By Dave Umbricht

Welcome to month two of the club. I don’t know about you, but I was jonesing for another fix of great cinema after watching Yojimbo in June. We may have to do this twice a month. But for now, let’s focus on July’s movie.

If you peruse the list, you will see that a good portion of the films are foreign. This is one of the reasons I love the list. I not only get a glimpse of different cultures, but of them at different points in their history. As we watch movies, we see how our culture changes over time, what is permissible, what are the issues we are facing?
Last month we started with a Japanese action film.

……And now for something completely different.

Sorry gang, no Monty Python.

Instead, well, let’s let Roger Ebert open it up:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder premiered “Veronika Voss” in February 1982, at the Berlin Film Festival. It was hailed as one of the best of his 40 films. Late on the night of June 9, 1982, he made a telephone call from Munich to Paris to tell his best friend he had flushed all his drugs down the toilet — everything except for one last line of cocaine. The next morning, Fassbinder was found dead in his room, a cold cigarette between his fingers, a videotape machine still playing. The most famous, notorious and prolific modern German filmmaker was 36.

36 years old, 40 films.

Let that sink in.

I have watched three Fassbinder films…..perhaps it is too early to unleash this on everyone. I do not know, we will find out together.

A note to all US readers, “Veronika Voss” is available for streaming on Hulu Plus.