My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!

The Round-Up is unlike any other film I've really looked at and tried to understand. It marches forward purposeful in it's determination to disorientate the viewer, and if a narrative strand starts to take shape it very purposely cuts it, then cauterizing the wound. If for a moment we start to wonder if things are meant to be this way then this is confirmed as we soon notice the faces of the various prisoners that are characters in the film - they're afraid, and just as confused as us. We're one of them. We never get to be a fly on the wall during strategy sessions the prison staff might be holding. Their various ways of weeding out the worst of Sándor Rózsa's guerrilla band are always happening, and the cast of characters always changing - promises of clemency, threats and tricks doled out by one group who has total power over the other. A time-honored game of marches, bags over heads, tiny dark cells, hangings, shootings, torture and mind games. In the meantime, lies and deception become reality.

Here we have the subjugation of prisoners, abuse of power, interrogation techniques and demoralisation down to a very unfamiliar 19th Century artform. Amongst it we see things we are familiar with today - the bags on heads for instance, which made it's return when the United States became openly nasty in it's campaigns in the Middle East (it has to be noted though - as far as warfare is concerned, other nations can be far nastier.) If there are reminders of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay it's because the parallels are striking. Prisoners have one rich resource which those in power want to take from them - and that's information. To do that they have their resolve completely crushed, so they don't care anymore whether it is taken from them. Seeing a prisoner in Round-Up run around ratting on all his brothers because he's become obsessed with absolving and saving himself is the result of the way the guards psychologically worked him over in previous scenes - and they don't even need to execute him anymore. The prisoners will take care of that. Then the prisoner that killed him will be worked over.

Miklós Jancsó films all of this on the steppes of Hungary, giving us wide open nothingness and a feeling of complete isolation. It's as if nothing else exists anymore. He expands it further by allowing elements such as horses to leave the shot and then cross back into it, or having the camera leave the confines of a cramped room into the perfectly flat, never-ending landscape. There's no real protagonist in this film - we never stick with a character, and although it's always obvious some kind of trick is being played out on this or that prisoner, we're never quite sure what the endgame is as far as how it's meant to play out. It's the ultimate in confusion, and as such gives us an absolutely spot-on perspective of being hopelessly played with by powerful forces who will most likely kill you at some point, but will hold out enough hope that you'll do their bidding no matter what that might be. They tell you that you'll never see your family again, and then in the very next breath that you're free to go. It's never been so scary to hear "you're free to go" - because what the jailer obviously means is you're free to go to the afterlife in the next few moments.

Glad to catch this one - screened in the Cannes Classics section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Round-Up.

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Across 110th Street is a hard film to classify - it's too well budgeted to be slapped with a grindhouse tag (executive producer Anthony Quinn wanted John Wayne or Kirk Douglas to play the role he ended up taking for himself - hardly Driller Killer type trash then) and not quite fully into blaxploitation territory either - although elements of both are on full display regardless. But boy - director Barry Shear wanted us to get a real feel of the filthy, poor, rotten Harlem streets, and I think that alone makes it feel like you're watching a low budget grindhouse flick. He managed to film on location and defy naysayers by taking advantage of the new lightweight Arriflex 35 IIC camera, meaning the real Harlem streets and tenements weren't as tricky to negotiate. The places we go look terrible (and somehow familiar to me - but I was a student once, trying to make a go of it in the inner city - low rent city apartments have a "many many paint jobs" feel to them, as if misery itself can be painted over.) It's location camera work that gives the film an authentic feel, for which there's no substitute.

So it's a mix of race, poverty and justice in a gritty kind of crime film manner. We have lots of jive-talking and white mafioso trying to run things but always seeming out of place. We have a high-stakes robbery - $300,000 from a mob-run "bank" by three desperados (in an early role, check out Burt Young as one of the "bankers" - so cool - but he dies so quickly.) Jim Harris (Paul Benjamin), Joe Logart (Ed Bernard) and Henry J. Jackson (Antonio Fargas) are the robbers - and the film really earns it's tagline : "If you steal $300,000 from the mob, it's not robbery. It's suicide." Apart from mob capo Nick D'Salvio (Anthony Franciosa), two cops are also desperately seeking the trio. White, racist Capt. Frank Mattelli (Anthony Quinn), who brutalizes suspects and is on his way out, along with the black and by the book Lt. William Pope (Yaphet Kotto), who is in charge and on the way up. I liked that the story had a range of things going on, with the black mafia, the Italian mafia, the cops and the robbers all having their specific storylines and dramas. The soundtrack is also absolutely brilliant.

Was this a little too "In the Heat of the Night" regarding it's white cop/black cop storyline? Well, if it's kind of grindhouse then cliché is the rule and not the exception and anyway - they didn't feel like the center of the story. One of the great things about this film is that the poverty itself was central, and all the players played such equal roles. There's a great scene where Harris relates to his girlfriend about the fact that he's been to jail, has a disability and never had a good education - meaning there's no longer any way out of impoverishment for him. Across 110th Street was absolutely castigated by the critics when it came out as trash - so it's funny about it's reappraisal today. What's changed? Perhaps it's that we've been somewhat culturally removed from this early 70s kind of funky jive-talk and New York crime wave era period. It's easier to see beyond all of that, and enjoy it for being an historical epoch now. Even the violence doesn't seem gratuitous anymore, but simply a way of telling an audience about economic desperation and it's life and death consequences.

Glad to catch this one - it's Soundtrack album is a must have. Not noticed much in it's day, this film might just be a future stayer and classic cultural artifact.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Across 110th Street.

Sometimes you approach a filmmaker and hit upon the one film where they're first experiencing cinematic mastery, and here we have Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower, a Japanese film noir experience that's extremely satisfying for any lover of cinema to watch. Our central protagonist, Muraki (Ryô Ikebe) is a high ranking Yakuza hitman who at the moment we meet him has been released from prison after a three year stint for murder. He's a middle-aged, serious sort who has his haunts, and is well known about the streets his gang virtually own - but only one thing manages to wipe the grey, expressionless boredom from his face. Saeko (Mariko Kaga). Saeko is sitting in a gambling den, being a lone woman playing Hanafuda with an attractive kind of intensity which lights up the whole room. As Muraki asks about her, returns, and introduces himself he becomes involved in an extreme but sexless relationship where Saeko not only wants to gamble for higher and higher stakes, but take more outrageous risks and invite danger to eke out a desperate trace of feeling alive. Muraki tries to satiate her need, and save her, showing her the one act that does take a person to the very peak of that mountain.

Exponents of film noir and cinema as an art form rather than a commodity often use cinematography and editing combined to create such gratifying shape and motion - Pale Flower is superbly stylish, always looking cool and pleasing the eye. It also sounds fantastic (as a topic that was heatedly discussed at Shochiku, Shinoda emphasised sound effects and score over dialogue - the film was even delayed 9 months until the controversy over that died down.) The gritty noir darkness combined with Japanese sensibilities brings out something unique here - a collision of very strict culture, Western influence, edginess and crime that bleeds into every scene. Despite that darkness though, there's a happiness to the Yakuza that underlines Saeko's desperate unhappiness - she's such an unusual character for a Japanese film, for she takes no notice of gender rules. While you might expect a Japanese woman to be punished for being that way, instead Saeko becomes popular and brightens up any gambling den she visits - and Muraki is drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She becomes an obsession. It creates a fascinating dynamic - especially when Saeko wants to go places Muraki doesn't.

I thought Pale Flower pretty masterly, and very enjoyable to just sit back and appreciate. I understand that all of the Yakuza would feel the way Saeko does if they were to go straight or be bound by feminine roles - which really tells you why they are what they are. There are some great scenes in this too. The car chase mid-movie, between two sports cars (one driven by Saeko, the other by an unnamed Japanese man whose reaction to being raced provides another highlight to the film) is a real joy to watch. The score is something else entirely - so unusual, dissonant and striking that it deserves a review of it's own, and is very much a component in the film's winning hand. Deadly games of cat and mouse through the murky, inky black streets feel intense - as does the strange attraction Muraki and Saeko have for each other. They're a cinematic couple who feel comparable to some of the great ones in movies - exchanging something that goes beyond physicality and sentiment. So - this is a film that's pretty important when talking about the Japanese New Wave, as is Shinoda. There was something about it that makes me think of Kurosawa's High and Low (made just the year previously) - so fans of that might be well advised to check this out.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion number 564, and on Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Pale Flower.

I watched that one a while ago, so I barely remember it. I remember liking it quite a lot though.

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That was a hell of a thing. Gripping is the word I'd use, and I'd really emphasise it because I was held tight by The Innocents, and not let go until it finished. It started to have it's effect on me at a particularly unpleasant moment, when young Ida (Rakel Lenora Flřttum) who has moved to a large apartment complex with severely autistic sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad) drops a cat from near the top floor with disturbed child Ben (Sam Ashraf) - before going downstairs to finish it off. As unendurable as that is, it put me in a sickened mood which the film exploited going forward - because in one brief movement Eskil Vogt has told me a lot about these kids - especially Ben, who from that moment on takes on a menacing darkness which will only get worse as the film progresses. Where my expectations were misplaced was in that I thought all of these kids were going to turn bad - but this is really going to turn into a war between four children as Ben's supernatural powers (yeah - he can move rocks at first) expand, and spread through four children - Ida, Anna, kindly little Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim) and Ben, who puts Brightburn to shame.

What The Innocents does really well is make the fact that these kids start acquiring heightened supernatural powers feel absolutely believable. The kids mess around with them and play games, just as kids would - but at a certain point Ben starts lashing out, and he has many avenues to terrorize and hurt the other kids. Whoever can kill a cat the way he did could go on to kill people - and Ben can do this by possessing the minds of other adults, crushing the bones and organs of others with pure thought, or moving heavy objects at speed from a distance. Soon people start dying, and Ida, Anna and Aisha have nobody to depend on but themselves - a terrible circumstance for children. This is what makes The Innocents so tense, scary and riveting - kids don't often choose the most considered options, but somehow this battle feels epic and spiritual in scope once it hits it's strides. That's because Anna - almost completely disabled by her condition - has the most powers and seems to have a very strong inner consciousness. Vogt makes her seem great without taking away her disability, and I really liked that.

The Innocents is the most exciting new horror watch I've had this year (most likely soon to be remade in the United States) and I recommend it strongly to anyone who hasn't seen it. Quite a follow-up to Blind from Eskil Vogt (who in the meantime has penned some fantastic Joachim Trier films.) Beware if you love cats - I do, and that part of the film hurts. But still, like I said, it put me in that disturbed mindset that worked in the film's favour. Sam Ashraf is a little Damien - I don't know if he just looks that way, or if his performance darkened his demeanour that way, probably a little bit of both. Effects-wise the film is sparing and perfect, giving us a masterful visual experience which focuses a lot on the faces of the children, and the way they internally guide their efforts. Innocence mixed with a growing sense of becoming more and more lost - apart from Ben who descends into pure determined, murderous blackness. It's a lot of fun, but also just disturbing enough to make you squirm a little. It's what parents fear most when they send their kids out to play while living in these massive apartments - nearby, but really so far away. I really enjoyed The Innocents to the hilt.

Glad to catch this one - premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 74th Cannes Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Innocents.

Evil kids are about tied with torture porn in terms of horror subgenres I am absolutely not drawn to.

Though I have heard many good things about The Innocents (and that poster is fabulous).

What about Village of the Damned?

I liked it too. This was around the time when I was hip deep in a lot of Japanese noir like A Colt is my Passport and Cruel Gun Story. Thank you TCM.

Like, it's fine. Those are more spooky kids than evil kids, if you get the distinction I'm making here.

I've seen a fair few John Ford films, and I never really would have pegged him as progressive or anything other than a conservative, so I was interested in Sergeant Rutledge - the story of a black sergeant in the 9th U.S. Cavalry, Rutledge (Woody Strode) accused of raping a white girl and killing her father. It's a courtroom film in which the action consists of flashbacks, and it manages to work in a lot of the Western genre action Ford was famous for. The Defiant Ones - one of my favourite race relations films of the era, had been released just two years previously. Does this do as good a job? Well, it's very direct - and I didn't mind that, even though it'd be seen as a little heavy handed today. Most surprising is the way all of the black characters are treated and filmed in this - glorified at times, in a way I've never seen from a film made so long ago. The villains are basically the townsfolk ready to lynch Rutledge, automatically assuming his guilt because he's black and there's circumstantial evidence - more than enough for them. Of course the prosecutor - often mentioning this "black man" who committed a crime against a "white woman" - adds to that. The figure of fun is the judge presiding, Col. Otis Fosgate (played wonderfully by Willis Bouchey.)

As a film that deals with race, it isn't perfect. For me, even though the black soldiers were highly esteemed and portrayed as monumental heroes, the movie felt like it was first and foremost a white person's film in which the black characters appear. Lt. Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter), Rutledge's defense attorney, is the lead character despite the film's title. His love interest, Mary Beecher (Constance Towers) is credited above Strode's Rutledge, and even old screen star Billie Burke, who plays a small role, has her name in large type on the posters (while Strode's is tiny, down the bill.) One poster (not the one shown below) is significant because it makes Rutledge look white - the exact same hue as Cantrell - and when you read about the trailers and such, it's obvious the studio wanted to downplay the fact that this film was about race and a black man. Despite that, it tanked at the box office. Still - I admire it for not beating around the bush and acknowledging what it was like for black men accused of crimes like this. The race issue is openly laid bare, and talked about in a frank manner. For that, I think the movie is okay.

Okay - but was it good, considering it's a John Ford film? It's not one of his best, but the biggest surprise for me was how well the courtroom action, and various dramatic scenes, were structured and filmed. When it comes time for what seems like requisite Western action with battles against Native Americans (ironically depicted as savages), it feels like Ford himself is bored, and constructs those scenes in a very rote way. Rutledge himself is shot from very low angles, Ford going all-in as far as giving him a prideful, heroic, almost mythic status. He saves the regiment when it's against his personal interest, and is more honorable than the entire undeserving town put together. I've read that this late into his career, John Ford was trying to make up for the way he'd portrayed black characters in the past. I'd have to say he does this here in a very thoughtful way, using his talent at glamorizing heroes. The film also acknowledges what black people have had to go through persecution-wise, and that although Lincoln declared African Americans free people, it would be many, many generations before this is even partly true. That Rutledge would be assumed guilty, and treated harshly and unfairly. Sergeant Rutledge doesn't pussyfoot or hedge. It's not a really great Western, but it is a really great and frank film about race for it's day.

Glad to catch this one - one of the few American films of the 1960s to have a Black man in a leading role and the first mainstream western to do so.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Sergeant Rutledge.

Phoenix I looked through all of your watch list movies and I must say you seem to have really great taste in watching what I'd call connoisseur movies. I haven't seen any of them, me bad!...except for the noirs you watched. Oh and I seen the John Ford film.

Thanks Citizen! - Yeah, I've actually been bowled over by the run I've had here of movies I've really enjoyed a lot. I guess a lot of that comes from reading reviews (there are a lot of great reviewers right here who I enjoy reading) and getting that telling urge that I'd probably like it. I owe a couple of recent great ones to you - Sweet Smell of Success and The Ox-Bow Incident. Both of those are all-time favourites now, on your recommendation. Most of the time, I don't remember who guided me to whatever film I watch from my watchlist. If it's a film anyone loves, chances are I've watched it because of what they said about it.

I'm a fan of both of those especially Sweet Smell of Success, love that one. I thought it was neat that you say on your reviews, 'Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch (name of movie).' It's a nice touch. Maybe I'll see one of your films from this thread in the 33rd HoF. I of course enjoyed the last nom Picnic at Hanging Rock.

I'm guessing The Omen and The Ring are okay but We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Good Son are right out.

Correct. (Though I've never seen The Omen, a fact that horrifies my sister, LOL).

Cruelty/sociopathic/psychopathic/sadistic behavior in kids isn't something I see that often in my work, but it is there at times and it is disturbing and emotionally exhausting to deal with and makes me very anxious. It falls under the category of "see it at work, don't need it in my entertainment, thanks!".

Trying to think of evil kid movies I actually like, I mostly draw a blank. I thought Cub was disturbing but good, and Who Can Kill a Child?. But I thought both of those stepped a bit outside the normal tropes I associate with the genre (animal cruelty, dead-eyed staring, etc).

Talk about transcendence. Taste of Cherry is more than that though - it's near-flawless filmmaking that works no matter which way you look at it. It's filled with abundant, rich meaning from every perspective. It cuts to our core, in an existential way and as importantly in a way which makes us examine our connection to others and the world itself. The plot is very simple to sum up : Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) has decided to end his life, but he's determined to find someone who will bury his body after he dies. To do this he tries to befriend, cajole, reward and otherwise influence people who are reluctant to participate in such a process. If you agree, are you not giving some kind of tacit approval for what he's doing? Or would a real friend agree to this man's dying request? In the meantime he drives these people around a desert landscape with little life to be seen for miles in any direction. A golden, vast space within which Mr. Badii endlessly searches. There's a vibrant orange beauty, and a gleaming, resplendent aliveness to the very earth itself, which exhibits no natural life at all - and that translates beautifully to film. It's size makes people look small - but it's nothing if there's nobody around to appreciate it.

Abbas Kiarostami of course manages to absolutely smash that 4th wall to pieces late in the piece, bringing himself and the film crew into the movie. I have my own interpretation as to what it means when this happens, and it added to my appreciation of this film. It's as if one character's decision and action splits the very fabric of the narrative itself, and brings us outside of what has been going on. Whatever your interpretation though, this is a common methadology of this filmmaker, and we almost expect it. I remember how well it worked in Close-Up (1990) and other Iranian films which have adopted this style. When I look at the sheer number of Kiarostami films out there, I'm taken aback however - and wonder if I should watch a great deal more before I say anything about his style and method. In any event - it's what I take away from the little I've seen so far. What it amounted to was an openness in which I was able to give the film an interpretation which fit perfectly with how I saw the film as a whole - others interpret it differently, but most leave the ending as an open question.

I connected with this film immediately, and loved everything it was doing - whether it felt painful, good, bad or bittersweet. Homayoun Ershadi - who Kiarostami discovered as an architect in Tehran out of the blue - does a surprisingly good job of embodying a person at the end of his spiritual tether. I found his interactions with suspicious strangers, and the terrible barrier he had to try and break through fascinating - especially the different way each person reacted to his request. I thought the cinematography and visuals were breathtaking, and the way they meshed with the themes and meaning of the film pure perfection. I felt the especially strong pulse of humanism flowing through the film paramount to it's being an absolute masterpiece. In fact, it has a feel of a master-work that belongs amongst the highest ranks of cinematic achievement. It's incredibly beautiful - exquisite in every way and a work of art I have the highest admiration for. I was completely taken aback by the way it shines - it's warmth putting your average cinematic output to shame. I only regret that I didn't find a way earlier to squeeze in how much I enjoyed taxidermist character Mr. Bagheri's (Abdolrahman Bagheri) soliloquy on how he was saved from suicide by the taste of mulberries and interaction with children, which could easily have been ham-fisted but instead is delivered in a way that worked as an affirmation of life of the highest order. Makes this paragraph unwieldy, but it touched me so deeply it must go mentioned. A truly great film, and I loved every minute.

Glad to catch this one - awarded the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. Criterion number 45 and in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Taste of Cherry.

I really owe Taste of Cherry a rewatch. I remember being so stressed out when I watched it (during grad school) and I SO didn't click with it.

I imagine Taste of Cherry would greatly improve with a rewatch. I kept going back and forth on whether the ending helped or harmed the film when I first watched it, which put somewhat of a bar as to how much I enjoyed it, but I imagine I'd click with it much more now.

I aim to watch Taste of Cherry soon (as in, this year). But I’ve read that it sharply divides critics

Well, no matter how calamitous the final cut, there's always something interesting going on in an Orson Welles-directed feature. The Lady From Shanghai features the man himself along with his ex-wife, Rita Hayworth - hair short and dyed blonde, being as alluring as ever. Their marriage was kaput, and the pair struggle to ignite the film with enough chemistry to really convince, but Hayworth gives a good performance. The movie is only the jangly bones of what Welles intended - his cut ran 155 minutes, but after test screenings the studio pruned this to a scant 88 minutes, losing over an hour of footage. Much as he was to do later with Touch of Evil, Welles wrote a memo imploring some compromise - but it went unheeded. What we're left with is a really good film noir classic regardless - fascinating camera direction and sparks of brilliant invention were part of Orson Welles' allure, and that's something no amount of trimming could dilute. Welles plays Irish sailor Michael O'Hara - complete with thick accent - and it's his screen presence (which is magnified by Hayworth's) that makes the movie immediately interesting and grabs our attention.

O'Hara stumbles across Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) taking a ride in Central Park, and is immediately entranced - but Elsa comes with a scheming defense attorney husband, Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane - one of Welles' Mercury Theatre players.) Although O'Hara is allured, it takes much convincing to get him to sign up as a member of the crew on Arthur's yacht - and it begs the question, what's the catch? Why does Arthur want O'Hara as one of his crew so badly? To satisfy his wayward wife? Is Elsa up to something here? Well, once aboard we find that all of Arthur's friends and cronies are acting weird, and that O'Hara isn't in on the joke. He's attracted to Elsa, but at the same time it feels like he's a fly approaching a spider, and in any case he's constantly being watched. When fellow traveler George Grisby (Glenn Anders) approaches with a proposition you know it's bad news - and so does O'Hara really, but still - $5000. That's enough for O'Hara to start a new life with Elsa if she's on the level. I'm watching thinking that O'Hara is crazy for not running for his life every time that yacht reaches shore.

There's a lot of great stuff here. Famous from The Lady From Shanghai is the funhouse finale, with mirrors distorting what's going on, and giving conspirators wrong targets to aim at and shoot. It's a scene that has been often imitated - and Welles seems to have been very assured as to what he wanted from each shot, pulling them all off marvelously. His camera direction and inventiveness is something we could have done with a lot more - a shame he was shunned the way he was. The narrative, taken from "If I Die Before I Wake" by Raymond Sherwood King, makes for noir plotting that's complex enough to be interesting but simple enough to follow easily - all the while making it impossible to predict what's about to happen. Cards are kept close to everyone's chest, except for O'Hara, who is the innocent amongst all of this. Performances are up to snuff (I was especially impressed by Sloane) - and the only drawback is that I feel the missing hour plus. I'd be first in line if it were possible to conjure up the 155 minute version. There's enough magic to suffice however, and The Lady From Shanghai is definitely worth a look for any fan of cinema or film noir.

Glad to catch this one - included in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Lady From Shanghai.