challenge_everything
Active Member
1. Carrie (Brian De Palma).
Horror melodrama perfection. Fuck the idea of being comfortable about things like sexuality, or menstruation, or religion. We are essentially awkward, icky, abject creatures and the entire film is a screw turning exercise in this regard. It’s been said a million times but the finale at the prom is an absolute tour de force: the split screens, Spacek's scorching gaze, and of course buckets of pig's blood.
2. Network (Sidney Lumet).
Angry satire that, if anything, has gotten better and more relevant with age. There is no act of rebellion that cannot be co-opted, repurposed, repackaged and sold.
3. The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood).
Before Eastwood started messing around with genre tropes, we got Eastwood's best straight-out action movie with some of his best lines: "Dyin' ain't much of a livin', kid".
4. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese).
Virtually flawless film-making by Scorsese (as always) but I’ve never really clicked with the morality of it, or lack thereof. While some might regard the moral ambivalence as a good thing, to me it seems like Scorsese is shooting a subject he finds interesting but without offering a comment or perspective.
5. Quien puede matar a un nino? [Who Can Kill a Child?] (Narciso Ibanez Serrador).
A horror oddity from this era in terms of both its setting, language (Spanish) and aesthetics. Like Hitchcock's The Birds but with creepy kids as the force of nature. The idea of children taking retribution for the sins of the adult world is original, if laid on a little thick.
6. The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (Nicholas Gessner).
Strangely marketed as a horror, it shapes up as a thriller but quickly evolves into a surprisingly delicate coming of age flick despite its dangerous handling of the sexuality of the 14 year old Jodie Foster. Foster is even better here than in Taxi Driver, and Martin Sheen is unbelievably sleazy as the sexual predator.
7. Le Locataire [The Tenant] (Roman Polanski).
An unnerving thematic continuation of Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, with a touch of Kafka-esque humour, dulled somewhat by Polanski's lack of acting ability.
8. The Omen (Richard Donner).
Doesn't get its due these days given it's been plagiarised beyond belief, it remains atmospheric and stylish with a score of classic scenes and an impressively frazzled performance by Gregory Peck playing contra his established persona.
9. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes).
The cinematic equivalent of a slowly deflating balloon, as Cassavetes' alter ego Ben Gazzarra haplessly watches everything he's built crumble around him. An ode to the little, insignificant things in life that individuals take pride in, but matter to no-one else.
Decided to end my list at 9, after this there's a pile of evenly matched films I can't really split.
Horror melodrama perfection. Fuck the idea of being comfortable about things like sexuality, or menstruation, or religion. We are essentially awkward, icky, abject creatures and the entire film is a screw turning exercise in this regard. It’s been said a million times but the finale at the prom is an absolute tour de force: the split screens, Spacek's scorching gaze, and of course buckets of pig's blood.
2. Network (Sidney Lumet).
Angry satire that, if anything, has gotten better and more relevant with age. There is no act of rebellion that cannot be co-opted, repurposed, repackaged and sold.
3. The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood).
Before Eastwood started messing around with genre tropes, we got Eastwood's best straight-out action movie with some of his best lines: "Dyin' ain't much of a livin', kid".
4. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese).
Virtually flawless film-making by Scorsese (as always) but I’ve never really clicked with the morality of it, or lack thereof. While some might regard the moral ambivalence as a good thing, to me it seems like Scorsese is shooting a subject he finds interesting but without offering a comment or perspective.
5. Quien puede matar a un nino? [Who Can Kill a Child?] (Narciso Ibanez Serrador).
A horror oddity from this era in terms of both its setting, language (Spanish) and aesthetics. Like Hitchcock's The Birds but with creepy kids as the force of nature. The idea of children taking retribution for the sins of the adult world is original, if laid on a little thick.
6. The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (Nicholas Gessner).
Strangely marketed as a horror, it shapes up as a thriller but quickly evolves into a surprisingly delicate coming of age flick despite its dangerous handling of the sexuality of the 14 year old Jodie Foster. Foster is even better here than in Taxi Driver, and Martin Sheen is unbelievably sleazy as the sexual predator.
7. Le Locataire [The Tenant] (Roman Polanski).
An unnerving thematic continuation of Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, with a touch of Kafka-esque humour, dulled somewhat by Polanski's lack of acting ability.
8. The Omen (Richard Donner).
Doesn't get its due these days given it's been plagiarised beyond belief, it remains atmospheric and stylish with a score of classic scenes and an impressively frazzled performance by Gregory Peck playing contra his established persona.
9. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes).
The cinematic equivalent of a slowly deflating balloon, as Cassavetes' alter ego Ben Gazzarra haplessly watches everything he's built crumble around him. An ode to the little, insignificant things in life that individuals take pride in, but matter to no-one else.
Decided to end my list at 9, after this there's a pile of evenly matched films I can't really split.
