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MOscarbradley
beneath the melted mountain,
seeing life edge by as barren trees,
picket fences enclosing sheep in pens.
the solitude of that earth, that sky
not real, not Summer tourists Christmas picnicing.
The memory was of one steep plain
and a shore where the sea came in
Given time, the ethereal feel of Ole,
a Danish student,
ocean hunting and high on heroin
will trespass as I have trespassed
on his solicitude.
Leaving us, coasters kiss the waves;
the throb of his engines,
the scent of peeling citrus in his galleys.
one of us the slave
the other, a lover
'There's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a red-headed girl'.
'Remembering all those sons of bitches who said we'd never get back up'
'And a screen without a picture since "Giant" came to town'
Worst Film Critic
Andrew Sarris - I don't know why Andrew Sarris bothered. He seemed to me to be a film critic who didn't like films, just the sound of his own voice as he rubbished almost every decent director in the history of movies in his so-called 'bible' 'The American Cinema'
Best Film Critic
David Thompson - Anyone who doesn't already own a copy of Thompson's 'Biographical Dictionary of the Cinema' should rush out and buy one as Thompson is by far the most enlightened, (and enlightening), critic the movies have seen. While he can puncture the most inflated ego with one cutting remark, unlike Sarris, he actually does seem to love movies and those whom he has championed should be forever in his debt
MY TOP 250 FILMS
1 PSYCHO (Hitchcock 1960)
2 SINGIN IN THE RAIN (Donen/Kelly 1952)
3 VIRIDIANA (Bunuel 1961)
4 PATHER PANCHALI (Ray 1955)
5 THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (Welles 1942)
6 CITIZEN KANE (Welles 1941)
7 THE GODFATHER PART 2 (Coppolla 1974)
8 THE QUIET MAN (Ford 1952)
9 LES VANCANCES DE M HULOT (Tati 1953)
10 L'AVVENTURRA (Antonioni 1960)
11 DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (Bresson 1950)
12 LA REGLE DE JEU (Renoir 1939)
13 BICYCLE THIEVES (De Sica 1948)
14 BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Eisenstien 1925)
15 INTOLERANCE (Griffith 1916)
16 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Kubrick 1968)
17 CASABLANCA (Curtiz 1942)
18 VERTIGO (Hitchcock 1958)
19 THE DEAD (Huston 1987)
20 MADAME DE ... (Ophuls 1953)
21 LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS (Carne 1945)
22 THE SEARCHERS (Ford 1956)
23 THE SEVEN SAMURAI (Kurosawa 1954)
24 ORDET (Dryer 1955)
25 PERSONA (Bergman 1966)
26 SALVATORE GUILIANO (Rosi 1961)
27 THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (Lubitsch 1940)
28 LAWERENCE OF ARABIA (Lean 1962)
29 SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (McKendrick 1957)
30 NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Laughton 1955)
31 THE CROWD (Vidor 1928)
32 TOUCH OF EVIL (Welles 1958)
33 THE GODFATHER (Coppolla 1972)
34 LOCAL HERO (Forsyth 1983)
35 DR STRANGELOVE or HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (Kubrick 1964)
36 MULHOLLAND DRIVE (Lynch 2001)
37 HEIMAT (Reitz 1984)
38 FANNY AND ALEXANDER (Bergman 1982)
39 THE BAND WAGON (Minelli 1953)
40 EIGHT AND A HALF (Fellini 1963)
41 LES QUATRES CENTS COUPS (Truffaut 1959)
42 BIGGER THAN LIFE (Ray 1956)
43 ALL ABOUT EVE (Mankiewicz 1950)
44 MEET ME IN ST LOUIS (Minelli 1944)
45 ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (Almodovar 1999)
46 SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING (Riesz 1960)
47 LOS OLVIDADOS (Bunuel 1950)
48 PULP FICTION (Tarantino 1994)
49 THE SEVENTH SEAL (Bergman 1957)
50 FEAR EATS THE SOUL (Fassbinder 1973)
51 THE NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (Fellini 1957)
52 ET - THE EXTRA TERRESTIAL (Spielberg 1982)
53 THE WIZARD OF OZ (Fleming 1939)
54 SOME LIKE IT HOT (Wilder 1959)
55 THE DECALOGUE (Kieslowski 1988)
56 WINGS OF DESIRE (Wenders 1987)
57 LA STRADA (Fellini 1956)
58 A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (Godard 1959)
59 THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (Pontecorvo 1965)
60 THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (Allen 1985)
61 THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY (Jackson 2001-2003)
62 ANDREI RUBLEV (Tarkovsky 1966)
63 BADLANDS (Mallick 1973)
64 NASHVILLE (Altman 1975)
65 THE PALM BEACH STORY (Sturges 1942)
66 THE THIRD MAN (Reed 1950)
67 O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU (Coen 2000)
68 UGETSU MONOGATARI (Mizoguchi 1953)
69 AMARCORD (Fellini 1973)
70 THE CHILDHOOD OF MAXIM GORKY (Donski 1938)
71 SUNRISE (Murnau 1927)
72 DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES (Davies 1988)
73 TALK TO HER (Almodovar 2001)
74 GONE WITH THE WIND (Fleming 1939)
75 THREE COLOURS RED (Kielowski 1994)
76 HUD (Ritt 1963)
77 A TASTE OF HONEY (Richardson 1961)
78 L'ATALANTE (Vigo 1934)
79 THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (Salles 2004)
80 ETRE ET AVOIR (Philibert 2002)
81 SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS (Donen 1954)
82 THE MALTESE FALCON (Huston 1941)
83 SUNSET BOULEVARD (Wilder 1950)
84 THE GRAPES OF WRATH (Ford 1940)
85 BONNIE AND CLYDE (Penn 1967)
86 BLUE VELVET (Lynch 1986)
87 CHINATOWN (Polanski 1974)
88 I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING (Powell/Pressburger 1945)
89 Z (Costa-Gavras 1969)
90 MEAN STREETS (Scorcese 1973)
91 LA GRANDE ILLUSION (Renoir 1938)
92 THE AWFUL TRUTH (McCarey 1937)
93 WALKABOUT (Roeg 1970)
94 BARRY LYNDON (Kubrick 1975)
95 REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (Ray 1955)
96 BLOW UP (Antonioni 1966)
97 THE SERVANT (Losey 1963)
98 BAD EDUCATION (Almodovar 2004)
99 YOL (Goren/Guney 1982)
100 THE WAGES OF FEAR (Clouzot 1953)
101 THE WILD BUNCH (Peckinpah 1969)
102 ORPHEE (Cocteau 1950)
103 WENT THE DAY WELL (Cavalcanti 1942)
104 THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (Frankenhimer 1962)
105 THE KING OF COMEDY (Scorcese 1983)
106 LANDSCAPE IN THE MIST (Angelopolus 1988)
107 THE THIN RED LINE (Mallick 1998)
108 ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (Leone 1968)
109 THE 39 STEPS (Hitchcock 1935)
110 BELLVILLE RENDEZVOUS (Chomet 2003)
111 TAXI DRIVER (Scorcese 1976)
112 SHOWBOAT (Whale 1936)
113 NEVER ON SUNDAY (Dassin 1960)
114 LA DOLCE VITA (Fellini 1960)
115 PATHS OF GLORY (Kubrick 1958)
116 APOCOLYPSE NOW (Coppolla 1979)
117 SCHINDLER'S LIST (Spielberg 1993)
118 UNDER FIRE (Spottiswoode 1983)
119 THE PLAYER (Altman 1992)
120 TROUBLE IN PARADISE (Lubitsch 1932)
121 IMITATION OF LIFE (Sirk 1959)
122 DEATH IN VENICE (Visconti 1971)
123 SIDEWAYS (Payne 2004)
124 THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (Bunuel 1972)
125 FAR FROM HEAVEN (Hayes 2002)
126 NORTH BY NORTHWEST (Hitchcock 1959)
127 LA BELLE ET LA BETE (Cocteau 1946)
128 CITY LIGHTS (Chaplin 1931)
129 TOY STORY (Lasseter 1995)
130 ADVISE AND CONSENT (Preminger 1962)
131 JESUS OF MONTREAL (Arcand 1989)
132 THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (Arnold 1957)
133 ACCATONE (Pasolini 1961)
134 AMORES PERROS (Inarritu 2000)
135 VERA DRAKE (Leigh 2004)
136 LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (Resnais 1961)
137 ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (Sirk 1955)
138 L'ENFANT SAUVAGE (Truffaut 1970)
139 THE GOLD RUSH (Chaplin 1925)
140 THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS (Angelopolous 1975)
141 RIO BRAVO (Hawks 1959)
142 GOODFELLAS (Scorcese 1990)
143 EL (Bunuel 1953)
144 THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT (Ford 1953)
145 MANHATTEN (Allen 1979)
146 DOG DAY AFTERNOON (Lumet 1975)
147 CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (Spielberg 1977)
148 LOST IN TRANSLATION (Coppolla 2004)
149 BRIEF ENCOUNTER (Lean 1946)
150 A STAR IS BORN (Cukor 1954)
151 LAURA (Preminger 1944)
152 THE APARTMENT (Wilder 1960)
153 ORDINARY PEOPLE (Redford 1980)
154 MAGNOLIA (Anderson 1999)
155 LAND AND FREEDOM (Loach 1995)
156 THE HAIRDRESSER'S HUSBAND (Leconte 1990)
157 THE GENERAL (Keaton 1927)
158 DINER (Levinson 1982)
159 NUIT ET BROUILLARD (Resnais 1955)
160 WHERE IS MY FRIEND'S HOUSE (Kiarostami 1987)
161 DO THE RIGHT THING (Lee 1989)
162 LES PARENTS TERRIBLES (Cocteau 1948)
163 ALEXANDER NEVSKY (Eisenstien 1938)
164 STRIKE (Eisenstien 1924)
165 THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (Loach 2006)
166 TARNATION (Caouette 2004)
167 THE NEW WORLD (Mallick 2005)
168 ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (Hawks 1939)
169 CLAIRE'S KNEE (Rohmer 1970)
170 PINOCCHIO (Sharpstien/Luske 1940)
171 UNFORGIVEN (Eastwood 1992)
172 STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (Hitchcock 1951)
173 THE PRODUCERS (Brooks 1968)
174 SHANE (Stevens 1953)
175 SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (Bergman 1955)
176 RAISE THE RED LANTERN (Yimou 1991)
177 THRONE OF BLOOD (Kurosawa 1957)
178 BELLE DE JOUR (Bunuel 1967)
179 THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (Scorcese 1993)
180 HEAVEN'S GATE (Cimino 1980)
181 HAPPINESS (Solondz 1998)
182 COMME UNE IMAGE (Jaoui 2004)
183 ROBIN AND MARIAN (Lester 1976)
184 A ROOM WITH A VIEW (Ivory 1985)
185 THE TIN DRUM (Schlondorff 1979)
186 TEA AND SYMPATHY (Minelli 1956)
187 FEDORA (Wilder 1978)
188 ALPHAVILLE (Godard 1965)
189 THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (Bogdanovitch 1971)
190 MAN OF ARAN (Flaherty 1934)
191 THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (Cukor 1940)
192 RAGING BULL (Scorcese 1980)
193 MAN OF MARBLE (Wajda 1977)
194 KISS ME DEADLY (Aldrich 1955)
195 AMERICA AMERICA (Kazan 1963)
196 JOHNNY GUITAR (Ray 1954)
197 NOTORIOUS (Hitchcock 1946)
198 IF ... (Anderson 1968)
199 PERFORMANCE (Roeg/Cammell 1970)
200 SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (Sturges 1941)
201 STAGECOACH (Ford 1939)
202 ON THE WATERFRONT (Kazan 1954)
203 WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF (Nichols 1966)
204 THE PASSENGER (Antonioni 1975)
205 GROUNDHOG DAY (Ramis 1993)
205 KING KONG (Jackson 2005)
207 ROSEMARY'S BABY (Polanski 1968)
208 PARIS TEXAS (Wenders 1984)
209 LORD OF THE FLIES (Brooks 1963)
210 THE BIRDS (Hitchcock 1963)
211 THE NIGHT OF SAN LORENZO (Tavianni 1981)
212 THE HUSTLER (Rossen 1961)
213 WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (Aldrich 1962)
214 AI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (Spielberg 2001)
215 ROME, OPEN CITY (Rossellini 1945)
216 BRINGING UP BABY (Hawks 1938)
217 WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN (Almodovar 1988)
218 SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS (Kazan 1961)
219 THE WOMEN (Cukor 1939)
220 THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE (Launder 1950)
221 GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (Hawks 1953)
222 THE WAR GAME (Watkins 1966)
223 MILDRED PIERCE (Curtiz 1945)
224 MYSTIC RIVER (Eastwood 2003)
225 JACKIE BROWN (Tarantino 1997)
226 DINNER AT EIGHT (Cukor 1933)
227 YOUNG FRANKENSTIEN (Brooks 1974)
228 AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD (Herzog 1972)
229 FREAKS (Browning 1932)
230 SEPTEMBER (Allen 1987)
231 12 ANGRY MEN (Lumet 1957)
232 HIGH NOON (Zinneman 1952)
233 BLACK NARCISSUS (Powell/Pressburger (1946)
234 WOMAN IN THE DUNES (Teshigahara 1963)
235 THE RED SHOES (Powell/Pressburger 1948)
236 INTERIORS (Allen 1978)
237 GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (LeRoy 1933(
238 THE LAST WALTZ (Scorcese 1978)
239 THE HOUSE OF MIRTH (Davies 2000)
240 PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (Ross 1981)
241 TOPSY-TURVY (Leigh 1999)
242 BREAKING THE WAVES (Von Trier 1996)
243 JOUR DE FETE (Tati 1947)
244 OUR HOSPITALITY (Keaton 1923)
245 SEVEN CHANCES (Keaton 1925)
246 THE INNOCENTS (Clayton 1961)
247 THE WIND (Sjostrom 1928)
248 THE BIG HEAT (Lang 1953)
249 FIVE EASY PIECES (Rafelson 1970)
250 THE NUN'S STORY (Zinneman 1959)
MY 20 GREATEST DIRECTORS
1 ALFRED HITCHCOCK (96 votes)
2 FEDERICO FELLINI (95 votes)
3 JOHN FORD (81 votes)
4 LUIS BUNUEL (78 votes)
5 STANLEY KUBRICK (76 votes)
6 INGMAR BERGMAN (74 votes)
7 MARTIN SCORCESE (73 votes)
8 ORSON WELLES (72 votes)
9 FRANCIS FORD COPPOLLA (61 votes)
10 PEDRO ALMODOVAR (59 votes)
10 STEVEN SPIELBERG (59 votes)
12 BILLY WILDER (54 votes)
13 VINCENTE MINNELLI (50 votes)
14 DAVID LYNCH (49 votes)
15 MICHEALGELO ANTONIONI (46 votes)
16 TERRENCE MALICK (43 votes)
16 NICHOLAS RAY (43 votes)
18 STANLEY DONEN (42 votes)
18 SERGEI EISENSTIEN (42 votes)
20 JOHN HUSTON (41 votes)
Nobody does vegetables like me. I did a whole evening of vegetables Off-Broadway
Don't fuck with me fellas; this ain't my first time at the rodeo
Hell of a thing killin' a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist
This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years.
First we'll have an orgy then we'll go see Tony Bennett.
Morons! I've got morons on my team! Nobody is going to rob us going DOWN the mountain
The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter
Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!
I love the smell of napalm in the morning
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer
I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk
Top 12 Films of 2006 in alphabetical order:
BEFORE SUNSET (Linklater) - seen for first time
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Lee)
THE DEPARTED (Scorcese)
L'ENFANT (Dardenne Brothers)
HIDDEN (Haneke)
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (Dayton and Faris)
PAN'S LABYRINTH (Del Toro)
SPIRITED AWAY (Miyazaki) - seen for first time
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (Baumbach)
UNITED 93 (Greengrass)
VOLVER (Almodovar)
THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (Loach)
The 100 greatest performances
1 Marlon Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT
2 Albert Finney in SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING
3 Bette Davis in ALL ABOUT EVE
4 Orson Welles in CITIZEN KANE
5 Laurence Olivier in RICHARD 111
6 Monica Vitti in L'AVVENTURRA
7 Celia Johnston in BRIEF ENCOUNTER
8 James Dean in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE
9 Peter O'Toole in LAWERENCE OF ARABIA
10 Katharine Hepburn in LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
11 Robert DeNiro in TAXI DRIVER
12 Anthony Perkins in PSYCHO
13 Jane Fonda in KLUTE
14 Michael Redgrave in THE BROWNING VERSION
15 Daniel Day-Lewis in MY LEFT FOOT
16 Geraldine Page in INTERIORS
17 Alec Guiness in THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI
18 Emily Watson in BREAKING THE WAVES
19 Al Pacino in THE GODFATHER PART 2
20 Agnes Moorehead in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS
21 Marlon Brando in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
22 Elizabeth Taylor in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
23 Robert DeNiro in MEAN STREETS
24 Lila Kedrova in ZORBA THE GREEK
25 Jack Lemmon in MISSING
26 Alec Guiness in KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS
27 Al Pacino in DOG DAY AFTERNOON
28 Robert DeNiro in RAGING BULL
29 Dirk Bogarde in THE SERVANT
30 Jean Louis Barrault in LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Identikit (1974)
It really is as bad as its reputation.
Generally regarded as the worst picture Liz Taylor ever made "Identikit" aka "The Driver's Seat" barely saw the light of day and virtually disappeared until now but then Taylor was always a force to be reckoned with and the director Giuseppe Patroni Griffi was no slouch either so could it be as bad as its reputation? Well, frankly yes. Both the plot and the screenplay are preposterously daft but if you read it as the imaginings of a highly unstable woman, in its crazy way, perhaps it makes sense and when Liz goes over the top she's always worth a look.
On the other hand, for a film clearly dealing with mental illness, you could say it's in the worst possible taste. It plays in English with most of the supporting cast dubbed, (it's an Italian production), so maybe it suffers in translation. If there's comedy here it's mostly unintentional and God only knows what audience it was intended for or what author Muriel Spark thought of it, (she wrote the original novel). A curiosity at best.
Anora (2024)
Unquestionably one of the best films of 2024
There are very few directors who can make a scene feel both very funny and deeply moving at the same time and almost within the same frame and yet it's a knack that Sean Baker seems to have perfected over a remarkable if relatively short career. His new film "Anora" is arguably his best to date, (it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes), and like all his films it deals with people living, or perhaps just surviving, in the margins of society,
Once again a sex-worker takes central stage. She's Anora but who prefers to go by the name of Ani, an escort and lap-dancer at a club named HQ and who, because she can speak Russian, (her grandmother, she says, never learned English), is chosen as 'girl-for-the-night' for Ivan, the obscenely rich and very horny son of a Russian oligarch. They hit it off, fly to Las Vegas and before you can say 'Putin' are married.
It's then that all hell breaks loose in a magnificent extended sequence mid-movie when the heavies Ivan's parents have sent arrive demanding the marriage is annulled and it's here that Baker pulls his Antonioni or Hitchcock moment as Ivan flees and a new character, Igor, is introduced. Of course, as Ivan's physical presence is needed for the annulment everyone goes off in search of him but, unlike in "L'Avventura", he's found though you may ask yourself was he worth finding.
As our interest in Ivan wanes so our interest in Igor grows with Anora remaining all the while centre-stage and once again Baker has found the perfect actress for the role. Newcomer Mikey Madison is superb but then Baker has the uncanny ability to draw superb performances from all his actors, (Karren Karagulian is another stand-out). As I said it's very funny but also incredibly moving. For all her bravado Anora is damaged goods which the film's final scene amply demonstrates and although we leave her weeping at last she may be with someone who actually loves her and the film's end is just her beginning.
Beyond Therapy (1987)
Shockingly bad.
Proof that even Robert Altman can cook a rancid turkey. "Beyond Therapy", which he co-wrote with Christopher Durang from Durang's play and which, to Durang's dismay, he proceeded to change radically, is about the kind of New Yorker's who read 'The New Yorker' or are just found between the pages of 'The New Yorker' and who spend half their lives on the psychiatrist's couch.
It's clearly meant to be a comedy but it's one in which every joke has been drained of humor making it hard to believe that this was made by the man who gave us "Nashville" or that actors as talented as Glenda Jackson, Jeff Goldblum, Julie Hagerty, Tom Conti, Christopher Guest and Genevieve Page would lower themselves to appear in it. Surely everyone involved must have realized what a crock they were involved in. Shockingly bad.
Stage Door (1937)
A classic that deserves to be better known.
Some of the best dialogue ever heard in an American movie delivered by a mostly female cast all of them at the top of their form. The setting is a theatrical rooming house populated by wannabe actresses. There's Katharine Hepburn, (the high-brow Vasser type), Ginger Rogers, (the low-brow chorus-girl type), and the others, (Lucille Ball, Constance Collier, Eve Arden, Ann Miller and Andrea Leeds who was Oscar-nominated as the tragic Kay).
Amongst the men are Adolphe Menjou, (a big producer, what else!), Jack Carson, Grady Sutton and Franklin Pangborn, none of them a match for the girls. Of course, the source material was a play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman which might account for the sharp wit though this cast certainly helped. The director was the great and undervalued Gregory La Cava who won the New York Film Critics' Best Director prize for his work. Something of a classic, in fact, that deserves to be better known.
Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (1962)
No masterpiece but essential nevertheless.
Bresson at his most austere with a subject in keeping with that austerity, "The Trial of Joan of Arc" may lack the formal beauty of Dryer's film and Florence Delay may not be Falconetti but what Bresson's film has are Joan's words spoken directly from the manuscripts of the trial so this is probably as close we are likely to get to what actually happened.
Of course, with no wider backstory, other than what history has told us, it is difficult to place these events in a broader context which isn't to say the film doesn't work on its own terms. What we are seeing is a fragment of the tapestry rather than the tapestry itself while both Delay and Jean-Claude Fourneau as Bishop Cauchon are perfectly cast. Not one of Bresson's masterpieces, then, but quite extraordinary nevertheless.
7 Women (1965)
Not the late masterpiece some people think it is but a great swansong nevertheless.
Now considered in some quarters to be a masterpiece and one of his finest films, John Ford's final film "7 Women" was neither a critical nor a commercial success at the time, (though the magazine Cahiers Du Cinema did name it as one of the ten best films of the year). The 7 women of the title are missionaries in 1935 China; at least six of them are, the seventh, played by Anne Bancroft, is the new doctor who joins them. The only man, outside of a few Chinese servants, is teacher Eddie Albert, that is until warlord Mike Mazurki comes calling with rape and pillage on his mind.
In many respects this is just another Ford western albeit with a Far Eastern setting and a very fine one it is if not quite the masterpiece some people think it is. For Ford it's also quite explicit in its attitude to sex particularly in its barely hidden lesbian subplot with head missionary Margaret Leighton lusting after young teacher Sue Lyon, seemingly unable to live down "Lolita". Bancroft, when she arrives, isn't just a breath of fresh air but a smoking, swearing, sexually liberated outsider who proves to be more than a match for the invaders.
Like "The Man who Shot Liberty Valance" it's clearly shot on sound stages and like that earlier classic is redeemed by an old man's experience of the world at large as well as an ambivalent attitude towards organized religion with each of the characters beautifully sketched and played. Add plague to the proceedings and you have one of Ford's most unlikely films but one as deserving of our attention as any that preceded it.
High School Confidential! (1958)
Unintentionally hilarious.
Unintentionally hilarious exploitation picture on the dangers of drugs in American high schools in the late fifties populated by high school kids played by actors who were at least ten years too old for their roles. Russ Tamblyn is the new student who's really an undercover cop planted in the school to find out who the dealers are. Jan Sterling is the glamorous and liberal teacher, Mamie Van Doren is Tamblyn's sex-pot of an 'aunt' while John Drew Barrymore is one of the bad guys.
Albert Zugsmith produced and Jack Arnold directed "High School Confidential" in 1958 and it was dated almost before it hit the screen. On the plus side it was very handsomely photographed in Black and White Cinemascope and the drag race sequence is certainly effective as is the climatic fight scene between the villains and some more civic-minded students lead by a very handsome and youthful Michael Landon before he built his little house on the prairie.
It Came from Outer Space (1953)
One of the better sci-fi movies of its period.
One of the better sci-fi movies of the fifties with intelligent direction, (by the great Jack Arnold), and an above average script making up for the lack of sophisticated special effects. OK, so the monsters look like wobbly jellies with one big eye and the acting is as wooden as we might expect from the likes of Richard Carlson and Charles Drake but at least at the time of the 'Red Menace' in an age of paranoia here was a sci-fi movie that said the invaders might not wish us harm after all. Originally filmed in 3D, though it hardly merited the use of the new technology, it has since gone on to be something of a cult classic.
Hamlet liikemaailmassa (1987)
'Hamlet' as a deadpan comedy.
The plot of "Hamlet" transferred to contemporary Finland then filmed in the style of a forties film noir with its tongue lodged firmly in its cheek. Aki Kaurismaki's "Hamlet Goes Business" is yet another of his many multifaceted treats exploring in large part the bizarre relationships between men and women only this time fleshing it out with yet another cod-thriller plot. So what if it steals from Shakespeare, (I can think of no better man), and at least this one clocks in at under ninety minutes rather than four hours. Good fun even if it lacks the emotional density we associate with the very best of its director.
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
By now the rot had set in.
George Stevens was one of the great American directors of the 1930's and early forties and some of the films he made around this time, {"Alice Adams","Swing Time", "Quality Street", "Woman of the Year" "The Talk of the Town", "The More the Merrier"), have become classics. However, it was clear that by the late '40's the rot was beginning to set in. "I Remember Mama" was heavy-handed and sentimental while the over-praised "A Place in the Sun" was a turgid version of Theodore Dreiser's 'An American Tragedy'.
Momentary redemption came in the form of "Shane", still one of the greatest westerns ever made but "Giant" was an elephantine version of Edna Ferber's novel only partly redeemed by James Dean's performance. Nevertheless, it won Stevens his second Oscar as Best Director and then in 1959 he turned his attention to "The Diary of Anne Frank", adapted not from the diary itself but from the Broadway play of the same name. The result was cloying nobility of the worst kind, reducing the tragedy of the Holocaust to the level of a cheap Hollywood entertainment.
Shot in Black and White Cinemascope, (totally the wrong format for the intimacy required), it was still handsomely photographed but very unevenly cast. An over-aged Millie Perkins made for an insipid Anne while Shelley Winters chewed the scenery all the way to an Oscar, (which she later donated to the Anne Frank Foundation). Ed Wynn, on the other hand, managed once again to steal all of his scenes though Stevens dragged the film out to an interminable three hours. Worse was still to come, of course, when Stevens decided to tackle the life of Christ with "The Greatest Story Ever Told". In 1970 he made a late gem with "The Only Game in Town" but by then it was too late.
Kaidan (1964)
Visually superb if a tad predictable.
Masaki Kobayashi's ""Kwaidan" comprises of four ghost stories, each told in the kind of Kabuki-style that many Japanese films are famous for and all are visually highly attractive if a little on the predictable side, (only the third one really stands out from the others). Indeed, this is a movie in which style dominates with many of the frames looking like old prints but in terms of content the film is sadly lacking in substance. The cast, however, go at it as if they were performing some sacred text even if Kobayashi doesn't want to do anything as crude as breathe life into the proceedings, Still, as portmanteau pictures about ghosts go, it's definitely a cut above average. It's also, I feel, highly overrated.
Godspell: A Musical Based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (1973)
An insuslt, not just to Christianity, but to musicals!
Never having seen this on stage I must admit director David Greene has done a very good job of opening up "Godspell" for the big screen. The question is, was it worth opening up in the first place? Like "Jesus Christ, Superstar" it's another hippie rock musical based on the life of Christ but whereas "...Superstar" stayed reasonably close to the 'facts' as we know them and adhered fairly closely to biblical locations this, like "Hair, transfers Jesus and his disciples to contemporary New York, turning them into hippies.
This might have worked had its score been on the same level as Andrew Lloyd Webber's classic or if it had a director of the caliber of Milos Forman but here the score is largely insipid and mostly forgettable and quite frankly, not the kind of thing to turn either a hippie or a Christian on and it's unlikely that this thoroughly banal film will convert anyone. In fact, if you are a follower of Jesus, after seeing "Godspell", you might actually start looking the other way.
Donovan's Reef (1963)
Not a late masterpiece but very underrated nevertheless.
Unfairly dismissed at the time of its release "Donovan's Reef" now feels like, if not quite a late masterpiece, still something of a classic piece of Fordian hokum and an opportunity for a bunch of actors to enjoy themselves on, as Jack Warden's character describes it, "one of the most beautiful islands on earth". It's virtually plotless and on a formal level it hasn't moved on from the kind of films Ford was turning out in the forties and fifties and it might have been negligible had it been directed by anyone else but frame to frame Ford imbues it with all the affection and Fordian 'touches', including some spectacular Fordian brawls, that made him perhaps the primary director in American cinema.
Naturally, it's highly sentimental, quite misogynist and also highly ambivalent on the issue of race, (the Chinese get short shrift but Ford handles the issue of miscegenation with a lot more sensitivity than might have been expected), and it has in Elizabeth Allen a properly feisty Fordian heroine. Indeed the cast is first-rate. John Wayne, (who else), is Donovan who runs the local saloon, (hence the title), Lee Marvin is his sidekick, Jack Warden the local doctor and Allen's father, (her presence on the island and their relationship is as near to a plot as the film gets), while the supporting cast includes Marcel Dalio, Cesar Romero and Dorothy Lamour. You might call it a holiday film, particularly for the cast and crew, but if it is then you just might wish all holiday films were directed by Ford.
Posledice (2018)
There are better ways to pass the time.
"Consequences" is well directed by first-time director Darko Stante and mostly well acted by its young cast but it is also thoroughly unpleasant and more than something of a downer. Andrej, (Matej Zemljic), is a young thug who winds up in a reform school where he falls in with Zele, (Timon Sturbej), and his group of bullies but Andrej is also secretly gay and it doesn't take Zele long to figure that out and use it to his advantage.
This is a Slovenian coming-of-age movie set in a world of violence and full of characters with no redeeming qualities and where, in view of everything else that is happening, the LGBTQ+ angle is spurious to say the least, Zemljic may be physically attractive but his performance carries no conviction and it's left to the thoroughly nasty Sturbej to walk away with the picture. Still, there are better ways to pass the time.
Year of the Dragon (1985)
No masterpiece but an excellent crime movie nevertheless
When Michael Cimino made "Year of the Dragon" he was no longer flavor of the month. Crowned King of the Hill with only his second feature, "The Deer Hunter", his star plummeted when his third film, "Heaven's Gate", became the biggest flop in Hollywood history, at least as far as the studios and the public were concerned, despite its being a masterpiece and one of the greatest of all American films. After its commercial failure it seemed like Cimino might never work again but you can't keep a good man down even if it did take five years before he got behind the camera again.
Co-written by Cimino and Oliver Stone from Robert Daley's novel, "Year of the Dragon" was a gangster epic, part Jimmy Cagney and part De Palma's "Scarface" set in Chinatown with Mickey Rourke as the potentially racist cop caught in the middle of a Triad gang war and John Lone as the Chinese drug lord he has to go up against. It's not a great film with thick-ear dialogue and mostly so-so performances, (though both Rourke and Lone are excellent), and it did little to redeem Cimino's sullied reputation but it's certainly very stylish and fast-moving with a number of first-rate set-pieces and was definitely undeserving of the five Razzie nominations it received.
Morocco (1930)
A classic of its kind.
A classic example of rhinestones turning into diamonds before our eyes Josef von Sternberg's "Morocco" might have been just another tawdry pre-code melodrama that was turned into something approaching art by virtually everyone involved. Firstly, there's Lee Garmes' shimmering cinematography, the crisp no-nonsense and really rather erotic screenplay by Jules Furthman based on the play "Amy Jolly" by Benno Vigny and then there are the matchless performances of Marlene Dietrich as Jolly, a young Gary Cooper as the insolent legionnaire Tom Brown and Adolphe Menjou as the rich older man who thinks money can buy anything including Dietrich.
It marked the second teaming off Dietrich and von Sternberg after "The Blue Angel" and their first in Hollywood and it set the template for the films that followed, particularly in how they looked and in the forthrightness in the way Dietrich's sexuality was portrayed, a seductress and not just of men; in the film's famous opening number she appears in male garb and kisses one woman on the mouth. Cooper, too, was never more sexually attractive and the film clearly made him a star. Too flimsy in terms of its melodramatic plot to be ever considered a great film it is, nevertheless, one of the most memorable of its period and one that stands up to repeated viewings.
This Earth Is Mine (1959)
Romantic tosh of a high order.
Soap operatic romantic tosh of an unusually high order thanks mainly to the superlative direction of Henry King working, as he so often did, with sub-standard material. The setting is the California vineyards, the period Prohibition and this film, based on a novel by Alice Tisdale Hobart, is clearly a forerunner of such television series as "Dallas" and "Dynasty" with Claude Rains as the ruler of this empire, Dorothy McGuire, his ambitious daughter and Rock Hudson and Jean Simmons his grand-children who are in love with each other, (don't ask!).
It's the kind of film that attracted star players and did the business back in the late fifties with quality usually taking a backseat to quantity but King was something of a master at this sort of thing imbuing the ridiculous plot with a seriousness it didn't warrant. Rains and McGuire and, to a lesser extent, Simmons take the acting credits while Hudson just seems to be having a good time in the sure and certain knowledge he won't be winning any Oscars if he keeps making movies like this. No classic, then, but a very sturdy entertainment nevertheless.
River of No Return (1954)
One of Preminger's most enjoyable films.
One of Preminger's 'entertainments' and while "River of No Return" may be no masterpiece it's actually one of his most enjoyable films and one of the best Cinemascope movies of the early fifties, (Preminger was to prove to be a master of the widescreen). A western of sorts, it has Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe and young Tommy Rettig going down the river of the title to escape some less than friendly Indians. With the river itself playing a major part in proceedings as well as several songs courtesy of Ken Darby and Lionel Newman it's not like any other western of the period. Mitchum is his usual laid-back self, Monroe is excellent and Joseph LaShelle's cinematography is outstanding making this a Grade A entertainment and something of a cult movie.
Monos (2019)
One of the best films of recent years.
Boy soldiers are nothing new in international cinema with killers as young as ten gracing our screens in movies like "Beasts of No Nation". In the Colombian film "Monos" the soldiers are a mix of young men and women guarding an American hostage, (Julianne Nicholson), firstly on a remote mountainside and then in some unforgiving tropical jungle. Who these teenage warriors are fighting or why is never explained in a scenario that is part Kafka, part William Golding and part Werner Herzog.
There's only a slim semblance of a plot; instead director Alejandro Landes simply films his young cast, (who go by names like 'Bigfoot', 'Wolf' and 'Dog'), as they mostly fight among themselves, have sex or simply try to survive and what begins as just the kind of art-house movie designed to give art-house movies a bad name becomes, in its second half, the kind of savage 'adventure' movie Coppola might have made back in the seventies, indeed did make back in the seventies; there are sequences here as breathtaking as any in recent cinema. I simply couldn't take my eyes off it but whether it finds its audience is another matter entirely.
Bad Boys (1983)
A prison movie with a difference.
A prison movie with a difference. As the title suggests, "Bad Boys" is set in a reform school and while the boys are certainly 'bad' legally, morally and in the eyes of society the film's message is that they are the products of their environment. Sean Penn is the most recent inmate, a bad kid with a record who, during a botched robbery, accidentally kills the younger brother of a gang member. Of course, we know that while Penn acts tough he's sensitive at heart so what has to go down for him to redeem himself?
All the usual prison movie cliches are here albeit in junior form but director Rick Rosenthal handles them with considerable ease and manages to draw excellent performances from his mostly young cast. Penn, in an early role, shows real promise and young Eric Gurry is very good as his smart, street-wise cell mate. It's hardly ground-breaking but as genre pictures go it's definitely well above average.
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)
Not a Minnelli masterpiece but essential nevertheless.
Another Minnelli movie about the movies and better, in its trashy, glossy way, than his overrated "The Bad and the Beautiful", (cleverly incorporated into this scenario to let us see what Kirk Douglas' character was like as a younger actor). This time he's a washed-up actor offered two weeks work in a film being shot in Rome's Cinecitta studios and directed by Edward G. Robinson with whom he's had a love/hate relationship stretching back awhile.
He's also got an oversexed ex-wife, Cyd Charisse, and women problems generally, (the cast also includes Daliah Lavi, Rosanna Schiaffino and Claire Trevor as Robinson's venomous wife). There's also a talentless young hack involved and he's played very well by George Hamilton. We are, of course, very much in "La Dolce Vita" territory or at least in the world of Eurotrash or Cannes where topless starlets meant more than the films being screened. The film itself is highly artificial which is just as it should be, pitched at just the right level of hysteria. Not a Minnelli masterpiece perhaps but essential nevertheless.
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)
Perhaps too clever for its own good.
Clearly a prestige production, (you only have to look at the credits, both in front of and behind the camera), yet this Sherlock Holmes movie wasn't really a success. Perhaps Holmes was out of favor by the mid-seventies or perhaps the frivolous tone put people off, (it's certainly not in the same class as Billy Wilder's "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes"), and yet it's a difficult film to dislike even if the ridiculous plot is something Robert Downey's Holmes might have found himself caught up in.
Firstly there's the cast. Nicol Williamson is Holmes, Robert Duvall with a plummy English accent is Watson, Laurence Olivier is Moriarty and Alan Arkin is Sigmund Freud, attempting to cure Holmes of his cocaine addiction, (hence the title). Then there's Vanessa Redgrave, Samantha Eggar, Joel Grey, Jeremy Kemp and Charles Gray while Nicholas Meyer's screenplay from his own novel certainly errs on the smart side and therein lies the problem; this is a spoof that is just too clever for its own good.
Herbert Ross both produced and directed the picture and he gives it that bland touch of class he often brought to his movies while Ken Adam's Production Design and Oswald Morris' Cinematography ensures it's always easy on the eye - there's even a Stephen Sondheim song on the soundtrack. Of course, what audience it was aimed at is something of a mystery; perhaps one even beyond the powers of the great detective himself.
Hit Man (2023)
Linklater's best in some time.
Thanks in large part to an absolutely brilliant performance from Glen Powell, Richard Linklater's new comedy "Hit Man" turns out to be one of his very best films. It's something of a 'true' story since the character Powell plays, Gary Johnson, really existed. He's a university professor who also finds himself working for the New Orleans police department pretending to be a hit man so as to entrap potential killers who don't want to do the killing themselves.
It's totally far-fetched but who says that even 'true' stories have to be believable ; as a certain Mr. Hitchcock said, 'it's only a movie' and this 'screwball-rom-com-neo-noir' certainly is no documentary and as a genre piece it hits all the right buttons while still managing to appeal to the usual Linklater aficionados. Chuck in a star-making performance from Adria Arjona as the femme fatale that Johnson falls for and what's not to like.
Perfect Days (2023)
Perfect.
Wim Wenders' idea of an 'action' movie is having someone stumble after silently walking down a street for ten minutes of screen time. He is, in other words, a minimalist who draws you slowly but inexorably into his sagas of lonely men living largely isolated existences and his new film, "Perfect Days", is no exception.
His hero, Hirayama, is a middle-aged Tokyo toilet cleaner, superbly played by Koji Yakusho, (he won Best Actor at Cannes), without doing almost anything at all and Wenders simply follows him through his mostly silent days and nights as he cleans toilets, tends to his plants, takes the occasional photo, reads William Faulkner and listens to a lot of sixties and seventies American music on what we now might think of as ancient cassettes. Considering how fully Yakusho embodies his role this could just as easily be a documentary about a real toilet cleaner.
Of course, it won't be a film for everyone; its simplicity and lack of what we might call a plot could prove off-putting to a lot of people, (perhaps the nearest thing to a plot in the film deals with the love life, or lack of it, of Hirayama's co-worker). Naturally, among the music Hirayama listens to is Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day' and while his life might seem conventional and even boring to most people to Hirayama every day is perfect. So, too, is Wenders' film which, on reflection, you could even call his Japanese "Paris, Texas".
Possession (1981)
40 years on it still stinks to high heaven.
My Turkey of the Year back in 1981 I've naturally avoided watching "Possession" again during the last 40 plus years but then it has built up something of a cult critical reputation and Isabelle Adjani did win both the Best Actress prize at Cannes and the Cesar for her performance so perhaps I was wrong? Let's just say that it's definitely an acquired taste and one that I didn't have back in the day. Now, having seen it again, I can safely say it's a taste I have yet to acquire nor one that I want to.
Back then I thought it was just a 'bad' movie but now it's almost like a parody of a bad movie, part horror film and part send-up of those deeply serious Eastern European or Nordic sagas of failed marriages, shot in English, (big mistake thought I'm sure subtitles wouldn't work any better), and appallingly acted by both Adjani, (Best Actress? What were the Cannes jury thinking of?), and Sam Neill. I can understand it having a cult reputation in the 'bad movie' stakes but I certainly can't understand the critical praise that's been heaped on it over the years. Yes, forty years on it still stinks to high heavens!