Alex de Campi: Gojira!

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1.11.04 "Retirement Can Kill You..."

I am often sentimental of a Sunday afternoon. And yesterday, I came over all misty in a screening of THE LAST OF THE FIRST. This documentary covers five years in the turbulent life of the Harlem Blues & Jazz Band, a group composed of the last living sidemen and singers from the great jazz bands of Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, and others. All of these gentlemen and ladies are in their 80s, or older, and still sound just fine. The band quite literally keeps them alive. I can't find any CDs by them, which is criminal, as anyone who has heard the playing of Al Casey or the singing of the late Laurel Watson will attest.

LAST OF THE FIRST was one of three London Film Festival screenings I was seeing at the NFT that afternoon (the third of which was the truly wonderful Japanese film TONY TAKITANI). In the half hour before my next film began, I bought a pint of beer and wandered around the used-book tables on the South Bank, as the corrugated-steel waters of the Thames rattled by and the cold night air dried my eyes. I bought a book on how to murder people, and thought again how much I love my job.

Do you love the Blues? Of course you do. Then you will enjoy the fine blues and boogie products of a 91-year-old man named Pinetop Perkins. Do you love film? Then you may want to consider the recent BFI release of a new print of Jean Cocteau's ORPHEE. One of the most amazing films ever made, and very hard to find on DVD, Cocteau's retelling of the Orpheus and Euridice myth manages to say more about the nature of fame, creativity, and aging, than anything else I've seen. Plus, Maria Casares as Death in a black limousine! If that sounds too Neil Gaiman for you, can I suggest Jean-Pierre Melville's CERCLE ROUGE, which is a stripped-down, gripping heist film with moments of acting so good they literally take your breath away.

( 11:21 AM )

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