THE SLIFR FORUM: BERGMAN, ANTONIONI and THOUGHTS ON A WEEK OF MILESTONES

"I hope I never get so old I get religious." -Ingmar Bergman

“I mean simply to say that I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space.” – Michelangelo Antonioni

“I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.” – Michelangelo Antonioni

“Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.” – Ingmar Bergman

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Apparently, two days in, it is a week for milestones, of varieties perhaps salutatory, and most certainly grim. Tonight Barry Bonds arrives in Los Angeles two home runs shy of breaking the Hammer’s home run record. (There are already “Boycott Barry” stencils painted all over every open, flat surface on the drive through Elysian Park up to Chavez Ravine.) Will Dodger fans boo if it happens here? Through pure coincidence, I have tickets for tonight and Thursday, and if it happens in front of me, I will sit on my hands and hope that 50,000 others do the same. Barry digs the “boo” almost as much as he digs the “yea!” The one thing he cannot abide is the indifference. A mighty shrug from the stands might not feel as cathartic to the fans, but it’d speak a whole lot louder than a collective “Barry sucks!”

Incredibly, baseball fans also have two more milestones to wait for this day—Alex Rodriguez, who likely will dethrone the large-domed soon-to-be home run king in a couple of years, looks for number 500 against Chicago tonight. And Mets pitcher Tom Glavine searches out win number 300 tonight in Milwaukee.

That’s the good news. On the other hand, the Reaper is having far too good of a week so far.

First, the man who extended late-night talk show TV into the single digits, Tom Snyder, died on Sunday. And influential San Francisco 49ers football coach Bill Walsh passed away on Monday.

And film fans logged on to their computers Monday morning and were greeted by especially sad news. First, one of those passings that truly mark the end of an era—Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, dead at 89. Then, word of the loss of French actor Michel Serrault, best known to American audiences for his brilliant and humane portrayal of the transvestite Albin in La Cage aux Folles (1978) and its superior sequel La Cage Aux Folles II (1980). (Serrault was 79 years old.)

It was enough to remind me of the old SCTV sketch (circa 1982) in which the anchor on a National Enquirer-inspired TV “news” show (presience, anyone?) grimly intoned, “Three of the four stars of The Wizard of Oz dead. Is Ray Bolger next?!”

Well, the reaping was not finished, as it turns out. Today comes word that Michelangelo Antonioni has died at the age of 94. I got a sincere e-mail from a friend this morning that was very much in that “Who’s next?” mode: “Somebody protect Godard and Alain Resnais!! Someone's taking out all of Criterion's (and my) favorite '60s directors!”

Or, as Keith Uhlich put it this morning, “Okay, seriously, what the fuck is going on?”

I wish I had something profound to say about the loss of these men. They and their films were cornerstones of my meager state-provided film school education back in the mid to late ‘70s. It was simply not permissible to be unfamiliar with films like L’ Avventura, The Seventh Seal, Red Desert, The Magician, La Notte, Persona, L’ Eclisse or Smiles of a Summer Night. Both directors have rich and varied histories that extend far before the dates of the earliest films of theirs which I have seen-- Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) and L’ Avventura (1960)—which only means that I’ve got a lifetime of digging left to do. But courtesy of the sensibilities of my film professors, those of the local campus film societies, and the relative profligacy of Bergman’s output in comparison to Antonioni’s, I’m much more familiar with the religious and psychological alienation of the Swedish master than I am with the more detached, modernist existential puzzles of the Italian.


And I’d dare say the concerns of Bergman’s films seem far more in tune with my own concerns as an adult, and as an adult compelled by film art, than do Antonioni’s. I remain fascinated by Bergman’s grappling with his own sense of God, the pervasive influence of religion as a form and manifestation of psychological behavior, and the influence of a deity who may or may not be, shall we say, as interactive as even believers would prefer him to be. (That great nonbeliever Warren Zevon tagged it as “the vast indifference of heaven,” a phrase that I’m sure would have put a smile on Bergman’s face.) And I share the concerns of Edward Copeland, who worries that for this upcoming generation of film buffs Bergman may have lost some of his critical cachet, or worse, moved slightly toward irrelevance.


As for Antonioni, L’Avventura remains for me a mournful, rich and exquisitely moody canvas of sun-baked despair, but in general I’m afraid I value the Italian director’s movies more for the influence they have had on directors I revere (Robert Altman, Brian De Palma) and respect (Gus Van Sant, Peter Weir) than for the films themselves. Blow-up, a movie I have no great love for, summarizes for me the groove Antonioni eventually found himself in for which I could not find a positive response. The movie seems to me the director’s equivalent of a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic—let’s frug and fret with the denizens of swinging 1960s-era London, secretly digging all the happenings that we’ll constantly insist, through our visual grammar and sound design, are symptoms of the sick soul of society. That said, in tribute to the director, I pledged this morning, via my Netflix queue, to revisit all three of the great ‘60s films, and one I have managed to miss, even through its recent theatrical re-release, for 32 years, The Passenger.

Whatever one’s personal response to the work of these great directors, there’s no denying the sense that this week a heavy vault door has been closed on yet another era of great filmmaking, and on the world in which these directors were regularly talked about, and attendance to their films a virtual requirement for anyone who really cared about film as an art form. Are there directors working today who can so galvanize a demographic of film lovers or inspire critics to write impassioned prose about their works? Maybe. Maybe not. These directors create worlds in which to contemplate the real world, worlds of searching, of agony, of bitter disappointment and even beatific happiness through families, both natural and extended. However they rank on whatever list is being compiled this week, or next year, or 20 years from now, we can say that they are as essential to what we enjoy today in cinema, or film, or the movies, as the celluloid the images are printed on. I’d like to open up the SLIFR Forum for anyone who has thoughts on Bergman, Antonioni, or any of the other milestones that have or might possibly occur as this week progresses. Tell us what the films made by these men meant to you, or tell us if they meant nothing at all and whether that concerns you.

And in an attempt to end on an up note, thanks to Matt and Keith at The House Next Door for finding what I’ve been after for several years now: a brilliant Bergman parody featuring Madeline Kahn and George Coe entitled De Duva (The Dove).

UPDATE August 2 8:20 a.m.: Jim Emerson has posted a collection of tributes to Ingmar Bergman from some notable voices in filmmaking and film criticism, and a fascinating letter to Roger Ebert in 1999 regarding Antonioni written by the man who played the corpse in Blow-up. Also, Dan Callahan at The House Next Door on losing two cornerstones of modern cinema, Bergman and Antonioni, in as many days.

THE SLIFR 100: #79 NEW YORK, NEW YORK

I think film critic/blogger Paul Clark may be out to destroy me, to chip away at me from the inside until the only thing left is a hollow, brittle shell which will be that much easier to topple and shatter into a million dull-colored shards. How else to explain why he has lately taken one favorite film of mine after another to the woodshed for a paddling in his Screengrab series entitled “When Good Directors Go Bad”?



But seriously, folks. First Paul and I sparred over 1941. I liked it, he, um, didn’t. It was only after I recently revealed my own personal top 100 favorite films that Paul let me know that, yes, another one of my favorites was about to come under his fire. Around this same time, I was thinking about how my own top 100 was about be absorbed into forming a much bigger project (The Online Film Community’s Top 100 ), and I was looking for a way to create something with my own list rather than just, well, a list. Some comments from some of my readers suggested they too were disappointed I didn’t elaborate on my own choices, the reason being that I had no time to do so when I was compiling the original roster of titles. But I certainly would do so if I could comment on each of my top 100 with a separate post, of whatever length I felt was appropriate at the time.

Thus I decided to undergo an examination of each of my 100 favorite films, making a personal commitment to try to use the occasion to explicate why the film is on my list, and also to try to learn to write shorter, more concise pieces whenever I was moved to do so. Each movie will get the length it deserves as the thoughts come pouring out, and some posts will naturally be shorter than others-- I’m not going to put a 250 or 500 or 1,000 word limit on myself. But I intend to look at each one with a fresh eye, and I won’t write about any of them until I get a chance to see them again and consider them while the film is still fresh in my mind. And Paul has inspired me to start with Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York, number 79 on my chronologically ordered list and the latest in his “When Good Directors Go Bad” series.

Scorsese’s movie is a big, self-conscious, experimental movie masquerading as a musical. Rather, it is a big, self-conscious, experimental movie that takes as its subject the structure, the mythology, the experience of the Hollywood musical. More importantly, it replaces the familiar romantic melodrama usually found at the center of such a film with a scenario that resembles what A Star is Born might have felt like had been directed by John Cassavetes. Liza Minnelli looks every bit the brassy, good-natured, ambitious swing band chanteuse as Francine Evans, in what would be her last effective lead performance on the big screen. Paul rightly describes her quality as equal parts tremulous and brassy—often Minnelli seems like she’s going to start vibrating like a gong, either out of sheer performance joy or uncontrollable spasms of nervous exhaustion. She’s used by Scorsese as much for her lineage (her mother, Judy Garland, was often the star in the lush, fiercely emotional musicals her father, Vincente Minnelli, directed for MGM) as for her near iconic visual appropriateness and crackling timing as an actress. And she takes to the sumptuous, pleasurably overscaled production and costume design as if it were her own private dress-up world, one in which she maintains the contrast between the delights of the music of the era and the brutal emotional abuse of her relationship with up-and-coming saxophone player Jimmy Doyle. Robert De Niro plays Doyle, who zeroes in on Francine during a VJ Day celebration and pathologically refuses to quit hitting on her, as Travis Bickle with a bad Hawaiian shirt, a discernible talent and a narrow-minded pursuit of musical integrity. At first De Niro’s approach to the character plays as if he was never consciously able to shake the specter of Bickle, and the choice (and it was a choice) seems like a mistake. The long shadow of Bickle’s present-day paranoia seems initially inappropriate for a brazenly artificial take on the emotional core of the Hollywood musical.

But it’s the contrast between Minnelli’s swing-era perfection, De Niro’s up-front and anachronistic (for the Hollywood genre) psychological instability, and Scorsese’s no-fear examination of what happens when the artifice of a musical world clashes with a warts-and-all character study of two ambitious characters for whom performance is the only way they can adequately feel connected to the “real” world, that allows the movie’s themes, and even its occasional dissonant notes and inconsistencies of tone and pace, to coalesce into a living, breathing personal statement. For Paul (and certainly not just for him), this constitutes one of the film’s major drawbacks. He writes that New York, New York is “a movie that feels at war with itself, in which the musical numbers and the dialogue scenes don’t mesh well”. But it seems to me that this war is, in fact, the subject of the film, the reason Scorsese wanted to make it. That very incompatibility is what fascinates Scorsese-- how these two strains of Hollywood artifice (and yes, Cassavetes’ emotional dramas spun their own kind of artifice) might possibly co-exist. After all, they certainly co-exist in his encyclopedic mind as a cinephile, so what might be wrong with making a movie that acknowledges, in its look, its feel in the very way it gathers momentum and dissipates it between sequences, the attempt to connect these two seemingly irreconcilable approaches to film drama? Even the title of the film reflects the dual sensibilities at work in envisioning a post-war New York City as a place of nostalgic reverie and bitter, uncomfortable emotional truth. (It is astounding too, as Paul notes, that the title tune, so tightly associated with everyone from Frank Sinatra and Minnelli to George Steinbrenner, was not an authentic standard unearthed from some vault and polished up, rights all paid for, but was instead penned for the movie by John Kander and Fred Ebb.)

Screen grab courtesy of DVD Beaver.

All of this might, to some ears, seem like I’m coming awfully close to saying that it’s what’s bad and dissonant and rough about New York, New York, the elements where glossy genre cannot, in the end, compliment or illuminate the gritty examination of the grinding gears of ambition and love, that makes it a fine movie. Not quite. There are indications, even in its much-preferable extended version, clear indicators that the movie has chunks still missing-- the strand involving Mary Kay Place as the talentless singer who replaces Francine in Jimmy’s band is underdeveloped and left to dangle, and even Francine’s rise to stardom in the aftermath of the birth of her son, the both of them abandoned by Jimmy in a devastating, wordless hospital scene— seems truncated, unsatisfying and, most damningly, unconvincing. But the movie, I think, minimizes those moments where the Method imbalances the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer through the sheer force of the conviction of the actors at its heart. It wasn’t long after this movie that De Niro began doing “De Niro,” but here there is still enough of a connection to Bickle and the young Vito, and 1900, and, most importantly, the bottle-rocket unpredictability of Johnny Boy from Mean Streets, to convince us that De Niro had not yet begun to fool around.

And Minnelli, only a year or so away from parody, and self-parody, seems so in her element here that it’s scary, and I mean that as a compliment. She’s frighteningly good and would never again have a role that allowed her to so fruitfully channel the warring elements in her own personality—the illusion of the shining Hollywood star tempered by the knowledge of the pressure, addiction and even madness that stardom can bring—into such rich thematic resonance. She anchors the splendidly bitter and self-referential “Happy Endings” sequence, famously restored from the 1977 theatrical release, which brings the movie brilliantly full circle to a point where kitchen-sink dramaturgy and delirious musical fantasy don’t seem so far removed from each other after all. New York, New York (shot by the late, brilliant cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs) is a gorgeous, daring movie that soars on conflicting styles masterfully choreographed by a director in love not with genre, or the integrity of improvised acting truth, but with the power at the heart of movies. It soars as much on what it says about what we, the audience, see and process within seemingly polarized film styles as it does on the melodrama and emotion woven delicately, and indelicately, into the music that courses through its lush, tension-filled visual design and its glorious soundtrack. New York, New York is about Hollywood reality, and how Hollywood reality can be about life.

RUSH TO JUDGMENT

F— That is, forget the Police. There’s another power trio making the rounds this summer that holds far more fascination for me. I have a confession to make that has already alienated me from everyone else I know whose musical tastes are far cooler and/or more refined than are mine: I’m a 47-year-old man who thinks Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neal Peart, aka Rush, are super-keen prog rockers nonpareil. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before: the mechanistic, time-shifting, soulless anthems; the stupefying lyrics drawing from the most ponderous and lugubrious science fiction; Geddy Lee’s shrill, shrieking vocal style; drum solos that never die; blah blah blah.

First of all, for anyone who doesn’t find mathematically precise musicianship automatically bereft of the spark of life, corrupt due to its very precision, and who does find monstrously involving hard-rock chord progressions fascinating and (shudder) fun, then there is no reason not to love Rush. Then there is the subject matter of many of the songs (lyrics usually by Peart) which tend to deal with the implications of losing one’s soul and identity in a mechanistic society—apparently only in the Rush catalogue is examining a subject the same as embracing the suffocating detachment being examined (unless, of course, you’re examining the age-old question of sex, drugs or rock ‘n’ roll). As far as Geddy Lee’s vocals, I will grant that they are an acquired taste, but certainly not more so than Neil Young’s, or Jack White’s. Personally, I love the way Lee’s surfs the high octaves while Peart and Lifeson anchor the sonic booms and provide just the contrast the singer needs to stay airborne. Admittedly, Geddy isn’t exactly People’s Sexiest Man Alive material, although since he traded in the god-awful mullet for the more dignified straight long hair and dark granny glasses, I dare say he cuts a rather dashing figure for a 50-ish rocker. Isn’t it interesting that Geddy Lee’s voice seems much more palatable when it emanates from harajuku girl Gwen Stefani? As for Lifeson, he has a bit of Peter Finch about him these days, and I had to repeatedly remind myself, when I saw the band at the Hollywood Bowl this past Monday night, that it was Peart and not Michael Gambon behind the super-deluxe drum kit.

Seeing Rush for the first time this week was the last remaining gee-I’ve-always-wanted-to-see-them attraction left for this classically-rocked curmudgeon, and it was an unabashed thrill. The show opened up with a hilarious filmed bit in which Lifeson wakes up in a cold sweat, muttering about having a dream about snakes. (The summer tour is in support of their solid new album, Snakes and Arrows.) Peart pops up next to him in bed, expressing concern about his buddy’s distress. Then thunder and lightning, and a cut to a sinister-looking oversized baby carriage back-lit with bile-green rays of light a la It’s Alive. The camera moves in on the carriage, when suddenly a cranky Scotsman with a very familiar-sounding high-pitched burr begins berating the child inside the basket to wake up. And awaken he does—out pops Geddy Lee in baby bonnet and jammies. Then the first hammer chord of “Limelight,” live and unmistakable, exploded out from the giant Bowl and the trio took the stage for a three-hour show broken up only by one necessary intermission (“Because we’re ancient,” admitted Lee with customary humor.)


Humor, in fact, a quality often unacknowledged about Rush, was in full evidence throughout the show. (These guys are veterans of The Fishin' Musician, after all.) There were filmed cameos from Bob and Doug MacKenzie, apparently shot specifically for the Hollywood Bowl, as well as a hilarious appearance by the South Park kids—Li’l Rush—in which Cartman, bewigged Geddy-style, misinterprets and otherwise butchers “Tom Sawyer” before leading into a gloriously bombastic performance of the real thing. And the band itself, slowing down the final chords of their signature hit for the finale, tagged it not with the staccato flourish that most rock bands might choose, but with a heady quote from Cheech and Chong’s “Earache, My Eye.” (DAH-duh-duh, DAH-duh-duh, DAH-DAH-Duh!) Lee, Lifeson and Peart don’t take themselves nearly as seriously as do the tastemakers in the rock press and everyone else who can’t accept that it’s possible to like Rush and at the same time whoever is currently bearing the mantle of Rock’s Last Great Hope.


Though the median age of the crowd had to be about 40, there were four guys in their early ‘30s sitting directly in front of me who knew every beat of every old track. (“Circumstances” from the Hemispheres album was greeted as if it were, I don’t know, “Stairway to Heaven” or something). And to my left were five guys, ages 16-18, I’d guess, all of them decked out in $40 Snakes and Arrows tour T-shirts, who knew the new album backward and forward and thrilled to every power chord and diving, swerving time change. It made me feel good to be surrounded by such an uncool crowd who clearly didn’t give a rip about critical positioning or musical trends. Rush played the hits and the new stuff, made them sound like the albums and never apologized for it, never felt the need to noodle on or otherwise warp into unrecognizablity the classic riffs the fans had come to hear, and yet managed to avoid making it sound like the whole enterprise was draped in mothballs. Rush in 2007 is still vital, and on their own terms. And it was a genuine thrill to sing along with, and hear 50,000 others sing along with, “Distant Early Warning,” the terrifying, exhilarating anti-nuclear track from their 1985 Grace Under Pressure album as if it were Bono up there crooning “One” to a stadium full of lit cell phones. Monday night the Hollywood Hills rang out with lines like,

“The world weighs on my shoulders/But what am I to do?/You sometimes drive me crazy/But I worry about you/I know it makes no difference/To what you're going through/But I see the tip of the iceberg/And I worry about you.”

For three hours I could have cared less if anyone else liked the band or not. For three hours this odd assemblage of fans, ranging from folks in their 60s down to the kids and grandkids as young as eight or nine, were united by the cacophonous, twisted, whirring, gliding musical lines and dystopian (though not exactly hopeless) vision of three Canadian rockers who, by all odds and predictions, probably should have shuffled away three or four album ago. For three hours, Rush consistently transcended the gleaming, antiseptic, pretentious stereotype of “corporate rock” and forged a place for themselves in at least one sensibility (mine) as something much more honest and enjoyable and unapologetically prog-rockin’ than that. The Police are getting the big reunion press and selling out all over the world, and good for them. But for three hours last Monday night, Rush became the band to fulfill a geeky rock fan’s personal bliss, the real power trio to define the summer of 2007.


From the Atlanta tour stop, a taste of “Li’l Rush” (You can bail out after the opening film— this is a very good recording of the South Park interstitial segment, but a piss-poor cell-phone-grade recording of the music.)


Geddy Lee offers some sound advice on winter tobogganing.

SHERMAN TORGAN, THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE NEW BEVERLY CINEMA, PASSES AWAY

Sherman Torgan in 2003 outside his own Hollywood movie palace (Photo by Ted Soqui)

From Hollywood Elsewhere.com comes sad news from the very heart of Hollywood. Sherman Torgan, owner and manager of The New Beverly Cinema, died unexpectedly yesterday while bicycling in Santa Monica.

According to Jeffrey Wells’ post, there are no plans for a funeral or tribute as yet, but Torgan’s friend and colleague Jeffrey Rosen has stated that “any ideas as to the latter (the tribute) would be greatly appreciated.”

Though Torgan’s son Michael has been instrumental in keeping the theater running over the past 10 years, Wells reports that no one is sure what Torgan’s death will mean for the theater itself. At any rate, that’s a concern for the future. Right now the Torgan family has a much sadder duty.

Here’s a link to the New Beverly’s contact page, which will surely be overwhelmed with comments and tributes to Mr. Torgan over the next few days. Please join me in adding to the deluge and recognizing the efforts of Sherman Torgan to keep the difficult day-to-day dream of repertory cinema in Los Angeles from altogether evaporating.

Rest in peace, Mr. Torgan. The audience, and the movies, will miss you greatly.

(Here's a link to a fine piece by Paul Cullum on Sherman Torgan and the New Beverly Cinema from July 2003 that will tell you lots about Mr. Torgan's devotion to the local repertory film scene. Thanks, Terry.)

UPDATE 7/19/07 2:08 p.m.: The LAist has a few more details, and both David Lowery and Blake Etheridge offer their thoughts on the New Beverly Cinema and what Sherman Torgan meant to the movies in Los Angeles. Many thanks to David Hudson and Green Cine Daily for the links.

UPDATE 7/20/07 10:16 a.m.: Here's Bob Westal's lovely tribute to what a revival house means to the true cinephile, as well as some equally appreciative and evocative thoughts about Mr. Torgan and the New Beverly.

MR. SHOOP’S SURFIN' SUMMER SCHOOL MIDTERM

Since all the regular faculty of the SLIFR Academy are currently off enjoying their summer homes in Newport Beach or the Hamptons (or in one case, Sheboygan, Wisconsin), we had to dip into the reserves to find this quarter’s quizmaster. And find one we did! I like to think we will have done our students proud by presenting as our current figurehead of authority that veteran of loose and lively summer school curricula, the semi-honorable Mr. Freddy Shoop, who wields a cutting film question as deftly as he wields a waxed-up surfboard or a sparkling Hawaiian shirt. We think that Mr. Shoop has come up with a fine selection of queries for this time out, ones that honor several centennials of great movie actors as well as some behind-the-scenes big shots of classic Hollywood and, of course, the occasional out-of-left-field head-scratcher that will make you wish you’d never committed to grappling with this quiz and just went outside for the afternoon sand castle building class instead. So don’t get the idea that just because this is summer school you’re somehow going to have a easier time of it. Though Mr. Shoop is definitely cool, with it and, above all, dope, he is also not above shrieking “You can’t have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!” at the slightest variation of his classroom agenda (except, of course, if what you really want to do is go outside for a quick football-throwing, volleyball-playing, splashing-in-the-surf montage to briefly relieve the pressures of test-taking—he’s always up for a wacky, pressure-relieving montage.)

So, without any further delay, let us unveil the questions of the summer, get out our sharpened No. 2s and dig in. We know that the last thing you really want to do in the summer is to be sitting indoors taking a test. But wouldn’t you rather be doing this than seeing Transformers? I thought so. Now get to work!

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1) Favorite quote from a filmmaker

2) A good movie from a bad director

3) Favorite Laurence Olivier performance

4) Describe a famous location from a movie that you have visited (Bodega Bay, California, where the action in The Birds took place, for example). Was it anything like the way it was in the film? Why or why not?

5) Carlo Ponti or Dino De Laurentiis (Producer)?

6) Best movie about baseball

7) Favorite Barbara Stanwyck performance

8) Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed and Confused?

9) What was the last movie you saw, and why? (We’ve used this one before, but your answer is presumably always going to be different, so…)

10) Whether or not you have actually procreated or not, is there a movie you can think of that seriously affected the way you think about having kids of your own?

11) Favorite Katharine Hepburn performance

12) A bad movie from a good director

13) Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom-- yes or no?

14) Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder (Screenwriter)?

15) Name the film festival you’d most want to attend, or your favorite festival that you actually have attended

16) Head or 200 Motels?

17) Favorite cameo appearance
(Try visiting here and here for some good ideas! This question was inspired by Daniel Johnson at Film Babble)

18) Favorite Rosalind Russell performance

19) What movie, either currently available on DVD or not, has never received the splashy collector’s edition treatment you think it deserves? What would such an edition include?

20) Name a performance that everyone needs to be reminded of, for whatever reason

21) Louis B. Mayer or Harry Cohn (Studio Head)?

22) Favorite John Wayne performance

23) Naked Lunch or Barton Fink?

24) Your Ray Harryhausen movie of choice

25) Is there a movie you can think of that you feel like the world would be better off without, one that should have never been made?

24) Favorite Dub Taylor performance

25) If you had the choice of seeing three final movies, to go with your three last meals, before shuffling off this mortal coil, what would they be?

26) And what movie theater would you choose to see them in?

UPDATE 7/18/07 1:31 p.m.: EXTRA CREDIT!!! I know this isn’t entirely fair, having already published the quiz and received so many excellent responses already,* but Jim Emerson has offered up a couple of outstanding posers as part of the regular goings-on at Scanners that would have been way-more-than-worthy additions to this quiz. And I couldn't help but appropriate them (sort of). So, for extra credit, please hop on over to his site and answer these:

Your proposed entry in the Atheist Film Festival

What advice on day-to-day living have you learned from the movies?

You can post your answers here if you want, but first and foremost, make sure to drop your answers on his site. Thanks, Jim, for the great questions, and the excellent posts that surround them. The only thing that would make me happier about these questions is if I’d thought of ‘em myself!

STEALING: MY FAVORITE COMMERCIAL

My summer TV viewing habits are pretty much restricted to baseball, and though nothing will replace the AFLAC duck, voiced by Gilbert Gottfried, in my daughters' hearts, this beauty of a commercial, shown at least twice per Dodger game and featuring Harvey Keitel, Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter and Angels starting pitcher John Lackey, has fast become my favorite. This is the slightly longer :44 version-- the :30 cut pops up most often in between innings.

McLOVIN' THE SUPER-BAD SUPERBAD TRAILER

Thanks to Anne Thompson for the information on this new trailer for the upcoming Seth Rogen-penned comedy Superbad. It's a red-band R-rated preview, and Sony is premiering it on the Internet, but I couldn't just leave this one to Anne and the rest of the WWW. Even if all of Superbad's hilarious moments are packed into this one three-minute burst, I wager the movie will still be 8.5 times funnier than I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Enjoy, but turn it down if you're at work!

And actually, Anne has been on the trailer watch lately and has great posts, complete with the embedded trailers themselves, for the upcoming (unecessary?) remake of 3:10 to Yuma with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale being directed by James Mangold, and also Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan (one of several actors essaying the role of Mr. Zimmerman) in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There.

Thanks, Anne!

PROFESSOR COREY'S HONOR SOCIETY (Part 3)

This is it, Part 3, the last roundup of Professor Irwin Corey's Honor Society, the creme de la creme of academic achievement from last quarter's Spring Break Quiz. The good professor would like me to thank, on behalf of him and his entire staff, everyone who particpated and everyone who has made their way to the podium for these distinguished award ceremonies. Be sure to stay tuned, because the new quiz, which may be a bit more casual, as befitting the season, is but a post or two away.

In case you missed them, here are links to Part 1 and Part 2 of the Corey Honor Society. Enjoy, and then get right back to studying. The next quiz is on the horizon.

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Part 3: NICHOLAS RAY, ACADEMY OF THE UNDERRATED, MOVIES ABOUT TV, GANZ/BAUCHAU, DOCUMENTARIES, ORSON WELLES and ACCIDENTS, WIM WENDERS, PENA/CRUZ, TAG LINES, FILM CRITICISM and DO MOVIES MATTER?


21) Favorite Nicholas Ray Movie

DAVE: Rebel Without a Cause, but only because I haven’t seen Johnny Guitar yet.

a. fan: Hair. He played The General.

PETER NELLHAUS: Did I tell you I once got drunk with Nick Ray? This may be another cliche, but Rebel without a Cause holds up after multiple viewings.

FLOWER: Rebel Without a Cause. James Dean = dreamy

MATTHEW: I won't embarrass myself by answering this, since I realize I can't always remember whether a movie was directed by Nicholas Ray or Nicholas Roeg.

RYLAND WALKER KNIGHT: In a Lonely Place

LARRY GROSS: TIE: In a Lonely Place for powerful romantic desolation, Johnny Guitar because it's so out there.

BOB TURNBULL: In a Lonely Place. Gloria Grahame is glorious.

LANCE TOOKS: In a Lonely Place, Bogart’s gift that keeps on giving.

: I'd love to say Johnny Guitar, the lesbian subtext that steams off the screen in the fiery rivalry between Mercedes McCambridge and Joan Crawford is a total hoot, and Sterling Hayden is all swagger, in a way we just don't see in movies anymore. But ...there's no choice for me but In a Lonely Place -- for its claustrophobic sunny-L.A. noir, and Bogart's naturalistic playing of a doomed, tortured soul whose last chance at happiness is destroyed by his own anger and bitterness. It's not his most iconic role in the mass consciousness, but it should be his most appreciated. Speaking of tortured souls... some recommended reading: Nicholas Ray: An American Journey by Bernard Eisenschitz.

22) Inaugural entry into the Academy of the Underrated

DAVE: Joe Dante, God bless ‘im.

BILL: Miami Blues, The Life Aquatic, The Ninth Configuration, Exorcist III. I could go on.

FILMBRAIN: Robert Downey, Sr.

JIM EMERSON: Ivan Passer's Cutter's Way, the best movie of the 1980s. And because it simply hasn't been seen: Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End (1971). Because it hasn't been rediscovered yet (though it's available on DVD): Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

PETER NELLHAUS: The Money Trap by Burt Kennedy.

TLRHB: William Demarest.

FLOWER: The Wind and the Lion. It's the kind of grand old adventure picture - smart, refined, and genuinely soul stirring - that really truly is not made anymore, and nobody ever talks about it.

STENNIE: This is just my answer for this week, because I've been watching a few of his films lately -- Fred MacMurray. My Three Sons and Flubber were his undoing. He had tons of untapped talent. Skilled at comedy, gritty drama, hell he could even have done musicals if he'd wanted, he had a beautiful singing voice. It's a shame people only seem to remember him from My Three Sons anymore.

DAMIAN: I don't think Bruce Willis gets enough credit for his acting.

PACHECO: Deep Impact. Yes, Deep Impact. I'm not claiming that it's Citizen Kane, but it's highly entertaining, and smarter than a lot of other disaster films.

NATHAN M: Hail the Conquering Hero and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. While everyone raves about The Lady Eve, Sturges' two best films get no love.

CHRIS: Head. Yes, The Monkees movie. One of the absolute best films of the 60's, for real.

SHEILA: I know Jeff Bridges is a big star and everything - it's not like he's suffering in obscurity - but I truly think he does not get the props he deserves. What props should he get? How about: Best American Actor Alive. THAT'S the prop I think he deserves.

MORE-ONIONS: Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way. When I heard that Cahiers du Cinema named it the best movie of the 90's, I almost up and moved to Paris.

CINEBEATS: Philip Ridley. I really wish he would make more films.

CHRIS (2): John Waters. Yeah, he has his cult following, but I think he’s a legitimately great director. He made those early films with no budget, almost no equipment, and barely a clue as to how to stitch two pieces of film together. He’s a better director than Fellini, Bergman, Scorsese, Angelopoulos, Altman, Spielberg, Coppola, and a couple hundred other people too.

SETH: Dude, Where’s My Car? Why this smart, funny, subtle film got turned into a running joke about its title is pretty obvious: critical cowardice. Yes, folks, it’s true: films with stupid main characters can themselves be pretty great.

DR. CRIDDLE: Juzo Itami

KEN LOWERY: Oh, how about Heathers? It's not a "great" movie, per se, but it holds up stronger than ever, and hasn't lost a single inch of its edge. I don't think a more cutting satire has been released in the mainstream since then. Also, Joe Dante, as someone mentioned above. And Ron Shelton.

JOSEPH B.: Any supporting performance by Richard Jenkins.

MARTY McKEE: My most recent entry would be Eurotrip, which is a hilariously witty and sometimes crude teen comedy whose box-office success was killed by its trailer, which made it look like just another brain-dead comedy. Every time I urge someone to watch it, they end up loving it and wondering, “What took me so long to see this?” However, Used Cars may well be the funniest film ever made (as well as the most quotable), though I rarely see it pop up in any list of top film comedies. “Fifty bucks never killed anybody.”

JEFF McM: Perversely, Edward D. Wood Jr.

DAN E.: Allow me to present Andrew Niccol, one of the great investigators of identity in modern cinema. Gattaca, The Truman Show, Lord of War-- the man is more impressive than most other directors out there, and yet he receives next to no recognition.

STEVE: Upon its initial release, everyone was too busy reacting angrily towards I Spit on Your Grave to notice that that's more or less what the film wanted you to do. I think it's high time for a re-evaluation.

LANCE TOOKS: I’ve been waiting for twenty (!) years now for Wendell Harris to direct another film. His Chameleon Street was rough, funny, courageous & original.

TMORGAN: Oh, my. So many to choose from, but you asked for one. Session 9. I've rarely seen a horror film so redolent with unease and regret, largely due to that mental hospital setting. On the DVD, director Brad Anderson admits the place scared them while they shot the film. Also, the rare horror film where the majority of the fear takes place in broad daylight. This gem got missed, and deserves a look.

DAN ALOI: Underrated indie film: John Sayles' Return of the Secaucus Seven. Damn The Big Chill all to hell.

Underrated studio film: John Patrick Shanley's Joe vs. the Volcano. If you understand that much of Shanley's stage and screen work is about bravery, Joe is a rich, rewarding fable. Plus the opening death-march-to-work sequence is a touchstone for anyone who's ever hated their job (that is, everyone!).

BRIAN: Somehow I don't mind this word so much, especially since it so often works as a synonym for "underseen". But since that usage might run against the spirit of the question, my answer runs along another path. How about: serious consideration of the career of M. Night Shymalan as something other than a decline.

THOM McGREGOR: Hard to say. How about Jeremy Northam?

23) Your favorite movie dealing with the subject of television

FLOWER: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

STENNIE: Network. Did Paddy Chayevsky have some device that allowed him to see into the future?

SCHUYLER CHAPMAN: Putney Swope.

DAN E.: Network may be the popular answer, but it's the popular answer for a reason. It's (in my opinion) the best movie in the past 35 years. It has one of the best screenplays ever written, and it predicted the popularization of the news and the rise of disturbing reality television. The direction is great, the performances are great, and the screenplay is, as I have said, amazing.

JEREMY RICHEY: Network came to mind first but then I remembered Kazan's Face in the Crowd with a brutally brilliant Andy Griffith.

LARRY GROSS: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter & A Hard Days Night, describe the point at which television and youth culture transform all modern culture as we know it today. And they're both fun.

PAUL C: A Face in the Crowd, which is as trenchant a film about how the media creates superstars and even demagogues as has ever been placed on the screen. Fifty years later, one only needs to look at our President to see that Lonesome Rhoades is alive and well.

JOHN SHIPLEY: Shocker ... Just kidding, Network.

TMORGAN: Videodrome. Cronenberg's best and most literally visionary movie. A film about how what we watch changes us, why it changes us, and what it might change us into, positive and negative. Long live the new flesh.

CAMPASPE: I know I should say Network or A Face in the Crowd, but it's really The Front.

24) Bruno Ganz or Patrick Bauchau?

BILL: Ganz, for Downfall, and also because I don’t know
who the other guy is.

TLRHB: Bachau, for Choose Me. But, Jesus, Ganz was great in Downfall.

RAMI: Bruno Ganz has played an angel and Hitler. THAT is range, people.

BRIAN: I like Bauchau in La Collectioneusse, but other than that I haven't seen they key works which might make me even slightly consider that he'd upset Ganz, who is great in so many films.

THOMAS MOHR: Bauchau. With his ridiculous portrayal of Hitler in the execrable Downfall, Ganz has had it as far as I’m concerned.

25) Your favorite documentary, or non-fiction, film

FLICKHEAD: Cooper and Schoedsack’s Grass (1926).

JIM EMERSON: Errol Morris's Fast, Cheap & Out of Control.

DAMIAN: Clear Cut: the Story of Philomath, Oregon (but my reason is somewhat embarrassing to admit).

SHEILA: I think Grizzly Man is one of the best I've ever seen.

MOVIESZZZ: Ross McElwee’s Time Indefinite.

MORE-ONIONS: I'm forced to once again go with My Best Fiend here.

MATTHEW: The Trout, with Daniel Baremboim, Jacqueline du Pre, Itzhak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, and Pinchas Zuckerman as impossibly young jet-setting superstars.

CHRIS (2): Fata Morgana, but Herzog insists it isn’t really a documentary. F for Fake, but a lot of people say it isn’t really a documentary. And the Academy felt that The Thin Blue Line wasn’t really a documentary back in 1988. So I’ll have to go back to the original documentarian Robert Flaherty and select Man of Aran. After all, he’s the father of documentary so there can’t be any controversy in calling his films documentaries; he would never invent anything or use actors or anything like that.


SETH: I don’t believe there is such a thing as non-fiction film. The simple act of construction is synonymous with fiction, is, in fact, the first and most essential step in creating art. There’s as much fiction in Hoop Dreams as there is in Forrest Gump, in Kino-Eye> as there is in Battleship Potemkin. That said, my favorite film that’s usually found in the documentary section of filmographies is The Eleventh Year.

CINEBEATS: American Movie is pretty special and since this is a movie quiz I had to mention it, but The Fog of War is probably the best documentary I've seen and the most disturbing. Especially when you see the entire thing on DVD with the extra cut footage.

JEREMY RICHEY: Hard one...but Mark Kermode's documentary on Ken Russell's The Devils (Hell On Earth) was a mind-blowingly important piece of work.

ROBERT FIORE: If it counts as a film, Ken Burns' The Civil War. Television really does this better; others that come to mind are The World at War and Brownlouw's Hollywood. Wasn't The Sorrow and The Pity made for television originally?

STEVE: Watch me go for the Pretentious Film-School-Asshole answer: Stan Brakhage's Window Water Baby Moving. (Seriously, though, it's an AMAZING film.)

BRIAN: Today I'm thinking Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad.

THOM McGREGOR: The Last Waltz and Stop Making Sense.

PEET: Traveling Birds, or anything with David Attenborough going: “This animal faces an ultimate dillema...”

26) According to Orson Welles, the director’s job is to “preside over accidents.” Name a favorite moment from a movie that seems like an accident, or a unintended, privileged moment. How did it enhance or distract from the total experience of the movie?

FLICKHEAD: David Duchovny bravely fending off Henry Jaglom’s personal assault in New Year’s Day (1989).

BILL: Well, there’s George C. Scott’s famous trip in Dr. Strangelove. It enhanced the experience of the movie because it was damn funny. Also, there’s a moment in The Ballad of Jack and Rose that I really like. A very uncomfortable moment has just occurred, fairly
out-of-the-blue, and a character has stormed off. Daniel Day-Lewis then gives one of those sort of quick, disbelieving snorting laughs, like, “What the hell just happened?” It was probably planned, I don’t know, but it seemed so spontaneous and real, and it’s why I love Daniel Day-Lewis.

SEAN: Jimmy Stewart's hiccup in The Philadelphia Story and Cary Grant's reaction to it. Robert Ridgely laughing hysterically in the background during Philip Baker Hall's "butter in my ass and lollipops in my mouth" speech in Boogie Nights.

The joy of making cinema.

FILMBRAIN: The King and the fool sitting in a field during a windstorm in Ran. Completely unintended. The wind suddenly picked up and Kurosawa took advantage of it.
JIM EMERSON: The ending of Barton Fink. The Coens (who say they have "good luck with birds" -- see Blood Simple) claim that pelican just plopped into the shot and -- boom! -- they knew that had to be where the movie ended. Barton has come all the way to the coast, he can't go any further (see The 400 Blows), he's not going to open the box, so... the pelican provides the perfect punctuation: a period.

TLRHB: Pretty much any moment involving Margaret Dumont and Groucho Marx.

STENNIE: This has been the hardest question to answer. I think it's because I don't agree with Welles. In a perfect world, the director's job should be to make sure that everything on the screen should be his (or her!) intent. Sure, you luck into happy accidents, like the sunlight streaming into the window just right, or an actor ad-libbing a line that adds something to his character, but "presiding over accidents" makes it sound like that's all movies are -- a series of accidents strung together by one person at the helm. Poppycock.

PACHECO: In A Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley is lecturing Stella near the beginning of the film. There's a moment when, as he demeans her, he picks off a piece of lint from her shirt. I don't know if Brando did it without realizing it, but it sure felt like it, and it is such a stunning moment to see the contrast of his speech with his almost involuntary action.

SHEILA: The first thing that comes to mind is the moment when the guy at the table in Woman Under the Influence spills his entire plate of spaghetti into his lap. It looks like it HAD to have been an accident - His embarrassment is so silent and yet so palpable. Horrible wonderful scene. And if it was planned? Then it's even more of a genius moment.


MICHAEL: The blatantly missed punch in The Godfather when Sonny is beating up Carlo. It's a flub, but it reminds me of real fights I've seen where the aggressor is just blindly throwing punches and the one getting beat up is just so defeated that even the missed punches cause him to flinch or flail.

CHRIS (2): Manny Farber so totally owns this question, I feel like I’m not even worthy enough to respond.

But I’ll answer anyway. And I will admit beforehand that I didn’t notice this while watching the movie but read about it beforehand. In Howard Hawks’ El Dorado. Robert Mitchum’s character injures his leg and has to use a cane. But Mitchum forgot which leg to favor and switched up between scenes. A prickly Duke noticed and ad-libbed a line which Hawks kept in the film, something like “Would you make up your mind which leg you hurt?” Now that’s acting.

ANAD: In The Godfather, when Michael wheels Don Corleone's hospital bed into another room to save him from assassination, Marlon Brando's hand gets snicked in between the bed and the doorway, and he flinched. It reassured me that Brando wasn't God.

ADAM ROSS: In the VHS version of Pee Wee's Big Adventure there is a strange gaffe that we see as the result of it being filmed in open matte. During PeeWee's drive down the careening road, we see crazy signs whizzing past him on the dark road and in the matted widescreen version that was seen in theaters this was all fine and dandy. But for VHS, it was open matte so we see that the signs are actually on rails being pushed past the camera. This was unintended, but on some level it actually works with the camp level in the film and the celebration of Hollywood cliches at the climax.

CINEBEATS: Well, I love watching Brando and I think some of his best performances were improvised accidents like in Last Tango in Paris or Missouri Breaks. It's just mesmerizing watching him come up with dialogue and character background on the spot while the cameras roll, which I think always adds depth to his performance. It can be a distraction, but it’s a welcome distraction.

DAVE (2): "You never take an early lunch?" Peter Falk's line in The In-Laws. He's so funny he almost cracks up the uncrackable Alan Arkin but Arkin makes it a turning point for his character instead. Awesome stuff.

GARETH: There's a flashback moment in Oliver Hirschbiegel's Das Experiment where there's an expression on one of the actor's faces that captures, better than entire movies and novels, the perfection of the exact split-second of falling in love, and which blows me away. It adds a profound layer to a movie that could easily be dismissed as a genre effort, albeit one with some intelligence.


MARTY McKEE: In Gone in 60 Seconds, during the incredible 40-minute car chase that closes the movie, there’s a stunt-gone-wrong where the Mustang driven by star/stuntman/writer/director H.B. Halicki actually spins out of control and smacks into a telephone pole. It actually enhances the film, considering that the entire exercise exists only so Halicki can play make-believe and crash some cars. It was clearly a dangerous production with the likelihood that not a lot of care went into making sure the stuntmen didn’t get hurt, and the botched stunt is a painful reminder of Gone in 60 Seconds’ maverick production. Adding to the moment is the knowledge that Halicki would die a few years later during an awry car stunt while making Gone in 60 Seconds 2.

JEFF McM: The first one that comes to mind is the moment in The Dreamers when Eva Green's hair catches on fire, luckily thematically relevant. Accidents, being real and honest, can only enhance a movie.

JEREMY RICHEY: Hardest one on here but I would have to say Jean-Luc Godard's casting of Brigitte Bardot in Contempt. He originally did it because the studio wanted a major star and then after he cast her he attempted to make it seem ironic. No one would have guessed that she would come on and give such a wonderfully layered and complex performance. It is one of the great performances in any Godard film, and the self proclaimed 'businessman from Switzerland' ended up admiring her so much that he gave her a cameo in Masculin Feminin.

SFMIKE: Half of the great moments in Altman's movies feel like accidents. Sterling Hayden playing a Hemingwayesque old drunk in The Long Goodbye was a good example.

LARRY GROSS: Jean Pierre Leaud's smiles of mischief answering adult questions in The 400 Blows, clearly just happened. The tone of lust in Bibi Andersson's erotic monologue in Persona apparently caught Bergman completely by surprise. Samuel Fuller's improvised reply to the question 'What is Cinema?' in Pierrot Le Fou. That apparently induced tears of gratitude, rightly so, from director Jean Luc Godard. David Carradine in Cole Younger in The Long Riders saying "You gotta pay Frank, you gotta pay, " to Stacey Keach as Frank James.

ROBERT FIORE: One that feels like it but obviously isn't: The last shot of Vertigo. One that is: Bob Balaban getting slapped upside the head in A Mighty Wind. It's something you want to see all through the movie as he fusses about everything, and then suddenly it happens!

PAUL C: One of the legendary cinematic "accidents" would have to be the cloud that passes in front of the sun during the scene in which Bonnie says goodbye to her parents in Bonnie and Clyde. It's one of those touches you can't plan outside of The Truman Show, but needless to say the scene wouldn't have worked nearly as well had this not happened.

Come to think of it, I think Welles' statement might be a bit off the mark. Whereas he maintained that a director should "preside over accidents," I would say that the job is more like judging through the accidents as they come and using the good ones to your advantage.

STEVE: The most amazing accident I can think of is the flare of overprocessing at the end of The Last Temptation of Christ. It's so beautifully timed, so perfectly attuned to the moment of Christ's ascension, that to learn that it was a lab mistake boggles the mind.


LANCE TOOKS: Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s supposed lack of a budget for horses led to the absurd solution of skipping along while tapping on cocoanuts. Surreal & funny.

BRIAN: This is another question so large that a complete answer would deserve its own blog post, if not its own book. I've worked on this quiz long enough by now that I'm not going to get tricked into writing an essay or something even longer. I'll just say that I enjoy films like Shadows and The Cool World in which most of the scenes have this kind of feel, even when things are actually being highly scripted or otherwise controlled.

THOM McGREGOR: Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker calling Princess Leia "Carrie!" near the end of Star Wars is pretty infamous. How did it distract? It didn't at all. But it kind of showed the lazy side of Lucas.

CAMPASPE: I am not sure Welles meant that we should be able to see what is intentional and what is an accident, just that a director should be ready to capture anything good that happens on a set. Generally I think the better a film is, the less we can tell whether a moment came about because somebody went up on their lines, or an animal walked into the shot, or because they did 82 takes. I do rather like the moment in Raiders of the Lost Ark where a snake falls on Karen Allen. Spielberg had dropped it on her from a platform to get a good scream out of her (she had been too terrified to do more than squeak). You can see her shoot a look of implacable hatred up at her unseen director. I imagine directors get that look a lot from leading ladies.

27) Favorite Wim Wenders Movie

FILMBRAIN: Kings of the Road

CHRIS: The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick. Just because.

SHEILA: Paris, Texas

MOVIEZZZ: WINGS OF DESIRE. One of the greatest films by any director.

CHRIS (2): Alice in the Cities. As much of a New German Cinema fanatic as I am, I don’t much care for Wenders’ American narrative films. Alice is probably his best road movie, but I should note that I have never seen Kings of the Road.

DANIEL L: Until the End of the World. I've never gotten anyone to agree with me on this one.

KEN LOWERY: I'll pay you money to keep Wim Wenders movies away from me. The first of his I ever saw was The End of Violence, and it forever ruined me. Daniel L, take heart: my mom LOVES Until the End of the World, and she's a sharp lady. She got me on John Sayles when I was 12.

JEREMY RICHEY: Paris, Texas, my favorite moment in any film is the three minute close up on Nastassja Kinski's face.

DAN ALOI: Until the End of the World ... the story structure, the concept and the non-stars in the international cast really impress me. A friend told me Wenders is a huge Kinks fan, and tries to work a Kinks song or reference into all his films. Elvis Costello singing "Days" in this movie is just dreamy.

THOM McGREGOR: Wings of Desire. Moving and beautiful. Also like the more disturbing The American Friend and The State of Things and Paris, Texas.

28) Elizabeth Pena or Penelope Cruz?


BILL: I’ve always had a thing for Elizabeth Pena…yes, indeed. She’s always struck me as very real and earthy in a really, really hot way. Also, she can probably act.

JIM EMERSON: Volver makes a huge difference, but I'm going to go with Pena if only because of Lone Star.

TLRHB: All in all, I'd rather have Salma Hayek.

MOVIESZZZ: Hmmm, the star of I Married Dora vs. the star of Woman On Top? No thanks.

BANDIT: Penelope, but ONLY because of the awesome power of Sahara.

JOSEPH B.: I'm in the minority here, but if you guys know Elizabeth Pena from Down and Out in Beverly Hills or Lone Star, the answer is clear!

BOB TURNBULL: I always thought Elizabeth Pena was a fine actress and quite lovely. Penelope scares me sometimes.

DAN ALOI: This is SO not fair (see Monica/Maria conundrum above). But I ((corazon)) Elizabeth Pena, she's my favorite Latina onscreen by far. I've obsessed over her in Lone Star, The Waterdance, La Bamba, Jacob's Ladder, and Across the Moon, and in an NBC TV series with Jamey Sheridan ... I remember actors and network but not the name of the series!

GARETH: Elizabeth Peña, for lots of things, but I especially treasure her work in the short-lived 1990 show Shannon's Deal.

PEET: I fell in love with Elizabeth Pena as soon as I saw her in Jacob’s Ladder.

29) Your favorite movie tag line (Thanks, Jim!)


PETER NELLHAUS: “Rated X by an all white jury.”

DAVE: Jaws 2’s “Just when you though it was safe to go back in the water” is swell, but I’m going have to go with “Who will survive and what will be left of them?” from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It just sums up the dread created by watching that great flick.

BILL: It’s not a very original choice, but you can’t beat “When There’s No More Room in Hell, the Dead Will Walk the Earth”.

EDWARD COPELAND: A different set of jaws

FILMBRAIN: "Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven."

a. fan: “The Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies.” – Shakes the Clown

JIM EMERSON: For blunt lack of imagination, Citizen Kane: "It's Terrific!" For cleverness, Chicken Run: "Poultry in Motion."

TLRHB: "Movie-wise, there has never been anything like The Apartment - laugh-wise, love-wise, or otherwise-wise!" That tagline is better than the movie.

STENNIE: Monty Python and the Holy Grail: It makes Ben-Hur look like an epic."

SCHUYLER CHAPMAN: Genius. Poet. Twat. (24 Hour Party People)

MICHAEL: This time it's personal. -- Jaws: the Revenge

CINEBEATS: That's an impossible question to answer since they're are THOUSANDS of truly great ones, but I'll mention this favorite from She-Devils on Wheels (1968): "Riding their men as viciously as they ride their motorcycles!"

GARETH: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water - you can't get to it" - from Blood Beach

ROBERT FIORE: It wasn't for a movie but for Peter Lorre, in the trailer for one of Hitchcock's English movies: "The Grand High Minister of Everything Sinister!"

PAUL C: "If you're thinking... of seeing... this movie... alone................ DON'T." You never said it had to be a real movie.


STEVE: I like the one cited in Jim's poll, from the cheap '80s slasher The Prey: "It's not human, and it's got an axe!" So simple, yet so perfect.

LANCE TOOKS: “Meet COFFY… she’ll CREAM you!”

KEN LOWERY: "Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?" from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. At its most abstract level, answering that question is the reason anyone goes to a movie at all.

PEET: “Movie? What movie?” -- Top Secret!

30) As a reader, filmgoer, or film critic, what do you want from a film critic, or from film criticism? And where do you see film criticism in general headed?


FLICKHEAD: I’d like to see my film criticism headed for a paying gig.

BILL: I’ll be honest: I’m not really a big fan of “film criticism”. I like opinions, but any famous film critic you might name is probably going to be somebody I genuinely don’t care for, with the exception of Agee, and, maybe, of Ebert, whose writing I do enjoy, for the most part. What I like about this new “weblogging” thing we got going these days is the
interactive nature of it. I admit that I don’t spend a lot time interacting, but I like that it’s here as an option, and reading the comments on this and other blogs show me that at their best, blog reviews turn into conversations about movies. That’s what I like. Also, I like conversations about movies or filmmakers
I can see the good and the bad in, like Lynch or Cronenberg, probably because those conversations are least likely to piss me off.

EDWARD COPELAND: Consistency and courage. Someone who doesn't fall in line just because the consensus goes one way or another. Film criticism is exploding in quantity and diminishing in audience.

SEAN: I want an intelligent and well-reasoned point of view reflecting a knowledge of the cinema (past and present) and the non-cinema world. I want a sense of humor and humility in the face of the inadequacy of our subjective experiences of the world.

I see film criticism becoming more and more decentralized and personal, as each person has their own sources (blogs, or whatever) for criticism, as opposed to a community sharing the same half-dozen critics from the local papers.

FILMBRAIN>: To answer would require an additional blog post. Here's what I don't want: snark, contrarianism simply for the sake of being contrarian, proof of how witty/clever/intelligent you are.

JIM EMERSON: I want somebody to show me a way of looking at a film I hadn't seen previously -- or (almost as good) to expand upon and confirm what I did see!

SHARON: What I want is an evaluation what is on screen. What I don’t want are spoilers and ramblings on budgets and studio politics. Tell me about the what’s on screen – what works, what didn’t.

CERB CHAOS: I want someone who isn’t afraid to say what he likes and say it clearly, someone who will devote time and energy to maligned films he happens to like, or ripping into a beloved classic. All without attacking those who disagree with him/her. Film critisism is becoming more Democratic, and this causes all the joys and problems that Democracy does in the real world.


TLRHB: 1. Stylish writing. Entertain me. It's more important than your opinion, actually.
2. Subtext and focus. Enlighten me. Show me an angle I didn't consider.
3. Make me want to see the movie — or avoid it at all costs.
4. Make me want to read the review again — after I've seen the movie that I was going to avoid at all costs.
In general, film criticism will survive. But there hasn't been a critic that has really mattered since Pauline Kael because nobody has written as well as her (see Point No. 1 above.)

STENNIE: NO SPOILERS! I never read reviews before I've seen a movie. I try to avoid books of film criticism, like surveys of a specific director's work, for example, until I'm already pretty familiar with the movies. I hate knowing too much going into a movie; it takes me out of it. On the other hand, with some movies, it's tough to write about them at all without discussing the ending or major plot points -- so I understand why people do it; it's on me to avoid it. As far as the future of film criticism, blogging is obviously taking all media down a different road, which can be good and bad. I see it as mostly good. I'd rather read what my fellow bloggers think about a movie than most of the established critics out there.

DAMIAN: In our intensely relativistic age, I understand that a lot of film criticism essentially boils down to personal opinion (as, one could argue, does art analysis in general), but I wish there was more of a concerted effort in the criticism "community" for some degree of objectivity. Even if it proves to be something that is not actually attainable, I think it should be some type of "goal" or "end" to which all aesthetes strive. As it is, critics nowadays not only proclaim their subjectivity, they seem to actually celebrate it, thus leaving very little room for any kind of change, progression or personal growth. It's a very safe place to be, something they can almost "hide behind." After all, one can never be "wrong" when there is no such thing as "wrong" in the first place. That's why I admire critics who seem to have at least some sense of consistent criteria which they bring with them to their evaluations rather than merely being caught up in their own wittiness (such as using hyperbole and making clever puns out of the title of a movie they didn't like rather than trying to specify what was poorly done about the film).

Basically, I hope that the film critics of the future are more like Roger Ebert than Richard Roeper.

SHEILA: 1. Know your field, please. If I sense a critic doesn't have context, then it's very hard to take him/her seriously. Their knowledge is shallow, they are dilettantes rather than experts.

2. The critics who know how to talk about acting - and what specifically an actor does that makes something good or not - are like GOLD to me. They're rare, and I cherish those critics.

CHRIS (2): I want him or her to be a good writer, first and foremost. I want him or her to have a clear and obvious knowledge of film history as well as an understanding that film is an audiovisual medium and not just a “book with moving pictures attached.” Not many critics pass the last test.

I see film criticism heading even more to the margins, and I expect the ability to get paid actually M O N E Y to be a film critic will become increasingly rare. Perhaps this matters more to me as a working film critic who has no trouble finding work, lots of trouble finding money.

CINEBEATS: As a reader, I want film critics to be educated and know what they're talking about. I find it really annoying when I know more about a topic then a critic who's chosen to write about it in a popular publication and is getting praise & dollars for it. Too many critics these days don’t seem to know enough about the topics they write about.

As for where film criticism is headed, well there's always been publications or sources where narrow genres and areas of filmmaking are discussed, but I think in the future there will be more people writing about particular genres or specific areas of filmmaking, etc. which will make it easy for readers to find information about topics that interest them. I think general movie sites and publications are slowly being edged out by "niche" sites and publications.

BEMIS: I value critics with a sharp eye, a lack of pretension and a genuine passion for the medium. I generally see the emergence of new outlets of film writing as a good thing - the internet gives a soapbox to some sloppy writers, but it can also serve as a venue for outstanding writers who don't conform to mass-market standards of accessibility.

SETH: What I demand from art, all art, is the capacity to surprise me. The greatest works of art are, somehow, able to surprise me every time I return to them, no matter how many times I’ve been surprised by them before. What I demand from criticism, all criticism, is that it find a way to make the previously unsurprising into something new for me. I want film criticism that shows me the amazing in the movies I had thought banal, the shocking in what I found predictable, and the crazy in what I thought sane. Every single work in the history of art needs people to appreciate it and teach others to do the same. I’ve been wrong, really, really wrong, about my estimation of particular films in the past, and I’ll do it again, too, I’m sure. I need criticism that shows me I’ve been wrong.

KEN LOWERY: Right now, the "casual expert" is rising to prominence, and that's a damn shame. I define the casual expert as someone who knows a little bit about a lot of things, and uses that basis to make grand, sweeping statements and cannot be bothered to ever step down from his or her more outlandish opinions, no matter how blatantly stupid or illogical they are.

Joining the casual expert is the fanboy critic, who thinks stealing script pages and getting reports from costume designers on the set is actually some kind of film journalism and not just a really elaborate version of E!. (Which is to say, another branch of marketing.) Ain't It Cool News is probably the most well-recognized bastion of the fanboy critic, and I know many people in their mid-20's who actually aspire to be the next Harry Knowles. Talk about aiming low.

That being said, my ideal critic would be somewhere between Manohla Dargis (whose name I cannot spell right to save my life), Ebert, Jim Emerson, and (believe it or not) Lisa Schwarzbaum. Each is intelligent without being stuffy, and each manages to convey actual passion and joy for the artform while remaining grounded. They exemplify moviegoing as participating in a LIVING artform, as opposed to dissecting of dead, lifeless "art" like some kind of forensic pathologist.

JOSEPH B.: I think we're already there. Blogs and the internet have knocked film criticism wide open, and I'm ecstatic to be throwing myself into the mix.

JEFF McM: I want dialogue, not didacticism or pedantry, plus concision, erudition, and humor. I see film criticism slipping down a drain slowly along with the rest of the American educational system.

ROB: All I want from a critic is someone who will give me their honest reaction to a movie, while being honest about their own biases. Also, it would help if a movie could be judged or compared with other films in its genre, instead of all genres. As the industry continues to skew more and more towards the teenage demographic, critics can take a larger role in championing films that might otherwise be ignored. The critics really helped movies like Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen, and The Illusionist find their audience.

LARRY GROSS: Film criticism in the print medium today is totally lacking perspective on film's past and future--you find it sporadically on the Web. This is of course as much the fault of editors and publishers as the individuals involved. But the ability to contextualize a new film being reviewed is part of what gave Agee's criticism and Sarris' at its best when he wrote for the Village Voice, so much force and significance (whether you agreed with their particular opinions on particular movies or not).A critic should also have a set of values and a conception of what cinema is and ought to be, that they can articulate--that's what people found so thrilling about Paulilne Kael, even when her opinions on particular films were nonsensical bullshit. You knew where she was coming from.
Of course in the absence of consistently good films to review, film criticism verges on being worthless which is the problem today's bunch faces. (I'm referring to the ones blessed or cursed to get paid to do it.)


PAUL C: Good criticism is about opening up a kind of dialogue with the reader/viewer, in which the critic’s close watching and perceptiveness will reveal previously unforeseen aspects or layers of a film, causing the reader/viewer to see the film in a new light. Because of this, I think the current direction toward Web- and blog-based criticism is a godsend, since this dialogue becomes much more explicit than ever before. Another welcome consequence of the turn towards Internet criticism is that nothing is beyond the scope of the critic- rather than worrying about new releases, the critic is freer to examine classics and curiosities, which as a result helps to broaden the readers’ scope as well. Some would point to the proliferation of Web criticism as being a bad thing, diluting the critical pool, but this is pure snobbery- we all watch movies, and we all have opinions about them, so if we can express those opinions articulately, then how are they any less valid than those of the guys who write for newspapers and magazines? Yes, there may never again be a critic who exerts as much influence on the national or local level as critics of yore, but when you consider the diversity of critical options that were previously unavailable, I’ll take that trade-off.

STEVE: Expertise, enthusiasm and a facility for words tempered with just the right amount of cynicism. When it comes to readable, trustable critics, these are a few of my favorite things!

As for where criticism is headed, the democratization of the 'Net has certainly changed the critical landscape. What does this mean for the future, though? Will we end up with an Andy Horbal afterworld, where both critics and aspirants strive to learn and improve ever more? Or will we just end up with a million iterations on Ain't it Cool fanboy splatterings, where everyone's opinion is equal no matter how asinine? I hope for the latter while expecting the former.

LANCE TOOKS: As a reader, I prefer long form critique, career overviews or genre examinations over capsule reviews. A writer who can share his enthusiasm for a filmmaker can sometimes change my mind.
This blog’s where film criticism’s headed… I have a deep respect for everyone’s POV regardless of whether it mirrors my own.

TMORGAN: As a working critic, I know that criticism is nothing more than opinion. It may be informed opinion, or it may be entertainingly conveyed, and these two qualities are what I look for. Although putdown artists can sometimes but amusing to read, I don't approve of them. Film criticism, as with most criticism, is headed toward further democratization via the Internet, which is mainly a good thing, though it does make it more difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

SETH GORDON: Still? Movies - hell, Art - doesn't matter. That's (part of) what makes it great.

DAN ALOI: Of the critics I read, Marshall Fine used to infuriate me by giving away crucial plot points as if he'd never heard the term 'spoiler.' He's toned that down now, along with his highbrow expectations of ALL films -- you can't hold Monkey Trouble to the same standard as, say, The Elephant Man. I think criticism has been watered-down to 99 and 44/100 percent blandness by having to cover event films, bad-from-the-outset recyclings and horror and love stories devoid of any originality; an awards-obsessed industry in general, and mass entertainment culture where star hookups overshadow the actual work. The people long considered 'critics' in the top echelon of this mass culture often sicken me. I'm thinking Michael Medved and his conservative moralist agenda, Rex Reed, the snarky proto-Simon Cowell; Joel Siegel, the look-alike muppet without credential (another strange TV trend -- "hey, we need a bald black weatherman, stat"!) and of course his maxi-me, Gene Shalit, who occasionally slings a worthwhile thought from the confines of TV's narrow little box. Ebert may be the last celebrity critic to actually carry some critical weight in his writing, no pun intended. There's very little palatable middle ground in criticism, it's either really bad or too academic. That said, the New York Times critics are solid; and the blogosphere -- where the collective insight of many passionate, intelligent individuals has free reign -- is a hopeful sign.

BRIAN: Another two-parter, eh? Well, my answers will be brief anyway. A) Saying something new is ten times better than saying it cleverly. B) The internet, obviously.

PEET: I want a critic to sharpen my mind. Film criticism will be headed wherever the medium is, which probably means it has to become more flexible... Nevermind. I’d like film criticism to become a little more visual.

CAMPASPE: I want a critic who writes with passion and originality about what s/he likes. I want one who doesn't see every movie as an opportunity to polish a stand-up act. There was only one Dorothy Parker, and she wrote rave reviews as well as dismissals.

THOMAS MOHR: I simply want to know if a film’s worth checking out or not and for what reasons, in clear, correct and simple language. I don’t want to know if a critic has read the latest Don DeLillo novel or what he or she has had for breakfast, and I certainly don’t want to read the name Foucault.

EXTRA CREDIT: Do movies still matter?

THOMAS MOHR: Does a bear shit in the woods?

FILMBRAIN: Movies still matter, yes. However, many of the people making them today do not.

JIM EMERSON: To whom? Movies matter somewhat to almost everyone, but not a lot. For those of us who are passionate about the art form, they matter a lot. They're as essential to our concepts of life as music or food or language. Sure, every once in a while I find myself losing my religion, but that's when I think there's not so much to look forward to. Then I just think: Who needs to look forward? There are more than enough great movies already made to keep me going (and discovering and re-discovering) for a lifetime. That helps put things in perspective. Of course great new films will come along; one just has to be patient. With so many masterpieces (and terrific movies) already available on DVD -- and so many acknowledged and unknown greats that haven't made it to the format yet -- the opportunities for seeing a life-changing movie are so much greater at the DVD store (or Netflix) than they are at the multiplex. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to seek them out -- at film festivals, art houses, revival series, and through word-of-mouth from our fellow critics and bloggers.

SHARON: Good question. For me, the answer is a qualified yes. I still want to enjoy going to the movies, but too often these days am disappointed when I do. For as long as I can remember, most of the time when I went to see a movie it was a wonderful experience. In the days before the prevalence of VCRs and DVDs I loved watching old movies on television. These days I probably go and see half as many movies in the theater as I did say five years ago.

I’m one of the ever-decreasing part of the public that prefers going to the theater. But the increasingly rude audience members, the sky-high ticket prices and the mediocre moves are discouraging me from putting down the TiVo remote and taking myself off to the movies.

I want to like them, I really do. There’s nothing like the feeling of being transported to a world you’ve literally never seen before or one that you seen, but not in quite that way. It’s exhilarating and wondrous and illuminating and just plain fun. I always hope for that kind of experience when I go to the movies. Unfortunately, it rarely happens these days.

But hope springs eternal each time the lights go down and the first strains of the soundtrack begin. Will this be the one? Too often these days the answer is no.

LANCE TOOKS: To me they do, just not as much in a theater setting. As I’ve gotten older it’s become tougher to have the kind of one-on-one relationship with films that I used to enjoy in moviehouses. I’m a widescreen lover but I’ve learned to be patient with home viewing… someday I’ll be able to afford one of those monster flatscreen sets!

WEIGARD: But of course they do. Few seem as “special” as they used to, with so many being brought out so quickly, but I don’t seem to have trouble finding films that are meaningful to me.

CHRIS (2): Money talks. As long as movies make money, they will matter a lot. And if they stop making money, they will still matter to me.

CAMPASPE: Yes. And old movies matter even more than that. :)

KEN LOWERY: They're as ubiquitous as any art form on earth, but seem to impact people on a more and more superficial level, so I'd guess it's a wash. Then again, the dumb-ass middle-aged movie-goers of today (and there are a LOT of them) had to come from SOMEwhere, so maybe it's always been this way.

MATTHEW: On a personal level, they'll always matter, just like any art form. I think what the question imples is whether they matter on a collective level, whether they can still impact the culture in a concrete way. Probably not, but the vocabulary is so embedded in the way we look at the world now that the question might be moot.

PAUL C: The majority of moviegoers simply want to be entertained for a few hours. In the history of movies, this has been fairly consistent- even during the supposed heyday of art cinema, T & A was as much of a draw as the reviews or the idea of getting cultured. Most moviegoers don’t want to think too hard about movies, but there has always been a passionate minority who seek something more from their movies than two hours in which they can kill time. Our moviegoing tastes go beyond the latest Hollywood blockbusters, and discussing the films we love invigorates us almost as much as the films themselves. Among this minority, I’d say that movies matter more than ever, since with the passing of time the history of cinema becomes bigger and broader, and the resources with which we can both partake of and discuss that history become more diverse. Think of it this way- if the movies didn’t matter, do you think this survey would have gotten as many responses as it has?

LARRY GROSS: Do Movies Matter? Yes, but not always in good ways. Movies mattering today has unfortunately, partly to do with a pervasive economic conception of reality where what money-things-cost-make-or-lose, constitutes a chief concern, or definition of value, meaning, significance etc. Not a good thing. On the other hand movies remain the dominant art form of a period in history defined by rapid technological change. It's been that way for awhile and it appears that it will remain that way for the indefinitely foreseeable future. Movies response to this has often been divided, confused and uncertain--though a few geniuses, Griffith, Eisenstein, Welles, Godard, Kubrick, have pointed to the possibility of a better way. It's probable that if there ever is a better world wide human grasp of technology and its uses, movies will have significant role in either recording it, prophesying it, or whatever. On this account movies indisputably matter. Finally as one of your commentators has said, there are great movies still occasionally being made, and more than enough made in the past to catch up with or to know better. For that reason alone. movies matter.

SHEILA: Nothing like a good movie. Be it Persona or Bring It On. If it's good, it's good. And that matters. To me, anyway.

CHRIS: No. That's what makes them so interesting.

TLRHB: If they don't, I sure wasted a long Friday night on this quiz.

A CENTURY FOR STANWYCK

Monday, July 16, 2007, would have been Barbara Stanwyck's 100th birthday, and there probably is no better way to celebrate that milestone than by staying home from work and watching (or at least TiVo-ing while you work) the day-long line-up of Stanwyck delights that Turner Classic Movies has programmed in tribute to the great star. Here's what TCM has planned for this centennial party (all times PST; all descriptions courtesy of TCM):

3:00 AM Night Nurse (1931)
A nurse discovers that the children she's caring for are murder targets. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Clark Gable. Dir: William A. Wellman.

4:15 AM A Lost Lady (1934)
A bitter woman who thinks she'll never love again marries, only to fall for a brash young man. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Frank Morgan, Ricardo Cortez. Dir: Alfred E. Green, Phil Rosen.

5:30 AM Ladies They Talk About (1933)
A lady bank robber becomes the cell block boss after she's sent to prison. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Lyle Talbot, Preston Foster. Dir: Howard Bretherton, William Keighley.

6:45 AM Breakfast For Two (1937)
A Texas heiress competes with a gold digger for the love of a playboy. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Herbert Marshall, Glenda Farrell. Dir: Alfred Santell.

8:00 AM Meet John Doe (1941)
A reporter's fraudulent story turns a tramp into a national hero and makes him a pawn of big business. Cast: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold. Dir: Frank Capra.

10:15 AM Christmas In Connecticut (1945)
A homemaking specialist who can't boil water is forced to provide a family holiday for a war hero. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet. Dir: Peter Godfrey.

12:15 PM The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
A woman slowly discovers that her artist husband is a deranged killer. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Alexis Smith. Dir: Peter Godfrey.

2:00 PM Jeopardy (1953)
A woman desperately seeks help to prevent her trapped husband from drowning. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Ralph Meeker. Dir: John Sturges.

3:15 PM These Wilder Years (1956)
A wealthy businessman sets out to find his long-lost illegitimate son. Cast: James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Pidgeon. Dir: Roy Rowland.

5:00 PM Baby Face (1933)
A beautiful schemer sleeps her way to the top of a banking empire. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, John Wayne. Dir: Alfred E. Green.

6:30 PM Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire (1991)
Barbara Stanwyck's multi-faceted career reveals uncanny reflections of her off-screen life. Cast: Sally Field, Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper. Dir: Richard Schickel.

7:30 PM Annie Oakley (1935)
The famed female sharpshooter learns that you can't get a man with a gun when she falls for a rival marksman. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Melvyn Douglas. Dir: George Stevens.

9:15 AM Clash By Night (1952)
An embittered woman seeks escape in marriage, only to fall for her husband's best friend. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe. Dir: Fritz Lang.

11:15 PM Executive Suite (1954)
When a business magnate dies, his board of directors fights over who should run the company. Cast: William Holden, June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck. Dir: Robert Wise.

1:15 AM Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
A neurotic invalid accidentally overhears a phone conversation plotting her own murder. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Wendell Corey. Dir: Anatole Litvak.

I'll be updating this post over the next couple of days and into Monday as the Stanwyck tributes and articles start coming in, so keep your eyes peeled, and have a wonderful weekend.

UPDATE July 16, 9:33 a.m.: Time is tight. I'm working at home so I can change out the DVD recorder every 90 minutes or so on TCM's Salute to Barbara's 100th birthday. (I haven't got a DVR.) So I'm going to link you to the mighty David Hudson and Green Cine Daily, where you'll find many excellent Stanwyck tributes from the likes of Anne Thompson, Edward Copeland, Peter Nellhaus, Odienator and a host of others. More coming, I'm sure!

UPDATE July 16 5:22 p.m.: Told ya! Here's the incomparable Campaspe on what Miss Stanwyck's peers had to say about her. (The article is cross-referenced at NewCritics.com.)

PROFESSOR COREY'S HONOR SOCIETY (Part 2)

Part 2 of Professor's Irwin Corey's Honor Society: BELLUCCI/CUCINOTTA, HAPPY PILL/SAD PILL, BOORMAN, OATES/DERN, ASPECT RATIOS, TRUFFAUT’S CRYSTAL BALL, HERZOG, RAMPAGING BEASTS, BERNHARD/SILVERMAN, CLICHES and THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. The following are the professor's favorite answers to his Spring Break Quiz. You can access Part 1 of the Honor Society roundup right here.



9) Monica Bellucci or Maria Grazia Cucinotta?

BILL: Bellucci. She’s almost inhumanly beautiful, and even
though I didn’t like the film, she was awfully good in Irreversible.

JIM EMERSON: Maria Bello Alla Carbonara.

TLRHB: All in all, I'd rather have Laura Antonelli.

RYLAND WALKER KNIGHT: How can you choose? I'll say Cucinotta cuz of her neck.

KEN LOWERY: Bellucci. While both are beautiful, she may actually be a construct sent from the future to destroy us all, she's so perfect. Also, a talented actress.

WEIGARD: Alida Valli! Oh, OK, Monica Bellucci then, for Malena.

JEREMY RICHEY: Is this a real question? Bellucci is one of the most beautiful women on the planet and one of the best actors. She is the new Sophia Loren.

PAUL C: Bellucci, definitely. Cucinotta is hot, but could she have pulled off that great moment in Brotherhood of the Wolf in which Bellucci’s body metamorphoses into a rolling landscape? I think not.

PEET: Monica Bellucci. Just the sound of her name makes me want to have sex.

CAMPASPE: I don't think I am qualified for this question, as a moviegoer or as a Virgin Mary-watcher.

10) What movie can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

BILL: Glengarry Glen Ross, but that’s probably just me.

JIM EMERSON: Ordinary People? (Just kidding -- MTM joke!) Anything by Preston Sturges, especially if it has Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Betty Hutton or Eddie Bracken. Or Edward Arnold or William Demerest. Does that just about cover it?

PETER NELLHAUS: Animal House

STENNIE: Galaxy Quest -- the antidote to a crappy day.

DAMIAN: It is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for me to watch Young Frankenstein without feeling good.

PACHECO: Versus, Surf Ninjas, or Pump Up the Volume. Films that bad always make me feel better about myself.

MOVIESZZZ: Grease 2

ADAM ROSS: Thankfully this is a long list for me, and it includes: The Royal Tenenbaums, The 'burbs, Ride the High Country, Ghostbusters and This is Spinal Tap.

CINEBEATS: Viva Las Vegas. I can get naturally high from watching Ann-Margret & Elvis together.

SETH: Big Trouble in Little China. Pure delight from its opening frame to the final chord of Carpenter’s crazy end-credits song.

KEN LOWERY: Bull Durham. It never, ever fails to make me laugh. Not ever.

MARTY McKEE: Either Ordinary people or Change of Habit.

SFMIKE: The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao.

LANCE TOOKS: Master Killer (AKA The 36th Chamber of Shaolin) features Gordon Liu in the most good-natured martial arts film ever made. I videotaped it 25 (!) years ago off WHT, an early variant of cable. I had to use an external mike to do so, so my weathered copy has a built in laugh track featuring my family & friends who were in the room at the time. But the film’s just as much fun without it.

JOHN SHIPLEY: Suspiria. It blows out the tubes, as Jerry Garcia used to say.

THOM McGREGOR: Moulin Rouge and Singin’ in the Rain. Music lifts my spirits as nothing else can. And yes, I'm getting more sentimental the older I get.

PEET: Watching any Road Runner cartoon together with my boys fills my heart with joy.

11) Conversely, what movie can destroy a day’s worth of good humor just by catching a glimpse of it while channel surfing?

FLICKHEAD: Live and Let Die, a depressing reminder that my childhood was gone for good.

BILL: I saw Mannequin once.

FILMBRAIN: Any post 1990 romantic comedy. Doubly destructive if it contains a Motown song on the soundtrack.

PETER NELLHAUS: I'm stronger than any lousy movie.

FLOWER: Geez, I don't think there's any movie I hate that much (thank God).

STENNIE: I can't really think of a movie that pissed me off more than Orson Welles's The Trial.

DAMIAN: I haven't seen Armageddon since I first subjected myself to it in the theatre, but did manage to catch a few seconds of it on TV not too long ago. My entire day was ruined.

SHEILA: Forrest Gump. Sorry, I'll stop bitching about my hatred for this movie someday.

MOVIESZZZ: Anything by Gregg Araki, or Eric Schaeffer

CHRIS (2): Just seeing trailer for 300 nowadays makes me want to cry both because of the number of people who have told me “It’s the greatest movie I’ve ever seen” and because I can’t disagree with Time’s assessment that it is the “future of cinema.” Or at least the future of some cinema. Some, as in “way too much.”

ADAM ROSS: Any movie completely lacking in joy or creativity, this list is always headed by Last House on the Left, though thankfully I've never seen it on TV.

DR. CRIDDLE: Any number of my favorites edited for TV: Pulp Fiction, The Fly ('86), Scarface. But to answer the question properly, I'm going to have to say White Chicks.

GARETH: Nuns on the Run just makes me angry, it's so bad.

JOSEPH B.: Anytime I come across one of the Eddie Murphy movies where he dresses up as 8 characters or has to watch lots of children. I had the flu back in early February and had to sit in a doctor's office waiting for 3 hours while Daddy Day Care was on. Truly horrid.

ROBERT FIORE: Actually, it's so much fun to express your disdain for a movie by making a disgusted noise and flipping past that it's more of an up than a down. The remote is technology's greatest contribution to film criticism.

STEVE: My Big Fat Greek Wedding has been known to induce a psychotic episode or two in me. And the artistic failure of Jan Svankmajer's Lunacy left me in a state of depression for several hours afterward.

DAN ALOI: You Light Up My Life. Kinda ironic, huh?

THOM McGREGOR: Anything from Henry Jaglom. Or an anonymous, grainy-looking Western on a hot Sunday afternoon.

PEET: Irreversible, for sure. (The only Monica Bellucci film that doesn’t turn me on.) I also truly despise Louis de Funès.

CAMPASPE: I don't even have to glimpse it. Just knowing that there are copies of Jackass out there circulating in the world is enough to make me retire to a quiet room, draw the shades and lie down with a cold cloth on my forehead.

12) Favorite John Boorman movie


SEAN: Hell In The Pacific.

FILMBRAIN: Point Blank

SHARON: The only one I’ve seen is Deliverance and I don’t think I’d count that as a ‘favorite.’

CERB CHAOS: Although Deliverance is my favorite, I have to give a shout-out to the massively underrated Hell in the Pacific.

FLOWER: I really want to say Zardoz. Alas, I haven't seen it, but come on... Zardoz! The answer, for now, is Point Blank.

STENNIE: I am totally Hope & Glory’s bitch. It even makes up for Zardoz.

CHRIS: Zardoz, duh. Charlotte Rampling, people. It doesn't matter what's going on around her, it's Charlotte Rampling.

MORE-ONIONS: Deliverance, though I'd vote Tailor of Panama as most underrated.

SCHUYLER CHAPMAN: Zardoz. Really. I'm serious. Followed closely by Point Blank, though, so I can keep my credibility.

SETH: Point Blank. Nothing quite like falling fist-first on to a hitman’s crotch, all in silhouette.

BANDIT: Exorcist !!!!! SERIOUSLY! That Ennio Morricone slide-flute riff is like the greatest thing ever, and the psycho electric guitar rendition heard over the end credits of the shorter cut (and over the trailer on the DVD) is the greatest piece of music EVER. This movie is INSANE. Burton in his safari outfit muttering incoherently. James Earl Jones SPITTING A GIANT BALL while wearing a BEE COSTUME then lecturing about "The Good Locust." The hypnotic drone of Louise Fletcher's contraption. All AWESOME.

JEFF MCM: Point Blank, the perfect melding of modernist cool and existentialism.

ROB: Deliverance. I still have strange dreams from the POV of Jon Voight climbing that cliff to kill that hillbilly.

JEREMY RICHEY: Point Blank, but Beyond Rangoon is one of the 90's most underrated films in my estimation.

ROBERT FIORE: Point Blank, but here's a heresy for you: I just saw it again and I actually think I like Payback more.

THOM McGREGOR: I like both Deliverance and Hope and Glory, but can hardly believe they were directed by the same man. Were they?

13) Warren Oates or Bruce Dern?

DAVE: Warren Oates, ‘cause of Race With the Devil.

FILMBRAIN: Aww...this is like Sophie's Choice! Have to go with Oates only for his "Are you trying to blow my mind?" line from Two Lane Blacktop.

a. fan: Another tough one, but I’ll pick Bruce Dern for demonstrating so aptly how closely madness lurks beneath the surface for us all.

MEAGAN: Bruce Dern, for being in The ‘burbs.

JIM EMERSON: Oh, not fair! But Warren Oates: Ride the High Country, Wild Bunch, The Shooting, Two-Lane Blacktop, Badlands, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, China 9/Liberty 37, The White Dawn...

SHARON: They both bring their own kind of weirdness to their roles, but I’ll go with Warren simply because my dad once said that he liked him.

TLRHB: Bruce Dern would start up one of his bug-eyed crazy routines and Warren Oates would slap the shit out of him. And then stuff his head in a bag and throw it in the front seat of the car and go look for some ice.


FLOWER: If Bruce Dern had made Cockfighter and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (in one year!) he would be the easy winner. But, you know, he didn't, so he's not.

MORE-ONIONS: Bruce Dern, for Black Sunday.

CHRIS (2): There are only a dozen or so actors who do not lose in a “Warren Oates or X” competition, and the redoubtable Bruce Dern is not one of them.

CINEBEATS: That’s a really tough question! I want to say tie, but if I’ve got to pick one Bruce Dern would get my vote due to the fact that he’s been in so many great movies that I like. I think Oates was often better than the movies he was in.

PATRICK: Warren Oates, for the line "Lighten up, Francis."

BEMIS: Both are great, and Dern's performance in Silent Running is brilliant. But I'll have go go with Oates, mostly for his understated performance as Sissy Spacek's father in Badlands.

MARTY McKEE: Toughest call I’ll make all year, you bastards, but…I’ll say…Dern, who starred in Drive, He Said and The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant in the same year.

MATTHEW: Warren Oates, if only for Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Bruce Dern might have won, but he shot The Duke.

LARRY GROSS: Warren Oates. Dern is a fine, fine actor, but Oates is one of the gods.

STEVE: Dern's cool, but Warren Oates is a walking trump card. Nothing beats him -- you can end entire arguments just by saying, "Warren Oates!" even if the argument isn't film-related.

AARON: You’re killing me here, but to use John Huston’s quote about Stacy Keach, Oates isn’t a star, but a constellation. Those early, supporting roles specializing in rough-edged, grinning rogues in Ride the High Country (as one of those licentious Hammond brothers) and his first of two episodes of The Fugitive (whose title sums up his 60s roles quite succinctly – “Rat in a Corner”), unexpectedly, but not surprisingly, gave heft to the world-weariness and lives full of regret on display in The Hired Hand, Cockfighter, Alfredo Garcia, and especially, China 9, Liberty 37. He could do so much with so few gestures, and nearly all of it could be conveyed through those dark, despairing eyes. The mere fact that I haven’t brought up The Wild Bunch, Two-Lane Blacktop, Dillinger, Badlands, or The White Dawn should be reason enough why I choose him over Dern, an actor I’m otherwise always fond of.

SETH GORDON: Let's see... on one side, you've got The Wild Bunch, In The Heat Of The Night, Badlands, Cockfighter, Two-Lane Blacktop, Alfredo Garcia, and, what the hell, Stripes. On the other side you've got Coming Home and... um... Tattoo? As if there's a choice. Seriously lopsided question there, man.

THOM McGREGOR: What a grizzled question. I find both a bit harsh, but I guess that's the point. Warren Oates makes me laugh sometimes, but Bruce Dern is too creepy.

14) Your favorite aspect ratio

BILL: Whichever one Kubrick preferred.

FILMBRAIN: TohoScope!


JIM EMERSON: 1.33:1[silent] or 1.37:1 [sound] -- the "Academy ratio" in which most of the greatest movies have been made in. But I love black-and-white anamorphic (2.35:1).

FLOWER: The ol' 2.35:1. It's the most majestic of the aspect ratios (can't believe I just typed that, but it's true) and also the most challenging. If that ultra wide frame is well used, it's bliss, man.

SHEILA: I have never thought of this before, not really - but I suppose I need to go with the 4x3 Academy Standard one - and that's only because most of my favorite movies (and, in my opinion, the best movies ever made) came from before 1950.

RAMI: 2.20:1 The most cinematic of aspect ratios.

PAUL C: I suppose this answer would be kinda cheating, but since it’s partly about aspect ratio I’ll go ahead and include it. I’ve always been fascinated with films that are in black-and-white ‘Scope, from that relatively short window between the time ‘Scope films became more widespread and black and white began to tail off. There are very few things that will get me more pumped to watch an old movie- especially one from the early-to-mid sixties- than finding out it’s B/W Scope. The Hustler may be my favorite example of this near-dead art form, but there are many others to consider- The 400 Blows, The Apartment, Yojimbo, Advise and Consent, Last Year at Marienbad, Branded to Kill, and more recent examples like Manhattan and The Elephant Man.

CAMPASPE: 1:37:1

BRIAN: I keep hoping for the day when all my favorite films are available in Circle-Vision 360.

THOM McGREGOR: Oh, my God.

15) Before he died in 1984, Francois Truffaut once said: “The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it.” Is there any evidence that Truffaut was right? Is it Truffaut’s tomorrow yet?

FLICKHEAD: Whoa, dude, that’s like totally existential…

BILL: Until films are being made by giant space lizard-people with robot hands, and movies have jetpacks on them, then no. And if you think I’m being unfair to Truffaut, then consider that he shouldn’t have used the phrase “film of tomorrow”.

COPELAND: Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino

SEAN: Doesn't every film resemble the person that made it? Hasn't it always been that way?

a. fan: I have no idea what Truffaut meant by this

MEAGAN: Yes, Wes Anderson. Also the fact that people actually know directors, even shitty directors.

JIM EMERSON: Yes, and it has been for some time. I think you can always tell something about a director's personality (and often a lot) by their movies.

CERB CHAOS: No more then it was when he said it. The great filmmakers have always been able to put a stamp of themselves into the movie, while the mediocre ones will always have trouble.

PETER NELLHAUS: The film is Tarnation.

FLOWER: Two words: Mel Gibson.

STENNIE: I gotta be honest here, I have no idea what Truffaut means by that. The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made -- tomorrow? Or the person who made the film? I think the films of yesterday and today resemble the people who made them, to a degree. The films of Oliver Stone are bloated and self-important and paranoid, for example. Truffaut's films resemble him, I think. So I can't really answer the part of about the "film of tomorrow."

DAMIAN: I'd be interested to know precisely what Truffaut meant by "resemble." In what way exactly would a film "resemble" the person who made it... and why only one person? Is he predicting that films of tomorrow will cease to be collaborative efforts?

NATHAN M.: Truffaut was both right and wrong. It seems that the whole history of cinema hinges on this idea. If you take any era of movies, from any country, and you'll find that some movies bear the mark of their directors, some their writers, some thier studios. This has not really changed much over the years as far as I can tell. There may be times when his comment is more true than other times, but no more. The funny thing about him saying this is that his own films resembled the person who made them.

SHEILA: I think that to some degree what Truffaut says has always been true (if I'm understanding him correctly). Like - a good Howard Hawks movie has the stamp of Howard Hawks on it. You can TELL he directed it. The independent directors in the 1970s didn't invent personal directorial stamp (although some of them THOUGHT they did). And I guess I think that nowadays - it's NOT as true that movies resemble the maker. Not enough personal films being made - too diluted.

DANIEL L: Is this anything like how dog owners start to resemble their pooches? I don't see this being much more truthful than it would've been pre-1984, but I suppose it could apply a bit more to the 90s indie crowd, whose personalities are often reminiscent of their work. But wait, wasn't this true of most directors of any era? Auteur theory, anyone? Heh?

ADAM ROSS: I don't think that future is possible, nor has it ever been because films for a long time have been born from a wide variety of influences and rarely exhibit any more than a sliver of who is truly making them.

BEMIS: Just the fact that you can now make a film entirely by yourself and get it seen proves Truffaut right.

ROBBIE KENDALL: Makes no sense to me, maybe the meaning is clearer in the original French.

KEN LOWERY: Are you telling me you or anyone believes that wasn't always true? Because if so, I've got a bridge to sell you.

GARETH: I don't know what he means, but I'd love to meet his translator.

PAUL C: In many ways, I believe that Truffaut’s statement was as true when he made it as it is today. One needs look no further than the films of his ex-Cahiers du Cinema colleague Jean-Luc Godard to see it in practice. I’d say that just as true as Truffaut’s statement is the idea that any film can be interpreted as a portrait of its maker. For example, the Kill Bill movies, which many have criticized as empty fanboy homages. However, consider the character of Bill, who the film explains was the child of one mother and many surrogate fathers. Consider also that Quentin Tarantino was raised by a single mother as well, and that movies were a major part of his life even as a child. Finally, examine the films’ closing credits, which include a list of movie greats to whom he dedicates the films- Lo Lieh, Chang Cheh, Sergio Corbucci, and so on. Could these men be seen as surrogate fathers to Tarantino, not only in their influence on his work, but also for their presence as icons of his youth?

STEVE: I'll bet Caveh Zahedi would agree with that statement.

AARON: Like his famous essay “Certain Tendencies in the French Cinema”, I think Truffaut was trying for another galvanizing statement that’s part poetry and only meant to be taken slightly at face value. For me, and for seemingly much of Truffaut’s own criticism, it has always been true.

BRIAN: Two questions in one, huh? I think Truffaut was right, especially if I interpret "tomorrow" to mean, "the films remembered tomorrow". I'd argue that all films outlive their moment in time in proportion to the degree to which they resemble their makers. And in that sense, it's always tomorrow. Or it never is.

THOM McGREGOR: I think it was true if you take his "tomorrow" as meaning right after he died. There were a lot of movies with a very personal imprint on them in the mid-to-late '80s, though not popular films. Films seem more impersonal to me now, though Grindhouse (which I can't see due to my low tolerance for violence) certainly sounds like it resembles its creators. Did I even understand this question?

CAMPASPE: I admire Truffaut's movies a lot, but here I have no idea what in the blue blazes he was talking about. Don't all films resemble their creators? does he mean literally, the way old couples look like each other or people start to resemble their pets?

THOMAS MOHR: Did he really say that, or is it just a poor translation? After all, like every work of art, films have always “resembled” the people who made them and always will. So, ultimately, this strikes me as an utterly banal statement (from a director whose films haven’t stood the test of time that well, either).

16) Favorite Werner Herzog movie


FLICKHEAD: Kaspar Hauser…though Grizzly Man hit home — I once had a distant connection with the crazy guy in it.

FILMBRAIN: No One Will Play With Me - Incredible short about an ostracized child. Herzog's most touching film.

a. fan: All of them. However, in gun-to-my-head, forced-to-choose mode, I pick Fitzcarraldo, for giving a happy ending to a character who probably doesn’t deserve one.

DAMIAN: If we can count films he's acted in as well as directed... Incident at Loch Ness. I just love that movie.

RYLAND WALKER KNIGHT: I'm kind of in love with The White Diamond right now but Kaspar Hauser is also pretty unbelievable.

BEMIS: Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht

SETH: Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Possibly the greatest movie ever made.

KEN LOWERY: The remake of Nosferatu. I thought it would be TERRIBLE, because the original is practically sacred to me. I was unbelievably surprised.

WEIGARD: Fitzcarraldo! Excruciatingly slow and beautiful, and maybe the best film ever about opera. (Not that opera is excruciating.)

JOSEPH B.: I'm not a huge Herzog fan. I guess I'd toss out 2 short documentaries he did- La Soufriere about an evacuated town at the foot of a volcano and another (whose name escapes me) about a German ski jumper. Both films use image and music well.

DAN E.: The formalist in me says Aguirre. The hipster says Grizzly Man. But really, it's My Best Fiend for me. It's a document made about his life with his best friend, and it never backs away from the truth, even when it isn't flattering to anyone.

PAUL C: Other Herzog films may have been more ambitious or have more legendary backstories, but none is more fascinating than Stroszek. Transporting a band of oddballs- a dumpy hooker, a little old man, and real-life paranoid-schizophrenic Bruno S.- to Middle America makes for some positively riveting cinema. Just when you think it might become conventional (around the time Bruno and the old man hold up a bank), it shifts gears altogether, leading up to one of the greatest endings ever committed to film.

STEVE: Lessons of Darkness. Few films are as potent, poetic or forceful.

THOMAS MOHR: Dunno what it is with you Americans and Werner Herzog. Being German, I hate all of his stuff. Pretentious, overblown, boring and mostly inept.

17) Favorite movie featuring a rampaging, oversized or otherwise mutated beast, or beasts

DAVE: The 1933 version of King Kong, though props to The Birds (for being an excellent movie by one of the greatest filmmakers ever), the original Godzilla (for being so damn cool and for actually being about something), Reptilicus (for being so awful), The 50-Foot Woman (for being so, well, so… 50-Foot in its feminist themes and rotten execution), Squirm (for being creepy and for having a sense of humour), Dante’s Piranha and The Howling (for also having a sense of humour and for actually being entertaining) , An American Werewolf in London (for being scary and funny), Jaws (for still making me scared of bodies of water) and, finally, to every Ray Harryhausen movie --- They are the reason so many kids from my generation love movies. Man, the list of also-rans could go on forever…

FILMBRAIN: Is it too soon for me to say The Host?


CERB CHAOS: Godzilla is too easy an answer. Too bad my answer’s Godzilla.

STENNIE: Night of the Lepus. Hee hee. Bunnies! Big bunnies!

DAMIAN: I'm almost tempted to give the same answer I gave to the last question... but I can't. I gotta go with the "ultimate" monster movie: Jaws. I must admit that I never tire of watching that film. In fact, I have to view it [i]at least[/i] once a year (usually in the summertime).

PACHECO: Does Rocky IV count?

SHEILA: Ghostbusters. No contest.

MOVIESZZZ: The original Piranha, Joe Dante’s version.

SCHUYLER CHAPMAN: War of the Gargantuas.

CINEBEATS: I have a soft spot for It Came from Beneath the Sea because I love Ray Harryhausen and the movie shows a giant monster octopus trying to destroy the San Francisco Bay. I saw the movie on TV one weekend when I was a kid and it terrified me since it took place where I lived. In the past 25 years I have not been able to cross the Golden Gate Bridge without wondering if a giant octopus is going to raise itself out of the ocean depths and attack the bridge just as I’m crossing.

SETH: My inner-child’s favorite: Godzilla Versus Mechagodzilla. The best: Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

MARTY McKEE: Does a bloody, 400-year-old midget Indian spawned from a womb attached to Susan Strasberg’s back count? In that case, I’ll go with The Manitou, though, really, how can you pick one William Girdler movie over others like Grizzly and Day of the Animals? How about if I go with Beginning of the End, if only because it’s set in and around my hometown of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois?

PAUL C: Love Kong, love Godzilla and pals, and no one can argue with Frankenstein’s monster. But having just seen and loved The Host the other night, I seriously think that the giant rampaging tadpole ranks up there with his illustrious predecessors. Yes, a few of the creature effects are too effect-y, but the filmmakers’ conception of the creature trumps any technical concerns. Far from being a simple, elegant killing machine, he’s got real personality- ugly, clumsy, and sort of awkward, right up to the point where he starts ingesting random people. In short, this creature has been crafted with care and, yes, love, which makes him one for the ages.

DAN ALOI: Dude! Night of the Lepus! There's something so RIGHT about the movie mill running out of truly creepy B-movie monsters, and someone getting the bright idea to have a small town beset by ... giant bunnies!!! My absolute favorite non-cheesy movie in this genre centers on a giant beast who's mineral, not animal: The Iron Giant.

THOM McGREGOR: "Mitchell"!

18) Sandra Bernhard or Sarah Silverman?

DAVE: They’re both great, but Bernhard by a tooth gap.

BILL: I’m getting a little tired of her schtick, but Silverman. The only possible way Bernhard could have gotten my vote is if the question had been “Sandra Bernhard or I cut of your balls?”

FILMBRAIN: Blasphemy! That Silverman gal isn't even worthy to shine the great Ms. Bernhard's shoes!

SHARON: Bernhard. Silverman is too… icky.

PETER NELLHAUS: Man, I'm a sucker for smart Jewish chicks. My mom would have been happy had I married either one of them. Sarah is cuter, but Sandra was in The King of Comedy. I also like her Without You I'm Nothing and the cable show she hosted, Reel Wild Cinema.

PACHECO: Sarah Silverman, but not watered down School of Rock Sarah Silverman. Give me the good stuff.

ADAM ROSS: I've never appreciated anything Sandra Bernhard has done, although seeing her drop into a vat of molten gold in Hudson Hawk came pretty darn close.

SETH GORDON: Silverman's kinda cute and all, but there's nothing particularly sensual about her. And you know Bernhard's got to be awesome in the sack.

CAMPASPE: Sarah Bernhardt. Less smug than either one of them and far more interesting.

19) Your favorite, or most despised, movie cliché

FLICKHEAD: Imposed nihilism, a subject far too broad for this space.

BILL: Most despised is “the-best-friend-who-was-trying-to-help-earlier-is-really-the-bad-guy!” horse-crap that we still can’t get away from, and
which killed the ending of Minority Report for me.

SEAN: Most despised: That film reached its peak when baby boomers came of age and have been in steep decline ever since

JIM EMERSON: Most hated: The Character Who Is Supposed To Be One Thing... But Turns Out To Be The Very Opposite! In the vast majority of cases, this twist/reveal is utterly meaningless.

CERB CHAOS: I hate it when the villain’s on a ledge or something, the hero saves him and the villain attacks again, giving the hero permission to kill him. Either let the villain fall or let him live, don’t resort to this moral copout.

PETER NELLHAUS: I'm tired of the Thai film cliche of the fat guy in a dress used for an easy laugh.

STENNIE: Favorite: I am a sucker for a sing-along scene, no matter how contrived.

Most despised: the "character you know is going to die." In a war movie, it's the guy who shows everyone a picture of his girl back home (or the guy with the lucky charm who later loses it just before a crucial mission). In a cop movie, it's the crusty old guy who's just a few days away from retirement.

DAMIAN: My FAVORITE movie cliche would have to be the always beautiful shot of the drapes swirling gently in the wind to indicate someone has just escaped out the window. Thank God nobody in the movies ever owns Venetian blinds.

SHEILA: My favorite AND my most despised is the Slow Clap. Sometimes it is used to good effect and sometimes it is mortifying and you are embarrassed for everyone involved. The Slow Clap should be used very sparingly. For example, to my taste - it works very well in that last scene Lucas. It's a cliche, yes, but when it is done sincerely - and when the movie earns it - it can be great.

However: if you haven't earned the Slow Clap? PLEASE don't use it.

MOVIEZZZ: How can you not love the slow clap?

MORE-ONIONS: Most despised: the moments leading up to a "big twist", when we get a quick, usually lamely-edited flashback of everything that's transpired, "proving" that the twist makes sense.

CINEBEATS: Any racial stereotypes that have been used to death and are now cliché really get on my nerves like East Indians working at Kwik-E-Marts, all Asians know martial arts or are super smart/old & wise, etc. I'm also really tired of the hooker with the heart of gold and the single-mom stripper who really loves her kid, but needs the money and can't do anything else to make a buck. Blah!

RAMI: Is there anything more insulting to my intelligence than using someone's weight as a point for making fun of them. Shameful.

BEMIS: The apparent death of a supporting character in an action movie that causes the main character to save the day by himself. Once the villain or threat is defeated, the dead guy appears in the denouement with mild injuries (this is referenced brilliantly in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang).

SETH: Countdown timers on bombs that beep. What a load of horseshit.

KEN LOWERY: The TV News being on at the right time, and the volume subtly rising to indicate SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT IS HAPPENING. Seriously, directors and screenwriters of America, have you watched TV news lately? The only thing they update you on is the popularity of The Secret or whatever piece of human trash is claiming Anna Nicole's fortune today.

Runner up: Romantic comedies whose whole premise is that a gorgeous and successful woman just can't seem to land a date. Yeah, because that happens SO often.

Runner-runner up: In action movies, where the various protagonists are paired off against their counterparts in the villain's camp. The big good guy fights the big bad guy, the bumbling sidekick fights the bumbling villain sidekick, the girl fights the bad girl. Usually there's a spinning fan or unspecified factory warehouse involved.

DAN E.: Every horror movie since Alien has some sort of traitor. And you know which one from the very beginning of the movie. Pisses me off. I want a united front against the monster. No deals or anything like that. Just avoid that "twist". Please.

LARRY GROSS: Most loved--Men wordlessly acknowledging the competence and skill of other men. Ireland going over to Wayne's bunch in Red River. Pike Bishop's gang polishing off a bottle of whiskey after their big score. Pacino holding De Niro's hand as the latter dies in Heat. Ed Burns nodding to Matt Damon before the final battle in Saving Private Ryan.

PAUL C: This isn’t so much a cliché as a genre nowadays, but is anyone else getting sick of suburbian ennui? Yes, we realize that behind their McMansions and perfectly manicured lawns, the upper-middle-class residents of suburbia have issues too. But why do filmmakers act like this is a profound message? As a child of suburbia myself, I can’t help but think that it’s like white kids whose parents had money feel the need to compete for cred with people from more hardscrabble backgrounds, so they imagine their idyllic neighborhoods as being wasps’-nests of intrigue, infidelity, and resentment, as though this will somehow help them to transcend their backgrounds. Well, guess what- I’m not buying. Suburbia is mostly just boring, and if you want to get your revenge, move the hell out.

STEVE: I have a love-hate relationship with the Damn-Cat! false scare that seems to have become the dominant mode of fear delivery in modern horror films. On one hand, a well-executed false scare can throw the viewer off balance and leave them open for the real scare (i.e. The Descent). On the other hand, it's way too tempting for most young filmmakers to sacrifice atmosphere for a constant stream of stings, leading to apathy when it comes time to deliver the real goods. Shock is easy, dread is hard.

SETH GORDON: Most despised would be the entire movie Crash (Haggis' Crash, that is, not Cronenberg's). Really, any movie where the main characters "learn a little bit about each other... and a little bit about themselves." Also not a big fan of the good guy never doing anything bad, so the bad guy has to die through some accidental means after the good guy decides "I won't kill him, because then I'd be on his level!"

BRIAN: I don't know about favorite or despised, but it's fun to spot their exceptions. I recently saw a film with a pretty startling one: in Hong Sang-soo's Woman On The Beach a major character coughs for no particular reason, without it portending that she's going to die of a terrible illness later in the film. I suppose I still have yet to see a film in which a woman of child-bearing age throws up without it meaning that she's pregnant.

PEET: Whenever a naked actress gets out of bed and wraps the sheets around her. Who the hell came up with that?!?

THOMAS MOHR: Any scene featuring Michael Douglas’s ass. No, seriously, the older I get, the more painful (and em-bare-assing) it becomes to watch actors fake sexual intercourse, especially if it’s softly backlit, with a Kenny G.-style saxophone playing on the soundtrack. Yech.

20) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-- yes or no?


FLICKHEAD: Destroy all prints. Burn the negative.

BILL: No. I love Spielberg, and Indiana Jones, but that’s
one of his two or three worst movies.

JIM EMERSON: YES! It's the best one, by far! Scarier, creepier, and captures more of the faux-exotic b-movie serial atmosphere. And it has that meta-rollercoaster ride through the mine.

FLOWER: My brain says no, but my heart says yes.

DAMIAN: I really don't understand all the ill will that is directed at this movie. Granted, it may be the least of the three (soon to be four) Indy films, but compared to most other Hollywood fare, I think it's still quite good.

MORE-ONIONS: Helllllll no. So big a no that when the trilogy finally got a DVD release I created a "Hall of Shame" section in my DVD rack on the bottom shelf, just for movies that I purchased as part of trilogies or box sets that I wouldn't otherwise be caught dead with. The only other current members are a couple Oliver Stone movies and Beverly Hills Cop 3.

(And yes, this implies both ownership of the BHC Trilogy AND acceptance of BHC 2 as an acceptable experience).

ANAND: The movie- hell no. Amrish Puri- hell yes.

ADAM ROSS: Absolutely yes. It was the first real movie I ever watched and I will always hold it in high regard partly because of that. It's possible that I've seen it more than any other movie, and I will continue watching it around once a year until it becomes unpractical.

CINEBEATS: No, thanks, but I actually do like the musical opening which is soon followed by a crappy movie. I like crappy movies, but only when they don’t cost millions to make.

BEMIS: An emphatic yes. I really don't understand the hate - it's actually much better than Last Crusade.

SETH: Best of the three, by far. The first has a better co-star (big time), but neither of the others can compete with the purity of the chase at the end of Temple of Doom. Racist? Yup. Stupid? Beyond belief. But it manages somehow to top the first, which is a major accomplishment. The less said about the third, the better.

KEN LOWERY: My first Indiana Jones movie, which I saw when I was 7 or 8. I am incapable of seeing flaws in it. (Same for Return of the Jedi.)

BANDIT: Of course, yes! WAY better than the original, which has NO ACTION. Raiders is all brown and dusty and, after the great opening sequence, takes FOREVER to get going again. I'm exaggerating, of course, but my younger self associated "action" with cops and robbers and neon and Eastwood and bombed-out urban neighborhoods. Compared to Fort Apache, the Bronx, Karen Allen mugging in a giant basket through the bazaars of India didn't cut it.

PAUL C: Yes, although with one big reservations. Simply put, Willie is a terrible match for Indy. After Marion, an adventuress in her own right who could fight alongside the boys, Willie has little to do but scream and grate on the nerves with every line she utters. But the scenes between Indy and Short Round make up for this, and I can’t help but wonder why Spielberg and Lucas didn’t ditch the girl altogether, besides the fact that Spielberg got a wife out of the deal. And while the villains may seem racist, I don’t read them that way, any more than I interpret Indiana Jones to be a realistic representation of an archeologist. Plus the last 20 minutes are exciting as hell.

STEVE: When I was a kid, yes. I haven't seen it since then, though. I still count myself a fan, but Lord knows what I'd actually think of it now. Maybe I should find out.

AARON: Wasn’t Lucas going through a divorce at the time? I’ve read a number of reports that claim that’s why it’s so dark and vicious. So, yes, if only because I don’t think either Spielberg or Lucas could make the film today, what with the extraction of the heart by hand and other gross-out scenes, and it remains an interesting showcase for some of their personalities’ more sickly humorous qualities.

THOM McGREGOR: No, no, no. Shrieky. Causes headache.

PEET: Are you kidding? That’s the film that made me realize just how much I loved the movies. The best of the trilogy--no question!

CAMPASPE: Yes to the opening, no to the rest.

Next: NICHOLAS RAY, ACADEMY OF THE UNDERRATED, MOVIES ABOUT TV, GANZ/BAUCHAU, DOCUMENTARIES, ORSON WELLES and ACCIDENTS, WIM WENDERS, PENA/CRUZ, TAG LINES, FILM CRITICISM and DO MOVIES MATTER?

A WRITER'S WORK

Lauren Kessler, currently one of my favorite writers, is the guest blogger this week on the Web site for Powell’s Books. She’s new to blogging, but you’d never know it from the excellent entries she’s offered so far this week. She’s written a couple of exceptional pieces, spiritual accompaniments to her latest book, Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s, which shine a light on the inevitable process of aging, a subject that people of my age (approaching 50) may not care to spend much time thinking about. But Ms. Kessler’s sharp and optimistic takes on facing death and society’s attitudes toward the aged make reading her thoughts and confronting the issue well worth the time spent. And she’s a fine writer too, which makes me look forward to reading Dancing with Rose even more.

Her post from Tuesday, however, is the one I want to point you toward today, especially if, like me, you are a writer--aspiring, blogging, napkin-scribbler, whatever. Kessler poses an interesting question in her piece entitled “Working Hard or Hardly Working,” and that is: “What is work for a writer?” The journey Kessler takes the reader on in this post is an illuminating and delightful one, as she shines a light on her process of preparation and what happens once those words start to come.

She’s got two more days—today and Friday—in her seat as guest blogger at Powell’s. Here’s hoping that the experience will prove to be as fruitful for her as a writer as it has been for us as readers and that Lauren Kessler will soon find a regular spot in the blogosphere.

TRAILERS FROM HELL!

It ought not to surprise anyone that I would consider Joe Dante one of my favorite filmmakers. Hollywood Boulevard, the wire-and-spitballs comedy he made in 1976 with Allan Arkush, made my personal top 100 and I gladly return to movies like Piranha, The Howling, Explorers, It’s a Good Life, Innerspace, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, The ‘burbs, Matinee, Small Soldiers, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, The Second Civil War and Homecoming as often as I can. Plus, anyone familiar with his DVD commentary tracks on Hollywood Boulevard and The Howling knows how unpretentious, self-effacing, and quick-witted he can be, as well as how encyclopedic is his knowledge of the high points, as well as the cobwebbed nooks and crannies, of genre films.

Now Dante has put together a site which seems made for me, and for you too, I’d wager. It’s called Trailers from Hell, on which he gathers like-minded, quick-witted genre filmmakers like Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), Mick Garris (The Stand), Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary) and John Landis (An American Werewolf in London) to present gloriously crazed and otherwise cheesy genre trailers from all categories of B cinema. But here’s the kicker: these directors introduce the trailers, and then provide DVD-style commentary for the duration. (You can choose to watch the trailer with its original audio as well.)

The whole enterprise has the intimate feel of a two-minute version of those old Creature Features-type programs, minus the bad sketch acting and ubiquitous late-night used car ads. This week's featured trailer is for the Tor Johnson epic The Unearthly, hosted by Dante, who provides details about the actors (John Carradine and 50-Foot Woman Allison Hayes joining Johnson) and some hilarious observations—over a static shot of Carradine and another actor on either side of a anatomy class torso model inexplicably placed in between them, Dante quips, “This is a particularly interesting composition that’s probably won many awards in Europe.” He even draws the line linking this near-forgotten movie to Woody Allen’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex…, which heavily draws on The Unearthly in a parody sequence featuring Carradine himself as a mad doctor who unleashes a rampaging, and lactating, 50-foot breast on the unsuspecting countryside. The site also provides information on Dante, Landis and the rest of the aptly dubbed “Grindhouse Gurus,” as well as plenty of good information on the brain trust behind this inspired project. You can click on a link to buy the movie once you’ve seen the trailer, there’s a store where you can buy Trailers from Hell merchandise, and you can even sign up for regular e-mail updates whenever something new comes lumbering out of the dark virtual vaults where the trailers are stored.

Trailers from Hell promises to be a gas for anyone who loves low-budget genre films but also has room in their heart to give them a good-natured ribbing now and again. And what better person in Hollywood to launch such an enterprise than the director who has shown so much savvy, understanding, genuine love and respect for genre, as well as seemingly boundless energy and a wickedly subversive streak wider than the dusty, empty streets that seem to measure a half-mile from hitching post to hitching post in any Sergio Leone western? Joe Dante and company talking monsters are now just a click away (and always available on my sidebar). That’s not hell, that’s heaven.

LADY BIRD JOHNSON 1912-2007

I always thought Lady Bird Johnson looked like my grandma. Not exactly, of course, but close enough. She certainly reminded me of her in a lot of ways, even though the trajectory of Lady Bird’s life would send her far away from a dusty, relatively poor life lived on the land, the kind of life my grandma would lead until her dying day. (My grandma would never be caught dead wearing her hair in any way like that patented Lady Bird two-fisted flip either.) In my earliest recollections of her, watching her on TV standing next to that grumpy-looking fella who was apparently the president, she sounded enough like her that I would often imagine she was my grandma.

When I was a little older and had a little more understanding of the political arena of the time (1968-1972), I became fascinated with Richard Nixon. So naturally I was a big fan of David Frye and his classic comedy albums I Am the President and especially Radio Free Nixon, his brilliant fever-dream satire of a day of programming on a radio station (WNIX) owned and operated by Tricky Dick and featuring a host of Washington politicians and Hollywood celebrities. It was on Radio Free Nixon that I gathered my first awareness of William F. Buckley and Truman Capote, and just how Henry Fonda and George C. Scott fit in to the Nixonian scene (Fonda was a Republican supporter, Scott the star of Nixon’s favorite movie, Patton). The album also featured a spot-on vocal parody of Lady Bird by radio actress Bryna Raeburn. The bit occurs early on the album during the radio station’s “Farm Report,” which is hosted by LBJ. But before he can get to the skinny on the morning wheat future numbers, Lady Bird comes fluttering through the studio and takes over the show. “Bird,” LBJ (Frye) intones in a familiarly molasses-slow manner that could be mistaken for lack of intelligence, “what are you doin’… rattlin’ around… so early… in the mornin’?” “Beautifyin’, Lyndon!” she replies impatiently, “It’s my life’s work!”

(You can hear Raeburn’s wonderful Lady Bird here: just click on track 4, “Farm Report.” Unfortunately, the 30-second snippet fades out before she can deliver the punch line to her appearance, so imagine her continuing thusly as the audio disappears: “I believe for every drop o’ rain that falls, a flower grows. Flowers, trees, bushes are beautiful things. Have you ever seen an ugly bush?!””)

Of course, Lady Bird was known for her efforts to beautify the nation’s highways, parks and the nation’s capital, including the poverty-stricken sections far outside the Beltway. She was also recognized as a powerful ally in the struggle for civil rights that consumed, as did the Johnson Administration’s grappling with the Vietnam War, the energies of the nation, brutally dividing its populace. Even so, Mrs. Johnson’s attempts on behalf of the landscaping of the nation often brought on criticism from those who felt the administration had more important things to worry about, and it’s true that sometimes it was easy to suppose that her white-glove campaign was a way of whitewashing the problems of an imploding country, as if a coat of paint and some lovely wildflowers were enough to spruce up the joint and make the political landscape look nicer, tidier. But Lady Bird was far less naïve, and much more self aware, than such claims might make her out to be. She knew the term “beautification” was a prissy one that made her efforts seem trivial, that the term itself was wanting for something more substantial. But as pointed out often in the legacy-friendly hour-long TV documentary Lady Bird Naturally, Johnson stood her ground and spread her influence to like-minded movers and shakers who, as the beautification programs began to extend to lakes, national parks and natural preserves, helped her to lay the groundwork for a worldview now known as environmentalism, a worldview now championed by many of the same generation that might have once laid into her for her perceived frivolities. She wasn’t a radical, but she also didn’t deserve our ire. Turns out she was more forward thinking that many at the time, those fueled by cultural and regional biases based on her Texas cadences and origins, or by a disdain for her bringing a rurally-tinged lifestyle to the halls of Camelot, were able to see.

A mere week after I viewed Lady Bird Naturally, Mrs. Johnson has died at the age of 94 of natural causes. Many will publicly remember her in the days and weeks to come; we will be reminded of many of things she said; and we will even be reminded of the legacy of her roadside beautification programs and the wildflower research center she founded that would be named after her in 1985. Lady Bird was no indiscriminate Johnny Appleseed; she was acutely aware of what the indigenous plants and flowers were for any given region and planned her rejuvenation efforts accordingly. "I want Texas to look like Texas, and Vermont to look like Vermont," she once said. "I just hate to see the land homogenized." In a modern world 40 years removed from her tenure as first lady, where every square inch seems to be threatened by cookie-cutter mall complexes and WalMarts and drive-through Starbucks and Burger Kings blanketing urban and rural areas like weeds, Lady Bird Johnson’s vision of what this country ought to look like, and the urgency of her attempts to keep its landscapes from ruination, seem not frivolous at all.

REVEALED! THE OFC TOP 100! (Coming Soon!)

So it turns out that my own recent 100 List had something behind it other than the usual navel-gazing. It was actually part of the just-announced Online Film Community’s first top 100 movies list, compiled as either a response to the recent AFI 100 List, or as the first online writer’s list to be inspired by it. Inspired, that is, by a desire to take a read of how a list drawn from the submissions of blogging film critics (myself included) might differ from one like the AFI List, which really functions more as a guide for the casual moviegoer than a reflection of the wider net thrown by this group of passionate film writers. Jonathan Burdick at CinemaFusion has the whole story, but here’s just a taste of what he had to say about why this endeavor got started:

With the massive popularity of the internet, the way that people view movies is quickly changing… With this comes a whole new generation of film writers, enthusiasts and fans. These are people who write for or start movie websites to review them, discuss them, interview the actors, report on upcoming films, and just plain put their opinions out there. They range from the casual movie lover to the most hardcore of film buffs - and many are starting to be taken seriously not just by the readers, but by the movie studios and established journalism magazines (John Campea of The Movie Blog‘s recent appearance in Time Magazine comes to mind).
As I’m a daily reader of well over a dozen film sites every day, I realized that these folks aren’t just passionate about movies, but they know a whole lot about them. They see more movies in a year than most do in a decade and love the art of cinema so much that they spend every day reading and writing about it, discussing it, and watching it. So, among movie website journalists and editors such as myself, why not come up with our own list of the greatest one-hundred movies - and instead of limiting it to American films, including all feature films? So, it isn’t necessarily in response to AFI’s list - more inspired by it than anything.

Jonathan and his associates have gathered together a pretty impressive list of writers who have contributed to this project, and we’ll all be looking forward to seeing the final list, which is projected to show up before the end of the summer. Here’s a list of the sites involved, some of which will look very familiar—I seriously advise your taking a long look at the ones that don’t. You won’t regret it. And stay tuned for the final results as the Online Film Community presents the Top 100 Movies of All Time!

Those who took part:

Cinema Fusion
Cinemathematics
Coffee Coffee and More Coffee
Combustible Celluloid
Cultural Snow
DVD Panache
A Drinking Song
Edward Copeland on Film
Film Experience
Film Grotto
Film Ick
Film Junk
Film Rotation
Film School Rejects
Filmspotting
Filmstalker
JoBlo
Lucid Screening
Mad About Movies
Movie Patron
Movie Picture Film
Obsessed With Film
Rotten Tomatoes
Salon
Screenrant
Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule
Slashfilm
Talking Moviezzz
That Movie Site
The Documentary Blog
The Movie Blog
Thompson on Hollywood
Variety
Windmills of My Mind
Y Kant Goran Rite

CHARLES LANE 1905-2007

We wished him happy birthday in 2006, and so it would seem inappropriate not to note his passing and send him off with a heartfelt goodbye. We feel like we knew you so well. Rest in peace, Mr. Lane.

Here's a lovely obituary from Mick La Salle. (Thanks, Shamus, for the tip.)

PROFESSOR COREY'S HONOR SOCIETY (Part 1)

THE REVIEWS ARE IN!

“I love these things! Very thought-provoking, and it is so cool to read everyone else's comments.” – Sheila O’Malley

“Dennis, you are a godsend. This is just what I need on an otherwise miserable Friday afternoon.” - Filmbrain

Holy schnieke! They loved Professor Irwin Corey’s quiz! So, then, here we go, down the primrose lane of memory, recalling Professor Corey’s picks for his own personal Honor Society, the “best” answers from his Spring Break Quiz. It really should be said that gathering up the “best” responses was a surprisingly gargantuan task, and that’s simply because there were nearly 90 submissions to the last quiz, and such a rich percentage of them were ether well-reasoned, impassioned, funny as hell or otherwise witty, wise and wonderful. And the large volume of them is the reason why these answers will be presented in easier-to-digest sections (I’m projecting four at this point) spread out over the next week, culminating, of course, in the next big SLIFR quiz, which has been compiled and assigned a seasonally appropriate educator as our guide.

By the way, Professor Corey’s picks for the Honor Society spotlight should by no means be interpreted as endorsements of any one point of view or comment. He certainly doesn’t care if I (Dennis) agree with any or all of the responses (though for a goodly portion of them, I certainly do)—he’s just interested in highlighting what he considers to be the most entertaining, thought-provoking, hilarious and/or provocative of the bunch.

Personally, I love this massive project (which seems to get more massiver every time out) because I simply love reading the answers, and I love keeping the company of a gratifyingly intelligent and passionate group of bloggers, writers and film fans who choose to grace these virtual pages with their presence. I truly hope that everyone who took part in Professor Corey’s quiz, as well as those who took a break this time out, or who have never participated before, will come back for the next installment. In compiling all this discussion over the weekend, I noticed too a very interesting development that may have more to do with creeping exhaustion than anything else (you’ll have to be the judge): at certain points, because of the format in which I’ve chosen to present these comments, and certainly through no contrivance of mine, the answers often seem like a dialogue between the people who provided them rather than the isolated comments they originally were. So even if it’s just a delusion, it’s a happy one, one in which I can imagine all of us getting together one last time and rehashing the thoughts inspired by Professor Corey’s inquiring mind.

PART ONE: MULTITASKING, ACADEMY OF THE OVERRRATED, SLY REFERENCES, POWELL-PRESSBURGER, THE OSCARS, WEAVING/PEARCE, GREAT INSIGHTS and SAM FULLER

1) What movie did you have to see multiple times before deciding whether you liked or disliked it?


FLICKHEAD: Star Wars, three times in 1977. And my first impression was right on the money: it’s shit.

FILMBRAIN: Took me two viewings of Gone With the Wind to realize that it's just an overblown soap opera, unworthy of the praise heaped upon it.

JIM EMERSON: Eyes Wide Shut. It took me a second time before I even
realized how to watch it.

FLOWER: Raging Bull. It's an ugly, unpleasant movie, and yes, that's almost certainly the point. Do I appreciate the film for its artistry? Sure. Do I like it? I sure as hell do not, and three viewings haven't convinced me otherwise.

STENNIE: Ninotchka didn't do much for me the first time I saw it, but on subsequent viewings it's wormed its way into my heart.

DAMIAN: I didn't really "get" (and consequently didn't enjoy) 2001 the first time I saw it. Took me a couple more viewings, as well as reading some literature on it, to properly love and appreciate it for the great masterwork it is.

PACHECO: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Looked forward to it, then saw it and absolutely abhorred it, but didn't know if that was my final decision. Then I saw it again on DVD and I was absolutely blown away.

NATHAN M: Bonnie and Clyde. I still don't know what I think.

SHEILA: Breaking the Waves. I loved it the first time. Or thought I did. Saw it a second time and realized that it was a piece of SH*T.

MOVIESZZZ: Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. First time, I thought “As a Western, this isn’t up to his past films”. But, then I realized it was a commentary on the Western myths, watched it again, and fell in love with the film.

MORE-ONIONS: I've seen Barry Lyndon 4 times and frankly the jury's still out.

RON: Platoon. Just keeps getting worse

MATTHEW: Doctor Zhivago. I'm normally a big David Lean whore, but I still can't tell about that one.

CHRIS (2): A lot of movies. But I’ll steal Jim’s answer: Eyes Wide Shut. Rarely have I gone from thinking a film was a total miss to a masterpiece simply upon repeated viewings. The second viewing opened my mind to it, and the third viewing sealed the deal.

DANIEL L: Magnolia. Kind of fascinating the first time I saw it -- looked more and more like a big, showy ball of nothing after repeated viewings.

ADAM ROSS: I saw Eyes Wide Shut on three consecutive nights when it first came out. Each time I walked out with a different impression of it, and it wasn't really until my fifth viewing when I really wrapped my head around just what I it worked so well and what Kubrick was trying to say with it.

RYLAND WALKER KNIGHT: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is only getting better.

BEMIS: I could barely make it to the end of Barry Lyndon the first time I tried; four viewings later, I think it's a masterpiece (one I have to be in a very specific mood for, however). Interesting how many Kubrick titles pop up with this question.

ROBBIE KENDALL: Thoroughly Modern Millie, saw it as a child over a hundred times and as of today, I’m still not sure. The beginning is so good and the ending is so very bad.

SETH: The Rules of the Game. Is there a more tiresome cult of unexamined reputation than that of Jean Renoir? Lazy staging, uninteresting dramaturgy, tedious pseudo-humanism, a total indifference to the art of editing… M. Renoir, this just in: I don’t *care* how big your heart is, art involves artistry.

DR. CRIDDLE: Anthony Minghella. The English Patient was a half-interesting hodgepodge of better movies, most of which were directed by David Lean. Cold Mountain was cinematic pain.

KEN LOWERY: Eyes Wide Shut. In fact, I'm still on the fence. But I can't stop watching the damn thing.

GARETH: Wings of Desire, and it's still nonsensical to me.

JOSEPH B.: I remember seeing Fight Club in the theater 3 times- I thought it was OK the first time, dangerous the second time, and fell in love with it a third time.

MARTY McKEE: Blade Runner. I’m still surprised at how popular it has become, particularly considering it was neither a box-office hit nor a critical success upon its original 1982 theatrical release. I didn’t like it when I originally saw it, not in a theater, but on VHS around 1983 or 1984. Yes, it’s a visually stunning piece, but the acting is flat and the story barely extant. Still, the building critical raves over the decades had me believing that maybe I (and nearly everyone else who saw it then) was wrong, that Blade Runner was a masterpiece. It was unquestionably an influential movie as far as its production design was concerned. A friend and co-worker who is a huge Blade Runner fan convinced me to watch it again last year on DVD, the first time I had seen it in its original aspect ratio and without Harrison Ford’s notorious narration. I still don’t think it’s a good film. Sean Young’s robotic performance doesn’t convince me that Ford would fall for her (of course, he despised her in real life) and the turgid pacing feels deathly. Blade Runner is not very much fun, outside of Rutger Hauer’s scenery-chewing, which led to a short career as a leading man in genre films worse (Split Second) or not much better (Wanted: Dead Or Alive) than this one.

JEFF McM: Somebody just said Blade Runner (thumbs down, it's a snoozer) so I'll say De Palma's Mission to Mars, a film with a horrible narrative and completely uninteresting characters but enough perversely enchanting visuals to at least merit a couple of reviewings. Even though the movie ultimately still fails, I never fail to chuckle at Don Cheadle's line about arguing with plants.

ROB: Jackie Brown - After Pulp Fiction, JB seemed too low-key and understated on my first viewing, but the fifth or sixth time through, the film suddenly clicked for me, and of course Robert Forster is magic.

LARRY GROSS: Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously struck me the first time I saw it as overlong, with too many endings and no point of view. On the second viewing it started to come together and make sense. On subsequent viewings I came to the conclusion it was one of the strongest mainstream narrative films of the 80's and easily, now, Weir's best film.

ROBERT FIORE: I'm still trying to decide whether Apocalypse Now is Coppola's last good movie or first lousy one.

PAUL C: Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossibl was sort of diverting the first time I saw it, but I was just coming into my own as a movie lover at the time. I was 18 years old, right around the age when anyone who fancies himself serious about movies scoffs at anything so low-class as a Hollywood action movie. But the intervening years have made all the difference- I’m now something of a De Palma nut, and at the same time I’ve become much less dismissive of mass entertainments, provided they’re well made and stylish. And Mission: Impossible is certainly both of these. Even with the explosions, expensive effects, and convoluted storyline, this thing is tense as hell, and seeing it again following my prolonged exposure to De Palma’s has made it really shine in my eyes. It’s no Blow Out, but it ranks up there as one of his best pure thrillers, alongside Raising Cain and Body Double.

STEVE: demonlover was the first time I was ever exposed to the stylings of Olivier Assayas. Needless to say, I didn't understand what he was on about the first time around -- I thought he was just glossing on Videodrome. A second viewing, though, convinced me I was off my nut and the media-conspiracy plot was merely indicative of larger concerns vis-a-vis disconnection in the modern world. Having since caught up with a couple other Assayas films, I can say with assurance that I like the guy, but demonlover definitely ain't the place to start with him.

DAN ALOI: Spaceballs. I fell asleep the first time I saw it in a theatre, which certainly didn't help; and the jokes seemed to fall flat. A couple viewings later I really enjoyed it. This is well before I formed a strong negative opinion of the source material ...

BRIAN: I'm constantly in the process of re-evaluating my feelings about films, so I'm tempted to say "all of them, and I still haven't decided yet". But an example of a film I didn't much like when I first saw it, but now consider a masterpiece and a major touchstone for me: The Searchers by John Ford. And one that on first viewing I found utterly enchanting and one of the best films the year it came out, but after a second had to demote to "interesting curio" status: Tuvalu by Veit Heimer.

THOM McGREGOR: I'll no doubt anger most of the true film fans who comment on your blog when I write: Casablanca and Chinatown. I tried to make myself like them, 'cause they're good for me and I would be smart and classy to like them. And I watched them both three times, but I just don't like either of those classics! I found them boring! So shoot me!

PEET: The Shining. True innovation always takes some getting used to: Kubrick’s film so drastically deconstructed the genre in which it operated that it falls flat when judged by the usual conventions (which Stephen King chose to respect). In many ways, Kubrick’s cold adaptation represents the antithesis of King's warm psychological fiction. Taken on their own terms, though, the film and the book are equally frightening in a diametrically opposed fashion.

CAMPASPE: Brazil, which, after reading Dennis's re-appraisal a while back, I may have to see yet again.

2) Inaugural entry into the Academy of the Overrated


BILL: There are so, so many. Do enough people like The Boondock Saints for that to count? The fan base for that movie truly baffles me. For a more controversial choice, I’ll say Au Hazard Balthazar. I didn’t hate it or anything, but it really didn’t do anything for me at all. Except that I did like the donkey, and wished him well the whole time.

FILMBRAIN: Schindler's List

a. fan: Marilyn Monroe, who cannot possibly measure up to her cultural placement as All-time Sex Goddess of American Cinema.

JIM EMERSON: I honestly do not understand the appeal of Charlie Chaplin. (But then, I don't like clowns -- especially when they're sad clowns.) His visual style (as someone once observed) consists mainly of pointing the camera at himself. I know millions love him, but I don't.

SHARON: Woody Allen. Not funny, terrible actor, mediocre director.

FLOWER: Casualties of War. I like a lot of De Palma's movies, but here the whole thing, noble intentions and all, implodes under the weight of the director's operatic/hysterical touch.

STENNIE: Oliver Stone. Does he even count anymore, or is he a laughing-stock now?

DAMIAN: Quentin Tarantino. Whenever I hear this guy praised as a "genius," hailed as "the next Scorsese" or referred to as the "voice of a generation," my heart just sinks (and no, I am not particularly looking forward to Grindhouse).

PACHECO: Fight Club or The 400 Blows (a good film, but is it as great as people say?)

CHRIS: Peter Jackson. Still shocked people take him serious as a director.

MORE-ONIONS: Ridley Scott, post Alien and Blade Runner

Schuyler Chapman: I am prepared to be blasphemous: Akira Kurosawa

CHRIS (2): Federico Fellini. The man had about one or two good ideas and then relied on Nino Rota to paper over his lack of imagination with groovy music. One great movie: 8 ½. One very good movie: La Dolce Vita. One pretty good movie: The White Sheik. And then a whole lot of irritating crap, including the unspeakably insufferable La Strada.

PATRICK: Jack Lemmon. I have a lot of problems with his acting choices - particularly in Short Cuts when he's trying to remember the name of his grandson.

BEMIS: Crash. There's a Best Picture winner featuring Tony Danza. Awesome.

GARETH: Lars von Trier, even though there are moments I love in his work, and he may yet redeem himself.

JOSEPH B.: The scene with a flying plastic sack in American Beauty- and the people who found it deep and compelling.

JEFF McM: I'll go on a limb and say Richard Linklater, who could have staged all of his 'films' as plays.

DAN E.: Capra-corn makes me want to vomit. The only one I've liked is It Happened One Night. It's A Wonderful Life would be great if it left any part of it in slight doubt.

JEREMY RICHEY: Kevin Smith, I absolutely can not stand this man's films and have never been able to grasp the appeal of them.

LARRY GROSS: I know this is heresy but: Andrei Tarkovsky. Yes their moments of genius and staggering beauty in every one of the films, BUT--the mix of adolescent self-absorbed grandiosity, the slavophil mysticism that was outdated in Dostoyevsky's time, and the imperious on-again-off-again relation to narrative is cumulatively infuriating. He makes David Lynch look like Henry James. Yes, Tarkovsky's struggle with Soviet censorship was heroic (if not a little masochistic) and yes he was a great inspiration to many other important film makers but he was basically a lousy film maker.

PAUL C: I’ve never understood the love for The Graduate, a film that practically ties itself in knots attempting to demonize its most compelling character. How is it that sixties audiences fell in love with the bland Elaine, or rooted for the self-absorbed Ben Braddock? How fortunate for Dustin Hoffman that Midnight Cowboy came along, lest he be typecast as a mopey killjoy. Meanwhile, the film characterizes Mrs. Robinson as a sexually-aggressive predator, but for my money she’s the only character worth watching here. Hell, when Ebert expressed this sentiment to her in an interview, she smiled and countered, “of course, that’s why I took the role.” For me, this throws the film out of balance- instead of an expression of youth breaking free of its elders, The Graduate feels mostly like a feature-length expression of the old credo “don’t trust anyone over thirty.” Why else would the filmmakers not have given the films’ older characters first names?

STEVE: Is the fact that Parker Posey can't act at all yet is still beloved by many supposed to be part of that ironic-hipster image she's been granted or something? Explain it to me, people.

LANCE TOOKS: The Sundance Film Festival.

TMORGAN: All important filmmakers of the late 20th century, take a step forward. Uh, not so fast there, Jean-Luc Godard.

SETH GORDON: Hal Hartley. And it does boggle the mind that Joel Schumacher still gets work.

DAN ALOI: Synchronistically enough... Star Wars. Bombastic pop-religious-military mythology, dumb comic relief, plastic models, a sexless love triangle (whiny kid, cocky mercenary, bitchy princess) and an asthmatic villian do not an epic make. The threequel that came later was a massive waste of money, effort and talent and exemplified how hype cannot overcome dross.

BRIAN: No offense to the good professor, but how about the word "Overrated"? It's a club I refuse to wield. It screams that not only does the emperor have fewer clothes than generally accepted, but also that anybody who doesn't see so is some kind of inferior being.

THOMAS MOHR: I’ll stick to directors, and the list is endless: Godard, Bergman, Allen, Antonioni, Chaplin, Jarmusch, von Trier etc. etc. But I’ll probably go for Lynch, one of the worst bullshitters of them all.

3) Favorite sly or not-so-sly reference to another film or bit of pop culture within another film.


DAVE: It always seemed to me that the way the 4 main characters in Evil Dead 2 look around the cabin as noises whoosh past them was a nod to the reaction shots in The Birds when Tippi and the rest of the folks at the wharf-side restaurant are watching the gas station go up in flames.

BILL: There are dozens upon dozens, but off the top of my head, the meticulous recreation of Sonny’s ass-beating of Carlo from The Godfather (complete with missed punch) on The Simpsons (with Marge in place of James Caan).

FLICKHEAD: All 101 minutes of Agnès Varda’s Les Cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma (1995).

EDWARD COPELAND: "Listen the last man that said that to me was Archie Leach just a week before he cut his throat" -- Cary Grant in His Girl Friday

SEAN: The end of Leos Carax's Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf referencing Jean Vigo's L'Atalante.

FILMBRAIN: The “Kool Thing” dance sequence in Hal Hartley's Simple Men -- a beautiful nod to Bande à Part

JIM EMERSON: I love the hooded "children of rage" in David Cronenberg's The Brood -- a conscious hommage to Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now.

PETER NELLHAUS: The scene in The Dreamers when everyone sings along with The Girl Can't Help it.

FLOWER: Cagney shouting, "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?!" in One, Two, Three.

SHEILA: I love Cary Grant's ad-libs which refer to his other parts in other movies, or just to himself. Like in His Girl Friday when he is trying to describe the character played by Ralph Bellamy and he says, "He looks like that actor - you know - Ralph Bellamy". Or the whole "Jerry the Nipper" joke that starts in The Awful Truth and then is continued in the jail-cell scene in Bringing Up Baby. Katharine Hepburn tells the sheriff that poor David Huxley is ACTUALLY "Jerry the Nipper" - a criminal on the run - and David shouts at the sheriff, "Don't listen to her, officer. She's just making that up out of motion pictures she's seen!" [Yes. And that motion picture would be The Awful Truth - starring you.]

MOVIESZZZ: I know it is a rather silly choice, but A Very Brady Sequel was one of the funniest, smartest pop culturally aware films out there.

SCHUYLER CHAPMAN: Body Double: the simultaneous reference to the poster for Slumber Party Massacre and Ferrara's Driller Killer.

ADAM ROSS: There's a scene in Gremlins 2 of Leonard Maltin reviewing the movie Gremlins only to be attacked by gremlins. This attack is supposed to be happening during the time period of Gremlins 2, which raises way too many questions: Why was Leonard Maltin taping a review for a movie that came out six years ago? In the Gremlins 2 universe, was Gremlins actually a documentary, since the characters in it exist in Gremlins 2 and obviously lived through the original movie? Did the events of Gremlins 2 inspire a similar documentary? Why didn't any of the characters in Gremlins 2 simply say 'didn't you see the movie Gremlins?' when trying to explain the monsters?

SHAWN McGUIRE: I love the parachuting scene in Top Secret where they are engaging in an emotional scene mid-fall, the ending of which pans over to a fireplace suspended by a parachute. It's one of the most wonderfully ridiculous parodies of the Hollywood romance genre.

RAMI: Here's an obvious one but it was the first one that popped into my head. Brian De Palma's homage to Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin utilizes the Odessa Steps sequence but surgically removes any socially redeeming value and turns it into a kick-ass action sequence.

BEMIS: In The Man Who Fell to Earth, David Bowie watching The Third Man on one of his many televisions is juxtaposed with Rip Torn and Candy Clark unknowingly reenacting the same scene.

TRITICALE: I don't even recognize half the names in those questions, and never saw most of the rest. I do have some thoughts on number three.

If I were a film buff the baby carriage on the stairs in Bananas (the one Woody Allen movie I've seen) would probably be my favorite reference, but it was too deliberate. Instead I'll vote for the look on Bronco Billy's face when the bank robber knocked the piggybank out of the kid's hand.

WEIGARD: Someone already mentioned one that I was going to say – James Cagney’s “Little Rico” line from One Two Three -- so I’ll mention the other one, from the same film: Cagney threatening to pound a grapefruit into Otto’s face (from his similar scene in The Public Enemy). I’m glad I’m not the only one who likes this movie!

JOSEPH B.: I always admired the bit in Swingers when the gang is talking about what director stole from who, then Liman cuts to the gang walking down the street like the fellas in Reservoir Dogs.

ROB: The Buzz Lightyear/Zurg subplot in Toy Story 2 - it's the only Star Wars reference that's ever made me laugh, especially in how it's resolved.

MATTHEW: In Bowfinger: "Did you know that Tom Cruise didn't know he was in that vampire movie until three months later?"

JEREMY RICHEY: Every frame of Roman Coppola's fascinating C.Q. The obvious references ranging from Modesty Blaise to Barbarella are obvious but the more you watch the film the more it gives you. A really lovely valentine to the 1960's and many of its most unique films.

SFMIKE: Margaret Hamilton as a Texas Witch singing “The Star Spangled Banner” in Brewster McCloud.

ROBERT FIORE: The part in Animal House where D-Day yells "Ramming Speed!"

BOB TURNBULL: The long shot in Boogie Nights that ends by following the woman into the pool and underwater - a reference to the even better single shot in I Am Cuba (which travels down from several levels in a hotel into the pool).

STEVE: "You'd do it for Randolph Scott." "RANDOLPH SCOTT!"

AARON: Dick Miller – as a private investigator, if memory serves – standing in front of the Rock All Night one-sheet in the remake of Runaway Daughters.

CAMPASPE: Kirk Douglas screening The Bad and the Beautiful in Two Weeks in Another Town. Close second is Jean-Paul Belmondo, in Contempt, explaining why he is wearing his hat in the bathtub: he's being "Deeeen Marrrtahn, een Some Came Runeeeng."

4) Favorite Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger movie


SEAN: The Red Shoes. But Black Narcissus is close and A Canterbury Tale is gaining fast on the outside.

CERB CHAOS: Strangely enough, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp has always been a personal favorite. With it’s wonderful use of color (a given in most Powell/Pressburger films) its great sense of time, conveying not only Colonel Blimp, but also all the changing mores in England at that time, and how Deborah Kerr plays three different love interests during the film. That this movie, with all its layers upon layers, was based off a political cartoon caricature is astounding.

FILMBRAIN: A Matter of Life and Death.

THAT LITTLE ROUNDHEADED BOY: Stairway to Heaven.

SHEILA: I have only seen The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus and I have to go with Black Narcissus because I adore nuns, and I adore Deborah Kerr - and nuns having nervous breakdowns due to sexual tension - with the Himalayas in the background? And Deborah Kerr in a habit? Please count me in.

MOVIESZZZ: The Red Shoes. Easy choice.

RAMI: It was Black Narcissus but now its The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. The opening is hilarious the first time and heart-breaking the second.

SETH: Two for the price of one! Favorite black and white: A Canterbury Tale. Favorite color: Black Narcissus. But choosing between the two would be like choosing between sunset and sunrise. Neither is more beautiful.

JOSEPH B.: A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway To Heaven)- Powell and Pressburger films always exemplified the beauty withheld in glorious Technicolor, but they never matched the fevered intensity of this one.

PAUL C: The Red Shoes. I don’t like ballet- that mom carted me along to ballet performances as a kid, trying to instill culture in me, didn’t help. But The Red Shoes makes as good a case for cinema as a dance medium as anything Busby Berkeley or Arthur Freed ever produced. And Technicolor has never been more ravishing, particularly not the vivid reds that made Moira Shearer’s red hair shimmer on the screen.

AARON: Tales Of Hoffman

But there’s always that underappreciated gem, The Small Back Room.

LANCE TOOKS: A Matter Of Life and Death, a film that literally invaded my dreams as a kid. David Niven’s doomed English pilot falls in love with American switchboard operator Kim Hunter… over the plane’s radio while hurtling toward the earth! “I love you…” he says, “…because you’re life, and I’m leaving you.”
Close Runner-up: Every other film they made.

BRIAN: Finally a softball. I Know Where I’m Going!

CAMPASPE: God, I love them all. But I will go with my first impulse, I Know Where I'm Going!. No, Thief of Baghdad. No, The Red Shoes. No, Black Narcissus... I can't do this.

5) Your favorite Oscar moment

FLICKHEAD: Jerry Lewis pronouncing “James Wong Howe.”

BILL: I’m one of those few who really liked Letterman as a host, and I’ll give two favorites: his montage of other actors auditioning for his role in Cabin Boy, and this joke (paraphrased): “One of tonight’s nominees is called Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, which, coincidentally, is how Arnold Schwarzenegger first
asked Maria Shriver out on a date.”

EDWARD COPELAND: Woody Allen's post-9/11 appearance

SEAN: When I win the pool.

FILMBRAIN: Roberto Benigni literally stepping on Steven Spielberg. Don't get me wrong, I dislike Life is Beautiful, but its winning must have made ole' Steven see red. Spielberg's face as Benigni climbed on the chairs is priceless.

JIM EMERSON: Stanwyck receiving her honorary Oscar and saluting her "golden boy," the late William Holden. And David Watkin receiving the award for best cinematography for Out of Africa and chiding the voters that all the beautiful landscape shots they just applauded in the clips, and for which he was given the award, was actually shot by the second unit.

SHARON: Well, here’s one of them: Last year, Stephen Colbert greeting the audience saying, “Good evening, godless Sodomites.” Comedy gold.

CERB CHAOS: Again, young viewer here: After the Three Six Mafia won their Oscar for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” Jon Stewart said “For those of you keeping score at home, it’s Martin Scorsese 0, Three Six Mafia, 1.” That cracked the whole family up.

PETER NELLHAUS: When Bob Hope says, ". . . or as it's known at my house - Passover."

TLRHB: Walking through the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt and dreaming what it must have been like at the first Oscars.

SHEILA: The clip of the streaker running behind David Niven in 1974 is one of my favorite live-television moments of all time. Also - Niven's brilliantly dry response to it:

"Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings."

I also adored Russell Crowe's acceptance speech. I just was very moved by it, and by his whole demeanor.

SCHUYLER CHAPMAN: 2002: Cut to David Lynch and Robert Altman having a nice laugh as Ron Howard ascends to the podium to receive the Best Director award that rightfully belonged to one Altman or Lynch. I like to think they were laughing at Ron and his atrocious movie.

CHRIS (2): Jack Nicholson saying: “And the award for Best Picture goes to… Crash.” I have seldom laughed so hard in my life.

RYLAND WALKER KNIGHT: I liked it when Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit won and they put the bow-tie on the little gold man.

BEMIS: Anna Paquin's breathless acceptance speech - I wish every winner could be so guilelessly honest about how fun it is to win an award.

SETH: Number 6 in David Letterman’s "Top Ten Signs the Movie You're Watching is Not Nominated for an Academy Award:” "It's a beautifully made documentary about two kids in the inner city trying to realize their dream of playing professional basketball."

STEVE: I thought Stanley Donen dancing and crooning with his honorary Oscar was pretty damn charming.

LANCE TOOKS: Stephen Boyd applauding psychotically when someone else’s name is called… oh waitaminnit, that was the MOVIE named The Oscar.

BRIAN: The first time I ever set out to watch the Oscars on my own volition was after the 1988 movie year, and what did I see but the Rob Lowe/Snow White jawdropper of an opening production. I suppose this has something to do with my inability to take the whole phenomenon too seriously, even though I enjoy and am fascinated by it.

PEET: I have a short memory when it comes to the Oscars, but I loved how Ben Stiller introduced Best Visual Effects last year, fully dressed in chromakey blue.

THOMAS MOHR: As I’m a total cry-baby, it’s definitely the “Bringing out the Dead” (sorry) montage. Every friggin‘ year.

6) Hugo Weaving or Guy Pearce?

SEAN: Hugo Weaving, one of the best voices in contemporary film.

SHARON: It’s gotta be Hugo. I just watched V for Vendetta again, and without his amazing performance, that film would have been nothing.

PETER NELLHAUS: A choice of desert queens! I'm going with Guy mostly because of L.A. Confidential.

FLOWER: That would be Hugo Weaving, Mister Anderson.

SHEILA: Guy Pearce. I love Hugo Weaving too (especially in Proof which is when I first became aware of him) - but Pearce is more versatile, I think. Or at least he's gotten roles that get to show more versatility.

MOVIEZZZ: Can’t tell the difference, but I’d go with Pearce.

DR. CRIDDLE: For Ravenous and The Proposition, Guy Pearce

7) Movie that you feel gave you the greatest insight into a world/culture/person/place/event that you had no understanding of before seeing it


DAVE: Apocalypse Now and the Vietnam War. Before that it was just something I heard about on the radio or saw bite-sized chunks of on TV.

FLICKHEAD: One movie? Insight? Gee…let me think…

BILL: Bloody Sunday. There must be a movie and answer that better fits your question, but I can’t think of one right now, and even
though I knew something about the events in Derry in 1972 before seeing Greengrass’s film, I was not any kind of expert. While watching it, I remember thinking, “Was it really like this?” I later found out that, unfortunately, it was. But it was the movie that made me find that out.

FILMBRAIN: Idi i Smotri (Come and See)

a. fan: City of God. I had never heard of Brazil’s Favelas before I saw this. After I saw it, I felt like I had lived there.

JIM EMERSON: Reds -- for what it must have been like for idealistic Americans to believe in the Soviet myth, from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the exposure of Stalin's massive crimes, and the feelings of betrayal and disillusionment that followed.

PETER NELLHAUS: I've been seeing films from Iran. There have been several good films, but the one that I think would help people understand the clashes of culture best, in a very friendly way, is Secret Ballot.

TLRHB: Star Wars. I had never really understood Tatooine before Star Wars. Sure, I'd heard about it: a mostly arid environment, dangerous nightlife scene, more than one sun. But it took the great documentarian Georges Lucas to open my eyes.

FLOWER: Well, Star Trek II gave me great insight into what it's like to be a lonely, frustrated, genetically enhanced superman waiting for an opportunity to quote Moby Dick.

STENNIE: Michael Powell's Edge of the World opened my eyes to a world I didn't even know existed.

DAMIAN: I know I've said this many times before and will no doubt have cause to say it again, but Schindler's List changed my life. As someone who was relatively ignorant of the Holocaust prior to seeing the film (as were a lot of people my age unfortunately), it certainly opened my eyes to the enormity of that dark period in history, but it also confronted me with how truly evil we human beings can be as well as illustrating the extreme level of nobility and heroism of which we are capable. As a friend of mine said: "Few films have unpacked quite so beautifully or honestly both the darkness and the light within the human soul."

CHRIS: The Wind Will Carry Us.

SHEILA: The first thing that comes to mind is Maria Full of Grace. I knew OF those girls ... but that movie delved into that whole world in a way that was truly eye-opening and horrible.

SCHUYLER CHAPMAN: Pather Panchali

MATTHEW: Lawrence of Arabia put me on a Middle East WWI obsession that still continues.

CHRIS (2): Geez. Why not ask “So what’s the meaning of life anyway?” I will say that Peter Watkins’ Edvard Munch provided me access to a tortured, creative mind in a way I never thought possible on film (or in any other medium.)

DANIEL L: Ray's Apu Trilogy.

CINEBEATS:Hôtel Terminus. When I first saw the film back in 1988 I didn't know much about Klaus Barbie and the "ratline" set up by the U.S. & the Vatican to get Nazi war criminals out of Europe. The movie deeply disturbed me on many levels.

I've also got to mention Let's Get Lost since I saw the film with no previous knowledge about Chet Baker when it was released and after seeing the movie I fell in love with guy and his music.

RYLAND WALKER KNIGHT: I just watched Battle in Heaven and it made me yearn to be a part of Mexico for, I'd say, a month or two. Then I'd have to high-tail it back to Gringoville USA.

RAMI: I had very little knowledge of how to handle a situation wherein snakes would be on a plane. Thank goodness then for Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. JK. Its probably a three way toss up between seriousness Jafar Palahani's The White Balloon which completely opened my eyes to the world of simple trials and tribulations for two children in Iran, the crippling poverty and abuse of the elderly in Umberto D and Werner Herzog's examination of the transformative madness of nature in Grizzly Man.

KEN LOWERY: Lately, God Grew Tired of Us. The Lost Boys (and Girls) of the Sudan have more reason than anyone in the world to be pissed off, burned-out shells of human beings, and yet so many of them are kinder than anyone I know who has lived a more privileged life. Africa's one great big mystery to me, and this clarified things a little.

MARTY McKEE: I never realized that bar bouncers were such legendary heroes—almost like modern-day cowboys—until I immersed myself into the romantic world of Roadhouse. How could I have known that the best bouncers are known by name and legend in sleazy, dirty taverns all across the country? That, just like the Amish, whenever a bouncer runs into trouble that he can’t handle alone, he just has to put out a call, and his fellow bouncers will drop what they’re doing and travel cross-country to help out, even if it means side-stepping local law enforcement to stop the local rich guy from smashing car dealerships with his monster truck.

ROB: JFK - I knew very little about the Kennedy assassination before seeing JFK, and it spurred me to devour everything I could find on the subject.

DAN E: I don't understand a lot of things. I'm white. I'm male. I'm from the suburbs. For the sake of argument, I guess I'll go with Do the Right Thing. From my limited perspective, it seems very intelligent and realistic when it comes to race relations.

ROBERT FIORE: I wouldn't say I had no understanding of the era, but Topsy Turvy is one of the few historical movies that made me feel "Yes, that's what it was like." Barry Lyndon is another.

PAUL C: Without a doubt, Peter Watkins’ La Commune (Paris, 1871). This six-hour movie, originally made for French TV, examines an event that’s passed over by most history books in the U.S.- the rise and fall of Paris Commune, an experimental government formed by workers and intellectuals following a successful uprising against the French government. Watkins, rather than turning the story into a conventional period piece, shoots it like an extended news special, complete with period-incorrect man-on-the-street interviews, talking heads, and even intercut footage of a government news program that criticizes the Communards. The result is a movie that captures the spirit of the Commune better than any conventional telling ever could, while connecting it to the better-organized but less ambitious protest movements of today.

AARON: Matinee, with its early 60s monster movie-mad youngster as protagonist, provided insight into what it must have been like in that simultaneously golden and terrifying era.

LANCE TOOKS: Aldrich’s The Longest Yard was the first time I sat through a football game without falling asleep. Up until that day my father was really worried about his first-born son.

SETH GORDON: Inside Seka

BRIAN: Tell me it's not my imagination; these questions are harder than the previous profs', aren't they? I could give a thousand answers here, or more. Singling out one film feels all but impossible, especially since it's not exactly easy to verify the accuracy of perceptions. I'm really interested in the concept of cinema-as-tourism. Nevertheless, I'm going to give a sarcastic non-answer: Real Genius, which taught me everything I'd need to know about college several years before I'd actually attend one.

THOM McGREGOR: Dune. Culture: Outer space spice mining. World: Absurdist Lynchian soundscape. I love to listen to this movie. Plus it's full of hilarious dialogue and giddy imagery.

CAMPASPE: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs. The movie's window on that world was so clear and sharp that even rather opaque aspects of Japanese social interaction were plain as day.

8) Favorite Samuel Fuller movie


FILMBRAIN: Verboten!

JIM EMERSON: The Big Red One -- followed closely by The Naked Kiss and White Dog.

PETER NELLHAUS: Forty Guns because of the opening sequence of the riders, which can only be seen in wide screen to be appreciated.

TLRHB: Park Row. Why? Because I've never seen it and I've been waiting dog years for them to put it on DVD!

CHRIS (2): Pierrot le Fou but I guess you don’t mean as an actor. The opening scene of Naked Kiss is the best work Fuller ever did, but the rest of the film doesn’t live up to it. In general, I find that his films share brilliant moments with dull ones which is part of what makes him so fascinating. Favorite, I suppose I’ll go with The Big Red One though Forty Guns is an awful lot of fun.

RAMI: Pickup on South Street is the total package. Plus Thelma Ritter gives her best performance ever in it.

LANCE TOOKS: Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss. Fuller’s one of my favorites, but I’ve never understood how anyone can defend the moronic White Dog… anyone really believe the NAACP had enough clout to keep a movie out of theaters? More likely the studio saw what a piece of sh** it was and found a convenient way to cut & run.

CAMPASPE: Pickup on South Street. Ah, Thelma!

COMING NEXT: BELLUCCI/CUCINOTTA, HAPPY PILL/SAD PILL, BOORMAN, OATES/DERN, ASPECT RATIOS, TRUFFAUT’S CRYSTAL BALL, HERZOG and RAMPAGING BEASTS

TRUE LIES AND TRUE CONFESSIONS

So, what did you do this weekend?

Well, what I did was take advantage of the fact that my next class doesn’t until tomorrow and use my free time to compile the very best of Professor Irwin Corey’s Spring Break Quiz (originally sprung way back on March 15!). Little did I know that, because of the wealth of excellent and hilarious responses, it would be such a massive, time-consuming undertaking. But here I am, at 1:00 a.m. on Monday morning, finally ready to edit the final version for publication this week, and at 58 single-spaced pages I’m going to have to dole this one out in four parts. But trust me, it’ll be fun to read! Look for it as early as Tuesday. Great bathroom reading if nothing else!

Until then, before I settle in for a short summer’s snooze, I wanted to briefly answer the eight questions posed in the previous post as to their truth or falsehood. There is a reason this post is called “True Lies and True Confessions," and that reason is that every entry is either entirely true or built around a nugget of truth, but some ain't exactly all true. I am here to guide you through the nettles to a deeper understanding. Let’s go.

1) Absolutely 100% true, Cinephile! I’m glad to know there’s at least one other benign obsessive out there. And Flower, I suppose I could get a count, but I’m not that obsessive. Here’s a look, if you don’t believe me.



(Click on images to get a closer look.)

2) A tall tale built around a half-interesting nugget of reality. I did indeed see a triple feature of Robocop, Full Metal Jacket and Platoon not long before the Pickwick Drive-in (its correct name) on Alameda Avenue in Burbank closed in the late ‘80s. So that’s a truth mixed with an inadvertent lie, otherwise known as a cerebral hiccup. As for that surly insistence on Diet Pepsi, it is mere fantasy. I usually just acquiesce with barely a shrug, mainly because my dependence on the carbonated beverage far outweighs trivial matters of brand-name association when thirsty comes to shove. Aaron, my inner Wild Bill Kelso remains tamed. (Sorry, Piper. Although this admission could itself be just another lie. How can we really know…?)


3) Number three is 90% true. The photo is false—I used to image of some poor British kid who was obviously exploited in a similar way that ended up getting on the Internet. And there were no dust-ups between me and my unfeeling, unthinking, tomato-tossing public. But these pictures below (likewise now unleashed for the World Wide Web to see) are a grim testament to the truth of my own holiday humiliation.



4) 100% true. Here’s a shot of Blaaagh (right) outside the administration building on the steps up which Bluto, D-Day and Flounder led the ill-fated horse. Standing with him are fine friend PSaga (middle) and her paramour, Scott (left).


5) 99.9% true. Only the Berengeresque inspiration is false. The picture below, from the French documentary To Be and to Have, gives a clue as to my true inspiration.


6) 100% true. Thanks to Dr. Savaard for making my entire weekend with your e-mail—you ended my quest by getting me in touch with Shocking Videos, where God’s Angry Man can indeed by had, and for a pittance. It made me very happy to know a distinguished, resilient and underappreciated man of medicine like yourself has been looking in on the humble business going on here. By the way, here’s a picture of the beautiful downtown movie palace where Dr. Gene Scott used to set up shop.



7) The only part of this that is true is that I used to work at an AM radio station in Grants Pass, and occasionally I would have to play “Heaven on the Seventh Floor.” The rest is all, as Sal would have it, a blatant Laddification. I did, however, once play Nicholas' "Cousin Kevin" from the Tommy soundtrack, and within minutes the station manager landed on me like Oliver Reed dropped from a great height.

8) I don’t really long to swagger like Mackey, or Willis, but I do wish I looked as good as they do with a chrome dome. I ain’t exactly Tor Johnson, and I do look better bald, but ain’t no way I carry it off like these gentlemen.

All right, I’m going to bed. Professor Irwin Corey’s Greatest Hits coming this week, and you know what that means… The summer quiz is just around the bend. Stay tuned.

FIVE + THREE THINGS YOU MAY KNOW ABOUT ME (plus a test afterwards!)

I’ve been tagged by Walter at Quiet Bubble and Lucas at 100 Films to provide eight random facts about myself. Here are the rules for this amusingly viral little exercise:



a) Must Post Rules First
b) Must Provide Facts
c) Must Tag Eight Other Unsuspecting Bloggers At End Of Exercise And Ensnare Them Into Ever-Widening Web Of Entertaining Minutiae

But I’ve decided, in order to spice things up a bit, to give you, Dear Reader, a chance to separate fact from fancy, fiction from foolishness. At the end of my eight facts, you will be provided with a simple test. If you choose to do so, leave the test, along with any smart remarks you will undoubtedly have, in the comments column. The test will be to see if you can tell the True Confessions from the True Lies.

Let’s begin.

1) I’ve kept a journal logging every movie I’ve seen for the past 30 years.
It started on September 17, 1977, the first night I spent at the University of Oregon on my own. I went to see The Spy Who Loved Me at a dumpy little duplex called the Valley River Twin Cinemas, which were at the time, incredibly enough, one of Eugene’s main first-run houses, the jewel in Portland movie theater impresario Larry Moyer’s local crown. (His brother Tom owned the Cinema World across the street.) I’d already seen the movie earlier in the summer and loved it (I gave it three-and-a-half out of a possible four stars, the hardy Leonard Maltin rating system), and when I came home to my dorm room that night for some reason I decided to write down the following bit of information in a three-ring, college-ruled binder notebook:

9-17 The Spy Who Loved Me ***1/2 Valley River Twin

That was it. The following Saturday night a group of friends and I shlepped out to a cracker-box cinema in the outlying Springfield area for a double bill of The Last Remake of Beau Geste (**) and Mel Brooks’ The Twelve Chairs (***). When I got home, I wrote the double feature down in the same format. With that entry, a routine was established that I have kept up for nearly 30 years.

In the summer of 1997, when she was pregnant with our son, Charlie, my wife, needing something to fill up the idle hours of maternity leave, took it upon herself to enter the entire journal (then “only” 20 years worth of films) into Word Perfect, print the entire shebang up on beautiful paper stock and bind it in a lovely leather book. As a bonus, I went through the latest copy of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide, marked down every movie I’d seen released prior to September 1977, where I’d seen it (remarkably easy to remember, for some reason), and even made a reasonable attempt to estimate what year I’d seen it. By starting around 1963, with a screening of the cartoon feature Gay Purr-ee at the Marius Theater in Lakeview, Oregon (by my best guess, the first movie I ever saw on the big screen), we pieced together a reasonably accurate picture of every movie I’d seen before September 1977 and committed it to this refurbished version of my journal.

That was 10 years ago. With last night’s DVD screening of New York, New York, I’m one entry closer to 30 complete years of logging my movie-going history, a grand total of 43 years in the books. There’s a reason most people don’t know this about me. The reason is, when most people find out, they recoil in fear, or disgust, pelting me with heartless accusations: “Nerd!” “Geek!” “Creep!” “Weirdo!” I don’t much like that. And I’ve had to correct many a misguided assessment of my sanity. And now that you know, well, what do you think? Come closer… and be honest. What do you think?

2) I’d rather fight than switch
One early morning at Norm’s Diner, after an all-night triple feature of Robocop, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket at the long-gone Alameda Drive-in in Burbank, California, I threw a punch at a waiter who asked me “Is Diet Coke okay?” after I specifically asked for Diet Pepsi. There was no Diet Pepsi in the Burbank City Jail either.


3) I once addressed the student body of my elementary school dressed as a Christmas tree
There were some tears, some laughter, and at the end of it a few more boys were dusted with white flocking and skin abrasions than when the ceremony began. But no one ever called me Pine Nuts ever again. The horrifying aftermath was later adapted (fairly loosely) as an episode of Showtime’s Tales from the Crypt.

4) My best friend and I survived Delta Tau Chi
I met my best friend (known in the comments columns here as Blaaagh) on the Eugene, Oregon set of National Lampoon’s Animal House in the autumn of 1977. I had actually seen him and another actor several months earlier performing a scene from Of Mice and Men at a state Thespian conference. I guess the performance really impressed me because several months later, in the dingy, stale-beer-smelling basement of the Sigma Nu house on 13th Avenue that served as the interior of the Delta house, I spied Blaaagh sitting and waiting, as we extras tended to do, to be called for the next shot and remembered his shining moment as George. In a very atypically brazen moment for this shy boy, I introduced myself, told him I remembered his performance, and I think this shocked him just enough to inspire him to have a conversation with me. We kept bumping into each other that week (pretty hard not to on that cramped set), and by the weekend we were off to see our first movies together-- Star Wars, followed by a midnight double feature of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Jabberwocky. (See what that journal is good for?) We survived Jabberwocky and remain as bestest as best friends could be to this day. UPDATE JULY 7, 2007: During a recent trip to Oregon, I discovered this vintage 1977 photo booth strip of Blaaagh and I sporting our Animal House haircuts. Minus my glasses, this is a pretty good represntation of what we looked like in the movie, and, unfortunately, on campus for a couple of months, a full year before it was suddenly cool to be in the movie.

5) I am currently going back to school to become an elementary schoolteacher.
In pursuit of that goal, I’ve been substituting since January. And this is my inspiration:



6) One of the great unseen movies I have been in hot pursuit of ever since I first heard of it is Werner Herzog’s documentary about Dr. Gene Scott entitled God’s Angry Man.
Thanks, Tom, for another wonderful piece of writing.

7) One very dull night, while working the graveyard shift at a radio station in Grants Pass, Oregon, I played Paul Nicholas’ Top 40 hit “Heaven On The Seventh Floor” nearly 20 times in a row, over the course of a full hour, just to see if anyone, including my boss, was listening. Not one single phone call.


8) I often wish I could comport myself in the manner of Michael Chiklis in the role of Vic Mackey on FX’s hit TV drama The Shield. I’m not endorsing police corruption or anything. There’s just something about that swaggering dick-head that really speaks to the suppressed Freudian bogeyman in me. And I, like Chiklis, and Bruce Willis before him, look better bald than not.

Okay, now the test:

#1 T ( ) F ( )

#2 T ( ) F ( )

#3 T ( ) F ( )

#4 T ( ) F ( )

#5 T ( ) F ( )

#6 T ( ) F ( )

#7 T ( ) F ( )

#8 T ( ) F ( )

I tag Peet, David, Paul C., The Shamus, Kim, Damian, Campaspe and Andrew.

MORE RAIN LOVE

As the heat continues, so too the good vibes...

Phillip's response to the Cinema 21 shot below made me think this was an excellent time to link once again to Lauren Kessler's wonderful essay, "I Love the Rain."

CURE FOR THE COMMON HEAT WAVE

(Photo by Leonard Louder)

When it’s 100 degrees in Los Angeles, taking a movie in the Pacific Northwest sounds even better than usual. Is that D.K. Holm hanging out in front of the Cinema 21 in Portland, Oregon? Maybe it's Ted Mahar. Whoever that lad on the sidewalk is, he undoubtedly knows, as do I, that a little drizzle (and even a rainbow) goes well with a movie, matinee or nighttime show.

Having wonderful time. Wish I was there.

"OVER"? DID YOU SAY "OVER"? WAS IT OVER WHEN THE GERMANS BOMBED PEARL HARBOR? HELL NO!

Producer Sean Daniel, on The Huffington Post, on the egregious besmirching of a film comedy legacy, saying what needs to be said: “It has happened again and it has to end. The use of the term Animal House to represent foul political behavior or historical events gone very badly has got to be stopped.”

THE SLIFR 100 FAVORITE MOVIES LIST

Dennis is hereby absolved from any glaring omissions from this list

Back in the days when it felt like I had all the time in the world, I used to keep a regularly updated list of my top 10 movies, or favorite directors, or 30 favorite movies, or 50 all-time best movies, or whatever struck my fancy. It had been a long time, however, since I’d really considered (beyond the numbers one and two spots, anyway) what a list of my favorite movies might look like. Earlier this year I was asked to compile a list of my 30 favorite movies, the stipulation being total honesty as to absolute favorites, not necessarily the kinds of familiar titles one might expect to find on a Sight and Sound all-time best list, or even movies I might be tempted to include merely to secure my appearance as a serious film critic, as opposed to some presumably less-serious film fan. The list I came up with included many titles that I’m sure most self-respecting critics would never consider highlighting, and I must admit I experienced a brief pang of post-compilation regret that I hadn’t taken the opportunity to spruce up my list with more scholar-friendly titles. But if I had, that would have missed the point of the exercise and undermined what was valuable and interesting about this sort of list—the peek into what a person who is expected to enjoy and revere Renoir and Ozu and Fellini and Altman first gravitates to when the opportunity for the lights to go down arises.

Falling in Love Again: Morocco

So when I was asked to compile this list of 100 movies you have before you, I approached it in the same spirit, as an opportunity to expand on the seemingly endless roster of films I would naturally include on any list of my favorites. Like my friend Edward Copeland, through whom I became involved in this latest enterprise, I began with a list of nearly 300 movies I jotted down off the top of my head (making sure to include the 30 from the earlier list), which meant that coming up with ideas for titles to include was far easier than whittling down a list by almost two-thirds in order to keeping from severely breaking format. In doing so, I found myself having to be unusually harsh with the oeuvres of directors like Alfred Hitchcock and especially Robert Altman. In order to keep the list from looking like a lopsided endorsement of an entire filmography, I kept myself down to only two Altman titles, albeit essential ones. And regarding Hitchcock, I actually left off more titles (five) than I ended up including (three). While I was not surprised at the number of Brian De Palma films on my final list (four), I was very surprised at the strong showing of Martin Scorsese, who appeared four times with films from a very narrow period of time (1973-1977), even though I was not surprised that some of his most revered titles (Raging Bull, GoodFellas, to name two) stood no chance of making even my top 300. Some might find it odd that there are twice as many films by Michael Ritchie (two) on my list than there are by Preston Sturges, Roberto Rossellini, Stanley Kubrick or Clint Eastwood. And again, there was some surprise on my part that, for a year (1980) that I remember as especially lame (the beginning of a weak decade), there should be so many movies (five) from that year. So, the final result is most probably a list that may be no more useful to the average reader than as a tool for updating their Netflix queue, a reminder of titles forgotten or never seen. It is certainly not any more comprehensive than is my own film scholarship which, despite my advancing age, still has many gaping holes, a goodly portion left yet to be experienced.

But I’ve always thought that an initial list of my 100 favorite films would be a good way for anyone, readers familiar and especially those unfamiliar with the voice occupying this blog, to get a quick and dirty handle on my particular sensibility. I only regret that, in order to get this up and running on time, I had no extra time to rank them in preferential order (a nearly impossible task for me), provide comments, reviews or, in some cases, justifications for some of my choices. (In a couple of cases, those justifications, which will require much more space than a capsule review, will be forthcoming.) So, in that quick and dirty spirit, I offer this list as a stand-alone entry here, and also as part of an ongoing, soon-to-be-announced project. I hope you enjoy it, I hope it drives you crazy, I hope it inspires you to comment on what I included and what I left out, and I hope it reminds you of movies you love as well as movies you have yet to see.

THE MOVIES

1920s (2)
THE GENERAL (1927; Buster Keaton)
THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928; Carl Theodor Dreyer)






1930s (9)
MOROCCO (1930; Josef von Sternberg)
CITY LIGHTS (1931; Charles Chaplin)
M (1931; Fritz Lang)
HORSE FEATHERS (1932; Norman Z. MacLeod)
DUCK SOUP (1933; Leo McCarey)
THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935; James Whale)
ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (1939; Howard Hawks)
THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939; Jean Renoir)
YOUNG MR. LINCOLN (1939; John Ford)

Kind Hearts and Coronets

1940s (13)
HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940; Howard Hawks)
BALL OF FIRE (1941; Howard Hawks)
CITIZEN KANE (1941; Orson Welles)
THE LADY EVE (1941; Preston Sturges)
NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK (1941; Edward Cline)
SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943; Alfred Hitchcock)
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1944; Jean Cocteau)
A CANTERBURY TALE (1944; Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
OPEN CITY (1945; Roberto Rossellini)
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946; Frank Capra)
NOTORIOUS (1946; Alfred Hitchcock)
RED RIVER (1948; Howard Hawks)
KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949; Robert Hamer)

Singin' in the Rain

1950s (18)
IN A LONELY PLACE (1950; Nicholas Ray)
SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950; Billy Wilder)
ACE IN THE HOLE (1951; Billy Wilder)
THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951; John Huston)
BEND OF THE RIVER (1952; Anthony Mann)
IKIRU (1952; Akira Kurosawa)
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952; Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly)
THE BIG HEAT (1953; Fritz Lang)
PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953; Samuel Fuller)
TOKYO STORY (1953; Yazujiro Ozu)
SEVEN SAMURAI (1954; Akira Kurosawa)
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955; Charles Laughton)
THE SEARCHERS (1956; John Ford)
NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (1957; Federico Fellini)
THE TALL T (1957; Budd Boetticher)
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959; Alfred Hitchcock)

OHAYO (GOOD MORNING) (1959; Yazujiro Ozu)
RIO BRAVO (1959; Howard Hawks)

One Two Three

1960s (11)
ONE TWO THREE (1961; Billy Wilder)
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962; David Lean)
DR. STRANGELOVE, or HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING
AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964; Stanley Kubrick)
THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (1964; Jacques Demy)
WOMAN IN THE DUNES (1964; Hiroshi Teshigahara)
REPULSION (1965; Roman Polanski)
AU HAZARD BALTHAZAR (1966; Robert Bresson)
THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966; Sergio Leone)
FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969; Terence Fisher)
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969; Sergio Leone)
THE WILD BUNCH (1969; Sam Peckinpah)

1970s (26)
THE DEVILS (1971; Ken Russell)
DELIVERANCE (1972; John Boorman)
THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972; Luis Bunuel)

THE GODFATHER (1972; Francis Ford Coppola)
CHARLEY VARRICK (1973; Don Siegel)
EMPEROR OF THE NORTH (1973; Robert Aldrich)THE LONG GOODBYE (1973; Robert Altman)
MEAN STREETS (1973; Martin Scorsese)
AMARCORD (1974; Federico Fellini)
CHINATOWN (1974; Roman Polanski)
THE GODFATHER PART II (1974; Francis Ford Coppola)
ITALIANAMERICAN (1974; Martin Scorsese)
THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE-TWO-THREE (1974; Joseph Sargent)
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974; Tobe Hooper)
DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975; Sidney Lumet)
LOVE AND DEATH (1975; Woody Allen)
JAWS (1975; Steven Spielberg)
MANDINGO (1975; Richard Fleischer)
NASHVILLE (1975; Robert Altman) *

SMILE (1975; Michael Ritchie)
THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976; Michael Ritchie)
CARRIE (1976; Brian De Palma)
HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD (1976; Joe Dante & Allan Arkush)
TAXI DRIVER (1976; Martin Scorsese)

HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A. (1977; Barbara Kopple)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK (1977; Martin Scorsese)
1941 (1979; Steven Spielberg)

The Right Stuff

1980s (11)
DRESSED TO KILL (1980; Brian De Palma)
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980; Irvin Kershner)
THE LONG RIDERS (1980; Walter Hill)
MELVIN AND HOWARD (1980; Jonathan Demme)
USED CARS (1980; Robert Zemeckis)
BLOW OUT (1981; Brian De Palma)
BURDEN OF DREAMS (1982; Les Blank)
THE RIGHT STUFF (1983; Philip Kaufman)
THE FLY (1986; David Cronenberg)
PROJECT A PART II (1987; Jackie Chan)
CASUALTIES OF WAR (1989; Brian De Palma)

The high hat: Miller's Crossing

1990s (7)
MILLER’S CROSSING (1990; Joel & Ethan Coen)
UNFORGIVEN (1992; Clint Eastwood)
HARD-BOILED (1992; John Woo)
COBB (1994; Ron Shelton)
FAST, CHEAP AND OUT OF CONTROL (1997; Errol Morris)
JACKIE BROWN (1997; Quentin Tarantino)
THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998; Joel & Ethan Coen)

2000s (2)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE TWO TOWERS, THE RETURN OF THE KING (2001-2003; Peter Jackson)
GOODBYE, DRAGON INN (2003; Ming-liang Tsai)

* If I were ranking these by preference, this would be number one, as it has been for about 26 years

THE DIRECTORS (and how many times they ranked on this list)

Howard Hawks (5)

Brian De Palma (4)
Martin Scorsese (4)

Alfred Hitchcock (3)
Billy Wilder (3)

Robert Altman (2)
Joel & Ethan Coen (2)
Francis Ford Coppola (2)
Federico Fellini (2)
John Ford (2)
Akira Kurosawa (2)
Fritz Lang (2)
Sergio Leone (2)
Yazujiro Ozu (2)
Roman Polanski (2)
Michael Ritchie (2)
Steven Spielberg (2)

Robert Aldrich (1)
Woody Allen (1)
Les Blank (1)
Budd Boetticher (1)
John Boorman (1)
Robert Bresson (1)
Luis Bunuel (1)
Frank Capra (1)
Jackie Chan (1)
Charles Chaplin (1)
Edward Cline (1)
Jean Cocteau (1)
David Cronenberg (1)
Joe Dante & Allan Arkush (1)
Jonathan Demme (1)
Jacques Demy (1)
Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly (1)
Carl Theodor Dreyer (1)
Clint Eastwood (1)
Terence Fisher (1)
Richard Fleischer (1)
Samuel Fuller (1)
Robert Hamer (1)
Walter Hill (1)
Tobe Hooper (1)
John Huston (1)
Peter Jackson (1)
Philip Kaufman (1)
Buster Keaton (1)
Irvin Kershner (1)
Barbara Kopple (1)
Stanley Kubrick (1)
Charles Laughton (1)
David Lean (1)
Sidney Lumet (1)
Anthony Mann (1)
Leo McCarey (1)
Norman Z. McLeod (1)
Ming-liang Tsai (1)
Errol Morris (1)
Sam Peckinpah (1)
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger (1)
Nicholas Ray (1)
Jean Renoir (1)
Roberto Rossellini (1)
Ken Russell (1)
Joseph Sargent (1)
Ron Shelton (1)
Don Siegel (1)
Josef von Sternberg (1)
Preston Sturges (1)
Quentin Tarantino (1)
Hiroshi Teshigahara (1)
Orson Welles (1)
James Whale (1)
John Woo (1)
Robert Zemeckis (1)

As I neared the magic number of 100 movies, these were the last movies to get pruned away:

Audition, Birth, Bringing Up Baby, Bull Durham, Die Hard, Dirty Harry, Do The Right Thing, Dune, Eraserhead, The Haunting (1961), The Incredibles, Island Of Lost Souls, The Kids Are Alright, King Kong, La Cage Aux Folles II, The Man Who Would Be King, The Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek, Mulholland Drive, Rear Window, Secret Honor, Showgirls, Some Like It Hot, Strangers On A Train, A Streetcar Named Desire, Supercop: Police Story III, Top Hat, Ugetsu Monogatari, Viridiana and You Only Live Twice.