The Screengrab : akira kurosawa

Screengrab Presents THE TOP TEN BEST MOVIES EVER!!!! (Part Seven)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Hayden Childs's Top Ten Best Movies Ever!

1. THE WILD BUNCH (1969)
2. THE SEVEN SAMURAI (1954)

Although I listed The Wild Bunch in the first spot, this one is equally deserving. Perhaps more. The story is simple: poor peasant villagers, beset by marauding bandits, hire a group of down-on-their-luck samurai to defend them. But this is storytelling at its finest: lyrical, universal, and profound. Akira Kurosawa was a great fan of John Ford, and the epic sweep of Ford's Westerns added to the majesty of The Seven Samurai. Look, I can hardly talk about this movie. It's just too much.

3. McCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971)

4. BADLANDS (1973) & DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978)

Terrence Malick's first two films are wondrous. I mean this in the sense that they contain wonders to behold and that they are themselves wonders. For one thing, they shouldn't work. Both movies are narrated by girls on the cusp of becoming young women, and both often suppress dialogue to emphasize through voiceover the inner lives of their narrators. Badlands recasts the story of serial killer Charles Starkweather into an insular fairy tale, a Brothers Grimm story about murderous innocence. Days Of Heaven is like an Andrew Wyeth painting given life, and like that other famous artwork that springs to life, Pinnochio, it's a much darker story with breathtaking beauty and sudden horror. (HC)

5. GRAND ILLUSION (1937) & THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939)

6. THE SEARCHERS (1956)

The Searchers is such a strange film, veering wildly between the unholy obsession, the blanket condemnation of racism, the anti-hero who might well be the hero, the cornpone humor, the score that screams of American exceptionalism even as the movie shows itself deeply ambivalent about America's past. This multifaceted approach is offputting at first, but utterly compelling over multiple viewings. John Ford and John Wayne made a hell of a lot of Westerns together, but this is the greatest. (HC)

7. THE GODFATHER PART II (1974)

8. UNFAITHFULLY YOURS (1948) & THE LADY EVE (1941)

9. VERTIGO (1958) & LA JETEE (1962)

Vertigo is Alfred Hitchcock's finest film, an echo chamber of fetishistic obsession with an almost indescribably weird plot. La Jetee is Chris Marker's most accessible movie, a short film captured almost entirely in still shots with a voiceover explaining key plot points. The plot revolves around an obsessive remembrance of an event from the protagonist's youth. One of the major scenes echoes a scene in Vertigo. In his film Sans Soliel, which almost made this list, Marker explains how obsessed he became with Vertigo, wanting to copy it as a means of understanding and possessing it. The embedded video below contains all 26 minutes of La Jetee in its totality. (HC)

10. COCKFIGHTER (1974)

Monte Hellman made some heady no-budget movies in his heyday, but this one, in which Warren Oates plays a cockfighter who has taken a vow of silence, is the headiest (sorry, Two-Lane Blacktop, but you're second in my heart). Let me be clear: cockfighting is one of the ugliest, most vulgar and inhumane sports known to man, and I find it reprehensible. Hellman looks at it without flinching and finds the beauty within. Oates is one of my favorite actors, and never is he better than here, a movie in which he has maybe five lines of dialogue, although he is in every scene. (HC)

11. TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) & YOJIMBO (1961)

Both of these movies make art out of sheer pulp. By almost any standard, Touch Of Evil should be unbelievably bad, but it's astonishingly great, better, I dare say, than Citizen Kane. It's a police procedural where the killing and killer are completely irrelevant to the plot. It's a movie about a corrupt cop who is always right about his suspect even when he plants evidence (and unlike, say, 24, the film doesn't condone police corruption). It's a movie with an unhealthy amount of cheese and ham - Charlton Heston as a Mexican cop!, a biker gang all addled on weed who abduct Janet Leigh!, Marlene Dietrich as a gypsy fortune teller! Orson Welles in a fat suit (or should that be an even fatter suit?)! - that somehow turns it all into the finest cinematic cuisine. Yojimbo also starts with a pulp premise, in this case a samurai version of Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key and Red Harvest, and finds a way to frame it all into a stunning battle royale. (HC)

12. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)

What the first thing an actor learns? The show must go on!

Here's several other movies that ought to be on this list, and would have been if I'd figured out a way to stretch the idea of Top Ten any further:

Aguirre, Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)
The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1965)
Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)
Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952)
Killer of Sheep (Burnett, 1977)
Miller's Crossing (Coen, 1990)
Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955)
Playtime (Tati, 1967)
Ride The High Country (Peckinpah, 1962)
Rio Bravo (Hawks, 1959)
Week End (Godard, 1967)

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Eight, Nine & Ten

Contributor: Hayden Childs

Reviews By Request: Juliet of the Spirits (1965, Federico Fellini)

Paul Clark — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:00:00 GMT

As always, voting for my next Reviews By Request column can be found at the end of this review.

The “late period” films of Federico Fellini are one of the major blind spots in my moviewatching history. I’ve seen nearly all of his earlier works, up to and including the “transitional” work 8 ½, which remains my favorite of his films. However, the only Fellini films I’ve seen after this are Amarcord (which I love) and Satyricon (which I don’t), but I was certainly familiar with these films’ critical reputations, which tend to echo the sentiments expressed by the loudmouthed intellectual in the movie line in Annie Hall.

Having just seen Juliet of the Spirits for the first time, I can’t argue with the opinion that it’s an “indulgent” film, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, since it reveals aspects of their maker that his more disciplined films could not. Supposedly, Fellini intended Juliet of the Spirits to be a tribute to his wife and frequent leading lady, Giulietta Masina. If this is the case, it’s a funny sort of tribute. Yes, Juliet (played by Masina) sticks to her principles when her husband cheats on her, and eventually finds escape from their marriage. But for most of the film, she is portrayed as a hapless victim, carried along by the whims of the film- and those of her husband.

Consider the way that she is portrayed visually. Juliet never seems to fit in no matter where she is. From the beginning of the film, when her husband (played by Mario Pisu) hosts an impromptu dinner party, the guests are garishly dressed and glamorous, while Juliet wears a simple dress and a matronly brown wig. This will be a trend throughout the film, as Juliet clashes with her more decadent surroundings. Likewise, throughout the film Fellini accentuates the Masina’s petiteness, often showing her amidst people (even her own mother) who tower over her. In other hands, Juliet’s inability to fit into the film’s world would be a defiant statement, but Fellini’s feelings about it seem to be more complicated than that. One can see that he feels affection for his wife, but he can’t resist being drawn toward the decadence that had become such an integral element of both his life and his work.

And what is one supposed to make of the way Juliet is treated by the film after discovering her husband’s infidelity? A more conventional film might have taken the husband to task for his cheating, but not Fellini, who kept mistresses throughout much of his adult life. Instead, one character after another tells Juliet that in order to win her husband back, she needs to embrace her sexual side- to be more like, say, her buxom, sexually liberated neighbor Suzy, played by Sandra Milo, who by her own admission put in time as one of Fellini’s mistresses. Needless to say, Juliet has some trouble with this advice, especially as it relates to her own Roman Catholic upbringing.

The worldview we see in Juliet of the Spirits is a decidedly pre-feminist one, and one that’s a little hard to stomach. But at the same time, one needs not agree with what a film is saying to appreciate the film itself, and Fellini uses the framework of this story to lay bare his own ideas about marriage, sexuality, and the female gender in general. Because these ideas run so contrary to more “enlightened” points of view that have found their way into most contemporary works of art, Juliet of the Spirits is more thought-provoking than a more politically correct film might have been.

And even if you’re not down with Fellini’s worldview in Juliet of the Spirits, it’s hard to argue with the sheer visual splendor of the film, Fellini’s first in color. Many of world cinema’s greatest filmmakers first made the transition to color during the 1960s- Bergman and Antonioni had already made the switch, with Buñuel and Kurosawa still to come. What these filmmakers had in common is that they didn’t simply make the change for commercial reasons, but treated color as another filmmaking tool to be used wisely. In Juliet of the Spirits, Fellini uses color to create images that would not have had the same impact in black and white, as when he painted the walls red to create unease during a scene in which Juliet visits a mysterious healer. Also striking is the full spectrum of colors found in Suzy’s cavernous home (reminiscent of a fantasy version of a brothel), which contrasts with Juliet’s memories of her Catholic upbringing, which are full of solid shades of red and grey, with innocent white on the children and the almost impossibly dark violet (not black) of the nuns’ robes. Juliet of the Spirits is a feast for the eyes- and, with Nino Rota’s mindbending score, for the ears as well.

In doing research for this review- which must no doubt seem as rambling as the film itself- I came across the following quote from Fellini:

“We don't really know who woman is. She remains in that precise place within man where darkness begins. Talking about women means talking about the darkest part of ourselves, the undeveloped part, the true mystery within… [The] problem for man is to reunite himself with the other half of his being, to find the woman who is right for him-right be she is simply a projection, a mirror of himself. A man can't become whole or free until he has set woman free-his woman. It's his responsibility, not hers. He can't be complete, truly alive until he makes her his sexual companion, and not a slave of libidinous acts or a saint with a halo.”

Perhaps this quotation is the key to what Fellini was attempting with Juliet of the Spirits- not simply translating these ideas into cinematic form, but also struggling to reconcile them with his own weaknesses and deeply-ingrained ideas of what women meant to him in his life. Of course, it’s hard to say what Masina really thought of all this, but that’s part of what makes the movie so darn fascinating, isn’t it?

When coming up with a theme for the next Reviews By Request selection, I kept thinking back to this week's DVD release of The Wrestler and reflected on the fact that I've seen only a handful of movies from the eighties salad days of Wrestler comeback kid Mickey Rourke. So the next Reviews By Request will attempt to remedy this. Some of the titles I've listed below have solid reputations, others not so much, but I haven't seen any of them. That I've seen not only 9 1/2 Weeks but also Wild Orchid (not to mention Double Team) says a lot about me as a moviegoer, but that's a topic for another time. Anyway, which of these should I review next?

Online Surveys & Market Research

Due to a software snafu involving the new polling software, the above poll may be displaying too small to be easily readable, so here are the options in chronological order: Rumble Fish, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Year of the Dragon, Angel Heart, and Johnny Handsome. Hope that helps. And ss always, feel free to sound off in the comments section below. See you in two weeks!

Set Your DVR: April 13 - 19, 2009

Hayden Childs — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Yes, it's been a while since I've done one of these. Life is busy and these take a lot of research, y'know? But this week is full of great movies on cable, so I couldn't resist making a few recommendations. After all, if I can't share this stuff with Screengrab readers, who can I share it with?

Let's start with tonight! On Monday, April 13 at 10 pm eastern/9 pm central, TCM has The Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir's great movie about war and class and prejudice and sorrow and about a million other things. This is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I suspect it's the same for many of you.

I have nothing else this week until Friday, April 17. At 3 pm eastern/2 pm central and again at 6 pm eastern/5 pm central, Ovation is showing Living In Oblivion, a fun movie about the frustrations involved in making a bad movie. It stars Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener, and features a showstopping tirade by Peter Dinklage. Ovation has a few problems when it shows movies - bleeped words and lots of commercials are the worst - but it also keeps the original screen aspect and goes out of its way to find quality programming, so there's that. Later, at 8 pm eastern/7 pm central, TCM is showing The Maltese Falcon, and there's rarely a good reason not to watch that. If, however, you'd rather take your murder with teenage ennui instead of hardboiled cynicism, IFC is showing Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park at 8:15 eastern/7:15 central. If you can't stand to miss either, IFC is showing it again at 1:30 am eastern/12:30 am central.

The next morning on Saturday, April 18 at 8 am eastern/7 am central, IFC has The Hidden Fortress, Akira Kurosawa's strangely familiar movie about a couple of bumbling peasants who get involved with a movement to shepherd a princess across enemy territory before the Evil Empire can discover the location of the hidden rebel base on the fourth moon of Yavin and... Wait, I got off track there somewhere. Anyway, it all takes place a long time ago in a country far, far away. See you next week!

DVD O'Digest for March 17, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

This week, the much-ballyhooed Luck of the Irish doesn’t extend to DVD shoppers, who will find little in the way of worthwhile recent releases to add to their collections. Nonetheless, there’s worthy stuff hitting the market today, provided you know where to look.

This week’s haul of recent releases is headed by Will Smith’s latest attempt to curry Academy favor, Gabriele Muccino’s Seven Pounds (Sony, also Blu-Ray). Other movies hitting stores today include the animated family film The Tale of Despereaux (Universal, also Blu-Ray), the comic book-inspired revenge actioner Punisher: War Zone (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray), and Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz in Elegy (Sony). Also, this weekend brings the release of two new DVDs starring newly-anointed star Kristen Stewart- the smash vampire-teen blockbuster Twilight and the Mary Stuart Masterson-directed indie drama The Cake Eaters, the movie that answers the question, “whatever happened to Mary Stuart Masterson?”

In the classics department, the big news this week is the release of Akira Kurosawa’s first color film, Dodes’ka-den (Criterion). I’ve yet to see it myself, but according to a number of critics, Dodes’ka-den is second-tier Kurosawa. All the same, it’s still Kurosawa, so I’m eager to give it a look. Also this week: The Robe Special Edition (Fox, also Blu-Ray), a lumbering biblical picture that’s justly remembered solely for being the first Cinemascope release; and the box set Eclipse Series 15: Travels With Hiroshi Shimizu, featuring four titles from this Japanese auteur.

In TV on DVD, this week brings Mr. Belvedere Seasons 1 and 2 (Universal). And in Blu-Ray only news, the highlights this week are the sword-and-sandal epic Quo Vadis (Fox) and the eighties favorite The Princess Bride (MGM).

Finally, I’d like to close this column introducing a new feature with this week’s DVD Digest, spotlighting the most bizarre DVD synopsis of any of this week’s new releases. Despite some competition from a movie that described itself as “a horrific thriller in the vein of Captivity (who’d want to be associated with Captivity???), the inaugural winner of the prize was the Media Blasters’ DVD entitled Booby Life. Here’s the synopsis, courtesy of DVD Planet:

Naoto, your run-of-the-mill young dude with a thing for top-heavy women, is the luckiest bum in the world. Ayane, a busty babe he's known for almost all his life, has a thing for him and lets him have his way with her anytime he wants. On top of that, Chika, another one of his chesty childhood friends, has just a big a crush on him too. When she says to him, "My boobs belong to you," there's no way any guy with a healthy sex drive can resist. There's now only two hard things in Naoto's life now, and one of them is choosing between two gorgeous hotties!

So much for a slow DVD week, eh?

Reviews By Request: Sukiyaki Western Django (2007, Takashi Miike)

Paul Clark — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

As always, I’ll be polling you folks to determine my next Reviews By Request column, although this time the rules will be somewhat different. To vote, see the poll at the end of this review.

Of all of the United States’ contributions to popular culture, one of the most enduring has been the Western genre. In the mid- to late-1800s, stories about cowboys and the Wild West carved out a particularly American idiom in literature, and after the invention of the motion picture, many of the most popular movies- such as Edison and Porter’s The Great Train Robbery- were Westerns. In the classical age of Hollywood, few genres were more popular throughout the world than the Western.

By the 1950s, foreign filmmakers were beginning to show their Western influences, notably Akira Kurosawa in films like The Seven Samurai. And this influence became explicit by the 1960s when a number of Italian filmmakers began to produce Westerns in Europe. The resulting films quickly became known as “spaghetti Westerns,” and their popularity began a wave of Wild West stories made on foreign soil. There were “paella Westerns” in Spain, “cod Westerns” in Scandinavia, even “curry Westerns” in India. It was only a matter of time until a Japanese filmmaker would offer up a Japanese take on the genre, and it seems only natural that the filmmaker would be prolific genre-bender Takashi Miike. It also seems obvious that Quentin Tarantino would have some part in the proceedings, but that’s another issue entirely.

Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django is first and foremost an homage to classic Westerns of the past. Even its premise- a mysterious mercenary wanders into the middle of a turf war and proceeds to play both sides- is one of the archetypal storylines of the genre. It has served as the storyline for a number of “spaghetti Westerns” including Sergio Leone’s seminal A Fistful of Dollars and Corbucci’s Django, which lent Miike’s film its title. Of course, both films were essentially Western takes on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, which in turn was a samurai version of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest. But you get the idea- Miike’s genuflecting before the old masters. There’s even a whiff of Shakespeare in the story, in which the rival gangs are signified by the colors Red and White, in homage to England’s Wars of the Roses.

But although Miike has all his references in order, the end result is somewhat underwhelming. Miike hits all of the expected genre beats, but very little that happens in the film carries much weight. Part of the problem is that the characters just aren’t all that memorable. We meet the mysterious gunfighter, the samurai-styled leader of the Whites, the Shakespeare-obsessed leader of the Reds, the revenge-bent woman, the duplicitous lawman. Hell, there’s even a middle-aged woman who turns out to be the famed warrior Bloody Benten, whose name I would imagine was inspired by the same Japanese deity who lent her name to Screengrab favorite Benten Films. But Miike is so busy with other business that he never finds time to really do much with the people who populate his story. Even the gunfighter gets lost in the shuffle for much of the film.

As I mentioned before, Miike fan and friend Quentin Tarantino appears in the film, playing an old gunfighter named Ringo who tells the saga of Bloody Benten and literalizes the sukiyaki motif. Many of Tarantino’s own films also tend to be elaborate homages, but unlike Sukiyaki they tend to add up to something more than the sum of their references. Much of this has to do the way Tarantino actually manages to take time to establish the characters in his films- for example, the way he actually shows us some of Budd’s life in Kill Bill instead of just making him a rival, or the scene in Death Proof in which he reveals that the fearsome-looking Stuntman Mike is actually a whiny baby. On one level, Tarantino noodles in the margins of his story just as much as Miike, but while Tarantino’s noodlings lend his films additional depth, Miike’s tend to feel like one-off moments, designed to grab the attention but have little relevance on the story at large. Granted, some of these moments are pretty awesome- look at the way Ringo procures an egg for his sukiyaki, or the goofy touch of having the two-faced lawman suffer from multiple personality disorder- but put together they don’t really add up.

Or consider the films of Sergio Leone, whose storylines were every bit as impenetrable as Sukiyaki’s, but whose style pushed the iconography to such frenzied levels that they’re hypnotic on a moment-to-moment basis even if the broad outlines of the story get lost in the process. Leone’s “spaghetti Westerns” are Westerns taken to their stylistic extreme, and while “extreme” is a word that’s often associated with Miike’s films, Sukiyaki Western Django is a rarity- a Miike film that feels too tame. It’s entertaining enough, and the final shootout is good as these things go, but overall it’s a little disappointing. I’ve gone on record as a rabid fan of Audition, but with each subsequent Miike film I see I’ve come to realize that that film’s tight directorial control and bold formal structure was a rarity in his work. Sadly, Sukiyaki Western Django needed a more assured hand on the reins.

In my ongoing effort to see as many 2008 films as possible, I’ve decided to change the rules a bit this time around. Below, I’ve listed five of the most intriguing titles from the last four Reviews By Request polls (sorry, no House Bunny). As usual, I’m asking you to pick your favorite, but rather than only writing up the top vote-getter, I’ll write up the top three, one per week for the next three weeks. So, what’ll it be?

What 2008 movies would you like me to see? | BuzzDash polls

As always, feel free to sound off in the comments section. See you next week!

Set Your DVR! December 22 - 29, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

I don't know if your Christmas week is anything like mine (if you even have a Christmas week, that is), but every year, I spend an inordinate amount of time on the couch. It's a good way to be with family without having to, y'know, talk with anyone. I usually lay there, using my mind only to ponder how full my belly is and wondering how long it will take me to digest enough to make room for another slice of pecan pie. But this year, instead of mindless entertainment, I intend to engage with some movies! Maybe that will take my mind off of food. For a little while, at least. Here's what's good this week, in the central/eastern format. I'm also moving overnight movies to the prior day write-up, which is my policy from here forward.

Monday, December 22:

Monday offers two flicks about evil and naivety! What could be better than considering evil during the final weeks of the year? Au Revoir, Les Enfants is Louis Malle's examination of life in a French boarding school during the Vichy occupation. Our young protagonist seems to be going through normal kid issues, but his innocence is threatened by the War and his growing suspicion that a schoolmate might be a hidden Jew. The Quiet American is based on Graham Greene's novel about a not-so-well meaning journalist encountering a CIA agent in 1950s Vietnam. Strangely enough, the CIA agent may be the more naive of the two.

12:30/1:30 pm: Au Revoir, Les Enfants on IFC.
2:30/3:30 pm The Quiet American on IFC.
2:30/3:30 am: Enemy Mine on AMC.
5:05/6:05 am: Au Revoir, Les Enfants on IFC.

Tuesday, December 23:

Tuesday's full of anti-war sci-fi in the AM! Maybe it's not great sci-fi, but it's (probably) worth a viewing, especially with impressionable young minds around you. Enemy Mine, one of my favorite movies when I was 13, is about setting asides differences in the face of a hostile universe. I haven't seen it since I was a kid, but I recall that it had a strong anti-war and pro-cooperation message. A far better movie (with far less latex and, well, mostly the same message) is the original The Day The Earth Stood Still, an untouchable classic that only a fool would attempt to remake. Finally, The Day After is a good way to wrap up the morning with some schlock that originally aired on TV when I was exactly the right age for a nascent political awakening (that would be 1983, when I was 11). In light of the dramatic depiction of the harshness of life after a nuclear attack on the US, I remember my shock and disbelief when I overheard President Granddaddy Ronald Reagan on TV pushing for more nuclear weapons. He lost my vote that day.

In the afternoon, there's John Ford's 3 Godfathers, which is like a Western version of Three Men And A Baby, only with death and despair. Awesome! Then Roman Polanski's The Pianist offers a little more death and despair. And finally, as a salve to all of this suffering, Lubitsch's The Shop Around The Corner is the sweetest and bestest romantic comedy that ever graced celluloid. (Note: the overnight movie discussed here rather than on the prior day for thematic purposes.)

2:30/3:30 am: Enemy Mine on AMC.
7/8 am: The Day The Earth Stood Still on AMC.
9/10 am: The Day After on SCIFI.
3/4 pm: 3 Godfathers on TCM.
4:30/5:30 pm: The Pianist on IFC.
5/6 pm: The Shop Around The Corner on TCM.
2/3 am: The Shop Around The Corner on TCM.

Wednesday, December 24:

Christmas Eve brings more despair! I recommend that you choose wisely and then go volunteer in a soup kitchen. Nobody Knows is a 2004 Japanese film based on a true story about children who were horribly neglected by an unfit mother and then abandoned to survive on their wits alone. Guaranteed to make the hardest heart break down and openly weep. Brother's Keeper is the uplifting documentary about a rural community that rallies around a near-feral farming family when one brother is accused of murdering another. The Delicate Art of the Rifle is a microbudget indie about a sniper on a college campus. Death and the Maiden is Roman Polanski's film (of the Ariel Dorfman play) in which a woman (Sigourney Weaver, who has never been better) is convinced that the man who gave her husband a ride home was the man who tortured and raped her while she was a prisoner of the previous brutal regime. It is stunningly good and sadly underappreciated. Finally, Bad Santa is the salve for all that ails us.

6/7 am: Nobody Knows on IFC.
8:30/9:30 am: Brother’s Keeper on IFC.
10:30/11:30 am: The Delicate Art of the Rifle on IFC.
12:05/1:05 pm: Nobody Knows on IFC.
2:45/3:45 pm: Brother’s Keeper on IFC.
4:35/5:35 pm: The Delicate Art of the Rifle on IFC.
6:15/7:15 pm: Death and the Maiden on IFC.
10/11 pm: Bad Santa on Comedy Central.

Thursday, December 25:

Tidings of comfort and joy for all: TCM has a film fest of Bogie's most iconic movies on Christmas Day. That'll deck your halls with boughs of something. Note that it runs all night.

7/8 am: 3 Godfathers on TCM.
2/3 pm: Bad Santa on Comedy Central.
7/8 pm: Casablanca on TCM.
9/10 pm: The Big Sleep on TCM.
11 pm/12 am: The Maltese Falcon on TCM.
1/2 am: The African Queen on TCM.
3/4 am: High Sierra on TCM.

Friday, December 26:

Back to our regularly scheduled holiday sadness! George Washington is a must-see film about youths who can't see a future for themselves in their quiet North Carolina town. Elephant is about youths whose future is brutally taken away for reasons unknown. And The Honeymoon Killers is about hideous sociopaths who love each other and brutalize the world. Happy fucking Boxing Day!

9/10 am: George Washington on IFC.
10:35/11:35 am: Elephant on IFC.
2:05/3:05 pm: George Washington on IFC.
3:35/4:35 pm: Elephant on IFC.
5/6 pm: The Honeymoon Killers on IFC.
3:35/4:35 am The Honeymoon Killers on IFC.
5:25/6:25 am: George Washington on IFC.

Saturday, December 27:

Saturday is about Japan. First up is The Greatest Story Ever Told, aka The Seven Samurai. I believe I recently wrote here that The Wild Bunch was the best film ever. That's only half-true, because The Seven Samurai is its equal. Damn, this movie is good. Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon isn't even close to the same league, but it's pretty great on its own. Finally, Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle is not the best Miyazaki movie, but it's wonderful and highly, highly recommended.

7/8 am: The Seven Samurai on IFC.
10:30/11:30 am: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on IFC.
2:30/3:30 pm: Howl’s Moving Castle on IFC.
4:30/5:30 pm: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on IFC.

Sunday, December 28:

Wait, Sunday is about Japan. Rashomon, another film by Akira Kurosawa, is iconic and a must-see for fans of cinema, although it isn't quite as great as his best movies. The Bad Sleep Well is Kurosawa's corporate office take on Hamlet. Of his three Shakespeare adaptations (the other two are Throne of Blood/MacBeth and Ran/King Lear), it is the least, but it's full of his distinct sensibilities and very enjoyable. Finally, Malick's The Thin Red Line is half-war movie and half-nature documentary and all about the human soul. Overnight, there's Tati's utterly delightful Mr. Hulot's Holiday, which is full of wit and pratfalls.

7/8 am: Rashomon on IFC.
8:30/9:30 am: The Bad Sleep Well on IFC.
8/9 pm: The Thin Red Line on IFC.
2/3 am: Mr. Hulot’s Holiday on TCM.
2:30/3:30 am: The Thin Red Line on IFC

Monday, December 29:

Dreary Monday! Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a film based on a play that delights in its own postmodernity. If you watched The Bad Sleep Well, definitely follow it up with this. And then put off whatever it is that you're supposed to be doing. Kiss of Death is one of the great film noirs. The Sweet Hereafter, Atom Egoyan's film based on Russell Banks's devastating novel, will ruin you in a good way. And The Player is Robert Altman's great tribute/kiss-off to Hollywood.

6:50/7:50 am: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead on IFC.
9/10 am: Kiss of Death on FMC.
1:30/2:30 pm: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead on IFC.
9/10 pm: The Sweet Hereafter on IFC.
11 pm/12 am: The Player on IFC.

Set Your DVR!: December 15 - 22, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

What a great week for movies on cable! Here’s what’s coming up that’s worth your time. In the spirit of the holidays, I’ve even gotten a little expansive. But this week brings another embarrassment of riches.

The times are, as always, in Central/Eastern format. Also, as always, please let me know in comments if you see something coming up that I’ve missed. I’ll try to add it to the regular column if I can, but my time will be tight in the next few weeks, so please don’t be too disappointed if I don’t get to your recommendation.

Monday, December 15:
2:45/3:45 pm: Mystery Train on IFC. Jim Jarmusch’s triptych about the strange charms of Memphis, TN.
6:25/7:25 pm: George Washington on IFC.

Tuesday, December 16:
3:25/4:25 am: Mystery Train on IFC.
6:50/7:50 am: George Washington on IFC.
7/8 am: Decision at Sundown on TCM. A Randolph Scott & Budd Boetticher Western, and that means good.
7:30/8:30 am: Batman on AMC. This is the 1966 Batman, the very definition of campy.
10:25/11:25 am: Howl’s Moving Castle on IFC. Miyazaki’s great animated film about war and magic and love and identity, presented here in the original Japanese with subtitles.
12:30/1:30 pm: George Washington on IFC.
4:05/5:05 pm: The Thin Red LIne on IFC. Malick’s unconventional anti-war drama is a force of nature.
5/6 pm: The Cincinnati Kid on TCM. What could be more exciting than Steve McQueen playing high-stakes poker?
7/8 pm: Shadow of a Doubt on TCM. Great little second-tier Hitchcock film that ought to be in the first tier.
11 pm/12 am: The Third Man on TCM. If you like movies and haven’t seen this, you MUST rectify your oversight immediately.

Wednesday, December 17:
8:30/9:30 pm: Death on the Nile on TCM. A Hercule Poirot mystery that was a favorite of mine when I was a kid. The nonstop excitement practically screams “heavyset Belgian detective!”
8/9 pm: The Thin Red Line on IFC.
11 pm/12 am: The New World on IFC. That's a lot of Malick for one sitting!

Thursday, December 18:
1:30/2:30 am: The Thin Red Line on IFC.
4:25/5:25 am: The New World on IFC.
9:15/10:15 am: The Naked City on TCM. One of the greatest film noirs.
10:30/11:30 pm: Blade Runner on SCIFI. Always worth a viewing.
11 pm/12 am: Vanishing Point on FMC. As the Zen koan says, -There is no why. There is only Kowalski driving through the desert.

Friday, December 19:
12/1 am: Before Sunset on WE. I try not to mention movies that will be broken by commercials, but this one, a sequel to 1995’s Before Sunrise, has a certain charm in its older, wiser take on young love.
1:30/2:30 am: Elephant on IFC. Dreamy Van Sant flick about high school snipers.
3/4 am: Vanishing Point on FMC.
8:45/9:45 am: Paths of Glory on TCM.
5:30/6:30 pm: The Others on OXYGEN. Pleasantly creepy ghost story starring Nicole Kidman.
6:15/7:15 pm: The Player on IFC. Altman’s tour de force “conventional Hollywood” film, which starts with an extended homage to Touch of Evil and proceeds to tear down the walls of Old Hollywood.
8:30/9:30 pm: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou on IFC. Many Wes Anderson fans felt that this was the moment when his whimsy and prop fetish finally overwhelmed his ability to tell a story. I think there’s a beating heart in this story, but The Darjeeling Limited was an unpleasant stillborn mess.
11 pm/12 am: The Face of Another on IFC. Brilliant and creepy Japanese horror film about the slippery nature of identity.

Saturday, December 20:
2/3 am: The Face of Another on IFC.
5:30/6:30 am: The Ox-Bow Incident on AMC.
7/8 am: The Hidden Fortress on IFC. Akira Kurosawa’s tale of a princess in peril, swept away by war, protected by her loyal general, and kept constantly on the verge of trouble by a couple of bumbling peasants. Reportedly one of the major inspirations for Star Wars.
7/8 am: The Others on OXYGEN.
7:15/8:15 am: My Darling Clementine on AMC. Iconic John Ford Western about the shootout at the OK Corral.
2:30/3:30 pm: 8 Women on LOGO.
5:35/6:35 pm: Gosford Park on IFC. Robert Altman’s brilliant upstairs/downstairs Edwardian murder mystery.
8:30/9:30 pm: Mulholland Dr. on LOGO. One of David Lynch’s best films, propelled by dream-logic and horror.

Sunday, December 21:
8:45/9:45 am: Kiss of Death on FMC. Top-notch film noir. Unfortunately, it’s playing at the same time as...
8:45/9:45 am: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse on IFC. Fritz Lang’s 1933 thriller that didn’t just invent the procedural, but built it on a parable about a crime boss able to mesmerize his subordinates with his words and imagery. Lang fled the Nazis for America almost immediately after its release. The ability of many of the scenes to retain their shock value today is a testament to this movie's sheer brilliance.
12:15/1:15 pm: Gosford Park on IFC.

Monday, December 22:
2:45/3:45 am: The 400 Blows on TCM. Francois Truffaut’s incredibly powerful ode to child neglect and juvenile delinquency.
7/8 am: Au Revoir, Les Enfants on IFC. Fantastic Louis Malle flick about a boarding school in France during the Nazi occupation that’s hiding a young Jew.
11 am/12 pm: Bringing Up Baby on TCM. A screwball comedy classic that everyone should see at least once in this all-too-short life.
12:30/1:30 pm: Au Revoir, Les Enfants on IFC.

The Screengrab Holiday Special: Movies We're Thankful For (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

PHIL NUGENT GIVES THANKS FOR:

BLUE VELVET (1986)

I'm not sure that it's possible to fully appreciate how thankful some of us are for Blue Velvet, the greatest American movie of the 1980s, without having suffered the indignity of being a movie freak in the 1980s, when this picture arrived like cool water to a man stranded in the desert. The biggest surprise may not have been that David Lynch, who by that time had Eraserhead and The Elephant Man to his credit, had this inside him, but that he was allowed to get it out of his system with the financial assistance of Dino De Laurentiis, who bought the property out of development hell and gave Lynch carte blanche to express his vision, asking only that the sucker come in at no longer than two hours. This was apparently De Laurentiis' way of thanking Lynch for all the unhappy work the director had put in cranking out Dune, another De Laurentiis production. Given that Dune failed to result in the intended franchise hit, nobody in Hollywood would have been surprised, let alone appalled, if Dino had told the boy from Missoula to take a hike, and take his leading man (Kyle MacLachlan, who made his film debut in Dune, and who had signed to appear in a string of sequels that were never going to happen) with him. Instead, De Laurentiis succumbed to an unusually well-timed bout of honor, and given the results, only the churlish would whisper that it's too bad that it didn't last long enough for Lynch to cut a deal with him to make Ronnie Rocket. Because of this, anyone who's thinking of talking some shit about Dino De Laurentiis -- the man whose other credits in 1986 alone included Tai-Pan, King Kong Lives, and Maximum Overdrive -- had better check with me first to make sure you've got the right. Unless you've paid for a movie masterpiece and been married to Silvano Magnano, you probably haven't.

MOUSEHOLES (1999)

Helen Hill, who died in 2007, and who earlier this week was awarded a Leo Award by the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, was a friend of mine. Helen was an independent filmmaker, though given the way that term is bandied about these days, it doesn't begin to capture just how independent she was; she never had an agent or a distributor, but finished her short animated films when she could and trucked them around to festivals with a reel tucked under her arm. Her masterpiece, Mouseholes, is a tribute to her dead grandfather that draws on home movies, Helen's own childlike animation, and tape-recorded conversations to make something sublime out of one of the most remarkable things about movies, and one of the key ways in which they have forever changed our world: their ability to enable us to hold onto a few invaluable pieces of the people we've lost, like ghosts trapped in bottles. For Helen, the film was about hanging onto part of her grandfather; now, for those of us left behind, the film has become about holding onto part of the woman who made it.

HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940)

Let's be clear about this: the reason that one of the best, funniest comedies in the history of movies exists is that its producer-director, Howard Hawks, had the balls and the taste to be corrupt in just the right way. A lot of people with as much talent as Hawks would never have thought of taking The Front Page, which then had a pretty good claim to being the greatest American play yet written and is nothing to sneeze at now, and turning it into a romantic comedy by giving the lead role a sex change and turning the other male lead into her ex-husband, who's waiting to make his next move. And while Hollywood was, and always will be, full of crass jackals who'd think nothing of trying something like that, hardly any of them would have been able to pull it off. (A 1988 remake of Hawks' rip-off, set in the world of TV news and starring Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner called Switching Channels was apparently made just to demonstrate this very point.) By now, His Girl Friday is so solidly (and deservedly) entrenched in its super-plus classic status that most people are barely aware of what a cold-blooded commercial calculation it's based on, or even that it has a title that ought to make you barf. I bring all this up now not because it takes anything away from the wonderfulness of the movie, because it doesn't: if I'm ever exiled to a desert island, this son of a bitch is coming with me. But it's worth keeping in mind, so that in a movie culture increasingly open to conventional wisdom and partisan warfare, everyone keeps in mind the final word on how greatness is achieved: you just never know.

TOKYO OLYMPIAD (1065)

Kon Ichikawa's 170-minute documentary record of the 1964 Olympic Games was commissioned by the Japanese government as part of their effort to use the games as their announcement that the country had transformed itself since World War II and was eager to be regarded as a smoothly functioning, hospitable member of the world of nations. Originally, the Japanese telegraphed both the ambition of the project, and their willingness to meet the rest of the world halfway, by hiring Akira Kurosawa, who at that time had no serious challengers for the title of the Japanese director who was best-known and most revered outside Japan. Luckily, somebody had a reality check and realized that Ichikawa, who was known for his ability to improvise in the face of changing conditions, was better suited temperamentally to this mission that the proud old samurai and control freak Kurosawa. Besides, the world already had one great Olympics documentary showing what the games looked like through the eyes of a director accustomed to bending reality to her will: Leni Riefenstahl's Olympiad, legendary for the way it transforms the musclular bodies on display into black-and-white film poetry. Ichikawa's brightly colored film captures the atmosphere, the flavor, the summer fun aspect of the whole spectacle, as well as the awesome mixture of the personalities involved. And though it's a measure of Ichikawa's mastery that it all looks effortless -- a few thousand people got together and had some contests, and all he did was point a camera at it and boil the results down to the good stuff -- the sense it gives you of the scale of the enterprise is explanation enough as to why there weren't more Olympics movies like this prior to the mid-1960s. Of course, there'll never be anything like it ever again; none of the people who might put up the money would see the point, because now we get to watch it all while it's happening, on TV. Whoopy-dink.

THE FILMS OF W.C. FIELDS

Pauline Kael: "From their titles, it's hard to tell the W.C. Fields movies apart; as John Mosher observed, 'Fields is Fields, a rose is a rose.' " Wilfrid Sheed:"...we demand more of Fields than even comic genius. We have to believe he meant it. We want certification that such a one existed: a mean, child-hating con man who was so funny about it that he made these things all right." Although there were other great screen comedians who were funnier in a greater number of ways, such as the Marx Brothers, and others who were more gifted visually as moviemakers, such as Buster Keaton, Fields' scraggly, underfunded, rattily uneven body of work retains the special fascination of representing one mean-spirited bastard's judgement on, and self-defense strategy against, the world. Fields has turned out to be one of those movie figures, like Bogart, who never goes out of style or fully loses connection with the modern world, yet it doesn't get any easier, as the years go by, to believe that the movies themselves got made on the level. The Fatal Glass of Beer, Million Dollar Legs, Mississippi, It's a Gift, The Man on the Flying Trapeze, My Little Chickadee, The Bank Dick, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break -- they all look as if they made late at night when the studio bosses had gone home and the security guards had passed out drunk, using money that whimsically crooked bookkeepers had skimmed from the budgets of Rin Tin Tin pictures. Although there are people working today who are probably as talented as Fields, and maybe even as idiosyncratic, there are no parallels for his career; as soon as Bill Murray, probably the closest living point of comparison, showed that he could make people laugh in a thrown-together movie like Stripes, he was thrown into big-budget special effects exravaganzas like Ghostbusters and eventually forced to turn character actor, which might have been his strategy for self-defense. To find anything close to Fields' vehicles today, you'd probably be best off searching the schedule of the Animal Planet channel.

RICHARD PRYOR LIVE IN CONCERT (1979)

Hard to believe now, but there was a time in our culture when stand-up comedians didn't get to leave behind every inflection of their act, cusswords included, perfectly preserved on cable TV specials. Lenny Bruce, who more or less invented the modern conception of the nightclub comic as satirical firebrand and verbal cartoonist, left behind only a posthumously released film record of one of his last performances, caught after his legal and drug problems had snuffed out his energy and wit and reduced him to a wry, paranoid figure snuffling in front of a bare brick wall. (Earlier clips of Bruce doing a TV-friendly version of his act on the Steve Allen show give you some idea of how much of his act was physical, and so is missing from the performances that were released on records.) Bruce's greatest disciple, Richard Pryor, was much luckier: this full-feature performance film caught him in full flight at the height of his powers, at a time when he was using everything he'd learned about working a crowd and applying it to a young lifetime's worth of experiences and observations. The film was released a year before Pryor, in a guilt-stricken, coke-baser's frenzy of despair, lit himself on fire; its sequels, starting with the 1982 Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip, record his partially successful attempt to relaunch himself after that traumatic meltdown, and his subsequent discovery that both his health and his inspiration were all but shot. But at least future generations won't be in any danger of thinking that this man was just the guy in The Toy.

McCABE & MRS. MILLER; THE LONG GOODBYE; THIEVES LIKE US; CALIFORNIA SPLIT; NASHVILLE (1970s)

In 1970, Robert Altman, then 45, directed the first hit film of his career, M*A*S*H. Ten years later, on a wavering leash from producer Robert Evans and a fluctuating budget, he directed Popeye, which was to be his second hit, even though it turned out to be the kind of commercial success whose star, Robin Williams, would still be apologizing for it twenty years later. In between those two hits, Altman would be able to make thirteen feature films, make them his way, for good or ill, and get them distributed by major studios whose bosses were still reeling in confusion from the collapse of the old system and cowed by Altman's many prizes and adulatory reviews. The five listed above are my favorites from that amazing body of work, which is as alive and unconventional as any large-scale attempt to understand America that any artist has ever embarked on. You might prefer five others; I'm generally up to taking another look at any of them, except maybe for Quintet and A Perfect Couple, because I find that revisiting even the ones that I think stink on ice feels less like looking at dead, bad old movies than like revisiting distant, weird members of the family who I haven't seen since the last time they got out of rehab. The fact that any of them exist at all is conclusive proof that desperate bewilderment at the top is not the worst thing you could have in the movie business. You might think that the same guys who were prepared to sponsor Altman to such a degree on the basis of one hit would have handed him the keys to the kingdom after he'd had a second one, but by 1980, the corporate heads had decided they knew what they were doing again, and the next year, Altman gave up on Hollywood and spent the rest of the decade working in theater and cable TV and making filmed plays on shoestring budgets, with only one small return to actual feature filmmaking, the barely released O. C. and Stiggs. He restarted his movie career right on schedule, in 1990, beginning with Vincent and Theo, a Van Gogh biopic that is as great as anything he ever made, and as unprofitable.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)

The greatest fusion of commercial thriller and political satire ever to come out of Hollywood -- and, as directed by John Frankenheimer, a still-stunning mixture of old-studio technique and new-style TV-age hipness -- is fairly high on the list of movies that nobody should have been able to get made at all. The novel, by Richard Condon, was a great success but also widely taken for being unadaptable. In fact, George Axelrod, who did the masterful screenplay, has said that he was stymied with a concrete case of writer's block until the film's star, Frank Sinatra, cured him by calling up and saying that it had been a while and he would like to see some pages. (Axelrod was the film's co-producer, alongside Frankenheimer, so technically, he was Sinatra's boss, but let's get real: having Frank Sinatra call you up and tell you that he sure would like to see you flap your arms and fly over the Chrysler Building might turn out to be the cure for gravity.) It wouldn't be until the late 1970s that the mercurial Sinatra would gain control of the picture himself and pull it from theatrical distribution or TV broadcast until 1988. The reasons for this, mostly financial in nature, aren't altogether clear, but contrary to popular urban myth, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with guilty feelings related to the possibility that the movie anticipated the Kennedy assasination. (By then, Richard Condon had written a novel, Winter Kills, that was directly based on JFK assassination conspiracy lore, and that book was made into a movie, written and directed by William Richart and starring Jeff Bridges, the blighted production and distribution history of which would spur rumors and allegations related to the organized-crime connections of some of its financiers and the disinclination of Embassy Pictures to alienate its own connections in the defense industry.) But I can say that I remember finally seeing The Manchurian Candidate for the first time -- actually, the first three times -- in the spring of 1988 at the Prytania Theater in New Orleans, and that of all my experiences with movies that have been re-introduced to the public after a spell in the vault, none has been as far from disappointing as my experience with this one.

CHILDREN OF PARADISE (1945)

Marcel Carne's three-hour-plus romantic celebration of the life of the theater, as rich and satisfying as any epic-scale film entertainment in history, was made during the Nazi occupation of France, a time when the Vichy government imposed rationing and other restrictions on materials and did not permit the production of any movie intended to be longer than 90 minutes. (Carne got approval to proceed with his script only by pretending that the finished product would be released in two parts.) The production provided employment, and gave cover, to many Resistance members, who worked as extras alongside Nazi loyalists who had been assigned to the project by Vichy, smiling and nodding in polite conversation with those scumbags while memorizing their faces and imagining how they were going to look with nooses draped around their necks. (Legend has it that Carne dragged out the production towards the end in anticipation of the arrival of the Allies so that the movie could wrap in a free France.) This kind of big moviemaking is commonly associated with decadence now, but Carne's commitment to his elegant conception and vast canvas was strong enough that he plowed ahead, creating the illusion that he had much greater material resources than he had. Some contemporary "independent" filmmakers who think they're demonstrating their own artistic integrity when they can't bother to focus the camera properly ought to be made to sit through this movie and then handed ritual seppeku blades, in trust that they'll do the right thing.

JAWS (1975)

I was eight years old. She was two: this was 1977, the first year she was "officially" re-released after her debut in 1975, to compete with this slutty new number on the block named Star Wars. A lot of the kids I knew were all excited about the new girl, and couldn't understand why I was so excited about the chance that I might get to see some old hag who everybody had been talking about for a couple of years, but I had done some asking around, and everything I discovered seemed to confirm that the new girl didn't have a shark. And I had been fascinated by the thought of Jaws for, it seemed, my whole life; it seemed that, for as long as I could remember, I'd heard people talking about her in vague, soft whispers. I knew that I was supposed to be too young for her, because I'd spent so many hours -- yes, hours -- lying on my belly looking at the newspaper ads, and gazing at that special box that read, "May Be Too Intense for Younger Children." (As the Mad magazine parody pointed out, putting that line in the ads as a means of keeping kids out of the theaters was like trying to keep ants away from a picnic by pouring sugar on the ground.) Ultimately, I got to see it because the Disney cartoon The Rescuers was also playing at McComb, Mississipp's only two-screen theater -- McComb, Mississippi's only movie theater -- and because my mom decided that she'd rather be getting her hair done and shooting shit with the girls for those two hours than sitting next to me watching Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor lend their voices to the characters of a couple of mice. After I got home -- following a very awkward car ride during which I, still in a state of shock, deflected my mom's questions about the movie she thought I'd seen with a series of "Hah?"s -- I would go through many stacks of white typing paper trying to adapt the movie to comic-strip form, in much the way that Hunter Thompson, I would read later, had spent his youth copying pages of Hemingway and Fitzgerald longhand, so that he could feel their prose rhythms coursing through his fingers. It was the closest I had come at that time to writing a movie a love letter. In retrospect, she probably thought I was kind of goofy, if she thought of me at all. I was just one of millions of boys staring at her with my eyes and mouth wide open, I know that. And in the years since -- Christ, in the decades since -- I've known a lot of movies that were smarter, sweeter, more generous, more mature, more beautiful, and had more to teach me about the world. But you never forget the first one. This year she turned thirty-three, and it would be an understatement to say that she still looks good for her age. I expect that, if I'm still around when she's sixty-six, I'll still want to drink her bath water.

Click Here For More Thanks From Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Paul Clark, Leonard Pierce & Sarah Clyne Sundberg

Contributor: Phil Nugent

Set Your DVR!: November 24 - December 1, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Can you believe that it's the end of November already? I've barely gotten over Halloween. But there's some great movies coming up this week, so get that record button ready.

Mon, Nov 24:

8/9 pm: The Proposition on IFC (repeat 11/25 at 12/1 am).

Tues, Nov 25

3:45/4:45 am: The Wild One on AMC. You may ask what that young man is rebelling against? At this point, the answer is: whaddaya got? Later the answer will be: belts.

8:50/9:50 am: The New World on IFC (repeat at 2:35/3:35 pm).

7/8 pm: Ride With The Devil on AMC (repeat 11/26 at 12:30/1:30 am). Among the many inversions of your expectations in Ang Lee's Civil War drama is the utter surprise when the pop singer Jewel appears and you do not feel like leaving the room immediately.

11 pm/12 am: The Last Waltz on VH1CL. Why is The Band so awesome? Marty Scorcese wants to know.

11:15 pm/12:15 am: Rio Grande on TCM.

Wed, Nov 26

Don't you have a turkey to baste? Or travel plans? TV offers no excuses to procrastinate on the day before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately.

Thurs, Nov 27

5:15/6:15 am: Solaris on IFC. Tarkovsky version, not Soderbergh.

5:30/6:30 am: Planet of the Apes on FMC (too many repeats to mention over the next four days). Starting with a documentary called "Evolution of the Apes" at 5 am on Thanksgiving Day (here in the US, I mean; apologies to our friends elsewhere who will not be stuffing their faces with bird carcass and pie today), FMC is showing nothing but Planet of the Apes movies until Sunday. Rock me, Dr. Zaius!

10:30/11:30 am: The Godfather on AMC. Family. It's what's important in life.

2:30/3:30 pm: The Godfather, Part II on AMC. You should pointedly insist that your brother (or brother-in-law) sit down to watch this with you when the bastard swipes the last piece of pumpkin pie.

9:30/10:30 pm: Beneath the Planet of The Apes on FMC (too many repeats to mention here over the next four days). A guilty pleasure for some, which is why this POTA movie gets special notice. I should mention that I had no idea that there were so many POTA movies. I remember seeing a few when I was a kid, but I didn't realize that the series went on for so long. My favorite is Under The Volcano Of The Planet Of The Apes, in which Charlton Heston plays a burnt-out diplomat drunkenly careening from chimp bar to chimp bar while his luck slowly runs out.

Fri, Nov 28

9/10 am: Picnic at Hanging Rock on IFC (repeat at 3:05/4:05 pm).

Sat, Nov 29

1/2 am: The Harder They Come on TCM. Is this the finest rude boy movie ever made? It certainly has the best soundtrack.

3:30/4:30 am: Hell on IFC. The grandfather of J-horror, this is a shockingly gory Japanese flick from 1960.

7/8 am: THRONE OF BLOOD on IFC. Sorry for shouting, but it seems appropriate to shout when mentioning Throne of Blood, the all-time best version of Macbeth on film. You've got Kurosawa & Mifune. Medieval Japan. Cobweb Castle, witches, a walking forest, and a rain of arrows. Allegedly T.S. Eliot's favorite film. Throne of Fuckin' Blood.

6/7 pm: A Boy Named Charlie Brown on FAM (repeat 11/30 at 11 am/12 pm). Pardon my language. I got carried away. Since you might have family with you over the holiday weeked, perhaps it's a good time to revisit the classics of Charles Schultz? This is the one (as you may remember) about a spelling bee. No, not Spellbound, but you're close.

8/9 pm: Snoopy Come Home on FAM (repeat 11/30 at 1/2 pm). What will that rascal Snoopy do next?

Sun, Nov 30

7/8 am: Sansho The Bailiff on IFC. Fantastic drama about justice misserved in feudal Japan. It's not Throne of Blood, but it's not too far behind.

9/10 am: Twentieth Century on TCM. Classic screwball comedy.

9:05/10:05 am: High and Low on IFC. Frequent commenter Janet says she sometimes thinks this is the best Kurosawa/Mifune movie full stop. I sometimes agree with that.

11:15 pm/12:15 am: The Wizard of Oz on TCM. No Judy Garland here. This is the silent version from 1925.

Mon, Dec 1

I got nothing. Hard enough to go back to work after the holiday weekend, anyway.

Set Your DVR!: November 17 - 24, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

My infant daughter has been sick this weekend, and I'm not feeling too great myself. So this may be the most slapdashed, pithy-free column yet. Keep those expectations low! Adam Christ asked last week about setting up an online movie discussion based on one of the flicks I mention in this column. I don't have an answer for him, but I promise to figure it out soon. Anyway, here's what I like this week. As always, be sure to mention any glaring omissions in the comments thread and I'll edit the column to add your recommendation.

Mon, Nov 17:

6/7 pm: Restoration on IFC.

8:30/9:30 pm: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) on TCM. This is the Charles Laughton version.

10:15/11:15 pm: The New World on IFC (repeat on 11/18 at 2:45/3:45 am). By god, what a great movie.

Tues, Nov 18:

3:30/4:30 am: The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit on AMC. Quite a contrast from Mad Men, but it should provide a little something to help tide us over.

5:05/6:05 am: Incident at Loch Ness on IFC (repeat at 10:15/11:15 am and 3:25/4:25 pm). This is not a great or even good movie. But it is rather fun to watch Werner Herzog parody himself.

5:15/6:15 pm: Ride The High Country on TCM. One of my all-time favorite films, this is the first movie Sam Peckinpah directed that's really a Peckinpah movie. Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, two actors a little past their sell-by date, are perfectly cast as Old West gunfighters in a similar autumnal period of their lives. There's a fascinating shift in tone about halfway into the movie. I don't mean to detract from the first half when I say that it has that slight remove from reality that's not too unfamiliar to fans of earlier Westerns, especially those of John Ford and Anthony Mann. The cowboys may be tough, but they're pretty clean and well-spoken. At the halfway point, the action moves to a rough mining camp, which shepherds a more realistic look at the past: grimy, ugly, amoral. Westerns would never be the same.

7/8 pm: To Have And Have Not on TCM. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone loves Bogey & Bacall.

10:30/11:30 pm: Top Hat on TCM. Astaire. Rogers. You know the score.

Wed, Nov 19:

5/6 am Burden of Dreams on IFC (repeat at 12:35/1:35 pm). Brilliant documentary about the making of Fitzcarraldo.

9:15/10:15 am: Picnic at Hanging Rock on IFC (repeat at 3:45/4:45 pm).

5:35/6:35 pm: Ride With The Devil on IFC (repeat 11/20 at 4/5 am).

10:05/11:05 pm: The Last Wave on IFC (repeat on 11/20 at 2:05/3:05 am).

Thurs, Nov 20:

12:45/1:45 am: Sunrise on TCM. One of the greatest film of the silent era. I was fortunate enough a few weeks ago to catch a showing of this in a friend's film class with a bunch of people in their late teens/early 20s. I was a little worried that some of the kookier silent movie tropes would lose the audience, but I was dead wrong. They loved it. It's a loveable movie.

8/9 am: Duel on CHILLER (repeat on 11/21 at 2/3 am). Spielberg's first film.

9:45/10:45 am: The Cars That Ate Paris (repeat at 2:35/3:35 pm). An oddball film from early in Peter Weir's career about a town that bolsters its income by causing horrendous car accidents.

8:45/9:45 pm: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) on TCM. This is the Lon Chaney version.

Fri, Nov 21:

1/2 am: Citizen Kane on TCM. I don't know if you've ever heard of this film, but it apparently has some sort of reputation.

3:15/4:15 am: The Stranger on TCM. Orson Welles' most conventionally-directed movie.

8:45/9:45 am: High and Low on IFC (repeat at 3/4 pm). Kurosawa and Mifune do crime drama. Their best movie that doesn't involve samurais.

11 am/12 pm: Vanishing Point on FMC.

Sat, Nov 22:

3:45/4:45 am: Die, Monster, Die! on TCM. In Germany, this is The Monster, The!

7/8 am: The Sword of Doom on IFC. One of the finest samurai movies that wasn't directed by Akira Kurosawa.

4:45/5:45 pm: Vertigo on TCM. I'm breaking my no-Hitchcock rule again. But no matter however long it's been since you last saw this, it's been too long.

Sun, Nov 23:

5/6 am: Bend of the River on AMC. Mann/Stewart Western.

5/6 am: A Night In Casablanca on TCM. Marx Brothers.

1/2 pm: The Thomas Crown Affair on TCM. Steve McQueen!

Mon, Nov 24:

8/9 pm: The Proposition on IFC (repeat 11/25 at 12/1 am). John Hillcoat's Aussie Western.

Take 5: Character Actors Who Take The Lead

Hayden Childs — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:15:00 GMT

Film critics often love character actors more than leading men or women. With good cause, too: as we saw with our Leading Men and Leading Ladies Top 25 lists, some of the people at the top of the ticket couldn't act their way out of a wet paper bag. But they have charisma in spades, and that's what it takes for a leading actor to make the big bucks. Character actors, on the other hand, are the craftsmen of the profession, learning how to bring their own sense of self to many different roles. They have charisma, too, but it's a weird, flawed charisma. Character actors seem more like regular people, although they are usually the hardest-working actors in the trade. They often don't have the luxury of choosing their projects, and many seem happy to be earning a paycheck. But they don't just spin their wheels, no. They bring their game to even the paltriest of projects. For them, acting is about the love.

Often character actors gather around strong directors. John Ford had a company of them that appeared in various permutations in his films. So did Sam Peckinpah. David Milch brought together one of the greatest assortment of character actors in recent history for HBO's Deadwood (Brad Dourif, Ricky Jay, Powers Boothe, Molly Parker, Jason Jones, Brian Cox, Jim Beaver, and this list could just keep going) and returned to many of them for John From Cincinnati. But Judd Apatow's tv shows and films have done something exciting: they lift the weirdos who would normally be on the edge of the screen to the central spot. And Apatow is not the first person to think of this, just one of the more recent. The Coen Brothers have certainly played with the idea of leading actors, often pushing tried-and-true lead actors to their weirdest performances and othertimes asking honest-to-goodness character actors to take the central role of the film. Preston Sturges, a clear antecedent to both Apatow and the Coens, was a similar proponent of the charming weirdness of life, and his decision to hang a couple of his great movies on the nervous shoulders of Eddie Bracken is more than perversity.

Let's hope someone takes this to heart and makes a buddy movie starring Stephen Root, Ricky Jay, and Jon Polito. Sometimes filmmakers put a character actor in the lead role out of expedience or budget. Sometimes filmmakers want to let the world see just how special this actor on the periphery is. Whatever the reason, here's a list of five of the best character actors who have made classic movies when they ascended to the lead.

1. Warren Oates. With his droopy mouth and off-center face, Oates was the guy directors used to telegraph ROUGHNECK to the cheap seats. But Oates wasn't just any redneck peckerwood, but a powerhouse able to make the most stockish of stock characters bleed for you, and you for them. Consider his parts in the Peckinpah movies: the roughest Hammond brother in Ride The High Country, unwilling to bathe for his brother's wedding; the reddest of the Rebel soldiers in Major Dundee, who has a death scene that steals the whole damn movie away from Charlton Heston and Richard Harris; the skankier Gorch brother in The Wild Bunch, forever the butt of the joke. Phil Nugent just wrote a brilliant article about his all-too-small role in Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop, to which I'll link in lieu of adding anything. Then he popped up in Malick's Badlands as Sissy Spacek's doomed father, unprepared for the amoral type of generational backlash. That was the year before Hellman and Peckinpah independently put Oates front-and-center for two movies, each one among their finest, both impossibly uncommercial and both utterly raw and honest about the nature of human struggle and strife: Cockfighter and Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia.

Hellman's Cockfighter, which Paul Clark recently reviewed here, is stunningly simple. Oates plays Frank Mansfield, a competitive cockfighter who has taken a vow of silence until he wins the cockfighting championship. The sport - as unsportsmanlike as it is - is appalling, and the movie doesn't try to hide that. But the characters are immersed in it. Most of them being products of farm life, they don't even notice the dubious morality. It's hard to value the life of a chicken when you've raised them. The vow of silence, explained in a flashback, means that Oates hardly speaks a word in the whole movie, despite being in every scene. But Oates carries the character through body language alone, and there's no doubt whatsoever about who Mansfield is and what he's about. I can hardly think of another actor who could come close to doing what he does here. Paul neglected to mention my favorite scene, the last in the movie, where Mansfield rips the head off of a chicken and presents it, plumage upwards like a flower, to his disgusted lady love. It's equal measures horror and beauty. You will never forget it.

Peckinpah's Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia is another celebration of ugly beauty. It's unbelievable crude in parts, but it's the crudity of a master craftsman. Oates plays Bennie, a down-and-out pianist who takes a road trip through Mexico with his prostitute girlfriend to recover the head of her deceased ex-lover. A powerful man has put a bounty on the head, and Bennie sees the money as a way to turn his life around. He's very wrong. The movie follows him from debasement to debasement until there's nothing left, which is where he finds his last shred of dignity and humanity. I don't know if I can overemphasize the intensity of this movie, especially through the second half, but I will say that it's a completely rewarding and powerful experience, and no one other than Warren Oates could have played Bennie.

2. Forest Whitaker. Whitaker is a huge presence in the movies that he's in, but he's also always on the sidelines. He had almost no words in Fast Times At Ridgemont High. He smiled at Robin Williams a lot in Good Morning, Vietnam, for which he was awarded a Purple Heart. He played the lead in Bird, Clint Eastwood's stillborn ode to Charlie Parker, but let's not speak of that. Since Bird, he's made a lot of movies where he plays key supporting roles, often involving that "still waters run deep" face that he has perfected, where his smile is tempered by the pain in his eyes. However, Jim Jarmusch made him the lead again in Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai, which was batshit crazy enough to assert that the hulking Whitaker could be a whisper-silent urban ninja taking down hardened mobsters. Jarmusch's movies never bat an eye at the battiest behavior, and many of his movies allow guys with a character-actor affinity (like Johnny Depp and Bill Murray) to pretend they haven't moved up to the major leagues as leading men. But Ghost Dog was special sort of pastiche, a movie where the Wu-Tang Clan met The Sopranos in a Shaw Brothers kung fu movie. Well, there's no real kung fu in Ghost Dog, just the apparent agreement of everyone involved that kung fu is awesome. And Forest Whitaker, playing the same damaged-but-noble guy he often plays, makes you believe that this tremendous bear of a man is capable of these amazing feats of stealth and cunning.

3. Richard Farnsworth. Farnsworth went from stuntman to character actor to The Grey Fox and The Straight Story, all in 62 years. That's a heck of a career arc! Although he started off doing stunt in Westerns in the 1930s, his acting career didn't take off until the 1970s. His IMDB page shows that he appeared mostly uncredited and unnamed in a number of great movies in the early 70s, but by the end of the decade, he'd been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Comes A Horseman. In 1982, he played the lead in the entertaining train robber throwback The Grey Fox. Seventeen years later, David Lynch cast him as the lead in his only G-rated movie (produced by Disney!), The Straight Story. Lynch is fascinated by the weirdness that crops in on everyday life, and The Straight Story was both deeply weird and as wholesome as apple pie. Farnsworth plays the same old-timer that he usually played, but his Alvin Straight was a man who knew how to look beyond his limitations. In the movie, he leaves his mentally-challenged daughter (played by Sissy Spacek, who might have been a character actor if she hadn't crossed over to leading lady so early in her career) to travel across the Midwest by lawnmower so that he can make up with a long-estranged brother (Harry Dean Stanton, keeping the weirdness real). It's an amazing movie, and it was also his last film.

4. Takashi Shimura. Shimura, like Oates, has a great droopy face that carries the weight of the world. Perhaps he was a great star in Japan, but in almost all of the movies I've seen, he's the guy on the side. Toshiro Mifune usually plays a guy who either looks up to him or treats him like trash (if he even notices Shimura's character at all, that is), but in every case, Shimura's characters have been passed by time. His hangdog look is the crux of his lead role in Kurosawa's Ikiru, one of the finest films made by anyone in cinema's all-too-brief history. Ikiru (Japanese for "To Live") is about a bureaucrat who, upon discovering that he is dying, decides to leave a tiny little legacy after a lifetime of invisibility. It is also, by a large margin, the most tearjerking tearjerker ever made. Shimura is a master of conveying his character's every little emotion, often without saying a word, and one would need to have a heart of dust not to be moved by his final scene.

5. Klaus Kinski. Is Kinski a character actor or a leading man? I really don't know. I have not seen many of his pre-Herzog movies, but my impression is that he was too odd and spooky for leading man status. In For A Few Dollars More, he doesn't have much to do other than creep out everyone around him. I'd forgotten he was in Doctor Zhivago, which may say more about how long it's been since I watched it than his performance. None of his many, many spaghetti westerns seem to center on his character. But then Werner Herzog made put him front-and-center for Aguirre, Wrath of God, and thus loosed his insanity on the world, as ordained in the Book Of Revelations. Herzog and Kinski had a complicated relationship, to say the least. I'm fairly certain that Kinski had a complicated relationship with any and all other human beings and several inanimate objects, as well. As Burden of Dreams shows, Herzog was coming fairly close to completely losing his mind during the midpoint of their collaboration. Still, after being the Wrath of God, Kinski appeared as the lead in Herzog's remake of Nosferatu, then in Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, and Cobra Verde. All are worth a viewing, but none matches the greatness of Aguirre, Wrath of God. Kinski appeared in a number of other movies around the same time, mostly European productions. He doesn't appear to have played the lead in any of them. Too weird, as I say. Too uncontrollable. One would have to be used to exploring human behavior at its breaking point to even attempt to deal with Kinski's mad energy.

Set Your DVR!: November 3 - 10, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Whew! I'm happy that the Halloween season is over! I watched a ton of great movies, but I have horror fatigue. Let's see what the next week has to offer. There's some world-class movies on TV this week!

Mon, Nov 3:

10:30/11:30 am: The Man From Laramie on TCM. Anthony Mann Western with James Stewart. Not the best Mann Western, but it’ll do.

4:15/5:15 pm: I Am David on IFC. Paul “Freaks & Geeks” Feig directs a completely unfunny and somewhat mawkish film about a boy who escapes a Stalinist concentration camp and learns to love. Feig is awesome, but this movie is not. Consider this a warning.

7/8 pm: True Stories on VH1CL. David Byrne’s labor of love, a deliberately quirky look at America from one of its deliberately quirky pop culture figures.

8/9 pm: Me and You and Everyone We Know on IFC (repeat 11/4 at 12/1 am). Miranda July is cute and a little alienating. John Hawkes learned from Deadwood the fine art of saying everything he has to say with his eyebrows. Somehow, despite the nearly lethal levels of kookiness, July has made a movie with an enormous amount of heart.

Tues, Nov 4:

UPDATED!

9:05/10:05 am: The F Word on IFC (repeat at 4:05/5:05 pm). Catch the Screengrab's own Andrew Osborne as the character mysteriously named "Andrew!" Thanks to Scott Von D for the hat tip.

10:30/11:30 am: Grand Theft Parsons on IFC (repeat at 5:30/6:30 pm and on 11/5 at 4:55/5:55 am). Not a great movie, but it's about the untimely demise of Gram Parsons and what happened thereafter.

7/8 pm Decision at Sundown on TCM. Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott in a taut little no-budget Western. Not the best of their collaborations, but it's decent.

Wed, Nov 5:

9/10 am: The Straight Story on FX. David Lynch's G-rated film about an aging man who travels via lawnmower to make amends with his long-estranged brother. It's utterly fantastic.

11:30 am/12:30 pm: Burden of Dream on IFC. Les Blank's documentary about Werner Herzog's maddening attempts to make Fitzcarraldo. This is the rare film where the making-of documentary is better than the fiction. If you haven't seen it, this is essential viewing. You will reach the other side in greater awe of Herzog, nature, Kinski, madness, and the folly of human ambition.

12:30/1:30 pm: The Blue Gardenia on TCM. A scalding film noir by Fritz Lang.

8/9 pm: 24 Hour Party People on IFC (repeat on 11/6 at 12/1 am). Some of the Factory Records bands are stunning, and some (The Happy Mondays in particular) are dull and overrated. But Tony Wilson was mesmerizing, and Michael Winterbottom's postmodern bio makes the case for his greatness.

10/11 pm: The Filth and the Fury on IFC (repeat on 11/6 at 2/3 am). If you're curious about the Sex Pistols, this is the definitive documentary.

Thurs, Nov 6:

1:45/2:45 pm: The Awful Truth on TCM. Pretty much the greatest screwball comedy.

5:05/6:05 pm: Ride with the Devil on IFC (repeat on 11/7 at 4:40/5:40 am). Ang Lee's odd Civil War drama where everybody's on the wrong side of history.

Fri, Nov 7:

8/9 am: Heavenly Creatures on LOGO. Before the Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson directed this movie about the intensity of fantasy in a teenage friendship and the lengths to which two girls actually went (this is based on a true story) to keep themselves together.

Sat, Nov 8:

12:15/1:15 am: La Jetee on TCM. This is the best movie I've recommended yet, and it's only 28 minutes long. I recommend watching it twice in a row, then waiting two weeks and watching it again. See what you remember about it. Watch Vertigo again in the meantime.

1/2 am: The Trip on TCM. This is, like, whoa. And then you'll be all what? And then, man, like, you know, then, you'll get it. And you'll be all really? But you'll know.

7/8 am: Sanshiro Sugata II on IFC. Kurosawa's third film, the sequel to his first. The climactic scene is scarred pretty badly, but Kurosawa's eye is as sharp as ever.

9:30/10:30 am: Picnic at Hanging Rock on IFC (repeat at 4:15/5:15 pm and on 11/9 at 4/5 am). Peter Weir's second feature film, this is an existential horror film. Several girls and a teacher disappear on an outing to Hanging Rock. One girl turns up mysteriously days later. The disparity between the proper Victorian British and the great untamed Australian Outback serves to heighten the oddness of this movie.

Sun, Nov 9:

7/8 am: Amarcord on IFC. The most felliniesque of Fellini films. One of his last major films. I have never thought it was as good as 8 1/2, but it still packs a punch.

9:05/10:05 am: Umberto D on IFC. De Sica's neorealist classic about an old man cast aside by society. Prepare for tears and a greater awareness of the plight of the elderly. You'll never be able to name a dog "Flike."

9:15/10:15 am: The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek on TCM. What a conundrum! Umberto D and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek playing at the same time! This is a fantastic, censor-baiting Preston Sturges comedy. Eddie Bracken may not be the greatest male lead ever, but the jokes come hard and fast.

1:15/2:15 pm: The Cars That Ate Paris on IFC. Peter Weir's first feature film. I've never seen it, but it's bound to be interesting.

8/9 pm: Wild at Heart on IFC (repeat on 11/10 at 2/3 am). This may be David Lynch's worst film. Or maybe it's the one with Sting. Hard to say, but there's still something worthwhile in each.

Mon, Nov 10:

8:20/9:20 am: The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years on IFC (repeat at 3/4 pm). Don't let too many years pass without watching Ozzy make breakfast.

2:45/3:45 pm: Becket on TCM. It's Oscar-bait, sure, but not a bad movie.

Set Your DVR!: October 27 - November 3, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Halloween week means more vintage horror! TCM in particular is even exceeding their own high standards this week, shoehorning in a night of Billy Wilder on Tuesday (nothing is recommended because everything is fairly well-known) and a few film noir classics on Wednesday before cranking up the scary on Thursday. As always, let me know in comments if you see something I shouldn’t have missed!

Mon, Oct 27:

11 am/12 pm: An American Werewolf in London on AMC. As I said last week, it’s not a great movie, but it has a few iconic scenes.

Tues, Oct 28:

5/6 am: The Invisible Man on AMC. Based on Ralph Ellison’s classic novel of race in America... whoops, that’s not right. No one’s ever made that movie. This is James Whale’s classic horror film starring Claude Rains.

6:45/7:45 am: Bride of Frankenstein on AMC. And this is James Whale’s frankenlady movie.

7/8 am: The Desperate Hours on TCM. Neat little thriller about convicts on the lam starring Humphrey Bogart.

11 pm/12 am: An American Werewolf in London on AMC. Repeat.

Wed, Oct 29:

1/2 pm: An American Werewolf in London on AMC. Repeat. Last time I’m going to mention it, in fact.

7/8 pm: Murder, My Sweet on TCM. Killer adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely.

10:45/11:45 pm: Out of the Past on TCM. Film noir classic with Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas. Directed by Jacques Tourneur, who also made three of the Val Lewton-produced no-budget horror films we’re recommending this week.

Thurs, Oct 30:

12:30/1:30 am: They Live By Night on TCM. Earlier movie based on the same source material as Robert Altman’s Thieves Like Us, which is one of his most underappreciated movies.

3/4 am: House of Wax on CHILLER. Vincent Price’s classic. Note: You will not see Paris Hilton in this movie.

3:45/4:45 am: The Thing From Another World on TCM. Howard Hawks directing an early sci-fi/horror movie. The John Carpenter movie The Thing was a remake.

6:30/7:30 am: The Beast with Five Fingers on TCM. FIVE WHOLE FINGERS! YAAAAAARGH!

7:30/8:30 am: 8 Women on LOGO. Francois Ozon assembles every major French actress of our time for a half-musical/half-murder mystery.

8/9 am: I Walked With A Zombie on TCM. Jacques Tourneur doing horror on a Val Lewton production.

9:15/10:15 am: Curse of the Demon on TCM. Recut version of the horror film Night of the Demon. Directed by Jacques Tourneur applying what he has learned from doing horror on Val Lewton productions.

10:45/11:45 am: Gerry on IFC (repeat at 4/5 pm and on 11/31 at 4:10/5:10 am). I just keep recommending it!

5:30/6:30 pm: House of Usher on TCM. Roger Corman! Vincent Price! Edgar Allan Poe! You might be surprised to learn that this is a tender romantic comedy.

7/8 pm: Dead of Night on TCM. Creepy little horror anthology from Ealing Studios. And no Sir Alec Guinness to be found!

Fri, Oct 31:

A quick note: TCM owns Halloween programming. You can’t go wrong with anything they’re showing all day.

1/2 am: Kwaidan on TCM. A beloved Japanese horror anthology.

3:45/4:45: Spirits of the Dead on TCM. A triptych of short films from Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini (which of these names is not like the others?). I’ve never seen it, but the cast of Jane Fonda, Brigitte Bardot, Terence Stamp, and Alain Delon sounds promising.

6:30/7:30 am: Cat People on TCM. More Lewton & Tourneur!

7/8 am: The Honeymoon Killers on IFC. Still brilliant, still vile.

8/9 am: Freaks on TCM.

8:30/9:30 am: Halloween on AMC. Halloween? Hasn’t everyone seen this? I suspect that some people have forgotten how effective it is with almost no budget and no special effects.

9:15/10:15 am: The Devil Doll on TCM. How many ways can I say “creepy”? This one’s directed by the creator of Freaks, Tod Browning.

2:30/3:30 pm: The Body Snatcher on TCM. More Val Lewton! With Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi!

4/5 pm: Bedlam on TCM. And even more Val Lewton! This one’s with just Karloff.

7/8 pm: The Host on G4. Korean horror movie with great special effects and a cruel sense of humor.

Sat, Nov 1:

1/2 am: The Host on G4 (repeats at 11/12 am).

1:30/2:30 am: Blood Feast on TCM. Things start getting ugly overnight at TCM. This is a challenger to Plan 9 From Outer Space for the coveted Worst Movie Ever award. Highly recommended! Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, whom you can read more about in our very own Scott Von Doviak’s excellent book Hick Flicks, which is a perfect stocking-stuffer for the film geek in your family.

2:45/3:45 am: 2,000 Maniacs on TCM. A follow-up to Blood Feast. I understand that the name is misleading, as Lewis only had to budget for 1,986 maniacs.

3/4 am: The Blob on CHILLER (Repeat at 6:00 am/7:00 am). Steve McQueen in the no-budget flick that might just be a parable about the insidious effects of CREEPING COMMUNISM! BOOGA BOOGA! Starring Barack Obama’s tax policies as The Blob and Sarah Palin as the small-town mayor who knows how to stop it. If only the people will listen!

5:15/6:15 am: Forbidden Planet on TCM. Ah, the horror is starting to subside. What better way to recover than a movie that puts Shakespeare’s The Tempest in space?

7/8 am: My Darling Clementine on AMC. One of the finest classic Westerns of all time. Starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford.

7/8 am: Sanshiro Sugata on IFC. Akira Kurosawa’s first film, this is a standard issue wuxia film in terms of plot and progression, but with Kurosawa’s unerring eye behind the lens, there’s moments of stunning beauty to be found. Unreleased on DVD, and a must for Kurosawa fanatics.

9:30/10:30 am: The Last Wave on IFC (repeat at 2:45/3:45 pm). Richard Chamberlain’s most shocking role (in which discernible acting can be detected!) about apocalyptic aboriginal weirdness in Australia. Directed by Peter Weir.

Sun, Nov 2:

Happy birthday to my mom and my brother-in-law Jeff!

7/8 am: Solaris on IFC. This is the Tarkovsky original, not the Soderbergh remake. A deeply sad, meditative movie about love and self and Otherness. I’m being purposely vague, but this review is only two sentences, and this movie deserves much more than that.

8:30/9:30 am: Macbeth on TCM. Orson Welles’s Macbeth with the bad accents and great filmmaking.

5:35/6:35 pm: The New World on IFC. Terrence Malick’s film about how struggle defines all human relationships, despite the transcendental indifference of nature. Did I just write that? This is easily one of the best films of the last decade, so just watch it.

8/9 pm: The Proposition on IFC (repeat on 11/3 at 1:15/2:15 am). John Hillcoat’s Aussie Western written by Nick Cave. It wants to be a Peckinpah movie, but it’s not even a Boetticher. That’s not to say it’s worthless, but it bites off more than it can chew. Hillcoat’s the director of the upcoming adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which I hope is better than this.

9:45/10:45 pm: The Year of Living Dangerously on TCM. Remember when Mel Gibson could act? Good times. Oh, ok. This is most definitely not a good time. Directed by Peter Weir.

11 pm/12 am (11/3): True Stories on VH1CL (repeat on 11/3 at 7/8 pm). It’s not a good movie, but it’s fun. This is David Byrne’s labor of love, a deliberately quirky look at America from one of its deliberately quirky pop culture figures. The Talking Heads songs aren’t their best, but they’re pretty good, and pretty good looks good from here.

Mon, Nov 3:

3/4 am: Isle of the Dead on CHILLER. Another Val Lewton production! Why is it on after Halloween? Apparently CHILLER has started the Halloween 2009 season early.

5:05/6:05 am: Tom Dowd & the Language of Music on IFC (repeat at 12:30/1:30 pm). Delightful documentary about the man with the golden ear who flawlessly recorded some of the greats of 20th century music.

10:05/11:05 am: The New World on IFC. Repeat.

10:30/11:30 am: The Man From Laramie on TCM. Anthony Mann Western with James Stewart. Not the best Mann Western, but it’ll do.

8/9 pm: Me and You and Everyone We Know on IFC (repeat 11/4 at 12/1 am). Miranda July is cute and a little alienating. John Hawkes learned from Deadwood the fine art of saying everything he has to say with his eyebrows. Somehow, despite the nearly lethal levels of quirk, July has made a movie with an enormous amount of heart.

DVD Digest for October 21, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week, a Japanese master gets the Eclipse treatment, and the first wave of 007 Blu-Rays hits the shelves.

DVD of the Week: To those who are getting acquainted with Japanese cinema, the three biggest names to know have long been Kurosawa, Ozu, and Mizoguchi. But while the first two directors have been getting the DVD treatment for years, only a handful of Mizoguchi’s best-known films (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) have been released on DVD. This week, Eclipse is taking steps to rectify this, by gathering four of the master’s greatest achievements in a lovely box set. Entitled Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women, the box set includes four of Mizoguchi’s finest and most poetic films about the plight of Japanese courtesans and geishas, a subject to which he’d return numerous times throughout his career. Two of the inclusions are pre-war titles- Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion- while the others came after World War II, those being 1948’s Women of the Night and his final feature, Street of Shame. One of the most interesting aspects of the box set is seeing the differences between how he observes his subjects pre-WWII and post-WWII. As for the films’ other (considerable) pleasures, I’ll leave those for you to discover.

This week’s recent releases coming to DVD are headed up by two Universal releases which costar Liv Tyler, The Incredible Hulk (Universal, also Blu-Ray) and The Strangers (Universal, also Blu-Ray). But those more adventurous viewers out there shouldn’t require much persuading to watch Hou Hsiao-hsien’s first feature made outside of Asia, Flight of the Red Ballooni (Genius), starring the ever-enchanting Juliette Binoche. Also of note: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Universal), and Anaconda 3: Offspring (Sony).

On the classics front, Warner will be releasing two new DVD sets of Looney Tunes favorites: Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 6 and Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volume 6. And Criterion will be represented this week with their new DVD pressing of Missing. Finally, James Bond is back with new “Collector’s Editions” of both versions of Casino Royale- both the late-sixties lark (MGM) and the lean, mean 2006 take on the story (Sony, also Blu-Ray).

In TV on DVD news, this week brings the latest box set for the seemingly deathless animated phenomenon, Family Guy Volume 6 (Fox). Or if you’re looking for something less oppressively “hip”, today also brings a handful of old-school series: The Incredible Hulk: The Complete Series (Universal), The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series (Warner), and The Outer Limits: The Complete Series (Fox).

Finally, the big Blu-Ray only news this week is the release of the first six MGM-made James Bond titles in the format. James Bond Blu-Ray Box Set Volume 1 (Fox/MGM) includes Dr. No, Live and Let Die, and Die Another Day, while Volume 2 (Fox/MGM) contains From Russia With Love, Thunderball, and For Your Eyes Only. I suppose we’ll have to wait for volume 3 to get more of Connery’s classics, but it should prove worth the wait. Also this week, the bloody trio of Diary of the Dead (Weinstein), Halloween (2007) (Weinstein), and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Paramount).

DVD Digest for July 22, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week, Criterion gives DVD buyers a re-pressing of an old favorite and a new version of a classic. Also, plenty of Blu-Ray for your enjoyment, provided you’re not in the market for good movies.

DVD of the Week: Years ago, Criterion released four of Carl Th. Dreyer’s greatest films in deluxe versions, but his 1932 classic Vampyr has only been available in a subpar transfer from Image. Until now, that is. This week, Vampyr finally gets the treatment it richly deserves in a new two-disc set from the folks at Criterion. Along with both German- and English-credited versions of the film, the DVD contains a commentary from film scholar Tony Rayns, a 1966 documentary about Dreyer’s work, a radio broadcast of Dreyer speaking about filmmaking, and much more. Even the insert is indispensible, containing not only essays on the film, but a book featuring the film’s original screenplay as well as the story on which it was based. Naturally, any DVD version of a Dreyer film is a must for any serious film lover, but to see one of his most significant works given the top-shelf treatment like this is magnificent news.

Also this week, Criterion is re-releasing Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low in a new version featuring several new features, plus a new high-definition transfer. So if you didn’t pick up the film last time around, now’s your chance.

In a slow week for new movies coming to DVD, today brings the release of the college-students-taking-on-Vegas thriller 21 (Sony, also Blu-Ray), Famke Janssen in Turn the River (Universal), and the John C. Reilly/Seann William Scott comedy The Promotion (Weinstein).

On the TV-on-DVD front, the big news this week is the long-awaited Region 1 release of Spaced: The Complete Series (Warner). Fans of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz will finally be able to get a taste of the series that introduced to the world the stars (Simon Pegg, Nick Frost) and director (Edgar Wright) of those films, along with the witty, pop-culture-savvy brand of humor that made those movies fanboy favorites. Also this week: Las Vegas Season 5 (Universal).

Finally, coming this week to Blu-Ray only: the Sony horror trifecta of I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Urban Legend; Universal’s Mummy trilogy of The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and The Scorpion King; and The Perfect Storm (Warner). And if you’re actually waiting for good movies to come out on Blu-Ray, take heart- October is only three months away.

DVD Digest for March 25, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:00:00 GMT

D'oh! While I was at work today avoiding doing anything of importance, I discovered that I'd completely forgotten the release of David Lynch's Lost Highway. Then arrived home only to find that Eclipse's William Klein box set has been pushed back to May. Some days, I wonder if I'm not better off staying in bed.

DVD of the Week Two Months From Now: In a week with no truly noteworthy new films or world-beating classics arriving on DVD for the first time, I'd like to throw some light on Eclipse's awesome-looking box set, The Delirious Fictions of William Klein. I say "awesome-looking" because I haven't been able to catch up with any of his fiction films before now, and I only know his work by his 1969 film Muhammad Ali, The Greatest. Klein was an acclaimed photographer before making the leap to cinema — and to France — and his fiction films were biting social satires that starred a number of leading French actors of the day, including Delphine Seyrig, Sami Frey, and Andre Dussolier. All due respect to Eclipse's treatments of lesser-known works by Ozu, Lubitsch, and Kurosawa, but I believe that box sets like this one and last year's Raymond Bernard box are even more valuable to lovers of film, spotlighting unique works by fascinating filmmakers that wouldn't see the light of day otherwise. Sadly, now that I've whetted your appetite for William Klein, now you'll have to wait until May 20 to purchase this box, due to a last-minute schedule change by Eclipse. Oh well- at least now you know.

Also of note this week is Warner's Two-Disc Special Edition of Bonnie and Clyde (also Blu-Ray), which is available by itself or as part of a, "Ultimate Colector's Edition" containing plenty of memorabilia. Also of note is The Warner Bros. Pictures Gangsters Collection Vol. 3, featuring six films including Black Legion (1937), Brother Orchid (1940), Lady Killer (1933), Mayor of Hell (1933), Picture Snatcher (1933), and Smart Money (1931). In addition, MGM releases three DVD editions of the Yul Brynner vehicles Kings of the Sun, Solomon and Sheba, and Taras Bulba. And let's not forget the extended cut of Walk the Line (Fox).

By comparison, the pickings for new films on DVD is pretty meager, with only The Kite Runner (Paramount) and Jimmy Carter Man From Plains (Sony) arriving in stores. But collectors of TV on DVD have a bigger selection to choose from, with Universal releasing Battlestar Galactica: Season Three, Sliders Season 4, and The Invisible Man Season 1, and Sony countering with Party of Five Season 3 and all new editions of all five seasons of The Shield.

Finally, the beloved Mr. Huddleston is taking a week's vacation from this column, with no HD releases hitting the shelves today. How long this well-deserved rest will be remains to be seen.

Akira Kurosawa Drops the Bomb

Phil Nugent — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Everyone knows that Godzilla was, in its original context, a metaphor for the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, and by now a number of commentators have made the leap of seeing Cloverfield, whose advance publicity cited the veteran thunder lizard as some kind of role model, as either addressing or exploiting the memory of 9/11. Actually, American filmmakers have been trying, in one way or another, to deal with 9/11 in movies ranging from Oliver Stone's World Trade Center to Spielberg's The War of the Worlds to such indies as The Great New Wonderful. And Japanese filmmakers, including some of the greatest, took their best shot at dealing with the bomb and its aftermath, often in movies without rubber monster suits. Writing in Slate, Fred Kaplan argues that "If someone should feel compelled to make a film about 9/11 — specifically, about the social and psychic toll that the attacks have and haven't taken — a good model would be Akira Kurosawa's I Live in Fear, a relatively little-known film by perhaps the most revered of all Japanese filmmakers that's just been issued on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection's Eclipse series. The movie stars Toshiro Mifune as an industrialist who becomes obsessed with protecting himself from the bomb and from radioactive fallout. His solution is to sell his company and move himself and his entire family to Brazil — a plan that inspires his three sons to try to get him declared nuts so that they won't lose their share of the family business. (Kurosawa often openly ransacked Shakespeare for his movies, and this thread of the plot suggests King Lear turned inside out for the nuclear age.)

The punchline is that Mifune's character really does go mad and winds up being institutionalized — in response to the shattering realization that even exile to Brazil wouldn't be enough to ensure his safety in the event of a nuclear war. The punchline to the punchline is that, in Kurosawa's vision of "a world in which the most dreadful dangers are shrugged off as routine", the man locked up as crazy is the only one who seems to have trouble simply adjusting to the ever-present danger of being wiped out at the touch of a button. ("Sirens wail in the background all through this film; it's not clear what kinds of sirens [police, ambulance, air-raid drills?], and nobody pays attention anyway." This is, as Kaplan points out, "a rather unsubtle message, but Kurosawa compensates with an understated visual style. According to his autobiography, he started using three cameras around this time, letting them all roll while the actors played the whole scene as if in a stage play, then choosing the best angles in the editing room. It gives the film a documentary feel — many scenes are shot from behind the characters — as if we're peeking in on a slice of life." It also captures something that Kurosawa himself must have felt to the marrow — though he may never have addressed the subject again so explicitly, he was playing with images of nuclear devastation as late as thirty-five years later, in the 1990 Dreams. As it happened, the idea of a man set apart from his society because of his inability to deal with the thought of its destruction turned out to be a pretty good metaphor for the movie itself. Made in 1955, it not only bombed in Japan but didn't play in the American until it was shown at the 1963 New York Film Festival; it received limited U.S. theatrical release in 1967. It was issued on VHS back in 2001, but at no point has it ever — you'll excuse the expression — set the world on fire.

DVD Digest for January 15, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week's DVD Digest is a bit slow for new Hollywood fare, but the wide array of foreign-language films and classics should more than compensate.

DVD of the Week: This week's most intriguing new DVD for lovers of classic film is Eclipse Series 7: Post-War Kurosawa. The Criterion Collection launched Eclipse last year to distribute box sets of their lesser-known titles, from semi-forgotten works of acknowledged masters (Ingmar Bergman) to films by more obscure auteurs (Raymond Bernard), in modestly-priced editions. Post-War Kurosawa is certainly in that vein, spotlighting five of the director's early films, made between 1946 and 1955. The films run the gamut from courtroom dramas to political epics, with nary a samurai in sight. Of particular interest is 1946's No Regrets for Our Youth, Kurosawa's first film after World War II and his first of two collaborations with Ozu's muse Setsuko Hara. Other films in the set are I Live in Fear (1955), The Idiot (1951), One Wonderful Sunday (1947), and Scandal (1950). As with all Eclipse releases, there are no features to speak of in the Post-War Kurosawa box, but in my mind, the chance to delve into an as-yet-underexplored corner of a master filmmaker's career is special enough.

As I said before, it's a light week for recent Hollywood releases. Aside from the double feature of New Line's Mr. Woodcock and Lionsgate's Good Luck Chuck (also available on Blu-Ray, a DVD duo for those with more money than sense), you're pretty much stuck with direct-to-DVD fare like Sony's Already Dead and Love Lies Bleeding, and MGM's Wedding Daze. However, for the more arthouse-oriented buyer, I would recommend the Region 1 release of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century (Strand). a movie which came this close to cracking my top 10 of 2007.

New TV on DVD includes The New Adventures of Old Christine, Season 1 (Warner), The Rockford Files Season 5, and the latest installment in the seemingly deathless phenomenon, Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest. Wow, a Family Guy special with plenty of pop-culture references- who saw that coming?

But don't fret. This week finds a solid selection of classics for your home viewing pleasure. Criterion is represented by a snazzy edition of Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1966). MGM is finally releasing on DVD Spike Lee's 1986 breakthrough She's Gotta Have It. You can gear up for the upcoming Oscar nominations with 1967's Best Picture winner In the Heat of the Night in a new 40th Anniversary Edition from MGM. You could spend time with romance favorites classic (Fox's An Affair to Remember 50th Anniversary Edition) and modern (MGM's When Harry Met Sally Collector's Edition). Or you can even geek out with Sony's Ray Harryhausen double feature Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and It Came From Beneath the Sea, both available in two-disc special editions. But you get my point. Don't let the lack of contemporary releases get you down- there are plenty of classics to keep you going all week.

Take Five: Filmic Youth

Peter Smith — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Many years ago, a friend of mine coined the term "The Coppola Line". An artistic equivalent of baseball's Mendoza Line (the .200 batting average below which a hitter is considered detrimental to his team despite any defensive abilities he might possess), the Coppola Line was the point at which someone's bad work outweighed the value of his good work. If you made six good movies and five bad ones, you were above the Coppola Line; if you recorded three good albums and four bad ones, you were below it. It was named, of course, for Francis Ford Coppola, the man who best epitomized this dreadful ratio, who made some of the finest films in American cinema in the 1970s before cranking out dud after dud in the 1980s and 1990s. With his eagerly anticipated movie, Youth Without Youth — releasing this Friday — he hopes to become the first filmmaker named Coppola to rise back above the Coppola Line after sinking below it. The motion picture business, only slightly less a youth-centered industry than the music biz, has always been obsessed with youth, so if Youth Without Youth turns out to be another stinker, here are some 'youth movies' that will help make up for it.

ASSASSIN OF YOUTH (1937)

Lest you think that anti-drug hysteria is a relatively recent development in American culture, look back to this grade-Z production from the Depression, when apparently people didn't have anything to worry about other than the notion that smoking the devil weed might turn their children into murderous zombies. Starring a cast of no-names in roles so flat they can't even be called caricature, Assassin of Youth can still be enjoyed on an ironic level, preferably while stoned: it's the kind of raving, no-budget hackwork that makes Reefer Madness look like an even-handed documentary.

SPIRIT OF YOUTH (1938)

Widely considered one of the greatest boxers of all time, Joe "The Brown Bomber" Louis only appeared in one film, which should clue you in that he wasn't quite as gifted as an actor. Still, there're a few reasons to recommend this film, which was meant to be a loose parallel of his fighting career and was released during his second year as reigning heavyweight champion. Louis has no chops talking in front of the camera, but he's grace in motion when he gets the chance to fight, and the movie is one of the few where Mantan Moreland is given the opportunity to show some actual acting skills and not just behave as a comic stereotype. The DVD release of Spirit of Youth can be seen all over America, unlike the movie's theatrical release — it was not shown in many Southern theaters for fear that the audience would become enraged at the sight of a black fighter defeating white opponents.

NO REGRETS FOR MY YOUTH (1946)

An early film from Akira Kurosawa, this one is known as Waga seishun ni kuinashi at home, but in any language, it's a prime building block in what would become one of the greatest careers in cinema. The story of a college professor who is removed from his post for opposing the war against China, No Regrets for My Youth is one of the first Japanese films to speak out openly against the fascist regime that took power in the 1930s — and that's not the only taboo it breaks, as it deals, as openly as possible given the time and place of its making, with homosexuality. As if all that's not enough to tempt you to hunt down the DVD, it also features a character nicknamed "The Poisoned Strawberry".

SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH (1962)

Hollywood generally didn't know how to handle Tennessee Williams. Much of the sexuality (especially homosexuality) in his plays had to be removed or toned down to placate the censors of the time, and unless handled just right, his florid dialogue, so powerful on stage, could come off as campy on screen. Writer/director Richard Brooks did a pretty decent job in this adaptation, abetted by a great cast that included a young, handsome Paul Newman as a zooted-out drifter, Geraldine Page (light-years removed from her later dowdy-matron roles) as a sex kitten, and Ed Begley and Rip Torn gnawing on the scenery as a powerful southern lawman and his jealous son.

YOUTH OF THE BEAST (1963)

Seijun Suzuki's Yaju no seishun (usually translated as Youth of the Beast) is one of his finest slices of deranged yakuza action — and as such, it's one of the movies that helped get him blackballed from the industry for decades. Like most of his films, it's a demented ball of non-stop energy, filled with fantastic eye candy, crazily giddy performances (especially an all-time classic role from Jo Shishido as the relentless young gangster of the title), and stylistically sexualized violence. Recently released in a jam-packed Criterion Collection edition, Youth of the Beast is living proof of why the Japanese film industry couldn't figure out what do do with Suzuki for the longest time.

— Leonard Pierce

Today in the Nerve Film Lounge: Juno, Atonement, The Golden Compass, Grace is Gone, Billy the Kid, The Walker, Drunken Angel

Peter Smith — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Juno: "Less than the sum of its parts, but those parts are so entertaining that you don't mind too much."

Atonement: "Refreshingly old school."

The Golden Compass: "Fails to convincingly establish its world or the people that inhabit it."

Grace is Gone: "Too calculated to surprise."

Billy the Kid: "A higher grade of filmmaking than an episode of MTV's True Life. It explores Billy's relationship with his mother and others with real insight."

The Walker: "What might have been a first-rate character study instead devolves into a routine morass of Beltway intrigue."

Drunken Angel: "The film could have been a pat tale of redemption, but Kurosawa leaves its allegorical dimensions wide open and keeps his sentimental streak at bay."