tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37721242024-03-23T04:36:28.133-04:00The Perpetual Three-Dot Columnby Jesse WalkerJessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comBlogger1034125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-80890227199626286052024-01-08T08:50:00.000-05:002024-01-08T08:50:22.098-05:00THE POWER OF THREE: I have listed the best motion pictures of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-bakers-coven-i-havent-seen-enough.html">2013</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-year-they-went-to-war-again-ive.html">2003</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/matt-yglesias-dad-beats-ridley-scotts.html">1993</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/83-and-me-i-have-posted-my-favorite.html">1983</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-late-nixon-era-ive-reeled-off-my.html">1973</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/in-abraham-zapruders-shadow-having-told.html">1963</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2024/01/ike-takes-charge-so-far-weve-covered-my.html">1953</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2024/01/big-bands-and-ration-books-our-tour-has.html">1943</a>, and <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2024/01/clyde-bruckman-reposes-at-20-if-youve.html">1933</a>. And now...<br/><br/>
...well, now we stop. Sorry: I just haven't seen enough exceptional movies from 1923 to fill a top 10 list. For the record, my favorite film of 1923 is <i>Safety Last!</i> and my favorite from 1913 is the opening chapters of <i>Fantômas</i>. (That isn't a putdown of the later chapters—it's just that they didn't come out until 1914.) Hang tight til December; we'll start on the 4 years then.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-10447954308310342082024-01-07T09:59:00.004-05:002024-01-07T10:02:58.050-05:00CLYDE BRUCKMAN REPOSES AT #20: If you've come in late, you can catch up by reading my picks for the best flicks of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-bakers-coven-i-havent-seen-enough.html">2013</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-year-they-went-to-war-again-ive.html">2003</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/matt-yglesias-dad-beats-ridley-scotts.html">1993</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/83-and-me-i-have-posted-my-favorite.html">1983</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-late-nixon-era-ive-reeled-off-my.html">1973</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/in-abraham-zapruders-shadow-having-told.html">1963</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2024/01/ike-takes-charge-so-far-weve-covered-my.html">1953</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2024/01/big-bands-and-ration-books-our-tour-has.html">1943</a>. And if you're already up to speed, keep scrolling.<br/><br/>
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1933, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Cavalcade</i>, which isn't nearly as good as a film based on a Noel Coward play ought to be. Aside from a couple of montages and the song "20th Century Blues," the thing is a study in tedium. These are all better:<br /><br />
1. <b>Duck Soup</b><br />
Directed by Leo McCarey<br />
Written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby with Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin<br /><br />
A <i>cinéma vérité</i> documentary filmed at the White House during the invasion of Iraq.<br /><br />
2. <b>Zero for Conduct</b><br />
Written and directed by Jean Vigo<br /><br />
Anarchy in the schoolhouse.<br /><br />
3. <b>Snow-White</b><br />
Directed by Dave Fleischer<br /><br />
Comparing this to the Disney movie is like comparing an R. Crumb comic to <i>Richie Rich</i>.<br /><br />
4. <b>Land Without Bread</b><br />
Directed by Luis Buñuel<br />
Written by Buñuel, Rafael Sánchez Ventura, and Pierre Unik<br /><br />
The first great mockumentary.<br /><br />
5. <b>Hallelujah, I'm a Bum</b><br />
Directed by Lewis Milestone<br />
Written by S.N. Behrman, from a story by Ben Hecht<br /><br />
When Harry Langdon and Al Jolson have their rhyming debate in the park, it's the closest an old-school Hollywood musical ever comes to being <i>Marat/Sade</i>.<br /><br />
6. <b>I'm No Angel</b><br />
Directed by Wesley Ruggles<br />
Written by Mae West<br /><br />
"I see a man in your life." "What? Only one?"<br /><br />
7. <b>Design for Living</b><br />
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch<br />
Written by Ben Hecht, from a play by Noel Coward<br /><br />
"A man can meet two, three, or four women and fall in love with all of them, and then, by a process of interesting elimination, he is able to decide which he prefers. But a woman must decide purely on instinct, guesswork, if she wants to be considered nice."<br /><br />
8. <b>Outskirts</b><br />
Directed by Boris Barnet <br />
Written by Barnet and Konstantin Finn<br /><br />
Like Dovzhenko's best work, this is part naturalistic, part surrealistic, and part slapstick, sometimes tragic and sometimes comic, while never venturing anywhere near the dogmas of Socialist Realism. Despite the inevitable Bolshevik bits in the final 10 minutes, the politics feel more anarcho-pacifist than Stalinist. It's amazing that someone in the Soviet Union managed to make this as late as 1933.<br /><br />
9. <b>Alice in Wonderland</b><br />
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod<br />
Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies, from two novels by Lewis Carroll<br /><br />
There was at least one genius involved with creating this film, and that was whoever got the idea to cast W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty.<br /><br />
10. <b>International House</b><br />
Directed by A. Edward Sutherland<br />
Written by Neil Brant<br /><br />
Fields is in this one too—and so are Cab Calloway, and Bela Lugosi, and Burns and Allen, and Rudy Vallee, and Col. Stoopnagle, and...<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>42nd Street</b> (Lloyd Bacon, Busby Berkeley)<br />
12. <b>Gold Diggers of 1933</b> (Mervyn LeRoy)<br />
13. <b>Baby Face</b> (Alfred E. Green)<br />
14. <b>Lot in Sodom</b> (James Sibley Watson, Melville Webber)<br />
15. <b>Is My Palm Read</b> (Dave Fleischer)<br />
16. <b>The Wizard of Oz</b> (Ted Eshbaugh)<br />
17. <b>The Mad Doctor</b> (David Hand)<br />
18. <b>Three Little Pigs</b> (Burt Gillett)<br />
19. <b>The Sin of Nora Moran</b> (Phil Goldstone)<br />
20. <b>The Fatal Glass of Beer</b> (Clyde Bruckman)<br /><br />
Of the films of 1933 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in <i>The Power and the Glory</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-6216607960837168582024-01-04T15:36:00.001-05:002024-01-04T15:36:14.090-05:00BIG BANDS AND RATION BOOKS: Our tour has taken us through my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-bakers-coven-i-havent-seen-enough.html">2013</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-year-they-went-to-war-again-ive.html">2003</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/matt-yglesias-dad-beats-ridley-scotts.html">1993</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/83-and-me-i-have-posted-my-favorite.html">1983</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-late-nixon-era-ive-reeled-off-my.html">1973</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/in-abraham-zapruders-shadow-having-told.html">1963</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2024/01/ike-takes-charge-so-far-weve-covered-my.html">1953</a>. Now let's leap into the '40s.<br/><br/>
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1943, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Casablanca</i>—a great movie but a peculiar choice, since it actually debuted in 1942. Yes, I put it in my <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/01/we-are-entering-war-zone-we-have.html"> top 10 list</a> for that year. No, I won't repeat it in this one.<br /><br />
1. <b>Shadow of a Doubt</b><br />
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock<br />
Written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville, from a story by Gordon McDonell<br /><br />
Few film experiences are as enjoyably odd as watching Thornton Wilder's sensibility collide with Hitchcock's. Wilder's screenplay is an ode to conformity, and Hitch's picture drily undercuts the script at every turn.<br /><br />
2. <b>Meshes of the Afternoon</b><br />
Directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid<br />
Written by Deren<br /><br />
The most contemporary-feeling entry on this list: It's <a href="https://reason.com/2022/12/02/new-movie-lists-honor-jeanne-dielman-and-2001-snub-tiktok/">easy to imagine</a> a giffable fragment of the film flickering in a tweet, a Facebook status, or an Instagram story, lending its uncanniness to an internet that itself feels awfully uncanny already. <br /><br />
3. <b>Le Corbeau</b><br />
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot<br />
Written by Clouzot and Louis Chavance, from a story by Chavance<br /><br />
The Resistance denounced this Vichy-era story of small-town paranoia as an attack on the French people, but in retrospect it looks more like a critique of the culture of collaboration.<br /><br />
4. <b>Red Hot Riding Hood</b><br />
Written and directed by Tex Avery<br /><br />
<i>The Male Gaze: A Comedy</i>.<br /><br />
5. <b>Ossessione</b><br />
Directed by Luchino Visconti<br />
Written by Visconti, Mario Alicata, Giuseppe De Santis, and Gianni Puccinim, from a novel by James M. Cain<br /><br />
The first and best of the pictures based on <i>The Postman Always Rings Twice</i>.<br /><br />
6. <b>The Ox-Bow Incident</b><br />
Directed by William A. Wellman<br />
Written by Lamar Trotti, from a novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark<br /><br />
Ideologically I have mixed feelings about this <i>noir</i> western: I like its defense of due process, but I don't care for the implication—common in pictures from this period—that lynching was just a matter of mobs' passions getting out of control, rather than something a power structure did to keep people in line. <i>Cinematically</i>, on the other hand, this is practically perfect.<br /><br />
7. <b>I Walked with a Zombie</b><br />
Directed by Jacques Tourneur<br />
Written by Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray, from a novel by Charlotte Brontë<br /><br />
Long before <i>Pride and Prejudice and Zombies</i>, this movie gave us <i>Jane Eyre and Zombies</i>.<br /><br />
8. <b>Five Graves to Cairo</b><br />
Directed by Billy Wilder<br />
Written by Wilder and Charles Brackett, from a play by Lajos Bíró<br /><br />
Like I said, <i>Casablanca</i> isn't on this list. But this sure feels a lot like <i>Casablanca</i>.<br /><br />
9. <b>Day of Wrath</b><br />
Directed by Carl Dreyer<br />
Written by Dreyer, Poul Knudsen, and Mogens Skot-Hansen, from a play by Hans Wiers-Jenssen<br /><br />
This tale of a witch hunt would make an interesting triple bill with <i>Ox-Bow</i> and <i>Le Corbeau</i>.<br /><br />
10. <b>The Eternal Return</b><br />
Directed by Jean Delannoy<br />
Written by Jean Cocteau<br /><br />
A fairy-tale romance. Remember, <i>real</i> fairy tales are cruel and weird.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Tortoise Wins by a Hare</b> (Bob Clampett)<br />
12. <b>Journey Into Fear</b> (Norman Foster, Orson Welles)<br />
13. <b>Lumière D'Été</b> (Jean Grémillon)<br />
14. <b>Dumb-Hounded</b> (Tex Avery)<br />
15. <b>Stormy Weather</b> (Andrew L. Stone)<br />
16. <b>The Seventh Victim</b> (Mark Robson)<br />
17. <b>The Fallen Sparrow</b> (Richard Wallace)<br />
18. <b>Tin Pan Alley Cats</b> (Bob Clampett)<br />
19. <b>Falling Hare</b> (Bob Clampett)<br />
20. <b>Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs</b> (Bob Clampett)<br /><br />
I'll spare you the trouble of counting: 6 of those 20 films are cartoon shorts, all from either Tex Avery or Bob Clampett. I've said before that if I allowed individual TV episodes onto these lists, there are years in the '90s that would be overwhelmed by installments of <i>The Simpsons</i>. I suppose this is the equivalent for World War II.<br /><br />
Of the films of 1943 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in <i>The Phantom Baron</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-49871438996228931012024-01-02T12:55:00.009-05:002024-01-02T13:28:21.734-05:00IKE TAKES CHARGE: So far we've covered my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-bakers-coven-i-havent-seen-enough.html">2013</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-year-they-went-to-war-again-ive.html">2003</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/matt-yglesias-dad-beats-ridley-scotts.html">1993</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/83-and-me-i-have-posted-my-favorite.html">1983</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-late-nixon-era-ive-reeled-off-my.html">1973</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/in-abraham-zapruders-shadow-having-told.html">1963</a>. You may have anticipated what comes next.<br/><br/>
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1953, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>From Here to Eternity</i>. I like that one, but I like these better:<br /><br />
1. <b>Glen or Glenda</b><br />
Written and directed by Ed Wood<br /><br />
It draws heavily on found footage, espouses radical sexual politics, and refuses to obey any genre constraints. It jumps merrily from B-movie drama to mock educational film to surreal dream imagery. Unlike all those "socially conscious" liberal studio movies of the '50s, it actually challenges the consensus of its day, sometimes with arguments that adopt the era's assumptions and sometimes in ways far removed from the mainstream. And it casts the guy who played Dracula as God. Isn't it time we recognized this picture as a landmark underground film, as daring and unconventional as anything by Brakhage, Deren, or Conner?<br /><br />
2. <b>Duck Amuck</b><br />
Directed by Chuck Jones<br />
Written by Michael Maltese<br /><br />
Bugs and Daffy never had much use for the fourth wall to begin with, but in this short they pretty much obliterate it.<br /><br />
3. <b>The Naked Spur</b><br />
Written and directed by Anthony Mann<br /><br />
There's an intense psychological thriller lurking beneath this cowboy-movie setting, with James Stewart in one of his most complex and morally ambiguous roles.<br /><br />
4. <b>Tokyo Story</b><br />
Directed by Yasujirō Ozu<br />
Written by Ozu and Kôgo Noda<br /><br />
Self-absorbed adults grow emotionally estranged from their parents. Quiet but devastating.<br /><br />
5. <b>Eaux d'Artifice</b><br />
Written and directed by Kenneth Anger<br /><br />
Not much happens in this film—there's a woman walking in a garden, and there's water, and there's the color blue, and there's a burst of a different color. As far as I'm concerned, it's Anger's masterpiece.<br /><br />
6. <b>Ugetsu Monogatari</b><br />
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi<br />
Written by Matsutarô Kawaguchi and Yoshikata Yoda, from stories by Akinari Ueda<br /><br />
A samurai movie about potters, not a potted movie about samurais.<br /><br />
7. <b>El</b><br />
Directed by Luis Buñuel<br />
Written by Buñuel and Luis Alcoriza, from a novel by Mercedes Pinto<br /><br />
Sometimes I think Buñuel was never better than when he was helming Mexican potboilers. He certainly had a knack for transforming them into something strange.<br /><br />
8. <b>Niagara</b><br />
Directed by Henry Hathaway<br />
Written by Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch, and Richard L. Breen<br /><br />
A Hitchcockian nightmare about death and marriage.<br /><br />
9. <b>Stalag 17</b><br />
Directed by Billy Wilder<br />
Written by Wilder and Edwin Blum, from a play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski<br /><br />
I could do without some of the supporting cast, but it's still the funniest movie ever set in a wartime prison camp.<br /><br />
10. <b>Summer with Monika</b><br />
Directed by Ingmar Bergman<br />
Written by Bergman, from a novel by Per Anders Fogelström<br /><br />
According to Eric Schaefer's <A href="https://www.amazon.com/Bold-Daring-Shocking-True-Exploitation/dp/0822323745"><i>Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!</i></a>, an abridged version of this movie—dubbed into American English, rescored by Les Baxter, and with marketing materials that played up the picture's nude scene—lit up the exploitation circuit while the full film was being screened in arthouses. I like to imagine that somewhere it landed on a double bill with <i>Glen or Glenda</i>.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>The Wages of Fear</b> (Henri-Georges Clouzot)<br />
12. <b>The Big Heat</b> (Fritz Lang)<br />
13. <b>Pickup on South Street</b> (Sam Fuller)<br />
14. <b>The Band Wagon</b> (Vincente Minnelli)<br />
15. <b>Little Fugitive</b> (Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin)<br />
16. <b>Gentlemen Prefer Blondes</b> (Howard Hawks)<br />
17. <b>Mr. Hulot's Holiday</b> (Jacques Tati)<br />
18. <b>Daybreak Express</b> (D.A. Pennebaker)<br />
19. <b>The Tell-Tale Heart</b> (Ted Parmelee)<br />
20. <b>Eneri</b> (Hy Hirsh)<br /><br />
<i>Great unsung performance:</i> Richard Boone in <i>Vicki</i>.<br /><br />
<i>Worst narration:</i> Apparently, <i>Anatahan</i> was Jim Morrison's favorite movie. Does that mean we can blame Morrison's habit of reciting bad poetry over Ray Manzarek's sometimes-sublime keyboards on Josef von Sternberg's decision to recite his monotonic narration over his own sometimes-sublime photography? Probably not, but of everything wrong with <i>Anatahan</i>—and there is a <i>lot</i> wrong with it—surely the narration tops the list.<br /><br />
Of the films of 1953 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in <i>Roman Holiday</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-78371132013998508022023-12-31T10:22:00.002-05:002023-12-31T12:56:24.907-05:00IN ABRAHAM ZAPRUDER'S SHADOW: Having told you my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-bakers-coven-i-havent-seen-enough.html">2013</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-year-they-went-to-war-again-ive.html">2003</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/matt-yglesias-dad-beats-ridley-scotts.html">1993</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/83-and-me-i-have-posted-my-favorite.html">1983</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-late-nixon-era-ive-reeled-off-my.html">1973</a>, I now turn to...well, you know.<br/><br/>
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1963, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Tom Jones</i>—the movie, not the singer. It isn't very memorable, and it isn't on my list.<br /><br />
1. <b>The Birds</b><br />
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock<br />
Written by Evan Hunter, from a novel by Daphne du Maurier <br /><br />
If it isn't Hitch's best movie, it's certainly his scariest.<br /><br />
2. <b>Ikarie XB-1</b><br />
Directed by Jindřich Polák<br />
Written by Polák and Pavel Juráček, from a novel by Stanislaw Lem<br /><br />
My pick for the most stylish space-fiction film of the '60s—and yes, I've seen <i>2001</i>.<br /><br />
3. <b>The Silence</b><br />
Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman<br /><br />
The final and finest segment of the <i>Silence of God</i> trilogy. <br /><br />
4. <b>The Haunting</b><br />
Directed by Robert Wise<br />
Written by Nelson Gidding, from a novel by Shirley Jackson<br /><br />
How I resented this picture the first time I saw it! The campy beginning relaxed my defenses and let me feel superior to the material; by the time its superbly crafted chills were jolting me in my seat, I was too proud to admit I'd been taken in. Forgive me, <i>Haunting</i>: You're a great horror movie, and I regret ever claiming to dislike you.<br /><br />
5. <b>This Sporting Life</b><br />
Directed by Lindsay Anderson<br />
Written by David Storey, from his novel<br /><br />
The <i>other</i> notable William Hartnell role of 1963. And with its flashback structure, it features several jumps through time. Hmm.<br /><br />
6. <b>The Leopard</b><br />
Directed by Luchino Visconti<br />
Written by Visconti, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Enrico Medioli, Massimo Franciosa, and Suso Cecchi d'Amico, from a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa<br /><br />
I'm not sure what it says that Burt Lancaster's best performance features someone else's voice.<br /><br />
7. <b>The Great Escape</b><br />
Directed by John Sturges<br />
Written by James Clavell and W.R. Burnett, from a book by Paul Brickhill<br /><br />
"Perhaps we're being too clever. If we stop all the breakouts, it will only convince the goons we must be tunneling."<br /><br />
8. <b>Scorpio Rising</b><br />
Directed by Kenneth Anger<br />
Written by Anger and Ernest D. Glucksman<br /><br />
The funniest fetish film ever made.<br /><br />
9. <b>Judex</b><br />
Directed by Georges Franju<br />
Written by Jacques Champreux and Francis Lacassin, from a story by Louis Feuillade and Arthur Bernède<br /><br />
A semi-surrealist semi-superhero story.<br /><br />
10. <b>Muriel, or The Time of Return</b><br />
Directed by Alain Resnais<br />
Written by Jean Cayrol<br /><br />
The art of the abrupt edit.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Winter Light</b> (Ingmar Bergman)<br />
12. <b>The Servant</b> (Joseph Losey)<br />
13. <b>Méditerranée</b> (Jean-Daniel Pollet, Volker Schlöndorff)<br />
14. <b>Hud</b> (Martin Ritt)<br />
15. <b>Renaissance</b> (Walerian Borowczyk)<br />
16. <b>An Actor's Revenge</b> (Kon Ichikawa)<br />
17. <b>High and Low</b> (Akira Kurosawa)<br />
18. <b>Moth Light</b> (Stan Brakhage)<br />
19. <b>To Parsifal</b> (Bruce Baillie)<br />
20. <b>Charade</b> (Stanley Donen)<br /><br />
Of the films of 1963 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in <i>The Cool World</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-59398523710709379412023-12-28T15:52:00.000-05:002023-12-28T15:52:54.122-05:00THE LATE NIXON ERA: I've reeled off my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-bakers-coven-i-havent-seen-enough.html">2013</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-year-they-went-to-war-again-ive.html">2003</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/matt-yglesias-dad-beats-ridley-scotts.html">1993</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/83-and-me-i-have-posted-my-favorite.html">1983</a>. And now...<br/><br/>
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1973, it gave its Best Picture award to a comedy called <i>The Sting</i>. That one made it into my list of honorable mentions, but it didn't crack the top 10:<br /><br />
1. <b>F for Fake</b><br />
Directed by Orson Welles<br />
Written by Welles and Oja Kodar<br /><br />
A deliberately deceitful documentary, bordering on a mockumentary, about storytelling, filmmaking, forgery, and other forms of fakery.<br /><br />
2. <b>The Long Goodbye</b><br />
Directed by Robert Altman<br />
Written by Leigh Brackett, from a novel by Raymond Chandler<br /><br />
I have heard this anti-<i>noir</i> condemned on the grounds that no one is less suited to play Philip Marlowe than Elliott Gould. I say that's part of the point.<br /><br />
3. <b>Badlands</b><br />
Written and directed by Terrence Malick<br /><br />
"Loooooove...love is strange."<br /><br />
4. <b>The Last Detail</b><br />
Directed by Hal Ashby<br />
Written by Robert Towne, from a novel by Darryl Ponicsan<br /><br />
Part of that amazing streak Jack Nicholson had in the early to mid 1970s, when it must have seemed like he was incapable of starring in a bad movie.<br /><br />
5. <b>Charley Varrick</b><br />
Directed by Don Siegel<br />
Written by Dean Riesner and Howard Rodman, from a novel by John Reese<br /><br />
An elegy for individualism, delivered by one of Hollywood's most individualistic directors.<br /><br />
6. <b>The Friends of Eddie Coyle</b><br />
Directed by Peter Yates<br />
Written by Paul Monash, from a novel by George V. Higgins<br /><br />
The book is great too, but it doesn't have Robert Mitchum.<br /><br />
7. <b>Mean Streets</b><br />
Directed by Martin Scorsese<br />
Written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin<br /><br />
An ur-movie whose influence echoes from <i>The Bad Lieutenant</i> to <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2004/10/01/david-simon-says"><i>The Wire</i></a>.<br /><br />
8. <b>Paper Moon</b><br />
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich<br />
Written by Alvin Sargent, from a novel by Joe David Brown<br /><br />
"We just have to keep on veering, that's all."<br /><br />
9. <b>Day for Night</b><br />
Directed by François Truffaut<br />
Written by Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard, and Suzanne Schiffman<br /><br />
There's this whole genre of movies about making movies, from <i>The Cameraman</i> to <i>8 1/2</i> to <i>Ed Wood</i> to, um, <i>Hardbodies 2</i>, which isn't any good but it's the first specimen of the genre I ever saw, watching cable one night in my teens, so I'll mention it too. Anyway, this is one of the better ones.<br /><br />
10. <b>Sleeper</b><br />
Directed by Woody Allen<br />
Written by Allen and Marshall Brickman<br /><br />
They saved Hitler's nose.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Scenes from a Marriage</b> (Ingmar Bergman)<br />
12. <b>Don't Look Now</b> (Nicolas Roeg)<br />
13. <b>Wattstax</b> (Mel Stuart)<br />
14. <b>Serpico</b> (Sidney Lumet)<br />
15. <b>Juvenile Court</b> (Frederick Wiseman)<br />
16. <b>Frank Film</b> (Frank Mouris)<br />
17. <b>High Plains Drifter</b> (Clint Eastwood)<br />
18. <b>The Sting</b> (George Roy Hill)<br />
19. <b>My Name is Nobody</b> (Tonino Valerii, Sergio Leone)<br />
20. <b>Hell Up in Harlem</b> (Larry Cohen)<br /><br />
Best montage: It's about an hour into John Milius' <i>Dillinger</i>. You'll know it when you see it.<br /><br />
Of the films of 1973 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in <i>The Mother and the Whore</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-35268996082259280522023-12-26T10:16:00.000-05:002023-12-26T10:16:32.051-05:00'83 AND ME: I have posted my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-bakers-coven-i-havent-seen-enough.html">2013</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-year-they-went-to-war-again-ive.html">2003</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/matt-yglesias-dad-beats-ridley-scotts.html">1993</a>. But we shall not rest; onward to the '80s.<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 1983, it gave its Best Picture award to an all-star weepie called <i>Terms of Endearment</i>. I think that one's fine, but I like these better:<br /><br />
1. <b>Sans Soleil</b><br />
Written and directed by Chris Marker<br /><br />
A strange and lovely essay-film about Africa, Japan, festivals, robots, Hitchcock, and much more. No other movie in the world is like this one.<br /><br />
2. <b>Videodrome</b><br />
Written and directed by David Cronenberg<br /><br />
"It's just torture and murder. No plot, no characters. Very, very realistic. I think it's what's next."<br /><br />
3. <b>The King of Comedy</b><br />
Directed by Martin Scorsese<br />
Written by Paul Zimmerman<br /><br />
This and <i>Videodrome</i> would make an interesting double bill, especially if you're feeling a little paranoid about your TV set.<br /><br />
4. <b>Tender Mercies</b><br />
Directed by Bruce Beresford<br />
Written by Horton Foote<br /><br />
Robert Duvall plays a country singer who's down on his luck. If you don't think that sounds great, you might be reading the wrong blog.<br /><br />
5. <b>Zelig</b><br />
Written and directed by Woody Allen<br /><br />
"It shows exactly what you can do, if you're a total psychotic."<br /><br />
6. <b>Pauline at the Beach</b><br />
Written and directed by Eric Rohmer<br /><br />
I don't know if <i>honest self-deception</i> is logically possible, but that's what the final scene seems to show.<br /><br />
7. <b>The Meaning of Life</b><br />
Directed by Terry Jones with Terry Gilliam<br />
Written by Jones, Gilliam, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin<br /><br />
<i>Palin</i>: What we've come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts. One: People aren't wearing enough hats. Two: Matter is energy. In the universe there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this "soul" does not exist <i>ab initio</i>, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.<br />
<i>Jones</i>: What was that about hats again?<br /><br />
8. <b>El Sur</b><br />
Directed by Victor Erice<br />
Written by Erice, from a novel by Adelaida García Morales<br /><br />
"That was the first time Dad left home in the middle of the night without a word to anyone."<br /><br />
9. <b>El Norte</b><br />
Directed by Gregory Nava<br />
Written by Anna Thomas<br /><br />
I swear I didn't deliberately tweak this so <i>El Norte</i> would be immediately adjacent to <i>El Sur</i>.<br /><br />
10. <b>A Christmas Story</b><br />
Directed by Bob Clark<br />
Written by Clark, Leigh Brown, and Jean Shepherd, from a novel by Shepherd<br /><br />
Available both as a conventional 90-minute movie and, come Christmas, as an ambient 24-hour experience shared by participating households across the TBS and TNT districts of the global village.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>À Nos Amours</b> (Maurice Pialat)<br />
12. <b>John Cage</b> (Peter Greenaway)<br />
13. <b>Carmen</b> (Carlos Saura)<br />
14. <b>Trading Places</b> (John Landis)<br />
15. <b>Possibly in Michigan</b> (Cecelia Condit)<br />
16. <b>The Store</b> (Frederick Wiseman)<br />
17. <b>Risky Business</b> (Paul Brickman)<br />
18. <b>Local Hero</b> (Bill Forsyth)<br />
19. <b>Rockit</b> (Kevin Godley, Lol Creme)<br />
20. <b>Smorgasbord</b> (Jerry Lewis)<br /><br />
Of the films of 1983 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in <i>L'Argent</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-76926876254767868012023-12-24T10:33:00.001-05:002023-12-24T10:33:41.461-05:00MATT YGLESIAS' DAD BEATS RIDLEY SCOTT'S BROTHER: We've gone through my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-bakers-coven-i-havent-seen-enough.html">2013</a> and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-year-they-went-to-war-again-ive.html">2003</a>. Time to slide back another decade.<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked at 1993, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Schindler's List</i>, Steven Spielberg's attempt to find an uplifting story in a genocide. If you want a great film about life and death under Nazi rule, there are many excellent options, from <i>The Sorrow and the Pity</i> to <i>Europa Europa</i>; I <A href="https://reason.com/1997/03/10/st-steven/">don't think</a> this one makes the cut. And if you want a great film from 1993, well...<br /><br />
1. <b>Short Cuts</b><br />
Directed by Robert Altman<br />
Written by Altman and Frank Barhydt, from stories by Raymond Carver<br /><br />
Someday I should write a long essay on the links between highbrow <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink_cinema">hyperlink cinema</a> and lowbrow <A href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_film">disaster flicks</a>. For now I'll just call this the best disaster movie ever made.<br /><br />
2. <b>Groundhog Day</b><br />
Directed by Harold Ramis<br />
Written by Ramis and Danny Rubin<br /><br />
Buddha's favorite romantic comedy.<br /><br />
3. <b>A Perfect World</b><br />
Directed by Clint Eastwood<br />
Written by John Lee Hancock<br /><br />
The joke goes that this is the picture that proved Eastwood's standing as a great director, because he managed to elicit a good performance from Kevin Costner.<br /><br />
4. <b>The Nightmare Before Christmas</b><br />
Directed by Henry Selick<br />
Written by Caroline Thompson and Michael McDowell, from a story by Tim Burton<br /><br />
"Haven't you heard of peace on Earth and goodwill toward men?" <br />"NO!"<br /><br />
5. <b>Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould</b><br />
Directed by François Girard<br />
Written by Girard, Don McKellar, and Nick McKinney<br /><br />
So much better than a conventional biopic.<br /><br />
6. <b>Latcho Drom</b><br />
Written and directed by Tony Gatlif<br /><br />
This celebration of Gypsy music is often described as a documentary. But the whole thing was scripted and staged, so it might make more sense to call it a hundred-minute music video.<br /><br />
7. <b>Fearless</b><br />
Directed by Peter Weir<br />
Written by Rafael Yglesias, from his novel<br /><br />
Someone once told me he saw this on an airplane. Seems unlikely, but I was once on a plane where they showed us <i>Apollo 13</i>—this was back when the whole flight saw the same movie—and they somehow even timed it so that we were making our descent while we watched the spacecraft plunge to Earth, so who knows? Maybe it really happened.<br /><br />
8. <b>Manhattan Murder Mystery</b><br />
Directed by Woody Allen<br />
Written by Allen and Marshall Brickman<br /><br />
Proof that Allen could be laugh-out-loud funny as late as the 1990s.<br /><br />
9. <b>Dottie Gets Spanked</b><br />
Written and directed by Todd Haynes<br /><br />
The queer fantasies of the American family sitcom.<br /><br />
10. <b>True Romance</b><br />
Directed by Tony Scott<br />
Written by Quentin Tarantino<br /><br />
Tony Scott does Tarantino. And a year later Tarantino got to give us <A href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF1LXL6OOsM">his version</a> of <i>Top Gun</i>, so it all evens out.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>The Bed You Sleep In</b> (Jon Jost)<br />
12. <b>Red Rock West</b> (John Dahl)<br />
13. <b>Mad Dog and Glory</b> (John McNaughton)<br />
14. <b>The Scent of Green Papaya</b> (Tran Anh Hung)<br />
15. <b>The Wrong Trousers</b> (Nick Park)<br />
16. <b>The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl</b> (Ray Müller)<br />
17. <b>Body Snatchers</b> (Abel Ferrara)<br />
18. <b>The Junky's Christmas</b> (Nick Donkin, Melodie McDaniel)<br />
19. <b>The Hour of the Pig</b> (Leslie Megahey)<br />
20. <b>Blue</b> (Krzysztof Kieslowski)<br /><br />
Of the films of 1993 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in <i>Exterior Night</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-69368684110038685952023-12-22T09:10:00.001-05:002023-12-22T09:10:07.509-05:00THE YEAR THEY WENT TO WAR (AGAIN): I've told you my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-bakers-coven-i-havent-seen-enough.html">2013</a>. Now let's hop back another 10 years.<br/><br/>
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 2003, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>The Return of the King</i>, a steadily-more-tedious bore of an epic that excises the best part of Tolkien's trilogy to make room for a four-hour sequence of hobbits jumping on a bed. (That's four hours in <i>subjective</i> time, of course. It is possible that I fell asleep during this scene and that the time that actually elapsed was longer.) These are all better:<br /><br />
1. <b>The Wire 2</b><br />
Written by David Simon, Ed Burns, Joy Lusco, Rafael Alvarez, and George Pelecanos<br />
Directed by Ed Bianchi, Elodie Keene, Steve Shill, Thomas J. Wright, Dan Attias, Tim Van Patten, Rob Bailey, and Ernest Dickerson<br /><br />
Not only do I love the oft-maligned second season of <i>The Wire</i>; I think the union leader at the heart of the story, Frank Sobotka—a tragic hero who thinks he can do good by doing evil, and is brought down by it—is the show's best character this side of Omar.<br /><br />
2. <b>Tarnation</b><br />
Directed by Jonathan Caouette<br /><br />
By 2003 video cameras were standard equipment for a middle-class American household, and they had been for long enough that a documentary like this was possible. <i>Tarnation</i> takes the video diaries that Caouette started shooting at age 11 and assembles them into something absorbing, unsettling, and visually stunning.<br /><br />
3. <b>The Saddest Music in the World</b><br />
Directed by Guy Maddin<br />
Written by Maddin and George Toles, from a story by Kazuo Ishiguro<br /><br />
You probably haven't heard of this one, but I swear it's one of the funniest comedies of the 21st century.<br /><br />
4. <b>Osama</b><br />
Written and directed by Siddiq Barmak<br /><br />
No, it isn't about bin Laden. But it is, in a way, about his mindset.<br /><br />
5. <b>Lost in Translation</b><br />
Written and directed by Sofia Coppola<br /><br />
If you want to appreciate how good Bill Murray is, watch the scene where his character makes a whiskey commercial. Everyone on the set but him speaks Japanese, and he has no idea what's going on. He tells us this with small movements of his jaw and eyes, and as I watched in the theater every one of those little facial ticks sparked spasms of audience laughter. I'm not an actor, but I'm pretty sure of this: It can't be easy to make people laugh just by moving your pupils slightly to the left or right.<br /><br />
6. <b>Saraband</b><br />
Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman<br /><br />
The sequel to <i>Scenes From a Marriage</i> is moving, disturbing, bleak; even better, I think, than the original.<br /><br />
7. <b>Kill Bill: Vol. 1</b><br />
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino<br /><br />
A trash symphony.<br /><br />
8. <b>Good Bye Lenin!</b><br />
Directed by Wolfgang Becker<br />
Written by Becker and Bernd Lichtenberg<br /><br />
There's a whiff of <i>Ostalgie</i> here, but I can overlook that—the concept is just so deliriously funny, and the protagonists' motive so sweet.<br /><br />
9. <b>Looney Tunes: Back in Action</b><br />
Directed by Joe Dante<br />
Written by Larry Doyle<br /><br />
Dante dubbed this the anti–<i>Space Jam</i>, and that is exactly what he made.<br /><br />
10. <b>The Same River Twice</b><br />
Directed by Robb Moss<br /><br />
What <i>The Big Chill</i> was trying to be.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>The Triplets of Belleville</b> (Sylvain Chomet)<br />
12. <b>Swimming Pool</b> (François Ozon)<br />
13. <b>The Agronomist</b> (Jonathan Demme)<br />
14. <b>Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring</b> (Kim Ki-duk)<br />
15. <b>A Mighty Wind</b> (Christopher Guest)<br />
16. <b>Capturing the Friedmans</b> (Andrew Jarecki)<br />
17. <b>All the Real Girls</b> (David Gordon Green)<br />
18. <b>Hurt</b> (Mark Romanek)<br />
19. <b>My Architect</b> (Nathaniel Kahn)<br />
20. <b>Cunnilingus in North Korea</b> (Young-Hae Chang, Marc Voge)<br /><br />
And I guess I should give a shout-out to <i>Dogville</i>, if only because anyone writing about the films of 2003 is probably obliged to take a stand one way or another on <i>Dogville</i>. I am pro-<i>Dogville</i>, mostly. I grant you that it is misanthropic, but plenty of good art is misanthropic. What's less forgivable is that it's too long.<br /><br />
Of the films of 2003 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>The Flower of Evil</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-62543726085600440562023-12-20T12:07:00.001-05:002023-12-20T12:23:33.761-05:00A BAKER'S COVEN: I haven't seen enough movies from 2023 to write a good best-of-the-year list. Fortunately, I've got a while to catch up: The tradition here at <i>The Perpetual Three-Dot Column</i> is to list the best movies of a decade ago, two decades ago, and so on, voyaging backward to the dawn of cinema or til my film literacy peters out, whichever comes first.<br /><br />
When the Motion Picture Academy looked at 2013, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>12 Years a Slave</i>, a movie I avoided for a long time—all the talk about how "important" and "necessary" it was had me expecting one of those films that's more interested in being good for you than in actually being good. I shouldn't have waited: It turned out to be a riveting story about the ways a system like slavery poisons everyone involved with it. It made it into my top 20. But it isn't at #1:<br /><br />
1. <b>Her</b><br />
Written and directed by Spike Jonze<br /><br />
Between this and the picture at #3, this lineup of movies has more interesting things to say about artificial intelligence than 90% of the past year's A.I. hot takes.<br /><br />
2. <b>The Wind Rises</b><br />
Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki<br /><br />
"Humanity has always dreamt of flying, but the dream is cursed. My aircraft are destined to become tools for slaughter."<br /><br />
3. <b>Computer Chess</b><br />
Written and directed by Andrew Bujalski<br /><br />
At first, you might mistake this for a documentary. At first.<br /><br />
4. <b>Inside Llewyn Davis</b><br />
Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen<br /><br />
"If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it's a folk song."<br /><br />
5. <b>Enemy</b><br />
Directed by Denis Villeneuve<br />
Written by Javier Gullón, from a novel by José Saramago<br /><br />
2013 wasn't just a good year for A.I.: This and the item at #9 made it a rich time for doppelgängers.<br /><br />
6. <b>Ida</b><br />
Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski<br />
Written by Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz<br /><br />
A road trip across an early-'60s Polish landscape, haunted by a not-so-distant Holocaust and by the even closer crimes of the Stalin era.<br /><br />
7. <b>Stoker</b><br />
Directed by Park Chan-wook<br />
Written by Wentworth Miller<br /><br />
Shadow of another doubt.<br /><br />
8. <b>The East</b><br />
Directed by Zal Batmanglij<br />
Written by Batmanglij and Brit Marling<br /><br />
Brit Marling specializes in sharply written screenplays about tight-knit cells that dwell in their own micro-realities—the sort of group that outsiders might consider a "<a href="https://reason.com/2021/05/16/cult-country/">cult</a>." But that's not to say the viewer always ends up siding with the outsiders.<br /><br />
9. <b>Orphan Black</b><br />
Written by Graeme Manson, Karen Walton, Alex Levine, Will Pascoe, and Tony Elliott<br />
Directed by John Fawcett, T.J. Scott, David Frazee, Grant Harvey, Brett Sullivan, and Ken Girotti<br /><br />
This science-fiction series about assassins, clones, and conspiracies would later fade in quality; I never even finished the final season. But if you treat this year's episodes as an (almost) self-contained miniseries, you won't have to worry about that.<br /><br />
10. <b>The Wolf of Wall Street</b><br />
Directed by Martin Scorsese<br />
Written by Terence Winter, from a memoir by Jordan Belfort<br /><br />
Early in this movie, a <i>Forbes</i> exposé of the title character's misdeeds ends up serving as an advertisement for the article's target, with a flood of young brokers begging to work for him. On some level, Scorsese must have realized that this stock-fraud <i>Goodfellas</i> would do something similar for Wall Street. But look: We respect talent here, and the quaalude/Popeye sequence alone is great enough to earn this movie a spot in the top 20. The infomercial arrest boosts it into the top 10.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Before Midnight</b> (Richard Linklater)<br />
12. <b>The Americans</b> (Joe Weisberg, Joel Fields)<br />
13. <b>12 Years a Slave</b> (Steve McQueen)<br />
14. <b>Snowpiercer</b> (Bong Joon-ho)<br />
15. <b>Mood Indigo</b> (Michel Gondry)<br />
16. <b>Frozen</b> (Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck)<br />
17. <b>Upstream Color</b> (Shane Carruth)<br />
18. <b>Twenty Feet from Stardom</b> (Morgan Neville)<br />
19. <b>American Reflexxx</b> (Alli Coates)<br />
20. <b>Skinner Box Head</b> (Sholim)<br /><br />
That item at #12 is a TV show, so the names in parentheses after it are showrunners, not directors. And that item at #20 is a GIF, so the name in parentheses after it is a <a href="https://reason.com/2014/10/01/avant-gifs/">GIF artist</a>. For years I swore that one day I'd put a GIF on one of these lists, and now I have. <i>We're throwing all the rules out the window, baby!</i><br /><br />
Of the films of 2013 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in <i>The Tale of the Princess Kaguya</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-37861612108669040762023-01-07T09:30:00.005-05:002023-01-07T19:00:50.833-05:00HAS IT REALLY BEEN A WHOLE CENTURY?: I have picked the best pictures of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mayan-apocalypse-now-while-other.html">2012</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-year-i-moved-to-baltimore-on-monday.html">2002</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/our-perot-year-i-have-listed-my.html">1992</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mostly-on-edge-i-have-reeled-off-my.html">1982</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/pols-and-mobsters-i-have-told-you-my.html">1972</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/sixty-two-skidoo-weve-toured-my.html">1962</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/01/52-card-pickup-so-far-ive-blogged-my.html">1952</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/01/we-are-entering-war-zone-we-have.html">1942</a>, and <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/01/prosperity-is-just-around-corner-weve.html">1932</a>. You have probably anticipated my next step.<br/><br/>
Welcome to 1922. We are in the pre-Oscar era now, so I can't start this my usual way by telling you what won Best Picture. I can say that the top-grossing movie in America this year is <i>Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood</i>—yes, the official title includes the star's name. I have never seen it. But I have seen these:<br /><br />
1. <b>Salomé</b><br />
Directed by Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova<br />
Written by Nazimova and Natacha Rambova, from a play by Oscar Wilde<br /><br />
Feels more like Kenneth Anger than Oscar Wilde.<br /><br />
2. <b> Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror</b><br />
Directed by F.W. Murnau<br />
Written by Henrik Galeen, from a novel by Bram Stoker<br /><br />
Dracula, but less suave and more goblinny.<br /><br />
3. <b>Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, Part 2—Inferno: A Game for the People of Our Age </b><br />
Directed by Fritz Lang<br />
Written by Lang and Thea von Harbou, from a novel by Norbert Jacques<br /><br />
Tired of superhero movies? Here's a vintage super<i>villain</i> movie.<br /><br />
4. <b>Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, Part 1—The Great Gambler: A Picture of the Time </b><br />
Directed by Fritz Lang<br />
Written by Lang and Thea von Harbou, from a novel by Norbert Jacques<br /><br />
It's good that part two is ranked higher. That means the story keeps getting better.<br /><br />
5. <b>Cops</b><br />
Written and directed by Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline<br /><br />
Buster has a run-in with the LAPD—and I mean <i>all</i> of the LAPD.<br /><br />
6. <b>The Blacksmith</b><br />
Written and directed by Buster Keaton and Malcolm St. Clair<br /><br />
Yes, it's Buster Keaton again. He was having a good year.<br /><br />
7. <b>Grandma's Boy</b><br />
Directed by Fred C. Newmeyer<br />
Written by Hal Roach, Sam Taylor, Jean Havez, and H.M. Walker<br /><br />
Harold Lloyd was also having a good year.<br /><br />
8. <b>Pay Day</b><br />
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin<br /><br />
Even Charlie Chaplin was having a pretty good year. I'm not a huge Chaplin fan, but none of my usual complaints about him apply to <i>Pay Day</i>: This is fast-paced, funny, and unsentimental—head-and-shoulders better than anything else the man did before <i>Modern Times</i>.<br /><br />
9. <b>Jumping Beans</b><br />
Directed by Dave Fleischer<br />
Written by Max Fleischer<br /><br />
A 12-minute tale of space travel and cloning, with allusions along the way to <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> and <i>Jack and the Beanstalk</i>.<br /><br />
10. <b>Witchcraft Through the Ages</b><br />
Written and directed by Benjamin Christensen<br /><br />
If you don't mind mixing a little 1968 into your 1922, look for the version narrated by William Burroughs.<br /><br />
I haven't got a full list of 10 honorable mentions this time, but I'll give a shoutout to Walther Ruttmann's experimental advertisement <i>Der Sieger</i>. Here we are, barely past World War I, and already ads are absorbing the avant garde—or is it the other way around?<br /><br />
Of the films of 1922 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>Phantom</i>.<br /><br />
I have not watched enough movies from 1912, let alone enough <i>good</i> movies from 1912, to do another top 10 after this one. So this post is where this year's list-fest ends. For the record, my favorite movie of 1912 is Wladyslaw Starewicz's <i>The Cameraman's Revenge</i>. My favorite movie of 1902 is Georges Méliès' <i>La Voyage Dans la Lune</i>. My favorite movie of 1892 is Charles-Émile Reynaud's <i>Pauvre Pierrot</i>. And my favorite movie of 1882—if <i>movie</i> is the right word for it—is Eadweard Muybridge's <i>The Kiss</i>. If you have a brilliant fantascope disc from 1872 to recommend, drop me a line.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-54336954660092276792023-01-05T08:33:00.006-05:002023-01-21T21:38:36.454-05:00PROSPERITY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER: We've listed the best films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mayan-apocalypse-now-while-other.html">2012</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-year-i-moved-to-baltimore-on-monday.html">2002</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/our-perot-year-i-have-listed-my.html">1992</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mostly-on-edge-i-have-reeled-off-my.html">1982</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/pols-and-mobsters-i-have-told-you-my.html">1972</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/sixty-two-skidoo-weve-toured-my.html">1962</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/01/52-card-pickup-so-far-ive-blogged-my.html">1952</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/01/we-are-entering-war-zone-we-have.html">1942</a>. Up next...<br/><br/>
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1932, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Grand Hotel</i>, a movie that spawned a thousand imitators (including just about every well-known disaster movie and, indirectly, the whole <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink_cinema">hyperlink cinema</a> genre). It is, alas, a <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2003/02/cineplex-roundup-assortment-of-films.html">mixed bag</a> itself. These are all better:<br /><br />
1. <b>Vampyr</b><br />
Directed by Carl Dreyer<br />
Written by Dreyer and Christen Jul, from stories by Sheridan Le Fanu<br /><br />
Forget <i>Dracula</i>: This is the best vampire movie I've ever seen.<br /><br />
2. <b>Island of Lost Souls</b><br />
Directed by Erle C. Kenton<br />
Written by Philip Wylie and Waldemar Young, from a novel by H.G. Wells<br /><br />
A mad pre-Code picture based on H.G. Wells' best book, starring Bela Lugosi and the great Charles Laughton.<br /><br />
3. <b>Ivan</b><br />
Written and directed by Alexander Dovzhenko<br /><br />
Suppose you're a brilliant Ukrainian director working in Stalin's Soviet Union. Your last film upset the art commissars, and you've been assigned to put together a propaganda picture about the building of the Dneiper Dam. And then you turn in <i>this</i> crazy masterpiece. You, sir, have brass balls.<br /><br />
4. <b>Freaks</b><br />
Directed by Tod Browning<br />
Written by Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon, Al Boasberg, Charles MacArthur, and Edgar Allan Woolf, from a story by Tod Robbins<br /><br />
Keep forgetting <i>Dracula</i>: This is Browning's greatest film. Even its flaws work in its favor: Stiff acting usually drives me crazy, but here it actually adds to the movie's mysterious aura, perhaps because it reminds us that these folks aren't actors in weird get-ups but honest-to-god circus freaks.<br /><br />
5. <b>Love Me Tonight</b><br />
Directed by Rouben Mamoulian<br />
Written by Samuel Hoffenstein, George Marion Jr., and Waldemar Young<br /><br />
As good as a Maurice Chevalier movie gets.<br /><br />
6. <b>Horse Feathers</b><br />
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod<br />
Written by S.J. Perelman, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, and Will B. Johnstone<br /><br />
"You've got the brain of a four-year old child, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it."<br /><br />
7. <b>Boudu Saved from Drowning</b><br />
Directed by Jean Renoir<br />
Written by Renoir and Albert Valentin, from a play by René Fauchois<br /><br />
The anti–<i>My Man Godfrey</i>.<br /><br />
8. <b>Trouble in Paradise</b><br />
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch<br />
Written by Samson Raphaelson and Grover Jones<br /><br />
To see the range of what filmmakers could get away with in the pre-Code era, watch this cheerfully amoral romantic comedy back to back with <i>Freaks</i>.<br /><br />
9. <b>Million Dollar Legs</b><br />
Directed by Edward F. Cline<br />
Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Henry Myers, Nicholas T. Barrows, and Ben Hecht<br /><br />
"What a marvelous country. Say, I'll bet you if they laid all the athletes end to end here, why they'd reach—" "484 miles." "How do you know?" "We did it once."<br /><br />
10. <b>Blood of a Poet</b><br />
Written and directed by Jean Cocteau<br /><br />
Cocteau denied that this was a surrealist film, but that's absurd. It is clearly a surrealist film. Maybe not as surrealist as the Betty Boop cartoons down in the honorable mentions, but surreal enough.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Betty Boop, M.D.</b> (Dave Fleischer)<br />
12. <b>Shanghai Express</b> (Josef von Sternberg)<br />
13. <b>American Madness</b> (Frank Capra)<br />
14. <b>Betty Boop for President</b> (Dave Fleischer)<br />
15. <b>One Hour with You</b> (Ernst Lubitsch, George Cukor)<br />
16. <b>Minnie the Moocher</b> (Dave Fleischer)<br />
17. <b>Red-Headed Woman</b> (Jack Conway)<br />
18. <b>Night at the Crossroads</b> (Jean Renoir)<br />
19. <b>Murders in the Rue Morgue</b> (Robert Florey)<br />
20. <b>The Idea</b> (Berthold Bartosch)<br /><br />
WHAT'S THAT, WALKER? you ask. YOU HAVE ROOM FOR THREE GODDAMN BETTY BOOP CARTOONS BUT YOU DON'T MENTION <i>SCARFACE, THE SHAME OF A NATION</i>? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?<br /><br />
Look, I like <i>Scarface</i>, but it's an uneven movie. Now obviously I can forgive a certain unevenness if the high points are high enough: I listed <i>Murders in the Rue Morgue</i>, after all, and in the case of <i>Freaks</i> I pretty much counted the film's flaws as virtues. But with <i>Scarface</i>, I can't get past that awful crime-doesn't-pay lecture that the studio insisted on inserting into the movie.<br /><br />
Yes, I let in <i>Ivan</i>, and it's full of propaganda for a totalitarian regime—quite a bit worse, morally speaking, than telling viewers not to be gangsters. But Dovzhenko played off the material that he was forced to include, made it part of his art, and subverted it. Howard Hawks just walked off the set for a while, let another director shoot the scene, and shoved the ungainly thing in. So the film falls off the list. If you want to imagine that it's at #21, I can live with that.<br /><br />
Of the films of 1932 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>I Was Born, But...</i>Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-40463420571834004152023-01-03T08:29:00.001-05:002023-01-03T14:56:17.602-05:00WE ARE ENTERING A WAR ZONE: We have covered my favorite movies of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mayan-apocalypse-now-while-other.html">2012</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-year-i-moved-to-baltimore-on-monday.html">2002</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/our-perot-year-i-have-listed-my.html">1992</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mostly-on-edge-i-have-reeled-off-my.html">1982</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/pols-and-mobsters-i-have-told-you-my.html">1972</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/sixty-two-skidoo-weve-toured-my.html">1962</a>, and <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2023/01/52-card-pickup-so-far-ive-blogged-my.html">1952</a>. Forward, into the past!<br/><br/>
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1942, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Mrs. Miniver</i>. I don't like that one. I do like these:<br /><br />
1. <b>Cat People</b><br />
Directed by Jacques Tourneur<br />
Written by DeWitt Bodeen, from a story by Val Lewton<br /><br />
The first and arguably greatest of the Val Lewton horror cycle.<br /><br />
2. <b>The Magnificent Ambersons</b><br />
Directed by Orson Welles<br />
Written by Welles, from a novel by Booth Tarkington<br /><br />
You can tell when the studio's excisions begin, because a perfect picture suddenly becomes a choppy mess. If the director's cut ever surfaces, this movie will almost certainly rise to the #1 spot.<br /><br />
3. <b>The Talk of the Town</b><br />
Directed by George Stevens<br />
Written by Irwin Shaw, Sidney Buchman, and Dale Van Every, from a story by Sidney Harmon<br /><br />
"What is the law? It's a gun pointed at somebody's head. All depends upon which end of the gun you stand, whether the law is just or not."<br /><br />
4. <b>Casablanca</b><br />
Directed by Michael Curtiz<br />
Written by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch, from a play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison<br /><br />
Whenever I see the beginning of this movie, I tell myself <i>This isn't as good as I remember.</i> By the time I get to the end, I say <i>Oh, right. It is.</i><br /><br />
5. <b>The Man Who Came to Dinner</b><br />
Directed by William Keighley<br />
Written by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein, from a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart<br /><br />
"I became a nurse because all my life, ever since I was a little girl, I was filled with the idea of serving a suffering humanity. After one month with you, Mr. Whiteside, I am going to work in a munitions factory."<br /><br />
6. <b>The Palm Beach Story</b><br />
Written and directed by Preston Sturges<br /><br />
"Sex always has something to do with it, dear."<br /><br />
7. <b>The Major and the Minor</b><br />
Directed by Billy Wilder<br />
Written by Wilder and Charles Brackett, from a play by Edward Childs Carpenter<br /><br />
"Those innocent little panzer divisions in sheep's clothing."<br /><br />
8. <b>La Nuit Fantastique</b><br />
Directed by Marcel L'Herbier<br />
Written by Louis Chavance and Maurice Henry<br /><br />
A surrealist romance.<br /><br />
9. <b>To Be or Not to Be</b><br />
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch<br />
Written by Edwin Justus Mayer, from a story by Melchior Lengyel<br /><br />
Hey, Chaplin: <i>This</i> is how you do an anti-Nazi comedy.<br /><br />
10. <b>The Male Animal</b><br />
Directed by Elliott Nugent<br />
Written by Stephen Morehouse Avery, Julius J. Epstein, and Philip G. Epstein, from a play by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent<br /><br />
The most political jocks-vs.-nerds movie ever made.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>The Road to Morocco</b> (David Butler)<br />
12. <b>The Murderer Lives at Number 21</b> (Henri-Georges Clouzot)<br />
13. <b>Random Harvest</b> (Mervyn LeRoy)<br />
14. <b>This Gun for Hire</b> (Frank Tuttle)<br />
15. <b>Holiday Inn</b> (Mark Sandrich)<br />
16. <b>Went the Day Well?</b> (Alberto Cavalcanti)<br />
17. <b>The Early Bird Dood It</b> (Tex Avery)<br />
18. <b>The Hare-Brained Hypnotist</b> (Friz Freleng)<br />
19. <b>Symphony Hour</b> (Riley Thomson)<br />
20. <b>Headlights in the Fog</b> (Gianni Franciolini)<br /><br />
Of the films of 1942 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>O Pátio das Cantigas</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-24543300462383591452023-01-01T10:34:00.000-05:002023-01-01T10:34:48.144-05:00'52 CARD PICKUP: So far, I've blogged my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mayan-apocalypse-now-while-other.html">2012</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-year-i-moved-to-baltimore-on-monday.html">2002</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/our-perot-year-i-have-listed-my.html">1992</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mostly-on-edge-i-have-reeled-off-my.html">1982</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/pols-and-mobsters-i-have-told-you-my.html">1972</a>, and <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/sixty-two-skidoo-weve-toured-my.html">1962</a>. Now we enter the '50s.<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 1952, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>The Greatest Show on Earth</i>. That one is a ludicrous, bloated spectacle, and the conventional wisdom these days is to dismiss it, but I have to confess I kind of like it. Still, there never was a chance that it would make it onto my list.<br /><br />
1. <b>Ikiru</b><br />
Directed by Akira Kurosawa<br />
Written by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni<br /><br />
This would make an interesting double feature with <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i>.<br /><br />
2. <b>The Tragedy of Othello, a Moor of Venice</b><br />
Directed by Orson Welles<br />
Written by Welles, from a play by William Shakespeare<br /><br />
My favorite Shakespeare movie. Or, at least, my favorite that isn't a loose adaptation set in Japan.<br /><br />
3. <b>Singin' in the Rain</b><br />
Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen<br />
Written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green<br /><br />
This might have made it to the #1 spot but for Donald O'Connor, who wears out his welcome awfully quickly.<br /><br />
4. <b>Viva Zapata!</b><br />
Directed by Elia Kazan<br />
Written by John Steinbeck<br /><br />
"Now I know you. No fields, no home. No wife, no woman. No friends, no love. You'll only destroy. That is your love."<br /><br />
5. <b>The Lusty Men</b><br />
Directed by Nicholas Ray<br />
Written by David Dortort and Horace McCoy, from a novel by Claude Stanush<br /><br />
The title makes it sound like it's a gay thing, but that's not what it's about at all. It's about a man and a woman who want to buy their own ranch, you see, but then the guy partners up with a rodeo star and enters the older man's footloose, risky, masculine world, and the woman starts to worry that her husband's losing sight of their domestic dreams, and...oh.<br /><br />
6. <b>My Son John</b><br />
Directed by Leo McCarey<br />
Written by McCarey, Myles Connolly, and John Lee Mahin<br /><br />
There is no other movie like this in the world. It's like someone crossed John Cassavates with Joe McCarthy.<br /><br />
7. <b>Water, Water Every Hare</b><br />
Directed by Chuck Jones<br />
Written by Michael Maltese<br /><br />
A sequel to <i>Hair-Raising Hare</i>. More dreamlike than the first film, and almost as funny.<br /><br />
8. <b>The Narrow Margin</b><br />
Directed by Richard Fleischer<br />
Written by Earl Felton, from a story by Martin Goldsmith and Jack Leonard<br /><br />
Do you like movies about assassins on trains? Here's a hell of a movie about some assassins on a train.<br /><br />
9. <b>Rancho Notorious</b><br />
Directed by Fritz Lang<br />
Written by Daniel Taradash<br /><br />
"I'd wish you go away...and come back 10 years ago."<br /><br />
10. <b>Casque d'Or</b><br />
Directed by Jacques Becker<br />
Written by Becker, Jacques Companéez, and Annette Wademant<br /><br />
<i>Belle Epoque noir</i>.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Magical Maestro</b> (Tex Avery)<br />
12. <b>Forbidden Games</b> (René Clément)<br />
13. <b>Umberto D.</b> (Vittorio De Sica)<br />
14. <b>A Phantasy</b> (Norman McLaren)<br />
15. <b>Bells of Atlantis</b> (Ian Hugo)<br />
16. <b>Son of Paleface</b> (Frank Tashlin)<br />
17. <b>The Beast Must Die</b> (Román Viñoly Barreto)<br />
18. <b>La Jeune Folle</b> (Yves Allégret)<br />
19. <b>Scaramouche</b> (George Sidney)<br />
20. <b>The Happy Family</b> (Muriel Box)<br /><br />
If you're an aficionado of westerns with gay undertones, you needn't stop with <i>The Lusty Men</i>. 1952 also gave us Anthony Mann's <i>Bend of the River</i>, a movie about whether "that kind" can "change." Officially, the line I just quoted is about robbers. But watch Jimmy Stewart flirt with Arthur Kennedy at the beginning of this picture, and see if you don't think something more is going on here.<br /><br />
Of the films of 1952 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>The White Reindeer</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-29588900127637387792022-12-30T09:28:00.009-05:002022-12-30T11:35:07.299-05:00SIXTY-TWO SKIDOO: We've toured my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mayan-apocalypse-now-while-other.html">2012</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-year-i-moved-to-baltimore-on-monday.html">2002</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/our-perot-year-i-have-listed-my.html">1992</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mostly-on-edge-i-have-reeled-off-my.html">1982</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/pols-and-mobsters-i-have-told-you-my.html">1972</a>. You should be able to guess what's next.<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 1962, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Lawrence of Arabia</i>. I don't think that's a bad movie—it made it into my honorable mentions—but I don't think it's the year's best either.<br /><br />
1. <b>The Exterminating Angel</b><br />
Directed by Luis Buñuel<br />
Written by Buñuel and Luis Alcoriza, from a play by Jose Bergamin<br /><br />
This was the first Buñuel film I ever saw. A couple dozen pictures later, it's still my favorite.<br /><br />
2. <b>The Music Man</b><br />
Directed by Morton DaCosta<br />
Written by Marion Hargrove, from a play by Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey<br /><br />
A real <i>movie</i> musical, completely liberated from the stage, with a sophisticated score and an anti-bluenose streak.<br /><br />
3. <b>La Jetée</b><br />
Written and directed by Chris Marker<br /><br />
Terry Gilliam remade/remixed this as <i>Twelve Monkeys</i>. I like that one too, but it can't match the poetry of the original.<br /><br />
4. <b>Ride the High Country</b><br />
Directed by Sam Peckinpah<br />
Written by N.B. Stone Jr.<br /><br />
"You can have one, because the Lord's bounty is not for sale. The rest are a dollar each."<br /><br />
5. <b>The Manchurian Candidate</b><br />
Directed by John Frankenheimer<br />
Written by George Axelrod, from a novel by Richard Condon<br /><br />
The book is fun, but it's also a mess. The screen version—or at least <i>this</i> screen version—is much better.<br /><br />
6. <b>The Fabulous Baron Munchausen</b><br />
Directed by Karel Zeman<br />
Written by Zerman, Josef Kainar, and Jiří Brdečka, from a story cycle by Rudolf Erich Raspe<br /><br />
I'm a fan of Terry Gilliam's Munchausen movie too, but—as with <i>La Jette</i>—I like this earlier take on the tale better. It feels like it's set in a Cornell box.<br /><br />
7. <b>What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?</b><br />
Directed by Robert Aldrich<br />
Written by Lukas Heller, from a novel by Henry Farrell<br /><br />
"You mean, all this time we could've been friends?"<br /><br />
8. <b>Sanjuro</b><br />
Directed by Akira Kurosawa<br />
Written by Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima<br /><br />
Kurosawa's funniest film, though I wouldn't quite call it a comedy.<br /><br />
9. <b>An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge</b><br />
Directed by Robert Enrico<br />
Written by Enrico, from a story by Ambrose Bierce<br /><br />
One of two templates for <i>Siesta</i>, <i>Jacob's Ladder</i>, <i>Lulu on the Bridge</i>, <i>Abre Los Ojos</i>, <i>The Sixth Sense</i>, <i>Vanilla Sky</i>, and <i>Donnie Darko</i>.<br /><br />
10. <b>Carnival of Souls</b><br />
Directed by Herk Harvey<br />
Written by John Clifford<br /><br />
The other template.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Pitfall</b> (Hiroshi Teshigahara)<br />
12. <b>Cleo from 5 to 7</b> (Agnès Varda)<br />
13. <b>Lolita</b> (Stanley Kubrick)<br />
14. <b>Lawrence of Arabia</b> (David Lean)<br />
15. <b>The House Is Black</b> (Forough Farrokhzad)<br />
16. <b>The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence</b> (John Ford)<br />
17. <b>The Trial</b> (Orson Welles)<br />
18. <b>Knife in the Water</b> (Roman Polanski)<br />
19. <b>Hell is for Heroes</b> (Don Siegel)<br />
20. <b>The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit</b> (Gene Deitch)<br /><br />
If you're thinking to yourself, "Hey, didn't Jesse already mention <i>The Fabulous Baron Munchausen</i> when he listed his <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/jfk-year-one-ive-posted-my-favorite.html">favorite films of 1961</a> last year?" then I congratulate you on your capacity for remembering blog trivia. You are correct. Apparently I had the wrong release date. Feel free to mentally revise last year's list by taking out <i>Munchausen</i>, bumping up everything below it, and inserting Jan Lenica's <i>Nowy Janko Muzykant</i> at #20.<br /><br />
Of the films of 1962 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>The Awful Dr. Orloff</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-74394187743931890542022-12-28T08:43:00.007-05:002022-12-30T10:06:03.143-05:00POLS AND MOBSTERS: I have told you my favorite movies of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mayan-apocalypse-now-while-other.html">2012</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-year-i-moved-to-baltimore-on-monday.html">2002</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/our-perot-year-i-have-listed-my.html">1992</a>, and <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mostly-on-edge-i-have-reeled-off-my.html">1982</a>. Now we come to one of the great years, for film if not for the McGovern campaign.<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 1972, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>The Godfather</i>. There are only five times I think the Academy got that prize right—and '72, like '92, is one of them.<br /><br />
1. <b>The Godfather</b><br />
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola<br />
Written by Coppola and Mario Puzo, from a novel by Puzo<br /><br />
"Now who's being naive?"<br /><br />
2. <b>The Ruling Class</b><br />
Directed by Peter Medak<br />
Written by Peter Barnes, from his play<br /><br />
Jesus, Jack the Ripper, and the House of Lords.<br /><br />
3. <b>Images</b><br />
Directed by Robert Altman<br />
Written by Altman and Susannah York<br /><br />
This isn't usually classified as a horror flick, but it's one of the few films that genuinely scared me as I watched it.<br /><br />
4. <b>The Candidate</b><br />
Directed by Michael Ritchie<br />
Written by Jeremy Larner<br /><br />
"You're the Democratic nominee!" "You make it sound like a death sentence."<br /><br />
5. <b>Sleuth</b><br />
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz<br />
Written by Anthony Shaffer, from his play<br /><br />
"The shortest way to a man's heart is through humiliation."<br /><br />
6. <b>The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie</b><br />
Directed by Luis Buñuel<br />
Written by Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière<br /><br />
At this point in his career, Buñuel was mostly horsing around. But he was good at that.<br /><br />
7. <b>The King of Marvin Gardens</b><br />
Directed by Bob Rafelson<br />
Written by Rafelson and Jacob Brackman<br /><br />
"Do you think that you're the only one who's entitled to be selfish?"<br /><br />
8. <b>Tomorrow</b><br />
Directed by Joseph Anthony<br />
Written by Horton Foote, from a story by William Faulkner<br /><br />
"I could never have guessed Fentry's capacity for love. I suppose I'd figured, coming from where he came from, even the comprehension of love had been lost out of him back down the generations, where the first Fentry had to take his final choice between the pursuit of love and the pursuit of keeping on breathing."<br /><br />
9. <b>Bone</b><br />
Written and directed by Larry Cohen<br /><br />
A strange little art-film/blaxploitation hybrid, starring the always enjoyable Yaphet Kotto.<br /><br />
10. <b>Cries and Whispers</b><br />
Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman<br /><br />
One of the most painful pictures I've ever seen. Part of me thinks it should be much higher in this list. Another part doesn't want to include it at all.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>The Heartbreak Kid</b> (Elaine May)<br />
12. <b>Fat City</b> (John Huston)<br />
13. <b>The Getaway</b> (Sam Peckinpah)<br />
14. <b>Frenzy</b> (Alfred Hitchcock)<br />
15. <b>Bad Company</b> (Robert Benton)<br />
16. <b>Play it Again, Sam</b> (Herbert Ross)<br />
17. <b>Love in the Afternoon</b> (Éric Rohmer)<br />
18. <b>Deliverance</b> (John Boorman)<br />
19. <b>The Mechanic</b> (Michael Winner)<br />
20. <b>Junior Bonner</b> (Sam Peckinpah)<br /><br />
Of the films of 1972 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>The Culpepper Cattle Co.</i> and <i>The Mattei Affair</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-60782386579988176792022-12-26T08:38:00.000-05:002022-12-26T08:38:47.790-05:00MOSTLY ON THE EDGE: I have reeled off my favorite motion pictures of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mayan-apocalypse-now-while-other.html">2012</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-year-i-moved-to-baltimore-on-monday.html">2002</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/our-perot-year-i-have-listed-my.html">1992</a>. Now let's do 1982.<br/><br/>
This was a surprisingly good year for movies. I say <i>surprisingly</i> because the '80s were a pretty bleak period for Hollywood, artistically speaking—and sure enough, the big American studios are mostly missing from the list below. Of the top 10, six are foreign imports, one is a documentary, and one is weirdo indie project (by an absurdist theater troupe cum new wave band) that was actually shot in the '70s. The only Hollywood studio efforts are a pair of genre flicks that were critically panned at the time.<br/><br/>
But what a <i>great</i> pack of pictures this is. There are movies in the lower rungs of this top 10 that are on par with some other years' #1s. Filmmakers were still doing high-quality work in 1982. It's just that the studio suits usually weren't the people putting it out.<br/><br/>
Nor, for the most part, were they honoring it at the Oscars. When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1982, it gave its Best Picture award to an excruciatingly bland biopic called <i>Gandhi</i>. You won't find that one on my list, and I say that not just as a movie buff but as an admirer of the man who gave his name to the film.<br /><br />
1. <b>Fanny and Alexander</b><br />
Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman<br /><br />
"It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world."<br /><br />
2. <b>Danton</b><br />
Directed by Andrzej Wajda<br />
Written by Wajda, Jean-Claude Carrière, Jacek Gasiorowski, Agnieszka Holland, and Boleslaw Michalek, from a play by Stanislawa Przybyszewska<br /><br />
A movie about the French Revolution. Any parallels to events in the director's native Poland are strictly intentional.<br /><br />
3. <b>Blade Runner</b><br />
Directed by Ridley Scott<br />
Written by Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples, from a novel by Philip K. Dick<br /><br />
In a blow to the director-as-auteur theory, this movie owes its greatness less to Scott's direction than to Dick's story and Lawrence G. Paull's production design. That said: If you haven't seen <i>Blade Runner</i> before, it's the director's cut that you should watch, not the studio's somewhat blandified original release.<br /><br />
4. <b>Fitzcarraldo</b><br />
Written and directed by Werner Herzog<br /><br />
My favorite Herzog, about a mad scheme to build an opera house deep in the Brazilian jungle.<br /><br />
5. <b>Dimensions of Dialogue</b><br />
Written and directed by Jan Švankmajer<br /><br />
Terry Gilliam praised Švankmajer's films for "moments that evoke the nightmarish spectre of seeing commonplace things coming unexpectedly to life." And, in this one, seeing them digest and regurgitate each other.<br /><br />
6. <b>Say Amen, Somebody</b><br />
Directed by George T. Nierenberg<br /><br />
I've never been to Heaven, but I kind of like the music.<br /><br />
7. <b>Veronika Voss</b><br />
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder<br />
Written by Fassbinder, Pea Fröhlich, and Peter Märthesheimer<br /><br />
What if David Lynch made <i>Sunset Blvd.</i>?<br /><br />
8. <b>Forbidden Zone</b><br />
Directed by Richard Elfman<br />
Written by Elfman, Matthew Bright, Nick James, and Nick L. Martinson, from a story by Elfman<br /><br />
What if John Waters made <i>Hellzapoppin'</i>?<br /><br />
9. <b>The Draughtsman's Contract</b><br />
Written and directed by Peter Greenaway<br /><br />
A feature-length puzzle-box about sex, sketches, and secret societies.<br /><br />
10. <b>The Thing</b><br />
Directed by John Carpenter<br />
Written by Bill Lancaster, from a story by John Wood Campbell Jr.<br /><br />
This is it: John Carpenter's best movie. Yes, of course, <i>They Live</i> has the best scenes. But as a <i>movie</i>, start to finish, this one is tops.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Burden of Dreams</b> (Les Blank)<br />
12. <b>Moonlighting</b> (Jerzy Skolimowski)<br />
13. <b>Liquid Sky</b> (Slava Tsukerman)<br />
14. <b>The Verdict</b> (Sidney Lumet)<br />
15. <b>Honkytonk Man</b> (Clint Eastwood)<br />
16. <b>Down to the Cellar</b> (Jan Švankmajer)<br />
17. <b>The Atomic Café</b> (Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, Pierce Rafferty)<br />
18. <b>Vincent</b> (Tim Burton)<br />
19. <b>The Return of Martin Guerre</b> (Daniel Vigne)<br />
20. <b>Fast Times at Ridgemont High</b> (Amy Heckerling)<br /><br />
Best mess: Larry Cohen's <i>Q: The Winged Serpent</i>.<br /><br />
Of the films of 1982 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-59736417641266638572022-12-23T09:18:00.003-05:002022-12-23T09:22:24.926-05:00OUR PEROT YEAR: I have listed my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mayan-apocalypse-now-while-other.html">2012</a> and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-year-i-moved-to-baltimore-on-monday.html">2002</a>. And now...<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 1992, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Unforgiven</i>. And you know what? I think I agree.<br /><br />
1. <b>Unforgiven</b><br />
Directed by Clint Eastwood<br />
Written by David Webb Peoples<br /><br />
Fun fact: We are now more distant from this picture's release date than it was from the release of <i>The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly</i>.<br /><br />
2. <b>Glengarry Glen Ross</b><br />
Directed by James Foley<br />
Written by David Mamet, from his play<br /><br />
It's a filmed play, and it shows. But it's also the best Mamet adaptation ever to grace the screen.<br /><br />
3. <b>Brother's Keeper</b><br />
Directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky<br /><br />
How is it that two moviemakers could go to a small town, start filming the real events transpiring there, and somehow capture a story more engaging, compelling, and mysterious than almost everything produced by people who get to make shit up?<br /><br />
4. <b>Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me</b><br />
Directed by David Lynch<br />
Written by Lynch and Robert Engels<br /><br />
The Cannes crowd praised Lynch's <i>Wild at Heart</i>, and then they lacerated this nightmarish prequel to his TV series. They got it exactly backwards.<br /><br />
5. <b>Reservoir Dogs</b><br />
Directed by Quentin Tarantino<br />
Written by Tarantino and Roger Avary<br /><br />
I think I might actually be sold on Mr. Brown's Madonna theory.<br /><br />
6. <b>Porco Rosso</b><br />
Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, from his manga<br /><br />
"I'd much rather be a pig than a fascist."<br /><br />
7. <b>Candyman</b><br />
Directed by Bernard Rose<br />
Written by Rose, from a story by Clive Barker<br /><br />
Many horror movies are based on urban legends. This one is <i>about</i> urban legends, and the process of cultural transmission that they represent.<br /><br />
8. <b>Food</b><br />
Written and directed by Jan Švankmajer<br /><br />
Not very appetizing.<br /><br />
9. <b>The Player</b><br />
Directed by Robert Altman<br />
Written by Michael Tolkin, from his novel<br /><br />
"I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here."<br /><br />
10. <b>Swoon</b><br />
Written and directed by Tom Kalin<br /><br />
No Hitchcock remake is better than the movie that preceded it. But only because this isn't, strictly speaking, a remake of <i>Rope</i>.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Careful</b> (Guy Maddin)<br />
12. <b>Wayne's World</b> (Penelope Spheeris)<br />
13. <b>My New Gun</b> (Stacy Cochran)<br />
14. <b>Prime Suspect 2</b> (John Strickland)<br />
15. <b>A Brief History of Time</b> (Errol Morris)<br />
16. <b>The Crying Game</b> (Neil Jordan)<br />
17. <b>L.627</b> (Bertrand Tavernier)<br />
18. <b>Barjo</b> (Jerome Boivin)<br />
19. <b>Léolo</b> (Jean-Claude Lauzon)<br />
20. <b>Rock Hudson's Home Movies</b> (Mark Rappaport)<br /><br />
Of the films of 1992 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>The Long Day Closes</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-39350981402760754072022-12-21T11:05:00.001-05:002022-12-21T11:46:50.900-05:00THE YEAR I MOVED TO BALTIMORE: On Monday I listed my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/12/mayan-apocalypse-now-while-other.html">2012</a>. Now let's step back another 10 years.<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 2002, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Chicago</i>. I know a number of people who simply <i>do not like</i> that movie, but I think it's fine. It even made it into my honorable mentions. But it isn't the year's best—not by a long shot.<br /><br />
1. <b>The Wire</b><br />
Written by David Simon, Ed Burns, Rafael Alvarez, David H. Melnick, Shamit Choksey, Joy Lusco, and George Pelecanos, from a story by Simon and Burns<br />
Directed by Clark Johnson, Peter Medak, Clement Virgo, Ed Bianchi, Joe Chapelle, Gloria Muzio, Milcho Manchevski, Brad Anderson, Steve Shill, and Tim Van Patten<br /><br />
Even as the old lines between the big and small screens keep collapsing, some people still side-eye me for putting TV shows on these lists. But come on. Put this together with the other four seasons of <i>The Wire</i>, and you've got the best motion picture of the decade; look at this season in isolation, and you've got the best motion picture of the year.<br /><br />
2. <b>Talk to Her</b><br />
Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar<br /><br />
Almodóvar explores the intersection between fetishism, projection, and unrequited love.<br /><br />
3. <b>Mai's America</b><br />
Directed by Marlo Poras<br /><br />
The best documentary I've ever seen about immigration.<br /><br />
4. <b>The Office 2</b><br />
Written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant<br /><br />
You know how sometimes the punchline in <i>Peanuts</i> would be more depressing than funny? The final scene of this one is like that.<br /><br />
5. <b>Confessions of a Dangerous Mind</b><br />
Directed by George Clooney<br />
Written by Charlie Kaufman, from a "memoir" by Chuck Barris<br /><br />
A CIA assassin imagines he's pursuing a more socially beneficial life as the creator of <i>The Gong Show</i>.<br /><br />
6. <b>Decasia</b><br />
Directed by Bill Morrison<br /><br />
A film built from the shards of older, decaying films. Someday it too will decay.<br /><br />
7. <b>The Quiet American</b><br />
Directed by Phillip Noyce<br />
Written by Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan, from a novel by Graham Greene<br /><br />
Proof (a) that Brendan Fraser can act, and (b) that a remake can be much, much better than its predecessor.<br /><br />
8. <b>Dirty Pretty Things</b><br />
Directed by Stephen Frears<br />
Written by Steven Knight<br /><br />
"We are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your rooms. And suck your cocks."<br /><br />
9. <b>About Schmidt</b><br />
Directed by Alexander Payne<br />
Written by Payne and Jim Taylor, from a novel by Louis Begley<br /><br />
Did you think the British <i>Office</i> was awfully bleak for a comedy? Well...<br /><br />
10. <b>City of God</b><br />
Directed by Fernando Meirelles with Kátia Lund<br />
Written by Bráulio Mantovani, from a novel by Paulo Lins<br /><br />
"A kid? I smoke, I snort. I've killed and robbed. I'm a man."<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Man on the Train</b> (Patrice Leconte)<br />
12. <b>25th Hour</b> (Spike Leee)<br />
13. <b>Femme Fatale</b> (Brian De Palma)<br />
14. <b>In Smog and Thunder</b> (Sean Meredith)<br />
15. <b>Punch-Drunk Love</b> (Paul Thomas Anderson)<br />
16. <b>The Girl on the Train in the Moon</b> (Bill Daniel)<br />
17. <b>Chicago</b> (Rob Marshall)<br />
18. <b>28 days later...</b> (Danny Boyle)<br />
19. <b>Hero</b> (Zhang Yimou)<br />
20. <b>Nixon</b> (Nam June Paik)<br /><br />
Plus a shout-out to the scene in <i>Biggie & Tupac</i> where Suge Knight delivers his "message to the kids."<br /><br />
Of the films of 2002 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>Prüfstand VII</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-10275831525496551882022-12-19T14:53:00.004-05:002022-12-19T16:42:09.339-05:00MAYAN APOCALYPSE NOW: While other outlets mark December by listing their favorite films of the year that's ending, <i>The Perpetual Three-Dot Column</i> prefers to list the best movies of 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and so on, heading back until I reach a year for which I can't assemble a good list. This will be the 20th time that I've done this, so some of the lists to come may feel faintly familiar. But don't worry: I have some new things to say about even the years I've done before.<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 2012, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Argo</i>, which manages to be both a spy thriller and a backstage Hollywood comedy. It's an entertaining movie, and I had fun watching it. But I like these better:<br /><br />
1. <b>Moonrise Kingdom</b><br />
Directed by Wes Anderson<br />
Written by Anderson and Roman Coppola<br /><br />
"I can't offer you a legally binding union. It won't hold up in the state, the county, or frankly any courtroom in the world, due to your age, lack of a license, and failure to get parental consent. But the ritual does carry a very important moral weight..."<br /><br />
2. <b>Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning</b><br />
Directed by John Hyams<br />
Written by Hyams, Doug Magnuson, and Jon Greenlagh<br /><br />
It's an action movie released straight to VOD. It's the sixth entry in a franchise where even the first film was kind of ridiculous. It's got Jean-Claude Van Damme in it. And it's a Lynchian masterpiece. Yes, I'm serious.<br /><br />
3. <b>The Act of Killing</b><br />
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, and Anonymous<br /><br />
"Actually, the people you tortured felt far worse, because you knew it's only a film."<br /><br />
4. <b>Room 237</b><br />
Directed by Rodney Ascher<br /><br />
You've heard of outsider art? This is about outsider criticism.<br /><br />
5. <b>Django Unchained</b><br />
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino<br /><br />
Among its other virtues, this film features the best known use of Jim Croce on a motion picture soundtrack.<br /><br />
6. <b>Seven Psychopaths</b><br />
Written and directed by Martin McDonagh<br /><br />
The closest any Tarantino imitation has come to being as good as a Tarantino film.<br /><br />
7. <b>Barbara</b><br />
Directed by Christian Petzold<br />
Written by Petzold and Harun Farocki<br /><br />
If the Stasi Movie is a genre now—and at this point I think it is—then this is one of the best specimens.<br /><br />
8. <b>Deceptive Practice</b><br />
Directed by Molly Bernstein<br /><br />
Ricky Jay tells tales of nearly forgotten magicians—from dusty books, from vaudeville, from Coney Island, from the early days of TV—who shaped his art and taught him his craft. Just completely fucking delightful.<br /><br />
9. <b>Frances Ha</b><br />
Directed by Noah Baumbach<br />
Written by Baumbach and Greta Gerwig<br /><br />
2012 was also the year <i>Girls</i> debuted, and there are more than a few similarities between that show and this film. But the film is definitely better.<br /><br />
10. <b>Veep</b><br />
Written by Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, Sean Gray, Tony Roche, William James Smith, Roger Drew, Ian Martin, and Jesse Armstrong <br />
Directed by Iannucci, Tristram Shapeero, and Christopher Morris<br /><br />
An antidote to <i>The West Wing</i>.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>The Imposter</b> (Bart Layton)<br />
12. <b>Stories We Tell</b> (Sarah Polley)<br />
13. <b>Get the Gringo</b> (Adrian Grünberg)<br />
14. <b>Sightseers</b> (Ben Wheatley)<br />
15. <b>Byun, Objet Trouvé</b> (Marie Losier)<br />
16. <b>Spring Breakers</b> (Harmony Korine)<br />
17. <b>Feral</b> (Daniel Sousa)<br />
18. <b>A Scandal in Belgravia</b> (Paul McGuigan)<br />
19. <b>John Dies at the End</b> (Don Coscarelli)<br />
20. <b>Bestiaire</b> (Denis Côté)<br /><br />
Finally, a shoutout to Chris Sandon and Martin Thoburn's <i>Exquisite Motion Corpse</i>, which almost made it into the honorable mentions—I just wasn't sure whether it qualified. Usually I don't have trouble treating pieces of video art as experimental movies, but this one is interactive enough that I'm inclined to think of it as an experimental video game instead. And I haven't convinced myself to start putting video games on these lists. Not yet, anyway. Check back in another 10 years.<br /><br />
Of the films of 2012 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>Wolf Children</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-87509158301164259672022-09-07T09:43:00.004-04:002022-09-10T09:54:24.395-04:00THE MINDJACK FILES: In the mid-'00s, I wrote a series of video reviews for a website called <i>Mindjack</i>. That site seems to have disappeared from the internet, but my articles have been saved at the Internet Archive; for the sake of preservation, and because at least a few of them are pretty good, I'll link to those echoes here.<br/><br/>
January 13, 2004: my <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040201232910/http://www.mindjack.com/film/melies.html">review</a> of a DVD collecting several Georges Méliès films, from back in the days when you couldn't find dozens of Méliès movies for free on YouTube.<br/><br/>
March 11, 2004: my <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040312082844/http://mindjack.com/film/hysteria.html">review</a> of Antero Alli's <i>Hysteria</i>.<br/><br/>
April 19, 2004: my <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040602231131/http://www.mindjack.com/film/killbillvol2.html">review</a> of Quentin Tarantino's <i>Kill Bill Vol. 2</i>, which doubles as my explanation of why I don't like <i>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</i>.<br/><br/>
August 16, 2004: my <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040915074616/http://mindjack.com/film/outfoxed.html">review</a> of Robert Greenwald's documentary <i>Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism</i>. Of all my <i>Mindjack</i> stories, this is the one that's most interesting to revisit 18 years later.<br/><br/>
November 6, 2005: my <A href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060318014434/http://www.mindjack.com/film/70sdimension061105.html">review</a> of Other Cinema's DVD <i>The 70s Dimension</i>. Of all my <i>Mindjack</i> stories, this is the one I like the best.<br/><br/>
January 25, 2006: my <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060318014609/http://www.mindjack.com/film/greatercirculation012506.html">review</a> of Antero Alli's <i>The Greater Circulation</i>.<br/><br/>Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-57850066704497399042022-01-06T10:23:00.003-05:002022-01-10T14:12:00.882-05:00FIVE DIRECTORS DO DOUBLE DUTY: We've toured the best movies of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-year-world-ended-let-other-blogs.html">2011</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/blog-post.html">2001</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/91-revised-ive-listed-my-favorite-films.html">1991</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/days-of-punk-and-reagans-ive-reeled-off.html">1981</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/sayonara-bretton-woods-weve-gone.html">1971</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/jfk-year-one-ive-posted-my-favorite.html">1961</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/01/hello-2022-and-1951-too-this-blog-has.html">1951</a>, and <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/01/one-year-two-devils-ive-told-you-my.html">1941</a>. Let's make one more stop.<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 1931, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>Cimarron</i>, a mediocre western that aspires to be an epic. It isn't on my list.<br /><br />
1. <b>Bimbo's Initiation</b><br />
Directed by Dave Fleischer<br /><br />
<i>Betty Boop: Final Secret of the Illuminati</i>.<br /><br />
2. <b>Monkey Business</b><br />
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod<br />
Written by S.J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone<br /><br />
Starring the Marx Brothers as Maurice Chevalier.<br /><br />
3. <b>Philips-Radio</b><br />
Directed by Joris Ivens<br /><br />
Proof that an ad can be art.<br /><br />
4. <b>M</b><br />
Directed by Fritz Lang<br />
Written by Lang and Thea von Harbou<br /><br />
Instead of quoting a line from the film, can I quote the sound of a serial killer whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King"?<br /><br />
5. <b>Le Million</b><br />
Directed by René Clair<br />
Written by Clair, from a play by Georges Berr and Marcel Guillemand<br /><br />
Just a couple years into the sound era, and already Clair has made two great musicals. And he has a third one just a few notches below this.<br /><br />
6. <b>La Chienne</b><br />
Directed by Jean Renoir<br />
Written by Renoir, from a novel by Georges de La Fouchardière<br /><br />
A man exploits a woman who exploits another man. In the end they all lose.<br /><br />
7. <b>Frankenstein</b><br />
Directed by James Whale<br />
Written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, from a play by Peggy Webling and a novel by Mary Shelley<br /><br />
"Now I know what it feels like to be God!"<br /><br />
8. <b>A Nous La Liberte</b><br />
Written and directed by René Clair<br /><br />
You can see why this always gets compared to <i>Modern Times</i>. They both treat the assembly line as a slapstick dystopia.<br /><br />
9. <b>Blonde Crazy</b><br />
Directed by Roy Del Ruth<br />
Written by Kubec Glasmon and John Bright<br /><br />
In the world's most half-hearted crime-doesn't-pay ending, only one of the con artists we've been watching goes to jail—and in the meantime, we find ourselves cheering the dissolution of a marriage. This is the sort of story the Powers That Be brought in the Motion Picture Code to stop.<br /><br />
10. <b>Safe in Hell</b><br />
Directed by William A. Wellman<br />
Written by Joseph Jackson and Maude Fulton, from a play by Houston Branch<br /><br />
Of all the pre-Code movies in the world, this one just might be the pre-Codiest. It <i>starts</i> with a sympathetic prostitute burning down a hotel, and then it just rolls from there.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Marius</b> (Alexander Korda)<br />
12. <b>The Smiling Lieutenant</b> (Ernst Lubitsch)<br />
13. <b>The Threepenny Opera</b> (G.W. Pabst)<br />
14. <b>Douro, Faina Fluvial</b> (Manoel de Oliveira)<br />
15. <b>Night Nurse</b> (William A. Wellman)<br />
16. <b>Kameradschaft</b> (G.W. Pabst)<br />
17. <b>Mask-a-Raid</b> (Dave Fleischer)<br />
18. <b>A Bronx Morning</b> (Jay Leyda)<br />
19. <b>Waterloo Bridge</b> (James Whale)<br />
20. <b>Bosko the Doughboy</b> (Hugh Harman)<br /><br />
Finally, a shoutout to Frank Capra's <i>Platinum Blonde</i>, which might have made it into the top 20 if Robert Williams had dialed back the smug by about 30%.<br /><br />
Of the films of 1931 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>Rich and Strange</i>.<br /><br />
And with that, the series stops. For the record, my favorite film of 1921 is <i>The High Sign</i>. But I haven't seen enough good movies from '21 to assemble a full top 10, so this year's crop of lists ends here.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-72855455994788814692022-01-04T12:08:00.000-05:002022-01-04T12:08:52.781-05:00ONE YEAR, TWO DEVILS: I've told you my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-year-world-ended-let-other-blogs.html">2011</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/blog-post.html">2001</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/91-revised-ive-listed-my-favorite-films.html">1991</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/days-of-punk-and-reagans-ive-reeled-off.html">1981</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/sayonara-bretton-woods-weve-gone.html">1971</a>, <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/jfk-year-one-ive-posted-my-favorite.html">1961</a>, and <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/01/hello-2022-and-1951-too-this-blog-has.html">1951</a>. Perhaps you have guessed what comes next.<br/><br/>
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1941, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>How Green Was My Valley</i>, a cloying "quality" movie from John Ford. (The first rule of watching a Ford film: The more it's visibly trying to be artistic, the less likely it is to be good art.) That one isn't on my list.<br /><br />
1. <b>Citizen Kane</b><br />
Directed by Orson Welles<br />
Written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz<br /><br />
I don't think it's the best movie ever made, or even the best movie to be made by Orson Welles. But I'm not enough of a contrarian to deny that it's the best movie of 1941.<br /><br />
2. <b>The Maltese Falcon</b><br />
Directed by John Huston<br />
Written by Huston, from a novel by Dashiell Hammett<br /><br />
Humphrey Bogart never looked or sounded as bleak as he did saying, "All we've got is that maybe you love me and maybe I love you."<br /><br />
3. <b>Never Give a Sucker an Even Break</b><br />
Directed by Edward F. Cline<br />
Written by W.C. Fields<br /><br />
This is Fields' funniest film. That's saying a lot.<br /><br />
4. <b>The Sea Wolf</b><br />
Directed by Michael Curtiz<br />
Written by Robert Rossen, from a novel by Jack London<br /><br />
This is as good as Edward G. Robinson gets. That is also saying a lot.<br /><br />
5. <b>Meet John Doe</b><br />
Directed by Frank Capra<br />
Written by Robert Riskin, from a story by Richard Connell and Robert Presnell, Sr.<br /><br />
In this movie's <a href="https://reason.com/2016/11/06/seeing-trump-on-the-silver-scr/">landscape of mutating memes</a>, isn't just the audience that has a life of its own. The fictions that were supposed to manipulate that audience turn out to be beyond anyone's control too.<br /><br />
6. <b>Hellzapoppin'</b><br />
Directed by H.C. Potter<br />
Written by Nat Perrin and Warren Wilson<br /><br />
Between this one and <i>Never Give a Sucker an Even Break</i>, it was a great year for pop surrealism.<br /><br />
7. <b>Schichlegruber: Doing the Lambeth Walk</b><br />
Directed by Charles A. Ridley<br /><br />
YouTube <i>avant la lettre</i>.<br /><br />
8. <b>The Wolf Man</b><br />
Directed by George Waggner<br />
Written by Curt Siodmak<br /><br />
This isn't the last <i>good</i> movie in the Universal Monsters series, but it is the last <i>essential</i> one. Unless you count <i>Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein</i>.<br /><br />
9. <b>Ball of Fire</b><br />
Directed by Howard Hawks<br />
Written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder<br /><br />
"It's as red as <i>The Daily Worker</i> and just as sore!"<br /><br />
10. <b>The Lady Eve</b><br />
Directed by Preston Sturges<br />
Written by Sturges, from a story by Monckton Hoffe<br /><br />
This one narrowly beat out the great <i>Sullivan's Travels</i> for a spot in the top 10 because I wince a bit at that "cockeyed world" speech at the end of <i>Sullivan</i>. But if you want to count them as a tie and call this slot a Preston Sturges double-header, that's fine with me.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Sullivan's Travels</b> (Preston Sturges)<br />
12. <b>Suspicion</b> (Alfred Hitchcock)<br />
13. <b>Tortoise Beats Hare</b> (Tex Avery)<br />
14. <b>The Devil and Daniel Webster</b> (William Dieterle)<br />
15. <b>Hold Back the Dawn</b> (Mitchell Leisen)<br />
16. <b>Among the Living</b> (Stuart Heisler)<br />
17. <b>Dumbo</b> (Ben Sharpsteen)<br />
18. <b>Ladies in Retirement</b> (Charles Vidor)<br />
19. <b>The Devil and Miss Jones</b> (Sam Wood)<br />
20. <b>The Iron Crown</b> (Alessandro Blasetti)<br /><br />
Plus a bonus award to Victor Mature, who had big roles in two pictures bubbling under my top 20: <i>The Shanghai Gesture</i>, a gloriously mad mess that has become a cult favorite, and <i>I Wake Up Screaming</i>, a curious quasi-noir that really <i>ought</i> to be a cult favorite. Mature plays rather different characters in that pair of pictures, but he plays them the same way: as <i>a sleazy Cary Grant</i>. That's just as great as it sounds.<br /><br />
Of the films of 1941 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>Swamp Water</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-37600509968995821872022-01-02T10:57:00.005-05:002022-01-02T11:04:53.266-05:00HELLO 2022 (AND 1951 TOO): This blog has just covered my favorite movies of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-year-world-ended-let-other-blogs.html">2011</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/blog-post.html">2001</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/91-revised-ive-listed-my-favorite-films.html">1991</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/days-of-punk-and-reagans-ive-reeled-off.html">1981</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/sayonara-bretton-woods-weve-gone.html">1971</a>, and <a href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/jfk-year-one-ive-posted-my-favorite.html">1961</a>. And now...<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 1951, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>An American in Paris</i>, a musical that I neither dislike nor am especially fond of. Any of these would have been a better choice:<br /><br />
1. <b>Ace in the Hole</b><br />
Directed by Billy Wilder<br />
Written by Wilder, Lesser Samuels, and Walter Newman<br /><br />
Wilder's darkest, bleakest film. But it's still a funny one.<br /><br />
2. <b>Strangers on a Train</b><br />
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock<br />
Written by Czenzi Ormonde, Raymond Chandler, Whitfield Cook, and Ben Hecht, from a novel by Patricia Highsmith<br /><br />
Walker's 32nd Law: You shouldn't bother trying to remake a Hitchcock movie. Corollary to Walker's 32nd Law: If you absolutely <i>must</i> remake a Hitchcock movie, for the love of God don't give your starring role to Billy Crystal.<br /><br />
3. <b>The Thing from Another World</b><br />
Directed by Christian Nyby and/or Howard Hawks<br />
Written by Hawks, Charles Lederer, and Ben Hecht, from a novella by John W. Campbell, Jr.<br /><br />
"An intellectual carrot? The mind boggles."<br /><br />
4. <b>A Streetcar Named Desire</b><br />
Directed by Elia Kazan<br />
Written by Tennessee Williams and Oscar Saul, from a play by Williams<br /><br />
Yes, they bowdlerized the play, but I have yet to see a better performance of it. No, not even the one with Marge Simpson.<br /><br />
5. <b>The Tales of Hoffmann</b><br />
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger<br />
Written by Powell, Pressburger, and Dennis Arundell, from an opera by Jacques Offenbach and Jules Barbier<br /><br />
Many years ago, I watched this in the middle of the night while my wife was out of town. Our daughter woke up in her crib and started crying, so I let her rest with me and the movie; looking at the dancers calmed her down. The next time someone tells you this is a "difficult" film, remember that a baby can enjoy it.<br /><br />
6. <b>The Lavender Hill Mob</b><br />
Directed by Charles Crichton<br />
Written by T.E.B. Clarke<br /><br />
"I propagate British cultural depravity."<br /><br />
7. <b>Miracle in Milan</b><br />
Directed by Vittorio De Sica<br />
Written by De Sica, Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Mario Chiari, and Adolfo Franci, from a novel by Zavattini<br /><br />
A strange hybrid of neorealism and fantasy, with squatters using witchcraft to battle the authorities. My favorite De Sica film.<br /><br />
8. <b>The Man in the White Suit</b><br />
Directed by Alexander Mackendrick<br />
Written by Mackendrick, and Roger MacDougall, John Dighton<br /><br />
Unions and corporate chieftains join forces to suppress an invention that would make their industry unnecessary. Screw <i>Star Wars</i>: This is Alec Guinness' best science-fiction movie.<br /><br />
9. <b>Pandora and the Flying Dutchman</b><br />
Written and directed by Albert Lewin<br /><br />
The high point in Jack Cardiff's career as a cinematographer.<br /><br />
10. <b>Bellissima</b><br />
Directed by Luchino Visconti<br />
Written by Visconti, Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, and Francesco Rosi<br /><br />
For a comedy, this made me awfully sad.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>People Will Talk</b> (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)<br />
12. <b>The African Queen</b> (John Huston)<br />
13. <b>Four Ways Out</b> (Pietro Germi)<br />
14. <b>Diary of a Country Priest</b> (Robert Bresson)<br />
15. <b>On Dangerous Ground</b> (Nicholas Ray)<br />
16. <b>He Ran All the Way</b> (John Berry)<br />
17. <b>Susana</b> (Luis Buñuel)<br />
18. <b>Rabbit Fire</b> (Chuck Jones)<br />
19. <b>The Man from Planet X</b> (Edgar G. Ulmer)<br />
20. <b>The Tall Target</b> (Anthony Mann)<br /><br />
Of the films of 1951 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>Venom and Eternity</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-43868003345206683612021-12-30T10:38:00.000-05:002021-12-30T10:38:20.170-05:00JFK YEAR ONE: I've posted my favorite films of <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-year-world-ended-let-other-blogs.html">2011</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/blog-post.html">2001</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/91-revised-ive-listed-my-favorite-films.html">1991</a>, <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/days-of-punk-and-reagans-ive-reeled-off.html">1981</a>, and <A href="https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/sayonara-bretton-woods-weve-gone.html">1971</a>. And now for something completely different:<br/><br/>
When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 1961, it gave its Best Picture award to <i>West Side Story</i>, a musical with vivid cinematography, an excellent score, and a lousy script. I prefer these:<br /><br />
1. <b>Yojimbo</b><br />
Directed by Akira Kurosawa<br />
Written by Kurosawa and Ryûzô Kikushima, from a novel by Dashiell Hammett<br /><br />
It was based on <i>Red Harvest</i>, it inspired <i>A Fistful of Dollars</i>, and it managed, impressively, to be better than both.<br /><br />
2. <b>Lola</b><br />
Written and directed by Jacques Demy<br /><br />
The <i>Short Cuts</i> of the French New Wave.<br /><br />
3. <b>Yanco</b><br />
Directed by Servando González<br />
Written by González, from a story by Jesús Marín<br /><br />
I'm not sure if this Mexican movie is available with English subtitles, but that doesn't really matter: There's hardly any dialogue, and when the characters do occasionally talk the words aren't all that important. The movie's <i>sound</i>, on the other hand, is very important indeed.<br /><br />
4. <b>The Fabulous Baron Munchausen</b><br />
Directed by Karel Zeman<br />
Written by Zerman, Josef Kainar, and Jiří Brdečka, from a story cycle by Rudolf Erich Raspe<br /><br />
This film feels like it's set in a Cornell box.<br /><br />
5. <b>Chronicle of a Summer</b><br />
Directed by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin<br /><br />
A documentary thorough enough to include a scene where the cast critiques the movie.<br /><br />
6. <b>The Hustler</b><br />
Directed by Robert Rossen<br />
Written by Rossen and Sidney Carroll, from a novel by Walter Tevis<br /><br />
"You have the best excuse in the world for losing. No trouble losing when you got a good excuse. Winning, that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey."<br /><br />
7. <b>The Innocents</b><br />
Directed by Jack Clayton<br />
Written by William Archibald, Truman Capote, and John Mortimer, from a novel by Henry James<br /><br />
A slow-burning horror flick inspired by <i>The Turn of the Screw</i>.<br /><br />
8. <b>The Exiles</b><br />
Written and directed by Kent MacKenzie<br /><br />
Life in L.A.'s Bunker Hill before the planners tore it down.<br /><br />
9. <b>The Ladies Man</b><br />
Directed by Jerry Lewis<br />
Written by Lewis and Bill Richmond<br /><br />
If you really want to know why "the French" love Jerry Lewis, this is the picture to watch. The sets could have come from a Tati film, the story shatters more narrative conventions than anything by Godard, and tracking all the Freudian undercurrents could serve as a cineastes' full employment act. Beyond that, it's pretty damn funny. I could do without a couple of sappy scenes with Pat Stanley, but otherwise this is Lewis in peak form.<br /><br />
10. <b>Eugene</b><br />
Written and directed by Ernie Kovacs and Joseph Behar<br /><br />
Kovacs was the first genius of TV comedy, experimenting with television the way an earlier generation of clown-artists experimented with film. That inventive spirit is on display in this surreal ABC special, which obviously owes a lot to the silent era but looks forward much more than it looks back.<br /><br />
Honorable mentions:<br /><br />
11. <b>Blast of Silence</b> (Allen Baron)<br />
12. <b>Viridiana</b> (Luis Buñuel)<br />
13. <b>Il Posto</b> (Ermanno Olmi)<br />
14. <b>Underworld U.S.A.</b> (Sam Fuller)<br />
15. <b>Accattone</b> (Pier Paolo Pasolini)<br />
16. <b>Mother Joan of the Angels</b> (Jerzy Kawalerowicz)<br />
17. <b>One-Eyed Jacks</b> (Marlon Brando)<br />
18. <b>Last Year in Marienbad</b> (Alain Resnais)<br />
19. <b>Killers on Parade</b> (Masahiro Shinoda)<br />
20. <b>Zoo</b> (Bert Haanstra)<br /><br />
Of the films of 1961 that I <i>haven't</i> seen, I'm most interested in <i>La Notte</i>.Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11710039914940121557noreply@blogger.com