Big news and THE NIGHT PORTER (59)

Hah, well remember my pledges of never missing another Criterion Quest? The pleading and the begging for you, my amazing readers, to forgive me my faults and continue to check daily for a new and, sometimes, exciting blog from yours truly? The nervous excuses and explanations about technological problems and utter distraction? Yeah, I remember those too.

But, again, I fucked up.

San Francisco is a nexus, a vortex, a black hole, and when I'm there I lose track of time and responsibilities, people's names, the need to eat, and so on and so on. Everything disappears in to a haze and, as you well know, on occasion I forget about the this, my life's goal, the Criterion Quest.

That said, I'm moving to San Francisco. Yup, after 27 years in the Emerald City, I'm pulling anchor, and moseying on down to the slightly warmer climes of the city by the bay. Come the end of March, The Other Sanders Brother and I are packing a car with as much shit can fit, throwing the top down, and meandering our way through Oregon and California on the way to futures new and bright. It should be nerve-wracking, at times full of trademark Sanders' Panic, and one of the better times I've had in a while.

Don't fret readers, wherever I can get Netflix, there will always be a Criterion Quest.

I popped in The Night Porter (59) last evening, a wee bit drunk on a Big Secord-poured dollop of twenty-five year old whiskey, and for the twenty-five minutes I was able to keep my eyes squintily open, I was pretty impressed. Coming in to this at one time critically maligned film about an affair between a Nazi soldier and a woman he lords over in a concentration camp. From what I've seen so far, a brief bit I'll be admit, the jumps back and forth in time from past to present exposing the history of this odd relationship and shocking truths behind what happens when ten years after the war, the pairing is rekindled. The flashbacks to the concentration camp are almost nauseatingly theatrical, with reeling cameras, probing lights, and a sort of a human-as-animals feeling that had me cringing a bit. I haven't even tapped the highly controversial (at least in the 1970s) sex scenes but as you can tell by the above image they involve Nazi dress-up time and from what I've gleaned a healthy bit of sadism. Cannot, gulp, wait.

Wednesday: The Night Porter (59)