#cats west end 1981-2002

[themagicoolcat]

just made the most mind blowing discovery while looking for a specific image on the wiki and that’s that bonnie langford was the original rumpleteazer!!

it’s just so mind blowing because like i know her for not that i know her for being mel bush in doctor who but at the point of her being in cats (from 1981 til 1983) she hadn’t even been cast as mel yet! i had never heard her sing before but seeing her as rumpleteazer it’s so clear that that’s her and that’s her face! this just makes me love rumpleteazer even more :))

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Doom & Gloom 2022: The Year In Bootlegs

So many bootlegs! If you need to get caught up, here's a handy list of these Doom & Gloom exclusives. Some of the old standbys, some new faces. Thanks to all the tapers out there, you are the real heroes.

What will 2023 bring?! I don't know, but I'll still be here. Oh and hey, have you signed up for the Doom & Gloom Substack yet? It's a good time.

#SummerOfPavement

John Fahey - Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, California, July 14, 1976

Through Hills and Valleys, Over Creeks and Rivers: Crazy Horse’s Deep Cut Epics, 1984-2013

Public Image Limited - Toad’s Place, New Haven, Connecticut, April 4, 1983

Low - Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 1, 2016

The Velvet Underground - Music Hall, Cleveland, December 1, 1968

Sonic Youth - Cat’s Cradle, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, November 14, 1982

Lou Reed - Mile End Sundown, London, United Kingdom, November 1, 1972

Richard Thompson - Toad’s Place, New Haven, Connecticut, October 16, 1994

John Cale - Lady Mitchell Hall, Cambridge, England, May 13, 1975

Elkhorn - Volume 2 at Never Ending Books, New Haven, Connecticut, September 12, 2022

Lou Reed - Shibuya Kokaido, Tokyo, Japan, October 26, 2000

Lou Reed - Palace Theater, New Haven, Connecticut, March 7, 1996

Lou Reed - The Bottom Line, New York City, February 25, 1983

Neil Young & The Transband - Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, West Germany, October 11, 1982

The Necks - Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Netherlands, September 26, 1998

R.E.M. - Toad’s Place, New Haven, Connecticut, April 14, 1982 / October 6, 1982 / July 17, 1983

jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE - Boot and Saddle, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 18, 2016

John Cale - Oxford Ale House, New Haven, Connecticut, June 20, 1979

Silver Jews - 40 Watt Club, Athens, Georgia, March 10, 2006

Air with Amiri Baraka - WDR Studio, Köln, Germany, March 20, 1982

King Sunny Adé - Toad’s Place, New Haven, Connecticut, February 7, 1983

Patti Smith w/ Lou Reed - Central Park, New York City, June 27, 1977

John Fahey - Unknown Venue, Santa Barbara, California, January 1968

Neil Young - Acoustic H.O.R.D.E.

The Willies - The Peanut Gallery, Haledon, New Jersey, April 24, 1983

The Slits - Dingwalls, London, United Kingdom, May 13, 1977

Neil Young with Poncho and the MG’s - Rock Am Ring Festival, Nürburgring, Germany, May 18, 2002

Neil Young with Booker T. & the MGs - Warfield Theater, San Francisco, California, June 9, 1993

Lou Reed - Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, England, June 27, 1992

The Feelies - World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 19, 2022

Robyn Hitchcock - Robyn Sings Again

Wilco - Toad’s Place, New Haven, Connecticut, September 16, 2000

The Feelies - The Grotto, New Haven, Connecticut, August 30, 1986 / Toad’s Place, New Haven, Connecticut, May 11, 1991

Sonic Youth - This Ain’t No Picnic Festival, Oak Canyon Ranch, Irvine, California, July 4, 1999

Lou Reed - ZigZag Magazine, Conversation with John Tobler, December 1971

Television - Toad’s Place, New Haven, Connecticut, December 1, 1992

Tom Verlaine - Toad’s Place, New Haven, Connecticut, October 10, 1981 / May 26, 1982

Jerry Jeff Walker & David Bromberg - WBAI-FM, New York City, 1969

The Replacements - 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 5, 1981

Lou Reed - The Robinson Apartment, New York City, March 1971

[aliveandfullofjoy]

Hey! I figure you're the exact right person to ask this question: do you happen to have a list of every movie based on a play/musical to have ever been nominated for an Oscar (in any category)?

hi! i’m very flattered you thought to ask me. i don’t have a list like this handy unfortunately, but there are SO many!

this is not exhaustive but it’s an attempt!

plays:

abe lincoln in illinois (1940)

agnes of god (1985)

amadeus (1984) - best picture winner, best actor winner!

anna christie (1930)

anne of the thousand days (1969) - best picture nominee!

august: osage county (2013)

auntie mame (1958) - best picture nominee!

the bad seed (1956)

barefoot in the park (1967)

becket (1964) - best picture nominee!

the best man (1964)

blithe spirit (1946)

born yesterday (1950) - best picture nominee, best actress winner!

brief encounter (1946)

bus stop (1956)

butterflies are free (1972) - best supporting actress winner!

cactus flower (1969) - best supporting actress winner! 

cat on a hot tin roof (1958) - best picture nominee!

children of a lesser god (1986) - best picture nominee, best actress winner!

come back little sheba (1952) - best actress winner!

the country girl (1954) - best picture nominee, best actress winner! 

crimes of the heart (1986)

the crucible (1996) 

cyrano de bergerac (1950) - best actor winner! 

dangerous liaisons (1988) - best picture nominee! 

the dark at the top of the stairs (1961)

death of a salesman (1951)

the diary of anne frank (1959) - best picture nominee, best supporting actress winner!

doubt (2008)

driving miss daisy (1989) - best picture winner, best actress winner!

the entertainer (1960) 

equus (1977) 

the father (2020) - best picture nominee!

fences (2016) - best picture nominee, best supporting actress winner!

a few good men (1992) - best picture nominee!

the front page (1931) - best picture nominee! 

frost/nixon (2008) - best picture nominee!

glengarry glen ross (1992)

the great white hope (1970)

hamlet (1948) - best picture winner, best actor winner! 

harvey (1950) - best supporting actress winner! 

a hatful of rain (1957)

hedda (1975) - based on hedda gabler

the heiress (1949) - best picture nominee, best actress winner! 

holiday (1930)

i never sang for my father (1970)

inherit the wind (1959)

judy (2019) - best actress winner! based on end of the rainbow

la cage aux folles (1979) - best director nominee! 

lenny (1974) - best picture nominee!

the lion in winter (1968) - best picture nominee, best actress winner! 

the little foxes (1941) - best picture nominee! 

long day’s journey into night (1962)

ma rainey’s black bottom (2020) - best actor nominee, best actress nominee! 

a majority of one (1961) 

a man for all seasons (1966) - best picture winner, best actor winner!

the man in the glass booth (1975)

a midsummer night’s dream (1935) - best picture nominee! 

the miracle worker (1962) - best actress winner, best supporting actress winner! 

mister roberts (1955) - best picture nominee, best supporting actor winner! 

mourning becomes electra (1947)

moonlight (2016) - best picture winner, best supporting actor winner! 

the night of the iguana (1964) 

on golden pond (1981) - best picture nominee, best actor winner, best actress winner! 

one night in miami (2020) - best supporting actor nominee!

othello (1965) 

our town (1940) - best picture nominee!

a passage to india (1984) - best picture nominee, best supporting actress winner! 

period of adjustment (1962)

picnic (1955) - best picture nominee!

the prime of miss jean brodie (1969) - best actress winner!

pygmalion (1938) - best picture nominee!

rabbit hole (2010)

the rainmaker (1956)

richard iii (1956)

richard iii (1995)

romeo and juliet (1936) - best picture nominee!

romeo and juliet (1968) - best picture nominee! 

the rose tattoo (1955) - best picture nominee, best actress winner! 

separate tables (1958) - best picture nominee, best actor winner, best supporting actress winner! 

shadowlands (1993)

six degrees of separation (1993)

a soldier’s story (1984) - best picture nominee! based on a soldier’s play

a streetcar named desire (1951) - best picture nominee, best actress winner, best supporting actor winner, best supporting actress winner! 

the subject was roses (1968) 

summer and smoke (1961)

sunrise at campobello (1960)

the sunshine boys (1975) - best supporting actor winner! 

sweet bird of youth (1962) - best supporting actor winner! 

a thousand clowns (1965) - best picture nominee, best supporting actor winner! 

the trip to bountiful (1985) - best actress winner! 

12 angry men (1957) - best picture nominee! 

war horse (2011) - best picture nominee! 

watch on the rhine (1943) - best picture nominee, best actor winner! 

who’s afraid of virginia woolf? (1966) - best picture nominee, best actress winner, best supporting actress winner! 

witness for the prosecution (1957) - best picture nominee!

you can’t take it with you (1938) - best picture winner! 

musicals:

annie (1982)

annie get your gun (1950)

bells are ringing (1960)

the best little whorehouse in texas (1982)

the boy friend (1971)

brigadoon (1954)

bye bye birdie (1963)

cabaret (1972) - best picture nominee, best actress winner, best supporting actor winner, best director winner! 

call me madam (1953)

camelot (1967)

carmen jones (1954) - best actress nominee!

chicago (2002) - best picture winner, best actress nominee, best supporting actor nominee, best supporting actress winner!

a chorus line (1985) 

damn yankees (1958)

dreamgirls (2006) - best supporting actress winner! 

evita (1996)

fiddler on the roof (1971) - best picture nominee! 

finian’s rainbow (1968) 

flower drum song (1961)

funny girl (1968) - best picture nominee, best actress winner!

a funny thing happened on the way to the forum (1966)

grease (1978)

guys and dolls (1955)

gypsy (1962)

hello, dolly! (1969) - best picture nominee 

into the woods (2014)

irma la douce (1963)

jesus christ superstar (1973)

the king and i (1956) - best picture nominee, best actor winner!

kiss me, kate (1953)

les misérables (2012) - best picture nominee! 

li’l abner (1959) 

a little night music (1977)

man of la mancha (1972) 

the music man (1962) - best picture nominee!

my fair lady (1964) - best picture winner, best actor winner!

oklahoma! (1955)

oliver! (1968) - best picture winner!

on the town (1949) 

pal joey (1957)

the phantom of the opera (2004)

porgy and bess (1959) 

1776 (1972)

show boat (1951)

the sound of music (1965) - best picture winner! 

south pacific (1958)

sweeney todd: the demon barber of fleet street (2007)

sweet charity (1969)

tommy (1975)

the unsinkable molly brown (1964)

west side story (1961) - best picture winner, best supporting actor winner, best supporting actress winner! 

the wiz (1978) 

[jaspers47]

I watched 180 Movies in 2020

Five Stars

1917 (2019) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) Before Midnight (2013) The Biggest Little Farm (2018) The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989) Daisies (1966) Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997) The Fits (2015) For All Mankind (1989) I Am Not Your Negro (2016) Ink (2009) It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012) The Last of Sheila (1973) Living in Oblivion (1995) Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010) Police Story (1985) Rewind This! (2013) Serial Mom (1994) Shock Treatment (1981) Stalag 17 (1953) The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) Uncut Gems (2019) The Watermelon Woman (1996) Zazie dans le Metro (1960)  Zombie Girl: The Movie (2008)

Four Stars

12:01 (1993) The 39 Steps (1935) All Things Must Pass (2015) Alphaville (1965) Always Shine (2016) The Amazing Johnathan Documentary (2019) April and the Extraordinary World (2015) The Bad Seed (1956) Batman vs The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2019) Black Sunday (1977) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm etc. etc. (2020)  Brief Encounter (1945) Buck Privates (1940) But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) Carnival of Souls (1962) A Christmas Carol (1951) The Court Jester (1955) Da 5 Bloods (2020) Daughters of the Sexual Revolution (2018) Death at a Funeral (2007) The Devil’s Backbone (2001) Earth Girls Are Easy (1989) Ebirah, Monster of the Deep (1966) Gas, Food, Lodging (1992) The Getaway (1972) Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster (1964) The Green Fog (2017) Hollywood Shuffle (1987) The Host (2006) I Married a Witch (1942) I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020) The Irishman (2019) John Wick (2014) Klute (1971) Live from the Space Stage: A Halyx Story (2020) The Lady From Shanghai (1947) The Living Daylights (1987) The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) Man With a Movie Camera (1929) Mascots (2016) Mikey and Nicky (1976) The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) Moon (2009) Mothra vs Godzilla (1964) Night of the Demons (1988) The Night Stalker (1972) The Ninth Configuration (1980) Palm Springs (2020) Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) Postcards from the Edge (1990) The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) The Public Enemy (1931) The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Sisters (1972) Sleeping Beauty (1959) Sudden Fear (1952) Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! (2019) That Darn Cat! (1965) Throne of Blood (1957) Tom Jones (1963) Way Out West (1937) Yojimbo (1961)

Three and a Half Stars

Birds of Prey or the Really Long Harley Quinn Subtitle (2020) The Conversation (1974) Destroy All Monsters (1968) Double Dare (2004) Electra Woman and Dyna Girl (2016) Gimme Shelter (1970) Gun Crazy (1950) His Girl Friday (1940) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) Jour de Fete (1949) The Lady Eve (1941) The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) The Mask of Zorro (1998) Mean Streets (1973) Movie Crazy (1932) Onward (2020) Paper Moon (1973) Repulsion (1965) The Train (1964) To Catch a Thief (1955) You Can’t Take It With You (1938) Zelig (1983)

Three Stars

L'Age D'or (1930) The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) Anna Karenina (2012) Bachelor Party (1984) Berberian Sound Studio (2012) Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) Black Narcissus (1947) Black Sunday (1960) Cat Ballou (1965) Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969) Empire of the Sun (1987) Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001) Enola Holmes (2020) Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) The Final Girls (2015) Forbidden Zone (1982) The Golem (1920) The Great Ziegfeld (1936) High Sierra (1941) House (1986) It’s a Gift (1934) Kon-Tiki (2012) Lady and the Tramp (1955) My Name is Nobody (1973) Observe and Report (2009) Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) Phantasm (1979) Phenomena (1985) The Phineas and Ferb Movie: Candace Against the Universe (2020) Saludos Amigos (1942) Slap Her, She’s French (2002) Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) Sons of the Desert (1933) Titticut Follies (1967) Touchy Feely (2013)

Two and a Half Stars

Arthur Christmas (2011) The Cat and the Canary (1939) The Cat from Outer Space (1978) Jasper Mall (2020) The Kid (1921) Return to Oz (1985) The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) This is Not Berlin (2019)

Two Stars

Bell Book and Candle (1958) Bride of Re-Animator (1989) Casino Royale (1967) Gamera vs Guiron (1969) Godzilla vs Megalon (1973) Masters of the Universe (1987) Make Mine Music (1946) Melody Time (1948) Muppets From Space (1999) Parenthood (1989) Valley of the Dolls (1967) Willow (1988)

One Star

Cave Dwellers (1984) Crash of Moons (1954) The Creeping Terror (1964) Foodfight! (2012) Hamlet 2 (2008) Howard the Duck (1986) The Human Duplicators (1965) King Dinosaur (1955) The Mad Monster (1942) The Mole People (1956) Swamp Diamonds (1955) A Talking Cat!?! (2013) Time of the Apes (1987)

[artycloudpop]

1hey are u bored at home, wanna chill and netflix....... but just can’t find some thing nice to watch? here’s a list of movies for u watch

A Ghost Story (2017)

Director David Lowery (Pete's Dragon) conceived this dazzling, dreamy meditation on the afterlife during the off-hours on a Disney blockbuster, making the revelations within even more awe-inspiring. After a fatal accident, a musician (Casey Affleck) finds himself as a sheet-draped spirit, wandering the halls of his former home, haunting/longing for his widowed wife (Rooney Mara). With stylistic quirks, enough winks to resist pretension (a scene where Mara devours a pie in one five-minute, uncut take is both tragic and cheeky), and a soundscape culled from the space-time continuum, A Ghost Story connects the dots between romantic love, the places we call home, and time -- a ghost's worst enemy.

Airplane! (1980)

This is one of the funniest movie of all time. Devised by the jokesters behind The Naked Gun, this disaster movie spoof stuffs every second of runtime with a physical gag (The nun slapping a hysterical woman!), dimwitted wordplay ("Don't call me, Shirley"), an uncomfortable moment of odd behavior ("Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"), or some other asinine bit. The rare comedy that demands repeat viewings, just to catch every micro-sized joke and memorize every line.

A24

American Honey (2016)

Writer/director Andrea Arnold lets you sit shotgun for the travels of a group of wayward youth in American Honey, a seductive drama about a "mag crew" selling subscriptions and falling in and out of love with each other on the road. Seen through the eyes of Star, played by Sasha Lane, life on the Midwest highway proves to be directionless, filled with a stream of partying and steamy hookups in the backs of cars and on the side of the road, especially when she starts to develop feelings for Shia LaBeouf’s rebellious Jake. It’s an honest look at a group of disenfranchised young people who are often cast aside, and it’s blazing with energy. You’ll buy what they're selling.

Anna Karenina (2012)

Adapted by renowned playwright Tom Stoppard, this take on Leo Tolstoy's classic Russian novel is anything but stuffy, historical drama. Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander are all overflowing with passion and desire, heating up the chilly backdrop of St. Petersburg. But it's director Joe Wright's unique staging -- full of dance, lush costuming, fourth-wall-breaking antics, and other theatrical touches -- that reinvent the story for more daring audiences.

NETFLIX

Apostle (2018)

For his follow-up to his two action epics, The Raid and The Raid 2, director Gareth Evans dials back the hand-to-hand combat but still keeps a few buckets of blood handy in this grisly supernatural horror tale. Dan Stevens stars as Thomas Richardson, an early 20th century opium addict traveling to a cloudy island controlled by a secretive cult that's fallen on hard times. The religious group is led by a bearded scold named Father Malcolm (Michael Sheen) who may or may not be leading his people astray. Beyond a few bursts of kinetic violence and some crank-filled torture sequences, Evans plays this story relatively down-the-middle, allowing the performances, the lofty themes, and the windswept vistas to do the talking. It's a cult movie that earns your devotion slowly, then all at once.

Back to the Future (1985)

Buckle into Doc's DeLorean and head to the 1950s by way of 1985 with the seminal time-travel series that made Michael J. Fox a household name. It's always a joy watching Marty McFly's race against the clock way-back-when to ensure history runs its course and he can get back to the present. Netflix also has follow-up Parts II and III, which all add up to a perfect rainy afternoon marathon.

NETFLIX

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

The Coen brothers gave some big-name-director cred to Netflix by releasing their six-part Western anthology on the streaming service, and while it's not necessarily their best work, Buster Scruggs is clearly a cut above most Netflix originals. Featuring star turns from Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, and more, the film takes advantage of Netflix's willingness to experiment by composing a sort of death fugue that unfolds across the harsh realities of life in Manifest Destiny America. Not only does it revel in the massive, sweeping landscapes of the American West, but it's a thoughtful meditation on death that will reveal layer after layer long after you finish.

Barbershop (2002)

If you've been sleeping on the merits of the Barbershop movies, the good news is it's never too late to get caught up. Revisit the 2002 installment that started Ice Cube's smack-talking franchise so you can bask in Cedric the Entertainer's hilarious wisdom, enjoy Eve's acting debut, and admire this joyful ode to community.

NETFLIX

Barry (2016)

In 1981, Barack Obama touched down in New York City to begin work at Columbia University. As Barry imagines, just days after settling into his civics class, a white classmate confronts the Barry with an argument one will find in the future president's Twitter @-mentions: "Why does everything always got to be about slavery?" Exaltation is cinematic danger, especially when bringing the life of a then-sitting president to screen. Barry avoids hagiography by staying in the moment, weighing race issues of a modern age and quieting down for the audience to draw its own conclusions. Devon Terrell is key, steadying his character as smooth-operating, socially active, contemplative fellow stuck in an interracial divide. Barry could be any half-black, half-white kid from the '80s. But in this case, he's haunted by past, present, and future.

Being John Malkovich (1999)

You can't doubt the audacity of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Anomalisa), whose first produced screenplay hinged on attracting the title actor to a script that has office drones discovering a portal into his mind. John Cusack, Catherine Keener, and Cameron Diaz combine to create an atmosphere of desperate, egomaniacal darkness, and by the end you'll feel confused and maybe a little slimy about the times you've participated in celebrity gawking.

A24

The Blackcoat's Daughter (2017)

Two young women are left behind at school during break... and all sorts of hell breaks loose. This cool, stylish thriller goes off in some strange directions (and even offers a seemingly unrelated subplot about a mysterious hitchhiker) but it all pays off in the end, thanks in large part to the three leads -- Emma Roberts, Lucy Boynton, and Kiernan Shipka -- and director Oz Perkins' artful approach to what could have been just another occult-based gore-fest.

Bloodsport (1988)

Jean-Claude Van Damme made a career out of good-not-great fluff. Universal Soldier is serviceable spectacle, Hard Target is a living cartoon, Lionheart is his half-baked take on On the Waterfront. Bloodsport, which owes everything to the legacy of Bruce Lee, edges out his Die Hard riff Sudden Death for his best effort, thanks to muscles-on-top-of-muscles-on-top-of-muscles fighting and Stan Bush's "Fight to Survive." Magic Mike has nothing on Van Damme's chiseled backside in Bloodsport, which flexes its way through a slow-motion karate-chop gauntlet. In his final face-off, Van Damme, blinded by arena dust, rage-screams his way to victory. The amount of adrenaline bursting out of Bloodsport demands a splash zone.

Blue Ruin (2013)

Before he went punk with 2016's siege thriller Green Room, director Jeremy Saulnier delivered this low-budget, darkly comic hillbilly noir. When Dwight Evans (Macon Blair) discovers that the man who killed his parents is being released from prison, he returns home to Virginia to claims his revenge and things quickly spin out of control. Like the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple, this wise-ass morality tale will make you squirm.

WELL GO USA ENTERTAINMEN

Burning (2018)

Some mysteries simmer; this one smolders. In his adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story, writer and director Lee Chang-dong includes many elements of the acclaimed author's slyly mischievous style -- cats, jazz, cooking, and an alienated male writer protagonist all pop up -- but he also invests the material with his own dark humor, stray references to contemporary news, and an unyielding sense of curiosity. We follow aimless aspiring novelist Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) as he reconnects with Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), a young woman he grew up with, but the movie never lets you get too comfortable in one scene or setting. When Steven Yeun's Ben, a handsome rich guy with a beautiful apartment and a passion for burning down greenhouses, appears, the film shifts to an even more tremulous register. Can Ben be trusted? Yeun's performance is perfectly calibrated to entice and confuse, like he's a suave, pyromaniac version of Tyler Durden. Each frame keeps you guessing.

Cam (2018)

Unlike the Unfriended films or this summer's indie hit Searching, this web thriller from director Daniel Goldhaber and screenwriter Isa Mazzei isn't locked into the visual confines of a computer screen. Though there's plenty of online screen time, allowing for subtle bits of commentary and satire, the looser style allows the filmmakers to really explore the life and work conditions of their protagonist, rising cam girl Alice (Madeline Brewer). We meet her friends, her family, and her customers. That type of immersion in the granular details makes the scarier bits -- like an unnerving confrontation in the finale between Alice and her evil doppelganger -- pop even more.

THE ORCHARD

Creep (2014)

Patrick Brice's found-footage movie is a no-budget answer to a certain brand of horror, but saying more would give away its sinister turns. Just know that the man behind the camera answered a Craigslist ad to create a "day in the life" video diary for Josef (Mark Duplass), who really loves life. Creep proves that found footage, the indie world's no-budget genre solution, still has life, as long as you have a performer like Duplass willing to go all the way.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Armando Iannucci, the brilliant Veep creator, set his sights on Russia with this savage political satire. Based on a graphic novel, the film dramatizes the madcap, maniacal plots of the men jostling for power after their leader, Joseph Stalin, keels over. From there, backstabbing, furious insults, and general chaos unfolds. Anchored by performances from Shakespearean great Simon Russell Beale and American icon Steve Buscemi, it's a pleasure to see what the rest of the cast -- from Star Trek: Discovery's Jason Isaacs to Homeland's Rupert Friend -- do with Iannucci's eloquently brittle text.

Den of Thieves (2018)

If there's one thing you've probably heard about this often ridiculous bank robbery epic, it's that it steals shamelessly from Michael Mann's crime saga Heat. The broad plot elements are similar: There's a team of highly-efficient criminals led by a former Marine (Pablo Schreiber) and they must contend with a obsessive, possibly unhinged cop (Gerard Butler) over the movie's lengthy 140 minute runtime.  A screenwriter helming a feature for the first time, director Christian Gudegast is not in the same league as Mann as a filmmaker and Butler, sporting unflattering tattoos and a barrel-like gut, is hardly Al Pacino. But everyone is really going for it here, attempting to squeeze every ounce of Muscle Milk from the bottle.

NETFLIX

Divines (2016)

Thrillers don't come much more propulsive or elegant than Houda Benyamina's Divines, a heartwarming French drama about female friendship that spirals into a pulse-pounding crime saga. Rambunctious teenager Dounia (Oulaya Amamra) and her best friend Maimouna (Déborah Lukumuena) begin the film as low-level shoplifters and thieves, but once they fall into the orbit of a slightly older, seasoned drug dealer named Rebecca (Jisca Kalvanda), they're on a Goodfellas-like trajectory. Benyamina offsets the violent, gritty genre elements with lyrical passages where Dounia watches her ballet-dancer crush rehearse his routines from afar, and kinetic scenes of the young girls goofing off on social media. It's a cautionary tale told with joy, empathy, and an eye for beauty.

Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Eddie Murphy has been waiting years to get this movie about comedian and blaxploitation star Rudy Ray Moore made, and you can feel his joy in finally getting to play this role every second he's on screen. The film, directed by Hustle & Flow's Craig Brewer, charts how Moore rose from record store employee, to successful underground comedian, to making his now-cult classic feature Dolemite by sheer force of passion. It's thrilling (and hilarious) to watch Murphy adopt Moore's Dolemite persona, a swaggering pimp, but it's just as satisfying to see the former SNL star capture his character at his lowest points. He's surrounded by an ensemble that matches his infectious energy.

The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

As romanticized as adolescence can be, it’s hard being young. Following the high school experience of troubled, overdramatic Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld), The Edge of Seventeen portrays the woes of adolescence with a tender, yet appropriately cheeky tone. As if junior year isn’t hellish enough, the universe essentially bursts into flames when Nadine finds out her best friend is dating her brother; their friendship begins to dissolve, and she finds the only return on young love is embarrassment and pain. That may all sound like a miserable premise for a young-adult movie, except it’s all painfully accurate, making it endearingly hilarious -- and there’s so much to love about Steinfeld’s self-aware performance.

FOCUS FEATURES

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Romance and love are nothing without the potential for loss and pain, but most of us would probably still consider cutting away all the worst memories of the latter. Given the option to eradicate memories of their busted relationship, Jim Carrey's Joel and Kate Winslet's Clementine go through with the procedure, only to find themselves unable to totally let go. Science fiction naturally lends itself to clockwork mechanisms, but director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman never lose the human touch as they toy with the kaleidoscope of their characters' hearts and minds.

The Evil Dead (1981)

Before Bruce Campbell's Ash was wielding his chainsaw-arm in Army of Darkness and on Starz's Ash Vs. Evil Dead, he was just a good looking guy hoping to spend a nice, quiet vacation in a cabin with some friends. Unfortunately, the book of the dead had other plans for him. With this low-budget horror classic, director Sam Raimi brings a surprising degree of technical ingenuity to bear on the splatter-film, sending his camera zooming around the woods with wonder and glee. While the sequels double-downed on laughs, the original Evil Dead still knows how to scare.

The Firm (1993)

The '90s were a golden era of sleek, movie-star-packed legal thrillers, and they don't get much better than director Sydney Pollack's The Firm. This John Grisham adaptation has a little bit of everything -- tax paperwork, sneering mobsters, and Garey Busey, for starters -- but there's one reason to watch this movie: the weirdness of Tom Cruise. He does a backflip in this movie. What else do you need to know?

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The Florida Project (2017)

Sean Baker's The Florida Project nuzzles into the swirling, sunny, strapped-for-cash populace of a mauve motel just within orbit of Walt Disney World. His eyes are Moonee, a 6-year-old who adventures through abandoned condos, along strip mall-encrusted highway, and across verdant fields of overgrown brush like Max in Where the Wild Things Are. But as gorgeous as the everything appears -- and The Florida Project looks stunning -- the world around here is falling apart, beginning with her mother, an ex-stripper turning to prostitution. The juxtaposition, and down-to-earth style, reconsiders modern America in the most electrifying way imaginable.

Frances Ha (2012)

Before winning hearts and Oscar nominations with her coming-of-age comedy Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig starred in the perfect companion film, about an aimless 27-year-old who hops from New York City to her hometown of Sacramento to Paris to Poughkeepsie and eventually back to New York in hopes of stumbling into the perfect job, the perfect relationship, and the perfect life. Directed by Noah Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories), and co-written by both, Frances Ha is a measured look at adult-ish life captured the kind of intoxicating black and white world we dream of living in.

NETFLIX

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019)

Everyone's favorite disaster of a festival received not one, but two streaming documentaries in the same week. Netflix's version has rightly faced some criticism over its willingness to let marketing company Fuck Jerry off the hook (Jerry Media produced the doc), but that doesn't take away from the overall picture it portrays of the festival's haphazard planning and the addiction to grift from which Fyre's founder, Billy McFarland, apparently suffers. It's schadenfreude at its best.

Gerald's Game (2017)

Like his previous low-budget Netflix-released horror release, Hush, a captivity thriller about a deaf woman fighting off a masked intruder, Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation of Gerald's Game wrings big scares from a small location. Sticking close to the grisly plot details of King's seemingly "unfilmable" novel, the movie chronicles the painstaking struggles of Jessie Burlingame (Carla Gugino) after she finds herself handcuffed to a bed in an isolated vacation home when her husband, the titular Gerald, dies from a heart attack while enacting his kinky sexual fantasies. She's trapped -- and that's it. The premise is clearly challenging to sustain for a whole movie, but Flanagan and Gugino turn the potentially one-note set-up into a forceful, thoughtful meditation on trauma, memory, and resilience in the face of near-certain doom.

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Good Time (2017)

In this greasy, cruel thriller from Uncut Gems directors the Safdie brothers, Robert Pattinson stars as Connie, a bank robber who races through Queens to find enough money to bail out his mentally disabled brother, who's locked up for their last botched job. Each suffocating second of Good Time, blistered by the neon backgrounds of Queens, New York and propelled by warped heartbeat of Oneothrix Point Never's synth score, finds Connie evading authorities by tripping into an even stickier situation.

Green Room (2015)

Green Room is a throaty, thrashing, spit-slinging punk tune belted through an invasion-movie microphone at max volume. It's nasty -- and near-perfect. As a band of 20-something rockstars recklessly defend against a neo-Nazi battalion equipped with machetes, shotguns, and snarling guard dogs, the movie blossoms into a savage coming-of-age tale, an Almost Famous for John Carpenter nuts. Anyone looking for similar mayhem should check out director Jeremy Saulnier's previous movie, the low-budget, darkly comic hillbilly noir, Blue Ruin, also streaming on Netflix.

The Guest (2014)

After writer-director Adam Wingard notched a semi-sleeper horror hit with 2011's You're Next, he'd earned a certain degree of goodwill among genre faithful and, apparently, with studio brass. How else to explain distribution for his atypical thriller The Guest through Time Warner subsidiary Picturehouse? Headlined by soon-to-be megastar Dan Stevens and kindred flick It Follows' lead scream queen Maika Monroe, The Guest introduces itself as a subtextual impostor drama, abruptly spins through a blender of '80s teen tropes, and ultimately reveals its true identity as an expertly self-conscious straight-to-video shoot 'em up, before finally circling back on itself with a well-earned wink. To say anymore about the hell that Stevens' "David" unleashes on a small New Mexico town would not only spoil the fun, but possibly get you killed.

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The Hateful Eight (2015)

Quentin Tarantino has something to say about race, violence, and American life, and it's going to ruffle feathers. Like Django Unchained, the writer-director reflects modern times on the Old West, but with more scalpel-sliced dialogue, profane poetry, and gore. Stewed from bits of Agatha Christie, David Mamet, and Sam Peckinpah, The Hateful Eight traps a cast of blowhards (including Samuel L. Jackson as a Civil War veteran, Kurt Russell as a bounty hunter known as "The Hangman," and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a psychopathic gang member) in a blizzard-enveloped supply station. Tarantino ups the tension by shooting his suffocating space in "glorious 70mm." Treachery and moral compromise never looked so good.

High Flying Bird (2019)

High Flying Bird is a basketball film that has little to do with the sport itself, instead focusing on the behind-the-scenes power dynamics that play out during an NBA lockout. At the center of the Steven Soderbergh movie -- shot on an iPhone, because that's what he does now -- is André Holland's Ray Burke, a sports agent trying to protect his client's interests while also disrupting a corrupt system. It's not an easy tightrope to walk, and, as you might expect, the conditions of the labor stoppage constantly change the playing field. With his iPhone mirroring the NBA's social media-heavy culture, and appearances from actual NBA stars lending the narrative heft, Soderbergh experiments with Netflix's carte blanche and produces a unique film that adds to the streaming service's growing list of original critical hits.

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Hugo (2011)

Martin Scorsese hit pause on mob violence and Rolling Stones singles to deliver one of the greatest kid-centric films in eons. Following Hugo (Asa Butterfield) as he traces his own origin story through cryptic automaton clues and early 20th-century movie history, the grand vision wowed in 3-D and still packs a punch at home.

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016)

A meditative horror flick that's more unsettling than outright frightening, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House follows the demise of Lily, a live-in nurse (Ruth Wilson) who's caring for an ailing horror author. As Lily discovers the truth about the writer's fiction and home, the lines between the physical realm and the afterlife blur. The movie's slow pacing and muted escalation might frustrate viewers craving showy jump-scares, but writer-director Oz Perkins is worth keeping tabs on. He brings a beautiful eeriness to every scene, and his story will captivate patient streamers. Fans should be sure to check out his directorial debut, The Blackcoat's Daughter.

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I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017)

In this maniacal mystery, Ruth (Melanie Lynskey), a nurse, and her rattail-sporting, weapon-obsessed neighbor Tony (Elijah Wood) hunt down a local burglar. Part Cormac McCarthy thriller, part wacky, Will Ferrell-esque comedy, I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore is a cathartic neo-noir about everyday troubles. Director Macon Blair's not the first person to find existential enlightenment at the end of an amateur detective tale, but he might be the first to piece one together from cussing octogenarians, ninja stars, Google montages, gallons of Big Red soda, upper-deckers, friendly raccoons, exploding body parts, and the idiocy of humanity.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

With a bullwhip, a leather jacket, and an "only Harrison Ford can pull this off" fedora, director Steven Spielberg invented the modern Hollywood action film by doing what he does best: looking backward. As obsessed as his movie-brat pal and collaborator George Lucas with the action movie serials of their youth, the director mined James Bond, Humphrey Bogart, Westerns, and his hatred of Nazis to create an adventure classic. To watch Raiders of the Lost Ark now is to marvel at the ingenuity of specific sequences (the boulder! The truck scene! The face-melting!) and simply groove to the self-deprecating comic tone (snakes! Karen Allen! That swordsman Indy shoots!). The past has never felt so alive.

Inside Man (2006)

Denzel Washington is at his wily, sharp, and sharply dressed best as he teams up once again with Spike Lee for this wildly entertaining heist thriller. He's an NYPD hostage negotiator who discovers a whole bunch of drama when a crew of robbers (led by Clive Owen) takes a bank hostage during a 24-hour period. Jodie Foster also appears as an interested party with uncertain motivations. You'll have to figure out what's going on several times over before the truth outs.

DRAFTHOUSE FILMS

The Invitation (2015)

This slow-burn horror-thriller preys on your social anxiety. The film's first half-hour, which finds Quarry's Logan Marshall-Green arriving at his ex-wife's house to meet her new husband, plays like a Sundance dramedy about 30-something yuppies and their relationship woes. As the minutes go by, director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer's Body) burrows deeper into the awkward dinner party, finding tension in unwelcome glances, miscommunication, and the possibility that Marshall-Green's character might be misreading a bizarre situation as a dangerous one. We won't spoil what happens, but let's just say this is a party you'll be telling your friends about.

Ip Man (2008)

There aren't many biopics that also pass for decent action movies. Somehow, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen and director Wilson Yip made Ip Man (and three sequels!) based on the life of Chinese martial arts master Yip Kai-man, who famously trained Bruce Lee. What's their trick to keeping this series fresh? Play fast and loose with the facts, up the melodrama with each film, and, when in doubt, cast Mike Tyson as an evil property developer. The fights are incredible, and Yen's portrayal of the aging master still has the power to draw a few tears from even the most grizzled tough guy.

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The Irishman (2019)

Opening with a tracking shot through the halls of a drab nursing home, where we meet a feeble old man telling tall tales from his wheelchair, The Irishman delights in undercutting its own grandiosity. All the pageantry a $150 million check from Netflix can buy -- the digital de-aging effects, the massive crowd scenes, the shiny rings passed between men -- is on full display. Everything looks tremendous. But, like with 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, the characters can't escape the fundamental spiritual emptiness of their pursuits. In telling the story of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a World War II veteran and truck driver turned mob enforcer and friend to labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Steven Zaillian construct an underworld-set counter-narrative of late 20th century American life. Even with a 209 minute runtime, every second counts.

It Comes at Night (2017)

In this post-apocalyptic nightmare-and-a-half, the horrors of humanity, the strain of chaotic emotions pent up in the name of survival, bleed out through wary eyes and weathered hands. The setup is blockbuster-sized -- reverts mankind to the days of the American frontier, every sole survivor fights to protect their families and themselves -- but the drama is mano-a-mano. Barricaded in a haunted-house-worthy cabin in the woods, Paul (Edgerton) takes in Will (Abbott) and his family, knowing full well they could threaten his family's existence. All the while, Paul's son, Trevor, battles bloody visions of (or induced by?) the contagion. Shults directs the hell out of every slow-push frame of this psychological thriller, and the less we know, the more confusion feels like a noose around our necks, the scarier his observations become.

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Jupiter Ascending is one of those "bad" movies that might genuinely be quite good. Yes, Channing Tatum is a man-wolf and Mila Kunis is the princess of space and bees don't sting space royalty and Eddie Redmayne hollers his little head off about "harvesting" people -- but what makes this movie great is how all of those things make total, absolute sense in the context of the story. The world the Wachowskis (yes, the Wachowskis!) created is so vibrant and strange and exciting, you almost can't help but get drawn in, even when Redmayne vamps so hard you're afraid he's about to pull a muscle. (And if you're a ballet fan, we have some good news for you.)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Perhaps the only movie that ever truly deserved a conversion to a theme-park ride, Steven Spielberg's thrilling adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel brought long-extinct creatures back to life in more ways than one. Benevolent Netflix gives us more than just the franchise starter, too: The Lost World and JP3 sequels are also available, so you can make a marathon of it.

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Killing Them Softly (2012)

Brad Pitt doesn't make conventional blockbusters anymore -- even World War Z had epidemic-movie ambitions -- so it's not surprising that this crime thriller is a little out there. Set during the financial crisis and presidential election of 2008, the film follows Pitt's hitman character as he makes sense of a poker heist gone wrong, leaving a trail of bodies and one-liners along the way. Mixed in with the carnage, you get lots of musings about the economy and American exceptionalism. It's not subtle -- there's a scene where Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn do heroin while the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" plays -- but, like a blunt object to the head, it gets the job done.

Lady Bird (2017)

The dizzying, frustrating, exhilarating rite of passage that is senior year of high school is the focus of actress Greta Gerwig's first directorial effort, the story of girl named Lady Bird (her given name, in that "it’s given to me, by me") who rebels against everyday Sacramento, California life to obtain whatever it is "freedom" turns out to be. Laurie Metcalf is an understated powerhouse as Lady Bird's mother, a constant source of contention who doggedly pushes her daughter to be successful in the face of the family's dwindling economic resources. It's a tragic note in total complement to Gerwig's hysterical love letter to home, high school, and the history of ourselves.

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The Lobster (2016)

Greek style master Yorgos Lanthimos' dystopian allegory against romance sees Colin Farrell forced to choose a partner in 45 days or he'll be turned into an animal of his choice, which is a lobster. Stuck in a group home with similarly unlucky singles, Farrell's David decides to bust out and join other renegades in a kind of anti-love terror cell that lives in the woods. It's part comedy of manners, part futuristic thriller, and it looks absolutely beautiful -- Lanthimos handles the bizarre premise with grace and a naturalistic eye that reminds the viewer that humans remain one of the most interesting animals to exist on this planet.

Mad Max (1979)

Before Tom Hardy was grunting his way through the desert and crushing tiny two-headed reptiles as Max Rockatansky, there was Mel Gibson. George Miller's 1979 original introduces the iconic character and paints the maximum force of his dystopian mythology in a somewhat more grounded light -- Australian police factions, communities, and glimmers of hope still in existence. Badass homemade vehicles and chase scenes abound in this taut, 88-minute romp. It's aged just fine.

Magic Mike (2012)

Steven Soderbergh's story of a Tampa exotic dancer with a heart of gold (Channing Tatum) has body-rolled its way to Netflix. Sexy dance routines aside, Mike's story is just gritty enough to be subversive. Did we mention Matthew McConaughey shows up in a pair of ass-less chaps?

The Master (2012)

Loosely inspired by the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard -- Dianetics buffs, we strongly recommend Alex Gibney's Going Clear documentary as a companion piece -- The Master boasts one of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s finest performances, as the enigmatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd. Joaquin Phoenix burns just as brightly as his emotionally stunted, loose-cannon protege Freddie Quell, who has a taste for homemade liquor. Paul Thomas Anderson’s cerebral epic lends itself to many different readings; it’s a cult story, it's a love story, it's a story about post-war disillusionment and the American dream, it's a story of individualism and the desire to belong. But the auteur's popping visuals and heady thematic currents will still sweep you away, even if you’re not quite sure where the tide is taking you.

NETFLIX

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

When Danny (Adam Sandler), Matthew (Ben Stiller) and Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), three half-siblings from three different mothers, gather at their family brownstone in New York to tend to their ailing father (Dustin Hoffman), a lifetime of familial politics explode out of every minute of conversation. Their narcissistic sculptor dad didn't have time for Danny. Matthew was the golden child. Jean was weird… or maybe disturbed by memories no one ever knew. Expertly sketched by writer-director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) this memoir-like portrait of lives half-lived is the kind of bittersweet, dimensional character comedy we're now used to seeing told in three seasons of prestige television. Baumbach gives us the whole package in two hours.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

The legendary British comedy troupe took the legend of King Arthur and offered a characteristically irreverent take on it in their second feature film. It's rare for comedy to hold up this well, but the timelessness of lines like, "I fart in your general direction!" "It's just a flesh wound," and "Run away!" makes this a movie worth watching again and again.

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Moonlight (2016)

Chronicling the boyhood years, teenage stretch, and muted adult life of Chiron, a black gay man making it in Miami, this triptych altarpiece is at once hyper-specific and cosmically universal. Director Barry Jenkins roots each moment in the last; Chiron's desire for a lost lover can't burn in a diner booth over a bottle of wine without his beachside identity crisis years prior, blurred and violent, or encounters from deeper in his past, when glimpses of his mother's drug addiction, or the mentoring acts of her crack supplier, felt like secrets delivered in code. Panging colors, sounds, and the delicate movements of its perfect cast like the notes of a symphony, Moonlight is the real deal, a movie that will only grow and complicate as you wrestle with it.

Mudbound (2017)

The South's post-slavery existence is, for Hollywood, mostly uncharted territory. Rees rectifies the overlooked stretch of history with this novelistic drama about two Mississippi families working a rain-drenched farm in 1941. The white McAllans settle on a muddy patch of land to realize their dreams. The Jacksons, a family of black sharecroppers working the land, have their own hopes, which their neighbors manage to nurture and curtail. To capture a multitude of perspectives, Mudbound weaves together specific scenes of daily life, vivid and memory-like, with family member reflections, recorded in whispered voice-over. The epic patchwork stretches from the Jackson family dinner table, where the youngest daughter dreams of becoming a stenographer, to the vistas of Mississippi, where incoming storms threaten an essential batch of crops, to the battlefields of World War II Germany, a harrowing scene that will affect both families. Confronting race, class, war, and the possibility of unity, Mudbound spellbinding drama reckons with the past to understand the present.

NETFLIX

My Happy Family (2017)

At 52, Manana (Ia Shughliashvili) packs a bag and walks out on her husband, son, daughter, daughter's live-in boyfriend, and elderly mother and father, all of whom live together in a single apartment. The family is cantankerous and blustery, asking everything of Manana, who spends her days teaching better-behaved teenagers about literature. But as Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß's striking character study unfolds, the motivation behind Manana's departure is a deeper strain of frustration, despite what her brother, aunts, uncles, and anyone else who can cram themselves into the situation would like us to think. Anchored by Ia Shughliashvili's stunningly internal performance, and punctured by a dark sense of humor akin to Darren Aronofsky's mother! (which would have been the perfect alternate title), My Happy Family is both delicate and brutal in its portrayal of independence, and should get under the skin of anyone with their own family drama.

The Naked Gun (1988)

The short-lived Dragnet TV spoof Police Squad! found a second life as The Naked Gun action-comedy movie franchise, and the first installment goes all in on Airplane! co-star Leslie Nielsen's brand of straight-laced dementia. Trying to explain The Naked Gun only makes the stupid sound stupider, but keen viewers will find jokes on top of jokes on top of jokes. It's the kind of movie that can crack "nice beaver," then pass a stuffed beaver through the frame and actually get away with it. Nielsen has everything to do with it; his Frank Drebin continues the grand Inspector Clouseau tradition in oh-so-'80s style.

The Notebook (2004)

"If you’re a bird, I’m a bird." It's a simple statement and a declaration of devotion that captures the staying power of this Nicholas Sparks classic. The film made Ryan Gosling a certified heartthrob, charting his working class character Noah's lovelorn romance with Rachel McAdam's wealthy character Allie. The star-crossed lovers narrative is enough to make even the most cynical among us swoon, but given that their story is told through an elderly man reading (you guessed it!) a notebook to a woman with dementia, it hits all of the tragic romance benchmarks to make you melt. Noah's commitment to following his heart -- and that passionate kiss in the rain -- make this a love story for the ages.

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Okja (2017)

This wild ride, part action heist, part Miyazaki-like travelogue, and part scathing satire, is fueled by fairy tale whimsy -- but the Grimm kind, where there are smiles and spilled blood. Ahn Seo-hyun plays Mija, the young keeper of a "super-pig," bred by a food manufacturer to be the next step in human-consumption evolution. When the corporate overlords come for her roly-poly pal, Mija hightails it from the farm to the big city to break him out, crossing environmental terrorists, a zany Steve Irwin-type (Gyllenhaal), and the icy psychos at the top of the food chain (including Swinton's childlike CEO) along the way. Okja won't pluck your heartstrings like E.T., but there's grandeur in its frenzy, and the film's cross-species friendship will strike up every other emotion with its empathetic, eco-friendly, and eccentric observations.

On Body and Soul (2017)

This Hungarian film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, and it's easy to see why. The sparse love story begins when two slaughterhouse employees discover they have the same dream at night, in which they're both deer searching the winter forest for food. Endre, a longtime executive at the slaughterhouse, has a physically damaged arm, whereas Maria is a temporary replacement who seems to be on the autism spectrum. If the setup sounds a bit on-the-nose, the moving performances and the unflinching direction save On Body and Soul from turning into a Thomas Aquinas 101 class, resulting in the kind of bleak beauty you can find in a dead winter forest.

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The Other Side of the Wind (2018)

Don't go into Orson Welles' final film expecting it to be an easy watch. The Other Side of the Wind, which follows fictional veteran Hollywood director Jake Hannaford (tooootally not modeled after Welles himself) and his protegé (also tooootally not a surrogate for Welles' own friend and mentee Peter Bogdanovich, who also plays the character) as they attend a party in celebration of Hannaford's latest film and are beset on all sides by Hannaford's friends, enemies, and everyone in between. The film, which Welles hoped would be his big comeback to Hollywood, was left famously unfinished for decades after his death in 1985. Thanks to Bogdanovich and producer Frank Marshall, it was finally completed in 2018, and the result is a vibrant and bizarre throwback to Welles' own experimental 1970s style, made even more resonant if you know how intertwined the movie is with its own backstory. If you want to dive even deeper, Netflix also released a documentary about the restoration and completion of the film, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, which delves into Welles' own complicated and tragic relationship with Hollywood and the craft of moviemaking.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Guillermo Del Toro’s dark odyssey Pan’s Labyrinth takes a fantasy setting to mirror the horrible political realities of the human realm. Set in 1940s Falangist Spain, the film documents the hero’s journey of a young girl and stepdaughter of a ruthless Spanish army officer as she seeks an escape from her war-occupied world. When a fairy informs her that her true destiny may be as the princess of the underworld, she seizes her chance. Like Alice in Wonderland if Alice had gone to Hell instead of down the rabbit hole, the Academy Award-winning film is a wondrous, frightening fairy tale where that depicts how perilous the human-created monster of war can be.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

This documentary-style film budgeted at a mere $15,000 made millions at the box office and went on to inspire a number of sequels, all because of how well its scrappiness lent to capturing what feels like a terrifying haunted reality. Centered on a young couple who is convinced an evil spirit is lurking in their home, the two attempt to capture its activity on camera, which, obviously, only makes their supernatural matters worse. It leans on found footage horror tropes made popular by The Blair Witch Project and as it tessellates between showing the viewer what’s captured on their camcorders and the characters’ perspectives, it’s easy to get lost in this disorienting supernatural thriller.

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Poltergeist (1982)

If you saw Poltergeist growing up, chances are you’re probably equally as haunted by Heather O’Rourke as she is in the film, playing a little girl tormented by ghosts in her family home. This Steven Spielberg-penned, Tobe Hooper-directed (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) paranormal flick is a certified cult classic and one of the best horror films of all time, coming from a simple premise about a couple whose home is infested with spirits obsessed with reclaiming the space and kidnapping their daughter. Poltergeist made rearranged furniture freaky, and you may remember a particularly iconic scene with a fuzzed out vintage television set. It’s may be nearly 40 years old, but the creepiness holds up.

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Taking Jane Austen's literary classic and tricking it out with gorgeous long takes, director Joe Wright turns this tale of manners into a visceral, luminescent portrait of passion and desire. While Succession's Matthew MacFadyen might not make you forget Colin Firth from 1995's BBC adaptation, Keira Knightley is a revelation as the tough, nervy Lizzie Bennett. With fun supporting turns from Donald Sutherland, Rosamund Pike, and Judi Dench, it's a sumptuous period romance that transports you from the couch to the ballroom of your dreams -- without changing out of sweatpants.

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Private Life (2018)

Over a decade since the release of her last dark comedy, The Savages, writer and director Tamara Jenkins returned with a sprawling movie in the same vein: more hyper-verbal jerks you can't help but love. Richard (Paul Giamatti) and Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) are a Manhattan-dwelling couple who have spent the last few years attempting to have a baby with little success. When we meet them, they're already in the grips of fertility mania, willing to try almost anything to secure the offspring they think they desire. With all the details about injections, side effects, and pricey medical procedures, the movie functions as a taxonomy of modern pregnancy anxieties, and Hahn brings each part of the process to glorious life.

The Ritual (2018)

The Ritual, a horror film where a group of middle-aged men embark on a hiking trip in honor of a dead friend, understands the tension between natural beauty of the outdoors and the unsettling panic of the unknown. The group's de facto leader Luke (an understated Rafe Spall) attempts to keep the adventure from spiralling out of control, but the forest has other plans. (Maybe brush up on your Scandinavian mythology before viewing.) Like a backpacking variation on Neil Marshall's 2005 cave spelunking classic The Descent, The Ritual deftly explores inter-personal dynamics while delivering jolts of other-worldly terror. It'll have you rethinking that weekend getaway on your calendar.

NETFLIX

Roma (2018)

All those billions Netflix spent paid off in the form of several Oscar nominations for Roma, including one for Best Picture and a win for Best Director. Whether experienced in the hushed reverence of a theater, watched on the glowing screen of a laptop, or, as Netflix executive Ted Sarandos has suggested, binged on the perilous surface of a phone, Alfonso Cuarón's black-and-white passion project seeks to stun. A technical craftsman of the highest order, the Children of Men and Gravity director has an aesthetic that aims to overwhelm -- with the amount of extras, the sense of despair, and the constant whir of exhilaration -- and this autobiographical portrait of kind-hearted maid Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) caring for a family in the early 1970s has been staged on a staggering, mind-boggling scale.

Schindler's List (1993)

A passion project for Steven Spielberg, who shot it back-to-back with another masterpiece, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who reportedly saved over 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. Frank, honest, and stark in its depiction of Nazi violence, the three-hour historical drama is a haunting reminder of the world's past, every frame a relic, every lost voice channeled through Itzhak Perlman's mourning violin.

A Serious Man (2009)

This dramedy from the Coen brothers stars Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics professor who just can't catch a break, whether it's with his wife, his boss, or his rabbi. (Seriously, if you're having a bad day, this airy flick gives you ample time to brood and then come to the realization that your life isn't as shitty as you think.) Meditating on the spiritual and the temporal, Gopnik's improbable run of bad luck is a smart modern retelling of the Book of Job, with more irony and fewer plagues and pestilences. But not much fewer.

WELL GO USA

Shadow (2019)

In Shadow, the visually stunning action epic from Hero and House of Flying Daggers wuxia master Zhang Yimou, parasols are more than helpful sun-blockers: They can be turned into deadly weapons, shooting boomerang-like blades of steel at oncoming attackers and transforming into protective sleds for traveling through the slick streets. These devices are one of many imaginative leaps made in telling this Shakespearean saga of palace intrigue, vengeance, and secret doppelgangers set in China's Three Kingdoms period. This is a martial arts epic where the dense plotting is as tricky as the often balletic fight scenes. If the battles in Game of Thrones left you frustrated, Shadow provides a thrilling alternative.

She's Gotta Have It (1986)

Before checking out Spike Lee's Netflix original series of the same name, be sure to catch up with where it all began. Nola (Tracy Camilla Johns) juggles three men during her sexual pinnacle, and it's all working out until they discover one another. She's Gotta Have It takes some dark turns, but each revelation speaks volumes about what real romantic independence is all about.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

The late director Jonathan Demme's 1991 film is the touchstone for virtually every serial killer film and television show that came after. The iconic closeup shots of an icy, confident Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) as he and FBI newbie Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) engage in their "quid pro quo" interrogation sessions create almost unbearable tension as Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) remains on the loose, killing more victims. Hopkins delivers the more memorable lines, and Buffalo Bill's dance is the stuff of nerve-wracking anxiety nightmares, but it's Foster's nuanced performance as a scared, determined, smart-yet-hesitant agent that sets Silence of the Lambs apart from the rest of the serial killer pack.

THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and David O. Russell’s first collaboration -- and the film that turned J-Law into a bona fide golden girl -- is a romantic comedy/dramedy/dance-flick that bounces across its tonal shifts. A love story between Pat (Cooper), a man struggling with bipolar disease and a history of violent outbursts, and Tiffany (Lawrence), a widow grappling with depression, who come together while rehearsing for an amateur dance competition, Silver Linings balances an emotionally realistic depiction of mental illness with some of the best twirls and dips this side of Step Up. Even if you're allergic to rom-coms, Lawrence and Cooper’s winning chemistry will win you over, as will this sweet little gem of a film: a feel-good, affecting love story that doesn’t feel contrived or treacly.

Sin City (2005)

Frank Miller enlisted Robert Rodriguez as co-director to translate the former's wildly popular series of the same name to the big screen, and with some added directorial work from Quentin Tarantino, the result became a watershed moment in the visual history of film. The signature black-and-white palette with splashes of color provided a grim backdrop to the sensational violence of the miniaturized plotlines -- this is perhaps the movie that feels more like a comic than any other movie you'll ever see.

Sinister (2012)

Horror-movie lesson #32: If you move into a creepy new house, do not read the dusty book, listen to the decaying cassette tapes, or watch the Super 8 reels you find in the attic -- they will inevitably lead to your demise. In Sinister, a true-crime author (played by Ethan Hawke) makes the final mistake, losing his mind to home movies haunted by the "Bughuul."

NETFLIX

Small Crimes (2017)

It's always a little discombobulating to see your favorite Game of Thrones actors in movies that don't call on them to fight dragons, swing swords, or at least wear some armor. But that shouldn't stop you from checking out Small Crimes, a carefully paced thriller starring the Kingslayer Jaime Lannister himself, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. As Joe Denton, a crooked cop turned ex-con, Coster-Waldau plays yet another character with a twisted moral compass, but here he's not part of some mythical narrative. He's just another conniving, scheming dirtbag in director E.L. Katz's Coen brothers-like moral universe. While some of the plot details are confusing -- Katz and co-writer Macon Blair skimp on the exposition so much that some of the dialogue can feel incomprehensible -- the mood of Midwestern dread and Coster-Waldau's patient, lived-in performance make this one worth checking out. Despite the lack of dragons.

Snowpiercer (2013)

Did people go overboard in praising Snowpiercer when it came out? Maybe. But it's important to remember that the movie arrived in the sweaty dog days of summer, hitting critics and sci-fi lovers like a welcome blast of icy water from a hose. The film's simple, almost video game-like plot -- get to the front of the train, or die trying -- allowed visionary South Korean director Bong Joon-ho to fill the screen with excitement, absurdity, and radical politics. Chris Evans never looked more alive, Tilda Swinton never stole more scenes, and mainstream blockbuster filmmaking never felt so tepid in comparison. Come on, ride the train!

The Social Network (2010)

After making films like Seven, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, and Zodiac, director David Fincher left behind the world of scumbags and crime for a fantastical, historical epic in 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Social Network was another swerve, but yielded his greatest film. There's no murder on screen, but Fincher treats Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg like a dorky, socially awkward mob boss operating on an operatic scale. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's rapid-fire, screwball-like dialogue burns with a moral indignation that Fincher's watchful, steady-handed camera chills with an icy distance. It's the rare biopic that's not begging you to smash the "like" button.

SONY PICTURES RELEASING

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

In this shrewd twist on the superhero genre, the audience's familiarity with the origin story of your friendly neighborhood web-slinger -- the character has already starred in three different blockbuster franchises, in addition to countless comics and cartoon TV adaptations -- is used as an asset instead of a liability. The relatively straight-forward coming-of-age tale of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a Brooklyn teenager who takes on the powers and responsibilities of Spider-Man following the death of Peter Parker, gets a remix built around an increasingly absurd parallel dimension plotline that introduces a cast of other Spider-Heroes like Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glen), and, most ridiculously, Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), a talking pig in a Spider-Suit. The convoluted set-up is mostly an excuse to cram the movie with rapid-fire jokes, comic book allusions, and dream-like imagery that puts the rubbery CGI of most contemporary animated films to shame.

Spotlight (2015)

Tom McCarthy stretches the drama taut as he renders Boston Globe's 2000 Catholic Church sex scandal investigation into a Hollywood vehicle. McCarthy's notable cast members crank like gears as they uncover evidence and reflect on a horrifying discovery of which they shoulder partial blame. Spotlight was the cardigan of 2015's Oscar nominees, but even cardigans look sharp when Mark Ruffalo is involved.

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

No movie captures the prolonged pain of divorce quite like Noah Baumbach's brutal Brooklyn-based comedy The Squid and the Whale. While the performances from Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney as bitter writers going through a separation are top-notch, the film truly belongs to the kids, played by Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, who you watch struggle in the face of their parents' mounting immaturity and pettiness. That Baumbach is able to wring big, cathartic laughs from such emotionally raw material is a testament to his gifts as a writer -- and an observer of human cruelty.

SONY PICTURES RELEASING

Starship Troopers (1997)

Paul Verhoeven is undoubtedly the master of the sly sci-fi satire. With RoboCop, he laid waste to the police state with wicked, trigger-happy glee. He took on evil corporations with Total Recall. And with Starship Troopers, a bouncy, bloody war picture, he skewered the chest-thumping theatrics of pro-military propaganda, offering up a pitch-perfect parody of the post-9/11 Bush presidency years before troops set foot in Iraq or Afghanistan. Come for the exploding alien guts, but stay for the winking comedy -- or stay for both! Bug guts have their charms, too.

Swiss Army Man (2016)

You might think a movie that opens with a suicidal man riding a farting corpse like a Jet Ski wears thin after the fourth or fifth flatulence gag. You would be wrong. Brimming with imagination and expression, the directorial debut of Adult Swim auteurs "The Daniels" wields sophomoric humor to speak to friendship. As Radcliffe's dead body springs back to life -- through karate-chopping, water-vomiting, and wind-breaking -- he becomes the id to Dano's struggling everyman, who is also lost in the woods. If your childhood backyard adventures took the shape of The Revenant, it would look something like Swiss Army Man, and be pure bliss.

NETFLIX

Tallulah (2016)

From Orange Is the New Black writer Sian Heder, Tallulah follows the title character (played by Ellen Page) after she inadvertently "kidnaps" a toddler from an alcoholic rich woman and passes the child off as her own to appeal to her run-out boyfriend's mother (Allison Janney). A messy knot of familial woes and wayward instincts, Heder's directorial debut achieves the same kind of balancing act as her hit Netflix series -- frank social drama with just the right amount of humorous hijinks. As Tallulah grows into a mother figure, her on-the-lam parenting course only makes her more and more of a criminal in the eyes of... just about everyone. You want to root for her, but that would be too easy.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Travis Bickle (a young Bobby De Niro) comes back from the Vietnam War and, having some trouble acclimating to daily life, slowly unravels while fending off brutal insomnia by picking up work as a... taxi driver... in New York City. Eventually he snaps, shaves his hair into a mohawk and goes on a murderous rampage while still managing to squeeze in one of the most New York lines ever captured on film ("You talkin' to me?"). It's not exactly a heartwarmer -- Jodie Foster plays a 12-year-old prostitute -- but Martin Scorsese's 1976 Taxi Driver is a movie in the cinematic canon that you'd be legitimately missing out on if you didn't watch it.

FOCUS FEATURES

The Theory of Everything (2014)

In his Oscar-winning performance, Eddie Redmayne portrays famed physicist Stephen Hawking -- though The Theory of Everything is less of a biopic than it is a beautiful, sweet film about his lifelong relationship with his wife, Jane (Felicity Jones). Covering his days as a young cosmology student ahead of his diagnosis of ALS at 21, through his struggle with the illness and rise as a theoretical scientist, this film illustrates the trying romance through it all. While it may be written in the cosmos, this James Marsh-directed film that weaves in and out of love will have you experience everything there is to feel.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Paul Thomas Anderson found modern American greed in the pages of Upton Sinclair's depression-era novel, Oil!. Daniel Day-Lewis found the role of a lifetime behind the bushy mustache of Daniel Plainview, thunderous entrepreneur. Paul Dano found his milkshake drunk up. Their discoveries are our reward -- There Will Be Blood is a stark vision of tycoon terror.

Time to Hunt (2020)

Unrelenting in its pursuit of scenarios where guys point big guns at each other in sparsely lit empty hallways, the South Korean thriller Time to Hunt knows exactly what stylistic register it's playing in. A group of four friends, including Parasite and Train to Busan break-out Choi Woo-shik, knock over a gambling house, stealing a hefty bag of money and a set of even more valuable hard-drives, and then find themselves targeted by a ruthless contract killer (Park Hae-soo) who moves like the T-1000 and shoots like a henchmen in a Michael Mann movie. There are dystopian elements to the world -- protests play out in the streets, the police wage a tech-savvy war on citizens, automatic rifles are readily available to all potential buyers -- but they all serve the simmering tension and elevate the pounding set-pieces instead of feeling like unnecessary allegorical padding. Even with its long runtime, this movie moves.

STUDIOCANAL

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

If a season of 24 took place in the smoky, well-tailored underground of British intelligence crica 1973, it might look a little like this precision-made John le Carré adaptation from Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson. Even if you can't follow terse and tightly-woven mystery, the search for Soviet mole led by retired operative George Smiley (Gary Oldman), the ice-cold frames and stellar cast will suck you into the intrigue. It's very possible Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, and Benedict Cumberbatch are reading pages of the British phone book, but egad, it's absorbing. A movie that rewards your full concentration.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)

Of all the entries in the rom-com revival, this one is heavier on the rom than the com. But even though it won't make your sides hurt, it will make your heart flutter. The plot is ripe with high school movie hijinks that arise when the love letters of Lara Jean Covey (the wonderful Lana Condor) accidentally get mailed to her crushes, namely the contractual faux relationship she starts with heartthrob Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo). Like its heroine, it's big-hearted but skeptical in all the right places.

Total Recall (1990)

Skip the completely forgettable Colin Farrell remake from 2012. This Arnold Schwarzenegger-powered, action-filled sci-fi movie is the one to go with. Working from a short story by writer Philip K. Dick, director Paul Verhoeven (Robocop) uses a brain-teasing premise -- you can buy "fake" vacation memories from a mysterious company called Rekall -- to stage one of his hyper-violent, winkingly absurd cartoons. The bizarre images of life on Mars and silly one-liners from Arnold fly so fast that you'll begin to think the whole movie was designed to be implanted in your mind.

NETFLIX

Tramps (2017)

There are heists pulled off by slick gentlemen in suits, then there are heists pulled off by two wayward 20-somethings rambling along on a steamy, summer day in New York City. This dog-day crime-romance stages the latter, pairing a lanky Russian kid (Callum Tanner) who ditches his fast-food register job for a one-off thieving gig, with his driver, an aloof strip club waitress (Grace Van Patten) looking for the cash to restart her life. When a briefcase handoff goes awry, the pair head upstate to track down the missing package, where train rides and curbside walks force them to open up. With a laid-back, '70s soul, Tramps is the rare doe-eyed relationship movie where playing third-wheel is a joy.

Uncut Gems (2019)

In Uncut Gems, the immersive crime film from sibling director duo Josh and Benny Safdie, gambling is a matter of faith. Whether he's placing a bet on the Boston Celtics, attempting to rig an auction, or outrunning debt-collecting goons at his daughter's high school play, the movie's jeweler protagonist Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) believes in his ability to beat the odds. Does that mean he always succeeds? No, that would be absurd, undercutting the character's Job-like status, which Sandler imbues with an endearing weariness that holds the story together. But every financial setback, emotional humbling, and spiritual humiliation he suffers gets interpreted by Howard as a sign that his circumstances might be turning around. After all, a big score could be right around the corner.

Velvet Buzzsaw (2018)

Nightcrawler filmmaker Dan Gilroy teams up with Jake Gyllenhaal again to create another piece of cinematic art, this time a satirical horror film about the exclusive, over-the-top LA art scene. The movie centers around a greedy group of art buyers who come into the possession of stolen paintings that, unbeknownst to them, turn out to be haunted, making their luxurious lives of wheeling and dealing overpriced paintings a living hell. Also featuring the likes of John Malkovich, Toni Collette, Billy Magnussen, and others, Velvet Buzzsaw looks like Netflix’s next great original.

COLUMBIA PICTURES

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)

Oscar-baiting, musician biopics became so cookie-cutter by the mid-'00s that it was easy for John C. Reilly, Judd Apatow, and writer-director Jake Kasdan (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) to knot them all together for the ultimate spoof. Dewey Cox is part Johnny Cash, part Bob Dylan, part Ray Charles, part John Lennon, part anyone-you-can-think-of, rising with hit singles, rubbing shoulders with greats of many eras, stumbling with eight-too-many drug addictions, then rising once again. When it comes to relentless wisecracking, Walk Hard is like a Greatest Hits compilation -- every second is gold.

The Witch (2015)

The Witch delivers everything we don't see in horror today. The backdrop, a farm in 17th-century New England, is pure misty, macabre mood. The circumstance, a Puritanical family making it on the fringe of society because they're too religious, bubbles with terror. And the question, whether devil-worshipping is hocus pocus or true black magic, keeps each character on their toes, and begging God for answers. The Witch tests its audience with its (nearly impenetrable) old English dialogue and the (anxiety-inducing) trials of early American life, but the payoff will keep your mind racing, and your face hiding under the covers, for days.

Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

Before taking us to space with Gravity, director Alfonso Cuarón steamed up screens with this provocative, comedic drama about two teenage boys (Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) road-trippin' it with an older woman. Like a sunbaked Jules and Jim, the movie makes nimble use of its central love triangle, setting up conflicts between the characters as they move through the complicated political and social realities of Mexican life. It's a confident, relaxed film that's got an equal amount of brains and sex appeal. Watch this one with a friend -- or two.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher's period drama is for obsessives. In telling the story of the Zodiac Killer, a serial murderer who captured the public imagination by sending letters and puzzles to the Bay Area press, the famously meticulous director zeroes in on the cops, journalists, and amateur code-breakers who made identifying the criminal their life's work. With Jake Gyllenhaal's cartoonist-turned-gumshoe Robert Graysmith at the center, and Robert Downey Jr.'s barfly reporter Paul Avery stumbling around the margins, the film stretches across time and space, becoming a rich study of how people search for meaning in life. Zodiac is a procedural thriller that makes digging through old manilla folders feel like a cosmic quest.

13th (2016)

Selma director Ava DuVernay snuck away from the Hollywood spotlight to direct this sweeping documentary on the state of race in America. DuVernay's focus is the country's growing incarceration rates and an imbalance in the way black men and women are sentenced based on their crimes. Throughout the exploration, 13th dives into post-Emancipation migration, systemic racism that built in the early 20th century, and moments of modern political history that continue to spin a broken gear in our well-oiled national machine. You'll be blown away by what DuVernay uncovers in her interview-heavy research.

20th Century Women (2016)

If there's such thing as an epistolary movie, 20th Century Women is it. Touring 1970s Santa Barbara through a living flipbook, Mike Mills's semi-autobiographical film transcends documentation with a cast of wayward souls and Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), an impressionable young teenager. Annette Bening plays his mother, and the matriarch of a ragtag family, who gather together for safety, dance to music when the moment strikes, and teach Jamie the important lesson of What Women Want, which ranges from feminist theory to love-making techniques. The kid soaks it up like a sponge. Through Mills's caring direction, and characters we feel extending infinitely through past and present, so do we.

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[moviereviewstation]

The Movie List

Hi all, 

As promised, here’s the list. Once a movie has been reviewed, I’ll turn the movie into a link to the review on this list. Any movie we can’t find will be marked with a cross through. There were double ups in the categories, movies being listed twice, so I’ve only let them be in the first category they show up in (Hence why there isn’t 100 movies in the fourth category). The list is below: 

1. GENRE 

Action-Aventure

The Mark of Zorro (Fred Niblo, 1920)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, 1938)

The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)

Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986)

Lethal Weapon (Richard Donner, 1987)

Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991)

Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996)

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)

Animation

Steamboat Willie (Ub Iwerks, 1928)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand and William Cottrell, 1937)

Pinocchio (Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske, 1940)

Yellow Submarine (George Dunning, 1968)

Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)

Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)

Spirited Away (Hayat Miyazaki, 2001)

Belleville Rendez-vous (Sylvain Chomet, 2003)

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Steve Box and Nick Park, 2005)

Wall-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)

Up (Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, 2009)

How To Train Your Dragon (Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, 2010)

Avante-Garde

L’Inhumaine (Marcel L’Herbier, 1924)

Un Chien Andalou (Luis Bunuel, 1929)

L’Age d’Or (Luis Bunuel, 1930)

Biopic

Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)

Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982)

A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard, 2001)

The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004)

Ray (Taylor Hackford, 2004)

The Last King of Scotland (Kevin Macdonald, 2006)

Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008)

Comedy

The General (Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton, 1927)

Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)

His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)

The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)

The Pink Panther (Blake Edwards, 1963)

Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)

Airplane! (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, 1980)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994)

The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo, 1997)

Meet the Parents (Jay Roach, 2000)

Bridget Jone’s Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001)

The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006)

Costume Drama

Jezebel (William Wyler, 1938)

Les Enfants du Paradis (Marcel Carne, 1945)

Senso (Luchino Visconti, 1954)

Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)

Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears, 1988)

Howards End (James Ivory, 1992)

Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1995)

Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009)

Cult

Plan 9 from Outer Space (Edward D. Wood, 1958)

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer, 1965)

Pink Flamingos (John Waters, 1972)

The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975)

Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson, 1987)

Fight Club (David Finch, 1999)

Disaster

Airport (George Seaton, 1970)

The Poseidon Adventure (Ronald Neame, 1972)

The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin, 1974)

Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996)

Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)

Documentary

Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

Night and Fog (Alain Resnais, 1955)

Don’t Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker, 1967)

The Sorrow and the Pity (Marcel Ophuls, 1969)

Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002)

Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, 2003)

The Story of the Weeping Camel (Byambasuren, Dava and Luigi Falorini, 2003)

March of the Penguins (Luc Jacquet, 2005)

An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)

Epic

The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915)

Alexander Nevsky (Sergei M. Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasilyev, 1938)

The Robe (Henry Koster, 1953)

The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956)

Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959)

Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960)

Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965)

Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000)

Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott, 2005)

Film Noir

Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

Fallen Angel (Otto Preminger, 1945)

The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)

Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)

L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997)

Sin City (Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, 2005)

Gangster

Little Caesar (Mervyn Leroy, 1931)

Public Enemy (William Wellman, 1931)

Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938)

Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)

The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)

GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)

Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)

Snatch (Guy Ritchie, 2000)

Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2002)

Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes, 2002)

Horror

Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)

The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935)

Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942)

The Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968)

The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)

Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)

Ring (Hideo Nakata, 1998)

The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, 1999)

Martial Arts

Fists of Fury (Wei Lo, 1971)

The Chinese Connection (Wei Lo, 1972)

Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973)

The Karate Kid (John G. Avildsen, 1984)

Once Upon a Time in China (Tsui Hark, 1991)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)

Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002)

Melodrama

Imitation of Life (John M. Stahl, 1934)

Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937)

Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942)

Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945)

Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945)

The Life of Oharu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952)

Musical

Le Million (Rene Clair, 1931)

42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933)

The Merry Widow (Ernst Lubitsch, 1934)

Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935)

Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)

Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952)

Gigi (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)

West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961)

Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972)

Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978)

Dirty Dancing (Emile Ardolina, 1987)

Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)

Hairspray (Adam Shankman, 2007)

Propaganda

The Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1935)

The Plow that Broke the Plains (Pare Lorentz, 1936)

Der Fuehrer’s Face (Jack Kinney, 1943)

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)

The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)

The Time Machine (George Pal, 1960)

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)

Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)

The Matrix (Larry and Andy Wachowski, 1999)

Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)

Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

Serial

The Perils of Pauline (Louis Gasnier, 1914)

Flash Gordon (Frederick Stephani, 1936)

The Lone Ranger (John English and William Witney, 1938)

Series

Charlie Chan (Various, 1931-49)

Don Camillo (Various, 1951-65)

Zatoichi (Various, 1962-2003)

The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-03)

Harry Potter (Various, 2001-11)

The Chronicles of Narnia (Various, 2005-)

Teens

Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)

American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973)

The Breakfast Club (John Hughes, 1985)

Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004)

Thriller

The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)

The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles, 2005)

The Girl Who Played with Fire (Daniel Alfredson, 2009)

Underground

Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943)

Wavelength (Michael Snow, 1967)

Flesh (Paul Morrissey, 1968)

War

J’Accuse (Abel Gance, 1919)

Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)

Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

Das Boot (Wolfgang Peterson, 1981)

Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick, 1987)

Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998)

No Man’s Land (Danis Tanovic, 2001)

The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)

Western

Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)

The Man from Laramie (Anthony Mann, 1955)

The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)

The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960)

The Man who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)

The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)

Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)

Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)

True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2010)

2. WORLD FILM

Africa

The Money Order (Ousmane Sembene, Senegal, 1968)

The Night of Counting the Years (Shadi Abdelsalam, Egypt, 1969)

Xala (Ousmane Sembene, Senegal, 1975)

Chronicle of the Burning Years (Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, Algeria, 1975)

Alexandria… Why? (Youssef Chahine, Egypt, 1978)

Man of Ashes (Nouri Bouzid, Tunisia, 1986)

Yeelen (Souleymane Cisse, Mali, 1987)

The Silences of the Palace (Moufida Tlatli, Tunisia, 1994)

Waiting for Happiness (Abderrahmane Sissako, Mauritania, 2002)

The Middle East

Divine Intervention (Elia Suleiman, Palestine, 2002)

The Syrian Bride (Eran Riklis, Palestine, 2004)

Thirst (Tawfik Abu Wael, Palestine, 2004)

Paradise Now (Hand Abu-Assad, Palestine, 2005)

Iran

The Cow (Dariush Mehrjui, 1968)

The White Balloon (Jafar Panahi, 1995)

Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)

The Children of Heaven (Majid Majidi, 1997)

Blackboards (Samira Makmalbaf, 2000)

The Day I Became a Woman (Marzieh Meshkini, 2000)

Secret Ballot (Babek Payami, 2001)

Kandahar (Mohsen Makmalbaf, 2001)

Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Ghobadi, 2004)

Eastern Europe

Knife in the Water (Roman Polanski, Poland, 1962)

The Shop on the High Street (Jan Kadar, Czechoslovakia, 1965)

The Round-Up (Miklos Jansco, Hungary, 1965)

Loves of a Blonde (Milos Foreman, Czechoslovakia, 1965)

Daisies (Vera Chytilova, Czechoslovakia, 1966)

Closely Observed Trains (Jiri Menzel, Czechoslovakia, 1966)

Man of Marble (Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1976)

The Three Colours trilogy (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1993-94)

Divided We Fall (Jan Hrebejk, Czech Republic, 2000)

The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr, Hungary, 2011)

The Balkans

A Matter of Dignity (Michael Cacoyannis, Greece, 1957)

I Even Met Happy Gypsies (Aleksandar Petrovic, Yugoslavia, 1967)

The Goat Horn (Metodi Andonov, Bulgaria, 1972)

Yol (Yilmaz Güney and Serif Goren, Turkey, 1982)

Underground (Emir Kusturica, Yugoslavia, 1995)

Eternity and a Day (Theo Angelopoulos, Greece, 1998)

Uzak (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, 2002)

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, Romania, 2005)

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Romania, 2007)

Russia

The Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)

Storm Over Asia (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1928)

Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1930)

Ivan the Terrible Parts I and II (Sergei Eisenstein, 1944/58)

The Cranes are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957)

Ballad of a Soldier (Grigori Chukhrai, 1959)

The Colour of Pomegranates (Sergei Parajanov, 1969)

Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985)

Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2002)

The Nordic Countries

The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjostrom, Sweden, 1921)

Day of Wrath (Carl Dreyer, Denmark, 1943)

Persona (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1966)

Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel, Denmark, 1987)

Festen (Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark, 1998)

Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, Sweden, 2000)

O’Horten (Bent Hamer, Norway, 2007)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev, Sweden/Denmark/Germany/Norway, 2009)

Germany

The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924)

Pandora’s Box (G.W. Pabst, 1929)

The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg, 1930)

M (Fritz Lang, 1931)

The Bridge (Bernhard Wicki, 1959)

Kings of the Road (Wim Wenders, 1976)

The Marriage of Maria Braun (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978)

The Tin Drum (Volker Schlöndorff, 1979)

Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)

France

Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927)

L’Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934)

La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)

Le Jour se Leve (Marcel Carne, 1939)

Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951)

Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)

Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962)

Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967)

La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995)

The Taste of Other (Agnes Jaoui, 2000)

The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)

A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois, 2010)

Italy

The Flowers of St. Francis (Roberto Rossellini, 1950)

Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica, 1952)

La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961)

The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)

The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)

Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1973)

1900 (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976)

Cinema Pardiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)

Il Postino (Michael Radford, 1994)

The Best of Youth (Marco Tullio Giordana, 2003)

Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, 2008)

Vincere (Marco Bellocchio, 2009)

United Kingdom

The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938)

Odd Man Out (Carol Reed, 1947)

Black Narcissus (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1947)

Whiskey Galore (Alexander Mackendrick, 1949)

The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963)

If… (Lindsay Anderson, 1968)

Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983)

Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)

Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry, 2000)

Touching the Void (Kevin Macdonald, 2003)

The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010)

Spain

Welcome Mr. Marshall! (Luis Garcia Berlanga, 1953)

Death of a Cyclist (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1955)

Viridiana (Luis Bunuel, 1961)

The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)

Cria Cuervos (Carlos Saura, 1976)

Tierra (Julio Medem, 1996)

Talk to Her (Pedro Almodovar, 2002)

The Sea Inside (Alejandro Amenabar, 2004)

Portugal

Hard Times (Joao Botelho, 19880

Abraham’s Valley (Manoel de Oliveira, 1993)

God’s comedy (Joao Cesar Monteiro, 1995)

River of Gold (Paulo Rocha, 1998)

O Delfim (Fernando Lopes, 2002)

Canada

My Uncle Antoine (Claude Jutra, 1971)

The True Nature of Bernadette (Gilles Carles, 1972)

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Ted Kotcheff, 1974)

The Decline of the American Empire (Denys Arcand, 1986)

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (Patricia Rozema, 1987)

Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)

Jesus of Montreal (Denys Arcand, 1989)

Exotica (Atom Egoyan, 1994)

The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)

The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand, 2003)

Twist (Jacob Tierney, 2003)

Central America

Maria Candelaria (Emilio Fernandez, Mexico, 1944)

La Perla (Emilio Fernandez, Mexico, 1947)

Los Olvidados (Luis Bunuel, Mexico, 1950)

I am Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, Soviet Union/Cuba, 1964)

Memories of Underdevelopment (Tomas Gutierrez Area, Cuba, 1968)

Lucia (Humberto Solas, Cuba, 1968)

Like Water for Chocolate (Alfonso Area, Mexico, 1992)

Amores Perros (Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, Mexico, 2000)

Y Tu Mama También (Alfonso Cuaron, Mexico, 2001)

Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, Mexico, 2006)

South America

The Hand in the Trap (Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, Argentina, 1961)

Barren Lives (Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Brazil, 1963)

Antonio das Mortes (Glauber Rocha, Brazil, 1969)

The Hour of the Furnaces (Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, Argentina, 1970)

The Battle of Chile (Patricio Guzman, Chile, 1975/79)

The Official Story (Luis Puenzo, Argentina, 1985)

Central Station (Walter Salles, Brazil, 1998)

City of God (Fernando Meirelles, Brazil, 2002)

The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella, Argentina, 2010)

China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Two Stage Sisters (Xie Jin, China, 1965)

A Touch of Zen (King Hu, Taiwan, 1969)

The Way of the Dragon (Bruce Lee, Hong Kong, 1972)

Yellow Earth (Chen Kaige, China, 1984)

City of Sadness (Hsiou-Hsein Hou, Taiwan, 1989)

Ju Dou (Zhang Yimou and Yang Fengliang, Japan/China, 1990)

Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou, China, 1991)

Yi Yi (Edward Yang, Taiwan, 2000)

Still Life (Jia Zhang Ke, China, 2006)

Korea

The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (Hong Sang-Soo, 1996)

Shiri (Kang Je-Gyu, 1999)

Chihwaseon (Im Kwon-Taek, 2002)

The Way Home (Lee Jong-Hyang, 2002)

Oasis (Lee Chang-dong, 2002)

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (Kim Ki-Duk, 2003)

Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-Dong, 2007)

Japan

Equinox Flower (Yasujiro Ozu, 1958)

An Actor’s Revenge (Kon Ichikawa, 1963)

Boy (Nagisa Oshima, 1969)

Vengeance is Mine (Shohei Imamura, 1979)

Hana-Bi (Takeshi Kitano, 1997)

After Life (Hirokazu Koreeda, 1998)

Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2008)

Catepillar (Koji Wakamatsu, 2010)

India

Devdas (Bimal Roy, 1955)

Rather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)

Mother India (Mehboob Khan, 1957)

Charulata (Satyajit Ray, 1964)

Bhuvan Shome (Mrinal Sen, 1969)

Sholay (Ramesh Sippy, 1975)

Nayagan (Mani Ratnam, 1987)

Salaam Bombay! (Mira Nair, 1988)

Bandit Queen (Shekhar Kapur, 1994)

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (Aditya Chopra, 1995)

Kannathil Muthamittal (Mani Ratnam, 2002)

Shwaas (Sandeep Sawant, 2004)

Harishchandrachi Factory (Paresh Mokashi, 2009)

People Live (Anusha Rizvi, 2010)

Australia and New Zealand

Picnic at the Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, Australia, 1975)

The Getting of Wisdom (Bruce Beresford, Australia, 1977)

Newsfront (Phillip Noyce, Australia, 1978)

My Brilliant Career (Gillian Armstrong, Australia, 1979)

Mad Max (George Millar, Australia, 1979)

Crocodile Dundee (Peter Faiman, Australia, 1986)

An Angel at My Table (Jane Campion, New Zealand, 1990)

Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, New Zealand, 1994)

Happy Feet (George Millar, Australia, 2006)

Australia (Bax Luhrmann, Australia, 2008)

3. DIRECTORS

Woody Allen

Sleeper (1973)

Love and Death (1976)

Manhattan (1979)

Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Husbands and Wives (1992)

Match Point (2005)

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Pedro Almodovar

What Have I Done to Deserve This (1984)

Law of Desire (1987)

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

High Heels (1991)

All About My Mother (1999)

Bad Education (2004)

Volver (2006)

Robert Altman

M*A*S*H* (1970)

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)

Nashville (1975)

The Player (1992)

Short Cuts (1993)

Gosford Park (2001)

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Theo Angelopoulos

The Traveling Players (1975)

Landscape in the Mist (1988)

The Weeping Meadow (2004)

Michelangelo Antonioni

L’Avventua (1960)

L’Eclisse (1962)

Il Deserto Rosso (1964)

Blow-Up (1966)

The Passenger (1975)

Ingmar Bergman

Summer Interlude (1951)

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Wild Strawberries (1957)

The Face (1958)

Cries and Whispers (1972)

Autumn Sonata (1978)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Bernardo Bertolucci

Before the Revolution (1964)

The Conformist (1970)

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

The Last Emporero (1987)

The Dreamers (2003)

Luc Besson

The Big Blue (1988)

Nikita (1990)

Leon (1995)

The Fifth Element (1997)

Robert Bresson

Ladies of the Park (1945)

A Man Escaped (1956)

Balthazar (1966)

L’Argent (1983)

Tod Browning

The Unholy Three (1925)

The Blackbird (1926)

The Unknown (1927)

West of Zanzibar (1928)

Dracula (1931)

Freaks (1932)

The Devil-Doll (1936)

Luis Bunuel

An Andalusian Dog (1929)

Age of Gold (1930)

The Young and the Damned (1950)

Nazarin (1958)

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)

Belle de Jour (1967)

Tristana (1970)

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

Frank Capra

Platinum Blonde (1931)

The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)

Lady for a Day (1933)

It Happened One Night (1934)

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

You Can’t Take It with You (1938)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Marcel Carne

Bizarre Bizarre (1937)

Port of Shadows (1938)

The Devil’s Envoys (1942)

John Cassavetes

Shadows (1959)

Faces (1968)

Minnie and Maskowitz (1971)

Gloria (1980)

Claude Chabrol

The Cousins (1959)

The Good Time Girls (1960)

The Unfaithful Wife (1969)

The Hatter’s Ghost (1982)

The Ceremony (1995)

Nightcap (2000)

Charlie Chaplin

The Kid (1921)

A Woman of Paris (1923)

The Gold Rush (1925)

The Circus (1928)

City Lights (1931)

Modern Times (1936)

The Great Dictator (1940)

Rene Clair

The Italian Straw Hat (1928)

Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)

The Million (1931)

Freedom for Us (1931)

The Last Billionaire (1934)

The Ghost Goes West (1935)

It Happened Tomorrow (1944)

Night Beauties (1952)

Summer Manoeuvres (1955)

Henri-Geoges Clouzot

The Raven (1943)

Quay of the Goldsmiths (1947)

The Wages of Fear (1953)

Diabolique (1955)

The Picasso Mystery (1956)

Jean Cocteau

The Blood of a Poet (1930)

Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Orpheus (1950)

The Testament of Orpheus (1960)

Joel and Ethan Coen

Blood Simple (1984)

Raising Arizona (1987)

Barton Fink (1991)

Fargo (1996)

The Big Lebowski (1998)

No Country for Old Men (2007)

A Serious Man (2009)

Francis Ford Coppola

The Conversation

The Outsiders

Tucker: The Man and His Dreams

George Cukor

Dinner at Eight (1933)

Little Women (1933)

Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

David Copperfield (1935)

Camille (1936)

Holiday (1938)

The Women (1939)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Adam’s Rib (1949)

A Star is Born (1954)

My Fair Lady (1964)

Michael Curtiz

Kid Galahad (19370

Casablanca (1942)

Cecil B. DeMille

The Cheat (1915)

The Ten Commandments (1923)

Cleopatra (1934)

The Plainsman (1936)

Union Pacific (1939)

Reap with Wild Wind (1942)

Unconquered (1947)

Samson and Delilah (1949)

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

Vittorio De Sica

Shoeshine (1946)

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Miracle in Milan (1951)

Two Women (1960)

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)

Carl Dreyer

Master of the House (1925)

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

The Vampire (1932)

The Word (1955)

Gertrud (1964)

Clint Eastwood

Play Misty for Me

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Bird (1988)

Mystic River (2003)

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)

Invictus (2009)

Sergei Eisenstein

Strike (1924)

October (1927)

The General Line (1928)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971)

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)

Fear Eats the Soul (19740

Effi Briest (1974)

Fox (1975)

Mother Kusters’ Trip to Heaven (1975)

In aYear of 13 Moons (1978)

Lola (1981)

Veronika Voss (1982)

Federico Fellini

I Vitelloni (1953)

La Strada (1954)

La Dolce Vita (1960)

8 1/2 (1963)

Juiletta of the Spirits (1945)

Roma (1972)

Fellini’s Casanova (1976)

Robert J. Flaherty

Nanook of the North (1922)

Moana (1926)

Man of Aran (1934)

Louisianna Story (1948)

John Ford

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Fort Apache (1948)

Milos Forman

The Firemen’s Ball (1967)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Amadeus (1984)

Man on the Moon (1999)

Abel Gance

The Tenth Symphony (1918)

The Wheel (1923)

The Life and Loves of Beethoven (1936)

Jean-Luc Godard

Breathless (1960)

My Life to Live (1962)

Contempt (1963)

Band of Outsiders (1964)

Alphaville (1965)

Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967)

New Wave (1990)

In Praise of Love (2001)

Our Music (2004)

D.W. Griffith

Intolerance (1916)

True Heart Susie (1919)

Broken Blossoms (1919)

Way Down East (1920)

Orphans of the Storm (1921)

Howard Hanks

Scarface (1932)

Twentieth Century (1934)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

To Have and Have Not (1944)

Red River (1948)

Rio Bravo (1959)

Werner Herzog

Signs of Life (1967)

Fata Morgana (1971)

Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972)

Enigma of Kasper Hauser (1974)

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

My Best Friend (1999)

Grizzly Man (2005)

Encounters at the End of the World (2007)

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009)

Alfred Hitchcock

The 39 Steps (1935)

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Rear Window (1954)

Vertigo (1958)

North by Northwest (1959)

The Birds (1963)

Marnie (1964)

John Huston

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Key Largo (1948)

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

The African Queen (1951)

Beat the Devil (1953)

The Misfits (1961)

Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)

Fat City (1972)

The Dead (1987)

Miklos Jancso

My Way Home (1965)

The Red and the White (1968)

The Confrontation (1969)

Agnus Dei (1971)

Red Psalm (1972)

Beloved Electra (1974)

Elia Kazan

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

On the Waterfront (1954)

East of Eden (1955)

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Wild River (1960)

Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Abbas Kiarostami

Where is the Friend’s Home? (1987)

And Life Goes On… (1992)

Through the Olive Trees (1994)

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)

Ten (2002)

Krzysztof Kieslowski

- Blind Chance (1981)

- A Short Film About Killing (1988)

- A Short Film About Love (1988)

- The Double Life of Veronique (1991)

Stanley Kubrick

Lolita (1962)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Akira Kurosawa

Rashomon (1950)

To Live (1952)

Throne of Blood (1957)

The Hidden Fortress (1958)

The Bodyguard (1961)

Sanjuro (1962)

Dersu Uzala (1975)

Kagemusha (1980)

Ran (1985)

Fritz Lang

Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922)

Fury (1936)

Hangmen Also Die! (1943)

The Woman in the Window (1944)

Scarlet Street (1945)

Clash by Night (1952)

The Big Heat (1953)

Human Desire (1954)

David Lean

In Which We Serve (1942)

Great Expectations (1946)

Oliver Twist (1948)

Hobson’s Choice (1954)

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

A Passage to India (1984)

Spike Lee

She’s Gotta Have It (1986)

Do the Right Thing (1989)

Jungle Fever (1991)

Malcolm X (1992)

Crooklyn (1994)

Clockers (1995)

Ernst Lubitsch

Trouble in Paradise (1932)

Design for Living (1933)

Desire (1936)

Angel (1937)

Ninotchka (1939)

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

To Be or Not to Be (1942)

David Lynch

Eraserhead (1977)

The Elephant Man (1980)

Blue Velvet (1986)

Twin Peaks (1992)

The Straight Story (1999)

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Louis Malle

The Lovers (1958)

Murmur of the Heart (1971)

Lacombe Lucien (1974)

Pretty Baby (1978)

Atlantic City (1980)

Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

All About Eve (1950)

5 Fingers (1952)

Julius Caesar (1953)

The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

Guys and Dolls (1955)

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Leo McCarey

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

The Awful Truth (1937)

Love Affair (1939)

Going My Way (1944)

The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)

An Affair to Remember (1957)

Jean-Pierre Melville

The Strange Ones (1950)

Bob the Gambler (1956)

Doulos: The Finger Man (1962)

Magnet of Doom (1963)

Second Breath (1966)

The Samurai (1967)

Army of Shadows (1969)

Vincente Minnelli

The Pirate (1948)

An American in Paris (1951)

The Bad and the Beautiful (1953)

The Band Wagon (1953)

Lust for Life (1956)

Some Came Running (1959)

Kenji Mizoguchi

Osaka Elegy (1936)

Sister of the Gion (1936)

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939)

Utamaro and his Five Women (1946)

Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)

Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

Street of Shame (1956)

F.W. Murnau

Faust (1926)

Sunrise (1927)

Tabu (1931)

Manoel de Oliveira

Aniki Bobo (1942)

Doomed Love (1979)

Francisca (1981)

The Cannibals (1988)

The Convent (1995)

I’m Going Home (2001)

A Talking Picture (2003)

O Estranho Caso de Angelica (2010)

Max Ophuls

Leiberlei (1933)

Mayerling to Sarajevo (1940)

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

La Ronde (1950)

House of Pleasure (1952)

Madame de… (1953)

Lola Montes (1955)

Nagisa Oshima

The Sun’s Burial (1960)

Death by Hanging (1968)

Diary of Shinjuku Thief (1969)

The Ceremony (1971)

In the Realm of the Sense (1976)

Empire of Passion (1978)

Taboo (1999)

Yasujiro Ozu

Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947)

Late Spring (1949)

Early Summer (1951)

Tokyo Story (1953)

Early Spring (1956)

Good Morning (1959)

Late Autumn (1960)

The End of Summer (1961)

An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

Georg Wilhelm Pabst

The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927)

Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)

The Threepenny Opera (1931)

Comradeship (1931)

Sergei Parajanov

The Stone Flower (1962)

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964)

Ashik Kerib (1988)

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Accatone (1961)

Oedipus Rex (1967)

Theorem (1968)

The Decameron (1971)

The Canterbury Tales (1972)

The Arabian Nights (1974)

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Sam Peckinpah

Ride the High Country (1962)

Major Dundee (1965)

The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Roman Polanski

Repulsion (1965)

Cul-de-Sac (1965)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

The Tenant (1976)

The Pianist (2002)

The Ghost Writer (2010)

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

A Canterbury Tale (1944)

I Know Where I’m Going (1945)

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

The Red Shoes (1948)

The Small Back Room (1948)

The Tales of Hoffman (1951)

Otto Preminger

Laura (1944)

Daisy Kenyon (1947)

The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Exodus (1960)

Advise and Consent (1962)

Vsevolod Pudovkin

Mother (1926)

The End of St. Petersburg (1927)

Nicholas Ray

They Live By Night (1949)

In a Lonely Place (1950)

Johnny Guitar (1954)

Bigger Than Life (1956)

Wind Across the Everglades (1958)

Satyajit Ray

Pather Panchali (1955)

The Unvanquished (1956)

The Music Room (1959)

The World of Apu (1959)

The Big City (1964)

The Lonely Wife (1964)

Days and Nights in the Forest (1970)

Distant Thunder (1973)

The Middleman (1976)

The Chess Players (1977)

Jean Renoir

Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)

The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936)

Grand Illusion (1937)

The Human Beast (1938)

The Rulers of the Game (1939)

The Southerner (1945)

The Golden Coach (1952)

French Can-Can (1954)

Elena and Her Men (1956)

Alain Resnais

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Muriel (1963)

The War is Over (1966)

Stavisky (1974)

Providence (1977)

Same Old Song (1997)

Les Herbes Folles (2009)

Jacques Rivette

Paris Belongs to Us (1961)

The Nun (1966)

Mad Love (1969)

Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)

La Belle Noiseuse (1991)

Jeanne la Pucelle I - Les Batailles (1994)

Va Savior (2001)

The Duchess of Langeais (2007)

Eric Rohmer

My Night at Maud’s (1969)

Claire’s Knee (1970)

The Aviator’s Wife (1981)

Pauline at the Beach (1983)

The Green Ray (1986)

A Tale of Springtime (1990)

A Tale of Winter (1992)

A Summer’s Tale (1996)

An Autumn Tale (1998)

Les Amours d’astres et de Celadon (2007)

Roberto Rossellini

Rome, Open City (1945)

Paisan (1946)

Germany Year Zero (1948)

Stromboli (1950)

The Greatest Love (1952)

Voyage to Italy (1953)

General della Rovere (1959)

The Rise of Louis XIV (1966)

Martin Scorsese

Mean Streets (1973)

Taxi Driver (1976)

New York, New York (1977)

Raging Bull (1980)

After Hours (1985)

The Colour of Money (1986)

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

The Age of Innocence (1993)

The Departed (2006)

Shutter Island (2010)

Ousmane Sembene

God of Thunder (1971)

The Camp of Thiaroye (1989)

Moolaade (2004)

Douglas Sirk

Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952)

Take Me to Town (1953)

All I Desire (1953)

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Written on the Wind (1956)

The Tarnished Angels (1957)

Imitation of Life (1959)

Steven Spielberg

Jaws (1975)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Schindler’s List (1993)

Munich (2005)

Indiana Jones (2008)

Josef von Sternberg

Morocco (1930)

Dishonored (1931)

Shanghai Express (1932)

Blonde Venus (1932)

The Scarlet Express (1934)

The Devil is a Woman (1935)

The Saga of Anatahan (1953)

Erich von Sternheim

Blind Husbands (1919)

Foolish Wives (1922)

Greed (1924)

The Merry Widow (1925)

The Wedding March (1928)

Queen Kelly (1929)

Preston Sturges

The Lady Eve (1941)

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

The Palm Beach Story (1942)

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944)

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)

Andrei Tarkovsky

Ivan’s Childhood (1962)

Andrei Rublev (1966)

The Mirror (1975)

Stalker (1979)

The Sacrifice (1986)

Jacques Tati

Jour de fete (1949)

Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953)

Mon Oncle (1958)

Playtime (1967)

Lars von Trier

Epidemic (1987)

Europa (1991)

Breaking the Waves (1996)

The Idiots (1998)

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

Dogville (2003)

Antichrist (2009)

François Truffaut

The 400 Blows (1959)

Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

The Bride Wore Black (1968)

The Wild Child (1970)

Bed & Board (1970)

Day for Night (1973)

The Green Room (1978)

Agnes Varda

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)

Happiness (1965)

One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977)

Vagabond (1985)

Jacquot da Nantes (1991)

The Gleaners & I (2000)

Les plagues d’Agnes (2008)

King Vidor

The Big Parade (1925)

The Crowd (1928)

Hallelujah! (1929)

The Champ (1931)

Our Daily Bread (1934)

Duel in the Sun (1946)

The Fountainhead (1949)

War and Peace (1956)

Jean Vigo

A Propos de Nice (1930)

Zero for Conduct (1933)

Luchino Visconti

Ossessione (1942)

La Terra Trema (1948)

Rocco and his Brothers (1960)

Death in Venice (1971)

Andrzej Wajda

A Generation (1954)

Canal (1957)

Ashes and Diamonds (1958)

Innocent Sorcerers (1960)

Siberian Lady Macbeth (1961)

Landscape After Battle (1970)

Man of Iron (1981)

Danton (1983)

Katyn (2007)

Tatarak (2009)

Orson Welles

Citizen Kane (1941)

The Magnificent Ambesons (1942)

The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Macbeth (1948)

Othello (1952)

Confidential Report (1955)

Chimes at Midnight (1965)

William Wellman

Wings (1927)

Wild Boys of the Road (1933)

The Call of the Wind (1935)

Nothing Sacred (1937)

Beau Geste (1939)

Roxie Hart (1942)

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

The Story of G.I. Joe (1945)

The High and the Mighty (1954)

Wim Wenders

Alice in the Cities (1973)

The American Friend (1977)

Paris, Texas (1984)

Wings of Desire (1987)

Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

Don’t Come Knocking (2005)

James Whale

Frankenstein (1931)

The Old Dark Horse (1932)

The Invisible Man (1933)

Show Boat (1936)

Billy Wilder

The Major and the Minor

The Lost Weekend (1945)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Ace in the Hole (1951)

Stalag 17 (1953)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

The Apartment (1960)

One, Two, Three (1961)

Wong Kar Wai

Ashes of Time (1994)

Chungking Express (1994)

Fallen Angels (1995)

Happy Together (1997)

In the Mood for Love (2000)

2046 (2004)

My Blueberry Nights (2007)

William Wyler

The Little Foxes (1941)

Mrs. Miniver (1942)

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Roman Holiday (1953)

Friendly Persuasion (1956)

The Big Country (1958)

Funny Girl (1968)

4. TOP 100 MOVIES

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)

All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930)

King Kong (Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933)

A Star is Born (William A. Wellman, 1937)

Olympia (Lena Reifenstahl, 1938)

The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)

Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)

Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius, 1949)

Panther Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)

The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960)

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965)

The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)

The Chelsea Girls (Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey, 1966)

Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)

The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978)

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)

Heimat (Edgar Reitz, 1984/1992/2004)

Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)

A Room with a View (James Ivory, 1985)

Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)

Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

[stainedglassgardens]

Favourite films watched in 2019

I arranged them into broad categories – other than that they’re in no particular order. 

Indie

Skate Kitchen (Crystal Moselle, 2018) 6 Balloons (Marja-Lewis Ryan, 2018) The Party’s Just Beginning (Karen Gillan, 2018) Thirteen (Catherine Hardwicke, 2003) Baise-moi (Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi, 2000) Vazante (Daniela Thomas, 2017) Erasing Eden (Beth Dewey, 2016) The Seen and the Unseen (Sekala Niskala, Kamila Andini, 2017) Knock Down Ginger (Cleo Samoles-Little, 2016) The Garden (Sommerhaüser, Sonja Maria Kröner, 2017) Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (Marlina Si Pembunuh dalam Empat Babak, Mouly Surya, 2017) Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009) Soldiers. Story From Ferentari (Soldații. Poveste din Ferentari, Ivana Mladenović, 2017)

Comedy

Dick (Andrew Fleming, 1999) The Breaker Upperers (Madeleine Sami and Jackie Van Beek, 2018) It Stains the Sands Red (Colin Minihan, 2016) Satanic Panic (Chelsea Stardust, 2019)

Classics

Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1970) House of Wax (Andre DeToth, 1953) Eve's Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997) Germany Pale Mother (Deutschland bleiche Mutter, Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1980)

Horror

April and the Devil (Jake Hammond, 2018) Blackwood (Andrew Montague, 2019) The Crescent (Seth A Smith, 2017) Us (Jordan Peele, 2019) American Mary (Jen and Sylvia Soska, 2012) Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019) Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974) The Devil's Passenger (Dave Bundtzen, 2018)

Science fiction

Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983) Evolution (Lucile Hadžihalilović, 2015) In Full Bloom (Maegan Houang, 2019)

Action

Destroyer (Karyn Kusama, 2018) Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell, 2018) Snatch (Guy Ritchie, 2000) Holiday (Isabella Eklöf, 2018)

Documentary

Our Daily Bread (Unser täglich Brot, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, 2005) Abducted in Plain Sight (Skye Borgman, 2017) Jane Fonda in Five Acts (Susan Lacy, 2018) Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012) The Decline of Western Civilization series (Penelope Spheeris, 1981, 1988 and 1998)

Full list of 273 films watched in 2018 under the cut!

January

Like Father  (Lauren Miller Rogen, 2018)

Upgrade  (Leigh Whannell, 2018)

Skate Kitchen (Crystal Moselle, 2018)

Never Been Kissed (Raja Gosnell, 1999)

Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, 2015)

Dick (Andrew Fleming, 1999)

The Black Balloon  (Elissa Down, 2008)

Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell, 2018)

6 Balloons (Marja-Lewis Ryan, 2018)

Rosy (Jess Bond, 2018)

The Party’s Just Beginning (Karen Gillan, 2018)

The Rider (Chloé Zhao, 2017)

Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013)

Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

Thirteen (Catherine Hardwicke, 2003)

Sadie (Megan Griffiths, 2018)

The Miseducation of Cameron Post  (Desiree Akhavan, 2018)

Frida (Julie Taymor, 2002)

Fyre: The Greatest Pary That Never Happened (Chris Smith, 2019)

Time Share (Tiempo Compartido, Sebastián Hofmann, 2018)

The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946)

Abducted in Plain Sight (Skye Borgman, 2017)

King of Thieves (James Marsh, 2018)

Malevolent (Olaf de Fleur, 2018)

Serena (Susanne Bier, 2014)

Baise-moi (Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi, 2000)

And Breathe Normally (Andið Eðlilega, Ísold Uggadóttir, 2018)

Catwalk: Tales from the Cat Show Circuit  (Aaron Hancox and Michael McNamara, 2018)

Santoalla (Andrew Becker and Daniel Mehrer, 2016)

Jane Fonda in Five Acts (Susan Lacy, 2018)

Mademoiselle Paradis (Licht, Barbara Albert, 2017)

The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography (Errol Morris, 2016)

February

Matangi/Maya/M.I.A (Steve Loveridge, 2018)

Pride & Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005)T

The Brain Hack (Joseph White, 2014)

Vazante (Daniela Thomas, 2017)

Tanglewood (Jordan Prosser, 2016)

Outfall (Suzi Ewing, 2018)

Pigskin (Jake Hammond, 2015)

The Funspot (Jake Hammond, 2015)

April and the Devil (Jake Hammond, 2018)

Smithereens (Susan Seidelman, 1982)

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller, 2018)

Bus Stop (Joshua Logan, 1956)

Pink Plastic Flamingos (Colin West, 2017)

The Breaker Upperers (Madeleine Sami and Jackie Van Beek, 2018)

Amanda Knox  (Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn, 2016)

Holy Hell (Will Allen, 2016)

Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018)

Skin (Jordana Spiro, 2015)

A Night at the Garden (Marshall Curry, 2017)

Give Up the Ghost (Nathan Sam Long, 2018)

Last One Screaming (Matt Devino, 2017)

The Katy Universe (Patrick Muhlberger, 2018)

Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018)

Did You Hear About the Morgans? (Marc Lawrence, 2009)

End Game (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, 2018)

Behind the Curve  (Daniel J. Clark, 2018)

Our Daily Bread (Unser täglich Brot, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, 2005)

92MARS  (Ricardo Bernardini, 2018)

Construct (Kevin Margo, 2018)

Invaders (Daniel Prince, 2018)

March

Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle, 2018)

Dirty John: The Dirty Truth (Sara Mast, 2019)

Blackwood (Andrew Montague, 2019)

One (Luke Bradford, 2019)

God's Kingdom (Guy Soulsby, 2018)

Holiday (Isabella Eklöf, 2018)

Frigid (Joe Kicak, 2016)

Girl of the Sky (Ariel Martin, 2017)

Monitor (Matt Black and Ryan Polly, 2018)

Donoma (Evan Spencer Brace, 2018)

Perfect Blue (パーフェクトブル, Pāfekuto Burū, Satoshi Kon, 1997)

The Sermon (Dean Puckett, 2018)

Layer Cake (Matthew Vaughn, 2004)

Easy A (Will Gluck, 2010)

Generation Wealth (Lauren Greenfield, 2018)

The Rachel Divide (Laura Brownson, 2018)

The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance, 2012)

Burden (Timothy Marrinan and Richard Dewey, 2016)

What Will People Say (Hva vil folk si, Iram Haq, 2017)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (Kurt Kuenne, 2008)

Animal (Fabrice Le Nézet and Jules Janaud, 2017)

Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Karecki, 2003)

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (Errol Morris, 2003)

April

Erasing Eden (Beth Dewey, 2016)

Destroyer (Karyn Kusama, 2018)

Unicorn Store (Brie Larson, 2019)

May the Devil Take You (Sebelum iblis menjemput, Timo Tjahjanto, 2018)

People in Cars (Daniel Lundh, 2017)

Presentation (Danielle Kampf, 2017)

Ink (Jamin Winans, 2009)

Hedgehog (Lindsey Copeland, 2016)

Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)

Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1970)

The Silence (John R. Leonetti, 2019)

24 Davids (Céline Baril, 2017)

The Frame (Jamin Winans, 2014)

The Talented Mr. Ripley (Anthony Minghella, 1999)

Baraka (Ron Fricke, 1992)

Wayne’s World (Penelope Spheeris, 1992)

Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012)

Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983)

Jesse’s Girl (M. Keegan Uhl, 2018)

I Walked With a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)

Mary Goes Round (Molly McGlynn, 2017)

The Green Fog (Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson, 2017)

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Someone Great (Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, 2019)

May

Ekaj (Cati Gonzalez, 2015)

Capernaum (Nadine Labaki, 2018)

Porcupine Lake (Ingrid Veninger, 2017)

The Decline of Western Civilization (Penelope Spheeris, 1981)

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (Penelope Spheeris, 1988)

The Decline of Western Civilization III (Penelope Spheeris, 1998)

Revolver (Guy Ritchie, 2005)

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (Rob Letterman, 2019)

RocknRolla (Guy Ritchie, 2008)

Snatch (Guy Ritchie, 2000)

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998)

The Seen and the Unseen (Sekala Niskala, Kamila Andini, 2017)

Nkosi Coiffure (Frederike Migom, 2015)

Speak Your Truth (Kris Erickson, 2018)

Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, 2010)

A.I. Rising (Lazar Bodrosa, 2018)

The Crescent (Seth A Smith, 2017)

Ring (リング, Ringu, Hideo Nakata, 1998)

Absences (Carole Laganière, 2013)

The Uninvited (Lewis Allen, 1944)

In Color (José Andrés Cardona, 2019)

Winners (Dan Bulla, 2018)

Jess (Daniel Hurwitz, 2018)

My First Time (Asaf Livni, 2018)

Murmur (Aurora Fearnley, 2018)

Pulsar (Aurora Fearnley, 2017)

Struck (Aurora Fearnley, 2017)

Samira (Lainey Richardson, 2018)

Despite Everything (A pesar de todo, Gabriela Tagliavini, 2019)

It Stains the Sands Red (Colin Minihan, 2016)

Satain Said Dance (Szatan kazał tańczyć, Katarzyna Rosłaniec, 2016)

Knock Down Ginger (Cleo Samoles-Little, 2016)

Gold (Cleo Samoles-Little, 2015)

Jane's Life (Cleo Samoles-Little, 2012)

4/4 (Kyle Sawyer, 2016)

Sugar Land (Lorenzo Lanzillotti, 2018)

The Idea of North (Albert Choi, 2018)

A Quiet Place (John Krasinski, 2018)

Dark Water (仄暗い水の底から, Honogurai Mizu no soko kara, Hideo Nakata, 2002)

Sound of My Voice (Zal Batmanglij, 2011)

Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)

The Perfection (Richard Shepard, 2018)

House of Wax (Andre DeToth, 1953)

June

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Stacie Passon, 2018)

Always Be My Maybe (Nahnatchka Khan, 2019)

Gente que viene y bah (Patricia Font, 2019)

Period. End of Sentence. (Rayka Zehtabchi, 2018)

American Mary (Jen and Sylvia Soska, 2012)

The Boss (Ben Falcone, 2016)

Extremis (Dan Krauss, 2016)

E il cibo va (Food on the Go, Mercedes Cordova, 2017)

Last Night (Massy Tadjedin, 2010)

Murder Mystery (Kyle Newacheck, 2019)

Bead Game (Ishu Patel, 1977)

The Ceiling (Katto, Teppo Airaksinen, 2017)

Elisa & Marcela (Elisa y Marcela, Isabel Coixet, 2019)

Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (Marlina Si Pembunuh dalam Empat Babak, Mouly Surya, 2017)

The Garden (Sommerhaüser, Sonja Maria Kröner, 2017)

Fast Color (Julia Hart, 2018)

The Tale of Iya (Iya Monogatari: Oku no Hito, Tetsuichiro Tsuta, 2013)

Chico and Rita (Chico y Rita, Tono Errando, Fernando Trueba and Javier

Mariscal, 2010)

Rafiki (Wanuri Kahiu, 2018)

Floating! (Das Floß!, Julia C. Kaiser, 2015)

The Quiet American (Phillip Noyce, 2002)

July

Keepers of the Magic (Vic Sarin, 2016)

Evolution (Lucile Hadžihalilović, 2015)

Mr. Holmes (Bill Condon, 2015)

The Long Dumb Road (Hannah Fidell, 2018)

Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016)

Life Overtakes Me (John Haptas and Kristine Samuelson, 2019)

The Milk System (Andreas Pilcher, 2017)

A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)

The Texture of Falling (Maria Allred, 2019)

Family (Laura Steinel, 2018)

Sudden Fear (David Miller, 1952)

Identity Thief (Seth Gordon, 2013)

August

Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991)

In Full Bloom (Maegan Houang, 2019)

Blue Steel (Kathryn Bigelow, 1990)

The Eagles are a Country Music Band (Cody Wagner, 2018)

The Fifth Element (Luc Besson, 1997)

Hobbs & Shaw (David Leitch, 2019)

Coco (Lee Unkrich, 2017)

Bubba Ho-Tep (Don Coscarelli, 2002)

John Wick (Chad Stahelski, 2014)

Eve's Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997)

I Don’t Protest, I Just Dance In My Shadow (Jessica Ashman, 2017)

My Cousin Rachel (Henry Koster, 1952)

Lifeline (Harry Jackson, 2018)

FOMI (Fear of Missing In) (Norbert Fodor, 2019)

Body at Brighton Rock (Roxanne Benjamin, 2019)

Koreatown (Grant Hyun, 2018)

A Report of Connected Events (Mischa Rozema, 2018)

Sundays (Mischa Rozema, 2015)

A King's Betrayal (David Bornstein, 2014)

Perception (Ilana Rein, 2018)

Germany Pale Mother (Deutschland bleiche Mutter, Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1980)

Men in Black International (F. Gary Gray, 2019)

Captive State (Rupert Wyatt, 2019)

Little Forest (리틀 포레스트, Liteul Poleseuteu, Yim Soon-rye, 2018)

September

What Keeps You Alive (Colin Minihan, 2018)

Grave Encounters (The Vicious Brothers, 2011)

Terrified (Aterrados, Demián Rugna, 2017)

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)

Helen (Sandra Nettelbeck, 2009)

Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo, 2016)

Out of Blue (Carol Morley, 2018)

Taxi (تاکسی‎, Jafar Panahi, 2015)

Dear Ex (誰先愛上他的, Mag Hsu and Hsu Chih-yen, 2018)

Marguerite (Marianne Farley, 2019)

Birders (Otilia Portillo Padua, 2019)

Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)

Mansfield Park (Patricia Rozema, 1999)

Long Term Delivery (Jake Honig, 2018)

Game (Joy Webster, 2017)

Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)

Foxfire (Annette Haywood-Carter, 1996)

October

Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer, 2009)

Under the Shadow ( زیر سایه, Babak Anvari, 2015)

Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984)

Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)

Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016)

Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)

Rabid (David Cronenberg, 1977)

Rabid (The Soska Sisters, 2019)

In the Shadow of the Moon (Jim Mickle, 2019)

Benny Loves Killing (Ben Woodiwiss, 2018)

The Golem (Yoav & Doron Paz, 2018)

Eli (Ciarán Foy, 2019)

The Adversary (L’Adversaire, Nicole Garcia, 2002)

Satanic Panic (Chelsea Stardust, 2019)

The Devil and Father Amorth (William Friedkin, 2017)

Wounds (Babak Anvari, 2019)

Silent Hill (Christophe Gans, 2006)

Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh, 2011)

Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)

The Shift (Francesco Calabrese, 2014)

The Baby (Kamran Chahkar, Lei Jim, 2012)

Intrusion (Jack Michel, 2013)

The Devil's Passenger (Dave Bundtzen, 2018)

Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)

November

A Hijacking (Kapringen, Tobias Lindholm, 2012)

The Kitchen (Andrea Berloff, 2019)

The Hole in the Ground (Lee Cronin, 2019)

Assassination Nation (Sam Levinson, 2018)

Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015)

Tell Me Who I Am (Ed Perkins, 2019)

Possessed (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947)

Terminally Happy (Adina Istrate, 2015)

The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler, 1942)

LuTo (Katina Medina Mora, 2015)

The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)

Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator (Eva Orner, 2019)

December

Soldiers. Story From Ferentari (Soldații. Poveste din Ferentari, Ivana Mladenović, 2017)

John and Michael (John et Michael, Shira Avni, 2004)

High Tension (Haute Tension, Alexandre Aja, 2003)

Little Joe (Jessica Hausner, 2019)

The Matrix (The Wachowskis, 1999)

Finders Keepers (Bryan Carberry and Clay Tweel, 2015)

To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955)

My Buddha is Punk (Andreas Hartmann, 2016)

Little Miss Sumo (Matt Kay, 2018)

[1albumaday]

2019

2019

Deerhunter - Why hasn’t everything already disappeared Quelle Chris - Guns James Blake - Assume Form Panda Bear - Buoys Self Esteem - Compliments please PUP - Morbid Stuff Pixvae - Cali Fat White Family - Serfs up! The comet is coming - Trust in the lifeforce of the deep mystery Malihini - Hopefully, again Great Dad - Great Dad Public Body - EP Public Body Chris Cohen - Chris Cohen Miley Cyrus - She is coming Karen O - Lux Prima The Mauskovic Dance Band - The Mauskovic Dance Band Potsu - Ivy League Bill Callahan - Shepherd in a sheepskin vest Why?- AOKOHIO Metronomy - Metronomy Forever Cashmere Cat - Princess Catgirl Drake - Care Package Kanye West - JESUS IS KING Clark - Kiri Variations Benjamin Francis Leftwich - Elephant Shamir - Be the yee, here comes the haw Skinny Pelembe - Dreaming is dead now Cate Le Bone - Reward Vagabon - Vagabon SAULT - 7 SAULT - 5 Toro y Moi - Outer Space Tyler, the creator - IGOR FKA Twigs - MAGDALENE Pleasure System - Terraform Charlotte Adigéry - Zandoli 2018 SOPHIE - Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides Hen Ogledd - Mogic BC Camplight - Deportation Blues Shamir - Resolution Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want IDLES - Joy As An Act Of Resistance Wei Zhongle - The Operators Elza Soares - Deus É Mulher JID - DiCaprio 2 Christian Fitness - Nuance - The Musical Devi McCallion & Katie Dey - Some New Form Of Life Palm - Rock Island Pusha T - DAYTONA Lithics - Mating Surfaces Paul Williams - Surf Music serpentwithfeet - soil quest?onmarc - ? : ID Noname - Room 25 Jean Grae & Quelle Chris - Everything's Fine The Beths - Future me hates me Teleman - Family of Aliens U.S. Girls - In A Poem Unlimited LUMP - LUMP BUSDRIVER - Electricity Is On Our Side Heather Leigh - Throne Guerrilla Toss - Twisted Crystal Vessel - Queen of Golden Dogs Amen Dunes - Freedom Baxter Dury, Etienne de Crécy, Delilah Holliday - B.E.D Insecure Men - Insecure Men Soccer Mommy - Clean Kamaal Williams - The Return SUPERTEEN - Over Everything LICE - It All Worked out Great, Vol 1 & 2 Material Girls - Leather Ask Carol - Ask Carol The Mauskovic Dance Band - Down in the basement Potsu - Just Friends A L E X - Hollow Moon Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Heart CD1 + CD2 Gruff Rhys - Babelsberg Gwenno - Le Kov Aisha Devi - DNA Feelings Channel Tres - Black Moses Holly Herndon - Proto Rezzett- Rezzett The Ophelias - Almost Pan Amsterdam, thatmanmonkz - The Pocket Watch Oh papa - Papa Les Loners - Be Happy Against all logic -  2012 - 2017 2017 Curtis Harding - Face your fear Protomartyr - Relatives In Descent JFDR - Brazil Soccer Mommy - Collection Alessandro cortini - avanti Miley Cyrus - Younger now Beach House - B-Sides and Rarities Silvia Kastel - Air Lows Why? - Moh Lhean Mildlife - Phase 2016 Kevin Abstract - American Boyfriend: A suburban love story Ela & PomPom - My New Music Elizabeta Lāce - Songs About D Elizabete Balčus - Conarium The comet is coming - Channel the Spirits Duchess Says - Sciences Nouvelles Nina Ryser - I Hope All Of Your Dreams Come True SUPERTEEN - Isn’t A Person Bestial Mouths- Heartless The Sooper Swag Project - Badd Timing Rozi Plain - Friend of a friend Khompa - The Shape Of Drums To Come Subrosa - For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages Comfort food - Waffle Frolic LICE - Nulmilk: The Basement Demo Skinny girl diet - Heavy Flow The Octopus Project - Memory Mirror Porridge Radio - Rise, Pasta and other fillers Big thief  - Masterpiece Injury Reserve - Floss DRAM - Big Baby DRAM Miike Snow - iii Will wood and the tapeworms - Self-ish Opposite sex - Hamlet David Bowie - Blackstar Orkesta mendoza - !Vamos a Guarachar! No genre  - Don’t call it a Christmas album The avalanches - Wildflower Sleigh Bells - Jessical Rabbit TEEN - Love Yes Beyonce - Lemonade Olga Bell - Tempo Clipping - Splendor & Misery Show me the body - Body War Elza Soares - A mulher do fim do mundo Esperanza Spalding - Emily’s D+Evolution Nico Muhly & Teitur - Confessions Claire Cronin - Came Down a Storm Horse Jumper Of Love - Horse Jumper Of Love NAILS - You Will Never Be One Of Us The Cult Of Dom Keller - Goodbye To The Light The Ophelias - Creature Native Magnolian - Famous Men Ukandanz- Awo The I.L.Y’s - Scum With Boundaries Drugdealer - The End Of Comedy Greys - Outer Heaven Saul Williams - MartyrLoserKing CC Mose - Beat Me Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor’s Guide To Earth Montaigne - Glorious Heights So Laid Back Country China - Sin Cristales Lemon Demon - Spirit Phone Mitski - Puberty 2Moor Mother - Fetish Bones Yussef Kamaal - Black Focus Susumu Yokota - Laputan Mr Oizo - All Wet Skeletons -Am I Home? Lee Fields & The Expressions - Special Night Flock of Dimes - If You See Me, Say Yes Lee Hazlewood - 13 Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love! Modern Baseball - Holy Ghosts Oddisse - Alwasta Ryley Walker - Golden Sings That Have Been SungHalf Japanese - Perfect AJ Cornell & Tim Darcy - Too significant to ignore Jaimeo Brown Transcendence - Work Songs Kamaiyah - A Good Night In The Ghetto 2015 BC Camplight - How To Die In The North Kefaya - Radio International Other Lives - Rituals Viegli - Loks paliek vala SUPERTEEN - Stay Creepy Miley Cyrus - Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz EL VY - Return to the Moon Dakha brakha - wnrx The I.L.Y’s - I’ve always been good at true love 2014 Keaton Henson - Romantic Works The dø - Shake Shook Shoken 2013 DARKSIDE - Golden Arrow SUPERTEEN - Exponential Superteen Why? - Golden Tickets 2012 Allah-Las - Allah-las Why? - Mumps, etc Why? - Sod in the Seed 2011 Viegli - Viegli 2010 The Books - The Way Out Johnny Flynn - Been Listening 2009 Peter Doherty - Last of English Roses Bill Callahan - Sometimes I wish we were an eagle Why? - Eskimo Snow 2008 Why? - Alopecia Johnny Flynn - A Larum 2007 BC Camplight - Blink of a Nihilist Subtle - Yell and Ice Akron/Family - Love is simple John Maus - Love is Real 2006 The Forest & The Sea - Leafcutter John Subtle - For Hero: For Fool The Books - Music for a french elevator and other oddities Why? - Rubber Traits 2005 BC Camplight  - Hide, Run Away The Books - Lost and Safe Akron/Family - Akron/Family Why? - Elephant Eyelash Why? - Sanddollars 2004 The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat 2003 Matmos - wide open spaces Hymie’s Basement - Hymie’s Basement The Books - The Lemon of Pink Why? - Oaklandazulasylum Why? - The Early Whitney Parsley Sound - Parsley Sound 2002 Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People The Books - Thought for food 2001 The Avalanches - Since I left you 1998 The Sugarcubes - Life’s too good 1997 The Sea And Cake- The Fawn Stereolab - Dots and Loops 1996 Squarepusher - Feed Me Weird Things 1984 Art of Noise - Who’s afraid of the art of noise? 1981 This Heat - Deceit 1977 Fleetwood Mac - Rumors 1973 Perigeo - abbiamo tutti un blues da piangere 1971 Jethro Tull - Aqualung

[lucyreviewcy]

Cats (2019) Dir. Tom Hooper

The musical Cats. Except this time it’s a movie. 

I haven’t read any of the reviews for Cats because I wanted to come to it completely fresh. Ever since its announcement, I have been harried by the fear that my love of both Taylor Swift and actual real-life cats would cause my friends and acquaintances to assume I would be anticipating its release with anything other than dread. Let me put any of those assumptions to rest by saying that I did not want to see this movie, and it was morbid curiosity that drew me to a screening. 

The first fascinating thing about Cats is that the screening I was in was the busiest I have seen a cinema (for a non-Star Wars title) for years. This was unexpected, I was fully prepared to view Cats in an empty screen, and instead I was surrounded with fellow viewers, some of whom even applauded at the end. 

 I struggled to pick up on any of the lyrics to the songs, the way that they scan (or rather don’t scan) with Lloyd Webber’s aggressively 80s musical accompaniment makes it difficult to follow the actual words. It is clear nothing has been learned from The Phantom of the Opera film adaptation, no lessons about maybe updating the music so there’s less synth and more actual instruments, so that the music sounds like something from 2019 instead of something from 1981. 

Dance, rather than music is at the heart of Cats. On Radio 2′s First Cast programme (well worth a listen if you like Brian Blessed), Cats is defined as “Britain’s first dance musical.” Much of the fairly simple story is told through imagery and through dance. I was introduced to Cats on VHS when I was very small, and I would imagine that those who are very small are those most likely to enjoy the movie. Or at least I did until a small boy a few rows back began voicing his criticisms, loudly, about five minutes in. 

During Victoria’s (Francesca Hayward) first Ballet solo, the small boy queried “What’s wrong with her?” This is a question that was probably not answered through the film. 

The essential issue with Cats as a film is that dance is the key selling point. When dance is performed live, it is exciting. There is a thrill to seeing people perform incredible physical feats in front of a live audience. One of my favourite things to do when I visit the Edinburgh Fringe is to go and see circus shows, because there is nothing more thrilling than watching somebody do something that seems impossible right there in front of you. Breathing the same air as you. Within reach. I can see the appeal of Cats as a live show, because it requires incredibly skilled dancers and (considering the uncomfortable scansion of the music and lyrics) singers, to be performed successfully.

However, the movie has misunderstood this appeal. Despite casting some incredible dancers and performers, this is combined with CGI that is, at its worst, about as good as The Phantom Menace and, at its best, a bit better than The Phantom Menace. There is so much CGI, so much unnecessary digital fur, that the performers don’t just look like they’re not quite human, but they look like they’re not quite there. This results in performers who may as well have been completely animated, Taylor Swift’s Bombalurina looks about as realistic and present as Frozen 2′s Queen Elsa. When I initially saw the trailer for Cats, I remember wondering why it felt OK for live actors to be dressed as cats on stage, but not at all OK for actors on film to be covered in CGI fur. Swift’s digitally-enhanced furry embonpoint was a particularly upsetting feature. When the audience is presented with an actor in a leotard, dressed as a cat, I suspend my disbelief and accept that this is a person representing a cat. It is obviously not a cat. It is a person. But they are pretending, and I accept the pretense. When they are rendered in Jar Jar Binks brand CGI, it feels like we are watching a horrifying creature which is, as the small, incredulous boy two rows back remarked “Half cat half person.” 

The dance is diminished by the CGI, because these don’t look like incredible human feats. These look like video game characters. Or Legolas in that bit of Lord of the Rings where he’s on top of the Oliphant and he goes all bendy. The impressive human achievement of dance is lost. 

It might have been a more enjoyable watch if any of the performers were having a nice time, but they don’t appear to be. James Corden plays James Corden, while Rebel Wilson looks almost disappointed in herself as she is left to pratt-fall about the set in a way that somehow invites not one single laugh. 

There was no way that Cats was going to work in 2019. It may have been one of the longest running musicals of all time, closing after 21 years on the West End and 18 years on Broadway, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it did close. It closed. The audiences ran out. It ended. There weren’t enough people that wanted to see Cats to keep it going beyond 2002. For me, Cats doesn’t resonate with anything, it doesn’t mean anything. I have a cat, I love her. She is an idiot and she likes to kill shrews. I don’t look at her as a metaphor for anything spiritual, emotional or political. She’s a cat. She’s cute and furry. She’s warm. This Christmas she threw up on my bed. I love her, but she’s not got a lot going on. One could argue that Cats is escapism, like the Marvel movies, but the Marvel movies have characters you can relate to in them. I can’t relate to these weird cat-human-gungan hybrids.

You are well within your rights to enjoy Cats - although I defy anyone to see Idris Elba’s Macavity sans coat without feeling a little bit unwell. Those members of the audience who applauded in the screening I was in are very welcome to Cats. Please, take it away. Enjoy it! Just... don’t make me watch it again. 

[chrissi2810]

The Reunion: CATS - The Musical

BBC Radio 4, 15 September 2019, 11:15 a.m. Sue MacGregor reunites cast and crew from the original stage version of the musical Cats. Cats had its premiere in London’s West End on the 11th May 1981. The musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber was based on a 1939 collection of poetry by TS Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, and featured an array of characterful felines. The poet had famously turned down Walt Disney because he didn’t want his poetic creations to be made cute. Lloyd Webber convinced his widow to agree to the stage adaption on the basis that he saw them more like performers in the raunchy dance group Hot Gossip. But the musical had a difficult birth with critics doubting the choice of subject matter, trouble raising money, disagreements over song lyrics, a problematic re-design of the New London Theatre, and a series of freak injuries to one of its stars, Judi Dench. She was forced to pull out just days before opening night, allowing Elaine Paige to perform the central role of Grizabella the Glamour Cat, and the hit song Memory. The show went on to have an unbroken run of almost 9,000 performances until its closure exactly 21 years to the day later, in 2002. Joining Sue MacGregor are Cats' director Trevor Nunn and stage designer John Napier, as well as  Elaine Paige, Wayne Sleep (Mr. Mistoffelees), Bonnie Langford (Rumpleteazer) and Paul Nicholas (Rum Tum Tugger). Producer: Howard Shannon Series Producer: David Prest A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

[themagicoolcat]

my badges came early!!!

they’re from 1981 and we’re sold at the london palladium production and i’m super happy that i know own some cats merch outside of a cd! :D

[fictionz]

New Fiction 2018

Previously: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013

The year started with Friends after watching too much of it during my December 2017 holiday. It ended with The King’s Speech on New Year’s Eve. I began the year with MoviePass and ended it with AMC Stubs A-List, ensuring I had my fill of the latest movies in theaters. I sold my car some months ago and the journey to the movie theater took on greater meaning in the last couple of months.

A lot of the reading on here came from my American Literature II class in which we studied twentieth century literature. Most, but not all. Some was just random nibbles on the train when I wasn’t consumed with my new-found fascination with podcasts. I include the Selected Shorts podcast to reduce the guilt of engaging in so much non-fiction.

Kwaidan was the most interesting, I think, if I have to pick one. It just feels like a daring creation of its time and place, with each horror story more compelling than the last. My interest in horror from 2017 appears to have legs and I hope to continue seeking out good, interesting horror stories.

I think I’ll do this monthly in 2019. It’ll give me a chance to reflect in short bursts instead of attempting to comprehend a year’s worth of fiction.

Short Stories

"In the American Society" by Gish Jen (1987) 

"Claire's Lover's Church by Teri Ruch (1984)

"Where We Are Now" by Ethan Canin (1986)

"The Incorrect Hour" by Debra Spark (1986)

"Conviction" by Tama Janowitz (1986)

"Sparks" by Susan Minot (1987)

"Last Night" by Dennis McFarland (1984)

"In Christ There Is No East or West" by Kent Nussey (1986)

"The Things That Would Never Be Mine" by Michelle Carter (1987)

"Jillie" by Ehud Havazelet (1985)

"Hands" by Gregory Blake Smith (1983)

"Cuisinart" by Fred Leebron (1986)

"The River" by Tori Cárdenas (2018)

"View from Kwaj" by Patricia MacInnes (1985)

"Ten Cents a Dance" by Joseph Ferrandino (1987)

"Three Maids' Children" by Mona Simpson (1987)

"Massé" by Leigh Allison Wilson (1986)

"Flight" by Linda Svendsen (1985)

"Daisy Miller" by Henry James (1894)

"The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain (1865)

"The Soft-hearted Sioux" by Zitkala-Sa (1921)

"The Sculptor's Funeral" by Will Cather (1905)

"Petrified Man" by Eudora Welty (1939)

"Sexy" by Jhumpa Lahiri (1998)

"Lullaby" by Leslie Marmon Silko (1981)

"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" by Flannery O'Connor (1955)

"Medley" by Toni Cade Bambara (1974)

"Gallatin Canyon" by Thomas McGuane (2003)

"Weekend" by Ann Beattie (1976)

"The Balloon" by Donald Barthelme (1966)

"The Most Girl Part of You" by Amy Hempel (1990)

"Sportsman" by Amy Hempel (1997)

"The Dog of the Marriage" by Amy Hempel (2005)

Audio Shorts

"Benefactor" by Greg Ames (2017)

"Dog" by Richard Russo (1996)

"Tobermory" by Saki (1911)

"Take It from Cats" by Helen Ellis (2014)

"Roslyn's Dog" by Arthur Bradford (2002)

"The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" by Henry Slesar (1961)

"Head Over Knees" by Eric Schlich (2016)

"Dornicka and the St. Martin's Day Goose" by Helen Oyeyemi (2016)

"Watkyn, Comma" by Joan Aiken (1990)

"The Suitcase" by Meron Hadero (2015)

"The Bridge" by Daniel O'Malley (2017)

"The Great Silence" by Ted Chiang (2016)

"Breadman" by J. Robert Lennon (2015)

"Yancey” by Ann Beattie (2015)

"The Mappist” by Barry Lopez (2000)

"The Orange" by Benjamin Rosenbaum (2001)

"The Man, The Restaurant, and the Eiffel Tower" by Ben Loory (2017)

"I, Gentile" by David Gordon (2014)

Novels

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (2006)

Plays

Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill (1956)

Comic Single Issues

"Futurama Comics #57" by Jesse McCann, John Delaney, Andrew Pepoy, Robert Stanley, Karen Bates, Bill Morrison (2011)

"Strangers in Paradise XXV" by Terry Moore (2018)

"Gary: Book One" by Tyrell Cannon (2010)

Graphic Novels/Trades

Megahex by Simon Hanselmann (2014)

Blacksad by Juan Díaz Canales, Juanjo Guarnido (2010)

Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw (2008)

Video Games

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy by Naughty Dog (2017)

Star Wars Battlefront II by EA DICE (2017)

Catherine by Atlus (2011)

SPACEPLAN by Jake Hollands (2017)

Monument Valley by Ustwo Games (2014)

Mega Man by Capcom (1987)

Plug & Play by Playables (2015)

Mega Man 3 by Capcom (1990)

Mega Man 4 by Capcom (1991)

Super Mario Bros. by Nintendo Creative Department (1985)

Super Mario Bros. 2 by Nintendo R&D4 (1988)

Spider-Man by Insomniac Games (2018)

Little Nightmares by Tarsier Studios (2017)

Red Dead Redemption 2 by Rockstar Studios (2018)

Minit by JW, Kitty, Jukio, and Dom (2018)

Shorts

"About face" dir. Graham Annable (2017)

"Dekalb Elementary" dir. Reed Van Dyk (2017)

"My Nephew Emmett" dir. Kevin Wilson Jr. (2017)

"The Eleven O'Clock" dir. Derin Seale (2016)

"The Silent Child" dir. Chris Overton (2017)

"Watu Wote" dir. Katja Benrath (2017)

"Garden Party" dir. Théophile Dufresne, Florian Babikian, Gabriel Grapperon, Lucas Navarro, Vincent Bayoux, Victor Claire (2016)

"Negative Space" dir. Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata (2017)

"Revolting Rhymes" dir. Jakob Schuh, Jan Lachauer (2017)

"Achoo" dir. Elise Carret, Camille Lacroix, Charlotte Perroux, Lucas Boutrot, Maoris Creantor, Pierre Hubert (2017)

"Lost Property Office" dir. Daniel Agdag (2017)

"Weeds" dir. Kevin Hudson (2017)

"Maybellene" dir. Graham Annable (2018)

"Out of Water" dir. Simon Duong-Van-Hyuen, Joël Durand, Thibault Leclercq, Valentin Lucas, Andrei Sitari (2018)

"Chapped Lips" dir. Kelsi Phụng, Fabien Corre (2018)

"Breathless" dir. Pierre-Marie Adnet, Jean-Luc Dessertaine, Guillaume Pochez, Tristan Poulain, Vincent Rouzière, Alessandro Vergonnier (2018)

"The Tree" dir. Han Yang, Basil Malek (2018)

"I'm waiting for the night" dir. Arthur Chaumay (2018)

"Ostrich Politic" dir.  Houhou (2018)

"Lorenzo" dir. Mike Gabriel (2004)

"The Little Matchgirl" dir. Roger Allers (2006)

"How to Hook Up Your Home Theater" dir. Kevin Deters, Stevie Wermers (2007)

Movies

The Iceman dir. Ariel Vromen (2013)

Bright dir. David Ayer (2017)

The Whole Nine Yards dir. Jonathan Lynn (2000)

Trading Places dir. John Landis (1983)

Hostiles dir. Scott Cooper (2017)

Black Panther dir. Ryan Coogler (2018)

Phantom Thread dir. Paul Thomas Anderson (2017)

Lady Bird dir. Greta Gerwig (2017)

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri dir. Martin McDonagh (2017)

Long Day's Journey Into Night dir. Sidney Lumet (1962)

Darkest Hour dir. Joe Wright (2017)

Call Me By Your Name dir. Luca Guadagnino (2017)

The Post dir. Steven Spielberg (2017)

Annihilation dir. Alex Garland (2018)

A Wrinkle in Time dir. Ava DuVernay (2018)

Beloved dir. Jonathan Demme (1998)

Pacific Rim: Uprising dir. Steven S. DeKnight (2018)

A Quiet Place dir. John Krasinski (2018)

Game Night dir. John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein (2018)

Beirut dir. Brad Anderson (2018)

The Brothers Grimm dir. Terry Gilliam (2005)

Isle of Dogs dir. Wes Anderson (2018)

Rampage dir. Brad Peyton (2018)

Avengers: Infinity War dir. Anthony Russo, Joe Russo (2018)

Ready Player One dir. Steven Spielberg (2018)

Kung Fu Yoga dir. Stanley Tong (2017)

Blockers dir. Kay Cannon (2018)

I Feel Pretty dir. Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein (2018)

Overboard dir. Rob Greenberg (2018)

Deadpool 2 dir. David Leitch (2018)

Life of the Party dir. Ben Falcone (2018)

Solo: A Star Wars Story dir. Ron Howard (2018)

Upgrade dir. Leigh Whannell (2018)

Adrift dir. Baltasar Kormákur (2018)

Hotel Artemis dir. Drew Pearce (2018)

Hereditary dir. Ari Aster (2018)

Ocean's 8 dir. Gary Ross (2018)

Wanted dir. Timur Bekmambetov (2008)

Lethal Weapon dir. Richard Donner (1987)

Lethal Weapon 2 dir. Richard Donner (1989)

Lethal Weapon 3 dir. Richard Donner (1992)

Lethal Weapon 4 dir. Richard Donner (1998)

Mamma Mia! dir. Phyllida Lloyd (2008)

Cargo dir. Ben Howling, Yolanda Ramke (2017)

Righteous Kill dir. Jon Avnet (2008)

Tag dir. Jeff Tomsic (2018)

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom dir. J. A. Bayona (2018)

Incredibles 2 dir. Brad Bird (2018)

Ant-Man and the Wasp dir. Peyton Reed (2018)

Sicario: Day of the Soldado dir. Stefano Sollima (2018)

Sorry to Bother You dir. Boots Riley (2018)

The Equalizer 2 dir. Antoine Fuqua (2018)

Mission: Impossible 2 dir. John Woo (2000)

Mission: Impossible III dir. J. J. Abrams (2006)

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol dir. Brad Bird (2011)

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation dir. Christopher McQuarrie (2015)

Mission: Impossible - Fallout dir. Christopher McQuarrie (2018)

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation dir. Genndy Tartakovsky (2018)

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again dir. Ol Parker (2018)

The Darkest Minds dir. Jennifer Yuh Nelson (2018)

The Spy Who Dumped Me dir. Susanna Fogel (2018)

BlacKkKlansman dir. Spike Lee (2018)

Alpha dir. Albert Hughes (2018)

The Meg dir. Jon Turteltaub (2018)

Crazy Rich Asians dir. Jon M. Chu (2018)

Constantine dir. Francis Lawrence (2005)

The Predator dir. Shane Black (2018)

The Nun dir. Corin Hardy (2018)

The House With a Clock in Its Walls dir. Eli Roth (2018)

A Simple Favor dir. Paul Feig (2018)

White Boy Rick dir. Yann Demange (2018)

Searching dir. Aneesh Chaganty (2018)

Hell Fest dir. Gregory Plotkin (2018)

Bad Times at the El Royale dir. Drew Goddard (2018)

The Sisters Brothers dir. Jacques Audiard (2018)

Kwaidan dir. Masaki Kobayashi (1965)

Halloween dir. David Gordon Green (2018)

First Man dir. Damien Chazelle (2018)

House dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi (1977)

The Killing of a Sacred Deer dir. Yorgos Lanthimos (2017)

Rumble in the Bronx dir. Stanley Tong (1995)

Eraser dir. Chuck Russell (1996)

The Bad Batch dir. Ana Lily Amirpour (2016)

Wind River dir. Taylor Sheridan (2017)

Hold the Dark dir. Jeremy Saulnier (2018)

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald dir. David Yates (2018)

The Negotiator dir. F. Gary Gray (1998)

Ralph Breaks the Internet dir. Rich Moore, Phil Johnston (2018)

Young Guns dir. Christopher Cain (1988)

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs dir. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen (2018)

Gerald's Game dir. Mike Flanagan (2017)

Widows dir. Steve McQueen (2018)

Green Book dir. Peter Farrelly (2018)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse dir. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman (2018)

Mortal Engines dir. Christian Rivers (2018)

The Fault In Our Stars dir. Josh Boone (2014)

Night at the Museum dir. Shawn Levy (2006)

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle dir. Andy Serkis (2018)

Click dir. Frank Coraci (2006)

Killer Elite dir. Gary McKendry (2011)

Bumblebee dir. Travis Knight (2018)

Aquaman dir. James Wan (2018)

Maleficent dir. Robert Stromberg (2014)

The King's Speech dir. Tom Hooper (2010)

TV Episodes

The Simpsons - "Treehouse of Horror XXIX" (2018)

Bob's Burgers - "Nightmare on Ocean Avenue Street" (2018)

The Simpsons - "Little Orphan Millie" (2007)

The Simpsons - "Homer the Father" (2011)

The Simpsons - "Bart's New Friend" (2015)

The Good Place - "Everything Is Bonzer!" (Part 1) (2018)

The Good Place - "Everything Is Bonzer!" (Part 2) (2018)

TV Series

Friends - Seasons 6-10 (1999-2004)

Stranger Things - Season 2 (2017)

Frasier (1993-2004)

Jessica Jones - Season 2 (2018)

The Twilight Zone - Seasons 1-3 (1959-1962)

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma - Season 1 (2015)

Disenchantment (2018)

Luke Cage - Season 2 (2018)

Iron Fist - Season 2 (2018)

The Walking Dead - Season 8 (2017-2018)

One-Punch Man (2016)

Castlevania (2017-2018)

Better Call Saul - Seasons 2-4 (2016-2018)

Daredevil - Season 3 (2018)

The Good Place - Seasons 1-2 (2016-2018)

[dweemeister]

2017 Movie Odyssey

So ends the 2017 Movie Odyssey. Last year, I wrote that I did not foresee ever surpassing the 200+ movie mark for a long, long time. But look what happened here (outside of May because that was a hectic time in the Master’s program for sure). The 2017 Movie Odyssey consisted of 232 films - 180 feature-length films and fifty-two shorts. A century of filmmaking was covered this year, from 1917 to 2017. If I do have one regret this year... it’s that African films were not featured this year (due to availability issues and me not having enough money; I tend to watch things legally if possible). I hope to assuage that next year for a more representative Movie Odyssey.

For all of you out there who supported the Movie Odyssey in your own ways – whether reading, liking, commenting, or reblogging a write-up or sitting down with me to a new movie or talking to me about any movie... my thanks to all of you. None of this possible without you, and I hope you find that, through this blog, classic movies seem more approachable and welcoming and you are inspired to see some and learn about them yourself. A Happy New Year to all, and I’ll see you for the 2018 leg of the Movie Odyssey very soon (oh boy the Winter Olympics and World Cup are gonna chip away at the final count next year)!

As many know, all ratings are based on my imdb rating and half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here. A 6/10 is considered the borderline between “passing” and “failing”. Feature-length narrative films, short films, and documentaries are rated within their respective spectrums.

JANUARY

1. Marnie (1964) – 6/10 2. The Moon Is Down (1943) – 7/10 3. Sense and Sensibility (1995) – 8.5/10 4. The Big House (1930) – 7.5/10 5. Manchester by the Sea (2016) – 7/10 6. The Far Country (1954) – 7/10 7. Kung Fu Hustle (2004, Hong Kong/China) – 7/10 8. Road to Singapore (1940) – 6/10 9. A Clever Dummy (1917 short) – 5/10 10. Hidden Figures (2016) – 7.5/10 11. Teddy at the Throttle (1917 short) – 7.5/10 12. The Last of the Mohicans (1920) – 7/10 13. Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – 10/10 14. The Red Turtle (2016, France/Belgium/Japan) – 9/10 15. Life, Animated (2016) – 7.5/10 16. In the Mood for Love (2000, Hong Kong) – 10/10

FEBRUARY

17. Lion (2016) – 7/10 18. It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) – 7.5/10 19. Fences (2016) – 8.5/10 20. Shenandoah (1965) – 7/10 21. Caged (1950) – 8/10 22. Pearl (2016 short) – 7.5/10 23. Blind Vaysha (2016 short) – 8/10 24. Asteria (2016 short) – 6/10 25. The Head Vanishes (2016 short) – 6/10 26. Once Upon a Line (2016 short) – 7/10 27. Pear Cider and Cigarettes (2016 short) – 8/10 28. Sing (2016 short, Hungary) – 7.5/10 29. Silent Nights (2016 short, Denmark) – 6/10 30. Timecode (2016 short, Spain) – 7/10 31. Ennemis intérieurs (2016 short, France) – 8.5/10 32. La femme et le TGV (2016 short, Switzerland) – 8/10 33. Joe’s Violin (2016 short) – 7/10 34. Extremis (2016 short) – 8/10 35. 4.1 Miles (2016 short, Greece) – 9/10 36. Nashville (1975) – 7.5/10 37. The Romance of Transportation in Canada (1952 short) – 7/10

MARCH

38. My Life as a Zucchini (2016, Switzerland) – 8/10 39. Lili (1953) – 7/10 40. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) – 6/10 41. Captain Blood (1935) – 9.5/10 42. Logan (2017) – 7/10 43. Friendly Persuasion (1956) – 9/10 44. Ducks and Drakes (1921) – 7/10 45. What Dreams May Come (1998) – 6/10 46. Bright Road (1953) – 6/10 47. Snow Gets in Your Eyes (1938 short) – 5/10 48. Jungle Cat (1959) – 6.5/10 49. The Salesman (2016, Iran) – 8.5/10 50. Good Scouts (1938 short) – 7.5/10 51. All in a Nutshell (1949 short) – 8/10 52. The Hound That Thought He Was a Raccoon (1960) – 7/10 53. Winter Storage (1949 short) – 7/10 54. Out of Scale (1951 short) – 8/10 55. The Incredible Journey (1963) – 7/10 56. Follow Me, Boys! (1966) – 7/10 57. Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar (1967) – 5.5/10 58. Belladonna of Sadness (1973, Japan) – 6/10 59. Ponyo (2008, Japan) – 7/10 60. My Cousin Rachel (1952) – 7.5/10 61. Road to Perdition (2002) – 9/10

APRIL

62. The X from Outer Space (1967, Japan) – 3/10 63. The Blue Gardenia (1953) – 6.5/10 64. Get Out (2017) – 7.5/10 65. Fantastic Planet (1973, France/Czechoslovakia) – 8/10 66. 5 Centimeters Per Second (2007, Japan) – 6/10 67. Your Name (2016, Japan) – 7.5/10 68. The Outlaw and His Wife (1918, Sweden) – 7/10 69. Mail Early (1941 short) – experimental film, score withheld 70. Boogie-Doodle (1948 short) – experimental film, score withheld 71. A Chairy Tale (1957 short) – 9/10 72. Very Nice, Very Nice (1961 short) – experimental film, score withheld 73. Fine Feathers (1968) – 7/10 74. What on Earth! (1967 short) – 8/10 75. Walking (1968 short) – 7/10 76. Notes on a Triangle (1966 short) – experimental film, score withheld 77. The Three Faces of Eve (1957) – 7.5/10 78. Peeping Tom (1960) – 7.5/10 79. Porco Rosso (1992, Japan) – 8/10 80. MacArthur (1977) – 6/10

MAY

81. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) – 4/10 82. Scarlet Street (1945) – 8.5/10 83. Tremors (1990) – 7/10 84. The Crucified Lovers (1954, Japan) – 7.5/10 85. Akeelah and the Bee (2006) – 8/10

JUNE

86. Wonder Woman (2017) – 7/10 87. Pollyanna (1960) – 7.5/10 88. Mickey’s Polo Team (1936 short) – 8/10 89. Tales of Manhattan (1942) – 7/10 90. The Horse with the Flying Tale (1960) – 7/10 91. Sound of the Mountain (1954, Japan) – 9/10 92. Return of the Fly (1959) – 4/10 93. Friday the 13th (1980) – 4/10 94. The Tattooed Police Horse (1964) – 6/10 95. Dr. Jack (1922) – 7/10 96. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) – 7/10 97. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) – 5/10 98. The Great Man (1956) – 8/10 99. Sparrows (1926) – 7.5/10 100. Seven Days to Noon (1950) – 9/10 101. My Neighbor Totoro (1988, Japan) – 8.5/10 102. The Pocket Man (2016 short, France) – 7/10 103. Snack Attack (2012 short) – 7/10 104. You Were Never Lovelier (1942) – 7/10 105. San Francisco (1936) – 7.5/10 106. Eraserhead (1977) – 6.5/10

JULY

107. The Beguiled (2017) – 7/10 108. Summer Magic (1963) – 6/10 109. The Southerner (1945) – 9/10 110. The Statue of Liberty (1985) – 6/10 111. They Live by Night (1948) – 8/10 112. A Little Romance (1979) – 6/10 113. Conflagration (1958, Japan) – 6.5/10 114. The Naughty Twenties (1951 short) – 5/10 115. The Fastest Gun Alive (1956) – 7/10 116. For Your Eyes Only (1981) – 6/10 117. A Man There Was (1917, Sweden) – 9.5/10 118. His Royal Slyness (1920 short) – 6/10 119. Now or Never (1921 short) – 6.5/10 120. Among Those Present (1921 short) – 6/10 121. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) – 7.5/10 122. Independence Day (1996) – 5/10 123. Yoyo (1965, France) – 8/10 124. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) -  6.5/10 125. War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) – 7.5/10 126. The Lady Vanishes (1938) – 10/10 127. Funny Face (1957) – 9/10 128. A Brighter Summer Day (1991, Taiwan) – 9.5/10 129. A Sailor-Made Man (1921) – 6/10 130. Much Ado About Nothing (1993) – 8/10 131. Dunkirk (2017) – 8.5/10 132. Lost Horizon (1937) – 8/10 133. The Man from Snowy River (1982) – 7.5/10 134. A Touch of Zen (1971, Taiwan) – 10/10

AUGUST

135. A Double Life (1947) – 6/10 136. Tokyo Chorus (1931, Japan) – 7/10 137. In a Heartbeat (2017 short) – 7.5/10 138. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) – 4.5/10 139. Twelve O’Clock High (1949) – 9/10 140. The Big Clock (1948) – 7/10 141. Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982) – 8/10 142. Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947, Japan) – 9/10 143. Octopussy (1983) – 6/10 144. West of Zanzibar (1928) – 6/10 145. Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) – 7/10 146. Detroit (2017) – 5.5/10 147. That Funny Feeling (1965) – 6/10 148. Kid Galahad (1962) – 6/10 149. Tokyo Twilight (1957, Japan) – 10/10 150. In This Corner of the World (2016, Japan) – 7/10 151. The Bedford Incident (1965) – 7.5/10 152. Johnny Express (2014 short) – 6/10 153. Carpark (2013 short) – 6/10 154. Castle in the Sky (1986, Japan) – 8/10 155. The Goonies (1985) – 7.5/10 156. State of the Union (1948) – 6/10

SEPTEMBER

157. Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) – 3/10 158. Muscle Beach Party (1964) – 4/10 159. The Nutty Professor (1963) – 7/10 160. Camille (1921) – 6.5/10 161. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972, West Germany) – 8/10 162. Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) – 2/10 163. It (2017) – 7/10 164. Ocean Waves (1993, Japan) – 6/10 165. Monterey Pop (1968) – 8/10 166. Don’t Look Back (1967) – 9/10 167. Tyrus (2015) – 8.5/10

OCTOBER

168. A Star Is Born (1937) – 8/10 169. Swiss Family Robinson (1960) – 6/10 170. Revenge of the Nerds (1984) – 5/10 171. Horton Hears a Who! (2008) – 6/10 172. Freaky Friday (1976) – 6/10 173. The Great Muppet Caper (1981) – 7.5/10 174. Mr. & Mrs. ’55 (1955, India) – 8/10 175. Island of Lost Souls (1932) – 9.5/10 176. The Little Broadcast (1943 short) – 6.5/10 177. Hoola Boola (1941 short) – 6/10 178. The Sleeping Beauty (1935 short) – 7/10 179. Tulips Shall Grow (1942 short) – 8.5/10 180. Charulata (1964, India) – 8/10 181. Together in the Weather (1946 short) – 6/10 182. John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946 short) – 7.5/10 183. Philips Cavalcade (1934 short) – 7/10 184. Jasper in a Jam (1946 short) – 8/10 185. Tubby the Tuba (1947 short) – 9/10 186. The Puppetoon Movie (1987) – 7/10 187. Brides of Dracula (1960) – 7/10 188. Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968) – 7/10 189. Candleshoe (1977) – 6/10 190. Jigoku (1960, Japan) – 5.5/10 191. Blacula (1972) – 6/10 192. Willard (1971) – 4/10 193. Ben (1972) – 4.5/10

NOVEMBER

194. The Coward (1965, India) – 7/10 195. The Happening (2008) – 2/10 196. Tom Thumb (1958) – 6.5/10 197. Strike (1925, Soviet Union) – 7.5/10 198. Loving Vincent (2017) – 7/10 199. Destry Rides Again (1939) – 7.5/10 200. The Master Race (1944) – 6/10 201. Justice League (2017) – 6/10 202. Sissi (1955, Austria) – 7.5/10 203. Sissi: The Young Empress (1956, Austria) – 7/10 204. The Sandlot (1993) – 7/10 205. Olaf’s Frozen Adventure (2017 short) – 4/10 206. Coco (2017) – 8/10 207. Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress (1957, Austria) – 7/10 208. The Florida Project (2017) – 8.5/10 209. The Mortal Storm (1940) – 7/10 210. The Breadwinner (2017) – 8/10 211. Spencer’s Mountain (1963) – 6/10 212. Lady Bird (2017) – 9/10

DECEMBER

213. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) – 8.5/10 214. The Secret Life of Bees (2008) – 7/10 215. Murder on the Orient Express (2017) – 5.5/10 216. So You Think You’re Allergic (1945 short) – 5/10 217. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) – 7.5/10 218. The Shape of Water (2017) – 8.5/10 219. Lonely Are the Brave (1962) – 9.5/10 220. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) – 7/10 221. They Won’t Forget (1937) – 8/10 222. It Came from Outer Space (1953) – 6.5/10 223. Brave Little Tailor (1938 short) – 8/10 224. The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952) – 6/10 225. The Sign of Zorro (1958) – 5/10 226. Kong: Skull Island (2017) – 6.5/10 227. Flipped (2010) – 6/10 228. Bardelys the Magnificent (1926) – 7.5/10 229. There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954) – 7/10 230. Swim Team (2016) – 7/10 231. Toby Tyler (1960) – 5/10 232. The Liberator (2013, Venezuela) – 6/10

All scores are subject to change (upgrades and downgrades) upon a rewatch.

[nadadjordjevich]

Girls Gets Job Loses Boy

Women, work and romance in the movies.

Quick—think of a movie where the male protagonist gets fired at the end of a movie. No, he doesn't die, but at the end, he is left without a job. Sure, there are plenty of films that start that way, but is the crisis resolved with an unemployed man? How about a movie where a man is forced to choose between a woman and a job? You know, a movie in which at the end the man has to choose either to be successful in his career or to be successful with his wife. He can't have it all. Thought of one? Let me know, because I couldn't think of a single Hollywood film in which men face the choices presented to women in most films involving career women today.

Fifty years after one of the most dramatic changes in the economics of the 20th century, the increase in the number and types of women in the workplace, Hollywood is still ambivalent and culturally unready to let go of old myths. According to recent census statistics, in close to 80 percent of all marriages both the husband and the wife work, and in just over 40 percent the wife makes about the same as or more than the man. Yet in most films of the past thirty years, women seem unable to hold onto both their careers and their men. Today's mainstream movies don't involve present-day choices, but throwback fantasies, when women had to choose between economic power and relationships.

If you're a working class girl who becomes powerful fighting the status quo, the odds are against permanent romance. A decade after the Pretty Woman limousine ride that took her out of her ghetto and away from the oldest profession to be supported by Richard Gere's wealthy businessman, Julia Roberts plays street-smart Erin Brockovich who loses her Hells Angels hottie when she dedicates herself to her new career fighting corporate greed. Her babysitting man feels that she just doesn't have enough time for him. Of course, we have seen this before. In Norma Rae (1979), another true story of a proletarian do-gooder with a promiscuous past, Sally Field's textile worker awakens to union organizing while her new husband complains of neglect and is unsupportive of her work.

If you're a successful, ethical career woman, you will lose your lover. Barbara Streisand's activist radio producer loses her writer husband played by Robert Redford after insisting that "people are their principles" in The Way We Were (1973). And then there's another producer played by Holly Hunter, in Broadcast News (1987), who, early in the film, complains that "she is starting to repel people that she is trying to attract" until she finally charms good-looking anchorman William Hurt. Despite the hopeful condom tucked into her purse, their relationship is pretty chaste, consisting of one kiss and plans for vacation that doesn't pan out. By the end of the film, the two men in her love triangle have made other permanent arrangements: Albert Brooks' Aaron is married with a son, and William Hurt is engaged to a look-alike fiancée. While Hunter claims to have some "fella" in the wings, we don't see any sign of permanence, and she is probably doomed to lonely success.

And if you're an unethical career woman, you'll be even lonelier. First, you will create chaos, unknowingly or consciously, in the families of the men you desire, and then you will be punished by desertion, death, or perpetual singledom. Sally Field's reckless journalist in Absence of Malice (1981) causes a suicide and loses Paul Newman's affection. In Fatal Attraction (1987), Glenn Close's stylish editor loses her mind -- not to mention her career -- when she desperately goes after  her one-night-stand who is happily married to a stay-at-home wife. And then there's Faye Dunaway's news producer in Network (1976) who destroys the marriage of the crotchety editor played by William Holden while she looks forward to the on-air suicide of broadcaster Howard Beale as a ratings boost. On a lighter note, the successful restaurant critic played by Julia Roberts tries and fails to break up her best-friend's marriage to Cameron Diaz's college dropout and soon to be stay-at-home wife in My Best Friend's Wedding (1997).

If you lose your job at the hands of a man, you may be able to work it out. In Jerry Maguire (1996), Renee Zellweger is a single mom who quits her job to follow the sports agent played by Tom Cruise into his own agency. She soon loses that job when Cruise's company fails, and it's only after she is no longer working for him that he turns around to tell her that she "completes him." In You've Got Mail (1998), Meg Ryan is put out of business when Tom Hanks' tycoon opens up a Barnes & Nobles-like mega -bookstore that takes over her Upper West Side neighborhood. After she has fired all of her employees and is forced to shut down her store, she not only does not harbor ill feelings toward the man who put her out of work, but begins a friendship with him at Starbucks, the take-over coffee chain that has put hundreds of little coffee shops around the corner out of business.

So what's a modern movie woman got to do to keep a man and a job around here?

For one thing, pretend to be somebody you're not. In Working Girl (1988), Melanie Griffith portrays a big-haired secretary with "a head for business and a bod for sin," who takes over from her thieving boss by faking her position in the firm and stealing her boyfriend. And in Down with Love (2003), Renee Zelweiger's best-selling author develops an elaborate scheme of entrapment involving the development of a female prototype of a confirmed bachelor.

For another, stop being so damn smart. In Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), another Zellweger vehicle, her speech at a literary event is a disaster, making her look stupid and ridiculous in front of Britain's literati, as does her pratfall in front of the television audience when she slides down the pole of a firehouse as a would-be reporter. Yet super-hunk barrister, Mark Darcy, played by super-hunk Colin Firth dumps his intelligent colleague for the inarticulate and intellectually challenged Bridget.

And if you are smart, carry a gun, work with animals, or serve food. While the love story is not crucial in Coen brothers' films, both Fargo (1996) and Raising Arizona (1987) feature married policewomen, and Sandra Bullock's "ugly duckling" detective turned beauty queen gets her man in Miss Congeniality (2000). In a lesser-seen Roberts' movie, Something to Talk About (1995), husband Dennis Quaid tells wife Roberts that he cheated on her not because he felt neglected by her pursuit of her career, but because she'd failed to complete her passion. If she had pursued her own dream of being a big animal veterinarian, he claims, he wouldn't have had an affair. In the end, Roberts takes veterinary classes and their romance rekindles. And, in The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), talk-show vet played by Janeane Garofalo finally gets the guy (after, incidentally, pretending to be someone else). Jennifer Aniston' waitress in the comedy Office Space (1999) gets and keeps a boyfriend. And, in the Martin Scorsese flick Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), another harried waitress, played by Ellen Burstyn, lands Kris Kristofferson's sexy rancher.

Interestingly Kristofferson's character was dropped when the movie was made into the television series "Alice," as the writers recognized that perpetual dating is more intriguing than coupledom - at least when it comes to female leads. Certainly the most successful career women on television, Mary Richards and Murphy Brown, never had the permanent love of a good man. Even in "Sex and the City," the landmark series featuring career women over the age of 35, it wasn't until the finale that all four female characters resolved their search for love, with Carrie Bradshaw finally landing paramour Big after quitting her job. Compared to Hollywood, however, that's progress, since 50 percent of "Sex"'s women had both a job and a man at the end. It's obvious that in a series goals can't be achieved if you want to keep the viewers hooked.

But why can't a woman have it all in a two-hour movie? Why, in the world of happy Hollywood endings, are women's choices unreflective of modern society? Why, for example, when adapting the novel, Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), did the filmmakers change the book's ending to successful female writer loses man?

Movies are million-dollar enterprises built on prevailing concepts of what people want to see. This is why men without jobs are not part of most films. Perhaps in the same way that movies do not reflect the reality of race and diversity in American society, Hollywood believes that audiences are not ready for a culture of powerful women who do not have to make simple choices between a man and a career. As our movies have only slowly begun to echo some of the diversity present in modern America, perhaps we can anticipate new narrative structures in the romantic feature film. The success of independent films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), whose female lead finds both a successful career and a loving relationship, may demonstrate to producers that audiences are ready for a woman who has both a career and a man. And I look forward to a time when Hollywood will mimic modern reality in showing that the dominant paradigm is not woman gets job, loses man, but working men and women trying to work it out.

First Printed in On the Page magazine. Reprinted with permission.

[allbestnet]

The 5000 Best Books of All-Time

Book 251–499 (go to book 1 to 250)

251. All the King’s Men (1946) by Robert Penn Warren 252. The Maltese Falcon (1930) by Dashiell Hammett 253. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) by Mark Twain 254. Ouran High School Host Club by Bisco Hatori 255. Plague (1947) by Albert Camus 256. Jurassic Park (1990) by Michael Crichton 257. The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson 258. Shogun (1975) by James Clavell 259. A Town Like Alice (1950) by Nevil Shute 260. Ambassadors (1903) by Henry James 261. Blood Meridian (1985) by Cormac McCarthy 262. No Country for Old Men (2005) by Cormac McCarthy 263. The Castle (1926) by Franz Kafka 264. Phantom of the Opera (1910) by Gaston Leroux 265. Middlesex (2002) by Jeffrey Eugenides 266. The Book of the New Sun (1994) by Gene Wolfe 267. Vanity Fair (1848) by William Makepeace Thackeray 268. Heidi by Johanna Spyri 269. Bluest Eye (1970) by Toni Morrison 270. Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand 271. Pippi Longstocking (1945) by Astrid Lindgren 272. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) by John Fowles 273. North and South (1855) by Elizabeth Gaskell 274. Percy Jackson & the Olympians (2005) by Rick Riordan 275. Gilgamesh by 276. The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare 277. Millennium series by Stieg Larsson 278. Cat’s Cradle (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut 279. Northanger Abbey (1817) by Jane Austen 280. The Secret History (1992) by Donna Tartt 281. Screwtape Letters (1942) by C.S. Lewis 282. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare 283. The World According to Garp (1978) by John Irving 284. A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) by John Kennedy Toole 285. Birdsong (1993) by Sebastian Faulks 286. Dandelion Wine (1957) by Ray Bradbury 287. Light in August (1932) by William Faulkner 288. The Glass Castle (2005) by Jeannette Walls 289. People’s History of the United States (2010) by Howard Zinn 290. Lamb by Christopher Moore 291. Water for Elephants (2006) by Sara Gruen 292. Moneyball (2003) by Michael Lewis 293. Three Men in a Boat (1889) by Jerome K. Jerome 294. Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair 295. The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman 296. Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac 297. Number the Stars (1989) by Lois Lowry 298. Siddhartha (1951) by Hermann Hesse 299. Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams 300. Misery (1987) by Stephen King 301. Calvin and Hobbes (1993) by Bill Watterson 302. I Am Legend (1954) by Richard Matheson 303. Tuesdays With Morrie (1997) by Mitch Albom 304. Medea by Euripides 305. The Witches (1983) by Roald Dahl 306. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer 307. Where the Red Fern Grows (1961) by Wilson Rawls 308. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) by Hunter S. Thompson 309. Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe 310. Angela’s Ashes (1996) by Frank McCourt 311. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1963) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 312. Howl’s Moving Castle (1986) by Diana Wynne Jones 313. Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) by James Baldwin 314. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974) by John le Carre 315. Silmarillion (1977) by J.R.R. Tolkien 316. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) by Truman Capote 317. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006) by John Boyne 318. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 319. High Fidelity (1995) by Nick Hornby 320. Parade’s End (1928) by Ford Madox Ford 321. Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling 322. Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson 323. Works by William Shakespeare 324. Song of Solomon (1977) by Toni Morrison 325. Satanic Verses (1988) by Salman Rushdie 326. Ready Player One (2011) by Ernest Cline 327. Starship Troopers (1959) by Robert A. Heinlein 328. Mahabharata by Vyasa 329. Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) by Jules Verne 330. The Day of the Locust (1939) by Nathanael West 331. The Day of the Triffids (1951) by John Wyndham 332. My Antonia (1918) by Willa Cather 333. Swiss Family Robinson (1812) by Johann Wyss 334. I Capture the Castle (1948) by Dodie Smith 335. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (1990) by Dr. Seuss 336. Sirens of Titan (1959) by Kurt Vonnegut 337. The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King 338. The Golden Notebook (1962) by Doris Lessing 339. Tempest by William Shakespeare 340. Prophet (1923) by Kahlil Gibran 341. Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers 342. Everything is Illuminated (2002) by Jonathon Safran Foer 343. The New York Trilogy (1987) by Paul Auster 344. The Host (2010) by Stephenie Meyer 345. How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) by Dale Carnegie 346. Brief History of Time (1988) by S.W. Hawking 347. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005) by Jonathan Safran Foer 348. One Thousand and One Nights by 349. Winesburg, Ohio (1919) by Sherwood Anderson 350. Ivanhoe (1820) by Sir Walter Scott 351. Farewell to Arms (1929) by Ernest Hemingway 352. Awakening by Kate Chopin 353. Little House by Laura Ingalls Wilder 354. Fun Home (2006) by Alison Bechdel 355. USA by John Dos Passos 356. The Shadow of the Wind (2001) by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 357. Ramayana by Valmiki 358. Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) by Malcolm X 359. The Alchemist (1986) by Paulo Coelho 360. The Power of One (1989) by Bryce Courtenay 361. Aesop’s Fables by Aesop 362. The Virgin Suicides (1993) by Jeffrey Eugenides 363. Darkness at Noon (1940) by Arthur Koestler 364. Love You Forever (1986) by Robert Munsch 365. Batman by 366. Story of Ferdinand (1936) by Munro Leaf 367. Scott Pilgrim (2010) by 368. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) by Stephen R. Covey 369. Divergent (2011) by Veronica Roth 370. Outliers (2008) by Malcolm Gladwell 371. Childhood’s End (1953) by Arthur C. Clarke 372. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen 373. Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) by Victor Hugo 374. Thirteen Reasons Why (2007) by Jay Asher 375. Polar Express (1985) by Chris Van Allsburg 376. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio 377. The Neverending Story (1979) by Michael Ende 378. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway 379. Jungle Book (1894) by Rudyard Kipling 380. Shantaram (2003) by Gregory David Roberts 381. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst 382. Light in the Attic (1981) by Shel Silverstein 383. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007) by Brian Selznick 384. Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne 385. Jude the Obscure (1895) by Thomas Hardy 386. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O’Brien 387. Ringworld (1970) by Larry Niven 388. The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett 389. Redeeming Love (1991) by Francine Rivers 390. The Shipping News (1993) by E. Annie Proulx 391. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel 392. Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885) by Friedrich Nietzsche 393. Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) by Beatrix Potter 394. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi 395. The Once and Future King (1958) by T.H. White 396. Little Dorrit (1857) by Charles Dickens 397. Mythology by Edith Hamilton 398. Gulag Archipelago (1973) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 399. Invisible Cities (1972) by Italo Calvino 400. The Walking Dead (2003) by Robert Kirkman 401. Hush, Hush (2009) by Becca Fitzpatrick 402. Bridge to Terabithia (1977) by Katherine Paterson 403. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967) by E.L. Konigsburg 404. Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton 405. Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins 406. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 407. Lovely Bones (2002) by Alice Seybold 408. Paper Towns (2008) by John Green 409. The Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith Jr. 410. Underworld (1997) by Don DeLillo 411. Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974) by Shel Silverstein 412. Battle Royale (1999) by Koushun Takami 413. The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson 414. Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) by Alan Paton 415. Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire 416. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) by J.M. Coeztee 417. The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) by Ursula Le Guin 418. Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782) by Pierre-Ambroise-Francois Choderlos de Laclos 419. 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Chân dung nam diễn viên gạo cội Jeremy Irons

Khi nhắc đến nhân vật Alfred Pennyworth chúng ta có thể thấy rằng có khá nhiều diễn viên đã đóng vai này trên màn ảnh của DCEU. Tuy nhiên, đóng vai này gần đây nhất là diễn viên gạo cội 70 tuổi Jeremy Irons. Chuyên mục Đời sống diễn viên hôm nay sẽ giúp hiểu rõ hơn nam diễn viên này.

Tiểu sử

Jeremy Irons tên đầy đủ là Jeremy John Irons. Ông là một diễn viên người Anh, sinh ngày 19 tháng 09 năm 1948. Jeremy được sinh ra ở Cowes. Cha của ông là một kế toán viên tên là Paul Dugan. Mẹ ông là Barbara Anne Brereton Brymer. Jeremy có 1 anh trai là Christopher (1943) và một chị gái Felicity Anne (1944).

Jeremy có năng khiếu nghệ sĩ từ khi còn đang đi học. Cụ thể khi đang học tại trường Sherborne ở Dorset từ năm 1962 đến năm 1966, ông đã tham gia ban nhạc gồm 4 người có tên là Four Pillars of Wisdom.

[caption id="attachment_729" align="aligncenter" width="296"] Gia đình hạnh phúc của Jeremy[/caption]

Năm 1969 ông kết hôn với Julie Hallam. Tuy nhiên, cuối năm đó, cả 2 người li dị. Ông đi bước nữa với nữ diễn viên người Ailen Sinéad Cusack vào ngày 28 tháng 3 năm 1978.

Cả hai có 2 người con là Samuel "Sam" Irons (1978), được biết đến là một nhiếp ảnh gia và Maximilian "Max" Irons (1985), nối nghiệp bố mẹ làm diễn viên. Cả hai đã từng xuất hiện trong các bộ phim với Jeremy. 

[caption id="attachment_730" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Lâu đài Kilcoe[/caption]

Jeremy giàu tới nỗi ông sở hữu lâu đài Kilcoe gần Ballydehob , County Cork , Ireland. Lâu đài này được ông sơn màu hồng. Ông cũng sở hữu 2 ngôi nhà khác The Liberies và một trang trại tại Watlington, Oxfordshire. Ngoài tiếng Anh, Jeremy còn thông thạo cả tiếng Pháp. 

Sự nghiệp của Jeremy Irons

Diễn xuất từ rất sớm

[caption id="attachment_727" align="aligncenter" width="989"] Jeremy khi còn trẻ[/caption]

Jeremy học diễn xuất tại trường Sân khấu Bristol Old Vic. Ông đã diễn một vài vở kịch khi đang theo học. Vở kịch đầu tiên ông tham gia có tên là The Winter's Tale vào năm 1969. Dù trở thành diễn viên truyền hình nổi tiếng sau đó nhưng Jeremy vẫn tham gia diễn kịch cho đến năm 2009.

Truyền hình

Sự nghiệp truyền hình của Jeremy bắt đầu từ năm 1970. Ban đầu chỉ là một vài vai diễn nhỏ. Đến năm 1977, tên tuổi của ông mới nổi lên với vai chính trong bộ phim 13 tập được chuyển thể từ cuốn tiểu thuyết cùng tên Love for Lydia. Năm 1978, ông tiếp tục đóng bộ phim Langrishe và được nhiều nhà phê bình chú ý và đánh giá cao.

Vai diễn đem lại sự thành công và nổi tiếng cho Jeremy là vai Charles Ryder trog bộ phim truyền hình Brideshead Revisited của đạo diễn Evelyn Waugh năm 1981. Ngay khi vừa phát sóng, bộ phim đã lọt top những bộ phim vĩ đại nhất của Anh. Ông cũng nhận được đề cử Quả cầu vàng cho vai diễn này. Cùng năm, ông còn tham gia bộ phim The French Lieutenant's Woman và đóng cùng Meryl Streep.

[caption id="attachment_732" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Jeremy tại liên hoan phim Cannes 15[/caption]

Năm 1988, khi tham gia bộ phim Dead Ringers ông đã nhận được đề cử giải Nam diễn viên chính xuất sắc nhất và đã thắng giải. Năm 1991, ông tham gia Saturday Night Live trên NBC ở Mỹ và xuất hiện với giả dạng Sherlock Holmes.

Năm 2005, Jeremy đã giành cả hai giải thưởng Quả cầu vàng và Emmy cho vai phụ trong series phim Elizabeht I. Một năm sau đó, ông tham gia bộ phim tài liệu Who Do You Think You Are? của đài BBC. Đến năm 2008, ông tiếp tục thủ vai Lord Vetinari trong bộ phim The Color of Magic của đạo diễn Terry Pratchet sao đó được chuyển thể sang cho Sky One.

Năm 2011, Jeremy là khách mời cho bộ phim Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Bộ phim này ông chỉ tham gia 2 tập mà thôi. Cùng năm, ông tham gia đóng vai Rodrigo Borgia trong 19 tập phim The Borgias. 

Phim

Jeremy đóng phim ngắn tập lần đầu vào năm 1980 trong bộ phim Nijinsky. Sau đó ông cũng đóng một vài phim khác như The Mission (1986), Dead Ringers (1988), Danny, the Champion of the World (1989), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Kafka (1991), M. Butterfly (1993), Damage (1993), The House of the Spirits (1993), The Lion King (1994)....

[caption id="attachment_726" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Jeremy lồng tiếng cho bộ phim The Lion King[/caption]

Trong đó, phim Reversal of Fortune đã đem lại cho ông giải thưởng Nam diễn viên xuất sắc nhất. Còn phim The Lion King đem lại cho ông giải thưởng Voice Acting.

Năm 1995, ông đóng chung với Bruce Willis và Samuel L. Jackson trong bộ phim Die Hard with a Vengeance. Ngoài ra, ông còn đóng các bộ phim như Lolita (1997), The Man in the Iron Mask (1998),  Dungeons and Dragons (2000), Rupert Gould in Longitude (2000), The Time Machine (2002)...

Năm 2008, Jeremy đóng chung với diễn viên Viggo Mortensen và Ed Harris trong Appaloosa do chính Harris đạo diễn. Năm 2011, ông xuất hiện trong bộ phim kinh dị Margin Call. Năm 2012, ông đóng vai chính và là nhà sản xuất của bộ phim tài liệu về môi trường Trashing.

Ông tham gia vũ trụ DCEU với vai Alfred trong bộ phim Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) và Liên minh công lý (2017). Năm 2018, ông thủ vai Vladimir Korchnoi trong bộ phim được chuyển thể từ tiểu thuyết cùng tên Red Sparrow.

Nhà hát

Jeremy đã làm việc cùng công ty Royal Shakespeare trong 3 năm 1976, 1986 và 2010. Sau nhiều năm thành công ở West End, năm 1984, Jeremy đã đến New York để tìm cơ hội mới. Bước đi mới này đã giúp đạt được giải Tony trong vở kịch The Real Thing.

[caption id="attachment_733" align="aligncenter" width="258"] Vở kịch The Real Thing[/caption]

Sau khi gián đoạn k đóng kịch một thời gian, năm 2006, ông quay trở lại sân khấu với vở kịch Embers. Lúc này, ông vào vai Patrick Malahide. Vở kịch được diễn ra tại Nhà hat Duke of York.

Năm 2008, ông tham gia vở kịch Never So Good tại Nhà hát Quốc gia. Năm 2009, ông vào vai Thomas Bruckle trong vở kịch Impressionism tại Nhà hát Gerald Schoenfeld.

Lồng tiếng

Jeremy khá nổi tiếng trong lĩnh vực lồng tiếng. Bộ phim ông đã từng lồng tiếng khiến ông đạt giải Voice Acting là phim The Lion King của Disney. Chính vì vậy, sau này, ông luôn đảm nhiệm lồng tiếng cho 3 điểm tham quan của Disney World.

Bên cạnh đó, ông còn lồng tiếng cho 2 bộ phim tài liệu là National Geographic: Eye of the Leopard (2006) và The Last Lions (2011). Trong khi đó, 3 năm liền từ 2009 đến 2012, ông lồng tiếng cho bộ phim tài liệu của Pháp về núi lửa Life on Fire.

[caption id="attachment_731" align="aligncenter" width="2400"] Ông thu âm thơ của TS. Eliot[/caption]

Ngoài lồng tiếng cho phim, ông còn làm các bản audiobook được nhiều người đón nhận. Đặc biệt, khi ông thu âm thơ của TS. Eliot cho Radio 4 của BBC đã được nhiều người khen ngợi. Tiếp đó ông tiếp thục thu âm Four Quartets (2014), The Love Song (2015) và Book of Practical Cats (2016). Ông cũng là người thu băng hướng dẫn cho Tu viện Westminster ở London.

Âm nhạc

Ngoài đóng phim và lồng tiếng, Jeremy còn có năng khiếu về âm nhạc. Năm 1985, ông làm đạo diễn cho video âm nhạc của Carly Simon. Đồng thời ông cũng quảng bá rầm rộ single Tired of Being Blonde của cô. Năm 1994, ông được mời hát chung ca khúc Connection cùng Elastica

Ông cũng biểu diễn khá nhiều ca khúc khác như Façade, My Fair Lady và Be Prepared trong The Lion King.

Để đánh dấu kỷ niệm 100 năm ngày sinh của Noël Coward, Jeremy đã hát các bài hát của mình tại Đêm hội cuối năm 1999 được tổ chức tại Hội trường Hoàng gia Albert, London. Bữa tiệc kết thúc bằng ca khúc London Pride.

Ông cũng từng thể hiện các ca khúc như Make You Feel My Love của Bob Dylan. Năm 2009, Jeremy cũng xuất hiện trong album Wintercoast của ban nhạc rock Touchstone. Buổi thu âm diễn ra vào tháng 2 tại New York khi ông đang chuẩn bị cho vở kịch Impressionism.

Trên đây là những thông tin cơ bản về nam diễn viên gạo cội Jeremy Irons. Hy vọng những thông tin này đã giúp các bạn hiểu rõ hơn về nam diễn viên này.