"Look upon me! I will show you the life of the
mind!" One of the best lines ever. It is spoken by John Goodman's
awesomely creepy/spooky character in the Coen Brothers' 1991 masterpiece
"Barton Fink." It's a bit on their artier side, especially
the ending, which is why I'm claiming you need to have an adventurous
score of about 4 to really take it in and enjoy it in all of its
awesomeness. John Turturro is the main character and is as good as John
Goodman. One of my top six Coen Brothers movies, along with "Blood
Simple," "Fargo," "No Country for Old Men," "Raising Arizona," and "O
Brother, Where Art Thou?" Also Steve Bucemi's role as "C-h-e-t, Chet,"
though small, is really fun. It's a bit hard to classify, but there's
obvious Hitchcock, The Shining, and Sunset Blvd. nods. So, don't miss
it!
Finally, if you are feeling extremely adventurous, that
is, you are a 5 on the adventurous scale this week, then I recommend
Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 Nazi propaganda documentary "Triumph of the
Will." You'll need to be in an adventurous or, at least, open-minded,
state of mind in order to get something from 1hr 50mins of Nazi pomp and
circumstance. It really is an interesting documentary. It shows how
Hitler convinced the German people that we was the solution to all of
their problems. It's quite powerful. And technically it is gorgeous.
Tracking shots, aerial shots, and finely tuned editing galore!
Admittedly, it doesn't become substantively interesting (at least to me)
until about 45mins in. But it's definitely worth watching if you're up
to it. And who wouldn't want to brag about having seen this anyway?
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