| The world according to Chairman Tony... |
| The Best Films Ever Made
From the DVD Collection of Antonio C. Abaya Last updated in December 2006 |
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| Q - Z |
| Que Viva Mexico!, by Sergei Eisenstein. (1930/84, USSR/Mexico, in Russian.) After his landmark contributions to Soviet cinema, Eisenstein emigrated to the US hoping to establish his craft in Hollywood. But he was quickly ostracized because of his past work. He went south to Mexico where he filmed these vivid, mystical images of Mexican life, edited in 1984 by one of his collaborators. The film itself is silent, but sounds (like gunshots and background music) are super-imposed as are the narration and commentary.
Raging Bull, by Martin Scorsese (1980, US.) The tragic but true story of champion boxer Jake La Motta who became rich and then squandered everything, including his family life. I usually do not go for boxing films, but this one really floored me. Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Frank Vincent, etc. Raise the Red Lantern, by Zhang Yimou (1991, China, in Mandarin.) A young woman becomes the fourth concubine of a rich merchant, who is hardly ever seen. Very Chinese, not just in the institutionalized subjugation of women but also in the sumptuous visual style that embraces architecture, interior d�cor, personal attire and social manners. Gong Li, Ma Jingwu. Ran, by Akira Kurosawa. (1985, Japan, in Japanese.) Shakespeare�s King Lear is retold in a medieval Japanese setting. Instead of three daughters, the old king has three sons who descend into fratricidal war following his choice of his successor. In the end, they all destroy each other. Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, etc. . Rashomon, by Akira Kurosawa. (1951, Japan, in Japanese.) A meditation on truth and reality. In medieval Japan, five principals in a rape and murder case tell five differing versions of the same incident. Established Kurosawa on the international cinema scene. Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, etc. Rear Window, by Alfred Hitchcock. (1954, US.) A professional photographer, immobilized by a leg injury, is witness to a murder committed in an apartment across the courtyard from his. Gripping suspense thriller, even though confined to a limited space. James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, etc. The Remains of the Day, by James Ivory. (1993, GB.) In the 1930s, a faithful butler in a country estate contemplates his life of devoted service to his aristocrat employer but devoid of the warmth of human relationships. A study of repressed emotions. Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Christopher Reeve, Hugh Grant, James Fox. Reversal of Fortune, by Barbet Schroeder. (1990, US.) Against all odds, a Jewish lawyer from Brooklyn wins a reversal of conviction for the aristocratic and unlikable Claus von Bulow, convicted of poisoning his rich wife Sunny in their Newport manse. Based on a true story. Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Ron Silver, Annabella Sciorra, etc. Richard III, by Laurence Olivier. (1955 GB) The grotesquely deformed Richard Crookback schemes his way to the English throne, only to lose it in battle, in the most celebrated of Shakespear's historical plays. Drips with the right dose of malevolence. Laurance Olivier, Clair Bloom, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud etc. Richard III, by Richard Loncraine. (1995, GB.) Shakespeare is updated and transposed to a 1930s Fascist Britain where an ambitious prince maneuvers his way to the throne over the dead bodies of those who stand in his way. Ian McKellen wrote the brilliant adaptation and stars as the malevolent prince. McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent. The Right Stuff, by Philip Kaufmann. (1983, US.) Based on the book by Tom Wolfe. A chronicle of the gung-ho pioneering candidates who trained to be the first astronauts in the US space program. Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Dennis Quaid, etc. Romeo and Juliet, by Franco Zeffirelli. (1968, GB.) So far, the best screen adaptation of the much loved Shakespeare play, all the more so because of the appropriate youthfulness of the two principals. Lavish production values. Olivia Hussey, Leonard Whiting, etc. A Room with a View, by James Ivory. (1985, GB.) Based on the novel by E. M. Forster. The conflict between the awakening sensuality of a young girl, on holiday in Florence, and her upbringing in Victorian England. Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Maggie Smith, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, etc. Run, Lola, Run, by Tom Tykwer. (1999, Germany, in German.) A witty and clever meditation on the unpredictability of life as the film�s central event is run three times with three different results, each time altered by insignificant events with significant consequences. Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, etc. Sade, by Benoit Jacquot. (2000, France, in French.) The Marquis, so spellbindingly played by Daniel Auteil, is alternately witty and wicked, philosophical and amoral, arrogant and amusing, convinced only of the temporariness of all misfortune and the permanent fakery of the Supreme Being. Imprisoned by the Revolution in a former nunnery full of fretting royals, Sade mesmerizes a young girl fearful that she will soon die without having experienced life. Auteuil, Marianne Denicourt, Jean Pierre Cassel. Saving Private Ryan, by Steven Spielberg. (1998, US.) During the battles following the Normandy invasion, a detail is sent out to retrieve from the front lines a soldier whose three other brothers have been killed in action in other theaters of operation, in order to spare his mother the trauma of losing ALL her sons. Very realistic battle scenes. Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, etc. Scenes from a Marriage, by Ingmar Bergman. (1973, Sweden, in Swedish.) An intimate portrait of the relationship between husband and wife, from marriage to divorce to post-divorce friendship. Originally a five-hour mini-series on Swedish TV, it is essentially a talkfest between the two principals. Liv Ullman, Joseph Erlandson, Bibi Andersson. Scent of a Woman, by Martin Brest. (1992, US.) Meet Col. Frank Slade, a retired army officer embittered by his blindness, as he sets out to live to the fullest what he plans to be the last day of his life. Al Pacino gives a virtuoso performance. Pacino, Chris O�Donnell, Gabriele Anwar, Philip Seymour, etc. The Scent of Green Papaya, by Tran Anh Hung. (1993, Vietnam, in Vietnamese.) A 12-year old provincial girl grows up in Saigon as a maid in an upper-class mercantile household during the placid years before the war. Done in a gentle, fragile Oriental style. Tran Nu Yen Khe, Truong Thi Loc. Schindler�s List, by Steven Spielberg. (1993, US.) �Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire,� says the Talmud. The German industrialist Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jewish lives in Poland by keeping them employed in his factory as the Holocaust swallowed millions of others. Based on a true story. Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, etc. Sense and Sensibility, by Ang Lee. (1995, GB.) Based on the novel by Jane Austen. Two Dashwood sisters, who cannot inherit their father�s estate, must find suitable husbands to maintain their modest existence. Excellent ensemble acting all around. Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, etc. Seven Samurai, by Akira Kurosawa. (1954, Japan, in Japanese.) Villagers in 16th century Japan hire samurai warriors to defend their homes and farms against a band of marauding bandits. Remade into a Hollywood western as The Magnificent Seven. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shinura. The Seventh Seal, by Ingmar Bergman. (1956, Sweden, in Swedish.) This is the only film that I ever watched twice in one sitting and which I drove miles to see again and again in other towns away from my home base near Chicago. A Swedish knight returns home from the Crusades, disillusioned and plagued by doubts about the existence of God. He plays chess with Death to gain time �for one meaningful act.� Max von Sydow, Bengt Ekerot, Bibi Andersen, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin, etc. Sex and Lucia, by Julio Medem. (2001, Spain, in Spanish.) Reality and fantasy, past and present, intertwine in this complex story within a story, set in the sensual setting of sand and sun on a secluded Mediterranean island. Paz Vega, Tristan Ulloa, Najwa Nimri, Daniel Freire, etc. Shakespeare in Love, by John Madden. (1998, GB). A light-hearted romp through Elizabethan England in which the Bard suffers writer�s block while struggling with his new play �Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate�s Daughter.� Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Judi Dench, Ben Affleck, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson, etc. The Sheltering Sky, by Bernardo Bertolucci, (1990, GB/Italy, in English.) In the 1950s, a young American couple and a traveling companion land in Tangiers and embark on a journey of self-discovery across the sun-baked Sahara desert in Morocco. Blistering cinematography. John Malkovich, Debra Winger, Campbell Scott, Timothy Spall. Shine, by Scott Hicks. (1996, Australia.) Biopic of Australian pianist David Helfgott, from his days as a child prodigy under the thumb of his domineering father, to his triumph days as a piano student in London, to his eventual nervous breakdown as an adult. With Rachmaninoff�s Piano Concerto no. 3 providing the inspirational coda. Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Lynn Redgrave, John Gielgud. A Short Film about Love, by Krzysztof Kieslowski. (1988, Poland, in Polish) One of the ten one-hour segments of The Decalogue (see above) on Polish TV, expanded into a full-length film. A postal worker falls for a promiscuous woman across his flat and straddles that grey area between lust and genuine concern for another human being, sometimes called love. Grazyna Szapolowska, Olaf Lubaszenko. Etc. A Shot in the Dark, by Blake Edwards. (1964, GB) By far the funniest in the Inspector Clouseau series, with Peter Sellers spinning off a laugh a minute as he fumbles and stumbles through a murder investigation. Sellers, Elke Sommer, Herbert Lom, etc. Sideways, by Alexander Payne. (2004, US.) �Jack is an over-sexed charmer; Miles is a sad-sack worrier. Jack is looking for his �last taste of freedom� before he gets married; Miles is just hoping to not get even more depressed.� The two oddly paired friends do the vineyards in Napa, Jack content with cheap Merlot, Miles looking for the perfect Pinot. Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh, etc. The Silence of the Lambs, by Jonathan Demme. (1991, US.) Nail-biting psychological thriller in which a novice female FBI agent is assigned to interview a maniacal killer in detention (who eats his victims) to draw a profile of another psychopath being hunted. Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine. The Simpsons, by Matt Groening. (1989-1999, US.) Who can possibly go through life�s tribulations without first learning from the collective wisdom of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie? Ten seasons now in DVD. Six Degrees of Separation, by Fred Schepisi. (1993, US.) A con artist ingratiates himself into the company (and apartments) of smart Manhattan families by pretending that he is the son of Sidney Poitier and a classmate of their children in Ivy League universities. Sparkling dialogue throughout. Stockard Channing, Will Smith, Donald Sutherland, etc. The Six Wives of Henry VIII, by different directors. (1970, GB, BBC mini-series.) Keith Mitchell as the monarch holds together this series of six 90-minute stories, each one devoted to one of the six wives. Impeccable acting, sumptuous production and dramatic storytelling make for an engrossing tale. Mitchell, Annette Crosbie, Dorothy Tutin, Anne Stallybrass, Elvi Hale, Angela Pleasance, Rosalie Crutchley, etc. Sleuth, by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. (1972, GB.) A fascinating pas de deux between an eccentric and aristocratic writer of mystery novels and a working-class cad who has stolen his paramour. Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine. Some Like It Hot, by Billy Wilder. (1959, US.) Two club musicians in 1920s Chicago are accidental witnesses to the St. Valentine�s Day Massacre and are chased by the Mob even as they disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl orchestra. Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, Joe E. Brown, Pat O�Brien. Something�s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. (2003, US.) A feel-good romantic comedy for the over-the-hill generations who have not given up on love. An ageing lothario, kept going by Lipitor and Viagra, falls in love with his young paramour�s mother, a divorced playwright. Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keannu Reeves, etc. Sophie�s Choice, by Alan J. Pakula. (1982, US.) Based on the novel by William Styron. A Polish immigrant in Brooklyn, survivor of Auschwitz, relives her harrowing days as a labor camp inmate and the choice she had to make for the survival of her children. Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol. The Sound of Music, by Robert Wise. (1965, US.) Good, wholesome family values win in this endearing musical based on the actual experiences of the Von Trapp family in Austria at the onset of World War II. A novice nun working as governess to this family of seven children injects some cheer into their regimented life. Score by Rogers and Hammerstein. Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, etc. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter�.and Spring, by Kim Ki-Duk. (2004, South Korea, in Korean.) A Buddhist fable set in a one-room monastery floating on a raft in a small lake surrounded by lush mountain scenery. In this miniature world, an elderly monk and his child prot�g� live out the unending cycle of life: youth, adolescence, adulthood, death, and then rebirth. Actors not identified. Stalag 17, by Billy Wilder. (1953, US.) Allied prisoners-of-war in a German detention camp suspect one of them is a planted German agent who somehow passes information to the commandant whenever there is a plan to escape. William Holden, Don Taylor, etc. Stalingrad, by Joseph Vilsmaier. (1993, Germany, in German.) The crushing defeat of the German Sixth Army as told through the experiences of a group of doomed soldiers. The battle scenes are among the most realistic, as are the scenes of defeated, retreating warriors struggling to stay alive in the harsh Russian winter. Dominique Horwitz, Thomas Kretschmann, Jochen Nickel, Sebastian Rudolph, etc. The Story of Adele H., by Francois Truffaut. (1975, France, in French.) Adele H. is Adele Hugo, daughter of French literary giant Victor Hugo, and her story, based on her own memoirs, is one of unrequited love for and obsession with a certified scoundrel whom she hounds from Guernsey Island to Nova Scotia to the Caribbean. Isabelle Adjani, Bruce Robinson, etc.. The Story of Qiu Ju, by Zhang Yimou. (1992, China, in Mandarin.) A poor peasant woman morphs into a citizen crusader when her husband is beaten and humiliated by the local Party boss, and she does not get the public apology that she demands. An interesting look at how Chinese bureaucracy works at the lowest proletarian levels. Gong Li, etc. . La Strada, by Federico Fellini. (1954, Italy, in Italian.) A plain-looking peasant girl, deemed unmarriageable by her family, is sold off as an assistant to a traveling strong-man performer, who mistreats her. Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart. Strawberry and Chocolate, by Tomas Gutierrez Alea. (1993, Cuba, in Spanish.) The relationship between a straight university student and a gay one who at first had schemed to seduce him. A sensitive, non-judgmental treatment of homosexuality from, of all places, Cuba. Jorge Perugorria, Vladimir Cruz, Marta Ibarra, etc. Stray Dog, by Akira Kurosawa. (1949, Japan, in Japanese.) The only police thriller by Kurosawa. A rookie detective, who loses his service pistol to a pickpocket, combs Tokyo�s underworld looking for it, afraid that it might fall into criminal hands. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura Strike, by Sergei Eisenstein. (1924, USSR, silent.) Directorial debut by Eisenstein. Tells the story of a workers� strike in a Moscow factory before the Revolution of 1917, with liberal use of innovative editing and montage. Maxim Shtraukh, Grigori Alexandrov. Sunset Boulevard, by Billy Wilder. (1950, US) A Hollywood scriptwriter goes to live with a wealthy older woman in her properly Gothic mansion, a mummified relic from the silent screen who survives on her memories of stardom. William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim. Swept Away, by Lina Wertmuller. (1975, Italy, in Italian.) The battle of the sexes and the class struggle rolled into one steamy erotic romp set in a deserted Mediterranean isle where the protagonists are stranded for a day. Don�t be misled by a stupid Hollywood film of the same title. Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato. Tabu, by F. W. Murnau. (1931, US, silent.) A tragic love story set in the idyllic island of Bora Bora, where a pearl diver and his lass run away after she is chosen as holy maid to the island headman and therefore �tabu� to all other men. One of the last masterpieces of the silent film genre. The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Anthony Minghella. (1999, US.) Stealing another�s identity is the talent in question. Hired by the father to convince a son to come home from his extended adolescence in Italy, Ripley instead steals the son�s identity (and life and girl friend) plus the father�s money, in quick order. Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, etc. Taxi Driver, by Martin Scorsese. (1976, US.) A disaffected Vietnam veteran, working as a Manhattan cab driver, prowls the seamier parts of the city in a one-man crusade to rid it of pimps and prostitutes. Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel. 10, by Blake Edwards. (1979, GB.) A pop music composer, on vacation in Mexico from a humdrum marriage, becomes obsessed with a stunning beauty on the beach, whom he rates a perfect 10. Dudley Moore is absolutely hilarious. Moore, Julie Andrews, Bo Derek Terms of Endearment, by James L. Brooks. (1983, US) A sensitive portrayal of the relationship between a mother and her daughter over 30 years in Middle America as they confront the problems of life and death. Shiirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson. La Terra Trema, by Luchino Visconti. (1948, Italy, in the Sicilian dialect.) An almost documentary portrayal of the harsh life among poverty-stricken fishermen in Sicily as they battle nature and the economic system that frustrates their attempts to improve their lot. Filmed with non-professionals talking in their own local dialect. They Shoot Horses, Don�t They?, by Sydney Pollack. (1969, US.) During the Depression, when jobs were hard to come by, the unemployed sometimes joined marathon dances to take advantage of the free food and to try their luck at the prizes awarded to couples who could stay on their feet beyond exhaustion. Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Gig Young, Susannah York, Red Buttons, Bruce Dern, etc. The Third Man, by Carol Reed. (1950, GB.) Based on a screenplay by Graham Greene. In postwar Vienna, city of intrigue and espionage under a four-power occupation, an American writer searches for a missing colleague and investigates the mystery of his disappearance. Classic film noir set in a world of shadows and accentuated by a haunting music theme. Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard. Three Colors Trilogy, by Krzysztof Kieslowski. (1993-94, France/Poland, in French and Polish.) In Blue (1993), a grieving widow withdraws from life after the death of her husband and child. In White (1994), a Polish hairdresser loses his wife and plots his revenge. In Red (1994), a model develops a relationship with a judge in a compelling tale of inexplicable coincidences. Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Irene Jacob, etc. Throne of Blood, by Akira Kurosawa. (1957, Japan, in Japanese.) Shakespeare�s Macbeth is transplanted to medieval Japan, where a samurai warrior is goaded by his ambitious wife and an old witch to kill his lord. Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, etc. The Tin Drum, by Volker Schlondorff. (1979, West Germany, in German.) Based on the novel by Gunter Grass. As the Nazis rise to power and German nationalism reaches fever-pitch, a boy wills himself to stop growing and becomes a self-induced dwarf. Biting satire on Germany�s stunted development. David Bennent, Charles Aznavour, etc. Titanic, by James Cameron. (1997, US.) On sheer production values, no film in the past decade can match this one. The 1912 sinking of the unsinkable Titanic is just not possible to portray in its enormous impact on contemporary thinking without such lavish props. The love story is merely incidental. Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, etc. To Die For, by Gus Van Sant. (1995, US.) A small-town TV weather girl aims for the big cheese in the networks and will not stop at anything, even murder, to get there. A sharp satire on the worship of celebrity status. Nicole Kidman was never a more luscious looker or a better actress than she is here. Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix, etc. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Robert Mulligan. (1962, US.) Growing up in 1930s Georgia, a girl recounts the trial of a black man accused of raping a white woman as he is defended by the child�s father. An evocative film of childhood. Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, etc. Tokyo Story, by Yasujiro Ozu. (1953, Japan, in Japanese.) An elderly rural couple visits their married children in the city and are met with a less than warm reception. A subtle portrait of the changing values in a modernizing Japan. Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama Tora! Tora! Tora!, by Richard Fleischer, et al. (1970, US/Japan, in English and Japanese.) A faithful narration of events leading to the Day of Infamy when Japanese carrier planes bombed the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Told from both the US and Japanese perspectives. Jason Robards, Joseph Cotton, Tatsuya Mihashi, Martin Balsam. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, by John Huston. (1948, US.) A modern-day morality play involving three gold prospectors who strike it rich in the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico, and the greed and mistrust that overcome them. Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, etc. The Truman Show, by Peter Weir. (1998, US.) The world is a giant soundstage on which the central character struts and frets, not knowing that an entire TV audience is watching him 24 hours a day, through hidden cameras. A bizarre fable that succeeds all the way to a faked sailing episode from which he literally walks away. And now, a word from our sponsors�� Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Limey, Noah Emmerich, etc. 12 Angry Men, by Sidney Lumet. (1957, US.) Eleven members of the jury are convinced the accused is guilty. One juror thinks he may be innocent. The interaction (and temperature) in the jury room rises to boiling point. Brilliant acting all around and an auspicious debut film for the director. Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall, etc. 21 Grams, by Alejandro Inarritu. (2003, US.) The title refers to the weight that a human body is said to lose at the moment of death. As in the director�s earlier Amores Perros (2000), the lives of disparate individuals intersect in a tragic accident that transforms all their existence. Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio del Toro, etc. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Stanley Kubrick. (1968, GB.) The best sci-fi film ever, in my opinion. Imaginative visual effects that do not dominate the story-telling. A malevolent super-computer. And an intriguing puzzle: the black rectangle. Was this rational thought trapped in three dimensions? Keir Dullea, William Sylvester, etc. Umberto D, by Vittorio de Sica. (1955, Italy, in Italian.) In postwar Italy, a retired pensioner struggles to survive and keep his rented room on his meager pension and the loyalty of his pet dog. Carlo Battista, Maria Pia Casillo, etc. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Philip Kaufman. (1988, US.) Based on the novel by Milan Kundera. A womanizing Czech doctor juggles his sexual dalliances between his undemanding mistress (light) and his new love who seeks commitment (heavy), set against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin, Derek de Lint, Erland Josephson. The Untouchables, by Brian de Palma. (1987, US.) Fast-paced action thriller set in the 1920s Chicago gangster scene as Eliot Ness leads federal agents in nailing mobster Al Capone. The train station stairways shootout sequence is a classic. Kevin Costner, Robert DeNiro, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia. Charles Martin Smith. Vatel, by Roland Joffe. (2000, GB/France, in English.) Sumptuous biopic of the legendary Vatel, caterer to a down-and-out prince, who is hired to curry the favor of King Louis XIV through a lavish banquet topped by a mind-blowing spectacle. Gerard Depardieu, Uma Thurman, Tim Roth, Timothy Spall, Julian Sands. Vera Drake, by Mike Leigh. (2005, GB.) Vera is not your typical abortionist. She is a kindly, elderly lady with a loving husband and two grown children, who works as a domestic helper in several upscale households, and takes care as well of a bed-ridden mother, in the 1950s. In between chores, she cheerfully �helps young women in trouble to start bleeding again,� and does not ask for or receive money for her �help.� A moving urban tale, possibly based on a true story. Imelda Staunton, Richard Graham, etc. Vertigo, by Alfred Hitchcock. (1958, US.) A detective with a fear of heights is drawn into a double identity murder mystery in which the woman he is attracted to seems to have fallen (or was pushed) from a church steeple. James Stewart, Kim Novak, etc. The Virgin Spring, by Ingmar Bergman. (1960, Sweden, in Swedish.) Based on a medieval legend in which a young maiden is raped and murdered. After her grief-stricken father exacts violent revenge on the killers, a spring gushes up from the spot where she had been brutalized. Max von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg. Vive l�Amour, by Tsai Ming-liang. (1996, Taiwan, in Taiwanese.) A young couple meet repeatedly in a vacant apartment for casual love-making, unaware that they were being watched by a disturbed adolescent. The film is remarkable for the almost total absence of dialogue, emphasizing the intrinsic loneliness of sex without feelings. Yang Kue-Mei, etc. Walkabout, by Nicholas Roeg. (1971, Australia.) A teen-aged girl and her younger brother are stranded in the Australian outback when their father kills himself. They run into an aborigine doing his �walkabout�, a tribal survival ritual. Jenny Agutter, etc. Wall Street, by Oliver Stone. (1987, US.) A young stock-broker falls under the spell of a super wheeler-dealer in the stock market and loses sight of his humble beginnings. Another socio-morality play from activist Stone. Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, etc. War and Peace, by Sergei Bondarchuk. (1965, USSR, in Russian.) Almost seven hours long, this monumental epic does justice to the kilometric Tolstoy novel that the 200-min Hollywood version by King Vidor simply could not. The battle scenes (with 120,000 soldier-extras) and Napoleon�s winter retreat from Moscow are graphically vivid. Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Ludmila Savalyeva, Sergei Bondarchuk. West Side Story, by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. (1961, US.) The Romeo and Juliet tragedy re-set in the gang territories of Upper West Side in Manhattan. Even after 44 years, still a pleasure to watch the snappy choreography by Jerome Robbins and to hear the songs by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, George Chakiris, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno. Who�s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, by Mike Nichols. (1966, US.) Based on the play by Edward Albee. An evening in the home of a college professor and his bitchy wife as they entertain, in an unintended way, their uneasy guests with the sordid details of their marital problems. Excellent ensemble acting. Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, etc. Wild Strawberries, by Ingmar Bergman. (1957, Sweden, in Swedish.) An elderly professor, on his way to the university to receive an award, picks up a trio of young hitchhikers, whose behavior leads him to meditate on his own long life and his shortcomings. Victor Sjostrom, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bibi Andersen, etc. William Shakespeare�s Romeo and Juliet, by Baz Luhrmann. (1996, US/GB.) Shakespeare�s most famous love tragedy retold in a modern California beach town setting but keeping the original dialogue and flavor. A superb experiment that succeeds at all levels. Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, etc. The Wings of the Dove, by Iain Softley. (1997, GB.) Based on the novel by Henry James. In turn-of-the-century Venice, an English aristocrat and her working-class journalist boyfriend plot to draw a visiting (and dying) American heiress into his embrace, so that they can solve their money problem and marry. Allison Eliott, Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache, Charlotte Rampling, Elizabeth McGovern, etc. Xiu Xiu, the Sent-Down Girl, by Joan Chen. (1999, China, in Mandarin.) During the Cultural Revolution, millions of young Chinese were �sent down� to the far corners of China to �educate, and be educated by, the masses,� in many cases, never to be heard from again. Xiu Xiu�s was one such story. Lu Lu, Lopsang. Y Tu Mama Tambien, by Alfonso Cuaron. (2002, Mexico, in Spanish.) Two Mexican teenagers, bosom buddies, confess to each other that they have messed around with each other�s girl, y tu mama tambien (�and your mother as well�). A rousing sex comedy with an undertone of intrusive mortality in the end. Maribel Verdi, Gael Garcia Bernal, etc. Z, by Costas Gavras. (1969, France/Algeria, in French.) A fictionalized account of the rise of fascist military rule in Greece and the corruption and human rights abuses that it spawned. Enjoyed wide popularity during its release because of the anti-capitalist student revolt in Europe. Yves Montand, Irene Pappas, Jean Louis Trintignant, Charles Denner. ***** |
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