Movies in 2026 241

 

Romeria (Carla Simon, 2025)

I don't know if I'll recapture the film-watching momentum that I had earlier in the year (waiting out the Vermont winter is a great impetus to watch movies, exploring a beautiful new Sicilian world less so), but I'm happy to finally get wifi and access once again to movies. The other day I watched Carla Simon's new film, Romeria, and was very impressed. Carla Simon is a very talented Spanish director, and one of those folks that I would have never discovered without the Criterion Channel. The film is a semi-autobiographical account of a young woman trying to uncover the truth (in an almost Proustian fashion) of the mysteries and family lies surrounding the death of her parents from AIDS. It's very powerful, and highly recommended.

The View from the End of the Lane

 Our apartment here in Terrasini is an odd little place. It's not that it's bad, per se, and there are parts of it which are really nice. It was recently renovated and it's pretty solid. The problem is that it's a tiny one bedroom, which simply doesn't begin to serve the needs of two people who are either working/writing or writing. Plus, it's down near the water in the midst of the old fishermen's village, which is charming, and I love it, but it also leaves a twenty-minute walk up the hill to go shopping or find any shops. This wouldn't be a problem if you aren't a sixty-six year old man who walks with a cane (although I'm getting around better than I thought I would). However, the biggest problem may simply be something which would be hard to fix: it's a first floor apartment, which means that there's no balcony and the doors/windows are covered with frosted glass. We often feel like Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner, part of this great experiment. We could be anyplace in the world for all we'd ever know from inside the apartment. However, then you'll open the door, turn left, and there's the Mediterranean Sea (which, oddly, makes the painfully sanitized environment inside the apartment even worse). Yes, in many ways this qualifies as the very definition of #FirstWorldProblem, but it's still not what we were hoping for. So, I guess I'll stick with too far too walk to buy groceries as the biggest reason why we're moving to a different apartment later in the month.

Here's the view from the end of our little lane. It's an amazing world that almost startles us every day when we open up the door and escape the science experiment.

Movies in 2026 240

 

Pigs and Battleships (Shohei Imamura, 1962)

And I'm way behind in my year-long capture of movies watched, not so much in movies recorded, but instead on movies watched. Just recently I started downloading movies from the Criterion Channel, in lieu of streaming (for the last month we've acted as wifi vampires at several local coffeeshops. The first movie I downloaded was Shohei Imamura's essential 1962 film Pigs and Battleships. It's a film I've watched many times, not only because I used it in my Japanese film noir class, but also because it is a wonderful film. Essential viewing.

Made It

 Well, that was a challenge, but we made it. Actually, we arrived here in Terrasini on 13 August, it just took a month to get wireless set up. But, much more on that later. It's enough right now to mark that we're here safe and sound. Many, many more stories to come.

I snapped this on one of our first mornings here, looking back over the harbor towards the mountains. Our apartment is in the midst of those white houses up on the hill. Again, much more later.

Movies in 2026 239

 

Un Carnet de Bal (Julien Duvivier, 1937)

Last night I once again delved into the Julien Duvivier collection on the Criterion Channel, and once again I was not disappointed. Un Carnet de Bal didn't feel quite like some of Duvivier's classic poetic realism films, but it was still quite good. Marie Bell stars as Christine Surgere, a recent and young widow who fells that life now has no meaning, while also coming to grips with the fact that she'd been lonely her entire married life. She decides to pursue men who had signed her dance card on her first ball when she was sixteen years old, beginning an odyssey populated by old (hopeful) lovers, played by a legion of famous French actors: Harry Baur (as Alain Regnault), Pierre Blanchar (as Thierry Raynal). Fernandel (as Fabien Coutissol), Louis Jouvet (as Pierre Verdier), etc. You see this structure fairly often as told from the male perspective, so it was interesting to see it told from a woman's perspective. Her discovered former dance partners - romanticized in her memory and imagination - are leading very different lifestyles, some quite life-affirming and some quite disturbing. The ending is both redemptive and more than a bit disturbing. Highly recommended.

Movies in 2026 238

 

Any Number Can Win (Henri Verneuil, 1963)

The other night I rewatched a film that showcased the alpha and omega of French cinematic cool: Jean Gabin and Alain Delon. They starred together (in, I think, for the only time) in the classic heist film Any Number Can Win. The film focuses on Mister Charles (Gabin), a wizened and world weary criminal just out of jail, and his impetuous young partner (Francis Verlot), who try one last big score. It ends badly, mainly because of some bad luck (as had haunted Mister Charles on his two other failed scores) but mainly because of the headstrong carelessness of Francis. The ending is classic, and is the relationship between these two legendary French actors. Highly recommended.

Chipmunk Waffle Waffle Chipmunk

 All relationships - immediate family or friends or with your significant other - all have their own language, developed organically over time. Janet and I will often ask each other, "So, are you getting in the box?", which is a reference to the classic Italian film Mafioso. It essentially means, are you in or not? - or have you been drawn into something against your will? If you're not in on the formation of the linguistic shorthand it sounds like gibberish. Back in college my friends, when discussing beautiful women, would say, "She's some of it," which eventually evolved into "She's most of it," or "She's a remarkably high percentage of it." I don't think any of us remember who came up with the phrase - or, for that matter, exactly what "it" was. For years my Champlain friends and I would always say "phrasing" whenever anyone said something, unintentionally, which could be interpreted sexually. This was a direct reference to the TV show Archer, and we used the term faithfully, even folks who had never seen an episode. Recently, on one of my Thursday sleepovers at Kevin's, we were talking about the Minnesota radio station that Kevin loves (the one that has the They Might Be Giants marathon, that Kevin fixes his schedule around - like a true fan, he takes the day off from work to listen). Kevin will email them quite a bit, and they sometimes respond online, and I'm always telling him that I can foresee this as his post-retirement gig. Anyway, he was telling me about the teenage daughter of one of the station's biggest supporters, who will share emoticons as reviews of restaurants and movies (probably trying to help the terminally uncool older folks become slightly more cool). One of them was to type in Chipmunk Waffle Waffle Chipmunk, which was, at least at that moment, the highest ranking you could get. This quickly became shorthand between us on a text chain to affirm our support for a proposed plan.

This picture could stan in for a lot of the Thursday night excellence - watching the Phillies or CFL or listening to music. I can't tell you how much I'm going to miss this guy.

I have no idea why Chipmunk Waffle Waffle Chipmunk equates with highest approval rating, but it has become a standard means of communication - at least between two old dudes.