We got a free month's trial with Netflix. As someone who works at home, I wasn't that attracted to the idea of watching movies in my bedroom. Give me the smell of the popcorn, the snore of the crowd.
Friday evening we watched 8 1/2. I had seen it in college, in a film history course, and found it unintelligible. Thirty-five years later it impressed me with its beautifully orchestrated scenes (especially at the spa) and occasionally penetrating dialogues. But it seemed a little long. And I still didn't get the significance of the title until a few minutes ago when I checked Wikipedia and found that it referred to the number of movies Fellini had made up to that point. (Wikipedia also noted that, coming to Hollywood for the Academy Awards that year, Fellini had toured Disneyland with Walt Disney.)
Saturday night we watched Yosujiro Ozu's Late Autumn, a quiet but mesmerizing film of a kindhearted widower who reluctantly finds a husband for his only daughter. Nothing much happens - there are family scenes, a reunion with school friends, visits to a bar, the eventual wedding, though it's not filmed. Instead we see the father going drinking after the ceremony and then returning to a home now bereft of women.
