Monthly Archives: December 2020

Favorite New to Me Films of 2020

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I started off slow, slogged through California’s first lockdown and Covid in my brother’s family, only to regain my enthusiasm for movies late in 2020 as we are again on indefinite lockdown. My viewing for this year began with 1968 and ended in mid-1973.  I am really happy truncating my watching for a year into whatever will fit in six weeks.  I logged 229 films on Letterboxd, about 50 more than I did in 2019.

I saw many great films.  Since I’ve been seeking out classic movies for a long time, many of the best were re-watches.  Still there were many gems that were new to me. This year I have divided my lists into films that are not listed in the 1001 Movie book and those that are.  The lists are in chronological order.  I have pondered why there are not more Hollywood films on these lists as American cinema is once again coming into its own.  My explanation is that I was going out to the movie theater a lot at that time so I had already seen the best Hollywood films from these years.

Not Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Kuroneko (Black Cat) (1968) – directed by Kaneto Shindo

The Cremator (1969) – directed by Juraj Herz

All My Good Countrymen (1969) – directed by Vojtec Jazny

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) – directed by Elio Petri

Dodeskaden (1970) – Directed by Akira Kurosawa

The Emigrants (1971) – Directed by Jan Troell

Duel (1971) – Directed by Stephen Spielberg

The Mattei Affair (1972) – Directed by Francesco Rosi

Love and Anarchy (1973) – Directed  by Lina Wertmuller

The Last Detail (1973) – Directed by Hal Ashby

New-to-Me Films from 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

if … (1968) – Directed by Lindsay Anderson

Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) – Directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea

Tristana (1970) – Directed by Luis Buñuel

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) – Directed by Jaromil Jires

Solaris (1972) – Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) – Directed by Ranier Werner Fassbinder

Fat City (1972) – Directed by John Huston

Fantastic Planet (1973) – Directed by Rene Laloux

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Movies weren’t the only good thing about 2020.  Meet my new grandniece Rooney Brooke, born about a month premature in September and now thriving without a care in the world.  She rolled over for the first time yesterday.  Someday in 2021, when no one is looking, I will squeeze her sweet little cheeks.

 

Wishing all my readers peace, love, understanding, health, hugs, and prosperity in 2021

Serpico (1973)

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Serpico
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler from a book by Peter Maas
1973/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

Tom Keough: Frank, let’s face it. Who can trust a cop who don’t take money?

Somethings never change.  The thin blue line is one of them.  Al Pacino is a force of nature as Frank Serpico, an honest cop who risked his life to expose rampant corruption within the NYPD.

The story occurs in New York City from 1960-1972.  Policemen didn’t earn large salaries on the NYPD in the mid-20th century, but the job came with many “benefits”, most of which were illegal.  Frank Serpico enters the force as an eager young rookie and is almost immediately indoctrinated into the culture.  It starts with a free lunch.  Then he witnesses payoffs.  He honestly believes the brass will care.  They do not appreciate his information.  Serpico was already in disfavor with his colleagues for not accepting money and they get more suspicious and dangerous as the years drag on.

Serpico is transferred to the narcotics squad where he finds the possible booty corrupt cops can skim from drug deals can range in the 10’s of thousands of dollars.  The stakes are never higher.  Serpico finally gets his superiors to believe him, but only at a terrible cost.

It’s so good to see these great actors in their prime.  Somehow most of them had problems reining in a performance as they aged.  Anyway, Pacino here ranges from tenderness to explosive rage and it’s all perfectly believable.  Storywise, I suppose nothing is new. Whistleblowers will never be popular.  Worth seeing.

Al Pacino was nominated for a  Best Actor Oscar and Salt and Wexler were nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

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The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Directed by Peter Yates
Written by Paul Monash based on a novel by George V. Higgins
1973/USA
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

 

Eddie ‘Fingers’ Coyle: [sighs] I shoulda known better than to trust a cop. My own God-damned mother could have told me that.
Dave Foley: Everyone oughta listen to his mother.

Robert Mitchum is perfect as a sad-sack ex-con in this excellent, if dark, violent, and depressing, thriller.

As the movie begins, small time hoodlum and devoted family man Eddie Coyle (Mitchum), is awaiting sentencing for his latest crime.  If Eddie doesn’t get a little mercy from the prosecutor’s office, he will go away for several years as a three-time loser leaving his aging wife on welfare.  The only currency Eddie has with the Man is his connections in the Boston mob.  In particular, he knows people who are trafficking in weapons in the underground illicit gun trade.  He tries to make a deal with Treasury Agent Dave Foley (Richard Jordan) in exchange for some information but Foley plays him like a fiddle demanding ever more active participation in the investigation.

Unbeknownst to Eddie, criminal associate Dillon is also informing for Foley.  The guns in question are being used in a series of bank robberies.  Let’s just say that Eddie could use some better friends.

Robert Mitchum is brilliant as the washed-up man with a past – basically decent, fatalistic, world-weary and tired.  By this time, he knows he’s the perfect patsy.  It’s a rock-solid neo-noir with other fantastic acting and a gritty atmosphere in keeping with the dark subject matter.  An interesting meditation on corrupt cops and even more corrupt robbers.  With a nice jazzy score from Dave Grusin. That Mitchum performance makes this a must-see for a fan-girl like me.

F for Fake (1973)

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F for Fake
Directed by Orson Welles
Written by Orson Welles
1973/France/Iran/West Germany
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Orson Welles: What we professional liars hope to serve is truth. I’m afraid the pompous word for that is “art”.

What is this?  It’s not a documentary, nor a mockumentary, nor a fiction film.  Let’s call it a fun essay on the junction between truth and lies.

The setting is the resort island of Ibiza.  Director Orson Welles, writer Clifford Irving, and painter Elmyr De Hory are enjoying the jet setter life style.  They are all tricksters in one way or another.  Irving famously faked an autobiography of Howard Hughes.  Prior to that he had written the book “Fake” about the prodigious forged output of Elmyr.

Welles is gleeful as he explores the question of the value of art without a name and a certificate of authentication behind it.  If a forged Modigliani is indistinguishable from a real one is the fake the lesser work of art?  Welles also gets a chance to perform magic tricks, tell impossible sounding stories, talk about the famous “War of the Worlds” broadcast, and generally pontificate.   With Oja Kodar, Welles’ real-life girlfriend, as a young beauty who walks out of Picasso’s life with 27 original portraits.

I had fun watching this.  It’s interesting without necessarily being a must-see IMHO, unless, of course, you are a Welles completist.

Scarecrow (1973)

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Scarecrow
Directed by Jerry Schatzberg
Written by Garry Michael White
1973/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Max Millan: You didn’t pick me, I picked you.
Lion: Why?
Max Millan: ‘Cause you gave me your last match. You made me laugh. God damn crows are laughin’…

 

The 70’s were a decade for road movies.  This is one of the good ones.

Max (Gene Hackman) has just been released from prison.  He has saved all his money and meticulously planned buying a car wash business in Pittsburg.  He is hitchhiking cross-country with a detour to see his sister in Denver.  On the road, Max meets fellow hitchhiker Francis Lionel (‘Lion” – Al Pacino).  Lion has come home from the sea and is on the way to Detroit with a present for the five-year-old child (sex unknown) he has never met and a desire to make it up to the child’s mother.

The larger-than-life brawler Max and the goofy peacemaker Lion could not be more different. However, Max is immediately taken with Lion and decides on the spot to take him into the car wash business.  They make a good team.

The boys have adventures along the road and a high old time with Max’s sister and her sexy friend Frenchy (Ann Wedgeworth) in Denver.  Their luck kind of changes in Detroit.

Wow, this movie is so much of its time but continues to work well now.  It is simply a pleasure to watch Hackman and Pacino in their prime.  The supporting characters are memorable as well. And since this is a character study that’s all you really need.  It’s got that seventies sadness but is also warm and funny.  Recommended.

Scarecrow was the co-winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

Badlands (1973)

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Badlands
Directed by Terence Malick
Written by Terence Malick
1973/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

Holly Sargis: [voiceover] In the stench and slime of the feedlot he’d remember how I’d looked the night before. How I ran my hand through his hair and traced the outline of his lips with my fingertip. He wanted to die with me, and I dreamed of being lost forever in his arms.

In his debut, Terence Malick proves himself to be a master of poetry and light.

The story takes place in 1959 in the Badlands of South Dakota and Montana.  Holly (Sissy Spacek) is a 15-year-old girl practicing her piano and baton lessons.  Most of her ideas about life seem to have come from true confession and movie magazines.  Kit (Martin Sheen) is a self-obsessed 25-year-old who is being fired from his job as a garbage man as the movie starts.  He gets work at the local cattle yards but is really not cut out for employment.  He fancies himself as having the looks and cool of James Dean.  When he spots Holly out twirling her baton, she agrees with him and they are soon having a romance.  Holly’s father (Warren Oates) tries to put a stop to this so Kit shoots him and sets the house on fire.  Holly and Kit hit the road.

The remainder of the movie follows the trajectory of Kit and Holly as they cross the wide open spaces of Great Plains.  Kit proves himself a psychopath who is capable of killing for any reason or no reason at all.  The couple try to build a hideout and home in a woods but this is short lived.

I love the sparse landscape and dialogue which is so plain and poetic at the same time. The actors are perfect for their parts and the cinematography is glorious.  For a movie with so many murders, this is far more about mood than it is about action or suspense.  It has held up well over time and I recommend it.

Merry Christmas 2020

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Wishing all my readers peace, love and understanding this Christmas.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us once more

Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

The Last Detail (1973)

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The Last Detail
Directed by Hal Ashby
Written by Robert Towne from a novel by Darryl Poniscan
1973/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

 

Mulhall: I don’t know what I woulda’ done without the Navy.
Buddusky: Yeah… I guess we’re just a couple of lifers.
Mulhall: Yeah.

 

I don’t why I waited so long to see one of Jack Nicholson’s best performances.

Eighteen-year-old raw Navy recruit Meadows (Randy Quaid) is caught trying to pilfer $40 from the donation box of the Admiral’s wife’s pet charity.  For this he is sentenced to eight years in prison.  Buddinsky (“Bad Ass” – Nicholson) and Mulhall (“Mule” – Otis Young) are killing time at the naval base at Norfolk, Virginia waiting for their next orders to come in. They are temporarily ordered to escort Meadows from Norfolk to the Portsmouth Naval Prison in New Hampshire.  The trio will travel by bus.  The trip should take two days but the sailors have  been allotted a week.  The escorts think of the trip as a chance to have a vacation on the Government after dropping Meadows off.

But their hearts are even bigger than their vocabulary of curse words and they feel sorry for the morose Meadows whose mood only gets worse with each passing hour.  The idea that the kid will spend years in jail prior to any adult experience of life inspires the two to try to show him a good time before delivering him to prison.

As you might imagine, Buddinski is a bit of a wild man aside from being a career sailor. His enthusiasm for life ensures a good time is had by all.  Meanwhile, Mulhall worries that Buddinski may have lost interest in their actual mission.  With Carol Kane as a young prostitute.

I guess that the premise of this didn’t grab me when this first came out and I have overlooked it ever since.  Glad that this project led me to check it out.

In the event, I absolutely loved this.  Nicholson and Quaid are both fabulous in their parts. This is, I think, NIcholson nearing his peak as an actor.  He is convincing both as a wild and crazy guy and as a committed career sailor and you kind of have to love him.  Ashby provides his off-kilter sensibility and the script is hilarious.  My favorite part is when these guys run into people trying to sell them on Nichiren Soshu Buddhism and Quaid decides to give chanting a shot.  I had a brush with the movement around this time and its portrayal made me laugh and brought back old times. I also loved that the ending did not take an obvious route.  Recommended.

The Academy nominated Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid in the categories of Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively.  The film was also nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

 

Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

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Spirit of the Beehive (El espiritu de la colmena)
Directed by Victor Erice
Written by Angel Fernandez Santos and Victor Erice
1973/Spain
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

Ana: If he only comes out at night, how can you talk to him?
Isabel: I told you he was a spirit. If you’re his friend, you can talk to him whenever you want. Just close your eyes and call him… It’s me, Ana… It’s me Ana…

Erice explores the vulnerabilities of children in times of crisis in this contemplative, beautiful film.

The story is set in a Spanish village in 1940 during Franco’s reprisals against Republicans following the end of the Spanish Civil War.  Seven-year-old Ana (Ana Torrent) lives with her parents Teresa and Fernando and older sister Isabel (who is maybe nine or ten).  Ana’s father keeps bees.  Ana has great big brown eyes with which she surveys the world and is clearly very sensitive.  James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) draws a large audience when it comes to town.

Ana and Isabel attend.  Ana is completely engrossed in the story and wants to why the little girl and the monster had to die.  Isabel first tells her nobody died because the movie is a trick.  Then she mischievously switches tacks and tells Ana that the monster is living as a spirit in the family’s sheep shed and only comes out at night.

Ana becomes obsessed with the sheep shed, eventually working up the courage to enter. One day she encounters a man in rags who has an injured leg hiding there.  She adopts him as the monster and tries to help him.  I’ll stop there.

The story takes place at that mysterious juncture between reality and imagination through the eyes of a child trying to make sense of the world around her.  It has little dialogue and Erice seems fond of Ozu-like ellipses where key events are cut away from.  Anyway, this is a very beautiful film painted largely in golden light.  Ana Torrent gives one of the great child performances ever.  It’s sad but recommended.

 

Theatre of Blood (1973)

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Theatre of Blood
Directed by Douglas Hickox
Written by Anthony Greville-Bell
1973/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1000 Great Horror Movies on theyshootzombies.com

 

George Maxwell: You… It’s you! But you’re dead!
Edward Lionheart: No. Another critical miscalculation on you part. I am well. It is you who are dead.

Vincent Price, Diana Rigg and a sterling cast of British character actors ensured that I had a good time despite all the blood and gore.

Edward Lionheart (Price) is a famous or perhaps infamous Shakespearean tragedian.  He is certain he is the greatest actor who ever lived had his heart set on winning a theater critics guild award as Best Actor of 1970.  Why he thought he could win is unclear as the critics on the awards committee roundly panned all his performances.  In the event, the award went to a newcomer leaving Lionheart humiliated.  He barges into the after-party takes the award and jumps out the window several stories up. We learn that his doting daughter Edwina (Diana Rigg) has never recovered from her grief.

It turns out Lionheart is not dead after all.  He is now living in a derelict theater with a bunch of hoboes who resemble the living dead.  He enlists their help in his fiendish plan to kill off the critics one by one using a murder featured in each of the plays he performed that season.  These murders are customized to dole out the deranged Lionheart’s idea of poetic justice.  I’m not going to say any more as part of the fun is figuring what the murderer is going to do next and there is a major plot twist too (one that you will probably anticipate well before the reveal).  The critics are played by Ian Hendry, Trevor Dickman, Corale Browne, Robert Cooke, Jack Hawkins, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, Robert Morley, and Dennis Price.  Milo O’Shea and Eric Sykes play detectives.

I thought this was clever in an extremely gruesome sort of way.  The script keeps you on your toes.  I especially enjoyed seeing Price reciting some of Shakespeare’s most famous lines.  His no holds barred style suits the Bard very well.  Rigg compliments him beautifully and the cast of character actors is rock solid.  Production values are strong.  I loved the somewhat romantic score though I thought it possibly would have fit better in another movie. As mentioned, there is a lot of bloody gory close-up murder to sit through.  Highly recommended to fans of the genre.