Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly

and so I begin again.  I took a day off today and

finished La noire de... (5)
watched Pauline à la plage (6)
watched The Italian Job (1969) (6)
watched Dead Man (7)
started Monsieur Hire

and realized that craziness like this deserves some documentation.  Add a little blogger ESH and I begin again.

Begegnungen = meetings in German/Eno record to play loudly.

Killing Me Softly (2002)

Scrolling through the free on-demand movies, looking for something mindless to fall asleep to, ok, trashy title, read the description, blah-blah-Heather Graham (getting my attention)-blah-blah-"by acclaimed director" and then the [MORE] with the arrow.  Suspense before the movie even begins!

"by acclaimed director.....[press the arrow]....Kaige Chen."

Huh?  Farewell My Concubine Kaige Chen?  Yellow Earth?  Didn't even know he left China.

I try to reconcile my cognitive dissonance while watching this Lifetime-with-benefits sillyfest.  Is there a concubine/ownership of women/East vs West subtext?  I construct a noble director vs. evil producer editing room battle narrative.  May well be true.  I imagine Chen, through an interpreter, slowly unrolling his palimpsest scroll of genres to Hollywood hacks and their only reply is:  "But when does Heather Graham get naked?"

In the end, the studios were so dismayed they didn't even give the movie an American theatrical release.  That's OK.  It happily belongs in Scinemax, straight-to-video, keyword: erotic thriller lateniteland.  By the end, I tossed out the "noble director" script and instead envisioned Chen signing the contract, gleefully doing the dollar to yuan conversion in his mind, looking up and saying, in perfect English:  "Nudity is in Ms. Graham's contract, correct?"

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended also: Body Double

The Girl Can't Help It (1956)

A thoughtful DVD designer would have a "skip through to the songs" feature.  I guess I will give Frank Tashlin another chance with Artists and Models.  I'll take Shirley MacLaine in her 2nd ever movie over a cartoon woman anyday. 

Rating: 4 out of 10
Recommended instead:  Listening to the 50s on 5 on Sirius

P.S. Jayne Mansfield + Mr. Universe = Mariska Hargitay: News to me.

Goliath (2008)

False advertising, I say.  Look at this poster.  See how the writer/director has mumblecore cred.  The film is 80 minutes long, well within established parameters.  One would think another set of pleasantly awkward encounters amongst 20-somethings was in the cards.

No, no, no.   We are presented with a meanspirited Dwight Schrutish protagonist without beet cultivation skills.  And I know any sensitive cat lover would have to turn away from the screen on more than one occasion.  Let me describe the best gag and save you the pain of the rest of the film.

You know how some cats run to the sound of "food on the way":  the crinkling of the 40 pound bag or the distinctive creak of that one cabinet door.  For Goliath, it was the electric can opener.  So when kitty doesn't come when called, David goes for the cat magnet.  Whirrrrr.  Nope.  Whirrrrrrr.  Oh no.  As he suspects the worst, he opens the kitchen window and angles it outside.  Whirrrrrrrrrrrr.  Eventually, he is roaming the streets of Austin with a portable generator and the opener in his hand whirring through the neighborhood and off onto the highway.

Rating:  2 out of 10
Recommended instead:  Waking Life

24 City (2008)

My grandfather, Edward Andrews (born Hyacinth Slovinski, or so I've been told), worked his whole life for the Dixon Crucible Company.  His 40 year pin is the ornament on the top of my little Christmas tree.  He made it to foreman on the line at the pencil factory.  I never had a sense of the details of his job, but I remember that once he flew to Mexico to share his knowledge with them.  I was able to be there by his side at all of his other jobs:  monitoring the action and locking up playgrounds and gyms for Jersey City Parks & Recreation, being a deacon at St. Paul's Church, being a Cubmaster, working at the polls.

I thought about him a lot watching 24 City.  I wished I could ask him now what his job was like.  Back when he was alive I wasn't interested.  By the time I got blue collar consciousness, my stepfather, Harry Meier, was in my life, but he wasn't talking.  I remember getting some Studs Terkel from the library but dealing with Harry ended with me crying and throwing the book out the car window in anger.

24 City is a dramatized oral history of a Chinese factory which is turned into an upscale apartment complex.  The Movie Gods were clearly speaking to me, as I went home to google the Dixon Company history and saw what is currently at Poppy's workplace.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Recommended instead: Learning the history of work in your family

Quiet City (2007)

The first mumblecore to get a thumbs down.  The male lead doesn't hold up his end of the film.  Aaron Katz should've cast himself.  I've never seen him act, mind you, it's just that's the way these mumblecats work best.

Rating: 4 out of 10
Recommended instead: Hannah Takes the Stairs

Party Girl (1958)

Party Girl by Nicholas Ray featured very good performances by Lee J. Cobb, John Ireland, Kent Smith and especially Robert Taylor in the lead.  You will notice these are all men.  I am stupefied by the title.  Cyd Charisse wasn't that big a star, and she is not the protagonist, or even a major factor in the plot, and she only gets two song/dances.

In the spirit of "Party Girl," I submit the following retitles:

Dorothy Boyd
Karen Crowder
The Stripper
Breathless Mahoney
Adrian
Jones
Sue

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended instead of: Party Girl (1995)

American Psycho (2000)

A few actor/director combinations that I would have preferred over Christian Bale/Mary Harron, that also worked together at the turn of the millenium:
Tom Cruise/Stanley Kubrick : Bale said he based his performance on Cruise/Kubrick would have nailed the tone
Edward Norton/David Fincher : Norton was offered the role/Fincher would have done better with the psychological POV
Jim Carrey/Milos Forman : Going more comedy than black
Adam Sandler/Paul Thomas Anderson : I have no idea how, or why, but wow
Matt Dillon/John McNaughton : Kevin Dillon was in the works, but this Dillon is better, and McNaughton knows serial killers
Matt Damon/Gus Van Sant : Tom Ripley meets Norman Bates (Vince Vaughn is too tall)

These two were actually "in the works"
Brad Pitt/David Cronenberg (!?!?!!)
Leonardo DiCaprio/Oliver Stone

But this one is not only the most plausible, but also might actually makes the most sense, tonally:
Keanu Reeves/Sam Raimi

Rating: 2 out of 10
Recommended instead: Fellow transgressor A Clockwork Orange

Metropolitan (1990)

Sometimes the pat line is the only one.  About 30 minutes into Metropolitan, the line entered my mind, and simply would not leave. 

"This movie won me over."

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended instead of: Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility

Batalla en el cielo (2005)

Hundreds of popular films have "average" or "normal" people going on some sort of spree.  Hollywood favors the young lovers/criminals, movie stars as everyman (with glasses even!) and futile gestures against The Man.

The art house auteurs prefer dispassionate views of the monotony and indignities of the protagonist's everyday life as a slow build to the violence.  Whether it is a German draftsman or an Iranian pizza delivery man or a mother in Brussels, we are left to sort out the social, political, psychological or cultural causes for the crash. 

Why does Marcos run Amok?  Battle in Heaven by Carlos Reygadas places itself firmly in the obscuritanist camp.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Recommended instead:  For me, God's Lonely Man needs a little more personality.

Lourdes (2009)

67 people have been officially recognized as having been miraculously cured at Lourdes. 

Did you do a double take reading that sentence?  Which part?  The "67"?  The "miraculously cured"?  The one that gets me is "officially".  The film Lourdes respectfully raises these questions and more about miracles and who may or may not deserve them to be granted. 

And in the "For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible" category, I submit to the jury this experiment:

President Obama today established formal diplomatic relations with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. 

Was he right?

Rating: 6 out of 10
Recommended instead of: The Rapture

The Sticky Fingers of Time (1997)

One of those rare times that a film comes via Netflix and I can't remember why it's there. Should've taken that as a sign.

Rating: 3 out of 10
Recommeded instead: Primer

Antichrist (2009)

Willem DaFoe has already been crucified once on screen, so he knows the drill, so to speak.  Work with a well respected director on a controversial project.  Get naked in all senses.  Get hammered. The film critics get tizzified and it seems equal numbers say tragedy and say farce.  One Wahoo literally ran from Newcomb Hall and the clinking of the bottle left behind rolling down the aisle pierced the stunned Silence for those who endured.

I say it is von Trier's best work to date.

The ending credits are a compelling validation of what has come before.  The Whammy-Inducer gets the end dedication.  There is a credit for "misogyny research" and one for "horror film research".  This is not the work of a flippant provocateur, it is a finely crafted synthesis of the sensual, the intellectual and the transcendental sides of the Baltic confrontation with the cold world.

Remember what Frank Pembleton said: Therapist is a straight anagram for The Rapist.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Recommended as a double feature with: The Shining

Mala Noche (1985)

"Best directorial debut" is a slippery category to define.  Do you count student films?  Well, you just made She's Gotta Have It ineligible for consideration.  How long does a film have to be to stray out of your Shorts category and into your Feature category?  40 minutes?  Well, you just knocked out Citizen Kane.  Is it necessary to be "released."  OK, Orson is back in.

As the means of production and distribution change, so do the chances to make and distribute and get a film seen by enough to matter.  My initial theory is that as the years go by, it will become harder and harder to make a great "first film."

If you use the SAG definition for feature film (80min) then Drugstore Cowboy is still eligible.  If lower, then Mala Noche knocks it out.

Rating: 3 out of 10
Recommended instead: Here is my Top 10 using my personal criteria:

#1  Citizen Kane
#2  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
#3  Targets
#4  The Hunger
#5  Wristcutters: A Love Story (still waiting for 2nd)
#6  Ordinary People
#7  Reservoir Dogs
#8  Brick
#9  Thief
#10 Persepolis

Looks like blades and short titles are the common thread.

Kippur (2000)

For generations of Americans, military warfare has taken places in wholly other spaces.  Over There.  Long slow transitions from civilian to soldier and back again.  Kippur showed me a new timeline:  a commuter war.  If Americans had to fight that way, we'd certainly have different attitudes.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended instead of: Three Kings

35 rhums (2008)

Claire Denis's Ozu Checklist

1. Widower facing loneliness
2. Daughter codependent or independent?
3. Will she get married?
4. Bars as safe place to express emotion
5. Busybody lady neighbor
6. Casual narrative ellipses
7. Cycles of work and home
8. Farting

Rating: 6 out 10
Recommended also: Take your pick

The Informer (1935)

Cinematography changes, editing changes, technologies change, fashions go in and out, genres rise and fall, ideologies and topics follow the day:  I (for the most part) can accept them in their context.  I can hang with silent Ku Klux Klan heroes or Mel Gibson as a feminist.  I will grant the author their subject and the time its style.

Two notable exceptions:
Early 80s cinematography is flat out ugly.
English speakers overacting, but especially the 30s and early 40s.

Victor McLagen won best actor and The Informer was the first film and only film to win the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Picture by a unanimous vote on the first ballot.  Just not my style.

Rating: 3 out of 10
Recommended instead:  How Green Was My Valley

Avatar (2009)

Most feel Avatar has a happy ending.  Or it is some sort of leftist plot.  I take it as reflecting the nadir of civil debate in America.  Think about it:  is diplomacy or talking or negotiation even in this universe?  Both sides assume the other is incapable of compromise or a change of heart or change of mind.  The false dilemma of "kill or be killed" is forced down our throats.  Nonviolent resistance isn't CGIable, I guess.

Then again, maybe Avatar just faces the fact that big bully capitalism will never change until it gets its ass kicked so hard that it can't sit for a century.  Speaking for myself, I never changed my ways from any inner virtue.  I had to suffer the consequences of my bad behavior.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Recommended instead: The New World

Near Dark (1987)

If Kathryn Bigelow wins Best Director, I'll be happy that more women might get a chance to direct.  The studio that cultivates female directorial talent will enjoy a competitive advantage akin to the National League in the 1950s.

That doesn't mean she deserves it. 

Rating: 2 out of 10
Recommended instead:  Any Suzanne Bier film.

Man Hunt (1941)

I admit it:  I took some classes at VCU for easy A's.  Looking back, some of them were the best courses I ever took.  So there.  One was ARTH 271 History of Motion Picture II with Mike Jones.  So much learned, so many memories, dare I say a "defining life experience" or two.  I was walking home on a post-rainstorm gloomday.  Staring at my feet most of the way, looking at my sneakers hitting the sidewalk cracks, I was in what I would now call a dissociative state.  The trauma was Rashomon.   

I have worn out the assigned text, A History of Narrative Film, aka "The Cook Book."  It is now falling apart and is still one of my top reference books.  At any rate, I wish I had read this sentence on pg 365 much more carefully:

"[Fritz] Lang directed another twenty-one films in the United States for a variety of studios between 1938 and 1956, but only him film noir masterpiece, The Big Heat (1953, Columbia), achieved the quality and depth of his greatest work."

With my age 20 brain, I internalized that as:  Later Lang sucked. 

Until I fell into They Shoot Pictures, Don't They's thrall, which puts 16 Lang in their Top 1000, half of them post-38, that was still pretty operative in my noggin.  Now Scarlet Street stands at #50 overall on my personal list.  It has the most brutal dismantling of a noir patsy I have seen to date and barrels through the Production Code's stop signs in virtue of the sheer force of its hatred of all of the characters.

Man Hunt is pretty good too.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended also:  Hangmen Also Die, Rancho Notorious, Human Desire.

The first sentence on VCU's cinema department homepage is "Do you love films your friends really hate?"  LOL.  I'm lucky I always had cool friends.

Nowhere (1997)

OffScreen finally got their Spring 2010 schedule online, and I am pleased to see three films that were already in my Netflix queue: 35 Shots of Rum, Bronson and 24 City.  A few years ago they screened another Gregg Araki film, Mysterious Skin, which I missed then but might see in the future.  Hopefully all of these will be more enjoyable than Nowhere, which was insufferably repulsive.

Rating: 1 out of 10 (made it about 40 minutes)
Recommended instead:  Fast Times at Ridgemont High is at Xer speed, I guess.  Those Nowhere kids were just too scary.  Stop texting and GET OUT OF MY YARD YOU ROTTEN KIDS!

LOL (2006)

Watched the movie.  Watched it with the technical commentary track.  Watched it with the acting commentary track.  LOL, Funny Ha Ha, Hannah Takes the Stairs, The Puffy Chair, My Effortless Brilliance & Humpday makes it six for six thumbs up from me.  This mumblecore group's aesthetic sweetspot has such perfect timeliness that it may guarantee their untimelessness.  I want to be here now so I can tell people later that you had to be there.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended also: More now before the moment has passed.

Deep End (1970)

I think I first heard Kevin Kellam use the term "rope a dope" to describe The Lower Depths.  Start out slow, almost too slow, bide your time, then WHAM!  Did you doubt me as a director?  HA!  I AM THE GREATEST!

The risk that goes with that strategy is that you have to win by knockout.  Otherwise, as is the case with Deep End, you just end up falling too far behind on the scorecards.

Rating: 4 out of 10
Recommended instead:  When We Were Kings

Tsotsi

Tsotsi somehow crosses Cidade de Deus with a Lifetime movie.  Breastfeeding at gunpoint is novel, to say the least.  Overall it has half the plot with a quarter of the style and none of the musical bravado of the Brazilian original.  Still, a crazy plot in an interesting locale will carry the day any day.

Rating: 6 out of 10
Recommended also: City of God, of course.

Sweetie

On Craig O'Brien's dream blog, he labels all dreams not only with the themes and motifs within them, but also with what he ate for dinner that night.  Dickens famously made this connection when Scrooge dismisses Marley's ghost as "an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

It pays to be sensitive to how we are feeling or what we've been eating.  I use HALT all the time.  If I am feeling hopeless, I ask myself "am I Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired?:  If so, I just deal with that issue first, by eating, breathing, talking or sleeping, and more often than not the supposed doom goes away as well.

At any rate, I bring this up because whenever I drop the 1-bomb on a well regarded film, I need to be open to the possibility that I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy it that day.

Rating: 1 out of 10
Recommended instead: The Piano

Dracula (1931)

I don't have photographic memory of the Monster Manual anymore, but I think they left a few special abilities out.  First, vampires should be immune to Web.  At about the 10 minute mark, Bela Lugosi walks right through a spider's web without disturbing it.  Also, vampires should have Knock at will, as all doors open automatically ahead of Dracula without his touch.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended also: Nosferatu was one of the first, and is maybe the best of them all.  In the public domain in the US, so it's free to watch.

The Scarlet Empress

Josef von Sternberg, if he were born decades later, would not have needed Hollywood.  The Scarlet Empress shows a man yearning for the freedom from plot of music videos or commercials.  Lady Gaga and von Sternberg would have made a fine pair.  I would have preferred to enjoy this crazy production design accompanied by a commentary track, because the film, as is, just didn't hold my interest.

Rating: 4 out of 10
Recommended instead: Doctor Zhivago

Nightmare Alley

Some screenplays just feel like novels.  The protagonist has a life with ups and downs, personality changes and long strange trips it's beens.  These are lives that take hundreds of pages to live.  I suspect that the most "full lives" on screen are biopics based on real life or drawn from novels.

Stan Carlisle in Nightmare Alley is one of those "full lives."  Not surprising its author had a crazy ride as well. 

Rating: 8 out of 10
Recommended also: OK, lemme do the research and go straight down my favorites list for films dominated by the twists and many turns of a protagonist's life, taking the first ten:

Citizen Kane = based on real life
Amadeus = based on real life (stretch?)
Boogie Nights = original work
Days of Wine and Roses =  original work
A Clockwork Orange = novel
Lawrence of Arabia = based on real life
The Color Purple = novel
Persepolis = based on real life
Field of Dreams = novel
The Man Who Fell to Earth = novel

Congratulations to Paul Thomas Anderson and JP Miller for creating the exceptions.

Reversal of Fortune

It takes two to do the codependency tango.  Dershowitz went on to be on OJ Simpson's "dream team" so some of his more crusading moments in the film now sound tinny to the ear. 

Rating: 5 out of 10
Recommended instead: Until I see the 1940 version, I'll have to go with Gaslight from '44.

Still assembling my thoughts on Antichrist.  In process of rewatching Andrei Rublev and guessing that the upcoming snowstorm will provide the proper atmosphere to type a bit more than usual.

Mark Bastable pointed out offline that I tend to be a hard grader. That is true.  I rebel against the IMDB inflation/compression of the 10 point scale.  Here is what my numbers mean.

10: Masterpiece
9:   Excellent
8:   Very good
7:   Thumbs up
6:   Recommended, barely
5:   Usually means "decent time-waster on TV" or "see it if you want, or not," but in special cases means "equal parts brilliant and infuriating so it all cancels out"
4:   "Oh, if only it could have been just a little better...."
3:   Thumbs down
2:   "Well, at least it had that (one thing) going for it..."
1:   Can mean either "irredeemable trash" or any film that, no matter what merits it may have had, I cannot or will not watch until the very end.  I consider it a fundamental aesthetic principle that if a director cannot "close the deal," then the work is a failure.

Normal Life

I may close my eyes in the theater when a preview comes for a film I want to see, avoid detailed reviews, etc, but I always want to know who the director is.  I appreciated knowing that Normal Life was made by the same director as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, otherwise it might have blended seamlessly into the Lifetime Movie Network muzak.  Too bad the co-dependency tale never could get out from under the bank robbing silliness.

Rating: 4 out of 10
Recommended instead: Bug

The Friends of Eddie Coyle

A now standard device is to retell part of the story by changing the point of view.  Less common is taking an entire plot and recasting it with a new protagonist.  Grendel intrigued me in high school (via a Steve Ingham song) and Wicked is currently the best known edition.

So here's my screenplay idea for anyone who wishes to run with it:  Heist movie with the bank manager as protagonist.  Elements include:

• Building suspense of when and how the robbers will strike
• Seeing the minutia of bank protocols (and how, when and by whom they are not followed) so the viewer can plan their own robbery
• All characters major and minor create the guessing game (always for the viewer but only gradually for the protagonist) of who is honest and who is just slowly setting up the heist for their never seen partners in crime.  Is it the old high-school drinking buddy who has recently descended into the drug underworld?  Is it the too good to be true sexy new lover?  Is it the disgruntled teller who is resentful of the "Wall Street" villians of our day?  Is it that eccentric customer that keeps on coming in with the requests that require extra trips to the vault?  No, it couldn't possibly be Rusty the guard who can't afford the nursing home for his wife, could it? 

All I ask for is an "inspired by a blog by Bill Maisannes" in the opening credits.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Also recommended:  Kubrick's The Killing.  Before Reservoir Dogs, this was the most famous Rashomon heist movie.

They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?

While my wife is nerding over the new iWhatever, I am similarly enthralled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?'s 2010 update to their 1,000 Greatest Films list.  I just love their use of Google Docs.  Hours of Excel fun for me. 

Ukikusa monogatari

Sparky Anderson, like most Hall of Fame managers, got his first job quite young.  In those days before weight training, year long conditioning, over-expansion, the DH and last, but not least, million dollar salaries, players had neither the incentive, ability or opportunity to hang on past their prime.  So, at 36, he was still older than every player on his team.  He earned the nickname "Captain Hook" for being one of the quickest to pull his starting pitchers for the bullpen.  By the end of his 27 year career, he stuck with his starters way longer than average.

Sparky himself never really changed.  The game kept on getting faster and faster around him.

So, when Donald Ritchie points out in the DVD commentary that Ozu's editing in 1934 was modern and fast, well, you can finish the story for me.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended also: I think An Autumn Afternoon, Ozu's final film, is the best place to start.  The commentary track is superlative as well.

Across the Universe

Since I will never run out of new films to see, I am resistant to seeing any for a second time, so it follows that I rarely buy a DVD.  Across the Universe will be an exception.  The script beautifully links together the British and American experiences of the 60s.  Taymor also manages to take two of my nominations for the most overrated Beatles songs ever (Come Together and [numberless] Revolution) and make them high points of the movie.  Revolution in particular is so perfectly constructed that I wonder if the whole screenplay was built around it.

Rating: 9 out of 10.  Now my #39 of the 00s, making an even 100 for the evolving list.
Recommended instead of:  Alice's Restaurant

Night Nurse

No, no, no, not 70s porn.  Pre-code Hollywood!  Wellman takes advantage of the libertine climate to feature ladies in their undergarments, a stunningly negligent boozehound mother and an ending that made me do a moral double-take.  Did I just see that?  Did they intend that as a "happy ending?" 

Rating: 6 out of 10
Recommended also as my pre-code sampler (like Night Nurse, the titles speak for themselves):  Scarface, The Public Enemy, Forbidden, Baby Face, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Freaks. 

Youth in Revolt

Just another teen sex comedy, which is disappointing since Cera has been doing such a good job picking his scripts.  Maybe he loved the books and assumed the screenwriter/director would do better.  Wikipedia says that a 1994 play adaptation failed as well, so C.D. Payne's tone may only work in print.

Rating: 3 out of 10
Recommended instead: any 4 Arrested Developments would be a more efficient use of your time

Careful

Guy Maddin is like Stereolab.  If you've seen/heard one then you have seen/heard them all because their style is their style and their style is their own.  You get it or you don't and if you get it you want to see/hear them all.  Repetition is OK if you are OK with repetition.  The same thing again is a good thing if the first thing you see or hear you like.  Some jokes are only funny the first time but some are good the second time and funnier the third time and the fourth time makes you wince but the fifth time is the funniest yet.

Guy Maddin is like Stereolab.  Some works are harder to find and some are short and some are long and if you want one you eventually want them all.

Robert Hull was so dismayed that the Virginia Film Festival showing of Brand Upon the Brain appeared online to be sold out that he offered a princely sum for a ticket.  I was grateful I could tell him about the OffScreen connection to the Sunday night show.  Turns out there were plenty of seats available, but if there was only one, I would have given it to him.  Thanks Robert for all of your ESH.

Rating: 6 out of 10
Recommended also: Any Guy Maddin will work, but The Saddest Music in the World is a good portal to Maddinland.

Flaming Star

The Elvis superfan's burden to bear is the movie career.  Accept, reject, apologize for, bemoan, blame Parker, blame Hollywood, blame Hawaii, blame Elvis, defend Elvis, appreciate as camp, appreciate sincerely, avoid out of fear, avoid out of respect, like, love, endure?

My Flaming Star dreams were for Don Siegel (and King Creole/Michael Curtiz) to shine through, but....

Tell me why, oh why, oh why can't my dream come true
Oh why?

Rating: 2 out of 10
Recommended instead: Who am I to question the wisdom of the ages?  Jailhouse Rock and Viva Las Vegas really are the best.

Funny Ha Ha

There are many genres, sub-genres, styles, auteurs or periods, but very few "movements," in film history.  A smallish group that maybe didn't all know each other at the very start, but they meet, exchange ideas and eventually form a group identity.  They get chapters in books and months at Film Forum or Lincoln Center.

Soviet Revolutionary Cinema.  Italian Neorealism.  French New Wave.  Dogme 95.  They all were unhappy with "the world today" or "the state of modern cinema" or "the studios" or what have you.  They unabashedly claimed to be "reinventing cinema" and liked to talk about Reality.  The Soviets were early enough in the timeline to be a part of the formation of basic cinematic grammar.  The others had the benefit of having style or genre or studio calcification to rebel against.  They were new waves, paradoxically, by getting back to basics.

So, the last three share these family resemblance characteristics: on location shooting, non-professional actors, set in the present day, small budget, about everyday people, dialogue over action.

Sounds like mumblecore to me.  Doesn't rate a capital M yet.  Hope they keep on going and earn one.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended also: if you aren't familiar with any of these movements, then google, read, and add to your Netflix queue 4 or more films spread out among 3 or more directors per movement and treat yourself to a few DIY film festivals.

House of Bamboo

Robert Ryan (hooray!) vs Robert Stack (yawn).  Too bad the bad guys weren't allowed to win in Hollywood in those days. 

Rating: 4 out of 10

Recommended instead: The Naked Spur.  For you Losties out there, Robert Ryan plays Ben (!) Vandergroat, a clear forerunner of Ben Linus, the man you just can't believe doesn't get gagged by the second act.  James Stewart plays the Jack role.  Anthony Mann, like the Lost team, wasn't afraid of having a lead with so many warts you can barely see his face.

Korol Lir

The favorite film version of King Lear of no less an authority than Timothy Roscoe, who in a happy coincidence currently has this as his favorite quote on his Facebook page:

"O sir, to willful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors."
- King Lear II.iv

Somewhere else The Imp is laughing.  I have so far watched 15 of his films, with a mean rating of 4.4.  You would think I would stop at some point, but no, he just keeps me hanging on.  The latest hook is Peter Sellars.  I just marveled at his knowledge and passion for this Soviet King Lear as a special feature commentary on the DVD and had to see what work he has produced himself.  So there he is, co-screenwriter (with Norman Mailer!?) of Godard's King Lear.  Merde.

As an aside, I hereby volunteer my services as a subtitlist for foreign Shakespeare films. I'll cut out the middle man and just use the original text instead of translating back into English whatever the actors are saying.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Strongly recommended, but not as a first date movie, from personal experience: Kurosawa's Ran. Finding Neverland worked out much better.

The Devil's Rejects

For a time this film held the dubious record of most uses of the f-word.  Now I certainly have no problem with profanity, but here it was just proof of lazy writing and wearisome to the ear.  I couldn't help thinking about 3/4ths of the way through that this is the rare movie that would actually be improved by being edited for television.  In between the cursing and the cruelty, there is actually some decent 70s vibe, best embodied by Otis Driftwood, whose face covering hair would make Molly Hatchet proud.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Recommended instead: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, naturally

Up in the Air

I was happy to hear Sharon Jones getting the love at the top.  Saw her & The Dap-Kings live in Cville and I felt I was getting as close to a young James Brown as a non-time-traveller could get.  Word got out that she pulled up guys and gals alike to dance on stage, so the second show a few months later got a little too chaotic.  Binky Griptite had to declare: "We love you all.  But the stage.  Is by invitation only."

Sad to say but the credits and the opening scenes of the master at his craft were the highlights of Up in the Air.  I'd go so far as to call the screenplay misogynistic towards the little girl (do cardboard cut-outs deserve names?) and "I'm just like you, but with a vagina" Vera.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Recommended instead: Save the Tiger (thanks Kevin)

The Vampire Lovers

This Hammer horror doesn't overcome the traditional British handicaps of flat tone and generally lousy cinematography.  The Vampire Lovers only succeeds in providing a few picturesque ports of call for the sailing fastforwarder.  I will give Terence Fisher's well regarded work a shot before giving up.

Rating: 2 out of 10
Recommended instead: That sexadelic dance party called Vampiros lesbos by mi amigo Jesus Franco.

Le dernier métro

I have given the French New Wave more chances than Earl Weaver gave Mike Cuellar. 

Rating: 5 out of 10

Recommended instead: La nuit américaine, which may be superficially similar (behind the scenes of a movie instead of a play) but is a much more nimble work, not being laden down with period pieceness and Gérard Depardieu.

Kevin Kellam correctly commented that my Top 10 of the 00s was much more a personal "what I like" statement than the 11-99, which was less idiosyncratic.  You're absolutely right.

Cat People (1982)

Simone Simon.  Nastassja Kinski.  Only exotic euros need apply for the lead in Cat People.  Schrader takes a 73 minute wonderful B-movie and makes it 118 for no good reason other than to give himself more time to get stoned.  Jesus Franco would have had just as many thrills in half that time.  Paul Schrader wrote Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. While I respect those gentlemen, I get a real kick out of The Lightning Filmmakers: Suzuki, Franco, Fassbinder.

Looking back, Schrader has spent a lot of time pulling the erotic fringe into the mainstream.   His first major work, Taxi Driver, featured taking a first date to a porno.  Hardcore followed George C Scott down the rabbit hole to find his daughter.  He has brought to the screen the real-life sexual obsessions of Yukio Mishima and Bob Crane.  Oh, and he wrote Obsession (my favorite DePalma) and American Gigolo.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Recommended also: Eugénie de Sade if you want to see Soledad Miranda and Jesus Franco have some fun in the 70s.

1-10

10 Wristcutters: A Love Story*
9 Paranoid Park
8 Burn After Reading
7 Humpday*
6 O Brother, Where Art Thou?
5 Man Push Cart
4 Fa yeung nin wa (In the Mood For Love)
3 Fantastic Mr. Fox
2 Memento
1 Unbreakable

Given that I am giving them 3 out of the top 17, I guess I'm saying the Coen Bros. are my favorite directors of the decade.   5 of the top 10 are more or less comedies.  Fancy that.

I was pretty surprised that Unbreakable came out #1, I must say, but I just look at all the ones above (from other years) and below it and it resists moving.  It features great performances across the board, a carefully crafted pace, and presents a still unique take on the superhero script, one of the dominant genres of the decade.

11-20

20 The Cell
19 Mulholland Dr.
18 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
17 No Country for Old Men
16 Persepolis
15 Cidade de Deus (City of God)
14 Dogville
13 There Will Be Blood
12 Brick
11 Artificial Intelligence: AI

We're now getting up there, and the serious auteurs and the films that are showing up on most lists are here.  Respect must be paid to Rian Johnson, who brought noir to the 21st century.  I strongly recommend watching the DVD with the commentary track and the subtitles on, for the explanation of the world and its language.

21-30

30 American Splendor
29 Fils, Le (The Son)*
28 Punch-Drunk Love
27 Dopo mezzanotte*
26 Innocence*
25 Russkij kovcheg (Russian Ark)*
24 A Scanner Darkly
23 The Village
22 Sexy Beast
21 Xiao cheng zhi chun (Springtime in a Small Town)

Russian Ark's tagline is "2000 cast members, 3 orchestras, 33 rooms, 300 years, ALL IN ONE TAKE."  Oh, and it is also the first uncompressed high definition film in history (hence, needs to be released on Blu-Ray).  99 minutes long without a cut, so the "making of" and DVD commentaries are must-sees as well.   
 
In excitement, I watched the opening sequence of Sexy Beast over and over again and got the whole soundtrack during the heyday of Napster.  It also features incredible performances by Ray Winstone (I needed subtitles for him, similar to Snatch), Ben Kingsley and Ian McShane.

31-40

40 Broken Flowers instead of Coffee and Cigarettes
39 Shotgun Stories* instead of Big Fish
38 Bloody Sunday instead of The Bourne Ultimatum (the best by far of the insteads)
37 Capote instead of Mission Impossible: III
36 Moartea domnului Lazarescu* (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) instead of 4
35 Coraline instead of Hounddog
34 Tape instead of Training Day
33 Adaptation. instead of Where the Wild Things Are
32 Rois et reine (Kings and Queen) instead of Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale)
31 Step Brothers instead of Kicking and Screaming

Given that there are so so so many good movies out there, maybe the best service a critic can perform is to give advice on what to avoid instead of what to see.  After all, they are getting paid to watch bad movies, while the rest of us are paying for them with our time and (usually) our money.