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.

100! Part 1!

So I'm dividing my 100th post into four. It counts, okay? Anyway, I've decided to make a list of 100 Films that have aided the continuation of my film adoration. This post will cover 25 films that mattered to me in my formative years from birth until the end of middle-school, when I first started walking my own ass up to the video store when my parents grew tired of driving me. This is not to say that all of the films (if any...) are still worth seeing, but they certainly shaped the way I look at cinema now. It's really going to show my age. I'll add the occasional anecdote here and there to spice things up. They're in no particular order.

1. Exotica - dir. Atom Egoyan - 1994 - Canada
This was one I had to wait to rent until mom and dad went out of town. I didn't want them asking to see what I had rented and then raising their Catholic eyebrows at a film called Exotica. And just think if they had seen the awful, lurid box-cover with a woman who's not even in the film in Catholic schoolgirl attire on her spread knees. Jesus. I knew it was an "art film," as my parents had bought me some big Roger Ebert book when I was in sixth grade, and I remember it being the first film to really "challenge" me. I didn't like it, but somehow couldn't take my eyes off of it. It introduced me to Egoyan and, best of all, Leonard Cohen (I really only learn about music through film or hipper friends). Throughout my life, I find myself revisiting Exotica and somehow taking something completely different out of it each time. That's the purpose of revisiting films, right? The purpose of home video?

2. True Romance - dir. Tony Scott - 1993 - USA
My aunt sure wasn't happy when I told her to tape this one of HBO. She's one of those cool aunts, and, as I came of age, wanted to prove to her that I was cool too. Unfortunately, I didn't then realize her sensitivity to extreme violence. Begin crush on Patricia Arquette.

3. Harold and Maude - dir. Hal Ashby - 1971 - USA
Begin crush on Ruth Gordon.

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors - dir. Chuck Russell - 1987 - USA
To this day, I don't recall why the third installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street series is the best, but I trust my youthful instinct when it comes to horrortrash. Continue Patty Arquette crush.

5. The Crow - dir. Alex Proyas - 1994 - USA
I'd just be a snob if I didn't include some of the more truly embarrassing films that shaped me as a youth. The Crow, yes, was one of them. And while I may have recognized just a year or two later its hollowness, it did manage to be one of the catalysts in my own high school deflowering, but I'm not sharing that story either. And, to this day, the soundtrack is pretty amazing. Nine Inch Nails' cover of "Dead Souls" introduced me to my love of Joy Division.

6. The Pillow Book - dir. Peter Greenaway - 1996 - UK/France/Netherlands
Such eroticism! I could never finish this film in one sitting. Partially because it was so fucking sexy and partially because it was so fucking boring. I'm not really sure if I ever really finished the film until years later, but my late fees on it will surely prove that I started it quite a few times. This film would be the beginning of my several-year-long obsession with Greenaway and my rather naive declaration that he was the greatest filmmaker out there. I think I just liked all the penises and vaginas.

7. Desperate Living - dir. John Waters - 1977 - USA
It still has one of the most exuberantly funny opening scenes ever committed to film, but this was really my first underground Waters film. I found this at the local Blockbuster before I realized Hollywood Video had a cult classics section, where I got to prematurely enjoy such gems as Begotten and Schizopolis and, of course, Pink Flamingos! To be honest, I never really enjoyed Flamingos outside of its filthiness; Desperate Living had me crying laughing.

8. The Doom Generation - dir. Gregg Araki - 1995 - USA/France
I didn't get it then, but, boy, did I sure feel cool for seeing this when I was in middle-school.

9. Return to Oz - dir. Walter Murch - 1985 - USA/UK
I still don't think anyone at Disney knows what happened with this film, but I loved it so much that a friend of mine and I made up our own Return to Oz game. I don't remember what it consisted of other than someone being that witch who has glass-cases full of heads and chasing after Dorothy. Little did I know that young Fairuza Balk would become...

10. Gas Food Lodging - dir. Allison Anders - 1992 - USA
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11. The Craft - dir. Andrew Flemming - 1996 - USA...my number 1 youthcrush. It must have been the eyes or her darkside or the fact that I liked The Crow. I'm not sure. But, 7th and 8th grade, Fairuza Balk could do no wrong in my book. I related to the loneliness of Shade in Gas Food Lodging and longed to be the crazy bitch Nancy in The Craft. I don't care if she was a bad girl; she was a fuck of a lot cooler than her slutty sister Ione Skye and her boring protege Robin Tunney. Here were two sides of me as portrayed by my then-screen goddess Fairuza Balk.

12. Sliver - dir. Phillip Noyce - 1993 - USA
Back to sex. What a toe-curler this was for a young boy. I hadn't seen Basic Instinct. I knew my parents had seen it, and they would have been pissed if they had found out that I too had seen it. So I felt safe with Sliver one night on HBO. It must be my Catholic upbringing, but most of the films I can remember pre-high school were sexy. Who better to introduce young boys of the 1990s to onscreen sex than Sharon Stone? Each generation has had their own screen siren. Stone was like Bardot for the 90s. And doesn't the opening credit music from Enigma make you just feel really hotdirty? I know I wasn't the only one.

13. Dazed and Confused - dir. Richard Linklater - 1993 - USA
I actually just rewatched this tonight with the Criterion re-release, so expect a longer dissection of it after I finish these four blogs. Dazed and Confused was one of those movies that was always annoyingly checked out of the video store, because A.) stoners don't remember due dates and B.) Dazed and Confused was the official litmus test of coolness in my middle school. You haven't seen it? Well, I guess you're not cool then. (Empire Records was a close second). I always wanted to make my own version of Dazed and Confused when I was younger until I saw someone do it with Can't Hardly Wait... and I realized they'd fucked up my idea forever.

14. Scream - dir. Wes Craven - 1996 - USA
You better believe I saw this baby three times in the theatre!

15. Hackers - dir. Iain Softley - 1995 - USA/UK
And you best believe that I saw this one three times in the theatre too! Hackers was exactly the world I wanted to live in. I wanted to go about my daily routine on rollerblades from this point on. I also wanted to be, look like, and name myself Dade (Jonny Lee Miller). Judging by the photo above, I may want to think again about that. Plus, I think I was the only one of my friends who caught the Angelina Jolie nip-slip.

16. Clueless - dir. Amy Heckerling - 1995 - USA
Fuck, Clueless is still endlessly quotable. When discussing my lousy lovelife once with Bradford, he responded, "finding love in Saint Louis is like finding meaning in a Pauly Shore movie." When my friend Beth and I went to a bar a few weeks ago, she stated, "let's make a lap before we commit to a location." Whenever I want to insult someone I know I usually say, "he/she's a virgin who can't drive," in my best New Jersey accent. See, Clueless is still relevant! Or perhaps only to my generation.

17. Welcome to the Dollhouse - dir. Todd Solondz - 1995 - USA
I knew some girls in middle school who had rented this film somehow and rewatched it about a million times, just because one of them thought that Brandon Sexton III was a hot kisser. I liked it, because I hated dorks. And I loved every morsel of shit that Solondz dropped on Dawn "Weinerdog" Weiner (Heather Matarazzo). Just as all of my friends thought it hilarious that a girl in our class looked like Anne Frank, I loved that another girl looked just like Weinerdog.

18. The Addiction - dir. Abel Ferrara - 1995 - USA
Youth Restricted Viewing sticker? I'm all over it! And talk about philosophy mixed with raw violence? I feel smarter now. I didn't really know how to appreciate it then, but I sure acted as if I did.

19. Paris, Texas - dir. Wim Wenders - 1984 - West Germany/France
Paris, Texas was one of a few examples (Chinatown was another) of my premature film-lovin'. Even in 8th grade, I thought, "hey, this is a well-respected film; of course I'll like it!" I was wrong. I had a certain cockiness at a young age when it came to film, a particular understanding that I had already reached the point of maturity in film appreciation as I'd well surpassed my peers. To this day, I'm not sure how I feel about Paris, Texas, but at least I have a better understanding now how to read it.

20. Kids - dir. Larry Clark - 1995 - USA
This, plus Catholic school sex ed can sure make a boy who hadn't even had his first kiss scared of getting AIDS.

21. The Good Son - dir. Joseph Ruben - 1993 - USA
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22. My Girl - dir. Howard Zieff - 1991 - USA
I could never really figure out why, but for as long back as I can remember, I've hated Macaulay Culkin. I don't remember being too fond of the Home Alone movies, but I do remember liking both My Girl and The Good Son, probably because both films have Culkin meeting his maker. I also remember feeling weird the first time I heard Culkin use the word "fuck" and seeing him kiss Vada. I think I was jealous that he'd done everything before I had.

23. All Over Me - dir. Alex Sichel - 1997 - USA
I've been meaning to rewatch this ever since the DVD was released a few years ago, because I don't quite remember how this film affected me on the whole. I just remember moments. Coming-of-age, unacceptance, Patti Smith, punk rock, dyed hair, body issues. All up my alley. I'd like to say this was the film that got me out of my "dark, Brandon Lee-loving" phase, but as you'll see in Part 2, it isn't over yet.

24. Natural Born Killers - dir. Oliver Stone - 1994 - USA
Of course, right? I was totally an edgy 6th grader.

25. Breathless (À bout de souffle) - dir. Jean-Luc Godard - 1960 - France
Breathless was the first foreign-language film I can recall ever seeing. At least the only one I can remember the title of (I think the first one was either Italian or Russian, either way a total B movie). When I discovered foreign films had more nudity than American ones, I was all over it. And who's parents would suspect that? Their kid is just advanced. He doesn't mind reading subtitles. Naturally, Breathless put me to sleep.

Naked Under Leather

Girl on a Motorcycle (La Motocyclette) - dir. Jack Cardiff - 1968 - UK/France

If you know about and really want to see Girl on a Motorcycle (or La Motocyclette or Naked Under Leather, as it was once known), please go ahead. The premise: Marianne Faithfull leaves her husband, clad in a leather jump suit on top of her Harley. Most of our film is narrated, horrible erotic prose by Faithfull (probably so as to easily dub into other languages) as she drives through the countryside of France, searching for her lover (Alain Delon). For all its fetish-iness (I know it's not a word), Girl on a Motorcycle is pretty forgettable; in fact, aside from the leather and a sex scene between Faithfull and Delon with strategically placed vases and flowers, I don't remember much. Yet, now, it seems like a loving remembrace of the B Euro eroticas, only successful through star power and the failed promise of lotsa skin. Oh, and a "swingin'" soundtrack.
So this is post #99, all suggestions as to what I should do for the 100th welcome. If not, I'll probably just bore everyone talking about Gregg Araki. And you don't want that, do you? While you're thinking, enjoy one of the three Derek Jarman-directed Faithfull videos, "Broken English," off her album of the same name.

Experimental Cinema 101

Oh, the dawning of technology! If you're anything like me, you may find yourself spending countless hours browsing through videos on YouTube. Starlingly, I found today that YouTube isn't just a catelogue for people to post their lame-ass video diaries or fan videos of Beyonce. I actually discovered that someone has uploaded nearly all of Kenneth Anger's videos on there. I'm sure film purists would be sharpening their knives at the sound of this, but if you're interested, I'd certainly direct you that-a-way. As the films still haven't surfaced on DVD (Fantoma owns the rights and appears to be having difficulty with song copyrights), this is probably the easiest way to find Anger's films, including Scorpio Rising, Fireworks, The Invocation of My Demon Brother, and Lucifer Rising (The Inauguration of the Pleasuredome, with Anais Nin, was not uploaded).



In addition to Anger, you can also brush up on your early experimental cinema by checking out Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon. I do have idealogical reservations about having people view these films on your computer, but when you don't have access to a projector, the film reel, or even a place where one can see such films... you take what you can get. So stop watching Britney Spears dropping her kid, and check these out.

Thinking about Thinking XXX

Thinking XXX - dir. Timothy Greenfield-Sanders - 2005 - USA

As this HBO documentary, about and directed by portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, never really figured out its purpose, I'm not going to attempt to throw out any theories on its existence or on the porno industry in general. Instead here are just a few thoughts I jotted down in my head while watching the film:

1. Why does John Waters, a talking head in the film, still make movies? Cecil B. Demented was an ambitious (for him) failure, and A Dirty Shame (sorry if I just reminded you that you wasted an hour and a half watching that) blew. He should now only lend his personality to documentaries along these lines (he's also featured in That Man: Peter Berlin). I couldn't control my laughter when Gore Vidal, after Waters states that "everyone in LA looks like their two minutes away from their next porn scene," says that Los Angelites think he looks like a porn star.

2. Is Jenna Jameson real (and, no, I'm not talking about her breasts)? The film treats her like a mythical creature that their cameras accidentally stumbled upon in a remote Peruvian jungle. She's there alright... but nary speaks a single word. Instead, people just speak about her. I guess she's said all she has to say about the matter.

3. When one porn star, Heather Hunter, says she's the Halle Berry of the adult entertainment industry, does that mean she (not literally) sucks? Did she win her porn Oscar out of political correctness and good editing? Can she single-handedly stink up a big-budget project with her ego? Was there a Monster's Balls? If not, there should be.

4. One of the gay pornostars, Lukas Ridgeton, says, in broken English, that he was approached by many young gay men who have thanked him for helping them come to terms with their sexuality. How does this work? Why would seeing a man give another a hummer really aid someone in their understanding of themselves?

5. Did we need a documentary to accompany this obvious collection of photos? Normal... then PORNY. I get it. I think HBO may have just needed to fill their original programming nudity-quotient, as (I don't think) Real Sex or any similar incarnation still exists on the network.