Fifteen high school albums I still enjoy

Here are fifteen albums I bought during high school that I still dig. An idea mopped from Alfred Soto's blog, this is an odd exercise for me because I honestly cannot think of an album I purchased at the time that I dislike now. But here are fifteen hot platters in heavy rotation during my pimplier, greasier days. Look at all that punk, pre- and post-! The poptimism bug didn't bite me until reading Spin in college, c. 1989 so there's not much black music or dance/disco here. And pop meant new wave to this white, MTV-addicted suburbanite for almost the entire decade. Country would remain closed off to me until I received Rhino's The Best of Lefty Frizzell for Xmas 1991. No Afropop either until reading Xgau in 1990. And so on.

1. Burning Ambitions: A History of Punk (Cherry Red, 1982)
2. The Jesus and Mary Chain: Psychocandy (Blanco y Negro, 1985)
3. Dead Kennedys: Plastic Surgery Disasters (Alternative Tentacles, 1982)
4. Wham!: Fantastic (Columbia, 1983)
5. Laurie Anderson: Home of the Brave (Warner Bros., 1986)
6. Meat Puppets (SST EP, 1981)
7. Mudhoney: Superfuzz Bigmuff (Sub Pop EP, 1988)
8. Butthole Surfers: Locust Abortion Technician (Touch & Go, 1987)
9. The Residents: Commercial Album (Ralph, 1980)
10. Big Black: Songs About Fucking (Touch and Go, 1987)
11. Ministry: Twitch (Sire, 1986)
12. Dinosaur Jr.: You're Living All Over Me (SST, 1987)
13. The Fall: The Wonderful and Frightening World Of... (Beggars Banquet, 1984)
14. Prince and the Revolution: Purple Rain (Paisley Park, 1984)
15. The Velvet Underground: VU (Verve, 1985)
Edit: I totally forgot Violent Femmes (Slash, 1983) which I listened to obsessively in high school!

Feel That New Hollywood Train Comin'!

A double feature that I call Feel That New Hollywood Train Comin'! Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966) is a Twilight Zone episode stretched to feature length. But a damn gripping one every frame of the way. More shocking than the shots of peen in the grape-stomping Bacchanal scene (since it was apparently cut from the American first run) was the mention of a microwave oven. I had no clue they were around that early even as a status symbol. Then, oh boy, Reflections in a Golden Eye (John Huston, 1967) in the version slathered with golden caterpillar guts. I found the secondary coupling of the de facto spinster Alison (Julie Harris, incredible as always) and screaming Filipino queen Anacleto (Zorro David*) far more intriguing than Liz/Brando's gothic S/M. Not a terribly likeable film but a fascinating example of how haywire things can get (so everyone was okay with that preposterous final shot, huh?) when "dealing with" homosexuality. As for Robert Forster, dat ass! 

*IMDb lists this as his only film. He died on my birthday in 2008 in one city over from where I was raised!
Grades for both: B-plus

The Killing of Sister George (Robert Aldrich, 1968)

Lawd, this was difficult to get through! It reminded me of the most overrated film of all time - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966). Why do the characters in both films act as if they've been stricken with hebephrenia? I know Susannah York's Childie is supposed to be an adult baby (of sorts) but what's the excuse for the other characters? As with Woolf, why do they sound like Martians trying out English for the first time? Was it a function of transferring plays to film? Was this considered great acting then (and now?)? As with Prêt-à-Porter and Gosford Park, I see no huge qualitative differences between the two films. I also can't see Aldrich, the fine stylist of Kiss Me Deadly and Ulzana's Raid, in this at all. Help?
Grade: a tentative B-minus

My ten favorite middlebrow films!

This was tough! Lots of second guessing. Can Mike Leigh and Ken Loach possibly be middlebrow? Powell/Pressburger? Michael Mann? John Boorman? I judged Suddenly, Last Summer and Pandora and the Flying Dutchman as finally too wacky to be included. I tried to avoid great directors thus leaving off Ford and Preminger. But I think I chose wisely with Minnelli and Hitchcock. I loved The Dresser (Peter Yates, 1983) as a kid but haven’t seen it since. My favorite Ingmar Bergmans tend to be his least middlebrow (The Silence, Persona, Hour of the Wolf). I’ve seen precious little Kurosawa. Etc.

1. The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006)
2. Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984)
3. The Holly and the Ivy (George More O’Ferrall, 1952)
4. Yolanda and the Thief (Vincente Minnelli, 1945)
5. Cast Away (Robert Zemeckis, 2000)
6. Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock, 1949)
7. Diabolique (aka Les diaboliques) (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)
8. Victim (Basil Dearden, 1961)
9. Quills (Philip Kaufman, 2000)
10. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)

Breaking Bad (2008-2013)

I finally finished Breaking Bad and while in terms of pure narrative locomotion certain episodes were gripping, it wasn't worth the 2 days and 14 hours (according to my new favorite site Bingeclock) it took to watch the series. It's a familiar problem with serial narrative - the writers build up the intensity of single episodes but ignore how those events (especially the violence) impact the characters over the entire story arc. They just absorb the blows and move on. And for a show so intricately plotted and relentlessly punctual, it gets sloppy with that larger arc. For instance, the baby just disappears for huge stretches of time. While babies cannot walk away in slow motion from exploding buildings, they depend on us for everything and are thus a constant presence...or should be. Also, I always felt a larger context governing The Sopranos, some distance from all the horrors, whereas Breaking Bad seems way more local in its concerns. The writers/creator are too in thrall to Walter White, in awe of his ability to withstand inhuman pressure and commit all sorts of agony. That said, I did like the fifth and final season quite a bit, mostly likely because I could feel the end coming. I was more moved by the last two episodes than the revered "Ozymandias" which I suspect is loved because so much of the narrative comes home to roost there.

The Vietnam War (Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, 2017)

I was hoping The Vietnam War would offer some sliver of a justification for the war. Instead, the 1,035-minute documentary confirmed that it was a completely fucking pointless, to put it lightly, waste of lives. While I have some reservations (especially the opening narration), here are observations/things I learned:

1. The documentary sets the most immediate cause as Charles de Gaulle’s unwillingness to get France out of Vietnam after WWII for fear that France would “fall into the Russian orbit.” As for America (from the narration): “President Truman, who was being blamed by his political opponents for having ‘lost’ China, and having failed to ‘contain’ communism, approved a $23 million aid program for the French in Vietnam. The United States was no longer neutral.”

2. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was obsessed with charts and stats and graphs, “more data than could ever be adequately analyzed.” What was missing in all those metrics, according to Pentagon head of special operations Edward Lansdale was “the feelings of the Vietnamese people.”

3. In 1965, Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton outlined America’s objective in the war: "70% -- to avoid a humiliating US defeat...; 20% -- to keep SVN [South Vietnam]...territory from Chinese hands; 10% -- to permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer way of life.”

4. Ho Chi Minh wrote letters to Presidents Wilson and Truman (!) that various underlings most likely never delivered.

5. Donald P. Greek of the CIA: “We should have seen it as the end of the colonial era in Southeast Asia, which it really was. But instead we saw it in Cold War terms, and we saw it as a defeat for the free world that was related to the rise of China. And that was a total misreading of a pivotal event which cost us very dearly.”

6. Army adviser Sam Wilson: “We are prisoners of our own experience. And many of the things that we learned in WWII were not applicable to the war in Vietnam. We simply thought that we would go in with a sledgehammer, knock things down, clean them up and it would be all over. And it’s very, very difficult to dispel ignorance if you retain arrogance.”

7. J. William Fulbright (D. - Ark.): "[America] is quite strong enough to engage in a compromise.”

8. Diplomat George F. Kennan: “We would do better if we would show ourselves a little more relaxed and less terrified of what happens in certain of the smaller countries of Asia and Africa, and not jump around like an elephant frightened by a mouse every time these things occur.” Also: “I have fear that our thinking about this whole problem is still affected by some sort of illusions about invincibility on our part.” But, it should be noted, Kennan was the chief architect behind Soviet containment and he supported short-term intervention in Vietnam.

9. Karl Marlantes, U.S. marine: “Sometimes I think if we thought we weren't always the good guys, we might actually get in less wars.”

10. I need to learn more about the [Anna] Chennault Affair wherein Nixon halted peace talks to ensure his election as president although the Richard Nixon Foundation vehemently denies this (no, I won't link to them).

11. Most Vietnamese soldiers were poor people from the countryside.

12.  Vincent Okamoto, Army soldier: “So the other reason put forth, at least in the latter days of the war, was to maintain America's international credibility with our allies, and our enemies. Uh, no 19, 20-year-old kid wants to die to maintain the credibility of Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon.”

13. I never heard of Jan Howard: “My Son” before this series.

14. Nixon’s approval rating soared to 68% after his Silent Majority speech in 1969.

15. 58% of Americans thought the Kent State killings were justified.

16. 11 days after the Kent State killings, two black students (Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green) were shot and killed at Jackson State University by Mississippi Highway Patrol.

17. Journalist Neil Sheehan: “[My Lai] was different because they were killing Vietnamese point blank. With rifles and grenades. They were murdering them directly. They weren’t doing it with bombs and artillery. If they were doing it with bombs and artillery nobody would have said a word because it was going on all the time.”

18. 79% of American disagreed with Lieutenant William Calley’s guilty verdict for his role in the My Lai massacre. although the series does not suggest that some of that outrage may be due to Calley being the only person who was convicted.

19. On the evacuation of the US Embassy in Saigon on April 30, 1975: “[Ambassador Graham Martin] was a resolute Cold Warrior who had been appointed to reassure Thieu of continuing American backing, and his feelings had only been intensified by the death of his son in Vietnam.

An old tamarind tree stood in the center of the courtyard. Again and again, the Marines asked Ambassador Martin for permission to cut it down so as not to interfere with the lift-offs and landings they were certain would soon have to begin. He always refused. That tree was a symbol of American resolve, he said. Cutting it down would send the wrong message.”

20. On the Cambodian-Vietnamese War: “A frustrating ten-year counterinsurgency campaign followed [in 1978] that some called ‘Vietnam's Vietnam.’ Before it was over, the Vietnamese would lose some 50,000 more men, almost as many as the Americans had lost in their war.”

21. Tim O’Brien, who served in Vietnam 1969-1970, on not dodging the draft: “What prevented me from doing it? It was a fear of embarrassment, a fear of ridicule and humiliation. What my girlfriend would have thought of me and what the people in the Gobbler Cafe in downtown Worthington would have thought. The things they’d say about me: ‘What a coward and what a sissy for going to Canada.’ I would imagine my mom and dad overhearing something like that. I couldn’t summon the courage to say no to those nameless, faceless people who really in essence represented the United States of America. And I’ve had to live with it now for, you know, forty years. That’s a long time to live with a failure of conscience and a failure of nerve. And the nightmare of Vietnam for me is not the bombs and the bullets. It’s that failure of nerve that I so regret.”

 

Contagion (Steven Soderbergh, 2011)

I'm of two minds about this one. Its 106 minutes move like five, especially since its when-not-if scenario is happening now. This is the result of Soderbergh's unwillingness/inability to bring the film's many mini-stories to conclusion. Not only do the clipped narratives add to the overall breathlessness but it augments the panic and confusion engendered by the pandemic. But it's clear that Soderbergh was biting off more than he can chew since he brings the grandest narrative to a close with the creation of a vaccine. And in keeping with Hollywood's propensity for narrative redundancy, he reminds us that the film is coming to a close with the formation of a heterosexual couple (i.e., the teens who finally get to enjoy prom) before the epilogue tracing the exact moment of animal-to-Paltrow transmission (although note that it's humans clearing trees with tractors that kick it off). Add some anti-union sentiments with respect to protesting nurses and you get a film with radical and conservative energies battling one another, a perfect model for Soderbergh's cinema.

Edit: I totally forgot that the pandemic is blamed on the perfidy of woman, i.e., Paltrow's affair so I'm bumping the grade down.
Grade: B-minus

Impossible To Find Films

In the wake of archives (and individual collectors/hoarders, I assume) making some holy grails finally available (Lupe! The Wind Is Driving Him Toward the Open Sea! Stop!), I felt it was time to revisit a list of impossible to find films I compiled from a Facebook thread started by the great film critic Adrian Martin and some other source I can longer remember/find. And below that is my own want list. Some notes:

1. No, of course, these aren't the only impossible to find films. Far from it.
2. * means they've been found. No English subs means they've been found but don't have English subtitles.
3. Some phrasing is not mine but copied and pasted from wherever.
4. Forgive the garbled formatting. It was time-consuming enough italicizing all the titles.

Against the Grain: More Meat Than Wheat (Tim Burns)
El alimento del miedo (1996) Juan Lopez Moctezuma
Andy (Richard Sarafian, 1965) (rough, out-of-sync copy on YouTube)
Appunti per un romanzo dell'immondezza (Pasolini)
Aspern (1985) Eduardo de Gregorio
Asphalt (Kim Ki-young, 1964)
Bastien, Bastienne (Michel Andrieu, 1979)
Batman Dracula (Andy Warhol)
Benares (Barlen Pyamootoo, 2005)
Berlin (Grandrieux)
Beyond the Ocean (Ben Gazzara, 1990)
Blue Movie (Andy Warhol, 1969)
Brandy in the wilderness by Stanton Kaye
BREAK THE NEWS (Rene Clair, 1938)
The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple (1928) Zhang Shichuan
Canzo Empyrean (Baron Ambrosia, 2008)
Cinéastes de notre temps: Pierre Perrault -L'action parlée (Jean-Louis Comolli, 1968)
Crystal Gazing (Laura Mulvey)
Dead End (Emerson Bixby) (may be a hoax)
Deathwalkers (Joe Ford, 1989)
The Diary of Anne Frank Part II (Harmony Korine)
Dios los cria 1 & 2 (Jacobo Morales)
The Doll's Breath (Stephen & Timothy Quay, 2019)
Do Not Throw Cushions Into The Ring (Steve Ihnat)
Drift (Paul W. S. Anderson)
EISENHANS (Tankred Dorst) 
L'estate breve (Raoul Ruiz)
É tudo invenção nossa (Pedro Costa)
An Experience Worth Dying For (Kim Ki-young, 1995) 
Female Kilink (1967)
La femme intégrale (Claudine Guilmain, 1979)
Flooding in the time of Draught (Sherman Ong)
FUJIWARA YOSHIIE NO FURUSATO (Mizoguchi, 1930)
Georg (Stanton Kaye, 1964)
A Girl on Her Own (Philippe Nahoun, 1976)
The Girl Who Picks Flowers and the Girl Who Kills Insects (Hitoshi Yazaki, 2000)
Gone, Gone, Forever Gone (1996) Ho Quang Minh
Hashi (2009) Sherman Ong
Him (Ed Louie, 1974)
Inside Looking Out (Paul Cox, 1978)
Der Januskopf (Murnau)
Je ne suis pas morte (Jean-Charles Fitoussi)
The Joys and Sorrows of Youth (Chor Yuen, 1969)
Kutsukake Tokijiro (Kichiro Tsuji) (1929?)
Kalyi: Age of Darkness (1993) Fred Kelemen
Lanton Mills (Malick)
The Loner (Abel Ferrara)
Lost Angels (2000) Kaizo Hayashi
Love of Blood Relations (Kim Ki-Young, 1976)
Maldoror (1977, Alberto Cavallone)
Mamma, pappa, barn (Marie-Louise De Geer Bergenstråhle)
Marry Me Again (Frank Tashlin)
Motive (Michael McClard)
Nevelésügyi sorozat I. (György Fehér, 1989)
News From Nowhere (Paul Morrissey, 2010)
Les noces de sable/Desert Wedding (Andre Zwoboda)
ONNA NO SAKA aka A Woman's Uphill Slope (Yoshimura Kozaburo, 1960) I could've sworn this was available at one point.
Parajanov, the Last Spring (Sergei Parajanov & Mikhail Vartanov, 1992)
Peasants (Kim Ki-Young, 1978)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Meyerhold)
Porch Glider (James Herbert)
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (uncut) (Billy Wilder)
Promises Written in Water (Vincent Gallo)
Provocation (Du gamla, du fria) by Öyvind Fahlström
Queen of the Castle (1991) Derrick Louw
Rainbow Farm (Rod Bishop, 1973)
Le Regard (Marcel Hanoun, 1977)
Rejtekhely (György Fehér 1978)
Rote Fahnen Sieht Man Besser (Gallehr and Schubbel, 1971)
Run Across the River (Everett Chambers, 1961)
Salt aka Sogum (1985) Shin Sang-ok
Shadows (Cassavetes) [alternate version]
Sleepwalker on the Second Floor (Leo Berkeley, 1978)
The Somali Dervish (1983) Abdulkadir Ahmed Said & Said Salah
Sophie and the Scales (Julien Pappé, 1963)
The Story of Adrien (Jean-Pierre Denis, 1980)
Sunshine City (Albie Thoms)
Il suicidio di Elsa (Bruno Pischiutta)
Time in Summer (Ludwik Dutkiewicz, 1968)
Tofalaria (1986, Sharunas Bartas)
Transfiguration (Ludwik Dutkiewicz, 1964)
Turkish Batgirl (1972)
Véronique, or The Summer of My Thirteenth Year (Claudine Guilmain, 1975)
Volpone (György Fehér, 1974)
Words of Mercury (Jerome Hiler, 2011)
Yackety Yack (Dave Jones, 1974)

Films by
Abdellatif Abdelhamid Abdul-Hamid except for Our Hands, Nights of the Jackal, and Verbal Letters
Maroun Baghdadi/Bagdadi
Noémia Delgado
Antonio de Macedo
R. Bruce Elder
Dr. Bhupen Hazarika
Teo Hernandez
James Herbert
Med Hondo
Tyler Hubby
Mark LaPore
Anastasia Lapsui & Markku Lehmuskallio
The early Jerry Lewis directed shorts, which I think were only screened to friends and collaborators
Anne-Marie Miéville
Peter Nestler
Kenji Onishi
António Reis & Margarida Cordeiro
Kinuyo Tanaka

Adolf and Marlene (Ulli Lommel, 1977)* no English subs
Agnes (Egill Edvardsson, 1995)* no English subs
Alertez les bébés (Jean-Michel Carre)* no English subs
The Breath (1996) Kaizo Hayashi* no English subs
Calixto the Landlord (Sami Kafati, 2003)* no English subs (but French subs!)
A certain day, I . . . (ある日わたしは/Aruhi watashi wa) directed by Okamoto Kihachi (1959)* no English subs
Compagne nude (Bruno Pischiutta)* no English subs
The Destiny of Juliette (Aline Issermann, 1980)* no English subs
Dora and the Magic Lantern (1978) Pascal Kane* no English subs
Film sur Georges Perec (Catherine Binet, 1990)* no English subs
From Somalia with Love (Frédéric Mitterrand, 1982)* (no Eng subs)
Giltrutt (1957) Jónas Jónasson* (no Eng subs)
I Remember (Sami Frey, 1990)* no English subs
The Italian of the Roses (Charles Matton, 1972)* no English subs (but French subs!)
The Kiss Thief/The Dangerous Kiss/Seppun dorobô (Kawashima Yuzo, 1960)* no English subs
UN MONDE NOUVEAU (Vittorio De Sica, 1966)* no English subs
Rainbow’s end (1983, Kristin Johannesdottir)* no English subs
Rare Floating Dreams (Eizo Sugawa)* no English subs
Return to Sarajevo (Philippe Grandrieux, 1996)* no English subs
III. Richárd (György Fehér, 1973)* no English subs
Search Two (1981) Amir Naderi* no English subs
Spring Night (Erik Solbakken, 1976)* no English subs
The Stigma of Death (Peter Handke, 1985)* no English subs
Terirem (1987) Apostolos C. Doxiadis* no English subs
Vincent Put the Donkey in a Meadow (Pierre Zucca, 1975)* no English subs
The Wastrel (1961) Michael Cacoyannis/Mihalis Kakogiannis* no English subs
What Makes Frau B Happy? (Erika Runge, 1968)* no English subs
White Journey/Weiße Reise (Werner Schroeter)* no English subs
Les yeux brûlés by Laurent Roth* no English subs

Acht Stunden sind kein tag (Eight Hours Don't Make a Day) (Fassbinder, 1972)*
Adam 2 (Jan Lenica)*
Afternoon Breezes (Hitoshi Yazaki, 1980)*
The Age of Success (Sun-Woo Hang)*
Appunti per un film sul jazz (Gianni Amico)*
Barnförbjudet (Marie-Louise De Geer Bergenstråhle)*
The Bath (Sergei Yutkevich)*
The Beloved Child, or I Play at Being a Married Woman (Chantal Akerman, 1971)*
Les 'bicots-Nègres' vos voisins (Med Hondo)*
Broken Glass (Kristín Jóhannesdóttir, 1988)*
El cadaver exquisito (2011) Victor Ruano*
The Contest (dir. Bulat Mansurov, 1963)*
Crossroads (La croisée des chemins) (Jean-Claude Brisseau, 1976)*
Cruelties of Cheriyachan (John Abraham, 1979)*
Cyber Palestine (Elia Suleiman, 1999)*
Dawn (Miklos Jancso, 1986)*
Degree of Murder (Volker Schlöndorff)*
Le Déménagement (Akerman)*
Demi-Tarif (Isild le Besco)*
The Dinner (Bernie Casey, 1997)*
East Side, West Side (Allan Dwan, 1927)*
Ek Dhakar Jiwan (Phurba Tshering Lama, 2015)*
The Enchantment of the Blue Sailors (Tabea Blumenschein & Ulrike Ottinger, 1975)*
The Falconer (Chris Petit, 1998)*
Une femme coquette (Godard)*
Firefly (2000) Naomi Kawase*
The Firm Man(John Duigan, 1975)*
Five Year Diary by Anne Charlotte Robertson* (Incomplete)
Flying Fish (Sanjeewa Pushpakumara)*
Four Moods (King Hu, Li Han-Hsiang…)*
Fuga for cello, trumpet and landscape (Jerzy Kucia)*
Ganga Bruta (Humberto Mauro)*
Gravity & Grace (1996) Chris Kraus*
Guns (Robert Kramer)*
Hallo Baby by Johan Bergenstråhle*
Hope and Pain (Yoji Yamada)*
A Ilha dos Amores (Paulo Rocha)*
In The Country (Robert Kramer)*
In This Life’s Body (Corinne Cantrill)*
ITSUWARERU SEISO aka ’Clothes of Deception' (Yoshimura Kozaburo, 1951)*
Jaune le soleil (Duras)*
The Kiss (Everett Chambers, 1958)*
Kentucky Pride (John Ford)*
Lady Ogin (Ogin-sama aka Love and Faith) (Kei Kumai, 1978)*
The Last Boat (1990) - Béla Tarr (City Life segment)*
Letters Home (Chantal Akerman, 1986)*
Liebe Mutter, mir geht es gut (Christian Ziewer)*
Litan (Jean-Pierre Mocky)* The Mad Fox (1962) Tomu Uchida*
Magino Story: Raising Silkworms (1977) Shinsuke Ogawa*
Malkat hakvish (Menahem Golan)*
Mania (1974) Renato Polselli*
Mano destra (Cleo Üebelmann)*
Mukundo aka Mask of Desire (2000) Tsering Rhitar Sherpa*
The Master Spearman (1960) Tomu Uchida*
Memories of a Burning Tree (Sherman Ong)*
LA MESSE DOREE (Beni Montresor)*
The Ministries of Art (Philippe Garrel, 1989)*
The Monkey Talks (Raoul Walsh)*
The Mystical Rose (Michael Lee, 1976)*
My Kingdom For… (Budd Boetticher)*
Nag van Vrees (1986) Stanley Roup* 
NAINSUKH (Amit Dutta)*
Nightmare Angel (1987) Zoe Beloff & Susan Emerling*
Nightslave (1988) John H. Parr*
Not a Pretty Picture (Martha Coolidge, 1976)*
Numéro zéro (Jean Eustache, 1971)*
Onna Gokakucho/ Naked Ambition aka. Notebook of Heinous Woman (Ikehiro Kazuo -1970)*
On the dune of solitude (Timite Bassori)*
Orchard Street by Ken Jacobs*
Org (complete version) (Fernando Birri)*
Palm Beach (Albie Thoms)*
O Pão by Manoel Oliveira*
The People in White (Bae Yong-Kyun)*
People’s War (Robert Kramer)*
The Plains of Heaven (Ian Pringle, 1982)*
Prin to telos tou kosmou (1996) Panagiotis Maroulis*
Protozoa (Darren Aronofsky, 1993)*
The Removalists (Tom Jeffrey)*
Rose of Kentucky (D.W. Griffith)*
The Sands of Kurobe (Kei Kumai)*
Sasuke and his comedians (Tai Kato)*
70’erns Folk (Watkins)*
Shirak (1988) Dariush Mehrjui*
The Sign of Leo (Rohmer)*
Stage Struck (color version) (Allan Dawn)* Not 100% certain about this one.
Stop (Bill Gunn)*
STRANGULATION BLUES (Carax)*
SZÜRKÜLET (Twilight, 1990) by György Fehér*
That Chink at Golden Gulch (D.W. Griffith)*
Towers of Silence (1975) Jamil Dehlavi*
2000 Weeks (Tim Burstall, 1969)*
O Viajante (Paulo César Saraceni)* 
Wide Angle Saxon (1975) Owen Land*
Xavier (Manuel Mozos)*
Year without a Summer (2010) Tan Chui-mui*

My Want List:
Chances (Australian TV 1991) - I know some episodes are on two DVDs but I'm keeping it here to remind me to buy them!
Corpse (James Clayden, 1982)
Divine (Arturo Ripstein) El evangelio de las Maravillas - no English subs
The Eternal Prayer (Ad Mosay) (Sidney M. Goldin, 1929) - I think this was on YouTube at one point.
The Festival of Fire (Holi) (Ketan Mehta, 1984) - no English subs
Fucking City aka Verdammte Stadt (Lothar Lambert, 1982)
Hole (John Writer) - Tell me you don't want to see this!
Incontinence: A Diarrhetic Flow of Mismatches (Manuel de Landa)
Kunst Life (Roger Jacoby, 1975)
Manhole/Manhold (David E. Durston, 1978)
Patakin (Manuel Octavio Gomez, 1985) - no English subs
Paydirt (Penny Allen, 1981)
El Pecado Original (Jose Rodriguez-Soltero, 1964)
Plainsong (Ed Stabile, '82) -Ten or so minutes were on Vimeo a while back.
The Rise and Fall of the World As Seen From A Sexual Position (Arthur Meyer, '72)
Spying (Joe Gibbons) - This DVD has a shortened version (I think).
The Story of Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Lodz (Peter Cohen)
Troika (Fredric Hobbs, 1969)
Valley of the Dolls (1994 TV series) - Some episodes are on Dailymotion but dubbed in Russian.
You've Got To Walk It Like You Talk It Or You'll Lose That Beat (Peter Locke, '71)

The Child and the Soldier (Seyyed Reza Mir-Karimi)*
Johnny Minotaur (Charles Henri Ford, 1971)*
The Last Outlaw (Christy Cabanne, 1936)*
Noghteh Zaf (The Weak Point) (Mohamad Reza Aalami, 1983)*
The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (Juleen Compton 1965)*
Stranded (Juleen Compton 1965)*
Transes--Rider on a Dead Horse (Clemens Klopfenstein)*

Roger Jacoby

The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996)

The English Patient feels alternately bloated and rushed. I'm still not certain what motivates Hana (Juliette Binoche) to hunker down in a war-ravaged monastery with her "English patient" Almásy (Ralph Fiennes) beyond a mere narrative contrivance, i.e., the ploy allows Almásy to convey his story. But then why give her a romance with sexy Kip (Naveen Andrews) 90 minutes into the film? Their scenes feel clipped and unsatisfying, needlessly expanding the running time to 162 damn minutes.

And then there's the pernicious fundamental attribution error that so much popular cinema commits. Katharine (Kristin Scott Thomas) calls for "an Earth without maps" as her dying wish. A beautiful wish (although so much avant-garde art achieves that goal). But immediately before, she intones, "We’re the real countries. Not the boundaries drawn on maps, the names of powerful men." No, in fact, we're the products of particular sociohistorical moments, shaped, if not created, by borders and the psychoses of those in power. To pretend otherwise is to honor a solipsism that renders Almásy's climactic decision (surrendering maps to the Germans in order to save Katharine) a monumental act of self-absorption rather than a heroic feat in the face of inconceivable atrocities. One terrific Hollywood film that does display how government machinations impact our everyday interactions: Ishtar (Elaine May, 1987).

Still, I dug the corny three-day trek through the desert as well as Almásy and Katharine boinking while a party sings "Silent Night" inches away. And I loved when Kip sends Hana up a rope with a flare to look at the paintings on the monastery wall (although couldn't she see them in the daylight?). Finally, gorgeous as Almásy was, I'd rather party with Katharine's husband Geoffrey (Colin Firth), boisterous and fun where Almásy was cranky (and less lustworthy than Julian Wadham's Madox).

Grade: B-minus

It Happened Tomorrow (René Clair, 1944)

It Happened Tomorrow reminded me distantly of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors in its careful, intricate plotting. Many hands were involved in (and credited for) the brilliant screenplay although it's worth noting that Clair worked on it with Dudley Nichols, the scribe behind many classic John Ford (and Lang, Renoir, Hawks, etc.) films. It's a model of narrative economy (perfect for teaching screenwriting courses!) all the way up to the very last shot. I'll end it here to preserve the surprises in this story of a 19th-century newspaperman who comes across tomorrow's newspaper. But know that it's an absolute delight.
Grade: A

Rules Don't Apply (Warren Beatty, 2016)

Despite planning a Howard Hughes biopic as far back as the 1970s, the Warren Beatty of 2016 was clearly drawn to the subject due to Hughes' compulsion to shroud himself in darkness. It proved the perfect Vaseline lens for the late-70s Beatty and it casts a grotesquely self-absorbed pall over the film. So does the fact that the film won the 2016 Alliance of Women Film Journalists EDA award for Most Egregious Age Difference Between The Lead and The Love Interest - 52 years between Beatty and Lily Collins. But as someone who hasn't lived in the spotlight, who am I to judge? And what better way to depict a grody figure like Hughes than via grotesquerie? What's most astonishing about Rules Don't Apply is how young and sprightly it feels. The thing never sits stills with a manic torrent of dialogue pummeling the viewer-auditor throughout. Period songs are clipped off in the middle. Fleet and airy, the editing partakes in the current vogue for intensified continuity. It's all in the service of portraying a world passing Beatty/Hughes by as he cedes much of the narrative and the requisite formation of the heterosexual couple/nuclear family to Collins and young-Beatty doppelgnger Aiden Ehrenreich. Maybe the film isn't so self-aborbed after all.

Grade: A-minus

RIP John Prine

I heard John Prine's "Hello in There" when I was quite young, not even 25, in fact. A tale about an elderly couple looking back on their life with disappointment, if not flat-out nihilism, "Hello in There" contains one line that my nervous system has hosted for decades: "She sits and stares through the back door screen." "I don't want to end up like that," I told friends and, on the cusp of 50, I've done a good job of avoiding that fate. For one thing, I'll probably never have a back door. For another, I trust I'll be looking at a movie screen to get in one more masterpiece before I die. Film and music keep me passionate, keep me going.

But that's to miss the point of the song entirely. However much we've been touched by grace (or luck), we need to take care of one another, if only to acknowledge someone else's existence:

"So if you're walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes
Please don't just pass 'em by and stare
As if you didn't careSay, 'hello in there, hello'"

That other-oriented sentiment is not easy to pull off in popular music of any stripe, even country, although the most gut-wrenching chord changes ever recorded certainly help. So much rock, for instance, is about individual transcendence/annihilation. Because I've avoided staring out a back door screen, I like to put "Hello in There" in conversation with the Velvet Underground's "Beginning to See the Light," the coda of which is a radical act of other-orientation as it asks, "How does it feel to be loved?" It feels like heaven, Lou. Thank you.

But before (and to get to?) that point, Reed is euphoric in self-absorption: "There are problems in these times/But, ooh, none of them are mine!" As Ellen Willis noted in her beautiful essay on the band in Stranded, this is just the flipside of Zombie Lou's "I just don't care!" stance in "Heroin":

"Enlightenment has begotten spiritual pride, a sin that like its inverted form, nihilism, cuts the sinner off from the rest of the human race. Especially from those people who, you know, work very hard but never get it right. Finally we are left with yet another version of the spiritual paradox: to experience grace is to be conscious of it; to be conscious of it is to lose it." (83)

And yet we have the music of John Prine. "Hello in There" is touched by grace but never conscious of it. Instead of fading out, it cuts off curtly to emphasize the song's message not the singer delivering it. Indeed, the message is available for anyone to deliver, even David Allen Coe. Prine's oeuvre is a music for and about people who work very hard but never get it right. It's a music that knows no greater sin that cutting oneself off from the rest of the human race. And it's a music with many lessons to teach us during an era of physical distancing meant to save each other's lives.

 

Strawberries Need Rain (Larry Buchanan, 1970)

After churning out such Grade-Z efforts as Zontar: The Thing from Venus (1966) and Mars Needs Women (1967) for AIP's television syndication packages, Larry Buchanan tried to hoodwink the art-house crowd with a preposterous Ingmar Bergman copy called Strawberries Need Rain (1970). According to Buchanan (not that I believe exploitation film directors' claims about their product), the ploy worked. He convinced a theatre operator outside of Southern Methodist University to run it as the latest Bergman film and presumably, arty college kids fell for it. A 1986 Texas Monthly profile maintains that "[o]ne of the high points of Buchanan's life was hearing students dissect the symbolism of his thrown-together fake in hushed, reverent tones" (212). Oh yes - us arty types are such dopes.

Listen, listen - part of the reason we sit through obnoxious art films is for a peek at all manner of perverse subject matter. It's the thesis of one of my all-time favorite pieces of film criticism - John Waters' "Guilty Pleasures" (available in his collection Crackpot) in which he surfs the thin line between exploitation and art by hawking Marguerite Duras as a punk and pleading with Bergman to get started on Brink of Life II. Sarno lulls, Pasolini titillates, and there's no reason to feel stupid (or guilty) for loving the filmographies of either.

So when I deem Strawberries Need Rain preposterous, I mean to signal the immense pleasure I took in it. I was compelled to finally watch this thing from Texas due to its inclusion in the Early-70s Second-Tier Bummer Party, a home-viewing series curated my pal Whit Strub which he describes as "going for that post-1968, pre-Jaws 'we blew it' vibe, beneath the New Hollywood auteurs but above the SWV/Vinegar Syndrome grindhouse goldmine." Based on the novella In a Certain Village by Victor Brun (yeah, I don't believe that either), Strawberries Need Rain conveys the somnambulant, anything-but-Saturday-night feel of other films in Whit's series such as Z.P.G. (Michael Campus, 1972) and a little something called Some Call It Loving.

Trash-film stalwart Monica Gayle stars as Erika, a young gal from Texas Hill Country (which supposedly looks like Bergman's Sweden) who is confronted by Death in the form of Les Tremayne wielding a scythe. He gives her 24 hours to live and in classic exploitation form, she uses her remaining time to devirginize. It doesn't go well with childhood friend Franz (an incredible unseasoned performance by Terry Mace) or mean biker Bruno (Paul Bertoya). But the deed finally gets done by Erika's former teacher, the Quixote-quoting Gertie (Gene Otis Shane) before a twist ending. The film features many of the hallmarks of art cinema: time-wasting scenes of driving/walking, mood-ruining music cues, jarring temporal shifts, disembodied one-liners, frequent underreaction, etc. in addition to Buchanan's characteristic day-for-night shooting. I found its 85 minutes utterly hypnotic and long to see it at either 4pm or 4am in a theatre sometime soon (or at least on a Mill Creek Entertainment box set).

Grade: A

And check out the poster below! Dig that Oscar! And know that those "Top Hits in America" are two dippy folk tunes played throughout. I've transcribed the lyrics below.

"Strawberries Need Rain"

Bluebirds need wings
And a dream needs a dreamer
Cornfields need golden grain

And I need love
Like the dawn needs the sunlight
And strawberries need rain

Butterflies need to be free
Or they never will fly
And they'll die

Apples need autumn
Like April needs springtime
Summer a shady lane

I need to love
To be loved, to be living
Like strawberries, strawberries need rain

"Yellow Blue & Green"

Yellow and green and blue
Are they colors or are they feelings
Or could they be tomorrow's painted memories stealing through?
Yellow and green and blue

I'm jealous of the yellow daffodils
I'm jealous of the golden sun
I'm jealous for they all will still be here
But I'll be gone

I'm envious of every blade of grass
Of every leaf on every tree
I envy them for they will be with you
Instead of me

The sky above my head is smiling on
The sadness showing in my face
I'm sad because I wish I didn't have to be
Some other place

All Beatles Songs Ever Graded! Albums Ranked!

These guys. I embarked on this project to confirm once and for all two things about their oeuvre: 1. Rubber Soul and Revolver are overrated. 2. It wasn't my fault that Beatles for Sale and Help! was the era most obscure to me. These are just. not. great. albums., people (or even a good one in the case of Help!). Forgettable as opposed to actively awful, they convince me that Beatles fans/scholars are out of their goddamn minds in evaluating this combo's weaknesses (if they perceive any to begin with!).

That said, albums are social constructs (singles too) (lists too), couched in sociohistorical context, and the Beatles often transcended the format. Not always in good ways, mind, and those who experienced the Fab Four's trajectory as it happened hear a different Beatles than the rest of us. But that doesn't make anyone's experience more authentic than anyone else's as Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles has taught us. So who cares that the comparatively drab Beatles for Sale failed to make an impression on me? In 2020 especially, I can extract "Eight Days a Week" for a playlist and move on.

And then conclude, goddamn, they really were incredible! I think there's enough here to demonstrate I have as level a head as anyone with respect to their oeuvre. My takes are what they are on this day of fools. I can't tell if I'm overrating or underrating their early covers which may make me a closet rockist. “You Won't See Me” slooooows down too damn much. “Here, There And Everywhere” is supposed to be lifting; I just hear a leaf fall to the ground. “I Am The Walrus” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” might receive A-pluses tomorrow. The Beatles (White Album) is indeed a whole that transcends the sum of its parts. But as my pal Lucas Fagen so succinctly put it, that’s only because so many parts suck. "Revolution 9" comes easy to this Yoko Ono/Creel Pone fan and it's always legit scared me. I forgot how hard "Helter Skelter" bashes. Savage. How bad could "Wild Honey Pie" possibly be? It's not even a minute long! That eternal sap McCartney can reduce me to a blubbering pile even at his sappiest. I shall never forget "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Wright" stopping me cold in a late-1980s dorm room. I cannot stand Harrison's whine. Etc.

I combined Past Masters and Mono Masters which subsumes the Yellow Submarine tracks. I didn't rank Past/Mono Masters but it'd fall somewhere around #5. And no, I won't be ranking any bootlegs, anthologies, BBC performances, live albums, etc. I'm Beatled out. Now on to the Stones who are already getting deeper under my skin.

“I Saw Her Standing There” - A
“Misery” - A
“Anna (Go to Him)” - A-minus
“Chains” - B
“Boys” - A-minus
“Ask Me Why” - B
“Please Please Me” - A-plus
“Love Me Do” - B
“P.S. I Love You” - B-minus
“Baby It's You” - B
“Do You Want To Know A Secret” - A-minus
“A Taste of Honey” - B-minus
“There's A Place” - A
“Twist and Shout” - A

Please Please Me - A-minus

“It Won't Be Long” - A
“All I've Got To Do” - B-plus
“All My Loving” - A-plus
“Don't Bother Me” - B-plus
“Little Child” - A-minus
“Till There Was You” - C-plus
“Please Mr. Postman” - A
“Roll Over Beethoven” - A
“Hold Me Tight” - A
“You Really Got A Hold On Me” - A
“I Wanna Be Your Man” - A
“Devil In Her Heart” - A-minus
“Not A Second Time” - B-plus
“Money (That's What I Want)” - A

With the Beatles - A-minus

“A Hard Day's Night” - A-plus
“I Should Have Known Better” - A-plus
“If I Fell” - A
“I'm Happy Just To Dance With You” - A-minus
“And I Love Her” - A
“Tell Me Why” - A
“Can't Buy Me Love” - A-minus
“Any Time At All” - A-minus
“I'll Cry Instead” - A-minus
“Things We Said Today” - A
“When I Get Home” - A
“You Can't Do That” - A-plus
“I'll Be Back” - A

A Hard Day’s Night - A

“No Reply” – A
“I’m a Loser” – A
“Baby’s in Black” – A-minus
“Rock n Roll Music” – A
“I’ll Follow the Sun” – A-minus
“Mr. Moonlight” – B-plus
“Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey” – B
“Eight Days a Week” – A-plus
“Words of Love” – C
“Honey Don’t” – C
“Every Little Thing” – B-plus
“I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” – A-minus
“What You’re Doing” – A-minus
“Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” – C

Beatles for Sale - B-plus

“Help!” - A
“The Night Before” - B-plus
“You've Got To Hide Your Love Away” - A
“I Need You” - B
“Another Girl” - B-minus
“You're Going To Lose That Girl” - A-minus
“Ticket To Ride” - A
“Act Naturally” - B
“It's Only Love” - B-minus
“You Like Me Too Much” - C-plus
“Tell Me What You See” - B-minus
“I've Just Seen A Face” - A-minus
“Yesterday” - A-minus
“Dizzy Miss Lizzy” - B

Help! - B

“Drive My Car” - A
“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” - A
“You Won't See Me” - A-minus
“Nowhere Man” - A
“Think For Yourself” - A-minus
“The Word” - A-plus
“Michelle” - B
“What Goes On” - B-minus
“Girl” - A
“I'm Looking Through You” - B-plus
“In My Life” - A
“Wait” - B-plus
“If I Needed Someone” - B-plus
“Run For Your Life” - B-plus

Rubber Soul - A-minus

“Taxman” - A
“Eleanor Rigby” - A
“I'm Only Sleeping” - A-minus
“Love You To” - B-plus
“Here, There And Everywhere” - B
“Yellow Submarine” - C-plus
“She Said She Said” - A-minus
“Good Day Sunshine” - C-plus
“And Your Bird Can Sing” - A-plus
“For No One” - A-minus
“Doctor Robert” - A-minus
“I Want To Tell You” - A-minus
“Got To Get You Into My Life” - B-plus
“Tomorrow Never Knows” - A-plus

Revolver - A-minus

“Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” - A-minus
“With A Little Help From My Friends” - A
“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” - A
“Getting Better” - A
“Fixing A Hole” - A
“She's Leaving Home” - A-plus
“Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!” - A-minus
“Within You Without You” - B-plus
“When I'm Sixty-Four” - B-plus
"Lovely Rita” - A-minus
“Good Morning Good Morning” - A-minus
“Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)” - A
“A Day In The Life” - A-plus

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - A

“Magical Mystery Tour” - A-minus
“The Fool On The Hill” - B-minus
“Flying” - B-plus
“Blue Jay Way” - A
“Your Mother Should Know” - B
“I Am The Walrus” - A
“Hello Goodbye” - A
“Strawberry Fields Forever” - A
“Penny Lane” - A
“Baby You're A Rich Man” - A-minus
“All You Need Is Love” - A

Magical Mystery Tour - A-minus

“Back in the U.S.S.R.” - A
“Dear Prudence” - A
“Glass Onion” - A
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” - B
“Wild Honey Pie” - A-plus
“The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” - A
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” - A-minus
“Happiness is a Warm Gun” - A-plus
“Martha My Dear” - A
“I’m so tired” - A
“Blackbird” - B
“Piggies” - B
“Rocky Raccoon” - B
“Don’t Pass Me By” - B
“Why don’t we do it in the road?” - B
“I Will” - A-minus
“Julia” - A-minus
“Birthday” - A
“Yer Blues” - A-minus
“Mother Nature’s Son” - B
“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” - A
“Sexy Sadie” - A-minus
“Helter Skelter” - A-plus
“Long, Long, Long” - C-plus
“Revolution I” - B-plus
“Honey Pie” - B
“Savoy Truffle” - A
“Cry Baby Cry” - B-plus
“Revolution 9” - A
“Good Night” - A-minus

The Beatles - A-minus

“Come Together” - A
“Something” - A-minus
“Maxwell's Silver Hammer” - F
“Oh! Darling” - B
“Octopus's Garden” - A-minus
“I Want You (She's So Heavy)” - A
“Here Comes The Sun” - A
“Because” - A-plus
“You Never Give Me Your Money” - A
“Sun King” - A-minus
“Mean Mr. Mustard” - A-minus
“Polythene Pam” - A-minus
“She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” - A-minus
“Golden Slumbers” - A-plus
“Carry That Weight” - A-plus
“The End” - A-plus
“Her Majesty” - A

Abbey Road - A

“Two Of Us” - A
“Dig a Pony” - B-plus
“Across the Universe” - B
“I Me Mine” - B
“Dig It” - A-minus
“Let It Be” - B-plus
“Maggie Mae” - B
“I've Got A Feeling” - B-plus
“One After 909” - B-plus
“The Long and Winding Road” - C-plus
“For Your Blue” - B
“Get Back” - B-plus

Let It Be - B-plus

“Love Me Do [Single Version]” - B
“From Me To You” - A
“Thank You Girl” - A
“She Loves You” - A-plus
“I'll Get You” - A-minus
“I Want To Hold Your Hand” - A-plus
“This Boy” - B
“Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” - A
“Sie Leibt Dich” - A
“Long Tall Sally” - A-minus
“I Call Your Name” - A
“Slow Down” - A-minus
“Matchbox” - B-plus
“I Feel Fine” - A-minus
“She's a Woman” - A-minus
"Bad Boy” - A
“Yes It Is” - B-plus
“I'm Down” - A-minus
“Day Tripper” - A
“We Can Work It Out” - A
“Paperback Writer” - A-plus
“Rain” - A-plus
“Lady Madonna” - A
“The Inner Light” - A-minus
“Hey Jude” - A
“Revolution” - A
“Only A Northern Song” - B-plus
“All Together Now” - C-plus
“Hey Bulldog” - A-minus
“It's All Too Much” - B-plus
Get Back” - B-plus
“Don’t Let Me Down” - A
“The Ballad of John and Yoko” - A-minus
“Old Brown Shoe” - B-plus
“Across the Universe” - B
“Let It Be” - B-plus
 “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)” - B

Past/Mono Masters - A-minus

Best albums:

1.  A Hard Day’s Night
2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
3. Abbey Road
4. The Beatles
5. Magical Mystery Tour
6. With the Beatles
7. Revolver
8. Please Please Me
9. Rubber Soul
10. Beatles for Sale
11. Let It Be
12. Help!