Amalgarama

 

The Oscars

 

I was sitting on my then bunk bed watching the 1999 Oscars telecast in my room. Saving Private Ryan seemed a shoe-in for the Bst Picture award. Spielberg won Best Director so it has to win the big one, right? My fingers were crossed. Harrison Ford announced it. "And the Oscar for Best Picture goes to...Shakespeare In Love." The heartbreak created a rift. The rift created an allergic reaction to the Oscars. I think it's safe to say at that age I was naive. I had no idea what Oscar campaigning was much less who Harvey Weinstein was. Leading up to the Best Picture announcement, I was treated to a montage cut by Chuck Workman that was the impetus for my addiction to montages. Whoopi Goldberg made me miss Billy Crystal, Spielberg paid tribute to Kubrick, Scorsese and DeNiro presented an Honorary Oscar to Elia Kazan. I remember it being a strange presentation. Scorsese and DeNiro sounded nervous. Kazan was then met with some boos as he entered the stage. I'd learn about why after finding out about his testifying to the House of Unamerican Affairs Committee. 

The 1998 Oscars was the first telecast I watched. Billy Crystal was the host. It was also the first footage I would see of a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, being clips of Burt Reynolds and Julianne Moore for their respective performances in Boogie Nights. Sean Connery announced Titanic as Best Picture and James Cameron made his now famous 'king of the world' speech. Going in, I thoroughly enjoyed Titanic. I was already a Cameron fan from obsessively watching Aliens and Terminator 2. Not familiar enough with Boogie Nights or LA Confidential to be upset with the latter's losing to Titanic or the former's not being nominated for Picture at all. 

By the time the 2000 Academy Awards rolled around, I would add the name Charlie Kaufman (nominated for Being John Malkovich's screenplay) to my list of people to check out. American Beauty scribe Alan Ball beat both him and PT Anderson for original screenplay. Though the wound was mended when Ball gave me Six Feet Under. 

In 2001, Gladiator beat Traffic for Best Picture. In 2002, Ron Howard beat David Lynch for Best Director. And so it went. 

It became ritual. I would learn what it was all about to the point where anytime I made a list of who would win, there would always be a film next to it. Who I Think Should Win - Who Is Going to Win. What is Oscar Bait and what doesn't stand a chance to be nominated. It created a pragmatism in me that exists to this day. 

Studying the history of the ceremony and past winners helped me glean insight into Hollywood's favorite night. For one, horror movies were not welcome. There were of course exceptions: The Exorcist, Jaws, Silence of the Lambs. The makeup category was generous to them- Rick Baker winning for An American Werewolf In London. Nothing has changed. Whether you're Toni Collette in Hereditary or Mia Goth in Pearl, the performance still isn't recognized. Like Exorcist before it, Get Out was able to squeak by with a handful of nominations. But after that, nothing. It feels like the Academy said "OK, we nominated a horror film alright? Now get off our back." At least that feeling was palpable after seeing the complete shut out for Peele's film Nope. 

My obsession toward wanting to memorize the winners led me to go so far as to underline any actor who was nominated or won an award in the Movie Listings section in the back of the TV Guide. This would follow in the World Almanacs I would get every Christmas. I'd go look for the list with all the notable actors in it. Remember the scene from Wonder Boys where Tobey Maguire rattles off all of the famous actor suicides to a bunch of people? That was me but with Best Picture winners. The other categories of Director, Actor, Actress and Supporting Actor and Actress soon followed.

Then came the lists. I had the list of Best Picture winners and wanted to check off all of them. Some of them seemed like major chores: Out of Africa, The English Patient, Ordinary People. Others sounded interesting: Cavalcade hit my history sweet spot, You Can't Take It With You was Capra so it had to be of quality, Rebecca's a no brainer because Hitchcock. It didn't take too long for me to realize that some of the pictures nominated were better than the film that ended up winning. Nobody remembers Cavalcade anyway. 

I am almost thankful I wasn't aware of certain directors, actors and the Oscars in the past. Had I been a fan of Denzel and Spike Lee during the 1993 ceremony, I would have been upset at him losing best actor. But this is once again, a thing I learned about the Oscars: they are always playing catch-up. Pacino's performances in The Godfather I & II and Dog Day Afternoon did not win him anything. If you ask me, they had the perfect opportunity to award him for Godfather II but instead they awarded...Art Carney. So in order to make up for past mistakes and give this acting legend his trophy, they shut out what is arguably Denzel's best performance in Malcolm X. And this was just the flubs in the acting category. 

Legends like Kubrick, Hitchcock, Kurosawa and Altman missed out on the Directing oscar. Hitch, Kurosawa and Altman were given honorary oscars. Scorsese wouldn't win an Oscar until 2007. It further enforced the awards as a pointless show more interested in what was culturally relevant at the time than a ceremony that honored art. PTA and Quentin now took the place of Scorsese. Is this PTA's year? Is this Quentin's year? Still no. Will they give it to Quentin because his 10th film is said to be his last? 

The Oscars are the way Hollywood wants to view itself during that particular year. It's always been that way. Short term over long term. Trends over artistic value. The older I got, the more the smoke and mirrors fell away and I was able to see the politics of it all. It's only gotten worse with identity politics thrown into the mix.

II

This year was the first since 2015 that I watched the Oscars telecast from beginning to end. The other telecasts would be put through a strainer, filtering out all the interesting stuff to happen: Bong Joon- Ho winning for Parasite being the moment that made me think maybe there is hope. Then the slap happened. All anyone could talk about was the slap. It called back the streaking incident that happened during the 1974 Oscars ceremony. 

Michelle Yeoh won. Out of all the categories, this was the hardest for me to choose. Cate Blanchett gave the performance of her career in Tar. But Yeoh's performance was a career highlight for her. 

Ke Huy Quan, or Data, won and gave an emotional speech about his journey from refugee camp to Hollywood's biggest stage. 

Jamie Lee Curtis, who never denied her horror roots, dedicated her Oscar to all her genre fans. 

There were upsets. Tar, my favorite film of the year was completely shut out. As was Banshees of Inisherin. Had any Best Picture nominee other than EEAAO took it home, I'd be a lot more frustrated but seeing it win softened the blow. 

History always measures how long a film will last. In the year or our Lord, 2023, Steven Spielberg was nominated for Best Picture for The Fabelmans. Shakespeare In Love is not nearly as beloved as Saving Private Ryan. Though not nearly as hated as Crash or Green Book. Instead of being behind the scenes campaigning for his Oscar, Harvey Weinstein is now serving jailtime for a litany of sexual assault crimes.

Things have come full circle in a strange way. Harrison Ford announced Best Picture just as he did during that day in 1999. But I didn't come away disappointed. Sure the film I preferred to win didn't win. But the next best one did. What's more, it was a film that had a dildo fight, hotdog fingers and butt plugs. It's a long way from the stuffy likes of The King's Speech or The English Patient. Hollywood is mostly cynical bullshit but it is nice for once in a while to see artists like Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis who have mile long lists of amazing contributions to film finally get acknowledged for their talent. Will this change anything with the Oscars? Probably not. You don't even have to like EEAAO to celebrate the fact that this was a win for genre fans and artists who want to tell stories across various platforms and budget levels. 

 

2022 watchlist

JANUARY

1- Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) (R)

2- 10 to Midnight (1983)

3- Winterbeast (1992)

    Breaking Bad (3 episodes)

    The Case of the Scorpion's Tail (1971)

4- Busting (1974)

5- Narrow Margin (1990)

6- West Side Story (2021)

8- The Last Picture Show (1971) (R)

9- Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (2017) (tr. Sarah Moses, 2020)

    Euphoria

10- Nightmare Alley (1947) (R)

11- Radio On (1979)

      Almost Human (1974)

      Cry of A Prostitute (1974)

12- A Blade In the Dark (1983)

     The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972)

13- What Have They Done to Your Daughters (1974)

15- Seven Blood Stained Orchids (1972)

16- Death Smiles On A Murderer (1973)

      Euphoria

17- Breaking Bad (3 episodes)

      Yellowjackets (4 episodes)

18- Amadeus (1984)

19- Footprints (1975)

20- Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur (1987)

22- A Chess Story by Stefan Zweig (1942) (tr. Joel Rotenberg)

     The Damned (1969)

23- Euphoria

24- Yellowjackets (6 episodes)

      Breaking Bad (2 episodes)

25- Equus by Peter Shaffer (1973)

27- Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler (1995)

      Saint Jack (1979)

29- Shallow Grave (1987)

      Pontypool (2008) (R)

30- The Conversation (1974) (The Music Box- 35mm) (R)

      New York Ninja (2021) (The Music Box- 35mm) (R)

      Encanto (2021)

31- Don Quixote: First Part by Miguel Cervantes (1605)

     Breaking Bad (5 episodes)

     Mildred Pierce (1945) (R)

     Mysteries of the Wax Museum (1933)

FEBRUARY 

1- Euphoria 

    Penitentiary (1979)

    Penitentiary II (1982)

2- Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) (R)

    Groundhog Day (1993) (R)

    Marketa Lazarova (1967) (R)

3- We Have Always Lived In the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962)

    Toys Are Not For Children (1972)

6- Euphoria

7- Breaking Bad (5 episodes)

8- Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze (1953)

    Wild At Heart (1990) (R)

    Perdita Durango (1997)

9- Jackass Forever (2022)

    Jackass: The Movie (2002) 

10- True Romance (1993) (R)

11- Smut Without Smut: Satanic Horror Nite (2021)

12- Kimi (2022)

      Water Power (1977)

13- All That Heaven Allows (1955)

      Euphoria

14- Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) (R)

15- Breaking Bad (3 episodes)

      Spencer (2021)

      The Orange Years: The Nickolodeon Story (2020)

16- Top of the Heap (1972) 

      Ebola Syndrome (1996)

17- Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon (2012)

      Days of Being Wild (1990)

20- Rebels of the Neon God (1992)

      Euphoria

      Dispatches by Michael Herr (1977)

21- Cure (1997) (R)

      Stalker (1979) (Gene Siskel Film Center) (R)

22- Breaking Bad (3 episodes)

      Dumb and Dumber (1994) (The Music Box) (R)

      Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) (The Music Box) (R)

23- The Harder They Come (1972)

      It Felt Like A Kiss (2009)

24- Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers (1980)

26- Written On the Wind (1955)

27- Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (1999)

      Euphoria Season 2 Finale (2022)

28- Safe (1995) (R)

      Breaking Bad (5 episodes)

MARCH

1- Death Rides A Horse (1967)

2- Drive My Car (2021)

3- Hard Target (1993) 

4- Nosferatu (1922) (R)

7- Breaking Bad (5 episodes)

    The Batman (2022) (Marcus Theaters)

8- The Last of the Mohicans (1992) (R)

    The Phantom of Liberty (1975)

    Billy Madison (1994) (R)

9- The Mercenary (1968)

    Companeros (1970)

13- Beneath A Pale Sky by Philip Fracassi (2021)

      State of Siege (1972)

14- Turning Red (2022)

      Breaking Bad Series Finale (2 episodes)

      A History of Violence (2005) (R)

15- Videodrome (1983) (R)

      Arrebato (1979)

16- The Batman (2022) (AMC Crestwood 18) (R)

17- The Fugitive (1993) (R)

      X (2022) (AMC Crestwood 18)

20- Almost Famous (2000) (R)

      True Romance (1993) (R)

21- The Batman (2022) (Landmark Theaters) (R)

22- Eyes of Fire (1983)

      In A Year of 13 Moons (1978)

23- Dersu Uzala (1975)

24- The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government by David Talbot (2015)

26- Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987)

28- Apocalypse Now Redux (2001) (R)

     Donkey Skin (1970)

     The Sixth Sense (1999) (R)

29- Assault On Precinct 13 (1976) (R)

      The Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett (2016)

30- M. Butterfly (1993)

      Death Game (1977)

31- Rancho Deluxe (1975)

      "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" by Poppy Z. Brite

APRIL

2- "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

    Dodes'ka-den (1970)

4- Strangers On A Train (1951) (R)

    The Rescuers (1977)

5- Death Promise (1977)

11- Eraserhead (1977) (The Music Box) (35mm w/ Charlotte Stewart Q & A) (R)

      Lost Highway (1997) (The Music Box) (35mm) (R)

12- The House That Jack Built (2018) (R)

       Blade Runner 2049 (2017) (R)

13- Industrial Symphony No. 1 (1990)

      Lynch (One) (2007) (R)

      Inland Empire (2006) (4K restoration) (R)

      More Things That Happened (2007) (R)

      Rabbits (2002) (R)

14- Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

      Tokyo Vice (1 episode)

17- The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) (R)

18- Rumble Fish (1983) (R)

      The Wizard of Oz (1939) (R)

19- Out of the Blue (1980)

20- Don Quixote: Second Part by Miguel Cervantes (1605) (Translated by Edith Grossman)

      Better Call Saul Season 6 Opener

21- Murder-Rock (1984)

      Truth Or Dare: A Critical Madness (1986)

24- My Work Is Not Yet Done by Thomas Ligotti (2002)

      Better Call Saul (1 episode)

      Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)

25- Barry Season 3 Opener

      Better Call Saul (1 episode)

26- The Northman (2022) (Landmark Century Theaters)

      The Americans (1 episode)

27- Another Country by James Baldwin (1962)

     We Own This City Series Premiere 

28- Nightmare In Badham County (1976)

30- A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews (1976)

MAY

1- Hard Boiled (1992)

2- The Night House (2020)

    Barry

3- Better Call Saul

    We Own This City

    Scanner Cop (1994)

4- Scanner Cop 2: The Showdown (1995)

5- Across 110th Street (1972)

10- Nightmare Beach (1989)

12- The Wages of Fear (1952) (R)

      Venus In Furs (1969)

      The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin (1979)

15- Wonder Boys (2000) (R)

16- Barry

     Better Call Saul

     Belly (1998)

17- Paradais by Fernanda Melchor (2022) (trans. Sophie Hughes)

      Miami Blues (1990)

18- Snake Eyes (1998)

19- Hiruko the Goblin (1991) 

      Men (2022) (Marcus Cinema)

22- The Summer I Died by Ryan C. Thomas (2006)  

      George Carlin's American Dream (2022)

23- One On Top of the Other (1969)

      Drive (1997)

24- Basic Instinct (1992) (R)

26- Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind (1980)

28- Cobra (1986) (R)

      Stranger Things 4

29- Stranger Things 4

      Barry

30- Stranger Things 4 (2 episodes)

31- Stranger Things 4

      The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1967)

JUNE

1- Stranger Things 4 (2 episodes)

    Ogroff the Mad Mutilator (1983)

2- Crimes of the Future (2022) (Marcus Theaters)

3- Bijou (1972)

4- The Spook Who Sat By the Door (1973)

6- Eve's Bayou (1997)

    Barry

7- Dead Presidents (1995)

    Cruising (1980) (R)

8- Extreme Prejudice (1987)

9- Lady Terminator (1989)

    Patrick Still Lives! (1980)

11- Pleasure (2021)

12- Barry Season 3 Finale

13- Human Lanterns (1982)

14- Carrie by Stephen King (1974)

      The Unseen (1980)

16- Venus In the Blind Spot by Junji Ito (2019)

      Wayne's World 2 (1994) (R)

18- Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (2009)

19- The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

      C'mon C'mon (2021) (R)

20- Times Square (1980)

21- Mad God (2021)

      Don't Answer the Phone! (1980)

      LA Plays Itself (1972)

22- Poison (1991)

23- A Bullet For the General (1966)

26- Inherent Vice (2014) (R)

27- The Seven Samurai (1954) (R)

      Casino (1995) (R)

28- Miami Connection (1987) (R)

29- Drive (2011) (R)

30- Querelle (1982)

      E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (R)

JULY

2- Stranger Things

3- Stranger Things

    Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982) (R)

4- The Bear (4 episodes)

5- Contraband (1980)

    The Sicilian Clan (1969)

7- Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar (1967)

10- Wall-E (2008) (R)

      The Twilight World by Werner Herzog (2022)

11- The Bear (2 episodes)

      Velvet Goldmine (1998) (R)

      Holes (2003)

12- Better Call Saul

      The Laughing Woman (1969)

13- Chan Is Missing (1982)

14- Siege (1982)

      "The Jaunt" by Stephen King

      The Bear (2 episodes)

18- The Rehearsal

      Crime of the Century (2021)

      The Swimmer (1968) (R)

19- Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite (1996)

      Better Call Saul

      Born to Win (1971)

      Tenebre (1982) (R)

21- Nope (2022) (Marcus Theaters)

25- Lapvona by Otessa Moshfegh (2022)

      Severance (3 episodes)

      Nope (2022) (Landmark Century Cinemas) (R)

26- Severance (5 episodes)

27- Better Call Saul

      Rock N' Roll High School (1979)

30- Police Story (1985)

31- Rabid Dogs (1974)

AUGUST

1- Five Dolls For An August Moon (1970)

    Better Call Saul

2- Hatchet For the Honeymoon (1970)

    Starman (1984) (R)

3- Flux Gourmet (2022)

4- Wake In Fright (1971) (R)

6- Delirium (1979)

    Syndromes and A Century (2005)

8- Pink Flamingos (1972) (R)

    Better Call Saul

9- Cloak and Dagger (1984)

    Severance Season Finale

    Coraline (2009)

    Night of the Demon (1957) (R)

10- The Border by Don Winslow (2019)

11- Battles In the Desert by Jose Emilio Pacheco (1981) (2021 tr. Katherine Silver)

     Heat (1995) (R)

13- "The Raft" by Stephen King

14- Pieces (1982) (R)

15- Better Call Saul Series Finale

16- Righting Wrongs (1986)

20- The Wrong Man (1956) (R)

21- The Black Phone (2022)

22- Heat 2 by Michael Mann (2022)

      The Medium (2021)

      Prey (2022)

23- Good Burger (1996) (R)

25- Shriek of the Mutilated (1974)

26- Night of the Demon (1980)

28- The Quiet American by Graham Greene (1955)

29- Memoria (2021)

      Sorcerer (1977) (R)

30- The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (2016)

      Observe and Report (2009) (R)

SEPTEMBER

2- Come Closer by Sarah Gran (2004)

3- The Dunwich Horror (1970)

6- Dr. Lamb (1992)

10- From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) (R)

11- The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

13- Negative Space by B.R. Yeager (2020)

      We're All Going to the World's Fair (2022)

      The Car (1977)

      Hotel Fear (1978)

15- Pearl (2022) (Marcus Cinemas Orland Park)

18- The Auctioneer by Joan Samson (1975)

19- Jonestown: Terror In the Jungle (2018)

     The Endless (2019)

20- To Be Devoured by Sara Tantlinger (2017)

      The Mist (2007) (R) (B/W)

      Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

      Faceless (1987)

22- Dolly Dearest (1991)

      Spider (1992)

23- Zeder (1983)

24- Shaun of the Dead (2004) (R)

25- Eye of the Devil (1966)

      I Bury the Living (1958)

26- Ticks (1993) (R)

27- The Munsters (2022)

      Barbarian (2022) (AMC Theaters Crestwood 18)

29- Vamp (1986)

30- The Troop by Nick Cutter (2014)

      Massacre At Central High (1976)

      The Void (2016)

      Lurkers (1988)

OCTOBER

1- Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)

    Stanley (1972)

2- In the Mouth of Madness (1994) (R)

    Matango (1963)

3- Gone to See the River Man by Kristopher Triana (2020)

    Conversations With A Killer: John Wayne Gacy (2022)

    Pearl (2022) (The Music Box Theater) (R)

4- Bloody Pit of Horror (1965)

    The Whip and the Body (1963)

5- Nothing Underneath (1988)

6- Of Unknown Origin (1983)

    Beyond the Door III (1989)

7- Hellraiser (2022)

    The Leopard Man (1943)

8- The Monster Squad (1987) (R)

9- The Initiation (1984)

10- The Midnight Club (6 episodes)

11- The Midnight Club (4 episodes)

      Witch's Mirror (1962)

      Even the Wind Is Afraid (1968)

      Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco (1973)

13- Jungle Holocaust (aka Last Cannibal World) (1977)

      Cannibal Man (aka Week of the Killer) (1972)

15- The Velvet Vampire (1971)

16- From Beyond (1986) (R)

       The Store by Bentley Little (1996)

17- Salem's Lot (1979) (R)

      "The Box" by Jack Ketchum

      Eyes Without A Face (1960) (R)

18- The Watcher In the Woods (1980)

      Mr. Boogedy (1986)

19- The Comedy of Terrors (1963)

20- Slumber Party Massacre 2 (1987)

      Halloween Ends (2022)

21- A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)

     From Beyond the Grave (1974)

22- Maciste In Hell (1925) (Music Box of Horrors)

      The Night of the Hunter (1955) (R) (Music Box of Horrors)

      Hellbound: Hellraiser (1988) (R) (Music Box of Horrors)

      Computer Hearts (2014) (Music Box of Horrors)

      Blood For Dracula (1974) (R) (Music Box of Horrors)

      Devil Times Five (1974) (Music Box of Horrors)

      Blade (1998) (R) (Music Box of Horrors)

23- Twilight Syndrome: Dead Go Round (2008) (Music Box of Horrors)

       Idle Hands (1999) (R) (Music Box of Horrors)

       The Killing of Satan (1983) (Music Box of Horrors)

       The Oracle (1985) (R) (Music Box of Horrors)

       Flesh Easter (1988) (R) (Music Box of Horrors)

       Ernest Scared Stupid (1991) (R) (Music Box of Horrors)

       The Old Dark House (1932)

24- The House of Usher (1960)

      The House of Usher (1989)

      "Gas Station Carnivals" by Thomas Ligotti

25- Stinger by Robert McCammon (1988)

      Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)

      A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse (1975)

      Terrifier 2 (2022) (AMC Crestwood 18)

26- Trauma (1993)

      The Resurrected (1991)

      Sour Candy by Kealan Patrick Burke (2015)

      The Burning Moon (1992)

      Night of the Werewolf (1981)

27- Whoever Slew Auntie Roo (1972)

      Witchhammer (1970)

      Tar (2022) (Marcus Cinema Orland Park)

      The Vampire Lovers (1970)

28- Dream Demon (1988)

      An Angel For Satan (1966)

      The Night of the Devils (1972)

      The Halloween Tree by Ray Brabury (1972)

29- Cabinet of Curiosities: The Viewing (2022)

      Cabinet of Curiosities: The Autopsy (2022)

      The Antichrist (1974)

      Seeding of A Ghost (1983)

      The Iron Rose (1973)

      "The Dunwich Horror" by H.P. Lovecraft

30- Decision to Leave (2022) (The Music Box)

      Crimson Peak (2015) (R)

31- Poltergeist (1982) (R)

      Nosferatu (1922) (R)

      The Lords of Salem (2012) (R)

      Creepshow (1982) (R)

NOVEMBER

1- Natural Enemies (1979)

3- Triangle of Sadness (2022) (Marcus Cinema Orland Park)

5- The Headless Woman (2008)

8- The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy (2022)

9- Vortex (2022)

10- Nixon (1995) (R)

12- Soft and Quiet (2022)

13- Scenes From A Marriage: Scene 1 (1973)

14- Altmann's Tongue by Brian Evenson (1994)

     Scenes From A Marriage: Scene 2 (1973)

     The Collector (1965)

15- Is That Black Enough For You? (2022)

     Scenes From A Marriage: Scenes 3 & 4 (1973)

16- Scenes From A Marriage: Scene 5 (1973)

17- Flowers of Shanghai (1998)

18- Scenes From A Marriage: Scene 6 (1973)

19- Married to the Mob (1988)

      Bullitt (1968) (R)

23- The Outfit (1973)

24- Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino (2022)

      American Movie (1999) (R)

25- The Godfather (1972) (R)

      Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn (2021)

26- Fear and Loathing On the Campain Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson (1973)

      Bone (1972)

      The Smiling Ghost (1941)

      The Other Side of the Underneath (1972)

27- The Mafu Cage (1978)

28- Liberation Day by George Saunders (2022)

      Drug War (2012)

      In the Soup (1992)

      Hi, Mom! (1970)

29- Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972)

      Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart At the River Styx (1972)

      Atlanta (4 episodes)

30- Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (1972)

      Atlanta (4 episodes)

DECEMBER

1- Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart In Peril (1972)

    Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart In the Land of Demons (1973)

    Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven In Hell (1974)

    Atlanta (3 episodes)

2- The Yakuza (1974)

    Hardcore (1979)

3- To Be Or Not to Be (1942) (R)

4- Invasion USA (1985)

5- Touki Bouki (1973)

    Bones and All (2022) (Marcus Cinema)

    Hotel Monterey (1973)

6- Thieves Highway (1949)

8- Dead Bang (1989)

9- I Come In Peace (1990)

11- BFI Film Classics: Jeanne Dielman by Catherine Fowler (2022)

13- The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

      The Fabelmans (2022) (Marcus Cinema)

14- Prancer (1989)

      Ambulance (2022)

15- I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb (1998) (11/29-12/15)

      Morvern Callar (2002) (R)

16- Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)

      Maniac Cop 2 (1990) (R)

      The White Lotus (2 episodes)

17- The White Lotus (2 episodes)

18- Burning Paradise (1994)

      The White Lotus (4 episodes)

19- The White Lotus (4 episodes)

      The Children (2008)

      Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) (R)

20- The White Lotus

      Contempt (1963)

      All Light, Everywhere (2021)

      The Assistant (2020)

21- Joint Security Area (2000)

22- Black Christmas (1974) (R)

      The Shop Around the Corner (1940) (R)

23- Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy (2022)

24- Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

      The Silent Partner (1978) (R)

25- It's A Wonderful Life (1946) (R)

26- Babylon (2022) (AMC Crestwood 18)

      Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928)

      Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

      Sr. (2022)

27- Emily the Criminal (2022)

      Glass Onion (2022)

29- Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) (R)

     My Best Fiend (1999)

30- White Noise (2022)

31- Ikiru (1952) (R)

72

"Those who fail to learn from the brutal stompings visited to them in the past are doomed to be brutally stomped in the future." 

  -Hunter S. Thomspon, Christmas Eve 1972

"Kill everyone now. Condone first degree murder. Advocate cannibalism. Eat shit." 

   -Divine on her political beliefs, Pink Flamingos

Four more years. Those three dreaded words. A second term for a dreaded presidential figure. It's not 1984. It's 1972. We are still in the Vietnam War. It was the year 5 White House operatives were arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee. The US and the Soviet Union sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. NASA's space shuttle program is launched. And a little movie adapted from a Mario Puzo novel is released. 

It's another banger of a year for film. Once again exemplifying the bounty that this decade had to offer. Action, comedy, blaxpoitation, samurai, heavy drama, thriller, psychological thriller, zombie flick, character study, and so forth. Many of which are rough around the edges. 

TOP 30 OF 1972

1. Aguirre: Wrath of God

Ants conquering a hill and calling themselves gods. A raft overtaken by monkeys. Opening and closing shots that tower among just about anything put to celluloid. A precursor to the indifference of nature we will see in movies like Sorcerer and Apocalypse Now. 

2. The Godfather

I was around 12 years old. It was a Friday night which meant I was going to my grandma's house. A place where I would retreat to the back bedroom and gorge myself on the SciFi channel. Back when it wasn't known for Asylum Pictures and instead for Twilight Zones and Mystery Science Theater 3000. In the room there was this dresser where upon I discovered a book. It was a yellow pulpy paperback. The title read 'The Godfather'. I flipped through it knowing that it was a prestigous movie. Before I took up reading as a hobby outside of school, this was a book that would never be assigned in class. "How cool!" 

I would eventually see the movie and, like everyone else who sees it, fall in love. My love reached far and deep. I soon had to know everything about the Corleone Family. I would print out a family tree and timeline of events in the Corelone Family Saga. The family member who I would come to find the most fascinating was the consigliere Tom Hagen. I still do to this day. Say all you want about Sofia Coppola in The Godfather Part III, the biggest missing piece of the puzzle to that movie was no Tom. 

Watching it again for it's 50th anniversary, I found Walter Murch's editing and specifically the use of scenes fading out/fading in over Carmine Coppola's score to give this haunting weight. There's the fadeout/fade in of Paulie's demise in the car over Michael sitting alone in the courtyard. The fade out/fade in of Sonny's corpse by the tollbooth over Tom Hagen sitting down in the office, waiting to break the tragic news to Vito. 

3. Deliverance

'It does for the woods what Jaws did for the beach'. This was before Jaws, but the sentiment is felt. Movies set in the woods or the jungle have an elemental pull for me. This may have been the one that kicked that off. The sequence this film is most well known for has etched it's false teeth into my nightmares.

4. Solaris

Tarkovsky made three masterpieces in the the 70s. This was the first of them. It's also the movie I would point anyone new to this master to. 

Solaris is a prime example of using the form to dive into our innermost selves so effectively and transformatively. Emotions and memories are culled to the surface. Like hs other work, I feel the film has yet to reveal its secrets to me. Which keeps me coming back to it. 

5. Play It Again, Sam

The best Allen film of the 70's was one he didn't even direct. The art gallery scene is canon for me. 

6. Pink Flamingos

True outsider cinema. When people say John Waters, the image that seems synonymous with him is Divine eating dogshit.  

7. Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion

The movie that made Meiko Kaji a star and a grindhouse icon. The Female Prisoner movies are all good but this is the best place to start. It's a pop art blood soaked nightmare that is loud, chaotic, and bleak yet offers opulent visual stylization to keep you entranced. 

8. The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant

Scott Walker's In My Room always comes to mind when I think of this movie. The staging of characters in a room that Fassbinder pulls off here is masterful. Looming paintings, twisted mannequins, confining spaces.  

9. Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart At the River Styx/Baby Cart In Peril

The second in the Lone Wolf and Cub series picks up where Sword of Vengeance left off and ups the ante on just about everything. The villains are cooler, Daigoro (and his cart) actually get involed(!!!), and the arterial spray is even messier. The original badass father-son duo.  

The fourth installment is the first one not directed by Kenji Misumi. The action moves further away from villages and into wide open landscapes. The baby cart is basically turned into a military tank in this one. 

10. Images

Want to learn the importance of sound design? This should be on the shortlist for your syllabus. Right next to one of the great female performances of the decade in Susannah York. One of the thinghs I loved about Altman's run in the 70's was the stylistic diversity. We saw him tackle the mosaic film (Nashville), a western (McCabe and Mrs. Miller), neo-noir (The Long Goodbye), comedy (MASH). Here he tackles the psychological thriller and as per usual, succeeds. 

11. Top of the Heap

One of the many fascinating things about Black Cinema during this period were the myriad paths it took. It wasn't just blaxpoitation flicks. Top of the Heap sees Christopher St. John (Shaft) take the directing reigns of a study on the socio-political conditions of a violent black cop who carries out the orders of the man. Only to have his brain broken by this contradictory position, leading him to retreat into fantasy. 

12. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

The trilogy of movies Luis Bunuel did in the 70's (this along with The Phantom of Liberty and That Obscure Object of Desire) is anarchic cinema at the height of its powers. Destroying class systems one surreal sequence at a time. 

13. Across 110th Street

Anytime Yaphet Kotto is in a movie, it is an indicator you are going to be watching something good. In it's 102 runtime, this thing packs a punch. The performances, writing, dialogue, soundtrack and New York city shots are all top notch here. The inner-department racism of the NYPD is as contemporary a headline as it was back in 1972. 

14. Don't Torture A Duckling

Fulci's poison pen hate letter to Catholicism. Soundtracked with a stellar Riz Ortolani score.

15. All the Colours of the Dark

A giallo that mingles with satanic blood orgies, hallucinations and stars the gorgeous Edwige Fenech. There's nothing not to love here.  

16. Sisters

DePalma's first use of split screen an it won't be his last. Mix Hitchcock, some Argento-esque giallo, and some of Polanski's apartment thriller paranoia and you get what DePalma was going for here. 

17. Fat City

John Huston does Leonard Gardner's gritty novel of down and out boxers justice with Jeff Bridges, Stacy Keach and Susan Tyrrell all giving knockout performances.  

18. Frenzy

Hitch's last good film always leaves a lingering aftertaste. What if he was his age in 50's that he was in the 70's? Would the studio limitations he was under then no longer shackler him in the 70's? What work would we have? The closest we have to an answer is Brian DePalma picking up where Hitchcock left off. 

19. Tombs of the Blind Dead

Coolest looking zombies ever? Amando de Ossorio's Knights of the Templar are certainly in the running. This is the second film that is a part of a series. The thicking rolling atmosphere, the abandoned temple ruins, slow motion zombies on horseback. This is the type of shit I salivate over. 

20. Cabaret

The way Fosse shows how Nazi propaganda slowly takes over German culture is truly chilling. It's all about that ending.  

21. What's Up Doc?

The first Bogdonavich I saw which endeared him to me. Not much of a Streisand fan, but she nails her role here. One of the highlights of the piece is a San Francisco chase scene that clearly influenced the chase scenes in Wayne's World, Blues Brothers and The Sandlot. 

22. Bone

Larry Cohen's incendiary debut is another one of those "will never get made today" movies. He gives us a gift we always wanted: Yaphet Kotto in a lead role. Cohen's brand of satirical horror is on full display here even when it's not attached to genre. 

23. The Getaway

McQueen's last true star vehicle was this 1972 Peckinpah flick opposite Ali McGraw. It plays out in an almost proto-Michael Mann way. Add to that a Walter Hill penned screenplay with brutal twists and turn that reveal the complexities of the characters and you have a winning formula. 

Forget the Baldwin/Basinger remake and watch this one.  

24. What Have You Done to Solange?

More like What Have You Done to Fabio Testi's hair? One of the best looking giallos produced during the explosion of the subgenre. Another giallo that deals with Catholicism. 

25. Un Flic

The last film from Jean-Pierre Melville. Over any director from French cinema during the 50s and 60s, Melville always stood out to me as the most exciting. Plus, Alain Delon is just beautiful to look at. 

26. Tales From the Crypt

British horror at this time was divided into two studios: Hammer and Amicus. The latter saw a release of a number of anthology films. Most notably, Asylum and this one in the same year. There isn't a particularly weak story here, which is why it's my favorite Amicus production. Doesn't hurt that it's based off the very thing that got me into horror in the first place. 

27. Death Line

Gary Sherman's career is underrated to the point of tears. Raw Meat aka Death Line is his first good work. "Mind the doors, please."

28. The Night Stalker

In the pantheon of good TV-movies, The Night Stalker is a worthy feature from a TV Series I would catch on the Sci-Fi channel.

29. Prime Cut

Michael Ritchie was on a hot streak from 1969 to 1975, directing movies that included Downhill Racer, The Candidate, Smile, The Bad News Bears and this movie starring Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Sissy Spacek, and a chase sequence featuring one of the biggest pieces of farm equipment I've seen.

30. Horror Express

As Hammer was pumping out movie after movie, the studio stable actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing still found time to star in something like this together. 

Jeanne Dielmann, Sight and Sound, and the Discourse

 

Well, it happened.For the second time in a row. Every ten years since 1952, film publication Sight and Sound asks a group of film professionals what the best movies of all time are. A list of ten is selected by each. The first poll conducted had The Bicycle Thieves (1949, Vitorrio De Sica) top the list. From 1962 through 2002, the reigning champion was Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles). Then in 2012, Hitchcock's 1958 masterpiece Vertigo- unrecognized as such at the time of its release- toppled the mighty Kane to place 1st on the list. Both of these films are major works in film history. Welles inventing many techniques with his 1941 debut that would be utilized in the future. While Hitchcock crafting what is viewed by many to be th ultimate tale of obsession. This years sees feminist masterwork Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (whew) top the list. 

The criticism of Jeanne Dielman being on #1 borders on laughable and absurd. Some of the comments I've come across: 

"The Critics List has officially jumped the shark."

"The day the cinema stood dead." (My personal favorite. The thought of something standing while dead is amusing.)

"RIP Sight and Sound poll"

"The majority of critics decided to sacrifice art to the altar of political correctness and woke ideology." 

Even Paul Schrader got in on the action. Calling Dielman topping the list a case of 'distorted woke reappraisal.'

Then there were the additions of Get Out, Portrait of A Lady On Fire, Moonlight and Parasite. Four movies from the past 10 years that were deemed unworthy because of how recent they were. With Shrader's logic, would these films- which focus on the black experience, LGBTQ and class struggle- be woke reappraisal? Films like Battleship Potemkin and Battle of Algiers are fervently political but they still manage to make the list. Why are those film not considered 'woke' but more recent films are? I've always been repulsed by identity politics but in the case of art, the notion of rejecting a film like Parasite because it is too recent or too woke kind of crumbles when you consider that, in 1952, the film that topped the poll was a film from 1949. Should we just put a stop-gap on any films made after 1980? The entire argument is missing the point. We are no longer looking at the films themselves. Instead, we're looking at the social issues the films tackle and whether or not they are released within an acceptable time frame. 

The best part of this list is the individual results rather than the collective. Did Michael Mann's list change from the last time? What about the new directors who were polled like Ari Aster and Robert Eggers? Lists like these are always helpful when navigating new stuff to watch. 

The potential to dismiss something that you are uncomfortable with doesn't cross my mind. Shunning people or making people feel stupid is a good way to perpetuate this toxic discourse. The more we hold people to an untenable standard, the more cinephiles you will see out there saying "fuck Jeanne Dielmann, never heard of it". The problem here is that no one wants to show that person the film or educate them as to why it is important. 

Jeanne Dielman is not an easy film to just throw on and watch and if you were to tell someone it is, you would be lying. You don't start with something like that if you want to get a taste of what the filmmaker Chantal Akerman is about. You start small. Start with her New York films like Hotel Monterrey or News From Home. Or start with other French filmmakers making films during Akerman's time. Agnes Varda for example. To tell someone they don't understand a 3+ hour long foreign film and just go watch it, then have them sit through it all only to have them say they didn't like it is missing the important cultural context and place in film history the film belongs. Akerman was turning a sharp left while even some of her more radical contemporary peers (Like Welles and Hitchcock) were still turning right.

Even within those films like Vertigo, it's important to understand just how different a genre film made today differs from something like Vertigo. Everything is hyper stylized. The editing is more frenetic. Sitting in a theater nowadays, there are more cuts in the trailers leading up to a movie than the entirety of JFK. Now compare that to a handful of cuts in a movie over 3 hours long. 

From a personal standpoint, what made me love Jeanne Dielmann was how it managed to slow time down to the point where the everyday routine of a woman bordered on an action film. What differs from the first time she makes veal to the next time? Well her hair is disheveled. Or she pours the water to make tea slightly different than the last time. By focusing on the minutaie, we are able to extract the details that carry us along the runtime. 

Process has always been something of a fascination to me. As a kid, I'd love watching the capsules get sucked up the tubes at a bank drive thru. I would even imitate the sound of my grandparents garage door opening and closing. This led me to begging my mom to buy me a little gingerbread house contraption so I could mimic the opening and closing of the little door to my hearts content. This fascination with process would carry over into my love of film. I was attracted toward police procedurals, docudramas and even a show like The Wire. Bresson's films like A Man Escaped and L'Argent would follow and while they would examine things like how a prisoner escapes or the transaction of a dollar bill across characters, nothing would prepare me for what I would get myself into. 

When I first saw Jeanne Dielmann, I felt like I hit the goldmine. This was the ultimate movie about process. More than that, the experimentation with narrative was of a kind I never saw before. Up there with when I first saw Eraserhead or 2001. 

To give some context, Chantal Akerman, born in Belgium, moved to New York in 1971. A place where she would begin her craft. She was exposed to the avant garde filmmaking of Michael Snow and Jonas Mekas which she said were "the most determing factor on my cinematography." It was during this time, that Akerman discovered that cinema could be unshackled from traditional narrative, that one doesn't need to tell a story to generate suspense and emotion from images. 

The films she made during that time often consisted of few set ups and long takes. Hotel Monterey being crucial in the lead up to Jeanne Dielman. The film takes place in a run down Upper West Side hotel. The shoot would last night, around fifteen straight hours. It would be her first experiment in duration. Getting the viewer lulled into the passage of time as well as the boundaries of space. We see this explode in Jeanne Dielman, where she pushes that experimentation to its limits. She was only 24 when she made it. 

In the BFI Classics book on the film, Catherine Fowler posits that of all the traits the movie shares, being 'contrary' is the one that is most prevalent. "This is because it puts on display the ambivalence that strongly accompanies the work of the housewife and the mother. Those who saw the film on its first release agreed that it shows actions hardly ever seen before in cinema, and what is more it shows them in excruciating detail." Fowler continues "It accomplishes something that very few other films have managed: it makes the housewife and mother see,"

Being led to a film like this requires a sense of nurture in discovery and discourse We were all budding movie fans at one point. The more we are able to put ourselves in someone else's shoes, someone who was at the same point we were, the better the discourse. 

Here's what my list would be:

The Devils (1971, Ken Russell)

Sorcerer (1977, William Friedkin)

Eraserhead (1977, David Lynch)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)

Magnolia (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson)

GoodFellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)

A Brighter Summer Day (1991, Edward Yang)

The Mirror (1975, Andrei Tarkovsky)

The Battle of Algiers (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo)

Possession (1981, Andrzej Zulawski)

What would your list look like?