Blog of the Blogervilles

I was at the Public Library returning something and there on a cart were a handful of DVDs I either hadn't seen or hadn't seen in a long time so I snatched them up.
The rule of thumb here is that the movie I'm least enthused about will be the one that I get fined for because it will be returned late. It might seem like I really like the movie, refusing to let it go back to the indifferent hands of random strangers. But nope - it is probably boring and a chore to watch. If you ask me do I like Roman Polanski movies I'll say of course. That's the prescribed knee-jerk reaction of anyone who insists on calling himself a movie-director (which is what I do because, well, I do make films and at age 40 I'm not sure I can pull off "film student" anymore). Tess was the movie I grabbed. Very happy to see it for free. But I must be right under the wire if I hope to avoid a fine. Turns out it's about people who might buy or sell the name of their family for the sake of status - not subject matter that has me rivited. Then there is a rolling around scene which today we would call - or post-feminist and retro-feminist bloggers would call - a rape scene. Of course the blogs would then be referenced as a source of hard news by an actual paper columnist kind of the way Matt Drudge got the "scoop" and led the journalist profession down the tubes of Lewinskigate a million years ago. I must have watched at least half an hour of Tess by now. Nastasia Kinski is pretty enough and there's nothing wrong with the directing of course. But the movie has inspired me to fill out my tax forms.

P.s. Okay, almost made it throught the whole film. Played it on WinDVD at 1.5 X speed. Somehow it played like a more recent, less plodding, movie - despite still having characters that made me impatient. They all need a slap in the head. The last time I had to play a movie at high speed like this (where you can still hear the audio) was Gerry by Gus Van Sant - a movie about being lost in the desert, which feels about as much fun as being lost in a desert.