Oh the mountain of must see movies and my humble attempts to scale it...

Progress will be compiled at the end of each month and films are listed in order of preference. 

Monkey Business

Howard Hawkes (1952)

With Cary Grant playing a bumbling scientist whose chimpanzee accidently discovers the elixir of youth, this screwball comedy looks so off the wall it would be fair to assume that particular genre was coined merely to describe it. A young Marilyn Monroe, in a supporting role, offers a great example of her often overlooked comic timing and Grant is his usual brilliant self in the lead role, barking down phones and running amok with endless charm. Grant embodies all the old-school Hollywood heart throb traits, only rivaled perhaps by his mate Jimmy Stewart, but- to paraphrase a better critic than myself- while we love to see him win the girl, when he's slipping on an olive we love him all the more.

Umberto D.

Vittoria De Sica (1952)

4 years after his timeless Bicycle Thieves changed the cinematic landscape, Vittoria De Sica delivered this slightly more sentimental, but still starkly neo-realist effort which follows the trials of the titular Roman pensioner and his beloved dog Flike.  Umberto struggles with social welfare and a cruel landlady as decency seems to fade from the world around him. De Sica’s style looks a touch more decorative here than on previous outings but the director’s dark edge remains, shooting many scenes on the Roman streets and sugar-coating none of his disillusionment with Italian society.

There’s Always Tomorrow

Douglas Sirk (1956)

A decade after their seminal work in Billy Wilder’s peerless noir Double Indemnity, Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyk were reunited here as, respectively, an underappreciated toy manufacturer and the old flame who returns to town. Gushing with all the melancholic longing that a title like that might suggest and with a vintage tender performance from Stanwyk this late Douglas Sirk effort has all the trappings of the melodramist’s best.

You Can Count On Me

Mark Lonergan (2000)

Mark Ruffolo plays a weary looking vagabond who takes a trip home to squeeze some cash from his sister (Laura Linney) but instead ends up playing father figure to her sheltered son (excellent Rory Culkin). Small town America; middle class problems; everyone grows: Lonergan’s film is a clear early omen of what we call the “Sundance film” today and bursting out from that particular festival, it may have even started the trend. 

Oh the mountain of must-see movies and my humble attempts to scale it...

Progress will be compiled at the end of each month with films listed in order of preference.

Singin in the Rain

Stanley Donen (1952)

Gene Kelly plays a silent cinema star moving into the sound era in Stanley Donen’s soaring, dreamlike musical. Set in a Hollywood studio, Donen’s film acknowledges - almost pokes fun at- the falseness of the dream factory before giving us perhaps the most beautiful example of what that falseness can do. I smiled from start to finish. And for a good while later. In a word: Perfect.

The American Friend

Wim Wenders (1977)

We’re in Hamburg, and a bit in Paris. Bruno Ganz plays an artist with a fatal blood disease. He meets a shady international art dealer played by Dennis Hopper and the two form a bond. Hopper’s boss hears of Ganz’ troubles and so offers him a late pay day if he’s willing to ‘take out’ some of his buddies in return. He has a wife and kid and so, agrees. Ganz is terrific here; despite his character’s fantastical circumstances, his tender, low-key performance somehow keeps the whole thing grounded. It reads like a thriller but Wenders seems more interested in the unlikely friendship between his two stars; reserved Ganz and wild Hopper. Almost a decade before he unleashed Frank Booth in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet- a character which would define the later part of his career- the Hollywood cowboy  bubbles with that same intensity. The antithesis to Ganz’ gentle craftsman, he’s Stetson-clad and wild, but still… he’s a mate.

A Moment of Innocence

Mohsen Makhmalbaf (1996)

Mohsen Makhmalbaf was a leader of Iran’s Cultural Revolution and more recently one of the state’s fiercest dissidents. At 17 years old under the Shah’s regime, he was imprisoned and tortured for stabbing a policeman. In 1996 the policeman visits Makhmalbaf. He’s big and awkward and an actor too. He’s also a bit of a gent. He asks Makhmalbaf for a role in one of his films so the director decides that the two men will cast their younger selves and re-enact the fated event. Playing with fiction and reality like a kid with a ball, Makhmalbaf gives a delicate, funny and ultimately astonishing portrayal of how we remember things or, perhaps, how we choose to.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Tobe Hooper (1974)

A group of teens get terrorized by a chainsaw wielding maniac and his family of cannibals while visiting their grandparent’s old home. You might think you know the drill but Hooper’s film feels so much stranger than what’s come since. Its bogeyman, Leatherface, is more a simpleton with a certain love for arts and crafts than a demonic monster. Halloween was celebrated for its low budget stylish aesthetics and yet this film, made for a quarter of the price, looks even better. The ghastly set design is remarkable and it’s DP, Daniel Pearl on his first movie, does an incredible job. The dinner table scene could have been lifted from a Stanley Kubrick nightmare.

The Wicker Man

Robin Hardy (1973)

Christopher Lee plays the Lord of a pagan Island in this legendary folk horror. A straight edge Presbyterian policeman comes to the Island to investigate a case of a missing girl but stumbles upon something far weirder. The place is rife with sex, songs, hedonism and perhaps much more. It seems were following the copper, but the locals- despite all the madness- have a lot more charm. Endlessly bizarre, the film looks in good health as it hits 40 years of age.

The Fog

John Carpenter (1980)

Carpenter followed up his slasher smash Halloween with this spooky seaside tale. A small town are celebrating their centenary when a strange fog rolls in and starts causing havoc. It's great in parts but dreadful in others; on one hand Carpenter points a finger at the genocide of the Native Americans while on the other only offers us the most ridiculous of ghouls.  Still, it’s very well shot by Dean Cundey, who would go on to shoot Jurassic Park, and Carpenter himself provides another memorable score.

All I desire

Douglas Sirk (1953)

One of Sirk’s earliest melodramas at Universal concerns a mother, played by Barbra Stanwyk, who -having left years before to become an actress- returns to suburbia to see her daughter’s play. In 1953 it seems Sirk was yet to sharpen the knives but this story of a broken family still flickers with subversion. Stanwyk is, as ever, electric.

Un Femme est Un Femme

Jean-Luc Godard (1961)

Anna Karina stars in the French New Wave’s answer to the Hollywood screwball comedy. Following this film, Karina would go on to become the director’s muse and while both the film and performances are full of colour and youth, Godard seems to indulge Karina a touch too much. But then, who wouldn’t.

Oh the mountain of must-see movies and my humble attempts to scale it...

Progress will be compiled at the end of each month with films listed in order of preference.

The Hustler

Robert Rossen (1961)

The shadows of neo realism hang heavy in the late night bars of this gritty New York tragedy. Paul Newman plays a pool hall hustler called ‘Fast’ Eddie Felson. Felson wants to beat the best in town but a boozed up ego seems to hold him back. He meets a similarly troubled woman (played by Twin Peak’s Piper Laurie) who helps him find his way. That is until a sly local gambler decides to back his talents. Felson hones his skills but in turn, his world crumbles. Laurie gives a performance of reserved brilliance and the young Newman- pocketing some incredible shots- is electric. In a wonderful moment Eddie talks about his cue having “nerve endings”. He’s trying to articulate what it feels like to have flare course through your veins or, perhaps, what it feels like to be alive. The film seems to catch that feeling in a bottle, both its strength and its fragility.

Zéro de conduit/L’Atalante

Jean Vigo (1933/1934)

Despite the apparent tragedy there is something nice about taking in a master director’s entire back catalogue in less than three hours. Tuberculosis was to end Jean Vigo’s life aged just 29. He only directed one feature film but is still held in the utmost regard. The French, who are hardly short on choices, named their premier directing award after him and it’s difficult to imagine Truffaut or his mates picking up a camera had L’Atalante not happened.
His medium length film Zero For Conduct, Inspired by Vigo’s days in boarding school, has a group of lads rise up against their teachers on the day of the school’s inspection. Light on its feet and flavoured with the sublime, it would be remade 35 years later as Lyndsay Anderson’s If… only Anderson would give the lads guns.
Then came L’Atalante. Silent era star Dita Parlo bursts with vitality as a recently married woman who takes her honeymoon on the titular barge before being tempted off by the bright lights of Paris. Its loose narrative style, earnest camera work and natural acting lend the film an enormous sense of youth and joy; for the art form or whatever else. Rightly considered one of the best of all time, Vigo would die less than a month after its release.

Imitation of Life

Douglas Sirk (1959)

Hollywood’s master of melodrama takes a look at racial issues in middle-class American life with this quietly subversive effort. The film follows the adult life of a single mother, played by Lana Turner, who is struggling to make it as an actress. Juanita Moore plays the woman she hires as a live in assistant. Both have daughters and so we see the four grow older together. Turner’s character makes it big on Broadway while Moore’s struggles to identify with her paler skinned daughter. As with most things of this nature, the film’s edge has blunted a touch over the years but even with Hollywood’s rose tinted glasses firmly in place, Sirk’s honesty about human nature still manages to shine through.

Roger and Me

Michael Moore (1989)

Michael Moore was already a dab hand at sticking that thorn in the side when he released his first feature documentary. General Motors CEO Roger Smith ransacked Moore’s once prosperous home-town of Flint Michigan when he decided to close the local auto factory. The film concerns Moore’s attempts to get an interview with the man. Everything that we would come to love about Moore is on show here- His dry delivery, use of music, wry sense of Irony- but as he sniggers at some defenceless local beauty queen, also what some would come to hate. 

Close Up

Oh the mountain of must-see-movies and my humble attempts to scale it...

Progress will be compiled at the end of each month and the films are listed in order of preference.

Close Up

Abbas Kiarostami (1991)

Kiarostami shoots the real life trial of a man accused of fraud for impersonating a famous Iranian director. The family he dupes expect larceny as his motive but the man assures us his reasons are artistic. Kiarostami plays with the form of film like no one has perhaps before or since as he has the people involved re-enact the events discussed in court; Reality seems to overlap with fiction and we sink deep into the pure wonder of the form; Simply astonishing.

Dogville

Lars Von Trier (2003)

On a black stage with minimal props and lighting the godfather of Dogma 96’ plays out his most audacious effort. On the run from the mob in the 1920s, Nicole Kidman happens upon an old mining town and is accepted into the bosom of their simple community before good old human nature rears its ugly head. The set up may seem gimmicky at first but with nothing to distract us from the greed, lust and prejudice of the townspeople, their (our?) age old vices are left naked and festering. It’s more tongue in cheek than Haneke but with no less disdain for the human race.

Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock (1958)

James Stewart tracks a woman through the streets of San Francisco as his mind spirals down into this darkening mystery. Colour, music, fear and anxiety are harnessed to perfection. The film topped Sight and Sounds all-time list and it’s difficult to argue with that.

Days of being Wild

Wong Kar Wai (1990)

Featuring one of the best looking casts of all time, Kar Wai’s 2^nd feature- and his first to fully realize his trademark feel- is a hot, humid film of lust in the wee hours of the morning; all fluorescent lighting, electric fans and shadows cast from window blinds; wonderfully lush film making full of wild flashes of life.

Code Unknown

Michael Haneke (2000)

Plotlines, tension and social classes overlap in the French capitol as Haneke gives his grim assessment of big city living. A stone cold sober look at the gaping distances which exist between us.

Nashville

Robert Altman (1975)

Altman’s enormous ensemble cast seem about as stable as a motorway pile-up with the director’s endearing love affair with country music the only glue holding it all together. Yet still he leaves room to breathe. Every character feels detailed and nuanced and the music is delivered with pride and sincerity in this panoramic snapshot of Nashville’s mid 70s music scene. Paul Thomas Anderson’s early career looks covered in his shadows.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

Jacques Audiard (2005)

Audiard moves a Harvey Keitel film from 1978 to present day Paris with ease. Romain Duris’ livewire performance as the piano loving thug seems liable to burst off the screen

Taste of Cherry

Abbas Kiarostami (1997)

A man who plans to take his own life encounters a young soldier, a man of faith and an elderly professor as he drives around looking for someone to bury him at dawn. Largely a straight up fiction when compared to his earlier work but this Palme Dor winning film is by no means less beautiful. Like with Kar Wai, the speckles and burns on the celluloid will make you yearn for the pre digital age.

Sans Soleil

Chris Marker (1983)

Taking it’s dreamy narrative from the fictional letters of Sandor Krasna, Chris Marker gives us a hypnotic postcard of early 80s Tokyo and an immersive look at the flickering nature of memory.

Buffalo 66

Vincent Gallo (1998)

Gallo does just about everything in front and behind the camera for this semi-autobiographical film. Its innovations sometimes feel a little forced but the performances- especially those of Huston and Gazzara as Gallo’s parents- are strong and the ending is crisp and satisfying.

Magnificent Obsession

Douglas Sirk (1954)

A year before they combined on the wonderful All That Heaven Allows, Sirk, Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson made this slightly puzzling film. It’s beautiful widescreen Hollywood no doubt but unlike Heaven Allows, the message feels both naive and awfully dated.

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc

Oh the mountain of must-see-movies and my humble attempts to scale it...

Progress will be compiled at the end of each month and the films are listed in order of preference.

The Passion of Joan of Arc 

Carl Theodor Dreyer (1928)

Decades ahead of its time and with an otherworldly performance from Maria Falconetti dominating the screen, Dreyer’s silent masterwork on the doomed trial of Joan of Arc still packs an almighty punch. Shot in crisp lighting and unforgiving close ups, the film’s stripped down style broke so much new ground it’s impossible to imagine just how cathartic the film must have felt back in 1928.

Throne of Blood

Akira Kurasawa (1957)

Kurasawa adapts Macbeth in Feudal Japan for this wonderfully lit visual stunner. Kurasawa’s Wildman Toshiro Mifune plays the tragic lead.

All That Heaven Allows

Douglas Sirk (1955)

The dark underbelly of suburban American life may seem a ubiquitous theme these days but the white paint was barely dry on the picket fences when Douglas Sirk made this wonderful film back in 1955. A recently widowed Jane Wyman must face the judgement of her local community when she decides to fall in love with her gardener instead of burying herself in a television. Great art should always rise above the mundanity of life. Here’s a film about doing just that.

Ikiru 

Akira Kurasawa (1952)

A civil service stooge makes a late attempt to embrace life when he is diagnosed with stomach cancer. Broken from the spell of his daily bureaucratic grind this antihero immerses himself in the ecstatic Tokyo night-life and the friendship of a vibrant female co-worker as he attempts to leave the earth having accomplished something of use. Ikiru is bursting at the seams with life and while the story’s final stretch might drag a little, Kurasawa still manages to nail the kind of levels of human regret which Franz Kapra could only have dreamt of depicting.

The Death of Mr Lazarescu

Cristi Puiu (2005)

A dying man must suffer an Odyssey of arrogance, malpractice and indignity for his final night on earth in this brutal satire on the Romanian healthcare system. Puiu’s realist gem was to be the first great tremor felt of the Romanian new-wave.

Alphaville

Jean Luc Godard (1965)

Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina prowl the streets of Alphaville, a dystopian city where passions have been outlawed and a supercomputer calls the shots. When combined, Film Noir and Dystopian Sci Fi can be such a blast. Godard lashes on French new-wave and surrealism for good measure.

Yojimbo

Akira Kurasawa (1961)

In a lawless rural village a maverick Samurai pits two rival families against each other to bid for his services. Kurasawa’s brilliant adaptation of the old gunslinger-with-the-heart-of-gold staple also boasts some of his finest action set pieces.

F for Fake 

Orson Welles (1973)

Orson Welles’ investigation of charlatans and fakers centres on one of the world’s most notorious art forgers with Welles himself acting as some sort of caped detective magician trying to get to the bottom of it all. Welles cuts it like a Godard film and allows himself to explore tangents frivolously. It’s riveting stuff and just oozing with class.

The 39 Steps 

Alfred Hitchcock (1935)

The most famous of Hitchcock’s pre-Hollywood films shows plenty of the director’s later hallmarks; packed with intrigue, wit and –for 1935- a bold use of sexuality. 

Il Divo 

Paulo Sorrentino (2008)

Anyone without a decent knowledge of Italian politics (i.e. me) might get lost in the intricate web of names and double crossings but not to worry, with strong performances all round and a soundtrack of Sergio Leonie style gumption the film still delights as a super-slick, confident and ultra-slimy political thriller.

The Straight Story

David Lynch (1999)

With a pace about as fast as Alvin Straight’s John Dear tractor David Lynch ponders perhaps his most conventional story as an old man treks across the state line to meet his estranged and very ill brother. Richard Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek are both excellent. Twin Peaks scorer Angelo Badalamenti provides some Midwest Americana. Late bonus points for Harry Dean Stanton.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Philip Kaufman (1988)

Juliet Binoche wears a turtle neck and a leather jacket and moans about her photo journalism career and the Russian invasion of Prague all from the safety of her Geneva apartment and the arms of a brilliant as ever Daniel Day Lewis. By no means a bad film- the 160 minutes didn’t even feel so long- the brief scenes in Prague are excellent and one of the characters seems to have done quite well from airbrush art, which is pretty rad. It's just while that privileged student dream of European life might have got the blood pumping back in 1988 it feels awfully dated now. 

Cutter’s Way 

Ivan Passer (1981)

What was this all about? Czech new waver Ivan Passer directs Jeff Bridges as the witness to a murder. John Heard plays his drunken veteran friend who obsesses with proving a local oil man was the person responsible. What could have been an interesting take on morality is marred by a stack of continuity errors and some truly bizarre moments- what was that bit with the horse about? Baffling stuff. Someone please explain.