iluv2viddyfilms top 100 movies [Archive]

iluv2viddyfilms

07-21-11, 08:09 PM

Top 100 films
First movie...

Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch)

Thoughts: I last watched this David Lynch film about a year ago, so it's time for another viewing. The first time I watched it I was perplexed and mesmerized. It's a film that grows on the viewer and it is oddball director David Lynch’s most definitive film. It lacks the accessibility of The Straight Story or The Elephant Man, but is more coherent and less of a mind **** than Mulholland Dr. or the elusive Inland Empire (still have not got through that one). Blue Velvet seems to be a perfect blend of Lynch’s story-telling and his surreal mood evoking bizarreness.

I like the Lynch trademarks of random images and sounds that are irrelevant to the plot, but push the atmosphere. For example - a candle burning, a white picket fence contrasting against a perfectly blue sky, a close up of lipstick, a flickering shadow, and so on. Blue Velvet is a mystery and something of a detective novel for protagonist Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) as he investigates a missing ear (yes, you read correctly) and turns up a web of kidnapping, ransom, and murder. Dennis Hopper plays the villain Frank Booth and Isabella Rossellini is the mistreated woman who’s husband is murdered and child kidnapped. Their scenes together are disturbing and extremely odd. Everybody has a fetish, but Frank Booth as played brilliantly over-the-top in full expletive laced glory by Hopper takes this to new heights and is perhaps one of the screen’s most disgusting, unpredictable, and odd bad guys.

The 50’s vibe going through the film – whether it be the nice tree lined avenues, the oldies music, and the nice neat trim fashions provide a satire of a small town America that never existed except in our own minds. It’s all wonderful, creepy, and hilarious. Watching Beaumont voyeuristically investigate a crime and slowly learn of the evil nature lurking beneath smiling faces is a pure joy. Lynch puts the viewer in his position so we almost become the character who is in over his head. Never is this more apparent when he views a rape from hiding and peeking through a living room closet. During these tense moments Lynch almost out-Hitchcock's, Hitchcock.

http://www.blogcdn.com/blog.moviefone.com/media/2009/07/bluevelvet.jpg

Best scene: For me the best moment in the film is more of a sequence than a single scene. Beaumont is discovered by Booth and taken on as a “guest” through his labyrinth of road rage, beer critique, shady criminals, and a semi-cross dressing Liberace-summoning Roy Orbison lip singing Dean Stockwell. What tops it off is Hopper mouthing along almost orgasmically... why? Just why? But lord help me I love it. Like most of Lynch’s material it’s just strange, yet so damn funny and watchable. It’s almost a parody of Bogart’s journey through the hellish nights in The Big Sleep with characters in situations only the imagination could come up with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDZItMrmtNI&feature=related

Sexy Celebrity

07-21-11, 08:32 PM

I have issues with making lists. I really do, it's painstakingly difficult for me, because I'm a bit bipolar and my mood changes, I change, and so do my tastes in films from time to time.

Lord, do I understand. And then sometimes I feel like not everything changes, but maybe the order does, or you just wanna remake it anyways.

The reason why is because I really wonder if a person can say with any objectivity the difference between their 58th favorite film and their 70th favorite film.

Yes, yes.

Also I wonder if a person didn't have their list with them or moFo handy, could you walk up to them on the street and ask, "Hey what's your 61st favorite film?" and have them give you a direct answer why with the reasons why it's below 60 and slightly ahead of 62?

Yes. Finally - someone else on here with thought processes similar to mine in regards to lists/movies. And to think I never knew.

Godoggo

07-21-11, 08:53 PM

Yes. Finally - someone else on here with thought processes similar to mine in regards to lists/movies. And to think I never knew.

Make that three. I've wanted to do a top 100 for awhile, but I know it would make me nuts.

Really looking forward to this list, Viddy. :up:

mark f

07-21-11, 09:52 PM

Skepsis93

07-21-11, 10:04 PM

I don't believe that anyone at this site actually believes their order is correct or isn't fluid. They just bite the bullet and put something out there.

Yeah. I know for certain if I did a top 100 I wouldn't be able to tell you why I liked #50 better than #51, or whatever. It's just for the sake of the format, right? I do know, though, that I would be able to tell you why #1 is better than #10 why #10 is better than #20, and so on. But the specific order of those 10 in between would be just a very rough estimate based on how I felt at the time of making the list, and how I remember feeling at the end of each of the films.

Anyway, good luck with the list, viddy. :D

iluv2viddyfilms

07-21-11, 10:37 PM

I don't believe that anyone at this site actually believes their order is correct or isn't fluid. They just bite the bullet and put something out there. The format is really irrelevant. So no, I don't think this is an "Us Vs. Them" scenario.

True. I enjoy lists because they are a good film reference and before compiling mine I looked at a lot of the lists already posted on here, including yours, and was reminded of some films I forgot to include on my list.

That's another problem I have. I simply may have overlooked something, but then that begs the question if I love the movie so much, why did I overlook it? Anyway. It's easy for us humans be to absent minded at times. For example The Innocents, which I have loved for years, I was reminded by your list to put on mine.

iluv2viddyfilms

07-21-11, 11:21 PM

Top 100 films
Second movie...

Le Boucher (1970, Claude Chabrol)

http://images.moviecollector.net/large/e4/e4_9939_0_LeBoucher.jpg

Thoughts: Here is a film that seems to cross genres, as it couldn’t exactly be described as a murder mystery – the viewer knows exactly who commits the murders half way through, and it’s not really a love story, nor would I call it a drama. It works on many levels, and certainly each of those genres mentioned, the film could be categorized in, but it’s as much a study on human nature and what drives people to do reproachable things, as it is anything else. The Butcher is a great film because it refuses to fall for genre traps and like all great movies, really caters little to the audience in explaining plot. The lighter is evidence and symbolic of who the murderer is. No flashbacks are implemented. Also character’s tend to react as they might in real life – with horrible, horrible indecision and complication.

The main drive of the film is the lead actress, a stunningly beautiful Stephane Audran, who plays a school teacher, Helen, involved in a platonic relationship with the local butcher, Paul (Jean Yanne). While Helen is not apparently sexually interested in Paul, it is interesting that she initiates in all of their “dates.” The film opens with a lengthy wedding sequence (though it doesn’t even reach Deer Hunter territory thank God!) in which the two are conversing. We get the sense they’ve known of each other for years, but have no really engaged in much dialogue. Their relationship is studied through the film and it’s painful to watch one soul want more than what another soul is willing to give and the vacuum that ensues. Paul, in dealing with his rejection, could very well be second cousin to Travis Bickle.

From the eerie opening credits with the haunting harp, piano, and xylophone minimalistic music and vulgar lettering placed over images of stalagmites and caverns – a latter setting in the movie – this film is entirely unique. It could have easily gone into cliché’ thriller territory, but instead it shows a person’s curiosity not just fear guiding their actions, once they realize they are in the presence of a murderer. The remarkable thing is Helen continues to see and be acquainted with Paul once she is sure he has done the killings. It is intelligent writing and plotting, as the film is about their interactions with one another. The Butcher tends to focus more on Helen’s response to Paul and both actors are fantastic in a movie that is carried on their shoulders. One thing I realized is how the writing didn’t skim over the character’s careers and lives, but rather implemented them. So many films fall trap to the concept that characters never have to go to work in the movies they inhabit as it detracts from the plot. Here their jobs are beautifully worked into the plot and character development. The subtle music, and pastel like photography, great shots and subdued style make this a piece of cinematic art if there ever was one. The finale when Helen kisses Paul is a great moment in film, and one most American audiences would probably be aghast at. The Butcher shows a humanistic side to a murderer and gives a bruised, haunted, and lovesick soul as motive.

http://www.leparisien.fr/images/2010/09/12/1064972_le-boucher.jpg

Best scene: Paul and Helen are out exploring the forest while mushroom hunting with the students. While getting a chance to be alone Paul questions Helen further in which she says she’s not interested in a sexual relationship. The dialogue is spoken more through implication and discreet questioning rather than direct question answer style and the viewer sees Paul squirm awaiting her cold response like a firing squad. It’s a painful and clever scene and at one point the camera slowly starts to move and slides behind a tree before allowing itself to witness heart-breaking rejection again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeKKE6OTkZM&feature=related

Check about 7 minutes into the video link.

Tyler1

07-22-11, 05:48 AM

Chabrol is one of the French auteurs who have eluded me for a long time. I will watch some of his films soon.

mark f

07-22-11, 11:24 AM

Chabrol is a master of mood and image. One recurring visual his films incorporate is of a car driving at night. I don't know how he does it exactly, but he infuses the headlights projecting onto an open road, usually with some trees on both sides, with some kind of sinister meaning. It may be something which eludes most viewers, but I love the way he films these scenes, and there's a particularly great one in Le Boucher. It's my fave Chabrol, but I also highly recommend This Man Must Die to first-time viewers. Yanne plays a real scumbag in that one. Audran was married to Chabrol and appears in many of his better films too.

For the record, I think that in general Chabrol is a much-better director than Lynch, but I've mellowed a bit concerning some of Lynch's "uniqueness" as I've become more of an old fart.

iluv2viddyfilms

07-22-11, 04:30 PM

top 100 films
Third movie.

Do The Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee)

http://icoty.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/b00004xqmv01lzzzzzzz.jpg

Thoughts: I enjoy the style and flair of this early Spike Lee joint, all set within a single sweltering Brooklyn day as the neighborhood goes about its business battling the heat, their lives, racism, and of course each other. Lee seems to follow Aristotle’s unity of time which says great drama must take place within a day, and while I don’t always agree, I think the time frame is the only way to set this film. The lighting, hues of yellow, orange, and brown – shadows on the buildings and streets – activities of shop owners and patrons all serve to give the film a sense of time of day. The beginning of the film is morning and the end of the film is that night – appropriately so.

Getting beyond some of the flamboyant 80’s styles and a slight over use of Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) playing Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” may be difficult at first for some viewers, but this is a period piece - a slice of life out of Spike Lee’s book and late 80’s Brooklyn as he knew it, so I can’t really fault the film. Few films deal with racism as candidly. The derogatory slurs machine gun their way to the viewer, as the Italians, Koreans, and Blacks are all dealing with their racial prejudice and preconceptions. I greatly admire how the movie never tends to take sides or let any of the groups off the hook. Racism can be inflicted on and inflicted by any group. This is well handled in a point of view sequence with various characters dropping slurs left and right into the camera, putting the viewer in the shoes of the recipients.

Danny Aiello shines as Sal the Italian pizzeria owner, and John Turturro plays his disgusted and hate filled son. Both parts headline a cast which also includes smaller roles for wonderful actors Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Rosie Perez, Samuel Jackson, and John Savage. Spike Lee probably gets the most screen time as he acts within his own film and the title could refer to many things, but most likely it’s the action Lee’s character Mookie takes at the film’s climax. Does Mookie do the right thing? I say no, he does not, but after listening to interviews and commentary with Spike Lee, I’m not so sure the director would agree with me. But that’s the beauty of the film in that Lee is restrained and non-manipulative and despite having his own opinion, he is able to tell the story marvelously and let the viewer decide. The film moves slow and is not burdened down with plot, but rather it shows characters and ideas. Interactions. I showed this movie to one of my classes and they ask, “What’s this movie about? What’s the story?” I reply it’s not about that. Do the Right Thing concludes with Lee offering two opposing points of view – a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. and another from Malcom X. We know which view Lee agrees with. He never made a movie about Martin Luther King Jr.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljld7shMYf1qhqg0d.jpg

Best scene: Sal and Pino are alone sitting inside their pizzeria during the afternoon – hottest part of the day, and open up with each other . Pino desperately wants out of the neighborhood away from the blacks, while Sal explains how they’re a part of the neighborhood, business, and their livelihood. The conversation starts smoothly enough and a low tempo smooth jazz plays in the background, but tensions soon rise. Pino is not listening to reason, despite his father’s best attempts, and Sal as played by Danny Aiello is at his pleading best, “Why you got so much anger in you.” This simple quote can really represent the entire film and the social message. Hate and racism comes from anger and redirected hate, not reason and logic. Sal goes on to say, “They grew up on my food, and I’m proud of that.” Another great line showing how the character understands what is important, if only he can hold on to his ideology above his anger. Technically it’s a great cinematic moment. The camera slowly dollies in toward them as the scene progresses and the jazz music speeds up and becomes a frantic bebop style with the sax filling for flared emotions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzDuSZ4ED1c

iluv2viddyfilms

07-22-11, 04:32 PM

double post.

iluv2viddyfilms

07-23-11, 06:59 PM

top 100 films
fourth movie

Little Big Man (1970, Arthur Penn)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8pKgDm9-eJ0/TQrLYPV7y1I/AAAAAAAABSk/JV3ahBJNIms/s640/LittleBigManPoster.jpg

Thoughts: I don’t know if I would be wrong to say this is the most flawed film of my top 100, and a movie that barely made my list. The problem is, when this movie works, it really works. When it doesn’t work, it’s too bad because Little Big Man has some of the best writing and some of the best scenes ever filmed. Many of Arthur Penn’s films tend to feel a bit unbalanced – striking an uneasy chord between drama and comedy, which is difficult to do. Before I get ahead of myself, I’ll give a brief synopsis.

Little Big Man is the “Forrest Gump” of the American western. It’s based on a book I’ve not read, but would like to when laziness subsides. The story deals with the fictional sole survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn, Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) and is a frame story with Crabb telling his story to an interviewer in the present at the ripe old age of 121. Sure, this requires a bit of dropping suspension of disbelief, but that’s alright. The film is a beautiful adventure/comedy/drama sort of affair with Crabb going through a who’s who and what’s what of the Old West. He meets buffalo hunters, Wild Bill, General Custer, Cheyenne chiefs, snake oil salesmen and on and on.

The film’s treatment of Native Americans is what shines. It’s not preachy or forceful like a Dances With Wolves, nor does it come across as disrespectful, despite showing Native Americans to be every bit as flawed and human as the whites – cleverly side-stepping the “noble savage” stereotype. In its truthful treatment of the Great Plains Indian tribes the film transcends a lot of other message and Vietnam allegory films, by having a heart and soul. I appreciate Little Big Man’s historical accuracy in presenting cultural elements such as the Native American’s views on homosexuality, taking coup, roles of men and women, and of course being a contrary. These are points in the film that somehow, despite being played for comedy, are not derogatory.

Actor Chief Dan George (The Outlaw Josey Wales) is the heart of the film and he is what makes it what it is. Without his character Old Lodge Skins, and his performance, the movie would not be the great feature it is. When a person talks about great supporting performances in cinematic history, his name in this film is bound to appear. His soft spoken, to the point demeanor is a joy to watch. Seeing the world through his eyes as spoken to Crabb (his adoptive grandson) is unique and funny. When he speaks of “The white black man” and “My eyes still see, my heart no longer receives it” even the “I’m invisible!” bit, the viewer can’t help but smile. This is the most sensitive treatment in presenting the most human portrait of an American Indian the screen has ever seen.

I could talk about the flaws of the film, but I won’t waste much time. The great bits are so brilliant and well done that I can forget the dismal attempt at comedy with Crabb marrying a non-English speaking Swedish woman, Olga. I can forget the horrible cliché’ acting from Carole Androsky (who? Yeah I know) as Crabb’s manly sister. I can even overlook a couple of the mishandled scenes with Bartin Balsam. If the movie was perfect it would be top 10 material for me. As it is, it ranks slightly below The Wild Bunch, Once Upon a Time Upon in the West, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller in ranking of the great revisionist westerns. Yet I think about this movie very often, and in my American Literature I class I culminate the Native American literature unit with this film, so it has a place in my top 100, regardless of the flaws.

I haven’t even touched on everything I want to, but I’ve already written more than what I planned. I do have to mention the other great supporting actor alongside Chief Dan George, that really makes this movie what it is; the homicidal portrayal of General Custer as played to aloof psychotic perfection by Richard Mulligan.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_FmSsY3jHEag/TVGMDTxhXFI/AAAAAAAABFs/DuAulUfmvTE/s1600/littlebigman1.jpg

Best scene: Little Big Man arrives back in the Cheyenne camp after a murderous US Cavalry raid to find his Grandfather has lost his vision, and many of the braves have been “wiped out.” Old Lodge Skins proceeds to give his explanation of the difference between the Human Beings and White Man, in some of the most simplistic and emotional dialogue ever spoken on screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJRs2TnP9H8
sorry, the sound and image are not in-sync but it's the only place I found the scene.

Sexy Celebrity

07-23-11, 07:04 PM

I saw Little Big Man recently thanks to Mark F, and you're right, the Grandfather, Old Lodge Skins, steals the show.

iluv2viddyfilms

07-23-11, 07:15 PM

For the record, I think that in general Chabrol is a much-better director than Lynch, but I've mellowed a bit concerning some of Lynch's "uniqueness" as I've become more of an old fart.

To be honest, I've only seen several of his films. This and a couple of Jean Seberg staring films he directed, Who's Got the Black Box? I think it was called - going on memory now. It didn't really impress me much, but even Hitchcock had his Torn Curtains.

What are a couple of his other best films in the vein of The Butcher that you would recommend.

As for Lynch, I'm a fan and I agree that Inland Empire was too indulgent and I've yet to sit through the whole thing. Lost Highway was really good, and 10 years ago it made my top 100, but not today after it's not held up as well as Blue Velvet or even Mulhulland Dr. Lynch can make straight forward and strong narrative stories as evidenced in The Straight Story, it just seems he doesn't enjoy that as much. But I'm just assuming based on his work.

ecwillis

07-23-11, 07:45 PM

The reason why is because I really wonder if a person can say with any objectivity the difference between their 58th favorite film and their 70th favorite film.

I completely agree... It seems highly illogical to assume that there would be any difference at that point in someone's list. In order to truly accomplish this (and this is probably just my hyper analytic nature) one would need to list out a series of criteria to fully judge a movie with such exactness.

I like how you are taking this approach. Excited to see where it ends up!

iluv2viddyfilms

07-24-11, 04:14 PM

Ok, so I've listed two films from the 70s and two from the 80s, so now I'll rewind a bit and write about a couple of older films from my top 100.

next...

top 100 films
Fifth film

It’s a Gift (1934, Norman Z. McLeod)

http://www.riprense.com/images/Its_a_gift_os.jpg

Thoughts: W.C. Fields is at his most domestic and hen-pecked best (Rip Van Winkle may consider himself lucky when compared) in this film, which takes place and was made during the Great Depression. In its own charming way it’s the short madcap comedy version of The Grapes of Wrath, only – dare I say, more enjoyable to watch. It’s as they say, when you want to cry – laugh and by turning the plight of Americans during this contemporary crises and their trek to the promised land of California into light hilarity, W.C. Fields connects to the viewer and leaves us with his most substantial film. It’s less surreal than Million Dollar Legs, less extravagant than International House, and not as well known as The Bank Dick, but for my money it’s his best film.

Quite a few of the routines – like most slapstick comedies of this brand, run their full length, but W.C. Fields’ charm holds the sequence together. For example there’s an overly long bit where Fields is trying to get a bit of shut-eye on the porch, but gets interrupted by children, salesmen, neighbors, and poor carpentry. The scene goes on longer than it really should, but Fields makes it so incredibly watchable it doesn’t matter. Anyone who’s ever tried to get sleep only to be interrupted – all of us – can appreciate the scene. Of the great comedians of the early talkie/Depression era – Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Abbot and Costello, etc, I’ve always preferred Fields. I, in my cynical viewpoints, identify more with his irritable sarcasm and sly muttering wit than I do with the other comedians mentioned. Who else but Fields could make a dislike of dogs, kicking babies, and alcoholism funny and charming?

It’s a Gift contains many of his staples. Fields smokes cigars, tips the bottle, sleeps on his right side – naturally, and agrees with you in the open, while uttering scathing insults below his breath, “I’ll tell ya where you can go.” The movie begins with a typical day in his character’s life as a unsuccessful and strung out grocery shop owner and husband to a nagging wife, and father to ungrateful children. It quickly turns into a road movie, of which The Grapes of Wrath seems indebted to with the campground scenes, overloaded truck, and orange groves. Fields may not be as well known or even appreciated as his contemporaries, but he does have a very strong following and this movie is a great showcase for him.

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ItsAGift.jpg

Best scene: Fields battles it out with a blind man who's hard of hearing wanting some chewing gum in which he sells about a nickel worth of merchandise for God knows how much worth of damage to his store. All the while he puts up with a demanding customer wanting cumquats (sp? - get the joke?) anyway. The blind man proceeds to leave the store dodging traffic, much to Fields’ relief.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y189-69cQPs

iluv2viddyfilms

07-24-11, 10:30 PM

top 100
sixth film

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, F.W. Murnau)

Thoughts:The Birth of a Nation is probably the greatest silent film ever made in terms of being a technical powerhouse and pioneering techniques of film as storytelling in the art’s infancy. F.W. Murnau's of Nosferatu fames Sunrise is – for me – the more passionate and involving movie. It’s better. Sunrise came out toward the end of the silent flims, 12 years after D.W. Griffith’s movie, but it seems far more modern. Some of the stuff in Sunrise simply amazes and while watching the film, I feel as if color were added (no, don’t call me Ted Turner) and dialogue were put in, it could almost be released today – every beautiful shot included, as a contemporary film and earn money. I think it’s the second most aesthetically beautiful silent film and has some of the most impressive set designs - ever. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the only silent movie it bows to. Fritz Lang’s film, Metropolis, tends to get a lot of praise, but in my mind Sunrise has the edge on Metropolis with the city sets. While Lang’s film is marvelous to look at and probably more imaginative, Sunrise hides the fact that it was filmed on a movie set. Murnau had me fooled as I went to look up what city it was filmed in, to discover all the city scenes were done on a Hollywood set. That the film can make its backdrops disappear as reality is impressive. I specifically enjoy the diner scene, with city’s bustle being viewed through the windows. Perfect mise en scene.

The story is big, in that it is symbolic of the rural flight going on in America during the 20’s as the population gradually shifted toward the city, but it’s an intimate tale of two people, a man (George O’ Brien) and his suffering wife (Janet Gaynor), as they fight infidelity and the traps of marriage. The characters, don’t even have formal names. Any name you can give the characters; Smiths, Does, or Jones is irrelevant. After the movie opens in something of a “Go to the big city!” travelogue it introduces us to a mistress that will be the temptation for the husband to cheat on his wife. It deals with this material very matter of fact. The scenes where the wife is at home with the baby, knowing her husband is stepping out on her with a mistress, are devastating. It’s melodrama of the highest order and close ups of tear drenched faces are used spectacularly.

Sunrise moves on and the story goes the route of “will the husband kill the wife to be with the mistress” and another of my top 100 films, A Place in the Sun, borrows heavily from the lake scene. The middle of the film sees the man and woman reconcile after a near murder and it becomes something of a slapstick comedy with a drunk pig and a woman who can’t keep her top on, but it’s all good. The movie never dwells and is as well paced as anything today. One shot that surprised me a bit was when the couple are walking out of a dance hall and the camera pans up and then moves to the left of the screen as the couple walk out the right of the screen. In a continuous shot the camera moves right, floating behind a fountain only to find the couple again. I wonder if Scorsese drew from this for his shot early in Taxi Driver.

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/blog/Sunrise.jpg

Best scene: A dolly shot early on in the film shows the man going out into the moon-lit swamps to meet his mistress. The screen shows his silhouetted back, the night sky, the fog, and the moon in a perfectly balanced shot. The camera dollies along until it loses the man in the thicket, fighting through brush and branches. The camera keeps moving until at last – not reunited with the man, but finding the mistress instead, waiting like a spider for her prey. This sequence is one of the best in silent film, right up there with the Odessa Steps from Battleship Potemkin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v20IQd5XN4

JayDee

07-25-11, 07:55 PM

I'm finding this list quite interesting, mostly because I've hardly seen any of your picks so far!!! :D I do love Little Big Man though

iluv2viddyfilms

07-26-11, 11:16 PM

Top 100 films
seventh film

City Slickers (1991, Ron Underwood)

Thoughts: Here’s a comedy that I’ve loved from the age of 10, and I probably have watched it close to 50 times or more through my life. It’s probably right behind The Empire Strikes Back as the movie I’ve had the most viewings of. It’s not remembered among the great films, and it might not even be as funny as mid-top tier Woody Allen or Albert Brooks movie, but that’s OK. The writing team of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Parenthood, Night Shift) script some great dialogue and update two of my other favorite films, Red River and The Cowboys. When on a cattle drive what else is there to do, but talk, and this movie has quite a bit of witty rapport between the characters. City Slickers is really my introduction to westerns, John Wayne, and other stuff I enjoy about movies. The movie isn’t really a western and even calling it a modern western might be a stretch.

I think with a lot of these buddy movies the casting has to be right. Here is it. The story is about three amigos from the Big Apple who are bored with their monotonous middle class lifestyles. They are all nearing 40 and stuck in a rut with jobs they don’t see much advancement in, and they need a life-affirming event to jump their engines. Where else to go but the West, to drive cattle, the place of their childhood icon cowboy heroes? As I said, the casting must be right and Billy Crystal plays ring leader to Bruno Kirby and Daniel Stern, and while Crystal is the only one of the three actors to enjoy a lot of mainstream success, they play off each other very well. Crystal is the cynical smartass negotiator, Kirby plays the man with something to prove – headstrong and eager, and Stern in his second greatest role (behind the “Wonder Years”) is the neurotic and depressed hen pecked husband.

I should also mention Jack Palance who won a supporting actor Oscar for the part of Curly. Curly is what makes the movie because he’s the perfect foil to the green, soft handed “city folk.” Without his character and authenticity, the movie may well be just above average. He bridges the gap between yesterday and the contemporary. Palance made his mark as the sinister Wilson in Shane and is no less stoic and towering as the mysterious badass in this movie. Some of the best scenes have the three New Yorkers share rumors about him, stories of men he may or may not have killed, and his shaving habbits. It’s a very good role and performance for the –at that time - 70 year old Palance and a beautiful sunset for his film career. In fact he went on to reprise the role in part with the sequel several years later. The sequel is not as original or singular, but it’s still humorous and enjoyable.

Well I’m going to wrap it up about this movie with just one last thought. Sometimes films have a way of being therapeutic, and City Slickers is that for me. No other film can put me in a good mood the way this one can. Watching it brings a smile to my face and is like a warm cat curling up next to me. Typically I don’t rate movies on sentimental or “feel good” value, but this one manages to transcend all of that, as I watch the bumbling characters on their journey from despair to happiness through the great American West on a cattle drive.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SPYL8UC1UCY/TIi81NfrgAI/AAAAAAAADac/XpxQRBAykhc/s1600/City+Slickers+(1991).jpg

Best scene: Easy for me. The moments when Crystal and Palance leave the other drivers and the herd to pick up some strays. During these tense moments the two actors shine their brightest in the film. Real tension is thick with Palance and Crystal’s characters having absolutely nothing in common or to talk about until Crystal finally man ups to the leathery old cowboy in a culminating camp fire scene among the best camp fire scenes and Palance breaks out into song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAA5e6oH2Zs

honeykid

07-27-11, 09:25 AM

Great pick, Viddy. :up:

If it is a Western, for me it's not, then it's one that even I like.

iluv2viddyfilms

08-01-11, 04:12 AM

Top 100
Eighth film

Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928, Charles Reisner)

Thoughts: Here is a movie that features some of the worst carpentry on screen in exchange for a few of the best laughs. I won’t get into the argument over Buster Keaton being an actor or stuntmen, because either way he’s damn entertaining and his physicality sucks the viewer right in. In this movie, which seems is more concise and personal than the chase actioner The General, Keaton plays a young man back from college to visit his estranged father’s steamboat. The comedy staple of having an aloof bumbling idiot play opposite the irritable and ever-aware straight man is honed or perfected in this film. I might say this makes an excellent father’s day picture too.

Playing the father in Steamboat Bill Jr. is Ernest Torrence and the two make a great comedy duo. Keaton at barely 5’6” tall is no match for Torrence at 6’4” and the film caters to the size difference. A lot of comedy comes from the son disappointing the father, who expected him to be manly and the ensuing archetype of getting him to “grow a pair.” There’s also quite a bit of under the radar dry humor – even if it is in bad taste – about the father’s fears his son is homosexual. This doesn’t seem like an issue that would be a gold mine to harvest laughs from, but the scenes play out well if one doesn’t take it too seriously. Despite making valid points, the film hardly seems a commentary, but I could be wrong.

As it turns out Bill Jr. is not gay, at all, and is in fact preoccupied with the daughter of a rival riverboat owner. Shades of Romeo and Juliet; sure. I can’t fault the movie for not developing their relationship as it’s not the point, though it is easy enough to accept the pair and desire for each other despite each of their father’s wishes. What father doesn’t want to live through his son. Another topic that could be the makings of a drama, played for fun and laughs. I can go on about how enjoyable and fast-clipped this film is as it speeds along.

What does it speed along to? The most imaginative and outrageous action sequence I’ve been witness to in a silent movie. The last 15 minutes of the film is an extended “destroy the set” action scene, which works. Keaton sustains the comedy well beyond the point that our minds tell us the film should give up the gimmick. How many structures do we need to see tumble down? Not enough. The carnivalesque pandemonium has houses falling upside down, sinking buildings, cyclonic wind, and trees uprooted flying in the air. It’s beyond surreal, you just have to watch it.

http://content9.flixster.com/photo/96/08/36/9608363_gal.jpg

Best Scene: I could easily pick the finale, but I won’t. In my mind the best scene comes in the introduction of the film when Bill Sr. is waiting for Bill Jr. to arrive and makes a bit of a jerk of himself. The preposterousness that everyone would be wearing the identifying carnation is silly and the dry humor doesn’t let up as Bill Sr. mistakes a black man for his son to his shock. Who cares if it is slightly racist, this thing is not meant to be taken seriously. These early moments all set up the polar extremes of father and son later in the film. It’s a gag that functions clockwork.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEKvnAiry2U

iluv2viddyfilms

08-01-11, 04:32 AM

Great pick, Viddy. :up:

If it is a Western, for me it's not, then it's one that even I like.

City Slickers would be better or more specifically described as a modern western. Western fashions, style, and moral coda set to contemporary times. It is along the lines of a Hud, The Lusty Men, Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Lonely are the Brave, Bronco Billy, Brokeback Mountain, Giant and so on. Modern Westerns are about my favorite sub-genre of film to tell the truth. Something nice and quaint about taking archaic whatevers and setting them against the grind of contemporary society.

If you look up modern western in google most of what you find are a list of films that are not modern westerns, but simply western films that have been released in the last 20 years or so. Not sure why that's so confusing but apparently it is.

So to answer your question.

Is City Slickers a western? No, not when using such a broad category.
Is City Slickers a modern western? Yes.

If that makes sense.

Justin

08-01-11, 04:49 AM

Nice work, keep it up. I doubt I'd ever be able to do this, it's a pretty big undertaking.

iluv2viddyfilms

08-01-11, 05:48 PM

Top 100
Ninth film

The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eBoG2j8ggik/TOEq-eK72AI/AAAAAAAACFc/4bOYo5KnI-c/s1600/The%2BMaltese%2BFalcon8.jpg

Thoughts: Bogart’s third best film is good enough to make my top 100 list. The Maltese Falcon is the granddaddy of film noir that dominated in the 1940s into the 1950s. The setup is a bit silly because the plot revolves around a femme fatal (Mary Astor), three petty crooks, and our hero Sam Spade (Bogart) all after the mysterious and extremely valuable macguffin “the black bird” that shares the name of the film’s title. It doesn’t really matter so much, because the film is not about plot, but about character interaction, lies, twists, double crosses, and one upping each other as they raise the ante. This is similar to the material of The Big Sleep, which granted is much darker and sinister, but slightly less charming with an even more incomprehensible story. But like I said, The Maltese Falcon does make perfect sense if the dialogue is thought about and on multiple viewings it all falls together nicely.

The character actors of Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet get a lot of screen time, though Bogart is literally the focus of every single scene except for one in the film. Lorre plays the smooth and refined Joel Cairo, one of the men after the Falcon. In an infamous example of getting around censors, Cairo is portrayed as an openly homosexual man who lusts after wealth and a clean shirt more than anything else. This becomes more clear on subsequent viewings and I admire scriptwriters and directors who were able to sneak this thing in below the radar of the Hayes code censors. Greenstreet is charming as Gutman, the film’s main heavy (yes) and foil to Bogart’s amoral hero. Greenstreet has some excellent moments and is a joy to listen to rolling lines out. Both of these character actors would go on to have minor roles in the overrated Casablanca. I need to also mention poor Elisha Cook Jr. who never gets his day, whether it be in this movie, The Big Sleep, The Killing, or Shane. The poor guy plays second fiddle and the scapegoat so well.

The film is paced at lightspeed, even by today’s standards. A lot of it goes by so quickly that it’s easy to miss key dialogue and plot points, but that tends to be a staple of noir. I also admire the camera work with the low angled shots looking up at the actors, shadows, and street lights. This is just a fun enjoyable movie that holds up to multiple viewings, even if it isn’t as serious or dark as other entries into the genre. The Maltese Falcon was the first Bogart film I ever saw. It was as a senior in high school during film class. The months afterwards I went to the public library and checked out dozens of Bogart films on VHS. I was… am a fan.

http://www.eskimo.com/~noir/ftitles/maltese/maltese02.jpg

Best Scene: Bogart has found out about the death of his partner and has already gone a few rounds with the lying femme fatal played by Mary Astor when Joel Cairo enters his office. Lorre doesn’t bat an eye drawing a gun on Bogart, just after playing with his cane, which prompts our favorite private dick to unarm him. After a nice lengthy conversation Bogart gives the gun back to Lorre, who holds it on Bogart again demanding to search the room. Bogart has nothing left to do but laugh at the persistence and absurdity of the little man, as he’s rendered too amused to challenge him. That right there is pure Bogart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upX5deBgroM&feature=related
this is sadly only half of the scene.

iluv2viddyfilms

08-01-11, 05:56 PM

Nice work, keep it up. I doubt I'd ever be able to do this, it's a pretty big undertaking.

Yes. I already have my list made out with 100 films and near misses, but instead of simply posting the titles of the films with a picture and quote and a reason I like it, I want to be very specific, which is why I'm taking the time to rewatch each of these movies before posting about them.

For example, I just rewatched The Maltese Falcon last night for about the 15th time in my life.

iluv2viddyfilms

11-18-24, 03:45 AM

Just a slight 13 years between posts with a few changes to the remaining 91 films to include a handful of modern films... lol, OK... I have until either myself or Yoda, whomever dies first, to get this done. And we all know Yoda lives to be about 900 or so.

-----

top 100
10th film

Floating Weeds (1959, Ozu)

https://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0715515295819_p0_v5_s1200x630.jpg

Thoughts: Ozu is a filmmaker whom I’ve only recently explored his works, despite having heard of his name for years. Previously to the last couple years, I have only seen Tokyo Story when it comes to his films. With the subscription to Criterion Channel, his works have now really been opened up to me and another film of his I absolutely love is An Autumn Afternoon, but I decided to go with Floating Weeds for my top 100 as it’s more universal and maybe just a bit more accessible, but both are great. I find Ozu’s style to be very refreshing when compared to a lot of modern filmmakers, even those directors who are heralded as among today’s best such as Christopher Nolan.

A few things about his style that just seem so relaxing and comforting are how his camera is stationary. Now, I could be wrong about this, but I don’t believe he had a single tracking or moving camera shot in the entire film of Floating Weeds. I also love how Ozu has the objects framed so that each shot is just beautifully composed and then characters and objects can move around within that still camera shot. He uses the rule of thirds quite often, but also sets up his subjects at times to be in the center of the frame. Also, from what I can tell, his aspect ratio in Floating Weeds is a 1:33 or a very square shape to the screen as opposed to heavy use of widescreen or a more rectangle shape that was more common by the late 1950s.

Each shot looks like it could almost have been set up by a professional photographer or painter and one of the things I’ve noticed too, and I’m not sure if there is a word for this technique/style or not, is that he frames the composition and actors so there is a great deal of depth on a Z axis going back into the image. Most films seem to put the action in the foreground and then will have a background, so a lot of the shots have only two layers. An Ozu film seems to have at least four or five layers going on simultaneously in many of his shots. For instance in the foreground we often see a door, objects such as flowers, or a pot, ornate furniture, or some other object and then we have the characters in mid shot in the middle ground, followed by another character or two layered in a second or third middle ground and then we have a background. Floating Weeds has so many great shots like this, so even without a huge horizontal field of plain in the shot, we get so much depth on that Z axis. The only other filmmaker I’ve seen really do that in a similar style is Wong-Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love), although unlike Ozu his camera is often tracking and moving. Oh, and one other interesting thing is that his camera placement seems to be very low, where most directors put their camera at eye-level unless we're specifically having a shot looking down or up at a character for effect, Ozu seems to place his camera very low between knee and waste level, which gives his films, including Floating Weeds, a very distinctive look and feel. It does take a bit of time to get oriented to this, but once it settles in for the viewer, it becomes very absorbing.

As far as the story goes, it’s a “slice of life” character drama, perhaps even a melodrama largely centered on the dynamics and interpersonal relationships and conflicts between five main characters. The first character and focal point of the film is Komajuro who is a middle-aged actor and leads the troupe of traveling actors. He’s visiting and putting on a play at a small coastal Japanese village where his former lover and mother of his estranged and illegitimate son lives. The mother is Oyoshi and the son is Kiyoshi. The five main characters are rounded out by two actresses, one his current girlfriend/mistress, Sumiko and then a beautiful young actress named Kayo who is later used like a pawn by Sumiko to disturb the balance when Sumiko becomes jealous and possessive. So yeah, that on the surface, or with more horrible description of the story, doesn’t seem anything overwhelming or groundbreaking, but the fact that the story itself is simple, while the character interaction and emotions are anything but simple. The value and greatness of the film is watching it play out and the fact that it reveals human frailty and weakness, while still taking the view that people are good, valuable, and there is so much beauty in the world. Moreover it is reflective of life in showing how people’s desires, emotions, and motives can absolutely change on a dime and it does this too through the complexity of the dialogue and the situations. But the sound and look for the film is just amazing and it’s a very free-flowing and relaxing film and Ozu’s style, for lack of a better word, is just very soothing. It’s a great film to just lay down on the couch on a lazy afternoon with no distractions, with the cell phone put away, and to just watch it unfold. Kazu Miyagawa is the cinematographer who also shot two equally beautiful films, Rashomon and Ugetsu, only Floating Weeds is in gorgeous color.

https://www.alternateending.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/weeds2.jpg

Best Scene: It’s difficult to say if there’s a best scene. I love the moments where it's raining, and I also love the cruel realism where Komajuro loses control of his anger and emotions and confronts Kayo for trying to seduce his son under false pretense. The scene too where Kayo flirts and approaches Kiyoshi asking for a pencil… not a pen is so well done and acted, where it could have come off poorly or cringe. I do also like the scene where three men are at the beaching lounging around, seemingly talking about nothing, only to be interrupted by a plane flying overhead and one of the men hilariously asks if the plane would drop some beer down for them. Stuff like that really doesn’t add to the story, but it does create a solid tone and mood of his films and lends them that relaxing atmosphere of which I was writing earlier. It’s just so refreshing to have dialogue that isn’t so plot and expository driven. However, for the best scene, I’m just going to have to go with the very last moments in the film at the train station where Komajuro is leaving and in continuing an on-going bit, finds himself without a lighter or matches. Sumiko who is also leaving, in an act of reconciliation lights a match for him and at first he pretends to ignore her and even ever so slightly pulls away before she leans in and finally lights his cigarette. It’s a sweet, quiet, and tender moment in the film that perfectly exemplifies a lot of the stuff Ozu does in his films that’s so subtle but wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKeQ7U9mSm4

John-Connor

11-18-24, 04:15 AM

mood changes, I change, and so do my tastes in films from time to time.
^ Relatable.. I make four lists for all moods.. films that show up on all four.. put those on a master list.. the remaining films I honorably mention.

My favorites from your favorites so far:
The Maltese Falcon on my current top 250.
Do the Right Thing and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans have both been on previous versions of my top 250.

Blue Velvet is very good. City Slickers, Steamboat Bill Jr. and Little Big Man are fun. The others I haven't seen.. yet.

iluv2viddyfilms

11-18-24, 04:22 AM

^ Relatable.. I make four lists for all moods.. films that show up on all four.. put those on a master list.. the remaining films I honorably mention.

Wow, that's ambitious, I can barely get through a top 100, but I do like that idea, that way you're narrowing it down to more universal films you love instead of films based upon a certain mood or situation.

John-Connor

11-18-24, 04:35 AM

Wow, that's ambitious, I can barely get through a top 100, but I do like that idea, that way you're narrowing it down to more universal films you love instead of films based upon a certain mood or situation.
Yes, in the pen and ink days it was ambitious but nowadays with all the list making apps and websites it's a lot easier/less time consuming.

Robert the List

11-18-24, 08:10 AM

iluv2viddyfilms

11-19-24, 06:01 PM

top 100
11th film

La dolce vita (1960, Fellini)

https://media-cache.cinematerial.com/p/500x/lsq5aqez/la-dolce-vita-argentinian-movie-poster.jpg?v=1576591218

Thoughts: Perhaps one of the most daunting challenges of making a top 100 films list, aside from the obvious exclusion of a gazillion films that you love when only 100 will fit, is the conundrum of figuring out some sort of metric, system, or rubric to determine what factors will be weighed in assessing films. I’ve always wrestled with balancing favorites vs bests and yes I do distinguish a difference. For example Casablanca is most likely Humphrey Bogart’s best film, while In a Lonely Place is my favorite. Few would argue that Citizen Kane is Orson Welle’s crowning achievement, however my triggered imagination and sense of wonder and awe lean far more toward Chimes of Midnight. Not only that, but there are certain films that I absolutely love which I can clearly acknowledge are not great films nor will they find themselves on many critic’s list… a couple from my list include the mid-life crisis Billy Crystal modern western, City Slickers and W.C. Field’s tip of the hat to all men who find themselves drowning in the ridiculousness and routine hassles of everyday life, It's a Gift. I realize that both City Slickers and It’s a Gift are hardly cinematic masterpieces that will be studied for years by film school students nor will they likely appear on any critic’s or director’s BFI Sight and Sound top 10 lists, but Heaven help me, I love both of them, so they snuck their way into my top 100.

So why the long-winded preamble without evening mentioning once the title of this entry into my top 100, La dolce vita? Simple. I knew I absolutely had to have one Fellini film on my top 100, if for no other reason than that it was really two directors who introduced me into international cinema and two directors where I started to deliberately search out their films… long before streaming, and two directors whose works I felt a compulsion to at least go through and watch a respectable amount of their filmographies. The first director was Ingmar Bergman and the second director was Federico Fellini. Having established that I just had to have one Fellini on my top 100, it was time to then choose which one I love the most or perhaps revisit the most. Unlike Bogart's films and Welles’ films however, this was an easy call because what I objectively believe to be Fellini’s “best” film also happens to be my favorite film of his and the only film of his I have a physical copy of as well, La dolce vita.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/images/4184-7ffd06bbd9612ae563e67dbfc91ee778/current_28619id_172_original.jpg

La dolce vita is the perfect transition film in looking back at Fellini’s career. He was moving away from the straight forward narratives of La Strada and I Vitelloni, but hadn’t quite gone full surreal, carnivalesque, and avant garde in his works such as Juliet of the Spirits, Roma, and the absolutely insane Satyricon. La dolce vita has some of the otherworldly set and custom designs, hedonistic bizarreness and flourishes, and exquisite shots of his latter films, while still being grounded in a solid narrative structure even if the storytelling was really starting to loosen up, which would become untethered with 8-½. As Fellini films goes La dolce vita is the porridge not too hot and not too cold. La dolce vita is interesting in that it showcases Fellini’s knack for very episodic narrative with multiple vignettes all woven together centered around a central theme, idea, or character, but in La dolce vita the narrative of an ambitious man who has at some point been a serious journalist, who has hopes of writing a legit novel or book, but who is currently reduced to write tabloid level smut about the rich, celebrities, and the social elites does hold the film together quite well. This is a movie that comes dangerously close to spiraling out of control because there are so many individual scenes of different nights, venues, and parties in his life that takes place in the course of little over a week’s time, but the film doesn’t abandon completely previous characters we’ve met, such as Paparazzo, Emma, or even Steiner.

Moreover events and actions that happen earlier in the film have a direct and consequential effect upon subsequent events in the film and also our character’s psychological state. For instance there are some vague clues and foreshadowing of things to come when Marcello and Emma go to a party at Steiner’s home. Emma is quickly ignored and left alone to pet and play with a dog on the floor as even within the confines of residence Marcello still wanders and plays apathetic to Emma’s attempts at connection. We see Steiner give hints of nihilism under a false shroud of “having it together” with all his wealth and his wife and two children. Even the partygoers who would prefer to hear sounds of nature such as thunder and rain “second hand” through a recording rather than living in the real world, lends thematic resonance to the critique of the artificiality of life and constant perspective and tonal changes in points of view. One of the things I couldn’t help my mind constantly wander toward when watching La dolce vita again recently was how all of this seems even more significant and profound in a world of 2024 where artificiality has taken hold. Suicide and deaths of despair are tragically common place in 2024. In 2024 more children are born to broken families than not. In 2024 sixty percent of young men under 35 or 30 are single and unmarried. Women come in the form of pixels on a screen through the multi-multi-billion dollar industries of Only Fans and Pornhub. Today, we live in a world of social media, of snap chat and instagram filters; a world where money is only a method of exchange, but the real commodity in life is how many subscribers, likes, and views we have on tiktok and youtube. Watching La dolce vita in my 40’s in the world of 2024, it was an even more profound, beautiful, yet and sobering experience than watching it in the early 2000’s in my twenties. Of course this is what the great films do; they hold and increase in value as we revisit them throughout our lives and they reveal insights and say something about our world; about reality.

Clearly I could go on, but what’s the point? What hasn’t been said about the beautiful black and white cinematography, the wonderful framing and composition, the sometimes gorgeous but disorienting camera angles and shots from above looking down onto the world, and of course the festival of music in Nino Rota’s memorable and iconic score. I just love Fellini’s stuff for what it is and for all of his flourishes. He’s not my favorite international filmmaker, that title goes to Herzog and of the two post Italian neorealism great filmmakers, Fellini and Antonioni, I slightly prefer Antonioni’s restraint and maturity to Fellini’s flourishes and splashes of life. Oh, and that very last shot in the film, of the girl, the one who Marcello, when trying to write in a cafe with a hangover, yells at earlier in the film about the music being too loud and needing quiet. Man, what a call back to a seemingly “throw away” character who only appeared for maybe three minutes of film. It’s so ambiguous and surreal and with her waving across the beach to and summoning a drunken, wore out, distressed, and disheveled Marcello, it closes a great film on a note that is truly a mind “F” if there ever was one.

https://coronadotimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/anita-eckberg-la-dolce-vita-009.jpeg

Best Scene: The best scene for my money, and there are so many, is the moment in the second to last night of the film when Marcello is having an argument with his fiance, Emma, who has already made an attempt or at least a cry for help on her life and has had it up to her wits end with his disappearing, philandering, partying at all hours into the wee morning, and his complete aloofness and disregard. It’s one of two moments that come to mind where Marcello truly opens up and becomes vulnerable and shows genuine, not artificial or performative, emotion. The other being at the restaurant as his father is leaving when he confides to Paparazzo that his father wasn’t really around much in his life. As Marcello and Emma argue back and forth, it becomes clear that she is a woman who truly loves him and it’s a tragic, but necessary scene as it really telegraph’s one of the film’s most obvious “thesis statements” in having our protagonist weighing responsibility vs hedonism as well as weighing the idolatry of the self vs the mores of finding virtue and meaning in serving others. Moreover, in a film world inhabited by fakes and artificiality, Emma is perhaps the only real character and she says the film's most poignant and grounded in reality line when she tells Marcello, the one great thing any man could truly hope for is to be genuinely and compassionately loved by a woman.

We’ve seen moments like these in films before. The man wants to stray and sleep with women, while the woman who desperately loves him wants nothing more to hold the relationship together if only he could understand. What makes this moment stand out, aside from just the tragic visual of playing the cat and mouse game with getting in and out of Marcello’s sports car ending in a physical altercation and Emma seemingly stranded on the road as he drives off into the late night/early morning, is the fact that we haven’t seen either of these characters fully confront and let out their emotions. Emma has resorted in small pleas at this point, a suicide attempt, and subtle movements to insert herself more into Marcello’s life. Marcello meanwhile has run away from his emotions and concern for her by drowning in cocktails, sex, his meaningless and shameful work, and hollow parties.

Now the kicker of the whole thing is that only a few moments later he comes back for her, picks her up in his car, and then in the next shot we see them in bed together, having allegedly made up. But we of course know better, and we know this is a cycle that has gone on and will likely continue to go - both of them being trapped in their own little purgatory and pushing Sisyphus’ boulder up that hill forever. Also, and I’d need to do a close-viewing again of the film, I believe this is the very last time we see Emma in the picture too before it completely turns dark and spirals out of control in the last 40 minutes transitioning us the viewer almost fully into the next stage of Fellini’s career - into 8-1/2 and beyond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REzh1KRK0mc&t=5925s

Wooley

11-20-24, 08:13 PM

iluv2viddyfilms

11-20-24, 08:24 PM

I have still never seen this. There was a sort of mystique around it when I was young and it was often knowingly or slyly referenced in popular culture but I never saw it. Then one day I decided to watch 8 1/2, it blew me away, it was instantly one of the best movies I'd ever seen... so I stopped there and didn't watch another Fellini for like 14 years. So now with La Strada and Amarcord under my belt, I can probably watch La Dolce Vida in another decade.
(I actually do really want to watch this and don't know why it never happens. I think currently it's not streaming on any service I have.)

It should show up on your computer, but under my thoughts and write up of the film, I posted the youtube video which has the film in its entirety and, I believe, with subtitles too of course. It's long at nearly three hours, but is very well paced. I love 8-1/2, but I think La dolce vita is his "masterpiece" because it blends perfectly his earlier more straightforward style with his avant garde and surreal episodic style of the second half of his career.

Little Ash

11-20-24, 08:31 PM

iluv2viddyfilms

11-20-24, 08:44 PM

I think this our periodic guilt tripping of you to cancel one of your other services and subscribe to the criterion channel.

LOL, we'll sell him eventually!

For any film buff... here is your streaming service hierarchy and where your priorities should be, of the streaming services I'm aware of anyway.

1. Criterion Channel
2. Amazon Prime
3. MUBI
4. Youtube
5. Netflix
6. Hulu
7. Paramount Plus
8. Disney

Criterion should obviously be the top choice and a non negotiable for a film buff in the world of streaming. So if you could only pick one that would be your ticket. As far as the big players in streaming go, Amazon kicks Netflix's ass any day of the week, at least if you're into the essential and canon of cinema. Right now, just a sampling of great movies streaming on Amazon prime.

The Godfather
Godfather Part II
Born Yesterday
The Last Picture Show
The Killing
His Girl Friday
The King of Comedy
High Noon
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
12 Angry Men
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Midnight in Paris
Hombre
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The Long Goodbye
Zulu
Charade
Brief Encounter
The Graduate
Becket

And that's just the starters. I am a huge Amazon fan for not only how they revolutionized shopping, but also they have some amazing picks for film buffs that maybe get lost in a lot of what's on Netflix and want to stick to the "bread and butter" of cinema. And yes, full disclosure I own a couple shares of Amazon, but still.

There's no reason not to have Criterion Channel as your go-to and then Amazon as your backup and then if you're a die hard and into extremely rare, hard to find, and obscure stuff, then MUBI is probably your best bet.

Oh and I forgot to add, I put youtube on there because quite often you will find great films that are "leaked" onto the platform, which in many cases sadly get removed, but inevitably find their way back. Yes, some of the channels do have commercials, while many do not, except for at the beginning. For instance I was wanting to re-watch The Innocents and I found it on youtube last night, and though I rewatched La dolce vita recently as well on Criterion Channel, it was still on youtube in a HD version. There's a lot of great silent movies on there to. Yes you have to dig with youtube and it's hit or miss, but you'd be surprised what you can find there. Oh and I think last year I was shocked to see a great copy of Sergeant York streaming on youtube too and without interuption.

Wooley

11-20-24, 09:19 PM

I think this our periodic guilt tripping of you to cancel one of your other services and subscribe to the criterion channel.

We may be getting there. As the streaming wars continue so much content keeps disappearing from my queues. I had a robust Criterion-like "library", if you will, that was my TCM-based queue but those movies just keep disappearing. I still have a bunch of great ones lined up like In The Mood For Love and Jeanne Dielman, Pandora's Box, High and Low, Beau Travail, A Woman Under The Influence, Tokyo Story, Elevator To The Gallows, Stalker, and re-watches of my beloved Paris, Texas, Trois Couleurs, and Breaker Morant... but there's a lot of stuff gone and a lot of stuff I planned on that just isn't here anymore.
Sigh.
It may be time soon.

iluv2viddyfilms

11-22-24, 07:20 PM

top 100
12th film

Cabaret (1972, Fosse)

https://www.filmsite.org/posters/cabaret.jpg

Thoughts: Bob Fosse’s masterpiece is Cabaret and it’s a musical that has stood the test of time. I’m not in any position and certainly am no expert on looking at the film through the lens of its source material, in which the film is several steps removed from going all the way back to pre-American involvement in World War 2, 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin. Apparently the novel was adapted into a broadway played called I Am a Camera and then to a musical and finally the film we all know and love. What do know is a great film when I see on and Cabaret fits the bill and it is my second favorite musical behind only My Fair Lady.

Cabaret is set in Berlin, Germany during the tail end, circa 1930 of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), just on the eve of the Nazi’s taking over. There is so much to admire about this musical film, chief among them is how well the historical context is juxtaposed and directly incorporated into an otherwise small-scale and intimate story of the histrionics and self-serving hedonistic lives and entanglements of its five main characters. As the characters go,first we have Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) , an insecure “loose woman;” an American abroad who performs at a local cabaret (thus the title), an owl-eyed dreamer who really wants to be a big movie star like Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, or Kay Francis. Next we have the uptight and bi-sexual British English teacher abroad, Brian (Michael York). We have a wealthy playboy baron, Max, thrown into the mix; we have a rich heiress - a German Jew, Natalia, and finally the man going after her, the awkward “not gold digging” Fritz, also a German Jew, only he’s hiding his ethnicity being able to read the temperature of the water in 1930 Berlin.

This might all sound like a huge soap-opera convoluted mess. True. Most love triangle stories, or in this case a triangle with an addition pair on the side, are silly and well worn material. What makes Cabaret work so well are not only how the leads play off of each in their motivations, but how they all come from different worlds and social classes with their own unique sense of values and justice and the cabaret is the focal point of their stories. Just as the John Ford film Stagecoach showcased the classic man vs nature conflict and then allowed the characters to seek refuge in a very confined space of the stagecoach itself, we have the Cabaret acting as the “hideaway in a world of man vs society as the Nazis are slowly, slowly, and slowly beginning to gain traction tear down the Weimar Republic.

Minnelli’s Sally Bowles is a character very much like another one of my all time favorite film characters, and in watching Cabaret you can help but think that Bowles is a spiritual sister to Holly Golightly, as played by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The character similarities are many; both characters are attractive young women who are afraid of commitment and afraid of themselves and life’s responsibilities and as such hide behind a veil of sexual liberation and women’s independence or a perverse form of feminism. Both are highly extroverted, but their entire being and projection of themselves in their interpersonal relationships is entirely performative and for show. This makes sense too. People who suffer from trauma or who have been hurt or betrayed rarely open up to others, no matter how extroverted they are and certainly feel the need to create a character or avatar of themselves that’s not the genuine thing. Afterall, it makes sense, right? If you want love, you can control the terms and if you are rejected, why then it’s not really YOU the other person is rejecting, but rather a creation or facade of you they cast aside. In this regard if continuing the comparison between Cabaret and Breakfast at Tiffany’s then Michael York’s Brian is to Sally as George Peppard’s Paul Varjack is to Holly.

https://images.amcnetworks.com/ifccenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/cabaret.jpg

Perhaps the biggest difference is the ending, where Holly makes the right choice in letting her guard down and finally admits her love toward Paul and embracing responsibility, Sally never does. Sally, even after Brian is perfectly willing to settle down with her back in England, find work at a college, and raise her unborn child, despite not knowing if he’s the actual father, decides to make a horrible decision in running away from him and aborting the child. On this note Cabaret is so historically and thematically rich. In having a society of people who hide from reality and who are easily given to avoid what they perceive as hardship or stress at almost any cost, it’s no wonder the Nazi party was able to rise in the ranks in a society falling apart through hedonism and idle pleasures.. I once read a great essay comparing George Orwell’s 1984 against Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the thesis statement centered around how government is able to subject its citizens in each book to tyranny. Whereas Orwell saw a world where people gave up their rights due to threats of violence and intimidation and fear, Huxley saw a world where people were so doped up on pleasure, fun, narcissism, and hedonism that they wouldn’t even care if their rights are taken away. Of course, history tells us both are right and wrong. It’s not so much that those two worlds are mutually exclusive in so much that they come at different stages. We have to get to Huxley’s world first and then the inevitable next step is the world of Orwell. That’s exactly what we see in Fosse’s presentation of 1930 Germany in Cabaret. The characters are so enamored in their own self indulgences, they fail to see the Orwellian like darkness and evil of the Nazi party on their doorstep. Whereas with Stagecoach the characters use their refuge as a place to recharge and to confront the world, the cabaret is simply a prison - a holding grounds to weaken them until the Nazi party rises up.

Now, I haven’t mentioned one of the film’s other brilliant characters, and from a narrative stance the only perhaps truly objective character who is omnipotent in the entire thing. That is of course the rousing and imp-like devilish performance of Joel Grey as the master of ceremonies at the Cabaret. He’s in nearly every number and his small frame and huge cheshire grin caked in make-up and androgyny show up in nearly every song number. Throughout the film we never see him interact with any of the characters aside from his performances. He has zero lines outside of the stage. He has zero character development, zero backstory, and zero relationship to the other characters. He simply is. Whether or not he represents the Devil, full knowing the Hell these characters are in for on the eve of Hitler, or whether or not he represents a surrogate for the audience who is simultaneously enjoying this world but also having the moral compass to see it for its vileness, or whether or not he is just an uncaring and apathetic observer with a job to do, tirelessly and carelessly just as Death is in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal - we’ll never know. He just is and he’s one of the best characters and one of the great enigmas of musical films and in great cinema period. It's no shock that his grinning face is about the last image we see of the film. Joel Grey won an Academy Award for his performance and he deserved it. Minnelli won for best actress and also Fosse for best director. There’s an easy argument that they also both deserved their win. Say what you will about The Godfather which also came out in 1972, yes it is truly great and amazing, but Cabaret is on my top 100 list, while Coppola’s magnum opus gangster epic is not.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbN7LulAwn8i6DBw5qXnGtb_7UUGrFBL7RexBGfk0LVTsCaG-Kw2aaVroQyHasWHs_PYQdQURK5iPLS8ZCLa8-c7flgIO83d-1uI8olhyphenhyphenwligVm97-rBT93iA7SlifCbbI7wmehPzKHM/s1600/Joel-Grey-Cabaret-1972.JPG

Best Scene: To me the best scene is when Brian, Sally, and Max are at a picnic in the countryside and the young Nazi youth break out into “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” The song as sung in the musical is an anthem of the rise of Nazism, while in the greater context, it’s not championing Nazism, but rather acting as a warning of doing nothing. The problem in most societies is not that they have their Hitlers, their Mao Zedongs, or Joseph Stalins - the real problem is when people sit back and do nothing in the face of evil. The real problem is when people are caught up in the pomp and circumstance and riotous displays and sit back and act as cowards not wanting to stick their neck out. The scene is brilliant, the only musical number outside the cabaret club, and it’s shot in a way where it recreates posters and art from Joseph Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. How the musical starts from a solo singer without musical accompaniment and ends up to the point where it is in a full band and chorus singing at the top of their lungs in a huge crescendo and flourish is in equal measure beautiful and horrifying. Built into this sequence are edits and cuts to an old man who doesn’t join in the song and can clearly see the terror on the horizon, but is powerless to do anything about it. Of course the scene ends with Brian’s sobering dose of reality, “Do you still think you can control them?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCc8kSdeqxw

Captain Quint

11-22-24, 07:41 PM

Great review, and hmm, I'm not the only one who would rank Cabaret ahead of the Godfather.

Some real winners here, Floating Weeds is my favorite Ozu, I actually admire both of versions he filmed, but I like his re-do a shade more, I imagine he revisited it because he had more to say.

8½ is my favorite Fellini, but I have no argument against La Dolce Vita, to have back-to-back twin masterpieces like that was pretty impressive.

I remember reading how difficult 8½ was, so I was prepared to be baffled, but when I watched it in my college days, I didn't have that experience - which I chalk up to being into the surrealists, the dadaists, so for me it was, "I don't get the issue, this makes perfect sense to me" lol. La Dolce hit me harder on rewatches in my old age, learning what Steiner did... Jesus, that rocked me, still does whenever I think of the film because he seemed to be the only who had his shit together - had this beautiful life and family, so why?

iluv2viddyfilms

11-24-24, 06:02 AM

top 100
13th film

Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris)

https://criterioncloseup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/gates-of-heaven.jpg?w=584

Thoughts: Along with Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, this might just be my favorite documentary... Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris). To say I was moved by this documentary is an understatement. As of this writing, November of 2024, we currently have two chocolate labrador retrievers and no cats. The three cats we had are no longer with us having all passed away in the last five years - we opted for cremating them as opposed to a burial. So, yes full disclosure I am a pet owner and likes millions and millions of others have known the loss of a pet and truth be told, I tend to enjoy the company of animals more than people if I put my cards right down on the table. As such, this documentary touches a nerve in a good way.

Errol Morris in his basic early stripped down bare bones style... even before his started to add more flair and dramatic license to his work with the game changing The Thin Blue Line (1988) and the remarkable The Fog of War (2003), interviews a couple of different and somewhat rival pet cemetery owners as well as pet owners who've lost their beloved animals, and a manager of a large rendering plant, in an exploration of what makes people become so attached to their pets, as well as how we cope with loss, and the difficult and painful subject of how we handle their bodies once their little animal spirit has left them.

This material sounds a bit off putting and oddball, but it's truly great and it's a documentary that definitely challenges the viewer, not only because of the macabre subject material, but also because Morris chooses not to have any narration nor does he add titles and names on screen as descriptors of his interview subjects. Some of this material is tragically sad, some of it is just unintentionally hilarious, and a lot of it will make you think. Morris does seem to balance well between taking this material completely seriously against becoming satirical and ironic toward a content that could easily dive into dark humor.

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I think Morris treats the subject with enough warmth and sensitivity that it comes off as genuine, but he's self-aware enough of what it is that it never comes across as hackneyed parody or insult. It's why we can watch an interview of a lady singing to her dog AND see portraits in the background of the frame on the wall within the shot's composition, of what we can only assume to be deceased pets that got the portraiture treatment, and not be tempted to laugh at the near ridiculousness of it. Moreover, this was nearly 50 years ago too! Before we had Chewy.com and major pet stores, a billion dollar industry of pet social media stars, and before the term "fur babies" was in our daily lexicon.

I have no clue why it had taken me so long, until recently, to get around to watching Gates of Heaven, but just like Grizzly Man it does treat an awkward topic with respect and reverence while still fully embracing the inherent tragicomic nature of it all. It's an instant unadulterated love for me and it would make a great double bill with Herzog's film, which is also on my list. I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if Morris approached this subject in looking at how we handle the death of our pets as an allegory and second-hand exploration of how we handle death and the loss of our human loved ones. Great, great brilliant stuff here and the full documentary is on youtube as well as currently (November, 2024) streaming on The Criterion Channel:

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Best Scene: For a documentary that is compromised mostly of interview, perhaps best interview would be more appropriate, however one none-interview scene does stand out. A couple have come to bury their dog at the pet cemetery and there is of course, a makeshift funeral to go along with it. The curator pulling double duty as funeral director and as preacher is with the couple as they say goodbye to their pet dog, a terrier and sheep dog mix. The funeral director asks the couple about the dog, they show him the picture of their dog, and in response he comments on the dog's smile, if he can see through his long bangs, and so on. His bedside manner in this scene is remarkable and really comes across as genuine rather than indulging and humoring the couple. Of course, as brought up earlier in the documentary, a pet cemetery isn't a business venture one embarks upon to make a quick dollar, but more of a labor of love and true concern, as well as seeing a huge gap where there's a void in society where a need just isn't being met.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ0rh0Uzf_s

Wooley

11-24-24, 01:00 PM

I remember reading how difficult 8½ was, so I was prepared to be baffled, but when I watched it in my college days, I didn't have that experience - which I chalk up to being into the surrealists, the dadaists, so for me it was, "I don't get the issue, this makes perfect sense to me" lol.

I had the same experience. I didn't actually know it was going to be so surrealist though I had heard it was hard to get through or whatever and I found it a charming breeze. When it went surrealist I was utterly charmed. And also, as an adult man and someone who has tried his hand at being an artist I really, really understood the movie very well. Which is not to say that anyone else couldn't also but what the protagonist was experiencing and thinking and his bad decisions and why he'd made them and the temptations and all of that just made such perfect sense to me and was told in a way that I don't know would have worked well in a traditional narrative film. I was with it all the way.

iluv2viddyfilms

11-25-24, 04:03 AM

top 100
14th film

Veronika Voss (1982, Fassbinder)

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Thoughts: Werner Herzog is my favorite of the three big heavy hitters of the New German cinema, the other two being Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders, but it is Fassbinder whose films remain perhaps the most enigmatic and challenging for the viewer because each one is so seemingly different in theme, story, and style from all the others. And talk about being a workaholic and proficient. I don’t think there’s a single director in the history of cinema who has, or likely ever will, churn out films at such an insane rate and with as high of quality in addition to each one being so unique, as Fassbinder has in his short 37 years of life and 40 films. I’ve only seen maybe just over half a dozen of his movies, but Veronika Voss is the one that hits home the hardest and the one I find the most palatable with a clear narrative, perspective, and steadfast pacing. I love this movie so much on multiple levels, but first is that incredible aesthetic the film has.

The look of Veronika Voss is unmistakable and prolific. The stark black and white cinematography is enough to have the audience squinting at times. There’s an incredible amount of contrast in its visual style. The blacks are deep and the whites shine through the screen like pearls. Everything has a glimmer and a spark to it and there’s a haze over certain scenes and streams of light imminent from objects such as candles, diamond jewelry, and crystal drinkware full of alcohol. As I watch and look at a film like Veronika Voss the visual style reminds me of a film like Sin City or even Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World. Though the film takes place in the 1950’s and it’s apparent that Fassbender is channeling Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd and the great black and white film noirs of the post war period, Vernika Voss stands out and amplifies all those homages to level 11.

https://thesouloftheplot.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/farewellparty_veronikavoss.png?w=640

So to address the Sunset Blvd issue. I’m no New German Cinema or Fassbinder expert, but I know what I like and see what I see, and I can’t help but think that Fassbinder was directly examining and deconstructing Wilder’s masterpiece. Wilder who, by the way, is also a fellow German who saw the writing on the wall and left Germany on the eve of the rise of fascism to make his mark in the United States and to become perhaps the greatest director/writer in cinema history. But the similarities and comparisons to Sunset Blvd are as clear as day. I don’t need to go into the topic too much, beyond simply stating that intertangling the lives of a lowly writer with the fading light of a movie star relic who is seeing the declension of her mental faculties and grasp on reality makes for some odd and twisted material that is really great. As dark as both films are, it’s fair that Veronika Voss has a darker undertone in that it confronts the very real issues of abuse in the health systems, how we mistreat those who are mentally ill, and also how people can view each other in terms of dollars and cents and how they can be beneficial to their circumstances. Seeing a woman who is beaten down and never can seem to quite straighten things out is heartbreaking. And yes, it does lead to one of the more melancholy conclusions you’ll see in film.

One of the more fascinating characteristics of the film that slowly creeps up on the viewer is the swapping of positions between the two love interests of our main protagonist and newspaper writer character, Krohn. In the beginning of the film Krohn’s girlfriend, Henriette comes across as homely, pestering, insecure, and jealous. Meanwhile Voss is still the glamorous, although middle aged and past her prime, movie star adorned in beautiful clothing, head held high, and seemingly so confident that she can take or leave any man she chooses. Of course there are cracks in the facade right from the start, but as the film continues those cracks become a flood gate and Voss even out-Norma Desmonds, Miss Desmond herself. And as Krohn opens up to his girlfriend and confesses his real feelings to Voss, Henriette lets her guard down and even acts as a willing accomplice to her boyfriend’s infatuation with the ex-movie star. This illusion quickly disappears and Krohn’s interest in Voss disintegrates from a mix of professional, star-struck and romantic to one of pure sympathy and pity in addition to doing the right thing in preventing a case of guardianship abuse.

Herein lies one of the most significant and relevant issues of the film and that’s how it takes a hard look at the theme of abuse of health care providers and care takers. Dr. Katz, a neurologist and caretaker of Voss who prescribes her ever increasing doses of morphine in addition to always having an open bed available for her, voluntarily or not, is one of the more evil characters you will see in all of film. Volumes have been written about the main antagonist of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in Nurse Ratched, but we get the sense that if ever Ratched and Katz were to confront each other, Katz would eat Ratched for breakfast. Oh, and while I’m thinking of it, the same could be said for cinema’s other crazy evil nurse, Nurse Annie Wilkes in Misery.

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Veronika Voss is a great movie. Period. It’s not a film to take lightly either and it will leave the viewer with a sadness and empty feeling inside; a feeling of helplessness at the plight of this character that we spent the last 100 minutes getting to know and to care about and powerless to do anything about the abuse, just as our protagonist Krohn is powerless. Sure some of the story is contrived and questions of whether or not Dr. Katz could truly get away with this are irrelevant. We know in real life stuff like this does happen… every single day, and that’s enough. Yes, the audiences leaves this thing feeling like they have had their guts ripped out, but also like they’ve seen something truly unique and great and that’s because they indeed have.

Best Scene: While the scene where Voss is drugged up with a lethal dose of morphine and locked in her tiny room against her will toward the end of the film and is having her opioid and fever dream where she visions herself singing “Memories Are Made of This” in the style of Marlene Dietrich is a complete trip, I’m going to go with the moment in the beginning of the film. The scene is when Voss leaves the theater having watched her old glorious self on the screen ala Norma Desmond and is completely distraught and caught in the rain only to by chance run into Krohn who offers her his kindness and umbrella. The musical theme is sweet and tender here and rain has rarely been so beautifully captured on celluloid, especially in black and white. The two lost souls are then whisked away in a streetcar and it is at this point where lesser films would needlessly give us expository dialogue or someone random small talk scene, but Fassbinder not content with such convention chooses to use some long shots, a couple of Dutch angles, followed by upward looking closeups and instantly telegraphs that something is indeed rotten in Denmark and that this is not going to be a happy story or conventional Hollywood romance story… at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKQwMgPMXfo

Captain Quint

11-25-24, 07:37 AM

iluv2viddyfilms

11-26-24, 08:43 PM

Brilliant movie - Along with the Sunset Blvd. connection - Fassbinder was ever chasing Douglas Sirk (see Ali), and Voss might be his most successful attempt at making a classic Hollywood style melodrama; what with its transitional wipes, interesting compositions, memorable sets (like the blistering white medical center) and gorgeous B&W photography. In addition to the classical film elements, it's a dreamy, drug fueled psychological tragedy - off-kilter to the point where I sometimes felt like I’d slipped into the Twilight Zone.

Oh, and I adore the poster art.

It's on Criterion's BDR Trilogy set (a fantastic collection that I own). And all told, I've seen 30 of Fass' films to date.

102887

Well said! I wasn't sure at first what you meant by ever chasing Douglas Sirk, but then I looked and saw Sirk did an insane amount of movies too. I've seen Written on the Wind and maybe a couple of others, but Sirk is a director who I haven't really explored his works as much. From what I understand Sirk was doing the Hollywood melodramas in a very self referential and almost satirical over amplification method, but I could have that wrong too. Yeah the sets are so wonky in Veronika Voss and I noticed those throwbacks to old Hollywood style transitions.

Captain Quint

11-26-24, 10:09 PM

Sirk can be a bit much for me, and yet, I can go along with Fassbinder when he goes over the top, maybe I just think Fass does it better. But yeah, he was really in tune with Sirk, defended his films and was inspired by them.

Quoting this piece...

Fassbinder’s 1971 essay “Imitation of Life. Six Films by Douglas Sirk” was a major factor in the critical rediscovery of Sirk’s subversive melodramas. The encounter with these films accelerated Fassbinder’s ambition to make films that combined Brechtian “distanciation” with Hollywood glamor.

https://cfilm.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2018/06/11/limitations-of-life-fassbinder-learns-from-sirk/

iluv2viddyfilms

12-01-24, 07:14 AM

top 100
15th film

The Empire Strikes Back (1980 Irvin Kershner)

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Thoughts: If any word could summarize my feelings toward sophomore effort in the Star Wars series, the amazing The Empire Strikes Back, it would be authentic. I can’t use that word to describe A New Hope or Return of the Jedi. Oh, and everything after Return of the Jedi; yeah it’s not Star Wars, let’s just get that out in the open and we can throw all that Disney garbage labeled as such straight into the waste compactor where our heroes were trapped on the Death Star in the series’ first outing.

So why I am only using the word authentic to describe The Empire Strikes Back? That first Star Wars film, A New Hope was a little bit too Golden Age of Tinseltown kitsch and could be boiled down George Lucas doing the greatest hits of old Hollywood classics for the new generation of the movie brats of New Hollywood. You know take a little bit of Lawrence of Arabia, use an entire plot point and scene from The Searchers, frame by frame mind you too, and also let's throw in a bit of aerial World War II movies like Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo into the fray. Hell, we’ll even include Rick’s Cafe from Casablanca and just dirty it up a bit, throw in some aliens, and call it Mos Eisley Cantina. We even have these things called stormtroopers standing in for the Nazi’s and the rebels can stand in for the resistance fighters. As for our “I stick my neck out for no one!” antihero protagonist? Yeah we got him too and finally the cherry on top, we’ll have a giant floating space station act as Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress and also pillage that film too for our two loveable robot characters. Did someone also say Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running? OK, I’ll stop but just one last thing; Return of the Jedi or return of cross marketing and the hyperspace jump into mega merch sales that rival if not eclipse the ticket revenue of the actual film itself: toys, Ewok stuffed animals, posters, bedsheets, pajamas, diner wear, toy light sabres, Halloween costumes… oh my!

If you’re getting the sense at this point that I hate both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, it just ain’t so. I love the fact that Lucas was able to pre-Tarantino his favorite films into an exciting and new fresh unique product that took special and practical effects to the next level. I also love Return of the Jedi and introducing The Emperor character and a lot of other non-Ewok elements as it concluded the series. But Empire; Empire is something else. Entirely. Sure it had a ton of marketing and merchandise and sure it had its cinematic influences, but even as a kid of five or six years old, I knew it was somehow better. For me, both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi are wonderful, but flawed, whereas with Empire it stands alone as a masterpiece of storytelling, world building, character development, special effects, set designs, and also how to do sequels right. We may need to blame Empire for doing a sequel too good because I do believe this film changed how Hollywood looked at big franchises which from Empire in 1980 until today have been a constant. Empire changed the world of filmmaking for better or for worse and we have it to thank for Indiana Jones sequels, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the MCU, and everything that came after. Despite any trends Empire may have set, that depending on the perspective and eye of the beholder could be a bad thing or a good thing, the film when looked at in isolation for its own merits, is an absolute masterpiece.

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I don’t need to rehash what’s been said thousands if not millions of times before by reviewers or fans of the series. Yes it has a darker tone, yes we all love Yoda, and yeah it has the John Williams’ Imperial March score. Let me go back a bit to the adjective genuine. Too many science fiction films, especially those that cross into the realm of fantasy blockbusters are far too clean and sanitary. The Empire Strikes Back is dirty and covered in rust. Spaceships look half broken down, uniforms look worn and used, and buildings show their age and wear. No this isn’t the material of a derelict and broken post apocalypse world, but it’s a far cry from the pristine and sterile universe of Disney Star Wars or other modern sci-fi. Again, genuine. If there’s a rag tag group of Rebels and an Imperial fleet that’s been trudging across the galaxy in search for them, there are going to be battle scars, damage, and age. The paint will chip, rust will appear, there will be dents, and imbalances in the build quality. This is a world of necessity and spaceships are in need of repair and jerry-rigging.

Also genuine are the reactions of the characters: the physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion of our characters… on both sides. We know Vader is at his wits end chasing the Rebels around the galaxy and is extra cranky (lets just get one more force choke in!) and we also know that one of the reasons when Han Solo responds to Leia’s declaration of love with an unexpected “I know,” it’s because he doesn’t have time for long soliloquies or Hallmark slogans of “If only the oceans could fill the amount of adoration I have…” It’s just a quick ad libbed great response in a moment of pain and surrender from our beloved intergalactic rogue that works and is completely in character.

Taking note of the film’s attention to realism (or as much as we can get in Star Wars) is also the lightsaber duel between Vader and Luke. It’s the best duel of the entire series and is noteworthy because we see Luke steadily become more and more wore out through the fight. Anyone who has ever watched a UFC or boxing match knows that as the fight goes on, our contenders become exhausted, sweaty, body and face beaten, bruised, and flushed, breathing heavily and limping along and moving as their limbs would be if molded in cement. Lactic acid builds up and the tissues start swelling. The choice to show Luke go from game at the start of the duel to broken and clothes tattered by the end of it is a testament to how genuine the filmmakers and writers wanted this thing to look. I cannot watch or take seriously any duel that has our heroes moving around like blips on the screen - bouncing and swinging relentless through a lightsaber battle without a single bead of sweat on them nor hair out of place. After watching The Empire Strikes Back, everything else post 1983 pales in comparison. Not even the Return of the Jedi duel, while wonderful, can’t match the intensity of Empire.

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But at its core, what really makes Empire work is that it’s a road movie in space, or rather a chase movie wrapped in great sci-fi/fantasy storytelling with solid characters and world building. Let’s look at the structure of this thing. The film begins on the ice planet Hoth, goes into space where we meet the Galactic Empire’s super star destroyer fleet in search, go back to Hoth with some great scenes of Luke and company all leading to the epic battle sequence about 30-40 minutes or so into the film. From here we see the Rebels get their comeuppance for destroying the first Death Star and now we see Han and Leia being chased through space into an asteroid field, meanwhile Luke has escaped to find Yoda on Dagobah. In this middle 30-45 minutes of film we have some excellent character and story building before getting to Cloud City and met with the infamous act of betrayal leading to Vader’s goading of Luke into a fight in hopes of freezing him in carbonite. We go through the underbelly of Cloud City, eventually back out into space again where they escape for a second time, albeit minus Han Solo, in order to regroup, count their losses, and lick their wounds. Just great, great stuff and at just over two hours long, it all feels solidly paced without ever feeling too rushed or crazily edited. This thing flows like butter and to provide this much action into a film, while simultaneously fleshing out the roles into real dynamic characters in addition to the new characters, locales, and expanding of the universe is something of a complete cinematic magic trick.

Speaking of which, the four big settings of Empire are incredibly detailed and fleshed out. Whether I was six years old watching this thing or at 40 years old today, I still have zero difficulty in accepting this world because each of the four locations feels so real. Again, they feel they are lived in, not just some CGI thing that exists only in pixels on a computer screen. The four locations are Hoth, Space, Dagobah, and Cloud City. My favorite of which is Cloud City with its spectacular design that harkens to something we’d see in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Cloud City boasts the brightly lit and colored, splendid and luxurious hallways, chambers, and foyers of the upper parts of the city, meanwhile in the bowels of the city there are a catacomb of under chambers, steamy exhaust ports, and dimly lit corridors that lead to the massive and disorienting reactor core of the city that looks like it falls down infinitely into Hell itself. In fact, this may be the single greatest and most imaginative set I’ve ever seen in film, period - perhaps only Blade Runner or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari could give it a real run for its money.

But I consider The Empire Strikes Back to be something of a miracle. It's the closest thing, barring perhaps Mad Max: Fury Road and to a lesser extent Dune, that we've had to an arthouse blockbuster franchise film. Certainly it’s nothing that could be made today, not with on location filming in the glaciers of Norway, practical effects, miniatures, creative use of blue screen and matte paintings, and the dour and washed out color templates in most of the film. Yes, The Empire Strikes Back is a film of dirty whites, grays, washed out blues, blacks, and muted/soften greens - at least until we find ourselves in Cloud City. And I absolutely love the look of this film. George Lucas, wisely, took a back seat and handed directing duties over to the much game Irvin Kershner in favor of working on his ILM (Industrial Lights and Magic) company to provide the effects. Frank Oz did the puppetry on Yoda, which itself is probably the best puppet in all of cinema and looks miles and years beyond Gollum… sorry LoTR fanboys, it’s true. Now, the reason I say miracle is founded in the fact that sequels aren’t supposed to be this good, nor are huge gigantic multimillion dollar blockbuster extravaganzas supposed to be this gritty and grounded. Star Wars was taken from a big loud and in your face special effects bonanza and molded into a personal and taut character driven near Shakespearian tragedy road movie/space opera. Nothing really compares - not any Star Wars thing that came afterwards, not the Star Trek movies, not Harry Potter, not Lord of the Rings, not MCU… nothing. As far as big blockbusters with loads of special effects are concerned, The Empire Strikes Back is the GOAT.

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Best Scene: It’s gotta be the lightsaber duel in the seedy underbelly of Cloud City. I’ve already written about this a bit, and to keep this entry into my favorite films at a somewhat workable length, I’ll be brief. Aside from the aforementioned grittiness to it and the sense that this duel has physical weight to it and consequence, it’s a duel that continually stays fresh through solid pacing and choreography. Moreover, there’s a point to it. The fight has an objective other than just… well sword fighting. Vader is trying to either freeze Luke in carbonite or beat him into submission both physically and against his willpower. At this point in the film Luke is simply cargo to take to The Emperor. Sure we learn he’s Vader’s son in the grand story, but the whole “I’m your father,” line has become so iconic and quoted that today it doesn’t really hold the weight and bite it would have had when that was truly revelatory and shocking. Now it’s a silly catch line.

So the fact we have a story within a story here, is wonderful and as the duel starts out it’s beautifully back lit, wonderfully staged and most of this fight is filmed in mid to long shot with perfectly timed closeups that it all falls together and we can track every single move and motion through the sequence. It begins in the carbonite chambers, moves into some utility tunnels, into a docking chambers, onto a platform, back into a ventilation chambers, before the final part where Luke is cornered and dangling above the city’s massive reaction core. Matching the agile, quick, and nimble Luke against the towering and powerful Vader is also a great pairing too which for anyone who has ever watched a single WWE match knows you need contrast somehow and someway in a good fight. Also if you pay attention the music of this duel doesn’t even kick in until several minutes in and it’s a slowed down darker reprise of the Imperial March. Yeah, great, great stuff here. And talk about Vertigo. Probably one of the very few set pieces in film, looking down that massive endless void of the core, circumvented by the dim lights and indifferent grays where a viewer actually feels like they are stranded precariously above a void. It’s not so much the “I am your father,” line that is impactful, it’s the context in which it is delivered and the eerie and relentlessly disempowering set piece that gives it that push. Oh yeah; it does get added points for having our hero have his hand completely whacked off and visibly flying down into the depths as he cries out in agony; this all in what is a “kid’s film.” Yeah, the 80’s were different. Whoever decided that’s how this fight would end, good call, kudos! That whole thing devastated me as a kid. Also bonus points for Luke actually making contact and connecting with Vader’s shoulder. Valiant effort!

https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/luke-in-cloud-city-tunnel.jpg

Yeah The Empire Strikes Back eats the other two original films and the Disney garbage for breakfast. Too bad, huh mouse?!

*Edit* Also of note, I can somewhat confidently say The Empire Strikes Back is the film I've seen more times than any other film in my life.

iluv2viddyfilms

12-04-24, 07:43 AM

top 100
16th film

Odd Man Out (1947, Carol Reed)

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Thoughts: Just a couple years before Carol Reed took Dutch angles into overdrive and got us to thinking about the merits of warfare and the Italian Borgias versus the Swiss and their peacetime cuckoo clocks, the great English director took us on a chase through the dark alleys, pubs, and bomb shelters of a post-war Belfast Northern Ireland. Of course the setting of Out Man Out is never explicitly cited as Belfast in the film, despite the prominence of the Albert Memorial Clocktower looming watch over many of the scenes. Similarly, the freedom fighting organization at the center of the film’s action also goes unnamed, but we know it’s the Irish Republican Army. Likely these decisions were made as to not make the film inflammatory nor overly political, to make it more universal for a wider audience, and to likely avoid controversy or needless dilemma via the censors.

The film technically could be considered or belong to film noir, but just like Reed’s The Third Man, labeling it as such might be doing the film a bit of a disservice. That’s not because there’s anything inherently wrong with film noir, in fact I love film noir, but both of Reed’s films deal less with the typical plots, character types, and troupes of film noir, despite using noir’s shadowy black and white cinematography and nihilistic tones. In terms of story and characters and mood of the devastated blown out post-war European settings, both Odd Man Out and The Third Man could be argued to have more in common with the Italian neorealism films like Umberto D, Germany Year Zero, and The Bicycle Thieves than they do with the American films like The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity. Sure, there’s a heist/bank robbery that kicks off the action in Odd Man Out, but that’s hardly the focal point of this movie.

Odd Man Out has a remarkably simple story and it’s an easy film to jump right into and get lost within its labyrinthian urban world. Our protagonist, Johnny McQueen (James Mason) is a member of the freedom fighting organization (IRA). He has escaped from prison six months prior and at the start of the movie he has been hiding out and living with a sympathizer/member of the organization his romantic interest Kathleen Sullivan and her grandmother. By the way, the actress who plays Kathleen, who’s real name actually is Kathleen (Ryan) is remarkable. She’s Irish and was discovered by Carol Reed to be in this film. She’s puts on a very minimal and restrained performance. There’s very little expression in her and she’s a far cry from the typical leading ladies of film noir. She’s just genuinely concerned about her love Johnny as he plots a heist bank robbery in order to raise funds for the organization. Johnny is told by one of the other leading members, his lieutenant Dennis, that he might not be up for the job, but Johnny persists regardless. The heist, as has been foreshadowed, goes awry, Johnny gets shot in the robbery and ends up killing his attacker, and the other three members of the robbery leave him to die in the street. The rest of the movie really just follows James Mason’s character as he is trying to hide from the police and not succumb to his wounds, meanwhile everyone around him wants a piece of him.

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For me, one of the things that really works about this film is how it shows a multitude of characters and each one of them has their own motivations for the actions that follow the heist. The police are after Johnny because he’s a member of the organization, has escaped prison and now having killed a man and robbed a bank, he’s a wanted at-large fugitive prowling the streets. Dennis and the organization wants him back in case he’s a risk to them if captured and also because maybe they do care and he can set the record straight. The three others in the robbery likely want him dead because if the truth is revealed they betrayed him and left him to die that would be an awful look. Kathleen wants him because she cares for him and is in love. A Catholic priest wants him because he may or may not be genuinely concerned about his soul, but if he can take confession of the now infamous Johnny McQueen, well that’s not a bad day at the office. Some of the city people want him to turn in to the authorities for the reward, some want him to benefit their career, others want him because they believe in the cause and now that he’s dying he’s a bit of a martyr, and so it goes. Each of the many side characters all want a piece of Johnny and meanwhile the blood and life is slowly but surely slipping away from him.

Odd Man Out is truly a great film. There’s little doubt as to his fate; we know from the beginning it can’t be good. James Mason gives a strong performance with such little dialogue, but for a film which sees him stumbling around trying to get help to either be turned away or grabbed and then left for dead and abandoned time and time again, the actor does a wonderful job in showing the progression or rather digression of his rapidly deteriorating condition.

Speaking of which, the film almost follows the unities of Aristotle, that is time, location, and plot. The film, with constant symbolism of the clock tower peering down, takes place from maybe one or two in the afternoon before the heist as the men are prepping and heading out to the robbery up until midnight where Johnny meets his fate. During this time the weather almost acts as a reminder to poor conditions too. It begins somewhat sunnily but quickly turns overcast to rain and then finally to snow. The weather looms large through the whole picture and mirrors the conditions of Johnny as he inches closer to shuffling off his mortal coil; a dead man walking. The entire film also takes place on the streets of Belfast (some filming was done there, most in studio, and some in London) - apparently the real life famous Belfast pub, The Crown Bar, was recreated and built for the film on a studio lot. As for plot, there is only one main plot despite the changing characters and perspectives.

Something that I picked up on that was really refreshing, and maybe this too is what is reminding me more or neorealism than noir, is how genuine the characters seemed to be. Unlike a typical heist film or police caper many of these characters speak in soft tones and are in full control of their actions and emotions. We don’t get wild speeches and wild outbursts. When Dennis questions Johnny it’s not done in a threatening manner nor gamesmanship to one-up-him, but out of real concern. When the police chief, played beautifully by Irishman actor Denis O’Dea shows up at Kathleens to interrogate her and her grandmother, he’s so relaxed and confident - hardly the copper of film noir who is bumbling or comes in yelling guns a-blazing. He’s pleasant, but also very stern and has a very intimidating and commanding towering presence about him without ever having to raise his voice. Little things in performances throughout the film like the aforementioned really REALLY set it apart and stand out so much to me.

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Odd Man Out is a film, I must add, that is fairly new to me. I have seen it now, as of this writing, exactly three times. I watched it for the first time in last year’s Noirvember collection on The Criterion Channel and was immediately taken aback by it, in the best way possible that I had to instantly turn around and watch it again in the next day or two. I then watched it again recently in this year’s Noirvember collection too. It’s a film I instantly fell in love with, find to be absolutely haunting, and having watched The Third Man a couple of months ago for about the fourth or fifth time - another film I love, I decided that Odd Man Out just speaks to me more. Perhaps The Third Man is objectively a “better” film - who knows. I has those great Dutch Angles, that beautiful zither score, Orson Welles giving a performance of the lifetime in the infamous and villainous Harry Lime character, and it took the chase element from Odd Man Out and compressed it into one of the most stunning and remarkable sequences in all of cinema as Lime is being chased through the underground tunnels of Vienna. But I dunno, something just speaks to me more with Odd Man Out. It’s a “quieter” film and it’s just haunting and even though we don’t see both of the characters together, except for the beginning and the end of the film, something about the relationship and kindness and warmth between the love Johnny and Kathleen have for one another speaks volumes.

Two more quick side notes of things I liked about the film. The character of Shell played by F.J. McCormick is just wonderful and he’s such a scoundrel, but a loveable and slimy scoundrel who we as the audience are perfectly content to hate. His scenes and bickerings with Lukey the artist are pure comic gold in an otherwise very seriously toned film. I do also love how the actors are very genuine and the film casts a great rogues gallery of primarily Irish, but also English actors. Maureen Delany is another actor who has a great bit part in the film too. None of these actors in the film, minus James Mason, is necessarily a household name or a star, but it’s probably one of the best casts I’ve seen in a film because they all so fully embody their roles and are so distinctive or face, voice, personality, style, and character. The tone is dreary and sad, with some splashes of humor and the whimsical, as the film continues on and the mood is also claustrophobic as time, the search, and lifelessness close in our protagonist. It’s a film that actually feels cold too and almost has you grabbing a blanket as the night presses on and on. Along with McCabe & Mrs. Miller or The Thing (1982), it’d be a great first snow of the winter film or a stay at home while a blizzard is raging outside and there’s no place to go, type of film.

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Best Scene: Naturally there’s so many great scenes, but I’ll be quick here. I love the scene where Denis O’Dea is searching Kathleen and the grandmother’s house. It’s so well done and the lighting is perfect and it’s great direction and writing, because in addition to the tension and drama of the police searching the house looking for clues of where Johnny might be hiding, there’s the “bomb under the table” drama of the tiny hidden revolver and how Kathleen takes it from the drawer, hides it in her coat, and then passes it to the grandmother, who believes they won’t think to search her, but is hardly aware the barrel is sticking out of her shawl. The tension is real in this scene and the performances here are very “un-Hollywood.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqDkPZ0iTbg

Holden Pike

12-04-24, 08:58 AM

Odd Man Out is terrific. It made the MoFo Top 100 Films Noir at #47 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2450808#post2450808) and it was eighth on my ballot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2451240#post2451240).

98290

iluv2viddyfilms

12-05-24, 05:08 AM

top 100 films
17th film

The Rover (2014, David Michod)

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Thoughts: David Michod is a director after me own heart and mind. While I have yet to see his most acclaimed work, Animal Kingdom, I will say that War Machine completely caught me off guard as it’s one of the most sardonic war satires I’ve seen along with Dr. Strangelove, The Mouse That Roared, MASH, The King of Hearts and so on. The King is one of the most spectacular cinematic visions of Shakespeare’s Henriad plays and would make a great double bill with a top 10 film of mine, Chimes at Midnight. The film of his that really gets me however is his post economic cash, neo-western, road movie thing. I won’t call it a post apocalypse film as Michod has rejected that categorization and simplification of his film; however I will be contrarian. It IS a post-apocalyptic film. It is, however, a very different type of treatment of this massively popular sub-genre.

There’s a bare-bones story here that pushes what little narrative there is onward. We’re introduced to the world of The Rover with a no-exposition one sentence explanation of our setting. We’re in Australia and it’s 10 years into the future after an economic collapse. That’s it. Our main character is named Eric, although that’s rarely brought up - he may as well be a man with no name, and his car is stolen by three men who have engaged in some sort of robbery of which we’re never given an explanation. Eric, played in a menacingly and growly subdued performance by Guy Pearce, wants his car back. Along Eric’s pursuit he stumbles across a fourth member of the gang, a dim-witted Rey (Robert Pattinson) who was left for dead at the scene of the heist and was not a part of the vehicle theft. He keeps him alive and “kidnaps” Rey as he’s the only connection to help Eric locate his car. Seems simple enough. But it’s bloody brilliant and amazing.

OK, let me back up a step to something I wrote just a bit ago. The Rover is a film with a post-apocalyptic setting, but fits closer along the genres lines to a modern western. The least could be said is that it’s a hybrid of the two genres. I want to speak specifically to the post-apocalypse thing. The cool thing about The Rover, is that unlike many of these films, it doesn’t go into needless exposition, but perhaps most interestingly is that it completely shirks the nuclear wasteland troupe. There’s no disease in The Rover that caused the disintegration of society. There are no zombies here. There are no massive factions or clans battling it out ala Mad Max. In The Rover aliens have not landed, nor have we been victim to the destruction of changes in weather patterns and climate change. There are no explanations of Civil War or a premise of no new babies being born ala Children of Men. There’s no crypto religious/spiritual end of the world doomsday scenario, no dystopian big brother government, nothing like that. It’s completely empty and cold with zero real explanation and simultaneously perhaps the greatest explanation for a film like this: economic collapse.

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Here’s my point. The Rover is a collapse of society film for adults and for those viewers who like to think and reflect, more than they enjoy sensory spectacle. There’s nothing wrong with Mad Max, in fact Fury Road was one of my favorite films of the previous decade and I was amazed by this year’s entry Furiosa. But The Rover, ain’t about that. Right now the calendar reads 2024. If our world and civilization is going to break down and collapse it’s going to most likely be for economic causes. If modern world history teaches us anything, whether we’re talking about Haiti, Argentina, or Venezuela it’s that breakdowns of currencies, massive inflation, and joblessness are the real reasons people are going to lock themselves inside or will take to the streets or will see overthrows of government. The real facts are a country or civilization will not be conquered by outside forces, but most likely internal economic and culture driven forces.

Now let’s look at something. For the past three decades we, as an American culture and society, have absolutely been addicted to post-apocalypse material and that which explores the fracturing of our institutions and checks and balances; whatever that color that “thine line” is that separates people from saying hello to each other vs gunning each other down in their homes for a loaf of bread, fresh water, or if lucky, some nice liquor. Think about what films we’ve had of late: I Am Legend, The Road, The Bad Batch, two wonderful Mad Max films, Children of Men, A Quiet Place, The Book of Eli, Snowpiercer, and on and on. Think about the amount of video games, an entertainment medium that now puts the film industry to shame on a pure dollar amount standpoint: Tom Clancy’s The Division, the Fallout series, Borderlands, The Last of Us and others.

Our televisions sets have been permanently fixed to shows like “The Walking Dead,” “Breaking Bad,” and “Doomsday Preppers.” Oh and a couple of the biggest industries right now is the firearms, firearms accessories and ammunition, and military apparel industries. Regardless of a person’s politics we know, with data to back it up, that President Obama has been the biggest firearm salesman of our lifetime and with events that coincided with or followed his term in office such as the housing market crash, Sandy Hook and other school shootings, Covid-19 lockdowns, inflation concerns and immigration concerns - along with the harsh reality that anyone making under six figures today can’t really afford to buy a house and for anyone under the age of 30, social security is more of a question mark than a safety net… yeah it’s no wonder art and storytelling with heavy themes of the breakdown of institutions are so popular and people are collecting firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition at all time record highs.

But back to the film itself; just a couple of points on the style. It’s barren and bleak certainly. While there are plenty of close-ups and mid-shots, what really makes it are how the characters are framed and juxtaposed against the Australian wilderness and desert. The skies are blue and massively expansive, like something out of a John Ford or Sergio Leone film, and the insides are dimly lit, naturally I believe, and this isn’t your typical bustling and hustling end of the world society. People here lounge around and sleep all day. There’ no work, many of them are either drugged up on opium, drunk, or have simply lost the will to live. Many of these characters have a hollowness about them and empty eyes. There’s a great scene where Eric goes into a building that’s a “house of sale” or narcotics den and he’s asking about his car and the inhabitants are so out of their mind they barely notice him.

The old lady, the owner/dealer of the establishment speaks in riddles - barely above a whisper, and doesn’t even bat an eye with a gun held to her. She can only comment on how rude he’s being and if he isn’t interested in a “smooth skinned boy” then there’s really no help she can offer him. This is all very cryptic and genuinely makes your skin crawl, but this is the world these people live in. Being thematically rich, as The Rover is for what it lacks in plot, I imagine this is the type of soul vacuum a world without work, occupations, rule of law, purpose, or faith would be like. We have an image of your typical post-apocalypse character, one who is a member of marauding bands and tribes running around - wearing body armor and military fatigues with loads of ammunition strapped in their bandoleers - armed to the teeth and ready to fight, who are bold and loud! No, not all. Most of the inhabitants of The Rover are too exhausted to put up a fight, raise their voice, or even lift a finger. It’s the idleness of hands that is truly the Devil’s work and when you take away meaning and purpose, you also take away any fight - the good and the bad. This is one of the reasons why I love this movie so much. The Rover speaks truths about human nature and the soul whereas most of these types of films are focused on the spectacle and violence and survival aspects. The people that live here, in most cases, just don’t really give a damn.

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That is not to say there isn’t violence in The Rover. There’s plenty. I believe, by my count, Guy Pearce kills six people in the film, some “deserved it” being in self defense and others did not. The violence is not of the Peckinpah order though and it could hardly even be described as Scorsese in nature. It’s sudden, non-showy, and violent and then nothing. A person is alive and then in the blink of an eye they’re not. Violence is neither poetry in motion as in Peckinpah or John Woo nor is it a gruesome affair of beauty and shock as in a blood soaked Scorsese killing. It just is.

Going back to some older cinema, The Rover does seem to be a spiritual and thematic successor of several other great films. This is material that would find its way right at home with Sam Peckinpah behind the camera and almost seems to be a cousin of his equally nihilistic film Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Although the title in Peckinpah’s film kind of gives away the macguffin. We don’t find out about the dead dog in the trunk until the last minute of The Rover, although if you think about the title, Rover is a colloquialism and catch-all name for a dog. There’s no mistaking that the two leads in each film, Guy Peace in Michod’s picture and Warren Oates in Peckinpah’s are among the most lonely, fed-up and exhausted, gravely road weary anti-heros we’ll ever see in all of film. In addition to Peckinpah’s forgotten masterpiece, a fate The Rover will likely share too (so few people have seen it or talk about it despite it being a mainstay on streaming), a couple of other films it could be paired with are also overlooked The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and what is perhaps one of the most fascinating B-pictures ever made, a day-one in the trenches look at what might happen the second the bombs start falling, the almost hypothetical post-apocalypse “how to manual” film Panic in the Year Zero! A brilliant Ray Milland effort, that despite its flaws is still amazing.

But if I had to name the greatest post apocalypse film, I would likely say The Rover, just because of the human element, the psychology, and the bleakness of how the characters act and react to one another. It’s a beautifully shot film to and the score is very atmospheric for a slow burner road movie, Australian modern western. The film shows how I imagine such a situation of economic collapse would play out in the real world. No big speeches of stuff like Waterworld and no fanfare and fireworks of Mad Max, just complete sadness and the melancholy existence of our day-to-day routines and premise of law in order in the rear view mirror. I have no idea why this film isn’t more popular. I think it was either ignored or dismissed by many critics or written off as “decent” but not much more. Also audiences seemed to ignore it too. The one big exception that I’m aware of at least, is Quentin Tarantino who has championed The Rover and has called it the best post-apocalypse film since Mad Max.

Best scene: I’m going to go with the scene where Eric comes to the realization that he needs to buy a gun and interrupts a mahjong or dominoes game to inquire about a firearm from a midget who sells odds and ends from his roadside Hell hole market. Eric is asking the price of a firearm - he has a couple of old 9mm World War era Browning Hi-Power pistols for sale. The midget quotes $300 for each one, and Eric doesn’t bat an eye - he says he can’t afford them. The midget gets snippy, drops an F-bomb for wasting his time and Eric put a round through the midget’s head, emptying his brains on the wall behind him in an instant. There’s no threat on Eric’s part, further negotiation, no warnings of his intent to kill him. Nothing. It leaves the viewer aghast, especially as this character has been framed up to this point to fit our movie-going expectations and framework to see his as perhaps an anti-hero, but not a cold blooded villainous murderer. The fact is he’s maybe none of those or both of those at the same time.

So here’s one of the reasons why this film is so great. The Rover doesn’t telegraph to the viewer. I didn’t fully pick up on the following until the third… yes third viewing as to exactly why and my theory of why he is so dismissive of the midget and kills him. Earlier in the scene, as the two men are walking up to his shack where he keeps the guns for sale, the midget throws a rock at a chained up barking dog. This is framed as just a non-consequential action or something to just set the tone of that world… yeah OK, there will be dogs after the collapse of civilization, they will bark, and people will be annoyed by it and ******** will be ********. There’s also a scene a little bit later of a doctor with a dozen or so dogs kenneled up and stacked on top of each other to which the doctor notices Eric’s stoic look of disgust and anger and before he does or says anything she explains she keeps the dogs there because they can’t go outside because wanderers will eat and cannibalize them and people had dropped their dogs off, claiming to be back for them, but ultimately abandoning them. Now consider the ending where the entire chase for Eric’s car is built upon his need to see his dog in the ground. Yeah it all makes sense.

One of the best lines is the film, is really the only time we get any kind of backstory or more standard exposition and character development, when Eric explains that he shot his wife and her lover in cold blooded murder and no one came after him. I imagine he also had his dog too at that point and his dog was likely his only companion in a broken world and perhaps his one last living connection prior to the world going to Hell.

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iluv2viddyfilms

12-17-24, 03:48 PM

top 100 films
18th film

Hobson’s Choice (1954, David Lean)

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Thoughts: First of all, Charles Laughton is a well-renowned actor for his many performances on screen, but it’s a shame he’s not typically named as one of the GOATs. Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers among modern cinefiles when looking at the great British thespians of yesteryear are generally named, and they are both great, but also their equal is the lesser known today Charles Laughton. In fact if you play a game of “first thing that comes to mind” association with film school students and film nerds in 2024, and shout out the name “Charles Laughton!” nine out of ten will scratch their head thinking it sounds somehow familiar and then the tenth will not miss a single beat and say Night of the Hunter. Play the game of the names Alec Guinness and Peters Sellers you’ll get a variety of responses.

Unlike Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers who could absolutely disappear into a role and be chameleon like and change their demeanor and energy with each new film, heck even within the same film playing multiple roles, Laughton with his pear-shaped body, bloated puckerfish face, and disgusted grimace was unmistakably Laughton in each film and he made no such effort to drastically change from role to role or to be anything else other than Charles Laughton. Sure, you may cite The Hunchback of Notre Dame from 1939, which while great, is unfortunate that today in the 2020’s that may be his most well known role for those who are even familiar with him, but it’s also perhaps, for my mileage, his least interesting in terms of the role itself, not the entirety of the film. Anyone can Lon Chaney up a part in amazing makeup and costume work while developing a consistent set of larger than life mannerisms. What not everyone can do is to subtly play with their monocle as a gag the way Laughton does in Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution, eat chicken in a grotesque but completely natural way as he does while addressing the court sternly in The Private Life of Henry VIII, nor wander around at night in the streets tragicomically in a drunken stupor chasing the moon’s reflection in puddles and windows before stumbling into a sewer dugout and passing out as in Hobson’s Choice. I mention these examples because Laughton is an actor who I’m absolutely drawn toward and could watch him do nothing but stare at the wall for hours. Much like perhaps his American counterpart, W.C. Fields, Laughton made an absolute art out of comedy based upon discouraged, down-beaten, annoyed, and curmudgeonly caddish characters who were simultaneously endlessly loveable and seemingly great big teddy bears who you had the sense would melt if given a giant hug through the movie screen.

Hobson’s Choice is probably my favorite Charles Laughton film. While Laughton plays the titular character of the film which refers to a choice between a non-desirable option vs an option of nothing, it’s his surrounding cast here that takes center stage and the action revolves around the mass and force that is boot shop proprietor HHH, not the wrestler, but Henry Horatio Hobson. Joining him in the excellent cast in this very theater like film production (Hobson’s Choice was first a Harold Brighhouse stage play from 1915) are John Mills playing Will Mossop as his best shoe maker, or rather “leather bender,” Brenda de Banzie as Hobson’s eldest and very headstrong daughter, soon to be married by her own Machevelian machinations, and Daphne Anderson and Prunella Scales as his youngest daughters. All of this actors play off each other beautifully in addition to the others I haven’t named here, but all the action center’s around and comes back to the larger than life Charles Laughton as the titular character and massive center who the rest orbit around.

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Now, I suspect part of the reason Laughton might not resonate with modern sentiments as much as actors like Guiness or perhaps Sellers is because much of it is very low key and while there’s physicality some of the movements tend to be small. One of the funniest moments in Hobson’s Choice is the dinner at one o’clock line in which his daughter is giving him orders to which Laughton responds he’ll not be commanded and told what to do, but will agree to one o’clock because he has decided it. Or, when he’s scolding his daughters about how he should be the one in authority while sitting backwards in a chair, it’s clear they are the ones in control. There’s very much a Washington Irving gender power dynamics type of humor to Hobson’s Choice which makes all this material deliciously funny, moreover when seeing how Hobson is clearly helpless to do anything about his diminished status in relation to his now adult three daughters, it all adds to the allure of this type of material and British humor. This type of British gender power struggle humor goes all the way back to even Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales with the excellent The Wife of Bath’s Tale and even The Nun’s Priest Tale. Only, as Hobson is a long-time widow at the start of the film, the humor arises not from marital disputes, but rather from Hobson’s juggling of the catch-22 between needing to marry his daughters off, but also needing the domestic support they provide for such tasks as cooking, cleaning, and doing nearly all significant tasks required of his shoe shop.

Matching wits with Hobson is his eldest daughter of course, who manipulates John Mills’ character into marrying her so that she can set up her own shop to rival that of her father’s by stealing his best shoe maker. There’s great humor here and I’ll say it again, but Brenda de Banzie’s performance is just so spectacular and she plays the role with steely assuredness and quiet, head raised, resolve in contrast to Laughton’s blustery and loud physical performance. The two thespians just put on a clinic playing like acid and water against each other in their verbal sparrings and plottings. The character who receives the most dynamic development is that of Mills’ Will Mossop who goes from meak and timid “stay in the basement” underpaid shoe-maker to the bold and ambitious shop owner with his wife who has helped him find his confidence.

Through all these complex relationships, in a relatively simple story lacking anything along the line of an unnecessary and convoluted plot, are intense themes that touch upon issues of identity, gender roles, business ventures, worker’s rights, and even alcoholism. One of the running gags of the film is Hobson’s intense love for liquor and what starts off as a silly comic motif of Hobson’s escaping off to the pub soon becomes a very not-so-much gag, but rather a integral part of the story as Hobson’s succumbs to alcoholism and alcohol poisoning. Much of this is due to the writing, sure, but also due to the steady hand of David Lean’s (Lawrence of Arabia) excellent direction in slowly weaving in Laughton’s performance and alcoholism into the film. Just as possible in real life, what starts off as something that isn’t dire becomes life and death by the end of the film. In true rabbit trick form David Lean presents Hobson’s drinking as a comic aside, but gently reveals that his tipping the bottle is no one-off joke, but a serious point in the story. If nothing else, how Hobson’s Choice handles alcoholism is very different from other great films of its era diving into the subject such as The Lost Weekend or Days of Wine and Roses, but despite the unique and off-beat presentation, Hobson’s Choice is no less engaging or poignant when presenting similar themes.

Hobson’s Choice also shows what range David Lean has. For a man who is widely known to direct some of the great outdoor masterpieces of cinema such as Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and The Bridge on the River Kwai, the man also can make great chamber or interior dramas as well. There are several scenes that take place outside of four walls, such as the street scenes, but for the most part the action plays indoors in Hobson’s Choice. Well duh, it is very much a stage and theater film, but still, it’s remarkable how well Lean can do both.

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Best Scene: For the film’s best scene I will go with the hallucination scene with Hobson in his bed suffering from alcohol poisoning where he starts to imagine such things as giant mosquitos and bugs swooping down at him as well as a giant mouse grimacing at him from the foot of his bed. This whole bit toward the end of the film feels very surrealist and adds a touch of Luis Bunuel flair to the picture and how it’s placed in the action, completely catches the viewer off guard. Yeah, we previously get the equally amazing scene at night where Hobson, drunkenly chases the moon in the rain puddle reflections on the street before falling into a sewer maintenance tunnel, but I think this moment in the film is where the audience truly realizes, “oh crap, this isn’t funny anymore!” Also the ensuing scenes with the doctor and Hobson’s daughters really add to the question of how are we going to solve this problem and we also get the coldness in the response of his youngest in Hobson’s time of need. The whole section also sets up that brilliant ending too where everything expertly comes full circle. Hobson’s Choice is such a brilliantly and tightly crafted film and it’s such a joy to watch. It’s one of those films that could easily be recommended to people who are unfamiliar with films prior to the 1980’s and who are hesitant to give old black and white films a chance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlaAllCMjzE

matt72582

12-17-24, 06:04 PM

I like "La Dolce Vita" (but prefer Fellini's 50s movies)

I like how have the "Best Scene".. I liked the scenes with his father, Steiner while listening to music.

iluv2viddyfilms

02-01-25, 10:02 PM

I like "La Dolce Vita" (but prefer Fellini's 50s movies)

I like how have the "Best Scene".. I liked the scenes with his father, Steiner while listening to music.

Yeah to me La Dolce Vita is the perfect transition film between his straight forward and emotional character studies of the 1950s and his surreal and bizarre social commentaries and dreamscapes of the 1960s and after.

I think the scene at the party with Marcello's father, explains party why he is the way he is. He has an absent father with little emotional support, a father who is every bit the skirt chaser he is. Also Steiner is a great character too, who really epitomizes what Marcello looks up to, he's wealthy, seemingly is settled and has kids and "has it together" until the moment he kills himself.

So we have two characters... one who lives purely for himself (his father) and the other (Steiner) who perhaps lives for everyone but himself.

Great films can be difficult to analyze and La Dolce Vita is definitely a puzzle and whether or not Fellini is preaching to us, I'm sure I don't know, but it's just a great film.

matt72582

02-01-25, 10:14 PM

Yeah to me La Dolce Vita is the perfect transition film between his straight forward and emotional character studies of the 1950s and his surreal and bizarre social commentaries and dreamscapes of the 1960s and after.

I think the scene at the party with Marcello's father, explains party why he is the way he is. He has an absent father with little emotional support, a father who is every bit the skirt chaser he is. Also Steiner is a great character too, who really epitomizes what Marcello looks up to, he's wealthy, seemingly is settled and has kids and "has it together" until the moment he kills himself.

So we have two characters... one who lives purely for himself (his father) and the other (Steiner) who perhaps lives for everyone but himself.

Great films can be difficult to analyze and La Dolce Vita is definitely a puzzle and whether or not Fellini is preaching to us, I'm sure I don't know, but it's just a great film.

Those are my favorite scenes, too.

Robert the List

02-28-25, 02:26 AM

iluv2viddyfilms

03-01-25, 03:54 PM

top 100 films
19th film

Becket (1964, Peter Glenville)

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Thoughts: One of the great struggles of mankind is to balance the role of the individual in their relationship and allegiance to the self against their allegiance to something beyond the self; to others, to their country, and to God. On one hand we value the individual and the sovereignty of choice and service of one’s self, but we also must fit and belong to a society and serve and also work toward something and someone larger than ourselves. If the service to self is the pinnacle and ultimate goal of life, this leads to anarchy and a man-eat-man world with no institutions beyond what is expedient to one’s own self gain and this leads to anarchy, murder, and destruction or complete hedonism and stagnation. Obviously individuals have rights and through their attempts at either self-betterment or advancement, others benefit too as a consequence. Take for example a brilliant young man who wants to become rich and in doing so studies with great discipline to become a doctor and ends up saving countless lives. You know the story. But what happens when the self is completely at odds with what is best for the society? Aristotelian rights explored this idea in balancing out the two between the natural rights and natural justice and in the Age of Enlightenment Thomas Hobbes and John Locke battled it out and explored what man’s relationship to law and society would be leading all the way up the founding of America and the writings of thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.

Two of the most powerful institutions that have kept the individual in line and prevented the self from falling trap to hedonism and an extreme Ayn Rand Hellscape of man cannibalizing his fellow man has been the State and the Church. America is a nation that was founded on doing the absolute best to strike a balance between the two, but it goes back to the Magna Carta and even back to the warfare between the church and crown in a post Battle of Hastings 12th century England which is the primary backdrop to the brilliant, perplexing, and demanding 1964 film Becket. Obviously balance is the true key ingredient. We’ve seen what has happened when the State has too much power in our history books when looking at Communist China with Mao or Communist Russia with Stalin and the cult of personality and the forced at gunpoint worship of ridiculous demoagues. Of course look no further than Islamic States even in the present day to see what a complete mess theocracies get us into as well and how human rights abuses run rampant in the name of Allah including, but not limited to those against women and LGBTQ+.

The film Becket explores the push and the pull and the battle that ensues when finding the perfect balance in the triumvirate of the Self, the State, and the Church. Peter O’Toole plays King Henry II of England and Richard Burton plays his partner in-crime at carousing and whoring; the real “love” of his life, and ultimate foil and antagonist in the title role of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. I don’t believe Becket is a film that would be made today, let alone succeed. There’s many discussions and long trains of dialogue in the film discussing items such as whether or not a King has the right to tax the Church and how the Church can balance its obligations to the service of God, while also knowing full well it may be funding wars and implements that are not altogether aligned. And how much pull should the Church have in dictating laws and behavior onto a king in addition to the jurisdiction of trials and excommunications of nobles who serve the king. Can a noble be excommunicated from the Catholic Church yet still hold title and respect as a land owner and servant to the thing? One of the more interesting sub-plots is that which sparks the main rift between Henry II and Becket, when Lord Gilbert has an unscrupulous priest put to death under the Crown’s law rather than turning him over to the Church to handle. And where people should be put on trial and who has the jurisdiction of dishing out justice, is still an embattled topic even to this day. The very issue of criminal legal rights and jurisdiction gave rise to our own Sixth Amendment to the Bill of Rights and recently made world headlines in the Hong Kong protests where a young man accused of killing his girlfriend in Taiwan and then extradited to mainland China rather than face justice in his own Hong Kong.

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These are themes and ideas mewed over in a film such as Becket, that don’t necessarily make for the most compelling and exciting of viewing experiences, especially for audiences in 2025, but it does make for a cerebral and deep cinematic experience for those who have the patience and the right frame of mind when going into a movie such as Becket. Director Peter Glenville’s film is a film of talking… and talking… and talking. Well, to be fair, Becket was based upon a 1959 stage play by French dramatist Jean Anouilh, and full disclosure I have not read the play and source material, so my absolute love of Becket and the film making my top 100 list is more of a reflection upon my love of cinema and reverence for history, than a literary one. I just can’t image a film cut of the same cloth as Becket doing well at all today, not with its lack of major battle sequences, very little action, and actors not mugging in glamour poses for the camera and publicity stills spewing out colloquial conversational dialogue in a historical epic.

If the macro theme of Becket is the embattlement between Crown and Church then the micro level… the personal is that of the deep relationship and platonic love between Henry II and Thomas Becket, and truth be told, it’s this interplay of a non-sexual bro-mance that really makes the film shine and raises it to the next level. The script seamlessly melds the larger societal and public issues at hand with the very personal and intimate and the interplay and love-hate between King Henry II and Becket is a microcosm for the tumultuous pairing of the Crown of England and the Catholic Church. Very rarely has a film script married two separate ideas so beautifully and Becket is a film that despite the laconic pace, flows like absolute butter.

But one couldn’t mention the greatness of a film such as Becket without discussing the two main performances which are just spectacular and play polar opposite each other in style and rhythm. Peter O’Toole plays Henry II as bombastic and loud, never shutting up and never being short of emotionally fueled words and rants. O’Toole portrays him as a man who fuel of bile and hate as well as lust for all the young women he beds, while ignoring his grating wife and irritating children. One could make the argument that O’Toole’s performance runs dangerously close to parody and is perilously near over-the-top to the point of mockery, but I don’t see that at all, as while it is extreme, there is nuance and a sense of control within the pomposity. His Henry II is a man who is spiritually and intellectually in love with Becket, for whatever reasons, and Becket is the only character in the film who is able to somewhat “humble” the arrogant and pompous king. Yet O'Toole's performance is also one where he creates a character that despite his pride and ego is also one of deep self-loathing and self-hatred under the façade and uses his unadulterated AND unrequited love for Becket as a bizarre form of self-flagellation. While O’Toole will always be remembered for his absolute best role, which is really beyond argument - Lawrence of Arabia, what he does in Becket is sadly overlooked.

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By contrast, Richard Burton’s Becket is reserved with a deep and introspective quiet confidence and cunning and under-plays opposite of O’Toole’s performance wonderfully. There is great balance between the two approaches and interpretations of their characters and just watching the two brilliant thespians interact is cinematic gold. I would stop just short of listing Becket as an entry into LGBTQ+ cinema and I don’t quite remember if it was a film featured in the ground-breaking documentary The Celluloid Closet, but it would certainly fit at home in study for that regard.

Of the great Hollywood and English big budget historical colorized films that came out during the 1960s with lots and lots of talk, talk, talk that explored the era of the Middle Ages and Christendom; films such as A Man for All Seasons, The Lion in the Winter, The Agony and the Ecstasy, El Cid, and many others, Becket is easily the best and my favorite of them. Becket was nominated for a handful of Academy Awards as well as others and won for an adapted screenplay writing award as well as O’Toole beating out his co-star for a Golden Globe for best actor in a year, 1964, which was chock full to the brim of great films. Becket is also a gorgeous film and while there aren’t as many shots that imprint in the brain as in a film like Lawrence of Arabia, Becket is more subtly gorgeous and sneaks up upon you. Goeffrey Unsworth did yeoman’s work on this film and it’s a splendid film to look at and absorb. It’s too bad Becket is an entry into the great films of the 1960’s that is often overlooked today, doesn’t make a lot of “best of” lists in Criterion top 10’s or Sight and Sound polls, but it’s still brilliant all the same.

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Best Scene: Well, I’m going to make this one quick. As easy as it would be for me to pick the meeting at the beach toward the end of the film between Becket and Henry II as they try to reconcile and come to terms regarding Lord Gilbert’s excommunication and the articles proposed and requested by the King to the Church, I won’t pick that scene. It’s a brilliant scene and the sound of the gulls squawking and waves crashing on the beach, the longshots of the ocean and the two larger than life personalities on horseback while their men watch in the distance is just amazing, I don’t pick that scene. Nor do I pick the scene where Thomas Becket is murdered in the church of Canterbury, “Will no one rid me of that meddlesome priest?” a scene based on the historical moment which became the inspiration for one of the greatest literary works of all time, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. It’s a great and brutal scene. The scene I pick is the moment, about an hour into the film, when Henry II is notified of the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury. “It seems that God is on our side after all Thomas; he’s just recalled the Archbishop of Canterbury to his bosom.” Aside from being a poetic and literary turn of phrase to describe death, those lines develope this scene quickly into Henry II’s conundrum of how he will use this “opportune moment” to his advantage and does the great miscalculation of appointing Becket into the role, mistakenly thinking he can now control his old friend and the church. If acting is reacting, then few have done it as well as Burton in this scene when he acts like he was struck down by lightning after at first laughing it off as a cruel joke when “offered” the role of Archbishop and he heart-breakingly responds, “Do not do this my lord.” Becket has the foresight and shrewdness to understand what Henry II cannot, which is the death of their friendship and the birth of their battle as enemies all because of the hubris of his friend, that not even he - Becket, can come to an intellectual jiu-jitsu arrangement to have both his honor and his King. It's in this moment that Becket is forced to finally choose God over his King.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMwgMDUjVf0&t=7086s

iluv2viddyfilms

03-01-25, 04:41 PM

I'm about to start a new job, but when I get round to watching new movies again, I'll take them from this thread in the first instance.

iluv2viddyfilms, in spite of his daft username ;), writes so impressively and has obvious passion for films as well as deep technical understanding and knowledge.

Ones I'm not familiar with so far include:
The Rover (2014, David Michod)
Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris)
Hobson's Choice (1954, David Lean)
It's a Gift (1934, Norman Z. McLeod)

And I can also give these more of a chance:
La dolce vita (1960 Federico Fellini)
Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928, Buster Keaton)

I look forward hopefully to finding out the rest of his 100 in due course, although I recognise the substantial effort required to complete reviews to anything approaching the standard set so far.

Thanks. It's a bit painstaking for me, really. Aside from the obvious challenge of coming up with a top 100 list, of which I already have drawn out - it's just a matter of taking the time to rewatch the films and then type stuff up, it's difficult to go through and really articulate what makes a film great to me and then hope maybe someone can also see something in it too.

To a certain extent coming up with a top 100 list, which you have done too, is a moving target. It's why I can't number or rank my list, outside of my top 10, and of course tastes change over time and eb and flow over the years too. Moreover, new films are also always releasing, so there's that too. I tried to include at least a handful of films from the 2010s and I only have one film on my list from the 2020s.

But yeah, that's the thing. If I'm going to write about a film in my top 100, I obviously need to rewatch it so it's fresh in my mind, even if it's a film like Shane that I have seen at least a dozen or two dozen times in my life. Also, I don't need to re-hash what's been said about Citizen Kane or any other film for the 1,000,000th time, so it becomes a chore or labor of love to articulate, again, why a film is great to me and a favorite.

Thanks for the compliments though. I don't think I'm anywhere near the writer that sedai, Holden Pike, or Yoda are as far as people who have been regulars at MoFo for years and years and years; each of them write far more succinctly than I do with a better flow, not to mention far fewer errors/typos (I naturally have to proof-read and revise), but one thing that I do believe I do as well, if not better, than most is to draw conclusions and extrapolate meaning and real world connections out of the films I love. If a film is a favorite, then I'm going to have to draw connections to history, to other films, to my personal life, to the modern/contemporary world, to politics and current events, and also to larger philosophies and worldviews.

It's how when I see a film like Becket, I see huge parallels to what was going on with the Hong Kong protests in 2019 and 2020 and therefore the insights and questions raised in a film like Becket from 1964, can be applied to a real world even and provide insight and meaning.

Oh and of those films you're not familiar with, start with It's a Gift. Such a lovely and warm and hilarious movie, and I think W.C. Fields has never really had his "day in court" among the hard-core cinephiles of the world, but anyone who has ever laughed at or found amusement in the exploits of an Al Bundy, George Jefferson, Archie Bunker, or Ralph Kramden, should tip their hat to W.C. Fields.

iluv2viddyfilms

03-01-25, 04:49 PM

I'm about to start a new job, but when I get round to watching new movies again, I'll take them from this thread in the first instance.

Oh and yeah, I nearly forgot, good luck at your new job and hopefully it goes well. It always sucks getting acclimated to a new work environment and going through training. I started a new job in December, and it's going well, but it's a job for the state, so I just hope our office doesn't get the target of any job cuts after the legislative sessions are over.

iluv2viddyfilms

04-24-25, 08:59 PM

top 100 films, 20th film

Melancholia (2011, Lars von Trier)

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Thoughts: Melancholia may be the single greatest film featuring a main character trapped in the throngs and void of depression this side of an Ingmar Bergman film and what’s interesting the word depression isn’t used once nor do the characters overtly refer to it as something that is to be “caught” like the flu or even going through a phase. Whether or not depression is even more of a genetic predisposition or chemical imbalance vs just a prolonged state of having a horrible life or an inability to get beyond traumatic life events is a topic that is among much contention by so-called experts, those who really are experts and those who just have the credentials, but are as clueless as the next person. Obviously sadness is a human emotion - we all have it, but where that normal sadness crosses into the lines of depression is typically defined as being in a prolonged state of sadness and being to the point where it inhibits one’s ability to perform daily functions efficiently or at all.

I believe I have read somewhere that the idea for this film started when director Lars von Trier was suffering a particularly difficult bout of depression and had either read or thought about how people deep into the throngs of depression have an easier time in dealing with and coping with huge earth-shaking tragedies that might otherwise derail alleged happy people. Enter Melancholia where we have our main characters both experience their own little tribulations. The film is divided into two parts, although it follows a singular narrative and central characters. The first part of the film is titled after the melancholic Justine (Kristen Dunst) and the second is titled after the anxiety-ridden Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg).

I love the narrative and the split with the two sections, as both work so well for me and complement each other beautifully. The first half is centered around Justine’s wedding, and for an hour long wedding sequence, it works in spades - primarily because it’s a satire of weddings and institutions and parts of it are awkward, parts of it are sad and tragic, and other parts of it are downright funny. This is probably the most dysfunctional wedding scene in a film since Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well (1960). We have an aloof and begrudging wedding planner (Udo Kier) who scowls at the bride the whole time, the wealthy host and brother in law who complains about how much it costs (Keifer Sutherland), the boundary crossing father (John Hurt), the d-bag boss who cares about nothing but himself, money, and opportunity (Stellan Skarsgard), and the crazy bitter and resentful antagonist mother (Charlotte Rampling). And we as the audience get to spend an entire hour of the film with this boiling kettle of personalities. Normally I am skeptical of hand-held camera work, but von Trier, in classic Dogma 95 fashion, seems to make these moments work as the audience is put right into the trenches at shaky cam eye level of the wedding from Hell.

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Making all this work is the narrative device of having the “money shot” at the very beginning of the film as the overarching impending doom of the end of not only Earth, but of life in the universe is shown in a nine-minute long prologue sequence showing the monstrous planet “Melancholia” swallowing up Earth in slow motion set to the strings of Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. It’s a sequence that seems inspired by the style of 2001: ASO and it’s absolutely beautiful and horrifying in the most non-Hollywood end of the world style humanly possible. Von Trier is able to do the remarkable and make an art-house end of the world film. So by the time we get to the wedding we already know, and there’s hints throughout the first half of the film, that the world is going to end and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. It’s hypnotic, beautiful, and melancholic all in one fell swoop and the sense of impending doom makes it work. Von Trier wisely opts to keep the end of the world very much confined to the micro-level. There are no stupid news broadcasts to act as cheap expository addresses. We have no need for scientific explanation, save for a shot of Claire googling the planet’s trajectory. We don’t have explosions left and right. There are no hysteric mobs and people screaming and looting in the streets. And we especially don’t get a sequence of shirtless, tanned, and chiseled oil rig bros planning to use their one-liners, huge biceps, and explosives to save the world. What von Trier accomplishes is the most anti-disaster, disaster film in cinematic history and I adore it.

Of course all the von Trier themes and tropes are here. We get his nihilistic worldview amped up to 11, so much so that nothing less than the end of the world will suffice. This is not a disaster film for Von Trier, but maybe a cleansing or a happy ending. In a theme that is reminiscent of the Book of Genesis from the Bible, we see the world being wiped out, only without Noah and a pair of each animal. As a calm and at peace Justine so eloquently states in the film to the nerve-wracked and desperate Clair , “Life is evil and the Earth is evil and we don’t need to grieve for it.” Looking at Melancholia from a lens of Christianity one could hardly disagree with Justine… and I don’t disagree with Justine. Life is evil and the Earth is evil, these are facts beyond any content of film criticism, religion or otherwise. If a person can’t see that life is evil then open up a history book on the atrocities and selfishness of man or read about the cruelty and impartiality of nature. Whether or not life is evil is hardly the point, but what is the point is whether or not life is worth saving, despite the fact that it is evil. The Christian faith says that yes it is worth saving, but only through the blood of Christ the redeemer, however Melancholia paints a far more darker portrait; one in which the characters have not even considered whether or not there is redemption or simply nothingness.

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Some of the patterns are also present as found in his other films like Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Manderlay to name a few and yes certainly in Antichrist and the other film of his depression trilogy, Nymphomaniac. Think about this, in Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Manderlay, and Melancholia - the characters who our heroines are supposed to trust and depend on the most are the ones who either abandon them or betray them. We can look at the betrayal of the slaves by Danny Glover’s character in Manderlay with “Mam’s Laws.” We see Bjork’s character betrayed in Dancer in the Dark when her money is stolen by the one she put her trust into. We see Nicole Kidman in Dogville being betrayed by the one member of the small town she thought was morally and intellectually upright. And of course in Melancholia we see the most brave and with-it character, the bedrock of strength to his wife, fold like a house of cards when confronted with impending doom and selfishly using his wife’s sleeping pills to commit suicide. Oh and one thing I should mention too. Kristen Dunst had actually commented on the challenge of playing a depressive person in film, because she said something that is so incredibly true, which is that depressed people sleep… they sleep a lot, which is an inherent challenge to portray in a dramatic medium. You know, sleeping and watching characters in film sleep isn’t typically compelling cinema, but in the hands of Von Trier with Kristen Dunst, they do make it work.

Yep. This is just some dark, dark material and for my money, Melancholia is the magnum opus in von Trier’s filmography - a director that I hate loving so much and a director that I hate agreeing with his worldview so much too. This is also a gorgeous and striking film to look at and absorb yourself into and it has some cinematography that has branded itself into my brain and while straying a bit from Dogma 95, Trier does use special effects sparingly, but at the most economical and profound moments possible so that as a viewer you truly do get a scene of scale and scope of what it might be like on the ground level to see a planet slowly approach and ultimately collide with Earth. This is one of those films that has truly gotten under my skin and into my craw and I don’t want it there… at all, but I can’t resist it.

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Best Scene: The proverbial Johnny Paycheck moment that most of us dream of by hurling the truth right in the face of an oppressive boss is quite possibly never so cleverly or brilliantly realized in cinema as much as when Justine, within only several hours of receiving her promotion to Art Director, confronts her slimy and opportunistic boss, Jack, with an ultimate “you don’t own me” profession. This scene came just on the heels after Justine in one of the film’s more infamous scenes has sex with Tim in a sand trap on the golf course after the young employee has been hired and task with the sole responsibility of talking Justine into revealing a tagline for one of their new marketing campaigns. Tim is fired on the same day he’s hired in front of Justine and everyone in a conceiving and cruel fashion and just as quickly as Jack tosses away Tim, Justine realizes the whole endeavor is pointless as she also calls off her marriage as quickly as she disgards her career.

Now whether this is an act of the film showing a character with tremendous moral courage, or a character who is completely foolhardy or even a character who is so down into the throngs of depression that she can’t see more than two feet in front of her, is beyond the point. Maybe it’s all three. Questions of whether or not she does the right thing are irrelevant and herein lies the key to the film Melancholia. When a person is deep into the throngs and catacombs of depression; none of those questions really matter. Decisions are made on impulse, even if they are moral decisions, and decisions can come from a place of complete exhaustion, apathy, numbness, or a state of nihilism (a belief that is right at home in any of Von Trier’s films).

The scene is well acted too and pitch perfect for this type of film. A lesser actress or perhaps an actress who doesn’t understand the character or uninformed on the severity of depression might have played this scene more like a loud, yelling, and bombastic glorification and liberation moment like Wolf of Wall Street, Network, or 9-to-5. It could even have been played in a more snarky and sardonic tone with undertones of gamesmanship and even blackmail such as a Fight Club, Office Space, or An American Beauty fashion. Luckily both von Trier and Dunst know either of those two approaches would have been completely wrong for this type of material and just goes for a short and direct statement of purpose - nothing more or less. Dunst is right for these lines and Stellan Skarsgard plays it like a man for whom people and social occasions are nothing more than tools or a means to an end - objects, one object of which in Justine, he can only see dollar signs walking away from him.

But again, to play into the themes of the film so well, Justine’s is a character who isn’t worried about the past necessarily or even what the future may hold for her financially or career-wise or even her marriage. Each moment is a struggling and one that takes infinite amounts of energy to put on airs of pretense and the scene arrives, at exactly one hour into the film, after our heroine has been doing yeoman’s work in trying to fit in and play the game and pretend that everything is OK, when clearly the façade of a happy career, a happy wedding, and a happy marriage are facades that won’t alleviate any melancholy, but in fact might add to it considering the artifice of all the types of performative games and banter that is the foundation of social occasions such as weddings and office politics. But it’s funny how when the world is on the verge of ending, things like money, cutting the wedding cake, and fine vine have zero meaning or value; which is what it is like to be wrapped in the coils of melancholia.