Some films aren’t so well received initially upon release and later grow to become cult classics or are revised to become great in the estimation of critics. This film however seems to have taken the opposite trajectory, being lauded early on but its reputation has suffered as time goes by. Partly this was because director Michael Cimino never made another good film after this and Heaven’s Gate in particular was one of the greatest flops of all time. After watching it, that seems about right to me as while the film is beautifully crafted, its core premise is fatally flawed and fundamentally stupid.

This is the shortest of Orson Welles’ feature film and in fact for originally meant to be shown on television in France. It is an adaptation of a short story by a Danish writer named Karen Blixen so this is a film that is small in scope and ambition as well as length. It’s also one of the rare examples of Welles working in color though he seems to have been forced to do so. I’m not too impressed with the story or the themes but I feel that it sets the mood rather well and that’s good enough for a short film like this.

Atom Egoyan is another director of some renown, a Canadian of Armenian extraction, and this is the first of his works I’ve seen. I’ve seen this described as a drama but it’s nothing of the sort. As my wife noticed very quickly, this is a surrealist film in the style of David Lynch, down to similar choices in music. Unfortunately unlike Lynch’s work this does not boast of high production standards and as I have a hard time connecting to what it wants to say, this is not something that I care for at all.

A documentary about the stray dogs of Istanbul is practically irresistible to us, as no doubt our cinephile friend knew when he recommended it to us. This film is quite short and has no narration at all so it really is all about experiencing the streets of this ancient city through the eyes of its dogs, focusing on three of them in particular. There are no great insights or even much information to be gained here but it does make for a fascinating and immersive sensory experience especially if you are a dog-person.

After being so impressed with the films of Satyajit Ray that we’ve seen so far, it was inevitable that we would watch Pather Pachali, the Indian grandmaster’s first and best known film. This is the first part of a trilogy so that helps explain why its ending doesn’t seem quite complete. It is of course a masterful work of cinema, detailing the extreme poverty of a family living in a village. I found that I liked it less than his later works however as it doesn’t seem to have a more specific theme than the condition of poverty itself.

This film was among the casualties of the pandemic, forced to be released online instead of in cinemas. I think it largely flew under the radar as a result and I wouldn’t have paid attention to it myself if it weren’t for strong recommendations on Broken Forum. This may not exactly be great art but it a perfectly cromulent action-adventure film set amidst the apocalypse and featuring giant monsters. I especially love how it proves that you don’t need to rely on existing intellectual property to make a solid action movie. Unfortunately it also seems to prove that you may need to in order to make a financially successful one.

Here’s another Charlie Chaplin film, picked for its fame and because my wife has fond memories of it. This also marks the final appearance of Chaplin’s The Tramp character and apparently serves as a kind of farewell. Knowing this fact actually helps make more sense of some of the choice made in this film. For my part, I am once again immensely impressed by Chaplin’s prowess and the factory scenes are truly memorable. I found the other skits are less interesting however and the film gets repetitive and drags on after a while.