Four movies for me this week, two in theaters — Boyhood and Million Dollar Arm — and a couple at home, one being Werner Herzog‘s Woyzeck and the other being Steven Spielberg‘s Duel.
I will be reviewing Boyhood, Million Dollar Arm and Woyzeck in good time, but Duel was one I’d had on the DVR for a long time and finally got around to watching it, inspired by the Spielberg post I wrote on Friday. Based on the Richard Matheson story and with a screenplay by Matheson, Duel was Spielberg’s first feature length movie, though it was made for television. A very simple story of a man driving a long distance, home to his wife when he passes an old truck on the highway only to find the driver of the truck decides to spend the rest of the drive tormenting the man, attempting to run him off the road, push him into an oncoming train, etc.
Spielberg shows some serious action chops and a strong ability of creating tension in a situation where it’s rather obvious how things will ultimately play out. 90 minutes is a long time to play this back-and-forth, but for the most part Spielberg keeps you on edge. There are moments where it seems he’s doing whatever he can to pad the running time a bit, but I enjoyed watching it. I’ve included a YouTube version directly below, though the quality is a little sketchy.
Otherwise, this coming week I’ll be seeing Godzilla and possibly a couple of Seattle Film Festival movies, most likely A Trip to Italy, though I still need to see The Trip. It is on Netflix Instant so perhaps that’s a task for this evening.
What did you watch this week?
