After Hours

Yves Montand. Les feuilles mortes

Here's Yves from 1951, looking kind of uni-browish and slightly frightening in a Mr. Hyde-like way, but he sounds good. You'll recognize the tune as the chestnut "Autumn Leaves" - quite appropriate, no? - but the French know it as "The Dead Leaves." Man, for a country chock full of romantics, they sure didn't mess around with that song title. Notice that the film (Parigi è sempre Parigi) is really poorly directed. There are many shots of happy Italians dancing together (Yves himself was 100% Italian), but nobody says anything. Meanwhile, Yves looms in the background singing his tale of lost love. I'm pretty sure that I'd never want to see this movie. But I hope you'll agree that having an accordion in the arrangement was a nice touch.

Oh, and speaking of movies worth seeing, I caught Zombieland and Black Dynamite today. They taught me two things: 1. Even when zombies run really fast, the film can still be funny, and 2. Black Dynamite truly cares about orphans. My favorite line was "I was the best CIA agent that the CIA ever had, man!" Both are great films, but Black Dynamite might just be a masterpiece.