It’s nice to cross off that 100 Favorite Horror Films list. I’m glad you all liked it, and if you didn’t then I’m not glad, I’m deeply saddened and hurt. I realize I forgot a few films, particularly Near Dark and more importantly Possession which I fully intended on adding to this list, but well I forgot to write them down. I may update it, or well now you know.
Getting this list crossed off allows me to focus more heavily on my all time top 100. I’m thinking of sticking with the “favorite” theme rather than “greatest” for that list, because well I like keeping it completely subjective. You’ll probably notice the majority of the films I watched this month are part of my research for that list, hence the reason for so many highly rated movies. In fact a lot of the “new” films I watched were short films included as special features, so sorry if I didn’t expand my cinematic horizons as much in these 31 days.
There are a few new new films on this list. I finally saw Cabin in the Woods and as you can see I liked it a hell of a lot. In fact I enjoyed it probably more than Joss Whedon’s much bigger budget Avengers movie. Not to say I disliked The Avengers, just think Cabin in the Woods might have been a better film. By the way I also acknowledge that Drew Goddard directed CITW so don’t worry about it.
I also got to see RZA’s directorial debut The Man With the Iron Fists, but I guess that’s for my November film journal. A few things real quick about it. I enjoyed it, the gore was comically funny, and the plotting was solid. My main complaint was the unnecessary blatant cop out on nudity. No idea why a film this gory couldn’t have some nudity.
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| Yes RZA punches someones eye out |
I realize though that although the path seems clear to researching my top 100, there are a whole ton of films I need to see before making my year end top ten for 2012. In fact to date I’m still about half way to my goal of fifty films, so there will probably be a mad dash to the finish line. Especially when you consider how many films on that other list I still have to see. It’s not impossible but well that’s my lot in life, so call it first world problems.
Side note, I attempted to have shorter paragraphs from here on out, hope you noticed and appreciated it.
Failure on another front
Remember when I thought Kate and I could finish the National Society of Film Critics A-List in the month of October? Yeah well we didn’t get there, in fact it seemed like we barely made any progress. Well we did get 8 films done, but that’s about half of what I thought we could do, guess I just over thought that one. So let’s see if we can’t wrap this up in November. Anyways with the exception of Night of the Hunter and Trouble in Paradise which I already posted about here, I offer you an account of the other A-List films viewed in the month of October.
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Spike Lee’s masterpiece was a film I fully intended on blogging about intensively when we watched it at the beginning of the month. I actually wrote, and later revised, a nice long essay on Spike Lee’s financing and marketing of his first five features. I’ve seen Do the Right Thing multiple times and along with Malcolm-X I’ve always considered it his best. Now there are plenty of people who aren’t terribly fond of Lee. It was hard at times to like him in the 90s seeing him courtside during all those classic Bulls-Knicks playoff games, but well Chicago got the better end of that deal.
Over the years I’ve seen all his features minus one or two documentaries and there are a number of them I love. In fact even his films that everyone hates I generally like more than I probably should, although The Miracle at St. Anna was a deplorable mess despite Lee’s well meaning intentions. Do the Right Thing might be slightly dated in it’s fashion and pop culture references but I think the film still holds up remarkably well. It’s fast paced, the dialogue is great, and the characters are all pretty well developed. Sometimes the characters seem to react in unrealistic ways, but well when it’s well over 100 degrees outside you might be quick to snap as well. It was fun watching this and Night of the Hunter in the same week because of Radio Raheem’s love and hate brass knuckle reference to the Preachers tattoos. Stellar cast and incredibly well made this was in many ways the fulfillment of Lee’s prophecy. It was a clear evolution and it’s still a mind boggling travesty how neglected this film was Oscar time, I mean when is the last time you heard someone say Driving Miss Daisy was a great film?
Top Hat (1935)
One of my long standing favorites this is as good of an escapist musical as the 30s produced. The Astaire-Rogers musicals began to get a bit formulaic as they went on and there are several plot devices that seem to repeat themselves even in this film. For starters it is a cliché today to base a romantic comedy on some misunderstanding predicating from a mistaken identity. Somehow in this film it’s charming and delightful, maybe because everything looks better in black and white and with Irving Berlin songs. I still find the film pretty damn funny and it’s remarkable today how many gay or ambiguously gay characters are in the film. There’s something that was always queer about Edward Everett Horton and he made a career of playing slightly effeminate stooges. Eric Blore who played the aforementioned Bates seems gay enough to be a judge on Project Runway, and Erik Rhodes Beddini certainly adds to the campiness.
I would agree with Danny Peary’s minor complaint that Ginger Rogers could stand to have a few more numbers here. “The Piccolino” is the only solo number she has here whereas Astaire gets a share in all the songs. However there are few more iconic moments in movie musicals than the pair dancing to “Cheek to Cheek”? Admittedly I haven’t seen every one of their musicals together so calling Top Hat their best is a bit facetious of me, but well I might have a hard time believing they could top this. A nice contrast to Trouble in Paradise when you compare this films Venice with a much more realistic rendition in the Lubitsch film.
Children of Paradise (1945)
In the days immediately following WWII few international films seemed as symbolic of the allied triumph as Children of Paradise. Seen by many as a triumph simply by being made it is a truly remarkable and monumental achievement. True Jacques Prevert was known for his dialogue and his characters deliver some of the best lines in French film history here, albeit with characteristically unrealistic wit. It is perhaps a testament to his abilities then that he would tackle a film with a mime as one of it’s major characters. Based in part on the lives of some real life famous French people, it’s account of interweaving characters centered around a mysterious object of desire is remarkable. Brisk, full of life, and at times literally bustling with activity it has always been one of my favorite films.
This is the first time I actually watched the film in two separate installments. Seeing it this way emphasized how different the two segments are. We can look at the first part as a before story, where everyone is coming along and starting in their lives. Perhaps the only character who seems established in any degree is Garance, whose life in the second part seems to be more of a kept woman. She is the only one who seems to have found a false security in the second segment, the elusive object of desire that seems somehow past her prime later in the picture. This might be due to the actress Arletty’s age at the time of filming, but her character seems to lose something in the second installment while at least the two actors who simultaneously courted her earlier have flourished and become champions in their respective careers.
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
The last of the Yimou films included on this list, this is by most accounts the best. Again starring Gong Li one of the interesting things about this, along with Red Sorghum is how ancient the film at first appears yet how modern it is. This took place during the early part of the 20th century and it seems like a historical fossil. A fable that could take place anytime, anywhere. There’s something about the decision to set the picture in the 20th century that makes it seem like an old antiquated tradition that would soon be wiped out. It is as though you can be thankful for the communist revolution because it forever altered such ancient ideas of “marriage” and ended the reign of these sort of lords.
Now I won’t get into how the class system has changed in China over the last several decades but in this film things are practically set in stone. A servant despite sleeping with the Master has no prospects of ever being made the next wife. The story however relegates the male characters to minor and supporting roles. They play huge roles in the outcome and fates of the characters, but Yimou decides to primarily focus his attention on the various wives. Gong Li’s fourth wife seems at first like she’ll be too pretty and too educated to fall into the somewhat silly games the other women play, but well when in Rome . . .
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Perhaps the ultimate screwball comedy and the film perhaps above all others that Kate hated. The fast paced dialogue and the constant misunderstandings got on her nerves quick and I think she just quickly shut her brain off to it. Now truthfully I wasn’t a huge fan of this film the first time I saw it, but I can’t say I have any idea why. Maybe I thought it was annoying, or it’s plot was just too damn stupid, but well by the second time I saw it I loved it and well that’s the same feeling I’ve had the couple of times since then.
Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant teamed up several times over the course of their illustrious careers and just like Sylvia Scarlett this film was panned during it’s initial release, seems more people didn’t enjoy it too much the first time around. Although I believe Sylvia Scarlett is an interesting failure, I can easily say that the trilogy of Holiday, The Philadelphia Story, and Baby are among the best screen comedies ever made. I might lean a little more towards The Philadelphia Story because as good as this film is I can appreciate the more subtle and finer points of that film.
Happy Together (1997)
The cinema of Wong Kar-Wai is one of those treasures that you never quite forget being introduced to. His narratives are sprawling, the camera work is fantastic and they all seem to play on a similar theme. Happy Together is an auspicious place to start if for no other reason than it’s rather in your face opening scene. Almost immediately you have two dudes going at it in bed, and I mean going at it. For those terrified folks don’t worry there’s no visible penetration, but man I don’t think Wong shot a more graphic sex scene in any of his films. The story then lets us know somewhat haphazardly that there are two displaced guys from Hong Kong that are somewhat lost in Buenos Aires. They have jobs and a place to stay but they always seem like transients, they’re at this point because they really don’t know what to do with their lives. Their alienated in multiple stages, by being from Hong Kong they are alienated from China, in being gay they’re alienated from heterosexuals, and by living in Buenos Aires they’re alienated from their culture. There is a telling line later in the film that sums up Wong’s filmography great when Tony Leung says “Lonely people are all the same.” And how can you not love the ironic use of Frank Zappa’s “I Have Been in You”? For what it's worth this is probably my favorite film of his.
Close-Up (1990)
The lone Iranian film on this list and one of the last foreign films we have left to see comes from the master Abbas Kiarostami. Like so many of his films it blends that grey area between fiction and documentary. It is filmed largely as a documentary and features several re-enactments done with the actual people involved in the case. The notion of pretending to be a filmmaker whose making a movie that eventually gets to be in a movie playing that role has a sort of irony to it all. Now feel free to cast the first stone at me but I’ve always thought Kiarostami was a tad bit overrated. His reputation as Iran’s greatest filmmaker I’ve somewhat argued against because of the director who appears as himself in this film, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. You’ll see that I also watched The Cyclist this month, the film that plays a large role in the movie here. You’ll also notice I rated that film a little higher.
In fact that Makhmalbaf film was the first non-Kiarostami Iranian film I saw and also the first one I thought was an outright masterpiece, so maybe my tastes are just different. I appreciate what Kiarostami does here, and it’s case is interesting. I’m always fascinated by the judicial process of Iran, and this offers a rare look into a courtroom for what the judge thinks is a minor case, but enough to fashion an entire movie out of. This film is exclusively Iranian by it’s premise. Only an Iranian could impersonate a director like Makhmalbaf and convince a family that they would be the subject in his next movie. Long after Italy’s celebrated neo-realist movement ended the tradition was long lasting in Iran, and Kiarostami has spent a large part of his career blurring the line between truth and fiction.
Well hopefully we get through the rest of the list in November, here’s hoping.
10/1
She-Beast (1966) 3/10
10/2
Cabin in the Woods (2012) 10/10
Do the Right Thing (1989) 10/10
10/3
Gojira/Godzilla (1954) 7/10
Meet John Doe (1941) 10/10
The Burmese Harp (1956) 10/10
10/4
The Blue Angel (1930) 10/10
10/7
Cries and Whispers (1972) 8/10
A Propos de Nice (1930) 8/10
Taris (1931) 6/10
Zero for Conduct (1933) 9/10
The Grand Duke’s Finances (1924) 4/10
10/8
Top Hat (1935) 10/10
10/9
Night of the Hunter (1955) 10/10
10/10
Camp de Thiaroye (1987) 10/10
10/11
L’Eclisse (1962) 9/10
Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven (1975) 6/10
Another Way (1982) 8/10
10/12
Landscape After Battle (1970) 9/10
Ivan the Terrible Part I (1944) 9/10
10/13
Ivan the Terrible Part II (1946) 9/10
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964) 8/10
10/14
Children of Paradise (1945) 10/10
The Cyclist (1987) 10/10
The Last Laugh (1924) 9/10
10/15
Brief Encounter (1945) 10/10
Raise the Red Lantern (1991) 10/10
10/16
Last Tango in Paris (1972) 10/10
Bringing Up Baby (1938) 10/10
Trouble in Paradise (1932) 10/10
10/17
Jaws (1975) 9/10
10/18
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932) 10/10
10/19
Dead Man (1995) 10/10
10/21
Oliver Twist (1948) 10/10
The Third Man (1949) 10/10
10/22
To Be or Not to Be (1942) 6/10
10/23
Interiors (1978) 8/10
Happy Together (1997) 10/10
10/24
Witness for the Prosecution (1957) 10/10
Close-Up (1990) 9/10
10/25
Aliens (1986) 10/10
10/26
Romeo and Juliet (1968) 10/10
10/28
Red Desert (1964) 9/10
The Navigator (1924) 10/10
10/29
Gente del Po (1947) 6/10
N. U. (1948) 5/10
Design for Living (1933) 10/10
The Big Heat (1953) 10/10
10/30
The Bicycle Thief (1948) 10/10
Lost Highway (1997) 10/10
10/31
Cure (1997) 7/10
Society (1989) 8/10
The Mirror (1974) 10/10
Best Film of the Month - Romeo and Juliet
Worst Film of the Month - She-Beast
Best New Discovery - Cabin in the Woods
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| For no reason, here's Buster Keaton having a sword fight with a swordfish |
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