Well, dear readers, leave it to the French. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, leave it to the French to make a motion picture the way I like motion pictures – good story, great actors, excellent score, not a single shot using CGI, and a small jerking of tears. Now, maybe I liked it as much as I did because I’d just seen the beyond stinky Exorcist: Believer, which was filled with everything I hate about movies today. Now, I will say that in a bout of complete irony, dear reader JohnG also happened to watch this same movie. What are the odds of THAT. I have no idea WHY he watched it or how he even found it – I watched it because I’m heard a few tracks from the score that were gorgeous – Philippe Rombi, one of my favorite of today’s film composers – and it made me want to seek out the film, which was fortunately streaming on Amazon Prime cheaply or for free on Tubi with commercials. It’s called Une Belle Course (Driving Madeleine – the French is A Beautiful Race) and stars (at the time) 91-year-old Line Renaud and Dany Boon. The story is simple as pie – a down on his luck (always) taxi driver who can barely make ends meet for his wife and daughter is offered a very lucrative fare, driving an old lady across Paris. He picks her up and thus begins their drive to an assisted living home, where she doesn’t really want to go. She engages him in conversation he doesn’t really want, but he eventually becomes interested in her stories. She has him drive by some old neighborhoods and we get flashbacks to some important events in her life – these are fairly brief save for the darkest of them. Even though it doesn’t really have anything to do with it nor is it similar, in tone it sometimes reminded me of my novel GEE, especially as it uses “At Last” as a key song. The dark period is when she marries a complete jerk who hates the young kid she had with a US soldier when she was a teen – a dalliance that ended when he went back home. The jerk smacks her around more and more in his drunken rages and then gets turned on by it, taking her by force. She’s finally had it when he smacks the kid. I won’t say more, but I think the scene that JohnG hated has to do with her revenge on the jerk. It was, perhaps, a bit over the top (we actually don’t see anything), but boy did he deserve it. Anyway, the drive takes many turns, they become friends enroute to the old folks home and he takes her in. As he’s about to leave, she looks at him and says she forgot to pay him, but the doors are already locked and he says he’ll come back to visit. I’ll just say the ending certainly jerked a few droplets from me. Sans end titles, it runs a crisp eighty-seven minutes. As I said, the score is beautiful – Rombi at the top of his game. If you want to hear it, it’s on YouTube under its French title. I’d listen to the one that is separate tracks rather than the one long track because whoever did that one cut off notes at the beginning and ends of tracks, which is irritating.
It was one of two Rombi scores I found that I didn’t have, and I also want to watch the movie the second one is from, Boite Noire (The Black Box), which sounds interesting – a thriller of sorts. Thankfully, that’s on Prime as well, so that will be tonight’s viewing, or I may even watch it during the day.
Otherwise, yesterday wasn’t much of a day. I got nine hours of sleep, had a couple of telephonic calls right away, then I did a quick Gelson’s run and two half-racks of ribs only because they were so small – not that much meat on one of them. I came home and ate them and they were very good and very calorie friendly. I had some strawberries and whipped cream for the sweet and later a pudding cup – that was it for food, so definitely under 1000 calories. I did a few things that needed doing, but that was about it and then I watched the movie which, unlike Exorcist: Believer, I can recommend.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll perhaps watch the movie during the day, I’ll shave and shower, then I’m being taken to dinner by some Partridge Family fans, so that should be fun and I will, of course, have a full report for you. Then I’ll come home and watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow and Sunday may just be ME days and I’m jiggy with that.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, maybe watch a movie during the day – if not then in the evening – shave and shower, have a dinner, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray/streaming player? I’ll start – CD, finishing up the Ormandy set. Streaming, Boite Noire. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have seen a movie I liked, a French picture from France – leave it to the French, that’s what I say.