113. Hot Tub Time Machine
What a way to start September. I heard this was funny. I really liked Get Him to the Greek and The Hangover. This is written mainly for 20 somethings who may laugh in some kind of recognition, but the lower the IQ the better.
The writing may be the worst I’ve ever heard. Rob Corddry plays it all on the surface with no real discernible character. I don’t know that I could ever go to another movie that he’s in. Cusack must be embarrassed. It is beyond bad, It’s a disheartening look at what Hollywood can sell as entertainment. F-bombs pass as ‘dialogue’, vomit, pee, crap, and semen jokes abound. Spend a day on a middle school playground and get the same laughs – unless you have something better to do – like anything.

111. Mesrine: Killer Instinct (French)
Leaps through te career of this real kife French ganster at an entertaining clip. Vincent Cassal is great and it is shot with a nice changing color pallet and some really slich camera work. More engaging than Michael Mann’s ‘Public Enemies’ with Johnny Depp about John Dillinger, much as I liked that. And you get a part two. It is a bit brutal at times, but necessary to flesh out the real madness of this otherwise ‘romantic’ figure.
110. The Philosopher Kings
57. Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz)
This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco
this ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey
I ain’t got time for that now
Life During Wartime – Talking Heads
I saw this back in April at IFFB, but it is worth pushing again. The box office total as of Aug. 15, 2010 is only $180,76. I think Solondz, along with Todd Haynes, are successors to R.W. Fassbinder. Even if that doesn’t mean anything to you, this film really deserves a bigger audience.
If you’ve squirmed through Solondz’ ‘Happiness‘ this is a wonderful variation on that film’s characters, starting with a two shot restaurant scene which transforms the startling Jon Lovitz/Jane Adams breakup scene into something even odder and more resonant. And so goes the rest of the movie. It’s a comedy but not an easy one to laugh at. I smirk at the films audacity more than at jokes. His fine line between comedy and pathos makes it really difficult to judge what the laughter is about. Is it recognition, discomfort, release, or a notification that you “get” the humor? My wife, a psychotherapist, can’t even watch his films, while the woman next to me was chortling through the whole movie. It’s a Rorschach test for the soul.
His casting and writing always generate startling performances. Paul Rubens (not to be confused with Peter Paul Rubens) is cast for his unfortunate and unavoidable moral baggage , and a surprising appearance by Charlotte Rampling – as a callous and wounded middle-aged seductress – evokes, in my mind, her roles from Night Porter to Under the Sand. But it’s the off-kilter new-agey middle age romance between Allison Janney’s Trish and Michael Lerner’s Harvey that really sets your teeth on edge. Dylan Riley Snyder as Trish’ son Timmy may be at the moral center as children often are in Solondz films. As in Iran where children are made central characters in order to get past censors to larger social themes, Solondz is couching difficult ambiguities about human relationships into simple, cockeyed, conversations often bordering on inappropriate. But he’s neither a misanthrope nor a cynic, but shockingly dead on, and the personal is always political. It’s wartime. As the director dryly puts it: “Relationships are complicated” and as Timmy’s perfect last line confides: “I don’t care about freedom and democracy. I just want my father.”
110. The Concert (French and Russian) Radu Mihaileanu
I don’t find many French comedies that funny, and fortunately this is directed by a Romanian who avoids the obscure Franco-jokes and heads straight to Russian, Jewish, and Gypsy stereotypes. The story is unlikely enough to be considered more as a fable than real story. Maybe because I don’t know the actors (except for Mélanie Laurent who is charming and learned the violin) that at least I was not annoyed by its cloying plot. That sounds like faint praise, but the plot is diverting, the antics are amusing, the acting strong, and some great Tchaikovsky to finish. It lies in the same wacky territory as Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen, that very good director’s frenzied shot at comedy. So call it a guilty pleasure.

109. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Rivers’s life is told in passing. The beauty of the movie is watching close-up what her life and art in the context of this capricious, over-paid, crazy show business world may be like. It brings her down to our level, given that we, the audience, had the wit, talent, drive, money, ambition, and patience for cosmetic surgery as does Joan Rivers. Very human, very humane, very funny.

108. Great Directors(Angela Ismailos)
It’s too easy to say what’s wrong with this movie, as many critics have, which is unfortunate, because the film is really fun to watch and to listen to. Although too little time is given to John Sayles and Liliana Cavani, her interviews with David Lynch, Catherine Breillat, Bernardo Bertolucci, Agnes Varda, Stephen Frears, Richard Linklater, Ken Loach, and Todd Haynes make up or it. These are wonderful choices. There are many directions a film with this kind of breadth and access might go, but taken as it is, it’s a lot of fun. There are great clips from the directors themselves, but especially from films that represent the directors who influenced this group. This would mak great classroom instruction, and a conversation starter. The influence of Fassbinder and Genet on Todd Haynes, Fellini on Lynch, or of Thatcher’s politics on Loach and Frears, are substantive. Whether or not she cuts away to herself, or gives too much time to this or that, doesn’t diminish the pleasure of seeing an outstanding selection of directors, hearing some essential contemporary film history, and being privy to some very entertaining observations.

107. Dogtooth (Greek)) (Giorgos Lanthimos)
After parking for $16.00 at the overpriced MFA lot in Boston where I saw Dogtooth for $10.00, my teeth were already on edge – including my Dogtooth. Did I get my money’s worth? Let me say this about that. This story of three teenagers cloistered by their wealthy father on his isolated country estate where they’re taught preposterous behavior including erroneous words for things (little yellow flowers are ‘zombies’ and pussy means ‘big light’) is violent, sexual, bloody, and ridiculous. That’s the fun part.

It seems to be tragic, but without a real story and it’s too open-ended to come off as a satire. Is the family of the future (as the director suggests) doomed? Is there a larger political critique? Is the film, as has also been suggested, a critique of Greek society and its acceptance in the European Union, or the corrupting influence of American popular culture.

It’s fair to say that it is all these things if you want it to be. I was desperate to feel that it would open to larger possibilities. But it just veers and crawls from one funny/horrible situation to the next. It is a surrealistic and instinctive film, but without the intricacy and dexterity of David Lynch, the sly lyricism of Bunuel, or the political commitment of a Pasolini film. The film looks beautiful but in the end it doesn’t go anywhere. Film loving audiences may be so hungry for open ended, interesting, provocative films that they are buying into Lanthimos ultimately repetitive and boring attempt at a lyrical nightmare. This is just too empty, too easy, too slow. I hesitate to say that it was all Greek to me, but perhaps that was part of the problem. I nevertheless look forward to his next film.

105. Valhalla Rising (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Like his film Bronson, Valhalla Rising concerns man as the scourge of God, only this time not in the British prison system, but at the most elemental level. That would be Viking times, though it’s not specific.
‘One-Eye’ – so named by his boy sidekick (“you need a name and you’ve only got one-eye”) – is Mads Mikkelsen – a warrior of few words and a scraggly looking eye. Actually that would be a man of no words and a piece of goofy looking nose putty for an ex-eye. As an elemental force of pagan pre-history, there are copious shots of One –Eye gazing into primordial landscapes or flashing to red-tinged memories of his violent past or maybe these are visions of his impending fate. It’s unclear, but he makes Refn ‘s Bronson look civilized. One-Eye can disembowel a man with one hand. As a captured slave he was caged and used for entertaining a group of dirty bearded animal skin wearing primitives as a fighting machine who could kill anyone even when chained by the neck.
As an escaped ex-slave and pre-historical, pagan scourge to a new cluster of deluded Christian Viking-like explorers who are making their way to Jerusalem thorough – where, Scotland? – he is not to be fucked with.
The ominous music, ponderous treks across malefic sweeps of rocky wooded outback, baleful glances, and sudden explosions of primitive violence, unfold at the at the pace of mud drying. These scroungy ancestors weren’t big on ideas or conversation. They stared a lot. After a while I’m not sure I wanted to.

Wind Across the Everglades (Nicholas Ray 1959)
Nicholas Ray and writer Budd Schulberg, both stubborn, brilliant and in their alcohol years apparently barely made it through this movie. Add to that that it was shot on location in the mud and heat and swamps of Everglades – for real. The odd pairing of lead parts are great British actor Christopher Plummer (at age 30) and the troubadour and folksinger of hundreds of songs Burl Ives (his famous Blue Tail Fly/Jimmy Crack Corn, and other great children’s songs plus Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tim Roof). As if that isn’t an odd enough match you have the following:
Colorful pre-war boxer Two-Ton Tony Galento, (who boxed both wrestler ‘Classy’ Fred Blassie and was pummeled by Joe Louis – ssee it here; go to 5:30)
Legendary and possibly most memorable circus clown of the century Emmett Kelly. See him on What’s My Line (4:20)
Renown ‘terpsichorean ecdysiast’ (i.e. striptease artist, Gypsy Rose Lee (“source of the Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins classic ‘Gypsy‘)
Romantic interest Israeli born Chana Eden who ended up doing a couple of dozen TV cameos, but no films that I could find
A motley assortment of actors for whom this was their only picture, or who followed up with mostly TV
Oh add in Peter Falk for a touch of color.

The result is a fever dream. It’s another primal Nick Ray experience that, if you’ve ever saw seen this as a kid, it’s no doubt lodged in your brain somewhere between the pirates of Peter Pan, Davy Crockett, and fantasies of a primitive south.
To see it again is an amazing experience, particularly knowing that, for whatever reason, so many of his films have no release, no distribution on DVD, or VHS. – notably this one. Themes of consciences, power, hubris, corruption, authenticity, and torrid romance all percolate (think Schulberg’s On the Waterfront, or Face in the Crowd) with Ray’s slightly askew but techno-colorful style, and passion for environmentalism. Lots cutaway nature shots. Schulberg apparently had to finish directing it. Ray wouldn’t let him see the edit. Whatever happened, it’s a rare treat to see with actors out of our collective culture memory. I don’t think it even really has an ending, but the finish is perfect!

103. The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko)
This is treat on every level (except special effects – thank god). A laugh out loud script, great performances, and a clever and useful premise that operates on another level all together. I’ll predict now that Annette Bening will get an Academy Award (for this and Mother and Child). She’s due and she’s great. But equally great is Julianne Moore. Mark Ruffalo is as good as he was when the public was blown away by his heartbreaking performance in You Can Count on Me. That was 10 years ago. He really can convince you with that vulnerable Brando tough sensitive vibe like no one else, when there’s the right script. (the guy in back of me actually actually said; “man, he is so cool”)
The rest of the bunch really feels like a family. The arguments, the love, the difficulties- as Moore says in her beautiful, beautiful stuttering monologue and apology: “Marriage is fucking marathon” as an angry Bening weeps at the confession. It’s a profound moment, so simply done, perfectly performed.
I am waiting for the arguments about the surprisingly unkind ending. Ruffalo’s character was too developed, and his performance too strong to be summarily dismissed. But see it and see what you think. For me, this is one of the best films this year.

102. Inception
The collective gasp at the end of the movie is the sound of an audience easily led into deep, profound, philosophical, or just freakin’ heavy territory. The guy next to me said; “Oh man, I’ll never get over this.” But really, once you have a plot based dream reality you can you do anything. Then bolster it with great effects and CG. Does that make a masterpiece? The Hans Zimmer soundtrack alone tells you this is HEAVY. Is it really? As A.O. Scott observed, can we we sit on it a while before declaring it a masterpiece? A crafty movie and a masterpiece of hype for sure, but am I even allowed to say I was bored and distracted?

91. I Am Love(Italian – Luca Guadagnino)
I guess they DO make ‘em like they used to. Sort of. A wild and beautiful opera of a film with astounding borrowed music from John Adams. Produced and starring the wild and beautiful, brave and and Italian speaking Tilda Swinton, it conjures up those sprawling Italian films from the heyday of Rosselini and Visconti and maybe even Bertolluci. Like the exquisite meals prepared throughout the film, and like the music, the story builds slowly to a furious and passionate conclusion.
It’s a sprawl, or better yet, a balanced stew of family history, Italian history, global politics, local color, sexuality, decor, manners, social class and the natural world – and lots of food. Exquisite dishes are even used as central plot points . All this is unique for a contemporary film. Just like the dishes they prepare the audience gets to savor all kinds of details as they patiently present themselves, trusting that by the end it will reach a fine finish. There’s even a disconcerting visual aperitif just after the first credit which tops it off.

89. The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos)
A great story and beautifully shot. Look for the one continuous shot that starts over a soccer stadium, cranes down into the crowd to the actors faces, and proceeds into a chase that winds through the halls of the stadium and ends up on the field with a captured villain’s face sideways at the barrel of gun. These new Argentinian movies have a way of being really personal while folding in all kinds of ideas about history and politics. Academy Award winner.

88. Trash Humpers (Harmony Korine)
I thought it was amazing. But when you try to reason why, you start to wonder if you’re bullshitting yourself and the whole thing is a mischievous prank. This nasty little film, that reads like old VHS home movies found in the trash of relatives of the family in Chainsaw Massacre is not John Waters and not Andy Warhol. It’s provoking us to be sure, but raises all kinds of ideas about why we watch, what we watch, and the ubiquity of images in this maxed out visual culture of YouTube and Hostel, an age of real trash and vaudeville.

86. Winter’s Bone
Lean, mean, and kind of grisly. I can’t imagine that Jennifer Lawrence won’t get all kinds of indie nominations for her role as Ree. It reminds me of the hardscrabble Frozen River last year except that it never seems to have a message or to be setting an example about the nobility of any particular people or way of life. Oddly it’s more of a thriller, except that most the violence associated with the girl’s missing father is implied, offscreen, or left to possibility and imagination. What you get is a taught drama built around some unsettling Ozark folk and drug dealing backwoods types. By making the protagonist a young women, the director Debra Granik, really increases the stakes. It’s a unique and gripping film with some frighteningly good performances and some offbeat casting.

85. Get Him To The Greek
At its heart this is another Apatow late coming off age movie. Everyman officially has moved from Tom Hanks to Jonah Hill – I shudder to think what that means. But he’s really good and convincing in the most random and insane situations. Most of those come from Russell Brand’s rock star character Aldous Snow (is that Aldous Huxley meets Aurora Snow?) – part rock savant, part purveyor of petty musical porn. But he is amazing in the role. And Sean Combs is brilliant. He’s so good you realize he can be completely ironic about his own mythology and powerful enough to stick it to the music business. As does the movie. It’s pointed, unlikely, slapstick, disgusting, hilarious and sweet. And you never know where it’s going to head next.A real bonus is the wonderful Elizabeth Moss (sooo good in Mad Men) as the unlikely girlfriend to Hill. The threesome attempted between these three characters in the bedroom says a lot about the clash of decades and generations. Brilliant and unrelenting.

113. Brand Upon the Brain (2006 Guy Maddin)
Initially this toured with live accompaniment of an 11-piece orchestra, a five-person team of Foley artists, and celebrity narrators including Crispin Glover, Eli Wallach, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, and Isabella Rossellini. The permanent version is Rosellini. It’s a psychedelic trip where buried inside the story, the myth, the psychology of the tale, which is shot in distressed silent film black and white images, are echoes of Shakespeare, Dracula, Chien Andalou, zombies, orphans, biography, medical experiments, masked heroes, and god knows what else. A work of a genius, and there is nobody making films like Maddin. Be prepared to engage.

112. Operation Filmmaker
111. Death of a President
106. The Confederate States of America (CSA) (2006 Kevin Willmott)

104. Wind Across the Everglades (Nicholas Ray 1959)
Nicholas Ray and writer Budd Schulberg, both stubborn, brilliant and in their alcohol years apparently barely made it through this movie. Add to that that it was shot on location in the mud and heat and swamps of Everglades – for real. The odd pairing of lead parts are great British actor Christopher Plummer (at age 30) and the troubadour and folksinger of hundreds of songs Burl Ives (his famous Blue Tail Fly/Jimmy Crack Corn, and other great children’s songs plus Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tim Roof). As if that isn’t an odd enough match you have the following:
Colorful pre-war boxer Two-Ton Tony Galento, (who boxed both wrestler ‘Classy’ Fred Blassie and was pummeled by Joe Louis – see it here; go to 5:30)
Legendary and most memorable circus clown of the centuryEmmett Kelly,
Renown ‘terpsichorean ecdysiast’ (i.e. striptease artist, Gypsy Rose Lee (“source of the Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins classic ‘Gypsy‘)
Romantic interest Israeli born Chana Eden who ended up doing a couple of dozen TV cameos, but no films that I could find
A motley assortment of actors for whom this was their only picture, or who followed up with mostly TV
Oh add in Peter Falk for a touch of color.

The result is a fever dream. It’s another primal Nick Ray experience that, if you’ve ever saw seen this as a kid, it’s no doubt lodged in your brain somewhere between the pirates of Peter Pan, Davy Crockett, and fantasies of a primitive south.
To see it again is an amazing experience, particularly knowing that, for whatever reason, so many of his films have no release, no distribution on DVD, or VHS. – notably this one. Themes of consciences, power, hubris, corruption, authenticity, and torrid romance all percolate (think Schulberg’s On the Waterfront, or Face in the Crowd) with Ray’s slightly askew but techno-colorful style, and passion for environmentalism. Lots cutaway nature shots. Schulberg apparently had to finish directing it. Ray wouldn’t let him see the edit. Whatever happened, it’s a rare treat to see. I don’t think it even really has an ending, but the finish is perfect!

100. Hospital (Fredrick Wiseman – 1969)
Not for anyone with an aversion to blood, guts, vomit, or drug overdoses. But beyond that a masterpiece of real world poetry. Weissman was present at the screening. His impish demeanor (”I never go to the movies, I read. I still remember how”) is the heart of a humanist, the soul, editing skills, and instincts of a poet. Even the graphic Hospital is way more than the sum of its events, and you feel the pulse of a chaotic city throbbing for 80 minutes.

94. Bigger than Life (Nicholas Ray 1956)
Read about it on IMDB. It’s so weird and overdone and overly colorful and melodramatic. But it sticks to you like a dream. Ray has one of the oddest sensibilities in film. If you ever get a chance to see it, stay with it, and guaranteed it will haunt your dreams. The same goes for many of his films. My own favorite nightmare might be his proto-lesbian western, Johnny Guitar.

87. Coming Apart (1969 NetFlix)
This was as disturbing as Trash Humpers for its time. People walked out and it wasn’t re released for decades. The entire film is shot into a mirror from a single camera angle in a one-room apartment. Rip Torn as psychoanalyst Joe Glazer rents a studio apartment away from his pregnant wife and has sexual encounters with a series of women which he films with a hidden camera. But it is an amazing experience and to watch Rip Torn blaze through this thing is to experience one of the best performances on film. You will not believe this is scripted. Totally hypnotic. Sally Kirkland and others give their heart and soul to the project. Not pleasant, but boy does it speak for its time, but probably any age.

97. The Mirror(Jafar Panahi Iran -1997)
The movie follows a little girl through the streets and on the buses of Tehran as she looks for her mother who has failed to pick her up at school. Suddenly half way through the film she quits the movie, and heads home. But the crew follows her at a distance as she searches for her house. In the both parts of the movie, we’re immersed in the city and its hive of activity, its merciless traffic, cab drivers, police, shopkeepers. The little girl, Mina Mohammad Khani, is too good to be true, and we, like her, are allowed to feel and breath the city. The plot is extraordinary and it’s hard to tell if and how they planned the whole thing, or what’s “real”, and what’s not. But watch for how the elements of the story all repeat themselves in the second half. I imagine that’s why it’s called the Mirror. Not like anything else.

99. White Material (Claire Denis)
Isabelle Huppert continues her long streak as France’s toughest and greatest actress in a seemingly effortless and unsettling portrayal of a coffee plantation owner in an unnamed colonized African country who is obsessed with finishing her harvest despite the unraveling and chaos of the social structure. This is the masterpiece of the French Festival. It’s a film rich with ambiguities and points of view, and vivid in the smallest details and in the landscapes of this soon to be forsaken land. This is the most frightening and insightful film I’ve seen of all the movies trying to come to grips with the chaos of post-colonial Africa.

98. Leaving (French – Catherine Corsini)
Explores in short, and often blackout scenes, moments of a wealthy wife and mother falling headlong into a passionately sexual love affair with a working class builder. It also explores the fine line between clever and stupid. Kristin Scott Thomas is as good as she can be in this melodrama – and we’re collectively proud of actresses willing to get naked at 50. Sergi Lopez, who usually plays villains, nicely underplays the lover, but is he really worth all this? Her final dissolution is preordained by a gunshot we hear at the start of the film. This precedes the story, which is then revealed in flashback. It’s a nice touch. But it really is just becomes a tale of a mentally ill women. There’s no real reason for the affair (unless she really likes a good hairy butt). What about her kids, her practice, her background, her relationship – anything? We see it all, and there are some fun and squirmy moments. But in the end it just doesn’t add up, and it’s strains credibility in a big way.

97. Two for the Wave

96. Hadewijch (Bruno Dumont)
Dumont explores the fine line between martyrdom, fanaticism, faith, and delusion in this meditative (some will call slow paced) look at a young Christian fanatic who befriends a group of ‘terrorist’ Muslims. Throughout there’s a degree of sexual threat and violence so present in his films, as well as the very physical presence of nature, of weather, of the elements. It’s an edgy mix, yet most of the time we’re looking at the world through the vulnerable searching eyes and face of Julie Sokolowski as Céline/Hadewijch, the latter being a 13th century mystic who also sublimated courtship for a love to God, and who also took no vows as a nun. As Celine, the girl is sent from the convent for being too extreme in her devotion. She begins to naively explore the real world. Like the earlier poet and mystic Hadewijch – into whom she slowly seems to be transforming – Celine is also from a very wealthy family, a fact that sets up another set of questions and contrasts in this contemporary context. I love looking at the faces director Dumont offers up, and as always he sets up situations that call out for argument and conversation. The ending is sudden and unexpected, and you are left to question not only what might happen next, but to where exactly has the director led us.

95. Making Plans for Lena (French – Christophe Honoré)
Airless, complex, chattering, dysfunctional, and destructive – and I mean that in a good way. That is to say it’s what the director intends. The audience will measure its own family delusions, illusions, ideas of love, and ability to survive against these mostly unsympathetic characters. I liked it, but didn’t enjoy it. This is something the French do well. Featuring the Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve, who mostly got her father’s looks, which she uses bravely and unglamorously in this film written for her.

I am teaching a horror film course in the Fall. Ye gods and little fishes. Here’s some research.

101. [REC] 2(Italian)
Sequel to [REC] where mock-doc is applied to being quarantined in a building with victims of a flesh-eating disease. This one is about demonic possession being quarantined in a building and creatures still need to eat flesh. Lots of thrills, special effects, nifty hand held and video cam ideas. Ultimately stupefying, unless you really love a good “gotcha” horror flick.

92. Dead Snow(Tommy Wirkola 2009)
Ye olde cliche-written (and ridden) “teenagers in jeopardy from Nazi zombies” movie. I think the reviewers have as much fun writing about it as they have watching it, because it is SO ridiculous. What separates it from other severed limbs, guts spewed-&-chewed type fare is that it’s really nasty and takes itself wonderfully seriously. So it’s better than just a good-bad movie. It’s along the lines of Evil Dead movies except blood and guts look really cool on frozen white landscapes nestled in the mountains of wherever.
The opening of the film, set to Grieg’s Peer Gynt, sets the tone. It’s full of enough clever Grand-Guignol to warm the palpitating hearts of those who need more Raimi type smirking splatter in their lives. Don’t rent the dubbed version. Director Tommy Wirkola is directing Hansel and Gretel for Will Farrell. Perfect!

93. Orphan(Jaume Collet-Serra 2009)
This is like if Disney decided to make horror films to give kids nightmares. There’s all this typical family behavior that morphs into really sick situations; the ‘orphan’ holding a gun to her little sister’s head, creepy repetitive singing, squashing a bird’s head, and of course lots of cold hearted very bloody murder. I think that’s why kids are reenacting scenes on youtube. The very good Isabelle Fuhrman in the title role with killer gonzo deadpan stare, says her character Esther just wants love – a smart choice for any actress and how else can a child of 12 so effectively play a complete psychotic? . The adorable and (actually) deaf little sister played by Aryana Engineer is only 8 and she goes through horrific scenes. Not all parents let their kids do this kind of role, but she claims it was ‘fun, and not hard at all’. I’m a huge Vera Farmiga fan who has this way of acting that always feels part of an ongoing life of a character. Peter Sarsgaard is always good as the honorable, but necessary flawed male manqué. So too late at night I got caught by this likely-to-be cult film which runs 2 hours! I couldn’t turn it off and had nightmares, so I’d say it does the job!

94. Bigger than Life (Nicholas Ray 1956)
Read about it on IMDB. It’s so weird and overdone and overly colorful and melodramatic. But it sticks to you like a dream. Ray has one of the oddest sensibilities in film. If you ever get a chance to see it, stay with it, and guaranteed it will haunt your dreams. The same goes for many of his films. My own favorite nightmare might be his proto-lesbian western, Johnny Guitar.

90. Art & Copy(Doug Pray 2009)
I was really looking forward to this and it’s better than I even thought it would be. Doug Pray, who did Surfwise and Hype has such a clear, easy to watch crisply edited style. This film isn’t the usual tirade against advertising, but a celebration of its power as art and persuasion told through the voices of some of the masters of the best campaigns in advertising history. The film doesn’t doesn’t take a position on whether this is propaganda or art, only that it is powerful, enormously cleaver, often brilliant and can change direction culture. That says a lot.

87. Coming Apart (1969 NetFlix)
This was as disturbing as Trash Humpers for its time. People walked out and it wasn’t re released for decades. The entire film is shot into a mirror from a single camera angle in a one-room apartment. Rip Torn as psychoanalyst Joe Glazer rents a studio apartment away from his pregnant wife and has sexual encounters with a series of women which he films with a hidden camera. But it is an amazing experience and to watch Rip Torn blaze through this thing is to experience one of the best performances on film. You will not believe this is scripted. Totally hypnotic. Sally Kirkland and others give their heart and soul to the project. Not pleasant, but boy does it speak for its time, but probably any age.

74. The Man Next Door (el hombre de al lado)
Yet another great Argentine film. (The Secret in Their Eyes, The Custodian, Kept and Dreamless are others worth checking out) This strange story is about all kinds of things concerning communication, family, authenticity, seeing and being seen, architecture, and the modern world that has way of distancing us from one another with its obsession with technology. The brilliant opening let’s us know the movies style will border on what reminds me of ‘video art’ in its framing and clever shooting and concepts. It unfolds patiently, isn’t entirely sympathetic to its characters, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Don’t miss this one.

75. COCO AND IGOR
Gorgeous to look at and infinity better than Coco Before Channel which left you empty. The acting is great, sets, costumes, and cinematography all admirable. The opening scene of The Rite of Spring being performed for the first time in 1913 is worth the whole movie. I like the way Stravinsky’s music embellishes the whole thing, but it does really go anywhere. So you just sit back and try to imagine maybe this all really happened – that Igor had a passionate fling with Coco. I like costume dramas anyway, if a little cold to bio-pics. That they might have had this affair is a cool fact, but not necessarily made more real for me by seeing Igor’s naked heinie in an overhead shot pumping the very splayed thighs of Coco Chanel. Overall the movie it is fun to watch and listen to.

76. GET LOW
Robert Duvall should stop producing movies with scripts that let him play these inarticulate backwoods guys. The problem being that you wind up eventually with a film like this. It had me begging for something to happen followed by being actively pissed at the non-payoff ending. They build up this premise fed by artful flashbacks and then don’t have the good sense to conclude it.

77. TILLMAN STORY, THE
A story that needs to be told, and its told really well considering the limitations the director had with the family. This is one remarkable family seeking justice for their son a remarkable person and a war hero. It’s a shocking story, and I don’t know how much more disillusioned we can be about Bush, Rumsfeld and his arrogant and corrupt cronies. I hope this film gets seen. History will add it all up. At least that scumbag General McChrystal lost his job. See it. Watch the generals lie and deceive before your very eyes. An amazing story. See it. Arrg.

78. HIPSTERS(2008)
If you’re looking for an engaging quirky night of film, check out this bizarre Russian musical. I didn’t even think the colors in this film existed in Russia. I didn’t know the 1950’s existed in Russia but there is a serious and interesting historical component. The Stilyagi (’Hipsters’) were a rebellious youth subculture in Russia from the late 1940s until the early 1960s. They Soviet Union who dressed in modern fashions, and flew in the face of the communist-socialist realities of the time. This is great fodder for a film.The songs are generally very clever neatly worked into the plot. A hallucination of a movie. It’s in the tradition of midnight cult films. A great rental.

79. SOUL KITCHEN(Fatih Akin)
A bit unlikely and silly, but moves fasr. Akin having fun. Not his best. Be sure to see Head On and The Edge of Heaven first.

80. LUCKY
81. DRY LAND, THE
82. KILLED MY MOTHER (J’AI TUÉ MA MERE)
83. LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX
84. KINGS OF PASTRY

73. Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
It’s easier to immerse yourself in a movie with interesting characters when they are played with actors you don’t recognize. That’s especially the case in this Danish film and with the very convincing Swedish Noomi Rapace in the title role. I was carried away by this surprisingly violent and disturbing story. (That it’s part of a trilogy and in Swedish is called “Millenium: Men Who Hate Women” says a lot) The film looks great, the acting is convincing, and it’s full of full of odd twists. It’s long, but all the better to sink into this claustrophobic world of deceit, corruption, and a constellation of very flawed individuals.
Like the film ‘Insomnia’ it will probably be remade in an English speaking version for no discernible reason, so see this first.

70. Benny’s Video (1992) (Michael Heneke)
That this was done 18 years ago is testament to Heneke’s long search for moral clarity. A boy murders a young girl and catches the whole thing on his elaborate home video recording set up. He shows it to has parents, whose first questions are; “Did anybody see this?” rather than ‘get thee to a nuthouse’. You can anticipate elements of Cache, White Ribbon, Music Teacher and others in this slow and disturbing story. It also anticipates the onset of the ubiquitous world of YouTube visuals and perhaps suggests (for parents, in particular) it’s time for greater commitment to a moral point of view that we don’t all descend into a numb and passive society of watchers. The ending is a shocker.

71. 1408 (2007 w/John Cusak)
This was recommended as being really strange and disturbing. It’s about a paranormal researcher who checks into a haunted hotel room. Based on a Steven King story, it’s a fun idea – the horrific and the mundane a la King – Cusak commits himself game-fully. But anything can happen in this wacky haunted hallucination of a hotel room – and it does – so after a while the characters might as well be shouting “BOO!”. There are some creepy and some creative moments, but it adds up to silly. And it goes on and on. I found myself admiring the pluck of the actors who commit themselves to these kind of endless unlikelihoods.