I think if I were to ever find out that I was going to die, I would make a list of movies I would want to watch before I did, and right near the top of my list would be "A Prairie Home Companion". That may be a morbid thought, but death surrounds us in our everyday lives all the time, like it does in this film. "A Prairie Home Companion" is a very special film not just because it was the last directed by the great Robert Altman but also because in how it deals with the subject of death.
I'm sure when Altman made this film, he wasn't thinking it was his last, but he might've had an inkling it might've been. A few months before the release of the film, Altman was honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Academy Awards, it was there he announced that he had once had a heart transplant. Soon after "A Prairie Home Companion" was released, Altman passed away. People have looked at the film as his swan song, and indeed it is, but it's not just for those sentimental to the Altman touch. It does have some things, important things regarding how we live our life and how we face death.
The film takes place on the final broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion" which is a live radio show. This is fictional seeing how the actual show is still on the air and performs regularly, but that's not the point of the movie. This is a "what if" scenario concocted by screenwriter and host of the real radio show Garrison Keillor, what would he do if it was in fact a real last show? The answer is, nothing out of the ordinary, the philosophy is the radio keeps going on even if this is the final show. Throughout the broadcast, there are many key characters who appear on stage and backstage, such as The Johnson Sisters (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin) who come from a family of singers much like The Carter Family (only they were famous). There's also a singing cowboy duo Lefty and Dusty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly) who have a bit of belting out bad jokes.
There is also Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) who is the local security guard on the lookout for anything suspicious. He's the first one to notice a mysterious woman in a white coat (Virginia Madsen) who walks around the theatre seemingly unnoticeable sometimes, she is in fact the Angel of Death. But the true life Angel of Death comes in the form of The Ax-Man (Tommy-Lee Jones) who is sent to end the show for good. But while all this is happening Garrison keeps the show moving with not a moment of dead air, and even when there is an actual death in the theatre, they keep moving on.
I saw an interview once between Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor, each one disagreed with the other as to what this film is about. Altman called it a film about death, while Keillor described it as a light hearted comedy. In this case, I think they're both right, what they have collaborated to make is a light hearted comedy about death, and that's not easy.
When it comes down to it, the movies that have appeared on my lists are movies that I enjoy, and frankly I enjoy movies that make you feel good. "A Prairie Home Companion" does that, it is a film about death, but it makes it feel like a comfort rather than something that is scary, and when we die, it doesn't really matter what we say about someone, what matters is that we remember them.
Watching "A Prairie Home Companion" is like watching a lively funeral, it's so full of warmth, tenderness, humour, and music for the soul. This is what the show is about and there isn't much point in saying anything else about the subject.
Robert Altman made his style look so effortless, it's truly a wonder as you watch his roaming camera capture these people really living in this movie. You get the fact that Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are sisters or Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are best friends just at how they relate to eachother. The performers are all standouts which includes Lindsay Lohan who looks to have such promise in her performance, I pray she gets her act together.
Like "The Terminal", this film gets better each time you view it. I remember enjoying the film when it first came out, but now it's grown on me and it puts me is a great mood each time I watch it. When I die, I hope people remember me, the way "A Prairie Home Companion" asks to remember it, just don't leave any dead air, and keep moving on.
A man is left an orphan in an airport, his country no longer exists, it is under a coup and while it is, this man is a citizen of nowhere. So is the simple story of Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) a man from the fictional country of Krakozhia, and so begins one of the most positive and optimistic films to come out in a post 9/11 world.
I think it's important to state when "The Terminal" was made which might explain the motives behind making it. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and on paper I assumed it was an ideal film for him to make at that time. Spielberg came into the new millennium a much different director than he was before. His first two films of the new century were bleak dystopian science fiction films ("A.I.", and "Minority Report".) both brilliant but darker than anything Spielberg had ever done. He then followed those up with an entertaining caper film "Catch Me if You Can", and then came this film.
"The Terminal" came with not much of a critical or audience reception, it was maligned and used as an example of everything wrong about Spielberg (over sentimentality overridden with movie cliches). He silenced those critics with another dark science fiction film ("War of the Worlds") and then a more serious film regarding terrorism ("Munich"), any one of those films are good arguments for Spielberg's best of the decade, but more than any of them I go back to "The Terminal".
I think "The Terminal" is the only kind of response Spielberg could make in a post 9/11 world. In a time when people could be excused for being more bitter and cynical, Spielberg focuses on hope and humanity.
Viktor is one of Spielberg's many orphan characters, he not only doesn't have a family, but he doesn't even have a country to call his own. Over a series of months (Not sure how long he actually stays there), the airport terminal becomes his home. Spielberg sets his film in a very real looking airport terminal, but the story that unfolds is very much a fable, Spielberg has always relied on this form to tell his stories. Viktor soon finds friends in other people who work at the airport, he helps them with their problems, but he's also a thorn in the side of the local supervisor (Stanley Tucci) who wants nothing more than to be rid of him for good.
Soon a romance blooms between Viktor and a flight attendant (Catherine Zeta-Jones who has never looked lovelier) who has commitment issues. All the while Viktor is waiting patiently for permission to step foot on American soil all for a promise he kept for his father (a theme found in many Spielberg films)
"The Terminal" is the kind of film that is easy to take apart from the outside, it's glossy, unrealistic, and full of corny moments. I confess if you look at films with those aspects in mind, you will not enjoy it. Hollywood has been responsible for many films that fall under this category of being corny and more times than none, they have failed, but Spielberg is a modern master at this sort of film, he knows how to take you into a film and feel for its characters. His films are full of many sentimental moments, but I think the difference is he is also insightful with these moments as well. Not since Chaplin or Capra has a director had the power to pull your emotions like Spielberg, the thing about him is he's sincere.
There are moments in "The Terminal" such as Viktor trying to stop airport security from taking an immigrants medication away for his dying father, or the old Indian janitor who goes out on the runway to delay Viktor's plane that could've failed if done without sincerity, but Spielberg does these scenes with a straight face, to him they are not silly, but they demonstrate the message he's trying to make with this movie.
"The Terminal" can be thought of as a fable about waiting, and hoping for what tomorrow may bring, I think it's a film about friendship, and helping one another in a time of crisis, in the end Viktor has made friends with so many people at the airport, they have inspired him and he has inspired them back, I think Spielberg has actually made his "It's a Wonderful Life".
I think "The Terminal" came at a strange time for America, it might not have been the film people were looking for, but I do hope much like "It's a Wonderful Life" it is rediscovered by a new generation. It's a film that grows on you and gets better everytime you view it, it's emotionally uplifting and insightful, and sometimes that's all you ask from a movie.
The cinema of Quentin Tarantino is so unique, if one were to copy it (and many have tried), it would never amount to the magnitude and grandeur of the real McCoy. Tarantino was cinema's wunderkind in the 90s with "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction", showing genre movies could be fun, exciting, and unpredictable again. Then came "Jackie Brown", a more subdued work that cooled critics at the time, but has since become his most refined work, his "hangout movie" as he puts it.
Five years went by and fans were waiting anxiously for Tarantino's next bloodfest, but I don't think people were expecting what was to come next. "Kill Bill" is I think the director's greatest achievement to date, it was here he upped the ante in style and turned his obsession of movies into height pop art. The film was cleverly split into two separate pieces, and even though both movies can exist as their own entity, they can be seen stronger as a whole.
"Kill Bill" was released at the height of Hollywood's obsession with epic heroes found in films such as "Spiderman", "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings", all of which broke box office records at some point. Tarantino's films can fall under this same category of creating his own mythology. The main myth in "Kill Bill" has to do with The Bride (Uma Thurman), she is a former hired assassin who is left for dead on her wedding day by her former employer Bill (David Carradine) along with a bunch of other hired guns played by Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Lui, Michael Madsen, and Darryl Hannah. The Bride is left for dead, she is in a coma for four years until she wakes and begins to plot her revenge.
The first volume of the film follows the basic revenge plot as The Bride tracks down Fox's character who has reformed into a domestic home life, and Lui's character who is the leader of the Japanese underworld. The first volume concerns itself with style and is probably the least talky of all of Tarantino's films. The film has been criticised for being a hollow genre exercise, however with Tarantino, it's in the way he plays with genre that it becomes personal to him. "Kill Bill Vol. 1" is full of many different Kung Fu references most of which you would have to be as well schooled as Tarantino himself to know them all. It's with volume one where Tarantino seems to be really having a lot of fun, fusing together so many genres from Kung Fu, to Japanese gangster, to spaghetti western. Tarantino's not just paying homage to all of these genres he's updating it for a contemporary audience, not unlike what Spielberg and Lucas did with Indiana Jones which updated old 1930s Saturday Matinee serials. The Bride is Tarantino's Indiana Jones, a new hero for a new generation, and Tarantino is the director to make this new kind of heroine look and act as cool as possible.
When we get to volume two of the story, we sit into what will become a more natural Tarantino movie. With volume one he has given us the set up and the mythology, now he gives time for his characters to breath. We finally see the face of Bill, who if Tarantino were still following the style of volume one we probably wouldn't see until the very end. Here we see Bill almost immediately, as we flashback to the moment right before the massacre at the wedding. We find out there was a love story between the Bride and Bill, this is part of what makes Tarantino's cinema so interesting, nothing is ever in black and white, Tarantino always pits his larger than life characters in a difficult circumstance, in this case a love story between the hero and the villain, not only that but we also find out they have a child together.
If volume one resembled a kung fu movie, then volume two represents the western, it's a much more slower film and more reflective. The Bride bridges the gap between the two cultures, she holds a code of honour that can reflect both. Uma Thurman gives the performance of her life in these two films, because it is a genre piece and her character is full of action is probably the reason she was never nominated for an Oscar. I would say the strongest characters in Tarantino's cinema as of late have come from his leading ladies. Along with The Bride, we also have Jackie Brown right up to today with Shoshana from "Inglorious Basterds". These are all strong women who fight back at the men who have scorned them, Tarantino shows a certain amount of pathos in these character that he doesn't in others.
All of Tarantino's films have had something to do with revenge, and "Kill Bill" is his ultimate revenge movie, it starts out simple and straight forward, but he's much too interesting a writer/director to just go with that. "Kill Bill" is a masterpiece because it fuses together so many of Tarantino's passions of genre, and transcends them into an entertaining action epic. Tarantino has called "Kill Bill" his most personal film, many people have wondered why since it never seems like he makes personal films. I think for a man who lives in movies so much the way he does, the way he made it is personal to him. He creates movies for his audience, he knows what makes a great memorable movie moment, which is why his films are full of them, I think it's by doing this he's letting us into what he loves, it just so happens the thing he loves the most is movies, and he wants us to love it just as much as he does, which is why we can't wait for the next time he tries to wow us.
And so we've come to it at last, as Darth Vader would say "The circle is now complete."
For the past ten years all I can comment on is what has impacted me the most, I'm not going to talk about about the biggest movie, or the one phenomenal movie that defined a generation. If there is anything I could take out of the last ten years, it's that I've found the movies that fit me. I turned 20 in the year 2000, I was a young adult, I knew movies and I was probably a little smug about it. I didn't really know anything past the 70s, I was under the impression that movies stopped being interesting after that point.
I think I was still trying to find my voice, in fact I'm still on that journey. By the time I turned 22, I was in theatre school and completely forgot about my love of film for awhile. Two years later I enrolled in a motion picture arts program which renewed my love for it. I was starting to watch films by Fellini, Ray, Bergman, and Kurosawa. I was looking at old favorites by Ford, Capra, and Wilder in a different light. I wasn't just watching movies again, I was learning about them. I had a new interest in what made a great movie so great, I wanted to know how they were made, I found a new outlet in learning about them through film criticism. Suddenly my teachers weren't just the Fords, Wilders, and Hitchcocks, but the Eberts, the Kaels, and the Emersons. I learned more about films through shot by shot analysis, audio commentaries, and essays.
Suddenly films I might've been attracted to as a teenager no longer interested me. I no longer cared so much about the big movie opening on the weekend. My big movie became something that could only be seen in art houses or in the Independent section of my video store.
I would say there were three big discoveries in the 2000s for me that completely changed the way I look at movies. These three discoveries were Yasujiro Ozu, Jean-Luc Godard, and Krysztof Kieslowski. I have fallen in love with their films so much over the years, they introduced to me philosophies of film but also of life, it's a joy to watch their films and feel invigorated.
During this last week of 2009, I will be discussing what I think are the greatest films of the past decade, but for me I think I will remember the last ten years as an education I will take with me for the rest of my life.
It happens with a murder, a beautiful, young high school student. "She's dead, wrapped in plastic", says Jack Nance's Pete Martell as he discovers the body washed up on shore in the small quiet town of Twin Peaks, just five miles off the Canadian boarder. So begins one the strangest and compelling series in the history of television brought to life by one of the greatest surrealists of all time.
Many great films or series of films made there mark on television such as Kieslowski's "The Decalogue", or Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexaderplatz", and even today with shows like "The Sopranos" or "Mad Men" which continue the tradition. David Lynch decided to create "Twin Peaks" as a television series and in doing so, he created his masterpiece.
With "Twin Peaks", Lynch creates a world of mystery, and wonder, it's a world that seems to take place in a waking dream, and like a dream some of it cannot be explained, but we can't help but fall under its spell.
With "Twin Peaks" Lynch was able to flesh out similar ideas he dealt with in his film "Blue Velvet" which also took place in a nice small town that underneath lurked an even more sinister presence. I always thought the problem with "Blue Velvet" was Lynch concentrated too much on how phony everything seemed in the small town, but with "Twin Peaks" he does the same but never loses the humanity of the people living there. The advantage of doing it as a series is we are able to spend more time with the characters, and Lynch was able to make a much more compelling and intriguing story of good and evil than he did with "Blue Velvet".
The pilot of "Twin Peaks" starts off less as a mystery than it is about one town dealing with the death of one of their citizens. Everyone knew Laura Palmer and everyone is effected by her death in one way or another. Lynch has sympathy for these characters, and he is honoring them and their community by showing the dignity they have in their mourning.
I think Lynch himself is embodied by the show's main character F.B.I. agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan who has never been better) who is sent in to investigate the murder. Cooper is an outsider, but he feels very at home with the environment in the town people. "Do you wanna know why I'm whittling..." he asks the local sheriff Harry S. Truman. "Because that's what you do in a town where a yellow light means slow down instead of speed up." Cooper fits right in to the world of "Twin Peaks", he's a true blue hero if a bit unorthodox as the show progresses.
The center of "Twin Peaks" was always on Laura Palmer, she is the big secret that Lynch uses to unlock all the little secrets of the small town. We find that not everybody is as innocent as they look on the outside, but they each never lose their humanity.
The best films of David Lynch are like dreams, he's known mostly for grotesque and horrifying images, but he's also someone who can be poetic and beautiful. Take the scene in the Roadhouse bar as we see a woman singing a song, it's obvious that she is lip syncing, but the song and the image of her is so beautiful it's as if she lives out of reality which makes the scene work.
"Twin Peaks" is hypnotic, I fall under its spell each time I watch it. The failure of the series happened when Lynch lost creative control and was forced to reveal the identity of Laura Palmer's killer too soon. Lynch then lost interest and the show went embarrassingly off the rail. But everything leading up to Laura Palmer's killer is pure genius, the pilot set the stage for what is probably the best television that ever premiered in the 90s.
Years later, David Lynch tried television again with a pilot that would soon turn into its own feature "Mulholland Drive". Lynch would go on record he would not produce anything for television again. I suppose Lightening wasn't meant to strike twice, but for a brief shining moment, Lynch was able to ignite a spark, and for those of us who followed it loyally, we are still dreaming.
The western is a dying genre, there doesn't seem to be much left to say with it, I think Clint Eastwood knew this when he made "Unforgiven", his last western and his best film as a director. Perhaps no other star other than John Wayne can be so associated with the western or what the western hero represents. Eastwood became a star working on the western tv show "Rawhide", and then went on to become a movie star in the films of Sergio Leone. When the 70s came, Eastwood was the biggest star in the world and made some of the most important westerns of the time like "High Plains Drifter", and "The Outlaw Josey Whales", both films he directed. When the script for "Unforgiven" came to him, he held on to it for ten years until he was old enough to play the part of outlaw William Munny, but the film is also a turning point in his career. The fact that Eastwood chose to play William Munny adds extra weight to the themes of the film. Munny is a man with a checkered past, he's a killer, but he's reformed, he owns a pig farm, he's widowed and has two children. But Munny is again asked to turn to his old ways as a gunfighter, and this draws the film towards Eastwood's own thoughts on violence, redemption, and how he perceives the old west.
The film opens in the town of Big Whiskey in a brothel where a prostitute is cut up by a violent cowboy and his partner. The local Sheriff Little Bill (Gene Hackman) gives the two men leniency by only making them pay the owner of the brothel in ponies. The head mistress (Frances Fisher) is outraged and gets all her girls together to raise money in order to bring in hired guns. William Munny enters the picture when he hears about the reward money from a young gunman calling himself the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvet) who wants to partner up with Munny to kill the cowboys. Munny agrees only to get the money for his kids, he brings his partner from the old days along Ned (Morgan Freeman)who we sense knows William better than anyone and who William tells that he is in fact a changed man and is only doing this for the money.
The set up of "Unforgiven" is very traditional like in all of Eastwood's films, he takes from old pros like Howard Hawks, and John Ford, there is even a very Fordian moment in "Unforgiven" when we see Munny sitting at the grave of his dead wife which evokes countless scenes similar in Ford films. However even though Eastwood's style is very old fashioned, his take on the old themes is very contemporary which is why his films remain interesting to this day. In "Unforgiven", Eastwood gives us a revisionist western, where nothing is glorified, and everything is real. Eastwood takes those famous lines from Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Here Eastwood prints the fact, but plays with the legend.
The legend of the west is represented in the arrival of another gunfight named English Bob (Richard Harris) who comes into Big Wiskey bent on getting the reward money himself. He comes into town with his own biographer (Saul Rubinek) who writes of English Bob's exploits. English Bob becomes part of his own little movie within this one, when he is confronted by Little Bill who knows him from the past. Bill humiliates Bob in front of his biographer and then proceeds to break down the legend and tell him a much less glamorous depiction of the man. Bob leaves a bruised and beaten man, and Eastwood it seems is telling us that there were no heroes in the west, they were pretty much all murderers.
There are really no heroes in this film at all, Little Bill is a corrupt sheriff who works in a class system, to him there is no justice for the prostitutes but only for the businessmen or land barons. William Munny isn't a hero either in the traditional sense, in the final act of the film, he comes for his revenge, but in the end Eastwood decides to go for moral ambiguity, we don't cheer when Munny gets his justice, he becomes a man transformed into the cold blooded killer he described himself as.
In the film's most poetic scene and one of the best Eastwood has ever directed, Munny and the Schofield Kid are waiting in a field for one of the women to deliver their money. It is revealed The Schofield Kid had just killed for the first time, he is full of remorse and regret, before he was arrogant and cocky, but now he knows what killing a person does to someone. In the film's most poignant line Munny says to him "it's a hell of a thing killing a man, you take away all he's got, and everything's he's ever going to have." This is the way Eastwood sees violence, just as it is something ugly and unnatural. Eastwood made a career out of violent films and characters who acted out with aggression, but with "Unforgiven", the violence has consequences.
When "Unforgiven" was released many people saw it as Eastwood's swan song, however he proved them wrong and it was in fact a turning point, he has now become one of the most prolific actor/directors of all time churning out a film a year. However Eastwood has said "Unforgiven" would be his final Western, it really did seem he had nothing left to say with the genre. For me it was the last great western film, although there have been others I greatly admire. The western is part of American movie history like the gangster film, but now with bigger action movies taking over, the quiet and reflective time of the western hero seems all but over with now, I think Eastwood knew that too. At least he left the genre with a perfect epitaph.
If you remember July 1999, the time Stanley Kubrick's final film "Eyes Wide Shut" premiered to audiences, it was regarded with little fan fare. Though the film started strong its opening week thanks largely to the controversy surrounding the infamous sex scenes, and the star power of then husband and wife Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, it soon proved to be a disappointment. Many critics found it to be "unsexy", and audiences didn't know what to make of Kubrick's unique fluid camera movement. The film was taken too literally and was unfairly mocked by the mainstream press, they turned Kubrick's commercial arthouse film into a failure.
Ten years have past since the initial release of the film and it is now time to take another look at this underrated gem. If there is one director who's films deserve a second viewing it's Stanley Kubrick. To me his films are like listening to classical music, all carefully composed, and rich in depth. Kubrick isn't for the impatient, but for the person who can take in every shot, and every camera movement and be completely hypnotized with his world.
"Eyes Wide Shut" doesn't have the pace nor the structure of a usual mainstream movie, which is probably why it tanked. What we have here is an intimate story about marriage, infidelity, and our sexual obsessions.
The film is about an upper class married couple Bill (Cruise) a doctor and his wife Alice. It begins with the two of them going to a party hosted by Bill's friend (Sydney Pollack). During the party, Alice sees Bill flirt with a couple of young beautiful girls, while she herself dances and flirts with a mature looking man.
A fit of jealousy takes hold of Alice and the next evening while her and Bill get high, she confesses to him a time when she felt like cheating on him with another man, a specific man who she goes into great detail about. Alice goes even further saying she even had thoughts of giving up her life with Bill all for one sexual experience with this man.
The monologue Kidman has while she's explaining this is a tour de force and it's a performance that should've gotten her an Oscar nomination. The whole story sets the rest of the story in motion, as Bill can't get the thought of Alice being with this man out of his head. He's tortured by these images which cause him to go out in the streets of New York to indulge on his own sexual fantasies. This leads him to meeting a prostitute, someone he seems willing to go all with way with until he is interrupted by a phone call from his wife. He also becomes entangled in a very surreal costume shop involving an odd Russian shop owner and his young sexually active daughter. The scene in the shop is both amusing and disturbing at the same time.
Soon Bill's adventure leads him to the most dangerous and forbidding place, located in a giant mansion where the people involved all wear masks and cloaks, and sex is all very ritualistic. These were the scenes that were deemed too much for American audiences which concluded in giving them a tamer version than the Europeans, who I suppose found sex more appealing than violence. The scenes itself are some of Kubrick's most hypnotic and dreamlike bits of filmmaking. The fluid camera movement, along with the transe-like music, and slowburn editing of the shots make it seem all unreal to the eye.
The second half of the film deals more with the mystery surrounding Bill's experiences the night before. He goes back to the spots he was in the day, each one looking unlike they were before. He soon learns that his whole adventure may have lead to the murder of a woman from the house who tried to help him. AS the audiences we are as confused as Bill, we try to think that maybe what we saw was a dream he was having, after all everything seemed so unreal, could he have been responsible for the murder of this girl?
"Eyes Wide Shut" has so many things going on, at once it is about the fidelity and trust between a husband and a wife, and it's also about the dangers of following our obsessions too far until we can't go back. Ultimately the heart of the film lies with the relationship between Bill and Alice, both of them are acting out their own impulses, trying to torture the other psychologically with their sexual desires. There is love there, and in the end I was left thinking Bill and Alice actually have a stronger marriage, and Kubrick leaves us with a very memorable line from Kidman.
"Eyes Wide Shut" was the last film by Stanley Kubrick who died four months before its release. Kubrick had a very small output of films, but if you consider those that he did make, you can see they were all done by an artist who understood the medium perhaps better than anyone. It's a shame "Eyes Wide Shut" didn't receive the recognition it deserved when it was first released, the more I watch it, the more I'm entranced by it, as if I was watching a dream unfold in front of me. Kubrick's films were never based on reality, they were always surreal exhibits of emotion, and film was always the medium that fit Kubrick's sensibilities so well.
Dear Santa, I don't know if you read this blog or not, but I'm sure you're a big movie fan since you only work one day of the year giving you lots of time to watch movies, I know if I had your job that's what I would do. You're probably checking your list twice by now, and since I would be in the "R" category, you probably haven't gotten to my name yet. Just to remind you I've been extra good this year bringing lots of Christmas cheer to my loved ones, not to mention Christmas cheer to people who don't really deserve it, I'm just that nice. I'm not even going to mention the past few Christmases where I haven't gotten anything from you, even though we both know it was unfair. I'm willing to wipe the slate clean if you are and start anew. So the following are some movies and movie related things I hope to find under my tree this year. 1. "Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzystof Kieslowski" By Annette Insdorf: I love the films of Kieslowski and this would just be a great companion piece to his films so if you could find some room in your bag that would be great, only $19.00 at amazon!
2. "Eraserhead" or "The Elephant Man": Can you believe it? I'm a huge David Lynch fan but I do not have these two movies in my own personal collection! It's a crime but with your help Santa, it may no longer be the case. I can picture you being a huge David Lynch fan yourself.
3. "Up": Probably my favorite Pixar movie Santa. I'm sure this is on high demand from all your kiddies' list. I mean didn't your eyes well up too after that unbelievable silent portion of the film?
4.Movie passes: Movie prices are insane these days Santa! I mean if you could I would just say drop the prices to movies to when I was a kid. I remember going to a movie for Six bucks...six bucks Santa!!!! I mean come on!
5. Inglorious Basterds: What better way to celebrate Christmas than a bloody revenge World War 2 film about a bunch of Nazi hating Jews who kick serious ass?
6. That this years Oscars don't suck: Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are hosting which gives me hope, but seriously do we need 10 nominees for best picture Santa? I'm sure you even rolled your eyes when you heard that announcement. The fact that there are more nominees makes me think it'll be an extra long broadcast. Please, please Santa don't make it so.
7. That the remaining films of Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu will be released sometime this year.: I don't think I have add much to this request. I have all of the Ozu films currently available, but even that's only about a third of his full body of work. Maybe you can just snap your fingers or something and make them all just appear at my closest movie store.
Anyway, that's about it Santa, in closing I would like to quote from a certain Charlie Brown character who also sent you a letter. "If this seems too complicated for you, then make it easy on yourself, just send money."
For me the 90s represented a vast change in the way we perceived movies. In some ways it meant more of the same, but in others, it meant branching out to new venues to bring in an audience.
Of course when it came to Hollywood, the all mighty dollar meant more than ever, we saw sequels from 80s franchises like "Die Hard", "Lethal Weapon", and "The Terminator". It seemed as long as people were going to these movies, they would continue to be made.
New leaps and boundaries took place in technology headed by James Cameron with his film "Terminator 2: Judgement Day", which refined CGI technology. Cameron himself would helm some of the biggest blockbusters of the decade, finishing in '97 with the biggest film ever "Titanic".
A new animation company emerged known as Pixar, and they would soon rule over Disney as the main animated studio, starting with their first feature "Toy Story". Of course before being overrun with computer animation, Disney themselves would see a trio of there most successful films: "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", and "The Lion King", all traditional hand drawn films.
The most successful director of all time Steven Spielberg took a different, and some would say mature tone in this decade. Although he still proved to be a box office king with films like "Jurassic Park", it was "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan", that would capture most people's attention.
But there was also room for indie filmmakers like Steven Sodebergh to gain some fame with his mainstream success "Out of Sight" in the late 90s, and also The Coen Brothers with their dark crime comedy "Fargo".
But the decade also belonged to new filmmakers coming out of film festivals with a new voice. No one was more exciting on the scene than Quentin Tarantino a cocky young former video store clerk who burst onto the scene with his crime films "Reservoir Dogs" and then two years later even more with "Pulp Fiction". That film would go on to be the surprise winner of the Palm D'or at the Cannes Film Festival, and would go on to influence many imitators. Tarantino ruled the scene and was the epitome of cool cinema in the 90s.
Other filmmakers come up at this time as well such as Paul Thomas Anderson, and Richard Linklater, their films were independent but each one found their own audience.
Perhaps the biggest advancement in the 90s came with the advent of the Internet making one small budget horror film into a big budget success. "The Blair Witch Project" which was released the summer of '99 became the first film to pretty much get it success via the Internet, and thus making this new venue something that could be used to sell your film.
When the 90s ended, we were hearing catchphrases like "I see dead people", and "prequel", but with the new millennium approaching, there would be more and more ways to see a movie than just at the theatre.
1. The Decalogue (1989) Directed By Krzyzstof Kieslowski
2. My Dinner With Andre (1981): Directed By Louis Malle
3. E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982): Directed By Steven Spielberg
4. Do The Right Thing (1989): Directed By Spike Lee
5. Raging Bull (1980): Directed By Martin Scorsese
6. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986): Directed By Woody Allen
7. Raising Arizona (1987): Directed By Joel and Ethan Coen
8. Stranger Than Paradise (1984): Directed By Jim Jarmusch
9. Kagemusha (1980): Directed By Akira Kurosawa
10. Once Upon a Time in America (1984): Directed By Sergio Leone
Blogger's Note: Once again I'm cheating on my own list if you notice my number one pick which is actually ten short films put together. This might be a tad unfair to the other films, but I just could not ignore "The Decalogue" as a monumental acheivment in filmmaking, not to mention one of the most moving film experiences I've ever had.
There are some movies you just fall in love with, and you can't help but tell everyone this is one of the greatest movies you'll ever see, because you sincerely feel that way. When I first saw "My Dinner With Andre" only a few months ago mind you, I felt like that. There was something about the movie that connected me right away, and I wanted to share it with the world.
I've seen "My Dinner With Andre" three times now, and it still gets a rise out of me, I still feel it is one of the most important movies made because it deals with things about life that I think are important. This is a selfish reason why I think you should see this movie, because obviously people look at life differently and what I think is important might not appeal to them. The movies I love however, are very personal to me, they in some way represent my perception, some movies have even had the power to change my perception, "My Dinner With Andre" came at a time in my life when I was having questions regarding life, love, art, and death, not to mention I felt a real kinship between the two main characters.
The film begins with Wallace Shawn a New York playwright on his way to have dinner with his friend Andre a theatre director. Shawn has a voice over in the beginning of the film as he's going to the restaurant about the state of his life. He's at a point in his life where art is no longer the most important thing, and he spends most of his time worrying about earning a living, every now and then being able to write a really good play. This will be the first time he will be seeing Andre in quite some time, and he's not really looking forward to it. He has heard rumours of Andre going to Tibet and having some sort of a crisis, Wallace is unsure what to say or do when he sees him.
The two meet for dinner, and Andre does most of the speaking in the first part of the film. He talks about his many adventures mostly abroad going through various experimental theatrical experiences you might say. Wallace is mostly passive saying the odd thing like "then what happened" or "tell me more". Andre continues with his story, and we are so entranced with it because he has such a flair for storytelling, it's widely descriptive as if we are there.
Some time after, Wallace begins to jump in to the conversation, and that's where I felt the film becomes more interesting. Here we have two men of the world each with their own philosophy about life. Andre talks more and more about the people he meets, and what they perceive the world to be. Wallace counters that sometimes with his own views, but sometimes their in agreement. Conversation turns to different areas from death, to theatre, to marriage, and relationships, I was fascinated from beginning to end I forgot more often than once that I was watching a film with just two people talking it was more important what they were talking about.
The script was written by Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, both men who seem to be playing themselves, in real life Shawn is a playwright/sometimes actor and Gregory is a director, and they are both friends who live in New York. They formed the script out of real conversations they had, recording each session and then picking out the ones they thought were the best.
The director of the film was Louis Malle, one of the founders of the French New Wave, he does the smart thing here by filming the script, once the two men are at the table, the film doesn't stray away from pretty basic medium, close-up, and two-shots of the actors, sometimes it cuts away to a very strange and cryptic looking waiter who serves their meal.
The real auteurs here are Shawn and Gregory who set out to make a very unique film that I don't think can every be copied. It's a simple idea, but what the characters say is what makes it remarkable. I still remember the first time watching "My Dinner with Andre" wondering why more movies weren't this interesting, this is just two men at a dinner table, yet I hang on every word they say more than any film made today. It works sort of like Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing", it serves as a wake up call but in a different way. "My Dinner With Andre" reminds us of the art of conversation which is really the only way we can know anything about ourselves. It's a precious thing that is taken for granted much too often in this world today, we know longer listen to ourselves, we more or less talk about nothing. The movies today are made the same way, they are more or less there to give us something to watch for two hours, and we forget about it as soon as it's over.
"My Dinner with Andre" came at a strange time when movies were making their transition to the blockbuster, and soon they would become too loud and noisy to make any impact at all. "My Dinner with Andre" is like a calm reawakening, it gets me out of my stupor and reminds me why it's so important to feel alive, it stays with me long after the movie is over, in fact when it ends, I feel a little bit sad, but it also makes me want to go out and have dinner with my own friends and hope we could have a conversation as meaningful as Wallace and Andre.
20 years later the question is still asked did Mookie do the right thing? It is one of the most iconic images in 80s cinema when Mookie, played by Spike Lee throws a trash can through the window of Sal's pizza in the aftermath of another police murder of a young black man in a Bronx neighbourhood. I've seen "Do the Right Thing" many times and each time I see Mookie throw that garbage can, I see a different motive behind it. Was Mookie deflecting the violence from Sal and his sons towards his pizzeria? Was This a form of catharsis for the community? Or was this Justice done towards a racist who got what he deserved?
The reason "Do The Right Thing" remains so powerful is Spike Lee never answers any of these questions for us, what he's doing is telling us like it is, living in a Bronx neighbourhood in the late 80s. The film isn't just a reminder of racism in America, it's also perhaps the most visceral that came out in the 80s. Spike Lee is an intellect, and he's able to express his ideas like a professional filmmaker. This was the fourth film Lee made, but you can sense this was the one where he laid it all out on the table, he had something to say, and he made sure we stood up and listened.
The film begins with an aggressive dance done during the credits. It's performed by Rosie Perez who plays the girlfriend of Mookie in the film. The dance is done to the song "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy, which will become a sort of an anthem throughout the film. The dance is meant to get our attention, it's an angry, pull no punches routine that is in our face.
The next scene we see a close up of an alarm clock that rings, and the voice of the local D.J. (Samuel L. Jackson) tells us to "Wake up". It's Lee's intention to wake us out of our apathy, only this way can some change happen.
The film takes place on one of those hot New York summer days, and throughout the day tensions are rising within the melting pot. The main problem happens in Sal's pizza. Sal (Danny Aiello) is an Italian American who runs his business with his two sons Vito (Richard Edson) and Pino (John Turturro). Sal is proud of his pizza place as he later reveals that he's happy that kids from the neighbourhood have grown up with his pizza. His son Pino however is unhappy, he is a flatout racist who hates the neighbourhood and the people who come in to buy it. Things get heated when one of the locals named Buggin Out (Ginacarlo Esposito) complains that Sal only has white Italian Americans hung on his wall. Buggin Out is upset that Sal doesn't represent any African Americans on his wall after all that is the majority who buy his pizza. Buggin Out causes a ruckus and soon Sal kicks him out, but things aren't over.
Throughout the day we see more and more tensions rise some of it concentrated on the Korean family across the street from Sal's who own a convenient store, some of it focuses on an upper class white man who has the nerve to move into a black neighbourhood. What Spike Lee does here and what he isn't given enough credit for is showing everyone has a prejudice. Lee is often criticised for not being critical of African Americans, and those critics are people who don't pay attention to his films. If anything African Americans are given the harshest treatment in this film, some of them are scene as lazy slobs who sit on a street corner complaining about the Koreans who own their own business, using the excuse that they are black to argue why they don't own their own. Even Lee's own character Mookie is seen in a bad light, he neglects his girlfriend and his son, and has his own prejudice against Sal when he sees him with his sister.
The central characters here are Sal and Mookie, and it is their relationship I think that is the key with this film. Sal is at times a good man, and you sense that he likes the people in his neighbourhood, but underneath is a hatred that is eluded to in the beginning when he threatens Buggin Out with a bat, later this hatred is unleashed.
So did Mookie do the right thing. You ask different people, chances are you'll get different answers, I'm still trying to figure out his motive which might put me behind everyone else. But it probably all comes down to the heat of the moment, things that go through your mind at that instant, and then suddenly there's only one thing left to do.
"Do The Right Thing" is an intelligent movie, and probably the most intelligent movie about racism ever put on screen, I remember showing the film to a group of friends for the first time, and afterwards having a real conversations about the issues the film raised. That's not saying everyone in the room liked the film, but it definitely had an impact. What Lee set out to do with this film I think is take us out of our apathy and pay attention, and that's what he's been able to do with the best of his films. Spike Lee remains controversial, and whether you like everything he says or not, he can always have credit for having brains behind what he is saying. I'm not sure he will ever surpass what he did with "Do the Right Thing", it was a film for the moment, and until we get to the rooted issue about racism, it will continue to be a film for the moment.
Ever feel like you don't have anything to do, and no matter where you go, you just end up doing the same thing which is nothing? This is what's behind "Stranger Than Paradise", a comedy about people who go places, but never know what to do when they get there.
The story follows Willie (John Lurie), a gambler in New York, he lives in a one room apartment and seems to lead a pretty lackadaisical lifestyle. When Willie's Hungarian cousin Eva (Eszter Balint)comes to stay with him, he's not all that happy. He tells her she can stay one night then she's on her own. Eva ends up staying longer than that anyway. Both of them aren't shown doing much. One scene has them watching an old movie at night, and then it cuts to the morning where Eva is still up watching tv. We find out Willie loves betting on the horses when his friend Eddie (Richard Edson) comes and tells him all the races of the day. Again we never see them go to these races, they are mostly just hanging around. Soon we see a relationship form between Willie and Eva, they begin to like eachother and there is a hint of an incestuous love interest, but we get the feeling nothing is ever consummated.
Soon Eva leaves New York to go live with her Aunt in Cleveland, and she and Willie must part. A year passes and Willie and Eddie get into some money, so they decide to go to Cleveland to visit Eva. The two are very excited to leave New York and look at it as a vacation, however when they get to Cleveland they don't really do much. The phrase "What are we doing here" is uttered more than once in this film, and we get that feeling also. Eva is happy to see them both and for a moment there is a feeling of happiness that they are all together, but nothing ever happens beyond that.
Soon Cleveland becomes boring, so instead of going back to New York, Willie and Eddie decide to steal Eva away and drive down to Florida, where again nothing much happens.
"Stranger Than Paradise" is a film about individuals who are feeling lost and don't know what to do with themselves. They represent drifters or misfits who are on a road to nowhere. The film reminds me very much of my #1 film of the 70s "Two-Lane Blacktop" which was also about misfits trying to find their way.
"Stranger Than Paradise" was filmed in black and white which works very well showing each city looking very similar to one another, the only reason we know the characters are in Florida is because we are told it is, plus it has an occasional palm tree in the background. This proves to be one of the ongoing struggles of the characters finding a place that is new and exciting, but to them it all looks the same, it doesn't matter where they are, they end up doing the same thing.
The film was the second feature of Jim Jarmusch, a director who has made a career of small budget minimal stories from this to "Coffee and Cigarettes" and "Broken Flowers". This film was perennial however in starting the new independent film movement of the 80s, also putting the famed "Sundance Film Festival" on the map. At its core though, "Stranger Than Paradise" is an important film because of the themes it brings up, and the tone and look of the film. Each character feels isolated, and the world looks to be a vast wasteland with nowhere to go. It's a minimal film but done very stylistically. Jarmusch was a student of Ozu who believed in one scene, one shot, Jarmusch took this philosophy even more literally in this film by actually doing it. There are no close ups, but only establishing shots, with the occasional pan, then a small black screen before the next scene is shown. The style was invented for economic reasons, but it becomes a very effective way to shoot the film, and we are able to live within each shot of the film.
"Stranger Than Paradise" is a brave film, it's small in stature, but big on ideas, and its in the way these ideas are conveyed that makes this so memorable and a treasure.
For many, the 80s meant the beginning of the end for serious movie fans. With the invention of the blockbuster in the mid-seventies, the studios figured out the best way to make money was in marketing. Movies weren't movies so much as they were franchises.
The 80s exploded with a new slur of special effects driven movies that brought new and younger audiences to the cinema, leaving the others high and dry searching for more challenging films.
Although that's not to say I'm putting down these effects driven films, some were very effective, such as George Lucas' continuation of the "Star Wars" franchise with "The Empire Strikes Back", and "Return of the Jedi". Then both Lucas and Spielberg's collaboration to bring Indiana Jones to life. James Cameron came onto the spotlight with his films "The Terminator", and his sequel to Ridley Scott's "Alien". Scott himself made the very impressive "Blade Runner" which has since become a cult classic.
But it was really Spielberg who owned the decade, making his masterpiece "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" which went on to become the most successful film of all time. The film brought about many imitators, some could be blamed by Spielberg himself who would produce some of them. This may have undermined his original classic, but the power of that film still holds up.
While all this was going on in the big studios, other filmmakers were struggling to get their serious films to be seen. Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios pretty much went belly up after a series of disastrous failures at the box office, however he still was able to make a few memorable films like "Peggy Sue Got Married", and "The Outsiders". Martin Scorsese had some more success than others beginning the decade with what many consider his greatest film "Raging Bull". After that film, Scorsese had to find ways to work within the studio system while maintaining his artistic integrity. He was able to find an outlet with independent film making such great work like "King of Comedy" and "After Hours", and he was then able to make his passion project "The Last Temptation of Christ".
There was still the occasional old war horse who stepped up to the plate. Ingmar Bergman made his autobiographical "Fanny and Alexander", while Akira Kurosawa came out of a long exile and directed his twilight masterpiece "Kagemusha", which was produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. After the success of that film, Kurosawa would go on to make his Shakespearean epic "Ran" which gave him his only Oscar nomination for Best Director.
While blockbusters ruled the day, you could also say the 80s brought about a new wave of American independent filmmakers. Before the decade would end, we would see the first important films of Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Steven Sodebergh, and The Coen Brothers.
By the time the 80s ended, I think movie goers were starting to look for something new, and the filmmakers themselves who were responsible for the new blockbuster fad, also seemed restless to try something new. By the time the 90s rolled around, it would prove a unique mixture of both an old and a new formula.
1. Two-Lane Blacktop (1971): Directed By Monte Hellman
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977): Directed By Steven Spielberg
3. Days of Heaven (1978) Directed By Terrence Malick
4. Manhattan (1979): Directed By Woody Allen
5. Taxi Driver (1976): Directed By Martin Scorsese
6. (tie) The Godfather (1972): Directed By Francis Ford Coppola
6. (Tie) The Godfather Part 2 (1974): Directed By Francis Ford Coppola
7. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971): Directed By Robert Altman
8. Dog Day Afternoon (1975): Directed By Sydney Lumet
9. Chinatown (1974): Directed By Roman Polanski
10. Day for Night (1973): Directed By Francois Truffaut
Blogger's note: You may notice I cheated with the rules a bit with this particular list. I mentioned at the beginning I would only choose one film per director, however when it came to my number 6 choice in this list, I decided to combine both "The Godfather" and its sequal since to me they both feel like one whole film. This was my reason to choose two films by Coppola.
