Notable Netflix, 2006 (part 1)

Even though they’ve throttled my sister and brother-in-law pretty badly as of late, I’m still pretty high on Netflix. The movie options it gives us absolutely dwarf Blockbuster. Here are a few highlights from our queue in the past year.

Grand Prix: The plot of this movie is fairly standard, but what makes the film so impressive are the racing scenes. You get four long race sequences, and each one is absolutely riveting, so much so that you’ll be appreciative of the film’s 179 minute running time. It’s a beautiful record of the golden age of Formula 1 racing, and they filmed on Grand Prix courses just before or after actual races. The actors did much of their own driving (James Garner apparently had the makings of a good driver), and the cinematography alternates between cockpit level shots that make you feel the road and aerial shots that give the races a sense of grandeur. This movie also introduced split-screens, and that technique gives it a groovy, sixties feel without compromising its coolness. In the year after this movie’s release, several of the racing advisors would be killed on some of these same tracks. In response, Formula 1 instituted safety measures that reduced casualties, but also (according to some) reduced the excitement, too. So it’s probably impossible to recreate the race sequences nowadays.

Grizzly Man: Herzog’s documentary got a lot of buzz, but we didn’t catch it in theaters. I ended up liking it far more than I anticipated. I initially had the impression that it was just a voyeuristic look at an environmentalist nut-job. But Timothy Treadwell was a fascinating person, and Herzog tells his story in a way that is respectful while also being critical. One of the most interesting things about the film is the way Herzog contrasts Treadwell’s view of the cosmos as an organic, harmonious whole with Herzog’s view of the universe as a violent and chaotic place.

The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection: I’d never heard of Harold Lloyd until Watoosa and I caught the last 3/4ths of Speedy on TCM one day. At first, we watched because we thought it was corny. Before long we were won over. Lloyd was one of the big three silent film comic actors, along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Lloyd’s career emphasized quantity over quality, but his good films are hilarious and often feature some amazing stunts, most of which he did himself. Lloyd often played mild-mannered characters who have to improvise crazy schemes to get out of scrapes or to win the hand of a sweetheart (who was usually played by the woman Lloyd eventually married). Watching these films gives you a sense of how inventive and daring Hollywood was in the early days. Speedy is one of his best. It starts a bit slow, but it finishes with a fantastic chase scene through Manhattan. I’m still not sure if they bothered to get permission to film it. At one point, Harold’s streetcar crashes into a bridge support; it was unintentional, but it looked so good that they left it in. Babe Ruth makes an appearance, too. My favorite of his films, though, is Safety Last. It climaxes in a sequence in which Harold has to climb the side of a building and ends up hanging from the minute hand of a giant clock (it’s one of the most famous images in silent film). Even today, it’s gripping, if you’ll pardon the pun. Also worth watching is Ask Father.

Brick: Like Grizzly Man, this was a film that got quite a lot of buzz but that we didn’t manage to catch in the theater. It’s a surprisingly good attempt to make a high school film with all the trappings of film noir. The dialog is rapid-fire (and sometimes even non-sensical?). But it’s great the way it plays with the conventions of teen-oriented movies and the detective films of the 30’s and 40’s. I liked Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and it features a small role for Emilie de Ravin (Claire from Lost, sans Aussie accent). Coincidentally, we saw this just a few days before watching Veronica Mars, which also adds touches of noir to a high school setting, but with a different feel.