Sunday, September 24, 2017

Top 25 of the 1970's

25. The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973) directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has



Wojciech Jerzy Has' 1973 surreal opus The Hourglass Sanitorium is one of the few Polish movies I've seen. For a long time I'd only known this movie by its odd and amazing poster, before I was able to go see it at a Museum of Art on the big screen. When I read more, it sounded intriguing even though I'm very hit and miss on surreal art. I must say that while this suffers from some of the drawbacks of all surreal films, it is one of the most beautifully shot and put together movies I've ever seen and one that I'd happily see again any time.

The "story" as much as one exists, is that of Joseph riding a train to visit his ailing father Jacob in a sanitorium. From there we are led on a series of surreal adventures such as being arrested by soldiers for having a dream, confronting living plastic mannequins of historical figures, reliving childhood memories of many different things. And all with Joseph leading us through, even through the childhood segments, as the adult Joseph stands in for his younger self.

Above all, this is easily one of the most visually splendid films ever made (it was #9 on my Most Beautiful Movies list from last year). The way Has moves from sequence to sequence has an incredible flow to it, as sets seem to almost disappear, or open up into the next segment. It's truly astonishing filmmaking on every technical level. I've only seen two movies from Wojciech Jerzy Has, but the other was The Saragossa Manuscript, which was my #9 movie of the 1960's. I hope to see more in the future. I am not always one to say go see a movie just for the visuals, but if you can see this movie, do it, even if it's only for the visuals.

24. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) directed by John Lounsbery and Wolfgang Reitherman

Technically, this is simply a package movie of 3 Winnie-the-Pooh shorts that Disney had done, with some connecting material added in. But I think the added stuff really works and helps make the movie feel like a whole piece rather than 3 things stitched together. Pooh is just one of the most likable characters and universes to dive into. Simplistic, but not simple or stupid. The audience is never talked down to, and this movie has that great balance that Pixar has tried to strike, that of entertaining both adults and children while not patronizing either group. Many have tried, and few have succeeded like The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh.

23. Star Wars (1977) directed by George Lucas

Star Wars might be THE most iconic movie ever made. It has truly reached an obscene amount of pop culture awareness. When that kind of thing happens, the movie itself can get lost in the shuffle, or actually become under appreciated for what it is, a real movie, than what it's perceived as, a product. I think this has happened to Star Wars. Going back and watching it, the SFX are flawless, the story is as archetypal as it gets, the dialog is simple but a lot of the time it's fun and engaging as well. It's not the best movie in the series (that's still The Empire Strikes Back), and I wish George Lucas (or Disney now, since they own the rights) would give us back the original cuts, Han DID shoot first, but what we have is definitely one of the best movies of the 1970's.

22. Jaws (1975) directed by Steven Spielberg

One of the other most iconic movies ever made that may not be truly appreciated enough for how great it is is Steven Spielberg's first masterpiece, Jaws. Like Star Wars it has reached pop culture saturation but when revisited on its own terms is just an amazing time at the movies. It's funny, scary, thrilling, with real characters we care about and practical effects that still hold up today. It's one of the most talked about movies ever made, so I'm not sure I have anything new to add to the discussion, but it deserves its spot here on the top 25 of the 70's.

21. Woodstock (1970) directed by Michael Wadleigh

Director Michael Wadleigh and his team of editors (including a young Martin Scorsese and his future editing partner Thelma Schoonmaker, who was nominated for a Best Editing Oscar for this movie, a big time rarity for a documentary) took an ungodly amount of footage shot at the 1969 Woodstock festival and with it made one of the great documentaries. Not just a celebration of the music of the festival, but of the people, the time, and even just the feeling of being there. Although 3 hours long, the time flies by as we're transported back to that muddy field in upstate New York over 3 days. And it really is a transporting document now, as we grow further and further away from that hippie Mecca that sprung up and was a beacon for hundreds of thousands of people in attendance, and became a landmark and symbol for many of those who wanted to be there. Wadleigh and his team make us feel like we're there, and it's an amazing viewing experience.

20. The Godfather part II (1974) directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Decidedly inferior to its predecessor, The Godfather part II is still an amazing masterpiece of a movie. Al Pacino gives one of his better performances as Michael Corleone, slowing but surely isolating himself and pushing away all that he wanted to keep close at the beginning of the first movie. Robert De Niro, as Michael's father Vito, in the other main storyline of the movie, is simply brilliant. Charismatic, intelligent, ambitious. It's some of De Niro's best work and he deserved the Supporting Actor Oscar he received for it. My problem with the movie is that the cutting back and forth between these brilliant stories robs each of them of their narrative momentum. Just as Michael's story is revving up, we cut to Vito's story. Once it gets going, we cut back. Francis Ford Coppola has talked about that he played with cutting twice as much, so that the two stories blended more traditionally, but that it didn't work. I can imagine that it didn't, and I don't know what the answer to my issue with the movie is, but since it's still a 10/10, and one of the best movies of its decade, does it really matter?

19. Super Fly (1972) directed by Gordon Parks, Jr.

I didn't really know what to expect going into Super Fly. I'd loved the soundtrack for years, I'm a huge Curtis Mayfield fan, but hadn't really ever heard anyone talk much about the movie itself. I watched a documentary on the "Blaxploitation" genre, and it made me realize that I'd never seen a lot of those movies, so I decided to check out at least one of them.

I'd heard that Superfly got a lot of flack at the time of its release because many members of the black community felt that it glamourized its drug dealing (and addicted) protagonist, thus furthering negative stereotypes of black people and setting bad examples for the children. Seeing it outside of the cultural climate of the times, I can say that it does nothing of the sort. Priest, the main character, is most definitely a drug dealer, but he knows that drugs are a bad scene to be in, and he wants out. The sociological comment that the movie makes, that people seemed to have missed at the time, is that Priest is only supported in his dream to get out by his girlfriend. Every other person in his world tries to keep him in that lifestyle. His partner even telling him "Look, I know it's a rotten game, but it's the only one The Man left us to play." It's his environment that's really poisoned, not him. He's trying to do the right thing by getting out, he just does it by exploiting that poisoned environment. Priest doesn't know what he's qualified to do, or even what he wants to do, in the "real world". But he knows that if he could have half a million dollars in his bank account there'd be no rush to figure it out. So he decides to try and set up the classic "last big score before he retires".

Ron O'Neal is electrifying as Priest. The script is fairly strong, with some good dialog at least, and O'Neal has total command of the screen every moment he's on it. None of the other actors are anything particularly good, but O'Neal is in pretty much every scene for the entire 93 minutes, so it doesn't really matter. It's far from a perfect movie, there are many technical faults (seeing the camera crew in the window reflection and stuff like that), but they're ultimately forgivable. It's really just a crackling good crime drama with a tremendous lead performance by Ron O'Neal.

18. Paper Moon (1973) directed by Peter Bogdanovich

I'm a sucker for a good con movie, and Paper Moon is my favorite one. Gorgeously shot (by the legendary László Kovács), and with a tremendously funny and poignant script from Alvin Sargent, this movie really shines due to the wonderful lead performances from Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal, with the always welcome Madeline Kahn providing the hilarious, and biggest, supporting role. But mostly it's the O'Neal's whom this movie would live or die on, and live it does. We watch as these two con around Depression era Kansas and Missouri, trading cons and insults and annoyances and generally just making me smile. Addie and Moses are two terrific performances and wonderful characters from two actors who ultimately didn't do much else worth remembering. But for all the talk of how wooden Ryan O'Neal is in things like Love Story or Barry Lyndon, his Moses Pray is engaging and a tricky role to do right. He knocks it out of the park. Tatum's Addie isn't the classic cute kids role, and she really shines, deservedly winning an Oscar for her work (though it was as Supporting Actress when she's really the lead of the movie). It's a classic movie for a reason, one that isn't as widely known today as it should be. It's still funny and engaging and beautiful to look at even these 44 years later.

17. Rocky (1976) directed by John G. Avildsen

Although I personally wouldn't have named it the Best Picture of 1976, as the Oscars did, Rocky is the underdog story of cinema. Anchored by a startlingly terrific performance from Sylvester Stallone, wonderfully sensitive and engaging just as his leading lady Talia Shire is. Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith, and Burt Young are all memorable and even became iconic for their roles that fill out what is a surprisingly small cast. We saw with Ryan Coogler's Creed (2015) what kind of archetypes Rocky set up that still work beautifully today, but Rocky is the best example of it still. The way director John G. Avildsen puts everything together with just enough grit added to the fairy tale is an underrated something that really helps the movie soar as high as it does. Rocky doesn't win the match, but he wins our hearts.

16. The Conversation (1974) directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Covering much of the same paranoid, down the rabbit hole into madness ground that Michelangelo Antonioni explored with Blow Up, Coppola's take on it follows Gene Hackman's best work as a surveillance expert who ends up getting caught in a web of intrigue and murder he had no business or desire to be in. One of four Coppola movies to make this 1970's list (one of the best runs for any filmmaker ever, if you ask me), The Conversation is well known among film fans, but not as widely known among the regular movie going public. I prefer Blow Up, but The Conversation is a fascinating look at the same theme. Did they say "he'd kill us if he got the chance" or "he'd kill us if he got the chance"? What a difference that is, but what's it worth if it might cost you your life?

15. Blazing Saddles (1974) directed by Mel Brooks

Another one of those that runs out of steam in the end, there may not be a funnier movie for the first half or even 2/3rds than Blazing Saddles. Crazy slapstick, biting satire, pure idiocy, stereotyping galore, and the most n-words this side of Django Unchained, Blazing Saddles is the ultimate "let's throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" movie from the master of said form, Mel Brooks. This is also one of those great 70's movies that wouldn't even get its script read today, much less be greenlit and actually filmed and released to the public. Thankfully, studios in the New Hollywood era (roughly 1967-1980) were slightly riskier and we are all the better for it.

14. The Last Waltz (1978) directed by Martin Scorsese

The Band is one of my all time favorite groups. This is Martin Scorsese's account of their final concert, which they called The Last Waltz. For their last show, they invited some friends to help out. But their friends are different than the friends you or I would invite to our party. Their friends included Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Ronnie Wood, Dr. John, and others. But my favorite performances are those from The Band by themselves. "Up On Cripple Creek" "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and especially their definitive take on Marvin Gaye's "Don't Do It", which opens the movie.

It's sad that Richard Manuel, who had maybe the most heartbreaking and beautiful voice in all of rock music, was so broken down through his addictions and hard life on the road that we only really see him sing a single verse of the Dylan/Band classic "I Shall Be Released". There's an overall sadness alongside the joyousness of the music here. A type of sadness not usually seen in concert films. You can see that the guys love playing music together, and with their friends, but there's a sort of knowing wistfulness in everyone's eyes, particularly guitarist/songwriter Robbie Robertson. The Last Waltz was a wonderful celebration of one of the great bands of all time, but also a melancholic goodbye to the music that they made together. The Last Waltz is the greatest of rock docs, about one of the greatest of bands.

13. Dog Day Afternoon (1975) directed by Sidney Lumet

Al Pacino's greatest achievement as an actor is his work in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon. He plays Sonny, who along with his buddy Sal (Pacino's good friend John Cazale) rob a bank in Brooklyn, ultimately getting stuck inside with all the employees as police surround the building. Based on a true story, though with plenty of inaccuracies as always with a movie, Dog Day Afternoon was revolutionary in its time for broaching the subject of gay relationships. Sonny is robbing the bank to pay for the sex change operation of his gay lover Leon (future Prince Humperdink Chris Sarandon, who's then wife Susan was starring in another 1975 gay culture revolution called The Rocky Horror Picture Show). Sadly, I think a major movie like this would still cause some controversy if it were made by a huge star and released today.

Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, Pacino creates one of the great characters in cinema in Sonny. He's smart, paranoid, angry, confused, and Pacino allows him to feel like a real life person, even though there's not a bit of what we think of as Al Pacino in the performance. Mannerisms, voice, everything is Sonny. Sarandon deservedly got nominated for an Oscar for his brief role, which is just as hilarious and tragic as Pacino's. Lumet's as always subtle work is phenomenal, as the lack of music makes things feel more real, ratcheting up the tension, and he keeps us inside with Sonny rather than spending too much time outside with the police. I thought it was a tad too long when I first saw it, but on re-watches I didn't feel that at all.

12. Days of Heaven (1978) directed by Terrence Malick

One of the most beautiful movies ever made, in fact #2 on my all time list when I made it last year, is this poetic little masterpiece from Terrence Malick, still his best work, I think. It stars Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, and Sam Shepard in a love triangle set against the pastoral Texas wheat fields of the early 1900's. The love triangle is witnessed by Linda Manz, as Gere's little sister, who may not understand everything she sees, but whose eyes we witness a lot of the movie through, including the narration. It's a gorgeously lyrical movie, like a moving poem with some of the greatest cinematography ever put on film. It's not plot heavy, but still there are sequences like the burning of the fields that will stick in your memory forever. A movie maybe better experienced than it is talked about.

11. Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) directed by Yuriy Norshteyn

Playing like a children's fairy tale, with very little in terms of guidance narratively, Yuriy Norshteyn's The Hedgehog in the Fog is basically exactly what it sounds like. An adorable little hedgehog gets lost in the fog on his way to see a friend. He becomes frightened after seeing and hearing many things in the foggy forest. He can hear someone calling to him, is confronted by an owl and a horse, he falls in a river, and loses the present he was bringing his friend. It's a very simple tale, only about 10 minutes long (though fully deserving of being collected here with other great films), and strongly evokes the feelings of childhood. The happiness, curiosity, and occasionally frightening things happening that may not be frightening when you look back on them as an adult, but can be almost overwhelming when viewed through the lens of an innocent child.

10. Annie Hall (1977) directed by Woody Allen

Roger Ebert said that Annie Hall is "Just about everyone's favorite Woody Allen movie", and I guess that makes me like everyone because it is certainly my favorite. Turning a corner from his earlier farces (with which he'd had great success), Annie Hall adds a lot of depth and weight to Allen's still hilarious humor, making for THE romantic comedy of all time, even if it's too singular to Allen to be copied to death like rom-coms tend to be.

Miraculously winning Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Actress (miraculous because this was the year of Star Wars, after all), I think Woody and the gang deserved it. It's hilarious from start to finish, whether Woody is evoking Grouch Marx ("I'd never be a member of a club who'd someone like me as a member"), fearing for his life as Annie's crazy brother (played by an insanely young Christopher Walken) might kill them, or breaking the fourth wall and giving us in the audience little asides from the plot. My favorite is actually one with a hint of melancholy, where Alvy (Allen's character) tries to recreate different crazy antics he'd had with Annie with a new girl after he and Annie broke up, only to have the new girl not join in and him realize how special Annie was.

It was a turning point for Allen, as his next works became more serious, or at least were not silly, giving rise to the often uttered "I liked his earlier, funnier movies better." Not me, I think he only got better and better as a filmmaker, even if I think he never bettered this masterpiece.

9. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Taking place in Munich, it tells the story of the scandalous relationship between Emmi (Brigitte Mira) and Ali (El Hedi ben Salem). The relationship is scandalous for a couple of reasons, mainly because she is in her 60's, he is about 40. She's German, he's Moroccan. But they share in common that they're nice people. They're also very lonely people. She is long widowed, with kids whose lives she's not an active part of. He's an immigrant mechanic who doesn't speak the best German, and spends his time either working or drinking away his loneliness at the local Arab friendly bar. They find each other by accident almost, as she ducks into the bar to get out of the rain, and he's taunted by some of his fellow Arabs to dance with "the old woman". They do, and immediately connect with each other.

Soon, they're being confronted with all the post-WWII racism that still exists, with many people considering any dark skinned foreigners "filthy swine" and any woman who takes up with them a "whore". These reactions aren't totally unexpected to Emmi and Ali, but they just want to be together because they make each other happy. But society does its best to spit on them and their relationship, even to the point that her 3 children disown her when they find out about it. Emmi says she wishes they were alone in the world just the two of them and didn't have to deal with that behavior. But we see subtly how as their relationship settles a bit, we start to worry about the couple. Is it real connection or just an affair or what?

Here, writer/director Rainer Werner Fassbinder made a movie about two people coming together out of shared kindness and loneliness, ceding into truly being in love, falling a bit into complacency, and eventually, hopefully, dedication and more love. It's an astounding movie, powerful and striking right to the core. Simply and realistically acted by our two leads who I was really rooting for by the end of it.

8. Chinatown (1974) directed by Roman Polanski

Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes is one of the best and most understated performances of his career in Roman Polanski's downbeat classic Chinatown. Set in 1937, and obviously indebted to the crime movies of previous generations, Polanski doesn't shoot much at night, making Chinatown what I'd refer to as a daylight noir. John Huston was a towering directorial figure in the noir genre, and makes for a towering villain in this one. From his refusal to say Jake's name correctly (always calling him "Mr. Gits" instead of "Git-ies"), to the air of a charming snake oil salesman, everything about Huston's Noah Cross gets under your skin, before you even know if he's done anything bad. Faye Dunaway rounds out the three leads and gives a wonderfully different take on the noir femme fatale.

Because of its downbeat and uncompromising take on the noir genre, Chinatown is a movie that subverts your expectations and therefore sticks out and grows in your mind in a way that most other crime thrillers don't. Robert Towne deservedly won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (the movie's only win in a year dominated by The Godfather part II), but it was reportedly Polanski who came up with the film's famous ending. This was just a few years after his wife Sharon Tate had been murdered by the Manson family, and was his first time shooting in LA since then, something he only agreed to because of the extraordinary strength of the script and his wish to work with friend Jack Nicholson. Sadly, it would be Polanski's last American film, as he would have his famous legal troubles just 3 years after Chinatown's release. It's a hell of a great American movie though.

7. Don't Look Now (1973) directed by Nicolas Roeg

Don't Look Now is the story of a couple, John and Laura (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) who lose a child to a freak drowning accident. They soon after travel to Venice, hoping a change of scenery will help them cope while John works restoring a church. Strange things happen on the job to John, while Laura meets two sisters, one of whom claims she's clairvoyant and that Laura's daughter is trying to contact her parents to warn of danger. John also begins catching glimpses of a tiny figure, in the same red rain coat his daughter died in, running around, but every time he follows, he loses the person in the labyrinthine streets of the city.

A psychological workout on many levels, even the infamous sex scene is wrought with layers of meaning as it cuts between Sutherland and Christie in bed and the couple getting dressed for dinner, also mimicking other time jumping cuts that director Roeg only lets us realize are happening at the last (and most emotionally impactful) minute. The sex scene was reportedly so intense even during filming that stories have gone over the years that it was not simulated, much to the anger of Christie's boyfriend at the time, Warren Beatty. Sutherland insists that it was not only fake, but choreographed by Roeg sitting behind the camera calling out what he wanted each of them to do while filming.

So much more than its famous sex scene, in 2011 Don't Look Now was voted by UK magazine Time Out as the #1 British movie of all time. It drips with foreboding atmosphere and like all great horror movies, works on your mind, not with blood and cheap thrills.

6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) directed by Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam

One of the handful of funniest movies ever made, Holy Grail is a right of passage for every teenager (especially boys, as girls don't seem to respond to Monty Python quite as well, on average). It's probably the most quotable, and quoted, comedy of all time, and with good reason. Everything Python ever did was messy, with some bits that work and others that don't, but they were never as consistently hilarious as in Holy Grail. Surprisingly well shot on a shoestring budget, it's a good old fashioned "let's throw everything we can at the wall and see what sticks" kind of comedy, with musical numbers, animation, failed musical numbers, storybooks, narrators, and many more techniques showing up on the episodic quest for the Holy Grail. And none of that even covers the characters, sequences, and lines that have entered pop culture over the past 35+ years.

There's much debate among Python fans as to whether this or their subsequent movie, the controversial Biblical tale Life of Brian, is superior. For me it's easy. Life of Brian obviously benefited from the Pythons experience making this movie, as it's more professional looking and was made on a significantly higher budget. It's a good movie, with many hugely hilarious and wonderfully quotable lines. But it's no Holy Grail. Holy Grail is the best comedy of the 70's, and if you don't believe me, I shall be forced to taunt you a second time.

5. Apocalypse Now (1979) directed by Francis Ford Coppola

A towering nightmare of a movie, and even more so of a production (check out the great documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse for that fascinating backstory), Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now was the last of 4 masterpieces by the man (the 2 Godfathers and The Conversation being the others, of course), and is one of the great achievements in cinema. Speaking to the depth of greatness of the 1970's, I would list this movie among the top 25 or so ever made, yet is only #5 of its decade. Martin Sheen stars as Capt. Willard in the loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, as a Vietnam soldier sent on an assassination mission on former hero Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has set up his own Cambodian army, with himself as a God like figurehead.

The nightmare of the movie is the long trip down river as Willard comes across Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall) bombing a Vietnamese village so they can get the good surfing waves there, a USO show featuring Playboy Bunnies, and unseen attackers as they get closer and closer to the hell of Kurtz's compound where he lectures Willard on war, humanity, and civilization as his fool (a photographer played by Dennis Hopper) babbles on about Kurtz's greatness. It's all so tragic, yet hallucinogenic enough that you're not really sure what Willard will do once he gets to the compound. That's also based on Brando's divisive work as Kurtz. It was among the first works of Brando I saw and I was completely spellbound as he captured my attention like few other actors ever had. I was fascinated by every single (sometimes nonsensical) word. Some say he was lazy and bloated, I say he's brilliant. Sheen too is terrific as Willard, and all of the supporting cast is wonderful.

But even Brando doesn't steal the spotlight from the movie itself, which is so epic even when feeling so singularly personal and emotional. There are also so many things about it that work like a lot of 70's cinema does for me, which is like music. You can't always quite describe why one thing is particularly better than another, but you feel it in your gut. "The horror... the horror..." sticks with you like all the great closing lines do, maybe because there are so many things the phrase could be applied to in the movie. Maybe because it's the great final notes in an incomparable symphony.

4. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) directed by Werner Herzog

One of the biggest influences on Coppola's Apocalypse Now was the movie that introduced the genius of Werner Herzog to the rest of the world. His fourth fiction film, it was his first with volatile star Klaus Kinski (father of Nastassja Kinski), who gives one of the great crazy man performances in the history of movies. It's the fictional story of a group of Spanish conquistadors looking for the fabled El Dorado, the City of Gold. Like Apocalypse Now, it's a slowly burning tale of madness, though here we stay with Don Lope de Aguirre (Kinski) as he takes over the mission, only to lead it to insanity and tragedy.

Kinski's work as a crazy man may not have been great acting, as by all accounts Kinski was every bit a barely controlled crazy man. Still, his work succeeds on screen in giving us a descent into delusion and a frenzy of blood as he becomes single minded in his tragic quest for the golden city. The perfect compliment to his erratic star, Herzog's gift of telling stories by not seeming to tell stories is a singular gift. His films unfold as if they're not at all planned, but we never doubt we're in the hands of a master who knows where he's taking us. Herzog's habit of not storyboarding his shots leads not to messy shooting (though a low budget movie like this has a bit of that too) but of found, seemingly accidental awe inspiring visuals. The opening shot of thousands of people marching down one hill and up another in the dangerous looking jungles of Ecuador is one of the great shots in movies, as is the closing shot. Aguirre alone in his madness, surrounded by chattering monkeys, muttering to himself on a raft, the camera slowly circles him as he leaves the screen, but not our memories. Not anytime soon anyway, this movie sticks with you for a while.

3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) directed by Steven Spielberg

The concept of "first contact" (the first interactions between mankind and an alien race) has long been one of the most fascinating to me. Many movies and books have revolved around the topic, in an infinite number of ways, and my favorite movie dealing with it is Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Like he often does, Spielberg picked just the right leading man for the job here, as Richard Dreyfuss is not exactly your regular everyman. He gives off that quality, but has a sarcastic intelligence, and sometimes anger, that makes him feel even more relateable. As he says at one point in the movie, he didn't ask for "this" to happen to him (to have contact with aliens). He's not even really sure what happened, or why, or what it means, or where he goes from here. He loses everything in his life to find the answer to those questions.

I loved the movie when seeing it as a kid, but watching as an adult, I wonder why. It's actually not a very fast paced movie, with much of the time being spent watching Dreyfuss think and try to figure out what he's going to do, or with French UFO scientist Claude Lacombe (legendary director Francois Truffaut) and his interpreter (Bob Balaban) as they go on a similar chase for knowing the unknown. But I bet the seeds for my fascination in first contact were sown when I saw the powerful final section of this movie, where the Mothership shows up and we finally make our contact. It's a transcendent piece of filmmaking, awe inspiring and impressive on both a technical and storytelling level, the special effects are so prominent but always serve to better the story. I also love that we see the aliens, but they never speak nor directly communicate. We follow Richard Dreyfuss search for answers, but we're never given any. I like that.

2. Taxi Driver (1976) directed by Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver was a very important and influential movie in my development as a cinephile. I first watched it when I was about 16, I think, and I thought it was okay. Over the years, Travis Bickle's lonely decline into violent madness has haunted me and begged for re-watch after re-watch. Robert De Niro gives one of his many extraordinary performances, and working with Scorsese for the second of eight times the pair give us one of the great character portraits ever committed to celluloid. It's the story of Travis Bickle, a lonely insomniac Vietnam vet who drives around NYC when he can't sleep until he figures he might as well get paid for it by being a cabbie. Seeing the grimy, drug riddled, dangerous streets of pre-Guiliani NYC, Travis calls himself "God's lonely man" who thinks thoughts like "some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets."

We follow Travis on his journey to becoming that rain to wash scum off the streets, but before we get there he meets Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign worker, and Iris (Jodie Foster) a 12-year-old prostitute. He eventually takes it upon himself to be the savior of these two women, the fact that neither seems to want saving being irrelevant to Travis. The most disturbing thing about the finale of Taxi Driver is that after Travis kills a bunch of low life creeps, he's hailed in the media as a hero trying to clean up the city, while we who've been with him know that he was simply a ticking time bomb who went off, it just happened to be directed at these people (don't buy from anyone that everything after the shootout is a dream, that's bullshit). Travis saves his news clippings, and a letter from Iris's parents, but the final scene plays a strange noise as Travis looks in his rearview mirror at Betsy. To me this has always been the sound of the time bomb starting to tick down again.

It's a hauntingly lonely and disturbing movie that I can't shake for days each time I watch it. In the best possible way, and in a way that few movie have ever affected me.

1. The Godfather (1972) directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Conventional choice? Sure. Expected? Maybe. Boring? No way. Few movies have ever been as entertaining as The Godfather. Few movies have ever been as densely constructed as The Godfather. There's seriously not a wasted scene or moment in the entire film, everything means something. We're conditioned by other movies that there will be throwaway lines, moments, even whole scenes in which nothing was really accomplished in either a character or plot development way. Not so in the best adaptation of a book ever made.

Marlon Brando's work gets better every time I watch this movie, and ditto Al Pacino. The scenes between the two of them are electric in their greatness, as Brando's Vito Corleone cedes power of his mafia family to Pacino's Michael. Robert Duvall, James Caan, John Cazale, Talia Shire, they're all wonderful. But to me the movie comes down to the operatic execution of the amazing script from Coppola and the novel's author Mario Puzo (one of the movie's only 3 Academy Awards), and those two lead performances from Pacino and Brando. Of course, you could praise everything from Gordon Willis's influential photography (for which the master somehow didn't even get nominated for an Oscar) to the flawless production and costume design, Nino Rota's famous score, everything. It's one of the most thoroughly well made movies I've ever seen.

But none of that would make The Godfather as esteemed as it is if it wasn't so layered, powerful, and damn entertaining to watch. There's a reason so many people consider it the best movie ever made. I have to watch it every once in a while and I never fail to love it even more than I did the last time.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Best Movie Heroes

The next entry into the list-aganza being done by me and Clint at Guy with a Movie Blog (check out his list here).

A best heroes list is kinda tough, for me. It's well trod ground, heroes and villains. But, it's also an essential part of the fabric of cinema and of storytelling in general. There don't have to be heroes and villains in a story, but the truth is that the majority of stories do indeed have a hero and a villain in some respect. However, just being the protagonist of a story doesn't make you a hero. Heroes and Villains are not the same as Protagonists and Antagonists. I think the character needs to do heroic things within that story. And even the term "heroic things" means something different based on the story and the hero. So......

Anyway, there are some standard choices on my list, but hopefully some surprises as well.

10. Sister Helen Prejean - Dead Man Walking

The most unconventional choice on my list is this first one. I consider Sister Helen Prejean (played by Susan Sarandon) to be one of movie's great heroes because she does the very heroic thing of daring to love a terrible person unconditionally. Sean Penn's character was a murderer and rapist and eventually Sister Helen gets him to admit to and ask forgiveness for his sins. People look at Sister Helen like she's an alien when she goes to counsel this man. How could she do such a thing? Doesn't she know what he did? Yes, but she also knows that we all deserve love, no matter who we are or what we've done. And that's about as heroic a thing as you can stand for or do for another person. Not to save their life, but maybe to save their soul.

9. Indiana Jones
The very first character that popped into my head when Clint suggested a top 10 heroes list was Indiana Jones. As I look at it, Jones is indeed a hero, saving the kid, getting the girl, beating the Nazis, all that good stuff. He's got his weakness, snakes, just like the superheroes do. But he's also Dr. Indiana Jones. He's a smart guy. He's funny. He's all the stuff Harrison Ford's Han Solo was, except a little less self centered and more altruistic in his motivations (it's why Jones is the choice here, not Han Solo). He's pretty much the archetypal hero. He's gotta be on here.

8. William Wallace - Braveheart
Scottish Jesus had to be on the list, for me. He showed up with his great "They can take our lives but they'll never take our freedom!" speech in my top speeches list, but he also physically leads his men into battle. He backs up his words with his actions. He bleeds for his men just like they bleed for him. He inspires, he leads, he fights the bad guys, and eventually he sacrifices himself for the good of his country. Maybe sacrificing himself isn't the best role model for kids (oh, also all the killing), but it's still heroic in this context of doing anything and everything to secure the rights of freedom for his people.

7. Robin Hood
Okay, maybe it's not Indiana Jones but actually Robin Hood that is the archetypal hero. He robs from the rich to give to the poor. He shoots a badass bow and arrow. He has a sense of humor. He doesn't care about authority and openly opposes the ruling royal. In The Adventures of Robin Hood, the best Robin Hood movie by many miles, he has this great exchange as he bursts into the castle dining room full of offended nobles:

Noble: "You speak treason!"
Robin: "Fluently"

He just doesn't give a fuck, and he leads a revolt against an authoritarian abusing his power. He gets the girl, he beats the bad guy. He does all of the classic hero stuff as heroically as it can be done.

6. Ofelia - Pan's Labyrinth
The hero of her very own fairy tale, as dark as it is, Ofelia goes on two classic journeys at the same time: the hero's journey, and the coming-of-age journey. She stands up to the evil Captain Vidal. She doesn't get scared away from The Faun, or the dark adventures he sends her on. She escapes from The Pale Man, she defeats the Frog, she saves her infant brother. And she embraces her growing power as she is on the cusp of womanhood. Ofelia has the heart of the hero, and she ascends to her kingdom. As fairy tales go, few have been more heroic.

5. Belle and The Beast - Beauty and the Beast

At first I was going to put The Beast on the list, as he saves Belle from the wolves, he defeats Gaston, and he goes on the internal journey of growing into his kindness and love. But then I thought "well, Belle is really the hero. She sacrifices for her father. She stands up to The Beast's anger and imprisonment. She stands up to Gaston, and eventually saves The Beast from his own internal imprisonment in the beastly mask he's been given to live beneath." So I went back and forth for a bit as to who should be put on the list before realizing that the only option was to put both.

4. Wall-E and EVE
So now that I broke the rules and included two heroes in one entry...

Wall-E just wants love. He just wants companionship. He's never actually trying to be a hero, which is what makes him one. He takes care of EVE when she is shut down, he brings her everywhere with him and makes sure she's protected. And when EVE begins to care about him, he constantly helps her with her "directive". She eventually saves him too, as he'd taught her to open a part of herself she didn't even know was there. The scene where she rebuilds him at the end of the movie gives me chills to think about and tears welling up in my eyes when I watch it. They save the day for humanity, but they really save each other and find the love they both needed.

3. Luke Skywalker - Star Wars

"I'm here to rescue you!"

Has there ever been a more standard heroic line than Luke's iconic intro to Leia? Luke doesn't save the day alone, he has plenty of help, but he's the classic save-the-princess hero. Like Legend of Zelda's Link in the video game world, Luke might not be the most interesting character in the series. He might not be the lovable rogue that gets the girl. But he's the one who goes on the heroes journey. He fights the bad guys. He might be frightened, he might be haunted, he might be underprepared, but he does it anyway. And that's what puts him so high on this heroic list.

2. Wonder Woman

It was hard to pick between Batman and Superman to represent the heroic acts and characters from the world of superheroes. Really, this whole list could've been populated by Spiderman, Captain America, Wolverine or any number of other superheroes. But I knew it had to come down to the most iconic superhero (Superman) or my favorite superhero (Batman). And then I saw Wonder Woman, and the choice was made so much easier. The cinematic Wonder Woman isn't as complex as Batman, and she's not as overpoweringly superpowered as the boy scout that is Superman (being defeatable only by the most contrived of circumstances has always made Superman's heroic acts ring hollow to me, he's not really risking anything). But Diana has no tolerance for intolerance, she has no stomach for fear. She loves and loses loved ones. She fights the bad guy and saves the day. And she will gladly go into "No Man's Land" to take the fight to the villains, because she isn't a man. She's a hero.

1. Harry Potter

The reluctant hero. Harry was thrust into the role of hero due to the choices of others coming up against his own inner principals and values. He chose to be a hero because others chose to be villains, and somebody has to stand up to the bullies and villains of the world. But Harry also never did it alone, he surrounded himself with friends, loyal friends, real friends. It didn't hurt that Hermione was the most brilliant witch of her generation either, Harry definitely benefitted from that. He also benefitted from always having his best friend Ron next to him. Ron, who gave Harry a sense of belonging in the world, his first sense of family and his first real friend. Harry wasn't alone, but he was the one with the most courage, the deepest convictions, the most deep seated wounds caused by being bullied. He was the conscience of the group. And he was the reason they did the heroic things that they did and saved the world.

Monday, September 11, 2017

Top 15 of the 1960's

15. Eyes Without a Face (1962) directed by Georges Franju

One of the least seen great horror movies ever made is this disturbing little poetic horror movie from France. The story is that of Christiane, who was in a horrible car accident that left her face scarred and disfigured. Her father, whose fault the crash was, Dr. Genessier and his assistant kidnap young women who have similar features to Christiane. The doctor then tries to take off their faces and graft them onto Christiane's so that his daughter can be beautiful again, which would absolve him of his guilt over the crash. Meanwhile, Christiane wears a nearly featureless mask that ended up being the inspiration for Halloween's Michael Myers. Seeing just the pain, loneliness, and oncoming madness through her eyes in the mask, the movie engenders a lot of complex emotions in us. We sympathize with the doctor and his guilt, as well as Christiane and her impenetrable sadness. The face grafting scene can still be disturbing for many audiences, and is not for the faint of heart, but that's to the movie's credit.

14. The Silence (1962) directed by Ingmar Bergman

Bergman's The Silence is the story of two sisters, one dying and one resentfully caring for her and her son. While on a train home through Europe, they decide to stop in at the fictional town of Timoka, a place on the brink of war, and stay for a bit. The son seems to make a sort of friend in the kind elderly hotel porter, though the country speaks in an unintelligible language. There are long, fascinating shots of the boy exploring the hotel, running into the porter and meeting some of the other inhabitants. This is contrasted to the battle of wills between the sisters, as the sick one gets closer to dying and the other acts out with some of the locals.

Intended as the final entry into Bergman's "Faith Trilogy", starting with 1961's Through a Glass Darkly, and continued with 1963's Winter Light, The Silence evokes its title in many ways. Of course, if an artist refers to something as a "Faith Trilogy" and there's an entry called "The Silence", you can bet that the silence of God will be an issue in that piece. But Bergman always dealt with heavy issues like that in his work. On a much simpler level, The Silence is a very low key movie, with not a ton of dialog. The thing I actually came out remembering most was all of those great shots in and out of the hallway as the young boy searches through the hotel. It felt like an expansive journey of a movie, I was surprised to find out that it is only an hour and a half long. It feels longer, in a weirdly good way.

13. Masque of the Red Death (1964) directed by Roger Corman

One of Edgar Allan Poe's best stories becomes this terrific movie that really caught me by surprise. With the campy b-movie king Roger Corman directing one of the legends of the campy b-movie, Vincent Price, I guess I wasn't expecting a movie this dark and sinister and not at all campy. It's the story of a plague sweeping through a region in medieval England, where Price's Satan worshiping Prince Prospero holds court in his castle for many noblemen and women, while the countryside dies horrible deaths from the plague. But we see that things are not even safe inside the castle, as danger seems to lurk around every corner. It's a dark story, made even darker by writers Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell's inclusion of a sub-plot taken from Poe's Hop-Frog, about a murderous dwarf seeking revenge on the nobles that treated him badly.

Vincent Price is simply phenomenal here, oozing danger and evil while still having his trademark sense of humor, which in this case makes him and that smile all the more frightening. It's opulently made, or at least appears so, as Corman was able to reuse sets from the previous year's Peter O'Toole/Richard Burton-starring medieval film Becket. Also the movie is gorgeously shot, by the legendary Nicolas Roeg. That, coupled with Corman not turning away from or cheapening the darkness of Poe's original material, really helps elevate this movie into something special. Although usually known as a purveyor of cheap exploitation films most often not worth your time, Corman was actually a very smart man who launched the careers of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, and James Cameron. With Masque of the Red Death he proved himself a tremendous filmmaker in his own right.

12. The Pawnbroker (1964) directed by Sidney Lumet

If looking at the synopsis of The Pawnbroker, one might get the sense that it's one of those "IMPORTANT" movies that make a statement and must be watched because they are of importance to society. The Pawnbroker should simply be watched because it's a brilliant movie, one containing one of the great performances, Rod Steiger's Sol Nazerman. The Pawnbroker was the first American movie to explicitly deal with the Holocaust, as well as Nazerman's pain at losing his wife and children and his own survivor's guilt. It was also a landmark movie in the abolishment of the Production Code of the time, as it has nudity in it that was given an approval because of its "importance", setting a precedent that would see the abolishment of the code within just a few years. With a terrific score by Quincy Jones, gritty New York City location cinematography from the brilliant Boris Kaufman, and direction from the legendary Sidney Lumet, The Pawnbroker is a terrific film that unfortunately isn't seen by enough people these days.

11. A Hard Day's Night (1964) directed by Richard Lester

Ah, The Beatles. The greatest band ever create one of the most fun movies ever. A romp through life at the height of Beatlemania, the movie was initially just supposed to be another product to sell. Just more money to be made. But as The Beatles often did, they took what could've been a soulless product and made it special. How many musical vanity projects get nominated for multiple Oscars? Its style influenced nearly every subsequent musical documentary and movie, leading director Richard Lester to even be called the father of MTV (Lester joking asked for a paternity test). But mostly, the lads are just a fun group to spend some time with. Their music is so good, even though A Hard Day's Night as an album might not even be in the band's top 3 records, it's so enjoyable and poppy and catchy. And the lads are all their charming selves that we would come to know and love more than just about any other celebrities. A Hard Day's Night is as infectiously fun, light hearted, put-a-smile-on-your-face time at the movies as you can hope to have.

10. High and Low (1962) directed by Akira Kurosawa

No secret by now that I'm a huge fan of Akira Kurosawa's work. There's something about his movies that really speak to me. I knew I was going to love this movie simply from its premise. Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) is a shoe company executive who becomes the target of extortionists planning to kidnap his son and hold him for ransom. But as he's getting ready to pay the ransom, Kingo finds out that it's not his son, but his drivers, who was kidnapped. Kurosawa uses this as a jumping off point for a police procedural with some philosophical questions wrapped around it. Is the drivers son worth any less than the bosses? If you were the boss would you use the money you'd saved up in your dream of finally taking control of your company, or would you spare the life of a boy you don't even know?

The movie is split almost in half, with the first dealing with the kidnapping, and the second dealing with the search for the kidnappers. It's to Kurosawa's credit that even though Mifune is one of the most charismatic and watchable leading men the movies have ever known, when the cop characters take over the second half of the film, the quality never dips. It's a tremendous movie, and one whose reputation (rightfully) grows year after year.

9. The Saragossa Manuscript (1965) directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has

A 3 hour surrealist shifting narrative journey brought to us from the supposedly unfilmable book of the same name, written piecemeal by Jan Potocki between 1805-1815 before being left unfinished at the author's death. It stars "The Polish James Dean" Zbigniew Cybulski, just two years before his death. The movie is framed as two soldiers come upon a book while fighting in the Spanish town of Saragossa in the Napoleonic Wars. We then see in flashback a soldier's journey through many crazy adventures, both supernatural and otherwise.

We spend the majority of the second half of the movie listening to the stories of a gypsy who arrives at a castle, all seen in flashbacks. This is where the movie switches from surreal, dream-like storytelling, to puzzle box, Russian doll kinda storytelling. At one point we are watching a story within a story within a story within a story within a story within a story within a story (I think that's how deep it went, if I counted right). Lead character Alphonse himself even expresses his deliriousness in trying to keep up, saying "it's enough to make you crazy."

Crazy, maybe, but happily so. Wojciech Jerzy Has's direction is so superb that we are invested in every story within a story, and he keeps them moving so fast that even if you aren't, this one won't last long and there's another coming up that's different. It reminded me a lot of the grandfather's description of the story in The Princess Bride. Here we have demons, ghosts, sultans, battles, sword fights, gorgeous women who aren't always totally clothed, dreams, nightmares, and I haven't even mentioned that the movie has quite a few laughs in it as well. Also, Has's camera movement and control is some of the best I've ever seen from a filmmaker, often switching from long static shots to sudden huge camera movements around, in, or through a building. It's absolutely first class filmmaking and I can see why it was such a favorite of Martin Scorsese's, who has obviously been greatly influenced by Has's camera work.

This is one of the great epics of world cinema, one that's sadly underseen, despite having a great DVD from the Criterion Collection.

8. La Jetee (1962) directed by Chris Marker

French filmmaker Chris Marker's sci-fi masterpiece La Jetee is a short film, only 28 minutes long, told almost entirely through still photographs pieced together with narration. It tells the story of a post-WWIII time traveler who is sent back and forth through time in an attempt to find help for the current time as a small group were able to hide underground in Paris from the nuclear annihilation. Terry Gilliam would later use the movie as the basis of his film 12 Monkeys, but La Jetee is truly unique and special. It's harrowing in the psychological stress put onto our unnamed protagonist (portrayed in the photos by Davos Hanich, but the narration by Jean Negroni). But the man finds a woman he remembers from his past. It's taxing to be thrown throughout time, and the man ends up searching for answers to his own life as much as he looks for answers to his post-apocalyptic present. The mystery of the movie is wonderful, the ability to get us to feel like we've traveled through time with this man is palpable, and the ending is simply perfect. I've never seen another film made like this, with the photos and narration, Marker himself apparently didn't even refer to it as a film, but as a photo novel. Either way, it thoroughly deserves its place high on this list.

7. The Haunting (1963) directed by Robert Wise

THE great haunted house movie, and probably what I would consider my favorite "horror" movie. Sadly, many people only know the title The Haunting from the reprehensible 1999 remake with Liam Neeson, Owen Wilson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. That version is an unabashed piece of shit. Robert Wise's original is of the great old school variety where they actually created characters, used suspense, and made us believe that we're in a haunted house, instead of just throwing special effects at us.

It's not complicated. A team of people goes to investigate the alleged haunting of Hill House. Two men, Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson) and Luke (Russ Tamblyn), two women, Eleanor (Julie Harris) and Theo (Claire Bloom). Finding simple things in the house like unexplainable cold spots, the tension ratchets up until we have things like "HELP ELEANOR COME HOME" scrawled on the walls and (naturally) Eleanor, who seemed initially to have the least connection to the project, starts to unravel. The movie has some great set pieces, like the door bending and bowing into the room where the girls sit frightened on the bed, but the SFX are always in service of the story, and Wise never forgets that this is the story of these people, Eleanor in particular, not the SFX. Made between his huge successes of 1961's West Side Story and 1965's The Sound of Music, you wouldn't think this was made by the same filmmaker, but that's what makes Wise one of the underappreciated great directors of all time.

6. Psycho (1960) directed by Alfred Hitchcock

One of the most famous, talked about, written about movies ever made, Hitchcock's low budget masterpiece Psycho deserves every bit of attention it's had. Knowing in advance the twists and turns of the story, it's to Hitch's credit that I was engrossed from the first frame of film. Anthony Perkins delivered the performance of a lifetime as Norman Bates, a truly extraordinary character we've never seen before. Janet Leigh is terrific as well, as the woman on the run who checks into the wrong hotel. It's not quite as quick moving as some of the other greats from the master, I don't think the search storyline is anywhere near as interesting as the Norman/Marion piece, but it's still good so it's a minor quibble in an otherwise tremendous movie.

On a side note, the controversial "shot-by-shot" remake that Gus Van Sant made in 1998 is one of the most fascinating pieces of experimental cinema I've seen. When asked why he did it, he said "so no one else would have to." He was trying to see if recreating a magical movie like Psycho shot-by-shot would retain all of the cinematic greatness, or if there's something deeper and unexplainable that makes a certain movie special. Sadly, it's obvious from seeing his version that the movie doesn't work, and there is indeed something deeper and unexplainable going on here. But since so much vitriol has been spit at Van Sant over the years for this project, I actually wanted to voice my support of his artistic balls, even if I think he failed to make a good movie.

5. Red Beard (1965) directed by Akira Kurosawa

One of the most human epics the movies have ever given us, Red Beard is one of the handful of movies I would ever describe as being "novelic". It was a hellish shoot, taking over two years, and the stress it caused meant it was subsequently the last of 16 movies Kurosawa made with Toshiro Mifune.

The movie is the journey of arrogant young doctor Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama), who for his post-graduate job is sent to work for the enigmatic Akahige, or "Red Beard", Dr. Niide (Mifune). Brash and uppity about his fancy Dutch medical training, Yasumoto believes he has nothing to learn from the small hospital Niide runs, and certainly not from the man himself. Over the course of the movie, though, Yasumoto's guard comes down and Niide forces him to grow up and realize that there's much more to medicine than the latest technological training. Sometimes you simply need to bear witness to the life of someone you can't save, and sometimes you have to work harder than you thought possible to save someone who doesn't think they can be saved.

Red Beard is probably Mifune's triumph as an actor. Gruff, no-nonsense, intimidating, but caring, philosophical, and strong and smart in every possible way, he's a fascinating character, expertly underplayed by the sometimes over-the-top Mifune. Sadly, it was allegedly the reservations of one of the writers saying that Mifune's performance was "all wrong" that led Kurosawa to question his leading man and ultimately never work with him again. While it was the financial stress put on Mifune by having to wear a natural beard and be available for sporadic shooting for more than two years, ultimately losing out on upwards of 10 movie roles in the process that caused Mifune to not want to work with Kurosawa again. Sad though it was that this was their swansong, it's a remarkable movie and a satisfying finale to the greatest actor/director combo in all of cinema.

4. Blow Up (1966) directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

The first English language movie from Michelangelo Antonioni, Blowup is a hell of a good time at the movies. The Hitchcockian tale of a photographer who may or may not have accidentally photographed a murder, and the ensuing 24 or so hours after he did it. Antonioni doesn't give us any easy answers, and never answers the question of what "really" happened. But he doesn't need to, because that's not what he's after.

I think he's after a couple of things. 1.) He shows his main character, Thomas, bored with the mundanity of his fashion shoots and longing to be artistically motivated again. Antonioni had not really been going through a dry spell as an artist, but I think all artists feel bored and feel a need to reconnect or rechallenge themselves again. But to what end? Thomas almost becomes stuck in his project, not sure of how to get out (or if he even wants to) 2.) Antonioni is commenting on the nature of reality and perception. The famous ending scene with the mimes playing tennis as Thomas watches is a perfect distillation of Antonioni's asking of the question "what is reality? How is it different from perception? IS it different?" Few thrillers have ever challenged us to ask such deep questions before.

3. Persona (1966) directed by Ingmar Bergman

Bergman's Persona is truly one of the most exciting movies ever made. It's a minimalist almost surrealist film about an actress named Elisabet (Liv Ullmann) who stops speaking onstage one night, and Alma (Bibi Andersson) the nurse assigned to be her caretaker while Elisabet goes to a small cottage to recover. Alma talks almost constantly, initially good naturedly, to Elisabet about all manner of things, from reading a letter Elisabet's husband sends, to relating the story of a sexual encounter at the beach. Alma slowly begins to resent Elisabet and when she acts out by leaving a piece of broken glass for Elisabet to step on, Elisabet's eyes meet Alma's and the film famously burns up before Bergman reassembles it and we get on with the story.

The story then gets more odd and abstract, as we later see a monologue delivered once with the camera completely on Liv Ullmann's face, and then cut to Bibi Andersson's as the monologue is redelivered. After this comes the famous scene where Bergman takes half of Ullman's face and half of Andersson's and mashes them together to show a truly frightening image of one face. Despite the bone chilling feeling of watching these two come together, my interpretation of the movie has always been that Alma and Elisabet are simply the same person, with Alma breaking off into her own character as Elisabet refuses to speak out loud.

Interpretations of movies like this are fun, but nothing compares to the visceral feeling of actually watching it. The moment when the two faces of these absolutely gorgeous women come together to make this monstrous looking face is a chilling psychological horror feeling I've not ever felt from another movie. I almost had to turn it off it was so disturbing to me. So great is Bergman that a simple act like this (something Bergman superfan Woody Allen later used in his comedy Love and Death) could have such an impact. Less than an hour and a half long, it's the epitome of the movie that you may not quite be sure what each piece means upon your viewing, but you're sure that you've seen greatness that must be dissected and examined.

2. The Apartment (1960) directed by Billy Wilder

One of the loneliest movies ever made would not seem the place to inject a healthy amount of comedy, but Billy Wilder's triumph does exactly that with a grace and wit rarely seen. Jack Lemmon does his greatest work creating C.C. Baxter, the lonely corporate ladder climber who lets his bosses use his apartment for their affairs because it's cheaper than a hotel room (and doesn't come with any paperwork). He has never realized just how alone he feels until he falls for Shirley MacLaine's Fran Kubelik, and the moment late in the movie when he voices this is one of Lemmon's greatest scenes. Fred MacMurray plays Lemmon's boss, who MacLaine's character is having an affair with.

The description of the plot doesn't sound like there's much room for comedy either, but you must remember that this was the creative team just coming off of the great Some Like It Hot the previous year. Lemmon, Wilder, and co-writer I.A.L. Diamond were all at the top of their games and crafted one of the most complex, interesting movies to ever win a Best Picture Oscar, a fitting cap on the unabashed greatness that's permeates this masterpiece.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) directed by Stanley Kubrick

Another movie that must be talked about and examined in detail is the best movie of the 1960's, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Disappointed that there were no great sci-fi movies, in his mind, Kubrick set out to collaborate with one of sci-fi's great minds, British author Arthur C. Clarke. They came up with the general outline together, and Kubrick went off the write the script and make the movie while Clarke wrote the book, that way both had artistic freedom in their fields, while also having worked together at the project's inception. What we got from Kubrick (I've strangely never read the book, despite being a huge Clarke fan) is sci-fi's great intellectual work, taking a long hard look at technology and how it affects us.

The movie really is driven by concept of technology and how we grow from it. The apes in the opening sequence discovering the use of bones as tools/weapons really being the first discovery of a form of technology. We jump ahead to spaceships and all this crazy cool tech stuff that has become so commonplace it's boring to the characters. Next, the most conventional (and entertaining) section, with the HAL9000 and its crew on their dangerous mission to Jupiter. And the final section where our technology is irrelevant, but our evolution keeps going. A fascinating look on every level, with all the questions it raises stimulating our minds, while the still nearly flawless SFX holding our eyes, 2001 is really an amazing achievement on every level.

Not necessarily easy to get through, I turned it off just a few minutes after the opening "Dawn of Man" sequence was over during my first attempt to watch it. But I went back time and time again and am glad that I did, as seeing it as a whole let me see what Kubrick was going for. Really the only complaint I have about this movie (which is in my all-time top 10, so you know the complaint is minor) is the "Beyond the Infinite" sequence, where Dave goes through the wormhole into universes and planets and surfaces we could never imagine and can't really even process in our minds (this subject was the focus of a section in Clarke's earlier masterpiece Childhood's End). The sequence goes on long after the point has been made, but even though it becomes monotonous after a bit, that makes the eventual sudden cut to Dave's face all the more shocking and effective. Kubrick's greatest movie, and the best movie of the 60's, 2001: A Space Odyssey.