My 100 Favorite Movies, 2020 Edition

If I do this, will I be the last living blogger?

Anyway, I mainly used this blog to keep track of lists. Here's an updated list of my favorite movies, ranked 1 to 100 (101, actually) in a swift and poorly-considered way.

1. The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)

2. The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)

3. Rio Bravo (Hawks, 1959)

4. Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955)

5. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971)

6. Playtime (Tati, 1967)

7. The Searchers (Ford, 1956)

8. Singin' In The Rain (Donen, 1952)

9. La Jetee (Marker, 1962)

10. Badlands (Malick, 1973)

11. Rushmore (Anderson, 1998)

12. Yojimbo (Kurosawa, 1961)

13. Ride The High Country (Peckinpah, 1962)

14. Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955)

15. No Country For Old Men (Coen, 2007)

16. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)

17. The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939)

18. Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952)

19. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Weir, 2003)

20. Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)

21. Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Anderson, 2003)

22. The Grand Budapest Hotel (W Anderson, 2014)

23. The Shining (Kubrick, 1980)

24. Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2002)

25. Dead Man (Jarmusch, 1995)

26. The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963)

27. Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)

28. The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959)

29. True Grit (Coens, 2010)

30. The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946)

31. The Lady Eve (Sturges, 1941)

32. Moonrise Kingdom (Anderson, 2012)

33. Inherent Vice (PT Anderson, 2014)

34. Cleo From 5 To 7 (Varda, 1962)

35. Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (Raimi, 1987)

36. Young Frankenstein (Brooks, 1974)

37. Paris, Texas (Wenders, 1984)

38. Boudu Saved From Drowning (Renoir, 1932)

39. Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)

40. Band of Outsiders (Godard, 1964)

41. Sullivan's Travels (Sturges, 1942)

42. The Wages of Fear (Clouzot, 1953)

43. Boyhood (Linklater, 2014)

44. F For Fake (Welles, 1976)

45. Touch of Evil (Welles, 1958)

46. M (Lang, 1931)

47. The Grand Illusion (Renoir, 1938)

48. Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellman, 1971)

49. L'Atalante (Vigo, 1934)

50. Bob Le Flambeur (Melville, 1955)

51. Duck Soup (McCarey, 1933)

52. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Lang, 1933)

53. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (Leone, 1966)

54. Parasite (Joon-ho, 2019)

55. The Iron Giant (Bird, 1999)

56. Week End (Godard, 1967)

57. Out Of The Past (Tourneur, 1947)

58. Mon Oncle (Tati, 1958)

59. Diabolique (Clouzot, 1954)

60. There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007)

61. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong, 2010)

62. I'm Not There (Haynes, 2007)

63. Ghost World (Zwigoff, 2001)

64. Gerry (Van Sant, 2002)

65. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)

66. Stagecoach (Ford, 1939)

67. Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah, 1974)

68. Always For Pleasure (Blank, 1995)

69. The General (Keaton, 1927)

70. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)

71. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)

72. Toni Erdmann (Ade, 2016)

73. Children of Men (Cuaron, 2006)

74. Meek's Cutoff (Reichardt, 2010)

75. Killer of Sheep (Burnett, 1977)

76. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Demy, 1964)

77. Persona (Bergman, 1966)

78. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)

79. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (Ford, 1962)

80. The Thin Blue Line (Morris, 1988)

81. Human Resources (Cantet, 1999)

82. Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015)

83. Topsy-Turvy (Leigh, 1999)

84. High and Low (Kurosawa, 1963)

85. The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1965)

86. La Ronde (Ophuls, 1950)

87. The Godfather Part II (Coppola, 1974)

88. A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1957)

89. Little Dieter Needs To Fly (Herzog, 1997)

90. The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941)

91. Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)

92. Aguirre, Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)

93. Gun Crazy (Lewis, 1950)

94. Cockfighter (Hellman, 1974)

95. Harlan County, USA (Kopple, 1976)

96. Nosferatu (Murnau, 1929)

97. Paterson (Jarmusch, 2016)

98. My Dinner With Andre (Malle, 1981)

99. L'Avventura (Antonioni, 1960)

100. Scarface (Hawks, 1932)

101. A Christmas Tale (Desplechin, 2008)

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 1.11 and 1.12 plus Citizen U.S.A.

In which I discuss "The Great Divide" and "The Storm."

In which I discuss Alexandra Pelosi's frustrating documentary.

At The AV Club: American Experience - "Soundtrack To A Revolution"

In which I review an excellent documentary about the Civil Rights Movement that is marred only a tiny bit by a gimmicky conceit.

At The AV Club: Precious Life

In which I write about an Israeli documentary appearing on HBO that has some startlingly great moments.

The Moviegoer: May - August 2010

I started this post two months ago!  But I didn't finish it before I moved cross-country and failed to finish anything.  And I have, unfortunately, been very bad about keeping accurate records of my media consumption over the last few months.  But here's what I have, following from the last installment here.

30. The Informant!: B+
31. Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans: B-
32. The Abyss: D
33. Recount: B+
34. Last Tango In Paris: C+
35. Hellboy II: The Golden Army: B
36. You Don't Know Jack: B+
37. Rosemary's Baby: A+
38. Moon: B+
39. Zombieland: B+
40. Observe and Report: F
41. Becket: B+
42. Knife In The Water: A
43. The Ladykillers (2004): C-
44. The Best Years Of Our Life: B
45. Ghost Town: B-
46. Putney Swope: C
47. The Dead: A
48. The Asphalt Jungle: A
49. Frost/Nixon: B
50. Greaser's Palace: B+
51. They Live By Night: B+
52. Castle In The Sky: A-
53. Humpday: A-
54. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: B
55. The Incredible Hulk: B
56. Funny People: B
57. X Men Origins: Wolverine: D
58. Temple Grandin: B+
59. Orphan: C+
60. John Adams: B+
61. To Kill a Mockingbird: B+
62. Toy Story 3: A
63. MST3K: Secret Agent Super Dragon: B
64. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic: B-
65. Jason and the Argonauts: B+
66. The Lavender Hill Mob: B+
67. Godzilla: King of the Monsters: B+
68. Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior: B
69. A Town Called Panic: A
70. Louis CK: Chewed Up: A-
71. For All Mankind: A-
72. MST3K: The Beatniks: B-
73. Monkey Business: A

Books Read:

1 Dead In Attic by Chris Rose
The Hundred Days by Patrick O'Brien
Across The Great Divide: The Band And America by Barney Hoskyns
Come Along With Me by Shirley Jackson
Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Set Your DVR: TCM Goes Kurosawa-Crazy!

Akira Kurosawa would be 100 years old this month if he were alive, and in honor of the man, TCM is showing Kurosawa flicks every Tuesday.  Many of these aren't available on DVD, and even those that are available are among the best films of the 20th century.

Tonight, there's Ikiru (*****), Throne of Blood (****), The Hidden Fortress (****), Hakuchi (unavailable on DVD, I think), and The Lower Depths (which I've never seen).

On the 16th is The Bad Sleep Well (**1/2), High And Low (*****), Red Beard (****), and I Live In Fear (***1/2).

On the 23rd (which is actually Kurosawa's birthday): Sanshiro Sugata (**1/2), The Most Beautiful (unavailable on DVD, haven't seen), The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (unavailable on DVD, haven't seen), Sanshiro Sugata II (**1/2), Regrets For Our Youth (haven't seen), One Wonderful Sunday (haven't seen), Drunken Angel (***), Stray Dog (****), Rashomon (****), Seven Samurai (*****), Yojimbo (*****), Sanjuro (***1/2), and Dodes 'Ka-Den (haven't seen).

On the 30th, there's Dersu Uzala (haven't seen), Kagemusha (**1/2), and Ran (****1/2).

I seriously encourage anyone who has never watched a Kurosawa film to catch at least one of these. The guy was one of the best filmmakers of the 20th century, if not The Best. Considering that he was a Japanese man making films in the 50s and 60s, it's pretty amazing how well his movies translate to modern Western audiences, but that's mostly because he stole shamelessly from American and European directors and, in turn, some of the most influential filmmakers of today stole shamelessly from him. His films are full of beautiful cinematography and well-observed moments of pure human behavior for the art set, while still fun and witty and action-packed for more mainstream tastes.

The Moviegoer: January - February 2010

Just a few movies in the first two month of the new year.  These aren't all new to me, but I'm trying to keep an accurate log of all movies that I've screened.

1. The Good Fairy (1935): A
2. The Return of the Jedi (1983): B
3. Inglorious Basterds (2009): B
4. Fires On The Plain (1959): A
5. Passing Strange (2009): A-
6. Young@Heart (2008): B+
7. Performance (1970): D (I still can't stand Nic Roeg, sorry)
8. I'm Not There (2007): A+
9. Grey Gardens (1975): B+
10. Frankenstein (1931): B+
11. Capturing The Friedmans (2003): A
12. Scott Walker: 30th Century Man (2006): B
13. The Hurt Locker (2009): B
14. The Ladykillers (1955): A-
15. The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009): A
16. Sleeping Beauty (1959): B+

Negative Space: Farber On Film and Inherent Vice

I wonder what Manny Farber thought about Thomas Pynchon.  There's no question that the guy had an opinion because he had an opinion about everything, although he took great pains to make his position as abstract as possible.  But Farber On Film doesn't include any of Farber's writing on art and I don't believe that he wrote about literature at all, so it is possible that I will never know what Farber actually thought about Pynchon unless Jonathan Rosenbaum or another such friend of Farber's drops by to chat.

Luckily, I have the power of conjecture and no obligations to any higher authority than the proprietor of this blog, who is, according to the note at the bottom of the page, me.  So I'll surmise that Farber read about half of Gravity's Rainbow before he got bored (too artsy, too unfocused), but he quite liked The Crying Of Lot 49 because it shared a certain willingness to parade bitingly realistic comic grotesqueries with Farber's beloved Preston Sturges, a sense of satire that went everywhere and nowhere.

Everywhere and nowhere, as Jonathan Rosenbaum points out in this long essay on Farber's prickly genius, was an insult some writers directed at Farber's criticism.  Farber's writing, like his beloved category of termite art, does tend to spill out of the frame.  His points are often so mitigated that I cannot tell whether he liked a film or not.  Maybe he himself couldn't tell.  While reading this anthology, I often found myself wondering why Farber hated a certain film so much, only to find it cropping up on his year-end best-of list.  His prose is filled with reversals, though, and all of his praise is filled with faint damnation and vice versa.  What's most interesting about this book is that Farber's aesthetic philosophy seems mostly consistent and always insightful, even if his conclusions hardly ever feel conclusive.  As he outlined in his epic essay on White Elephant Art and Termite Art (in short: white elephant art is self-consciously showy grand statement art, a la Titanic, anything with Robin Williams wearing a beard, or (in my opinion) Scorcese's bombastic later films, while termite art is economical and focused on the small moments, such as in the films of Farber's beloved Val Lewton, Werner Herzog, or Howard Hawks), Farber found more significance in narrative that doesn't try to direct the observer.

Many critics disliked Farber's thesis or were disturbed by his contrarian reviews.  For instance, there's a delightful review of Farber's essay and a lively ensuing discussion at Girish here that dates back to 2006.  Worth reading for the quotes of Farber's prose as it is for the fun in the comments.  I think it's important to realize that Farber thought that both elements could coexist in the same film.  They were categories of thought, an approach rather than an either/or dichotomy system, despite what Erik Nelson writes here in Salon.  And I suspect that he hated far fewer movies than the sharp criticism of his essays would suggest.  Movies that the man apparently couldn't stand in 1942 were praised again and again in later years.  He didn't need his criticism to be conclusive, because taste is rarely fixed.  Criticism that focuses exclusively on whether an artwork is good or bad fails both reader and writer (and I realize the irony of me saying this, but hey, I'm trying).  And yet, criticism - itself an artwork - is almost always at its best when it is itself a termite art, eating its own boundaries in the pursuit of greater human experience.

Which brings things back to Pynchon.  After I finished Farber On Film, I launched into Pynchon's latest, Inherent Vice and  read it in three days flat.  Inherent Vice is Pynchon's least ambitious novel, basically a Chandler novel (or, worse, Carl Hiaassen) as run through the Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland filter.  Which makes it, more or less, a blood brother to The Big Lebowski.  That lack of ambition awakened my newly Farberized awareness, as did Pynchon's B-movie fixated hero, Doc Sportello.  Actually, it's not just Sportello who's constantly thinking about movies and comparing them to his (fictional) life, but many of the other characters, too.  Which makes a point about how reality was becoming more unreal in the Southern California of the late 60s (the Charles Manson trial is contemporaneous with the action and constantly on the minds of all of the characters).

Unfortunately, it has nothing to add to the paranoia-as-rational-philosophy that has been an essential component of all of Pynchon's work.  The characters, like the characters of Lot 49 and Vineland, are rightfully paranoid, rightfully assuming that their hedonism is under constant threat from forces of control and money, and rightfully too absorbed by their own drama and pursuit of happiness to do anything about it.  This time period is a vital one to understanding Pynchon, and yet he'd never visited it in any of his books.  But, coming as it does between the events of Lot 49 and the events of Vineland, one could surmise what Pynchon thought of the period without actually reading this shaggy-dog tale.  Fortunately, the book is one of the funniest and breeziest in Pynchon's work, fun enough that readers don't really need to care that this story was not one that was crying out to be told.  In his novels, Pynchon has rewritten history several times over, put magic and quantum theory to good use, fought bravely for personal freedoms, and developed a narrative style more influenced by the purely filmic storytelling of mise-en-scène and montage than any prior novelist.  The guy could churn out Doc Sportello novels every six months for the rest of his life and I'd read every single one of them, laughing my ass off.

My Favorite Films of the 00s

The panelists on the most recent Wasted Words podcast (including my pal Nate Patrin!) spend a lot of time talking about the utility of year-end lists.  I mention this not to add my two pennies, but to suggest that you check out the podcast and to introduce another useless list here.  What follows are my favorite movies of the 00s, offered without explanation because I'm basically too wiped-out to explain.

1. Synecdoche, New York
2. I'm Not There
3. No Country For Old Men
4. The New World
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
6. Spirited Away
7. Gosford Park
8. Gerry
9. A Serious Man
10. There Will Be Blood
11. Grizzly Man
12. Los Angeles Plays Itself
13. Mulholland Drive
14. Children of Men
15. Before Sunset
16. The Class
17. Elephant
18. George Washington
19. Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai
20. In The Mood For Love
21. LOTR trilogy
22. Kings and Queen
23. Time Out
24. Ratatouille
25. Encounters At The End of the World

World Cinema