366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 326

The Date: August 21

The Movie: The Blood of the Poet (1930)

What Is It?: Jean Cocteau unfiltered as he steps around anything resembling a plot to revel in avant garde magic tricks. One artist can’t shake the mouth that keeps traveling all over his body. Another takes a disorienting trip through the looking glass. A snowball fight turns tragic. A card game starts gruesomely and just keeps getting worse. The Blood of the Poet should be as well known as Un Chien Andalou. If only Black Francis had written a catchy tune about this one…

Why Today?: Today is Poet’s Day.

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 279

The Date: July 5

The Movie: La Belle et La Bete (1945)

What Is It?: With its combination of furry creatures and romance, Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast isn’t too far removed from, say, The Wolf Man, and nothing in the latter movie is as genuinely creepy as the Beast’s surreal castle, with its candle sconces of human arms and living faces glaring back from its fireplace. Still La Belle et La Bete is a fairy tale at heart, and it is only rivaled by The Wizard of Oz as the most enchanting one ever brought to the big screen. The final moments are positively transcendent.

Why Today?: On this day in 1889, Jean Cocteau is born.