Category Archives: 1001BeforeDie

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, 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, 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.

1001BeforeDie, 2002, Biographical, Could Be Sad, Not Feel Good, Unusual

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

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From NetFlix:

Australia’s aboriginal integration program of the 1930s broke countless hearts — among them, those of young Molly (Evelyn Sampi), Gracie (Laura Monaghan) and Daisy (Tianna Sansbury), who were torn from their families and placed in an abusive orphanage. Without food or water, the girls resolve to make the 1,500-mile trek home. Meanwhile, a well-intentioned tracker is trying to return the girls to the authorities.

Do not expect a happy ending for this film recommended in “1001 Films To See Before You Die”. For historical background see the Wikipedia article. This is a film that tells a story, nothing more. But I could not take my eyes off these determined (and, in the case of the oldest, clever) aboriginal young girls as they struggled for nine weeks and 1,500 miles across a desert in order to reach their mother from whom they had been taken by the misguided British “Protector of Aborigines” because of their unpardonable crime of being half-caste.

1001BeforeDie, 2001, Could Be Hard To Watch, Documentary, Not Feel Good, Unusual

Kandahar (2001)

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From NetFlix:

Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf lenses this haunting drama that was shot during the Taliban era. The movie follows an Afghani-Canadian woman as she attempts to enter Afghanistan in search of her depressed sister. Since it’s illegal for a woman to travel alone in Afghanistan, she must rely on the kindness of strangers, including a scrappy boy and a mysterious American doctor.

I resisted seeing Kandahar (recommended in “1001 Films To See Before You Die”) for a long time because I felt it might be uncomfortable watching. I was correct. If you can just accept what you see as a cultural travelog and try not to grimace or squirm you might get through this remarkable film. I attached the category “Documentary” because among other things, that what this film can sometimes seem to be. For information on the city see Wikipedia. As that article explains there are several languages, especially Pashto and Persian. I have no idea which languages are being spoken, but there are subtitles for those non-English languages. For some reason, however, the principal language is English, probably because the female lead sister is coming from Canada to prevent her sister from committing suicide.

And what difficult things might there be to see in this film ? Remember that the Taliban were in power during the filming. Consider:

  • You watch young children rocking back and forth while chanting the Koran only to be interrupted by the teacher who asks a question such as “What is the use for a Kalashnikov rifle” and expects a word-perfect description of how to destroy the infidel (that’s us, folks!).
  • You see lines of men on crutches because their legs have been blown off by land mines. You see these men badgering or lying to the Red Cross to get more pairs of legs (i.e. feet on poles) for their wives who have also lost legs to land mines.
  • You wonder how the Canadian sister will ever find her way across a non-ending desert while being sometimes helped by not terribly honest men.
  • And the list goes on.

I do not regret seeing this independed film. Warning: it ends so abruptly it took my breath away. I almost cannot believe the ending. Comments are welcome if you ever get to the end of this fascinating adventure.

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.

1000NYTimes, 1001BeforeDie, 1981, Classic, Could Be Sad, FilmReview, War

Gallipoli (1981)

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From NetFlix:

Australian Director Peter Weir takes on one of his country’s
most tragic moments in history: the World War I confrontation
with the German allied Turks. As the film leads up to the
battle in act three, we get to know the young men destined to
be casualties of war. A young Mel Gibson (on the heels of his
successful turn in Mad Max) plays one of the innocent doomed.
This poignant war drama swept the Australian Film Institute
Awards with eight wins.

I have classified this film as a “Classic”. It is old but not dated. Mel Gibson
is so young I almost did not recognize him. Wikipedia offers a long
detailed account of the battle at Gallipoli. This battle is very important
to both New Zealanders and Australians. What appeals to me is the
naturalness of the actions. There are no special effects. The entire
emphasis of the film is the close friendships that develop between the
men over the course of the film. But you have to watch this movie
with the understanding that almost every one of those men are
about to die (needlessly as it turns out). There is no bloodshed
whatsoever, and no violence whatsoever.