Film
Back to barracks!.
- 1. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
A phenomenal, rousing entertainment about a man’s rise to the top of society, only for him to be isolated from it. Fittingly, the reputation of this film has risen to a point where most everyday folk don’t care about it anymore. Still, a solid A+ for me.
- 2. Vertigo (Sir Alfred Hitchcock)
A fun little deconstruction of Hitch’s tropes within his given framework. Still, very disturbing, with a rare villainous role for Jimmy Stewart, and an even rarer villain protagonist in Old Hollywood (the other major one we’ll get to in this post.) Nevertheless, I feel this is lacking a bit of that Hitch *spice* that Psycho has. A B+ for me
- 3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
THE movie. Not just A movie, but THE definitive work of the art form. It practically screams that from its opening to its finale with its epic shots and Thus Spoke Zoroaster playing throughout. It wants you to know that THIS IS THE ONE YOU CANNOT MISS. And it deserves to do that, in a way that I feel describing here would do a disservice. A+++
- 4. Tokyo Story (Ozu Yasujirō)
A heartfelt everyday tale of old generations making way for new. While initially envisioned as a remake of Make Way for Tomorrow. The choice of having the camera sit on the floor like a 1950s Japanese person would do really makes you feel like you know these people and live in Tokyo. A simple, poignant tale with that extra spice gets an A-, the highest I will award a remake.
- 5. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir)
A darkly humorous film set on the eve of Nazi devastation of France, showing the absolute buffoonery of the upper class in this time, in fact it was made while the Nazi takeover was about to happen so it never mentions Nazis specifically, because all Renoir wanted and cared to predict is “some big disaster”. The disaster in this film may stray from what really happened, with the rich people going at each others’ throats, but most the setpieces and all the dialogue leading up to it makes all the difference. I give it a B- tho, due to the massacre it made of real pheasants in the bridge scene between act 1 and 2.
- 6. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola)
The definitive American story, it was impressive enough to make us care about these greedy, murderous mobsters, and more impressive still to make it into a formalistic opera rather than the usual grimy pulp story. I find that even more impressive still still, when the movie was based on a pulp novel. Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Richard Conte are all phenomenal as the 3 leads, and Coppola’s direction and especially his King Lear-ification of the book’s script makes all the difference. A+
- 7. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
I once joked that this was the Italian Avengers. Crossing over 9 other works by this guy into one package. A fun surreal comedy, but I will admit that like an Avengers, you’ll have to watch the earlier stuff to “get it”. C+
- 8. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau)
THE definitive SILENT movie. A melodrama so simple it can represent endless ideas, and due to its lack of dialogue the real star is Murnau himself, adding to the many interpretations one can make because of the actors being props. Sad that Murnau died in a car crash before he could record audio for Tabù, but the few films he made will always be treasured. I also want to admit how most the plot is over in the first 10 minutes. This is a film completely unlike any other before or since. You cannot remake this. Try if you must, but you cannot. A+
- 9. The Searchers (John Ford)
A complicated movie with a complicated legacy. But a rare villainous turn for the Duke and an even rarer villain protagonist in the Code era, makes this film a treat. Everyone in this film, aside from Wayne’s sidekick, is mean, cruel, vindictive, vengeful. You cannot possibly seem to pick a side when both the protagonist and antagonist have lost something from the other, and are now both dirty, cruel 19th century toxic men. Violence begets more violence, and the relationship between the two protagonists coupled with the setting makes me wonder if this film inspired breaking bad (actually I know it did. Gilligan outright stated as much). A-
- 10. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa Akira)
A simple story that seems to drag on and on at times. Still, having 7 leads and wanting all of them to get some character development before half of them die is a remarkable ambition from Kurosawa, and hell if he didn’t try hard, hard enough for this to possibly become the most popular foreign language film in the US history. B