Birthday Of The Day: Gene Tierney, PGOAT

Movie Roundup: MIA Edition

Things have been quiet around here lately, as most of my blog-related free time has been spent over on our Metro Classics website. In the past few months I've written the following articles there:

Why Charlie Chaplin Is Better Than Buster Keaton

A Filmography Of Wong Kar-wai In Eighteen Images (Or, Yay! Pretty Pictures!)

Clint Eastwood And The Myth Of The Last Golden Age

A Short History Of The Musical Genre, Towards Defending As Essential The Arguably Extraneous Dance Sequence At The End Of Singin' In The Rain

A Short History Of The Western Genre, And Why The Wild Bunch Was Ahead Of Its Time

Movie Year Showdown: 1938 vs. 1939

All About Bette

Check them out if you haven't already. If you have, read them again and see if they hold up over time they way classics are supposed to. We've only got a couple weeks left in this fall's Metro Classics series. After that, I should be able to get back to posting over here, including a wrap up of what I saw at the Vancouver Film Festival that I've been wanting to write for over a month now.

Movie Roundup: Vacation Cleanup Edition

With only three more days until I finally get to go on vacation (we're going to the Vancouver International Film Festival again this year), I thought I'd quickly clear out the most recent additions to the various Big Lists. If you want to see some actually writing about movies, check out the Metro Classics website. There's lots of good stuff over there, lately most of it not written by me (though I did have a History of the Western Genre a few weeks ago.)

Anyway, between work and various things falling apart around my house and rewatching the last seasons of The Office and 30 Rock, I haven't actually watched a movie in three weeks. But this is what I saw over the weeks before that, and where each film ranks for its year:

A Time To Love And A Time To Die: 9, 1958
Inglourious Basterds: 2009
Dakota Skye: 35, 2008
Virginia City: 22, 1940
Jeanne Dielman: 2, 1975
The Private Life Of Henry VIII: 11, 1933
Stalker: 7, 1979
They Drive By Night: 20, 1940
Silk Stockings: 14, 1957
A Chinese Odyssey 2: 51, 1994
Murder By Death: 13, 1976
Royal Tramp 2: 38, 1992
If You Could Only Cook: 13, 1935
Visions Of Light: 32, 1992

Metro Classics Returns, Again!

Perhaps because we watched way too much geeky TV as kids, Mike and I have been inspired by the great James Burke to have our next Metro Classics series be based on Connections, with each film connected to the next film in the series in some nefarious way. The shows will once again run every Wednesday night, from October 07 through December 02. Here's the lineup, along with how the movies are connected:

Oct 07: Singin' In The Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952) (elaborate choreography)
Oct 14: Enter The Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973) (action stars wreaking havoc on islands)
Oct 21: Commando (Mark L. Lester, 1985) (actors who became politicians)
Oct 28: The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976) (westerns)
Nov 04: Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959) (musicians who act)
Nov 11: Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994) (urban romances)
Nov 18: City Lights with The Immigrant (Charlie Chaplin, 1931/1917) (silent comedy double features)
Nov 25: Sherlock Jr with The General (Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, 1924/1926) (civil war films)
Dec 02: Gone With The Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)

That's eleven films in nine weeks, six of them in high-definition. It will also be our eleventh musical, our seventh and eighth Westerns, our fifth, sixth seventh, and eighth silent films, our sixth Howard Hawks film, our fourth and fifth double features, our fifth Best Picture winner, our third Asian film, our second Gene Kelly film, and our first film that is so long we can only show it once.

Handsome fliers will be available within the week.

RIP Henry Gibson

RIP Patrick Swayze

Movie Roundup: It's Showtime, Folks! Edition

Here's a quick rundown of what I've seen lately. If you want to read some of my actual writing, check out the Metro Classics website. I'm afraid that's where I've had to spend most of my energy the last few weeks. Anyway, I've seen a lot of good stuff: a whole bunch of Bette Davis movies, some good 70s films in Killer Of Sheep and Mirror, Gene Tierney in The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, Vivian Leigh in Waterloo Bridge and Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven. I reached my goal of seeing every Jean-Luc Godard film from Breathless to Week End by finally watching Made In USA and managed to be both amazed and very very disappointed by Wim Wenders's Paris, Texas. But the best of all the films I've seen has got to be Bob Fosse's lunatic ode to art, life and self-obsession All That Jazz. Had I seen it a week earlier, it most certainly would have made my Top 250 list; it's sure to find a home high up on next year's list.

Made In USA: 13, 1966
The Old Maid: 22, 1939
NY, NY: 26, 1957
King Solomon's Mines: 19, 1937
Seventh Heaven: 3, 1927
Now, Voyager: 4, 1942
The Little Foxes: 14, 1941
Watchmen: 2009
Killer Of Sheep: 5, 1977
The Most Dangerous Game: 11, 1932
The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame: 14, 1939
Waterloo Bridge: 7, 1940
The Ghost & Mrs. Muir: 5, 1947
My Favorite Wife: 20, 1940
Paris, Texas: 7, 1984
Mirror: 6, 1975
Deception: 9, 1946
The Private Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex: 24, 1939
All That Jazz: 3, 1979
Watch On The Rhine: 15, 1943

My Top 250 Movies Of All-Time

Last year I had a Top 150 list. Things have expanded this year.

250. The 39 Steps
249. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
248. The Awful Truth
247. Ivan The Terrible Part II
246. Three Times
245. Anatomy Of A Murder
244. Fort Apache
243. Earth
242. The Thing From Another World
241. The Fellowship Of The Ring
240. Early Summer
239. The World
238. Last Life In The Universe
237. The Maltese Falcon
236. Suspicion
235. The Palm Beach Story
234. The Thin Man
233. What Time Is It There?
232. Amadeus
231. Ghostbusters
230. Still Life
229. A Story Of Floating Weeds
228. The Exterminating Angel
227. Goodbye, Dragon Inn
226. No Country For Old Men


225. Come Drink With Me
224. Alien
223. Brief Encounter
222. Miami Vice
221. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
220. Dangerous Liaisons
219. Breakfast At Tiffany's
218. I'm Not There
217. The Last Of The Mohicans
216. Masculin feminin
215. Sita Sings The Blues
214. Muriel
213. The River
212. Monty Python & The Life Of Brian
211. City Girl
210. The Princess Bride
209. Hero
208. The Grand Illusion
207. Nights Of Cabiria
206. Star Wars
205. The 400 Blows
204. L'Atalante
203. Hell In The Pacific
202. Madame de. . .
201. Mogambo


200. Some Like It Hot
199. Big Night
198. The Last Laugh
197. Cleo From 5 To 7
196. Fantasia
195. Night Of The Living Dead
194. Ivan The Terrible Part I
193. The Immigrant
192. Shanghai Express
191. Cranes Are Flying
190. 7 Women
189. The Purple Rose Of Cairo
188. Yi yi
187. Double Indemnity
186. Night Of The Hunter
185. The Man With A Movie Camera
184. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
183. Only Angels Have Wings
182. Fitzcarraldo
181. The Quiet Man
180. Children Of Paradise
179. M
178. Letter From An Unknown Woman
177. Taxi Driver
176. Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror


175. Alexander Nevsky
174. Hannah And Her Sisters
173. The Shining
172. Top Hat
171. Lola
170. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
169. Sleeping Beauty
168. The Gang's All Here
167. Mean Streets
166. Blow Up
165. Tropical Malady
164. The Lady Vanishes
163. Vampyr
162. Paths Of Glory
161. Cat People
160. Boogie Nights
159. Don't Look Back
158. The Great Escape
157. Days Of Being Wild
156. In A Lonely Place
155. Contempt
154. The Steel Helmet
153. Monty Python & The Holy Grail
152. Taste Of Cherry
151. 2046


150. My Darling Clementine
149. Sansho The Bailiff
148. His Girl Friday
147. Unfaithfully Yours
146. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
145. LA Story
144. Harvey
143. The Royal Tenenbaums
142. The Young Girls Of Rochefort
141. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
140. The General
139. There Will Be Blood
138. The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp
137. Ikiru
136. The Godfather
135. Eyes Wide Shut
134. Kill Bill, Vol. 1
133. The Double Life Of Veronique
132. Swing Time
131. Sherlock, Jr
130. Satantango
129. The Lady Eve
128. Pennies From Heaven
127. Rebecca
126. Slacker


125. WALL-E
124. Chimes At Midnight
123. Jaws
122. Tabu: A Story Of The South Seas
121. Punch-Drunk Love
120. Reservoir Dogs
119. Yojimbo
118. A Touch Of Zen
117. In the Mood For Love
116. Battleship Potemkin
115. Rushmore
114. Dazed And Confused
113. L'Avventura
112. The Thin Red Line
111. Tokyo Story
110. Laura
109. Fallen Angels
108. Magnolia
107. The Godfather Part II
106. On The Waterfront
105. Notorious
104. Kiss Me Deadly
103. Trainspotting
102. Throne Of Blood
101. Raiders Of The Lost Ark


100. Morocco
99. To Have And Have Not
98. Last Year At Marienbad
97. The Band Wagon
96. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
95. F For Fake
94. The Pirate
93. The Battle Of Algiers
92. House Of Flying Daggers
91. Zulu
90. Written On The Wind
89. Three Colors: Blue
88. Glengarry Glen Ross
87. Hiroshima mon amour
86. Day Of Wrath
85. Celine & Julie Go Boating
84. The Wind That Shakes The Barley
83. Johnny Guitar
82. The Lady From Shanghai
81. Young Mr. Lincoln
80. Kiss Me Kate
79. Hard-Boiled
78. An American In Paris
77. Sans soleil
76. Do The Right Thing


75. Chinatown
74. Red River
73. Lawrence Of Arabia
72. Au hasard Balthazar
71. The New World
70. The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin
69. A Matter Of Life And Death
68. The Lion In Winter
67. City Lights
66. Rio Bravo
65. 2001: A Space Odyssey
64. Late Spring
63. Unforgiven
62. Histoire(s) du cinema
61. The Empire Strikes Back
60. Out Of The Past
59. Steamboat Bill, Jr
58. The Adventures Of Robin Hood
57. Rashomon
56. The Big Sleep
55. L'Eclisse
54. A Woman Is A Woman
53. Dr. Strangelove
52. Andrei Rublev
51. Once Upon A Tme In The West


50. Ugetsu
49. Apocalypse Now
48. The Seventh Seal
47. The Manchurian Candidate
46. Pulp Fiction
45. The Birds
44. The Philadelphia Story
43. Miller's Crossing
42. A Canterbury Tale
41. I Am Cuba
40. Stranger Than Paradise
39. Two-Lane Blacktop
38. Voyage In Italy
37. Millennium Mambo
36. M. Hulot's Holiday
35. Funny Face
34. Citizen Kane
33. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
32. 8 1/2
31. The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg
30. Black Narcissus
29. Bringing Up Baby
28. Dead Man
27. It's A Wonderful Life
26. Psycho


25. Stagecoach
24. Playtime
23. The Shop Around The Corner
22. Vertigo
21. The Rules Of the Game
20. Ran
19. North By Northwest
18. The Third Man
17. Manhattan
16. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
15. Days Of Heaven
14. Duck Soup
13. The Big Lebowski
12. Pierrot le fou
11. Rear Window
10. All About Eve
9. The Red Shoes
8. Touch Of Evil
7. Sunrise
6. The Searchers
5. Singin' In The Rain
4. Annie Hall
3. Casablanca
2. Chungking Express
1. Seven Samurai

Movies Of The 10s & 20s

So I haven't actually seen enough movies from these two decades to have a proper Top 50 list for each of them, so I'm just going to mix them together, despite the grave disservice it does to film history.

1. Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans
2. Steamboat Bill, Jr
3. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
4. Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror
5. Sherlock Jr.
6. Battleship Potemkin
7. The Immigrant
8. The Man With A Movie Camera
9. The Last Laugh
10. The General
11. Nanook Of The North
12. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
13. The Adventure Of Prince Achmed
14. Broken Blossoms
15. 3 Bad Men
16. The Gold Rush
17. Cops
18. The Iron Horse
19. Häxan
20. Greed
21. Wings
22. Our Hospitality
23. Blackmail
24. The Circus
25. Faust


26. Seven Chances
27. Pandora's Box
28. Metropolis
29. The Cheat
30. One Week
31. The Kid
32. Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler
33. The Three Ages
34. The Phantom Of The Opera
35. Birth Of A Nation
36. Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde
37. It
38. The Love Parade
39. The Play House
40. When The Clouds Roll By
41. Sunnyside
42. The 'High Sign'
43. A Fool There Was
44. The Balloonatic
45. Cocoanuts
46. Manhatta
47. The Sheik
48. Speedy
49. The Mark Of Zorro
50. Tillie's Punctured Romance

RIP John Hughes

Advertising An Ad For A Show About Advertising

AMC's Mad Men website lets you make a cartoon of yourself and inserts you into a scene. Here I am with Joan and Peggy, starting the day with a nice martini.

A Mid-Summer Afternoon's Quiz

Dennis Cozzalio over at Sergio Leone & the Infield Fly Rule has posted another movie quiz for your time-wasting pleasure. Check it out. My answers are below:


1) Second-favorite Stanley Kubrick film.

2001: A Space Odyssey

2) Most significant/important/interesting trend in movies over the past decade, for good or evil.

DVDs and the internet making so many films available for so many people regardless of where they live.

3) Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) or Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman)?

Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine).

4) Best Film of 1949.

The Third Man over Late Spring.

5) Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) or Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore)?

Oscar Jaffe

6) Has the hand-held shaky-cam directorial style become a visual cliché?

Yes.

7) What was the first foreign-language film you ever saw?

I really don't remember, it might have been The Seventh Seal if Dances With Wolves or The Gods Must Be Crazy don't count.

8) Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) or Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre)?

Lorre.

9) Favorite World War II drama (1950-1970).

The Great Escape over Cranes Are Flying. EDIT: Unless Hiroshima, mon amour counts.

10) Favorite animal movie star.

Bugs Bunny.

11) Who or whatever is to blame, name an irresponsible moment in cinema.

The elevation of Birth Of A Nation to a status far beyond its actual achievements.

12) Best Film of 1969.

A Touch Of Zen easily over Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.

13) Name the last movie you saw theatrically, and also on DVD or Blu-ray.

Harry Potter VI, Made In USA, Zulu

14) Second-favorite Robert Altman film.

Nashville

15) What is your favorite independent outlet for reading about movies, either online or in print?

davekehr.com

16) Who wins? Angela Mao or Meiko Kaji? (Thanks, Peter!)

Cheng Pei-pei.

17) Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) or Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly)?

Mona Lisa could fix my car.

18) Favorite movie that features a carnival setting or sequence.

Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans

19) Best use of high-definition video on the big screen to date.

Still Life, I think.


20) Favorite movie that is equal parts genre film and a deconstruction or consideration of that same genre.

Singin' In the Rain

21) Best Film of 1979.

Manhattan over Apocalypse Now

22) Most realistic and/or sincere depiction of small-town life in the movies.

Jacques Tourneur's Stars In My Crown comes to mind.

23) Best horror movie creature (non-giant division).

Max Schreck in Nosferatu, A Symphony Of Horror

24) Second-favorite Francis Ford Coppola film.

The Godfather, Part II

25) Name a one-off movie that could have produced a franchise you would have wanted to see.

The Sword Of Doom or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon probably shouldn't count, since they're based on longer works. But they're my pick anyway.

26) Favorite sequence from a Brian De Palma film.

The end credits.

27) Favorite moment in three-strip Technicolor.

Kathleen Byron freaking out at the end of Black Narcissus.


28) Favorite Alan Smithee film. (Thanks, Peter!)

A Burns For All Seasons

29) Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) or Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau)?

Crash.

30) Best post-Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen film.

Sweet And Lowdown over Mighty Aphrodite.

31) Best Film of 1999.

Eyes Wide Shut over Magnolia and The Matrix.

32) Favorite movie tag line.

"The smart one isn't wearing any pants" - See Spot Run

33) Favorite B-movie western.

The Quick & The Dead

34) Overall, the author best served by movie adaptations of her or his work.

Daphne DuMaurier

35) Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) or Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard)?

Susan!

36) Favorite musical cameo in a non-musical movie.

The "Le Marseillaise" scene in Casablanca.

37) Bruno (the character, if you haven’t seen the movie, or the film, if you have): subversive satire or purveyor of stereotyping?

Not-especially-subversive satire.

38) Five film folks, living or deceased, you would love to meet. (Thanks, Rick!)

1. Orson Welles
2. John Ford
3. Yasujiro Ozu
4. Alfred Hitchcock
5. Jean Renoir

Movie Roundup: Trade Deadline Edition

Between unhealthy amounts of work, various travels around the state a rewatchings of Deadwood and Mad Men, and reading Infinite Jest (I'm halfway through! It's great!) I haven't had much time for movie watching over the last month, certainly not for writing about movie watching. Coming up, as we're all on the edge of our seat with anticipation over how the Mariner front office will reshape the team in the next week, is the opening of Metro Classics. There's a lot of good stuff on our blog over their, including an appreciation of our opening film, Stanley Donen's Charade, by our friend Ryland Walker Knight.

In the meantime, here's a list of what I've seen, and where each film ranks on The Big List:

Yolanda And The Thief: 12, 1945
The Harvey Girls: 18, 1946
You Were Never Lovelier: 15, 1942
A Married Woman: 7, 1964
In This Our Life: 19, 1942
You Only Live Once: 7, 1937
Muriel: 7, 1963
The Crowd Roars: 21, 1932
Father's Little Dividend: 22, 1951
The Girl Can't Help It: 6, 1956
Midnight: 12, 1939
Public Enemies: 2009
Up: 2009
1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year: 2009
Manhattan Melodrama: 13, 1934
Man Push Cart: 15, 2005
Shogun Assassin: 11, 1980
Harry Potter VI: 2009
The Long, Long Trailer: 26, 1953
The Adventures Of Prince Achmed: 2, 1926
Beau Geste: 20, 1939
The Good Fairy: 8, 1935

Metro Classics Returns!!!

While I've been all over the Northwest the last couple of weeks, my partner in Classic-making was busy setting up a new blog for all kinds of nifty Metro Classics related news and posting and general nonsense-making. The new series ("Liars, Thieves and Cheats") starts in less than a month (August 5th, in fact) and up-to-the-minute details on what's playing and when can be found over there. Check it out, add it to your bookmarks, subscribe to the RSS feed and make it your new homepage posthaste!

RIP Michael Jackson

Book Of The Summer

So I'm going to be reading Infinite Jest this summer, inspired by an old friend who mentioned that she'd be reading it along with a whole internet group of people (at infinitesummer.org). I first attempted to read it about eight years ago, but didn't get very far (68 pages, if the subscription card bookmark I left in there can be believed). While I recall liking much of what I was reading, it all seemed so daunting, what with the book's massive size and so many footnotes. My only other experience with David Foster Wallace comes from The New Yorker: a few essays that he wrote and a profile they ran not long after his death last year.

There are quite a few books I've read part of and given up on, not because I didn't like them, but because I felt inadequate to the task of reading them at that point in my life. I'll set them aside intending to pick them up again a few years down the line (Ulysses, Moby-Dick, Gravity's Rainbow, among others) when I'm older and wiser. Hopefully, this will be one book I'll be able to remove from that list.

Movies Of The 30s

We're just about set to announce the next Metro Classics series, which will run through August and September. The theme this time around is Liars, Thieves and Cheats, and thus far we've booked L'Avventura, Charade, The Adventures Of Robin Hood, The Wild Bunch, The Sting and Crimes And Misdemeanors. Hopefully the last three will be set by the end of the week.

In the meantime, here's a list of my Top 50 films of the 1930s. And here are the lists for the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s.

1. The Rules Of The Game
2. Duck Soup
3. Stagecoach
4. Bringing Up Baby
5. Young Mr. Lincoln
6. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
7. City Lights
8. Tabu: A Story Of The South Seas
9. The Adventures Of Robin Hood
10. Swing Time
11. M
12. Morocco
13. L'Atalante
14. Vampyr
15. Only Angels Have Wings
16. The Awful Truth
17. Shanghai Express
18. Top Hat
19. Modern Times
20. The Dawn Patrol
21. Alexander Nevsky
22. The Grand Illusion
23. The Thin Man
24. Ruggles Of Red Gap
25. The Lady Vanishes


26. A Story OF Floating Weeds
27. The 39 Steps
28. City Girl
29. King Kong
30. Earth
31. Le Million
32. Scarface
33. Wee Willie Winkie
34. The Story Of The Late Chrysanthemums
35. Sisters Of the Gion
36. Ninotchka
37. Judge Priest
38. 42nd Street
39. Tokyo Chorus
40. Gunga Din
41. The Devil Is A Woman
42. Animal Crackers
43. Trouble In Paradise
44. I Was Born But. . .
45. Love Affair
46. Show Boat
47. The Wizard Of Oz
48. Baby Face
49. Fury
50. Destry Rides Again