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Home > Blogs > Sir Critic on Cinema > Archives > 2009 > July > 28
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
What Are You Watching near the end of July?
I’m afraid it’s slim pickins’ today in both the DVD department and in the What Are You Watching Department.
As far as DVD’s go, the big releases today are Fast and Furious (the one without 2 or “the” in the title) and Dragonball Evolution. I have seen neither one and am interested in neither one. If you are, well, have fun with your exhaust fumes and mindless visuals.
Alas, I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to watch much of anything new this week. I did, however, catch Harvey at the Victoria Theatre on Sunday, which I had not seen in quite some time. The movie’s a little bit stagy and not nearly as good as some of Jimmy Stewart’s true classics, but it’s easy to see why Elwood P. Dowd was one of his favorite characters. No other actor but Stewart could have pulled off such a guileless, mirthful performance. Elwood looks like he could be mugged by six people at once and probably wouldn’t mind all that much.
Moreover, the movie is a Valentine to people like myself who pride themselves in being off the beaten track. That theme is best encompassed in this exchange, when a taxi driver talks about taking people to a psychiatric home for a “cure.”
The Taxi Driver: …I’ve been driving this route for 15 years. I’ve brought ‘em out here to get that stuff, and I’ve drove ‘em home after they had it. It changes them… On the way out here, they sit back and enjoy the ride. They talk to me; sometimes we stop and watch the sunsets, and look at the birds flyin’. Sometimes we stop and watch the birds when there ain’t no birds. And look at the sunsets when its raining. We have a swell time. And I always get a big tip. But afterwards, oh oh…
Veta Louise Simmons: “Afterwards, oh oh”? What do you mean, “afterwards, oh oh”?
The Taxi Driver: They crab, crab, crab. They yell at me. Watch the lights. Watch the brakes, Watch the intersections. They scream at me to hurry. They got no faith in me, or my buggy. Yet, it’s the same cab, the same driver. and we’re going back over the very same road. It’s no fun. And no tips… After this he’ll be a perfectly normal human being. And you know what stinkers they are!
Couldn’t say it better myself. GRADE: A-
So what are you watching? Remember, anything goes, whether you saw it on the big or small screen, or whether the movie is new or old.
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