Category Archives: 1000NYTimes

1000NYTimes, 1001BeforeDie, 1955, Acceptable for children, Black and White Film, Classic, Corny, Suspense

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

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From NetFlix:

Bogus “preacher” Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) learns cellmate Ben Harper (Peter Graves) has stashed stolen loot on his property. So after the demented Powell is released, he charms Ben’s widow (Shelley Winters) into getting hitched, and in time, only Ben’s kids stand between him and the money. As he stalks the siblings relentlessly, they seek refuge with the indomitable Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish), setting the stage for a battle of wills.

Lately I have read much praise for this film. In fact you should read the Wikipedia article that mentions the positions this film occupies in various anthologies of worthy films. Its descriptions of why the film is special surpass any description I could write.

Personally I found the black and white impressionistic photography incredibly clear and a new experience. This film was Charles Laughton’s only directed film (probably because it was not a success). Times have changed and for me the film was a bit corny and much too long. Moreover in those days you had to see the bad guy get his comeuppance. Today’s films love ambiguous endings instead of the clear resolutions demanded in the black and white years of the 50’s.

You may never have heard of Lillian Gish (1893-1993) but surely you have heard of Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters. I always knew Peter Graves (TV’s “Mission Impossible”) as an older man. In this film he played Ben Harper (the bank robber father) and was only 29 years old. Billy Chapin (John Harper, the son) had a small part in “Leave it to Beaver” and seems to have vanished.

At the very least you get to see and feel what small towns were like during the depression. It’s a bit like going to a museum to watch a “talkie”. I don’t regret the experience.

1000NYTimes, 1991, Coen Brothers, Could be boring, Drama, Unusual

Barton Fink (1991)

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From NetFlix:

Idealistic playwright Barton Fink (John Turturro) believes writing should reveal the hopes, dreams and tragedies of the common man. When Hollywood taps him to write a movie, Fink develops severe writer’s block and soon falls victim to a strange sequence of events. Unable to combine his deep-seated ethics with Tinseltown’s frivolity, the disillusioned and desperate Fink winds up involved in a murder investigation in this Oscar-nominated dramedy.

In the “NY Times Best 1000” the review for this film raves about this exhilarating original by the Coen Brothers. Therefore I dutifully sat through the entire film. I admit that I could not stay bored for any long stretch because something unusual will soon pop up. John Goodman, not John Turturro, carries the show. John Turturro mostly just sits and stares. I was disappointed in Tony Shalhoub whom I almost did not recognize and who overacted terribly. Judy Davis’ appearance has not changed much over the years, but then 1991 today is only about 20 years ago.

1000NYTimes, 1001BeforeDie, 1989, Drama, Independent, Mostly About Sex, Soderbergh, Unusual

sex, lies, and videotape (1989)

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From NetFlix:

Director Steven Soderbergh’s voyeuristic indie drama paints an intense, intimate portrait of discord among a frigid housewife (Andie MacDowell), her philandering husband (Peter Gallagher), her adulterous sibling (Laura San Giacomo) and an intriguing out-of-towner (James Spader). When Spader arrives with a trunk load of videotapes featuring women confessing their sexual secrets on camera, he gradually turns the quartet’s lives inside out.

This film is recommended in “NY Times Guide to Best Movies Ever” and “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”. It never would have occurred to me to watch this film until my brother-in-law Jack (a movie fan) recommended the TV series “Boston Legal”. One of the lead actors in “Boston Legal” is James Spader who is perfect for the part. In searching for James Spader in IMDB I spotted “sex, lies, and videotape” featuring a very young James Spader. In fact, although I am good with faces as they age and change, I never would have recognized James Spader (especially with really long hair).

Not for everyone, this is a thoughtful film is as much about sex versus love as it is about truth versus lying. Don’t expect explicit sex, it isn’t at all pornographic. But do expect a lot of heads talking about sex. Great plot twists. Very soft-spoken dialogs. I’d have to say this is an “important” film. From “1001”: “Written in just 8 days and filmed in 5 weeks on a budget of just $1.2 million, the movie (Soderbergh’s debut) is credited with transforming the independent movie industry.”

1000NYTimes, 1974, Comedy, Detective, Drama, Old-Fashioned, Suspense, Violent, Vulgar

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

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From NetFlix:

Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw) and his crew take hostages on a subway car. If Blue and Co. don’t get a million dollars in an hour, Blue will start carving graffiti on the passengers’ foreheads. Quentin Tarantino borrowed a lot from this unsung classic of crime cinema — including criminals using colors for code names — for his film Reservoir Dogs.

This version is the original “Taking”. Note that the numbers in the title are spelled out. I decided to see the first version before seeing the second version. It is recommended in the “NY Times Best 1000”.

For sure, this version does not take itself too seriously and has a grand time making fun of just about everything. For example, the mayor is played as a bumbling idiot with the flu who is booed every time he appears in public. There is a ton of swearing. Walter Matthau runs the show. If anyone out there is too young to remember Walter Matthau, he was the slob half of the “Odd Couple”. Near the beginning of the film, Matthau is showing a Japanese contingent the wonders of the New York subway system but all the visitors can do is bow because it seems they don’t understand English. When notice of the hostage taking arrives Matthau says (about the visitors ) “Get these monkeys outta here”. At that point one of the Japanese answers in perfect English, “We understand. Thank you for everything. This is very exciting”. And so it goes for most of the film. There is music only at beginning and end and it sounds exactly like the music used in the very early James Bond movies. It ends with 10 really clever seconds.

1000NYTimes, 1001BeforeDie, 1998, Classic, Could Be Hard To Watch, Drama, Not Feel Good, Violent, War

The Thin Red Line (1998)

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From NetFlix:

Director Terrence Malick’s lyrical retelling of James Jones’s novel about the bloody 1942 battle for Guadalcanal was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. With narration from Pvt. Witt (Sean Penn), fellow soldiers Capt. John Gaff (John Cusack), Sgt. Keck (Woody Harrelson) and the rest of the company become a tight-knit group as they face the horrors of war to hold onto a key-positioned airfield — and their own sanity.

Both the “NY Times Best 1000” and “1001 Films to See Before You Die” rave about Malick’s war film. At 170 minutes, it is a long an harrowing adventure. There are too many known actors to even begin mentioning them. Essentially an anti-war film, it constantly blends exotic filming of an island paradise (scenery, natives, birds, etc) with the horrors of the effort to defeat the Japanese entrenced on the summit of the island. But most of all, it accompanies various soldiers as we hear their thoughts, their meditations on this sanity-threatening experience. Of all the threads, two impressed me the most:

Nick Nolte plays Lt. Col. Toll who is an older man that in peacetime was bypassed for promotion. This war is his big chance to be noticed. Accordingly he is willing to sacrifice his men in order to achieve personal glory. At one point he orders Captain Staros, a soldier and lawyer, to launch a suicidal attack. But Staros refuses to order his men to their death, defies Toll’s order, and finds a better way. After successfully reaching the summit, Toll bribes Staros with a Purple Heart so that Staros will not tell the outside world what an as _ _ _ le comander he, Toll, really is.

Ben Chaplin plays Pvt. Bell who survives the terror by constantly remembering his time with his dearly beloved wife. However, at one point he receives a “Dear John” letter asking him for a divorce. Chapin’s portrayal of the slowing dawning, almost impossible to accept, realization of his loss is devastating.

Critics has questioned the length of the film. But this is a classic war film that you should see before you die.

1000NYTimes, 1001BeforeDie, 2002, Not Feel Good, Nudity, Spanish, Unusual

Talk to Her (2002)

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From NetFlix:

Pedro Almodóvar’s Oscar-winning drama explores the bond forged between two men under tragic circumstances. When a bullfighting accident sends his girlfriend, Lydia (Rosario Flores), into a coma, Marco (Darío Grandinetti) visits her in a clinic where he befriends nurse Benigno (Javier Cámara). Shy and a bit strange, Benigno tirelessly tends to another patient, Alicia (Leonor Watling), a comatose ballet dancer and the object of his obsession.

Recommended in both “1001 Films To See Before You Die” and “NY Times 1000 Best”, for me this film is about loneliness and the difficulty of finding a warm connection with another person.

Almodóvar is an acquired taste and not to everyone’s liking. You have to sit back and accept the film as a “happening”. For example, there is a silent film within the film in which a woman keeps her constantly shrinking lover in her purse until one day he walks into her vagina and lives there forever. This is what I mean by “acquired taste”.

If nothing else the movie is tender, with some surprises, and for me not boring.

1000NYTimes, 100Unknown, 1987, Suspense, Unusual

House of Games (1987)

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From NetFlix:

Psychologist Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse) decides to help one of her patients out of a gambling debt. Margaret finds the person to whom the money is owed: slick-talking Mike (Joe Mantegna). Mike, who runs poker games, persuades Margaret to help him look for “tells,” or telltale body language, in a game. She falls for the con and for Mike, becoming deeply involved in his world. David Mamet wrote and directed this psychological thriller.

I was reading an Italian lawyer novel in which the lawyer protagonist mentions that “House of Games” is one of his favorite films. So I gave it a try.

Lindsay Crouse was married to David Mamet. She is a good stage actress. As soon as the film starts you realize that all the actors speak as though they are on a stage, not at all what you expect to hear in a film.

The plot is everything. At the very least you get to learn a few good “cons” just in case you were thinking of going into the business. Eventually it comes down to who is conning whom.

I enjoyed the film, but you are warned that it is very different.

1000NYTimes, 1001BeforeDie, 100Unknown, Classic, Could Be Hard To Watch, German, Unusual, Violent

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

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From NetFlix:

In the mid-16th century, after annihilating the Incan empire, Gonzalo Pizarro
leads his army of conquistadors over the Andes in search of the fabled City of
Gold, El Dorado. As Pizarro’s soldiers battle starvation, Indians, the forces of
nature and each other, Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), ‘The Wrath of God,’
is consumed with visions of conquering all South America and leads his own army
on a doomed quest into oblivion.

All three film catalogs rave about this film. In fact it is one of a kind, slow, and mesmerizing.

First some history: Pizarro sends a “small” task force to continue down th Amazon to find the City of Gold. The commander Pedro de Ursua and his aide, Lope de Aguirre, take soldiers (always in metal battle gear), one priest, Inca slaves, cannon, horses, and two noble women carried in a covered transport box down the mountain and eventually on rafts in the Amazon. Aguirre murders Ursua in an act of mutiny and forces the others, by force of his homocidal mania, to continue on to find the City of Gold. Much of this we know from the priest’s diary. The end is conjecture.

The marvel is that these poor actors had to live and suffer just as the historical figures did. Werner Herzog, the megalomaniacal director, was a fanatic that insisted on realism. Aquirre, played by Klaus Kinski, is obviously “nuts” from the get-go. At one point Kinski tried to flee the jungle and Herzog brandished a pistol and promised to kill Kinski if he escaped.

Just sit and watch this “happening”. It is slow, beautiful, and unforgettable. Hearing Spaniards speaking in German is admittedly a bit unusual, but there are English subtitles.

Violent, not for children. But a genuine screen classic.

1000NYTimes, 1001BeforeDie, 100Unknown, 1947, Classic, Old-Fashioned

Black Narcissus (1947)

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From NetFlix:

Secular matters consume five missionary nuns who head to the Himalayas to establish an Anglican school. In the meantime, the quintet’s leader, Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), must grapple with the envy of one nun (Kathleen Byron), the bitterness of a man (David Farrar) and the cruelty of the elements. The film received Oscars for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography, in part for its Technicolor innovations.

When I was a young boy I saw the coming attractions for “Black Narcissus”. The scene in which the crazed nun tries to push another nun (Deborah Kerr) over a cliff while the latter is ringing a large hanging bell stayed in my mind for a long time. Needless to say, I was not allowed to see this movie. So here I am years later leafing through the three film catalogs discussed in the page entitled “Unusual Categores” and all three suggest that “Black Narcissus” is an historically important film. So I watched it. I can see why it was an important film way back in 1947, but the movie seems a bit dated. Over the years film acting has changed, in fact I would say it has improved in some ways. Note, however, that I usually have to rely on subtitles due to my poor hearing. But CDs containing old films often do not offer subtitles. Acting may have improved, but diction has suffered. In this older film the actors project their speech much as you would do on stage with the result that I could understand every word. Today’s speech patterns everywhere (workplace, telephone, films) are quicker and somewhat mumbled.

Watch this movie as if visiting another planet. Historically it may be worth the visit.

1000NYTimes, 1001BeforeDie, 1948, Could Be Sad, Italian, Not Feel Good

The Bicycle Thief (1948)

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From NetFlix:

Widely considered a landmark Italian film, Vittorio De Sica’s tale of Rome’s post-World War II depression earned a special Oscar for its devastating power. Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) relies on his bicycle to do his job. But the same day he gets the vehicle back from the pawnshop, someone steals it. Antonio and his young son, Bruno (Enzo Staiola), search the city in vain, as Antonio confronts a looming desperation.

You have to REALLY want to see this film in order to appreciate it because it is basically a very simple, somewhat old-fashioned, and at time weepy movie that would never pass muster in today’s world. I watched (and loved) the film only because I had never seen it and knew it was historical. It also helps that Italian is one of my hobbies.

Right now the U.S. is experiencing higher than usual unemployment. Imagine, then, post WWII Italy in which having a job was a rare privilege. Then you can understand the protagonist’s desperation. The end is heart-wrenching.