Now we have sandwiches and tents

Have seen a few interesting movies over the past couple of days.

First was a documentary called Stranded, which is about the Uruguayan rugby team and their plane crash in the Andes Mountains in 1972. It's told by the survivors of the crash, some of whom go to the crash site with their family, and the film makers handle the cannibalism with much respect and sensitivity. It's a bit lengthy at just over two hours and the pacing can be a bit slow but it's worth viewing.

My one big gripe is the handling of the subtitling. I do not mind subtitles. At all. In fact, I prefer them to dubbing. In this case though the subtitles were white, and on a snowy background they were at times impossible to view. It was shown in letterbox format, why can't they put the damn subtitles in the black on the bottom of the screen?

After that intense experience, on TCM was M. Hulot's Holiday. I have only seen parts of Mon Oncle before, and was not overly impressed.



I admired Tati's visuals and amazing use of sound in this film. He also had a very strong screen presence, using his height with good gentle humor in several scenes. The story though, to me was not fluid and contained a lazy series of vignettes, which is fine if it had an overall form.

Last night, also on TCM, was Manhattan, which is one of my favorites. In hindsight, it's easy to be harsh on Woody Allen for the 42 year old dating the 17 year old and hard to overlook it. But Diane Keaton absolutely rocks in this film and New York City has never looked finer in glorious black and white.



I still believe that Allen based the final scene on Chaplin's City Lights. The way we see Allen approach Tracy is so like the Tramp seeing the blind girl now owning the flower shop, and his facial expressions after Tracy tells him 'not everyone gets corrupted, you have to have a little faith in people.'

It's spot on writing, acting and direction.