February 17, 2021

I watched a movie last night specifically because I was worried I wouldn't have anything to blog about this morning. But now, of course, I can do a Mlog. (Sidenote: How does Richard Herring do this? He's been writing a blog post every morning for over a decade. And many of them are long, involved, and funny. Maybe more things happen to him or he has more opinions or he notices things better? I guess he's just better than me? A revealing project, this daily blog is turning out to be.) 

**SPOILERS**

Okay, a little more preamble. I did not bring my DVDs from Cinefile Video with me to Colorado. Not sure there's a DVD player here, plus I feel like that's just asking for the DVDs to get lost or broken. Fun fact - I have a monthly membership to Cinefile Video. $30/month and you can rent as many movies as you want, granting that you can only take them out four at a time. You can also keep them as long as you want. (Without the membership, the movies are due back within a week.) I had four movies rented out the last time we left LA for Colorado. We stayed for eight weeks. I got a receipt the next time I went back to Cinefile, and it said I owed hundreds of dollars for keeping A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night for so long. They said it was cool, though. I didn't actually owe it. 

But anyway, without a video rental store, I have to cruise Netflix for movies just like a regular person. Sad. 

BONNIE AND CLYDE

1967

Directed by: Arthur Penn

Written by: David Newman, Robert Benton

        Bonnie Parker is so bored in her Depression-era West Dallas hometown. She sees a young man trying to steal her mother's car and she stops him. It's Clyde Barrow. He says he's newly out of prison for armed robbery. She wants him to prove it, and he holds up the grocery store. The two run away together. They become the Barrow gang. They pick up a teen who's good at fixing cars and Clyde's brother Buck and his preacher's-daughter wife, Blanche. The gang gets tons of newspaper coverage for holding up banks all over Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Law enforcement is after them constantly, and shoot outs are incessant. Clyde tells Bonnie early on that he's no lover boy, and Bonnie accepts that even though she wants him and it makes her lonely. Buck is shot by police and Blanche is taken into custody. Bonnie writes a poem about Clyde and the newspapers publish it. Clyde feels that she's gotten him perfectly right and that she's made something of him and preserved his legacy. They finally make love. The couple knows they're doomed to die by police eventually. The time comes when CW Moss's daddy turns them in. On their way back from town, they're ambushed by police and shot one million times. The movie ends abruptly. 

        I thought the movie was okay as it was going along. But I think it has decent staying power. Mostly because Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty look so cool in the roles. They replicate the photographs found of the actual Bonnie and Clyde, and I think it's part of the whole appeal, of the original couple and of the movie. Outlaws doomed and in love is a tantalizing vibe. Plus it seems like a good use of time to just watch light hit the various planes of Faye Dunaway's face for two hours. I'm not going to rate this movie very highly -- the editing seemed bad, maybe it was intentional but a lot of cuts just seemed like mistakes, -- and yet I think that cool vibe will stick with me nonetheless. 

Rating: ★★1/2