Cul de Sac
A Safe Place (Jaglom)
The Stranger (Visconti)
Chimes at Midnight
Moon in the Gutter
Skidoo (Preminger…after Monsters & Madmen and Robinson Crusoe on Mars, why not?)
The Devils/The Music Lovers (there’s no Ken Russell Criterion!)
The Great Texas Dynamite Chase
Time Stands Still
State of Siege
Borsalino
Made in USA
Hammersmith is Out
La Nuit de Varennes
WUSA (P. Newman oddity from 1970)
The Bedsitting Room
Who’ll Stop the Rain
Leo the Last (Boorman)
One Eyed Jacks
HEAD (at least the opening scene)
WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR (the whole thing)
the opening shot of L. Wertmuller’s NIGHT FULL OF RAIN
opening credits of P. Schrader’s PATTY HEARST
Warhol’s CHELSEA GIRLS (at least as much as you can stand)
Isadora
Coal Miner’s Daughter
Raging Bull
The Buddy Holly Story
Bonnie & Clyde
Pollock (at least one of the finest performances – Ed Harris- in a bio film)
Lawrence of Arabia has to be considered on any “top” list…it’s a masterpiece of movie making that can’t even be viewed on TV…it’s not worth it. And as much as I love Citizen Kane, Welles got even more creative with the likes of Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight
Renfield in Jess Franco’s Dracula – a masterwork of pantomime
His cameo as fire-breathing comrade Kostoyed in Doctor Zhivago – an frightening, out-of-nowhere appearance in an otherwise glossy epic
The ringleader in Venom – shockingly NOT the Eurotrash one would have expected…and heartening to see Kinski share the screen with Oliver Reed, Susan George, etc.
1. Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction for Best Picture 1994
2. John Wayne (True Grit) over Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy) for Best Actor 1969
3. Chariots of Fire over Reds for Best Picture 1981
4. Dead Poets Society for Best Original Screenplay over Do the Right Thing and/or Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989
5. Maximillian Schell (a great SUPPORTING performance in Judgement at Nuremberg) over Paul Newman (The Hustler) for Best Actor 1961
And over course there are the insane non-nominees: Gordon Willis for every film he photographed before Zelig; Sandra Bernhard as Best Supporting Actress for The King of Comedy; Mia Farrow for Best Actress in Rosemary’s Baby, Broadway Danny Rose or Alice; John Travolta for Best Actor in Get Shorty; Otto Preminger as Best Director for Anatomy of a Murder…blah blah blah
Without a doubt…Forrest Gump. It’s a package as opposed to a movie, calculated to make people just love it’s quirkiness. Tom Hanks, a terrific actor, is as monotonous as Dustin Hoffman in Rainman (another movie I can’t stand despite the love thrown at it).
Not so great? or Not so FAMOUS? or FAMOUS but never considered great?
Ten GREAT performances by actors never really considered GREAT actors:
in no particular order:
1. Candice Bergen (Carnal Knowledge)
2. Frank Sinatra (The Man with the Golden Arm)
3. Lindsay Lohan (Mean Girls)
4. Elijah Wood (The Ice Storm)
5. Burt Reynolds (Deliverence)
6. Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story)
7. Bill Murray (Rushmore)
8. Jonathan Winters (The Loved One)
9. George Burns (Going in Style)
10. Ben Gazzara (Killing of Chinese Bookie)
I’ll skip the Saul Bass work since his work is THE PANTHEON of title design and can’t really be compared to others…
Panic Room (recalls My Man Godfrey; see below)
My Man Godfrey (20 years before Bass revolutionized title design, this movie’s credits bucked the title-card/page turning style for a very offbeat and ironic credit sequence)
Charade (Maurice Binder’s best non-Bond work)
Marat/Sade (has to be seen to be believed)
Nashville (recall’s a comerical for any number of K-Tel record collections)
Kiss Me Deadly (titles run backwards)
The Hunger (guiltiest of guilty pleasures)
Fitting that Crash author JG Ballard’s death was announced today.
The film version of Crash is awful. While the book was terrific, it was hardly a novel with any sort of linear storyline to it, it was more of a diary of kinky wishes…Cronenberg created a narrative and, as with Naked Lunch, he’s taken provocative material and made it tedious and even unintentionally laughable. Oddly, he chose the most vapid of actors (James Spader) as the film’s lead. A major mis-step.
Surely there are seemingly unfilmable novels that make excellent movies (Slaughterhouse Five, Birdy, Remains of the Day, The Manchurian Candidate), but there are just as many that do not translate…Crash is one of them.
PS - I’m a huge Cronenberg fan…Rabid, The Brood, The Fly and Dead Ringers are masterpieces of horror.
I’d argue that the Hitchcock films (with the possible exception of the deadly dull Topaz) do not warrent inclusion here
These do:
DePalma – ANYTHING since Casualties of War (one of the great unsung movies of the ‘80s)
Lucas – ANYTHING since Star Wars (77)
W. Allen – September (WTF?)
Lumet – (The Wiz is at least so outre, it’s a curiousity…he directed the Sharon Stone remake of Gloria…YIKES!)
Scorsese – Gangs of NY (sometimes studio-bound films work…this one didn’t)
B. Schroeder – Kiss of Death (hack work from one of the most risk-taking directors)
Godard – Hail Mary (sleep inducing faux controversy from kooky Godard)
I can’t do just 10 so I’ll do 10 who peaked PRE-1970 and 10 who peaked (or are peaking) post-1970
In order of height (not really)
PRE 1970:
Billy Wilder
Elia Kazan
Orson Welles
Jean Pierre Melville
John Huston
Federico Fellini
Alfred Hitchcock
David Lean
Joseph L. Mankewicz
Michelangelo Antonioni
POST 1970:
Sidney Lumet
Joel & Ethan Coen
Martin Scorsese
Francois Truffaut
Jonathan Demme
Francis Ford Coppola
Paul Thomas Anderson
Nicolas Roeg
John Schlesinger
Alan Pakula
These are movies that I despised so much that I was actually angry about it!
1. Superman III (absolute junk with a very unfunny Richard Pryor running a mock)
2. Secret Admirer (it’s a zero grade John Hughes rip-off with C. Thomas Howell…‘nuf said)
3. Jaws 3-D (a miserable excuse to showcase some pretty poor 3D effects and with Louis Gossett Jr. collecting a payday after his Oscar win for An Officer & a Gentleman)
4. Food of the Gods (the worst of shlockmeister Bert Gordon’s efforts)
5. Any of the 3 Star Wars episode movies…with overkill on the FX and story lines that just blend together
6. Spieces (an A-list cast in a really embarassing movie)
7. Missouri Breaks (Nicholson+Brando+A. Penn = zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)
8. Monster-in-Law (surely nobody expected Jane Fonda to come back in “Klute 2” or “Coming Home Again,” but this?)
9. Sphere (like most M. Critchon books, Sphere the novel had no ending, Sphere the movie had no beginning, middle or ENDING…it did have Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman!!)
10. The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (eeghad…directed with eyes closed by Burgess Meredith and starring James Mason…seek it out…it’s badness is breathtaking)
Minnelli was something of an enigma…making landmark musicals (Meet me in St. Louis, An American in Paris, Gigi) and some great dramas (Some Came Running, The Bad & the Beautiful) but also making a fair amount of real dreck…Two Weeks in Another Town, Lust for Life (Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh?), Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (the presence of Glenn Ford in that one may have had more to do with this one’s flaws)
…he was tough to figure out…
An exceptional film with a truly great performance by Kim Stanley. She had one of the strangest, off-kilter personalities and Forbes gets the most out of her. It’s something of a casting coup considering this was only Stanley’s second film and last until 1982.
In no particular order (and an odd number of Richard Widmark)
Pickup on South Street (Sam Fuller’s masterpiece)
Road House (c’mon Ida Lupino? Richard Widmark as Jefty)
Kiss of Death
Double Indemnity
Where the Sidewalk Ends (Preminger’s finest post-Laura noir)
The House on Telegraph Hill (more of a gothic noir…is that even a genre?)
House of Bamboo (yes, it’s in color and set in Japan, but it still fits)
and of course, the neo Noirs: Chinatown; Farewell My Lovely; Gloria (Cassavettes); Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (why not?!?)
A real mis-step by Spike Lee…technically, it tries to ape Good Fellas, Boogie Nights and any number of other BRILLIANTLY edited films, but it has a script that is just a mess…despite the talking dog & the blend of disco & punk on the soundtrack.
I wanted to like Lost in Translation, I tried to like it and kept hoping for SOMETHING to happen that would make me like it, but it never materialized. Both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are fine and the photography is great…and the oddball scene with the Murray and the hooker(?) was priceless, but the movie was a real dead fish (or at least a bad piece of sushi…eegad).
Mickey Rourke gave a ferocious performance (on par with early Brando) and the film itself was one of the very few completely unforgiving American movies in a long time. Whether or not it was the BEST of ’08 is hard to say…it was a good year for US releases: Synecdoche, New York ; Milk; Burn After Reading; The Dark Knight…
I question whether or not Allen is relevant anymore…he’s more inconsistent than ever and has been since about 1995…Sleeper, Love & Death, Everything…about Sex, Bananas, and Play it Again Sam are classic comedies…he hit his artistic stride between 77 and 87…a decade that saw Annie Hall, Manhattan, Interiors, Zelig, Stardust Memories, Broadway Danny Rose, Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah & Her Sisters. Since then the occasional Crimes & Misdemeanors or Match Point has popped up, but mostly he’s been pretty much cranking ‘em out…sometimes they’re funny (Small Time Crooks), sometimes they’re duds (Scoop), sometimes they’re worthwhile (Vicki Christina Barcelona) and sometimes real head-scratchers (Melinda & Melinda). This, of course, is just my opinon.
Rob Reiner directed This is Spinal Tap but nothing even remotely as edgy since…so one has to conclude that the film was more Christopher Guest than Rob Reiner…not saying Reiner is a bad director (Misery is as tightly wound as they come), but he’s pretty much a journeyman director, with no decipherable style ….. Ron Howard’s another rather bland director who made Ranson, a very good thriller.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Why? about 3 years ago
David Fincher is one of the best filmmakers around…why not release this? And why not release FIGHT CLUB & THE GAME too?!?!
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Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection about 3 years ago
Cul de Sac
A Safe Place (Jaglom)
The Stranger (Visconti)
Chimes at Midnight
Moon in the Gutter
Skidoo (Preminger…after Monsters & Madmen and Robinson Crusoe on Mars, why not?)
The Devils/The Music Lovers (there’s no Ken Russell Criterion!)
The Great Texas Dynamite Chase
Time Stands Still
State of Siege
Borsalino
Made in USA
Hammersmith is Out
La Nuit de Varennes
WUSA (P. Newman oddity from 1970)
The Bedsitting Room
Who’ll Stop the Rain
Leo the Last (Boorman)
One Eyed Jacks
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Trippy/Psychedelic Films - Name some! about 3 years ago
HEAD (at least the opening scene)
WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR (the whole thing)
the opening shot of L. Wertmuller’s NIGHT FULL OF RAIN
opening credits of P. Schrader’s PATTY HEARST
Warhol’s CHELSEA GIRLS (at least as much as you can stand)
Go to Comment
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Why? about 3 years ago
I liked Alien 3
Go to Comment
When will Ken Russell get recognized? about 3 years ago
It’s mind boggling…THE DEVILS is an unbridled masterpiece.
Go to Comment
Best biographical movies about 3 years ago
(in no particular order)
Isadora
Coal Miner’s Daughter
Raging Bull
The Buddy Holly Story
Bonnie & Clyde
Pollock (at least one of the finest performances – Ed Harris- in a bio film)
Go to Comment
When you see yet again that Citizen Kane is the best film ever. What film do you secretly think of? about 3 years ago
Lawrence of Arabia has to be considered on any “top” list…it’s a masterpiece of movie making that can’t even be viewed on TV…it’s not worth it. And as much as I love Citizen Kane, Welles got even more creative with the likes of Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight
Go to Comment
Favorite underseen/unknown directors about 3 years ago
Savage Steve Holland…where is he now?
Better Off Dead
One Crazy Summer
How I Got into College
The pefect anti-Hughes teen angst films
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any good kinski? about 3 years ago
The Herzog films aside…
Renfield in Jess Franco’s Dracula – a masterwork of pantomime
His cameo as fire-breathing comrade Kostoyed in Doctor Zhivago – an frightening, out-of-nowhere appearance in an otherwise glossy epic
The ringleader in Venom – shockingly NOT the Eurotrash one would have expected…and heartening to see Kinski share the screen with Oliver Reed, Susan George, etc.
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most overrated oscar performances or robberies about 3 years ago
Top 5 biggest upsets:
1. Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction for Best Picture 1994
2. John Wayne (True Grit) over Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy) for Best Actor 1969
3. Chariots of Fire over Reds for Best Picture 1981
4. Dead Poets Society for Best Original Screenplay over Do the Right Thing and/or Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989
5. Maximillian Schell (a great SUPPORTING performance in Judgement at Nuremberg) over Paul Newman (The Hustler) for Best Actor 1961
And over course there are the insane non-nominees: Gordon Willis for every film he photographed before Zelig; Sandra Bernhard as Best Supporting Actress for The King of Comedy; Mia Farrow for Best Actress in Rosemary’s Baby, Broadway Danny Rose or Alice; John Travolta for Best Actor in Get Shorty; Otto Preminger as Best Director for Anatomy of a Murder…blah blah blah
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Movies you hated that everyone else loves about 3 years ago
Without a doubt…Forrest Gump. It’s a package as opposed to a movie, calculated to make people just love it’s quirkiness. Tom Hanks, a terrific actor, is as monotonous as Dustin Hoffman in Rainman (another movie I can’t stand despite the love thrown at it).
Go to Comment
actors that aren't that great but about 3 years ago
Not so great? or Not so FAMOUS? or FAMOUS but never considered great?
Ten GREAT performances by actors never really considered GREAT actors:
in no particular order:
1. Candice Bergen (Carnal Knowledge)
2. Frank Sinatra (The Man with the Golden Arm)
3. Lindsay Lohan (Mean Girls)
4. Elijah Wood (The Ice Storm)
5. Burt Reynolds (Deliverence)
6. Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story)
7. Bill Murray (Rushmore)
8. Jonathan Winters (The Loved One)
9. George Burns (Going in Style)
10. Ben Gazzara (Killing of Chinese Bookie)
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Your favorite title sequence about 3 years ago
I’ll skip the Saul Bass work since his work is THE PANTHEON of title design and can’t really be compared to others…
Panic Room (recalls My Man Godfrey; see below)
My Man Godfrey (20 years before Bass revolutionized title design, this movie’s credits bucked the title-card/page turning style for a very offbeat and ironic credit sequence)
Charade (Maurice Binder’s best non-Bond work)
Marat/Sade (has to be seen to be believed)
Nashville (recall’s a comerical for any number of K-Tel record collections)
Kiss Me Deadly (titles run backwards)
The Hunger (guiltiest of guilty pleasures)
Go to Comment
any good kinski? about 3 years ago
Colin says it all
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Criterion Coming Soon and Discussion about 3 years ago
It’s excellent news about Repulsion and I really hope Cul-de-Sac is coming soon. It’s in real need of a US release
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Vincent Gallo... Auteur? about 3 years ago
It’s hard to say Buffalo ‘66 isn’t a terrific movie.
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Crash (1996) about 3 years ago
Fitting that Crash author JG Ballard’s death was announced today.
The film version of Crash is awful. While the book was terrific, it was hardly a novel with any sort of linear storyline to it, it was more of a diary of kinky wishes…Cronenberg created a narrative and, as with Naked Lunch, he’s taken provocative material and made it tedious and even unintentionally laughable. Oddly, he chose the most vapid of actors (James Spader) as the film’s lead. A major mis-step.
Surely there are seemingly unfilmable novels that make excellent movies (Slaughterhouse Five, Birdy, Remains of the Day, The Manchurian Candidate), but there are just as many that do not translate…Crash is one of them.
PS
-I’m a huge Cronenberg fan…Rabid, The Brood, The Fly and Dead Ringers are masterpieces of horror.Go to Comment
The Auteurs' Fake Criterion Covers about 3 years ago
Brandon! The only thing more brilliant than these covers is coming up with idea to make these covers! BIG KUDOS!
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How could such a great director make such a lousy movie? about 3 years ago
I’d argue that the Hitchcock films (with the possible exception of the deadly dull Topaz) do not warrent inclusion here
These do:
DePalma – ANYTHING since Casualties of War (one of the great unsung movies of the ‘80s)
Lucas – ANYTHING since Star Wars (77)
W. Allen – September (WTF?)
Lumet – (The Wiz is at least so outre, it’s a curiousity…he directed the Sharon Stone remake of Gloria…YIKES!)
Scorsese – Gangs of NY (sometimes studio-bound films work…this one didn’t)
B. Schroeder – Kiss of Death (hack work from one of the most risk-taking directors)
Godard – Hail Mary (sleep inducing faux controversy from kooky Godard)
Go to Comment
Top 10 Directors. about 3 years ago
I can’t do just 10 so I’ll do 10 who peaked PRE-1970 and 10 who peaked (or are peaking) post-1970
In order of height (not really)
PRE 1970:
Billy Wilder
Elia Kazan
Orson Welles
Jean Pierre Melville
John Huston
Federico Fellini
Alfred Hitchcock
David Lean
Joseph L. Mankewicz
Michelangelo Antonioni
POST 1970:
Sidney Lumet
Joel & Ethan Coen
Martin Scorsese
Francois Truffaut
Jonathan Demme
Francis Ford Coppola
Paul Thomas Anderson
Nicolas Roeg
John Schlesinger
Alan Pakula
Go to Comment
Ten Worst Movies You've Ever Seen? about 3 years ago
These are movies that I despised so much that I was actually angry about it!
1. Superman III (absolute junk with a very unfunny Richard Pryor running a mock)
2. Secret Admirer (it’s a zero grade John Hughes rip-off with C. Thomas Howell…‘nuf said)
3. Jaws 3-D (a miserable excuse to showcase some pretty poor 3D effects and with Louis Gossett Jr. collecting a payday after his Oscar win for An Officer & a Gentleman)
4. Food of the Gods (the worst of shlockmeister Bert Gordon’s efforts)
5. Any of the 3 Star Wars episode movies…with overkill on the FX and story lines that just blend together
6. Spieces (an A-list cast in a really embarassing movie)
7. Missouri Breaks (Nicholson+Brando+A. Penn = zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)
8. Monster-in-Law (surely nobody expected Jane Fonda to come back in “Klute 2” or “Coming Home Again,” but this?)
9. Sphere (like most M. Critchon books, Sphere the novel had no ending, Sphere the movie had no beginning, middle or ENDING…it did have Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman!!)
10. The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (eeghad…directed with eyes closed by Burgess Meredith and starring James Mason…seek it out…it’s badness is breathtaking)
Go to Comment
Vincente Minnelli about 3 years ago
Minnelli was something of an enigma…making landmark musicals (Meet me in St. Louis, An American in Paris, Gigi) and some great dramas (Some Came Running, The Bad & the Beautiful) but also making a fair amount of real dreck…Two Weeks in Another Town, Lust for Life (Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh?), Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (the presence of Glenn Ford in that one may have had more to do with this one’s flaws)
…he was tough to figure out…
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SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON about 3 years ago
An exceptional film with a truly great performance by Kim Stanley. She had one of the strangest, off-kilter personalities and Forbes gets the most out of her. It’s something of a casting coup considering this was only Stanley’s second film and last until 1982.
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CLASSIC FILM NOIR about 3 years ago
In no particular order (and an odd number of Richard Widmark)
Pickup on South Street (Sam Fuller’s masterpiece)
Road House (c’mon Ida Lupino? Richard Widmark as Jefty)
Kiss of Death
Double Indemnity
Where the Sidewalk Ends (Preminger’s finest post-Laura noir)
The House on Telegraph Hill (more of a gothic noir…is that even a genre?)
House of Bamboo (yes, it’s in color and set in Japan, but it still fits)
and of course, the neo Noirs: Chinatown; Farewell My Lovely; Gloria (Cassavettes); Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (why not?!?)
Go to Comment
SUMMER OF SAM (Overrated or Underrated?) about 3 years ago
A real mis-step by Spike Lee…technically, it tries to ape Good Fellas, Boogie Nights and any number of other BRILLIANTLY edited films, but it has a script that is just a mess…despite the talking dog & the blend of disco & punk on the soundtrack.
Go to Comment
Why I didn't like the film about 3 years ago
I wanted to like Lost in Translation, I tried to like it and kept hoping for SOMETHING to happen that would make me like it, but it never materialized. Both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are fine and the photography is great…and the oddball scene with the Murray and the hooker(?) was priceless, but the movie was a real dead fish (or at least a bad piece of sushi…eegad).
Go to Comment
SUMMER OF SAM (Overrated or Underrated?) about 3 years ago
black or white or red or blue or blah blah blah SUMMER OF SAM is a dog (a talking dog, but a dog nonetheless)
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The Wrestler about 3 years ago
Mickey Rourke gave a ferocious performance (on par with early Brando) and the film itself was one of the very few completely unforgiving American movies in a long time. Whether or not it was the BEST of ’08 is hard to say…it was a good year for US releases: Synecdoche, New York ; Milk; Burn After Reading; The Dark Knight…
Go to Comment
Woody Allen at his best about 3 years ago
I question whether or not Allen is relevant anymore…he’s more inconsistent than ever and has been since about 1995…Sleeper, Love & Death, Everything…about Sex, Bananas, and Play it Again Sam are classic comedies…he hit his artistic stride between 77 and 87…a decade that saw Annie Hall, Manhattan, Interiors, Zelig, Stardust Memories, Broadway Danny Rose, Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah & Her Sisters. Since then the occasional Crimes & Misdemeanors or Match Point has popped up, but mostly he’s been pretty much cranking ‘em out…sometimes they’re funny (Small Time Crooks), sometimes they’re duds (Scoop), sometimes they’re worthwhile (Vicki Christina Barcelona) and sometimes real head-scratchers (Melinda & Melinda). This, of course, is just my opinon.
Go to Comment
How could such a lousy director make such a great (or at least bearable) movie? about 3 years ago
Rob Reiner directed This is Spinal Tap but nothing even remotely as edgy since…so one has to conclude that the film was more Christopher Guest than Rob Reiner…not saying Reiner is a bad director (Misery is as tightly wound as they come), but he’s pretty much a journeyman director, with no decipherable style ….. Ron Howard’s another rather bland director who made Ranson, a very good thriller.
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