A Fool Is Someone Who Pays Twice For The Same Thing

Another short story can be found here. Based on this image.

I recently watched The Complete Mr. Arkadin, which had to have been one of the more frustrating experiences of my life. The main character was portrayed by one of the most non-nuanced performances ever. Truly, a horrific acting job, which makes it hard to give a damn about the rest of the movie. But therein lies the rub! The rest of the movie, barring some minor points, is a gem!

There are characters seen onscreen for scant minutes that you could devote entire films to! There's sumptuous, well-thought-out cinematography (there's also some atrocious cinematography lumped in there), and a jigsaw puzzle of a plot that is, in the end, truly fantastic. Let's not forget the dialogue! There's some truly badass dialogue in this movie: "I knew what I wanted. That's the difference between us. In this world there are those who give and those who ask. Those who do not care to give... those who do not dare to ask. You dared. But you were never quite sure what your were asking for. "

Granted, there's some hallmarks of older cinema that I still will never understand: a number of "playful" (for lack of a better term) scenes, involving fun chases and strange games of tug of war. But perhaps the world was simply more playful back then, since people didn't have premarital sex with which to sublimate their drives. Definitely worth checking out, and I've decided, once I'm slightly richer, I'm going to remake the shit out of it, fixing the minor problems and casting John Hamm from Madmen. It'll totally stay in the early fifties, because that's one of the best places to set a movie, as not all problems could be solved with a cellphone call then.