Top Films of 2018: 20-14


20. All Through the Night (1942), Vincent Sherman, Warner Bros.

A fun Humphrey Bogart romp with a plot that often seems to be coming apart at the seams. It is held together by great performances from Peter Lorre and Kaaren Verne. Humphrey plays a gambler that becomes a detective.
19. The Square (2017), Ruben Ostlund, TriArt

The Square is difficult to describe, and beneath the oddness there is an interesting satirical film. A curator with many personal and professional issues struggles to clean up the damage that has been done to his museum after a controversial video for one of the installations almost ruins his reputation. The cinematography and color palette, as well as a few disturbing performances, lend the film a vibe that is at times humorous and at other times shocking. I recommend this one if you like art films that also provoke discussion.
18. Black Girl (1966), Ousmane Sembene, New Yorker

Black Girl, one of the first sub-Saharan African films, addresses the effects of colonialism, racism, and class in subtle, yet effective ways. The film tells the story of Diouana, who moves from Senegal to France to work for a rich couple. It aptly addresses the divide between Diouana and her employers, while showing how difficult it is for the young girl to find her way in a culture that mistrusts and disrespects her.
17. Night Moves (1975), Arthur Penn, Warner Bros

A neo-noir film about an ex-professional football player (Gene Hackman) that works as a detective in Los Angeles. The film's plot is reminiscent of other private eye plots, specifically those of Raymond Chandler, yet captures a different sensibility of the city. Unlike Chandler, Penn's film shows a Los Angeles in decline with a hero that is often in despair.
16. High and Dizzy (1920), Hal Roach, Pathe Exchange

This Harold Lloyd short is fun like his other pictures. Lloyd plays a man who gets drunk and avoids the police in a slapstick scene, while a girl (Mildred Davis) sleepwalks on the ledge of a tall building. While not as interesting or influential as Safety Last, which has a similar scene, the film continually surprises. Any of Lloyd's films contain ample evidence as to why he is still considered one of the big three of silent comedy during this period.
15. Monkey Business (1931), Norman Z. McLeod, Paramount Publix Corp.

My favorite of the Marx Brothers films I watched this year is the first film they made with an original plot that was not based on their earlier Broadway career. The brothers are ship stowaways attempting to avoid the crew. They end up helping save the daughter of one group of feuding gangsters. The film's slapstick scenes include a barrel scene where they sing "Sweet Adeline," and critics debate whether Harpo sings.
14. Slacker (1990), Richard Linklater, Orion

Richard Linklater's Slacker does not have a linear plot, and that is one of the reasons it is spectacular. It effectively captures a time and a place, depicting aimless 20-something characters in Austin, Texas. Each character is given a few minutes of conversation before the camera picks up one of them and follows them to a different setting where another conversation takes place. In this way, the film covers a lot of colorful characters and situations, ranging from JFK conspiracists to television collectors, musicians and hangers-on. Throughout the film, characters discuss ennui, social malaise, and the problems of politics. In doing so, the film captures not just a place, but a generation, as it comments on the travails of the Generation X era.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contractions: Henry Standing Bear's Ethical Code

Image
I recently finished watching the last season of Longmire , a show that I believe only got better when it moved to Netflix. A & E cancelled it, despite good ratings, because it did not directly appeal to the 18-35 age demographic. The writing and plot development improved as the show started focusing more on major themes and story lines and not story-of-the-week subplots. While the show's general premise is typical cop show fare, the strong characterization and settings give the show a primacy over similar procedurals. While I enjoyed the show, I never got around to reading the books even though I watched dutifully for six seasons. Once I started reading The Cold Dish , I realized how hard it will be not to binge the book series. The books are a treat. Craig Johnson's prose is punchy, and the characters are even better realized. Walt Longmire's love for Rainier beer and obscure literary metaphors, as well as other character's predilections and habits, become crys...
Read more

Do you remember huH Magazine?

Image
The other day when I was writing the "Track This" for Jawbox's "Cooling Card," something jogged my memory about music magazines I had read in my formative years, particularly those published while I was still in High School. Many, if not most, of them are gone now. They gave way to blogs and online publications. These include zines like Flipside , which covered mainstream and underground bands -- they also had some of my favorite columnists of all time, Punk Planet , which ventured further into Indie rock as it progressed, and MRR , which is still going strong. The magazines that I read often included Alternative Press and Magnet , as well as Ray Gun Publishing's huH which turned me on to a ton of great music because it included a cd with each issue that served as a sampler for what had been released that month, divided by genre. While other magazines did this, huH undoubtedly was more inclusive in the types of bands these cds covered. In fact, these col...
Read more

Cal Smith: "So Long, Country Bumpkin"

Image
Cal Smith, born Calvin Grant Shofner on April 7, 1932, died on October 10. He was best known for the 1974 hit, "Country Bumpkin." A tangible part of my childhood, the song still echoes in my head whenever pumpkins are displayed or the newest batch of Pumpkin ales hits the store shelves.  Where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, the old  Blues Brothers  adage rang true that there were two kinds of music, "country and western." My parents always listened to country music in our house (My mom preferred '90s country radio) and there was always a bunch of western in there as well.(Mostly from my dad). I remember hearing "Streets of Bakersfield" often drifting from car radios and home stereos. I developed an early attraction to some of these songs, even though years later I would hide it behind a sheen of four chords and punk rock. A secret shadow self of country knowledge and Western Swing bravado remained, only unsheathed for music trivia and in the dar...
Read more