By Will Locatelli – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
Category Archives: Movie of the Day
The Professor’s Fall Journal: October Week 3
Fiasco Brothers Watch a Movie (with Professor Mortis): Death Wish 3
Well, the lights have been off on this site for quite some time. But that doesn’t mean that we’re not still watching movies! While I continue to be a parent (did just one baby stop me from blogging about movies obsessively-it seems so quaint now that there are TWO lil Mortises!) I am, in fact, always watching movies. If you want to read some mini-reviews, I highly recommend checking out my Letterboxd stream. Recently League member Sean Frost started up a podcast with the inestimable Tim Lehnerer-The Fiasco Brothers Watch a Movie. Sean and Tim, the titular Fiasco Brothers, discuss a new movie every other week, chosen randomly from their own list of possible titles.
Not having a podcast of my own and not genetically blessed with the ability to shut up, I of course wanted to join the pair to talk about a movie. Sean asked me about a few titles. Thanks to a scheduling mishap you missed my tale of how I first saw Live and Let Die in French during a family vacation to Quebec as part of a general discussion of Blaxploitation attached to their episode on Truck Tuner. Instead they booked me to discuss Death Wish 3,, one of our former Movies of the Day. I had an absolute blast recording with these guys and I highly recommend subscribing to their entertaining podcast. Without further ado, here is Episode 9 of The Fiasco Brothers Watch a Movie: My Roscoe Goes Ka-Chee.
December 31, 2014: Strange Days (1995)
December 30th, 2014: The Land Unknown (1957)
Cast and Crew: William Alland (Producer); Henry Mancini (Score); Henry Brandon
What It’s About: A naval helicopter on an exploration mission crashes in the mouth of an Antarctic volcano that houses a lost world of prehistoric dinosaurs and plants. Can the survivors find a way to repair their helicopter before the expedition gives up searching for them? What or who is it that the dinosaurs fear?
Why Watch it Today?: Although not directly named, Operation Highjump, the 1946 mission to explore Antarctica, especially the crash of one plane on today’s date, partly inspired today’s film. While not a classic by any means, the film features some wonderfully goofy dinosaur effects and a lot of great 1950s “can do” scientist action, and it does feature one clever twist that I won’t spoil here.
December 29th, 2014: Solaris (1972)
December 28th, 2014: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
December 27th, 2014: Touch of Evil
December 26th, 2014: Diva (1981)
Cast and Crew: Jean-Jacques Beineix (Director); Irene Silberman (Producer); Frederic Andrei, Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, Richard Bohringer, Thuy An Luu
What It’s About: Diva is a purely aesthetic experience. It is about so much: art, honesty, friendship, love, corruption; it is about so little: accident, death, unbelievable plot coincidences. Young motorcycle postman Jules has a borderline-stalker-grade obsession for opera diva Cynthia Hawkins. While surreptitiously recording her performance and stealing her dress, he unknowingly comes into possession of a recording by a prostitute implicating the chief of police in the management of a large drug and human-trafficking ring. Witnesses are eliminated one by one by a couple of distasteful homicidal pimps who aspire to look like Depeche Mode. Our spineless hero randomly befriends a young Asian shoplifter and her mildly creepy meditating sugardaddy Gorodish, a gent who looks like the mythical offspring of a union between John Belushi and Robert Downey, Jr. Jules and Gorodish each inhabit excruciatingly cool lofts, where one can park junked cars or go rollerskating. Apparently director Beineix had some issues with the French film establishment, but for international audiences, Eighties Paris never looked so alluring as in this film. Alternately satisfying and infuriating, it is a memorable experience.
Why Watch it Today?: On this date in 1770, Mozart (aged 14) premiered his first opera seria, “Mithridates, King of Pontus.” It was six hours long. As a genre, opera seria was not long for this world, but the visceral power of opera more widely has not dissipated. Diva features two highly discordant musical genera. On the one hand, you will experience the pure tones of Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez’ operatic range, lovingly recorded. If you are even mildly musically sensitive they will send chills down your spine. On the other hand, much of the soundtrack is primitive synthesized electronica, jarring and discordant. This juxtaposition is actually quite suitable to the plot of the film, where art crashes headlong into crime, meditation into racketeering.
To get a feel for the movie, take a look at any YouTube film of the diva singing; or this odd bit from the guru, Gorodish, on bread:
Alternately, watch the trailer. I must warn you, however: this movie may, possibly, have the worst trailer ever made. It manages to give away spoilers for some major plot points without giving any hint of what the movie’s “about,” and is sonically discordant and obnoxious where the film’s soundtrack is actually well put-together.
The League of Dead Films 
