Assorted Screenings in NYC: October 2011

1. MoMA's ninth annual To Save and Project festival includes a few strong Italian films that could be better known. The pick of the October screenings is Elio Petri's startlingly good 1961 debut L'Assassino (Sunday, October 16 at 5:45 pm and Thursday, October 20 at 7:15 pm), starring Marcello Mastroianni as a shady operator whose life is shaken up by a police investigation. Petri's stock on the international film scene would peak almost a decade later with his excellent 1970 Investigation of a Citizen Under Suspicion; but the more classically constructed L'Assassino, with its impressive command of point of view, still seems to me Petri's greatest achievement. More modest in scale, Alberto Lattuada's 1954 La Spiaggia (Friday, October 28 at 4 pm and Monday, October 31 at 8:30 pm), built around the visual appeal of Martine Carol, the Riviera, and carefully composed Academy-ratio color photography, is a melancholy, atmospheric film that first tipped me off to the talents of this underrecognized director, who is probably best known as the co-director of Fellini's 1950 debut Variety Lights.

2. The Doomsday Film Festival & Symposium, held at 92YTribeca and dedicated to movies about the end of the world, has a strong lineup this year. Steve DeJarnatt's 1988 Miracle Mile (Friday, October 21 at 8 pm) has become a bit of a cult film since I caught it on its fleeting first run, but is rarely revived in theaters. If memory serves, the film takes a while to establish its tone, but never loses track of its casually affecting love story as it whips through the decline and fall of Los Angeles in 87 minutes. Screening the same evening (Friday, October 21 at 10:30 pm), Don McKellar's appealing 1999 Last Night has no problem at all scaling the apocalypse down to an opportunity for two total strangers to have a really good first and last kiss. Colossus: The Forbin Project (Saturday, October 22 at 6 pm) was made for TV but deemed worthy of a 1970 theatrical release, and was the first clear sign of director Joseph Sargent's talent for tense, fast-paced ensemble work. The film could have used a good computer science technical advisor, but Sargent and scriptwriter James Bridges keep the focus small and human despite the fascination of malevolent supercomputer Colossus. Wrapping up the catastrophic weekend is one of Larry Cohen's best films, 1977's crazy but compelling God Told Me To (aka Demon) (Sunday, October 23 at 7 pm).

My Old Movies on Amazon Instant Video

I've recently made my movies Honeymoon (1998) and All the Ships at Sea (2004) available for rental or download at Amazon Instant Video. Prices are as low as I could set them: $1.99 for rental, $2.50 for purchase. If you try it, let me know how it works.

• Honeymoon on Amazon Instant Video
• All the Ships at Sea on Amazon Instant Video

Both films are still available on DVD from CreateSpace:

• Honeymoon DVD on CreateSpace
• All the Ships at Sea DVD on CreateSpace
• All the Ships at Sea (PAL) DVD on CreateSpace

...but I get the feeling CreateSpace is phasing out its DVD sales in favor of its parent company Amazon. The filmmaker gets a bigger cut of the sale at CreateSpace, not that either income stream is going to put my imaginary children through college:

• Honeymoon DVD on Amazon
• All the Ships at Sea DVD on Amazon
• All the Ships at Sea (PAL) DVD on Amazon

Nikkatsu

This year’s sidebar program at the New York Film Festival is so exciting that it threatens to overshadow the main slate: a retrospective of the Japanese studio Nikkatsu, whose opportunistic shifts of focus always seemed to open doors for some of Japan’s most creative filmmakers. Compare film magazine Kinema Junpo’s 1999 and 2009 lists of all-time greatest Japanese films to the Lincoln Center series schedule, and count the overlaps.

You’ll have to move quickly to catch my strongest recommendation in the series, Sadao Yamanaka’s delightful 1935 Sazen Tange and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo, which screens once more on Wednesday, October 5 at 8:45 pm. Yamanaka, who died before his 29th birthday, made only three films that survive today, but the evidence that he was one of the greatest of filmmakers is present in any five minutes of his work. A Pot Worth a Million Ryo is a class-crossing light comedy, not especially interesting on paper, that shows off Yamanaka’s comprehensive command of cinema: contained, somewhat distant compositions with unusual architectural elements that often narrow the frame horizontally or vertically; an irreverent use of psychology to modify familiar character types; confident timing that owes something to American comic rhythms; a gentle sense of the absurd and outrageous that is unobtrusively pitted against social quietude; and a throwaway flair for action direction.

Screening just before the Yamanaka, on Wednesday, October 5 at 6:20 pm, is Tomu Uchida’s impressive Earth, which I wrote about last year at the MUBI Notebook.

Most film buffs won’t need to be pointed to Shohei Imamura’s superb 1964 Intentions of Murder, playing Tuesday, October 11 at 8 pm and Friday, October 14 at 4:30 pm. But this film buff, at least, wasn’t hip to the considerable talents of Tatsumi Kumashiro until a few days ago. Best-known for his work in the “pink film,” the soft-core pornography that Nikkatsu churned out in the 70s, Kumashiro inhabits the genre so naturally that there is no conflict (well, almost none) between its commercial requirements and his semi-immersed, semi-detached artistic personality. His remarkable 1973 The World of Geisha, which screens once more on Friday, October 14 at 1 pm, shows the social and psychological repercussions of a single night of sex, which is extended through two-thirds of the film’s length with the aid of interpolated material and a superimposed layer of Brechtian play. Honestly erotic yet shot through with chilly pessimism, the film shows simultaneously the mundane destructiveness and the lingering gravitational pull of heterosexual coupling, with something of the tone of the Fassbinder of Pioneers in Ingolstadt or The Merchant of Four Seasons. Advance word is good on the other Kumashiro film in the Nikkatsu series, 1979’s The Woman With Red Hair, screening on Friday, October 14th at 9 pm and Sunday, October 16 at 6:20 pm.

Of the many films in the Nikkatsu series that I haven’t seen, I’m most excited by 1985’s Love Hotel, a pink film by the superb Shinji Sômai (Moving, Wait and See), whose fluency with scene-long tracking shots is well matched with his interest in quirky characters who preserve their mystery. Love Hotel screens only once, on Saturday, October 15 at 6:30 pm.

All films mentioned here, and all but one of the remaining films in the Nikkatsu series, will be projected in the 87-seat Howard Gilman Theater in Lincoln Center’s new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

Toronto 2011

I'm covering the Toronto International Film Festival for MUBI.com this year. I'll probably post about five hastily-written reports from the festival, and will add them to this blog entry as they go up.

• Days One and Two
• Days Three and Four
  
• Days Five and Six
• Days Seven and Eight
• Days Nine and Ten
  

Top 100 Films of the 00s

Sorry to keep you all waiting! but I calculated that my list of favorite films of the 2000s wouldn't settle down until mid-2011 at least. And here we are.

I didn't try very hard to make this list a lot different from the 1999-2008 list that I posted amid the decade-end hurly-burly. But I allowed myself a few impulses that don't quite match my published lists of favorites.

1. Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, USA, 2007)
2. Esther Kahn (Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2000)
3. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, Romania, 2005)
4. Night and Day (Hong Sang-Soo, South Korea, 2008)
5. Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, UK, 2004)
6. Le doux amour des hommes (Jean-Paul Civeyrac, France, 2002)
7. The Child (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Belgium/France, 2005)
8. Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, France, 2001)
9. The Tracey Fragments (Bruce McDonald, Canada, 2007)
10. Raja (Jacques Doillon, France/Morocco, 2003)
11. Late Marriage (Dover Kosashvili, Israel/France, 2001)
12. Stella (Sylvie Verheyde, France, 2008)
13. The Sopranos: "Made in America" (David Chase, USA, 2007)
14. The House of Mirth (Terence Davies, UK/USA, 2000)
15. La face cachée de la lune (Robert Lepage, Canada, 2003)
16. The Son (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Belgium, 2002)
17. Far from Heaven (Todd Haynes, USA, 2002)
18. The Forsaken Land (Vimukthi Jayasundara, Sri Lanka/France, 2005)
19. Ana and the Others (Celina Murga, Argentina, 2003)
20. Primer (Shane Carruth, USA, 2004)
21. Le Père de mes enfants (Mia Hansen-Løve, France, 2009)
22. The Exploding Girl (Bradley Rust Gray, USA, 2009)
23. Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley, USA, 2008)
24. Bled Number One (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, Algeria/France, 2006)
25. Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, China, 2006)
26. Ballast (Lance Hammer, USA, 2008)
27. Sangre (Amat Escalante, Mexico, 2005)
28. The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan, 2005)
29. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2007)
30. A Week Alone (Celina Murga, Argentina, 2008)
31. All Around Us (Ryosuke Hashiguchi, Japan, 2008)
32. Une Vieille Maîtresse (Catherine Breillat, France, 2007)
33. Japon (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2002)
34. Waking Life (Richard Linklater, USA, 2001)
35. Bully (Larry Clark, USA, 2001)
36. Vibrator (Ryuichi Hiroki, Japan, 2003)
37. Crashing (Gary Walkow, USA, 2007)
38. Tout est pardonné (Mia Hansen-Løve, France, 2007)
39. Darling (Johan Kling, Sweden, 2007)
40. Eighteen (Jang Kun-jae, South Korea, 2009)
41. Triple Agent (Eric Rohmer, France, 2004)
42. Chopper (Andrew Dominic, Australia, 2000)
43. Platform (Jia Zhang Ke, China, 2000)
44. Zero Day (Ben Coccio, USA, 2003)
45. Happiness (Hur Jin-ho, South Korea, 2007)
46. Lady Chatterley (Pascale Ferran, France/Belgium, 2006)
47. La Donation (Bernard Émond, Canada, 2009)
48. Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2006)
49. The Garden of Earthly Delights (Lech Majewski, UK/Italy/Poland, 2004)
50. Or (Mon Tresor) (Keren Yedaya, Israel, 2004)
51. Toutes ces belles promesses (Jean-Paul Civeyrac, France, 2003)
52. Ken Park (Larry Clark and Ed Lachman, USA, 2002)
53. Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 2002)
54. Barbe Bleue (Catherine Breillat, France. 2009)
55. Jealousy Is My Middle Name (Park Chan-ok, South Korea, 2002)
56. Shara (Naomi Kawase, Japan, 2003)
57. The World (Jia Zhang-ke, China, 2004)
58. Roberto Succo (Cedric Kahn, France, 2001)
59. Îles flottantes (Nanouk Leopold, Netherlands, 2001)
60. Be My Star (Valeska Grisebach, Germany, 2001)
61. Face (Tsai Ming-Liang, France/Taiwan, 2009)
62. Avant que j'oublie (Jacques Nolot, France, 2007)
63. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, USA, 2007)
64. Grain in Ear (Zhang Lu, China/South Korea, 2005)
65. Nights and Weekends (Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig, USA, 2008)
66. Mid-August Lunch (Gianni Di Gregorio, Italy, 2008)
67. Turning Gate (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2002)
68. Wolfsbergen (Nanouk Leopold, Netherlands, 2007)
69. Jesus, You Know (Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2003)
70. Morphia (Aleksei Balabanov, Russia, 2008)
71. Paris: XY (Zeka Laplaine, France, 2001)
72. The Believer (Henry Bean, USA, 2001)
73. All or Nothing (Mike Leigh, UK, 2002)
74. Crimson Gold (Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2003)
75. No Rest for the Brave (Alain Guiraudie, France, 2003)
76. Forty Shades of Blue (Ira Sachs, USA, 2005)
77. C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean-Marc Vallée, Canada, 2005)
78. The King of Escape (Alain Guiraudie, France, 2009)
79. Rain Dogs (Ho Yuhang, Malaysia, 2006)
80. Catastrophe (David Mamet, Ireland, 2000)
81. The Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (Hong Sang-Soo, South Korea, 2000)
82. She, a Chinese (Guo Xiaolu, UK/France/Germany, 2009)
83. Johanna (Kornel Mundruczó, Hungary, 2005)
84. A Tale of Cinema (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2005)
85. Brick (Rian Johnson, USA, 2005)
86. Beat (Gary Walkow, USA, 2000)
87. Head-On (Fatih Akin, Germany/Turkey, 2004)
88. Boogie (Radu Muntean, Romania, 2008)
89. Hannah Takes the Stairs (Joe Swanberg, USA, 2007)
90. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, USA, 2001)
91. The Fluffer (Richard Glatzer and Wash West, USA, 2001)
92. To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues, Portugal, 2009)
93. The Paper Will Be Blue (Radu Muntean, Romania, 2006)
94. The Banishment (Andrei Zyvagintsev, Russia, 2007)
95. Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2001)
96. Harmful Insect (Akihiko Shiota, Japan, 2001)
97. The Days Between (Maria Speth, Germany, 2001)
98. Four Nights with Anna (Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland, 2008)
99. The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev, Russia, 2003)
100. Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures (Marcelo Gomes, Brazil, 2005)

The Sleeping Beauty: IFC Center, Now Playing

My piece on Catherine Breillat's La belle endormie (Sleeping Beauty), my favorite movie of the last few years, is up at the MUBI Notebook.

Round Table on Silent Naruse

MUBI.com just published a lengthy email round-table discussion between Danny Kasman, David Phelps and me about the five silent Mikio Naruse films that were recently released on DVD by Criterion.