Matt’s Week in Dork! (12/8/13-12/15/13)

    We Dorks are hardcore.  Mother Nature don’t scare us.  On Sunday night we headed to the Alamo, ‘cause no snow/ice storm is gonna stop us.  That began a rather beastly week for me, though.  Not a lot of sleep was had.  But I had some fun, and that’s what counts in this life.

Shadow of a Doubt:  Though by no means one of the greats in Hitchcock’s filmography, this tale of corruption sneaking into the innocence of small town America is quite charming.  Joseph Cotton is excellent as the charming, but twisted relative who comes to town, full of secrets and bile.  Childhood illusions are shattered and family is tested.  Again, it’s not amazing.  But it’s plenty good.

Design for Living:  This movie struck my fancy so much a few weeks back that I forced co-Dork Brad and his wife to watch it.  I can’t say enough good about its delightfully cheeky and dirty, pre-Code humor.  The actors are all fun to watch and the ending isn’t something that would have possible a few years later.

    Eat it, Nature.  Sweet Smell of Success wasn’t going to be missed because of a little ice.  Lisa, Brad, and I headed out to the Alamo to see this classic.  Sadly, others weren’t so brave.  Great movie that should be seen.

Sweet Smell of Success:  Mean dialog gets tossed around as a bunch of human sharks churn the water in a blood-frenzy of yellow journalism.  The exploits of a vicious little shit as he tries to stay alive in the skuzzy world of New York’s social/political scene.  Nobody is safe from the acid tongue of Burt Lancaster’s Walter Winchell inspired media monster.  Least of all his lapdog, Tony Curtis.

    On Tuesday night, Brad, Lisa, and myself were at the Alamo again.  This time for an advanced screening of American Hustle.  Another good time out at the movies with good company.

I was ready for some 70s fun.

American Hustle:  The 70s come alive in this tonally confusing con-artist flick.  From laugh-out-loud scenes, the film frequently descends into violence haunted threat.  There were moments where a facial expression would make me guffaw, only to expect that the next door to open might have bullets behind it.  The movie constantly feels like it’s going darker than it ever does, but that might even make the laughs that much stronger, that much more nervous.  The actors do a fine job, with Christian Bale and Amy Adams particularly impressing me.  And this is easily the best Jeremy Renner has ever been.  The music was excellent, and like the production design, not as gimmicky as the trailers led me to believe.

Fast Five: What’s big, sweaty, homoerotic, stupid, and wicked awesome?  Fast Five!  For me this is still the first film in the franchise, and I have no particular desire to explore the earlier films.  This heist epic features some of the most excellent stupid dialog, ultra-sincere family talk, and baby oil covered Rock ever committed to film.  I still can not express the surprise I have in myself for loving this movie as much as I do.  It’s one of the most stupidly fun things I’ve watched in a long time, and I have a smile on my face for most of its 2+ hour runtime.

    Wednesday night brought the monthly graphic novel club meeting, and the slings and arrows I’d been anticipating.  I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to be the only person who didn’t like Saga, and I was right.  The other opinions ranged from OK to great, but only I stood as a voice of hate.  And I do hate it so very much.  To me, it’s like country music or The Big Bang Theory.  I know that people like it, but I can’t figure out why.

    Thursday night, and another advanced screening.  This time, Brad and I headed into DC, to E-Street for the newest Coen Brothers movie.  I like trips into the city, especially via Metro train.  People watching is fun.  A good time all round.

Inside Llewyn Davis:  The Coen Brothers sure can spin entertaining and painful yarns about losers.  In the early 1960s, a folk singer and professional loafer is running out of couches to sleep on, out of money, and out of options.  But fate seems determined to teach him a lesson about responsibility.  There are scenes of powerful emotion, be it sadness or mirth.  And there’s a lot of that certain something that brings bent people like me back to the Coen Brothers again and again.

    After all of that, I needed to sleep.  Friday night, I was planning to come home and watch a movie (as always).  Instead, I stared at the wall for a few hours and passed out.  Probably for the best.  And with no plans Saturday, I was able to catch up on my viewing, anyway.

Passion:  Fresh from Cinemax circa 1992 comes this bland, awkwardly forced, sexually semi-charged thriller wannabe about corporate climbers who (we’re told) are really good at their job, but must backstab, betray, and murder their way to success.  They wear business suits and have meetings.  They have video chats and worry over getting that position in New York, so they must be upwardly mobile young women.  And there’s sexual tension.  I know there’s sexual tension, because the movie won’t stop saying it’s there (thankfully, because it would have gone unnoticed otherwise).  None of the characters are well thought out, and why they’re doing what they’re doing is vague at best.  And it all leads to a silly, bordering on offensively dumb ending.  Like Sam Raimi, I feel like De Palma is stuck in his ‘glory days,’ unable to grow as a director, unable to look beyond his once fresh sense of style.  That might be OK if the scripts were better.  But this would be Hitchcock script wouldn’t make the grade in a 70s porno without adding several more visits from the pizza delivery guy.  De Palma, come on.  Some part of me still enjoys the throw-back gimmicks, but you’ve got to do better.  A lot better.  The lady ballet dancer is quite cute, so the movie isn’t a total loss.

Jayne Mansfield’s Car:  A bunch of broken, sad people try to deal with their life and their sorrow.  The whole picture is shadowed by the wars of the 20th century and how each generation dealt with and thought of war.  It’s a great ensemble cast with especially strong performances from Billy Bob Thornton (who also directed and co-wrote), Kevin Bacon, and Robert Patrick as three WWII vets, each with his own war related demon.  It’s a family drama, with lots of awkward humor and fun little twists on expectation.  At the end of the day, I don’t think I connected with the movie as much as I’d have liked.  I think perhaps seeing it in a theater might have helped me be more captured by the glaring Southern Sun and the Vietnam era production design.  But a solid film, if not one I was especially enamored with.

The Living Skeleton:  Uh…OK.  So this movie is steeped in the gimmicky silliness of William Castle, and the moody noirishness of Val Lewton, but with the script of an American International Vincent Price vehicle.  And while that all sounds great, it doesn’t turn out as amazing as it should.  I liked the film, and there are some cool, creepy bits.  But by the end, I was having a devil of a time trying to figure out who anyone was, what they were doing, why they were doing it, and generally what the hell was going on.  It was kitchen sink storytelling, and when the mad scientist appeared…with no foreshadowing, I might add…I spent the rest of the film scratching my head.  Still, the lead actress, Kikko Matsuoka was quite pleasing to the eyes in a sort of Connery-era Bond Girl way (edit: she actually did appear in You Only Live Twice, apparently).

Winter’s Bone:  “Is this gonna be our time?”  Hillbillies got no money, mo problems.  The uglier side of mountain man poverty, drug abuse, crime and such.  Dumb people living small little lives of petty villainy and tainted hope.  The movie is well made, but these people are so pathetic and awful I have a hard time getting in their corner.  I’ve never much enjoyed the company of the terminally ignorant.  The actors do a good job, especially John Hawkes.  But I still found it all unpleasant to sit with for a couple hours.

Movie 43:  It definitely isn’t as consistently good as The Kentucky Fried Movie, or even Amazon Women on the Moon, but this sketch comedy movie does have its moments.  I think the trouble is that the humor is a bit too one-note.  Every sketch is pretty much just a variation on a gross-out bit.  Some of them are really good (neck-balls), others not so much (first period).  A weird number and variety of actors show up in small rolls.  Some are the sorts who will do anything that comes along, but others are A-listers with agents who normally keep them out of stuff like this, and that gives the movie a bit of extra awkward charm.

Genocide:  Atomic bombs and killer insects.  Trouble all around.  Like the other Shochiku horror films, this movie is all over the map, pretty wacky, and ultimately, not all that good.  The insect world is apparently annoyed with our constant fighting, and while it wouldn’t mind us killing ourselves off, it’s afraid we might take it with us.  So, all the world’s bugs are gonna take us out before we can do it to them.  I guess.  While some of the wacky ideas and scenes might be worth lifting for a better film, the overall piece never goes as crazy as it could or as interesting as it should.

    So, that was about it.  Along the way, I started putting some thought and effort into my plans for January, where I’m going to try to finally get an RPG up and running.  I’m still hungry for some Ars Magica, but I’ve got plenty of other games that could and should be a great deal of fun.  I’ll be very curious to see what everyone else will be into.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (9/8/13-9/14/13)

Second week of September and my Criterion month is still going strong.  Granted, I didn't really delve deep into the foreign classics like my initial plan, but what do you expect when you start your dorkery with Michael Bay's The Rock.  I'm still flummoxed that such a seemingly mindless Blockbuster resides in The Criterion Collection, but I guess I see it as a lure to drag mainstream bros into the eclectic artistry of the auteur theory.  Heck, I know that's how I first found myself craving spine numbers.  The first Criterion I ever purchased was The Silence of the Lambs (Spine # 13), and from there I found John Woo's Hard Boiled (Spine # 9), Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits (Spine # 37), and Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor (Spine # 19).  And Shock Corridor is the film responsible for my Criterion obsession.  Looking at this Top 250 Films list from Sight & Sound, I discovered that I still have a long journey ahead of me, but I am more determined than ever to fill those classic cinematic gaps.  If you have that same desire then Criterion is the place to be - just watch your addictive personality.

But let's not forget my fanboy origins.  My absolute favorite film of the week (not including Sweet Smell of Success, a Top 10er for me) was the recent Dark Knight Returns animated film.  After so much crying and whining from the comic book community, we finally have the film we've all wanted to see on the big screen and I'm not hearing enough love from the internet.  This is a masterpiece, and the most fun I've had watching an animated film in years.  Adult entertainment.  No kiddie stuff here.  This is the potential of the medium fully realized.  If you don't trust the blind buy than give it a Netflix.  You won't be sorry.  Parts 1 & 2 are widely available everywhere, but The Complete Cut can now be purchased exclusively in store at Best Buy.

The Rock (Criterion Spine # 108):  So much has changed since 1996.  Remember when the world was Nicholas Cage's oyster, after he jumped from his Oscar darling Leaving Las Vegas to this successful summer smash?  That one-two punch launched the man down a blockbuster gauntlet that would eventually implode with the equally powerful rope-a-dope combo of The Wicker Man & Ghost Rider.  Welcome to the land of Direct-To-DVD, Nic.  Sigh.  Michael Bay, the heir apparent of Tony Scott, reaches deep into his bag of tricks - we get gratuitous car chases, plenty of unnecessary patriotism, random wheelchairs, and heaps of oddball character quirks.  Cage's G-Man chemist not only obsesses over The Beatles, but kills lumbering thugs with the musical might of Elton John!  What the hell?  But it's kind of amazing.  The Rock is a bombastic weird mess of an actioner, but its wandering behemoth narrative doesn't feel as tired or as rote as it would become in the Transformers trilogy...or soon to be quadrilogy.

On The Waterfront (Criterion Spine # 647):  "Ain't nobody tough anymore."  I recognize that for many, On The Waterfront was the birth of a new era in performance, but Brando feels completely apart from the other actors in the film.  His punch drunk stoolie bumbles through the scene, fidgeting props, mumbling dialog, and generally steals the show from the others that dare occupy the frame.  Revolutionary?  Yeah, okay, maybe.  It's hard for me in 2013 to appreciate what was obviously a shock to the audience in 1954, but hindsight being what it is, On The Waterfront has an awkward show-off quality.  It's a film populated with classically earnest performances by Lee J Cobb, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, and Rod Steiger but there's a xonomorph hiding amongst them - Brando, God's Gift to Acting.

Secret Honor (Criterion Spine # 257):  But without Brando do we have this tyrannical terror of performance?  For 90 minutes, Phillip Baker Hall as Richard Milhous Nixon rants and raves to the walls of his study as he records his confessional memoir armed with a bottle of scotch and an automatic pistol.  It's a horror show.  Filmed over the course of seven days, and comprised mostly of Robert Altman's University of Michigan students, Secret Honor is an angry declaration against the 37th President that might attempt to highlight some humanity, but really just revels in Nixon's futile attempts to justify his actions.  And I'm 100% cool with that.  Seriously, who doesn't want to see this man put a gun to his head?  At the very least Phillip Baker Hall is easily the most entertaining on-screen Nixon; even confined to four walls, Hall races circles around other impersonators like Anthony Hopkins or Frank Langella.

Star Trek Into Darkness:  "I thought we were explorers?"  Sigh.  Man oh man, I really wish JJ Abrams listened to that painful bit of truth uttered by Scotty halfway through the film.  Of course, the Star Trek films haven't been about exploring since 1979, and look how popular that was?  As you may or may not have figured out by now, we ITMODers are none too happy with this latest Trek.  That being said, I bought the damn movie.  Yep, I'm one of those hypocritical blogger jerkwads that bitches & moans about a film, but still succumbs to the temptation of high definition.  Doesn't that mean that I like Into Darkness on some level?  Maybe.  But it's more indicative of my completist fanboy problem.  I own (and will own) every Star Trek film that has ever hit disc.  Heck, I have far worse Treks than Into Darkness - those being Generations & Nemesis.  So, my goal this week was to pick out all the little bits I actually enjoyed about Star Trek The Reboot Part II.  Uhurah's helmet kiss for Spock, The Nibiru sand drawing disolve, Kirk bedding two cat chicks, Pike chastising Kirk leading to another motivational barroom chat, those spherical ice cubes, Klingon helmets, Scotty's disco nightlife collar, Cumberbatch's crying, and the tumbling gravitational malfunction.  But those superficial "LIKES" are nothing when paired with the stupidity on display within the narrative.  Why does Admiral Marcus unfreeze Khan?  We're told for his savagery...uh okay, let me go get Napoleon to build me a Nuclear Warhead.  Nonsense.

Traffic (Criterion Spine # 151):  The one-two punch of Erin Brockovich & Traffic marks the end of Steven Soderbergh's first wave of filmmaking - goodbye Sex, Lies & Videotape, hello Ocean's 11.  The director graduates from slick indie crime dramas to this Oscar Bait cavalcade of Hollywood Smiles, with show-me filter fun and a serious after school message.  Drugs are bad, ok.  And the War on Drugs is a joke.  When I saw this in 2000, I was in love.  Cynicism + big top performances = college class catnip.  Benicio Del Toro & Don Cheadle are excellent as two cops on two sides of the border pointlessly battling with the cartels.  But Michael Douglas's junkie kids story is dull and annoying, and Catherine Zeta-Jones' mama kingpin routine a bore.  I love early Soderbergh (Sex, Limey, Out of Sight) and modern Soderbergh (Informant, Haywire, Side Effects), but the middle era (Traffic, Oceans, & The Good German) holds little interest these days.

Breaking Bad - Season 2:  As the fifth and final season bears down upon us, I find myself inundated at work with Breaking Bad enthusiasm.  I'm sick and tired of not being a part of the water cooler.  I meandered my way through the first season a while back, but didn't experience the MUST SEE TV effect that others seem to have fallen into.  Watching the second season, I can't say that I'm in love in the same fashion as The Wire or even Justified, but by the last episode I was certainly hooked.  BOOM!  John De Lancie.  Yikes.  Walter White started this series as a family man struggling to provide before he shuffles off, and by the end of Season 2 we see a man doomed by his choices.  It's been impossible to avoid all the spoilers running free on Twitter & Facebook, so I have some idea what villainy the man will eventually achieve...it's kinda depressing.  Not a lot of people to root for in this show, maybe Hank, or the kid...maybe.

Sweet Smell of Success (Criterion Spine # 555):  "You're a liar, Sidney."  This is a mean movie.  And I love mean movies.  Tony Curtis is a weasel of a man, a press agent scamming his way through a slew of clients, desperate to land a juicy line in Burt Lancaster's prized gossip column.  Lancaster, the lord of the New York nightlife, reigns over politicians and cigarette girls alike and has no qualms bartering wordcount for sibling affection.  This demigod charges Tony Curtis with the task of manipulating a jazz musician out of the arms of his younger sister, a trail of bile and hate nearly topples the city...or at least it feels like it should.  Honestly, I cannot think of another movie in which people inject such heated venom into each other simply with words.  I'd take a crack on the head any day over one biting word from Lancaster.  And I'm no cookie filled with arsenic.

The Red Shoes (Criterion Spine # 44):  One year after they concocted their religious psychomelodrama Black Narcissus, Michael Powell & Emric Pressburger return with an even more punishing saga.  The Red Shoes follows the budding relationship between Moira Shearer's dancer and Marius Goring's composer; their romance could be grande if it didn't attract the jealousy of Anton Walbrook's despotic impresario.  I'm not sure how they do it, but as masters of manipulation Powell & Pressburger have crafted a nightmare around ballet that's as captivating and heart pounding as Lawrence of Arabia's war torn deserts or Ridley Scott's space trucking Alien.  Of course, you cannot dismiss Jack Cardiff's technicolor majesty or Robert Helpmann's choreography as their technical brilliance during The Red Shoes fantasy sequence alone makes this essential viewing for all film nuts.

The Small Press Expo 2013:  This was a great year for mini-comics.  Three of my friendly neighborhood comic shopketeers had tables with books as varied as Zodiac Starforce, Gang War, and The Secret Origin of John Elway.  Weird, wild stuff.  Alex Fine's Il Brutto chapbook was certainly a highlight with its Charles Bronson What Ifs, and Trevor Henderson's House print (see below) inspired the course of this Week in Dork.  But my absolute favorite was Thomas Scioli's trilogy of Satan's Soldier comics.  Imagine Superman as an agent of evil with a chubby brood of Super Babies to drown. Really horrible and demented irreverence that you will never see from the big two publishers.  That's the charm of basement pressed comics.

SPX certainly has its share of big names as well.  Jeff Smith brought in a large crowd of Boneville fanboys & girls of every age; it's so nice to see actual kids at a small press convention (Scholastic is doing its job).  Smith was also doing sketches inside of everyone's books, I was stoked to get that Rasl doodle.  He must have seen my giddy appreciation or I was just the lucky early bird in the line, because the cartoonist asked me if I could take his phone and snap some photos of the massive line wrapping the ballroom.  Of course I obliged!  I am happy to report that the man behind some of my all time favorite books (Bone, Rasl, Shazam) is a real sweetheart.  The other big line I braved was for Congressman John Lewis & Nate Powell.  Not a lot of chitchat there, but the Congressman granted a quick photo op, and it was a treat to meet a genuine historical figure.  Haven't cracked into March yet, but that's first up for next week.  Overall, this year's SPX was a smashing success and happily drained my wallet.

The Dark Knight Returns - The Complete Cut:  "I'm not finished yet."  Similar to my Watchmen experience, this cinematic adaption brought a new found appreciation for the source material.  Everyone in the comic book kingdom recognizes Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns as a masterpiece of sequential art, but since I entered the medium years after the initial release, I never quite saw the shine of its revered crown.  Is The Dark Knight Returns as good as Jeph Loeb's The Long Halloween or Grant Morrison's Batman Inc? Well, actually, after watching this DC Entertainment I'm pretty sure The Dark Knight Returns is the greatest Batman Story period.  I'll certainly need to revisit the graphic novel soon, but I am deeply in love with this interpretation.  Peter Weller's dogged and beaten dark knight detective is a savage warrior refusing to back into retirement even when good sense and big brother demand otherwise.  Forget fantasies of a cowled Clint Eastwood, Weller is The Dark Knight we've always wanted to see on screen.  The man carries so much regret and anger in his voice; it's impossible to think of anyone else uttering "This isn't a mudhole...it's an operating table.  And I'm the surgeon."  A ridiculous line of of 80s machismo that totally plays thanks to Weller's commitment.  The film contains the book's four act structure: Two-Face, Mutant Leader, Joker, Superman.  This sputtering screenplay might feel awkward to the uninitiated, but as the foils ratchet towards the Reagan Stooge showdown the narrative tightens around the viewer.  When Batman finally gets his hands around Superman's throat I felt a tremendous sense of triumph.  Screw that boy scout.  If Zach Snyder's Man of Steel sequel can only capture a tenth of that feeling then Batman vs Superman will be a rip roaring success.  And in the dark year that is 2013, The Dark Knight Returns is one of this year's very best films.

House (Criterion Spine # 539):  The punchy quote provided on the back of the box says "An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava."  Close but not quite right.  House certainly has a zany cartoon vibe and features whacky geysers of red reminiscent of various Italian splatter artists, but the hijinks are injected with that Japanese French New Wave obsession.  House rubs shoulders with Tokyo Drifter.  You know, plus school girl munching pianos, dancing chopped up corpses, and spectral blood vomiting kitty cats.  Brooding giallo?  No.  But it's certainly a genre mixing bowl that spawned Sam Raimi's Evil Dead and at least a thirty or forty of Takashi Miike's mondo movies.

--Brad

Two Fistfuls Of Favorites! (Brad's Picks)

Where Matt might not have been a List Guy until I forced him to put his favorite films together, I've always obsessed over what films are better than the other.  What are the best horror films?  What are the best crocodile movies?  What's the best use of a cigarette in cinema?  (Answer, Dan Aykroyd's butt in Ghostbusters).  When I was a kid my favorite movie was The Empire Strikes Back.  And then for a little while it was Predator.  The Top Ten I have now has not changed much in the last ten years or so.  But recently, after seeing a couple of these flicks on the big screen at AFI Silver and E Street Cinema, I've had to do quite a bit of rearranging.

10.  Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979):  Late last year I finally rewatched the Alien saga on blu ray (thanks to the Wife and her Egg purchase) and I came away thinking that 1) Ridley Scott's Alien is the scariest damn slasher movie ever made and 2) the reason this film kicks so much unholy ass is the crew of The Nostromo.  These Space Truckers are real.  They know each other.  They love each other.  They hate each other.  And they are gonna get home once they get their credit.  Too bad about that whole HR Giger beastie stalking about the gothic corridors.

9.  Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957):  Never has a film been filled with so much rank and hate and it's both hilarious and terrifying.  Burt Lancaster is a monster as JJ and Tony Curtis is the best little weasel...poor sucker.  There really isn't a nice character in the movie and that's what is so damn wonderful about the whole experience.  If you haven't picked up the Criterion Blu from last year than do yourself a favor and bask in its horror.

8.  The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (W.D. Richter, 1984):  Peter Weller as Buckaroo Banzai is the coolest, most badass Rock 'n' Roll Scientist on the planet.  Thank God we have him on our side to battle John Whorfin's red aliens freed from The 8the Dimension.  And like the crew of the Nostromo, his Regulators are a bunch of cool cats you need to party with.

7.  Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967):  Lee Marvin's Walker wants one thing, his money.  Do not get in his way.  If you're his wife, forget it.  If you're his lover, forget it.  If you're revenge, forget it.  Just give him his money.  And John Boorman directs the Hell outta Richard Stark's The Hunter splashing his insanity all over the script in bright psychedelic colors.

6.  Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan (Nicholas Meyer, 1982):  I don't even know what to say.  I love Star Trek.  I love Shatner.  And I love them so much I can't even talk about them with the slightest bit of rationality.  Wrath of Khan is the ultimate statement on these characters, it's a great reverse revenge film and, the ending...no matter how much the later film's negate its greatness, still packs a heavy emotional wallop.  "I feel young." I can cry just thinking about Kirk looking at the Genesis planet.

5.  Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975):  The First A Budget B Movie Summer Blockbuster and it rocked (destroyed?) cinema.  But it's a damn fine time out at the movies.  However, for all its creepy John Williams score and Hitchcockian shark attacks, Jaws is all about the relationship between Scheider, Dreyfuss, and Shaw--singing "Show Me The Way To Go Home/I'm Tired And I Want To Go To Bed." Plus, it doesn't get much better than Shaw's monologue on the USS Indianapolis.

4.  Miller's Crossing (The Coen Brothers, 1990):  I love the Coen Brothers.  And I love their pornographic lusting for gangster lingo.  What's it all mean?  Something about a hat.  Sure, okay.  Gabrielle Byrne is a cold mutha, and really just loves Albert Finney more than his moll.  He'd go to war with anybody and everybody to keep Leo on top.

3.  The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982):  Put simply, the greatest monster movie ever made.  Everything works.  The cast.  The direction.  The effects.  The Score.  The climax.  I could watch this movie every month for the rest of my life and never get bored...okay, that might be hyperbole but I watch it at least four times a year.

2.  An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981):  Beware The Moors.  John Landis' love letter to the hirsute Universal Monster is darn funny...but it's mostly scary and sad.  Honestly, it doesn't get more tragic than the relationship between David & Nurse Price (va va va voom, Jenny Agutter...excuse the Tex Avery wolf tongue) and even though I chuckle throughout at the naked American man stealing balloons and Griffin Dunne's zombie I finish the film feeling pretty damn melancholic.

1.  Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992):  Is there a better Western?  Sure.  Is there a better Clint Eastwood Western?  Maybe.  But this was the first Western I ever saw in the theater and it was one of the first "Grown Up" movies to rock my tiny 13 year old mind.  Eastwood is just a good guy who was once bad...uh, no.  He's a horrible human being hiding from his nature and Unforgiven takes two hours to reawaken the beast within.  An amazing bit of scripting from Blade Runner's David Webb Peoples and Clint Eastwood has never been better as director, even though he keeps trying.  Oh, and Gene Hackman at his monstery best.

--Brad