In Before I Hang, Boris Karloff played Doctor John Garth, a scientist seeking a serum to “cure old age”. He tries a version of the serum on himself, and color returns to his hair — but he used a multiple murderer’s blood to make the serum, and finds himself compelled to kill.

Although several characters doubt that a youth drug is possible, this movie is exceptional in giving no hint that one ought not to try it; no stern rebuke, even by an unsympathetic character, against ‘playing God’ or ‘meddling with Nature’. (Contrast Renaissance.) The final scene is about resolve to continue the effort, and hope of eventual success.

Perhaps in mitigation of this hubris, the benefits of such a drug are expressed in modest terms like “reversing, even for a few years, the afflictions of old age” — nothing about immortality or permanent youth, though one would have to be stupid to miss that implication.

At one point in Blade Runner (not the book by Alan Nourse), Deckard, with two broken fingers on his right hand, clings to a parapet ornament. I wonder whether that was an intentional salute to Harold Lloyd, who made movies in which such clinging is a prominent motif after losing two fingers of his right hand.

Les Bas-fonds (The Lower Depths) (1936). Not much coherent plot, but some engaging characters. The director Jean Renoir said he made a point of moving the story to the banks of the Marne, but didn’t say why he kept the characters’ Russian names (so odd in French mouths!) and had them spending roubles. — I (or my housemate) rented this once before but I falsely remembered that I didn’t watch it.

The Women (1939). Too long.

Kiru (Kill!) (1968) is said to be derived from the same book as Kurosawa’s Sanjuro; both are about a scruffy ronin who helps some naive young samurai against a corrupt official, and both are quite good and told with humor, but similarity ends there. — The title is a bit of a mystery; I couldn’t identify the kanji.

Mad Max (1979), unlike its sequel, did not hold my interest. Was it more novel thirty years ago?

Raising Arizona (1987). I’d like it better if it did not rely so heavily on mocking a rustic stereotype.

Mies Vailla Menneisyyttä (The Man Without a Past) (2002). A welder on his way to a new job gets off a train, is beaten and robbed, and loses his memory. He begins to rebuild a life, with difficulties because he cannot supply a name; it’s admirable that this is not played for broad comedy or for tragedy. In the end he learns that he’s a better man than his old self.

Finding Nemo (2003) is superb eye-candy, and an absorbing story.

Someone recommended watching these two together, but I don’t know why. Finding Nemo is primarily about a father’s successful quest to recover his son. The welder, rather than seeking his lost name, learns to live without it (though this process is incomplete when his name and past are revealed). Both protagonists are strengthened by adversity, but that describes much of fiction.

A quirk in DVD subtitles: a phrase like “ten minutes before seven” is consistently rendered as 10 minutes before 7:00. Why not go all the way and make it 6:50?

I am amused to find that

1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00

takes exactly as many characters as

one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve

Awhile ago I worked out that, if you want to watch a different disc every evening using Netflix, your quota (the number of discs you have out at a time) needs to be at least five: three for the mail cycle plus two because Netflix does no processing on Saturday or Sunday. (This assumes no glitches and no holidays. It also assumes you do not get the disc back into the mail on the same day you received it.)

Now I see that Netflix has begun working on Saturdays, reducing the addict’s minimum quota to four. That means they’ll get $6/month less from each subscriber who applies my reasoning. Hm.

I’ve been relatively quiet here since I stopped listing my Netflix rentals. I could do that some more.
( . . more . . )

In the opening scene of Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation, a Hungarian Jew plays a Japanese impersonating a German, speaking English in Arabia.