Movies That Matter (to Us)


So, tonight, on our four-month anniversary (go us!), Teresa and I decided to compile a list of our one hundred favorite films. In the spirit of diversity and inclusion, we decided to try and limit our selections to one entry per director. In a few instances, however, we couldn't agree on a filmmaker's best work, yet both felt strongly that said filmmaker should be represented, so we broke our rule and listed two separate films. (Even so, there are dozens of key figures who didn't make the cut, for one reason or another: von Stroheim, de Oliveira, Eisenstein, Akerman, Antonioni, Warhol, Brakhage, Imamura, Feuillade, Jarmusch, not to mention the glaring absence of a couple entire continents.) Eighty of the films here are individual picks (forty apiece--'J' for Josh, 'T' for Teresa), which we may not jointly admire; the remaining twenty are consensus choices (denoted as 'J/T') that may or may not have made it on as personal faves, but that we both like plenty.

Oh, right. Here's the list.

3 x 2 - 1


I recently watched five of the six vignettes from the Three...Extremes and Three (aka Three Extremes II) collections. At Teresa's insistence that The Wheel was "lame," we skipped that one. My thoughts on the other five.

Memories Despite the hypnotic fairly tale-style imagery, I didn't much care for Kim Ji-woon's A Tale of Two Sisters, which doubled back on its myriad charms with a cheap, late Shyamalanesque twist. Kim's contribution to Three takes a similar route to a similar end, but the strategy works more effectively here as a short form. If it's still not entirely satisfying, Memories nevertheless solidifies Kim as a striking visual artist, equally adept at illuminating an eerie urban landscape (the banner that greets visitors entering the city: "Welcome to New Town, Where Dreams Come True") and traversing a haunted country manor.

Going Home Part quirky dark comedy, part Old Hollywood romantic tragedy, Peter Chan's entry in the series is one of the finer efforts on display, if the least creepy installment. As a lonely doctor attempting to revive his dead wife, Leon Lai is superb. While getting the most out of his star, Chan steers the shift from ghost story to idiosyncratic humor to operatic melodrama with skill to spare.

Dumplings Fruit Chan's stomach-turning satire is to Three...Extremes what Wong Kar-wai's The Hand was to the Eros project--the clear show-stealer, and quite possibly a mini-masterpiece. (Probably not coincidentally, both directors are aided invaluably by Christopher Doyle, the best DP in the business today.) At once, shocking, grimly hilarious, and viciously incisive, Chan's film is finally an ambiguous cherry bomb, allowing room for missives on our image-obsessed (global) culture, sexist double standards, New Age kooks, and China's notorious disregard for human life. By no means "pleasant," but unforgettable, to be sure.

Cut Park "Oldboy" Chan-wook's entry is a nasty piece of meta sadism, starring a phlegm-gargling Korean version of Robert De Niro's King of Comedy character. If this sounds like your bag, then go for it. It's not mine.

Box In his audio commentary track, director Takashi Miike says that silence and stillness are central themes in his film, and that "the moment of waking up" is a particularly essential concept. Box is, somewhat surprisingly (coming from the man who made Audition and Ichi the Killer), more quasi-möbius strip tone poem than gory horror show. Its deliberate pacing and snowbound visual scheme are haunting, and I'm still mulling over the rhythms Miike establishes within his condensed narrative.

Superman Is Alive


"Show Me What You Got" is good. "Kingdom Come" is great, the sort of effortless, playfully sinister flow that seals the deal for Jay as not just the best rapper alive--but, ahem, ever. I really can't wait for the whole enchilada to drop (or at least leak).

Newsflash: If it weren't for Timbaland firing on all cylinders, Just Blaze would surely be in the running for producer-of-the-year, dabbling in Public Enemy and Rick James for a pair of insta-classic beats. This shit is seriously hot.

Me on The Departed.

Teresa on The Departed.

Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?


If the world weren't such a cold, unforgiving place, Down in the Valley would have been given the decent-budget / wide-release-Edward-Norton film treatment--in place of The Illusionist. Sure, it's about a dozen times less marketable than a classy period piece, and it doesn't have any Giamatti, or a swellingly dramatic Philip Glass score. It's got all the indie trappings (weird storyline, Evan Rachel Wood) holding it back. I realize this. But, it's a much better film than that soggy magician one, and it most certainly didn't deserve its blink and you'll miss it theatrical run, or hardly-rented DVD status. At the very least, it should have made some waves.

Why? Well, not only does Valley hold Norton's best, riskiest performance since 25th Hour, it's also one of the few genuinely imaginative, original works to come out of American film within the past few years. An effortlessly passionate story that transcends its small-scale setting, allowing the unfolding events to be weighted with life or death importance.

Norton plays Harlan, a man woefully out of place in modern-day San Fernando Valley, who retains old school Western charm (of the cowboy hat-tipping "Howdy there, little lady." variety), and happens to tote loaded guns, should a need to save the day in a heroic shootout arise. It's while working at a gas pump that he meets Evan Rachel Wood's Tobe--short for "October"--and promptly renders himself unemployed by ditching his duties to visit the beach with her and her gal pals. Normally, warning bells would go off here, with this guy being at least 15 years her senior, and willingly taking extreme measurements to be with her. Yet Harlan seems so unassumingly kind, and clueless: you feel more protective of him than the teenage girl he's courting.

Of course, though, their uneasy romance begins to crumble into American Dream-cum-nightmare territory, by way of an overprotective dad, some decidedly shady behavior from Harlan, and a whole lot of gunplay. By the end of the film, it's taken so many quirky turns, led its characters to such strange places, it's unclear who should be the 'bad guy,' or if there is one at all. Harlan, while earnest and well-meaning, ain't no John Wayne. And Tobe's family, reacting through fear and confusion, manage to inadvertently push him over the already-well-in-view edge. Maybe there's no right or wrong here--only broken hopes, childlike innocence, hasty reactions, and doomed figures. All the better, if you ask me.

This Shakespearean tragedy, things gone awry aspect is what makes Down in the Valley impossible to shake. Writer/director David Jacobson handles every extreme genre shift so deftly, I'm left feeling optimistic about what he may tackle next (and forgiving of his previous effort, Criminal). And, hey, if all else fails and nothing here appeals to you, there's a real nice Taxi Driver homage.

Notre Musique


With PJ Harvey having fallen off a bit, Sleater-Kinney calling it quits, and no for-sure word yet on Kingdom Come, John Darnielle has, for the time being, inherited the most-reliable-artist mantle. Get Lonely doesn't pack the immediate punch of last year's The Sunset Tree nor the thematic sprawl of Tallahassee, but, make no mistake, it's vintage Mountain Goats all the way. "Maybe Sprout Wings" is as exquisitely sad as any Darnielle track to date, while the lead-off single, "Woke up New," boasts a jangly defiance in the vein of "This Year" or "Palmcorder Yajna." Darnielle relays, "I wandered through the house like a little boy lost at the mall / and an astronaut could've seen the hunger in my eyes from space," before proceeding into the chorus: "What do I do? What do I do? What do I do [his voice cracking slightly]? What do I do without you?"--a de facto Alpha Couple epilogue shot through with (what sounds like) the added poignancy of experience. He's our Neil Young, people. Really.

Conversely, I'd just about forgotten about Joanna Newsom, despite liking 2004's The Milk-Eyed Mender more than a little and replaying "Inflammatory Writ" every so often. Her new record, Ys (pronounced "ees" apparently), is a tremendously pleasant surprise. Aside from longer, more expansively arranged songs, it doesn't necessarily stray that far from the ethereal-harp-weird/weirdly pretty-voice formula that worked for Newsom last time around, but there are moments of such rare, incredible beauty here that it's easy to forget the old freak-folk debate or any such subgenre semantics. The final stretch of the nearly-17-minute "Only Skin" is the most stunningly, sparklingly, exhilaratingly lovely thing I've heard in years. My wife can't stand it. I can't stop listening. She puts on headphones and turns up her nose.

Expanded thoughts on Dead Man's Shoes up today at Stylus.

You know the drill: click the above image for the mp3, or use this subscription link. Enjoy the 'cast, which Josh has called our "best yet," while I think #3 is still slightly better. Decide for yourself.

Podcast #1
and #2
and #3

Another big shoutout to astor, for hosting all of these.

What You Know About That


Brief notes on some recent viewings in roughly descending order:

Duck Season Fernando Eimbcke's debut feature isn't shot in black and white merely to be appear more superficially artful; it's rather a more pointed aestheticization: This is a memorialization in the present tense. Effectively harnessing that tonal paradox, the film succeeds as an ode to quotidian pleasures, where filling a couple glasses to the brim with Coke packs the bittersweet punch of fleeting innocence. Every bit as charming as you've heard, without ever stumbling toward preciousness or forced whimsy.

ATL At the risk of unfair subgenre ghettoization, this is only a hip hop movie insofar as it stars a pair of rappers. Instead, it's a surprisingly sweet seriocomic look a class friction, boasting a light touch and a sharp eye for regional specificity. T.I.'s good. Big Boi deserves Oscar consideration.

Idlewild Here, too, Big Boi is best in show, but, save maybe a better-than-decent Terrence Howard, the rest is a half-baked mess. Think: Purple Rain meets Moulin Rouge, sans the former's classic soundtrack (some Aquemini or Stankonia material could've livened things up considerably) or the latter's sporadically exciting stylistic flourishes; "eccentric," to be sure, but more as a backhanded compliment.

The Illusionist Right, this is one those prestige-tinged period films where American movie stars speak English with foreign accents. It looks great, but so does most of the Merchant-Ivory catalogue. I'd have given it the benefit of the doubt as a metaphor-for-the-magic-of-movies piece had it not opted for superfluous explanation in a tacked-on epilogue.

Brick If you still thought Memento was great after the third go-'round, this is for you. Same goes if you've privately longed for a Big Sleep remake with the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun in the Bogey role. Otherwise, do yourself a favor and stick to Hawks and Huston.

Duane Hopwood As one of the few people who actually liked The Pallbearer, I had some hope for this one (which we rented randomly after being unable to agree on other picks). Matt Mulhern's movie resides firmly in the wasteland of Amerindie mediocrity, inoffensive and uninspired. In a nutshell: Ross Gellar moves from the city to the Jersey shore, marries Janeane Garofalo, has a couple kids, drinks heavily, gets divorced, loses visitation rights to said kids due to said drinking, and--surprise, surprise--rediscovers himself. Not as heartwarming as it sounds, but maybe not quite as awful either.

Dead Man's Shoes What starts out a British gangster flick, with some idiosyncratic appeal, evolves discomfittingly into your standard-issue revenge drama, with scant heart, less brains, and the usual dubious moral implications.

I've got a piece on Eyes Wide Shut for Stylus' Scenes column up today.

Every Big Girl Needs a Big Pimp
This weekend, we watched some movies. All first viewings for me, so here's what I thunk:

I quite liked The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou?, but loathed the grating attempts at humor found in Fargo, and think Intolerable Cruetly to be dull. Those were the only Coens I'd seen to date, so my average opinion of them was evened out to a nice, solid, "eh." But after hearing favorable things about Barton Fink, and realizing that John Goodman is in it--I watched. And I liked. Here the Coens find a happy ground of comedy that works for them: black, over-the-top, and period-satire. John Turturro plays an Arthur Millerish playwrite, hired by Hollywood bigwigs to script them a wrestling picture. Against his better judgment, he goes. There, he's set up in a seedy hotel, plagued with a nasty case of writer's block, and slowly becoming more and more unhinged with each zany occurence. The film is entertaining, witty, and not at all patronizing (ahem, Fargo). Plus, it's--unexpectedly--a pandora's box of mystery at its core, and I still haven't figured all of it out.


Despite flying rather lowly under the rader (I'd never heard of it), having a severely boring trailer, and an even more boring DVD case--I wanted to see this, pretty badly. Besides, don't judge a book by its cover, right? Not to mention all the good things Josh had to say about the movie. A skewed period piece about a gal, lacking in emotion, but with acting ambition in spades--and something about said gal eating glass? Sign me up. Problem is, that synopsis is much more interesting than both the film and the gal. Esther Kahn--even if you forgive the cheesy circle fade-ins, Oliver Twist-esque voiceover, Summer Phoenix's hammy accent, or the uninventive actress-who's-lifeless-until-on-stage plot--is, in the end, a very mediocre work. Visually, it is rather aesthetically pleasing, considering it's set amongst poor Jewish immigrants in 1890's London (not a very glamorous time). There are also some moments of (possibly unintentional?) humor, that made the whole endeavor that much more enjoyable. And Phoenix--accent aside--was good, given the...er, challenging role. Okay, I'm out of nice things to say. Even the glass-eating was brief and unsatisfying. All in all, Esther Kahn's biggest crime is being as slow, uninvolved and cold as its title character.


Fat Girl is a movie I never hear people talk about. I'm sure they do (...talk about it), I'd just never noticed. I'd heard the title, of course, and seen the Criterion cover. Somehow I pictured it being made in the 70's, and the fat girl being evil or menacing. I realize as I type this, I was probably getting it confused with The Honeymoon Killers (1970), which also features an obese female, and is on Criterion. But I digress. Catherine Breillat's film is French, came out in 2001, and the girl whom they call "fat" is actually kinda sweet and unassuming. I know that now. Nevertheless, the film is very disturbing--not unlike, I imagine, The Honeymoon Killers. But I digress, again. Anais (yes, the heavy lass) is on vacation with her mother, father, and decidedly not-fat sister. She watches, quite literally, as her sis meets and is ultimately seduced by an older Italian dude. Or, to put it as our Asian import DVD case does: Indeed, this is the subject: a girl's loss of virginity. I guess I can't argue with that. Fat Girl isn't ever easy to watch, but it's always compelling, frame for frame. And that closing shot is killer. In a very bizarre, almost funny (okay, not almost) way. That's the best kind, no?


I'm not typically a big fan of trendy, smarter-than-thou comedies--but this one has some odd charm to it. Maybe it's the cast, maybe it's the director (David O. Russell), or, hell, maybe it's the existential-philosophy-hogwash subject matter. Either way, it makes for an enjoyable little diversion that pulls of quite a few laughs. Sometimes those laughs are underwhelming, and sometimes the intended laughs don't quite make it to the punchline, but more often than not, it's harmless, slapstick fun. My only real complaints with I Heart Huckabees (banking on the heart-symbol trend a little late) are that it could stand to shave off twenty minutes, and at times it becomes a tad too nonsensical. Really, though, can you dislike a movie that references Jessica Lange, Shaquille O'Neal, Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks (all but one of those at fairly random moments)? I sure can't.


Oh, and while I'm here, I'll say: R.I.P. Steve Irwin! This is all the more creepy given that I very recently watched Grizzly Man, and the comparisons there are not subtle.

Time Fades Away


Movie romances come in all shapes and sizes, to be sure, from Rick and Ilsa to Jesse and Celine. Few, however, are as eerily imagined as Shinya Tsukamoto's Vital, which I finally caught up with on DVD (as half of a double bill with one of my personal favorites). In fact, the two films I was most reminded of while viewing Tsukamoto's creep-cum-swoonfest are Vertigo and Steven Soderbergh's Solaris remake, both ghost stories shot through with romantic longing and existential dread.

Vital stars the ubiquitous and consistently impressive Tadanobu Asano as Hiroshi, an amnesiac medical student who progressively realizes that the cadaver he's dissecting is none other than his late girlfriend, Ryoko. While engaged in some sort of relationship with a classmate equipped with issues of her own, Hiroshi's memory begins to return in fits and starts. Meanwhile, Hiroshi and Ryoko come to share some strange tropical space located somewhere between memory and the afterlife. She repeatedly performs a bizzare, contortion-based dance and begs her still-living lover to stay; he wakes back up and hovers blankly over the autopsy slab.

Trust me: It plays better on screen than on paper, though that isn't to deny the film's weird as hell. This is inherently disturbing stuff, but it's also uncommonly passionate and stylistically entrancing, shot largely in cold, color-neutral locales that intensify the claustrophobic mood. I've never seen anything quite like it, and I can't shake it for the life of me. Outside of some choice Kitano, Miike, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, I'm woefully ignorant of contemporary Japanese cinema. Vital has officially peaked my interest to delve deeper.

On Playgiarism

Finally, our third podcast is done. Featuring a few tracks from our best-00's-singles (below), as well as whatever else we felt like including. As always, use this link for iTunes subscription, or click the image for the direct file.

Previous JLT/TLJ 'casts:
One
Two

Best of the 2000's (so far)


Josh

Films
01. Three Times (Hou)
02. Russian Ark (Sokurov)
03. The Fog of War (Morris)
04. Before Sunset (Linklater)
05. In the Mood for Love (Wong)
06. A.I. (Spielberg)
07. Platform (Jia)
08. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong)
09. The New World (Malick)
10. Esther Kahn (Desplechin)

Albums
01. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
02. Robyn
03. Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance
04. M.I.A. - Arular
05. The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
06. Sleater-Kinney - One Beat
07. Solomon Burke - Don't Give Up on Me
08. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
09. Basement Jaxx - Rooty
10. The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee / The Sunset Tree (tie)

Singles
01. Lumidee - "Never Leave You"
02. The New Pornographers - "Letter from an Occupant"
03. Basement Jaxx - "Romeo"
04. Panjabi MC f/ Jay-Z - "Beware of the Boys" [remix]
05. Aaliyah - "We Need a Resolution"
06. Nelly Furtado f/ Timbaland - "Promiscuous"
07. The Game - "Put You on the Game"
08. Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz - "Get Low"
09. Kylie Minogue - "Love at First Sight"
10. t.a.t.u. - "How Soon Is Now?"


Teresa

Films
01. A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim)
02. In the Mood for Love (Wong)
03. Kairo (Kurosawa)
04. demonlover (Assayas)
05. 3-Iron (Kim)
06. The New World (Malick)
07. Vital (Tsukamoto)
08. Dolls (Kitano)
09. Before Sunset (Linklater)
10. Morvern Callar (Ramsay)

Albums
01. Lee Jung Hyun -- I Love Natural
02. Shiina Ringo -- Shouso Strip
03. Basement Jaxx -- Kish Kash
04. M.I.A. / Diplo -- Piracy Funds Terrorism
05. Cat Power -- You Are Free
06. Diplo -- Favela Strikes Back
07. Yuka Honda -- Eucadamix
08. Robyn -- Robyn
09. DJ Shadow -- The Private Press
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- Show Your Bones

Singles
01. Shiina Ringo -- "Yattsuke Shigoto"
02. Outkast -- "B.O.B."
03. N.E.R.D. -- "Lapdance"
04. Lil' Jon & The East Side Boyz -- "Get Low"
05. Namie Amuro -- "Alarm"
06. Basement Jaxx -- "Romeo"
07. Ayumi Hamasaki -- "Step You"
08. T.I. -- "What You Know"
09. Gorillaz -- "Dare"
10. JC Chasez -- "All Day Long I Dream About Sex"

All My Girls Stand in a Circle


Nice, somewhat unexpected perk of living with another person: Finding that great new music has magically appeared on your computer.

"It's been out for like a month," my wife informed me of We Are the Pipettes, but I've been out of step enough here recently that this perfectly crafted gem might well have passed me by entirely. Which, god bless her, would've been a real shame. This is terrific stuff, instantly sublime ear candy for a listener who consistently cites the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" as his all-time favorite song.

Between Girls Aloud, the Sugababes, Rachel Stevens, and Lily Allen, are we witnessing a renaissance in British girl pop? Hell yes we are, and the Pipettes are top shelf all the way. Much has evidently already been written about the group's retro skewings, and while their influences are clear, the bottom line--so far as I'm concerned, at least--is that this album sounds better than almost anything else I've heard this year. Or last year. Or the year before. Will it hold up over time? Months? Years? Is it on par with the genre's '60's peaks? Beauty and the Beat? What Will the Neighbors Say?? I can't answer any of that, but with each listen through, I'm increasingly tempted to call it a classic.

I found this on M.I.A.'s Wikipedia page:

"...a few tracks were originally going to be produced by the legendary Timbaland, who has produced songs for the likes of Jay-Z, Missy Elliott and Xzibit. However, according to a recent message board posting by Diplo, M.I.A. will be producing her new album all by herself."

Boo. It's not that I don't have faith in our gal, but I was really looking forward to the teaming of them--not to mention, a Timbo-cameo'd video. Possibly with helicopters.

Cries and Whispers


We saw Miami Vice. Twice. In the same night.

The reason for this: It's fantastic!

Being reasonably familiar with the source tv show going in, and more so with Michael Mann's subsequent filmography, I wasn't nearly prepared for such a bizarre, convoluted glorious mess of a movie. It's all over the place, both geographically (South America, Cuba, Switzerland, Miami, natch) and stylistically (noir, melodrama, soft-core porn). For example, did you know: If a man cries in the shower, a voluptuous naked woman will infallibly appear and begin soaping him up? I didn't, but it's evidently true.

This occurs not once but twice in Miami Vice.

The film doesn't so much open as just...start, "Numb/Encore" blaring in some hip South Florida club, bodies shaking, illicit shit going down, Foxx and Farrell seemingly in mid-investigation. (We thought they'd forgotten a reel or something.) There's virtually no exposition from there. Just a series of places (shot, by Dion Beebe, in the same hi-def DV that made Collateral so stunning), people (bring a scorecard), and uncommonly peculiar catch-phrases ("I'll never doubt you" is a personal favorite).

Oh, and staring. There's lots of staring. Lots and lots and lots of staring. Long staring. Moody staring. Artful staring. Thoughtful staring. Blank staring. Constipated staring. At one point, while bullying a police informant, Farrell suddenly stares out the window. At the ocean? Cut away to a medium shot. Of the ocean. And then back to the bullying. Why did this shot happen? Who knows? This movie's fucking strange.

Later, we see a boat zipping speedily across the Atlantic. Close-up of Farrell answering his cell: "What's up?" "Where are you?" "I'm on my way back." Another shot of the boat. Scene.

This is a cult classic in the making, folks. Following the climactic shoot-out, Farrell, while fleeing the scene, urgently inquires about the status of (presumably) a fellow cop. What's remarkable about this is that we've never previously encountered, or even heard about, this other cop at any point during the preceding two hours. My best guess is that he had a scene or two that ended up on the cutting room floor. Still, the fact that he's "okay" comes as a great relief to us all.

The bittersweet denouement that follows involves--surprise!--more staring. Farrell stares. Gong Li stares back. Foxx, who has seemed on the verge of tears for most of the film's duration, keeps up the battle in a hospital room. And after a series of images that would make for fairly iconic closing shots, Farrell walks into the hospital, while several employees enjoy a cigarette break.

Miami Vice

Fin. A genuine must-see!