November Gale

November gales are legendary on the Great Lakes, and we had a good one yesterday.  Many leaves come tumbling down as a result.  I managed to get outside for a local walk on Wednesday and snap a few photos before Thursday's wind and rain.  Of the four ships I have been watching, two are up on Lake Superior, one is in Lisbon, and the other in Togo (near Accra).  And I see on my Flight Radar site that flights to London have resumed from Detroit.  Deb has a friend who recently went to Aruba for a holiday.  They own a timeshare condo there and haven't been able to go.  Upon return, they were stuck at Toronto airport for 4 1/2 hours, being processed.  In huge crowds with no social distancing.  This is why we won't be flying anytime soon.

A small creek and forest, from my walk on Wednesday.

One of the houses on Front Rd, south of us.

And yes, to some people it's already Christmas. 

I'm way behind on my movie watching news, so I will just spare a sentence about recent views.

For the remainder of my film festival that ended the month of October, after The Raven we watched three films from the Czech New Wave series on Criterion, two features and a short.  Return of the Prodigal Son is from 1967, and concerns the life of a young man spending time in an institution (and out of it) following his attempted suicide.  It was quite good.  Then came A Report On The Party And Guests, from 1966.  It was permanently banned in Czechoslovakia.  It involves a group of party guests accosted by bullies on their way to a party, and then, after being rescued by the host, events move to the outdoor dinner party itself.  The dinner party is like a vastly expanded Mad Hatter Tea Party, with the host playing the part of Hatter.  A bizarre film, and often uncomfortable to watch, it is nevertheless worth seeing.  The short film comes from 1968, and is called A Boring Afternoon.  It is a very funny look at a city tavern mid day.  A group of local football fans leave the pub to go watch the game, leaving a small assortment of customers behind.  The film ends after the return of the fans, whose hometown team have lost the match.

Poster for Criterion's festival of Czech films.  We are slowly getting through all of them.  

Khalik Allah's 2018 film Black Mother was my regular choice for the following week, a unique kind of documentary about Jamaica, its people, and its setting.  My going away choice was The Garment Jungle.  From 1957 and starring Kerwin Matthews, it is a noirish take on trying to unionize garment workers in NYC.  It is pretty hard hitting (no pun intended) and grim, and Mathews is good as the son of the owner of a factory who hires hoodlums to keep out the union.  The movie loses its mind in the final ten minutes, however, obviously taken over by some studio numbskull.  Up to the finale, it is quite a good film.  I also chose a 10 minute short feature called Night On Bald Mountain, from 1933.  Not very much these days is as experimental as that film was!  Definitely a minor treasure from the vaults of early animation.

Deb chose The Invisible Man, directed by James Whale and from 1933.  This is a really sadistic film, and having not read the book yet I have to think that some of murders are likely contained in Wells' story.  Claude Rains sings and dances and pulls pranks (like sending a train off a cliff killing a hundred people) as the invisible one, among some of the greatest special effects ever to come to cinema.  Even today some of the effects are eye popping.  Her going away choice was called The Last Tree, from 2018.  Autobiographical in nature, it tells of the idyllic life of a young black male in foster care in Lincolnshire.  Suddenly mama appears and takes him back to London, where she lives, as we see him as a teen trying to deal with school, friends, and important choices he must make.

Lastly, my regular choice for this week is called Downpour, another filmed banned in its home country, namely Iran.  From 1972, the b & w gem was restored under Scorcese's Film Foundation.  Only one print remained, and it was badly damaged and in the director's possession.  Other prints of this tragi-comedy had been destroyed by the regime that took over after a period of freedom in Iran.  The film concerns a hopeless loser trying to make his way as a teacher in a small village, and the impact he makes before he is transferred (for becoming too popular).  This is a really strange film, but ultimately quite likeable.

Tomorrow (Saturday) Jenn will visit from Cambridge, meeting us in Kingsville.  Jenn and I will partake of local craft beer while Deb visits her mom, joining us afterwards.  Likely some photos to follow.

Mapman Mike