I’m a sucker for romances, but as long as 1. they are adult (so absolutely no THE NOTEBOOK) and 2. the characters have real flaws and real hopes, and are two or more people I genuinely want to invest time in and truly deserve to be together in their search for happiness.
In a Lonely Place
Vertigo
Casablanca
His Girl Friday
City Lights
Notorious
Brief Encounter
Letter From an Unknown Woman
On the Waterfront
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Lady Eve
They Live by Night
Hiroshima Mon Amour
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Wings of Desire
Reds
Cleo from 5 to 7 (I always wonder what happened to Cleo and the soldier)
Before Sunset
A Star is Born (Cukor’s version)
My favorite is THE NAKED KISS—Sam Fuller once said that if a film doesn’t give you a hard-on in the first few minutes you might as well throw it in the goddamn garbage. I’m a female but had things turned out biologically differently, I would’ve had an erection high enough to ride the roller coaster without an adult. And say what you want about the supposed terrible acting in Fuller’s films, but there is no denying the sheer force of the beautiful Constance Towers, who really shaved her head for the opening scene, a move that Bette Davis surely would’ve tipped her hat off to.
Even without the man’s background in newspapers that surely contributed to his sensationalist direction, Fuller was one of the most thoughtful directors, and his treatment of different cultures and especially racism is more hard-hitting and still cuts deeper than the more well-known films of Stanley Kramer; watch GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER and then WHITE DOG and you’ll see which one has aged better, and which director had more brains and balls.
TOP 10 FILMS OF ALL TIME:
1. In a Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray)
2. Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
3. His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks)
4. Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
5. Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)
6. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
7. Almost Famous (2000, Cameron Crowe)
8. Jules and Jim (1962, Francois Truffaut)
9. Five Easy Pieces (1970, Bob Rafelson)
10. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, Wes Anderson)
10 1/2. The Naked Kiss (1964, Samuel Fuller)
TOP 10 CRITERION DVDs:
1. Notorious
2. The Royal Tenenbaums
3. The Naked Kiss
4. Ace in the Hole
5. Brief Encounter
6. Cleo from 5 to 7
7. The Double Life of Veronique
8. La Jetee
9. 8 1/2
10. Written on the Wind
Rumor has it that Wings of Desire and My Life to Live are going to be released by Criterion; if that’s true, then my list will have to be modified.
Nicholas Ray’s noir romance In a Lonely Place. There are films I’ve seen with better production values, better supporting performances, that are funnier, that I can watch when I’m feeling blue and want to be cheered up, but none of those other films have crawled under my skin and settled permanently there. This film struck me so much when I first watched it two years ago on DVD and it hasn’t let go yet, struck by how in tune Nicholas Ray was with his deeply flawed, broken characters and how devoted the two actors Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame inhabited their characters (both actors deliver their greatest performances) with a deeply human understanding. It’s also remarkable how skillfully the film avoids a cliched ending, because it remains so true to the characters, which makes the ending, brought on by their own fears and insecurities and NOT a silly plot devise, all the more powerful and heartbreaking.
Vertigo, however, is in my opinion the greatest film ever made.
I think it was a little TOO simplistic, honestly. Maybe it’s just my personal taste of complex adult romances like In a Lonely Place, Vertigo or Notorious where there is genuine conflict and love doesn’t make things easier, but even though I really like the two actors from other films and I like them together in this film, I didn’t feel like I knew the characters enough to want them to end up together. Too many montages over pop love songs, which felt more like a YouTube fan video than a feature film. I actually found myself fast-forwarding through sections, something I almost never do, at least, not when I’m genuinely enjoying the film.
My favorite film noir, my favorite film, my favorite underrated gem and the one film I will never get tired of writing about is Nicholas Ray’s IN A LONELY PLACE, one of the darkest noirs because of the tragic love story at its center, and the most unbearably sad finale in cinema. SUNSET BLVD. gets all the attention as an exposee of the dream factory, but I much prefer Ray’s film even though I do like SUNSET BLVD. quite a bit—it’s just that Ray’s film is so much more than a Hollywood story, a murder mystery or a film noir, it’s an amazing love story about two deeply flawed people who hold onto each other in hope that they will become better people (and who truly deserve to find happiness because they are so gloriously imperfect, complete human beings), but they just end up where the title suggests by the film’s end, despite living a few weeks while they love each other.
Howard Hawks is one of my very favorite directors because he was so simplistic and he simply could do anything, work with any actor and get a great performance, work in any genre and make a masterpiece. My favorite film of his is HIS GIRL FRIDAY, which is my favorite comedy. In fact, it was a double feature of that film and BRINGING UP BABY that got me hooked on classic cinema, and I never looked back.
Twice, I’m afraid—once during EASY RIDER, and I don’t think I missed very much, and during the last few minutes of BICYCLE THIEVES in my film history class, which I’m badly ashamed of.
I had seen a few of his films and enjoyed every one of them, but I watched SOME CAME RUNNING a few weeks ago and now I want to see everything the man made. The film is something like FIVE EASY PIECES by way of Douglas Sirk, with Frank Sinatra taking the Jack Nicholson role of a talented but directionless man returning home and being caught between an icy, beautiful intellectual and a dizzy floozy who loves him whole-heartedly. Now I can’t wait to see MADAME BOVARY and all the other films he’s made. I just love the man’s self-contained universe; THE CLOCK and THE BAND WAGON were filmed on sound stages (and it’s pretty obvious, too), but Minnelli’s version of New York is more romantic and fantastic than the real place.
The little Monopoly house piece attached to the bottom of a closet light switch (seen when Royal returns home with Ari and Oozy and Chaz yells at him in the game closet)
There are so many…I’ll name a handful, mostly older films, and I’m not going to name any films that already have great DVD releases, despite how badly I want VERTIGO to get a Criterion release, if only for the mono soundtrack.
WITHOUT A REGION-1 DVD RELEASE:
The Tarnished Angels (Sirk)
Letter From an Unknown Woman (Ophuls)
Prima Della Revoluzione/Before the Revolution (Bertolucci)
The Rain People (Coppola)
The Reckless Moment (Ophuls)
Caught (Ophuls)
Bigger Than Life (N. Ray)
Wild River (Kazan)
Johnny Guitar (N. Ray)
The Lusty Men (N. Ray)
The Crimson Kimono (Fuller)
Underworld USA (Fuller)
Shanghai Express (von Sternberg)
Greed (Von Stroheim)
Woman on the Beach (Renoir)
MOVIES ALREADY WITH A DVD RELEASE DESERVING A CLEAN-UP OR THE CRITERION TREATMENT:
Last Tango in Paris (the MGM release needs a restoration, and Criterion likes Bertolucci)
In a Lonely Place and Bitter Victory (both got nice restorations from Colombia but Criterion could go farther, and include swank bonus features deserving to Nicholas Ray’s auteur status; you could include KNOCK ON ANY DOOR and make it a Nick Ray at Colombia trilogoy)
Five Easy Pieces, and other little-known films by Bob Rafelson
Dodsworth (this 1930s masterpiece about a marriage in crisis desperately needs a clean-up…and a new audience)
A Farewell to Arms and other Frank Borzage films (his Hemingway adaptation languishes in the public domain and aside from the gorgeous Borzage at Fox box set released early this year, Borzage remains criminally under-acknowledged in the DVD world)
On Dangerous Ground, restored to Nicholas Ray’s original cut.
Lola Montes (out of print DVD from 1999; a new print having been shown around the country restored on the big screen—which I was very, very lucky to have seen—and with extended footage by Rialto Cinema, I think Criterion may release this in the near future)
Vivre sa Vie (I’m not the only one to want this and I won’t be the last)
BEAT THE DEVIL, which I’ve heard is great but poor quality DVDs give me a headache.
Also, Frank Borzage’s A FAREWELL TO ARMS. It’s really a beautiful movie, damned if it isn’t exactly Hemingway—Gary Cooper’s desperate eyes when he prays for Catherine are enough to stop any cynic in their tracks. It so deserves a clean-up and a new audience.
HIS GIRL FRIDAY already has a swank clean-up from Colombia so I don’t see it as an essential for Criterion.
I hesitate a bit to call him the Greatest Filmmaker of All Time, but I have no qualms to say that Nicholas Ray is my favorite director of all time. I’d seen REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE at 14 but it was discovering IN A LONELY PLACE when I was 17 that shook me, moved me and made me want to seek out everything this man ever touched. To this day Ray’s 1950 film noir is my favorite movie, it works equally well as a film noir, a romance and a drama.
Nicholas Ray is the titular subject of the song “Nicholas Ray” by Sea Ray. It also mentions Jack Warner and Gloria Grahame. I couldn’t find lyrics but it’s a cool song that scratches the surface of Ray’s loner status and his rebellion against studios (“Hey, Jack Warner/Hey, Jack Warner/Could you stay out of my life right now?!”)
Favorite Romances of all time over 3 years ago
I’m a sucker for romances, but as long as 1. they are adult (so absolutely no THE NOTEBOOK) and 2. the characters have real flaws and real hopes, and are two or more people I genuinely want to invest time in and truly deserve to be together in their search for happiness.
In a Lonely Place
Vertigo
Casablanca
His Girl Friday
City Lights
Notorious
Brief Encounter
Letter From an Unknown Woman
On the Waterfront
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Lady Eve
They Live by Night
Hiroshima Mon Amour
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Wings of Desire
Reds
Cleo from 5 to 7 (I always wonder what happened to Cleo and the soldier)
Before Sunset
A Star is Born (Cukor’s version)
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What Out of Print Criterions do you own? over 3 years ago
NOTORIOUS. Of course, with MGM re-releasing it, it isn’t as special anymore.
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Fuller over 3 years ago
My favorite is THE NAKED KISS—Sam Fuller once said that if a film doesn’t give you a hard-on in the first few minutes you might as well throw it in the goddamn garbage. I’m a female but had things turned out biologically differently, I would’ve had an erection high enough to ride the roller coaster without an adult. And say what you want about the supposed terrible acting in Fuller’s films, but there is no denying the sheer force of the beautiful Constance Towers, who really shaved her head for the opening scene, a move that Bette Davis surely would’ve tipped her hat off to.
Even without the man’s background in newspapers that surely contributed to his sensationalist direction, Fuller was one of the most thoughtful directors, and his treatment of different cultures and especially racism is more hard-hitting and still cuts deeper than the more well-known films of Stanley Kramer; watch GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER and then WHITE DOG and you’ll see which one has aged better, and which director had more brains and balls.
Go to Comment
What's your Top 10? over 3 years ago
TOP 10 FILMS OF ALL TIME:
1. In a Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray)
2. Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
3. His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks)
4. Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
5. Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)
6. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
7. Almost Famous (2000, Cameron Crowe)
8. Jules and Jim (1962, Francois Truffaut)
9. Five Easy Pieces (1970, Bob Rafelson)
10. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, Wes Anderson)
10 1/2. The Naked Kiss (1964, Samuel Fuller)
TOP 10 CRITERION DVDs:
1. Notorious
2. The Royal Tenenbaums
3. The Naked Kiss
4. Ace in the Hole
5. Brief Encounter
6. Cleo from 5 to 7
7. The Double Life of Veronique
8. La Jetee
9. 8 1/2
10. Written on the Wind
Rumor has it that Wings of Desire and My Life to Live are going to be released by Criterion; if that’s true, then my list will have to be modified.
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5 Favourite Performances By 5 Favourite Actors over 3 years ago
Cary Grant
1. His Girl Friday
2. Notorious
3. Bringing Up Baby
4. The Awful Truth
5. An Affair to Remember
Humphrey Bogart
1. In a Lonely Place
2. The Maltese Falcon
3. High Sierra
4. Casablanca
5. The Big Sleep
James Stewart
1. It’s a Wonderful Life
2. Vertigo
3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
4. Winchester 73
5. Rear Window
Ingrid Bergman
1. Notorious
2. Autumn Sonata
3. Casablanca
4. Elena et Les Hommes
5. Gaslight
Barbara Stanwyck
1. The Lady Eve
2. Double Indemnity
3. The Furies
4. Ball of Fire
5. The Furies
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If you had to pick ONE film as your favorite... over 3 years ago
Nicholas Ray’s noir romance In a Lonely Place. There are films I’ve seen with better production values, better supporting performances, that are funnier, that I can watch when I’m feeling blue and want to be cheered up, but none of those other films have crawled under my skin and settled permanently there. This film struck me so much when I first watched it two years ago on DVD and it hasn’t let go yet, struck by how in tune Nicholas Ray was with his deeply flawed, broken characters and how devoted the two actors Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame inhabited their characters (both actors deliver their greatest performances) with a deeply human understanding. It’s also remarkable how skillfully the film avoids a cliched ending, because it remains so true to the characters, which makes the ending, brought on by their own fears and insecurities and NOT a silly plot devise, all the more powerful and heartbreaking.
Vertigo, however, is in my opinion the greatest film ever made.
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Claude Lelouch's " Un Homme Et Une Femme " over 3 years ago
I think it was a little TOO simplistic, honestly. Maybe it’s just my personal taste of complex adult romances like In a Lonely Place, Vertigo or Notorious where there is genuine conflict and love doesn’t make things easier, but even though I really like the two actors from other films and I like them together in this film, I didn’t feel like I knew the characters enough to want them to end up together. Too many montages over pop love songs, which felt more like a YouTube fan video than a feature film. I actually found myself fast-forwarding through sections, something I almost never do, at least, not when I’m genuinely enjoying the film.
6/10, mostly because I like the actors.
Go to Comment
CLASSIC FILM NOIR over 3 years ago
My favorite film noir, my favorite film, my favorite underrated gem and the one film I will never get tired of writing about is Nicholas Ray’s IN A LONELY PLACE, one of the darkest noirs because of the tragic love story at its center, and the most unbearably sad finale in cinema. SUNSET BLVD. gets all the attention as an exposee of the dream factory, but I much prefer Ray’s film even though I do like SUNSET BLVD. quite a bit—it’s just that Ray’s film is so much more than a Hollywood story, a murder mystery or a film noir, it’s an amazing love story about two deeply flawed people who hold onto each other in hope that they will become better people (and who truly deserve to find happiness because they are so gloriously imperfect, complete human beings), but they just end up where the title suggests by the film’s end, despite living a few weeks while they love each other.
Go to Comment
Howard Hawks over 3 years ago
Howard Hawks is one of my very favorite directors because he was so simplistic and he simply could do anything, work with any actor and get a great performance, work in any genre and make a masterpiece. My favorite film of his is HIS GIRL FRIDAY, which is my favorite comedy. In fact, it was a double feature of that film and BRINGING UP BABY that got me hooked on classic cinema, and I never looked back.
Go to Comment
MOMENT OF TRUTH: HAVE YOU EVER GONE TO THE MOVIES AND FALLEN ASLEEP DURING THE FILM? over 3 years ago
Twice, I’m afraid—once during EASY RIDER, and I don’t think I missed very much, and during the last few minutes of BICYCLE THIEVES in my film history class, which I’m badly ashamed of.
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Which Movies Have You Walked Out On? over 3 years ago
Only one: Baz Luhrmann’s AUSTRALIA.
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Vincente Minnelli over 3 years ago
I had seen a few of his films and enjoyed every one of them, but I watched SOME CAME RUNNING a few weeks ago and now I want to see everything the man made. The film is something like FIVE EASY PIECES by way of Douglas Sirk, with Frank Sinatra taking the Jack Nicholson role of a talented but directionless man returning home and being caught between an icy, beautiful intellectual and a dizzy floozy who loves him whole-heartedly. Now I can’t wait to see MADAME BOVARY and all the other films he’s made. I just love the man’s self-contained universe; THE CLOCK and THE BAND WAGON were filmed on sound stages (and it’s pretty obvious, too), but Minnelli’s version of New York is more romantic and fantastic than the real place.
Go to Comment
YOUR FAVORITE THROWAWAY DETAILS over 3 years ago
The little Monopoly house piece attached to the bottom of a closet light switch (seen when Royal returns home with Ari and Oozy and Chaz yells at him in the game closet)
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Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
There are so many…I’ll name a handful, mostly older films, and I’m not going to name any films that already have great DVD releases, despite how badly I want VERTIGO to get a Criterion release, if only for the mono soundtrack.
WITHOUT A REGION-1 DVD RELEASE:
The Tarnished Angels (Sirk)
Letter From an Unknown Woman (Ophuls)
Prima Della Revoluzione/Before the Revolution (Bertolucci)
The Rain People (Coppola)
The Reckless Moment (Ophuls)
Caught (Ophuls)
Bigger Than Life (N. Ray)
Wild River (Kazan)
Johnny Guitar (N. Ray)
The Lusty Men (N. Ray)
The Crimson Kimono (Fuller)
Underworld USA (Fuller)
Shanghai Express (von Sternberg)
Greed (Von Stroheim)
Woman on the Beach (Renoir)
MOVIES ALREADY WITH A DVD RELEASE DESERVING A CLEAN-UP OR THE CRITERION TREATMENT:
Last Tango in Paris (the MGM release needs a restoration, and Criterion likes Bertolucci)
In a Lonely Place and Bitter Victory (both got nice restorations from Colombia but Criterion could go farther, and include swank bonus features deserving to Nicholas Ray’s auteur status; you could include KNOCK ON ANY DOOR and make it a Nick Ray at Colombia trilogoy)
Five Easy Pieces, and other little-known films by Bob Rafelson
Dodsworth (this 1930s masterpiece about a marriage in crisis desperately needs a clean-up…and a new audience)
A Farewell to Arms and other Frank Borzage films (his Hemingway adaptation languishes in the public domain and aside from the gorgeous Borzage at Fox box set released early this year, Borzage remains criminally under-acknowledged in the DVD world)
On Dangerous Ground, restored to Nicholas Ray’s original cut.
Lola Montes (out of print DVD from 1999; a new print having been shown around the country restored on the big screen—which I was very, very lucky to have seen—and with extended footage by Rialto Cinema, I think Criterion may release this in the near future)
Vivre sa Vie (I’m not the only one to want this and I won’t be the last)
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What was the first Criterion movie you watched? over 3 years ago
I think it was DIABOLIQUES.
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Public Domain Films criterion should be releasing about 3 years ago
BEAT THE DEVIL, which I’ve heard is great but poor quality DVDs give me a headache.
Also, Frank Borzage’s A FAREWELL TO ARMS. It’s really a beautiful movie, damned if it isn’t exactly Hemingway—Gary Cooper’s desperate eyes when he prays for Catherine are enough to stop any cynic in their tracks. It so deserves a clean-up and a new audience.
HIS GIRL FRIDAY already has a swank clean-up from Colombia so I don’t see it as an essential for Criterion.
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Nicholas Ray over 2 years ago
I hesitate a bit to call him the Greatest Filmmaker of All Time, but I have no qualms to say that Nicholas Ray is my favorite director of all time. I’d seen REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE at 14 but it was discovering IN A LONELY PLACE when I was 17 that shook me, moved me and made me want to seek out everything this man ever touched. To this day Ray’s 1950 film noir is my favorite movie, it works equally well as a film noir, a romance and a drama.
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Best Films with NO soundtrack over 2 years ago
THE CHINA SYNDROME is the first film I thought of.
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SONGS (MUSIC ) ABOUT ACTORS OR FILMMAKERS over 2 years ago
Nicholas Ray is the titular subject of the song “Nicholas Ray” by Sea Ray. It also mentions Jack Warner and Gloria Grahame. I couldn’t find lyrics but it’s a cool song that scratches the surface of Ray’s loner status and his rebellion against studios (“Hey, Jack Warner/Hey, Jack Warner/Could you stay out of my life right now?!”)
Go to Comment