Seth Paxton

Hmm, go figure. I like both C&W and 7th Seal. I will say that at first I wasn't totally with where Bergman was going with C&W, but by the end he pulled me in completely and made me appreciate the film.


I just saw The Blue Angel for the first time, and while it isn't on this S&S list, it's an outstanding film. Much better than The Obscure Object of Desire in depicting the same destruction of a man's life for a woman. Of course the film is most famous for making Marlene Dietrich a star.

Lew Crippen

I’m not sure that it would have occurred to me to make that comparison. I’ll think some about this, as to the point you raise, but as far as a film, I think that The Blue Angel is not in the same class as Buñuel’s best (and ‘Obscure Object”, is one of those, I believe) or even his second best.

¡Time is not my master!

Tim Raffey

Saw:

Paisa - Nice, human war movie with good a philosophy. However, I cannot help but feel it would've benefitted quite a bit from synchronous sound--as genuine as a lot of the performances were, the sound was not; didn't let that detract from the experience, just an observation.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller - Looked great and I love that first Leonard Cohen album. Beatty was great, Julie Christie was great. And it has perhaps the most cold-blooded scene I've seen in a long time (yeah, despite the constant editorial foreshadowing, I couldn't move for a second--slow zoom, near silence).

La Jetee - Seemed like kind of a gimmicky idea to me, but a) the special effects are spectacular (on par with a late '90s Hollywood moving picture), and b) it was really haunting. I naturally knew the story prior to seeing it, but I was easily more impressed by this short than I was by 12 Monkeys (and I like Gilliam). A different type of film; the way they should all be.

Three Colours: White - The one I hadn't seen. My pattern was kind of screwy for this one (unlike The Decalogue, which I watched in order over about a week). I rented Blue about four years ago 'cause I had White & Red taped off of T.V., missing Blue. I watched the first--liked it a great deal--and left that tape alone for about two and a half years. Then I saw a screening of Red at the ol' art-house (the only one shown), and watched it on the tape a couple times after that. Then I finally saw White (same tape copy--waiting for the DVDs). I didn't mind the method at all--Kieslowski movies are in short supply, and they're always philosophy-affecting events (regardless of my frame-of-mind while sitting down to them), so I didn't want to blow my load all at once, so to speak. Anyhow, I loved it--it's extraordinary that one man could make a trilogy back-to-back-to-back of films so different, yet equally excellent.

All That Heaven Allows - Saw it after Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and Far From Heaven (in that order). Definitely a classic--though it could be considered as such based solely on what it has spawned--but I'm a little torn. I mean, I love T.V. so much--how could he make it so contemptible?

(which brings me to my favourite of those I've seen off the list recently--)

Le Mepris - As an aspiring filmmaker (I know--you never heard that one before, did ya?) my own bitterness toward the business of movies is growing the closer I get--capped by a badly-ending brush with spiked-club subtlety and student filmmaking stereotypes on a collaborative project. But I love Contempt not only in a "oh, how true, man" way (I never thought I really would with a Godard picture), but I had no idea how romantic an artist Godard was. Sure he'd romanticized women before in Breathless and Pierrot le Fou, but they seemed an integral part of the character the character Belmondo was playing was playing. Here, though, it was just painful. As opposed to Michel's and Ferdinand's 'I need a girl on my arm to go with my gun'; Paul was desperate for Camille's love and reassurance, because the gun thing just wasn't working, dammit. There's nothing like being adored in a time of self-doubt.

Of course I was--for some reason--ignoring his post-'80 pictures (particularly Prenom: Carmen and Eloge de L'Amour).

Oh yeah, and the contempt--there's plenty of that, too. Great DVD, too. 'The Dinosaur and the Baby' was great--two people showering each other with praise like any DVD extra, but this time it was deserved.

Edit: I do believe that puts me up to 151 now seen from this list. However, I've got plenty more coming, as I am now done school for a while.

\"Kids today are scum. They haven\'t invented cigarettes, or bluejeans--nothing.\" - JLG

Lew Crippen

. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders dependent upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself slightly killed.

I wanted to begin my comments on North by Northwest with a quote from the film. But there are just so many good ones from which to choose that I was hard pressed to decide. But it is not too hard to decide the strength and class of this film. Hitch never puts a foot wrong. The film is filled with humor and drama. Some of the shots are so well known that they are recognizable to even casual film goers, indeed one suspects they are known to a good many who have never seen this film. And everyone should.

How does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?

Leaves my total at 85, as I removed Umberto ‘D from my viewed list, due to not having seen it within the last year.

¡Time is not my master!

Lew Crippen

My rankings for 85 viewed films. All out of four stars (with a nod to J. Rosenbaum’s system): 4=masterpiece, 3=must see, 2=worth seeing, 1=has interesting or redeeming qualities


8 1/2
2001: A Space Odyssey
400 Blows, The
Aguirre, Wrath of God
Ai no corrida
Alexander Nevsky
All About Eve
All About My Mother
All That Heaven Allows
Amarcord
Andrei Roublev
Annie Hall
avventura, L'
Barry Lyndon
Battleship Potemkin
Belle de jour
Belle et la Bête, La
Bicycle Thieves
Black Narcissus
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Bridge on the River Kwai, The
Brief Encounter
Citizen Kane
Clockwork Orange, A
Cries and Whispers
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Day of Wrath
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The
Do the Right Thing
Duck Soup
Enfants du paradis, Les
Gertrud
Godfather Trilogy, The
Godfather, The
GodfatherPart II, The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The
Grand Illusion
Great Expectations
Hidden Fortress, The
In the Mood for Love
Intolerance
Ivan the Terrible
King Kong
Lady Eve, The
Lady Vanishes, The
Lawrence of Arabia
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The
M
M. Hulot's Holiday
Maltese Falcon, The
Nanook of the North
Nights of Cabiria
North by Northwest
Notorious
Ordet
Orphée
Passion of Joan of Arc, The
Paths of Glory

Playtime
Psycho
Rashomon
Red Shoes, The
Salò
Seven Samurai
Seventh Seal, The
Singin' in the Rain
Solaris
Spartacus
Spirited Away
Stagecoach
Sullivan's Travels
Taxi Driver
That Obscure Object of Desire
The Godfather and The Godfather Part II
The Magnificent Ambersons
Third Man, The
To Kill a Mockingbird
Touch of Evil
Vertigo
Vivre sa vie
Wages of Fear, The
Wild Strawberries
Woman under the Influence, A
Yi Yi

¡Time is not my master!

Brook K

Wow Lew, out of those 85, other than a one star difference on a few, the only real disagreement I'd have is Ivan The Terrible, which I'd give 3 stars on that scale. But then I'm a Russian history buff for which even hearing mention of the words Boyars or Oprichnyna puts a smile on my face.

You have seen 4 that I haven't seen yet - Beauty and the Beast, Salo, Orphee, and The Life And Times of Col. Blimp (which I own but haven't watched).

I'm up to 205 with L'Atalante the highest ranked film on the list that I hadn't seen. Having recently watched Under The Roofs of Paris, I found this in the same vein of Poetic Realism as Clair's film, but L'Atalante is definitely the better of the two. Some very and beautiful cinematography (including an aerial shot) goes hand-in-hand with magical romance (reminding me slightly of Fellini), mundane