My goal:  to see 100 movies in 2008

 

(The 90 films I saw in 2007 are listed here.  The 95 films I saw in 2006 are listed here.  The 97 films I saw in 2005 are listed here.  The list of the 115 films I saw in 2004 is here.  The list of the 86 movies I saw in 2003 is here.)

 

 

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85).  Yes Man (2008; dir. Peyton Reed).  The film can’t figure out if it wants to be Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, and instead ends up at a strange place somewhere in-between, matching broad physical humor with social critique.  Not entirely satisfying, but not awful either.  Nice soundtrack of songs by the band Eels.  (12/27/08 at AMC Rosedale Theater).

 

84).  Son of Ranbow (2007; dir. Garth Jennings).  First-rate coming-of-age comedy, with a keen understanding of the fantasies, politics, and violence of middle-school life.  The child of a separatist religious sect and the school bully team up to produce their own version of the Rambo film series.  The scene in which a group of French exchange students arrive is simply priceless.  (12/16/08 as in-flight movie).

 

83).  Henry Poole is Here (2008; dir. Mark Pellington).  A post-modern take on Frank Capra; my falling asleep an hour into it was only partly due to jetlag.  What sticks most in memory about it, though, is its queer misuse of otherwise fine pop songs.  (12/16/08 as in-flight movie).

 

82).  Wall-E (2008; dir. Andrew Stanton).  As sweet as everyone says it is.  I watched most of it while grounded on a plane at Narita airport, awaiting repairs:  it seemed a suitable context for the film.  (12/16/08 as in-flight movie).

 

81).  Shina jihen gôhô kiroku:  Shanhai「支那事変後方記録･上海」(Behind the front in the China Incident:  Shanghai; 1938; dir. Kamei Fumio).  A powerful propaganda film shot in the streets of Shanghai soon after the battle there.   You get the expected shots:  captured Chinese prisoners talking about how well they are being treated, Japanese soldiers playing with children and puppies, victory parades in the streets by triumphant soldiers (though the Chinese spectators in the crowd for those are distinctly unenthusiastic).  You also get a fairly clear sense of how fierce the fighting was.  Perhaps the most compelling parts are the dynamic camerawork throughout and the extended section early on that focuses on the lives of the Japanese schoolchildren who lived through the battle.  (12/14/08 at National Film Center, Tokyo). 

 

80). Sugata naki sugata 「姿なき姿」(Form with form; 1935; dir. Kamei Fumio).  A 29-minute promotional film made by the great documentary directory Kamei Fumio to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Tokyo Electric Lights, it carries the spectator from the electricity that powers his or her daily life through the power grid to the massive hydroelectric plants that generate it.  Increasingly, as the film moves on, its focus becomes the heroic struggles of the laborers who maintain the power grid in treacherous territory, with the last shot capturing an accident as a worker is injured (and perhaps killed) when tumbles down a mountain slope on skis while patrolling the powerlines in the Japanese Alps. Supposedly, the sponsors of the film were not happy with the results.  The film also features an attractive modernist soundtrack.  (12/14/08 at National Film Center, Tokyo).

 

79). Tokyo Sonata 「トウキョウソナタ」(2008; dir. Kurosawa Kiyoshi).  Kurosawa Kiyoshi is one of my favorite contemporary directors, and the buzz on this new one was very, very good.  Perhaps my expectations were too high, because I found myself mildly disappointed.  It is a well-crafted work, one that makes a serious statement about the contemporary world and its corrosive impact on our daily emotional lives, and as usual Kurosawa dug up marvelously bleak shooting locations, both interior and exterior, that express his themes almost as well as do the characters and story.  There’s also a wonderful character-actor turn by Yakusho Kôji near the end.  But parts of the film just didn’t work for me -- for example, the subplot of the older broother joining the U.S. military.  Kurosawa is clearly trying to say something here about nationalism, globalization, and the wounds they inflict on the psyches of Japanese youth.  These are important and relevant topics, but the handling seemed a bit clumsy.  The finale, involving a lovely rendition of Debussy’s “Claire de lune,” raised a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak world:  even the intolerable alienation produced by the contemporary world can supply the emotions necessary to produce meaningful art.  All in all, this is a very good film, almost a great one.  But I’d rate it below, for example, Cure (1997) or License to Live (1998).  (12/11/08 at Kadokawa Shinjuku Theater).

 

78).  GS Wonderland 「GSワンダーランド」(2008; dir. Honda Ryûichi).   Entertaining story-of-the-band flick that recreates the delirium of the Group Sounds boom in 1960s Japanese rock-and-roll.  While the characters and storyline are formulaic, the production team obviously made painstaking efforts to recreate the details of the period:  the costumes, the props, the settings, and the songs (mostly new compositions written by actual GS veterans) all give off an intense aura of authenticity.   If we think of these as being the film’s “hooks,” then this is entirely appropriate to a celebration of GS, that most formulaic, gimmick-driven of genres.  So too is the reliance on sentimentality when emotions have to be summoned up, and likewise with the flippant air that predominates.  In other words, the film in its silly charm reproduces the atmosphere of GS at its best and worst.  The camerawork is dynamic throughout, often reproducing the psychedelic zooming and panning that 1960s and 70s tv programs used in filming live band performances.  I enjoyed seeing Kishibe Ittoku, former member of GS titans The Tigers, in a key role as a record company executive.  At one point, he mulls enviously over the sales figures for his competition: The Tigers.  (12/7/08 at CinemaArt Shinjuku Theater). 

 

77).  Gake no ue no Ponyo 「崖の上のポニョ」(Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea; 2008; dir. Miyazaki Hayao).  The latest by Miyazaki, the story makes no sense at all, but the visuals simply blow you away.  Incredible attention to detail brings out the intense beauty of everyday objects and actions:  the boiling of a pot of spinach, for example, or the awful power of waves slapping the shore.  The powerful sense of flying found in Miyazaki’s other films is replaced here with floating—and with the thrill of surfing.  Most impressive to me is the way Miyazaki captures one character perfectly:  the stressed-out working mother who is always on the verge of exploding into anger, yet whose love for her child glows.  It’s a remarkable adult creation for a director more at home imagining the worlds of the very young and the very old.  (12/6/08 at Shinjuku Piccadilly Theater).,

 

76).  Mama Mia! (2008; dir. Pylida Lloyd).  Unpretentious, enjoyable musical comedy.  I saw it on a lousy airplane projector screen; there was a weird green line that appeared below the teeth of the actors whenever they smiled, as if they were constantly brushing with mint gel toothpaste.  It was hard to make things out, but as far as I could tell, in the end the French lieutenant’s woman married James Bond.  I’m doubting my eyes and ears, though, because it also appeared that both were singing.  (12/5/08 as in-flight movie).

 

75).  Bottle Shock (2008; dir. Randall Miller).  A dramatized version of the famous 1976 Paris tasting contest in which California wines bested their French counterparts, this aims to be a quirky boutique label, ala Sideways, but as a film, it’s closer to being a cheap Gallo gallon jug.  The characters are all predictable stereotypes, the cinematography is greeting-card-style picturesque, and the plot never generates any sense of tension.  (12/5/08 as in-flight movie).

 

74).  This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006; dir. Kirby Dick).  A documentary in the fine old muckraking tradition, shining bright lights into the shadows of a rather ugly hypocrisy—the MPAA’s moving rating system.  A good job of analysis, as well:  figuring out, for example, that it is depiction of female pleasure that repeatedly draws the ire of the ratings board.  And it’s all done with a game sense of humor. (11/21/08 on DVD)

 

73).  An Ox’s Tale:  The John Entwistle Story (2006; dir. Steve Luongo et al.).  Straightforward documentary on the life and music of the late bassist for The Who—the man who transformed the bass guitar from a rhythm keeper into a melodic (and harmonic) hurricane.  Luongo was the drummer for Entwistle’s solo band.  (11/15/08 on Netflix live streaming). 

 

72).  Brian Wilson:  On Tour (2003; dir. John Anderson).  Not quite as compelling a film as 1995’s Brian Wilson:  I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, but probably that’s because Brian is much healthier and happier these days.  Lots of reverential interview footage from folks like Pete Townshend, Neil Young, Sheryl Crow, etc.  (11/15/08 on Netflix live streaming).

 

71).  Ringoen no shôjo (Girl of the Apple Orchard; 1952; dir. Shima Kôji).  Another Hibari flick, this one the film version of a radio serial drama she’s starred in previously.  This one was shot on location in the Tsugaru region of Northeast Japan, with lots of good footage of what the city of Hirosaki and surrounding regions looked like in 1952.  Lots of documentary footage, too, of local festival dances and songs.  The jazzed-up version of “Ringo oiwake” that Hibari sings at the end is a hoot.  (11/10/08)

 

70). Futari no hitomi (Girls Hand in Hand; 1952; dir. Nakaki Shigeo).  I rewatched this as I work on the Misora Hibari chapter for my new book.  This is the one co-starring Margaret O’Brien, flown in from Hollywood for the filming; she even speaks a few lines of wooden Japanese.  What struck me this time through was how much of the film was shot on location in Tokyo, giving a nice snapshot of the city at the end of the U.S. Occupation.  The film was supposedly also released in the U.S. in 1953, and you can see how the producers aimed at creating a solemn family film with Christian overtones:  clearly they had the American audience in mind.  (11/9/08 on VHS).

 

69). Still Life (Sanxia haoren; 2006; dir. Jia Zhang-Ke).  An acclaimed work by the man frequently declared China’s greatest current director, it’s a thoughtful exploration that uses that destruction carried out in the process of building the massive Three Gorges Dam in China as a metaphor for the lives of the two central characters:  each is trying to recover in the present from a wasteful act of destruction in the past.  The final shot of a man walking a tightrope between two ruined buildings sums up the emotional lives of the characters.  As abstract as all this might sound, what really struck me is the gritty sense of real, everyday life that the film conveys.  (11/2/08 at DocFilms, University of Chicago).

 

68).  The Devil Wears Prada (2006; dir. David Frankel).  Breezy comedy of the naïve-young-woman-goes-to-the-Big-City-and-almost-goes-bad subgenre.  Meryl Streep has a ball with her role, but what struck me most about the film was the very commercial way it packaged its basic message:  that at heart we are above all of that commercialism.  (10/29/08 on DVD)

 

67). Private Fears in Public Places (Couer; 2006; dir. Alain Resnais).  Melancholic yet charming film about six alienated middle-aged persons in Paris during a rather remarkable snow storm (I think maybe, just maybe, the snow might be symbolic….).  Their lives and desires keep crossing paths, yet the connections they seek for love and community mostly remain beyond reach.  A fine cast brings out Alan Ayckburn’s script to warm, breathing life.  Resnais uses one trick several times:  he films his characters from far above, as if the camera were mounted on the ceiling of the room, thereby visually reproducing the sense of distance that marks their lives.  (10/20/08)

 

66). Tokyo no kôrasu (Tokyo Chorus; 1931; dir. Ozu Yasujiro).  Sharp silent film by Ozu, one of his early explorations of the theme that would dominate his oeuvre:  the travails of middle-class domestic life in the modern city.  The camera angles are all trademark Ozu, though with more energetic pans and other movements than we find in his later work.  And as so often happens in his silent films, music plays an interesting role, as if Ozu were straining against the limits of the medium.  (10/19/08 on DVD)

 

65). Burn After Reading (2008; dir. Ethan and Joel Coen).  A postmodern Hitchcock film, in which the secret McGuffin is that there is no secret.  At times brilliantly funny, the film also draws links between our consumerist culture’s obsession with self-reinvention and our governmental culture’s obsessions with secrecy, as if one were the mirror image of the other.  Stay through the final credits to hear the wonderful “C.I.A. Man” by The Fugs.   (10/18/08 at Southdale AMC Theater, Edina, Minnesota)

 

64). Ivan’s Childhood (Ivanovo detstvo; 1962; dir. Andrei Tarkovsky). Beautiful film, Tarkovsky’s feature debut in which his fluid, lyrical visual style synthesizes the dreams of a young boy with the harshest realities of life at the battlefront in Soviet Russia.  There’s a subtle, quite lovely soundtrack composed by Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov.  (10/16/08 on DVD). 

 

63). La Guerre Est Finie (1966; dir. Alain Resnais).  Yves Montand plays an aging Communist underground activist who shuttles between the safety of Paris and the dangers of Franco’s Spain.  The unfulfilled revolution grows old and tired, and as an isolated part in a vast political machinery, Montand’s character can never see the totality into which he fits—an existential state that Resnais duplicates in viewers’ experience of the film.  The director fragments shots and uses jump cuts, never allowing us to feel comfortable that we’ve grasped what is going on.  Genevieve Bujold has a fine turn as a sex-kitten lefty activist who is more eager to resort to violence than the world-weary Montand.  (10/8/08 on DVD)

 

62).  Attack the Gas Station!  (Juyuso seubgyuksageun; 1999; dir. Kim Sang-Jin).  Slapstick action movie from South Korea, with the usual dollop of social commentary on the state of the nation.  A gang of young rebels without a clue launch an assault on a gas station, where they are confronted with the cynicism and corruption of their elders and the social elite.  The best line comes when one of the thugs insists that Pepsi must be a Korean product, because its logo is a Korean flag.  (9/23/08 on DVD)

 

61).  This Sporting Life (1963; dir. Lindsay Anderson).  Anderson’s debut film, it’s a masterpiece.  A combination of gritty sports film and late ‘50s British Angry-Young-Man cinema, it also foreshadows the striking use of shot construction to mount social critiques that would characterize Anderson’s later films.  Richard Harris plays a hardscrabble rugby player who falls for a young widow who can’t bring herself to love him.  A powerful, engaging film, spiced with an eerie modernist soundtrack composed by Roberto Gerhard.  (9/18/08 on DVD)

 

60).  Take Care of My Cat (2002; dir. Jeong Jae-eun).  A coming-of-age film following five female friends in Inchon, South Korea, during the years after high school graduation.  The five come from wildly different class backgrounds with different goals in life, producing strains on their friendships even as they are sometimes still able to bond together.  The film includes a modicum of commentary on life in contemporary South Korea, and it does some nice visual toying with the text messaging that is so important to the five women:  their computer, typewriter, and cell-phone messages scroll across odd sections of the screen as they input them.  (9/10/08 on DVD).

 

59).  The Dark Knight (2008; dir. Christopher Nolan).  Like much popular culture, this one tries to have it both ways, overcoming real social contradictions by pretending it is possible to please both sides. We can have our democracy and freedom AND our state of exception when laws are suspended and raw power rules.  It’s an old culture industry formula, but at least it’s well executed here.  (8/7/08 at the Grandview Theater, St. Paul).   

 

58).  Flags of Our Fathers (2006; dir. Clint Eastwood).  A film that deconstructs the propaganda narrative constructed to explain the famous photograph of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, it of course shatters its own narrative, jumping forward and backward in time and even repeating sequences.  Nonetheless, Hollywood demands narrative coherence, and that is what the film delivers, despite its pretensions otherwise.  Of course, it’s damn good Hollywood product…. (8/6/08 on DVD)

 

57).  Junebug (2005; dir. Phil Morrison).  Well-acted and scripted independent drama about deteriorating family life in the contemporary American South.  It calls to mind the postwar films of Ozu Yasujirō, and in fact seems to pay direct tribute to him with shots of empty rooms and other settings.  A couple of nice songs by Yo La Tengo on the soundtrack.  (8/4/08 on DVD).

 

56). The Steamroller and the Violin (Katok i skripka; 1960; dir. Andrei Tarkovsky).  An early film by Tarkovsky, and a good example of postwar humanism, Soviet-style.  A boy violinist, the target of neighborhood bullies, befriends a sympathetic steamroller driver.  Sparse but stylish shot construction throughout, with special attention to color schemes.  Some nice visual effects, too, including split screens and montage sequences.  (7/30/08 on DVD).

 

55). March of the Penguins (La Marche de l’empereur; 2005; dir. Luc Jacquet).  A fine documentary capturing a slice of everyday, real life that would have been better without the insipid English narration—done silent with intertitles, in the fashion of an old Robert Flaherty film, it would have been twice as effective.  And if penguin child-rearing practices are this fascinating, it makes you wonder what filmmakers could do with the Lawson or Carter family living down the street, if they ever bothered to pay attention. (7/26/08 on DVD).

 

54).  Once (2006; dir. John Carney).  This fine film aims (as the title of the “making of” bonus feature included on the DVD attests) to update an old genre, to create a “modern” musical.  It succeeds, but how?  The plot is a variation on the oldest cliché in the book:  a star is born, mapped onto boy-meets-girl.  The modern variation is that (spoiler alert) boy doesn’t get girl in the end.  Mostly, though, modernity is connoted through the use of hand-held cameras, as if this were a street documentary rather than a glossy musical.  Using real singers in the leads helps, too, of course.  (7/11/08 on DVD).

 

53).  The Game Plan (2007; dir. Andy Fickman).  An acceptable family comedy, with a good performance by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the lead.  As with so much mass culture of the last century, the plot centers on restoring the family to wholeness by resurrecting the patriarch—as well as on, it must be mentioned, cute animals acting in oddly human fashion.  (7/10/08 on DVD).

 

52). Kyojin to gangu (Giants and toys; 1958; dir. Masumura Yasuzô).  The great over-the-top depiction of the dawn of the consumerist age in Japan, as pressure builds on everyone to come up with a PR campaign that will keep World Caramels’ sales figures ahead of those of its rivals.  Terrific montage sequences that recall Soviet silent cinema align the industrial production of candy with the manufacture of celebrities.  There’s a teeny-weeny taste of rockabilly, too, with a brief shot of what is clearly meant to be one of the early Nichigeki Western Carnival shows.  The most anxious fear expressed in the film (clearly foreshadowing 1960 and the massive AMPO protests):  that Japan is becoming just like America.  #10 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 1958.  (7/5/08 on DVD).

 

51). Solaris (1972; dir. Andrei Tarkovsky).  Goethe becomes science fiction in this classic Soviet film of a space station gone awry, in which the cosmonauts both desire and fear immortality (and, for that matter, death), and a compliant planet obliges those desires and fears by manifesting them in concrete form.  Brilliantly filmed, of course, moving back and forth between luminous color and arid black-and-white.  The sets are astonishing:  supposedly, Kurosawa Akira visited the studio while they were filming and was blown away.  And for some reason, about a fourth of the way in, one of the characters takes a drive through Tokyo.  (7/5/08 on DVD).

 

50). Harvey (1950; dir. Henry Koster).  One of Jimmy Stewart’s defining roles, this starts out flat, but midway through the sheer charm of his performance starts to carry the film—which is a good thing, since it has few other supports underneath it.  Its suspicious stance toward psychiatry and its eagerness to medicate eccentricities seems oddly timely today.  But mostly, despite its continuing celebration as a classic of the Hollywood studio system, this feels like a lost opportunity.  I find myself wondering what the results would have been if it had been directed by, say, Frank Capra or Howard Hawks.  (6/20/08 on Turner Classic Movies)

 

49). Meoto zenzai (Marital relations; 1955; dir. Toyoda Shirô). Well-acted tale of the inseparable, ultimately destructive bond that forms between a self-sacrificing geisha and the ne’er-do-well son of a prosperous merchant who abandoned his wife and child for her.  Set in the early 1930s and based on a novel by Oda Sakunosuke, this has some nice comic touches that foreshadow the Tora-san movies, but melodrama predominates.  Usually considered Toyoda’s masterpiece, it’s #2 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 1955.  (6/25/08 on DVD)

 

48). The Millionairess (1960; dir. Anthony Asquith).  Glossy but flat adaptation of the George Bernard Shaw play about love between a self-centered, money-obsessed young lady and an equally stubborn idealistic doctor who despises wealth.  Sophia Loren was at the peak of her sex kitten career, and so the camera fetishizes her body throughout.  Peter Sellers plays the doctor in brown face, transforming the character into an Indian (in fact, the depicted London seems full of immigrants and their descendants).  The most interesting parts of this rather dull film are the sets and costumes, bizarre hybrids between 1950’s notions of elegance and 1960’s ideals of modishness. (6/23/08 on Comcast On-Demand Movies) 

 

47).  Nani ga kanojo o sô saseta ka (What made her do it?; 1930; dir. Suzuki Shigeyoshi).  The legendary masterpiece of silent cinema and of the proletarian film movement (and supposedly the top-grossing Japanese film of its day), this was believed lost until a copy turned up in a Russian film archive several years back.  It’s missing the opening and closing sequences, but the 80-plus minutes we have here are astonishing:  the shots and editing are remarkably artistic, and the story of a young girl driven to insanity and ruin by a heartless society remains powerful.  Meals are portrayed with special care:  it’s when we break bread together, the director seems to be saying, that our barely submerged tensions (class, sexual, familial) explode into view.  Chosen as the best film of 1930 by Kinema Junpô. (6/22/08 on DVD)

 

46).  The Golden Compass (2007; dir. Chris Weitz).  My 11-year-old swears they ruined the book by ending the film before what in the novel is the narrative climax; that didn’t stop her from watching this twice.  I found myself intrigued by the nostalgic futurism:  the film hearkens back to the view of the future that people held a century ago.  The ending, too, kept reminding me of a James Bond film:  they destroy the evil empire’s secret base of operations in a huge battle and then the hero and heroine have a quiet little talk while floating away in the sky. (6/19/08 on DVD).

 

45).  Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box; 1929; dir. G.W. Pabst).  Louise Brooks is stunning in the starring role as Lulu, a sexy young woman whose free vivacity leads men – and ultimately, herself – to ruin. The modernist sets and costumes almost, but not quite, steal the show from her luminous performance.   (6/16/08 on DVD)

 

44). The Darjeeling Limited (2007; dir. Wes Anderson).  Another quirky Anderson film about obsessive human relationships.  It features a strong cast, lovely location shots in India, and not one, not two, but three Kinks’ songs on the soundtrack.  What more could I ask for?  (6/8/08 on DVD) 

 

43). Watashi wa nisai (Being two isn’t easy; 1962; dir. Ichikawa Kon).  Charming, intelligent comedy about family life in the early 1960s Japan, told largely from the two-year-old son’s perspective.  Ichikawa captures the disorientation caused by the new urban lifestyle of massive apartment complexes built on the suburban outskirts of Japan’s major cities.  There’s a nice, subtle musical score by Akutagawa Yasushi, as well as several striking animated sequences.  A nice example of early 1960s humanism in film, and one of Ichikawa’s better works:  he should have stuck with comedies, I sometimes think.  They keep down his overly ponderous side.  #1 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 1962.  (6/4/08 on DVD)

 

42).  I’m Not There (2007; dir. Todd Haynes).  Just as brilliant as everyone says it is, this fiction/documentary blend captures the ineffable Bob Dylan remarkably well.  In a world where persona and invented myth are the closest we can come to touching tradition and reality, Dylan spins out new personae and myths every time he speaks:  those are the real, he insists, and Haynes gets it.  Cate Blanchett is remarkable in her turn as “Jude Quinn,” and I fell in love with Charlotte Gainsbourg all over again.  The Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth cover versions of Dylan tunes that play over the final credits are not to be missed.  (5/28/08 as in-flight movie). 

 

41). The Avengers (1998; dir. Jeremiah Chechik).  In making this update of the cult British television series from the 1960s, they did a reasonable job of casting, and loving attention was lavished on all the little details: settings, accents, costumes (down to, of course, the kinky boots).  But they forgot something:  the script, man, the script.    (5/28/08 as in-flight movie).

 

40). Nil By Mouth (1997; dir. Gary Oldman).  Brutal story about life in the dregs of contemporary British society.  What can love mean in a world defined by violence, addictions, and crime?  Female characters seem to understand and pass it along from generation to generation, but the male characters can only bash in heads—their own and those of the people around them—as they wrestle with the insoluble dilemma.  And all of the depicted lives are utterly saturated with mass media:  tv, movies, songs.  (5/25/08 at the British Film Institute, South Bank, London).

 

39).  Ginga tetsudô no yoru (Night of the Milky Way Railroad; 1985; dir. Sugii Gisaburô).  When I first went to Japan as an exchange student in 1984-85, this anime was the film that all of my Japanese classmates were talking about.  Now I finally see it, and it’s not half bad.  The visuals are quite striking for this period, although they’ve lost some of their luster in the wake of the developmens in animation over the subsequent two decades.  The soundtrack is by Hosono Haruomi, a nice choice—though the results are somewhat disappointing and at times awkward.  Miyazawa Kenji’s story still carries a charge of wonder (and an unfortunate whiff of fascism, in its celebration of absolute self-sacrifice).  (5/17/08 on DVD).

 

38). Izu no odoriko (The Izu Dancer; 1954; dir. Nomura Yoshitarô).  A better-than-average Misora Hibari vehicle, in which she is denied spoken lines in many scenes and so actually has to act.  She also sings a couple of numbers in this adaptation of the much-filmed story by Kawabata Yasunari.  The direction is mildly stylish, with at least rudimentary care taken in shot construction and editing.  (5/12/08 on DVD).

 

37). The Simpsons Movie (2007; dir. David. Silverman).  Yes, it’s better than the tv show—mainly, I think, because of the care that went into the script.  (5/10/08 on DVD). 

 

36). Kamome shokudô (Kamome diner; 2006; dir. Ogigami Naoko).  Three middle-aged Japanese women run a friendly neighborhood diner in Finland, solving the problems of the world by feeding people “Japanese soul food.”   Don’t ask questions like “why?” or “how?,” simply enjoy.  Vaguely reminiscent of a Miyazaki Hayao anime film, this is charmingly underplayed, subdued in visual tones, emotionally satisfying, and at times extremely funny.  And at the end, you really, really want to eat onigiri.  Inoue Yôsui’s 1980 hit song “Crazy Love” plays over the closing credits.  #9 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 2006.  (5/9/08 on DVD).

 

35).  Richard Pryor: Here and Now (1983; dir. Richard Pryor).  A late concert film by the comedian, one I’d seen several times before.  It didn’t strike me as being as funny as I earlier thought.  Either I wasn’t in the mood, or the times they are a changin’.  It’s still cool to watch him interact with the rambunctious New Orleans audience, though.  (5/3/08 on streaming from www.netflix.com).

 

34). Daisôgen no Wataridori (Plains wandered; 1960; dir. Saitô Buichi). The fifth installment in the Nikkatsu Studio’s Wataridori series, starring Kobayashi Akira as a guitar-slinging, horseback-riding good guy who wanders the great plains of contemporary Japan, shooting it out with the bad guys and helping the local women and children.  This one’s set in Hokkaido, and Kobayashi helps protect a local Ainu community and the good mining company (???) from evil gangster types who want to build a huge tourist resort.  Basically, we have here the mirror image of Hula Girls:  there it was an evil industrial economy being saved by the rise of a moral postindustrial tourism economy; here it’s a moral industrial economy being saved from the rise of an evil postindustrial tourism economy.   Shot in glorious widescreen, of course.  (5/3/08 at University of Chicago Film Studies Center).

 

33).  Juno (2007; dir. Jason Reitman).  Charming, witty, it allows teen-agers to show off their energy and intelligence, and it features a Kinks’ song on the soundtrack.  What more could you ask for?  Well, perhaps a more realistic version of Minnesota:  the place names are all taken from my home state, but the exterior shots look nothing like the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and a great deal like British Columbia.  (4/30/08 on DVD).

 

32).  Burden of Dreams (1982; dir. Les Blank).  Documentary tracing the extraordinary—and perhaps extraordinarily foolish—story behind the filming of Werner Herzog’s masterpiece, Fitzcarraldo (see #17 below).  Everything that can go wrong does, and yet Herzog madly carries on.  The most intriguing bit may be the brief snippet of footage shot with the original cast, including Jason Robards and Mick Jagger (both dropped out of the production after about 40% had been shot, forcing Herzog to start over from scratch).  I suspect that the final version with Klaus Kinski in the lead is better, but I’d sure like to see a reconstruction of that original cast’s version.  (4/28/08 on DVD).  

 

31).  The Squid and the Whale (2005; dir. Noah Baumbach).  Fine domestic drama about divorce and its impact on the kids.  As one who grew up under somewhat similar circumstances, I thought it rang true and wasn’t surprised to learn that the script was in part autobiographical on the director/screenwriter’s part.  Nice performances, nice soundtrack, nice script.  This is about as good as Hollywood gets these days.  (4/22/08 on DVD). 

 

30).  Man with a Movie Camera (1920; dir. Dziga Vertov).  Experimental silent documentary from back when the Soviet Union was new and filmmakers its artists of record.  With remarkable innovations in camerawork and editing, it presents a day in the (urban) life of the nation.  As its opening credits declare, it is a bold experiment in authentic, pure film:  no script, no intertitles, no actors, and nothing borrowed from either theater or literature.  It does have an unspoken source for borrowed structure, though:  music, as the film works like a song, establishing a pattern, repetition of pattern, than variation of pattern.  It is also colored by a marvelous self-reflexivity about the cameraman, his eye, his hand-cranked camera and its machinery, the lens, the film stock and its individual frames.  There is a wonderful sequence, for example, in which we watch a camera mounted in a moving car film a group of people in another moving car, and gradually are forced to realize that there is a third unseen car next to those other two:  the one carrying the camera from which we are gazing at the kinetic scene. (4/20/08 on Netflix on-line streaming). 

 

29).  The Red Balloon (Le Ballon Rouge; 1956; dir. Albert Lamorisse).  Lovely short film about a small Parisian boy who is adopted by a red balloon and the adventures they share.  An example of postwar liberal humanism at its most generous and hopeful.  This somehow managed to win the Academy Award for best original screenplay despite being a). a short film, b). French, and c). almost entirely wordless.  (4/19/08 on Turner Classic Movies On-Demand Service).

 

28). Osaka Story:  A Documentary (1994; dir. Nakata Tôichi).  Low-key yet gripping documentary as Nakata temporarily returns home from film school in London to profile his family in Osaka:  his resident-Korean, a successful businessman father who also happens to have a second wife and family in Korea; his long-suffering Japanese mother who wonders why she stays in the marriage, even as she finds herself confronting the possibility of her own death; his younger brother, a former Moonie who is trying to learn the family business; and Nakata himself, who after facing constant hints that it is high time he marry and settle down finally comes out as gay near the end of the film.  The film captures many things, not least of which is the feel and tone of the city of Osaka.  (4/7/08 on DVD). 

 

27). Kôhî jikô (Café Lumière, 2003; dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien). Commissioned by the Shôchiku Studio to produce a film commemorating the 100th anniversary of Ozu Yasujirô’s birth, Taiwanese director Hou produces a wonderful film in Japan with a Japanese cast.  The film is largely shot in Ozu’s style, meaning it’s all about trains, unvoiced domestic turmoil (here, the daughter reluctant to marry also happens to be pregnant), and interior spaces shot from a camera set way down low near the floor.  It’s also about capturing the past in the form of sound (be it the concert music of Taiwanese composer Jiang Wen-ye or the incidental noises of Tokyo train stations) and, in a nice Ozu-like touch, umbrellas.  (3/29/08 on DVD).

 

26).  Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007; dir. Gore Verbinski).  We saw this last year in Tokyo in the Japanese-dubbed version, so decided to catch the original English.  It turns out the Keith Richards’ English is almost as good as his Japanese.  (3/25/08 on DVD). 

 

25).  Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008; dir. Bharat Nalluri).  It’s nice to see Frances McCormand get a plum role, but basically this was an old Carol Burnett Show skit stretched out to feature-film length.  The bit about the difference in 1940 between the generation old enough to remember WWI and those too young was nice, and the sets and the music are swell, but the director’s big trick is basically to revolve the camera around the characters to produce an artificial sense of sweep.  Nostalgia for nostalgia (but awarded brownie points for being filmed at Ealing Studios).  (3/25/08 at the Grandview Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota). 

 

24).  Around the World in Eighty Days (2004; dir. Frank Coraci).  You know, I really, really hope Jackie Chan gets to make one more great movie before he gets too old to do his thing anymore.  Something with a great script, first-class acting talent (I mean, Steve Coogan?), and a real director.  Unfortunately, this one isn’t it.  (3/22/08 on DVD).

 

23).  Nihon no yoru to kiri (Night and fog in Japan; 1960; dir. Ôshima Nagisa).  Filmed in the wake of the failure of the anti-AMPO demonstrations of 1960, this foreshadows the tangled factional and sexual politics that would unfold on the left over the next decade in Japan.  As if it to literalize the ideological struggles of the New Left, the camera swerves left and then right in long, long takes, as wedding guests bitterly accuse one another of failing the movement.  Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony is the entirely appropriate choice for the soundtrack here, but like so many of Ôshima’s works, this one becomes a bit tedious despite (or perhaps because of) the fireworks. (3/17/08 on DVD). 

 

22). Ninjô to kamifûsen (Humanity and paper balloons; 1937; dir. Yamanaka Sadao).  One of the great jidaigeki (samurai drama) of all time, foreshadowing Kurosawa’s works in the genre.  It’s a remarkable episodic narrative of life among the down-and-out in Edo-period Japan.  Showing the clear influence of the proletarian arts movement, Yamanaka brings out the humor and community of the lower classes even as they face a world marked by violence, corruption, and injustice.  I last saw this many years ago at the old Namikiza Theater in Ginza, and the final shot of the film burned itself into my memory then.  (3/15/08 on DVD)

 

21).  It Happened One Night (1934; dir. Frank Capra). Great Hollywood studio product, a jewel from the Golden Age.  Clark Gable is Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert is Claudette Colbert, and so we the audience get to be we the audience.  It makes you wonder, too, what made Capra go soft in his later films:  there is a satisfying hard edge to this comedy that is missing in Capra’s later masterpieces, where even the great Jean Arthur ends up a soft touch.  (3/14/08 on Comcast On-Demand service). 

 

20).  Sans Soleil (1983; dir. Chris Marker).  The now-legendary documentary that weaves together images from Japan, Guinea-Bissau, San Francisco, Iceland and elsewhere in pursuit of elusive memory.  Distorted images of the past at the very least remind us that the object of our longing has vanished forever, and time is what exists between the splice of two shots, not in the shots themselves.  The Tokyo metropolis is a manga, or even better, a complex musical score continually unfolding in unexpected directions.  The film is utterly mesmerizing.  (3/14/08 at University of Chicago Experimental Film Club, Film Studies Center). 

 

19).  Wings of Desire (1987; dir. Wim Wenders).  Wenders’ best known work, an elusive film about stories and how we willingly fall to get into them:  children fall into adulthood, trapeze artists fall in love, angels fall from the sky, and movie stuntmen fall when punched.  The old storyteller (echoes of Walter Benjamin) claims that no one needs him anymore, but fallen angel Peter Falk acts otherwise.  A good love story wins out over war stories and detective stories, but just barely, and perhaps then only in the movies.  (3/13/08 on DVD).   

 

18).Broken Flowers (2005; dir. Jim Jarmusch).  Another offbeat road movie from Jarmusch, albeit one that features real movie stars and more conventional camerawork and editing than usual.  The lesson that Bill Murray learns as he sets out to meet the women he’s wronged over the years is all set up in a shot that Jarmusch likes so much he uses it three or four times:  the camera is in the car with Murray, looking ahead down the road into the future, but the driver’s side mirror is central to the composition, and in it we see the past inexorably recede farther and farther away from us.  I give it an extra star because it features (quite subtly) a Kinks’ song on the soundtrack:  Holly Golightly’s cover version of “Tell Me Now So I’ll Know.” (3/12/08 on DVD)

 

17).  Fitzcarraldo (1982; dir. Werner Herzog).  I’d wanted to see this one since it was first released a quarter-century ago.  I think it’s Herzog’s best work—his characteristic themes of obsession, struggle, and partial redemption all come together quite brilliantly.  As the fool’s project of an opera house in the Amazon jungle lurches forward, you realize that Herzog is also saying something about modern desire:  be it for riches, conquest, or celebrity.  Klaus Kinksi and Claudia Cardinale illumine the screen, as usual.  Next, I have to see Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, documenting the incredible struggles undergone in the making of this film.  (3/7/08 on DVD).   

 

16). Sanshô Dayû (Sansho the Bailiff; 1954; dir. Mizoguchi Kenji).  A classic melodrama from Mizoguchi, and like his Ugetsu monogatari a reflection on the trauma of wartime memories in the guise of a historical period piece.  Based on a short story by Mori Ôgai, it follows the travails of a family of aristocrats determined to uphold humanistic principles in the benighted society of late Heian Japan, circa the twelfth century.  The film features strong performances but seems lacking in some of Mizoguchi’s characteristic formal qualities—e.g. I didn’t spot any of his usual elaborately constructed shots in which the camera works its way through the architecture of the set.  An effective score by Hayasaka Fumio (Kurosawa’s  right-hand man), with just a touch of gagaku to it.  #9 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 1954. (3/6/09 on DVD)

 

15).  Easy Rider (1969; dir. Dennis Hopper).  The last time I saw this was twenty-some years ago at Mac Cinema (Macalester College Film Society), a scratched and faded 16mm. print.  Seeing it again this time on fully restored DVD, the sheer visual beauty of the images struck me:  all the remarkable, colorful landscapes that Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper bike through.  So, too, did the intense moralism:  from the deployment of Steppenwolf’s “God Damn the Pusher” in the opening sequence to Peter Fonda’s summation, “We blew it,” the film condemns as a tragic flaw American restlessness and yearning after the cheap thrill.  (3/2/08 on DVD)

 

14).  Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959; dir. Alain Renais).  Resnais’s other meditation (see #13 below) on war, trauma, and memory.  Here, a French actress travels to Hiroshima to play a nurse in a film; while there she has a one-night-stand with a Japanese man whose family was there in the atomic bombing.  In the course of their love-making and talk, it turns out that she as a teenager had a love-affair with a German soldier during the war.  In many ways the French New Wave began here:  the film consists primarily of an extended conversation between the two lovers transposed over footage of Hiroshima and wartime France.  (3/1/08 on DVD). 

 

13).  Nuit et brouillard (Night and fog; 1955; dir. Alain Resnais).  The legendary documentary about the Holocaust.  It juxtaposes contemporary (early 1950s) shots of the concentration camps with archival footage, confronting viewers with their present-day responsibility to remember.  I was curious about how I would respond, at this distant point in time and after having seen so many Holocaust films and documentaries:  were my own sensibilities blunted?  The result:  the film still packs an enormous, punch-to-the-stomach wallop.  (2/29/08 on DVD). 

 

12).  Summer Soldiers (1972; dir. Teshigahara Hiroshi).  Interesting documentary-style tale of an American G.I. who, disgusted with the Vietnam War, deserts while on leave in Japan.  The film’s political leanings are clearly sympathetic to the soldier, but he isn’t depicted solely in a heroic light:  the tensions between him and the Japanese who try to help him frequently flare up, and he sometimes displays less-than-attractive American traits.  Shot in that clunky ATG-style (including the obligatory shots of naked women) that so enthralled artistic filmmakers in 1970s Japan.  It was quite nostalgic to see copies of the old English-language leftist Japanese newsletter AMPO scattered across the set in several shots.  #9 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 1972. (2/28/08 on DVD). 

 

11).  Fearless Freaks (2005; dir. Bradley Beesley).  Nice straightforward documentary on the Oklahoma rock band the Flaming Lips, keeping the focus less on the music itself than on the remarkable personal histories of the band memories—luckily, someone kept a video camera going through much of Wayne Coyne’s childhood.  And how many times have you watched someone shoot up on heroin as they all the while explain the ups and downs of addiction to you?  (2/16/08 on video stream from Netflix.com).

 

10).  Kûchû teien (Hanging Garden; 2005; dir. Toyoda Toshiaki).  A bit slow in getting off the ground, but halfway through this really takes off, building up to an emotional wallop.  Koizumi Kyôko turns in a brilliant performance as a suburban housewife who battles down the demons in her life by insisting on total honesty and a warm smile, even in the midst of chaos.  The most striking peresonality is the grandmother (played by Ôkusu Mitsuyo), but the film is fill of complex characters and powerful (and sometimes very funny) scenes.  The camerawork often calls attention to itself with bizarre shots that reflect the inner turmoil of the characters; the preferred device is to have the camera swing back and forth, like a hanging plant in the wind.  Nice soundtrack as well, with music from UA and Zak.  #9 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 2005.  (2/9/08 as part of the Japan Foundation’s Midwest Japan Film Festival at Docfilms, University of Chicago). 

 

9).  Tokyo-Ga  (1985; dir. Wim Wenders).  Wenders’ loving tribute to the imaginary world created in the films of Ozu Yasujirô.  He travels to Japan, camera in hand, to see if he can find any traces of “real” Tokyo behind his mental image – and launches into a fascinating meditation on the relationship between images and reality.  He spends a day, for example, following the people who make the plastic foods that are displayed outside restaurants.  The closest he gets to the “real” is talking with people who worked with Ozu, asking about how the films got made.  Watching this was quite nostalgic, for reasons having nothing to do with Ozu:  Wenders shot the documentary in 1983, and I first arrived in Japan in 1984.  It was like stepping into a time machine:  all the women still wear skirts, and all the young boys still wear short pants.  (2/7/08 on DVD) 

 

8).  Kamyu nante shiranai (Who’s Camus, anyway?; 2005; dir. Yanagimichi Mitsuo).  Nice post-modern exploration of the emotional tensions involved in movie-making.  A university film circles tries to make an independent film based on a murder case reminiscent of Camus’ The Stranger, and all of the tensions of violence, love, and motivations echo back and forth between the film-makers and their work.  It opens, for example, with a discussion between two students about movies that open with bravado single-take long sequences—and of course all of this happens in a bravado, single-take long sequence.  Shot construction is magnificent throughout, calling to mind such past masters as Mizoguchi Kenji (who is name-checked in the spoken dialogue).  Kuroki Meisa is breathtakingly beautiful as the object of a film professor’s obsession.  #10 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 2006. (2/2/08 on DVD). 

 

7).  The Aristocrats (2005; dir. Paul Provenza).  This is another one I’ve wanted to see ever since I read the reviews when it first opened.  A documentary about the dirtiest joke in history, a private routine that comedians usually perform only for one another:  here, we get 100 different comedians’ take on the piece.  Very funny and very foul, of course.  As my wife noted, the whole thing is a bit like classic rakugo in Japan:  the routine comes with the bare outlines of a story that isn’t by itself particularly entertaining.  The way the individual performers make it come to life, though, transforms it into a fount of hysterical laughter (and seriously disturbing mental images…).  (2/1/08 on DVD). 

 

6).  Happy Together (Chun gwong cha sit; 1997; dir. Wong Kar-Wai).  I like this one better every time I see it—it’s a film that not only rewards multiple viewings, it demands them.  The emotions of the love-hate relationship between the central characters, two gay men from Hong Kong who’ve headed for Argentina to “start over,” hit harder this time, as did the allegorical dimensions:  the film was released just as Hong Kong was being “returned” to China, so that those two lands too could “start over” again.  As always, Christopher Doyle’s camerawork is dazzling, and the music sizzles.  I’m going to be hearing tangos in my head for the rest of the week.  ( 1/29/08 on DVD)

 

5).  Paprika (2006; dir. Kon Satoshi).  I’m convinced that Kon is the most important director of anime in the world, and I’ve been wanting to see this one since the day it was released.  I wasn’t disappointed:  it may well be his best film yet, and that is saying something.  This is after all the man who has already given us Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers.  Stunning visually:  the first five minutes had my jaw dropping.  The plot is tangled, but that is appropriate since the film is about the logic of dreams:  an experimental device that allows psychotherapists to enter the dreams of their patients falls into the wrong hands, becoming a deadly tool for manipulation.  Dreams are the stuff that we are made of, and Kon’s story unfolds an allegory about life under conditions of mass media, consumerism, and technology.  It all ends with one of the main characters buying a ticket to see a film directed by Kon Satoshi.  I can’t wait for the director’s next film!  (1/19/08 on DVD).

 

4).  Ong-Bak (2003; dir. Prachya Pinkaew).  Terrific martial arts film from Thailand.  A pure young man (Tony Jaa) from a rural village heads to the big city to rescue the stolen head of the main statue from his hometown’s temple.  The villains are delightfully evil, the fight scenes spectacular (and following the genre’s rule of thumb, every major stunt is shown several times from different camera angles), and Jaa shines with charisma.  (1/19/08 on DVD).

 

3). Superbad (2007; dir. Greg Mottola).  Funny film, and like any good product in the teen exploitation genre, it winds things up on a moral message.  I also note something I’ve seen in other similar movies (e.g., Wayne’s World):   an attempt to have their cake and eat it, too.  Visually, the film proclaims its loyalty to today’s teen-agers, but aurally (that is, musically) it sides itself with those who grew up in the 1970s and 80s.  In other words, it sends out a doubled message to signal its compatibility with two audience segments, those who are in high school now and those who are nostalgic for their long-off high school days.  (1/12/08 on DVD). 

 

2). Cabeza de Vaca (1991; dir. Nicolás Echevarría).  Based on the true story of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a Spaniard shipwrecked in Florida in 1528.  He is first taken slave by a local Indian tribe, but then over the course of eight years becomes a respected member of the community—only to see it wiped out when the conquistadors return.  This film version of Cabeza de Vaca’s written account of his adventures does a good job of conveying the disorientation that must have marked his experience.  In the absence of a shared language, Cabeza de Vaca and we in the audience continuously struggle to make sense of what we are seeing—and yet we are able to garner enough to keep traveling alongside them until the tragic conclusion.  (1/6/08 on DVD)

 

1).  Shrek the Third (2007; dir. Chris Miller and Raman Hui).  I am quite partial to the first two films in this series, primarily because they both made me laugh.  This one’s a dud, though:  only a handful of chuckles scattered throughout.  As usual, the roster of voice talents is astonishing, but the script feels like it is driven by marketing concerns rather than, uhm, writing.  I give it an extra star, though, for featuring the music of the Eels on the soundtrack.  (1/5/08 on DVD).

 

(The 90 films I saw in 2007 are listed here.  The 95 films I saw in 2006 are listed here.  The 97 films I saw in 2005 are listed here.  The list of the 115 films I saw in 2004 is here.  The list of the 86 movies I saw in 2003 is here.)

 

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