90. Andrei Rublev (1966) -
Andrei Tarkovsky
Well for those of you
thinking this is my first Tarkovsky film let me disappoint you by mentioning
it's also my last. Over the years my
favorite Tarkovsky film has changed without one specific film standing out over
the others. However his unrelated
three-peat of Andrei Rublev, Solaris, and The Mirror are my favorites. After revisiting the other two I got to give
the edge to Andrei. An epic even by
Tarkovsky standards, it's opening sequence is spellbinding. The fact that the film is a biopic on a
Russian painter might seem like an odd subject but well Tarkovsky doesn't
concern himself too much with the life of Andrei so much as meditating on life
all those centuries ago, where religion was new, paganism was still dominant,
and making a giant bell was one labor intensive nightmare. Few filmmakers are this philosophical, rich,
varied, and mystical, Tarkovsky is a cinematic poet whose films all seem to
mean something different to everyone.
For my money though, Andrei Rublev is the best of them.
89. The Grand Illusion (1937)
- Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir might very well
be France's greatest director. After a
few interesting and varied silent films he hit his stride in the 30s producing
masterpiece after masterpiece. For most
people the culmination of his brilliance was Rules of the Game, his last French
film before Nazi occupation and his subsequent exile to America. For me though you have to go back two years
to The Grand Illusion, which was the first non-American film to get a best
picture nomination from the Academy Awards.
The film takes Renoir's preoccupation with humanist themes and puts them
on the forefront. For his officers World
War I is a gentleman's game, and people of their respective classes can respect
each other while simultaneously trying to massacre the plot of land they
occupy. Renoir's idea that German's
might not be bad people would have been unfashionable by this point in time but
he has always maintained that people are inherently good but may do bad
things. A direct influence on countless
films, notably The Great Escape and the other great 30s film to feature Dita
Parlo, this is the standout masterpiece from the Golden age of French cinema.
88. The Third Man (1949) -
Carol Reed
When the British Film
Institute made their own list of the greatest British films of all time I was
surprised to see The Third Man top the list.
A good film but I never quite understood how it could be that
praised. Well then I watched it again
for this list and it made some sense.
The film features Orson Welles in possibly his greatest performance, and
Reed seems to be directly challenging Welles the director in his style. One of a couple of films Reed made in
collaboration with Graham Greene, and featuring one of the most unorthodox film
scores you're ever likely to hear this film is incredible. It's part murder mystery, part film noir,
mixed with some neo-realism, and maybe even a bit of the old west. The film is filled with canted angles, low
key lighting, and features arguably the most iconic reveal of a main character
who just happens to show up more than two-thirds of the way through the
film.
87. Our Hospitality (1923) -
Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone
For years I would
have told you without batting an eyelash that Steamboat Bill Jr. was Buster Keaton's
best film. Plenty of people, in fact
most of them would point to The General as the great stone face's best. Now along with Sherlock Jr. and the Navigator
all four of those films can easily lay claim to his best. For my money, and after revisiting all of
those films recently I went with a dark horse, Our Hospitality. This was Keaton's second feature film as
producer-director-star, made after Three Ages which essentially was another
two-reeler expanded to feature length.
Keaton channels his inner D. W. Griffith with a spectacular river rescue
worthy of Griffith's climax to Orphans of the Storm. However Keaton was a comedian and this is
probably his funniest film. It's set-up
is about a family rivalry and Keaton spends the entire film running around
trying not to be killed by his families mortal enemies, all while courting
their daughter. Silly as it might be
many of the films best moments have little to do with this rivalry. I honestly was crying when the would be
stowaway was thrown off the wagon Keaton was riding home. Consider it a representative of arguably the
most brilliant artist of the silent era but Our Hospitality gets my vote as
Keaton's masterpiece.
86. Romeo and Juliet (1968) -
Franco Zeffirelli
So many people have tried to
bring the works of William Shakespeare to the screen. Romeo and Juliet has been arguably the most
problematic of his films to visualize.
Countless versions have been made, the story has been reworked,
re-envisioned, and beaten to death. It
seemed an odd choice when Italian director would offer up the most faithful and
accurate adaptation. He opted to cast
unknowns who were actually teenagers to portray the roles of the tragically
doomed lovers (a far cry from Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard who were near 40
for their version). Leonard Whiting and
Olivia Hussey are absolutely superb. The
entire cast delivers all those antiquated lines of dialogue with such
conviction and feeling that even though you might not normally have any idea
what the hell they're talking about it is perfectly conveyed via the
performance. Most people probably sat
through this film in a high school English class, but give it another look,
Shakespeare has never been given more justice on screen.
85. Natural Born Killers
(1994) - Oliver Stone
For many people Natural Born
Killers is the film that broke the camels proverbial back regarding Oliver
Stone. A highly acclaimed screenwriter
who found himself taking home Oscar gold for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of
July he seemed like he could do no wrong.
Then sometime in the 90s he started to get really weird with it, making
films on JFK and The Doors seem more like acid trips. When he got his hands on a script from then
unknown Quentin Tarantino it seemed a perfect chance to make the most batshit
insane movie of his career. The result
is a film that's alternately hilarious, gruesome, brilliant, messy, and incredibly polarizing. Still today there are people
who are completely divided whether it's a self indulgent wank fest or a
visionary masterpiece and a brilliant satire of our violence obsessed gun
culture. I tend to opt for the later but
well there just aren't any films like this, and anyone else who has tried
usually fails horribly.
84. Carlos (2009) - Olivier
Assayas
Over the past decade one of
those random film prejudices I've developed is towards new movies. Not entirely sure why it's happened but when
putting together my master list for this project I didn't even bother
contemplating some movies from the last few years. You'd think that even my top films of the
year would be under consideration. Well
eventually I stumbled upon the DVD at my local library and decided to revisit
my favorite film from two years ago.
This five-hour plus epic is a truly extraordinary film. Shot in several countries in mutliple
languages it's a complex film about a complex man whose simultaneously awful
yet idealistic. As good as Assayas might
be as a filmmaker Edgar Ramirez makes this movie. It would be damn near impossible to sit
through such an epic film if you couldn't believe in a character whose in
nearly every scene. One of those amazing
objective films about troublesome politics and terrorism yet made, recalling
some of the great politically charged films of the 60s.
83. Talk to Her (2002) -
Pedro Almodovar
You may have noticed nearly
every film in this list is the best of something. Whether it's
the best film from a director, a movement, or a country it's been the
theme of the day so to speak. Well it's
fairly safe to say Pedro Almodovar might be the best working filmmaker in
Europe and Spain's best since Luis Bunuel.
A rare filmmaker whose work has always shown well in this country, who
makes films about some "alternative" lifestyles. It's hard to prepare someone for an Almodovar
film, but once you've seen one you'll gladly go for another. Melodramatic, bizarre, perverted, and with a
comical amount of transvestites. Talk to
Her was one of his more restrained films and brought him a best director
nomination from the Academy. I'll admit
it was a bit of a toss up between this and All About My Mother, but you can do
no wrong. This encompasses many of his
obsessions including the national tradition of bull fighting. The highlight of the film for me though is
the bizarre silent film sequence which is a different kind of odd for
Almodovar.
82. The Bicycle Thief (1948)
- Vittorio de Seca
Some time about a dozen years
ago I first heard about this movement called neo-realism. I didn't exactly know what it was about but
the first film I heard about was The Bicycle Thief and I was blown away. Shot on the streets of Rome with people who
had never acted before I had never seen anything quite like it. Plenty of critics have retroactively pointed
out that the film has a bit of a sentimental side to it and many prefer the
grittier films of Roberto Rossellini or Luchino Visconti. If you ask me, and since you're on my blog
you may as well hear my opinion, this is by far my favorite Italian film from
the period. This film is also remarkable
for featuring probably the best child performance I've ever seen. If you know how much I tend to despise
children in movies, that alone is worth the price of admission.
81. Glen or Glenda? (1953) -
Edward D. Wood Jr.
There are some films that are
so bad they're good and few people have ever earned their reputation as being
masters of the awful quite like Mr. Wood.
Well I would make the argument that Glen or Glenda?, his first film is
actually brilliant. I watched it after
it was mentioned in the Village Voice film guide, and I couldn't have been more
impressed. Wood himself stars as the
title character but this film is so insane to describe. He sold the film as a scandalous low budget
quickie but used it as a platform to defend his own strange obsession with
ladies clothing. The film features
ridiculously unexplained use of stock footage, Bela Lugosi being whacked out on
wowie sauce spouting incomprehensible gibberish, and a surrealistic sequence
that seems straight out of Kenneth Anger's Fireworks. This is the type of personal cinema that was
championed by the French New Wave and is still remarkably interesting. It's easy for me to forgive his monstrously
comical limitations as a filmmaker when everything else is just so damn
fascinating. "Bad" movie be
damned this is brilliant.
