Metro Classics - Seattle's 4th (or 5th) Most Popular Repertory Film Series

Farewell

2011-12-03T22:43:00.001-08:00

So long everyone. Thanks for five great years of Metro Classics!

Tonight!

2011-11-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

At 7:00 and 9:10 PM.

Coming Attractions: Harvey

2011-11-25T00:06:00.001-08:00

Wednesday November 30th at 7:00 & 9:10 PM.

Tonight!

2011-11-23T02:09:00.001-08:00

At 7 & 9:10 pm.

Coming Attractions: Frankenstein

2011-11-21T23:47:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, November 23rd at 7 & 9:10 PM.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-18T20:01:00.001-08:00

Tonight!

2011-11-16T12:30:00.001-08:00

At 7 & 9:10 PM.

Coming Attractions: Carrie

2011-11-14T16:42:00.001-08:00

Tonight!

2011-11-09T01:05:00.000-08:00

Tonight only at 7:15 PM!

Coming Attractions: Doctor Zhivago

2011-11-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

Tonight!

2011-11-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight at 6:50 pm and 9:15 pm.

Giveaways: Man Hunt DVD courtesy of Scarecrow Video and a Gift Certificate to Cinema Books, respectively.

Coming Attractions: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

2011-10-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, November 2nd at 6:50 and 9:15 PM.

Tonight!

2011-10-26T12:59:00.001-07:00

At 7 and 9:10 PM

Coming Attractions: Dr. Strangelove: Or I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

2011-10-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 26th at 7 & 9:10 PM.

Tonight!

2011-10-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

Tonight at 7 & 9:10 PM.

Giveaways: Sleeper DVD courtesy of Scarecrow Video and a Gift Certificate to Cinema Books, respectively.

Coming Attractions: Annie Hall

2011-10-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight!

2011-10-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

Tonight at 7 & 9:10 PM.

Giveaways: Radio Days DVD courtesy of Scarecrow Video and a Gift Certificate to Cinema Books, respectively.

Coming Attractions: Zelig

2011-10-08T01:27:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 12th at 7 & 9:10 pm.

Tonight!

2011-10-05T02:02:00.000-07:00

At 7:00 and 9:10 PM.

Giveaways: A DVD from Scarecrow Video and a gift certificate to Cinema Books, respectively.

Coming Attractions: Hannah and Her Sisters

2011-09-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 5th at 7 & 9:10 PM.

Tonight!

2011-09-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 7:00 only!

Links: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

2011-09-26T03:06:00.000-07:00

Vincent Canby reviewed Jeanne Dielman in the New York Times back in 1983 (8 years after the film was made), noting the film's roots in the art house style of the 1960s and making an important distinction between minimalism and naturalism:

"Like its blunt title, Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, deals in unadorned facts. It's about the looks and sounds of ordinary things and people, which it records with such precise, unsettling clarity that it has the effect of finding threats in mundane objects and doom in commonplace characters. . . .

Jeanne Dielman is not quite like any other film you've ever seen, though it does recall the early films of Jean-Luc Godard as well as some of the work of our structuralist film makers of the late 1960's and 70's. It's as fastidious and deadpanned as its title character, a genteel, middle-class widow-and-mother who supports herself and her teen-age son by prostitution each afternoon, in her depressingly tidy apartment, with a series of fastidious gentlemen callers, middle-aged and older.

Jeanne Dielman, which opens today at the Film Forum, has been described as minimalist, though I don't see how any film this long and so packed with information could be equated with minimalism as defined in painting. The manner of the film is spare, but the terrible, obsessive monotony of the life it observes is ultimately as melodramatic as, say, Roman Polanski's Repulsion.

Miss Akerman records three crucial days in the life of Jeanne Dielman (Miss Seyrig) as if she were observing the habits of some previously unknown insect."

25 years later, Dennis Lim wrote about the film in the Times, noting its widespread influence on contemporary art house filmmaking:

"it has long enjoyed canonical status among cinephiles and regularly turns up on critics’ polls of all-time great films. With Jeanne Dielman, Ms. Akerman forged a link between the high modernism of golden-age European cinema and the emerging trend of postmodernist deconstruction. Today the film’s observational strategies — its long takes and scrupulous framing — practically amount to a lingua franca of international art film, discernible in the works of artists from Portugal’s Pedro Costa to Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul to China’s Jia Zhangke. Among American independents, its descendants include Todd Haynes’s Safe, Lodge Kerrigan’s Claire Dolan and Gus Van Sant’s Last Days."

Lim also talked to Ackerman herself, who agrees that the film is far from minimalist:

"While Ms. Akerman acknowledges that the rise of women’s studies lifted the film’s reputation in the United States, she has little patience for the various “isms” — feminism, minimalism, structuralism — that have framed the discussion around it. “I don’t think it’s minimalist,” she said. “I think it’s maximalist. It’s big! And if I did the film now I don’t know that it would be called feminist. It could have been done about a man, too.

“All those labels are a bit annoying,” she continued. “To name something is a way to possess it. I think it makes the film smaller. And O.K., maybe they are right, but they are never right enough.”"

When they released the film on DVD, Criterion sponsored a web video cooking contest to go along with the distinctive cooking scenes in Jeanne Dielman. Here are some of their favorites.

Personally, I think everyone's underrating the influence of this film on Phil Hartman's career:

Coming Attractions: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

2011-09-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 28th at 7 PM.

Tonight!

2011-09-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 7:00 P.M. only!

Links: Celine & Julie Go Boating

2011-09-19T02:31:00.000-07:00

Nora Sayre reviewed Celine & Julie Go Boating in the New York Times back in October of 1974, and noted in particular the film's literary allusions, Lewis Carroll, Marcel Proust and Henry James, but also it's Choose Your Own Adventure nature, both for the characters and the audience:

"There's some delightful slapstick afoot as the two run amok, and the last section of the movie is on a par with the comedy of the beginning. In between, there are some marshy passages, mainly due to relentless whimsey. As in Out One/Spectre, the actresses invented their own parts (although the scenes in the house were scripted). In both movies, there are leading characters who are obsessed with solving a mystery; as they become detectives, the audience is invited to do likewise. We're also supposed to create our own plotline for what's actually occurring in that house."

In Slant Magazine, Keith Uhlich adds some filmic allusions:

"Jacques Rivette's masterpiece—quite possibly his greatest film—is a deceptively light-hearted confection that begins and ends (or, rather, begins again) at the entrance to a Parisian wonderland. Bespectacled librarian Julie (Dominique Labourier) pursues amateur magician Céline (Juliet Berto) across a city of dreams (hence the film's homage-to-Feuillade subtitle, "Phantom Ladies Over Paris"), though Rivette doesn't distinguish between the real and the imagined. Theirs is a world of limitless, initially aimless possibilities (reflecting the film's own improvisational genesis) that are slowly honed to a sharp precision point. Those bracing themselves for (or already baffled by) David Lynch's Inland Empire will find the seeds of that film's madness in Céline and Julie Go Boating, what with its pervasive Lewis Carroll referents and seamless doubling effects. . . .(The) story-within—which also features Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, and Barbet Schroeder going through a series of hilariously deadpan motions—has been described as everything from an RKO programmer to a Henry James pastiche: like a fourth-wall smashing Kuleshov experiment, it is what you make of it."

I think Jeffrey Anderson sums it all up nicely though at Combustible Celluloid:

"One possible explanation is that Celine and Julie Go Boating is a fantasy where Rivette and the audience can enter into a movie filled with ghosts and change things around. How often have we imagined what old movies would be like if we could change one little thing? The other important thing to point out is that Celine and Julie Go Boating seems primarily focused on the joy of cinema. Truffaut once said that a movie should represent either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema--anything inbetween did not interest him. Celine and Julie Go Boating has magic, poetry, singing, lots of laughter (the actresses seem to have giggle fits every time the camera is on them), as well as the ghost and murder story.

A third explanation for the movie is that it seems like we're watching realism; the long takes and natural sound. When in reality the whole creation is one of pure cinema. There is no reality in this movie. In a perfect world, there would be an old movie palace somewhere that plays Celine and Julie Go Boating over and over. Then there would be balance."

Announcing the Fall Metro Classics Series

2011-09-16T06:44:00.000-07:00

With two films left in the current series (don't miss Celine & Julie Go Boating and Jeanne Dielman: it'll probably be the last time they'll let us run 3+ hour French language movies!), it's time to announce the second part of our 18 weeks of Movies With Names series. Starting October 5th and running through November 30th, we've got three Woody Allen movies, three Doctor movies and three Monster movies.

Woody and His Sisters:

Oct. 05 - Hannah and Her Sisters (Allen,1986)
Oct. 12 - Zelig (Allen, 1983)
Oct. 19 - Annie Hall (Allen, 1977)

No Fighting in the War Room

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

— MOVIECLIPS.com

Doctor Who?:

Oct. 26: Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, 1964)
Nov. 02: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Lang, 1933)
Nov. 09: Doctor Zhivago (Lean, 1965)

Scary Monsters:

Nov. 16: Carrie (DePalma, 1976)
Nov. 23: Frankenstein (Whale, 1931)
Nov. 30: Harvey (Koster, 1950)

All shows will be digitally projected and as always, there will be giveaways at each show courtesy of Scarecrow Video and Cinema Books.

Coming Attractions: Celine and Julie Go Boating

2011-09-15T04:08:00.000-07:00

Tonight!

2011-09-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 7:00 & 9:10 P.M.

Coming Attractions: The Double Life of Véronique

2011-09-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

Wednesday September 14th at 7 and 9:10 PM.

Tonight!

2011-09-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

At ~~6:45 & 9:15 P.M.~~

7:00 & 9:30 P.M.

Links: Rosemary's Baby

2011-09-05T07:56:00.000-07:00

Roger Ebert reviewed Rosemary's Baby way back in July of 1968:

"Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby is a brooding, macabre film, filled with the sense of unthinkable danger. Strangely enough it also has an eerie sense of humor almost until the end. It is a creepy film and a crawly film, and a film filled with things that go bump in the night. It is very good. . . . When the conclusion comes, it works not because it is a surprise but because it is horrifyingly inevitable. Rosemary makes her dreadful discovery, and we are wrenched because we knew what was going to happen --and couldn't help her.

This is why the movie is so good. The characters and the story transcend the plot. In most horror films, and indeed in most suspense films of the Alfred Hitchcock tradition, the characters are at the mercy of the plot. In this one, they emerge as human beings actually doing these things."

Dave Kehr agreed, packing more than the usual number of insights into his capsule. he notes the film's ties to the long tradition of "women's pictures" wherein the wife is terrorized by her husband (Gaslight, The Secret Beyond the Door, Dragonwyck, etc) and also that "The horror is more clinical than supernatural, as Polanski transforms Ira Levin's story into a metaphor for the loss of identity induced by pregnancy. A very sophisticated, very effective piece of work spun from primal images."

Renatta Adler was lukewarm on the film in the New York Times when it premiered. But AO Scott has corrected the Times's position on the film by including it in his Critics' Picks video series:

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, Rosemary's Baby

2011-09-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Roman Polanski Movies:

1. Chinatown (1974)
2. Repulsion (1965)
3. The Ninth Gate (1999)
4. The Ghost Writer (2010)
5. Death and the Maiden (1994)

Top 5 Mia Farrow Movies Directed By Woody Allen:

1. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
2. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
3. Zelig (1983)
4. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
5. Husbands and Wives (1992)

Top 5 John Cassavetes-Directed Movies I Haven't Seen:

1. A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
2. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
3. Shadows (1959)
4. Faces (1968)
5. Husbands (1970)

Top 5 Ralph Bellamy Movies:

1. The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937)
2. His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
3. Trading Places (John Landis, 1983)
4. Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990)
5. Carefree (Mark Sandrich, 1938)

Top 5 Films of 1968:

1. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone)
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
3. The Lion in Winter (Anthony Harvey)
4. Petulia (Richard Lester)
5. Night of the Living Dead (George Romero)

Coming Attractions: Rosemary's Baby

2011-09-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 7th at 7 & 9:30 PM.

Giveaways: A DVD courtesy of Scarecrow Video and a Gift Certificate from Cinema Books, respectively.

Tonight!

2011-08-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 7:00 & 9:00 P.M.

Links: Sullivan's Travels

2011-08-29T23:38:00.000-07:00

Todd McCarthy valorizes Sullivan's Travels and writer-director Peston Sturges in his essay for the Criterion Collection:

"The sweetest, most generous-hearted satire of the Hollywood film industry the town has ever produced, Sullivan’s Travels was the fourth of the eight films Preston Sturges made during his astonishingly prolific streak between 1940 and 1944. Deserving of eternal veneration as the first screenwriter to decisively break through as a director, Sturges paved the way for the likes of John Huston, Billy Wilder, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Sturges’ reputation surpassed even those screen giants in the sense that he was, in every respect, the author of his films, working without a collaborator and always from his own original stories. Having already made his mark as a Broadway playwright, he was the first filmmaker to function like a playwright/theatrical impressario at a major studio, not only creating his own material but assembling his own troupe of players. More than anyone in that era of Hollywood, he fully deserved the authorial billing on the title card: “Sullivan’s Travels by Preston Sturges.”"

While Dan Harper at Senses of Cinema sees Sullivan's Travels as an all-out assault by Sturges on Frank Capra and his piously liberal films of the late 1930s:

"Preston Sturges pokes fun at virtually everything in Sullivan’s Travels – including (luckily) himself. While sparing neither the single-minded hucksters otherwise known as producers nor the successful director of comedies suddenly gripped with a social conscience, Sturges also attacks just the sort of movie Frank Capra was making at the time – Meet John Doe (1941). Capra himself had also been a successful director of comedies (It Happened One Night [1934], You Can’t Take It With You [1938]), before his seriousness got the better of him. When Capra tried to combine his social conscience with his comedic genius, the results were usually uneven. While Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936) was initially successful as a serio-comic look at Depression-era economics, Capra found himself increasingly at odds with the status quo. And his populism pushed both Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939) and Meet John Doe into perilous territory. Neither film had a suitable ending, as if Capra, having confronted Good and Evil so convincingly, couldn’t decide who should win."

I think he's seriously overrating You Can't Take it With You (which is surely as simplistic in its conception of Good and Evil as anything else he made) and underrating Mr. Smith (which is far more complex than is generally allowed) here, but his general point is solid.

Me, I just can't get over the fact that Veronica Lake wasn't even five feet tall. At 4'11", I've met dogs that are bigger than her. She had a pretty sad life too:

"When one-time lover Marlon Brando heard she was working as a barmaid, he promptly had his people deliver her a check for $1,000. Too proud to cash it, Lake instead chose to have it framed as a memory of days gone by, and a not-so-subtle notice to others that she was once Hollywood’s reigning sex symbol."

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, Sullivan's Travels

2011-08-26T16:33:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Veronica Lake Movies:

1. I Married a Witch (René Clair, 1942)
2. This Gun for Hire (Frank Tuttle, 1942)
3. The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler, 1942)
4. Ramrod (André de Toth, 1947)
5. The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall, 1946)

Top 5 Joel McRea Movies:

1. Stars in My Crown (Jacques Tourneur, 1950)
2. The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges, 1942)
3. Ride the High Country (Sam Peckinpah, 1962)
4. The Most Dangerous Game (Irving Pichel & Ernest Schoedsack, 1932)
5. Barbary Coast (Howard Hawks, 1935)

Top 5 Films Shot by John F. Seitz:

1. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
2. Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
3. The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948)
4. This Gun for Hire (Frank Tuttle, 1942)
5. Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Widler, 1943)

Top 5 Films Wherein Movie-Watching is a Spiritual Experience:

1. Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986)
2. The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985)
3. My Life to Live (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
4. The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)
5. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)

Top 5 Films of 1941:

1. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
2. The Lady Eve ( Preston Sturges)
3. The Strawberry Blonde (Raoul Walsh)
4. The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg)
5. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston)

Coming Attractions: Sullivan's Travels

2011-08-25T09:20:00.001-07:00

Trailer provided by Video Detective

Wednesday, August 31st at 7 & 9 pm.

Giveaways: The Palm Beach Story DVD courtesy of Scarecrow Video and a Gift Certificate to Cinema Books, respectively.

Tonight!

2011-08-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 7:00 & 9:10 P.M.

Eric Rohmer: Comedies and Proverbs

2011-08-23T04:36:00.000-07:00

After finishing his series of Six Moral Tales (of which this week's classic, My Night at Maud's is the third) with 1972's Love in the Afternoon, Eric Rohmer spent the rest of the 1970s working in television and making a pair of period films, The Marquise of O and Perceval le Gallois. In 1981, he began a new series of six films he called Comedies and Proverbs, each starting with a famous saying ("It is impossible to think about nothing." "He who talks too much will hurt himself." and so on). Like the Moral Tales, the films revolve around the twin poles of romantic relationships and vacation. In each of the films one of the main characters is driven by an ideal (usually of a potential lover, but not always) and has that ideal frustrated. Unlike the Moral Tales, most of the protagonists are women, and we get a much more balanced view of gender dynamics than in that earlier series. Like every Rohmer movie, the films are dominated by conversation and are beautifully shot in a style that rarely calls attention to itself. Every time I think about watching one of his movies, I kind of dread it (Do I really want to watch 90 minutes of French people talking? Doesn't that sound like the most boring thing in the world?). But every time I find myself entertained throughout, enraptured even. I don't exactly know how he does it, his movies sneak in and surprise me every time. In 14 films, I've never once been bored by Eric Rohmer.

The Aviator's Wife - A young man, a law student, sees an older man leaving his (the student's) older girlfriend's apartment early in the morning. The man was her ex-boyfriend, and he had been there to end their relationship because he was re-committing to his wife. The student confronts the girl, but she denies everything and gets annoyed. Later in the day, the student spots the older man and decides to follow him (he's especially suspicious when he sees the man with a mysterious blonde woman). In a park, he meets a younger girl who decides to help him in his caper. The film comes alive when the younger girl, played by Anne-Laure Meury (who has a supporting role in My Boyfriend's Girlfriend), appears. She's clearly much more interesting and a much better fit for the student than the older woman, but he doesn't notice. The location for the middle section of the film, a man-made park in Paris, is used wonderfully, and Meury and the student's adventures creating plotlines for the behavior of the older man and the blonde woman harken back to the kinds of protagonists that reinvent Paris in cinematic and narrative terms, a New Wave trope familiar from the likes of Celine & Julie Go Boating and Band of Outsiders, among many others. This is the only one of the Comedies and Proverbs wherein the main character is a man, and as a fairly deluded one, he serves as a nice transition between the aggressively masculine (though of course quite talky and usually deluded) heroes of the Moral Tales.

A Good Marriage - A young art history student (Béatrice Romand) breaks up with her painter boyfriend and moves back home to her small town (Le Mans) where she meets a cousin of her best friend and decides to marry him. Unfortunately for her, the young man doesn't ever seem to have enough free time to fall in love with her as well. The man is played by André Dussollier, familiar, though looking much much younger, from last year's releases Wild Grass and Micmacs, directed by Alain Resnais and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, respectively. It's a film where quite literally nothing happens, all of the students schemes end in failure, but is nonetheless so full of beautiful little heart-breaking moments as to always be compelling (Romand putting her head on Dussolier's shoulder as they leave a restaurant in particular lasts maybe two seconds, but it is the kind of image that will stick in your mind forever).

Pauline at the Beach - The actress who played the best friend in The Good Marriage, Arielle Dombasle, here plays Marion, vacationing with her younger cousin Pauline (Amanda Langlet) on the coast. There she meets her ex-boyfriend Pierre (Pascal Greggory, who was in Luc Besson's Joan of Arc movie The Messenger and the late Raúl Ruiz's Time Regained), who is still annoyingly in love with her, and the older, more dangerous Henri. Marion hooks up with Henri, which makes Pierre jealous, so she tries to get Pauline to like Pierre, but Pauline prefers Sylvain, a boy her own age. While Marion is out of town, Henri hooks up with a local salesgirl and uses Sylvain to cover for him when he's almost discovered by Marion and Pierre. Eventually, the women choose to believe their own version of events and go off reasonably happy. This is by far the most complex Rohmer film I've seen in terms of plot, with so many major characters and their intertwining relationships. But it's also one of the most satisfying: the beachside village is lovely, once again Rohmer proves himself the master of the vacation film. This is probably the most representative example of what the Comedies and Proverbs are all about. Each character has their ideal of love, and most get a chance to declaim it at length. But in the end, none of their ideals prove practical and they are left to recreate a narrative of reality the best way they can. It has a typically elegant visual style (with dominant reds, whites and blues and inspiration from a Matisse painting), with typically lovely cinematography from frequent Rohmer collaborator Néstor Almendros.

Full Moon in Paris - The apotheosis of one of the mini-tropes running throughout Comedies and Proverbs: the horror of white people dancing. Both A Good Marriage and Pauline at the Beach feature cringe-worthy looks at this peculiar and disgusting social phenomenon, but Full Moon in Paris takes it over the top. Not only are we treated to at least three extended sequences of drunk French people boogieing, this film is steeped in the 1980s like no movie I've seen in a long, long time. Pascale Ogier (daughter of Bulle Ogier, from Celine & Jule Go Boating) plays a young woman who lives in the suburbs with her boyfriend Tchéky Karyo (from Bad Boys, GoldenEye and the upcoming Dobermann II: Arm Wrestle). She's convinces him that it'd be a good idea for her to keep an apartment in the city, where she can spend her Fridays partying with her friends (he prefers to stay home). Karyo's place is all dull modernism, with Mondrians on the walls providing the only small hints of colors that aren't bluish grey, where Ogier's city apartment is a masterpiece of 80s kitsch, she even has fake Greek columns framing her bed. Infidelity is, of course, inevitable. Ogier suspects Karyo when she spies him in town, but decides it was nothing. Later, she hooks up with a fellow she meets at a party who wears cotton gloves with the fingers cut-out, a neck warmer and "plays sax in a band". Feeling guilty, she returns home and finds she had the story wrong all along.

The Green Ray - A pretty, well-meaning, but slightly annoying woman (Marie Rivière, who also played the lead woman in The Aviator's Wife) can't decide what to do on vacation. Seems the friend she was going to Greece with ditched her at the last minute. She spends some time in the country with another friend's family (freaking them out with her freaky vegetarianism) goes back to Paris and mopes, heads off to the mountains and immediately leaves, and ends up on the coast watching the sunset. It's less verbal than the Moral Tales, which all feature male protagonists who non-stop talk themselves into and out of infidelities. Instead, we get a female protagonist, one who occasionally communicates in conversations, but just as often overhears other conversations, or simply walks alone through the various environments she finds herself in. Nature is more vital here than any of the other Rohmer's I've seen, as it should be given its title, a peculiar and potentially life-changing atmospheric phenomenon. Rohmer is great at endings, and the one here is as beautiful and epiphanic as any in cinema. This remains my favorite Rohmer film, just nudging past My Night at Maud's.

My Girlfriend's Boyfriend - A Cultural Affairs bureaucrat named Blanche meets a computer student named Lea (played by Sophie Renoir, who had a small role in The Good Marriage and is the grand niece of director Jean Renoir) for lunch and the two quickly become friends. Blanche lives in a trendy suburban housing complex from which you can almost make out the Eiffel Tower on the horizon. Lea is dating Fabien, though she doesn't really like him that much (he's too earnest for her). Through Lea and Fabien, Blanche meets the handsome and charming Alexandre and instantly falls in lust with him. Unfortunately, he makes her so nervous she can hardly say a word in his presence. When Lea goes on vacation with another man (trying out a break up with Fabien), Blanche and Fabien hang out a lot playing water sports (windsurfing, mostly) and have what they agree is a one-night stand. The ending isn't as uplifting as The Green Ray (it's less ambiguous) and its Shakespearean dynamics aren't exactly unexpected, but it's the happiest ending of any of the Comedies and Proverbs, a pleasant surprise after the downer that is the Moral Tales closer Love in the Afternoon.

After watching most of these over the last week, here's how I'd rank them:

1. The Green Ray
2. Pauline at the Beach
3. My Girlfriend's Boyfriend
4. The Aviator's Wife
5. Full Moon Over Paris
6. The Good Marriage

But really, they're all pretty great.

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, My Night at Maud's

2011-08-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Eric Rohmer Films:

1. The Green Ray (1986)
2. Pauline at the Beach (1983)
3. Claire's Knee (1970)
4. The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (2007)
5. My Girlfriend's Boyfriend (1987)

Top 5 Films Photographed by Néstor Almendros:

1. Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
2. Pauline at the Beach (Eric Rohmer, 1983)
3. Claire's Knee (Eric Rohmer, 1970)
4. The Wild Child (François Truffaut, 1970)
5. Sophie's Choice (Alan J. Pakula, 1982)

Top 5 Jean-Louis Trintignant Films I Haven't Seen Yet:

1. Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (Patrice Chéreau, 1998)
2. . . And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956)
3. Les biches (Claude Chabrol, 1968)

4. The Great Silence (Sergio Corbucci, 1968)

5. Confidentially Yours (François Truffaut, 1983)

Top 5 French New Wave Films By Cahiers du cinema Directors:

1. Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
2. The Green Ray (Eric Rohmer, 1986)
3. A Woman is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961)
4. Celine & Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974)

5. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)

Top 5 Films of 1969:

1. A Touch of Zen (King Hu)
2. Age of Consent (Michael Powell)
3. Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville)
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill)
5. The Sorrow and the Pity (Marcel Ophuls)

Self-Referential Links: My Night at Maud's

2011-08-19T04:47:00.000-07:00

I've written about Eric Rohmer, the director of this week's classic My Night at Maud's a couple of times on the site. The first was the day he died, in January of last year, when I celebrated his contribution to film history and the particular inspiration he and the rest of the French New Wave have had on us here at Metro Classics and resolved to go out and watch some of his films. The second, posted three weeks later, was a roundup of the first six films I watched, the Six Moral Tales, my favorite of which is the film we're playing this week.

Over at my own website, the Rohmerathon has continued over the past year and a half as I slowly work my way through the rest of his films. Over the next week, I'll be posting short reviews of the next series he did after the Moral Tales, Comedies and Proverbs (The Aviator's Wife, A Good Marriage, Pauline at the Beach, Full Moon in Paris, The Green Ray and My Girlfriend's Boyfriend). Today though, here's a quick look at two of his period films, 1976's The Marquise of O and his last film, 2007's The Romance of Astrea and Celadon:

The Marquise of O - Thanks to a couple of sales at amazon.uk, I find myself owning almost every Eric Rohmer film on DVD. But I haven't gone on a Rohmer-watching rampage. Not because I don't want to see them all, but rather because I want to savor them and parcel them out slowly over the rest of my life. Watching them all in a few months would just feel wrong, given what the films are like: their decidedly unrushed pace, the value they place in a contemplative approach to life. This was his first feature after finishing his series of Six Moral Tales with 1972's Love in the Afternoon (he appears to have been making a TV series in the interim) and it's a rare Rohmer film that's not part of a larger series. Based on a German novel, it's about a young high-born widow in a war-torn country who appears to have become pregnant without knowing why. It turns out Bruno Ganz took advantage of her while she was passed out after a battle. Ganz is desperately trying to get her and her family to let him marry her, but they just think he's weird to be in so much of a hurry. When her pregnancy becomes obvious, her family throws her out, despite her protestations of innocence. Only Rohmer could get us to believe in the romanticism of it all and actually root for Ganz to get the girl and live happily ever after.

The Romance of Astrea and Celadon - Eric Rohmer's death 11 months ago was a catalyst for me to finally watch some of his films, and I've loved every one of the eight I've seen so far. This was his last movie, set in fifth century Gaul and about a community of Druidic shepherds slowly Christianizing. Astrea loves Celadon, but his parents don't approve of her, so she has him flirt with another girl, then gets horribly jealous when he does. She bans him from her presence and he jumps in the river. He survives, meets some nymphs (one of whom also falls in love with him), lives in a hut for awhile, dresses as a woman and builds a shrine, which is explained to a group of pilgrims in terms surprisingly like the Catholicism of My Night at Maud's. You wouldn't think that the Rohmerian tradition of lengthy conversations about morality and sexuality would translate well to fifth century Gaul, but it does. It's the lightest, prettiest Rohmer I've seen. It floats.

Coming Attractions: My Night at Maud's

2011-08-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 24 August at 7:00 & 9:10 P.M.

Giveaways: Anatomy of a Murder DVD courtesy of Scarecrow Video and a gift certificate for Cinema Books, respectively.

Tonight!

2011-08-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 7:00 & 9:10 P.M.

Links: Gilda

2011-08-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

New York Times critic Bosley Crowther was utterly perplexed by Gilda on its premiere in March of 1946, not an unusual state for him.

"It is quite all right to make a character elusive and enigmatic in a film—that can be highly provocative—providing some terminal light is shed. But when one is conceived so vaguely and with such perplexing lack of motive point as is the dame played by Rita Hayworth in Gilda, the Music Hall's new film, one may be reasonably forgiven for wondering just what she's meant to prove, for questioning, indeed, the whole drama in which she is set. And that is what we frankly do.

Despite close and earnest attention to this nigh-onto-two-hour film, this reviewer was utterly baffled by what happened on the screen. To our average register of reasoning, it simply did not make sense. "

He was particularly dissatisfied with Rita Hayworth, whose charms somehow failed to interest him:

"Miss Hayworth, who plays in this picture her first straight dramatic role, gives little evidence of a talent that should be commended or encouraged. She wears many gowns of shimmering luster and tosses her tawny hair in glamourous style, but her manner of playing a worldly woman is distinctly five-and-dime. A couple of times she sings song numbers, with little distinction, be is said, and wiggles through a few dances that are nothing short of crude."

Writing a couple of weeks ago in The Observer, though, Phillip French sees what Crowther could not, the fantastical sexual subtexts that make Gilda so much fun:

"The movie revolves around the exotic Rita Hayworth and was produced by Virginia Van Upp, the most powerful woman at Columbia, who was charged by tough studio boss Harry Cohn with supervising the star's career. Hayworth is stranded in Buenos Aires at the end of the second world war, trapped between her sadistic, middle-aged husband, the Nazi-sympathiser Ballin Mundson (George Macready), and her ex-lover, the cruel, amoral American adventurer, Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford). The men have a homoerotic love-hate relationship. After Johnny sees Ballin's phallic sword-cane the first time they meet, he says admiringly: 'You must lead a gay life.'"

The excellent film noir podcast series "Out of the Past", hosted by academics Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards, devoted its 40th episode to Gilda, focusing in particular on the visual style of the film and the work of celebrated cinematographer Rudolph Maté.

"From the flip of her fiery hair to the reprise of her incendiary song, she sizzles the celluloid and burns herself indelibly into our collective consciousness. In fact, her presence so scorches that we are apt to miss the technical artistry of this film. Rudolph Maté's superlative cinematography uses banal objects pedagogically, to teach us to read the images: the blinds in Mundson's office make us aware of the fact we're looking, then show us how and where to look; the elaborate staging and framing of staircases make us wonder whether each character's fate is ascending or descending. While the Triad of superb players (Hayworth, Ford, and Macready) fleshes out the elaborate story, it is Maté's camera that builds the suspense. In then end, the cinematography combines with lines of dialogue pronounced by philosopher Uncle Pio to give us the world through noir-colored glasses—a "worm's eye view" that lends Hollywood's biggest stars a distinct earthiness."

Finally, Rita Hayworth is pretty. The Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess site has the hundreds of pictures to prove it.

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, Gilda

2011-08-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Rita Hayworth Films:

1. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939)
2. The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947)
3. The Strawberry Blonde (Raoul Walsh, 1941)
4. You Were Never Lovelier (William A. Seiter, 1942)
5. Pal Joey (George Sidney, 1957)

Top 5 Glenn Ford Films:

1. The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953)
2. Superman (Richard Donner, 1978)
3. The Blackboard Jungle (Richard Brooks, 1955)
4. The Courtship of Eddie's Father (Vincente Minnelli, 1963)
5. Plunder of the Sun (John Farrow, 1953)

Top 5 Charles Vidor Films I Haven't Seen Yet:

1. Cover Girl (1944)
2. Rhapsody (1954)
3. The Bridge (1929)
4. A Song to Remember (1945)
5. The Swan (1956)

Top 5 Non-South American Films Set in South America:

1. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard hawks, 1939)
2. Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2005)
3. Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)

4. Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997)

5. Starship Troopers (Paul Veerhoeven, 1997)

Top 5 Films of 1946:

1. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)

2. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)

3. A Matter of Life and Death (Powell & Pressburger)

4. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)

5. My Darling Clementine (John Ford)

Coming Attractions: Gilda

2011-08-11T02:31:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, August 17th at 7 and 9:10 pm.

"Laura" of the Day

2011-08-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

Spike Jones:

Tonight!

2011-08-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 7:00 & 9:10 P.M.

"Laura" of the Day

2011-08-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

Yehudi Menuhin & Stéphane Grappelli:

"Laura" of the Day

2011-08-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

Dave Brubeck:

Links: Laura

2011-08-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

Opening in New York at the Roxy in October, 1944, Thomas Pryor gave it a generally positive review in the Times. The film's only real flaw, he found, was in the performance of Gene Tierney:

"Yes, you get the idea that this Laura must have been something truly wonderful. Now, at the risk of being unchivalrous, we venture to say that when the lady herself appears upon the scene via a flashback of events leading up to the tragedy, she is a disappointment. For Gene Tierney simply doesn't measure up to the word-portrait of her character. Pretty, indeed, but hardly the type of girl we had expected to meet. For Miss Tierney plays at being a brilliant and sophisticated advertising executive with the wild-eyed innocence of a college junior."

Sacrilege, I say! Everyone knows that Gene Tierney is flawless.

Dave Kehr didn't take a position on Ms. Tierney in the Chicago Reader, instead content once again to brilliantly capsulize a classic film:

"It reveals a coldly objective temperament and a masterful narrative sense, which combine to turn this standard 40s melodrama into something as haunting as its famous theme. Less a crime film than a study in levels of obsession, Laura is one of those classic works that leave their subject matter behind and live on the strength of their seductive style."

One of the many websites dedicated to the glory that is Gene Tierney, themave.com has, along with a bio and the requisite photos, a link to an article hyping Tierney in Motion Picture magazine. Headlined:

"SIDNEY SKOLSKY COMES UP WITH A PICTURE OF GENE TIERNEY AS SHE IS TODAY, NOT THE DEMURE, PETITE BRUNETTE MOST PEOPLE THINK HER, BUT A GAY, SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT KIND OF GIRL, REFRESHING AS A COLD SHOWER, AND SHE'S SEXY, T00!"

Skolsky (bylined as "Famous movie reporter") then writes:

"Gene Tierney. She's sex in any language. On the screen, she's been Chinese, Polynesian, Eurasian, Arabian, Sicilian and just plain American. But regardless of the role she plays, she's always sexy. This international type actually was born in Brooklyn. The date is November 20, 1920. To further complicate her cosmopolitan attainments, she is married to a Russian, was partly educated in Switzerland and she speaks perfect French.

"Her full name is Gene Eliza Tierney and the initials spell "get." She has a driving ambition and generally gets what she wants."

I'm convinced.

"Laura" of the Day

2011-08-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

Dexter Gordon:

"Laura" of the Day

2011-08-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

Charlie Parker:

"Laura" of the Day

2011-08-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

Sidney Bichet:

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, Laura

2011-08-05T05:11:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Gene Tierney Movies:

1. The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg, 1941)
2. Leave Her to Heaven (John Stahl, 1945)
3. The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1947)
4. Advise & Consent (Otto Preminger, 1962)
5. Heaven Can Wait (Ernst Lubitsch, 1943)

Top 5 Dana Andrews Movies:

1. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946)
2. The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
3. Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger, 1950)
4. Ball of Fire (Howard Hawks, 1941)
5. A Walk in the Sun (Lewis Milestone, 1945)

Top 5 Vincent Price Movies:

1. The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, 1964)
2. Leave Her to Heaven (John Stahl, 1945)
3. His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, 1951)
4. The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956)
5. Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990)

Top 5 Otto Preminger Movies:

1. Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
2. Advise & Consent (1962)
3. Bonjour tristesse (1958)
4. Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
5. Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

Top 5 Films of 1944:

1. A Canterbury Tale (Powell & Pressburger)
2. Ivan the Terrible Part 1 (Sergei Eisenstein)
3. To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks)
4. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder)
5. Going My Way (Leo McCarey)

"Laura" of the Day

2011-08-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

The Duke Ellington Orchestra:

Coming Attractions: Laura

2011-08-04T05:03:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, August 10th at 7 and 9:10 pm.

Tonight!

2011-08-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 6:45 & 9:10 P.M.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #1: Julia

2011-08-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

Over the last 18 days we have been counting down great songs with single names in the title, in anticipation of our imminent new series.

Today we wrap up the musical extravaganza the only way we can, with the Beatles and the song "Julia" off of the album The Beatles.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #2: Suzanne

2011-08-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen, off of the album Songs of Leonard Cohen.

Links: Rebecca

2011-08-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

Critic and screenwriter Frank S. Nugent (The Searchers, The Quiet Man) reviewed Rebecca for the New York Times on the film's release in March of 1940. He wonders if, in making his first American film, Hitchcock's "peculiarly British, yet peculiarly personal, style could survive Hollywood, the David O. Selznick of Gone with the Wind, the tropio palms, the minimum requirements of the Screen Writers Guild and the fact that a good steak is hard to come by in Hollywood." The answer is a resolute "yes" as he finds that Hitchcock and the system worked together perfectly to create "an altogether brilliant film, haunting, suspenseful, handsome and handsomely played." He also has high praise for Joan Fontaine's performance, and also her shoulders:

"Miss du Maurier never really convinced me any one could behave quite as the second Mrs. de Winter behaved and still be sweet, modest, attractive and alive. But Miss Fontaine does it—and does it not simply with her eyes, her mouth, her hands and her words, but with her spine. Possibly it's unethical to criticize performance anatomically. Still we insist Miss Fontaine has the most expressive spine—and shoulders!—we've bothered to notice this season."

I won't disagree with that, she has a great spine.

Writing 30ish years later, Dave Kehr in the Chicago Reader packs an impressive-even-for-him number of ideas into his capsule review. He auteuristically hints that the film isn't as great as could be because of Selznick's strong presence, that the film is an allegory of adolescence and its incompatibility with the family, and that it and Hitch's other Fontaine film Suspicion are female-centered versions of his later masterpieces Vertigo and Marnie.

Hooked on Houses focuses on the unbilled star of the film, the mansion Manderley, where Laurence Olivier whisks Joan Fontaine away and she encounters the homoerotic tyranny of Judith Anderson. There's dozen of great shots of the building (all shot in California and on soundstages, naturally) and a bunch of Rebecca trivia.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #3: Jolene

2011-07-31T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Jolene" by Dolly Parton, off of the album Jolene.

Bonus Video! The White Stripes perform "Jolene" under Blackpool Lights.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #4: Sara

2011-07-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Sara" by Bob Dylan, off of the album Desire.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #5: Carmelita

2011-07-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Carmelita" by Warren Zevon, off of his first album.

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, Rebecca

2011-07-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Joan Fontaine Films:

1. Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls, 1948)
2. Suspicion (Alfred Hitchcock, 1941)
3. Gunga Din (George Stevens, 1939)
4. September Affair (William Dieterle, 1950)
5. A Damsel in Distress (George Stevens, 1937)

Top 5 Laurence Olivier Films:

1. 49th Parallel (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1941)
2. Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1944)
3. Bunny Lake is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1965)
4. Hamlet (Laurence Oliver, 1948)
5. Sleuth (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972)

Top 5 Judith Anderson Films:

1. Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944)
2. The Furies (Anthony Mann, 1950)
3. The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956)
4. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Leonard Nimoy, 1984)
5. The Strange Love of Martha Ivars (Lewis Milestone, 1946)

Top 5 David O. Selznik Films:

1. Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
2. King Kong (Merian Cooper & Ernest Schoedsack, 1933)
3. Portrait of Jennie (William Dieterle, 1948)
4. Nothing Sacred (William Wellman, 1937)
5. Manhattan Melodrama (WS Van Dyke, 1934)

Top 5 Films of 1940:

1. The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch)
2. The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor)
3. His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks)
4. Waterloo Bridge (Mervyn LeRoy)
5. Fantasia (Various)

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #6: Maybellene

2011-07-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Maybellene" by Chuck Berry.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #7: Sheila

2011-07-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Sheila" by the Grumpies, off of the album Who Ate Stinky?

Coming Attractions: Rebecca

2011-07-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, August 3rd at 6:45 and 9:10 PM.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #8: Marie

2011-07-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Marie" by Randy Newman, originally appearing on the album Good Old Boys.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #9: Jane

2011-07-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Jane" by Dead Moon, originally appearing on the album Stranded in the Mystery Zone.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #10: Ramona

2011-07-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Ramona" by the Ramones, off of the album Rocket to Russia.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #11: Irma

2011-07-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Irma" by the Magnetic Fields, off of the album i.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #12: Michelle

2011-07-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Michelle" by the Beatles, off of the album Rubber Soul.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #13: Isobel

2011-07-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Isobel" by Bjork, off of the album Post.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #14: Tania

2011-07-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Tania" by Camper Van Beethoven, originally appearing on the album Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #15: Melanie

2011-07-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Melanie" by "Weird Al" Yankovic, off of the album Even Worse.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #16: Billie

2011-07-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Billie" by Pavement, off of the album Terror Twilight.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #17: Jamie

2011-07-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Jamie" by Weezer, a b-side off of the DGC Rarities Vol. 1 compilation.

Rock-down Classix Name Explosion #18: Monica

2011-07-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our next 18 weeks of films, we present a daily countdown of great songs with a single name in the title.

Today's selection: "Monica" by the Kinks, off of Village Green Preservation Society.

Metro Classics All-Stars!

2011-07-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Major League Baseball's All-Star game is tomorrow in Arizona. The All-Star game is pretty much the most pointless thing in the entire universe and it is even more annoying because it keeps us all away from real, tangible baseball for three whole days. (How, oh how can we go that long without seeing the Mariners slide ever further down the AL West ladder?) I thought I would attempt to one-up the utter uselessness of the grandstanding exhibition by posing a question to Sean. If we could pick a Metro Classics All-Stars calendar, what films would make the cut? Of course, being the two of us I had to turn it into a competition. The rules were simple: we could only pick one film from each series and we alternated first round picks. Below are our two teams, I mean lists. Let your voice be heard and vote in the poll on the left to choose the superior series. If you went to the Metro every Wednesday and these films were playing next door to one another, which one would you plop down mama's Visa for? Keep in mind, I will consider all of Sean's votes as those cast in pity. Also, feel free to post your All-Star series in the comments. You're probably better at all of this than we are anyway.

The Goofy Gilmans vs The Superior (Not the City) Strenskis

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans Duck Soup

Days of Heaven The New World
Funny Face The Red Shoes
Black Narcissus La Strada
The Band Wagon Some Like it Hot
Kiss Me Kate Pennies from Heaven
Charade F for Fake
Chungking Expres Rio Bravo
All That Jazz Barton Fink
The Shop Around the Corner The Princess Bride
The Rules of the Game The Iron Giant
Vertigo Seven Samurai

Play ball!

CLOSED: Classics Contest Part II (Now With Helpful Hints) !!

2011-07-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

Update, the 2nd: We have a winner! The unveiling of the final four films can be found at the bottom of this post.

Update: We have added helpful hints to the films pictured below. You have until 10:00 post meridiem Friday, the 15th of July to enter. Good luck!

We have received final confirmation on the last four films for the first half of our upcoming series! Everything is now booked! In celebration of this momentous occasion we have decided to give away free stuff, namely a free admission to our inaugural film, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, which screens Wednesday, 3 August. To win, be the first person to correctly identify all four films shown below on our Facebook wall. Keep the five titles previously unveiled in mind because they share similar titular qualities.

A highly collectible flyer should debut in about a week's time. Stay tuned to this page for more information on giveaways, showtimes and other malarkey.

10 August:

(Both Vincent Gallo and S.F. band Girls share a song title with this film noir.)

31 August:

(A Grammy Award-winning Coen brothers film stole its title from this comedy.)

7 September:

(One of this film's co-stars released his film Faces the same year.)

21 September:

(If this film's subtitle was poorly translated it may have wound up Ghostly Women Above the City of Love.)

10 August - Laura

31 August - Sullivan's Travels

7 September - Rosemary's Baby

21 September - Celine and Julie Go Boating (Phantom Ladies Over Paris)

Hail Freedonia!

2011-07-04T11:56:00.001-07:00

CLOSED: Classics Contest!

2011-06-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: It took three hours or so, but we have a winner! Do not fret though, we will be hosting a similar contest when the final four films are booked. Stay tuned! The titles for the current confirmations are revealed at the bottom of this post.

Five of the nine films for the first half of our upcoming series have been confirmed! To celebrate we thought it would be fun to introduce our first ever Metro Classics contest. The first person to correctly name all five films (shown below) on our Facebook wall will receive a free admission to our inaugural film Wednesday, 3 August. Remember, earlier this month Sean and I both posted clues as to the overarching series theme this go around, so keep that in mind when sleuthing. Happy hunting!

3 August:

17 August:

24 August:

14 September:

28 September:

3 August: Rebecca

17 August: Gilda

24 August: My Night at Maud's

14 September: The Double Life of Veronique

28 September: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Clue #2

2011-06-20T14:03:00.001-07:00

Here's Another Clue For You All

2011-06-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

Hell is Other Movies: Wrap Up Edition

2011-05-13T10:06:00.000-07:00

Over the course of this past Metro Classics series, I watched a bunch of movies tangentially related to the films we were playing, with the idea of writing a little about them here the week the film's played. Sometimes, I actually got those posts written. These were the films I didn't get to. A trio of Billy Wilder films for Double Indemnity, a Powell & Pressburger movie for A Matter of Life and Death, and a samurai movie for Seven Samurai.

Kiss Me, Stupid - Possibly the strangest Billy Wilder film I've ever seen. Ray Walston stars in an initially annoying performance (like always with comedies from this era, I kept thinking Jack Lemmon would have played the role better) as a small town piano teacher and aspiring songwriter. When Dean Martin, in a vicious self-parody as popular womanizing drunk singer "Deano" rolls into town, Walston's writing partner, the local gas station attendant, schemes to get Deano to stay in town for the night, wherein Walston will convince him to listen to one of their songs and eventually make them big stars. As Deano bait, they hire local cocktail waitress/prostitute Kim Novak to pose as Walston's wife and sleep with Deano, leaving Walston's actual wife, the adorable Felicia Farr none the wiser. The first half of the film suffers through all this plot, and Walston's manic overplaying doesn't help at all. But as the night grows late, the film shifts point of view from Walston's pathetic ambition and Deano's single-minded selfishness to Novak's melancholy resignation and Farr's dawning understanding of just what her husband has been up to. It leads to an ending that's as close as the generally cynical and misanthropic Wilder ever got to transcendence.

Five Graves to Cairo - On the other end of Wilder's career is this fine World War II drama starring Franchot Tone as a British officer in North Africa. After barely surviving a German attack, he crawls to a bombed out hotel just before the German Army arrives and sets up a command post. The hotel's owner (Touch of Evil's Akim Tamiroff) disguises him as the hotel's dead waiter, not knowing that the waiter was actually a German spy. Tone poses as the spy in order to learn Rommel's plans for the invasion of Egypt. With Anne Baxter (All About Eve) as the hotel maid who hates and then loves Tone and Erich von Stroheim as Rommel. It's a great example of the war movie genre, with excellent performances, efficient story-telling and the same toughness Wilder would later bring to his noirs. Franchot Tone is an actor I'm starting to really like, he's got a great voice and he always looks angry.

Avanti! - One of Wilder's last films stars Jack Lemmon as a wealthy businessman who travels to Italy to pick up his father's dead body. While there, he discovers his father had been having a decades-long affair with an English woman when he meets her flighty daughter (Juliet Mills), in town to pick up her mother's body. He might be Lemmon's most unpleasant character, kind of like his award-winning performance a year later in Save the Tiger, but with less self-pity, and the film is essentially a manic-pixie narrative, with Mills and Italy conspiring to turn Lemmon into a decent human being. I don't think it really earns Lemmon's redemption, but it might be Wilder's most beautiful film. Italy seems to have softened Wilder a bit, as we get great shots of the countryside and the ocean and a beautiful sequence in a mortuary, golden sunlight streaming through a lone window into a room empty but for the coffins and a bureaucrat's table.

The Battle of the River Plate - One of the last collaborations between Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger is a bit of an oddity. It's an apparently real account of a true story, where in the early days of World War 2, the German pocket battleship Graf Spee, after harassing Allied shipping off South America for months, is cornered at the mouth of the River Plate, off the coast of Montevideo, Ecuador. The bulk of the film is taken up with the question of what will happen next: the Germans requesting permission to conduct repairs in the hope that reinforcements will arrive, the Allies trying to lure her out and sink her before that can happen. The story is mostly told from the perspective of the Allied officers captured by the Graf Spee and what they can piece together from inside the ship, and later from a radio news broadcaster, sending out updates worldwide from a seafront bar. For a war movie, there's hardly any action, and the scope of the film limits the kind of character examinations Powell & Pressburger were so good at. Most notably absent, though, is the kind of uncanny spirituality that seems to emanate from the earth itself in their greatest films, where the characters are taken over by their environments and radically transformed. Maybe because so much of it takes place at sea?

Onibaba - A medieval horror film from director Kaneto Shindo about a woman and her daughter-in-law during war-torn 1300s Japan. In order to survive, the two hunt down wounded and dying samurai fleeing the local battles, murder them and trade their weapons and armor for meager amounts of millet and rice. When a neighbor returns home, after fleeing the fighting himself, he begins a clandestine affair with the daughter-in-law (her husband, he claims, is dead). The old woman contrives a plan to keep them apart using a terrifying mask she's taken from a murdered samurai, which of course only makes things much, much worse. A harrowing look at medieval life, unusual in its focus on women and the poor for a samurai film, the film makes excellent use of its location on a sluggish riverside in a field of giant grass, and Shindo uses every trick in the expressionist playbook to make a very scary film out of a samurai film-critiquing Buddhist parable about interfering in young people's love lives. It's reminiscent of another film released the same year, Hiroshi Teshigahara's The Woman of the Dunes, but where that film is all mysterious, dreamy romanticism, this one is shock effects and misery.

Critics Agree Part VII: The Hollow Death

2011-05-01T06:00:00.001-07:00

Pundits periodically pontificate on the perennial prospect of film criticism perishing. These high-falutin' fools certainly have not scoured the pages of Netflix where intellectual rigor and thoughtful analysis lay there for the taking.

Charade-

"My apple was set at the loudest volume setting but I could barely hear. Therefore I stopped watching" --1 star

F for Fake-

"I want to punch all the people who made glowing reviews about this garbage. I rented it because I thought it was a documentary. Pay zero attention to what the description says because it's a complete lie. What you get is some artsy crappy film where Orson is just talking. He talks over every thing. It's all about Orson sitting with a drink and blabbering on. There's zero movie in this. The footage is naturally very old but it's all shaky and terrible looking. My breaking point came when Orson was reading poetry for no reason while crazy music played and things were on fire. Absolutely the most horrible film of any kind that I've ever seen." --1 star

All About Eve-

"Frankly, the starting scene of this movie was so boring and uninteresting that it moved me to turn the whole CD off. I like theater plays, but I couldn't care less about theater performers' problems. Maybe I should have been more patient." --2 stars

"Very boring! The story was vague and the characters uninteresting. Nothing really happens. A scene in which Marilyn Monroe is sitting on the stairs chatting with a group of people at a cocktail party was the only worthwhile part. We quit watching halfway through. Don't waste your time on this one." --1 star

The Adventures of Robin Hood-

"Our family just loved this movie! Lots of excitement, adventure and laughs. Would recommend highly." --2 stars

The Sting-

"I am not a fan of ragtime mnusic nor of films involving gambling. Therefore I did not watch this movie, only the first 20 minutes or so. Did not appeal to me." --2 stars

"Ok, so I watched the Sting. Part of me wanted to turn it off so I did. A few days later I finished it. If you need to fall asleep, put this movie on. So overrated-" --1 star

The Wild Bunch-

"I watched 28 minutes of it and got bored to death. Acting was terrible and the violence just a 1960,s spaghetti western yawn. Dont waste your time. Whoever compared this to even the worst Clint Eastwood flick must be on drugs." --1 star

"It would be nice to see a preview of a movie that you are interested in.But for months now I been writing in regard to this and no one replys. Does anyone get to watch a preview before they rent a movie? Please let me know.Thank you xfiles535@aol.com" --5 stars

L'Avventura-

"What adventure? Our Greater Swiss Mountain dog, Oscar, has more adventures sniffing out deer and chasing squirrels." --2 stars

"Sorry. After the island scenes, this movie was so profoundly boring it almost had me wishing for Transformers." --1 star

"why did this film win so many awards?? i have no idea.. it was slow-moving and boring. Theyre supose to be looking for their missing friend and they just kind of forget about her and hook-up with each other instead... hos." --1 star

Unfaithfully Yours-

"If only the main character wasn't a total jerk, or maybe if the plot wasn't telegraphed from the start, or maybe if the comedy was funny instead of slow-motion slapstick... Maybe I should have liked this movie. It had period charm and black & white drama. But ultimately it was boring." --2 stars

Crimes and Misdemeanors-

"Disc arrived cracked, never received a replacement ( 5 days of mem=bership wasted )" --5 stars

So Long to Hell

2011-04-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came out this Spring and helped make Metro Classics Goes to Hell one of our most successful series since we started five years ago.

We're off to Purgatory for a few months, but we'll be returning in August for another 18 weeks of Metro Classics goodness. Stay tuned here for updates and the occasional random post about movies we probably won't play. You can also follow us on the facebook.

Tonight!

2011-04-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 6:45 & 9:15 P.M.

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

2011-04-25T04:43:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Frank Capra Films:

1. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
2. The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)
3. It Happened One Night (1934)
4. Arsenic & Old Lace (1944)
5. Meet John Doe (1941)

Top 5 Jean Arthur Films:

1. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939)
2. Easy Living (Mitchell Leisen, 1937)
3. The More the Merrier (George Stevens, 1943)
4. Shane (George Stevens, 1953)
5. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936)

Top 5 Thomas Mitchell Films:

1. Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937)
2. Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)
3. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
4. Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
5. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939)

Top 5 Harry Carey Films:

1. Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948)
2. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (DW Griffith, 1912)
3. Air Force (Howard Hawks, 1943)
4. Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946)
5. Barbary Coast (Howard Hawks, 1935)

Top 5 Films of 1939:

1. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir)
2. Stagecoach (John Ford)
3. Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming(
4. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)
5. Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford)

Links: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

2011-04-22T03:43:00.000-07:00

Otis Ferguson, one of America's first great film critics, was not a fan of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington on its release back in 1939, accusing director Frank Capra in The New Republic of putting ideas before people, and of having crowd-pleasing ideas among them:

"Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is going to be the big movie explosion of the year, and reviewers are going to think twice and think sourly before they’ll want to put it down for the clumsy and irritating thing it is. It is a mixture of tough, factual patter about congressional cloakrooms and pressure groups, and a naïve but shameless hooraw for the American relic—Parson Weems at a flag-raising."

Frank S. Nugent, no slouch of a critic himself (and the screenwriter of Classics The Searchers and The Quiet Man, among other films), disagreed in the New York Times, noting that Capra succeeds not just in walking the line between comedy and drama, but between condemnation and celebration of the American government:

"For Mr. Capra is a believer in democracy as well as a stout-hearted humorist. Although he is subjecting the Capitol's bill-collectors to a deal of quizzing and to a scrutiny which is not always tender, he still regards them with affection and hope as the implements, however imperfect they may be, of our kind of government. Most directors would not have attempted to express that faith otherwise than in terms of drama or melodrama. Capra, like the juggler who performed at the Virgin's shrine, has had to employ the only medium he knows. And his comedy has become, in consequence, not merely a brilliant jest, but a stirring and even inspiring testament to liberty and freedom, to simplicity and honesty and to the innate dignity of just the average man."

Some enterprising individual at the University of Virginia has collected a number of other contemporary reviews of Mr. Smith, highlighting the various contemporary reactions to the film. Of particular interest, considering the film's rah-rah rep, are these reported in The Christian Science Monitor:

Senator Alban W. Barkely (D-Kentucky): "He declared he spoke not only for himself but for the entire Senate in his condemnation. The picture, he declared, was a "grotesque distortion" of the way the Senate is run.... "As grotesque as anything I have ever seen! Imagine the Vice President of the United States winking at a pretty girl in the gallery in order to encourage a filibuster! Can you visualize Jack Garner winking up at Hedy Lamarr in order to egg her on?""

Senator James F. Byrnes (D-South Carolina): "outrageous . . . exactly the kind of picture that dictators of totalitarian governments would like to have their subjects believe exists in a democracy...."

And from The Hollywood Reporter in 1942 on Mr. Smith being the last American film to play in France before the Nazi Occupation cut off distribution:

"Similarly cheers and acclamation punctuated the famous speech of the young senator on man's rights and dignity. "It was," writes the Nachrichten's correspondent, "as though the joys, suffering, love and hatred, the hopes and wishes of an entire people who value freedom above everything, found expression for the last time . . ."

Amplifying on this defiance of Nazi oppression, the Army News Service sent me word that one theater in a French village in the Vosges Mountains played Mr. Smith continuously during the last thirty days before the ban."

Coming Attractions: Mr Smith Goes to Washington

2011-04-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 27 April at 6:45 & 9:15 P.M.

Giveaways: Destry Rides Again DVD courtesy of Scarecrow Video, and a gift certificate to Cinema Books, respectively.

The circle is complete.

Tonight!

2011-04-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 7:00 & 9:10 P.M.

Night of the Hunter Speaks For Itself

2011-04-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, Night of the Hunter

2011-04-18T06:21:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Charles Laughton Films:

1. Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, 1935)

2. Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957)

3. St. Martin's Lane (Tim Whelan, 1938)

4. Advise and Consent (Otto Preminger, 1962)

5. Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960)

Top 5 Lillian Gish Films:

1. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (DW Griffith, 1912)

2. True Heart Susie (DW Griffith, 1919)

3. Portrait of Jennie (William Dieterle, 1948)

4. Broken Blossoms (DW Griffith, 1919)

5. Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946)

Top 5 Directorial Debuts:

1. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

2. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)
3. They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1948)

4. This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)

5. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)

Top 5 Southern Films Noirs:

1. Moonrise (Frank Borzage, 1948)

2. The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson, 1955)

3. They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1949)

4. Blood Simple (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1984)

5. Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981)

Top 5 Films of 1955:

1. All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk)

2. Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich)

3. Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles)

4. Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer)

5. Lola Montes (Max Ophuls)

Links: Night of the Hunter

2011-04-15T04:03:00.000-07:00

Bosley Crowther liked Night of the Hunter well enough back in September of 1955, though he had issues with the second half. Writing in the New York Times, he said:

"All this has been crisply compacted into clear screen drama by the late James Agee and it is put forth under the direction of Mr. Laughton in stark, rigid visual terms. The locale is crushingly rural, the atmosphere of "the sticks" is intense, and Robert Mitchum plays the murderous minister with an icy unctuousness that gives you the chills. There is more than malevolence and menace in his character. There is a strong trace of Freudian aberration, fanaticism and iniquity. . . .

"But unfortunately the story and the thesis presented by Mr. Grubb had to be carried through by Mr. Laughton to a finish—and it is here that he goes wrong. For the evolution of the melodrama, after the threatened, frightened children flee home, angles off into that allegorical contrast of the forces of Evil and Good. Strange, misty scenes composed of shadows and unrealistic silhouettes suggest the transition to abstraction."

But Dave Kehr in the Chicago Reader finds that abstraction to be one of the film's great strengths:

"Laughton's direction has Germanic overtones—not only in the expressionism that occasionally grips the image, but also in a pervasive, brooding romanticism that suggests the Erl-King of Goethe and Schubert. But ultimately the source of its style and power is mysterious—it is a film without precedents, and without any real equals."

Michael Atkinson takes Kehr's side, writing in the Village Voice that:

"Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter is the movie freak's definitive love machine: maligned when first released in 1955, hopelessly out of synch with American postwar sensibilities, so aberrant and singular it may properly be called the first Hollywood cult movie. An arch, Kabuki-like morality play set in a Saturday Evening Post mid-country and populated by shrieking archetypes, the film was, famously, Laughton's only directorial effort, and the mind boggles to ponder what kind of auteur career the man might've had come the '60s. As it is, Hunter is a paroxysm of stylistic excess, so untempered by reality or taste that even its stiff-limbed child performances feel like bad dreams."

Finally, just a month ago, Night of the Hunter was current Times critic A. O. Scott's Critics' Pick of the week:

Coming Attractions: Night of the Hunter

2011-04-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 20 April at 7:00 & 9:10 P.M.

Giveaways: Dead Man DVD courtesy of Scarecrow Video, and a gift certificate to Cinema Books, respectively.

Fight the power.

Tonight!

2011-04-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

At 7:15 P.M.

Hell is Other Movies: Seven Samurai for Seven Samurai

2011-04-12T05:43:00.000-07:00

Tatsuya Nakadai and Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo

The samurai as Western hero in Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. A loose adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's hard-boiled novel Red Harvest, it was remade by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars. Kurosawa's sequel Sanjuro is a comic take on a short story by Shūgorō Yamamoto that was also adapted as a more serious dramatic film starring Tatsuya Nakadai called Kill! that was directed by Kihachi Okamoto.

The Loyal 47 Ronin

The samurai as historical tragedy in Kenji Mizoguchi's epic 1941 version of one of the most famous, and most filmed, episodes in Japanese history, in which the titular ronin avenge their wronged master and commit honorable suicide. Kurosawa's Kagemusha also uses history as a means to examine the samurai world, in this case the fall of the warlord Shingen Takeda during the civil war that ultimately established the Tokugawa Dyanasty in 1575.

Toshiro Mifune in Throne of Blood

The samurai as Shakespearean tragedy in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood and Ran. Adapting Macbeth and King Lear, respectively into Japanese settings and utilizing the conventions of traditional Noh theatre, Kurosawa loses the language but gets to the heart of the brutal violence and treachery in Shakespeare.

Tatsuya Nakadai in The Sword of Doom

The samurai as homicidal maniac in Kihachi Okamoto's pitch-black The Sword of Doom. Tatsuya Nakadai plays the most bad ass samurai around, who kills indiscriminately and can only be stopped by a freeze-frame (the film is the first in a trilogy, but the remaining movies were never made). One of the most vicious and evil protagonists in film history in an immensely enjoyable movie.

Tomisaburo Wakayama in Shogun Assassin

The samurai as grindhouse classic in Shogun Assassin. Director Robert Houston melded together parts of the first two films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series (directed by Kenji Misumi) and dubbed them into English for release in the US. You probably know it best from the many samples used in GZA's seminal album Liquid Swords.

Nobuko Otowa in Onibaba

The samurai as victim of the people in Kaneto Shindo's Onibaba. During a great war, an old woman and her daughter-in-law hunt down wounded samurai and murder them, stealing and selling their weapons and armor for food (this is also a plot point in Seven Samurai). They are eventually repaid with a terrible curse, one that involves one of the scarier masks in film history.

Harakiri

The samurai as social commentary in Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri, in which Tatsuya Nakadai (in one of the great performances in film history) seeks revenge on the samurai clan, and the feudal system in general, that lead to his son-in-law being forced to disembowel himself with a bamboo sword. Kobayashi's Samurai Rebellion, starring Toshiro Mifune along with Nakadai, is also a frontal assault on the samurai system, with Mifune rebelling against the irrational demands of his lord. Japanese directors often used period settings to disguise their critiques of contemporary, and especially wartime, Japanese society. Sadao Yamanaka's Humanity and Paper Balloons is one such film, following the struggles for life in a slum both for masterless samurai who can barely survive and the common people, who weren't much better off. Made in 1937, Yamanaka was drafted the same day the film premiered and he died in Manchuria at the age of 28.

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, Seven Samurai

2011-04-11T04:51:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Greatest Films of All-Time:

1. Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
2. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
3. Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1951)
4. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (FW Murnau, 1927)

Top 5 Akira Kurosawa Films:

1. Ran (1985)
2. Rashomon (1950)
3. Ikiru (1952)
4. Throne of Blood (1957)
5. Yojimbo (1961)

Top 5 Toshiro Mifune Films Not Directed By Akira Kurosawa:

1. Hell in the Pacific (John Boorman, 1968)
2. Sword of Doom (Kihachi Okamoto, 1966)
3. Samurai Rebellion (Masaki Kobayashi, 1967)
4. The Life of Oharu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952)
5. Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (Hiroshi Inagaki, 1954)

Top 5 Japanese Films of All-Time:

1. Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
2. Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
3. Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)
4. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
5. Japanese Girls at the Harbor (Hiroshi Shimizu, 1933)

Top 5 Films of 1954:

1. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
2. Voyage in Italy (Roberto Rossellini)
3. Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
4. Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray)
5. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan)