100! Part 2: Zits, Molly Ringwald moments, and progression

I should have been more specific. When I said my "formative years" pre-high school, I think I really should have explained that this will likely not include (other than Return to Oz, but that was just a segway into my Fairuza Balk obsession) those films that touched my little boy heart. Like... The Wizard (above), Masters of the Universe, Ghostbusters, or Salo. With that said, I apologize for those wanting the goods. In looking at the films I've chosen for part 2 of this list, I find some of them to be far more embarassing than my inclusion of The Crow on the last list. 'cos here was when I really thought I knew all about film, and yet fell into the trappings of manipulation and hipness. For the sake of your lunch and your (hopefully) good impression of me, I spared all the cool-for-their-time films that I got sucked into liking (and subsequently dislike) and saved just a few special ones for the list.

1. Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) - dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet - 2001 - France
Let's begin with Crime No. 1. I envied all of my friends (of which there were maybe two, and both of them were older than myself) that hated this film. Why did I like it? I fucking hate cute. But the draw of that Audrey Tautou and her fucking shenanigans across Montmartre stuck its teeth deep in my flesh. I wasn't even cool enough then to pretend I didn't like it. I suppose liking this is better than my friend Dan who genuinely enjoyed Pay It Forward, but do I only say it's better cos Amélie is subtitled?

2. Citizen Kane - dir. Orson Welles - 1941 - USA
Let's just get the obvious ones out of the way. Insert joke about the film being mediocre, ensue laughter. A girl I know swears she loves The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but I'm convinced she's never seen it all the way through (her favorite films all tend to be the films she was forced to watch in her film class), so I replaced, "Omigod, I looooove that film" to "Well, I loved what I was awake for." Apply that joke to Citizen Kane now.

3. The Piano Teacher (La pianiste) - dir. Michael Haneke - 2001 - Austria/France
My introduction to the loves of my life, Michael Haneke and Isabelle Huppert. My perception of how intense this film was made me believe the theatre actually shook during the final scene.

4. Hedwig and the Angry Inch - dir. John Cameron Mitchell - 2001 - USA
One of the more strangely remarkable films post-2000, I went on opening night after Lebanese cuisine to witness a phenomenon never fully realized. Somehow John Cameron Mitchell's rock n roll masterpiece got lost post-Sundance (though it still may resurface if Shortbus does well), and somehow it makes it a lot easier to swallow knowing it hasn't turned into Rocky Horror.

5. The Garden - dir. Derek Jarman - 1990 - UK/Germany
Experimental blasphemy. Though feature-length experimental cinema seems odd, Derek Jarman always (well, mostly) got me, and The Garden hit me hardest. Jesus is two homoseuxal lovers? Tilda Swinton is the Virgin Mary? Excellent!

6. Freeway - dir. Matthew Bright - 1996 - USA
Freeway was a left-over gem from my pre-high school years that resurfaced after my loser friends gave me much grief for liking it. Even though that bitch Reese Witherspoon has an Oscar now, she will never be better than as Vanessa Julia Lutz. John Waters named this movie one of his litmus test date movies... if they don't get it, they aren't worth dating. I concur.

7. Terror Firmer - dir. Lloyd Kaufman - 1999 - USA
I just watched the television show Weeds in its entirity the other day because I needed something to fill that Six Feet Under void in my heart. It didn't do the trick. When I got into high school, I needed something to fill that John Waters void in my heart as well. Cecil B. Demented, Pecker, and eventually A Dirty Shame just couldn't do it. And I realized repeat viewings really don't capture the same magic as first seeing Divine eat dog shit. So, thank God Troma stepped up. I'd hated them for years; my friends and I couldn't get into Tromeo and Juliet. Yet Terror Firmer rose to the occasion, being everything Cecil B. Demented should have been and restoring my faith in self-aware, gross-out camp.

8. Anything David Lynch:
Mulholland Dr. - 2001 - France/USA
The Straight Story - 1999 - France/USA
Lost Highway - 1997 - France/USA
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me - 1992 - France/USA
Wild at Heart - 1990 - USA
Blue Velvet - 1986 - USA
Of course. Of fucking course. I really don't have anything to say about this, but as you can tell, I certainly could not pick a single film to really show how Lynch wild I was at the time, just as I really can't say which of his films I would consider his greatest achievement.

9. Anything Gregg Araki (pre-Splendor):
Nowhere - 1997 - France/USA
The Doom Generation - 1995 - France/USA
Totally Fucked Up - 1993 - USA
The Living End - 1992 - USA
So, yeah, The Doom Generation made the last list... and, yeah, I saw Nowhere before I went to high school. Yet Lynch and Araki both helped me to fully understand the auteur theory on my own, without using the example of Howard fucking Hawks in film class.

10. Muriel's Wedding - dir. P.J. Hogan - 1994 - Australia
So it's essentially a Cinderella story with a bunch of ABBA music, right? I suppose, but isn't that reason enough to see it? It was cruel, funny, and... had a rousing lip-synching dance number with Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths doing "Waterloo." It was the only one out of the handfuls of foreign commonfolk-rise-above comedies (The Full Monty, Billy Elliot, etc) that you needed, or need, to see.

11. The Virgin Suicides - dir. Sofia Coppola - 1999 - USA
Crime No. 2. That bitch Sofia Coppola tricked me at an impressionable age that aesthetics and amazing music can really fill a film's hollowness. It doesn't help that she has the exact same taste in music as I do (I was thinking about writing a blog about the soundtrack to Marie-Antoinette, which I still may), but she has the means (daddy) to acquire such music into her visually-appealing, emotionally-bankrupt films. This one isn't nearly as loathesome as Lost in Translation as she actually has some source material other than her own boring life, but maybe also because seeing Kirsten Dunst make-out to Heart's "Crazy on You" is just brilliant in itself.

12. Come Undone (Presque rien) - dir. Sébastien Lifshitz - 2000 - France
Presque rien may actually be the most important film for me that I've listed thusfar. It was the film that inspired me to want to make films in college (I've since dropped that desire and stuck to writing about them). Lifshitz's elliptical editing, incredible use of music (and non-use of it), and silence was basically a film I had created in my head, only brought to the screen by someone else.

13. Red (Trois couleurs: Rouge) - dir. Krysztof Kieslowski - 1994 - Poland/France/Switzerland
Since Breathless put me to sleep at 13, Red was probably the film that sparked my love of international cinema.

14. Chinatown - dir. Roman Polanski - 1974 - USA
Like most great films, one cannot always appreciate them until they've matured a little bit. And that can be in emotional terms or in cinematic ones. I saw Chinatown in 7th grade and scoffed about everyone being wrong about its greatness. I saw it again as a junior in high school and then scoffed at my 7th grade self for being such a naive dick to not recognize that this film is just about perfect in every way.

15. Open Your Eyes (Abre los ojos) - dir. Alejandro Amenábar - 1997 - Spain/France/Italy
Fuck the USA. I loved this movie long before Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe decided to fuck it all up. In fact, they fucked it so hard that I can't even watch this anymore.

16. Water Drops on Burning Rocks (Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes) - dir. François Ozon - 2000 - France
Ozon's badboy image never did it for me with Sitcom or Les amants criminels. It wasn't until I saw this baby, based on an unpublished screenplay by a then-19-year-old Fassbinder, that I truly fell in love. My love would only last two films, unfortunately. After Sous le sable, I would only half-adore his films, changing my opinion of the best working French filmmaker to:

17. Fat Girl (À ma soeur) - dir. Catherine Breillat - 2001 - France/Italy
Probably one of the very few films made within the past six years that deserve to be remembered twenty years from now, Fat Girl was so jarring that I had to bring my friends with me to see it again. I saw it alone at the St. Louis International Film Festival where it became the second-lowest rated film of the entire festival that year, where a couple on a date passed out on each other's shoulders midway through. Though I could do without Breillat's homage to Truffaut with its final freeze-frame (though after seeing À nos amours again, I think it may be a reference to that film instead), I still think it should be regarded as important of a coming-of-age film as The 400 Blows is now.

18. Magnolia - dir. Paul Thomas Anderson - 1999 - USA
Will I ever be forgiven for liking this film immensely when it came out? (I ask myself the same question when it comes to Happiness as well)

19. Freddy Got Fingered - dir. Tom Green - 2001 - USA
I can't say I like this film at all, but it keeps coming back to me as a point of reference. It's the way comedy should be -- and I'm not talking about making visual jokes about swinging babies like a lasso. But the fact that Freddy Got Fingered is so unapologetic about itself makes it sort of great. It never tries to make you feel okay by adding any sort of dramatic love story or giving its lead character a lesson in the end... instead it ends with Tom Green jerking off an elephant. It would be absolutely perfect if I actually found Tom Green funny.

20. Buffalo '66 - dir. Vincent Gallo - 1998 - USA
I love Vincent Gallo, so fuck off.

21. All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre) - dir. Pedro Almodóvar - 1999 - Spain/France
Here's a film that one can enjoy when they're young and stupid and old and smart(er). It got these fifteen year old tears flowing, though, now, I can't imagine how. Almodóvar is so blissfully tongue-in-cheek here, an incredible throwback to women's melodramas (a better one than Far from Heaven).

22. Manhattan - dir. Woody Allen - 1979 - USA
Manhattan wasn't my introduction to my Jewish alter-ego, Woody Allen, but it was certainly my favorite. I think some asshole said that true Woody Allen fans know that Manhattan is his masterpiece, even though Allen himself isn't wild about it.

23. Double Indemnity - dir. Billy Wilder - 1944 - USA
Easily one of my all-time favorites, I will write further on it when I pick up the new DVD in August.

24. Sid and Nancy - dir. Alex Cox - 1986 - UK
Sid and Nancy were like Romeo and Juliet... totally. Only more awesome. And they did a lot more drugs.

25. Donnie Darko - dir. Richard Kelly - 2001 - USA
Um, fucking yuck. The surprise and wonder that Donnie Darko initially inspired within me went away once I saw how many thirteen year old emo girls were filled with the same poison. Thirteen-year-old emo girls are the antedote for any poison of this calibre. My eyes were finally opened to the fact that Donnie Darko is an ambitious trainwreck, made even worse by the "director's cut," which reveals underlying Christian mythology. This, along with The Virgin Suicides, is an example of how good music (here, Echo and the Bunnymen play over the opening credits) can blind me into thinking I'm watching a good film.

A couple more DVDs on the way

I don't know how I forgot to mention the upcoming DVD release of one of my all-time favorites, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, perhaps the quintessential film noir, starring Fred MacMurray and the amazing Barbara Stanwyck. The "Universal Classic" disc comes out August 22nd and includes the sure-to-be-dreadful 1973 made-for-TV remake, with Samantha Eggar in the classic Stanwyck role.

The Notorious Bettie Page was big news before it came out, and then everyone forgot about it. Well, it'll be on DVD September 26th. The film stars Gretchen Mol, who, supposedly, does a good job though no one would have guessed the waifish blonde former Hollywood starlet could accurately portray the busty Page. Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho) directs.

The final episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror series (which featured hour long films from Dario Argento, John Carpenter, John McNaughton, and Stuart Gordon) entitled Imprint will be on DVD September 26th. Directed by Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer), Imprint was banned from being aired on Showtime, so this'll be the first time we'll be able to see it.

On September 5th, Wellspring is releasing Unknown White Male, a British documentary about a man suffering from amnesia.

Hopefully you don't care, but I'll let you know in case you secretly do. The sequel to L'Auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls (Les Poupées russes), will be on DVD, from IFC Films, on the 26th of September. Romain Duris reprises his role, alongside Cécile de France and (yep) Audrey Tautou.

If you prefer your French cinema a little less Audrey Tautou and a little more Haneke-esque, Strand is releasing Lemming on August 15th. The film was one of the front-runners of the Cannes film festival last year, but was probably overlooked due to its similarities with Caché. Lemming stars two French-speaking Anglo Charlottes (Rampling and Gainsbourg) and Laurent Lucas in director Dominik Moll's follow-up to his overrated With a Friend Like Harry... (Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien).

On the subject of Cannes, Theo Angelopoulos' Palme d'Or winning Eternity and a Day (Mia aioniotita kai mia mera) will be released by New Yorker on the same day as Lemming. As it's a New Yorker release, you might expect a shitty PAL-to-NTSC transfer without features and perhaps even a release date delay (as that's how they like to roll).

Magnolia will release the Australian import Somersault on July 27th, from director Cate Shortland. My friend Brad referred to it as My Winter of Love, and though it was made the same year as the lovely My Summer of Love, the distance in US releases (and the fact that no one really saw either film) has kept the unpleasant comparisons at bay.


For those die-hard Parker Posey fans and those who remember her when, TLA Releasing will have Adam & Steve on the shelves August 8th. If you actually care about the premise, it's about two gay men who meet one another, unaware of their unsuccessful one night stand fifteen years prior. If you only care about Parker, it's supposed to be the closest thing to the Parker we all knew and loved in Party Girl and The House of Yes. Writer/director Craig Chester did the smart thing in giving her lines that only she could deliver like, "I'm sweatin' like Whitney Huston going through customs." She's supposedly making a comeback this year, so if that fails then maybe you can just watch Adam & Steve and remember the good ol' times.

Though you could look on your own by visiting their website, Criterion's fall line-up so far includes re-releases of The Seven Samurai, Amarcord, and Brazil. I'm still waiting for a rerelease of The Naked Kiss and Andrei Rublev. But I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Rumor Mill:
According to a website whose address I've since lost, Paramount will be releasing the first and second season of Twin Peaks in Australia this September. The website stated that there may be hope for Twin Peaks season 2 in November, but a rerelease of season 1, with the pilot (that hopefully doesn't have that awful ending tacked on), has not been mentioned.

On the Criterion front, it's been mentioned that they're working on a disc for Kieslowski's The Double Life of Véronique (La Double-vie de Véronique). This is probably the best confirmed rumor of their impending releases, as no one has really heard further on titles like Jodorowsky's El Topo (to my knowledge, there is not an uncensored, non-full scren version of this on DVD anywhere), Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, or the release of Grey Gardens.

And finally... my 100th post is just around the corner. I think I'm at 97 now, or something like that. I would like to do something extra special for said post, but I'm blank on ideas. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. 'cos if you don't, and if I can't think of something, I may just push off that 100th post for a long time. Maybe I could do something AFI-ish, but something more interesting... like 100 Films that Gave Me an Erection or... 100 Films that Suck. Ideas welcome.

In Your Stores 25 april 2006

As I was sort of annoyed at thinking up clever tid-bits about all the weeks' new releases on DVD, I killed off my weekly listings. However, this week appears especially promising at the video store, so I thought I'd highlight a few of the notables. First off, we have Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (Professione: reporter) with Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider (above). While not nearly as strong as some of his earlier work, it's still worth a look, if only for its signature Antonioni ending and a memorable performance from Jack.

Also on DVD this week is the latest Claire Denis film, The Intruder (L'intrus), which is supposed to be a lot better than her previous Vendredi soir and on par with some of her best work (Beau travail). Expect a review of this as soon as Netflix gets around to sending it to me. As you can see above, Béatrice Dalle has still not fixed the large gap between her two front teeth.


Criterion's got a pair of films you've probably never heard of from directors you probably have.
From Marco Bellocchio (Devil in the Flesh) comes Fists in the Pocket (I pugni in tasca), a "horror film" about an epileptic, and from Louis Malle (Au revoir les enfants), his first feature film, Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud) stars Jeanne Moreau as a woman who wants to kill her husband.

Strand is releasing a deluxe edition of Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin, a film that ranked high in my best of 2005 list, after acquiring the rights from Tartan. As the disc is no less expensive than the Tartan one was, purchasing this instead seems unnecessary, as the only deluxe addition seems to be cast audition tapes and some deleted scenes. I e-mailed Strand to see if they were planning on obtaining the rights to the rest of Araki's titles (they've already released Totally Fucked Up; The Doom Generation and The Living End are in need of new transfers; and Nowhere and Three Bewildered People in the Night have yet to make it to DVD), but they did not respond.

For the nun lovers out there (you know who you are), Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan of the Angels (Matka Joanna od aniolów), based on The Devils of Loudon (the source material for Ken Russell's far more decadent The Devils), is on DVD now. Lionsgate is also releasing a Spanish horror film titled simply The Nun (La monja), which looks awful but does have the hilarious tagline, "Not all water is holy." This should hold the nun fetishists over for a while.

In music DVD, you can finally fulfill your secret desire to mention Suicide, Captain Beefheart, and Mariah Carey in the same sentence. The Suicide disc is a live concert in Paris, which looks to be a recent concert with poor artwork, so be cautious. The Captain Beefheart disc is a two-hour documentary about the man himself. The Mariah Carey disc is a Behind the Music-esque exploration of how this diva has stood the test of time.

Artificial Eye UK is releasing Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Véronique (La double vie de Véronique), which is still unavailable on DVD in the US. Irène Jacob (who won the Best Actress prize at Cannes) plays two women (Véronique and Weronika) born on the same day, one in France, the other in Poland. Though I haven't seen The Decalogue, this film marked, for me, Kieslowski's wonderful turn from boring Polish realism to cinematic treats.

If you like melodramatic Spanish romances about two lovers with palindrome names, then check out Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Los amantes del Círculo Polar). The film stars Fele Martínez (Bad Education) and Najwa Nimri (Sex and Lucia).


Woody Allen's Match Point, reviewed below, and Werner Herzog's Where the Green Ants Dream (Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen) are also being released, though most will note these as lesser entries on the directors' filmographies.