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Every ten years or so I have to drag this epic western out for another viewing.

Red River (1948)

I saw this when it came out. I was 11 years old. I was with my cousin Barbara. We both went nuts over Montgomery Clift. That should have been a signpost.

I have seen it many times. It does not get old.

The improbable pairing of John Wayne and Clift was cinema magic. Old rough hewn and beautiful youth. Father and son.

As it turned out they could not have been more different in real life.

But the movies don't care about that.

The rest of the cast is classic. John Ireland, Jill Drew (Groot) and Walter Brennan. Noah Beery Junior a bare shadow of his Dad. But still good in the second level comic sidekick role.

It ends the same way as it always did but I always forget what happens. Purposeful forgetting.

This is a 5 out of Netflix5. The quintessential Western with a father son twist. Oedipus in the American west. Timeless theme with timeless actors.

I don't think that they make westerns any more. It has been a long time. Now it is some other cliché genre. Maybe that is because with this film and a few others everything got done that could be. End of sentence. Period and Paragraph.

Labels: best films, films

Another film with Vigo Mortensen, my hero.

In this one he plays a guy in the American midwest. Perfect accent. American from the toes.

He has a past and it comes to visit him and his family who have no idea.

He has to clean house. And he does.

A History of Violence (2005)

He goes back to Philadelphia to settle old scores.

This is a thriller with twists as all good thrillers twist. Original surprising. Lots of stuff we do not see coming.

I have seen it a few times and still was at the edge of my seat as his family deals with the "history".

His son is being bullied in school and eventually uses what skills his Dad obviously taught him.

Was that necessary? Is the violence that solves the back east problem necessary?

Is it OK if bad guys get hurt and good guys triumph? How badly hurt is hurt.

That said, a bravura performance for John Hurt who is out of type in his role as the mobster brother that Viggo has to go "see".

I love this movie. A 5 out of Netflix5.

Labels: best films, films, violence

Illegal medical procedures and stopped plumbing open this informative film.

Dirty Pretty Things (2002)

Stephen Frears wrote and directed with great panache'.

Some hard shit goes down and I am sure that a lot of it is based on trued stories.

But it is not an exposé. More a chaste love story between a Doctor and a candidate for kidney donorship. A way to pay the way to the USA, land of plenty, streets of gold.

It is not a documentary but there is a lot of information processed; some grisly, some interesting, all enlightening.

Tight drama as well.

I have seen it before, maybe a few times. So it earns a Netflix5.

Labels: best films

Two days to see a wonderful film about life and happiness and, well, many other things.

Into The Wild (2007)

I had tears many times in this.

A boy is lost in a conventional family. A trust fund baby, he rejects his life and his family. He takes off to seek adventure by hiking to places where people do not ever go.

Sean Penn directed. Emil Herxch is the boy.

This is not fiction. It is based on John Krakauer's book.

Other actors bring the story close to the viewer. Marcia Gay Harden , William Hurt, Jena Malone, Brian Dierker, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart and Hal Holbrook.

Holbrook is the best because he has the whole thing in his eyes just like the kid.

A lot of the film was done around here. Up the mountain side, into the desert, the roads along Interstate 10. That is fun.

I think the geography is a little skewed but that does not hurt the film.

The fact that this is based on a real man and his real experience is sort of withheld until the end. We see the real guy. It is a stunning moment which I just ruined for you, eh?

Oh well.

I have seen this before and I will probably see it again so it is a 5 out of Netflix5. Not many of those come along.

Labels: best films, films

World War II came to many people many different ways.

For me, in a quiet rural mountain town, it did not come until my Dad enlisted in the Navy. Then it was a serious matter.

He came home from the War but he was never the same. Touched in some way that none of us could understand.

Today's film is from another angle. A kid, Christian Bale, gets separated from his family during the invasion of Shanghai. His War was spent in a refugee camp run by the Japanese.

Empire of the Sun (1987)

Steven Spielberg's somewhat overblown film of the boy's experiences.

This was the first film I saw John Malcovich and, without realizing it, Ben Stiller.

It is pretty good but Spielberg overdoes. He cannot cut. He hangs on to long intervals with a kind of elbow nudge that is almost insulting. A form of "look at me" which is not attractive.

But I still enjoyed this movie. I watched in two sections because it is 2.5 hours long. Too much for me in one sitting.

Very entertaining for the most part. I have seen it before but it is still a 4 out of Netflix5. I might see it again if it passes my way.

The best thing was to see the start of Bale's career and to realize that he is charismatic in a way that few other child stars ever were. Of course, he has become a consummate actor and has given more than his share to our cinematic life.

Labels: best films, films

I finished the Richard Linklater trilogy with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

Before Midnight, Before Sunrise, After Sunset.

I am just reporting this for anyone who is waiting for the other two shoes to drop.

I figured that there would be just more of the same in each edition.

I do not ever watch sequels. Anytime, anywhere, anything.

But these are not truly sequels as much as one large work which is made in real time.

Linklater waited for each subsequent film so that his actors would truly be older and all that means to the flavor of the film.

By the time we get to the third edition we manage to see an epic fight which rings every bell in my own experience with lovers' quarrels. The thing about them is that over a long time ammunition piles up. The missiles get more accurate.

Since we have seen their previous films we know what some of these are when they appear.

I really like this work and will probably see the three again sometime.

Labels: best films, films

I am watching Richard Linklater films.

Today, the first of three that star Julie Depy and Ethan Hawk.

Before Sunrise (1995)

This film is all talk. The couple meet "cute" on a train and apparently decide that this is their moment with no future plans. No romantic interest.

They are smart and snappy and enjoy each other's company. It is like listening in to a couple you might see in a restaurant who look like they are very friendly but just friends.

It is interesting how Linklater is able to keep the hump and bump stuff out of this situation. And keep it interesting.

Love and respect happens of course and we know now that this couple will meet at least two more times in two more films.

That will be in real time when they are older and presumably wiser but probably not any wiser than anyone else.

That this can keep my interest still is quite surprising. It seems as fresh as when I first saw these two. A 5 out of Netflix5 by definition. Reruns.

As a kind of joke, they appear in the cartoon feature that I saw yesterday Waling Life.

Labels: best films, films

Richard Linklater brings his "odd" viewpoint of the world to this adult cartoon.

Waking Life (2001)

The entire film is a dream but one of those real ones where you aren't sure you are dreaming because you can see yourself being asleep and all that weird shit.

Perfectly depicted in "adult" cartoons and drawings, this world is evoked in a way that one could never portray with live actors.

But Disney it is not.

I enjoyed this the first time and really listened this time.

The whole thing is like a seminar in the meaning of life. Like Linklater's other films people talk and talk and talk. But it is the kind of talk one wants to hear. There is no room for side distractions. Best watched alone.

I have seen it a couple of times. Will see it again. That makes it a 5 out of Netflix5.

Labels: best films, films

There is a strata of the social scheme that is not an alternative culture exactly; more non-culture.

Independents, free thinkers, the off beat and eccentric. Often for the sake of being off beat and eccentric.

Of course, among these people are some who are actually more bound up in being counter than people who are not. Or something.

Richard Linklater uses the word

Slacker (1991)

Staged as a documentary almost a hundred of Linklater's friends and acquaintances line up to give their view of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A delightful conceit, this film is as fresh as the first time I saw it at the Coolidge Corner Theater (way off the main line) many years ago. Well, 25 years ago to be exact. We stood in line to do it.

Innovative and always entertaining, somehow Linklater manages to make fun of people without seeming to do so. It helps that these are actors but the feel of the film is that they are for real.

I love this movie and see it every few years. It is a 5 on the Netflix5 scale.

I like Linklaters later work and will see more over the next couple of days but this is where it started.

Labels: best films, films

Richard Linklater's early hit after Slacker

Dazed and Confused (1993)

Dope culture in high school. Pushing a little but still. A lot of young actors made their debut here.

This is a very busy film with a lot of characters. We see the stereotypes (the jock, the brain, the slut both male and female) but they are handled with charm and grace and without any of the looking down one's nose that happens in a lot of teen pictures.

I enjoyed it, I have seen it before, it is worth seeing again and I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.

Labels: best films, films

Today, a favorite and NYTime Best Film.

The Dreamers (2003)

Much to appreciate in this fine film. Three rich and privileged kids ride out the Paris student riots in a posh apartment. The decline of the bourgeoisie.

Michael Pitt is an American who is with French twins Louis Garrel and Eva Green.

Ebert says it is near perfect. I would say the same.

I have seen it a few times and still get all caught up in it.

The sound track includes rock classics, Jimmy Hendrix and so on.

I think that there is irony here. Rich kids, revolution against themselves actually.

The observing American Pitt gets caught up in it for awhile then sees through it. Sort of.

There is a lot of nice sex in this film. Gay and straight. Threesome. Not for the prude more for the prurient. The reason we went to French and Italian films in the first place.

Well, I did.

So did you, fess up.

One other thing. The most fun. These people are film buffs. They meet at the Cinematheque. Spellbound with a film which I still can't identify exactly. So Bertolucci intersperses; matches some of his scenes with famous scenes from old films, mostly silent. Very nice touch. It keeps the artifice of these kids' lives front and center. They are playing out a film script!

Labels: best films, films, gay films