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I figure That I'll have the next ten years to work through the 2002 list, so I'm going to try to finish 1992 first. Au Hasard Balthazar -- What a beautiful film. I feel like a bit of an impostor now for having written an article about Bruno Dumont without having first seen Balthazar. The Life...

Tim, the Apu trilogy and a few of Ray's other films were restored and rereleased on VHS in the mid-90s by Columbia/Tri-Star. Why those bastards haven't put them out on DVD yet is anyone's guess. Those recent VHS versions are pretty good, though. I'm torn about what advice to give you. I saw...

To add to the confusion, Pascal, I also noticed that some of the critics and directors voted for single films from Kieslowski's trilogy and others voted for "the Apu trilogy."

His Girl Friday -- what a fun movie. Those first ten minutes with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are about as good as classic Hollywood gets. I couldn't get over how long some of the takes were, especially considering the quantity of dialogue they were spewing. I was most surprised, though...

Sorry if I'm stealing your thunder, Gary, but it looks like Friday is the big day: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -- um, I'm not really sure why this one made the list. The only point of interest for me -- and it's not much of one -- is the film's strange sexual politics. Along with Jane Russell's poolside dance number (the campiest sequence this side of Rocky Horror), this was...

Woo Hoo! My site is linked in Pascal's article! ;) I'm hoping to get back to the S&S challenge this weekend with a couple of American classics from Netflix: Stagecoach and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Except for the abysmal Road to Perdition (the more I think about it, Brook, the more I dislike...

Shoot. I thought La Strada was on the list. Well, it should be. ;) I watched Black Narcissus yesterday afternoon. I wish, now, that the Powell/Pressburger retrospective were playing nearby. My 27" Zenith just doesn't do these films justice. Some stunning photography. I was also drawn to...

It means "The Night," which makes sense considering that the entire film occurs during, well, one night. La Notte is my favorite of the four or five Antonioni films I've seen. Much of my affection for it has to do with Jeanne Moreau, who is so good (and incredibly sexy) throughout. I wrote up...

As expected, I greatly enjoyed La Strada. Giulietta Masina's is just one of cinema's great faces. There's something of the beauty of innocent wonder in her eyes. In that sense, she was just like the children who gathered around and ooh'd and ah'd to the sight of Zampano breaking the chains...

Pascal, I wish I had thought to tape La Terra Trema for that shot alone. When my wife was in film school, her first project was a short film about a woman who loses her husband at sea (seemed much more profound when we were 20). She actually shot several images very similar to Visconti's...

Along with Meshes in the Afternoon, I've also recently seen: 8 1/2 -- This had been at the top of my Netflix queue ever since the Criterion disc was released. (The disc, by the way, features one of the most beautiful b&w transfers I've seen.) After seeing 5 or 6 of his films now, I'm still...

Last week, while browsing through a bookstore in Rochester, MN, I ran across A History of Experimental Film and Video by A.L. Rees, which appears to offer a pretty thorough overview. I looked up Deren in the index and skimmed through his analysis of Meshes. Rees includes her in a chapter about...

Interesting. Thanks for the info, Jun-Dai and Pascal. I just watched Meshes of the Afternoon and was quite impressed by the emotional weight of several scenes, particularly the disorienting images of the woman floating(?) up the stairs. What most surprises me about it, though, is its date...

Pascal, I'm really looking forward to reading your piece. You have my e-mail address if you, ahem, get it finished before your official deadline. ;) Thanks for the reminder, Evan. I'll be sure to catch Germania Anno Zero, La Terra Trema, Paisan, and La Strada. There's a better-than-average...

Re: Gertrud. I also just watched this for the first time, and, like many, I'm not sure how to characterize my response to it. I find myself wanting to disguise my disappointment in flowery descriptions of Dreyer's style, almost embarrassed to admit that I didn't really care for it. Of the...

Thanks for taking up the charge, Pascal. I pulled out my list and was disappointed to see that I still have 52 to go. I've watched so many wonderful foreign films for the first time over the last two or three months, but few are included on this particular list. Thi, Mirror has secured its...

Brook, I'll be curious to hear your thoughts on Brief Encounter. I watched it for the first time last night. This is another of those films that I really wish I had seen before it had been parodied into oblivion. Of course, it didn't help that my wife was adding comments from the peanut...

The Stalker - The best part of this challenge for me has been my discovery of Tarkovsky's films. In The Stalker, three men venture into the ZONE, a myterious wilderness that has been cordoned off by authorities because of its supposed mystical ability to grant wishes. The trick, however, is...

I finally watched City Lights for the first time. I generally consider myself more of a Buster Keaton guy. Chaplin's brand of sentiment just doesn't usually work for me. But, man, he got the last scene of City Lights just right, didn't he?. I'm as cynical as they come, and was shocked to...

Brook, I think I may have mentioned this in the Tarkovsky thread, but I'm convinced that my first viewing of Andrei Rublev was aided considerably by my having watched all of The Decalogue the week before. Those films trained me to just surrender all of my film-watching habits to the director...

Last night, I watched Peeping Tom, a film I've read about for years but had never seen. An interesting film, it seems to fall somewhere in between Hitchcock and Antonioni. It picks up nicely where Rear Window leaves off, implicating even further the audience in the act of voyeurism. I thought...

Watched Mirror last night. This was my second Tarkovsky (after Andrei Rublev). First thing I did this morning was fire up my computer and add Nostalgia and Sacrifice to my NetFlix queue. Again, I'm finding it difficult to articulate my response to Tarkovsky, but, if I understand his...

Add three more to my count, Jung. Last week, I finished watching The Decalogue (two points, right?) I added some initial thoughts to this thread, but it dropped off the radar pretty quickly. I would love to discuss it in greater length, if anyone is interested. Watching The Decalogue was one...

Add one for me, JungWoo. I saw Andrei Rublev this weekend and posted my initial thoughts here.

JungWoo, I just watched The Seventh Seal and added my review to the other thread.

Stephen, check out this thread over in the software section for info on screen captures. Lots of good advice over there. ------------------ "Peace is our profession."

JungWoo, Do you plan to keep checking up with this thread and updating totals, or should I start crossing out numbers in my signature like others are doing? I watched The Third Man last night, and plan to write up my response this weekend when I have more time and an opportunity to go through...

JungWoo, This is the challenge I've been waiting for. Sad to say that I've only seen 30 on the list (all the way through and in recent memory). Count me in. Darren ------------------ "Peace is our profession."