Movies in 2026 235

 

They Were Five (Julien Duvivier, 1936)

I'm definitely enjoying the Criterion Channel's Julien Duvivier collection this month, although I've already seen several of his films. The other night I watched his 1936 film They Were Five, starring Jean Gabin (playing Jeannot), Charles Vanel (as Charlot), and Raymond Aimos (as Tintin). It's a story of five friends, down on their luck, who win some money and decide to open a restaurant on an island, both to make some money but especially as a symbol of their friendship. I think it's a bit too easy to read the film as misogynistic today, mainly because their plans and friendship is torn asunder by the women in their lives, but I think it's more of a statement on the strength and fragility of male friendship - that is, the flaw is within them. Plus, there's a whole deeper allegory going on here abut the rise and fall of the Popular Front, although a failure to take it to that allegorical depth will not damage your enjoyment of the film. Gabin is, as always, fantastic. I didn't know much about Raymond Aimos, who sounds like a very interesting character, who never forgot his friends, organized food drives, and opened up a restaurant to feed hungry children. Nevertheless, he was shot and killed, maybe just accidentally, by a Resistance fighter during the chaos of Paris being liberated. They Were Five is definitely recommended.

The Actual Last Trip to the Whammy Bar

 Last week I posted on what I feared was going to be our last trip to the Whammy Bar, our Friday night tradition. As it turns out, there was one last trip (we're flying out Wednesday, inshallah) as my great friends Kevin and Kerry came out. 

There have been so many goodbyes, which has been both good and bad for my heart. Kerry asked me what I was most looking forward to, and what I should have said is, "An end to all the goodbyes." The ones with Gary and Ali may kill me.

Movies in 2026 234

 

The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988)

I know this is a blasphemous statement, but I'm not really that big of a Martin Scorsese fan. I appreciate his films, but I don't know if I actually love any of them. I've never made a list, but I'm not certain he would make my list of top five greatest American directors. However, this may simply be an issue of a purely personal subjective taste, because I do respect him quite a bit. I especially appreciate his attempts to break away and try different things, such as his adaption of The Age of Innocence. Another example of this was his ambitious attempt to  tackle Nikos Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation of Christ. I had not seen it since the year it came out, and my re-watch the other night left me feeling much the same way: it's both an over-criticized but also over-praised film. The people who criticized it for being blasphemous (and probably never saw it, for that matter) clearly missed the point of the film. It's a spiritual reflection on the unique nature of Jesus's nature and also of faith itself. At the same time, I think it misses far more than it hits, and I suspect that a lot of the critical praise was a response to the criticism from religious fanatics. It's worth watching, and it has some lovely moments.

Movies in 2026 233

 

Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970)

I took a flyer on a film the other night that doesn't have a particularly good reputation (which has never stopped me in the past): Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point. I've seen it described as the worst film ever from a director of genius. I don't know if I'd go that far, although it was pretty dreadful, long and mainly pointless. It's hard to reconcile this film with absolute classics like L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse, Red Desert, and Blowup. It's full of no name actors giving no name performances of uninspired lines. I'd give it a pass if I were you, although it's received a little more love the last few years from critics.

In the Pit

 Last Friday we attended our fourth, and final, CFL game of the season, heading up to Ottawa for a much too short stay. I had seen a game at Ottawa with my friend Sanford years ago, but my return visit had waited way too long. It was a notable trip because 1) Erik joined a small circle of my friends who have attended games at more than one CFL stadium, and 2) Kevin tied me for seeing a game at his 8th (of 9) CFL stadiums. The REDBLACKS are really bad this year, although they're fighting yard (just seriously undermanned), but a good time was had by all. One end of the stadium was missing, replaced by a huge pit. We thought that maybe they were expanding the stadium (it only held 25,000, which is not the smallest CFL stadium, but pretty close), but instead they removed 2500 seats (still not the smallest CFL stadium at 22,500, but getting closer), but instead they're carving off the space for a new arena for the women's hockey team. One of the things about seeing a game in Ottawa, which is cool, is that they are very mindful of the space in a beautiful downtown so they're not tearing anything down to build parking lots (how Sanford and I ever found a place to park last time is a mystery lost to time). Anyway, the space for the new women's hockey arena (and I'm glad they are getting one) had to come from somewhere. It left a huge pit just beyond one of the endzones, and kicks would fairly routinely clear the fence and enter the pit, the ball disappearing.

When a kick would sale over the wall the crowd could cheer, but if a kick would hit the wall and bounce back the crowd would boo. Like I said, the REDBLACKS are pretty bad, so the fans were looking for something to cheer.

If a ball would disappear, the scoreboard would lead a chant of "In . . . The . . . Pit," followed by a song called "in the pit."  Classic CFL.

Movies in 2026 232

 

Pepe le moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937)

The Criterion Channel is currently featuring a Julien Duvivier collection right now, which gave me a chance to rewatch his brilliant and highly influential 1937 film Pepe le moko, one of the highlights of the French poetic realism movement (several other examples of which were featured earlier this year). It stars the immortal Jean Gabin, which is really all you'd ever need to know if you're deciding whether to watch a film or not. He's a French criminal who would really love to get back to Paris, but he's trapped in the winding backstreets of the Algiers casbah. As long as he's ensconced there he's safe, but if he's drawn out then things get much more dangerous. His life is made much more difficult by Inspector Slimane (Lucas Gridoux), who lives in the casbah, and who Pepe knows he should kill, but who he lets live because of his peculiar code of honor - and also because of the two women competing for his attention, Gaby (played by Mireille Balin, whose real life story would make a great novel about France's complicated relationship to World War II) and Ines (Line Noro). Highly recommended.

Movies in 2026 231

 

Lars and the Real Girl (Craig Gillespie, 2007)

The other night I was finally able to convince Janet to watch Craig Gillespie's wonderful 2007 film Lars and the Real Girl. I had been pushing it for a while, but after Janet and her friend Jana watched Project Hail Mary the other night she was in the mood for another Ryan Gosling movie. I am always wont to opine that it was Lars and the Real Girl that convinced me that Ryan Gosling is actually a very good actor, and I'll stick with that. It really is a great movie, and one that I didn't bother to watch in the theaters because I, thankfully incorrectly, thought that it looked like a one note sex comedy. It's actually a layered film about loss and love and community. It's also a film that makes me cry every time. Gosling gives a wonderful performance, totally against type, as the bumbling and painfully introverted Lars. Patricia Clarkson (who I believe knows a good script better than any actor alive today) gives a lovely performance as Dr. Dagmar Berman, who helps hold everything together. Emily Mortimer and Paul Schneider play Lars's sister-in-law Karin and her husband Gus (and in many ways the film is as much about Gus's story arc as it is about Lars's). Kelli Garner is funny and heartbreaking as Lars's would-be girlfriend Margo, and my students (I routinely showed this film in class when we discussed Feminist and Queer theory) rooted for Lars and Margo so hard. It's only sad when I think that Gillespie never came even remotely close to directing a film this good ever again. Highly recommended.