Precious (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Original Title: Precious (Base on Nol by Saf) (Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire)

Director: Lee Daniels

Writers: Geoffrey Fletcher, Sapphire

Cinematographer: Andrew Dunn

Composer: Mario Grigorov

Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd, Lenny Kravitz, Stephanie Andujar, Chyna Layne, Amina Robinson, Xosha Roquemore, Angelic Zambrana

When Precious, a morbidly obese 16-year-old girl with a strong imagination, falls pregnant for the second time, she is transferred to an experimental school for troubled children, where details of her history of physical and sexual abuse come to light, as she learns to read and write, in Daniels’s painfully convincing and unrelentingly bleak film, which skirts dangerously close to freak show territory, but just about survives by the merest hint of humanity that it gives us to hold on to. Iain.Stott

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Worried About the Boy (2010)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: Julian Jarrold

Writer: Tony Basgallop

Cinematographer: Tony Slater-Ling

Cast: Douglas Booth, Mathew Horne, Mark Gatiss, Marc Warren, Freddie Fox, Francis Magee, Richard Madden

This lovingly crafted and generally entertaining if, perhaps, a little overly ambitious BBC drama presents an examination of the life of George O’Dowd, soon to be Boy George, from his leaving school, through his many fashion experiments and broken hearts, to his first appearance on Top of the Pops, filtered through his height-of-fame, drug withdrawn tabloid hell. Iain.Stott

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Adrift (2009)

Highly Recommended

Brazil

Feature Film

Original Title: À Deriva

Writer/Director: Heitor Dhalia

Cinematographer: Ricardo Della Rosa

Composer: Antonio Pinto

Cast: Vincent Cassel, Laura Neiva, Débora Bloch, Camilla Belle, Gregório Duvivier, Cauã Reymond

Dhalia’s alluringly photographed, gorgeously scored, and spellbindingly acted third feature presents a bitter-sweet and ever so sensual portrait of a young family, which is slowly but surely falling apart as affairs and alcohol begin to take their toll, centring on the relationship between the writer father and his beautiful fourteen-year-old daughter, as they holiday at a peaceful, idyllic coastal resort. Iain.Stott

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Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Writer/Director/Narrator: Michael Moore

Cinematographers: Daniel Marracino, Jayme Roy

Composer: Jeff Gibbs

Moore’s sardonic, sobering film – a filmed essay setting-out the dangers of unchecked capitalism, taking well-aimed pot-shots at America’s banks, with an eye on its human cost – is one of the shabby film-maker’s more reverent affairs, with fewer stunts and less disingenuous enquiry than usual. Iain.Stott

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Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Recommended

USA/Germany

Feature Film

Director: Spike Jonze

Writers: Dave Eggers, Spike Jonze, Maurice Sendak

Cinematographer: Lance Acord

Composers: Carter Burwell, Karen O.

Cast: Max Records, James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker, Michael Berry Jr., Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine Keener

After an argument with his mother, Max, a lonely young boy with an unhappy home life and a rich imagination, runs away to a village filled with decidedly world-weary monsters, who proceed to make him their king, in Jonze’s gently humorous, quietly moving, and surprisingly downbeat kids’ film. Iain.Stott

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Amazing Grace (2006)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/USA

Feature Film

Director: Michael Apted

Writer: Steven Knight

Cinematographer: Remi Adefarasin

Composer: David Arnold

Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Romola Garai, Benedict Cumberbatch, Albert Finney, Michael Gambon, Rufus Sewell, Youssou N'Dour, Ciarán Hinds, Toby Jones

Michael Apted’s beautifully photographed and consummately acted depiction of the MP William Wilberforce’s two decades long battle to abolish Britain’s involvement in the slave trade at the turn of the 19th century is – though a little heavy-handed at times, particularly in its use of music and its frequently jarring tone changes – a generally gripping experience. Iain.Stott

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Money (2010)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: Jeremy Lovering

Writers: Tom Butterworth, Chris Hurford, Martin Amis

Cinematographer: Ben Smithard

Composer: Daniel Pemberton

Cast: Nick Frost, Vincent Kartheiser, Emma Pierson, Amanda Abbington, Tim Pigott-Smith, Peter Wight, Oliver Cotton, Tamsin Egerton, Joshua Dallas, Jerry Hall, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Tony Way

At the request of a suave young producer, an indulgent, perma-drunk ads director goes to New York to make his first feature film, and proceeds to consume great amounts of food, booze, and pornography; but a series of mysterious, abusive phone calls look set to threaten his extravagant lifestyle, in this stylish and well acted (particularly by Kartheiser) if never entirely convincing BBC adaptation of Martin Amis’s acclaimed novel. Iain.Stott

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Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Tim Burton

Writers: Linda Woolverton, Lewis Carroll

Cinematographer: Dariusz Wolski

Composer: Danny Elfman

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Alan Rickman

For its first three quarters or so, Burton’s oft magical film – a visually inventive action-adventure re-imagining of Lewis Carroll’s popular children’s books – is quite delightful, until a decidedly drawn-out battle sequence and its rather sentimental aftermath spoil things somewhat; that said, it’s still a cracking piece of brightly coloured entertainment. Iain.Stott

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Baghead (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Directors: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass

Cinematographer: Jay Duplass

Composer: J. Scott Howard

Cast: Steve Zissis, Ross Partridge, Greta Gerwig, Elise Muller, Jett Garner

In the Duplass brothers' unpredictable Mumblecore (sort of) horror-comedy, four struggling actors spend a boozy weekend in a remote cabin, ostensibly with the intention of writing a movie with parts for each of them, though unrequited sexual longing scuppers their progress somewhat, but not as much as a knife-wielding stranger with a bag on his head, who soon has them running for their lives. Iain.Stott

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A Prophet (2009)

Recommended

France/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Un prophète

Director: Jacques Audiard

Writers: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Abdel Raouf Dafri, Nicolas Peufaillit

Cinematographer: Stéphane Fontaine

Composer: Alexandre Desplat

Cast: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Hichem Yacoubi, Reda Kateb, Jean-Philippe Ricci, Slimane Dazi, Leïla Bekhti

A naïve, rootless 19-year-old enters a tough prison and proceeds, in a kill or be killed spirit, to transform himself from ill-educated neophyte to all powerful mob boss, in Audiard’s bruisingly unpredictable, adeptly acted, and expertly crafted Cannes prize-winner. Iain.Stott

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Appaloosa (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Ed Harris

Writers: Robert Knott, Ed Harris, Robert Parker

Cinematographer: Dean Semler

Composer: Jeff Beal

Cast: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger, Jeremy Irons, Lance Henriksen, Adam Nelson, Timothy Spall, Ariadna Gil

A vicious, uncompromising lawman – hired by a small town, whose previous marshal was gunned down by a local rancher who continues to terrorise the general populace – finds his task complicated when an attractive widow catches his eye, dulling his ruthlessness somewhat, in Harris’s violent and downbeat but diverting and well-played western. Iain.Stott

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How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/Cayman Islands

Feature Film

Director: Robert B. Weide

Writers: Peter Straughan, Toby Young

Cinematographer: Oliver Stapleton

Composer: David Arnold

Cast: Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Jeff Bridges, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson, Megan Fox, Bill Paterson, Max Minghella, Miriam Margolyes

A scruffy, vaguely principled English journalist takes up the offer of a glamorous new job at a swanky New York magazine and proceeds, fighting it at first, to be seduced by the lifestyle that he had previously so vehemently disapproved of, in this diverting, likeable, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny comedy, which, as it progresses, becomes ever more trite and sentimental. Iain.Stott

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Heartless (2009)

Recommended

UK/USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Philip Ridley

Cinematographer: Matt Gray

Composer: David Julyan

Cast: Jim Sturgess, Joseph Mawle, Nikita Mistry, Clémence Poésy, Noel Clarke, Luke Treadaway, Eddie Marsan, Timothy Spall, Ruth Sheen, Justin Salinger

In film-maker Ridley’s first film for 14 years – an inventive, thrilling, and generally fresh if vaguely familiar horror film – fantastic demonic and naturalistic urban horrors collide, as a troubled, birth-marked young man, after the violent death of his mother, makes a Faustian pact with a be-mulleted demon named Papa B, which only serves to further pull him into the nightmarish world in which he finds himself. Iain.Stott

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Stray Dog (1949)

Highly Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 野良犬

Director: Kurosawa Akira

Writers: Kikushima Ryūzō, Kurosawa Akira

Cinematographer: Nakai Asakazu

Composer: Hayasaka Fumio

Cast: Mifune Toshirō, Shimura Takashi, Awaji Keiko, Miyoshi Eiko, Honma Fumiko, Kimura Isao, Chiaki Minoru, Sugai Ichirō, Shimizu Gen

A young homicide detective’s search for his stolen pistol becomes ever more frantic when it emerges that it has been used in a series of armed robberies, leaving him with great feelings of grief and guilt, not helped by the sweltering Tokyo summer, in Kurosawa’s masterfully composed, palpably tense post-war thriller-cum-socially conscious police procedural. Iain.Stott

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A Serious Man (2009)

Essential Viewing

USA/UK/France

Feature Film

Writer/Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Cinematographer: Roger Deakins

Composer: Carter Burwell

Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus, Alan Mandell, Adam Arkin, George Wyner, Amy Landecker, Katherine Borowitz, Allen Lewis Rickman, Yelena Shmuelenson, Fyvush Finkel, Simon Helberg

The Coen brothers’ most accomplished film in several years – a ’60s set existential black comedy featuring a haunting performance from the excellent Stuhlbarg – depicts the trials and tribulations of a Jewish, suburban physics professor, as he battles (or at least comes up against) various personal and professional problems, which gradually, as his increasingly desperate pleas for help go unanswered, pummel him into submission. Iain.Stott

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24 City (2008)

Highly Recommended

China/Hong Kong/Japan

Feature Film/Documentary

Original Title: 二十四城记

Director: Jia Zhangke

Writers: Jia Zhangke, Zhai Yongming

Cinematographers: Yu Lik-wai, Wang Yu

Composers: Hanno Yoshihiro, Lim Giong

Cast: Joan Chen, Lü Liping, Zhao Tao

Jia’s gentle, elegiacally moving documentary – a mixture of five genuine interviews with four scripted ones – explores the lives of the workers (and their families) of a condemned aeronautics factory, which is making way for a modern high-rise housing complex named 24 City, highlighting the monumental changes that have occurred (and continue to occur) in China over the previous 50 years. Iain.Stott

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The Wire: Season 4 (2006)

USA

Television Series

Creator: David Simon

Cast: Aidan Gillen, Clarke Peters, Wendell Pierce, Andre Royo, Jim True-Frost, Robert Wisdom, Seth Gilliam, Domenick Lombardozzi, Reg E. Cathey, Chad L. Coleman, Jamie Hector, Glynn Turman, J.D. Williams, Michael K. Williams, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Robert F. Chew, Jermaine Crawford, Dan DeLuca, Method Man, Sandi McCree, Julito McCullum, S. Robert Morgan, Felicia Pearson, Tristan Wilds, Delaney Williams

The focus of this sprawling, multi-stranded, and very human if decidedly depressing fourth season shifts from cops ‘n’ crims to kids and politicos, covering both a fascinating mayoral election fight and taking a heartbreaking look at the schooling of the city’s poorest children, further emphasising the political box ticking and statistic smudging that forever gets in the way of any genuine progress or good work. Iain.Stott

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CFB's Top 25 Obscure Films of 1983 (2010)

1. El Sur (1983)
2. Careful, He Might Hear You (1983)
3. Sugar Cane Alley (1983)
4. In The White City (1983)
5. Life Is a Bed of Roses (1983)
6. Betrayal (1983)
7. Entre Nous (1983)
8. My Brother's Wedding (1983)
9. Reuben, Reuben (1983)
10. Streamers (1983)
11. Heart Like a Wheel (1983)
12. Lianna (1983)
13. Duvar (1983)
14. Three Crowns of the Sailor (1983)
15. Deadly Circuit (1983)
16. Man of Flowers (1983)
17. Daniel (1983)
18. Without a Trace (1983)
19. The Wounded Man (1983)
20. The Scarecrow (1983)
21. The Boys from Fengkuei (1983)
22. Heat and Dust (1983)
23. Chained Heat (1983)
24. Revenge of the Dead (1983)
25. Running Brave (1983)

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CFB's Top 30 Films of 1983 (2010)

1. The Right Stuff (1983)
2. Zelig (1983)
3. Local Hero (1983)
4. Silkwood (1983)
5. Videodrome (1983)
6. Tender Mercies (1983)
7. Return of the Jedi (1983)
8. The Fourth Man (1983)
9. Terms of Endearment (1983)
10. The Dresser (1983)
11. L'Argent (1983)
12. The Dead Zone (1983)
13. Never Cry Wolf (1983)
14. Pauline at the Beach (1983)
15. The Big Chill (1983)
16. Scarface (1983)
17. WarGames (1983)
18. Nostalgia (1983)
19. Sans Soleil (1983)
20. Trading Places (1983)
21. A Christmas Story (1983)
22. Educating Rita (1983)
23. The Hunger (1983)
24. Danton (1983)
25. Under Fire (1983)
26. The Meaning of Life (1983)
27. El Norte (1983)
28. Ballad of Narayama (1983)
29. Star 80 (1983)
30. Rumble Fish (1983)

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Outlaw (2007)

Best Avoided

UK

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Nick Love

Cinematographer: Sam McCurdy

Composer: David Julyan

Cast: Sean Bean, Danny Dyer, Rupert Friend, Sean Harris, Lennie James, Bob Hoskins, Sally Bretton

Perhaps the only thing uglier than its pretentious camerawork is the Daily Mail/Sun “we’re all doomed” right wing politics that pervades every frame of this nauseating revenge thriller, in which a group of wronged men, let down by the authorities, decide to deliver their own brand of justice to the criminals and wrongdoers of the world. Iain.Stott

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Jericho: Season 2 (2008)

USA

Television Series

Creators: Stephen Chbosky, Josh Schaer, Jonathan E. Steinberg

Cinematographer: Rick Maguire

Composer: David Lawrence

Cast: Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James, Ashley Scott, Kenneth Mitchell, Brad Beyer, Alicia Coppola, Clare Carey, April D. Parker, Emily Rose, Esai Morales, Esai Morales, Sprague Grayden, D.B. Sweeney

One or two oh-captain-my-captain moments aside, this second instalment of the generally thrilling post-apocalyptic series – which was cancelled after the first season before being brought back briefly for this seven episode run – is a more polished, balanced, and (most importantly) daringly ruthless affair. Iain.Stott

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Royal Wedding (2010)

Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: James Griffiths

Writer: Abi Morgan

Cinematographer: G. Magni Agustsson

Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Darren Boyd, Gwyneth Keyworth, Alun Raglan, Sarah Hadland, Jacob Anderson, Kevin Bishop, Claire Cage, Wendy Phillips, Aled Pugh, Charlotte Rogers, Rebekah Staton, Kerry Joy Stewart

By turns funny, moving, transporting, and depressing if never entirely convincing or plausible (not that it really matters), this bitter-sweet BBC drama, featuring an excellent and very affecting performance from Whittaker, set against a royal wedding street party in a small Welsh village in 1981, paints a particularly pessimistic portrait of the decidedly narrow options of the working class women of that particular time and place. Iain.Stott

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Scarface (1932)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Directors: Howard Hawks

Writers: Ben Hecht, Armitage Trail

Cinematographers: Lee Garmes, L.W. O'Connell

Cast: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins, C. Henry Gordon, George Raft, Vince Barnett, Boris Karloff

A small-time hood murders his way up from bodyguard to crime boss, ruthlessly and carelessly killing anyone that gets in his way, bringing himself to the unwanted attentions of the local authorities, in Hawks’s formally playful, strangely moving, and much influential gangland melodrama. Iain.Stott

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Alexander the Last (2009)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director/Cinematographer: Joe Swanberg

Writers: Joe Swanberg, Barlow Jacobs, David Lowery, Justin Rice, Amy Seimetz, Jess Weixler

Composers: Justin Rice, Jo Schornikow

Cast: Jess Weixler, Justin Rice, Barlow Jacobs, Amy Seimetz, Jane Adams, Josh Hamilton, Jo Schornikow

Swanberg’s playful, spellbinding, and generally quite delightful slice-of-life Mumblecore pic – a near enough plotless examination of the socio-sexual entanglements of a group of arty, suburban twenty-somethings – mixes scenes of music, poetry, theatre, sex, shopping, and childish games to beguiling effect. Iain.Stott

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Tony Manero (2008)

Essential Viewing

Chile/Brazil

Feature Film

Director: Pablo Larraín

Writers: Alfredo Castro, Mateo Iribarren, Pablo Larraín

Cinematographer: Sergio Armstrong

Cast: Alfredo Castro, Paola Lattus, Héctor Morales, Amparo Noguera, Elsa Poblete

Against a backdrop of fear, repression, and persecution under the nefarious rule of military dictator Pinochet in 1979, Larraín brilliantly and painfully paints a portrait of a social outcast who, at the age of 52, has nothing in his life other than a desire to be Tony Manero, the fictional hero of Saturday Night Fever (1977), a dream for which he is willing to go to extreme and bloody lengths. Iain.Stott

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Bodysong (2003)

Highly Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Writer/Director: Simon Pummell

Composer: Jonny Greenwood

Made-up entirely of archive footage edited together to the intoxicating sounds of an exquisite Jonny Greenwood score, Pummell’s devastatingly moving cine-poem provides a portrait of human life from conception to death and beyond, graphically and unflinchingly examining the exploits of Man – good, bad, and downright ugly. Iain.Stott

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Carriers (2009)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Directors: Àlex Pastor, David Pastor

Cinematographer: Benoît Debie

Composer: Peter Nashel

Cast: Lou Taylor Pucci, Chris Pine, Piper Perabo, Emily VanCamp, Christopher Meloni, Kiernan Shipka

After a viral pandemic has wiped out most of the world’s population, leaving the few remaining survivors with a desperate struggle for survival, two young brothers and their female companions decide, for purely sentimental rather than pragmatic reasons, to head for a remote coastal resort that brings back fond memories of childhood holidays, but practicalities soon raise their ugly heads, in the Pastor brothers’ gripping, challenging, and decidedly pessimistic yet never overwhelmingly bleak feature debut. Iain.Stott

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The Road (2009)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: John Hillcoat

Writers: Joe Penhall, Cormac McCarthy

Cinematographer: Javier Aguirresarobe

Composers: Nick Cave, Warren Ellis

Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker, Michael Kenneth Williams, Garret Dillahunt

Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s excellent 2006 novel, Hillcoat’s post-apocalyptic drama – in which a man and his young son, who was born after the barely seen cataclysmic events, travel ever southwards in search of warmer climes and perhaps a better life, battling against cold, hunger, and “the bad guys” – just about (but for Cave and Ellis’s incongruous and distracting score) manages to capture the artless, melancholy poetry of the book. Iain.Stott

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Kes (1969)

Essential Viewing

UK

Feature Film

Director: Ken Loach

Writers: Tony Garnett, Barry Hines, Ken Loach

Cinematographer: Chris Menges

Composer: John Cameron

Cast: David Bradley, Freddie Fletcher, Lynne Perrie, Colin Welland, Brian Glover, Bob Bowes, Bernard Atha

Based on Hines’s novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968), Loach’s gently humorous, deeply human, and generally outstanding film paints a portrait of a young Barnsley boy – who has been failed by family, friends, and teachers alike, and is about to leave school for a decidedly bleak future (quite possibly down the dreaded pit) – as he finally finds a little joy in his life, when he manages to teach himself, against all the odds, to train and keep a kestrel. Iain.Stott

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A Man from the Sun (1956)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Writer/Director: John Elliot

Cast: Errol John, Cy Grant, Colin Douglas, Sarah Morgan, Keefe West, Nadia Catouse, Ralph Ball, Maxwell Foster, Earl Cameron, Gloria Ann Simpson, Beatrice Varley, André Dakar, Sonny McKenzie

Though more than a tad didactic and perhaps a little sanitised, this groundbreaking BBC drama – depicting the fears and problems of both a group of recent West Indian immigrants to London and the locals that they interact with, detailing problems of employment, racism, exploitation, and clashing cultures – is, never the less, a fascinating document of the time and place. Iain.Stott

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The Five Obstructions (2003)

Recommended

Denmark/Belgium/France/Switzerland

Feature Documentary

Original Title: De fem benspænd

Directors: Jørgen Leth, Lars von Trier

Writers: Jørgen Leth, Lars von Trier, Asger Leth, Sophie Destin

Cinematographers: Kim Hattesen, Dan Holmberg

Featuring: Jørgen Leth, Lars von Trier, Daniel Hernandez Rodriguez, Jacqueline Arenal, Vivian Rosa, Alexandra Vandernoot, Patrick Bauchau, Marie Dejaer, Pascal Perez, Meschell Perez, Bob Sabiston

Lars von Trier challenges Jørgen Leth, a film-maker whom he admires highly, to remake The Perfect Human (1967), a film that he loves greatly, five times, each time with a different set of limitations, providing us with a fascinating, humorous, vaguely cruel, and occasionally quite beautiful insight into the creative processes of both Leth and von Trier. Iain.Stott

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The Perfect Human (1967)

Recommended

Denmark

Short Film

Director: Jørgen Leth

Writers: Ole John, Jørgen Leth

Cinematographers: Henning Camre, Ole John

Composer: Henning Christiansen

Narrator: Jørgen Leth

Cast: Claus Nissen, Maiken Algren

With the most beautiful of scores, against a stark white background, under the gaze of an unseen narrator, a man and a woman go about the business of being human beings, in Leth’s gently funny but decidedly melancholy anthropological study, which provided the inspiration for von Trier’s The Five Obstructions (2003). Iain.Stott

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If Only (1998)

Not Recommended

Spain/France/UK/Canada

Feature Film

Original Title: Lluvia en los zapatos

Director: María Ripoll

Writer: Rafa Russo

Cinematographer: Javier Salmones

Composers: Bernardo Fuster, Ángel Illarramendi, Luis Mendo

Cast: Lena Headey, Douglas Henshall, Penélope Cruz, Gustavo Salmerón, Mark Strong, Eusebio Lázaro, Charlotte Coleman, Neil Stuke, Elizabeth McGovern, Dave Fishley

On the eve of his ex-girlfriend’s wedding to another man, an out-of-work actor, heavily under the influence of alcohol, has a strange encounter with some mysteriously accented binmen, which results in him being transported back in time to the point at which their relationship fell apart, giving him the chance to do things again differently, in this mildly diverting and pleasingly ambitious if sometimes rather awkward rom-com, which is let down somewhat by Cruz and Coleman’s uncharacteristically bland supporting performances. Iain.Stott

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CFB's Greatest Movies by Country, Chapter 23: Netherlands

1. The Vanishing (1988)
2. The 4th Man (1983)
3. Soldier of Orange (1977)
4. Black Book (2006)
5. Karakter (1997)
6. Antonia's Line (1995)
7. Turkish Delight (1973)
8. The Assault (1986)
9. For a Lost Soldier (1992)
10. Simon (2004)
11. Twin Sisters (2002)
12. Fanfare (1958)
13. The Northerners (1992)
14. The Lift (1983)
15. Spetters (1980)
16. A Question of Silence (1982)
17. Max Havelaar (1976)
18. Abel (1986)
19. On Top of the Whale (1982)
20. Like Two Drops of Water (1963)

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Jericho: Season 1 (2006-2007)

USA

Television Series

Creators: Stephen Chbosky, Josh Schaer, Jonathan E. Steinberg

Cinematographer: Rick Bota

Composer: David Lawrence

Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James, Gerald McRaney, Ashley Scott, Kenneth Mitchell, Brad Beyer, Alicia Coppola, April D. Parker, Pamela Reed, Bob Stephenson, Clare Carey, Richard Speight Jr., Michael Gaston, Erik Knudsen, Candace Bailey, Shoshannah Stern, Sprague Grayden

Despite one or two sentimental moments and a rather unsophisticated and horribly insistent score, this well written and decently played post-apocalyptic series, which appears to be aiming for somewhere between 24 and Lost, depicting the battle for survival of the residents of a small, isolated Kansas town after a mysterious nuclear terrorist attack, is a fast moving and hopelessly addictive viewing experience. Iain.Stott

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The Obscure, the Forgotten, and the Unloved (2010)

My latest (05/2010) film poll is now complete and accessible here. A preview of the results can be seen below.

The Obscure, the Forgotten, and the Unloved is a 2010 poll of committed cinephiles who hope to find, highlight, and promote films that have received a considerable amount of critical acclaim but have yet to find the audience that their evident quality deserves. It follows on from The One-Line Review Presents “The 50 Greatest Films” and Beyond the Canon, bringing about a logical culmination to my quest to find the best that cinema has to offer.

1. Ride Lonesome (1959)
2. Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
3. And Life Goes On... (1991)
4. Jeanne Dielman (1975)
5. The Reckless Moment (1949)
6. The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936)
7. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
8. Syndromes and a Century (2006)
9. The Red and the White (1967)
10. The Tarnished Angels (1957)
11. Fists in the Pocket (1965)
12. Edvard Munch (1974)
13. Love Streams (1984)
14. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)
15. Lola (1961)
16. A City of Sadness (1989)
17. Il Posto (1961)
18. Our Daily Bread (1934)
19. Le Bonheur (1965)
20. 7th Heaven (1927)
21. Les Bonnes Femmes (1960)
22. Le Plaisir (1952)
23. Remember the Night (1940)
24. A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
25. People on Sunday (1930)
26. Man of Aran (1934)
27. Mother (1926)
28. The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)
29. Spione (1928)
30. Modern Romance (1981)
31. Le Deuxième Souffle (1966)
32. Accident (1967)
33. Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960)
34. Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968)
35. Stars in My Crown (1950)
36. The Pumpkin Eater (1964)
37. Late Autumn (1960)
38. The Devil, Probably (1977)
39. The Fall of the House of Usher (1928, Epstein)
40. La Chienne (1931)

Best films by decade:
2000s
1990s
1980s
1970s
1960s
1950s
1940s
1930s
1920s and earlier

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Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Recommended

USA

Animated Feature Film

Director: Wes Anderson

Writers: Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, Roald Dahl

Cinematographer: Tristan Oliver

Composer: Alexandre Desplat

Cast: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Wally Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe

Adapted from Roald Dahl’s subversive children’s book, Wes Anderson’s stop motion gem, in which the eponymous wild animal, married with a child, attempts to rediscover his youthful, mischievous side by stealing from three local farmers – Boggs, Bunce, and Bean – but in so doing only manages to put himself, his family, and his friends into a perilous state, is an absolute delight from beginning to end. Iain.Stott

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MASH (1970)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Director: Robert Altman

Writers: Ring Lardner Jr., Richard Hooker

Cinematographer: Harold E. Stine

Composer: Johnny Mandel

Cast: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Roger Bowen, Rene Auberjonois, David Arkin, Jo Ann Pflug, Gary Burghoff, Fred Williamson, Michael Murphy, John Schuck, Bud Cort

Three Martini soaked, girl crazy, golf loving surgeons bring some much needed irreverence to a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, in Altman’s hilarious, innovative, and thoroughly irresistible anti-everything film, which only gets better with each subsequent viewing, as previously unnoticed layers of detail and meaning catch one’s eyes and ears. Iain.Stott

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The First Day of the Rest of Your Life (2008)

Not Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Le premier jour du reste de ta vie

Writer/Director: Rémi Bezançon

Cinematographer: Antoine Monod

Composer: Sinclair

Cast: Jacques Gamblin, Zabou Breitman, Déborah François, Marc-André Grondin, Pio Marmaï, Roger Dumas, Cécile Cassel, Stanley Weber, Sarah Cohen-Hadria, Camille De Pazzis, Aymeric Cormerais

Depicting five momentous days (between 1990 and 2000) in the life of an average lower middle class family – encompassing a marriage, a loss of virginity, a few deaths, numerous fights, and an air guitar competition(!) – Bezançon’s film, though well played, quite likeable, and generally diverting, is a decidedly uneven, occasionally trite, and often heavy-handed family comedy-drama, (bonus points for including two Blossom Dearie songs on the soundtrack, though).

Iain.Stott

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At Five in the Afternoon (2003)

Recommended

Iran/France

Feature Film

Original Title: پنجِ عصر

Director: Samira Makhmalbaf

Writers: Samira Makhmalbaf, Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Cinematographers: Ebrahim Ghafori, Samira Makhmalbaf

Composer: Mohammad Reza Darvishi

Cast: Agheleh Rezaie, Abdolgani Yousefrazi, Razi Mohebi, Marzieh Amiri

Despite some awkward performances from some of the supporting cast and some rather didactic, expository dialogue, Samira Makhmalbaf’s decidedly even-handed examination of post-Taliban Afghan life – taking both a celebratory and a commiseratory look at a rapidly changing society – is a very moving and human film, which is likely to challenge a few preconceived notions. Iain.Stott

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