- After a few quick edits, I think my 100 list pretty accurately reflects where I am as of now (though it was painful not being able to find room for Altered States or The Royal Tenenbaums). I agree with John Cusack's character in High Fidelity - the things you like matter. Not because my opinion is more valid than yours or vice versa, but because the art we hold near and dear reveals a great deal about the individual realities we've been given. If anyone is actually willing to take the time, I'd love to see another person's list.
- Inspired by a comment from Jack: which decade of cinema was the strongest? I'd go with the seventies all the way, because it's closest the filmmakers ever came to running Hollywood. Worst would be the fifties - there are some masterpieces (The Searchers, Rebel Without a Cause, etc), but also a lot of junk that anticipated the studio system's crash in the mid-60's. Though if you throw in global cinema (Kurosawa, Bergman, Ozu), it's not bad after all. This is all relative, of course: every generation has classics and crap. I just reject the idea that films are getting worse - these things ebb and flow.
- The producers of Shortbus (which is completely beautiful - the best film ever to feature money shots) came to Images on Sunday for a post-film Q&A. They answered questions about the tricky process of financing and distributing a truly independent film, especially one with content as potentially controversial as this one (although they said they've met with surprisingly little resistance). One of them was very young and hailed from western MA. This is encouraging.
- I always look forward to Alex Jackson's reviews, so this is sort of a drag. It probably sounds ridiculous to say that Wet Hot American Summer was working on a whole other level that Jackson appears oblivious to, but that's how it is.
- Scorsese's doing a Rolling Stones documentary. What's the best Stones cue in a Scorsese film?
Films watched this week:
Halloween 10
Halloween II 8
Halloween III 3
Halloween 4 5
Halloween 5 4
The Prestige 8
Freddy's Dead 6
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht 10
The Changeling 6
Shortbus 10
Dracula (1931) 8
A Nightmare on Elm Street 10
Night of the Living Dead (1990) 6
28 Days Later 8
Hannah and Her Sisters 10
2 comments:
To me, the sixties would probably be the worst, for America at least (It was probably the best and most creative decade for Europe). Like you said, there were some classics (2001: A Space Odyssey, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and To Kill A Mockingbird come to mind) but there's a lot of awkward, overripe Hollywood Studio System type of stuff that just begs for a change of pace, that would come about from the 70's indepentant directors. Though it's true every decade has it's classics and its crap, it's hard to really say which is the best and worst.
Re: best Scorsese Stones cue. It would definatley have to be "Jumpin' Jack Flash" in Mean Streets. That's one of the best music cues in any movie, ever.
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