I don't believe a man can consider himself fully content until he has done all he can to be of service to his employer.



Directed by James Ivory

Anthony Hopkins appeared for thirty minutes in a film called Silence of the Lambs, which received both critical and financial acclaim. It pretty much launched his career as a star and gave him the opportunity to pick and choose his films. The bi-product of this has been some astonishing performances, from quite possibly the greatest actor of all time (in my opinion, however it is difficult to discount Daniel Day-Lewis), though recently, one has to admit he has been phoning in some of his performances. However, his performance in The World's Fastest Indian is very touching and once again displays his phenomenal range as an actor.



His performance in Remains of the Day is so nuanced, so perfect one needs several viewings to fully appreciate said nuances. It is his ability to convey so much (excuse the cliché) with so little that makes it such an incredible performance. His character, Stephens is the Head butler at Darlington Hall. He is a man of high principles, dedicated to his work and completely loyal to his master Lord Darlington, even when it is contrary to what Stephens believes. He is repressed to say the least and because of this Hopkins has to subtly convey Stephen's emotions, which he does exquisitely.



There is a scene in the movie where Miss Kenton (excellently played by Emma Thompson) confronts him about a book he is reading which may or may not be salacious. Stephens backs into a corner and as she takes the book from him, Hopkins raises his hand as if to touch her face. His hand hangs there above her forehead and one is left thinking/wondering whether he will lower that hand and caress her face – something that the audience, Miss Kenton and Steven’s all desire - but there is nothing and she returns the book to Stevens and leaves the room. That particular scene is probably worth watching the movie alone, and the scenes between Thompson and Hopkins are excellent. Both actors seem to bounce off each other and the dialogue they speak seems so natural and real. However, The Remains of the Day is more than just a vehicle for these two fantastic actors.



Remains is also a very interesting look at England and those in its aristocracy leading up to World War Two who thought that they could keep peace in Europe by making peace with Germany. While these negotiations are being played out in the movie we are able to peer into the running of an aristocratic house in England. We are taken behind the conference rooms and official dinners and into the lives of the staff as they prepare the house for the various guests. As the servants world is revealed we see that they have their own hierarchy, frictions and relationships, which often function completely oblivious to the people they serve. There are many scenes in Remains that show this and it is one of the many strengths of the movie.

The Remains of the Day is an exquisite film and should be watched.

Current Mood: cold

Archy Hamilton: We don't stop them there, they could end up here.

Camel Driver: And they're welcome to it.



Directed by Peter Weir

Pretty much until I was fifteen, Gallipoli was my favourite movie. I can not remember when I first saw it, yet it seems to have been with me for as long as I can remember. It is also a film I return to every year and I must have seen it at least thirty times by now. Why I liked the film so much when I was younger is difficult to say, but I put it down to being Australian (I will get to this later) and because it was a serious film with serious themes. Films like Beverley Hills Cop and Raiders of the Lost Ark were just fun (I now know that they are much more than that), but Gallipoli was good and important, so it had to be my favourite film. In a nutshell its greatness was accessible and easy to see, because it was important and serious. Although, when I was younger I had a much more romantic notion of war. For some unknown reason I thought going off and dying for my country was heroic. I suppose it still is in my mind, but in the end dying is not cool, unless it is for a good cause and I think most people would agree that the First World War was not a good cause.



When I look at Gallipoli now, I see a film about Western Australia (Australia as well, but I am still getting to that)and Western Australians. I do not want to appear parochial, but it is just nice to see a film about Western Australia (albeit set 90 years ago), because films set in Western Australia are certainly in short supply. I defy anybody to give me five films about Western Australia or Western Australians that have been released internationally. I can only think of Shine, Gallipoli and Rabbit Proof Fence (I am sure there are more), so when a half decent film comes along about my state my chest sticks　out a little further than normal, which almost makes me want to thump it, or maybe not.



Stop and consider the last sentence I have just written and question why I wrote it. Sure I wrote it as a rather poor attempt at humour, but more so due to the power of Weir's film. Gallipoli is generally acknowledged as an anti-war film and it certainly is, but for me it is really about Australia and what it is to be Australian. What we have held up for all to see in Gallipoli are ideals that are typically Australian. We have the outback in all its glory as wild and dangerous (the race at the beginning of the movie as Archie cuts his feet on the sand of the Australian desert, or Frank and Archie wandering aimlessly in the hot sun in the middle of nowhere), innocence (Archies naïve, yet hopeful take on the war and even Frank's friends who blindly see the war as an adventure) and finally John Howard's favourite, mateship (Frank and Archie helping each other in numerous scenes).



These themes have been thrust at us over and over again in the Australian media and pretty much sum up how Australians like to see Australia (despite it being light years from reality). They are very powerful and it is a little difficult not to get caught up in the propaganda (propaganda seems like too stronger word, but I am sticking with it) of Gallipoli, which I certainly did when I was younger and even today as a cynical old-man I still do, just a little. Obviously these ideas of Australia are held in stark contrast to the rest of the world which is corrupt, overcrowded (scenes in Egypt for both) and cowardly (the British), so it makes most Australians feel all warm and fuzzy inside.



Despite my misgivings about the film I still love it even today, because in the end it is just a very well made film with superb direction, dialogue and acting. The story is told simply allowing the audience to familiarize itself with the time and the scenario that faces Archie and Frank. Perhaps more importantly Archie and Frank are just easy to like. They are beautifully created and their personalities balance each other out. It is important for us to like them because when the anti-war message comes, we care. The often talked about final shot is fantastic and resonates because it shows this once active young man reduced to complete inactivity and the ending of his life is the ending of the film. As the credits roll to the Albinoni score (Weir seriously over doing it) it is hard not to ponder the waste of human life.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Directed by Eric Rohmer


Here is the basic plot for Claire's Knee. A man, Jerome (Jean-Claude Brialy) in his mid thirties is about to be married, but while on holiday meets Claire, a teenage girl who is very beautiful. Jerome becomes obsessed, not with Claire per se, but with her knee and well touching it. Obviously concerned about being seen as a fetishist, Jerome fights his obsession, but eventually fulfills his dreams of touching her knee, which Claire thinks is an act of sympathy due to the problems she is suffering in her own life. There is a lot more going on in this movie, but when I tell you that the reason Jerome is on holiday is because a former girlfriend wants to watch him seduce her daughter, so she can write about it, which country do you think this film is from? There can only be one answer and that country has to be France. Ah the French they have given us so much like bad mime, various examples of how to lose a war, far too many cheeses that smell, some of the greatest films that have ever been made and Eric Rohmer.



Eric Rohmer for the uninitiated is one of the few people behind the French New Wave. The French New Wave is pretty much responsible for everything you have ever seen since 1959. Their influence has no boundaries and is the reason you are alive today, okay perhaps not, but I think you get the picture. Every cinematic image is linked in someway to the French New Wave and that includes the worst movies in history). I will not go into details here, but to put it simply, these guys were good.



Eric Rohmer is the master of dialogue and in every way he uses dialogue to move the narrative along, but also more importantly to explore what his characters are thinking and feeling. Rohmer's movies are not for everybody due to the effusion of words that come from his protagonist's mouths and have often been accused by people (of no film taste in my opinion) of being boring and about nothing. However, I am yet to watch a Rohmer film I have not liked mainly because I find his characters to be very believable. Rohmer's characters (in general) are not action people they are talk people and because of this they often will not act upon their desires or the way the audience would like them to; for me this is basic human behaviour and Rohmer seems to capture it perfectly on film. However, the dialogue in Rohmer's movies is much more than just dialogue because it is never forced and is used cinematically rather than literally. It is a necessary distinction and very few filmmakers get it, but Rohmer does, basically he invented it in my opinion, but what could a person expect from a man who was a part of The French New Wave?



Claire's Knee is a funny, intelligent movie exploring deceit, delusion and morality filmed in the classic understated Rohmer way. The dialogue is brilliant and it is a film deeply layered offering the audience hours of endless speculation about the characters motivations after the film has ended. See this film.

Current Mood: sleepy

Directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita


What I am about to write is not particularly original or erudite, but film (like most art) has that ability to make us feel all sorts of wonderful and often not so wonderful emotions. It also has the ability to put us to sleep and to make us extraordinarily angry and bored (for those of you who have watched either Spiderman 3 or Pirates of the Caribbean 3 you will surely understand what I am talking about). I like my films to leave me pondering many things and many emotions when I leave the cinema, however finding films that actually achieve this is rather difficult, so in lieu of that I will often look for a film that makes me feel good (Amelie being an obvious example).



This leads me to Nobuhiro Yamashita's Linda Linda Linda, named after the song by the Japanese rock group The Blue Hearts who actually wrote some pretty cool songs and are well worth a download the next time you are on Limewire. Linda Linda Linda is without question a feel-good movie and anybody who watches this movie and does not feel happier for the experience is probably living without a pulse. However, Linda Linda Linda is (please excuse the cliché) much more than a feel-good movie, it is also a wonderful exploration of high school life in Japan that has an extraordinary musical score by James Iha of Smashing Pumpkin's fame and very assured direction from Yamashita.



The narrative revolves around an all girl band that has just lost their guitarist to a finger injury and their lead singer to...well nobody is really sure because it is never explained, but let us just put it down to teenage angst (this is one of the many loose ends that are never cleared up and make the film all the better) three days before their high school rock festival. The surviving three band members Kei (Yu Kashii), Nozomi (Shiori Sekine) and Kyoko (Aki Maeda) decide to play on, despite not having a lead singer and needing to learn new instruments and new songs, which are three covers from The Blue Hearts. The lead singer comes in the form of Son (the delectable Du-na Bae/Pae depending on where you live), a Korean exchange student who is not proficient in Japanese and initially joins the band due to a misunderstanding in Japanese (I really identified with this scene).




Pae is phenomenal as the slightly kooky Korean exchange student. Kooky is something this woman has down and she is slowly but surely building a performance oeuvre that would be the envy of any actor. Her performance like the other members of the film is believable and believable is perhaps the best way to sum up this film, because it is a frighteningly realistic account of Japanese high school life. The nerves, the angst, the confessions of love and the friendship are all there and beautifully realized without any over the top melodrama that often plagues this genre.



Kudos must go to Yamashita (who is famous for making Japanese slacker movies) and his direction which is delightfully restrained with a modicum of camera movement and some beautiful long takes that are exquisite to watch due to their simplicity. This film is not big on plot and that is why we need to identify with the characters and in the hands of Yamashita there is no way it fails. Given to a lesser director and who knows what might have happened! This is perhaps best encapsulated with the last few shots of the movie which (while the girls are playing) shows brief shots of empty classrooms and hallways (a rather indirect homage to Antonioni's Eclipse) asking the audience to contemplate what they are now missing graduated from high school. Ah there is so much more to this movie than girls playing in a band. Simply brilliant!

Current Mood: ecstatic

Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs...



Directed by John McTiernan

It seems only fair that I should bring out the big guns and talk about Bruce in Die Hard considering Die Hard 4 has just been released here in Japan; that is right Bruce is back older in Die Hard 4, much older, so one can only hope that he will die sooner (I am sorry). I am not completely averse to prequels, sequels, adaptations of plays/novels/short-stories/comics/news articles or remakes of television series and cartoons, but (and this is a big but) I do think the studios are really starting to take the piss with the number of sequels that are being released at the moment.



I understand that they need to make a buck and the easiest way to do it is to roll out some character that the punters recognize, but could they at least make the films interesting? And I do not mean the media blitz, which recently (at least in Japan) is far more interesting than the films they are here to sell. I know what some of you are thinking, sequels have been around for years (think Chaplin and his Little Tramp) and they have been very successful (James Bond, Indiana Jones), so why should I take umbrage at the recent spate of sequels? Well it boils down to this, they lack imagination and for the most part the sequels are usually inferior to the original (Do I need to list examples?) and designed purely to make money.



What is worse now though, is that the originals are not that good in the first place, but due to the studios fantastic marketing strategies they are able to create a sufficient amount of hype about a movie to sucker enough people in for the first weekend of release, which is usually enough time to turn a nice profit. Due to this marketing efficiency the studios are able to release such sequels as Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. For those of you who have not seen the first film, never watch it, not even for Jessica Alba. I seriously fear that the glorious reputation of the Silver Surfer is going to be besmirched.



Anyway, back to Bruce and Die Hard. We all know it (anybody who has not seen it is a loser) and we all love it (anybody who does not love it is stupid). Why do we love it? John McClane is old school (alpha male all the way), but flawed (unhappy marriage), he also does not have any shoes (a very rare problem for an action hero to have) and gets hurt. He is up against a retinue of delightful and intriguing bad guys headed by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), who McClane takes great delight in annoying. The film also has the right amount of humour to balance the violence and the melodrama, which at times seems a bit overwrought, but I will put that down to eighties excess and let it slide. And finally the film is action packed with superb direction from John McTiernan who is one of the finest (and one of the most underrated) directors of the last twenty-five years.

Current Mood: cranky

I run a couple of newspapers. What do you do?



Directed by Orson Welles

For a film that is supposedly the greatest film of all time not that many people have actually watched Citizen Kane. At film school I would say that ninety percent of the students I studied with had never seen Citizen Kane. I would also say that if you surveyed first year film students all over the world you would probably get the same sort of percentage.



What is it exactly about old movies that scare young people so much? It is a combination of things, but probably the biggest problem is that old movies are well, old. Why on earth would kids raised on MTV, ultra bright pop-videos and films that do not have a shot lasting longer than five seconds want to watch Citizen Kane? A film that is shot in dark black and white (trust me there are different tones of black and white) and has some very long (albeit stunningly orchestrated) scenes that are the antithesis of most of the visual media that kids (and I mean people under forty) are exposed to today. It is a big ask for people to leave their comfort zones in any facet of their life and in movies it is no different.



For those of you who have not seen Citizen Kane, it is a masterpiece. It oozes in every way imaginable, genius. In every camera shot, in every camera movement, in every scene, it is genius. This is perhaps why it is not my favourite Orson Welles film, because it is just too perfect, its genius is patently obvious. It is very difficult not to (when watching Kane) sit back and think “oh my God this is genius”. Its strength is perhaps its weakness.



And with that I will now segue into an article by Jorge Luis Borges on Citizen Kane written way back in 1941. It is an interesting article and perhaps best sums up my feelings towards the movie. It is much better written than anything I will ever write.



An Overwhelming Film (1941)

by Jorge Luis Borges, as translated by Suzanne Jill Levine

_Citizen Kane_ (called _The Citizen_ in Argentina) has at least two
plots. The first, pointlessly banal, attempts to milk applause from
dimwits: a vain millionaire collects statues, gardens, palaces,
swimming pools, diamonds, cars, libraries, men, and women. Like and
earlier collector (whose observations are usually ascribed to the Holy
Ghost), he discovers that this cornucopia of miscellany is a vanity of
vanities: all is vanity. At the point of death, he yearns for one
single thing in the universe, the humble sled he played with as a
child!

The second plot is far superior. It links the Koheleth to the memory
of another nihilist, Franz Kafka. A kind of metaphysical detective
story, its subject (both psychological and allegorical) is the
investigation of a man's inner self, through the works he has wrought,
the words he has spoken, the many lives he has ruined. The same
technique was used by Joseph Conrad in _Chance_ (1914) and in that
beautiful film _The Power and the Glory_: a rhapsody of miscellaneous
scenes without chronological order. Overwhelmingly, endlessly, Orson
Welles shows fragments of the life of the man, Charles Foster Kane,
and invites us to combine them and to reconstruct him. Forms of
multiplicity and incongruity abound in the film: the first scenes
record the treasures amassed by Kane: in one of the last, a poor
woman, luxuriant and suffering, plays with an enormous jigsaw puzzle
on the floor of a palace that is also a museum. At the end we realize
that the fragments are not governed by any secret unity: the detested
Charles Foster Kane is a simulacrum, a chaos of appearances. (A
possible corollary, foreseen by David Hume, Ernst Mach, and our own
Macedonio Fernández: no man knows who he is, no man is anyone.) In a
story by Chesterton—"The Head of Caesar," I think—the hero observes
that nothing is so frightening as a labyrinth with no center. This
film is precisely that labyrinth.

We all know that a party, a palace, a great undertaking, a lunch for
writers and journalists, an atmosphere of cordial and spontaneous
comaradeie, are essentially horrendous. _Citizen Kane_ is the first
film to show such things with an awareness of this truth.

The production is, in general, worthy of its vast subject. The
cinematography has a striking depth, and there are shots whose
farthest planes (like Pre-Raphaelite paintings) are as precise and
detailed as the close-ups.

I venture to guess, nonetheless, that _Citizen Kane_ will endure as
certain Griffith or Pudovkin films have "endured"—films whose
historical value is undeniable but which no one cares to see again.
It is too gigantic, pedantic, tedious. It is not intelligent, though
it is a work of genius—in the most nocturnal and Germanic sense of
that bad word.

Fujii Itsuki straight flush.



Directed by Shunji Iwai

Shunji Iwai's Love Letter is as close to writing perfection as one can get. To encapsulate the thematic terrain it traverses is no mean feet and testament to the extraordinary depth of character and narrative the film has. The film revolves around Hiroko Watanabe (the delectable Miho Nakayama) who after two years of grieving is yet to fully recover from the death of her fiancé Itsuki Fujii, who died in a climbing accident. To help her let go and move on to a new suitor Hiroko writes a letter to an old address of Itsuki's which she finds in a school album. Knowing that the house where he once lived no longer exists she does not expect a reply.



However, in this film she gets a reply from Itsuki. It turns out that it is not a letter from beyond the grave, but from another Itsuki Fujii (she is a woman and also played by Nakayama) who was in the same year as her fiance. Hiroko's curiosity is piqued and she decides to continue the correspondence in order to learn a different side to the man she once loved. What transpires is a series of flashbacks that reveal the two Itsuki Fujii's relationship at Junior High School.



I do not want to elaborate on the narrative more than this, but suffice it to say it comprises two of the most perfect character arcs I have seen in cinema. Both Hiroko and Itsuki, through their correspondance grow and discover things about their past and themselves that is ultimately very moving. Of course this must beg the question why is this film so low down on the list? Well it has a lot to do with Iwai's direction, which at times could be described as over direction. Basically he pushes some scenes that are already very beautiful just that little bit further, so we get the point.



Despite some of these scenes the film still astounds with other scenes that do not have short-cuts to emotion and that are invariably far more poignant. The scene at the mountain when Hiroko says her last goodbye to her fiance is perhaps the most famous. It is simple and so beautiful it hurts. What makes it so moving is that we are there with her emotionally because of the fantastic script that has let us into Hiroko's heart. The other woman, Itsuki Fujii has her own narrative and perhaps an even more moving realization at the end of the film, but I do not want to write about it, because you really should watch it.



Love Letter is a film I have issues with (much like Amelie), but ultimately it is deeply moving and almost certain to make the hardest of people cry. I cried, hell I still cry if I only just watch the end of the movie. I know the film is called Love Letter and I know at points it is a touch mawkish (it certainly is not Predator), but if you ever see this down at your local video library, get it out. You could do a lot worse.

Current Mood: sleepy

There are 20 million women in this island and I get to be chained to you.



Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

There are three more films to come from Alfred Hitchcock on this list. The four films I have chosen have not been arbitrarily picked, but could have been, because Hitchcock made more than four great films (I count ten), but I have chosen The Thirty-Nine Steps, Shadow of a Doubt, Rebecca, and Psycho for the very simple reason of liking them the most. It is very simple, if you keep it simple. I could have selected Rear Window, Rope, The Lady Vanishes, The Birds, North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train or Notorious, which are all fantastic movies, but I just can not squeeze them onto the list.



Of course people will wonder why Vertigo, (apparently that irrefutable masterpiece) is not on this list, and not considered by me to be a great film. Well it is all very simple. To me Vertigo is just a bit silly. Yes, I understand that it is a reflection of Hitch and his obsession with blondes and God knows what else, but it still does not make the film that much better. Okay it is a bit creepy and perverse, but that hardly warrants it being the second best film of all time. If anything, when I watch it I find it hard not to laugh, I feel it is remembered more because of what is written about it than for its actual content.



The Thirty-Nine Steps is only remembered these days as an early film by Hitchcock and not recognized as a masterpiece. What exactly is holding this film back from being recognized as a masterpiece? It is unfortunate, but I daresay it has something to do with the simplicity in which Hitchcock tells the story. Am I starting to sound like a broken record?



It's story (is simple enough and has been done many times before) is about a man, Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) who stumbles onto a plot by foreign spies to steal vital British documents. While he attempts to get to the truth he will be accused of a murder he did not commit (I know, hardly original and a theme Hitchcock returns to many times in his films), meet a woman, get captured by the spies, get shot, escape the spies, captured again, but this time by the police, escape again, fall in love, finally uncover the secret of the thirty-nine steps and ensure all the bad guys receive their deserved quietus.



Okay, so maybe the narrative is not so simple, but that is my point. The narrative is revealed simply, which allows the audience to digest the information and get involved with the characters and narrative without being confused. Hitchcock films are always giving the audience simple, easy information in order to build suspense and drama. Compare that to Guy Ritchie's Snatch, which does its utmost (through elaborate editing) to confuse a very simple narrative; all for the purpose of style which that film is sadly lacking.



In The Thirty-Nine Steps the young genius of Alfred Hitchcock is on display as a storyteller and visual stylist. In every scene we feel his presence, his genius, with every methodical placing of the camera, we feel Hitch. An example of this genius is an action sequence that has practically no tilts or pans. The sequence I am referring to is when Richard Hannay is confronted by the police on the train. The action is revealed in short, sharp shots that are beautifully cut together to build tension as Hannay attempts to evade his pursuers. There are no elaborate tracking or 360 degree camera shots, just simple framing that lets the actors be the action. There is also of course the exquisite shot featuring a cleaning woman finding the body of a murdered woman: as she turns and screams, Hitchcock replaces the woman with a camera shot of the locomotive carrying Hannay.



Critics in general tend to have a problem with anything that is simple, because they need something complex to discuss. The Thirty-Nine Steps's complexities are revealed simply, which does not give critics much to write about. There is no intellectualism, no fetishizing of its lead actress (okay maybe a little) and it is not particularly psychological, so because of this it most certainly can not be a masterpiece. Vertigo has that complexity and there is a plethora of books discussing it and Hitchcock's obsessions. However, for all the discussion, Vertigo is not half as fascinating to watch as it is to read about, unlike The Thirty-Nine Steps.

Current Mood: confused

Ok, you people! Sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we're not back by dawn... call the president.



Directed by John Carpenter

In the mid eighties Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were (excluding Harrison Ford) the two biggest stars in Hollywood. They were big in more ways than one with their enormous muscles bulging and their (more often than not) even bigger guns (swords as well for Arnie in Conan) cocked ready to do battle with other very well built (though invariably not as well built as Arnie and Sly) men who also had their big guns cocked ready for action. The cinema screen was alive with testosterone, and male action heroes who seemed more than capable of doing the job and saving the world from destruction.



This is perhaps why in 1986 John Carpenter sat down with Kurt Russell and decided to make Big Trouble in Little China; a film whose action hero (Jack Burton) is not capable of getting the job done and saving the world. In reality saving the world will be left up to his sidekick, (who really is the hero in the classic sense) Wang Chi (Dennis Dun). Carpenter and Russell had already worked together on the cult classic Escape from New York and the horror remake The Thing (two excellent movies and well worth viewing if you have not already), and that is perhaps why they were able to get away with making this movie.



The narrative involves Wang and Jack rescuing Wang's green eyed fiancé from the clutches of an ancient sorcerer, David Lo Pan. Lo Pan needs a Chinese woman with green eyes to regain his human body due to the “no flesh” curse that was put on him by First Sovereign Emperor, Qin Shi Huang. I would like to stress at this juncture that I never knew this until I went to Wikipedia for a summation of the narrative.



Jack Burton, the supposed hero of the film is nothing more than a braggart warrior who generally manages not to kill any bad people, or do anything by design (though his final slaying is pretty good). It is not because he does not believe in killing, or does not want to kill, but more because of his inability to kill; basically he is in over his head. However, Jack's complete self belief in his own ability to overcome any obstacle placed before him is what makes this film so funny.



Big Trouble mocks the white male action hero to great effect. It never ceases to make Jack krap and subvert what it is to be a male action hero. There are numerous examples for the viewer to enjoy, but watching Jack - after he has kissed Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) and covered his face in red lipstick - negotiate his way past the bad guys for about five minutes is one of the greater moments of cinema. It reminds me of some of the Howard Hawks screwball comedies (Bringing up Baby) where Hawks would put Cary Grant in dresses and the like. There is also the last major fight scene which has Jack knock himself out; yep he is out of his depth and it is fantastic.



Aside from Jack, there is his “sidekick” (sorry Novak, I had to do it) Wang. He is very good at fighting, passionately in love with his woman and quite knowledgeable about Chinatown's supernatural underbelly; he is the antithesis of Jack Burton. As far as I know this is the only film from Hollywood in the 80's that actually had an Asian male as the hero (albeit indirectly setup), and to top that he gets his girl too. It just goes to show how progressive the movie was for its time. The other supporting Asian players are also fantastic and seem to understand their roles in this homage to Kung-fu sorcery films. In particular James Hong who plays the ancient David Lo-Pan is suitably evil and really has fun with the part. He also does some really cool stuff with his mouth that would be enough to frighten any Zen master.



Big Trouble, in its simplest form is just a fun adventure film that most people should enjoy. However, it is also a film that has many layers and is a writerly text Barthes would be proud to have written about. Perhaps its writerly nature is why it failed to be acknowledged as a great film in the eighties. It was generally dismissed by critics and did not garner much attention at the box office, which is a shame because it is such a clever film without being intellectual. Perhaps that is the reason it was not received well critically, it had the audacity not to be serious without letting everybody in on the secret.

Current Mood: touched

I'd like to report a truck driver who's been endangering my life.



Directed by Stephen Spielberg

Describing the narrative of Stephen Spielberg's Duel is not a particularly difficult challenge. It involves a man, David Nunn (Dennis Weaver), driving a car that is chased by a truck across the highways of America until the truck finally meets its maker at the bottom of a steep ravine. That in a nutshell is the film and that is really all you need to know, so get down to your local video library and rent this roar, yet absorbing piece of cinema, which was originally screened on American television. Of course if you are too lazy to drive to your local video library, you can always download it.



The film was directed by a young Stephen Spielberg and was the first film of his ever screened overseas. I quite like Spielberg films, yet in general I have always preferred his escapist, action films (Indiana Jones Trilogy, Jaws, War of the Worlds, Jurassic Park) more than his serious offerings (Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, The Color Purple, E.T.) that have garnered him critical acclaim. I believe he has always handled the material of his action/suspense movies better. They seem to me at least, less forced and arrive at their destination with much less fuss. I think specifically of the ending to E.T. which is perhaps the longest ending to a movie I have ever had to experience (and I have watched some long endings) or the ending to Schindler's List; they appear to be trying too hard.



Contrast those two endings with the endings of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws (I am assuming everybody has seen them, so I shall not go into detail) and Duel and I think you will start to see where I am heading. One of the strongest points of Duel is at the end when David Nunn's reaction to seeing the object of his terror plunging to its dusty death is one of elation, relief and disbelief. The camera stays with him as he half jumps, half sobs unable to fully appreciate what he has done. It is a very simple sequence that does not last longer than a minute and then the movie ends. It is the perfect ending to a fantastic climax that allows the audience to consider what has happened along with David.



There are other little things I like about this film aside from its ending. The truck (whose driver we never see), is old and has a battered face with numerous number plates from various states placed upon its long nose (one can only assume that the number plates represent the states where the truck has killed before, kind of like notches on the bedpost). The truck seems to be a force unto itself rampaging after this man for no apparent reason, which is just genius in my book. If we knew why, or even knew what the driver looked like it would not be half as interesting or frightening. All we need to know is that this is ordinary man against machine.



The actual chase scenes on the highways are fantastically shot with various camera angles from different car positions used to enhance the suspense and drama of the chase. Many of these camera angles are virtual clichés today with most car chase films owing a small debt to Spielberg and his imagination, but back in 1971 they were innovative and different. You know the types of shots I am talking about; low angle shots from just off the ground to panning shots from the road to a car mirror that reveals the ominous truck getting ready to make its kill. There are also some wonderful moving exterior shots that move from beside the truck to in front of David Nunn's car. All these shots are beautifully executed, but if they were not put together so marvelously the car chase sequences would not be as exhilarating or rewarding.



The film is not only car chase sequences. One of the strongest scenes in the film occurs at a roadside diner after David Nunn has been driven off the road by the truck. Nunn, obviously shaken and in a slight state of shock walks into the diner, finds the toilet and washes his face in an attempt to calm himself down. He then leaves the toilet and spots the truck parked outside and once again is overcome by panic. There is a line of men sitting at the counter, one of them could be the truck driver, but David does not know who it could be. What follows is a gripping, suspenseful scene that ends quite amusingly to my mind.



See Duel, if you have not already. It is not perfect, but you could do much worse with ninety minutes of your life.

Current Mood: cynical

Any normal girl would call the number, meet him, return the album and see if her dream is viable. It's called a reality check. The last thing Amélie wants.



Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Amelie, is without question a guilty pleasure. It is far from perfect and to this day I still wonder why it is one of my favourite movies. The films shear lack of subtlety should be enough to make me dislike it. The long “gee isn't this amazing?” sweeping crane shots mixed with soaring “isn't it quirky?” piano accordion music should additionally have been enough to make me turn my back on this piece of fluff, yet it is not. The exaggerated, two dimensional characters who are either good, bad, kind or mean should also have made me see the light, but they did not.



Of course the film's lack of subtlety also extends to its mise-en-scene, which tries in practically every shot to shake the audience and tell them “c'mon look at me, I'm beautiful, I'm funny, I'm quirky”. That too should have been ample enough reason for me to dislike it, but you guessed it, it is not.



Despite all its iniquities, the film works, scratch that it absolutely soars, and it soars in part because of Audrey Tautou's fantastic performance. She is exquisite, perfect, whatever superlative you want to use, she is it, wrapped into one. An elf-like Goddess who takes the part of Amelie and runs with it for all it is worth, making her anxious, funny, mischievous and in the end completely adorable. In the hands of a lesser actor she could have become plain annoying, but somehow Tautou keeps it all together and makes us like her without wanting to throw up.



The films other strength is its message, or what I perceive to be its main message. Yes Amelie is a dreamer, but in the end she has to live in reality to procure the affections of the man she desires. It is a nice change from the average romantic comedy, which usually involves the main protagonists breaking free from their boring, mundane lives to find love.



Amelie has one more special attribute, which even for somebody like me (who is a diehard pessimist) can not deny. It makes me feel good. It is overtly winsome, but it is just too difficult to resist, and in the end a film that makes me feel good, despite all its tricks can not be too bad. Especially when I consider how many films seem to make me feel nothing.

Current Mood: dorky

Ignorance is bliss. For the first time in my life, I agree.



Directed by Josef Rusnak

Bad timing, it can happen to anybody. For the people involved with The Thirteenth Floor they were unlucky enough to release a film with similar themes, in the same year as The Matrix and Existenz. All three films are very good movies on their own merits, but I have always preferred the narrative and the sleek images of The Thirteenth Floor to the other two. It is probably fair to say that the two aforementioned movies are better than The Thirteenth Floor, but I just prefer it because, well I am superficial and I like a very pretty image. If you want to read some negative reviews about The Thirteenth Floor, just go to metacritic; there are some seriously hostile critics out there, which made me wonder why.



The Thirteenth Floor is very far from a masterpiece to be sure with (at times) very poor dialogue and a very unbelievable love story, but I can kind of excuse these shortcomings because it is all one giant computer game, so how good can the dialogue be? Especially if we consider the average computer game today. Critics hated this film for two reasons. The first one was that it failed in every way possible to not be a spectacle like The Matrix, which had something to please everybody, with its spectacular action sequences, star power (Keanu) and some pseudo intellectualism (anybody like structural Marxism?) to make people feel as though they were watching something intelligent. The second reason is that it was not directed by David Cronenberg, like Existenz, but was produced by people connected to Godzilla (yes the one with Mathew Broderick). Critics, like most people are fickle and do go into movies with pre-conceived notions about the quality of a movie before they have watched it. I suffer from this occasionally but am getting much better as I become older, exemplia gratia, I absolutely despise Forest Gump and Contact, and for a while I put a ban on all Robert Zemeckis movies until I forced myself to go and watch Cast Away, which is actually a really good movie.



Anyway, The Thirteenth Floor is set in the future and is about a group of men who have designed a computer parallel world of Los Angeles in the 30's. Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is so far the only person to test-drive this virtual world, which for all intents and purposes seems real. While inside he discovers something very important, but once out, he is murdered (in the real world) before he can tell his colleague Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko) the information. Douglas can not remember where he was on the night of the murder and does not know where the blood on his shirt - he finds in his bathroom - comes from. Also where did Fuller's daughter, Jane (Gretchen Moll) come from? To learn more he will plug himself in to discover the truth, which to be perfectly honest I did not see coming.



The world (the virtual world that is) is amazing to see, but oddly enough does not look perfect, that is because the program has not been perfected and some of the colours need to be changed. The film in general looks like a very expensive tuxedo, from Europe. The director Josef Rusnak knows what a pretty image looks like and his cinematographer Wedigo von Schultzendorff (how many nicknames do you think this guy has?) obliges with some of the most beautiful lighting you will see in cinema、but it is not overdone, it is used to match the emotion of the scenes. The characters are also not overdone and are given time to develop with their own stories, which is integral to our accepting the ending of the movie.　



The ending, which is a happy one bathed in white and golden light (oh so Hollywood) used to bother me a lot more before and has been criticized by many critics. However, I have come to grips with it and think that in a strange way it works for the exact same reason that I used to dislike it so much. What we get is a happy Hollywood ending with characters re-emerging from the dead, petting dogs on the beach re-joined in some alternate happy land in the future, which surprise, surprise has no crime. This ending is without question artificial, forced and resolutely happy designed to give the audience its nice warm fuzzy feeling when it leaves the theatre. It is enough to make anybody vomit.



However, look closer and ponder the artificial nature of the ending and start to recognize that this new perfect world is perhaps just another perfect world created for the characters and the audiences benefit. “Ignorance is bliss” is a theme of the movie and perhaps this ending is just another example for us to think about. How real is this world? Do we ever stop pondering?

Current Mood: hungry

Directed by Louis Malle

For me this is the best film ever made about the plight of the Jews in The Second World War. How can this be? How can I overlook that incontrovertible masterpiece Schindler's List? Well I quite like Schindler's List and I quite like Stephen Spielberg films, but Au revoir, les enfants is better. I do not want to go into a compare and contrast of the two films essay; suffice it to say Au revoir, les enfants is a better film.



Au revoir, les enfants is set in France at a Catholic School that is hiding Jewish Boys from the Nazis. The film focuses on one of the Jewish boys, Jean Kippeinstein who strikes up a friendship with another boy of a similar age at the school, Julian Quentin. The film does not have a huge narrative or sweeping plot, just simple little slices of life that focus on character. The boy's friendship is developed gradually and at first they do not like each other because they compete against each other in class, yet over time they form a very close bond built on trust and respect. Julian learns that Jean is Jewish, but does not tell anybody and in return Jean does not tell a soul that Julian still wets the bed; even at the age of twelve. It is not a simple friendship and neither boy is perfect, but it is an incredibly humane rendering of a childhood friendship.



The spectre of the Nazis is always present, but there are times when the boy's friendship and the day to day activities of the school are so engaging that we forget the danger that Jean is in and are lulled into a false sense of security, although Jean can never afford that luxury and tells Julian that he is always scared. The emphasis on character is what makes this film so tantalizing. By realising the boy's friendship so carefully we too almost become an intimate friend following Jean and Julian as they make mischief and do what most boys of that age do, which is have fun. By watching this friendship we recognize that Jean is just like any other child growing up now or then, but he faces persecution because of his religion. This point is not hammered home but is beautifully understated and just left dangling for us to contemplate.



The ending of the film is also an exercise in understatement. The reason why it can be so understated is due to the fantastic characterization done at the beginning of the film. There is no need for melodramatics or weepy music scores to elicit a response from the audience. There is no need for teary farewells or rocks on a cemetery; they are unnecessary because Jean has our empathy. He has earned it and not because he is Jewish, but because he is a boy. All that is needed is a lineup, a series of glances and a final look that you will never forget.

Current Mood: rushed

Woman (Shootings in America): You can't say Americans are not more violent than other people.

Fred: No.

Woman (Shootings in America): All those people killed in shootings in America?

Fred: Oh, shootings, yes. But that doesn't mean Americans are more violent than other people. We're just better shots.



Directed by Whit Stillman

It is quite common for people prior to attending a Shakespeare play, or for that matter a Shakespeare film to brush up on the bard and cast a glance - if only a cursory one - over a Shakespeare text of some description. In some cases it is a brief synopsis of the play or it could actually be the real text itself. Either way, Shakespeare, at the best of times can be a little daunting and well just difficult to understand; especially if one confines themselves to only watching the myriad of reality television programs currently saturating our television screens. Now I am not saying that Reality TV is less of an art form, but the language used on aforementioned television programs is a little different to Shakespeare, ergo Shakespeare requires a warm-up.



I would have to say that a Whit Stillman film needs some preparation too, it is not Shakespeare, but it is Stillman and speaking and understanding Stillman is indeed a unique challenge. It is English, but English very few English speakers use, like Shakespeare. That for me is part of his appeal. Surely the cinema can be more than a place to develop ones own visual style, but also a place to develop one’s own language? Whit Stillman has forged his very own language and his very own film style.

To this point his films have comprised characters (on the whole) who are essentially unlikable. They are your poor misunderstood, white upper middle-class snobs, over-educated, whining, unproductive, yet incredibly funny. They talk a lot and not really about anything of importance, only about themselves and how intelligent they are. It for the most part is absolutely captivating. What I find so captivating about these characters is that we sit watching and think “God I am so glad I don't know anybody like that”, however I think deep down the pathetic, vain nature of these characters is something we identify with and dare I say it recognize to be ourselves. Yes they use extraordinary language that is not commonly spoken, but they behave more like everyday people than most characters in movies. They are jealous, vain, bitchy and selfish, yet they very seldom do anything about their problems, except bitch and moan about their problems, which from my experience is what most people do.



In reality we do not sit and think, “God I am so glad that is not me,” we think, “that is me, it is kind of embarrassing, but it is funny”. That is perhaps why Whit Stillman is a genius and why Barcelona is one of my favourite films. Aside from that Barcelona is witty, intelligent, beautifully shot and very funny.

Current Mood: bouncy

It's not what I want, it's what you want, how bad you want it. 'Cause it's gonna cost you. Can't show it to you right now, but it's about five-five, a hundred and fifteen pounds, three or four of that just pure tit. Nice curly brown hair, upstairs and down. Interested?



Directed by Jonathan Mostow

The American Highway with its small towns and vast countryside has long been a setting for chaos and lawlessness. It has been a setting for lots of other things as well, but for this review it is a setting of chaos and lawlessness. The point is that in films all sorts of dangerous and crazy people from all walks of life can be found out on the highway in the middle of nowhere. One does not need to think too hard to come up with some examples. Think of Fox Mulder and Dana Sculley (X-Files) getting taken by aliens, or John Wayne fighting Indians as he traverses the old dusty highways of the West (pick any John Wayne film, except of course The Searchers where it is him going crazy). Think of the American Civil War and Jude Law trying to find his way back to Nicole Kidman while he avoids both the northern and southern armies (Cold Mountain), or just think of hippies, gays, and a naked chick riding a motorbike who all encounter Kowalski as he drives from Colorado to Frisco in fifteen hours (Vanishing Point), or to a truck rampaging after one man (Duel, my personal favourite).

Of course on the highway the danger is not just confined to traditional bad guys like Indians, outlaws or criminals on the run, but quite often the local law enforcement officers of those small towns at the end of those long highways are far worse than the people they are putting away (Mississippi Burning, Unforgiven). Also the roadside mechanic is not a person to be trusted and willl usually charge an arm and a leg for the most elementary of repairs, and invariably do a very poor job (U Turn, though U-Turn really is just mocking everything about small towns). Finally, there are those roadside café’s/roadhouses that seem to be frequented only by locals who are terribly suspicious of any stranger stopping for a rest or a bite to eat.

This type of behaviour or cliché if you will, which happens in countless (Breakdown included) movies has always struck me as strange, because who else would an owner of a roadside bar/café expect to have coming into their shop on a regular basis? But then again the stranger (usually from the city) is usually arrogant and ignorant, and invariably orders something not on the menu or at a time when the food is not served, which commonly provokes a responce from a rather surly waitress like, “Honey, I don’t know where you are from, but we don't do that kind of thing here” (you can insert the gum into her mouth if you want). Of course this whole scenario is reversed when country folk go to the city and sit dumbfounded reading a menu that has twenty-seven different ways to fry an egg.

It goes without saying I do not think for a second that the American highway/countryside is really like the aforementioned clichés, but merely a reflection of it. However, those clichés are very powerful, because, well they are clichés. We identify with them and because of that a mood is set for the audience and the director. Breakdown is no different, and some of these clichés are present in the beginning of the film, which help to set the mood.



Breakdown starts with a white yuppie couple, Jeff and Amy Taylor (Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan) travelling across America from Boston to their new life on the West Coast. The journey is going well enough, (except for a minor altercation with some rednecks) until their car breaks down on an isolated stretch of highway. The couple are stranded and are finally helped by a nice trucker, Red (J.T. Walsh) who offers to take the wife to the nearest telephone, so she can call for help. Jeff, stays behind and after some time realizes that something might be wrong, so he fixes the car and sets out to find his wife. At the next roadhouse he meets some diffident locals who say they have never seen his wife. It takes time, but Jeff finally tracks down Red with a slightly suspicious Sheriff. Red, claims he has never seen Jeff or his wife before and the Sheriff lets Red go suspecting that maybe Jeff's wife has just upped and left him. Over time Jeff learns that his wife's disappearance is connected to a bigger conspiracy and we learn that Red is quite possibly the meanest man on the planet. The fact that the meanest man on the planet has his wife does not make Jeff happy, but it does not deter him either and over the next seventy minutes we are given one hell of a ride as we watch Jeff search for his wife.


Breakdown is not a masterpiece, but is superbly acted by the entire cast and especially by Kurt Russell. The film ebbs and flows with Jeff's emotions as he goes from hope to despair in his desperate search for his wife. The direction from Mostow is fantastic and the action scenes are executed perfectly with an absolute hum-dinger of an ending. Mostow uses the American landscape to show its vastness, but uses that vastness in juxtaposition for some of the more climactic scenes which take place in confined spaces. This touch is very telling because it builds the suspense and continually keeps us guessing and wanting to know what will happen next. If you have not seen this movie, it is well worth a look.

Current Mood: excited

"Big atonement for big sins. Small atonement for small sins."



Directed by Chan-wook Park

I like women. I especially like women in movies. I like them when they are pretty, I like them when they are angry, I like them when they are fighting, I like them when they are falling in love, I like them when they cry, I like them when they think, I like them when they go crazy, I like them when they care and I really like them when they are sexy. It is safe to say that in Chan-wook Park's Lady Vengeance Yeong-ae Lee's character Geum-ja Lee is all this and more; she is “woman” in all their vagaries and contradictions.



The film starts with Geum-ja being released from prison after thirteen years for the kidnapping and murder of a young boy. We learn that Geum-ja had nothing to do with the murder and was blackmailed into confession by Mr Baek who kidnapped her baby-daughter. Obviously thirteen years is a long time to plot the revenge of the man who stole your freedom and your daughter; and to say that Geum-ja put her time to good use would be a gross understatement. While inside Geum-ja does favours for various inmates, so that when she leaves prison she has a network of cohorts from her prison life ready to aid her in her journey of revenge.

Park melds Geum-ja's prison past with her revenge journey beautifully and the prison scenes are so b-grade they would make the producers of Prisoner proud, and there is even a fat lesbian to top it all off. The scenes are graphic, yet quite amusing and the film walks this line so very well between violence and bizarre humour. In the prison sequences the colour is washed out, which contrasts effectively with Geum-ja's life on the outside as she moves through the cold snow wearing thick red eye shadow and a stunning black jacket. This woman means business and nobody is going to stop her or get in her way, or so we think.



The first hour of the movie is revealed at a frenetic pace, but quickly changes tone once Geum-ja meets and befriends her daughter and discovers that Mr Baek has killed more children. It becomes clear (to me at least) that although revenge of Mr Baek has been her main source of motivation it is not perhaps her path to redemption and Park explores this beautifully in the last thirty minutes of the film. The last thirty minutes for me raises this film a notch and provides the audience with more than just a revenge movie.

And now back to Yeong-ae Lee. Through all of the poisoning, torturing and sex, Lee gives an astounding performance running the gamut of emotions with conviction and believability. Everybody in this film is good, but her performance makes the movie. Obviously without the character written by Park we would have nothing, but without Lee, we would not have sympathy for Lady Vengeance.

Current Mood: blah

"Can you put this in a good spot? 'Cause all of this shit happened the last time I parked here."



Directed by Martin Brest


I never said that it was the best 100 films, just my favourite 100 films. Beverly Hills Cop is very much a guilty pleasure for me. I first saw it as an eight year old at Cinema City in Perth. It was such a fun experience and one I remember very clearly to this day.

What remains in my mind is not necessarily the movie per se, but the way the audience responded to the movie. There was laughter at Eddie Murphy's wisecracks and cheering and applause when the bad guys got their comeuppances. Cheering and clapping during a film very seldom happens and it is a testament to Martin Brest's assured direction that he was able to provoke such a response from the audience. Though, getting a response from an audience is not always an indication of the quality of a film. A friend of mine watched Independence Day at the cinema and had the good fortune/misfortune to witness clapping and cheering from the audience when the earth finally defeated the aliens and claimed its independence day; I am not sure if he threw up instantly or whether he was able to reach a toilet.

As an eight year old I was still a little wet behind the ears when it came to film narrative and more specifically the formula of an action/cop drama. Needless to say, from the crazy, loud Detroit Police Chief screaming at Axel that he had gone too far once again, to the impeccably dressed, by the book, yet bumbling Beverly Hills Police Detectives, who just by coincidence were the antithesis of Axel Foley; I was completely hooked. These devices, so often used in police/action dramas are clichés to be sure, but it does not mean they detract from a film; especially if the film has other fine qualities. In many ways I think the audience like clichés because they know what to expect, they almost act like a security blanket.



Although the film has many strong qualities, such as a believable story (though not particularly original), good characterization of characters we like and a terrific energy that builds perfectly for the ending; it is Eddie Murphy's fantastic performance that makes Beverly Hills Cop something special. The film was originally to star Sylvester Stallone and one can only imagine what the film would have been like if Sly had been allowed to play the part with muscles rippling and gun cocked ready for action. Murphy was perfect because his humour and charisma softened the film and also allowed the other characters (Rosewood and Taggert) to be more comical. It provided the perfect balance for the narrative and the very serious Victor Maitland played by Steven Berkoff. With Stallone, at that time in his career the film would have been very serious, even more violent and a lot less funny. The film may have worked, but I do not think it would have been half as good as the eventual film.

I believe that a lot of films of the action/cop genre would not have been as good if it were not for Beverly Hills Cop. The comic touch that Murphy used in Beverly Hills Cop quickly became the norm in subsequent films of the genre. Can you imagine Lethal Weapon and Die Hard being quite so comical and smart if it had not been for Eddie Murphy and his antics in 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop? I for one can not. It of course does make me wonder why Eddie did not influence himself more often and spare us such films as Daddy Daycare, Pluto Nash and Boomerang? Oh how the star has fallen.

Current Mood: chipper

Directed by Martin Scorsese and Michael Henry Wilson

It is sad to say it, but this is one of only two documentaries on this list. Documentary films have really become (some would say it has been long overdue) popular over the last ten years. For many years, they were confined to film festivals, public broadcasters and class rooms where the students were invariably catching up on their sleep. They were also only appreciated by the most diehard of cinephile. Now, barely a month goes by where there is not a new documentary being released at a local cinema complex.

Why the sudden interest in documentaries? Because it is hardly a new genre (the first reel of film ever made is in itself a documentary) and every day on television we watch hours of news documentary footage from around the world, so it is not as if we are not used to the genre.

I personally think that documentary film's popularity can be traced directly to the advent of cable television (and I am particularly referencing Australian television practices here). One of the main services of a cable provider has always been a documentary channel and the one documentary channel that has now become embedded in popular culture is the Discovery Channel. The Discovery Channel did not make watching documentaries cool, but it certainly made it acceptable, because having cable meant you had status unlike somebody who did not. How many times have I heard somebody say he or she caught a good documentary on The Discovery Channel, or learned something new watching the Discovery Channel, while other people (without cable) politely have to nod and say, “that's nice".

I kind of liken it to the way the internet has done wonders for looking up information. There are a lot of people who would not be seen dead in a library or for that matter looking up an encyclopedia in a library. But now we have everybody doing a “wiki search” or a “google search” for information. Why? Because it is on the internet and the internet is cool. I digress. Either way The Discovery Channel has helped generate a lot of enthusiasm for documentary films.

Anyway, the film is basically Martin sitting on a chair talking to the camera about the movies that have shaped the American cinema and more importantly him. He discusses all the great American genres such as the gangster film, the musical and the western, and looks closely at B-grade American cinema. This is not a groundbreaking documentary by any stretch of the imagination, it does not blow you away with its technique, but what it does do is make you want to see more films (surely this is a prerequisite for any movie about the cinema).

Scorsese does not pontificate, he modestly contemplates the films he admires displaying his obvious love of cinema. This is perhaps why I wanted this film in my top 100, because it reveals a man who is in love with the cinema; an affliction that I too suffer from quite willingly.

Next time you see this one down at your local video library, get it out.

Current Mood: tired

In a very complete and compact nutshell this journal will comprise ostensibly a list of my 100 favourite movies. The list will start from 100 and descend to 1. For anybody who knows me they will already know my favourite film. Of course it may stop at any number because I may die, become a buddhist monk, decide that running guns to Nairobi is more interesting or just get bored. I think the latter is the most likely.

Each film will be accompanied by an essay about the film or really whatever I feel like writing about. I make no apologies for the list, yet I sincerely hope that people after reading my journal are left with a warm luminosity.

Current Mood: accomplished