R.P. Boo at Pitchfork
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After more than 9 years, HU is going on hiatus. Lots of nice memories of the site in comments.
And Heidi at the Beat took a moment to be a jerk in my direction one last time.
On HU
Featured Archive Post: Domingos Isabelinho on Geneviève Castrée, who died last week.
mouse interviews Colin Spacetwinks on the history of furry.
On Patreon
On Bava’s Wurdulak and devouring your own children.
On Kevin in Ghostbusters, and why it’s men need incompetent, ditzy heroes.
I listed my 12 favorite films.
Utilitarians Everywhere
I went to Pitchfork and reported back to the Reader on what I found:
—Day One.
On Splice Today I wrote about
—Captain America and amnesiac Nazism.
—All the King’s Men and Hollywood’s post-racial populism.
You do know that Hydra’s a Nazi organisation only in the movies, right?
Interesting to see your favorite dozen films. I like some of what’s there, such as Batman ’66, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Rabbit of Seville.
My current top 12 films:
City Lights
The Rules of the Game
Brief Encounter
The Red Shoes
L’avventura
Weekend
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Godfather
Jaws
Tootsie
The Fabulous Baker Boys
Carlito’s Way
B., I don’t know what that means. Yes, I know Hydra isn’t real, if that’s what you’re asking.
Robert, I hate Tootsie, and really don’t like Jaws or the Godfather. McCabe and Mrs. Miller is fun…
I hate Carlito’s Way with the passion of a 1000 suns.
in no order
There Will Be Blood
Sweet Smell of Success
Seven Samurai
Gus van Sant’s young death trilogy (especially Elephant)
Naked
Beyond 5, for me, there’s too many damn films to rank. Maybe
Enter the Void
A Separation
Alien
No Country for Old Men
Hail the Conquering Hero
Ace in the Hole (hard to pick out one Wilder film)
Kung Fu Hustle
But there’s, like, another few dozen I could choose if I remembered. I find with lists like this that I’ve got a few must-picks and then a loosely rotating roster of films I could add to the list, based mostly on whatever I happen to have seen/read/heard/thought about recently…
baldanders means that Hydra is not a Nazi organisation in the comics, only in the movies.
My top 12 films (in no order – and subject to change)
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead (original)
The Empire Strike Back
Crooklyn
Princess Mononoke
Yojimbo
Saturday Night Fever
Deliverance
Do the Right Thing
Waking Life
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Pan’s Labyrinth
(I hate lists. No matter what I pick I feel like I could different choices that would work just as well).
Re; hydra. It’s pretty clearly meant to be a Nazi analogue in the new series, which is clearly riffing on the movies.
I thought about Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Do the Right Thing. I don’t like Pan’s Labyrinth much, and I think Waking Life is really a piece of shit. I hate that film.
I don’t think I’ve seen any of Jones’…except Seven Samurai, a loooong time ago.
You mean of my longer list, right? (Surely you’ve seen Alien!) Anyway, do check out A Separation, which is a phenomenal exercise in empathy. The other films, I’m guessing, you could go either way on.
I thought Noah mentioned disliking Hail the Conquering Hero somewhere recently? Or was that a different Preston Sturges film… maybe The Great McGinty?
Oh, right…yes! I’ve seen Alien, and thought about putting it on the list even….
I haven’t seen Hail the Conquering Hero; I did write about the Great McGinty recently, which I thought was eh.
impossible to reduce that to only 12, so here are 21 in chronological order
Reed, The Third Man
Zinnemann, High Noon
Sirk, Written On The Wind
Fisher, Dracula
Hitchcock, Vertigo
Bergman, The Virgin Spring
Resnais, Last Year At Marienbad
Welles, The Trial
Kubrick, 2001
Fassbinder, Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
Carpenter, Dark Star
Polanski, The Tenant
Lynch, Eraserhead
Romero, Dawn Of The Dead
Laloux (+ Moebius), Time Masters
Lisberger, TRON
Cronenberg, Videodrome
Rohmer, Pauline At The Beach
Verhoeven, Robocop
Haneke, Benny’s Video
Lynch, Lost Highway
and i didnt even include Blade Runner, Star Wars 4, Terminator 2 and Total Recall …
god dammit how could i forget Hellraiser and Bad Lieutenant (1992)?
i’ll stop now.
Haven’t seen mcginty but I’ve found the rest of Sturges hit or miss. But Hail and Miracle at Morgan’s Creek are brilliant.
I remember liking Sullivan’s Travels.
Akira
The Blade
Peking Opera Blues
Freaks
The Lady From Shanghai
Prospero’s Books
Limbo (1999)
Fallen Angels
The Muppet Movie
Repo Man
Soy Cuba
Picnic at Hanging Rock
And thanks for everyone’s kind words. I really appreciate it.
If folks want to see me babble about some of the films on my list, I have this nifty ebook I wrote, downloadable from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Fecund-Horror-Slashers-Revenge-Exploitation-ebook/dp/B01I0XQ5JS
Off the top of my head… In no order:
Chameleon Street
Heathers
They Live
Crash (Cronenberg)
Mulholland Drive
To Live and Die in LA
Repo Man
Godzilla (the original)
Dr. Strangelove
The Road Warrior
Henry Fool
3-Iron
Hal Hartley! Henry Fool was not my favorite of his films..but what ever happened to him?
“what ever happened to him?”
The 90s ended.
He’s done a couple sequels to Henry Fool in the last 10 years. The most recent one is on Netflix streaming. My favorites were always Amateur and No Such Thing but I have a soft spot for HF since it was my intro to Parker Posey.
No particular order outside of the top two spots:
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren)
Rose Hobart (Joseph Cornell)
Eraserhead (David Lynch)
Mikey and Nicky (Elaine May)
Vampyr (Carl Th. Dreyer)
Umberto D. (Vittorio de Sica)
The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky)
To Sleep With Anger (Charles Burnett)
Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir)
Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch)
In A Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray)
What Happened Was (Tom Noonan)
Honorable mentions: Buster Keaton’s solo silent films and Stan Brakhage’s experimental films