The Last Ten Films We've Seen: Lots of Whodunits....

Here are the last ten films we have seen; this idea came to us from "Film Comment" magazine, which has declared "Carol," directed by Todd Haynes and starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as the best film of 2015. Blanchett actually played Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There" (2007).

One of these films "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," which starred Kristi McNichol was one of the few films that Mark Hamill played in besides being Luke Skywalker in "Star Wars."

1. The Last of Sheila (1971)

2. A Teacher (2013)

3. The Hateful Eight (2015)

4. Third Person (2013)

5. The Cheap Detective (1978)

6. The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981)

7. Mommo (Turkey. 2009)

8. The Yakuza (1974 w/Robert Mitchum)

9. Marfa Girl (2012)

10. Manson Family Vacation (2015)

http://www.filmcomment.com

http://www.imdb.com

The Best 20 Films of 2015 ............according to me, anyway.............

Yes, it has been more than two months since our last entry!

In film, 2015 was the year of reality as many of the most exceptional films we saw were either documentaries or based on true stories.

There are exceptions, of course, including "Mad Max: Fury Road" chosen as the best film of the year by Bilge Ebiri of "New York" magazine as well as film critics Manohla Dargis and Wesley Morris.

Meanwhile, Amy Nicolson of "The Village Voice" named Quentin Taratino's much-anticipated western "The Hateful Eight" as the third best film of the year even though it did not make the "Film Comment" top 50 list, which had the Todd Haynes film "Carol" as the top film of the year.

Here is our top 20..........since we reside in a small market, we are hoping to catch up as we explain in our entry in our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com which we cheekily entitle "The Best Films of 2015 That We Haven't Seen.".............

1. Listen to Me Marlon (documentary; pict. top)

2. Spotlight

3. Best of Enemies (documentary)

4. Trumbo

5. Steve Jobs (pict. center)

6. The End Of the Tour

7. Mad Max: Fury Road

8. About Elly (Iran)

9. Amy (doc; pict. bottom)

10. The Wolfpack (doc)

11. White God (Hungary)

12. Wild Tales (Argentina)

13. Phoenix (Germany)

14. The Big Short

15. The Hateful Eight

16. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

17. What We Do in the Shadows

18. Time Out of Mind

19. Mistress America

20. Love and Mercy

http://www.filmcomment.com/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com

Last Ten Films We've Seen: Looking for Prozac Nation

Greetings to our blog readers in Cuba, Slovakia, and Finland......we are delighted that full diplomat relations have been established between our country the United States and Cuba!

Here are the last ten films we had seen as of last week. "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" and "Prozac Nation" have been notoriously hard to find, so we glad to have them off of our cinematic bucket list. "Love and Mercy" is the new film about Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. He was played by two actors: Paul Dano (the young Wilson) and John Cusack (the older Wilson).

The pedestrian stop and go lights at the bottom are a holdover from East Germany in Berlin; "A Coffee in Berlin" is the only foreign-language film on this particular list, though "Prozac Nation" has a Norwegian director.

Fun thing we learned while putting this list together is that over $1 million of $7 million budget for "Dazed and Confused" went to film's soundtrack; we assume this means Foghat's 1975 rock hit single "Slow Ride" is expensive!

We originally got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine http://www.filmcomment.com

Here is the list:

1. Looking for Mr. Goodbar. director: Richard Brooks. 1977 w/Diane Keaton

2. Prozac Nation. dir: Erik Skjoldbjaerg. 2003.

3. The Lineup. Don Siegel. 1957

4. Bone. Larry Cohen. 1972.

5. A Coffee in Berlin. Germany. Jan Ole Gerster. 2012.

6. The Immigrant. James Gray. 2013.

7. Trishna. Michael Winterbottom. 2011.

8. Dazed and Confused. Richard Linklater. 1993

9. Entourage. Doug Ellin. 2015.

10. Love and Mercy. Bill Pohlad. 2014.

Last Ten Films We've Seen: Trying to Catch up on Netflix....

What do Captain America, indie film queen Parker Posey (pict. center) and a silly Dudley Moore/Kirk Cameron movie from 1987 have in common? They all relate in one form or another to the last ten films we've seen.

"Like Father, Like Son," is also the English-language title of a Japanese art film which is more like Dustin Hoffman's "Kramer vs. Kramer" in nature as it deals with a family who learns that their son was switched at birth with another boy. Adding to the tensions is the fact that the families are in two vastly different economic classes.

We got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine.

Here are the last ten:

1. Like Father, Like Son. 2014. Japan. director: Hirokazu Koreeda

2. Goodbye to Language. 2014. France. dir: Jean-Luc Godard

3. The Babdook. 2014. Australia (in English). dir: Jennifer Kent

4. Wild Tales. 2014. Argentina. dir: Damian Szifron

5. Lovers and Other Strangers. 1970. dir: Cy Howard w/Diane Keaton

6. Price Check. 2012. dir: Michael Walker w/Parker Posey

7. Inside Out. 2011. dir: Artie Mandelberg w/Posey

8. Nothing Lasts Forever. 1984. dir: Tom Schiller w/Bill Murray

9. Avengers: Age of Ultron. 2015. dir: Joss Whedon

10. Far from the Madding Crowd. 2015. dir: Thomas Vinterberg w/Carey Mulligan

Last Ten Films I've Seen (as of Dec. 8th): Rollerball, et al

Here are the last ten films I've seen; we got this idea from "Film Comment:"

1) Rollerball (1975. Norman Jewison, pict)

2) The Big Mouth (1967. Jerry Lewis)

3) Widow of St. Pierre (France. 2000. Patrice Leconte)

4) Lured (1947. Douglas Sirk)

5) Deadly Blessing (1981. Wes Craven)

6) Gregory's Girl (1981. Bill Forsyth)

7) Gulliver's Travel (animated. 1939. Dave Fleischer)

8) TerrorVision (1986. Ted Nicolau)

9) Hysteria (2011. Tanya Wexler)

10) Scream of Fear (1961. Seth Holt)

http://www.filmcomment.com

The Last Ten Films I've Seen: Novel Ideas

I was completely oblivious to the fact that Angelica Huston (pictured bottom) has written a new memoir called "A Story Lately Told," which she will be promoting on "Fresh Air with Terry Gross" tomorrow when I watched one of her very earliest film roles "A Walk with Love and Death" (1969).

Like "Oliver Twist" (1949), one of many filmations of the Charles Dickens novel, and "Ender's Game" (2013), the current film based on one of Orson Scott Card's signature science-fiction novel, which is number two on the top ten fiction books being sold in the Washington, DC-metro area list on "The Washington Post" (Card lives some six hours south of DC in Greensboro, NC), "A Walk with Love and Death" is based on a novel.

We got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine, the current issue has a photo of actor Oscar Isaac in the Coen Brothers' new film "Inside Llewyn Davis" on its cover, and "Oliver Twist" is one of many films being offered by the Criterion Collection.

Several of these films were also taped from Turners Classics Movies, which has an amazing lineup of films tonight, including "Elephant Man" (1980. dir-David Lynch).

Without further adieu, here are the last ten films I've seen as of Saturday:

1. "Oliver Twist" (1949. dir-David Lean)

2. "Ender's Game" (2013 dir-Gavin Hood)

3. "A Walk with Love and Death" (1969 dir-John Huston)

4. "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954 dir-Jack Arnold)

5. "Memories of Murder" (South Korea. 2003. dir-Joon-ho Bong)

6. "The Beat Generation (1959 dir-Charles F. Haas)

7. "The Defiant Ones" (1958 dir-Stanley Kramer)

8. "Caged" (1950. dir-John Cromwell)

9. "Mrs. Soffel" (1984. dir-Gillian Armstrong)

10. "Gravity" (2013. dir-Alfonso Cuaron)

SIDEBAR: For those in the DC-metro area, graphic novel writer Joe Sacco will be promoting his new work "The Great War...." at Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore in Washington, DC, on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. Sacco's amazing work includes graphic novels on the Bosnian war and the West Bank in Israel.

http://www.npr.org/programs/fershair

http://www.politcs-prose.com

http://www.filmcomment.com

http://www.criterion.com

http://www.tcm.com

http://www.hatrack.com (Orson Scott Card's official web site)

Last Ten Films I've Seen- Garbo Laughs

Among the last ten films I've seen is a notorious "Jaws" rip-off, two films directed by playwrights ("Margaret" and "Seven Psychopaths") and a vintage British horror film ("Repulsion").

There are also two films with Johnny Depp in the lead ("The Libertine" and "Dead Man") and the film in which cinematic goddess Greta Garbo laughs ("Ninotchka").

In addition, there are two films which are still in cinemas ("R.I.P.D., which I actually saw at a drive-in, and "The Way, Way Back"). Movies I have seen previously are marked with an *.

Here is the list:

1. "Holy Smoke" (1999. dir-Jane Campion)

2. "The Last Shark" ("Great White") (Italy. 1981. dir-Enzo G. Castellari)

3. "Dead Man" (1995. dir-Jim Jarmusch) *

4. "Seven Psychopaths" (2012. dir- Martin McDonagh)

5. "Margaret" (2011. dir-Kenneth Lonengan)

6. "The Way, Way Back" (2013 dir-Nat Faxon and Jim Rush)

7. "R.I.P.D" (2013 dir-Robert Schwentke)

8. "The Libertine"   (2004. dir-Laurence Dunmore)

9. "Repulsion" (1965. dir-Roman Polanski) *

10. "Ninotchka" (1939. dir-Ernst Lubitsch)

http://thesacodrivein.com/now-showing/ (Drive-in theatre in Saco, Maine, (not where I saw R.I.P.D)

http://www.therialto.com (Cinema in Raleigh, NC, that is now screening "The Way, Way Back")

http://www.filmcomment.com (The magazine that started the 'last ten films I've seen series)

The Last 10 Films We've Seen: Reading the Movies

Here are the last ten films we've seen, many of which are based on novels. We will indicate which ones those with an asterisk (*); amazingly enough, "The Deer Hunter" which last three hours and 15 minutes was the filmation of an original screenplay! There are also two Oscar-winning films on the list, they will be marked by an at symbol (@).

We got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine; I expect there will not be an intellectual examination of the film "The Devil and Max Devilin" with Bill Cosby and Elliot Gould for quite some time (forgive the film connoisseur humor).


Here they are:

1. "Humpday." 2009. dir. Lynn Shelton

2. "Gigi." (pictured top) 1958. dir. Vincente Minelli *@

3. "Pretty Persuasion" 2005. dir. Marcos Siega

4. "The Devil and Max Devilin" (pictured center) 1981. dir. Steven Hilliard Stern.

5. "The Deer Hunter" 1978. dir. Michael Cimino @

6. "The Landlord" 1970. dir. Hal Ashby *

7. "East of Eden" (pictured bottom) 1955. dir. Elia Kazan.*

8. "The Chosen." 1981. dir. Jeremy Kagan *

9. "Far from the Maddening Crowd" 1967. dir. John Schlesinger.*

10. "The Great Gatsby." 2013. dir. Baz Luhrmann

http://www.filmcomment.com

The Best Films of 2012 (in my view)

Yes, it has been a long time since we last blogged, and we have broken many promises. But, Feb. 15th is the traditional date in which we list our 20 favorite films that were released in America from the previous year.

I should point out that this year I am going with films that were released in our market area as opposed to films that came to New York.

There are, as always, many films we have not seen, including the three Ls: "Lincoln," "Life of Pi" and "Les Misreables." 

This year, I am pleased to add that Bilge Ebiri, a fellow Turkish-American who is a New York-based film critic who voted in the "Film Comment" best films of the year survey, and I agree that the Turkish film "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" from director Nuri Bilge Ceylan was the best film of the year. The "Film Comment" survey chose the French film "Holy Motors" as the best film of the year; "The Master" came in second and it was the highest-ranking American film on the list.

Speaking of lists, here is ours:

*-Films that were released after Jan. 1, 2012, in our market.

#-Films which have been nominated for Best Picture Oscar

%-Films ranked in the top 20 of the "Film Comment" survey

1. "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" (Turkey, see second image) %

2. "We Need to Talk About Kevin"*

3. "Jiro:Dreams of Sushi" (documentary; third image)

4. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (first image)

5. "Silver Linings Playbook"#%

6. "Zero Dark Thirty"#%

7. "Argo" #

8. "A Separation" (Iran)*

9. "Django Unchained" #

10. "The Kid with a Bike" (France) %

11. Pina (documentary) *

12. "Beasts of the Southern Wild" #%

13. "The Dark Knight Returns"

14. "Damsels in Distress"

15. "Robot and Frank"

16. "Skyfall"

17. "Arbitrage"

18. "Moonrise Kingdom"%

19. "The Master" %

20. "Haywire"


 http://www.filmlinc.org

Quote of the Week- Slavoj Zizek (this is a great one...)

Today, we begin our series of quotes from famous philosophers, which might well seem like an oxy moron, with a quip from the great Slovenian thinker Slavoj Zizek (b. 1949).

We are not normally fans of 'bathroom humor,' but we love this image of Zizek on the throne, and we like this quote even more.

Some background for those of you unfamiliar with Zizek, and I am not a philosophy major myself though the few I've met always seem to be smarter than I am, he is described by Wikipedia as: "A Slovenian continental philosopher and critical theorist working in traditions of Hegelianism and Marxism who is known for his political theory and film theory."

Yes, I'm sure that cleared things up for you. Zizek was also the subject of the quirky documentary film "Zizek!" (2005). His books include "Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle" and "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema."

We first heard about Zizek through "Film Comment" which listed some of his guilty pleasures. I don't have the list in front of me, but I am 99 percent "Troll 2," a film we mentioned in our entry two days ago, was not on that list (it probably wouldn't be on mine either!).

Ah, yes, here is the quote:

"Love feels like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all pleasures."

We told it was a good one, didn't we!

It's too bad today is not Valentine's Day as this would have been perfect for that one day when Air Supply sells more cds than Arcade Fire!

My 20 Best Films of 2010 List

Here it is; I have made my choices....let me the controversy begin:


1. The Black Swan

2. The Social Network

3. The Fighter

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sweden)

5. Soul Kitchen (Germany/Turkey)

6. Fish Tank

7. Inside Job (doc)

8. True Grit

9. The Green Zone

10. Cyrus

11. Exit Through the Gift Shop (doc.)

12. Never Let Me Go

13. Toy Story 3

14. Life During Wartime

15. The Rabbit Hole

16. Inception

17. 127 Hours

18. Ghost Writer

19. Shutter Island

20. Greenberg

"Film Comment" named "Carlos," a five and a half hour miniseries/film about Carlos the Jackal that originally aired on French tv and has recently appeared on the Sundance Channel as its film of the year. Like me, they chose "The Social Network" as the second best film of 2010.

Sofia Coppola Likes John Hughes Movies

According to the current issue of "Film Comment," our favorite film magazine/journal (but, like "Cineaste" too), film director Sofia Coppola, best known for her film "Lost Translation" with Bill Murray (see image above), recently watched the 'classic' John Hughes' film "Sixteen Candles" (1984).

The comedy film starring Molly Ringwald was number nine on her "The Last 10 Films I've Seen" list, which we are not printing in its entirety to avoid a potential federal cease and desist lawsuit from Gavin Smith (the editor of "Film Comment). But, we will mention that other films on the list included "The Social Network," Never Let Me Go," "Greenberg," and "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," which surprised us too!

SIDEBAR: There are a whole host of special screenings going on in Virginia and North Carolina. My good friend Jason Garnett will be screening the vintage 2003 good/bad movie "The Room" on Nov. 22 and 24 at 7:00 at the Shadowbox Cinema in Roanoke, Va.

Closer to home, my friend Joe Scott will be screening the vintage 1984 Prince film "Purple Rain" this Thursday at the Carousel Luxury Cinemas in Greensboro, NC, at 7:30 and 10:00 p.m.

Lastly, the classic 1969 Oscar-winning film "Midnight Cowboy" with Dustin Hoffman and hippie turned tea bagger Jon Voight will be shown at the Varsity Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, for a week-long run starting on Friday.

SIDEBAR TWO: George W. Bush's new memoir, a book I will not be reading (I'm a hippie turned coffee partier), is apparently a tough book to sell in San Francisco, so Green Apple Books, a San Fran book shop, will be giving all funds from the sale of the book to veterans, according to "San Francisco Weekly."

Last Ten Films I've Seen.....Includes a Certain Warren Beatty Flick

I was going to add some commentary about Warren Beatty (pictured here from "Shampoo") in light of the fact that Peter Biskind's new book about allegedly suggests that he has made love to 12,775 women! And, in the '60s, he was actually close to marrying Joan Crawford who is the star of "The Story of Esther Costello," which also among the last ten films I've seen.
But, we are pressed for time. There are reviews of Biskind's book in back issues of "Film Comment" and "The New Republic" with more 'gory details.' It is supposedly more than 500 pages in length!
We should point out, so Gavin Smith (managing editor of "FC") doesn't start harassing me on Facebook ('course, we say this in jest) that I got this idea from his publication, which in my opinion is far and away the best American magazine on film. It could also be the best film magazine in the world, but it's been a very long time since I read the British film magazine "Sight and Sound."
Character actor Jack Weston (1920-2006) was in three of these films: "Shampoo," "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and "Donovan's Reef."

Here are the films:

1. "Bliss" (Turkey. 2007/Abdullah Oguz)
2. "Runaway Train" (w/Jon Voight. 1985/Andrei Konchalovsky)
3. "Shampoo" (1975. Hal Ashby)
4. "The Story of Esther Costello" (UK. 1957/David Miller)
5. "Lemon Tree" (Isr/Palestine. 2008/Eran Riklin)
6. "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" (w/Doris Day. 1960/Charles Walters).
7. "Hell's Angels" (w/Jean Harlow. 1930/Howard Hughes)
8. "Donovan's Reef" (w/John Wayne and Lee Marvin. 1963/John Ford).
9. "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" (UK. 1971/John Schlesinger)
10. "The Seven Year Itch" (w/Marilyn Monroe. 1955/Billy Wilder).

Film Comment Readers Pick Films of the Decade

The readers of the esteemed cinephile journal "Film Comment" (which includes me) voted on the best films of the decade and the magazine published the final results.

The current issue has a great cover article about the new Paul Greengrass film "The Green Zone," which stars Matt Damon by the magazine's editor Gavin Smith.

My Film of the Decade "Cache," a 2005 French film by Austrian director Michael Haneke came in 13th.

Here are the Top Ten:

1. "Mullholland Drive" (2001, dir. David Lynch-pictured)

2. "In the Mood for Love" (2000, dir. Wong Kar Wai/Hong Kong)

3. "There Will Be Blood" (2007, dir. PT Anderson)

4. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004, dir. Michel Gondry)

5. "Talk to Her" (2002, dir. Pedro Almodovar, Spain)

6. "The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001, dir. Wes Anderson)

7. "A History of Violence" (2005, dir. David Cronenberg)

8. "The New World" (2005, dir. Terence Malick)

9. "Zodiac" (2007, dir. David Fincher)

10. Yi Yi (2000, dir. Edward Wang, Japan).


"Yi Yi" is the only film on the list that I have not seen!

The Last 10 Films I've Seen

This may qualify as an in-joke since I am using two images from the original books to two movies I've recently seen on my two respective blogs.

The in-joke is that because I watch so many films, I rarely get around to actually reading novels, but perhaps I can read the original book to "Where the Wild Things Are" (pictured here) since it is reportedly less than 300 words! Perhaps, my friends Sam Riddleberger (pseudodymn) and CeCe Bell (a married couple, both of whom are children's book authors) would be proud of me.

I have read William Burroughs' novel "Naked Lunch" several times though, but I haven't read Upton Sinclair's novel "Oil!," which was the basis for "There Will Be Blood." However, I have read Sinclair's most famous work "The Jungle," which I don't believe ever got made into a movie.

I got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine which lists the last ten films that film directors or esteemed film critics have seen. I forget whose list I saw last (I think it may have been Wes Anderson) though I would love to see the list of films that Quentin Tarantino and John Waters have seen.

Here is my list, going from the film I've seen most recently backwards. I actually saw all but three of these films at a movie theatre, including a midnight screening in Greensboro, NC, of the ever-disturbing Japanese horror film "Audition."

The star indicates that I had viewed the film previously:

1. "In the Loop"
2. "Zombieland"
3. "Where the Wild Things Are"
4. "Audition" (Japan)*
5. "Death at a Funeral"
6. "Bright Star"
7. "Capitalism: A Love Story" (doc)
8. "Naked Lunch"*
9. "There Will Be Blood"*
10. "Cold Souls"