Trios of many different genres, styles, movements and themes. I've purposely tried to expand it a bit beyond what I think are the 'best' and more towards personal favourites. They are almost all well-known and should be easy to find. Asterisks will show films that may be more difficult to locate.
Three Great Québecois Films
C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2005) Recommended by me before, a queer coming of age film.
Maelström* (Denis Villeneuve, 2000) A dying fish narrates a strange, emotional tale.
The Decline of the American Empire (Denys Arcand, 1986) Intellectuals talk lots of sex.
Three Great Blaxploitation Films
Bone* (Larry Cohen) Also known as Beverly Hills Nightmare or Housewife, it's deliriously subversive fun.
Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (Charles Bail, 1975) Campy, ass-kicking Cleo in Macau and Hong Kong.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Melvin van Peebles, 1971) Revolutionary, landmark blaxploitation.
Three Great Heist Films
The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973) This Best Picture winner is frothy and fun.
Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2001) Gritty British thriller with dynamite performance from Ben Kingsley, who is terrifying as the psychotic Don Logan.
Ocean's Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001) Miles ahead of the original, Soderbergh's film is a stylish delight.
Three Great Cary Grant Screwballs
Arsenic and Old Lace (Frank Capra, 1944) Cary Grant plays the lone sane member of a hilariously murderous family.
His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940) One of the great scripts of Classic Hollywood, it's the sharpest screwball around.
Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938) Grant shines with Katharine Hepburn, who is delightfully ditzy.
Three Great Anthology Films
Paris, Je T'aime (2006) 20 short films that range from droll character studies to vampire mysteries and beautiful love stories.
Germany in Autumn* (1978) Biting examination of post-War West Germany, featuring shorts from Fassbinder, Kluge and Schlöndorff.
Sin City (Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, 2005) One of the best neo-Noirs.
Three Great Americana Films
The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971) Stoic view of a small Western town as it transitions to a new era, featuring career-best performances.
Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincent Minnelli, 1944) One of the best American musicals, it's dripping with patriotism and sentimentality... but a closer look reveals much more.
Melvin and Howard* (Jonathan Demme, 1980) An unassuming man's life is changed when he is mysteriously named in the will of none other than Howard Hughes.
Three Great Biopics
Capote (Bennett Miller, 2005) The best biopic ever made, it's subtle, moving and an intense examination into the working process of one of the most controversial and game-changing novels written.
Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008) Sean Penn walks away with his second Oscar, and Van Sant re-energizes a tired genre with some cinematic flair.
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Michael Curtiz, 1942) Most contemporary audiences know James Cagney for his gangster films -- but he was also a top song and dance man. Here he plays George M. Cohan, "The Man Who Owns Broadway".
Three Great New Hollywood Films Based on a True Story
All the Presidents Men (Alan Pakula, 1976) The breaking of and investigation behind the Watergate Scandal.
Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975) A bank robbery goes wrong, and The People eat it up.
Badlands (Terence Malick, 1973) A young couple is on the run and madly in love in this tribute to Americana.
Three Great Shakespeare Films
Titus (Julie Taymor, 1999) Shakespeare's infamous Titus Andronicus goes postmodern.
Macbeth* (Orson Welles, 1948) Welles described his project as "a perfect cross between Wuthering Heights and Bride of Frankenstein", and it's an apt suggestion.
Romeo + Juliet (Baz Lurhmann, 1996) Whirling, kaleidoscopic and pure pop, it's a brave blend that somehow works, and works gloriously.
Three Great Mindbenders
The Trial* (Orson Welles, 1962) Another gem from Orson Welles, featuring spectacular set design.
Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977) It's hilarious, bizarre and gruesome, and totally worth watching.
Naked Lunch (David Cronenberg, 1991) I still don't know quite what I watched here, but it was sure exhilarating.
Three Great Marriages Falling Apart
Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924) This silent epic was shorn by the studio, but in its remains it's still a crowning achievement.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966) Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are at each other's throats with wickedly witty vitriol.
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) Why would your wife suddenly despise everything about you, with only a flimsy excuse? Godard and Bridgette Bardot are a match made in cinematic heaven.
Three Great Documentaries
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father* (Kurt Kuenne, 2008) Guaranteed to get you sobbing, this is perhaps one of the most emotionally powerful films I've come across.
Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005) The life and death of bear fanatic Timothy Treadwell.
Night and Fog (Alain Resnais, 1955) One of the first documentaries about the Holocaust, and still among the most poignant and devastating.
Three Great Queer Films
Poison* (Todd Haynes, 1991) Certainly not for all tastes, but those willing to go along with its genre games and whacked-out narratives will have a blast.
The Wedding Banquet (Ang Lee, 1993) Lee went queer long before Brokeback Mountain with this touching and funny adventure of a Taiwanese man pretending to get straight married to hide his gay relationship.
My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985) A young Daniel Day Lewis owns the screen.
Three Great French New Wave Films
The Butcher* (Claude Chabrol, 1970) The nouvelle vague goes horror with this chilling character study.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1963) And here, it goes American film musical with a jazz operetta that's sure to get you both dancing and crying.
Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) Perhaps Godard's most accessible film, it has all of his experimental and political flourishes but with plenty of laughs, colour and playfulness.
Three Great Gangster Films
White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949) James Cagney is electric as a mama's boy turned psychopath.
The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950) A jewellery caper goes wrong in this classic noir.
Shanghai Triad* (Zhang Yimou, 1995) A provincial boy meets the criminal underworld of 1930s Shanghai in Yimou's Chinese neo-noir.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Quick Reviews
Jurassic Park (2013 Re-Release)
Just as thrilling as I remembered, it's one of Spielberg's adventure masterpieces.
But it being a Spielberg film, you have the precocious child motif: Tim is excellent, while whats-her-face is simply annoying. "I prefer the term hacker!" Sure, you do.
The 3-D, unfortunately, adds nothing to the film as it wasn't designed with it in mind. Instead, we get the downfalls of the process --the film has turned into a muddy, darkened mess-- without any of the supposed bells and whistles.
A+ (C for 3D)
Primal Fear (Gregory Hoblit, 1996)
-Edward Norton is excellent
-score is cliche and invasive in its banality
-a rather unassuming film, not particularly ambitious in straying from formula, but effective as a genre piece.
B
Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears, 1988)
I've seen this on stage, and it's just as crackling on screen. Close is simply on fire, and Malkovich does his best to keep up, and it's an admirable performance. Production design is sumptuous. I do miss the Stratford Festival's touch of an 80s score complete with fired-up, screeching electric guitar, though.
A
Trance (Danny Boyle, 2013)
Stylish, pumping and utterly whacked, the narrative twists and turns over itself in a thrilling if bewildering manner. Strong performances from everyone. But it's all a bit too 'much', isn't it?
B
Das Boot (Wolfgang Petersen, 1981)
That cinematography! Running Steadicam shots through a claustrophobic, tunnel-like U-Boat, swooping through doorways and gliding around people. As a technical achievement, it's superb. As a narrative, it does has its moments that drag, and it's far too long, but somehow it keeps our attention throughout its three-plus hours. [I watched Petersen's directors' cut.] Excellent cast.
A
It Came From Outer Space! (Jack Arnold, 1953)
Utterly wooden dialogue abounds in this Sci-Fi classic. It's a thin analogy that plays much better in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Ray Bradbury has done much better with more subtle work. Glacial pacing, lots of bland talking, a plot that creeps along like a snail. Skip this one.
D-
The Magnetic Monster (Curt Siodmak, 1953)
I'd never heard of this science fiction piece until I saw it in conjunction with It Came From Outer Space! on TCM. It's a surprisingly witty script, with a good pace and excellent use of stock footage. Game actors play along with the remarkably cerebral going-ons, with B-movie star Richard Carlson doing much better than Outer Space! -- and the scientist in me didn't have to turn off his brain completely. Fun stuff!
A-
Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1943)
Yes, it is sentimental cinema, and unabashedly so. There is the contemporary charge is that it is "propaganda", a term thrown about far too loosely nowadays, but this does not recognize that it was needed and wanted by the public at large and largely void of any insidious motives. Brilliant performances and tight direction as always from Wyler. The flower show is simply one of the most beautiful scenes of Hollywood cinema, with genuine heart-warming pathos.
But there's also a fascinating Oedipus undercurrent between Greer Garson's Mrs. Miniver and her son, played by Richard Ney... who would go on to be Garson's husband just after filming. It strikes me that Garson's Kay Miniver is rather enamoured with her son beyond a simple maternal love: she really does seem to be in love with him. This, of course, could simply be the result of my knowledge that they would be married and my looking for something rather juicy. But it's tempting, no?
A+
Olympus Has Fallen (Antoine Fuqua, 2013)
Gruesome, one of the most violent movies of recent memory. The siege scene is chock-full of death: I shudder to think of just how large the film's body count is. Bystanders get mowed down, a plethora of armed officers are killed, blood flows. Fuqua has terse direction over the carnage, despite a rather poor script. Many "Why?" moments. (Why would you have all three people with the three parts to a super-important code in the same place?) Cheap CGI mars many of the set-pieces, with fake-looking smoke and effects.
C
Just as thrilling as I remembered, it's one of Spielberg's adventure masterpieces.
But it being a Spielberg film, you have the precocious child motif: Tim is excellent, while whats-her-face is simply annoying. "I prefer the term hacker!" Sure, you do.
The 3-D, unfortunately, adds nothing to the film as it wasn't designed with it in mind. Instead, we get the downfalls of the process --the film has turned into a muddy, darkened mess-- without any of the supposed bells and whistles.
A+ (C for 3D)
Primal Fear (Gregory Hoblit, 1996)
-Edward Norton is excellent
-score is cliche and invasive in its banality
-a rather unassuming film, not particularly ambitious in straying from formula, but effective as a genre piece.
B
Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears, 1988)
I've seen this on stage, and it's just as crackling on screen. Close is simply on fire, and Malkovich does his best to keep up, and it's an admirable performance. Production design is sumptuous. I do miss the Stratford Festival's touch of an 80s score complete with fired-up, screeching electric guitar, though.
A
Trance (Danny Boyle, 2013)
Stylish, pumping and utterly whacked, the narrative twists and turns over itself in a thrilling if bewildering manner. Strong performances from everyone. But it's all a bit too 'much', isn't it?
B
Das Boot (Wolfgang Petersen, 1981)
That cinematography! Running Steadicam shots through a claustrophobic, tunnel-like U-Boat, swooping through doorways and gliding around people. As a technical achievement, it's superb. As a narrative, it does has its moments that drag, and it's far too long, but somehow it keeps our attention throughout its three-plus hours. [I watched Petersen's directors' cut.] Excellent cast.
A
It Came From Outer Space! (Jack Arnold, 1953)
Utterly wooden dialogue abounds in this Sci-Fi classic. It's a thin analogy that plays much better in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Ray Bradbury has done much better with more subtle work. Glacial pacing, lots of bland talking, a plot that creeps along like a snail. Skip this one.
D-
The Magnetic Monster (Curt Siodmak, 1953)
I'd never heard of this science fiction piece until I saw it in conjunction with It Came From Outer Space! on TCM. It's a surprisingly witty script, with a good pace and excellent use of stock footage. Game actors play along with the remarkably cerebral going-ons, with B-movie star Richard Carlson doing much better than Outer Space! -- and the scientist in me didn't have to turn off his brain completely. Fun stuff!
A-
Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1943)
Yes, it is sentimental cinema, and unabashedly so. There is the contemporary charge is that it is "propaganda", a term thrown about far too loosely nowadays, but this does not recognize that it was needed and wanted by the public at large and largely void of any insidious motives. Brilliant performances and tight direction as always from Wyler. The flower show is simply one of the most beautiful scenes of Hollywood cinema, with genuine heart-warming pathos.
But there's also a fascinating Oedipus undercurrent between Greer Garson's Mrs. Miniver and her son, played by Richard Ney... who would go on to be Garson's husband just after filming. It strikes me that Garson's Kay Miniver is rather enamoured with her son beyond a simple maternal love: she really does seem to be in love with him. This, of course, could simply be the result of my knowledge that they would be married and my looking for something rather juicy. But it's tempting, no?
A+
Olympus Has Fallen (Antoine Fuqua, 2013)
Gruesome, one of the most violent movies of recent memory. The siege scene is chock-full of death: I shudder to think of just how large the film's body count is. Bystanders get mowed down, a plethora of armed officers are killed, blood flows. Fuqua has terse direction over the carnage, despite a rather poor script. Many "Why?" moments. (Why would you have all three people with the three parts to a super-important code in the same place?) Cheap CGI mars many of the set-pieces, with fake-looking smoke and effects.
C
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