CineSavant Column
Hello!
Lets proceed with optimism, even if the global forecast is — well, it changes every 45 minutes.
We found some cute stuff for this weekend’s Column. Michael McQuarrie directed me to the Film Board of Canada’s latest website, to see a movie about Buster Keaton. Unfortunately, the Canadians were blocking it, along with other content, with placards reading ‘Not available to view in your current location.’
In truth, I am grateful that Canadians are still having anything to do with us. That goes for pretty much the world right now.
But there are so many super, hilarious Canadian animated films. I looked up an old favorite short animated film, which thankfully was viewable. We caught up with this particular mini-masterpiece on early DVDs, 25 years ago. It is To Be by John Weldon, and features the great voices of Kim Handysides and Howard Ryshpan. It’s a science fiction fable, and as such was written up with great enthusiasm for my old DVD Savant Sci Fi Reader (gee, anybody interested in a follow-up book?).
It’s hilarious, insightful and genuinely profound … and has a cute song, too. If you haven’t seen it, do — it’s not long and the online copy is flawless.
To Be
And once again we’ve been graced with a fave disc list from Kyu Hyun Kim, whose opinions have always impressed me, along with his knack for communicating the special appeal of a picture in fewer words than I thought was possible.
We reviewed several of these titles — Unknown World, Winchester ’73, Yojimbo / Sanjuro, World Noir No. 3 — and note that Kyu draws from a couple of UK & European companies that stay mostly inaccessible to CineSavant.
He once again he comes up with releases that never crossed my radar and as such now draw my interest. Interesting that his ‘top fave’ is a Kino Lorber Jean Belmondo costume picture!
Kyu’s comments go the extra step — he names the companies that he think are overtaking Criterion in the effort to bring forth more treasures from the hidden corners of cinematic history.
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson