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Arty Chick’s Seven Flicks: Week 1

What are you streaming this week? When the COVID-19 pandemic began, I started a list on my Facebook page, posting a film I love every day. That list has grown, and is still growing, edging up past 150 films. It is getting a little harder to choose a new film. But I’ve remembered a lot of great movies that I’ve watched over the years and they span all genres and eras. And sometimes one film will remind me of another or an actor that I’d forgotten. I’ve stayed away from the last decade because there are a million “best of” lists that included them. These are films that have stayed with me. Some are obscure, and some no doubt skew to my more “arty” taste. But I am sure you’ll find something to watch that will fill that pandemic hole.  I’ll be posting them in batches of 7 each week, until I have nothing more to say. That could take a while.

In the Loop

If there were an Academy Award for the best profanity laden insults in a film, In the Loop would be the winner hands down. There are more barbs thrown in this movie than any other I can remember. But they are wickedly written and perfectly delivered in one of the most taut political comedies I have ever seen. You really have to listen to the dialogue and keep up with a fast paced story. It is set in the British and US diplomatic circles and concerns a rush to war somewhere in the Middle East precipitated by an off hand remark made by British Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster. He is on a talk show discussing aid and mentions a “war on disease,” when the interviewer asks him out of the blue if he is for war. He is thrown and answers that war is “unforeseeable” which is immediately spun by those who want a war as the Prime Minister endorsing the idea. The Americans jump on it, too, with State Department hawks and doves each trying to use him to push their aims. Next thing he knows he is in Washington.