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  Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own  
 
Flying in the face of consensus -- A selection of 250 mostly obscure,
mostly overlooked, and mostly unloved films.
 
     
     
  Introduction  
  by Bill Georgaris  
 
  Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965) by Joseph CatesKung-fu Master! (1987) by Agnès Varda  
 
 
July 27, 2010... iCheck Movies... You can now keep track of how many films you have seen from the Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own list, by waltzing over to the iCheck Movies website.
 

July 21, 2010... Amendment to the list... It was kindly brought to our attention by a reader that The Last Moment (1928) by Pál Fejös is indeed a lost film. The Silent Era website diagnoses its survival status as 'presumed lost.' Despite the acknowledged difficulty in seeing many of the films within this collection, we certainly didn't plan on making it completely impossible for you. Therefore, The Last Moment has sadly been removed, and has been replaced by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's Last Life in the Universe (2003).

For the most part, TSPDT’s 1,000 Greatest Films project has garnered a generally positive reaction amongst the net’s film-list lovers. It seems to be reasonably well-liked. However, after the most recent update of the list in January 2010 many began to question that the list was becoming a little tired and predictable. There was a whiff of discontent in the air. The punters began to argue that the list was starting to swell with films that were too well-known (Saving Private Ryan, The Blues Brothers, etc) and/or too popular for their liking (The Dark Knight, Robocop, etc). Many of the ‘smaller’ films (My Love Has Been Burning, Blast of Silence, Mother India, etc) had fallen off the list, replaced by films that have for one reason or another connected more favourably (usually due to greater consumer exposure) with critics and filmmakers. The question beginning to arise was, “Is too much consensus a bad thing?” To poach from a post I made on Shooting Down Pictures (in response to the 2010 1,000 Greatest Films listing), "I can only agree that the 1,000 list seems to be becoming more mainstream with each passing edition. The more consensus included, the more middle-ground seems to be reached."

So then, does the middle-ground suck? Is too much consensus really a bad thing? Well, I guess it can be. But, with respects to the 1,000 Greatest Films listing, my answer is a reasonably emphatic no. The TSPDT 1,000 Greatest Films listing is what it is. It is a consensus list based on over 3,000 critic and filmmaker lists, and it will remain so. So this left the question, what about those films that receive a little bit of love, but not very much? Shouldn’t these films be championed as much as those that have already been championed by TSPDT and by many other institutions, websites and publications? The answer, this time, was a resounding yes, of course they should be.

So we thought, let’s do it. Let’s make up a subsidiary list of films that didn’t quite make the 1,000 Greatest listing. This would complement the TSPDT 1,000 nicely. But then we thought, well actually, that’s not going far enough. Many of the films we had in mind are on the cusp of the 1,000 and are (for the most part) pretty well-known films, and pretty well-regarded anyway. Films that closely match the DNA of many films within the 1,000. So screw that idea.

Then the answer suddenly became clear, and our indecisiveness ground to a halt. We decided that we needed to dig deeper and dig out films that barely get a mention in list circles. Films that have vanished from our minds (or never entered our minds to begin with). Films that, frankly-speaking, may be awful or may deservedly be unloved. Films that have for some reason connected with at least one person who was asked to contribute or voluntarily contributed his or her list of favourite films. So we dived into our database and extracted all the films that have only ever been cited once, and once only (amongst the 3,000-plus lists we have compiled). Then we reduced this initial list of films from 1,025 to 250 using a fairly random process and bingo, Ain’t Nobody’s Blues But My Own was born (or, should we say, re-born*). The only rule we set was strictly one choice per critic/filmmaker. Therefore, this list comprises of 250 films as chosen by 250 critics/filmmakers.

Some critics/filmmakers whose unique choices we've used include Ari Folman, Miranda July, Mike Leigh, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Fred Camper, Nancy Savoca, Alexander Payne, D.A. Pennebaker, James Quandt, Dina Iordanova, Charles Burnett, Terry Jones, Pierre Rissient, Jean-Louis Leutrat, Adrian Martin, Julian Graffy and Andy Medhurst.

In summary, Ain’t Nobody’s Blues But My Own is a listing of 250 films that have only ever featured once on any critic’s or filmmaker’s list of favourites (that we have compiled to date). Please keep in my mind that these films (many of which we haven't seen) are not recommended by TSPDT. We are not endeavouring to 'sell' you these films. We are merely bringing them to your attention.

This is an extremely eclectic group of 250 films. They genuinely veer all over the place, touching base with countless film genres, styles and techniques. From Stan Brakhage to Barbra Streisand - diversity reigns supreme at this web address. Though not planned, over half the list comprises films from the 60s, 70s and 80s. A fertile period for hard-to-define cinema and much of it is represented here. A word of warning though, some of the films listed are, well to put it kindly, interesting. Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam anyone?

However, if you are keen to take an odd journey through cinema's forgotten/underappreciated history then this list may be for you. Sadly, TSPDT acknowledges that many of the titles are not currently available on DVD and therefore may be hard to track down.

We intend to update this list on an annual basis, probably in February or thereabouts. Films currently on  the list that are cited on any future lists we compile between now and next year’s update will be removed, and replaced by other once-cited films.

Please note that although our selection process may be somewhat unique, we are by no means breaking any new ground here. Iain Stott at his One-Line Review website has devoted much of his recent time to championing lesser known films. The polls he has conducted (The Obscure, the Forgotten, and the Unloved and Beyond the Canon) have become essential reading. And, of course, there have been many other lists and publications highlighting obscure films, cult films, B-films, etc. Far too many to mention here.

Most of the quotes included (for each film entry) were sourced from Chicago Reader, Time Out and Allmovie. These invaluable resources are highly recommended for your ongoing research and  reference.

We hope you enjoy Ain’t Nobody’s Blues But My Own and please send your thoughts to: bill@theyshootpictures.com.

*Some of you may remember that we had a smaller list of obscure films on TSPDT a few years ago also entitled "Ain’t Nobody’s Blues But My Own." This new listing, though similar in concept, is not related to that one. However, we liked the name and therefore decided to re-adopt it. By the way, "Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own" is a song title from Wayne Hancock's classic album "Thunderstorms and Neon Signs."

A spreadsheet listing of all 250 films can be downloaded from here (Microsoft EXCEL format).

 


 
 
         
         
À Flor do Mar
João César Monteiro
Hovering Over the Water (English title)
Chosen by Eric Thouvenel (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1986 | 143m | Col | Portugal
"By the standards of his more subversive work, João César Monteiro’s  Hovering Over the Water is a placid affair... This is the cinema of underreaction—long and tolerant takes, with the camera happy to stay still and watch as a fish is sliced and served or a bedtime story is told. The characters borrow that serenity, barely flinching when a gang of armed men breaks in. The downside of this rigor is the performance of Philip Spinelli, who could easily have been replaced by a piece of driftwood; the upside is the devotional stillness of Monteiro’s compositions, pricked by the epigrammatic oddity of his dialogue." - Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Harvard Film Archive
 
Alambrista!
Robert M. Young
Chosen by Montxo Armendariz (Fotogramas, 2006)
1977 | 110m | Col | USA
"Young's first feature. Functioning here as writer, director and cameraman, he spent over a year living among Mexican wet-backs in the US Southwest to discover what it actually feels like working illegally, and in voluntary exile, for a society barely conscious of your existence, far less your rights. His discoveries, though nothing new, remain disturbing... Yet for all his righteous indignation, Alambrista! fails to ignite. The fictional characters through whom he dramatises his observations appear too stereotyped, caught in as many clichés as the film is trying to fight." - Jan Dawson, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
 
Alexander the Great
Theo Angelopoulos
O Megalexandros (original title)
Chosen by Eric Derobert (Positif, 1991)
1980 | 235m | Col | Greece-Italy
"A tale of socialism first deformed and then destroyed by an authoritarian leader, set in Greece a few years after the Paris Commune. Its Alexander is a bandit who became a popular folk hero. Following his escape from prison, he kidnaps some English aristocrats and demands as ransom that the rich local landowners hand over their property to the peasants... A relentless demonstration of stylistic brilliance, it leaves one wondering why the parable is not more challenging and its point less predictable." - Simon Hartog, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Theo Angelopoulos Official Website
         
Alien³
David Fincher
Chosen by Paul Burston (Time Out, 1995)
1992 | 115m | Col | USA
"Although there's a lot of unpleasantness here to maintain the tradition of this SF thriller's predecessors, one finds neither the high-tech effects of the first nor the quality direction of the second, and few of the thrills in either." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"Aliens, a great action movie, cheapened the original by replacing one hyper-intelligent, indestructible monster with an army of gormless critters. This third entry has only one creature, but unfortunately it's just as gormless... Though wasteful of the expensive sets, Fincher's tight close-ups do add to the sense of claustrophobic panic." - Dominic Wells, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Slant Magazine
 
Allonsanfan
Paolo Taviani & Vittorio Taviani
Chosen by Gerard Corbiau (ymdb.com, 2002)
1973 | 115m | Col | Italy
"A film with an even greater thrust of excitement than the Tavianis' subsequent Padre Padrone. Mastroianni, at his most convincingly dissolute, plays a spineless aristocrat who wanders through Italy in 1816 trying to rub out his past association with a radical group, without daring to tell them he's lost their faith in Napoleonic revolution. The tangled and sumptuously melodramatic plot allows the Tavianis to lay into left-wing idealism and gullibility without departing from their own commitment for a second. Ennio Morricone's score tops a rousing and passionate entertainment." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Cinepassion
 
The American Soldier
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Der Amerikanische Soldat (original title)
Chosen by Andy Medhurst (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1970 | 80m | BW | West Germany
"This is Fassbinder before he froze up as a Douglas Sirk impersonator: a real punk movie, full of wonderfully half-baked ideas." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"Fassbinder's American soldier is actually a German, who comes home to roost as a hired killer in the Munich underworld... This film marks a decisive step towards 'real' Fassbinder: the absurdity of its world of second-hand experience invests every cliché with a meaning it never had before." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
         
Amor
Robert Beavers
Chosen by Nathan Lee (Senses of Cinema, 2006)
1980 | 15m | Col | USA
"Amor is an exquisite lyric, shot in Rome and at the natural theatre of Salzburg. The recurring sounds of cutting cloth, hands clapping, hammering, and tapping underline the associations of the montage of short camera movements, which bring together the making of a suit, the restoration of a building, and details of a figure, presumably Beavers himself, standing in the natural theatre in a new suit, making a series of hand movements and gestures. A handsomely designed Italian banknote suggests the aesthetic economy of the film: the tailoring trimming, and chiselling point to the editing of the film itself." - P. Adams Sitney, Film Comment
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  New York Press
 
Angry Harvest
Agnieszka Holland
Bittere Ernte (original title)
Chosen by Vivian Kleiman (PopcornQ, 1997)
1985 | 102m | Col | West Germany
"Working in Germany, Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa) has fashioned a strong psychological drama about a shy Polish peasant who saves a middle-class Jewish woman from the Nazis by hiding her in his cellar... Well constructed and superbly performed by two Fassbinder veterans, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Elisabeth Trissenaar, this 1985 film falters slightly by insisting too much on the metaphorical significance of the material, which lessens the impact of the unfolding, immediate drama." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 
Anna and the Wolves
Carlos Saura
Ana y los lobos (original title)
Chosen by Heinz Niemann (John Kobal Poll, 1988)
1973 | 102m | Col | Spain
"This Spanish drama verges on parody as it explores the convoluted, repressed personalities of a family dominated by a powerful mother. The mother's frustrations have warped the men. The three men's foibles are revealed during the visit of a young English woman. Director Saura has used intensified, heightened symbolism to tell this story in the somewhat surreal manner of his better-known film Garden of Delights." - Clarke Fountain, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Wikipedia
         
Anne Trister
Léa Pool
Chosen by Susana Blaustein Munoz  (PopcornQ, 1997)
1986 | 115m | Col | Canada
"Melancholy, well-observed chronicle of a painter's self-discovery. After the death of her father, Guilhe gives up art studies in her native Switzerland and moves to Quebec, sharing an apartment with child psychologist friend Marleau, but spending much time in a nearby studio confronting her emotional upheavals through work on a huge mural. Pool's understated style captures the artistic process on the wing and isn't too heavy-handed in detailing Guilhe's growing feelings for her expat host. An impressive achievement on a minor scale." - Trevor Johnston, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The Film Reference Library
 
Anticipation of the Night
Stan Brakhage
Chosen by Patrick Keiller (Time Out, 1995)
1958 | 42m | Col | USA
"A landmark in the career of experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, this 1958 silent film establishes the principle of organizing images through rhythm rather than narrative or mood, an idea that's served him well over the subsequent decades. Yet the formal innovation is balanced by real emotion: crushingly bleak, the film chronicles the failed attempts of a cameraman (Brakhage), who appears as a shadow in some frames, to enter the landscapes before him or join children at play." - Fred Camper, Chicago Reader
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Film Reference
 
Anzukko
Mikio Naruse
Little Peach (English title)
Chosen by Kent Jones (Steadycam, 2007)
1958 | 110m | BW | Japan
"Director Mikio Naruse has admitted to going through a dark period as a younger man and his 1958 film Anzukko (the first he is credited with writing after 1950's White Beast) seems, in part, his way of dealing with the tortures of his past... Naruse revels in the inherent contradictions of being human and if Anzukko at time feels like an apology for past transgressions it is likewise a loving portrait of a woman tragically caught between her wants and her responsibilities, fated to tread a potentially never-ending path between the trials of her marriage and the refuge of her past." - Keith Uhlich, Slant Magazine
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Cinema Talk Blog
         
The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time
Alexander Kluge
Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf die übrige Zeit (original title); The Blind Director (alternative title)
Chosen by Raoul Peck (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1985 | 113m | Col | Germany
"Alexander Kluge's "anonymous city" symphony, The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time, [is] an organic and fractured, yet humorous, intuitive, and poetic rumination on the integral - and correlative - nature of technology and (urban) identity, the intersection of film and new media in the creation of art, and the delusive quest to manipulate time... Kluge's intriguingly dense exposition transcends the simple novelty of creating thematic variations on the dual nature of time, and instead becomes a stage for articulating its repercussions." - Acquarello, Strictly Film School
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
 
Assunta Spina
Francesca Bertini & Gustavo Serena
Chosen by Vittorio Martinelli (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1915 | 63m | BW | Italy
"With so many overblown historical epics coming out of Italy in the pre-World War I era, the simplicity and naturalism Assunta Spina was a welcome relief... In addition to playing the title role, Francesca Bertini codirected the film with Gustavo Serena. Bertini was among the most popular of the cinematic divas of the silent era, usually comporting herself in an operatic fashion. In Assunte Spina, however, her performance is down-to-earth and restrained, in much the same manner as the leading ladies of the post-World War II Italian neorealist dramas." - Hal Erickson, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Extract from Italian Film by Marcia Landy
 
At Long Last Love
Peter Bogdanovich
Chosen by Jim Fall (PopcornQ, 1997)
1975 | 118m | Col | USA
"A daring experiment that failed, this direct-sound musical set in the 30s—with Burt Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, Madeline Kahn and Duilio Del Prete doing what they can (as singers and dancers) with and to Cole Porter—is probably Peter Bogdanovich's worst film, but it's perversely fascinating for its art-deco trimmings as well as its rather frightening coldness." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"Everybody hated Bogdanovich's homage, a trivial story slotted round some Cole Porter songs... It may be a movie we'll come back to later and find we all like it." - W. Stephen Gilbert, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
         
Autobiography of a Princess
James Ivory
Chosen by John Pym (Time Out, 1995)
1975 | 60m | Col | UK
"Imperial India seen through old home movies of court life as they are watched by the besotted, blinkered daughter-in-exile of a Maharajah and the latter's former English tutor, (James Mason) who still meet once a year in London for tea... Yet nothing really happens because the two draw a veil over their true emotions, and over the true nature of the dark scandals merely hinted at (apart from one clumsy flashback). A refined, ironic exercise whose brittleness is effectively countered by Mason's playing." - Chris Petit, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  DVD Times
 
The Awful Dr. Orlof
Jesus Franco
Gritos en la noche (original title); The Awful Dr. Orloff (alternative spelling)
Chosen by Jean-Pierre Bouyxou (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1961 | 95m | BW | Spain
"The Awful Dr. Orlof does stand remarkably well on its own as an example of '60s European gothic horror. While not quite on the same level as the work of Italian masters Mario Bava or Riccardo Freda, it's nonetheless a surprisingly effective and atmospheric journey that balances explicit medical tableau with repressed sexual yearnings. As such, it's an ideal place for neophytes to first experience the world of Jesus Franco." - Gary Johnson, Images Journal
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  DVD Savant
 
Bad Luck
Andrzej Munk
Zezowate szczescie (original title)
Chosen by Andrzej Wajda (Kommersant, 1998)
1960 | 92m | BW | Poland
"In acclaimed Polish director Andrzej Munk's last film before his untimely accidental death, he shoots a pointed black comedy that takes potshots at Poland's painful history from 1939 to 1959... It was not well-received in Communist Poland, but many movie critics found it much to their liking. It's one-note joke, however, soon runs out of gas and its excessive length plays against it despite its well-founded attack on Poland as a bastion of conformity and authoritarian rule whether from the left or right." - Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Dennis Grunes
         
Bakaruhában
Imre Fehér
In Soldier's Uniform (English title); A Sunday Romance (alternative English title)
Chosen by Mark Le Fanu (Positif, 1991)
1957 | 91m | BW | Hungary
"Set during WW1, the story revolves around a Hungarian journalist (Ivan Darvas) who is required by law to wear his military uniform twice a week. Our hero falls in love with a similarly-uniformed young woman, never dreaming that she is a servant girl (Margit Bara) and, as such, "beneath his station." The plot thickens when it develops that the girl is in the employ of the family of one of the journalist's ex-lady friends. In typical Eastern Bloc fashion, the anti-class consciousness message of Bakaruhaban comes through loud and clear." - Hal Erickson, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Excerpt from "World Cinema: Hungary"
 
The Barkleys of Broadway
Charles Walters
Chosen by Dragan Jelicic (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1949 | 109m | Col | USA
"After a hiatus of ten years, Astaire and Rogers teamed up one last time in 1949 for this so-so movie about a husband-and-wife dance team who bicker incessantly backstage. It isn't very witty—although it's supposed to be—and it isn't really satire, in the sense of Singin' in the Rain or The Band Wagon." - Don Druker, Chicago Reader
"It's a pretty flat affair, with a thin story about a married dancing couple splitting up when the woman decides to take up a straight acting career. But it does, of course, have its moments." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Bright Lights Film Journal
 
Le Baron fantôme
Serge de Poligny
The Phantom Baron (English title)
Chosen by Annick Demeule (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1943 | 100m | BW | France
"Jean Cocteau supplied the dialogue for this elegant gothic romance and makes his screen acting debut as the title character... Serge de Poligny directed, though Cocteau's fanciful visual sense is evident throughout." - J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader
"A film to delight those with a taste for the slightly rarefied pleasures of a French Gothic-pastoral plot featuring a vanishing nobleman (played by Cocteau, who also served as dialogue-writer), a tumbledown castle, hidden treasure, two pairs of sparkling lovers, a gamekeeper posing as the Dauphin... and much, much more." - John Pym, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Allmovie
         
Barrier
Jerzy Skolimowski
Bariera (original title)
Chosen by The Quay Brothers (Time Out, 1995)
1966 | 84m | BW | Poland
"Skolimowski's third film and one of his best, an extraordinary fusion of fantasy and documentary that adds up to a bleakly disenchanted look at the Polish here-and-now. It begins with images of strange, indefinable menace that resolve themselves into one of those ritualistic Polish games (like the one in Knife in the Water) being played by medical students.... With its startling imagery and bizarre landscapes, Barrier is that rare bird, a genuinely surrealist film." - Tom Milne, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Parallax View
 

La Bête lumineuse

Pierre Perrault
The Shimmering Beast (English title)
Chosen by Louis Marcorelles (Sight & Sound, 1982)
1982 | 128m | Col | Canada
"The "bête lumineuse" is Quebecois argot for "moose," an animal never once spotted by the city slickers who escape the stresses of job, home, and commute to go drinking and bonding and supposedly hunting in the wilds of northern Quebec -- although their hunting skills would give no cause for distress to the moose population. The point about macho lives gone astray is embedded well enough so that director Pierre Perrault might have shortened the two-hour running time and come away more on target in the end." - Eleanor Mannikka, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Google Books
 
Birds in Peru
Romain Gary
Les Oiseaux vont mourir au Pérou (original title); The Birds Come to Die in Peru (alternative title)
Chosen by Jan Dawson (Sight & Sound, 1972)
1968 | 95m | Col | France
"Oh yes, she has a lovely face. When the camera moves close and Jean Seberg arches that magnificent neck and looks into the middle distance and her lips part slightly... It would almost seem that the face was Romain Gary's reason for making the movie. So that with a camera he could worship the face of his wife...The story goes that Gary wanted to direct this movie because he was so displeased by the two previous movies made from his books: Lady L and Roots of Heaven. Those were stinkers, yes. So Gary took his short story Birds in Peru and directed it himself this time. Now there are three stinkers made from his work." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   TCMDB
         
The Black Cat
Lucio Fulci
Gatto Nero (original title)
Chosen by William Malone (Fifty Filmmakers Book, 2002)
1981 | 92m | Col | Italy
"In between better-known hardcore horrors like Zombie and The Beyond, Lucio Fulci tackled the gothic genre with this unusual effort. That said, one shouldn't expect a subtle creepfest from The Black Cat -- this is the Fulci version of a gothic tale, meaning that it shoehorns in shocks like a human torch crashing through a window or someone taking a header through their car's windshield in between subtler story developments... In short, The Black Cat is probably best left to the hardcore Euro-cult fans but it offers enough points of interest to entertain said viewers." - Donald Guarisco, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Mondo Digital
 
Black Lizard
Kinji Fukasaku
Kuro tokage (original title)
Chosen by Paul Lee (PopcornQ, 1997)
1968 | 86m | Col | Japan
"This campy, melodramatic Japanese thriller in 'Scope and color with its leading character in drag isn't even a patch on Kon Ichikawa's extraordinary An Actor's Revenge, which has the same characteristics and strikes me as infinitely more worthy of revival. But if you're looking for something weird and nutty, this might suit." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"A latter-day cult favourite in the US, but Fukasaku was far too 'straight' a director to make the most of this camp extravaganza... Fukasaku tries to treat it as a hip action-adventure and thinks no further than pastiche James Bond. Hints of queer perversity glimmer through, but it's mostly leaden." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   The Washington Post
 
Blood and Sand
Rouben Mamoulian
Chosen by Itamar Shnir (El Mundo, 1995)
1941 | 123m | Col | USA
"The film is abstract in all the wrong ways: the elaborate compositions (in black and red Technicolor) serve only to draw more life from the already debilitated characters; Mamoulian's grab for eternity leaves him with a fistful of hot air." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"One of the great colour films, this is melodramatic romance of the first order... What makes the film so enjoyable is the sheer elegance of the execution, with Mamoulian's sense of rhythm, the rich Technicolor, and Richard Day's sets conjuring up an imaginary Spain of the heart, poignant location of love in the shadows and death in the afternoon." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Ozu's World Movie Reviews
         
The Boat
Buster Keaton & Eddie Cline
Chosen by Penelope Houston (Sight & Sound, 1982)
1921 | 26m | BW | USA
"In what is perhaps Buster Keaton's most fatalistic short subject, the comedian portrays a husband who has been diligently building a boat in his basement... This is one of Keaton's best two-reelers, which was almost lost to the ravages of time and deterioration -- when Keaton's work was first being restored, only one print of The Boat was found, and several scenes were nearly past the point of salvaging. But the picture squeaked through intact, and its indelible images have become a part of silent film's heritage." - Janiss Garza, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Google Videos
 
The Bounty
Roger Donaldson
Chosen by Adrian Turner (Time Out, 1995)
1984 | 130m | Col | USA
"Robert Bolt's screenplay was originally prepared for David Lean, and it contains a lot of Bolt-ish/Lean-ish disquisition on the question of civilization versus savagery. But Donaldson brings it alive by applying the agonizing rhythm of tension and release, suppression and explosion, that governed his superb New Zealand film Smash Palace." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"It's all a brave try, though Gibson is perhaps not up to the demands of a Christian's progress from naive rating to self-loathing exile, and Donaldson's direction often verges on the stolid." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 
The Boys from Fengkuei
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Feng gui lai de ren (original title)
Chosen by Jian Yi (Kevin B. Lee Poll, 2008)
1983 | 101m | Col | Taiwan
"Hou's first indie production was also a creative breakthrough... Three young men from Fengkuei, a backwater village in the Penghu Islands, decamp to Kaohsiung, Taiwan's southern port, for what they think will be a life of laddish fun; like Fellini's Vitelloni, they are pushed towards maturity by encounters with crime, death, work and women. Hou soon went far beyond these rather obvious social and psychological observations, but the film retains a real freshness and charm; it launched several acting careers." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Strictly Film School
         
Brainstorm
William Conrad
Chosen by Jack Stevenson (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1965 | 114m | BW | USA
"Brainstorm is by no means a great film, but it is a quite interesting one. On the plus side, it's a late-noir entry that plays around with the idea of the thin line between sanity and insanity in an intriguing manner. Actor William Conrad put on his director's hat for this low budget effort, and that's also a good thing: he has a very sure feel for the material, and his crisp, sturdy direction is surprisingly effective and decidedly atmospheric." - Craig Butler, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Film Noir of the Week
 
Bright Future
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Akarui mirai (original title)
Chosen by Anne Keijser (The Auteurs, 2009)
2003 | 92m | Col | Japan
"Alienated youth is one of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's favorite themes. Bright Future is an alternately comic and macabre portrait of a deranged friendship... Action and horror enthusiasts have embraced some of Kurosawa's films—notably Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001)—but this anti-formulaic movie doesn't exert the same appeal." - Richard M. Porton, Chicago Reader
"Kiyoshi Kurosawa finally fulfils his promise with a haunting and ecstatic crypto-gay movie in which the weird imagery and knockout performances are in perfect sync... Dark and mysterious, but with a radiantly optimistic pay off." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Metacritic
 
The Brothers Karamazov
Richard Brooks
Chosen by George A. Romero (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1958 | 146m | Col | USA
"While not as terrible as his subsequent adaptation of Lord Jim, this 1958 Hollywoodization of the Dostoyevsky novel by writer-director Richard Brooks is pretty grotesque all the same." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"Painstaking attempt to reduce Dostoevsky's novel to manageable proportions... Very uncertain in period and atmosphere, and saddled with some terrible performances." - Tom Milne, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  TCM
         
Bush Christmas
Ralph Smart
Chosen by Petr Kral (Positif, 1991)
1947 | 76m | BW | Australia
"Bush Christmas can be described as an Australian western, albeit with a juvenile slant. Set in the mountains of New South Wales, the story concerns a family of Australian kids who are heading homeward for the Christmas holidays. En route, they unwittingly provide the information which enables a band of thieves to steal their father's horses... The nominal star is the popular Chips Rafferty, playing a misleading likeable horse rustler. Though initially released in England in June of 1947, Bush Christmas has since become a TV Yuletide perennial throughout the English-speaking world." - Hal Erickson, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Australian Screen
 
Bush Mama
Haile Gerima
Chosen by Cheryl Dunye (PopcornQ, 1997)
1979 | 97m | BW | USA
"Bush Mama presents a poignant contrast, produced as it was during the period of film history known as the "Blaxploitation" era. Gerima's depiction of the travails of black life and culture are far removed from that of the drug deals and revenge killings of Superfly (1972) and Foxy Brown (1976)... To some, the film may appear bleak and nihilistic with its stark black-and-white photography, but its message is moving and distinct. Issues of institutionalized racism, police brutality, and poverty remain sadly pertinent and the film, nearly twenty-five years old, retains its potency." - Pamela S. Dean, Film Reference
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Pop Matters
 
Cabeza de Vaca
Nicolás Echevarría
Chosen by Simeon Tegel (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1991 | 112m | Col | Mexico-Spain-UK-USA
"Hampered somewhat by hammy acting, this picaresque adventure plays for long stretches without dialogue, and much of its interest rests with its ethnographic treatment of Native American rituals." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"An expiatory historical epic based on the journal of the Spanish conquistador Cabeza de Vaca... It's a spectacular, beautifully shot, anti-imperialist bloodbath of a movie, which plays like a demented mix of Herzog, Jodorowsky and Tarkovsky." - Wally Hammond, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The Washington Post
         
Le Capitaine Fracasse
Abel Gance
Captain Fracasse (English title)
Chosen by Michel Mourlet (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1943 | 108m | BW | France-Italy
"Forget Napoleon and its vaulting ambition. Directed with bare competence, this is a limp adaptation of Théophile Gautier's historical fantasy (one of the source books of camp) about a penniless baron who joins a group of travelling players after falling for the ingénue. Both the theatrical and the swashbuckling larks remain dispiritingly lifeless." - Tom Milne, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Films de France
 
Cattle Queen of Montana
Allan Dwan
Chosen by Jacques Lourcelles (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1954 | 88m | Col | USA
"Despite promising credentials - not just Dwan and Stanwyck, but John Alton on camera - this RKO Western is pretty much a non-starter. The first half is efficient but predictable... Thereafter, the script starts going in circles, producing plenty of incident (mainly Evans trying to provoke an Indian war, Fuller stoutly fighting for peace) but losing any sense of dramatic progress." - Tom Milne, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Bright Lights Film Journal
 
Céline
Jean-Claude Brisseau
Chosen by Jean-Jacques Beineix (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1992 | 88m | Col | France
"Celine has led an emotionally difficult life. An orphan when she inherited the bulk of her adoptive father's estate, it incurred the deep displeasure of her erstwhile stepmother. Thinking to make things right with her, she renounced part of her inheritance, leading her gold-digging boyfriend to reject her... Some critics were distressed that the mystical element became the main focus of the movie, while others were intrigued by it. " - Clarke Fountain, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Wikipedia
         
The Celluloid Closet
Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman
Chosen by Anchalee Chaiworaporn (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1995 | 102m | Col | USA
"Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's entertaining and instructive 1995 documentary about filmic representations of gays and lesbians goes beyond its source in equating “the movies” with mainstream Hollywood. But the clips and the intelligence of the commentaries keep this lively and absorbing." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"A witty, touching study of Hollywood's (mostly on screen) treatment of homosexuality. Epstein and Friedman approach the question chronologically and by type, with astringent comments from an array of unusual suspects." - Tom Charity, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 
Chance or Coincidence
Claude Lelouch
Hasards ou coïncidences (original title)
Chosen by Jean Olle-Laprune (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1998 | 120m | Col | France-Canada
"Lelouch aims for emotions on a global scale, but only in the first half does the result measure up to his ambitions. Pierre Arditi's charisma whisks us along, but once he's off the scene, Alessandra Martines has a task to carry the picture on numbed grief alone... Without a solid grounding in credibility or emotional involvement, the film's edifice threatens to tumble, but then only a lovable madman such as Lelouch would dare to conjure an epic vision from such ramshackle elements in the first place." - Trevor Johnston, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Films de France
 
Chappaqua
Conrad Rooks
Chosen by Paul Mayersberg (Sight & Sound, 1972)
1966 | 92m | Col-BW | USA
"This rich kid's vanity project remains one of the more embarrassing artyfacts from the '60s. Rooks was a teenage alcoholic who turned to stimulants, downers, narcotics and hallucinogens; he spent a month at a Swiss detox clinic in 1962, and uses memories of that attempted cure as the framework for a gibbering mix of 'drama', documentary and fantasy. Counter-culture icons lend misguided support and Rooks gets to cavort with assorted dolly-bird friends in crass 'psychedelic' sequences. Most alarming, it looks as if it could have been a seminal influence on Oliver Stone." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The A.V. Club
         
Charlotte et Son Jules
Jean-Luc Godard
Charlotte and Her Jules (English title)
Chosen by Luc Moullet (Sight & Sound, 1962)
1958 | 13m | BW | France
"Charlotte et son Jules was made the year before Breathless and in many ways prefigures the arrival of that major film. Shot entirely in or from a single hotel room, it centres on Jules, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo who delivers a rapid-fire tirade about his girlfriend and their relationship when she turns up back in the apartment. The poverty of the production is indicated by the fact that the voice of the Belmondo character is that of Godard himself. But its machine gun dialogue and restless jump-cutting camera is almost an advance preview of the long sort of love scene between Michel and Patricia in Patricia's tiny apartment in Breathless." - Geoff Gardner, Senses of Cinema
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Dailymotion
 
Chaudhvin Ka Chand
Guru Dutt & M. Sadiq
Full Moon (English title); The Moon of the Fourteenth (alternative title)
Chosen by Corey K. Creekmur (Facets, 2003)
1960 | 169m | Col-BW | India
"Enchanting in its first half but floridly melodramatic in its second, this 1960 Indian romance is set in the Islamic enclave of the city of Lucknow, where a store owner (Guru Dutt) discovers that his new wife, veiled according to custom, is coveted by his best friend, who doesn't realize her true identity. Directed by Mohammed Sadiq at a leisurely pace, it offers luminous cinematography and some ingeniously moody musical numbers." - Ted Shen, Chicago Reader
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Corey K. Creekmur
 
China Gate
Samuel Fuller
Chosen by Chuck Stephens (Village Voice, 1999)
1957 | 97m | BW | USA
"Sam Fuller's prophetic vision of Vietnam—the saga of Lucky Legs, a Eurasian prostitute (“I'm a little of everything and a lot of nothing”) with loyalties divided among the French, the communists, and the American soldier who happens to be the father of her child. Fuller's Indochina is a hopeless mishmash of cultures and ideologies; the challenge is to create a personal identity out of a political one. A rough, gnawing film, directed with Fuller's unique anger and bluntness." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Allmovie
         
The Chinese Feast
Tsui Hark
Jin yu man tang (original title)
Chosen by David Bordwell (Facets, 2003)
1995 | 100m | Col | Hong Kong
"The Chinese Feast imports much of the mood and the conventions of Hark's action pictures. The film is an exuberant and high-spirited comedy with dazzling, fast-paced cooking scenes subbing for action sequences. A chef moves a carving knife too quickly for the naked eye to see -- and a moment later vegetables open into flower shapes... As a loving embrace of food, life and love, The Chinese Feast has to take a back seat. But as an exploration of what a talented film maker can do with a chef, some pots and pans and a whole lot of food, this is a real tour de force." - Mick LaSalle, San Francisico Chronicle
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Reel Views
 
Chinese Firedrill
Will Hindle

Chosen by Richard Corliss (Sight & Sound, 1972)
1968 | 25m | Col | USA
"Hindle 's prize-ladened work of cataclysmic visual and mental schisms stands as one-of-a-kind. Chinese Firedrill is a romantic, nostalgic film. Yet its nostalgia is of the unknown, of vague emotions, haunted dreams, unspoken words, silences between sounds. It's nostalgic for the oceanic present rather than the remembered past. It is a total fantasy, yet it seems more real than the coldest documentary, The action occurs totally within the mind of the protagonist, who never leaves the small room in which he lives... Through the door/mirror is the beyond, the unreachable, the unattainable." - Gene Youngblood, San Francisco Cinematheque
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Canyon Cinema
 
Chushingura
Hiroshi Inagaki
Chushingura - Hana no maki yuki no maki (original title); The 47 Ronin (alternative title)
Chosen by Iain Johnstone (John Kobal Poll, 1988)
1962 | 207m | Col | Japan
"The legendary Japanese tale of the loyal 47 ronin has been filmed countless times, but received perhaps its greatest screen treatment in this epic 1962 version from director Hiroshi Inagaki. As a storyteller, Inagaki possessed a rare ability to create an action film that was both thrilling and intelligent, and these characteristics are present in Chushingura. Inagaki's vision of history is a romantic one, celebrating a time when honor was important, and filling the screen with gorgeous sets and even more gorgeous scenery." - Bob Mastrangelo, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  DVD Savant Review
         
Clouds of May
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Mayis sikintisi (original title); Clouds in May (alternative title)
Chosen by Hulya Ucansu (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1999 | 117m | Col | Turkey
"Ceylan keeps the line between what's apparently cinema verite and what's scripted narrative intentionally blurred, which gives the action a fascinating tension. He also shot the film himself, creating some astonishingly poetic, elegiac shots of nature and people that are reminiscent of Terrence Malick or Alexander Sokurov." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"The 'story' concerns the relationship between the film-maker, his family, and old friends. But the lovely substance is in the wit, the nuances, the rhythms, and Ceylan's own very fine colour camerawork." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Strictly Film School
 
La Crabe-Tambour
Pierre Schoendoerffer
The Crab Drum (English title)
Chosen by Norbert Multeau (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1977 | 120m | Col | France
"This distinctive and haunting portrait of military life was directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer, a filmmaker with a particular interest in the lives of soldiers and sailors. Treating his subject with great respect and sympathy, Schoendoerffer adds a note of irony and sadness.  He skilfully avoids glorifying war, yet his films are poignant, emotionally tense, and also curiously cold and distant. Le Crabe-tambour is among his best work, thanks largely to some extraordinary camera work from Raoul Coutard which masterfully conveys both a sense of awesome scale and also great intimacy." - Ammon Haggerty, Shift
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Allmovie
 
Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment
Robert Drew
Chosen by Chris Hegedus (Facets, 2003)
1963 | 52m | BW | USA
"Crisis chronicles, with thrilling intimacy, the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of the White House as it deals with good-old-boy segregationist Gov. George Wallace, who insists on physically preventing the integration of the University Of Alabama by two black students... Much of Crisis is almost unbearably tense, but wonderful moments of humor alleviate that tension... A fascinating sociological document, Crisis provides an unforgettable profile in courage in the process." - Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Richard Leacock
         
Crossroads
Bruce Conner
Chosen by Raphael Bassan (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1976 | 36m | BW | USA
"Crossroads is masterfully assembled from declassified footage of the first underwater atomic bomb test at Bikini Atol. The film begins with a view from shore looking out towards a cluster of decommissioned Japanese battleships. A wave rolls slowly and birds can faintly be heard. Knowing what's to come only enhances the anticipation as the scene waits in a suspended state of quiet and calm. When the bomb is finally detonated, the spectacle is met with silence. Not until many moments later does the sound - an unrelenting blast - reach the viewer." - Ammon Haggerty, Shift
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Hell on Frisco Bay
 
Darling Lili
Blake Edwards
Chosen by Peter Tonguette (Senses of Cinema, 2006)
1970 | 136m | Col | USA
"Edwards's camera work is breathtaking from the first frame to the last, and the moral issues are handled with tremendous sophistication beneath a veneer of treacle. Worth seeing and worth liking, even if it takes some effort." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"A commercial failure that was savaged and ridiculed at the time, Darling Lili is a glorious film. Edwards' wedding present to Julie Andrews, it is yet another instalment of his ongoing celebration of innocence as the great virtue of life. To understand the film, a simple enough love/spy story set in World War I, one simply has to accept that love (and jealousy) is more important than winning wars." - Phil Hardy, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  DVD Savant
 
Daughter Rite
Michelle Citron
Chosen by Alexandra Juhasz (PopcornQ, 1997)
1978 | 53m | Col | USA
"Daughter Rite is a classic, the missing link between the 'direct Cinema' documentaries and the later hybrids that acknowledged truth couldn't always be found in front of a camera lens. Scandalous in its day for bending the rules of representation to enlighten its audience about filmmaking, Daughter Rite has a lot to teach folks hooked on reality TV, too. Citron's documentary inquiries into feminism, women in the trades, and feminist approaches to media representation are time capsules that merit re-opening." - B. Ruby Rich
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Jump Cut
         
David and Bathsheba
Henry King
Chosen by Jean-Loup Bourget (Positif, 1991)
1951 | 116m | Col | USA
"Fans of Biblical epics will find a lot to like in David and Bathsheba; although there's little here that will appeal to those who don't look favorably upon the genre. The script is predictably overblown, filled with the kind of bombast and stilted melodrama that is to be expected. It's ridiculous, yet in its own strange way, it works. It is also, typically, both too reverent and too "Hollywood"-ized; also like most Biblical epics of the period, it takes advantage of its religious underpinnings to indulge in some lurid sensuality." - Craig Butler, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Variety
 
Death of a President
Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Smierc prezydenta (original title)
Chosen by Jean-Louis Leutrat (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1978 | 144m | Col | Poland
"Śmierć Prezydenta is a very typical political film. It is based on very precise and accurate documentation of political events [the election and assassination of the first president of Poland, the atheist and non-political Gabriel Narutowicz, in 1922]. In the dialogue, we even copied what people said in real life. So the history is shown day by day, exactly as it was." - Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Kinoeye Interview
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Film Reference
 
Death Takes a Holiday
Mitchell Leisen
Chosen by Jose Maria Latorre (Nickel Odeon, 1997)
1934 | 78m | BW | USA
"One of the oddball projects Paramount was fond of in the early 30s, though not one of the most successful. Death (Fredric March, in what some would say was typecasting) disguises himself as a prince and visits an aristocratic Italian family. It's partly based on a Maxwell Anderson play, which means the windy dialogue is interrupted only by crushingly predictable plot events (Death falls in love). Mitchell Leisen hadn't yet developed the light touch with actors he would display memorably later in the decade, though some of his trademark pictorial effects are in evidence." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Allmovie
         
Demolition d'un mur
Louis Lumière
Demolition of a Wall (English title)
Chosen by Alain Carou (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1896 | 1m | BW | France
"Though minor in content, viisually Demolition of a Wall (Demolition d'un mur, 1896) is highly effective. It's another brief one-shot scene showing laborers knocking down a thick old stone wall, using some kind of hand-cranked jack to push over, then mashing the pieces. The scene becomes clouded white with dust when the wall tumbles." - Wild Realm Reviews
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  YouTube
 
The Deserter and the Nomads
Juraj Jakubisko
Zbehovia a pútnici (original title)
Chosen by Gianalberto Bendazzi (Sight & Sound, 1972)
1968 | 120m | Col | Italy-Czechoslovakia
"Three tales of war, the first being by far the best... With colour and images guided by folk art and a tang of surrealism, Jakubisko shapes his material into a sort of medieval death's jest-book, with Death himself eagerly waiting to reap his harvest. Technique unfortunately begins to run rather wild in the rest of the film, all zooms, filters, distortions and wild arabesques. But the main problem is that the two remaining stories (WWII and a future nuclear holocaust) tend to ram home the message about the continuing horrors of war with a dull thud. An extraordinary, offbeat movie all the same." - Tom Milne, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
 
Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam
John R. Cherry III
Chosen by Luke Y. Thompson (Rotten Tomatoes, 2003)
1986 | 97m | Col | USA
"This comedy is a showcase for Jim Varney (of "Hey Vern! It's your old buddy Ernest!" fame) who plays several different roles, including Laughin' Jack, Dr. Otto, Guy Dandy, and others. Dr. Otto is a crazed and evil scientist intent on becoming a world dictator. One of his plans is to send the global economy into oblivion and towards that goal, he invents an appearance-altering device that allows him to assume any guise he chooses." - Eleanor Mannikka, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Let's Get Dangerous
         
Don Giovanni
Joseph Losey
Chosen by Gerard Legrand (Positif, 1991)
1979 | 179m | Col | France-Italy-UK-West Germany
"The visual context is ravishing, with a lighting scheme that builds from the understated and naturalistic to shocking contrasts of black and white... If the film has a fault, it is a common one in Losey: the absence of an emotional support for his piercing intellectual observations." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"Filmed largely in formal long shot against Palladian Vicenza, Losey's cinematic version is a conscious attempt to 'make the unreal tangible'. Mostly - despite the odd Zeffirelli-ism and occasional 'motivation' - it succeeds." - Mandy Merck, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Sun
 
Don Quixote
G.W. Pabst
Adventures of Don Quixote (alternative title)
Chosen by Ludwig Gesek (Sight & Sound, 1982)
1933 | 73m | BW | France-UK
"This is a bleak, comfortless adaptation, emphasising madness, failure and death. But as an evocation of period and of sun-baked Iberian languor, it shows how stylish a film-maker Pabst could be. The ending is pure despair: Quixote dead, the police burning his books, and long, long slow-motion shots (reprised by Truffaut in Fahrenheit 451) of pages curling up in agony, accompanied by Ibert's vigorous score." - Bob Baker, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Dennis Grunes
 
Le Dossier 51
Michel Deville
Chosen by Phillip Noyce (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1978 | 108m | Col | France-West Germany
"An effectively sinister paranoid thriller, an exercise in voyeuristic point-of-view which consists almost entirely of the detailed surveillance file constructed by a foreign intelligence agency in an attempt to 'turn' a totally unwitting minor French diplomat. A sleek technocratic nightmare of the impossibility of maintaining privacy, it plays fearfully ambiguous games with its audience, inviting complicity in piecing together manipulatable 'evidence'." - Paul Taylor, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Films de  France
         
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Edwin S. Porter
Chosen by Bob Baker (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1906 | 7m | BW | USA
"Few films that were originally heralded for their technical ingenuity have kept their ability to inspire of awe over the years. Méliès' works, for example, have become little more than interesting chores for film historians. Porter's adaptation of Winsor McCay's comic, Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, is the exception that proves the rule, immersing the spectator in a world that may lack clarity, but speaks of the life all of us experience." - Ion Martea, Culture Wars
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  YouTube
 
The Dupes
Tewfik Saleh
Al-makhdu'un (original title)
Chosen by B. Abdou (Sight & Sound, 1982)
1972 | 107m | BW | Syria
"This tragic, ironic drama is a Syrian film featuring an Egyptian director working from a book by famed Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani. The film is not ideologically heavy-handed, though it is clear where the sympathies of the filmmakers lie. It tells the story of three Palestinians in exile, and their journey to seek riches in oil-rich Kuwait. Together, they take a ride with an emasculated, greedy water-truck driver. They must be concealed in a very dangerous manner during border crossings, and tragedy follows." - Clarke Fountain, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Cinemasy
 
Dust
Marion Hansel
Chosen by Anneke Smelik (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1985 | 88m | Col | Belgium-France
"Hänsel's stark adaptation of JM Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country is a strangely interior film, viewed through the lonely eyes of the repressed Magda (Jane Birkin). As the film somewhat uneasily blends reality and fantasy, family bonds are twisted, master-servant roles are reversed, and 'the work of generations falls to ruins'. But for all its admirable evocation of Magda's mounting hatred and hysteria, Hänsel's approach is finally flawed by its careful adherence to introspective, literary qualities." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
         
East Side Story
Dana Ranga
Chosen by Kenneth Turan (Steadycam, 2007)
1997 | 80m | Col | Germany-USA-France
"Ranga and Horn's insights into communist film production and their story of how the communist musical triumphed or withered in its various settings offer plenty of food for thought. It's a grand subject, worth considering for more than its camp value." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"This documentary on the little known story of socialist musicals casts a colourful light on screen life behind the Iron Curtain, a place and time where the pressure on film-makers was to deliver didactic propaganda in the Socialist Realist vein, while light entertainment was frowned on as expensive decadence." - Nick Bradshaw, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Gerald Peary
 
El Paso Wrecking Corp.
Joe Gage
Chosen by Dennis Dermody (Village Voice, 1999)
1978 | 94m | Col | USA
"Joe Gage directed this pioneering gay adult feature, the sequel to his groundbreaking Kansas City Trucking Company. Picking up where the first film left off, El Paso Wrecking Corp. finds Gene (Fred Halsted) and Hank (Richard Locke) fired from their jobs after an alcohol-fueled altercation. Determined to find new employment, Gene and Hank set out in search of opportunities in the blue-collar workforce, but they frequently become distracted by other men along the way." - Mark Deming, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Bright Lights Film Journal
 
Elasticity
Chick Strand
Chosen by Barbara Hammer (Facets, 2003)
1976 | 25m | Col | USA
"Impressionistic surrealism in three acts. The approach is literary experimental with optical effects. There are three mental states that are interesting: amnesia, euphoria and ecstasy. Amnesia is not knowing who you are and wanting desperately to know. I call this the White Night. Euphoria is not knowing who you are and not caring. This is the Dream of Meditation. Ecstasy is knowing exactly who you are and still not caring. I call this the Memory of the Future." - Los Angeles Film Forum
Amazon  |  Canyon Cinema  |  Portland Mercury
         
Elite Squad
José Padilha
Tropa de Elite (original title)
Chosen by John Malkovich (Rotten Tomatoes, 2009)
2007 | 115m | Col | Brazil-Netherlands-USA
"Director José Padilha’s fictional follow-up to his 2002 doc Bus 174 looks at the dangers of life in the slums of Rio through the eyes of the city’s various law enforcement agencies... Viewed as a pumped-up action movie, Elite Squad is sold short by its awkward structure, first swooping into the favela to deal with sundry gunplay, drug crime and police corruption, then tailing off on a Full Metal Jacket style training camp where prospective BOPE candidates are put through the gruelling wringer. It is impressively made, but leaves a nasty taste in the mouth." - David Jenkins, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Metacritic
 
Emitai
Ousmane Sembene
Chosen by Charles Burnett (Facets, 2003)
1971 | 103m | Col | Senegal
"A strong statement from Sembene about the forms of oppression practised by the French in West Africa. Set during World War II, it deals with the staggered annihilation of a small tribe that attempts to resist the exploitation of its labour and resources... conventional film, but it succeeds in its aim, clarifying the logic of the colonial struggle through a specific example." - John Du Cane, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
 
Enamorada
Emilio Fernández
Chosen by Tom Luddy (Facets, 2003)
1946 | 99m | BW | Mexico
"A deliriously romantic reworking of The Taming of the Shrew, set during the Juarez Revolution... Acted and directed with wit, verve and passion, the film also benefits from Gabriel Figueroa's stunning b/w photography; see it, too, for the overwhelmingly lovely scene when Armendáriz finally begins to win over the stubborn Félix with a heart-rending serenade." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Portland Mercury
         
L'Enfant Secret
Philippe Garrel
Chosen by Adrian Martin (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1982 | 92m | BW | France
"A man communicates that he has suffered. A filmmaker claims to be testifying for his generation. An experience struggles to become a story. A frozen narrative still burns. Is it a film? If so, then L’Enfant secret bears little resemblance to what passes today as French cinema. ‘Suffering’, ‘testimony’, ‘experience’, ‘narrative’ ill-seen, ill said, old-fashioned words, words that frighten. Let’s start again." - Serge Daney, Rouge
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  UCLA Film & Television Archive
 
Everybody's Fine
Giuseppe Tornatore
Stanno tutti bene (original title)
Chosen by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Steadycam, 2007)
1990 | 112m | Col | Italy-France
"Tornatore's follow-up to Cinema Paradiso isn't quite so dewy-eyed, but will still have cynics retching into their popcorn... There is a melodramatic plot lurch, a haunting dream sequence, a well-handled autumnal love affair, and a neat twist at the end. Like Cinema Paradiso, it's expertly manipulative and good-looking, though a tad darker. Marcello Mastroianni gambols through it." - Suzi Feay, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Washington Post
 
The Fabulous World of Jules Verne
Karel Zeman
Vynález zkázy (original title); A Deadly Invention (alternative title)
Chosen by Josef Sryck (Sight & Sound, 1972)
1958 | 83m | BW | Czechoslovakia
"Vynález Zkázy is highly cinematic -- it succeeds in creating a whimsical "world" of Jules Verne that couldn't be accomplished as either an old illustration or a live-action movie. The charm comes directly from Zeman's ingenious filming methods. We get the idea that if an 1865 daydreamer could imagine a magic-lantern movie of Verne's marvels, it might look a little like this. The imagination and visual magic here dwarf most modern fantasies, where photo-real images are a routine, and the magic is frequently lost in creativity-by-committee." - DVD Savant Review
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Fährmann Maria
Frank Wisbar
Death and the Maiden (English title)
Chosen by Italo Manzi (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1936 | 85m | BW | Germany
"Moody and atmospheric and shot in the style of early silent films with very little dialogue and ponderous pacing, this mystical account of love and death was very popular when it was released... While this film has a large cult following it certainly has had its share of controversy. Sybille Schmitz reputedly was having an affair with Joseph Goebbels which might explain why the film's script passed the censors." - Carl de Vogt.org
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  24 Lies per Second
 
Falling in Love
Ulu Grosbard
Chosen by Enrique Cerezo (Nickel Odeon, 1997)
1984 | 107m | Col | USA
"It's Brief Encounter bleached and sweetened for the 80s, with Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro as the two happily married suburbanites who meet and fall in love on the commuter train to New York. Ulu Grosbard's soft, anonymous direction takes all the sting out of the dramatic situation." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"Coincidences are difficult to get right in any romantic movie, yet here they are piled on without regard for sense or subtlety, while the script is so concerned to give its big names equal screen time that it fails to establish an innocuous but hardly compelling love story of the old school." - David Pirie, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 

La Fièvre monte à El Pao

Luis Buñuel
Chosen by Nelson Pereira dos Santos (Balaio, 1996)
1959 | 97m | BW | France-Mexico
"Gérard Philippe's last role before his death from cancer, playing a small-time government administrator whose time comes when the governor is assassinated and he temporarily takes over until a successor is appointed... It's hardly major Buñuel - he himself blamed its shortcomings on the inevitable compromises of a co-production - but his view of greed, hypocrisy and cruelty is as lucidly sardonic as ever, and the portrait of the dangers of trying to improve a totalitarian regime from the inside remains as relevant today as when the film was made." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
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La Fin du jour

Julien Duvivier
The End of the Day (English title)
Chosen by David Cairns (Senses of Cinema, 2003)
1939 | 99m | BW | France
"Set in an abbey that serves as a retirement home for actors, rife with squabbles, jealousies and remembrances of past glory, to which a threat of closure adds waves of despairing self-pity, La Fin du Jour once rated highly as a biting depictment (like La Règle du Jeu though in a different key) of the decadence of France just before World War II. Despite its dark edges, it hasn't worn nearly so well as Renoir's masterpiece, with a complacently whimsical sentimentality constantly threatening to break through. The performances, though, are terrific." - Tom Milne, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
 

15/67: TV

Kurt Kren
Chosen by Stefan Grissemann (Profil, 2004)
1967 | 7m | BW | Austria
"Five aspects of a peopled scene are repeated 21 times by duplication. Black frames interrupt running. It is more interesting to be thoroughly exasperated than merely distracted by some boringly mediocrity." - Kurt Kren
"Oftentimes Kren has considered construction first (frame counts, number of exposures and the like) whilst the image remains unprepared. 15/67 TV, for example, was filmed solely as a result of some friends being late to meet him and he became bored as a result." - Home Cinema
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Finye
Souleymane Cissé
The Wind (English title)
Chosen by Nick Roddick (John Kobal Poll, 1988)
1982 | 100m | Col | Mali
"While less impressive than Souleymane Cisse's subsequent Brightness, this 1982 feature about campus rebellion and ancestral, tribal memories in contemporary Africa is full of fascination." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"A campus protest movie, complete with drugs, generation gaps, fascistic policing and boy-girl problems... No one is caricatured, and the film develops its conflicts with splendid directness, shifting easily between realism and fantasy. It boils down to a fairly simple argument for liberal democracy, but the specifics of the setting give it an immediacy that an equivalent western film could never approach." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The Case for Global Film
         
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell
Terence Fisher
Chosen by Michel Marmin (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1973 | 93m | Col | UK
"Fisher's last film is a disappointment. Using the already well-proven formula, it offers the Baron this time as a doctor in a criminal asylum for the insane, secretly working with his assistant towards creating yet another life. Things begin well, with Fisher adding some atmospheric touches and Peter Cushing suggesting a man undermined by his excessive rationality. Unfortunately the script, which treads a wavering line between jerky comedy and seriousness, soon dissipates anyone else's better intentions." - Chris Petit, Time Out
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Friedemann Bach
Traugott Müller
Chosen by Nebojsa Pajkic (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1941 | 102m | BW | Germany
"Friedemann Bach is a German 1941 film depicting the life of Johann Sebastian Bachs son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. The film is based on Albert Emil Brachvogels novel Friedemann Bach. Wilhelm Friedemann Bach is shown as a gifted son trying to escape his father's shadows." - Wikipedia
"It's a delightful and touching film about a very talented musician, the eldest son of Sebastian Bach. Along with Amadeus I'd call this film the best portrait of a musician on the screen." - IMDB User Review
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Fuera De Aquí!
Jorge Sanjinés
Llocsi Caimanta, fuera de aquí (original title)
Chosen by Park Kwang-su (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1977 | 102m | BW | Ecuador-Bolivia
"This film is not a single person’s work, nor a single author’s, it is the collective work of my colleagues from the AKAMAU Group, and it is also the work of many farmers friends who took a great part in its achievement. Its aim is quite clear : to be a means of liberation, a weapon in the war for independance which we, Latin Americans, are waging against imperialism. The events shown in this film are drawn from documents and facts which we have reconstituted to unmask our ennemies." - Jorge Sanjinés
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Jump Cut
         
Funeral Rites
Zdenek Sirový
Smutecní slavnost (original title); Funeral Ceremony (alternative title)
Chosen by Verina Glaessner (Time Out, 1995)
1969 | 70m | BW | Czechoslovakia
"In this Czech movie, the story of the widow of a former landowner who was stripped of all his belongings is told. The man himself has died, but his widow is determined that somehow she will manage to get him buried in the family crypt, despite opposition from party officials. However, her activities served to remind people of their old values, and they are roused to protest against the government. This movie was filmed during a brief thaw in the cold war, but was withheld from circulation until 1990, as the thaw was not sustained long enough for it to be distributed." - Clarke Fountain, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Barbican Film
 
Ganga
Rajen Tarafder
The River (English title)
Chosen by Jacques Rivette (Sight & Sound, 1962)
1959 | 105m | BW | India
"Satyajit Ray’s path-breaking masterpiece Pather Panchali (1955) had an immediate and fundamental impact on the culture of filmmaking in Bengal... Rajen Tarafdar’s Ganga is one of the more successful films of this transformation – a film that is still remembered as a powerful yet sensitive depiction of the poor fishermen whose lives are irrevocably entwined with the flux of the great river... Dinen Gupta’s black and white cinematography elegantly captures the ever-changing panorama of the river Ganga through a series of complex tracking and panning shots." - Upperstall.com
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The German Chainsaw Massacre
Christoph Schlingensief
Das Deutsche Kettensägen Massaker (original title)
Chosen by Enno Patalas (Steadycam, 2007)
1990 | 63m | Col | Germany
"A bloody and demented blend of Brechtian political satire and Texas Chain Saw Massacre-style horror, this shrieking gore-fest is set during the first hours after German reunification. Fleeing from the East, hapless victims fall prey to a crazed family of human butchers, who introduce them to the pleasures of the Free Market by noisily hacking, bludgeoning and chainsawing them to death. Abrasive, relentless, cruelly funny and enjoyably deranged." - Nigel Floyd, Time Out
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The Girl and Her Trust
D.W. Griffith
Chosen by Stuart Klawans (Village Voice, 1999)
1912 | 15m | BW | USA
"This exciting drama from D.W. Griffith was a remake of his earlier The Lonedale Operator... This film shows that after four years cranking out one or two films a week, Griffith had become a talented director. The "traveling shots" of the train speeding to the rescue, as well as quick editing, made this a suspenseful film for its day." - Bruce Calvert, Allmovie
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The Girl from Rio
Jesus Franco
The Seven Secrets of Sumuru (original title); Future Women (alternative title)
Chosen by Hassan Hosseini (Iranian Film Poll, 2009)
1969 | 94m | Col | West Germany-Spain-USA
"Set to a lively samba-flavored lounge score by Daniel White, The Girl from Rio blithely bounces along from one ridiculous set-piece to the next, rarely making any sense, until it finally self-destructs in the disastrously botched finale. As the hero, Richard Wyler is a complete dud (that jacket has got to go!), punching a lot more air than henchmen. All the film's action scenes are pathetic. Other shots are clumsily recycled to bridge scenes or pad out the running time." - Brian Lindsey, Eccentric Cinema
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Film Freak Central
 
Go! Go! Go!
Marie Menken
Chosen by Stan Brakhage (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1964 | 12m | Col | USA
"Menken (who animated the chess sequence in Maya Deren's At Land) embraced various animation techniques – collage, stop-motion cinematography – as a direct extension of her painting. Yet for Menken, animation also became a way of radically transforming the world around her, reimagining postwar New York City, for example, in her masterpiece of single frame cinematography Go! Go! Go! (1962-64), a work that condenses two years of patient documentary filmmaking into a delirious and exhilarating vision of a hyperactive city." - Harvard Film Archive
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Go West
Buster Keaton
Chosen by Giulio Cesare Castello (Sight & Sound, 1972)
1925 | 69m | BW | USA
"Not the best of the Buster Keaton comedies, but one that shows him in a rare display of pure pathos. On his odyssey Buster is befriended by a cow (of which he continued to speak fondly in his old age) and averts a stampede in downtown Los Angeles by donning a red devil's costume." - Don Druker, Chicago Reader
"The only Keaton feature in which he discreetly tapped a vein of Chaplin pathos (his character is 'Friendless' and his leading lady a mournful cow), this is not one of his masterpieces, but is almost as enchanting in its quiet way." - Tom Milne, Time Out
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Good Morning, Babylon
Paolo Taviani & Vittorio Taviani
Chosen by Mercedes Frutos (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1987 | 117m | Col | France-Italy-USA
"Realism merges with the surreal, fact with fiction, and a faux-naif surface (not unlike that of the films from the period depicted) conceals a complex interweaving of familiar Taviani themes: the continuing strengths and shortcomings of tradition and patriarchy, the importance of imagination, memory and collective endeavour. Typically, sentimentality is held at bay by the cool, formalised direction. The performances throughout are splendid, the symbolism never intrusive, the entire achievement witty and elegant." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
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Le Grand jeu
Jacques Feyder
Chosen by Alexandre Arnoux (Cinematheque Belgique, 1952)
1934 | 120m | BW | France
"Once famed for its supposedly Pirandellian casting of Marie Bell as a honky tonk temptress whose chiselled features remind hero Richard Willm of the Parisian beauty (also played by Bell) he had joined the Foreign Legion precisely 'to forget'. Le Grand Jeu is short on directorial presence, but long on atmosphere: heat, sand, flies, cheap absinthe, and Françoise Rosay poring over greasy Tarot cards behind a rustling bead curtain." - Gilbert Adair, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Films de France
         
Great Citizen
Fridrikh Ermler
Velikiy grazhdanin (original title)
Chosen by Robert Vas (Sight & Sound, 1962)
1938 | 252m | BW | USSR
"Few Russian filmmakers genuflected at the altar of Marxist-Leninism with as much frequency-and with as much skill-as documentary director Friedrich Ermler. Filmed over a two-year period, The Great Citizen is a two-part reaction of the events surrounding the infamous "Purge Trials" engineered by Josef Stalin... American prints of The Great Citizen were compressed into a single, 114-minute feature film, rendering the already complex plotline incomprehensible to those unfamiliar with the original trials." - Hal Erickson, Allmovie
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The Great Madcap
Luis Buñuel
El Gran Calavera (original title)
Chosen by Juan B. Heinink (Nickel Odeon, 1997)
1949 | 92m | BW | Mexico
"Though it's arguably Buñuel's most accessible film, The Great Madcap confronts a moral dilemma ever-present in Buñuel's work: that money paves the road for callousness and misguided complacency... It's a deceptively simple story built on multiple layers of deceit. Ever the humanist, Buñuel complicates matters when Pablo (Ruebén Rojo) sees insult in rich men using his impoverishment as a moral litmus test. In the end, though, he too must swallow his humility and an unusually optimistic Buñuel suggests that love conquers all." - Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
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The Guardsman
Sidney Franklin
Chosen by Noel Coward (Cinematheque Belgique, 1952)
1931 | 89m | BW | USA
"Director Sidney Franklin was an expert at transposing plays to the screen in smooth, seamless fashion. He was, thus, the ideal man to direct this adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's play about backstage rivalry... once the backstage section of the story kicks in, Franklin's skills kick in on all cylinders, in a lively, caustically witty comedic romance, and the movie never slows down from there across its brisk 89-minute running time... The Guardsman has lost little of its luster across 75-plus years." - Bruce Eder, Allmovie
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La Gueule de l'autre
Pierre Tchernia
The Other One's Mug (English title)
Chosen by Jean Tulard (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1979 | 100m | Col | France
"You get two Michel Serrault’s for the price of one in this frothy mix of satirical comedy and burlesque farce written by the popular actor-writer Jean Poiret (whose best known work is the original stage version of La Cage aux folles)... In this film he plays two very different characters, a cowardly politician and a timid comedian made famous by a deodorant ad... The comedy is typically French – relying mainly on clever wordplay, which is often very subtle – although there is also a fair amount of theatrical farce to help move things along." - James Travers, Films de France
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A Guy Named Joe
Victor Fleming
Chosen by Steven Spielberg (Empire, 1989)
1943 | 120m | BW | USA
"A Guy Named Joe walks a fine line between realistic World War II drama and fantasy, and it does so successfully for 95 percent of its two-hour-and-one-minute length, ending up an excellent example of how to make this kind of movie work. It's not quite as ambitious as the slightly similar Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger fantasy A Matter of Life and Death, but it has its own conjuring trick to pull off, mostly in the acting and dramatic departments rather than special effects, which are minimal." - Bruce Eder, Allmovie
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Handsworth Songs
John Akomfrah
Chosen by Isaac Julien (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1986 | 61m | Col | UK
"An invigorating and thoughtful documentary from the London-based Black Audio Film Collective that examines elements of the Black experience in Britain from the perspective of the tragic events of 1985... What is in evidence here is a fertile and imaginative cinematic intelligence which, in waging 'the war of naming the problem', musters a range of archive material, interviews, and filmed records of the disturbances in such a way as to provide an essay that is as full of subtle, rich and allusive argument as it is devoid of empty didacticism and stridency." - Wally Hammond, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  BFI Screen Online
         
Heat and Sunlight
Rob Nilsson
Chosen by Catherine Hardwick (Newsweek, 2008)
1988 | 98m | Col | USA
"The method of letting the cast improvise a whole film was the extraordinary achievement of Heat and Sunlight, one of Rob Nilsson's earlier and best-known films... Heat and Sunlight has the kind of naturalistic acting and dramatic punch seen in Cassavetes – hardly surprising as Nilsson regards Cassavetes as one of his mentors. Like Cassavetes, most of Nilsson's films are male-centered or show a propensity for masculine angst. In many ways, Nilsson's resolute independence and passionate streak is a symptom of such masculinity." - Stephen Teo, Senses of Cinema
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  DVD Town
 
His Butler's Sister
Frank Borzage
Chosen by Mike Wallington (Sight & Sound, 1972)
1943 | 94m | BW | USA
"His Butler's Sister is a silly little Deanna Durbin vehicle, but if its charms are modest, they are nonetheless very real. Chief among those charms, of course, is La Durbin herself. She's a curious creature, an actress with a diva-like soprano yet a most un-diva-like personality.... Frank Borzage directs with style and skill, and all adds up to a lightweight but enjoyable little trifle." - Craig Butler, Allmovie
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Hitch-Hike
Pasquale Festa Campanile
Autostop rosso sangue (original title)
Chosen by Dominik Graf (Steadycam, 2007)
1977 | 104m | Col | Italy
"Hitch-Hike is a heartwarmingly unpleasant film. Beginning as a quirky road movie, it blossoms into a scathingly cynical thriller which has a remarkably nihilstic view of relationships, both between men and women and between men. Unseen in Britain for many years, it has been called a 'lost classic', which might be overstating the case somewhat. But it's certainly a genuinely tense and exciting thriller and the kind of film which, gratifyingly, restores your lack of faith in human nature." - Home Cinema
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Savage Cinema
         
Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go
Kim Longinotto
Chosen by Havana Marking (IonCinema!, 2009)
2007 | 100m | Col | UK
"Training her camera on the staff and pupils of Oxford's Mullbury Bush School for children with acute behavioural problems, Kim Longinotto manages to tease out a disturbing, deeply moving and even at times, darkly comic portrait of an institution which is seen as a last chance saloon for its many troubled pupils. Avoiding sensationalism by tastefully editing out scenes of violence and dispensing with the forced narrative arc which seems de rigeur in most documentary films these days, Longinotto's gentle struggle to inject objectivity into the form means that the viewer is (for once) allowed to read the material as they wish." - David Jenkins, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Pop Matters
 
Hold That Ghost
Arthur Lubin
Chosen by Terry Jones (Facets, 2003)
1941 | 86m | BW | USA
"Fans of Abbott and Costello will have a field day with Hold That Ghost; those not so in tune with the boys will be less enthralled, but even they may find themselves chuckling several times throughout Ghost. Coming quite early in the duo's film career, Ghost finds the boys still in fresh form -- and their timing has rarely been better." - Craig Butler, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  TCM
 
The Home and the World
Satyajit Ray
Ghare-Baire (original title)
Chosen by Claire Denis (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1984 | 130m | Col | India
"The film is slow, studied, and observed with a fanatic attention to the smallest gestures and glances, which helps to fill out the somewhat schematic structure Ray has inherited from his source (a novel by Rabindranath Tagore)." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"One could accuse the film of being talky and static, but the formal elegance, sure sense of pace, and uniformly excellent performances guarantee a moving experience. " - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
         
L'Homme du large
Marcel L'Herbier
Man of the Sea (English title)
Chosen by Anne-Marie Baron (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1920 | 84m | BW | France
"L’Homme du large, Marcel L’Herbier’s first great film, offers an extraordinarily compelling portrayal of the forces of good and evil that motivate human behaviour. Whilst it does not have the huge epic scale of some of L’Herbier’s subsequent films, it is nonetheless a masterwork of cinematic storytelling and uses a dazzling range of photographic techniques to hold the audience’s attention... The historic importance of L’Homme du large is summed up Henri Langlois, who described the film as the first example of "écriture cinématographique." - James Travers, Films de France
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Wikipedia
 
Hong Kong 1941
Po-Chih Leong
Dang doi lai ming (original title)
Chosen by Udagawa Koyo (Sight & Sound, 1992)
1984 | 100m | Col | Hong Kong
"This melodrama is one of many that have embraced the period setting of Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation of World War II... Similar to films like Casablanca, Hong Kong 1941 is a good example of how Hong Kong cinema has made much use of this period and the theme of love in a desperate time. However, the film also depicts the brutality that occurred during the occupation, and the portrayal of the Japanese invasion force in this film reflects a deep resentment that parallels the representations of the German Nazis in Western film." - Jonathan E. Laxamana, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Eye for Film
 
El Hotel eléctrico
Segundo de Chomón
The Electric Hotel (English title)
Chosen by Tote Trenas (Nickel Odeon, 1997)
1908 | 8m | BW | Spain-France
"Segundo de Chomón (1871–1929) worked independently during the final years of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth to develop a number of special effects or trick films. His most inventive creation was El Hotel eléctrico (The Electric Hotel , 1908), which depicts a fully automated hotel in which a man is automatically shaved and his wife's hair is combed." - Film Reference
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Dailymotion
         
The Hour-Glass Sanatorium
Wojciech Has
Sanatorium pod klepsydra (original title); The Sandglass (alternative title)
Chosen by Jean-Paul Torok (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1973 | 124m | Col | Poland
"The Sandglass is a bewilderment of dreams, a labyrinth of decay. Written and directed by Wojciech J. Has in 1973, this non-narrative work was based on a collection of short stories by "Poland's Kafka," Bruno Schulz. Hailed as a classic, it is nevertheless a torturous trip down the rapids of the stream of consciousness. An exploration of immortality, memory and the functions of psychoanalysis, The Sandglass pours out its grains of wisdom in a deluge of ambiguity. Not for clock-watchers or fans of quick pace or plot, this old timepiece runs on Greenwich Godot." - Rita Kempley, The Washington Post
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Electric Sheep Magazine
 
How a Mosquito Operates
Winsor McCay
Chosen by Mike Leigh (Empire, 2008)
1912 | 6m | BW | USA
"How a Mosquito Operates may not be the first animated film (that honor is most often attributed to J. Stuart Blackton's 1906 Humorous Phases of Funny Faces), but it holds a secure place in film history as one of Winsor McCay's pioneering experiments in cartoon art... The film was an enormous success, laying the groundwork for McCay's most famous animated work, Gertie the Dinosaur." - Mark Pittillo, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  YouTube
 
The Hunters
Theo Angelopoulos
Kynigoi, Oi (original title)
Chosen by Mari Kuttna (Sight & Sound, 1982)
1977 | 168m | Col | Greece | Drama
"The Hunters reflects how a man of my generation sees Greek history, a history whose continuation blends with the years of my own life. It is a study of the historical conscience of the Greek bourgeoisie. In Greece, the ruling class is afraid of history and, for this reason, hides it. The Hunters  starts from this premise." - Theo Angelopoulos
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Cinepassion
         
The Iron Crown
Alessandro Blasetti
La Corona di ferro (original title)
Chosen by Elliott Stein (Village Voice, 1999)
1941 | 97m | BW | Italy
"A pseudo-historical fantasy based on a naive plot... which tried to create a kind of Italian saga in the style of Die Niebelungenlied... Blasetti, the true eclectic, mixed in everything he could think of, including Ariosto and the Grimm Brothers, while his directing drew heavily on early Fritz Lang." - Mira Liehm
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Ozus' World Movie Reviews
 
It Happens Every Spring
Lloyd Bacon
Chosen by Glenn Myrent (Facets, 2003)
1949 | 87m | BW | USA
"In this little gem of a comedy, Ray Milland has a ball -- a baseball -- and what he does to it turns the whole sports world topsy-turvy and sets high standards for later sports films about athletes with secret weapons... What is so good about this film is that it keeps its tongue in its cheek, allowing the clever script, special effects, straight-faced acting, and goofy scenarios to work their magic... It Happens Every Spring is one of the finest sports films ever made -- in a quiet, unassuming way." - Mike Cummings, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
 
Jaguar
Jean Rouch
Chosen by Jill Godmilow (Facets, 2003)
1967 | 110m | Col | France
"Jaguar is a semi-fictional story about three young men who leave Niger to find work in Ghana prior to its independence. Rouch invited the major characters to improvise a narrative over the footage, which is an amazing and often funny document in its own right. If you care about cinema and haven't yet encountered Rouch, this shouldn't be missed." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"A charming ‘ethnographic fantasy’ about three young men from the Niger Savannah seeking work and experience in Ghana’s cities for a season." - Gareth Evans, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Dennis Grunes
         
Jericho
Henri Calef
Chosen by Alain Ferrari (Libre Journal du Cinéma, 2009)
1946 | 139m | BW | France
"Once the French film industry was able to make WWII epics, it did so with a vengeance. Jericho is the true story of the bombing of the Nazi-held prison at Amiens. It is argued that, while the RAF took an enormous public-relations risk in the bombing, the end result was largely salutary, resulting in freedom for 50 French hostages. The dramatic portions of the film share space with newsreel footage of the actual attack. One of the better films of its kind, Jericho failed to make a dent in the U.S. market, which at the time was inundated with war pictures." - Hal Erickson, Allmovie
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
 
Jewish Luck
Alexis Granowsky
Evreyskoe schaste (original title)
Chosen by J. Hoberman (Profil, 2004)
1925 | 100m | BW | USSR
"A window onto a vanished world, this silent Soviet comedy takes place in czarist Russia and brings to the screen Menakhem Mendl, the hapless daydreamer created by Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem... The movie was directed by Alexander Granovsky, a veteran of the Moscow Yiddish State Art Theater, and shot by Eduard Tisse, who later worked with Eisenstein; they create numerous striking images, but none so unsettling as when Mendl dreams of exporting hundreds of brides to America—they arrive packed in railway freight cars." - Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  Seagull Films
 
Jungle Fever
Spike Lee
Chosen by June Givanni (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1991 | 132m | Col | USA
"Lee's 'joint' looks good, features a chorus of garrulous characters, makes stirring use of music, and never allows the forgiving women a fair share of the deal. But instead of showing how prejudice seeps into the private intimacies of daily life, the film turns its attention to the other characters, including Flipper's junkie brother Gator, who fuels a subplot evoking the destructive effects of crack on black society. Sadly, this aspect, which allows Lee his most unsettling and impressive scene, seems loosely tacked on to the main thrust of the film." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The Washington Post
         
Kung-fu Master!
Agnès Varda
Chosen by Miranda July (The Guardian, 2008)
1987 | 80m | Col | France
"Not a martial arts movie (the title refers to a video game) but a provocative 1988 French feature starring and based on a story by the talented English/French actress Jane Birkin... Varda's serene and unrhetorical handling of the loaded subject—underlined with sympathy and understanding for all of the characters, and full of both wit and tenderness—is what gives this picture its charge." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Amazon  |  IMDB  |  The New York Times
 
The Landlord
Hal Ashby
Chosen by Alexander Payne (Facets, 2003)
1970 | 113m | Col | USA
"Ashby's first film as director - produced by Norman Jewison, whose regular editor Ashby had been - this was coolly received when first released. Presumably its anarchic satire on the mores and assumptions of the American Way of Life were thought to be in bad taste... Ashby's film (like the later and much more successful The Last Detail) operates through the freewheeling juxtaposition of characters in unlikely situations. Worth a look." - Phil Hardy, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   The Village Voice (J. Hoberman)
 
The Last Hole
Herbert Achternbusch
Das Letzte Loch (original title)
Chosen by Hans Gunther Pflaum (Steadycam, 2007)
1981 | 92m | BW | West Germany
"Even the fact that Achternbusch scripted the most wilfully bizarre Herzog feature - Heart of Glass, in which the entire cast performed under hypnosis - doesn't prepare one for the strangeness of his own films. Where Herzog has sought increasing comfort in grandiose visions and international travel, Achternbusch is less romantic and more defiantly Bavarian... One hesitates to call this unsettling film a comedy, as its laughter is the stuff of nightmare. What right has anyone to laugh after too many are dead? But, says Achternbusch, what else can one do?" - Chris Petit, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Anthology Film Archives
         
Last Life in the Universe
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Ruang rak noi nid mahasan (original title)
Chosen by Alexandra Seitz (Steadycam, 2007)
2003 | 112m | Col | Thailand-Netherlands-Hong Kong-UK
"Strange and elusive, this 2003 Thai feature by Pen-ek Ratanaruang traces the deepening relationship between a reserved, suicidal Japanese man... and an angry young Thai woman... The elegant cinematography is by Chris Doyle." - J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader
"Hardly anything happens, but the film grips like a thriller; tone and pace, atmosphere and imagery tell voluminous stories of their own. It has Doyle's best camerawork since Happy Together and a snazzy cameo from Takashi Miike in shades and a snakeskin suit." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Metacritic
 
The Last Stage
Wanda Jakubowska
Ostatni etap (original title)
Chosen by Louis Daquin (Cinematheque Belgique, 1952)
1948 | 81m | BW | Poland
"I hardly know where to begin -- a Polish film about life in Auschwitz, made less than three years after liberation of the camp, shot on location in Auschwitz itself, using real liberated prisoners as extras, filmed by a woman (female Polish directors in the '40s?) who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz just three years earlier... The film is inevitably modest about torture and annihilation, but not by '40s standards, and a long montage panning over mountains of leftover coats, shoes, toys and prosthetic limbs is a breathtaker, especially when you realize the filmmaker might well have used the real detritus found at the camp." - Michael Atkinson, IFC
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   DVD Savant Review
 
Leap Into the Void
Marco Bellocchio
Salto nel vuoto (original title); A Leap in the Dark (alternative title)
Chosen by Jean-Philippe Domecq (Positif, 1991)
1980 | 120m | Col | Italy
"Bellocchio's quirky subversion of bourgeois family values revives all the strengths of two earlier works (Fists in the Pocket and In the Name of the Father) with its tale of a middle-aged, incestuously puritanical judge (Michel Piccoli) gradually destroyed by the hesitant love affair between his sister (Anouk Aimée) and a young anarchist actor. The treatment is perhaps less cruel, but Bellocchio continues the stylisation and claustrophobia of his earlier images - and with them the debt to the wise, angry, anti-patriarchal cinema of Jean Vigo." - Chris Auty, Time Out
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A Life for a Life
Yevgeni Bauer

Zhizn za zhizn (original title); Her Sister's Rival (alternative title)
Chosen by Julian Graffy (Sight & Sound, 2002)
1916 | 66m | BW | Russia
"Although based on a French novel by Georges Ohnet, the film, adapted to a Russian setting, perfectly conveys the decadence of the late Tsarist era. A fortune-hunting prince marries the wealthy daughter of a female industrialist while carrying on an affair with his wife’s foster sister who is married to a businessman she does not love. After spending much of his wife’s money, he forges promissory notes and is about to be arrested when his mother-in-law shoots him." - William M. Drew
Amazon  |  IMDB  |   Film Reference
 
Light Years Away
Alain Tanner
Les Années lumière (original title)
Chosen by Guglielmo Biraghi (John Kobal Poll, 1988)
1981 | 105m | Col | France-Switzerland
"The first English-language film of Swiss director Alain Tanner is in large part a preachy, static, gaseously mystical muddle... Tanner's good sense seems to have deserted him in every department but that of mise-en-scene; the images remain crisp and intelligently conceived even as the sound track fogs over in Carlos Castaneda-isms." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"The film is mysterious without being mystifying or unduly solemn. Clear as mud, in fact, with the compelling logic of a dream. The real puzzle (though it's not a complaint) is why a politically discursive film-maker like Tanner  has taken up this mystic and ritualistic fable." - Jennifer Selway, Time Out