Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been a bit busy. Plus, I’m lazy. Okay, it’s mostly the lazy thing.

I think it’s time for me to revisit the Essentials Project. But before I get started in earnest, here’s a quick round-up of the movies from The List that I just so happened to have watched over the last few months.

Mad Max (1979)
Directed by: George Miller
Starring: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne
First Viewing

It’s kind of odd watching Mad Max for the first time, because it was obviously shot on an exceptionally low budget, and actually has very little of what you’d expect from a Mad Max film (the monstrous, souped-up cars, the outlandish costumes, etc.). In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to describe the setting as post-apocalyptic at all, which is odd considering that this film is considered to be of the essential films in that genre. I think that everything that Mad Max has become known for, aesthetically speaking, actually comes from the sequels — I also watched Mad Max 2, and it’s all there: the desolate wasteland and the memorable cars and costumes. But what about the film at hand? It wasn’t bad. It drags a bit, but it definitely has its moments.

The Thin Red Line (1998)
Directed by: Terrence Malick
Starring: Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte
First Viewing

Thus far, my experience with the films of Terrence Malick has been one of admiration, but little more. I liked Badlands and I liked Days of Heaven, but aside from the gorgeous visuals, they weren’t films that stuck with me for very long after the credits rolled. Imagine my surprise, then, that between this, Badlands and Days of Heaven, this was my favourite film by far, despite the fact that it is probably the least regarded of the three. It feels like this material is pretty much a perfect compliment for Malick’s style, which is not necessarily something I’d say about Badlands or Days of Heaven (it’s been ages since I’ve seen Badlands, so another viewing is probably in order, but in Heaven, it’s pretty clear that the fairly routine love triangle is the least interesting thing about that film). Malick isn’t particularly interested in telling straight-forward stories; in his first two films he tried to do that, and in this one he didn’t bother. I think this film is better off because of it. It’s completely plotless, and yet it is absolutely compelling throughout, thanks to Malick’s poetic, oddly hypnotic direction. The same can be said for Malick’s recent The Tree of Life, of which I am also a pretty big fan.

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The Red Shoes (1948)
Directed by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Starring: Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring
First Viewing

An exceptionally well directed film. Though it’s a little slow in parts, seeing the inner workings of the ballet company is kind of fascinating, and directors Powell and Pressburger do a really good job of developing the characters and making them compelling — even side characters we don’t necessarily spend much time with. All of the performances are quite good, though special mention must go to Anton Walbrook as the leader of the company; he’s pretty mesmerizing in the role. The film also looks very, very good, with top-notch direction and glorious Technicolor cinematography (the pristine Criterion Blu-ray probably helps in this regard). Highlights include a hypnotic dance sequence in the middle of the film, and a supremely memorable ending, which has to rank up there as one of the best endings ever.

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace
Second or Third Viewing

What can I say about this movie? It’s a classic, obviously. Many consider it to be Spielberg’s best film, and obviously the man does not have a shortage of great films to choose from. To me, Raiders of the Lost Ark is — and will always be — Spielberg’s best movie, but E.T. is definitely a strong contender. It’s funny, exciting, touching, and downright entertaining; it’s pretty much everything you want out of a movie like this. It also features top-notch direction from Spielberg, and some really great cinematography from Allen Daviau.

The Thing (1982)
Directed by: John Carpenter
Starring: Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wilford Brimley
Second Viewing

This is a stunningly good movie. I remembered this being very good; it’s even better than I remembered. Featuring perfect direction from John Carpenter (this is definitely among his best films), the film always looks good and does a pretty astounding job of building and maintaining tension. It’s also really well acted, and the dynamic between all the characters is always really well done (both before and after shit gets real, and everybody starts questioning who’s still human). Ennio Morricone’s score also suits the material perfectly. Honestly, I’m having a hard time thinking of any flaws in this movie.

Synopsis: A year in the life of a group of kids at a California high school.

So… what happened to Judge Reinhold? He may not be the most versatile actor ever, but he’s got a fairly unique screen presence, he’s likable, and he tends to give pretty solid performances. And yet his career petered out and all but died after the ’80s, though he has been working consistently since then (mostly in straight-to-video and TV stuff). It’s too bad.

It goes without saying, then, that I liked Reinhold in this movie. I liked Jennifer Jason Leigh, and I liked Sean Penn (who has a fairly small part, but steals every scene he’s in). I liked pretty much all of the actors in this movie, which is good because this is a movie that really requires that you like its characters. It’s pretty light on plot, and is content to just let us spend a year or so with these high school kids and see what they’re up to. It works, mostly because of the strength of Cameron Crowe’s script (his first) and the memorable characters, who do not feel artificial like movie teenagers tend to be, but like real people.

The movie actually reminds me a lot of American Graffiti — both films plotlessly follow a group of high schoolers over a certain amount of time (one night for Graffiti, one year for Ridgemont High), and both films feature feature a pervasive use of rock music on the soundtrack. And yet Ridgemont High works so much better; the characters are more fully realized, and ultimately much more compelling. I enjoyed spending time with this group of people, whereas spending time with the kids from Grafitti had the tendency to get tedious.

(Addendum — This is a complete aside and only vaguely related to the film at hand, but I was looking at the picture above and it reminded me of a pet peeve of mine in movies: I find it pretty distracting when the characters in a movie are eating what is purportedly a fresh pizza, and it’s clear by looking at it that it has been sitting out for hours. A pizza that isn’t fresh has a fairly unmistakable look to it. I understand the logistical difficulties in trying to bake a fresh pizza for every take, but… well, it bugs me. That is all.)

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Synopsis: Three men form a tenuous bond after meeting in jail as cellmates.

I’ve watched (and re-watched) a lot of great movies for this blog. This was not one of them. I won’t say that I hated this movie, but I will say that I derived very little enjoyment from it. I was pretty bored, in fact.

This was only the second film that I’ve seen from director Jim Jarmusch; the first was the above average Broken Flowers, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Based on my enjoyment of that movie, and the fact that Down by Law is probably Jarmusch’s most highly-regarded film, my expectations were fairly high. Perhaps too high? But even with no expectations I wouldn’t have particularly enjoyed this movie.

I have a few issues with Down by Law. My main issue is that the two main characters, played by Tom Waits (in a fairly mediocre performance) and John Lurie (in a performance that isn’t exactly great, but which looks pretty good next to Waits) are not very compelling. Neither is particularly likable or interesting, so spending 107 minutes with them becomes a bit of a chore. This is exacerbated by the total absence of a plot, which makes the shoddiness of the characters all the more apparent. Then there’s the boisterous Roberto Benigni, who seems to be playing a variation on himself (complete with the name Roberto). He’s a much more interesting figure than the other two, though he does kind of seem out of place, like he randomly wandered onto the set and was inserted into the movie on a whim.

The movie also really takes its time, with long stretches in which not all that much happens. I checked the book, which says that the film “epitomizes [Jarmusch's] counter-hegemonic interest and style and unwinds inside a hermetically sealed creative universe divorced from the demands of box-office receipts or the requirements of immediate audience gratification.” Which is basically film critic speak for “it’s boring.” I think this type of leisurely storytelling can work, but it doesn’t here.

I did like Robby Müller’s black and white cinematography. Aside from that? The film wasn’t terrible, I suppose. I’ve certainly seen worse. But considering its stature as an American independent classic, I was disappointed.

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Synopsis: In Videodrome, a TV producer finds himself the victim of strange hallucinations after watching a mysterious, pirated video signal called Videodrome. In Naked Lunch, a writer finds himself losing his grip on reality in a drug-fueled haze after he accidentally kills his wife.

I recently saw both of these films, and I figured it was probably appropriate enough to lump them both into one post. Why? The same thing that motivates pretty much everything I do: laziness.

Actually, aside from the obvious (they are both directed by master Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg), the films are fairly similar, and so I don’t think it’s an entirely bizarre notion to talk about them together.

Both movies center around men who begin to hallucinate and perceive the world in increasingly strange ways. I found that this worked very well in Videodrome, and not-so-well in Naked Lunch. Videodrome, for all its weirdness, always maintains some semblance of reality amidst the chaos; there is an intriguing element of trying to discern between what is real and what is imagined. Naked Lunch, on the other hand, almost immediately disposes of reality altogether, plunging head-first into a bizarre, dream-like (or nightmare-like) world in which pretty much anything goes (such as the famous image of a typewriter turning into a giant cockroach). Because of this complete disconnect from reality, I found it hard to ever get particularly involved in the film (beyond, at least, marveling at the ingenuity of Cronenberg’s visuals). The movie feels more like a series of loosely connected set-pieces than a cohesive story.

Videodrome, on the other hand, always manages to strike a good balance between the off-the-wall stuff and the real world. There’s also an interesting undercurrent of mystery (what is Videodrome? Who’s behind it?) that helps to keep the viewer interested. There’s no such through-line in Naked Lunch, which basically feels like an excuse for Cronenberg to indulge his penchant for the bizarre, without much pulling it together in any meaningful way. I also thought that James Woods gave a pretty fantastic performance in Videodrome, which is definitely a reason why the movie works as well as it does (Peter Weller is fine in Naked Lunch, but he just doesn’t have all that much to work with).

Basically: Thumbs up for Videodrome, thumbs down for Naked Lunch.

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Synopsis: After a one-weekend affair, a man finds himself at the mercy of an increasingly obsessed woman.

This is a film that has inspired quite a few movies in the years since its release — the most recent one I can think of is the almost comically bad Obsessed — and it’s fairly clear, watching it now for the first time, that this is still probably the best entry in the “(blank) from hell” subgenre. And in fact, Box Office Mojo has a ranking of these films, and Fatal Attraction is still on top, and by a fairly wide margin. Often imitated, never duplicated.

So why does this movie work as well as it does? For one thing, there is Adrian Lyne’s assured direction, which is stylish without being overly ostentatious, and which keeps things moving at a pretty good pace. The film takes its time setting everything up, and the slow reveal of the frightening extent of Glenn Close’s insanity is pretty much perfect. Of course, Close was nominated for an Oscar for her work here, which is definitely well deserved; it’s a chilling performance, and certainly, quite memorable. Anne Archer was rightfully nominated for an Oscar as well — she probably deserved the nom if only for the powerful scene in which Douglas tells her of his affair, but the rest of her performance was just as good. Douglas himself has a slightly more thankless role than the two women (and he went nomination-free), but he’s easily at their level.

There are a lot of great moments here, but the one that easily stood out for me is the final confrontation between Archer and Close. It’s set in a bathroom, and I’m fairly certain it’s meant to recall the famous shower scene from Psycho (but with a bath filling in for a shower), and it was pretty jaw-dropping. Certainly, Hitchcock would be proud. The direction, editing and score are all pitch-perfect, and the scene is electrifying. Of course, that whole sequence was famously a reshoot (much to Ms. Close’s chagrin); while the original ending may have been more thematically appropriate (I haven’t seen it, but I think that was Close’s objection), cinematically speaking, this one was pretty perfect.

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Synopsis: A rescue team is called in after a group of colonists find themselves under attack from a recently-hatched group of aliens.

I’d seen both of the first two Alien films before watching them for this blog, but it had been a while and my memory of both of them was fuzzy. While watching the first one, I was taken with how good it was. Of course, I had remembered it being a good movie, but it was just such an expertly constructed and visually dazzling film, and I thought “there’s no way that Aliens could top this.” Boy, was I wrong. While I’m not sure if Aliens is the better film, it’s easily just as good.

Thanks to his almost absurd success with Avatar, James Cameron is currently the man of the moment (and will likely be taking home another Oscar come Sunday). Say what you will about Cameron, but he has a pretty much flawless track record (the only film of his I haven’t seen is the Abyss, but I’ll just assume that it’s good). I don’t think there are any directors right now who can direct action quite as well as James Cameron, and Aliens is probably his best film.

The thing about Aliens is that it may just be the perfect sequel — it takes everything that was great about the first film and cranks it up to eleven. It also manages to be different enough so as not to be seen as a mere rehash, trading in the more slow-paced eerie suspense of the original in favour of a surfeit of riveting and exciting action sequences. The other nice thing about Aliens is that, like the original, it’s not in any rush to get to the action, and gives us time to really get to know the cast of characters, which makes the action-heavy second half all the more effective. I watched the director’s cut of this film, which is just over two and a half hours long, and the film was completely entertaining from start to finish; it absolutely never feels like it’s overstaying its welcome.

And then there’s the action, which is amazingly intense, and probably the best work that Cameron has done. A couple of highlights include the scene in which a couple of characters find themselves locked in a room with a facehugger, and the final confrontation between Ripley and the alien queen (including the incredibly bad-ass moment in which Ripley emerges in the robot suit and utters the now-classic line “get away from her, you bitch!”). Good stuff.

If I were to compose a list of my favourite action films, Aliens would definitely be right near the top (if not on top). It’s that good.

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Synopsis: Disaster strikes on an airplane when food poisoning takes out all the pilots in this madcap spoof film.

I’ve been a fan of this movie for a while, though it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it — I was a bit afraid that it wouldn’t be as good (and as funny) as I had remembered it being. This is, after all, a movie that is regularly called one of the funniest films of all time. It’s easy to go into a movie like this, one that you remember loving but haven’t seen in a while, with overly-heightened expectations.

So, was it as funny as I remembered? Nope. Funnier. This is indeed a classic in the genre, and features a frantic, joke-a-minute pace that is often imitated but never duplicated. For the first ten minutes or so you’re basically wondering how long they can keep up the constant stream of legitimately funny gags, but it never lets up. The film has an oddball, anything-for-a-laugh mentality that could be disastrous if done wrong, but it absolutely works. In that way I’m almost not sure what to think of this movie — it is undoubtedly pretty great, and yet it has spawned so many like-minded, yet woefully inept imitators. Pretty much every crappy “______ Movie” spoof film probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for this movie (well, this and some of Mel Brooks’ films from the ’70s). But it’s hard to fault a film for being so good that it essentially spawns its own comedy sub-genre, even if that sub-genre is almost uniformly terrible.

I don’t have much else to say about this film, other than that it’s hilarious and you should watch it. And if you haven’t seen it in a while, watch it again.

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Synopsis: Neo-Tokyo, 2019 — a government agency experiments with giving children psionic powers, with potentially deadly results.

I’ve actually been meaning to revisit this movie for a while. I originally watched Akira a few years back — it was one of the first animated films from Japan (more concisely known as anime) that I ever saw, and it really solidified my admiration for anime, and also (if I’m remembering this right) helped to reignite my interest in animation in general. So obviously, my memory of this film is that it was really, really good. But did it hold up?

Yes. Yes it did. I’m a sucker for films that present a dark, dystopian take on a future society (stuff like Blade Runner and Brazil) and this is one of the best. The film’s vision of Neo-Tokyo in 2019 is always visually stunning. And in fact, this whole movie is a definite visual treat — from the haunting opening moments of Tokyo being decimated in a nuclear blast, to the bizarre, somewhat baffling but still-awesome conclusion, this is a movie that always looks really good. The animation is top notch (plus, it’s kind of refreshing to watch old-school traditional animation with very little computer assistance) as is the visual design of the film.

Of course, there’s the narrative, which is condensed from the 2000+ page comic (which I have not read). It starts out simply enough, with the shenanigans between two rival motorcycle gangs, though as it goes on it becomes somewhat more complex, leading up to a conclusion that probably raises as many questions as it answers. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing, though. Did I understand everything about that ending? No. Did I enjoy it? Definitely. As I said in my post for 2001, I think there’s something to be said for an ending that leaves some things ambiguous and invites debate.

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