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March 25, 2010

An Unfortunate History of Moviegoing

This sad account begins around this time last year, when Darren Hughes linked to the US trailer for Götz Spielmann's Revanche, in which his own review was quoted. The trailer hooked me - I think it was, for some reason, that lateral dolly shot of the cop at the shooting range which really pulled me in; that, and that pastoral beauty for which I'm such a pushover. I eagerly awaited the film's release in Los Angeles...

...which I then missed. I felt guilty, moreso than I usually do when I miss a film in the theater, but c'est la vie. Sometime later, Criterion announced they would be releasing the film on DVD in early February of this year. I added it to my Netflix queue and waited for it. The months ticked by, February rolled around and then the film was available. I was busy shooting those SXSW trailers the week it was released, but I looked forward to the imminent evening in which I would curl up on the couch and watch it, uninterrupted.

That evening did not come, partially because I didn't want to stream such a gorgeous-looking film on my laptop. I wanted to wait for the DVD, but to do that, I had to mail back the disc I currently had out from Netflix (Wild Combination: A Portrait Of Arthur Russell), which, given the average of three months it takes me to drop movies, already watched, in the mail, wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

So instead, we paid a visit to the video store last weekend and rented it. It was a new release; we had it for two nights. We managed to put the disc into the DVD player on Saturday night, but didn't actually watch it. Three nights later, we started it, but I had a caffeine headache, couldn't focus and turned it off after ten minutes. Finally, the following evening, last night, we turned it on again and watched it straight through. I'll take it back to the video store at some point today and pay the 20 dollars in late fees on a movie I could watch for free through the Netflix account that I never actually use.

And the film? I loved it. A masterpiece. Well worth the wait, ridiculously distended though it was.

Posted by David Lowery at March 25, 2010 10:59 AM