Here are some more:
Le deuxième souffle (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966) + Art House Rating:
Long, complex Melville gangster film which delineates his theme of the symbiosis of the crook with the cop. Aging super-criminal Gu (Lino Ventura) escapes from prison and returns to the Parisian home of his lover Manouche (Christine Fabréga) who has recently been terrorized by some thugs from a rival gang. The police commissioner (Paul Meurisse) knows that Gu will turn up but before he can arrest him, Gu exacts revenge on the rival gang. Later, Gu goes to Marseille to plan a way to make enough quick money to get out of the country with Manouche, but the big heist he gets involved in turns to murder and double-crossing. Gu is eventually forced to try to prove to his own side and his rivals that he did not rat on his own friend. Melville presents the events in his usual deliberate style and pace, but if you enjoy his films, you'll like this one. It's almost two-and-a-half hours long which seems a bit of overkill for what actually happens in the film, but it's never really boring and does seem to get better as it moves to its inexorable conclusion.
Miss Julie (Mike Figgis, 1999)
This is an intense version of Strindberg's intense play, although it's not nearly as cinematic or striking as the 1951 version. It's set in 1894 Sweden and tells how Miss Julie (Saffron Burrows), the inexperienced daughter of the lord of the manor, confronts her father's footman Jean (Peter Mullan) and spends a long night in the kitchen talking with him about class, the world and their places in it. Their talk is mostly a battle of wits and wills with both sides attempting to turn the table on the other, but eventually both souls open up to share something a bit more tender. However, Jean's sexual knowledge eventually sets him above his "better", and while his fiancee (Marie Doyle Kennedy) sleeps nearby, he attempts to seduce Miss Julie. Director Figgis stages the scenes simply, mostly all in the estate's great kitchen, but the lead performances and the striking dialogue make the entire experience extremely intimate and threateningly real. Both performances are excellent, especially Burrows who imbues Miss Julie with both attogance and innocence and makes it easy for someone to fear for her future as the night progresses. Mullan plays the more-enigmatic Jean and finds a middle ground for him because you're never really sure if he's just being a bastard or truly cares for Miss Julie and is trapped outside his class and will never be able to rise above it. Overall, it's a well-done adaptation of a surprisingly still-modern play.
One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder, 1961)
(mafo MoFo Top 100 Film)
Machine-gun-paced Cold War comedy covers just about everything one could think of, not just what was happening in the divided city of Berlin at the time. James Cagney is a marvel as a Coca-Cola executive who has to "babysit" his boss's teenage daughter (Pamela Tiffin) and gets several headaches when she marries a young "Bolshevik" (Horst Buchholz) from East Berlin. The young woman's family is also on the way to Berlin to pick up their daughter, so Cagney has little time to straighten things out. There is also the usual high quota of sex jokes from scripters I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder and a smart musical score which incorporates Khatchaturyan's "Sabre Dance". It's almost impossible to describe how fast the dialogue flies by as everyone speaks as quickly as possible and the plot twists come at such a frantic pace. Don't expect to go to the kitchen or the bathroom with the movie playing because you'll miss about 20 visual or verbal jokes a minute. Of course, the better-versed you are in the world history and popular culture of 1961, the more fun you'll have watching this terrific comedy, but it's also a great way to learn some of those things in between all the laughs.
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (Guy Maddin, 2002)
Only Guy Maddin would fashion a silent version of Bram Stroker's
Dracula into a black-and-white ballet featuring Mahler symphonies. If you've seen Maddin, you'll know that he's fixated on silent film technique, and here he adds subtitles, color tinting and occasional color flourishes during the more-intense scenes. We also have an Assian actor playing the vampire roaming around England and finding plenty of victims for his nocturnal activities. The strange thing is that I find this one of the more-satisfying Dracula films and certainly my fave all-ballet film, so maybe it's not as wacko as it seems. Maddin also loves his kinkiness so this adaptation accents some of the themes often only hinted at in other vampire films. The 73-minute running time flies by, so if you're intrigued, give it a shot.
Die, Mommie, Die! (Mark Rucker, 2003)
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Here is another offbeat adaptation; this time it's a satire of 1950s melodramas and the catch is that the lead female character is played by a man. Sure, it's been done before, but this one seems to wink a little less at the audience than others. Charles Busch adapts his own play and stars as the washed-up singer matriarch of a dysfunctional family. She's sleeping with an unemployed actor (Jason Priestley) despite the fact that her producer husband (Philip Baker Hall) has her on a short leash, and her daughter (Natasha Lyonne) doesn't trust her and her son (Stark Sands) especially need his mom right now. There is also a murder involved in the plot. The film is fun but isn't totally successful because most of the twists are predictable, but it's an easy enough way to spend 90 minutes, especially the more melodramas you've seen which were "made in Hollywood, U.S.A."
Jesus of Montreal (Denys Arcand, 1989)
(mafo MoFo Top 100 Film)
Beautiful, thought-provoking, irreverent, haunting, funny, sexy and deeply moving are all words I use to describe what I consider the greatest Jesus film ever made,
Jesus of Montreal. It's set in present-day Montreal where a group of actors get together to put on an updated version of the Passion on the grounds of a Catholic church. The troupe's ostensible leader, Daniel (the incredible Lothaire Bluteau), who is to play Jesus, begins the film recruiting his apostles and before long it becomes apparent that almost everything which is happening in real life is a mirror of the Passion Play and the Gospels, often in strikingly original ways. Director/writer Arcand looks at things from many perspectives so you can never be sure what his personal agenda is, but one thing is for sure and that's if you're a believer, you should be able to put Jesus's life into a more-modern and personal context. If you hate "religious" movies, you will quickly see that this is not a religious film at all, yet it doesn't shy away from showing a powerful Jesus (both Biblical and "actor") who is totally capable of performing miracles which affect people's lives in the here and now. It's a wonderful film which seems to accomplish the impossible by presenting a potentially-polarizing subject in a very inclusive way. I think it can only disappoint the most-fundamentalist of churchgoers, but it will reward those with open hearts and minds. Besides that, it's damn entertaining. Two of my fave scenes are the low-budget special effects presentation of the beginning and ending of the world and the hilarious scene of dubbing a porno movie. However, it's the night-time Passion Play itself, which is so hypnotic and causes Daniel and his followers to get in trouble with the Catholic Church even though it's critically acclaimed and loved by the audiences.
Rosalie (W.S. Van Dyke, 1937)
Nelson Eddy stars in this musical without his usual co-star Jeannette MacDonald. Here he's teamed up with another musical superstar of the '30s, Eleanor Parker, and although this concoction is directed by Swifty Woody and has a top-notch supporting cast, it seems to go on forever. Eddy plays a West Point cadet who falls in love with a visiting European woman (Powell), not realizing that she's a princess. Although blessed with a Cole Porter score, it's a shame that the more-traditional patriotic Army songs seem to be more-memorable. Additionally, there's a tip-top supporting cast including Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Edna Mae Oliver and Billy Gilbert. Maybe I was in a bad mood or something because I would usually like this kind of silly movie, but it really seems to be at least a half-hour too long and not up to the usual MacDonald-Eddy standards.
On the Yard (Raphael D. Silver, 1978)
Little-seen prison drama is well-crafted and well-acted, but it's just not that different or special enough to make it very memorable. It mostly involves something resembling a power struggle between inmate Chilly (Thomas G. Waites), who basically runs the con side of the prison yard and wife murderer Juleson (John Heard) who owes Chilly but refuses to hide or back down from his everyday life when he cannot pay him back on time. There are three other significant inmates: old-time repeat offender Red (Mike Kellin), recently-returned Nunn (Richard Bright) and seemingly crazy Morris (Joe Grifasi) who's building a hot-air balloon to escape from prison. Meanwhile, the Captain of the Guards (Lane Smith) is trying to shut down Chilly and his operations and get Juleson to rat on him. Filmed on location at a Pennsylvania prison and using inmates as extras, the film is very realistic but it's also a tad too lowkey to turn itself into a good movie. Even so, if you like prison movie character studies where things don't exactly turn out the way you expect them, you could do worse.
Sitting Pretty (Walter Lang, 1948)
+
Mr. Belvedere teaches a baby an object lesson he'll never forget.
This is a hilarious film about problem children, nosy neighbors and their gossip, how difficult it is to maintain a happy marriage, and, most of all, a wonderfully-unique character, Lynn Belvedere (Clifton Webb), a "genius" who can do almost everything and turns the suburban community of Hummingbird Hill upside down and inside out in a very short while. The couple (Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara), who are desperate for a nanny/babysitter for their three frightful children, think they are getting a female for the job, but Mr. Belvedere proves to be too wonderful for them to ever get rid of, even when the nosiest neighbor (Richard Haydn) in film history gets people into trouble by trying to claim that some hanky panky is occurring under their roof. Just sit back and let all the clever dialogue, situations and acting produce several smiles on your face and out-loud laughs. Mr. Belvedere is one of the wittiest characters in film history, right up there with Webb's own Waldo Lydecker from
Laura. It's just too bad that the two Mr. Belvedere sequels which turned up in the mid-1950s are so mediocre.
Alice in Wonderland (Clyde Geronomi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, 1951)
(mafo MoFo Top 100 Film)
Walt Disney hated this awesome version of the Lewis Carroll novel. He couldn't find anybody to root for and he found the lack of a strong story to be a huge roadblock. All I can say is I'm thankful that he didn't force the animation and writing team to change the incredibly surreal and uproarious content of this, my vote for the greatest traditional animated film ever made. I don't really want to go into how fast-paced and insane this film is, but it's a non-stop assault on the pomposity of logic and staid Victorian England which is also still able to include digs at many modern foibles which humans have in our current day and age, among them being rude and in far too much of a hurry to even say good day. It's also a potent political satire when we get to the Red Queen and how all things must be her way. There are so many wonderfully-drawn and beautifully-voiced characters that it's unfair to single some out, but I have to mention the Cheshire Cat (Sterling Holloway), the Caterpillar (Richard Haydn), the Mad Hatter (Ed Wynn) and the March Hare (Jerry Colonna). The crazy songs are frosting on the cake and a perfect aural counterpoint to the mind-blowing visuals. Some of this movie, especially the incredible opening scene, seems to be almost shot in 3-D.
Blackboard Jungle (Richard Brooks, 1955)
This movie is mostly remembered as the film which brought rock and roll to big-budget Hollywood films. It begins and ends with "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and the Comets. It's also noteworthy for early performances by overage high school delinquents Sidney Poitier, Vic Morrow, Jamie Farr and Paul Mazursky. Basically, it's a naive telling of problems in inner-city schools, yet it's actually still pertinent to this day in the way it tries to get teachers who want to teach together with students who want to learn and improve themselves. Of course, the problem is that poverty and ignorance are so pervasive with many students and too many teachers find it difficult to enlighten minds when they have to be a policeman babysitter, so it's very difficult for the two sides to get together, especially in the face of peer pressure on both sides. So even though the film is dated, it still works for the most part and is a nice document of several juicy performances.
The Delinquents (Robert Altman, 1957)
Director Altman's first feature film (he wrote the script in five days) is a foray into juvenile delinquents roaming Kansas City, Missouri, looking for people to rob and abuse. Caught in the middle of their crime spree are good teenager Scotty (Tom Laughlin) and his sweetheart Janice (Rosemary Howard). The couple's problems start when her parents decide that the kids are too serious and forbid Scotty from seeing Jancie. Here is where the leaders of the delinquents, Billy (Peter Miller) and Eddy (Richard Bakalyan), make their move to make the couple's life a living hell. The film starts out with a narrated prologue which makes it sound like an Ed Wood flick, but the studio added this against Altman's wishes. In general, the film operates on a higher technical and acting level than those of Wood, and it's reasonably watchable despite the overlit interior and exterior scenes. Altman admits that nobody knew what they were doing, but this, a James Dean docu and his many shorts got him plenty of work directing TV shows for the next decade. It's also fun to see Laughlin one year before he played a naval pilot in
South Pacific and a full decade before he did his first
Billy Jack role.
Reply to Topic
Some Like it Hot (1959, Wilder)- 87/100
Yes Man (2008, Reed)-- 64/100 
Notorious (1946, Hitchcock)-- 86/100
The Killing (1956, Kubrick)-- 88/100
Bigger Than Life (1956, Ray)-- 83/100
Diabolique (1955, Cluzot)-- 96/100
The Bad Seed (1956, LeRoy)-- 66/100
Diva (1981, Beineix)-- 69/100
Fargo (1996, Coen)-- 91/100
Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972, Herzog)-- 91/100
Laura (1944, Preminger)-- 84/100
Being There (1979, Ashby)-- 80/100
Toy Story 3 (2010, Unkrich)-- 81/100
12 Angry Men (1957, Lumet)-- 94/100
The Trial (1962, Welles)-- 70/100
Rio Bravo (1959, Hawks)-- 96/100
(random brassiness)
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