Top 10's of the decades - 1960's

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

The newest addition to my lists, as far as the most recently viewed by me, is this seventh Roger Corman movie based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. One of 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.

Price is simply phenomenal, oozing danger and evil while having his trademark sense of humor (which makes him and that smile all the more frightening). It's opulently made, or at least appears so, reusing sets from the Peter O'Toole/Richard Burton starring medieval movie Becket. Looking terrific (shot by the legendary Nicolas Roeg), coupled with Corman not turning away or cheapening the darkness of Poe's original material, it's absolutely a terrific movie, and very worthy of its inclusion on this list.

9. High and Low (1963, 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. He becomes the target of extortionists who plan to kidnap his son and hold him for ransom. But as he's getting ready to pay the ransom, he finds out that it's not his son, but his drivers, who is 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.

8. The Silence (1963, directed by Ingmar Bergman)

One of the stranger films on these lists, 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.

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 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. Blowup (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.

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. 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.

3. 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.

2. 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 her 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 take 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.

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 in 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 technology, the apes in the opening sequence discovering the use of bones as tools and weapons really being the first 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 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) 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 a 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.

Top 10's of the decades - 1950's

10. Elevator to the Gallows (1958, directed by Louis Malle)

I previously wrote about Elevator to the Gallows when I first watched it, but essentially it's a French version of the American noir movies of the 40's and early 50's. The debut of future legend Louis Malle, it stars Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as Florence and Julien, secret lovers planning the murder of her powerful husband (his boss), only to have their perfect plan slowly unravel over the course of the movie's 91 powerfully tense minutes. A haunting, lonely score improvised by Miles Davis sets the backdrop of inevitable tragedy in the lives of our characters. Moreau, who didn't do anything for me in Truffaut's Jules and Jim, here uses her strangely attractive features in a wonderful performance of a woman hoping and searching and afraid for the safety and whereabouts of the lover she can't find, almost going mad with worry. Because, after the murder of her husband, Julien spends the night trapped in the elevator of the building in which he'd just committed the crime.

Gorgeously shot, tautly directed (by just a 24-year-old Malle), expertly acted and painfully tragic, it has all the hallmarks of the great noirs of years past and deserves to be remembered alongside them, above most.

9. Some Like It Hot (1959, directed by Billy Wilder)

Two broke musicians are witness to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and must go on the run as mobsters chase them through Prohibition-era Chicago, all the way down to Miami. Doesn't exactly sound like the premise of one of the great comedies of all time, but it is. Everyone knows by now that the musicians are played by Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, who disguise themselves in drag, meet Marilyn Monroe, and hijinks ensue.

Curtis and Monroe are both pretty and charismatic enough that their story is engaging (Monroe in particular, no matter what problems there were getting her to this performance), but it's Jack Lemmon who makes this movie really shine. His flawless comic timing and fearless work opposite pervy Joe E. Brown that takes things over the edge. The absolutely perfect ending "Well, nobody's perfect", despite knowing that that was the ending line, had me rolling on the floor laughing (not figuratively) at this Billy Wilder masterpiece.

8. The Night of the Hunter (1955, directed by Charles Laughton)

Robert Mitchum was always a welcome sight on screen, in my book. But when I watched The Night of the Hunter, he became one of my favorite actors. His bone chilling work as the murderous "Preacher" Harry Powell is among the great villianous turns the movies ever gave us. That he's surrounded by Charles Laughton's expressionistic, poetic, equally frightening movie is what makes it an all-time great. Powell kills his new wife (Shelly Winters), only having married her because he was cell mates with her first husband, who let slip of his family having a big stash of money. He stalks after the kids, unforgettably calling out in that booming Mitchum voice "Chiiiiiildren?" They eventually make it to the safety of Lillian Gish's Rachel, but the fight still isn't over yet.

It's sad that The Night of the Hunter was a massive flop when it was released. Laughton had been Hollywood royalty, having already won an Oscar (Best Actor for The Private Life of Henry VIII) and married to fellow Oscar nominee Elsa Lanchester, and this was his first shot at directing. His weird, disquieting, dark little movie rejected by both critics and audiences, he never directed again and was dead 8 years later, of cancer of the kidneys. Still, it stands as a remarkable achievement in atmosphere and screen horror, and one of the great movies of the 1950's.

7. Rio Bravo (1959, directed by Howard Hawks)

A testament to just how many incredible movies were made in the 1950's (the decade I had the hardest time whittling down to 10 during this effort), Rio Bravo is probably my favorite western, a genre I love wholeheartedly, yet doesn't even crack the top 5 of its decade. Regardless, this is one of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen. Howard Hawks' famous quote about what makes a great film was "3 good scenes, no bad scenes" and he was a master at putting that into practice. I don't know that I could single out what the best scene in the movie is, but I can sure as hell tell you there's nothing in the 141 minutes I'd cut out.

John Wayne is terrific here, even if his juicier role in The Searchers is his best work as an actor. He feels like he really would be the sheriff of this small town about to be under siege. Dean Martin should've had a Supporting Actor Oscar for his work as the drunken deputy Dude. Walter Brennan adds some wonderful comic relief, and even Ricky Nelson is wonderful as the quick shooting Colorado. When he and the boys have a little musical interlude before the carnage of the finale, it doesn't feel shoehorned in because Nelson was a teen idol at the time and Martin a legendary singer, it works for these characters. It's simply terrific all around and one of those movies I'd gladly watch any time anywhere.

6. Singin’ in the Rain (1952, directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donnen)

Despite growing up seeing a TON of musicals, as well as being a musician, I'm not a big fan of the musical genre of movies. The breaking into song pushes my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point and ruins it for me. But, of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, and the exception here is the infinitely entertaining Singin' in the Rain. Gene Kelly's masterpiece onscreen is one of those happy movies that I watch if I'm sick or feeling down or anything. It's simply too much fun seeing Donald O'Connor throwing himself around like a cartoon, Kelly charming his way through the transition of silent star to the talkies, Debbie Reynolds' personifying the word plucky, and Jean Hagen's oh so wonderfully hateable Lina Lamont.

I could focus on the overlong "Broadway Melody" dance sequence, but Kelly did this in most of his movies, having a big show stopping dance number near the end of the movie. But no, the moments that stick out to me are Kelly's iconic title song and dance number, O'Connor's "Make 'Em Laugh", and the moment when it's revealed that Reynolds was the voice all along. Embarrassed, she tries to run out of the theater, but I never fail to tear up as Kelly calls out "Hey, stop that girl! She's the real star" Roger Ebert has called that a perfect moment of cinema, and I don't disagree.

5. Seven Samurai (1954, directed by Akira Kurosawa)

Generally considered Akira Kurosawa's greatest triumph, again the 1950's show their strength that I count this movie among my all-time 20 favorites, and yet it's only #5 on this list. Endlessly mimicked and ripped off, Kurosawa's tale of a small group of heroes protecting a village from bandits was the biggest movie ever in Japan upon its release, and a huge success worldwide as well, despite its 3 1/2 hour runtime. Having written about it multiple times before, I won't belabor the point here, just safe to say that its reputation is well deserved, even if it's only my personal #2 from the Japanese master.

4. Rififi (1955, directed by Jules Dassin)

The third of four non-English language movies on my 50's list, the blue print for all subsequent heist movies came from Blacklisted American Jules Dassin, directing in France because that's the only job he could get. It's a story you've seen many times since, but never as well, with a terrific lead performance from Jean Servais, and my favorite role in the movie, that of the Italian safecracker, played by Dassin himself. The calling card of the movie is the 30+ minute silent heist itself, a brilliant piece of filmmaking that none of its imitators can match. It's simply a genius movie.

3. On the Waterfront (1954, directed by Elia Kazan)

Occasionally pieces of cinema become such parts of pop culture that people forget even where it came from or the piece loses its power from repetition. Upon first viewing On the Waterfront, I expected the climactic "I coulda been a contenda" speech to be one of those for me. Instead, I found myself weeping at the loss and disappointment Terry Malloy felt in himself and in his brother Charlie. "I coulda been a contenda" isn't even the important part of the speech, it's when Terry says "You was my brother, Charlie, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money." It's a devastating scene, and delivered by Marlon Brando in what I believe is the greatest screen performance ever given.

There's plenty of backstory to the movie, about how Elia Kazan named names so he wouldn't get blacklisted, and made this movie as a sort of sticking up for himself. But I don't really care about all that. I care about Terry and Charlie and the other characters in the movie. Kazan set up real and idealistic people and all the actors are flawless. It's overall one of the best acted movies I've ever seen, even with Brando taking such deserved accolades for his work.

2. Throne of Blood (1957, directed by Akira Kurosawa)

Kurosawa loved Shakespeare, even though he thought he was "too wordy." He gave us some of the great adaptations of the Bard's work, with the greatest being this oppressive, horror tinged take on MacBeth. As he did with his later Ran, Kurosawa shifted the tale to feudal Japan. It stars Toshiro Mifune in the MacBeth role, hear called Washizu. The movie is dripping with atmosphere, it's almost oppresively foreboding. The 3 witches from the opening of the play are replaced with a single spirit here, and it's much creepier than any interpretation I've ever seen. They somehow altered the actors voice to give it a ghoulish deepness, with an almost metallic tone to it. It's very effective when combined with the eerie score and nightmarish forest setting. Mifune is a good deal more subtle in his performance here, there are some over-the-top outbursts, but mostly he internalizes Washizu's struggle. It's a brilliant performance, although arguably not even one of his two best.

The most famous sequence of the movie is the finale, where instead of dying in a duel as MacBeth does, Washizu perishes in a hail of arrows in a scene that might be my favorite from any Kurosawa movie. Washizu is able to dodge many of the arrows, some only inches from his head, but he's not able to dodge them all. Someone once told Toshiro Mifune that his acting in the sequence was terrific, that he actually seemed scared. Mifune replied that he was terrified, Kurosawa had people shooting real arrows only 2 feet or so from his face. He said he was not really acting at all. Whatever he was doing, it works. And the culmination of the scene is an image burned into the brains of many a film fan.
1. Vertigo (1958, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

There's honestly not that much to say about Vertigo that hasn't already been said on an analytical level. It was also recently picked as the #1 movie of all time, in the Sight and Sound poll of film critics and directors, a poll taken every 10 years where Citizen Kane had been the #1 movie for 50 years or so. The first time I watched it, I'd only recently seen Psycho, which had quickly become my favorite from Hitchcock, and was going through a bit of a phase, one in which I watched Notorious, Strangers on a Train, and North by Northwest (again) as well. While watching it, I was taken in by its hypnotic pacing and sumptuous photography, as well as one of the most disturbing performances ever given by a huge movie star. Jimmy Stewart was like the All-American movie everyman. He'd been a beacon of every day nobility and charm on screen for many years, even temporarily retiring to fly in WWII. So to see him play Scottie Ferguson with the kind of subtle delusional mania that he does was both surprising in his choice of role (and Hitch's choice to cast) as well as frightening in the intensity of performance. Stewart's performance is one of the all-time greats, the greatest Hitch ever got from his actors (and he had some great ones), and an incredibly bold statement from a guy whom I'd thought of almost as a persona and not the talented actor he was.

The almost trance-like sequences early in the movie as Scottie follows and ultimately falls in love with Kim Novak's Madeleine, gives way to the startling descent into madness that Scotty experiences in the final section. Hitchcock's presentation of this is somehow still infused with his trademark tension, while never feeling contrived for suspense. He gets us wired through building our central character and following him as he falls in love first with a woman, and then with an idea. We don't need planes flying at us, or scenes of murder in the shower to ratchet up our involvement with this movie. It's Hitch's crowning achievement and one of the truly great movies ever made.

Top 10's of the decades - 1940's

10. Stray Dog (1949, directed by Akira Kurosawa)

The earliest of Kurosawa's many masterpieces (he's got at least 8 I'd call out and out great movies), Stray Dog is about a young post-war Tokyo cop who has his gun stolen on the train home one hot summer day. This gun later turns up as the murder weapon in another case, and sends the young officer on a manhunt to find who stole his gun. One of Kurosawa's underappreciated non-samurai movies, Stray Dog has a palpable sweat to it, evoking those unbearable summer days and humid nights. Wrapping that setting around a cop movie was a good choice, and having his favorite actors Toshiro Mifune (as the young cop) and Takashi Shimura (as the veteran helping him out) as his stars was never anything but brilliant.

9. Bambi (1942, 5 different directors)

One of those odd "nostalgic" movies that I'm not actually nostalgic for. Bambi was never one of my favorites when I was a kid, I think I thought it was too slow. But when I saw it as an adult, I was mesmerized by the nature scenes and the evocation of seasons and life in the forest. I still don't cry when Bambi's mother is killed, but I tense up as they're trying to get out of the burning forest, and get all dewy eyed when the characters are growing up. One of the great Disney movies for sure.


8. Double Indemnity (1944, directed by Billy Wilder)

The earliest of Billy Wilder's many great movies, Double Indemnity did what a lot of the classic noir movies did, it took a terrific noir book, and didn't screw anything up in the translation to the screen. Fred MacMurray is a great choice as our everyman protagonist, drawn into the web of femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson makes for a great investigative foil who witnesses the whole thing unravel (as it always does in these noir movies). Great atmosphere, writing, acting, it's got all the usual hallmarks of a Wilder movie.


7. Foreign Correspondent (1940, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

The greatest movie Hitchcock ever made that most people haven't heard about, Foreign Correspondent doesn't have any big stars, or any iconic set pieces, it's just a damn fine movie. A globetrotting reporter played by Joel McCrea runs around Europe during WWII having all kinds of Hitchcockian hijinks happening around him (ya know, murder and blackmail and all that good stuff). Despite being nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars that year, Foreign Correspondent seems overshadowed in history by Hitch's other 1940 release, the Best Picture winning Rebecca. But it has some of Hitch's best work (especially the plane crash), including a deviously villianous turn by a pre-Santa Claus Edmund Gwynn.


6. Monsieur Verdoux (1947, directed by Charlie Chaplin)

One of the great dark comedies ever made, I've written about Charlie Chaplin's diabolical opus before, but I'll recap that it was an idea Orson Welles had for a movie that he wanted Chaplin to star in. Chaplin had never been directed by anyone but himself, and wasn't gonna start at the age of 58, so he bought the script, re-wrote it, directed it, starred in it, and wrote the score for it (a typical day at the office for control freak Chaplin). It's the story of a man who marries women, kills them and takes their money. It abides by the production code of the day by not letting Chaplin get away with it, but coming out just after WWII, Chaplin can't help commenting "One murder makes a villain, millions a hero." I've only seen 2 Chaplin's I'd call genius. And while I think his The Gold Rush is superior to this, Monsieur Verdoux is certainly his other.

5. Citizen Kane (1941, directed by Orson Welles)

What more can really be said about this, likely the most talked and written about movie in cinema history? I'll just quickly posit that obviously I don't put it as one of the 1 or 2 greatest movies ever made, it is most definitely a great movie. Orson Welles' work as director is incredibly ambitious and impressive, his work as writer nearly flawless, but it's his central role as Charles Foster Kane that really carries this textbook of a movie. He doesn't need the aging makeup he's put in, he believably takes us through different stages of Kane's life with just body language and voice control. It's truly amazing work on every level from a man who was only 26 at the time. And for those who haven't seen it, yes Rosebud was his sled, but what does that mean?

4. He Walked by Night (1948, directed by Alfred L. Werker)

Probably the most unfairly overlooked noir movie ever made. Serving as the blueprint for Dragnet's use of real police files, and having that shows creator and star Jack Webb in a small role, He Walked by Night is a fascinating police procedural noir with some striking cinematography, terrific performances, and a tightly wound script that never lets up, even if it only lasts 79 minutes.

Credited to journeyman filmmaker Alfred L. Werker, but directed at least in part by the legendary Anthony Mann (reports conflict on how much), the calling card of the movie has to be its finale, a flashlight lit chase through the L.A. storm drain system that shames the more famous, and very similar, chase at the end of The Third Man, released the following year. The wonderful suspense of the chase is heightened by what we already know of the killer's knowledge of the underground system, and his preparation of just such a scenario. The little details adding up into a tremendous sequence that's the best I've run across in my quest. The photography of the picture overall should be commended as well, shot by master cinematographer John Alton (An American in Paris, The Big Combo), the finale is not the only memorably photographed sequence (although I can't impress upon you how much I loved that finale), we get many great shots of faces lit by the light shining through the blinds, lonely intersections broken only by a single street lamp, and many more.


3. Miracle on 34th Street (1947, directed by George Seaton)

Everyone has that movie (or movies) that just make them feel good. No matter what your mood is, no matter what's going on in your life, you can watch it and feel thoroughly good. Well, this is that movie for me. I watch it multiple times a year and cry with joy every. single. time. The tale of faith and Santa Claus and legal loopholes and all that stuff add up to be the movie that just makes me the happiest I can be.

I have always wanted to point out that it makes me laugh that the finale of the movie is all driven by people acting selfishly. Fred is so sure of himself as a lawyer he says he can prove Kris is the real deal. Judge Harper refuses to dismiss the case because he has to keep his integrity, but can't risk pissing off the voters and he's up for re-election soon. The post office workers simply want to be able to get rid of all the Santy Claus letters they have in their dead letter office, so they send them to Kris. It doesn't exactly underline the giving mentality of what Kris preaches, but the movie makes me so happy that even as I'm watching it and thinking about how everyone is selfish, I just don't care and I sit back and be happy.

But as a movie buff I couldn't put it on the list if I didn't admire it from a filmmaking perspective too. It's got a tight script, is nicely photographed, and the acting by everyone involved is top notch. So it satisfies anything I could want from it.


2. Notorious (1946, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

One of the great performances from one of our greatest stars, Ingrid Bergman, is contained right here in one of the most low-key spy stories the movies have ever given us. It's really not a spy tale at all, it's the story of love and how these two people let their jobs get in the way, and put their country above themselves just long enough for things to get all screwed up, while we hope that they get out of it in the end. It's a nearly perfect movie, in my eyes, with Cary Grant's career best work, and Bergman's only being surpassed by another movie on her resume...


1. Casablanca (1942, directed by Michael Curtiz)

Speaking of perfect movies, I don't think I can find a flaw in the world's most famous B-movie. Not intended as one of the big studio productions, Casablanca simply came together in the happiest of accidents and became one of the most beloved movies ever made. It took me a long time to see it, but as soon as it was over I wasn't asking myself what the big deal was, I was kicking myself for waiting so damn long to see one of the greatest movies ever made and the best movie of the 1940's.

I have to detail my personal favorite scene in the movie and the reason why Humphrey Bogart was one of our greatest stars. After seeing Ilsa again, and hearing "As Time Goes By" for the first time in years, Rick sits drinking alone after closing the bar. Sam comes in and starts playing piano, Rick gives his "of all the gin joints in the world, she walks into mine" speech, but then asks Sam what he's playing. Sam says it's something of his own, and Rick lashes out at him to "stop it! You know what I wanna hear. If she can stand to hear it, I can!" and the look of complete devastation on Bogie's face should've won him an Oscar.

Upcoming posts - top 10 lists

Since I've always been a list maker, I've decided to create my top 10 movies for the decades of film I care about. Now, I'm a movie nerd, so I care about everything back to and including the silent era. For these lists, I didn't do the decades before the 1940's because as I was going through I realized that I didn't know enough about those decades to feel confident enough about my top tens to defend them. I know me some Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd, but not a lot else from the silent era (other than the big ones like Sunrise, The Birth of a Nation, and other agreed upon classics), and my list from the 30's of movies I'd rank as all-time greats was barely double digits. I've made these lists and will write a bit about why each movie is on there, starting with...

Nicolas Winding Refn triple feature

 

Nicolas Winding Refn is a director who has started making his name in America after much international success. He started off in his native Denmark with 1996's Pusher, a strong (if not talked about) influence on the famous Dogme 95 movement. He ended up making it a trilogy, all highly acclaimed. I've not seen any of the Pusher films, but I recently watched 3 of his other movies, and all were quite interesting and worth a look.

In 2008, Refn made a "biopic" of Charles Bronson (born Michael Peterson), the man who has been called "the most violent prisoner in Britain" and has spent only 69 days free from prison since 1974, despite being proud to say he has never killed anyone. Tom Hardy (who many now know as Bane from The Dark Knight Rises, or perhaps as "the British guy" from Inception) gives a performance of incredible power, humor, and unrestrained rage. It's the most animalistic performance I've seen from an actor, and with this character, might be the only way of making him watchable without turning the audience off.

Refn, thankfully, never tries to explain away Charlie's behavior, nor make any type of excuses for him. He simply shows Bronson, unjudgingly, unabashedly, unapologetically. Bronson narrates in what becomes a kind of vaudeville show about his life, from briefly seeing his childhood (which he said was pretty good, his parents were hard working folks doing their best), to becoming a petty criminal who likes to get oiled up and fight guards, teachers, other prisoners, basically anyone who's in front of him. Forcing him to be moved more than 100 times to different prisons. Hardy's pit bull without a leash performance is reason enough to see this movie, as it's extraordinary. Thankfully, Refn keeps us at 90 minutes, because I'm not sure I would want any more.

The next movie I watched was Valhalla Rising, from 2009. A Viking story set in the year 1000 AD, we follow One Eye (the great Mads Mikkelsen, who many remember as the blood crying villain in Casino Royale), a prisoner made to fight other prisoners until he breaks loose and kills his captors. Sparing a little boy who begins to follow him around, the mute One Eye makes his way across the harsh landscape until he joins up with some crusading Christian Vikings looking to sail to the holy land and take it back. What follows is a hellish journey full of symoblism, silence, and plenty of tremendous cinematography.

Refn's compositions are often bold, almost garish in color, which he attributes to being slightly color blind. If they aren't big loud colors, he reasons that he can't really see them very well, so that's how his movies look. I like it, in general, and it works for the symbolic nature of Valhalla Rising. What also works in our descent into this cursed acid trip of a journey is, again, the lead performance. Mikkelsen is one of the most respected actors in Europe, having won many acting awards (most recently a Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival). His work here as One Eye is tremendous, making his character dangerous without ever uttering a word, or often even emoting at all. He's an enigma, a mystery, and fascinating every second of the way. The movie itself is also quite good, though just like Bronson, it's not for everyone.

The third and most recent movie in Refn's catalog that I watched was his most mainstream and successful movie, 2011's Drive. Ryan Gosling came aboard to star and was allowed to select a director he wanted to work with, and said Refn was his only choice. Drive is like a 70's character study movie, in the cool cold sheen of an 80's movie. Gosling stars as The Driver, stuntman by day, getaway driver by night. Peppered with terrifically cast supporting roles, Drive is a damn fine little modern crime movie.

The opening getaway, where The Driver sets up his rules (5 minutes, no more, then I'll drive you anywhere) and we see him elude the LAPD at every turn, is extraordinary and the highlight of the movie. Thankfully, the rest of the movie is good too, though nothing reaches the heights that that opening sequence does. Still, it's interesting to see Refn's take on a mainstream movie, and Drive is certainly different enough to set itself apart from the other crime, gangster, and driver movies out there. It'll be interesting to see what Refn and Gosling's next collaboration, the currently shooting Only God Forgives, delivers to us.

Dumbo

Dumbo was an odd movie for me in my life. I loved many parts of it, but remembered it as being scary and kind of a downer. Specifically the "Pink Elephants on Parade" section scared the bejesus out of me as a child, but I still liked the movie. I recently put it on for my daughter (who loved it), and found myself feeling like a kid again.

It begins as storks are delivering babies to all of the animals, including the animals of a circus in Florida. Everyone seems to be getting a baby, except Mrs. Jumbo, one of the elephants. Of course, her stork is just running a little behind, and she eventually is delivered little Jumbo Jr., who is discouragingly nicknamed Dumbo by the others because of his enormous ears. Mrs. Jumbo doesn't care, and loves her little boy with all her heart. When she gets angry and lashes out at people who make fun of Dumbo, they're separated, and Dumbo finds himself having to make his own way, with only a small mouse as his friend and mentor.

Sounds like a downer of a movie, and thankfully Disney's 7 credited directors don't skimp on the emotion attached to either mother or child. We get multiple beautifully heartbreaking moments, as Dumbo does what he can to succeed, and to ultimately be reconnected with his mother. Dumbo himself doesn't really make much of an impression, even though he's exactly the kind of silent hero I usually love so much. The supporting cast steals the show, a recurring happening in Disney movies. Dumbo's mouthy mouse friend, the petty and easily hateable other elephants, and even the controversial crows steal the show. The crows, if you haven't seen the movie, are fairly offensive black stereotypes, which audiences may or may not have noticed in 1941 when the movie came out, but post Civil Rights movement, can't help but stick out like a sore thumb.

That said, what sticks out most like a sore thumb for me is the idiotic "Pink Elephants on Parade" section, as Dumbo hallucinates because he gets drunk off a part of a bottle of champagne that one of the circus clowns accidentally drops in with Dumbo's drinking water (must be better shit than I've ever shelled out money for, maybe I need to be partying with those clowns). Not only is this sequence a bit scary, and far too long, it is simply at complete odds with everything else around it. It has no place in the movie. It's terrific animation, would've been mind blowing at the time, and certainly must've influenced The Beatles and much of the imagery of psychedelia, but it doesn't belong in Dumbo. Dumbo is a powerful story of unconditional love, and this sequence is the single thing keeping it from being a truly great movie. It has no business, on a story or animation level, being here.

But still, a movie I remember liking as a kid, I love as an adult. The heartwrenchingly simple story, the splendid animation, terrific voice acting, and a very friendly 64 minute runtime, it's all there and I love it.

Charlie Kaufman

I’ve written about writer Charlie Kaufman a bit before, writing about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I recently revisited it, and the two movies he initially made his name on, as writer of 1999’s Being John Malkovich and 2002’s Adaptation. Both directed by former music video director Spike Jonze, these movies established Kaufman as a master of bringing odd ideas to the screen in new and interesting ways. He went on to win an Oscar for his screenplay for Eternal Sunshine, and in 2008 debuted as director as well, with the divisive Synecdoche, New York. I think he’s one of the most interesting artists in Hollywood, as his work is so different, but isn’t obtuse or intentionally alienating.

Kaufman’s work heavily explores the theme of identity. In Malkovich, Craig and Lotte (John Cusack and Cameron Diaz) are both unhappy being themselves, both fall in love with Maxine (Catherine Keener), and once Craig discovers a portal into the mind of actor John Malkovich, he and Lotte both want to stay there indefinitely. Craig, a puppeteer, discovers he can not only experience life through Malkovich’s eyes, but actually control him like a puppet and live inside him indefinitely. Lotte finds she feels more natural as a man, and uses Malkovich to live her love of Maxine as a man. That doesn’t even begin to describe half of the movie, which like all of Kaufman’s work winds and curves in ways we don’t expect, with this movie having one of the most hilariously surreal scenes in cinema history, where Malkovich himself enters the portal into John Malkovich’s head.

Adaptation. concerns the fictionalized account of Kaufman trying to adapt the Susan Orlean book The Orchid Thief into a movie. Unable to figure out how to do it, Kaufman decided to write a script about him trying to write the script. Twin roles by Nicolas Cage (in one of the great performances of the 2000’s) have Charlie juggle his frustration in adapting the book while keeping his artistic integrity against the upstart success of his brother Donald, who seems like a Hollywood wet dream, churning out a script about a serial killer with cliché after cliché and finding much more success than Charlie seems able to find. The movie is famous for Charlie’s speech at the beginning of the movie saying he doesn’t want to write a movie where people find love, learn life lessons, get involved in shootouts and car chases, or anything like that, and as the movie goes along, it becomes the thriller that Charlie didn’t want to write, bringing Meryl Streep’s Susan Orlean and Chris Cooper’s titular orchid thief along for the ride. It sounds twisty and turny, but Kaufman’s writing is so flawless, and Jonze’s assured direction bring the movie to life in a way that I didn’t even realize until leaving the theater that the movie had turned into the one Charlie had talked about in the opening moments of the movie.

I still believe his crowning achievement is the heartbreaking romance Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where Clementine (Kate Winslet) goes to a doctor to get her newly ex-boyfriend Joel (Jim Carrey) erased from her memory. In a retaliatory move, Joel decides to do the same thing, but realizes during the process of the erasing that he wants the memories, good and bad, that made Clem have such an impact on his life. Eternal Sunshine has a heart that the others don’t. Not that the first two scripts are heartless, it’s just that dealing with the memories of a relationship gives a lot of space for tugging at the heartstrings. Directed by Michel Gondry, the movie has a lo-fi visual invention not often seen, which goes a long way to revealing the memories that Joel begins to realize he treasures. The absolutely infallible work by Winslet and Carrey is something to behold, and the partially fractured narrative makes it easy for me to revisit again and again.

His most “out there” work as writer, his directing debut Synecdoche, New York needs a re-visit by me. But it also concerns ideas about the identity, as it follows a theater director Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who stages a version of his life, increasingly blurring the lines between fiction and true life. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I remember a similar surreal humor during things like Caden casting an actor to play him in his play about himself, and then casting an actor to play the actor playing him, and things along those lines. I don’t remember quite the same type of humor throughout the movie, but maybe I was just getting caught up in the movie’s labyrinthine structure and not sitting back and enjoying the ride like I did with the others. We’ll see how I feel once I re-watch it, as I find Kaufman’s work endlessly watchable.

Kaufman is also credited as the writer of George Clooney’s directing debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, about former Gong Show host Chuck Barris’s assertion that he was a CIA assassin the whole time he was in the public eye. Kaufman angrily criticized Clooney’s adaptation and made it known that the movie was far removed from his script. I liked Clooney’s movie, but I would be even more interested to see what Kaufman’s original draft looked like. Nobody in Hollywood has a mind like Kaufman’s, no matter how much we need more people like him.

Bernie

Bernie is the most normal movie that I’d ever call odd. It is a very odd little movie, based on the true story of Bernie Tiede. Jack Black plays Bernie, an effeminate assistant funeral director in the east Texas town of Carthage who, was put on trial for murdering his 81-year-old companion Marjorie Nugent (played by Shirley MacLaine). This shocks the town, as Bernie was the nicest person imaginable, endlessly generous with money and time, and Marge was “a hateful old bitch.”

We see Bernie be as accommodating as you could possibly be to every family who came through the funeral home. When Marge’s husband dies, it seems like Bernie almost takes her animosity as a challenge, a wall to be climbed over to become her friend. He does, but before long finds her controlling nature holding him back from being himself. We see Bernie shoot her, there’s never a question of his guilt for us in the audience. But writer/director Richard Linklater interviews many of the real people of Carthage who insist that Bernie couldn’t possibly have done it, he was just too nice and honest and Marge was the dragon of the town and nobody was really gonna miss her. District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson (Matthew McConaughey) has to combat how he’s gonna get a conviction in a town where the people would sooner have the murderer around than they’d have deceased.

All of this is played as the slightest of comedy. Linklater (co-writing with journalist Skip Hollandsworth, on whose article the screenplay is based) doesn’t go for any big laughs, but he doesn’t try to darken the material either. Black’s extraordinary work as Bernie (a performance of truly the highest order) is pitched just this side of caricature. None of Bernie’s mannerisms are camp or insincere at all, Black goes for realism, making the performance all the more astounding in its creation of this odd character. MacLaine seems like she is having the time of her life playing the nasty Marge, and McConaughey shows again that he can be a good actor with the right material. And the right filmmaker, as both he and Black are working with Linklater again. Black previously starred in School of Rock, while McConaughey starred in The Newton Boys as well as getting his breakout role in Linklater’s Dazed and Confused.

But back to Bernie. I think it’s the townspeople that take this movie over the top, as they’re the ones the most comedy comes from. Linklater, being from Texas, knows these types of people and doesn’t try to make fun of them, he just lets them bring their own small town humor and charm to the movie, and we’re better off for it. My only real complaint about the movie is that there’s no drama. We know from the beginning that Bernie kills Marge, and we don’t really think that Bernie will get off, no matter how much the people love him, so there’s no dramatic tension. And the only real surprises come from the actors. Still, those surprises are so wonderful that the movie should be seen.

Coriolanus

William Shakespeare’s work has been updated for new generations many times over the last 400 years. Actors like Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh made their name on adapting Shakespeare to the silver screen. Ralph Fiennes has been an established and respected actor for many years now, and he decided to make his directorial debut with the first screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy Coriolanus, about a Roman general banished from his homeland who takes up with his former enemy in a plan for destruction of Rome. Often thought of as a “lesser” work in Shakespeare’s canon, Fiennes’ adaptation makes one wonder why it isn’t more famous. It’s a powerful work, flawlessly acted, and gorgeously directed by Fiennes.

Fiennes keeps the language of Shakespeare, while transposing the action to an alternate modern setting. Obviously influenced by the setting of Cuaron’s Children of Men, the police state into which we’re dropped is frighteningly realized. The citizens of Rome are on the brink of riots as General Caius Marcius (Fiennes) conquers the city of Corioles, gaining him the title of Coriolanus. When he refuses to hide his contempt of the common folk, he’s eventually banished, leaving behind his family (a commanding Vanessa Redgrave as his mother, and the ethereal beauty Jessica Chastain as his wife) as he ends up seeking out his former enemy, rebel leader Aufidius (Gerard Butler), to join him in a sacking of Rome. Being a Shakespearean tragedy, things don’t turn out well.

Fiennes is electric in the lead role, his intensity and command of the language giving life to a play I had no prior knowledge of. Gerard Butler is, honestly, the only actor who doesn’t quite acquit himself, and that may only be because of Fiennes’ power making him seem unworthy of being an equal adversary. Redgrave is tremendous as the mother, Volumnia, and the always reliable Brian Cox is also a welcome addition as Roman Senator Menenius. Fiennes assuredness behind the camera is surprising and delightful. He stages every scene in a way that is imminently clear, even if you’re not able to keep up with the language density that plagues many people’s enjoyment of Shakespeare.

I have no idea whether Fiennes plans to bring any more Shakespeare to the screen, and follow the Branagh/Olivier multi-adaptation legacy, but the skill with which he has brought what is allegedly a “lesser” work to the big screen would make me welcome anything he does in the future as a wonderful filmmaker, now more than just being one of our best actors.

Indie Game: The Movie, and are video games art?

Before watching Indie Game: The Movie, I was never quite sure where I stood on the philosophical debate of “are video games art?” Roger Ebert caused an outrage in the gaming community a few years ago when he said that video games are not and cannot be art. There’s even a whole Wikipedia page devoted to the divisiveness of the issue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_games_as_art). Ebert, as the most famous critic, noted after a presentation by game designer Kellee Santiago, that “One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite an immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.” I think there is a certain understandable logic to Ebert’s thoughts. But I find myself now disagreeing with him fairly decidedly.

Indie game Fez, in which you play as a 2-D character realizing he lives in a 3D world

I think people like Ebert, generally of his “older” generation, view video games as that, just a game. There’s luck of the draw in card games, luck of the roll in board games, and only a finite number of possible logical moves in a more complex game like chess. But Ebert is right that a game “has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome.” Video games, on the other hand, have a certain ability to achieve a higher goal. There’s no artistic reason why a video game has to have objectives or the ability to beat the game. There’s only the commercial drawback of it being possible no one will want to buy your game if they can’t defeat the alien invasion with all kinds of cool weapons in your game. But at its base level, that’s no different than people not buying tickets to your movie where stuff doesn’t get blowed up real good. So really is the only reason they are even video games because they’re interactive? Does interactivity negate art? Of course not. There are plenty of interactive art exhibits that are not denigrated because of their interactivity.

Indie game Limbo, an atmospheric, wordless journey through a dangerous black-and-white world

The game designers Indie Game: The Movie follows around talk about the artistic expression that the games provide them. They talk about how video games encompass visual arts, storytelling, and music, while simply being interactive. After all, the interactivity of video games is only allowed by the designer. A player can’t do anything in a game that they were not allowed to do by the constraints of the designer. Therefore, video games still possess the authorial intent that all art contains. We see the designers and programmers painstakingly work and re-work to get the desired effect in the game, while working against the clock to deliver the final product for release. All of that is directly comparable to the technical issues a filmmaker or a musician runs into when prepping their newest movie or album.

Screen shot from Super Meat Boy, one of the subjects of the movie

The designers in the movie talk with disdain about the people who work at the big video game studios as designers and programmers, because it would kill their creativity. But I came to see those jobs like those hundreds of names we see in movie credits, technicians helping realize the visions of the artists in charge. But these guys are like indie filmmakers, who work with smaller budgets and crews and are able to more easily deliver something close to their heart and artistic vision because it had to go through fewer people to get to us, the consumer. I can understand that mentality.


But the ultimate point of the movie and this discussion, to me, was: art video games art? I can now firmly say that yes, I think they are. And Indie Game: The Movie is what finally swayed me to that point.