-Man Band includes footage from the filming of F For Fake and Swinging London, an unfinished short consisting of sketch comedy scenes reminiscent of early Monty Python. The mosaic quality of One-Man Band is part of its considerable charm; you’re never quite sure what footage will turn up next. Intermingled between the uncompleted projects is candid footage of Welles himself, enjoying his travels around Europe, performing magic tricks for friends, begging for funding from stuffed shirts and/or bemoaning his lack of success. It is quite a bizarre and eclectic mixture. The film’s most stunning moments include an extended take of Welles reading passages from Moby Dick, acting out all the characters and their voices. He is looking straight into the camera; there’s no background, just Orson Welles. The scene is enthralling; all the more impressive when, after a harrowing performance, Welles calls “cut” on himself, muttering about his delivery being off. It’s a spellbinding moment, just one of many glimpses into the genius of Orson Welles.
4) The Stranger
Can’t get enough of Orson Welles? I don’t blame you. Here’s another great public domain Welles flick, The Stranger. Unfortunately this great film is overshadowed by the towering critical popularity of Citizen Kane. Interestingly, it was the only Orson Welles film to actually make money when it was released, but now it’s usually dismissed as an average post-war thriller. It stars Edward G. Robinson as an investigator who’s tracked an ex-Nazi (Welles) to suburban Connecticut where he’s hiding out as a mild-mannered college professor. Welles strikes a perfect tone of unsettlingly prosaic small town Americana, recalling Hitchcock’s earlier picture Shadow of a Doubt. Welles’ Nazi is as charming as Uncle Charlie, but with a darker, more menacing air. The interplay between Robinson and Welles is electric, especially during an icy interchange about the morality of Nazism. The Stranger is thought to be the first Hollywood film to show footage of Nazi concentration camps, making it a controversial mainstream entertainment and powerful statement against the horrors of fascism.
Although not my favorite Buster Keaton feature, Seven Chances does feature one of the greatest extended chase sequences in movie history (see above). Through a series of complicated misadventures (of course), poor Buster finds himself being chased all around town by a horde of very angry brides who are none too keen on getting jilted at the altar. The chase careens from the chapel to the train station, through fields of wild beasts (bees! bulls!), leaps across jagged cliffs (above) and bounds down sandy dunes. Famously, Keaton added the bit about boulders following him as he scrambles down the hillside. He noticed preview audiences laughed when he dislodged a small rock and it rolled down after him. He promptly re-shot the scene with hundreds of paper mache rocks and boulders of all sizes “chasing” the poor guy with the same unstoppable gravitational force as the enraged brides-to-be. The inventiveness and energy of the gags in Seven Chances is a hallmark of Keaton comedy.
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