Next Ten Films We Hope to Stream from Netflix: Finding the 179 Minutes for Blue is the Warmest Color

It may be a while before we can get to all ten of these films, especially the French film "Blue is the Warmest Color," which was a sensation at the last Cannes Film Festival and is apparently one of the films which is being most streamed this week on Netflix. One problem is that the film does run for two hours and 59 minutes! It depicts a lesbian relationship between two teenagers and the film received an NC-17 rating here in the United States.

Other films on the list include the documentaries about death row ("Into the Abyss") and the revolution in Egypt ("The Square," which was nominated for an Oscar; the film was also started by a Kickstarter campaign).

Here is the list:

1) Blue is the Warmest Color (France. 2013. dir. Abdellatif Kechiche; top image)

2) Barbara (Germany. 2012, dir. Christian Petzold).

3) Upstream Color (2013. dir. Shane Caruth)

4) Pretty in Pink (1986. dir. Howard Deutch, love the soundtrack!)

5) Malena (Italy. 2000. dir. Giuseppe Tornatore)

6) Into the Abyss (doc. 2011. dir. Werner Herzog, middle image)

7) The Square (doc. 2013. dir. Jehane Noujaim)

8) Punch-Drunk Love (2002. dir. Paul Thomas Anderson; one of the best film roles of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman)

9) Alps (Greece. 2011. dir. Giorgos Lanthimos)

10) No One Knows About Persian Cats (Iran. 2009. dir. Bahman Ghobadi, bottom image)

http://www.netflix.com

https://www.kickstarter.com/

http://www.vadp.org/ (Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, based in Charlottesville)

http://tcadp.org/ (Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty)

http://apscaswell.org/ (Caswell County Animal Shelter in Yanceyville, NC, due south of Danville, Va)

http://baltimoreanimalshelter.org/ (Baltimore Animal Shelter)

http://www.wernerherzog.com/

Virtual Postcard of Kansas- The State Capitol

Welcome to those of you who have just finished watching "Everybody Loves Raymond" reruns on TV Land. Tonight, we are going to do something slightly different by pretending that we are writing an actual postcard to Aysegul Akdemirli, a fictional person in Izmir, Turkey.

Interestingly enough, we learned tonight that former U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, a conservative Republican, is now the governor of Kansas; this image is of the state capitol in Topeka. Unlike me, Gov. Brownback is pro-choice, but we are both morally opposed to capital punishment. But, I''m not sure this in itself will get me an offer to have lunch with the governor at the Row House Restaurant in Topeka as I am a Democrat.

Here is our postcard........

Merhaba Aysegul,

How are things in Izmir? I really miss Turkish food especially doner kebab. I recently passed through Kansas, and I saw that the gas station I stopped at only had postcards of the Kansas capitol building. This is also the state where Dorothy and Toto went to see the Wizard of Oz. Yes, it's the movie with a song about the yellow brick road. Well, I must get going, I inadvertently parked in a handicap parking space.

Gule Gule...........

http://www.ksabolotion.org (Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty)

http://www.tvland.com

http://www.ksdp.org/ (Kansas Democratic Party)

http://www.rowhouserestaurant.com

http://www.kshs.org

Quote of the Day/Week- Werner Herzog

Today, we quip one of our favorite German film directors Werner Herzog as we conclude a month-long series-within-a-series dedicated to quotes from famous Germans.

While researching this, we found out that Herzog is the first film director to make a film on every continent, including Antartica!

The 69-year-old director has just completed work on a documentary called "Death Row" about death row inmates in America. The subject should be a unique one from Herzog's vantage point as many Europeans find the fact that America executes inmates extremely unsettling, while more than 50 percent of Americans seem to support capital punishment in spite of conclusive proof of wrongful executions.

(Full disclosure: I am highly opposed to capital punishment, and I am a long-time supporter of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty).

We get today's quote from the Les Blank documentary "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe," which was made in 1980 and originated from a bet that Herzog made with a then-unknown documentary filmmaker named Errol Morris, who has since become an Academy-Award winner. Morris's latest documentary "Tabloid" was an art-house hit earlier this year:

"If you want to do a film, then steal a camera, steal raw stock, sneak into a lab and just do it."


SIDEBAR ONE: We found out yesterday that actress Anne Hathaway, whom I have admired since she made the 2005 independent film "Havoc" and has since made box office successes, such as "The Devil Wears Prada," is getting engaged. We should wish the actress, who turned 29 earlier in the month well, but frankly we are as jealous as Daffy Duck! Assuredly, anyone wanting more info on Hathaway's personal life can watch "TMZ" as we are moving on to other things.

SIDEBAR TWO: This might seem like a headline from the fake news publication "The Onion," but it is in fact an actual headline from the current issue of "Seattle Weekly:" "The gay softball team that wasn't gay enough has reached a settlement."

Indeed, in 2008, the San Francisco-based gay softball team D2, which finished second at the Gay Softball World Series in Seattle, was disqualified because they allegedly had two or three bisexual or heterosexual players. We first heard about this from the same publication, and blogged about it last year (search our 'gay politics' tag to learn more).

Apparently, the matter went to court, and it has reached a binding resolution. We can imagine that this story may actually be a topic of discussion for both gay rights activist/sex advice columnist Dan Savage and a right-wing talking head,like Rush Limbaugh, who may use this as an example of extreme political correctness (but, I guess rebel-flag waving Confederate apologists in 2011 is ok?!),.......only in America!

Republican Humor- Dear Casey

The following is meant to be political satire. Just so everyone in Generation Z or those of you from Belarus get the joke, Dear Casey or The Long Distance Dedication was a segment that was "Casey's Top 40," an American fm-radio music show when I was a teenager in the 1980s.


"Dear Casey:


I know that even though you are a political liberal like myself and a fellow person of Middle-Eastern heritage, you may hesitate to play this song for a truck driver I don't know in Sioux City, Iowa, as I am making this request for poltical reasons. Casey, I am afraid that the Republicans will nominate another execution-happy evangelist governor of Texas for their presidential candidate, and should Rick Perry actually become president I would have to flee America for Costa Rica or Iceland. Even though I'm sure those countries are wonderful places, I am not fluent in either Spanish or Icelandic, and I imagine this would make life very difficult for me. So, Casey, it is for these reasons that I am dedicating Conway Twitty's 1973 smash hit "You've Never Been This Far Before" to that truck driver I don't know in Sioux City, Iowa, in the hopes that_ and I never thought I'd say this_ vote for Mitt Romney in his town straw poll."

Conway Twitty (1933-1993) is alas no longer with us. I am actually a fan of his music (believe it or not) even though I'm not usually a listener of country music. Twitty was originally from Helena, Arkansas, and he is also known for his "Hello Darlin'" which was a big hit for him in 1971. Anyone living in the Chapel Hill, NC, area (not where I reside) may find vinyl records of his albums at All Day Records in nearby Carrboro, NC.

Casey Kasem is thankfully alive and well at age 79, which means that if Twitty were still alive they would be about the same age. Kasem was born in Detroit, and is active in both politically liberal and Arab-American causes (I am actually a Turkish-American). In addition to the famous radio show he hosted, Kasem was the voice of Shaggy on the original "Scooby-Doo," which first aired in 1969.

Quote of the Week- Chester Arthur

It is quite ironic that Vermont, which is perhaps the most liberal state in America, was the birth state of Republican President Chester Arthur (1829-1886). Arthur, who was the 21st president, got his promotion to the oval office rather quickly as his predecessor James Garfield was assasinated by Charles J. Guiteau, who was later hanged in Washington, DC, in spite of considerable evidence that Guiteau was mentally ill.

Garfield was shot in Long Brnach, New Jersey, on July 2, 1881, but the 20th president remained alive until Sept. 19.

Arthur would only serve out the remainder of Garfield's term, and his own would end abruptly as he died on Nov. 17, 1886, at age 57, a mere 103 days after leaving office on March 4th of that year.

This quote illustrates that some of the men who were president in the 19th century may have problems coping with the modern presidency:

"I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damned business."

This month, we hope to quote famous New Englanders around Monday of each week. Last week, we quoted poet E.E. Cummings.

SIDEBAR: Though I missed the film's screenings in North Carolina, I am very interested in a new documentary film by Trenton, NJ, filmmaker Kevin J. Williams called "Fear of a Black Republican" even though I'm neither African-American or a Republican. As one might expect, the very conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is featured in the film.

The documentary will be screening in Wilmington, Del., on July 28 at 7:00 p.m.

Special Quote of the Week- Albert Camus

Today, we conclude with a spillover entry from the month of May, in which we posted quotes from famous novelists, with a quip from the late French writer Albert Camus
(1913-1950). Like the subject of our other entry on our other blog who was George Orwell (1905-1950), both writers were born abroad and died at age 46. While Orwell was born in India, Camus was born in Algeria. He often wrote about the plight of the north African country which remains an area of concern today given the political upheveal in neighboring Libya. Prior to the Libyan mess, there were earlier uprisings in neighboring Tunisia, which lead to the 'Arab Spring."

In addition to his criticism of colonialism, Camus was an outspoken critic of the death penalty, saying that it would never deter perspective murderers because 'the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in the state of equilibrium.'

Alas, the likes of Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va) and Gov. Rick Perry (R-Tex.) and others on the anti-intelllectual right will assuredly always find a way to dismiss any logic that challenges their self-righteous Christian hypocricy.

McDonnell will be speaking at the Virginia United Methodist Assembly Center in Blackstone, Va. on June 11th, according to Eskii Kebede of "The Collegiate Times," the Virginia Tech student-run newspaper in Blacksburg, Va. The topic will be the faith of the founding fathers. Assuredly, any arguments about how a man who sees himself as an upstanding Christian can support the morally inconsistent pro-death penalty argument will not be brought forth.

Camus, who recieved the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, is known for three novels "The Stranger" (1942), "The Plague" (1947) and "The Fall" (1956).

Surreally enough, the much-heralded Turkish film director Zeki Demirkubuz loosely adapted "The Stranger" into his well-recieved 1999 film "Yazgi" ("Fate). I'm sure Camus would have been proud; here is his quote:

"An intellectual is someone who mind watches itself."

Interesting Programming Choice for Valentine's Day

The Independent Film Channel (IFC) is actually going to broadcast the ground-breaking, controversial 1970 film "The Honeymoon Killers" about a real-life couple who went on a spree-killing rampage in the 1950s (didn't have time to Wiki that, so I could be off on the decade!) at 10:05 a.m. on Valentine's Day.

The documentary-style black and white film is also available on dvd through the Criterion Collection.

"The Honeymoon Killers" was initially supposed to be directed by a young Martin Scorsese but creative differences with the producer lead to Leonard Kastle directing the film which is his best known film.

The story involves Martha Beck and Ray Fernandez, both of whom were executed by an electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in New York (I have publicly disclosed that I am opposed to capital punishment, but this is not a political entry, but there might very well be one on this subject here soon!).

It has actually been re-filmed twice since 1970, including an odd Mexican remake entitled "Deep Crimson" (1996) which is the most graphic of the three films as it features an on-screen murder of a child- something that is considered to be a virtual taboo in American cinema.

There is also the more widely-known, fairly recent American film "Lonely Hearts" (2006) with Jared Leto and Salma Hayek playing the killers. The lead actor though is John Travolta who plays a detective in the case, which makes the film considerably different in pov than "The Honeymoon Killers."

In the original film, Beck is played Shirley Stoler who resembles the actual killer who weighed over 200 pounds at the time of her execution. Due to her excessive weight, Beck could not fit into the electric chair so she was secured on the arm rests when the fatal shock was delivered.

The story unfolds as Beck takes care of her invalid mother in Mobile, Ala. As she craves affection, Beck decides to place an ad in a lonely hearts column which is responded to by Fernandez (Tony LoBianco).

They become a couple and run off to New York, leaving Beck's mom to be tended to in a nursing home. Gradually, they begin to fleece vulnerable women. This causes Beck to become jealous, so she starts killing each of the women and in one instance she murders a victim's child by drowning him in a washing machine.

"The Honeymoon Killers" was actually released almost exactly 40 years as it premiered on American screens on Feb. 4, 1970- a full month before I was born!

The film will re-air on IFC (their web site is ifc.com) on Friday, Feb. 26 at 9:05 a.m. and 2:15 p.m.

I consider the film to be a vintage classic and it would probably be on my Top Ten list for the best films of 1970- a year which also saw the release of the film version of "MASH," "Five Easy Pieces" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."