This was going to be the time that I write my recommendations for you about movies, to coincide with the Oscars, and I guess a promise is a promise even if I’m late. But I can’t get inspired to comment about a plastic blue guy in three dimensions and the assortment of extreme reality and melodrama that competed with said computer-generated fantasy for top artistic honors. “It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me choke up with a myriad of emotions. In 3D, just like life!” Meh. There actually were three movies I enjoyed this season: Tarantino’s World War Two spoof, the Coen brothers’ wry comedy about suburban angst, and Fantastic Mr. Fox. That last one, as is often the case when Wes Anderson has a new release, may be my favorite. But I’m not really in the mood to critique this year’s product.
I’m in the mood for older fare, having returned from a successful shopping expedition at the Strand, where I picked up a stack of $0.48 paperbacks – some real finds, almost incredible really, the extra-brown sort that’s been tossed around from room to room and down stairwells for decades – and a couple of higher-end $1 ones with pages that actually don’t crumble like dust, before crossing the street to Second Hand Rose to leaf through the mint-condition vinyls. Yes sir, that’s what I call an afternoon! And it really put me in the mood for some Sergio Leone.
Those western operas, those desert soundtracks and triangular shoot-outs, those extended silences until a raindrop falls like a cannonball. Clint Eastwood’s dry humor as the Man with no Name. Charles Bronson’s harmonica that always presages vengeance. Lee Van Cleef’s disarming smile before he fires. Eli Wallach, the lovable crook. A Fistful of Dollars. For a Few Dollars More. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Once Upon a Time in the West. Henry Fonda, who never before or since played a villain, as the amoral gang leader whose eyes seem to weep but are really full of cold and recklessness.
These may not top the best-of lists and catalogues, but if you rent them on DVD one evening – in lieu of a night out to see Avatar with glasses – the money you’ll save will protect your downside for taking my word. It’s an easy gamble, I think, a calculated risk. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must sign off to watch the red carpet show on E!.
