• Jackson's glove sells for $350,000 at auction
• CORRECTED: Jackson's glove sells for $350,000 at auction
• Michael Jackson's glove sells for $350,000 at auction

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• 30 Minutes-Dahr Jamail: The Will To Resist 2 of 2
• Flicks - Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
• 30 Minutes-Dahr Jamail: The Will To Resist

Flicks - Loves of a Blonde Milos Forman's bittersweet comedy of aimless Czech youth was his best film before he fled to the U.S. by Chris Dashiell - The Film Snob Before coming the United States and directing the award-winning films One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, among others, Milos Forman was a daring and influential director in his native Czechoslovakia, part of that country's cinematic New Wave that came to a bitter end with the Soviet invasion in 1968. And among his Czech films, perhaps his best effort was 1965's Loves of a Blonde.
The authorities in a small Czech town put on a dance so that the soldiers barracked there can mingle with the local girls. During the event, three middle-aged reservists try to hook up with a trio of young local women for a quick fling. One of the girls, named Andula (Hanu Brejchovou) wanders away from the other two, and ends up in the arms of the dance band's young pianist (Vladimíra Pucholta) who says that she should come to Prague and live with him, never dreaming that she would ever actually take him up on his offer.
Forman's style, characteristic in many ways of the Czech New Wave in general, focuses on the little details of everyday life, and in particular the lives of young people, with a gently satiric eye. The long sequence at the dance, with the hesitant and embarrassing behavior of the three men trying to approach the girls, themselves uncertain as to what they want, is a minor masterpiece of observation. After the film narrows its attention to Andula, the blonde of the title, it becomes a bittersweet comment on the differences between youth searching for something to give meaning to their drab existence, and their more conservative elders. Andula ends up on the doorstep of the pianist's parents, with whom he lives, and their reactions to her arrival are very funny, while reflecting at the same time a certain sadness in the girl's situation. In some ways the situation is universal: the plight of young people making the transition to adulthood and trying to pretend they know what they're doing, when in fact they don't even know themselves.
Forman is clear-eyed without being too harsh on his characters. There's also something uniquely eastern European in the movie's point of view: in the sour aftermath of a failed socialist experiment, everyone, young and old, is beset with a confusion that they cannot publicly admit.
With its semi-improvised script, crisp black-and-white photography and use of precise camera angles and close- ups, Loves of a Blonde is one of the most accomplished Czech films of the period - its modest, understated tone subtly augmenting the story's charm. It was quite successful at home and abroad, winning awards and even getting an Oscar nomination, but the government didn't like it, ostensibly because of a mild nude scene, but probably because it was so casually disrespectful of Czech society. After one more film, Forman fled to the U.S., where he gained fame, fortune, and freedom.
Loves of a Blonde is available on DVD.