My Netflix Weekend
Saturday afternoon, I watched Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie. I think the polemical political argument that some contemporary reviewers claim to have seen in the film in 1972 is a little bit hard to detect over 35 years later. But I think that may be a change for the better. The Nation review linked above gets tripped up on the fact that it’s not really clear how a corrupt ambassador from a Latin American country fits into the class struggle, but now that we know the revolution was not, in fact, around the corner I think we can appreciate the bourgeoisie’s discreet charm as genuinely charming. Long story short, for a decades-old classic French film, this is an honest-to-God laugh-out-out funny movie.
Pixies fans will, of course, recall Buñuel as the auteur behind Un Chien Andalou, whose eyeball-slicing scene is the inspiration for “Debaser.” I was saying to myself, “someone should really do a YouTube mashup of the movie with the song” but of course it’s already been done:
The other thing I watched was the first three episodes of Planet Earth on Blu-Ray. This really makes the case for Blu-Ray pretty convincingly; it’s simply jaw-dropping. That said, the series seems to have an anti-American bias. The episode about fresh water doesn’t even mention the Great Lakes! And it goes beyond that to make the controversial claim that Lake Baikal is the largest lake in the world. This is true by volume, by Lake Superior is the biggest by area, which I think is a more intuitive way of understanding the phrase. And either way, it’s hard to understand how you can profile the world’s lakes without mentioning this giant series of lakes we have. Oh well.
41 Responses to “My Netflix Weekend”
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June 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
And it goes beyond that to make the controversial claim that Lake Baikal is the largest lake in the world. This is true by volume, by Lake Superior is the biggest by area, which I think is a more intuitive way of understanding the phrase.
We’ll see how you feel when you need something to drink.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I wonder if Hector will ever get around to calling us all bourgeois instead of his ridiculous “urban hipsters” concoction.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
And either way, it’s hard to understand how you can profile the world’s lakes without mentioning this giant series of lakes we have.
Where by “have” you mean “share 4 out of 5 with our friendly Canadian neighbors”.
@1: Unless Matt needs to drink more than 1.2 x 10^16 liters, I think he’ll be fine with Lake Superior.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
It’s been awhile, but as I recall the political message of the film seemed to revolve around the way that wealth and social standing insulate people from the consequences of their actions. Narrative developments that would be tragic in the lives of ordinary people play as farce. The peasants are revolting… the bourgeoisie are “charming”. Yadda yadda yadda.
As for the Great Lakes… I suspect their lack of inclusion in the Planet Earth series is a result of the fact that most of the native habitat has been destroyed by invasive species. It’s hardly even a “lake” ecosystem anymore.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Actually, by area, Lake Michigan-Huron is bigger than Superior.
And I know the Caspian Sea is technically not a lake since it used to be ocean, but, come on, look at it. Clearly a lake. That’s the biggest.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
The other thing I watched was the first three episodes of Planet Earth on Blu-Ray. This really makes the case for Blu-Ray pretty convincingly; it’s simply jaw-dropping.
The other reason to get it on Blu-Ray is that you get the commentary with David Attenborough, and not the imposter Discovery Channel voiceover by Sigourney Weaver that showed up on broadcast and in the DVD set.
If Americans want to make monumental television on nature, then they should go ahead and do it. Instead, Discovery gives a truckload of cash to the BBC, while putting together cheap-ass cable docs on the Great Lakes for domestic consumption.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Hey Matt, check out ‘The Young One’ next, another Bunuel. 1960, filmed in Mexico, but it’s in English and set on an island off the coast of North Carolina.
I promise: it’s awesome.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I recently saw The Exterminating Angel, which would have been like the ultimate Twilight Zone episode, but with too many amateur actors kind of ground to a deadening pace in feature-length.
I’d have to say my favorite of his is still Belle du Jour, because, you know, Catherine Deneuve.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
It was a co-production so I am surprised at this bias, but I agree it is extraordinary to not include the Great Lakes.
Measuring the size of a lake by the amount of water in it isn’t so very unintuitive metric for the size of a lake. You must admit it is astonishing that Lake Baikal more water than all the Great Lakes combined (at about 20% of the earth’s fresh water I think).
Great blogging day!
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Planet Earth HD appears to be available on the UK iTunes store. Perhaps it will come to the US soon. Certainly HD makes a huge difference, but I’m curious if Blu-Ray is significantly higher quality than what iTunes is selling. Any UK readers have occassion to see both?
As hard drives continually get bigger and cheaper, not being able to rip Blu-Ray disks seems like an increasing draw back.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
My weekend viewing was the entirety of the seventh (and final) season of The Shield. It was incredible.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Triumph of the hegemony. Of course you find the bourgeoisie charming MY. And you just can’t comprehend why we can’t get UHC or control the banks. How can that be?
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Planet Earth is great documentary film-making but it’s, at best, so-so in the Blu-Ray video quality department. BBC shows like Earth: The Biography and the film Baraka far outclass it.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
The great thing about Bunuel is that you really don’t have to over-intellectualize anything to ‘get’ his best movies. Yes, ‘Discreet Charm’ is hilarious. DO NOT MISS ‘Viridiana’, which might be his masterpiece. Some of the Mexican soap opera-type cheapie movies are good too, esp. ‘Susanna’ (many good laughs as well).
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
iTunes HD is not close to Blu-Ray in terms of bit-rate. A Blu-Ray movie runs to about 25GB of data. And that’s even before considering the role of the digital transfer or encoding process in the final product.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I recently saw The Exterminating Angel, which would have been like the ultimate Twilight Zone episode, but with too many amateur actors kind of ground to a deadening pace in feature-length.
FYI (contains spoilers, sort of): As with Godard’s “Contempt,” the “force-the-viewer-to-endure-the-boredom” approach was a deliberate decision made by the director with a specific intent. The goal is for the viewer to share the characters’ relief when they finally get the hell out of there.
That said, The Exterminating Angel is definitely a film that I appreciate more for having seen than a film I enjoyed watching.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Bunuel gets all the public credit, but much like Hitchcock he did his best work when he had great collaborators.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Njorl,
Thanks for the suggestion….I’ll think about it.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:45 pm
There was no mention of the Great Lakes because the entire aquatic ecosystem has been totally irrevocably altered. Pollution was the first cause but it was the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway exactly 50 years ago that sealed the deal. Invasive species sealed the fate of any old natural balance. That said the lakes are very very young. Their current scope the result of the last ice age. For all practical purposes they are only 12,000 years old. The lakes themselves were never biologically interesting in a nature documentary kind of way.
One of the greatest sudden ecological transformations due to invasive species is now taking place in the lake system. A cold water mussel the Quagga has exploded and the reduction of algae here in West Michigan is obvious. Algae is the base of the food chain in the lakes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Quagga_Map_lg.jpg
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
As for lakes, I have to go with the olume definition being more intuitie. A lake contains water. That is the definition of a lake. When we want to quantify that definition, the natural question is, how much water does it contain?
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:04 pm
“YI (contains spoilers, sort of): As with Godard’s “Contempt,” the “force-the-viewer-to-endure-the-boredom” approach was a deliberate decision made by the director with a specific intent. The goal is for the viewer to share the characters’ relief when they finally get the hell out of there. That said, The Exterminating Angel is definitely a film that I appreciate more for having seen than a film I enjoyed watching.”
Bingo.
My theory is that movies like The Exterminating Angel just don’t work on any form of home video. You need to be literally stuck in a dark movie theater to fully “get” it, since there is no escape in a movie theater, given that most folks don’t walk out after buying a ticket.
But in a home video environment, you always have the option of easily bailing on the movie, and thus must force yourself to sit through it.
I originally saw The Exterminating Angel in a theater and loved the experience, but I can easily imagine not liking it as much at home.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
That said, The Exterminating Angel is definitely a film that I appreciate more for having seen than a film I enjoyed watching.
Apropos of nothing in particular, this sums up my experience of reading Faulkner pretty succinctly.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:18 pm
recent netflixing: I enjoyed both breakfast on Pluto and the wind that shakes the barley a couple of Cilian Murphy vehicles.
Also recently watched Naked and Topsy Turvy again — two utterly different Mike Leigh movies that are among my favorites.
Is Be Kind, Rewind any good? Michel Gondry directed that, right?
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:34 pm
“iTunes HD is not close to Blu-Ray in terms of bit-rate.”
Interestingly, HDTV (aka cable services) also delivers a noticeably better picture than iTunes HD. The bit-rate for HDTV is more than twice as big as iTunes, and you can see the difference, even though iTunes has a better compression scheme.
Basically, here’s how the picture quality sliding scale goes:
Blu-Ray > HDTV > iTunes HD.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
the series seems to have an anti-American bias. The episode about fresh water doesn’t even mention the Great Lakes!
Funny – those of us living north of the border (or south, if you live in Windsor) thought that reflected an anti-Canadian bias…
I think Lafollette and rapier explain well why they aren’t mentioned, though.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Bunuel rules!
Lake Baikal contains one fifth of the Earth’s liquid fresh water and the only species of fresh water seals. It is the greatest lake. Nevertheless, I agree that Gitchigumi merits some props:
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Hmm, disappointing that iTunes HD is so low res (at least in comparison to Blu-ray). I had forgotten they don’t even offer 1080i downloads. I suppose they’ll upgrade at some point.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:25 pm
As an Upper-Midwesterner, I am thouroughly appreciative of your Great-Lakes solidarity, Matt! Hat is off.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:29 pm
On the other hand, the mash-up is a good example of the caution that pairing original works of art with later pieces that they inspire does not always benefit either effort.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:36 pm
“That Obscure Object of Desire” too
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:02 pm
I pray I’m not too late:
“Is Be Kind, Rewind any good? Michel Gondry directed that, right?”
ABSOLUTELY NOT. It’s unfunny and unlikable. The only decent part is the remade films, which are all available for free online.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 pm
MY caught a glimpse of Lake Michigan on a flight out of Chicago last year I believe and blogged about his astonishment at its size. Strangely because it and the other lakes are there on every map to see. Not so strangely perhaps in that they have so little economic or historical significance and thus no political significance. They are geographically significant and interesting and I suspect his offhand discovery of that fact lead to some vague idea that they had some biological significance worth noting but he was wrong. They are so young and so cold and so deep, they are rather like deserts biologically, or a vast tundra. Come to think of it however those were represented well in Planet Earth. When it gets right down to it the fauna of most of North America isn’t that interesting.
If climate change drastically dries enough good agricultural land the day will come when they will be tapped you can be sure. Gentleman’s agreements among states and Canada or even laws aside for those can be easily broken. If another ice age comes comparable to the last then 20,000 years of snow might again pile the ice 5000 feet high there again.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:33 pm
co-sign Be Kind Rewind sort of sucking
better off renting Kung Fu Panda, which is superior to the overrated Wall-E and loads more fun
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:02 am
So, Baikal is, at most a reaaly, really good lake, but not a great lake . . .
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 am
I second the recommendation of Bunuel’s Viridiana, and also recommend his Nazarin and Simon of the Desert.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:04 am
After three weeks of rain in the NE, watching young girls in Tehran bleed to death, listening to Republican jackals decrying “Socialism”, etc., … I was deeply depressed. So I was really grateful for the laughs provided by Away We Go. A bit misanthropic on the whole, but genuinely funny.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:15 am
“Is Be Kind, Rewind any good? Michel Gondry directed that, right?”
ABSOLUTELY NOT. It’s unfunny and unlikable. The only decent part is the remade films, which are all available for free online.
That’s like saying that the part on the river is the only decent part of Huckleberry Finn.
A lake contains water. That is the definition of a lake.
So do posters on blogs, some public urinals, and a box of sugar.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:27 am
I recommend getting Late for Dinner, The Wrong Box, and Hearts of the West from Netflix.
Except none of them are available on DVD. There seems to be a ban on sweet-natured comedies. (They did just recently come out with Hobson’s Choice, though.)
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 am
They are just being polite in not mentioning the degeneracy of today’s Great Lakes. It’s been all downhill since Lake Agassiz graced our great land.
And by volume Baikal is about as big as all the Great Lakes combined.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:46 am
You must admit it is astonishing that Lake Baikal more water than all the Great Lakes combined (at about 20% of the earth’s fresh water I think).
I’d like to add up all the % of the great bodies of fresh water. I bet we’d have 150% of the fresh water in all the world.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:18 pm
thank you all, I can safely get Be Kind Rewind from Netflix and leave it in Ezra Klein’s drawer.