Friday, September 18, 2009

My Own Private Top Ten

I spend a bit of time over at the website for The Criterion Collection, mostly checking up on new releases and periodically reading their blog, On Five. One of the sidebars that I find most interesting is their "Top Ten" lists, wherein they ask various filmmakers, authors, artists, actors, comedians, and musicians to provide their own personal Top Ten Criterion films. While nobody from Criterion is going to ask Cap'n Howdy to do his, I thought I would anyway, with an extra five for good measure.

This list is prefaced by a caveat: I've intentionally left off some of my very favorite films that are in the Collection in order to do something different. Instead of favorites, I decided to focus on films that surprised me, inspired me in some way, or that changed the way I'd thought about the movie beforehand. It may not be your "Top Ten" (*ahem* Fifteen) list, but for those reasons, it is for me. They are, as usual, in no particular order.

1. Robinson Crusoe on Mars - An odd choice, but one that's near and dear to my heart. Many years before Criterion released this, my father mentioned it to me in passing as one of those "if you ever find this movie...", as he'd seen it as a teenager and loved it. The movie is very silly, but it made his day when I gave him his own Spine Numbered copy for his birthday last year.

2. Harlan County, U.S.A. - Truly a great documentary; one that drops you right in the middle of a Kentucky coal miners' strike and Duke Power. In a world of overtly propagandist "documentaries", it was refreshing to see one that felt so raw and immediate.

3. Brazil - I liked Brazil, but always took it for granted until I saw Criterion's three-disc set. After watching (and later, reading) The Battle of Brazil and the "Love Conquers All" cut, it's a small wonder Terry Gilliam ever got his dystopian vision to audiences.

4. La Haine - Until I saw La Haine, I wondered what the hype about Matthieu Kassovitz was as a director. Once you've seen his stunning debut film, everything since feels a bit compromised. La Haine is the French equivalent to Do the Right Thing, a simmering pot of rage just waiting to boil over, and it feels real and improvised, even as Kassovitz punctuates the story with stylistic editing.

5. Ace in the Hole - I'd seen Double Indemnity, and I'd seen Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder's ultimate Film Noir and his first dissection of the subgenre. What I had not seen, however, was Wilder's final statement on Noir, at the end of the cycle. A critique of media obsession well before its time with a swing-for-the-fences performance by Kirk Douglas, Ace in the Hole is a worthy closing to Wilder's Film Noir trilogy.

6. Carnival of Souls - For a long time, it was Night of the Living Dead and nothing else for me. Romero owned the sixties for independent horror as far as I was concerned, above and beyond even what Roger Corman and Vincent Price were doing with Poe. That was until I sat down and watched the director's cut of Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls. Six years before Living Dead, Harvey created an atmospheric walking nightmare that preceded David Lynch by a decade. Don't let the "public domain" fool you; Carnival of Souls is the real deal.

7. F for Fake - Orson Welles, late in his career, makes a partly illusory documentary about forgery and magic that dares you to separate fact from fiction. He's still as good as he ever was and F for Fake is the maestro having a little fun, with us and at our expense.

8. Videodrome - It may just be that I didn't take the subversive elements of the film as seriously in high school. Watching it again, there's a lot to be said about the body, the taboo, and obsession that I gravitated to watching Criterion's excellent two-disc set. Oh, and I love the packaging.

9 . M - If you want to see sound used masterfully at a time when many directors were still fumbling around with the technology, look no further than Fritz Lang's M.

10. Permanent Vacation - This is actually an extra on Stranger Than Paradise. The movie is Jim Jarmusch's first feature, an odd-yssey through New York that's equal parts Catcher in the Rye and Alice in Wonderland. In many ways, it presupposes the structure of Richard Linklater's Slacker, although I enjoyed Permanent Vacation more. I was pleasantly surprised to find a "first" film that holds together and isn't mired in pretentiousness.

bonus five, with less chatter.

11. Night and the City - Richard Widmark may be the quintessential "Noir" type: looking perpetually beaten down by life, desperate for just one more shot, and always falls hard. The wrestling scheme is a good one, but nothing in Noir is good forever.

12. Do the Right Thing - I own a Blu-Ray copy, which has almost all of the extras, but I won't part ways with my Criterion set. This movie dares you to watch it and not feel something. I lose every time.

13. Equinox - For a movie riddled with odd pacing, weird plot holes, and awkward dialogue, I still enjoy revisiting the film debut of FX legend Dennis Muren. Having the recut, strangely exploitative Jack Woods version of the film is an interesting study in "what the audience wants." Oh, and watch this and then The Evil Dead; notice any similarities?

14. Simon of the Desert - Luis Buñuel's short about ascetic Saint Simon, who waits atop a pillar for six years, six months, and six days, all to prove he is devoted to God. At the bottom of the pillar is Silvia Pinal, the sexiest devil this side of Bedazzled, tempting and taunting Simon at every turn. For a "period" piece, I was surprised at how modern Buñuel's mini-movie felt, and the ending was quite out of the blue, if strangely familiar.

15. Dazed and Confused - A favorite in high school, I'd spent many years away from Richard Linklater's second film, assuming it would hold up once I'd "outgrown" it. Criterion's two disc set was a revelation; not only was Dazed as fun as I remembered it being, but something resonated in a way it hadn't when I was younger. Each time I've revisited Dazed and Confused since, I notice something that I missed and appreciate the movie a little more than the last.

No comments: