My goal: to see 100 movies in 2009

(The 85 films I saw in 2008 are listed here. 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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88). Toki wo kakeru shôjo 「時をかける少女」 (The girl who leapt through time; 2006; dir. Hosoda Mamoru). Acclaimed anime adaptation of the Tsutsui Yasutaka story about a high school girl who acquires the ability to leap backward in time—and learns of the complications that can ensue when you mess with the past. Much better than the 1983 live action film version, this one features a remarkably complicated plot that, not surprisingly, keeps moving forward and backward. (12/28/09 on DVD).

87). Atarashiki tsuchi (Die Tochter des Samurai) 「新しき土」(1937; dir. Arnold Fanck). The famous (or, more properly, infamous) co-production between Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan cinema, this features a 17-year-old Hara Setsuko as the samurai daughter who is saved by her lover when she is on the verge of throwing herself into a volcano. Lots of fairly ham-handed attempts to transform the Japanese landscape into a dreamy zodiac of symbols (e.g., earthquake = submerged passions). The blood-and-soil ideology becomes quite explicit at the end, as the hero and heroine literally plant their newborn baby into the newly plowed soil of their pioneer farm in Manchuria, all of this overlooked by a Japanese soldier whose face in close-up provides the final shot of the film. (12/28/09 on DVD)

86). Up (2009; dir. Pete Docter and Bob Peterson). Just as moving and sentimental (in the best sense of that term) as everyone says. It reminded me of above all was silent cinema: the characters, the simple story, the unfaltering trust in human emotional responses. Surely, my experiences the last couple of years in dealing with the mortality and aging of parents added to the film’s resonance with me, but as our thirteen-year-old attested, it’s a work that speaks to all ages. (12/27/09 on Pay Per View)

85). The Fellowship of the Ring (2001; dir. Peter Jackson). With our thirteen-year-old, we start watching the cycle of Lord of the Rings films all over again (she was too young last time through). I’m struck actually with how dated this already looks. Hmmm. (12/25/09 on DVD)

84). The Magnificent Ambersons (1942; dir. Orson Welles). It had been decades since last I saw this. I was struck this time around with the architecture of the camera shots: the way the camera is built into the sets and moves in and around walls, doors, etc.: it reminds me very much of Mizoguchi Kenji’s style. The music by Bernard Herrmann and others also shows terrific flair. And I’d forgotten all about the closing credits, which unfold not as text on the screen but rather as a voiceover by Welles himself. (12/19/09 taped from TCM network)

83). The Battle of China (1944; dir. Frank Capra). #6 in Capra’s Why We Fight series of propaganda documentaries aimed at boosting home-front morale during WWII. The version of world history it presents is remarkable, especially given how everything would be turned topsy-turvy within a decade: basically, all of the terms of praise aimed at China in the film would be applied to Japan in the 1950s, while all of the terms of condemnation of Japan would be applied to China after its revolution. Also remarkable is how much captured Japanese footage was available to Capra in 1944. Like the other titles in this series that I’ve seen, this one makes effective use of animation and montage sequences. (12/18/09 taped from TCM network).

82). Sunset Boulevard (1950; dir. Billy Wilder). Somehow, I’d managed to live 48 years on this planet without having seen this. It’s brilliant, of course, and what surprised me most about it was how funny it is—which probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise, given that it’s directed by Billy Wilder. Gloria Swanson’s over-the-top performance is electrifying: those fingers! It’s also remarkable how many other Hollywood figures appear and allow themselves to be portrayed in less than flattering terms. It’s also remarkable how recognizable Los Angeles is in the location shots, which I could often pin down to specific blocks. (12/18/09 taped from TCM network).

81). Sabita naifu 「錆びたナイフ」(Rusty knife; 1958; dir. Masuda Toshio). One of Ishihara Yûjirô’s better vehicles, here he plays a small-time bar owner whose past as a hoodlum comes back to haunt him. Will he testify against the mobster boss whose gang is terrifying the town, will he run and hide, or will he take the title weapon and seek justice personally in a climactic showdown with the main bad guy? (Well, okay, maybe it’s not so hard to guess the outcome). Done up nicely in film noir style, with a sleazy jazz soundtrack and lots of terrific location footage, this is a tidy Nikkatsu actioner. The title song is also one of Yûjirô’s best vocal performances. (12/13/09 on DVD).

80). Walk Don’t Run (1966; dir. Charles Walter). This mildly amusing romantic comedy was shot on location in Tokyo during the 1964 Olympics. Cary Grant plays a visiting British industrialist who due to the hotel shortage caused by the Olympics ends up sharing an apartment with the young, attractive Samantha Eggers—and he promptly gets to work setting her up with Jim Hutton, a young American athlete who also ends up bunking in that same flat. Nice footage of Tokyo in the early 1960s, and you even get to hear Grant speak a few lines of Japanese. One of Quincy Jones’ less memorable soundtracks…. (12/7/09 taped from TCM network)

79). Synecdoche, New York (2008; dir. Charlie Kaufman). Indulgent, self-absorbed movie about an indulgent, self-absorbed stage director staging an indulgent, self-absorbed play about an indulgent, self-absorbed stage director staging an indulgent….And yet somehow, it works pretty well. It’s at times hysterically funny (especially in the first half) and clearly demands repeat viewings, a demand I’ve had to postpone for now. (12/6/09 on DVD)

78). The Golden Cups: One More Time (2004; dir. San Maa Men). Fine documentary about the great Japanese Group Sounds band, The Golden Cups. The first half is an exercise in myth-making, reconstructing 1960s Yokohama as a U.S. base town with an explosive street culture: lots of interviews from people who were there, as well as from other cultural figures (Kitano Takeshi, Uchida Yuya, Yano Akiko, Imawano Kiyoshiro, and many others) who grew up imbibing the aura the Cups enjoyed as Japan’s most authentic acid-blues band. The second half consists mainly of loving footage of the band’s reunion concert in 2004, made all the more touching now by the death in 2008 of leadsinger Dave Hirao. (11/21/09 on DVD)

77). Don’t Knock the Rock (1956; dir. Fred F. Sears). Early rock and roll teen exploitation film, featuring terrific performances by young Bill Haley & The Comets, Little Richard, and (a revelation for me) The Treniers. The message is, of course, that teen agers are woefully misunderstood by hypocritical grown-ups. The plot’s central crisis is provoked (as usual) by the eruption of untamed female sexuality, here in the form of a 17-old-girl who wants to neck, drink, and whose father didn’t spank her enough when she was growing up. Once the threat of female sexuality is safely contained, the narrative proceeds to define contemporary teen music as just the latest development in the continuous unfolding of Western musical history. The film features some terrific choreography (some of it foreshadowing West Side Story) and it’s nice to see the one-and-only Alan Freed in action. (11/14/09 taped from TCM network)

76). Ri Kôran kôhen 「李香蘭・後編」(Ri Kôran; 2007; dir. Horikawa Tonkô). Ho-hum concluding half to #71 below. TV talents just aren’t movie stars, what can I say? It’s like watching guppies pretend to be swordfish. Even the great Nogiwa Yôko ends up looking small here. (11/6/09 on DVD).

75). I’m All Right Jack (1959; dir. John Boulting). Sharp satire of the labor and business worlds of postwar England. An impossibly young Peter Sellers plays Mr. Kite, the working-class intellectual shop steward who praises the Soviet Union and stumbles over his own pretensions. The title song, sung by Al Saxon, is a mid-tempo rockabilly number that appears over the opening and closing credits and seems a little out of synch with the rest of the film. Another musical tie-in: the film uses a recurring gag involving one of the workers who stutters, always seeming on the verge of uttering an obscenity, but finally managing to enunciate what turns out to be entirely innocuous. The bit directly foreshadows The Who’s “My Generation,” recorded a few years later. (10/29/09 taped from TCM network).

74). Quartet (1948; dir. Ken Annakin, Arthur Crabtree, Harold French and Ralph Smart). Nice, whimsical omnibus film of four parts, each based on a different short story by W. Somerset Maugham, and each directed by a different person. The final segment, “The Colonel’s Wife,” is probably the best: an egocentric elderly British colonel (Cecil Parker) is taken aback when his wife’s published volume of confessional, erotic poetry causes a sensation. Most memorable of all, though, are the cameo appearances by Maugham himself at the beginning and end of the film. (10/24/09 on TCM network).

73). Kanikôsen 「蟹工船」(The cannery ship; 2009; dir. SABU). New postmodern adaptation of Kobayashi Takiji’s 1928 proletarian literature classic about workers on a brutal crab canning ship awakening to an awareness of their oppression and organizing a strike. SABU is best known for directing loosely organized black comedies that revolve around sight gags and a kind of dream logic, making him an odd choice for this film. It works pretty well in the first half, as he appropriates the visual and slapstick mode of Chaplin’s Modern Times, but founders somewhat in the second half, when he has to carry the narrative forward to its resolution. I was hoping he would figure out a way to convey revolution via the surrealism of his best films, but instead he switches over to straightforward Hollywood mode: speeches about individuals needing to live their lives to the fullest, sentimental soundtrack music, and camerawork that stresses close ups on the stars’ faces. He almost redeems the film in the closing minutes, when the style again suddenly shifts: we go into slow motion, blurred camerawork and metal machine music on the soundtrack precisely at the point when the workers realize that the point is not individual heroism but rather mass action, whereupon they launch their second, presumably more effective strike. It’s as if SABU is deconstructing the preceding hour or so of his own film and vowing that, whatever the revolution might be, it won’t be successfully carried out according to mass culture forms of melodrama and bourgeois ideologies of self-reliance. (10/18/09 at the 45^th Chicago International Film Festival, AMC River East 21 Theater).

72). Platinum Blonde (1931; dir. Frank Capra). Lovely, sexy, and literate (Joseph Conrad provides a key plot element) comedy, with some strikingly dynamic camerawork. Jean Harlow plays the title character, a wealthy society girl who marries a poor but earnest newspaper reporter Stew Smith (played brilliantly by Robert Williams), much to the consternation of her family. Harlow is overshadowed, though, by the incandescent Loretta Young, playing Gallagher, a female reporter who secretly loves Smith. Lots of foreshadowing of Capra’s later work (It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, etc.). (10/15/09 taped from TMC Network).

71). Ri Kôran zenhen 「李香蘭・前編」(Ri Kôran; 2007; dir. Horikawa Tonkô). Made-for-television bio-pic of Yamaguchi Yoshiko, the Japanese singer who “passed” as Chinese and became a major star during the wartime years, this was produced by the TV Tokyo network as a two-night extravaganza first broadcast February 11-12, 2007. Not surprisingly, it presents considerably cleaned up versions of key figures involved in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo—Amakasu Masahiko, Kawashima Yoshiko, etc.—even as it labors hard to present a sense of the decadence of Japanese colonial lifestyle there. Perhaps the greatest fascination in watching this is to see Ueto Aya, queen of contemporary J-Drama and a reasonably talented pop singer, attempt to fill the title role, including the musical performances. It works on some of the songs, but on others Ueto really strains to match Yamaguchi’s classic soprano voice. This first half carries the story through to 1941, climaxing with Ri Kôran triumphant solo musical revue at the Nichigeki Theater in Tokyo. (10/11/09 on DVD)

70). Nemuru otoko 「眠る男」(1996; dir. Oguri Kôhei). Quiet, thoughtful film in which very little happens. After all, the title character is in a coma as the film opens and never wakes up. As he sleeps, we delve into the melancholic and sometimes comic lives of his friends and family in rural Gunma prefecture, and we learn that the mountain landscapes, skies, and farm fields surrounding them are something more than passive backdrops. It’s an intelligent, artistic film from the 1990s, and so of course Yakusho Kôji has a key role. #3 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 1996. (10/1/09 on DVD).

69). The Great Buck Howard (2009; dir Sean McGinly). A fun, quirky film, but one that isn’t quite so quirky as it believes itself to be. A bit like the My Favorite Year (1982), except that here the talent the young hero tends to is not a big star, but a mentalist on the downside of his career (and based loosely, the end credits tell us, on the Amazing Kreskin). John Malkovich gives a wonderful comic performance as the down-and-out performer who can’t figure out why The Tonight Show no longer calls. (9/28/09 as in-flight movie).

68). The Soloist (2009; dir. Joe Wright). The liberal social-realist melodrama lives! Nicely played drama of a newspaper columnist in a dying industry who befriends a brilliant but schizophrenic musician who now lives on the streets. Robert Downey Jr. gives a nice turn as the reporter who is frightened of committing himself to anything. (9/24/09 as in-flight movie).

67). Easy Virtue (2008; dir. Stephan Elliot). Sluggish adaptation of Noel Coward comedy about a 1920s American flapper who marries into a staid British aristocratic family. The film pulls out lots of fine period songs by Cole Porter and others, but seems frightened of them: they are cited for thirty seconds or so and then dropped. There are a couple of bravado trick shots I liked, though, one involving a record player and the other a billiard ball. Colin Firth has a nice turn as the disgraced patriarch of the family. (9/24/09 as in-flight movie).

66). Nihon no higeki 「日本の悲劇」(Tragedy of Japan; 1953; dir. Kinoshita Keisuke). Remarkable film made right after the end of the U.S. Occupation: was this the first Japanese feature film to show U.S. GI’s chasing after Japanese women on the streets (something Occupation-period censorship rules wouldn’t allow)? Kinoshita intercuts lots of documentary footage of the political and social turmoil Japan had faced since 1945 with the tragic story of a woman who falls into prostitution to support her two children, only to be abandoned by them in the end. It’s a kind of anti-melodrama: it has a melodramatic tone of overpowering emotions, but instead of transforming huge social contradictions into domestic dramas, this one takes the reverse tack, taking up a domestic conflict and repeatedly insists that it is simply one more facet of the geopolitical situation that 1953 Japan faces. #6 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 1953. (9/12/09 on DVD)

65). My Girlfriend is an Agent (Cilgeup gongmuwonh; 2009; dir. Terra Shin). Very slick, entertaining action-comedy from South Korea. The plot (two lovers are both secret agents, but neither knows about the other) has been done before, but the charm here lies not in originality but in the verve with which the comedic love-hate relationship between them is played out. As is so often the case in recent South Korean popular culture, a clear national allegory emerges from the story line: if our somewhat incompetent man with his close knowledge of Moscow (read: North Korea) and our energetic and technologically sophisticated woman (South Korea) can’t overcome their mutual isolation to work together, the bad guys (here, specifically, the Russians) will rob us blind. (9/10/09 as in-flight movie).

64). Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos; 2009; dir. Pedro Almodóvar). Excellent, one of the best things I’ve seen recently. It’s a postmodern mediation on film-making, combined with a classic melodramatic love story (full of moments of high drama, betrayal, passion, the whole works), not to mention stylish dashes of comedy and film noir. A blind scriptwriter gradually comes to terms with his own past as a film director whose great love interest and cinematic masterpiece were stolen from him in the same moment. The always luminescent Penelope Cruz is in top form; it’s particularly striking to watch her become first Audrey Hepburn and then Marilyn Monroe. The film is sprinkled throughout with countless other allusions to classic cinema. Imagine Alfred Hitchcock as a French New Wave director, and you’ll start getting a sense for what this is like. (9/9/09 at the York Picturehouse, York, UK).

63). What’s Happening! The Beatles in America (1964; Albert and David Maysles). Fascinating “direct cinema” documentary by the masters of the form tracing the Beatles’ first American tour in 1964. The subject matter is intrinsically interesting (the candid shots of the Fab Four on trains, backstage and in hotel rooms are simply riveting), but more impressive really is the incredible intelligence that is brought to the entire project of filming and editing. (9/5/09 on BBC-2).

62). The Hangover (2009; dir Todd Phillips). Shortly into watching this, I found myself feeling very familiar with the style here—the way music was used, the way sight gags were set up, the construction of the persona of the characters. And then it hit me: this is all in the mode of recent children’s film comedies by Disney and other studios. Except, of course, that the jokes are about sex and drunkenness. It was, however, quite funny. (9/5/09 as pay-per-view movie).

61). Star Trek (2009; dir. JJ Abrams). There is something both comforting and unsettling about this recreation of the classic 1960s TV series. The performances hover oddly somewhere between doing impressions and actual acting, as the cast members somehow bring life to their roles despite the fact that the mannerisms and speech patterns that define their characters have long been set in stone. On the whole, this was about as good as a typical episode of the television series, both a good and a bad thing. Did they really need to spend that much money to create this? (8/30/09 as in-flight movie).

60). Sullivan’s Travels (1941; dir. Preston Sturges). Wonderful comedy that parodies Hollywood’s desire to produce socially significant films about human suffering—and then manages the neat trick of itself becoming a socially significant film about human suffering. Terrific lines pepper the screenplay, and for a 1940s Hollywood production it’s remarkably decent in its treatment of African-American characters. Ultimately, it stands as a powerful manifesto for the social relevance of comedy as an art form. And like a good studio production, it has “a little sex.” (8/27/09 on DVD).

59). There Will Be Blood (2007; dir. Paul Thomas Anderson). I’m thrilled I finally got to see this. There are any number of shots that are now burned into my memory, especially long and medium shots of the oilman father and his son set against desolate landscape backgrounds. The soundtrack music is excellent: the percussion theme used behind the big fire sequence is particularly well done. I’m a big fan of Upton Sinclair (I wrote about him in both my M.A. thesis and my doctoral dissertation), and it’s great to see his Oil! given such an intelligent, passionate treatment. And it is all topped off with one of the great final lines in film history. (8/26/09 on DVD).

58). Ponyo (2008; dir. Miyazaki Hayao). After seeing the original Japanese version in Tokyo last year, I caught the English-dubbed version here with my family. The English soundtrack voices are not as cringe-inspiring as usual, and the film retains its powerful emotional and visual punches. (8/20/09 at AMC Rosedale Theater, Roseville, MN).

57). A Song is Born (1948; dir. Howard Hawks). Danny Kaye plays a musicologist locked away in the Ivory Tower, writing an encyclopedia of music. Unexpectedly (it literally walks in through the window), he discovers the existence of jazz and sets out to explore it, whereupon he encounters Virginia Mayo as a nightclub singer who happens to be a gangster’s moll. The keynote of the film is integration: musical (classical meets jazz), racial (multiple scenes in which white and black jazz musicians play together) and class (elite professor loves girl from the streets). The cast includes a remarkable group of jazz players, including Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong, and Benny Goodman, who displays unexpectedly fine comedic talents. (8/13/09 taped from TCM network).

56). Za Tenputaazu: Namida no ato ni hohoemi wo 「ザ・テンプターズ・涙のあとに微笑みを」(The Tempters: After Tears Come Smiles; 1969; dir. Uchikawa Seiichirô). Another 1960s Group Sounds teen exploitation film, this one starring The Tempters. They don’t have as much screen presence as their rivals The Tigers or The Spiders (whose Sakai Masaaki makes a cameo appearance here as, I kid you not, God). The most formulaic of plots and only feeble attempts at comedy throughout, but there are some striking things about this—the sets, for example, which veer wildly back and forth between surreal psychedelic studio sets which make no attempt at realism and ultra-realistic exterior shots featuring ugly suburban landscapes with construction sites, smokestacks, and industrial plants. There’s also something weird going on about the desire to fly (lead singer Hagiwara “Shôken” Ken’ichi has a thing for pigeons and dreams of being a pilot) and the fear of heights. The title song is crucial, of course, as is the treacle-laced ballad “Okaasan” (Mother). (8/2/09 on DVD).

55). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009; dir. David Yates). For a movie with absolutely no story or plot, this is surprisingly good. Mainly, that’s because we already have a strong affective bond to the characters and enjoy watching them grow up. The awakening of sexual knowing is mapped onto the awakening of magical and academic knowing. I still don’t have a clue what happened in terms of the epic overall plot (well, except that one major character seems to have died), yet I was carried along painlessly. (8/1/09 at AMC River East 21 Theater).

54). Teahouse of the August Moon (1956; dir. Daniel Mann). I continue my project of catching up on early postwar Hollywood films that depict Japan. Most surprising about this one was how enjoyable it remains, despite all the stereotypes and despite Marlon Brando’s yellow-face performance. The latter is embarrassing, of course, but not quite as embarrassing as other similar masquerades from the same period, in part because Brando obviously took great care in getting his Japanese pronunciation down. The film works even today because the ‘backward’ Okinawans are allowed to triumph in the story—albeit in a mode that remains utterly ideological. All in all, one of the better instances of Cold War Orientalism in American culture, and clearly a prototype for contemporary Japanese popular culture depictions of Okinawa. (7/24/09 on DVD).

53). Modern Times (1936; dir. Charles Chaplin). I don’t recall how long it’s been since last I saw this, but I was struck this time around by the brazen politicality of it all. Who makes comedies like this nowadays? Then too there is Chaplin’s summoning up the aura of silent cinema, flashing up again at the moment of its imminent disappearance: Walter Benjamin would be proud. (7/23/09 taped from TCM network).

52). The Spiders no Bali-tô chindôchû「ザ・スパイダースのバリ島珍道中」(The Road to Bali; 1968; dir. Nishikawa Katsumi). Another Nikkatsu teen exploitation film, this time starring Group Sounds sensations The Spiders. The plot has something to do with gangsters who hide plutonium in the band’s amps to smuggle it from Japan to Southeast Asia, but the real point of the film is product placement (Pan American Airlines) and exotic locations (Hong Kong, Jakarta, Bali and even Sydney, albeit the latter is by way of stock footage). There are some nice extended shots of Indonesian festival dancing, in addition to the obligatory allusions to Beatles’ films, mainly Help! At any rate, The Spiders achieve in cinema fantasy a full-blown Asian concert tour—a quarter-century before Chage & Aska would realize the dream in actuality. (7/21/09 on DVD).

51). West Side Story (1961; dir. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins). The prime instance of the 1950s liberal-humanist musical film, in which cross-ethnic romance magically leads to integration, personal responsibility, and Cold War strategic advantage. It still pulls a powerful emotional punch, mostly derived from Leonard Bernstein’s marvelous songs. It was odd watching this a week or two after Michael Jackson’s death: I’d known vaguely how much impact this had on MJ’s videos, but watching it now could see sources of allusions all over the place, beginning with the oft repeated expression “Beat it!” used throughout the film. (7/4/09 taped from TCM network)

50). The Tigers: Hi! London「ザ・タイガース ハーイ!ロンドン」(1969; dir. Iwauchi Katsumi). Teen exploitation film starring Group Sounds sensations The Tigers, this is a strangely sluggish and melancholic film: the fizz, pop, and humor that characterizes other GS films (none of them cinematic masterpieces) are almost entirely absent. Filmed to a great extent on location in Swinging London, Barry Gibb of The BeeGees even makes a one-second cameo appearance, just long enough to shake Sawada Kenji’s hand. The best thing in the film is Fujita Makoto’s turn as the Devil who is trying to buy the souls of the band members. (7/2/09 on DVD)

49). Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (2007; dir. Julien Temple). Fine documentary on the life and music of the ex-lead-singer of The Clash. It’s intelligent, passionate, stylish, funny: everything a rock music documentary should be. And rumor has it that Temple is now working on a similar film revolving around The Kinks. I can’t wait…. (6/24/09 on DVD).

48). Oklahoma (1955; dir. Fred Zimmeman). I’ve decided I want to watch lots of classical musicals this summer, especially ones I haven’t seen before—like this one. Shirley Jones is incredibly luminous in her film debut, and Rod Steiger is wonderfully dark and menacing. The choreography is spectacular, of course, and while we lost much of the impact of the widescreen cinematography on our little television set, the art direction is terrific throughout, often abandoning all pretense of realism for effective, impressionist set designs. (6/12/09 taped from TCM network).

47). Za Supaidaasu no gôgô mukau mizu sakusen 「ザ・スパイダースのゴーゴー・向う見ず作戦」(The Spiders Go! Go! Keep Moving Forward; 1967; dir. Saitô Buichi). Amusing Nikkatsu Studio exploitation film starring Group Sounds sensations The Spiders. The boys fall in love with a girl who says she wants a man who will walk straight up to her, overcoming all obstacles. And so the seven members of the band start walking in a straight line to her, from Yokohama to Tokyo. They walk for freedom and for love (there’s an explicit critique of modern Japanese urban space, which prevents a man from walking wherever he wants) and they encounter all sorts of obstacles (police, rival bands, cows), but nothing stops them. Except, of course, that every fifteen or minutes or so they have to pull out their instruments and lip synch one of their hits. The costume design provides all you need to know: the vests the band members wear are clearly modeled after those worn by The Monkees. (6/8/09 on DVD).

46). Tanin no kao 「他人の顔」(The Face of Another; 1966; dir. Teshigahara Hiroshi). Teshigahara pulls out all the stops in this adaptation of Abe Kōbō’s existentialist novel of identity gone amuck: the set designs veer back and forth between realism and surrealism, the soundtrack by Takemitsu Tōru covers every genre from waltz to pop to avant noise, the camerawork ranges from Hollywood standard to experimental stop-frames and jump-cuts, and the plot swings from science fiction and horror to Beckett-like confrontations with the absurdity of existence. Does the surface of our face express our identity, or is it our identity? Allegories spin off wildly in all directions: it’s about the war, no, it’s about 1960s consumerism, no, it’s about psycholanalysis…. #5 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 1966. (6/6/09 taped from IFC network).

45). Yûrakuchô de aimashô「有楽町で逢いましょう」(Let’s Meet in Yurakucho; 1958; dir. Shima Koji). Glossy romantic comedy based on Frank Nagai’s smash hit song, this one takes the modernizing city of Tokyo as its subject matter. Can real love and family bonds survive in a world dominated by the forces of fashion, media, and consumption? Kyô Machiko plays a fashion designer who tries to balance career with family duties, as her younger brother falls in love with a pretty young coed of whom Machiko disapproves. Appropriately enough, art design dominates the whole film, as seemingly every shot is constructed around a color scheme of green, red, and sometimes yellow. (5/21/09 on DVD).

44). Happy-Go-Lucky (2008; dir. Mike Leigh). An excellent character study: what makes some people happy, despite it all? And can someone who is always sunny in disposition really relate to the misanthropic reality that traps other people? Fine performances and direction in this British film, but for some reason, two days after viewing it, I cannot for the life of me remember how exactly it ended. I remember feeling that the final shot was an appropriate place to stop the narrative, but of what did that shot consist? What happened after Poppy’s climactic confrontation with Scott, the dour driving instructor? (5/28/09 on DVD).

43). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007; dir. David Yates). Well, then, now we’re all caught up for the new one that comes out this summer. With this fifth title in the series, the characters are fully two-dimensional, which is pretty good for a big-budget spectacle, and there is even a nicely sculpted conflict between good and evil in place. In other words, this is a competent piece of movie-making, which isn’t such a bad thing in our decadent age. (5/25/09 on DVD).

42). The Milky Way (1936; dir. Leo McCarey). Mildly amusing Harold Lloyd talkie with a few laugh-out-loud moments (the parody of the MGM logo at the very start being one). It’s another cynical 1930s Hollywood comedy about public relations and the manufacture of instant celebrities. Lloyd is a hapless milkman who accidentally knocks out the middleweight world champion and subsequently gets set up as a boxing titan. Adolphe Menjou has a nice turn as a corrupt boxing manager, and McCarey’s skills at shooting and editing are in evidence throughout. (5/20/09 taped from TCM network).

41). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005; dir. Mike Newell). Number four in the Potter series, and a big improvement on its immediate predecessor—because, I think, they throw romantic tensions into the mix, opening up new kinds of path for the story to pursue, even as they keep holding off the main event. There are several titles left in the series, after all. (5/16/09 on DVD)

40). Girl Shy (1924; dir. Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor). Another fine Harold Lloyd silent comedy. Here, unexpectedly, he plays the poor boy, who of course falls for a rich girl. Too shy to actually speak to women, Lloyd nonetheless authors a book on how to make love to them. It all ends with a brilliantly staged chase sequence, as Lloyd tries to pull off a The Graduate ending by getting to the altar in time. to head off the wedding of his beloved to a real heel. (5/6/09 taped from TCM network).

39). Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004; dir. Alfonso Cuarón). Third in the HP series, and the weakest so far. They are trying to substitute special effects for characters and emotional drama at this point. There is a darker tone throughout, which is somewhat interesting, but my overall feeling was that this was simply a placeholder in the series’ progression: lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Well, onward to episode four. (5/1/09 on DVD).

38). For Heaven’s Sake (1926; dir. Sam Taylor). Sharp, stylish Harold Lloyd comedy. He plays the Uptown Boy, the “man with a mansion” who falls in love with the Downtown Girl, the beautiful “miss with a mission.” Romance across class boundaries ensures, of course, but what really makes this standout is the attention to details: the clever intertitles, the nice camerawork and editing (e.g., the cut-on-object the dissolves from a chipped mission-house coffee mug to the bone china demitasse served at the mansion), and even a spot of early animation behind the title credits. It’s also another silent film in which many scenes are built around music. (5/1/09 taped from TCM network).

37). Ereki no wakadaishô 「エレキの若大将」 (Electric Guitar Young Guy; 1965; dir. Iwauchi Katsuki). The sixth in the “Wakadaishô” series starring Kayama Yûzô, this one features the rock-and-roller side of Kayama’s career. The handsome captain of the college football team saves the day for the team and for his family by becoming an ereki (electric guitar) sensation. Lots of Ventures-style guitar work, not only by Kayama but also by Terauchi Takeshi, the Japanese King of Surf Guitar. Rocker Uchida Yûya also appears, as do a band of ersatz Beatles with moptop wigs, bogus MBE awards, and a penchant for marching in military formation. Go figure…. The success of the series is evident here: they even get to rent a helicopter not only as a prop, but also to take some aerial footage. (4/30/09 on DVD).

36). Before Sunrise (1995; dir. Richard Linklater). I’d been wanting to see this one since it first came out, and it’s just as charming as the early reviews made me think it would be. My Dinner With Andre with more sexual tension, better-looking actors, and more interesting locations….. (4/25/09 taped from IFC network)

35). Kita no zeronen 「北の零年」(Year One in the North; 2005; dir. Yukisada Isao). Vapid historical epic claiming to depict early settlers in Hokkaido, ca. 1870. It’s a glossy, big budget film with an all-star cast: maybe it should have been called How the North was Won. All of the stereotypes from Meiji melodrama are in place: the bad guys wear western clothes and scheme to use the new government bureaucracy to private gain, while the good guys all come from the losing side in the battles leading up to the Meiji Restoration. Appropriately, everyone overacts, and the script lacks any sense of humor or irony. The unbelievably insipid soundtrack doesn’t help matters. It is, however, kind of a kick to watch Toyokawa Etsushi play a fake Ainu—you know he’s fake, because he doesn’t speak halting Japanese the way the ‘real’ Ainu character does (just like Indians used to speak halting English in Hollywood westerns). To top it all off, the sucker is 170 friggin’ minutes long. (4/25/09 on DVD).

34). Never Weaken (1921; dir. Fred C. Newmeyer). Harold Lloyd again plays the innocent, love-struck young clerk drifting blindly through a booming 1920s cityscape. The major sequence here, Lloyd stumbling around the support beams of a skyscraper under construction, foreshadows Safety Last, and I realized as I watched it that the opening chase sequence from the 2006 version of Casino Royale is really just an homage to Lloyd. (4/23/09 taped from TCM network).

33). Shadow of a Doubt (1943; dir. Alfred Hitchcock). Somehow, I’d managed to miss seeing this brilliant film up until now. Hitchcock dissects fascism without ever really mentioning it by name (then again, audiences in 1943 probably didn’t need too much guidance on that). The sexual tensions, the stunning shots constructions (man, can he make a staircase look creepy), and the droll humor are all in top form. (4/23/09 taped from TCM network).

32). Vibrator「ヴァイブレータ」 ( 2003; dir. Hiroki Ryûichi). Quirky, intelligent film about an emotionally fragile woman and the easy-going trucker she hooks up with. He’s done a little bit of everything in his life, and he has just the right touch (literally) to keep her feeling grounded, at least for a time. It’s all about contemporary alienation, of course, where the vibrator function on a cellphone provides the closest thing to human touch in daily life. Marvelous performances by the two leads (Terajima Shinobu and Ômori Nao). The director conveys the heroine’s delicate spiritual state through an impressive array of devices: brief flashbacks that are never fully explained, voiceovers, and my personal favorite: intertitles, even though this is not a silent film. Nice soundtrack, too, including Happy End’s “Shin Shin Shin.” #3 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 2003. (4/22/09 on DVD).

31). Saboteur (1942; dir. Alfred Hitchcock). Hadn’t seen this wonderful film in decades. Hitchcock delivers the usual nifty set pieces: the ripping sleeve as a man hangs for his life from the Statue of Liberty, the way a crowd in a cafeteria stands up row by row as its members spot a fire outside, etc. Not surprisingly, Hitchcock explains away fascism as a perverse form of sexual desire, but more interesting to me was the very British class angle he brought to it. Like his compatriot George Orwell at the same moment, Hitchcock was determined to reveal how upper class toffs were willing to sell out the nation, even as the working classes rushed to the battlelines to defend it. (4/19/09 taped from TCM network).

30). Hanayaka naru shôtai 「華やかなる招待」(Wonderful invitation; 1968; dir. Yamamoto Kunihiko). Glossy musical starring Group Sounds sensations The Tigers. The predominant theme is escape: the boys are constantly running away from those who want to confine them and prevent them from having fun and making music. As with so many teen exploitation films from the 1960s, this makes liberal use of avant-garde film technique, including jump cuts, freeze frames, and montage. Ultimately, of course, melodrama takes over: on the eve of their debut and big break, the boys choose to sell their musical instruments to raise money to pay for a poor girl’s surgery. You’ll be relieved to learn that it all works out for the best in the end. Lots of references throughout to The Beatles films, and even to Elvis’ Jailhouse Rock. The Monkees even make a couple of cameo appearances via still photographs. (4/19.09 on DVD)

29). Unknown Pleasures (Ren xiao yao; 2002; dir. Jia Zhangke). Another fine, thoughtful film from the chief chronicler of all that’s happened to China the last twenty years. Globalization, economic growth, and media saturation empty out not only the external landscape, but also the emotional lives of the young rebels without a cause who are at the center of this. The American dollar becomes their chief fetish object of wonder. The film also provides one of the most direct applications I’ve seen of Adorno’s condemnation of mass pop music as a source of deadening repetition that turns us all into cogs of social reproduction: see, for example, the scene set in a disco to loud techno music where one of the characters is slapped over and over again in time to the beat by thugs. Nonetheless, the characters cling to their pop songs as if they were literal lifelines: this was the part that Adorno missed. Language here is sapped of meaning, and so much of the film is wordless. I was surprised to see that the financing for the film came from Japan, specifically Kitano Takeshi’s studio. (4/16/09 via on-line stream from Netflix).

28). Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997; dir. Werner Herzog). Documentary tracing the remarkable life of Dieter Dengler. The experience of being strafed by a U.S. fighter plane in WWII was fundamental in shaping his future, as it was for Etō Jun and Ishihara Jun in Japan. But instead of becoming a nationalist intellectual, like those two, Dengler became a fighter pilot in the U.S. navy. In other words, the experience awakened a powerful need in the boy. As a pilot during the Vietnam War, he was shot down over Laos, whereupon began his astonishing story of survival that Herzog traces. As the director acknowledges in his voiceovers, Herzog’s taken by the obsessive quality that Dengler carried away from his boyhood experiences of WWII and its aftermath in Germany, a quality that mirrors Herzog’s own passion for filmmaking. A footnote: I liked, but did not love, Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s latest film, Tokyo Sonata, in part because I felt its portrayal of a young Japanese man who runs away to join the U.S. army in Iraq struck a false note. In other words, it seemed to me like Kurosawa was taking a convenient shortcut rather than deal with the real complexity of nationalist identification among contemporary Japanese youths. But Herzog’s film suggests I need to rethink my understanding of that film, and perhaps of contemporary historical reality, as well. (4/13/09 via on-line stream from Netflix)

27). Professional Sweetheart (1933; dir. William Seiter). Another early Ginger Rogers film, this one a wicked parody of advertising, publicity, and modern mass media. Rogers plays the Purity Girl, the spokeswoman for a washcloth company whose radio personality is virginal and sweet. The trouble is, off the air she’s a wild one. Her sponsors try to line her up with a “pure Anglo-Saxon” boyfriend, but she only wants to go party in Harlem, and she’s not particular about her partner’s lineage. African-American actress Theresa Harris gets an uncredited turn as Rogers’ maid whose radio broadcast singing performance gets men very hot. Ah, the days before the Hayes Office went into business to clean up Hollywood….. (4/12/09 taped from TCM network)

26). You Said a Mouthful (1932; dir. Lloyd Bacon). Early Joe E. Brown vehicle, with lots of effective underwater footage and many other scenes apparently shot on location on Catalina Island. There are some political messages, too, both direct and indirect. A broke Joe E. Brown sleeps under a park bench in one scene; the headline on the newspaper he uses as a blanket reads “President Says End to Depression Just Around the Corner.” In another scene, Brown learns that he has become the adopted father to an African-American boy; later, he declares to the boy, “If you could cook, I’d marry you.” How’s that for inching up to the questions of miscegenation? The film also features a spunky young Ginger Rogers as Brown’s love interest. (4/11/09 taped from TCM Network).

25). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002; dir. Chris Columbus). Funnier and more compelling than the first in the series. (4/11/09 on DVD).

24). Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001; dir. Chris Columbus). I’ve started a new project with my daughter to watch (or, as the case may be, rewatch) all of the Harry Potter films in order. I was surprised by how little I remembered of this one. Very few scenes came back to me – really, only the Quidditch and the battle with the troll. What did strike me was a certain historical context to the film and series. To wit, about once a decade, a product of British popular culture explodes to become a truly global phenomenon: the Beatles, James Bond, Spice Girls, etc. There’s an established formal pattern to how this is done, by now: all the remaining embers of British high culture (e.g., the theatre, London architecture, Shakespeare, etc.) are mobilized as accessories to provide a sheen of English polish to the new product, and the whole process has even become self-referential. Hence, the presence here of John Cleese, alluding to Monty Python’s breakout a couple of decades ago. The sun hasn’t entirely set on the British Empire, the message seems to be. (4/10/09 on DVD).

23). Bad Day at Black Rock (1955; dir. John Sturges). Fine instance of Cold War Orientalism, albeit without a single Oriental in sight: Spencer Tracy plays a wounded vet who visits an isolated Western town, hoping to visit the father of a Japanese-American solider who died saving his life in battle. It turns out that the father was lynched in the wake of Pearl Harbor, a crime the whole town has acquiesced in covering up. The film seems an indirect allegory for the crime of the “relocation camps,” as postwar America tries to disavow its domestic racism: the ‘real’ Americans are the ones who stand up to evil bigots. Starkly filmed in a style that mixes John Ford’s Westerns with the light-and-shadows of film noir. A terrific cast: Tract, Walter Brennan, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, etc. (4/2/09 on DVD).

22). Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008; dir. Woody Allen). A comedy of such elegantly classical structure, it could have been written by William Shakespeare or choreographed by Frederick Ashton. A terrific cast, some very funny bits that had me laughing out loud and startling my fellow airline passengers, and yet another minor gem from the September phase of Mr. Allen’s career. (3/26/09 as in-flight film).

21). Quantum of Solace (2008; dir. Marc Forster). In which James Bond battles a criminal organization so secret that British Intelligence isn’t even sure it exists. Apparently, that secret organization has control over the film’s plotline, such that I wasn’t even sure of its existence. Lots of running around, driving, and shooting, though. (3/26/09 as in-flight film).

20). Yôgisha X no kenshin 「容疑者Xの献身」(The Sacrifice of Suspect X; 2008; dir. Nishitani Hiroshi). A very slick and hugely popular detective film based on the hit television series, “Galileo.” A brilliant physicist matches wits with an almost equally brilliant criminal mathematician. What struck me most about this is the offhand social realism of the admittedly escapist movie: it integrates homelessness and the breakdown of the educational system in Japan into the plot without missing a beat. (3/26/09 as in-flight film).

19). Hakase no aishita sûshiki 「博士の愛した数式」(The Professor and his Beloved Equation; 2006; dir. Koizumi Takashi) A formulaic film in multiple senses: for starters, it’s Pi and/or A Beautiful Mind combined with Memento: a brilliant mathematics scholar in love with elegant equations suffers an accident that leaves his memory damaged: every 80 minutes, he forgets everything and starts over. The new housekeeper and her son gradually form a family with him in a hazy warm drama, complete with lovely nature scenery (it seems to be set in Karuizawa or some such place), but then it takes on a more interesting wrinkle: we gradually come to realize that the characters are living out a complex mathematical formula. #7 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 2006. (3/15/09 as in-flight film)

18). Okuribito 「おくりびと」(Departures; 2008; dir. Takita Yôjirô). There’s a lot that’s right about this film: it gets the grit of life in rural Yamagata down well, and it boasts some powerhouse performances (though Hirosue Ryôko seems over her head here). The story follows a failed cellist who rebuilds his life by taking up an ostracized trade: the ceremonial preparation of bodies for funeral and cremation. It’s a film about recovering from loss: lost culture, lost family, lost social position. It criticizes contemporary society for its inability to confront the reality of death, making a fairly powerful statement on the need to dignify death and give it a place in our lives. On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling that the film was really ducking the issue at hand: the painful, horrific loss that is dying is dealt with only obliquely and even then only through a thick filter of sentimentality. #1 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 2008 and winner of the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. (3/15/09 as in-flight film).

17). Hitori musuko 「一人息子」 (The Only Son; 1936; dir. Ozu Yasujirô). Ozu’s first talkie, and it’s remarkable how many of the elements of his great postwar films are already in place. He just needs to shift Ryû Chishû (here a school teacher who ends up down on his luck) into the role of the father, make that the center of the plot, and we’d have a perfect prototype for Tokyo Story. A rural mother sacrifices everything to send her son off to Tokyo to get educated. When she visits him later, she is at first disheartened to find that he has not risen in the world—but then learns that he is in fact an admirable human being, a son worthy of her pride even if his social station remains humble. One remarkable sequence has the son take his mother to see a talkie, a German musical: the mother promptly falls asleep. We also see the tall smokestacks that populate so many of Ozu’s urban landscapes, but here they are actually explained (they are, the son tells the mother, the Tokyo municipal garbage incineration plant). #4 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 1936. (3/8/09 at Docfilms, University of Chicago).

16). The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008; dir. Andrew Adamson). Competent filming of the novel, with good acting and even better computer graphics. The Christian allegory subtext is brought forward more clearly than in the first film from the series, or so it seemed to me. (3/7/09 on Dish Network On Demand pay-per-view service).

15). Good-bye (1970; dir. Kanai Katsu). Another surreal work from Kanai, this one was shot largely on the fly in South Korea. A young Japanese man, unable to communicate and troubled by uncertain memories, crosses over to South Korea. At this point, the film flips over: from a stance of gazing at the young man, it switches to a stance of gazing at how the young man is gazed at, especially by figures linked to the Korean military dictatorship. The director himself emerges as a central character, yet another object of surveillance by the camera. While the hero seems to be seeking his mother, Kanai is seeking his father; in both cases the relation is at least in part sexual. Kanai is scolded for not being revolutionary enough, and the film ends with a shot of the ocean as seen from the Korean coastline, subtitles informing us “We saw the sea and beyond it was Japan.” (2/27/09 at the “East Asia in Motion” conference, Yale University).

14). Mujin Rettô　「無人列島」(The Desert Archipelago; 1969; dir. Kanai Katsu). An experimental allegorical film. Japan is a barren, grotesque wasteland straight out of Hieronymus Bosch (complete with the Christian imagery). As people act like mice chasing their own tails, horrific acts of sexual violence lead only to reproduction, complete with bloody birthing scenes. It all ends up looping back on itself, improbably, to the strains of James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” (2/27/09 at the “East Asia in Motion” conference, Yale University).

13). Japanese War Bride (1952; dir. King Vidor). Representative instance of Cold War Orientalism and Cold War liberalism—and another of the Hollywood films made by Shirley Yamaguchi (a.k.a. Ri Kôran and Yamaguchi Yoshiko). She plays the title character who returns home to Salinas, California, with her G.I. husband, only to encounter resentment and cruelty. The film sends a distinct message: integration. It is hysterical Americans, especially women, who are preventing America from taking up its rightful place as leader of the free world. It seems almost inevitable that a woman gets slapped in Yamaguchi’s films, but here it’s the American woman, not Yamaguchi herself. The film also touches rather bluntly on lingering tensions between Japanese-American and white farmers, as well as on Japanese-American resentment over the wartime internment—although that too is presented mainly as an instance of hysterical memory that is preventing true love from prevailing. (2/23/09 on very low quality VHS).

12). Affliction (1997; dir. Paul Schrader). To watch this bleak film about the winter of the soul in Chicago during February of the worst winter in thirty years was a harrowing experience. I’m just trying not to borrow any ideas from it, especially from Nick Nolte’s over-the-top performance as the alcoholic son of a violent alcoholic who is horrified to find himself turning into his father—in, of course, the dead of winter. Sissy Spacek is lovely as the woman who tries to love him; James Coburn is scary as the aging father. Luckily, it’s all a bit overdone, leaving one a margin for holding it off at a safe distance. (2/22/09 on DVD).

11). The Palm Beach Story (1942; dir. Preston Sturges). Brilliant and hilarious, as usual with Sturges, and I wonder how they got this past the Hayes Bureau censorship office. (Apparently, they almost didn’t). Claudette Colbert is scintillating, as are Rudy Vallee as (basically) John D. Rockefeller and Robert Dudley as The Wienie King. The opening montage sequence here and the way the last shot loops back to replicate the opening shot foreshadow the nonlinear storytelling style in vogue today. (2/21/09 on Netflix On-Line streaming)

10). Pineapple Express (2008; dir. David Gordon Green). What if Alfred Hitchcock had made a Cheech & Chong movie? Amusing, loaded with baby-boomer pop culture allusions (Beatles, Monty Python, James Bond), and it was nice to see Rosie Perez again. (2/20/09 on I-Tunes download).

9). Tokyo Joe (1949; dir. Stuart Heisler). Another early postwar Hollywood film ostensibly set in Tokyo. Some footage appears actually to have been shot on location, but star Humphrey Bogart never seems to have set foot on Japanese soil: his appearances in Tokyo street scenes come either by way of a double or backscreen projection. He plays an American G.I. who arrives in Tokyo to resume his prewar life as a nightclub owner, only to get tangled up in a web of deception in which Japanese fascists are in league with Korean communists. The film is surprisingly sympathetic to Japan, but also shows American paranoia over how easily the Occupation of Japan might turn sour (think Iraq). Teru Shimada gets a nice turn as Bogart’s main buddy, while Sessue Hayakawa gets to strut around as the bad guy. Heroine Florence Marly has a frighteningly narrow waistline. (2/18/09 on DVD).

8). Ukigumo「浮雲」(Drifting clouds; 1955; dir. Naruse Mikio). Another brilliant Naruse melodrama with the usual powerhouse performance by Takamine Hideko as the woman-done-wrong. This one is based on Hayashi Fumiko’s novel about the postwar aftermath of a wartime romance between a married Japanese official and an unmarried Japanese woman in occupied Southeast Asia. I’m struck by how many Kurosawa-like gestures there are in the portrayal of early postwar Japan: the crowded black markets with omnipresent boogie-woogie music from Stray Dog, the roof leaking into a bucket from One Wonderful Sunday, etc. #1 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 1955. (2/7/09 on DVD).

7). Knocked Up (2007; dir. Judd Apatow). Moderately funny, moderately sweet romantic comedy. (2/1/09 on DVD).

6). Never on Sunday (Pote Tin Kyriaki; Greek; 1960; dir. Jules Dassin). I’m usually a sucker for this story: middle-aged, stressed-out American man runs off to southern Europe and rediscovers the authentic life via romance with a vivacious local woman (cf. Sinclair Lewis’s Dodsworth, my favorite of his works). I found myself resisting this one, though, despite the stellar performance by Melina Mercouri as Ilya, the Greek prostitute with a heart of gold. There’s a weird duplicity to the whole narrative, which wants to claim to be a critique of American liberal exoticism yet nonetheless reinstalls all of the stereotypes of American liberal exoticism. The music is quite lovely, however. (1/31/09 on Netflix on-line streaming).

5). House of Bamboo (1955; dir. Sam Fuller). Shot on location in Japan, this is basically a The Third Man knock off, complete with amusement-park ride finale. It looks pretty high-budget, with lots of extras and spectacular location shots, and Fuller splurges for lots of high-angle crane shots, too. The main hook for me was the lead actress, Shirley Yamaguchi—the former Yamaguchi Yoshiko, and before that the former Ri Kôran. Her English is remarkably good, and her performance strong throughout: perhaps because she is playing the same sort of role she did back in her Ri Kôran days, albeit now she is supposed to be Japanese, not Chinese, and the dominant male she falls in love with is American, not Japanese. Robert Stack plays a military cop gone underground to investigate a gang of American thieves in Tokyo; the scene where he slaps Yamaguchi echoes the slap that Hasegawa Kazuo administered in the 1940 film, Shina no Yoru (China Nights). (1/28/09 on DVD).

4). Tomato Kecchappu Kôtei 「トマトケチャップ皇帝」(Emperor Tomato Ketchup;1971; dir. Terayama Shûji). A surrealistic short film (27 minutes) full of genuinely disturbing images: the children of Japan go into armed rebellion against all adults who would interfere with their pleasures. A commentary of sorts on the student movement or perhaps even (given the opening shot of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book) the Great Cultural Revolution. (1/23/09 via on-line streaming at http://www.tofu-magazine.net/newVersion/pages/Terayama_ETK.html).

3). Insomnia (Sweden; 199; dir. Erik Skjoldbjærg). A taut suspense film in which the Arctic Circle’s midnight sun bleaches out landscapes, faces, and moral consciences. The omnipresent sunlight here functions in precisely the same way as does the heat in Kurosawa’s Stray Dog, a seemingly clear source of influence for this. (1/22/09 on DVD)

2). Unmei ja nai hito「運命じゃない人」(A stranger of mine; 2005; dir. Uchida Kenji). A comedy about middle-aged romance, betrayal, and the difficulties of being a yakuza boss in today’s Japan, all told in Pulp Fiction-style with story time repeatedly looping back on itself to repeat scenes and fill in more details. That looping doesn’t stop even when you get to the end credits. It’s an engaging film and features a soundtrack that sounds for all the world like the work of Hisaishi Jo—but isn’t. #5 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 2005. (1/19/09 on DVD).

1). Slumdog Millionaire (2008, dir. Danny Boyle). A sweet story—so sweet that even D.W. Griffith would have hesitated—told with bite and sophistication and even more crosscutting than Griffith would have dared use. Nice use, too, of the catchiest song in recent memory, M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes.” (Princeton Garden Theatre, Princeton, NJ, 1/17/09)

(The 85 films I saw in 2008 are listed here. 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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