A Bumper Crop of DVD Rankings!

As Peter Sellers put it in "Being There", I like to watch. This comes straight off my phone, where I record the videos I've watched. Quite a few months worth here. I rank them 1-10, 10 being the highest.

The only editing I've done to the list is take it out of chronological order, and group them by score. From D'or to D'oh, as it were. Occasionally I note the Director's name.

Your thoughts? Disagreements? Endorsements?

10: Ivan the Terrible II; The Silent Partner; LA confidential; Manhattan murder mystery; 12 Angry Men; Blood Oath.

9: Accident (Pinter); Satan's Brew; Gainsbourg; Road to Perdition; Lola; Centurion; Intimate enemies; Le Regle de Jeu (Renoir); L'enfer; A Summer's Tale (Rohmer); Valerie and her week of wonders; Das Boot; 2:36; Full moon in Paris; Mother Joan of the Angels (Jerzy Kawalerowicz); Repo Man; That cold day in the park; The player; La Ardilla Roja; Match Point; The outlaw Josey Wales; The Club; Whatever works; Moon.

8: Ivan the Terrible I; Passenger (Andrezj Munk); A winters tale (Rohmer); The Dead (John Huston); Distant voices, still lives; Army of crime; Katzelmacher (Fassbinder); Chinese roulette (Fassbinder); The Perfectionist; Sweet smell of success; Between Wars; The Last Detail; Dog Soldiers; Pauline a la plage; Leap year; The Marquise of O; 3 Women; I am love; Melinda and Melinda; Rendezvous in Paris; Winter in wartime; Gosford Park; Julia's Eyes; Ryan's Daughter; Cassandra's Dream; The Maltese Falcon

7: A blonde in love (Milosz Forman); The third part of the night (Andrzej Zulawski); Audition/talent show (Milosz Forman); The Cars that ate Paris; Diamonds of the night (Jan Nemec); Veronika Voss; The Searchers (Ford);Duet for Four; Squizzy Taylor; Wittgenstein; Brilliant Lies; An Autumn Tale (Rohmer); Peaches; My girlfriends boyfriend (Rohmer; The Green Ray; Husbands and wives; Bigger than life; Nos querido mes de agosto; The long goodbye; Billy Liar

6: Love me no more; Red white and blue; Safe; The night the prowler; Cracks

Trilogy: the weeping meadow; Everyone says I love you; Fallen Angels

4: Black Dahlia

3: The man from London; Chaotic Ana; What's up tiger lily

2: Suspiria; Four minutes

0: The piano tuner of earthquakes

Vidlog

Fort Solor Vidlog! See below the list I keep on my iPhone whenever I watch a video. Which is quite often, I confess. Ive been getting into Eric Rohmer, Louis Bresson's finest pupil Louis Malle, some sci-fi, some horror, Spanish language film, and of course, as always, 1970s Australian film.

Ive bolded the ones I thought were really top shelf, and tried to be picky at it too. Some of them Id seen before, but love - these will be obvious. I've also used strikethrough for the genuine stinkers.

If you loved or loathed any of these, or have related recommendations, leave a note in the fort gate suggestions box below.

The man from hong kong/ Scanners/ Loneliness of the long distance runner/Nosferatu/Napoleon dynamite/The removalists/ Milou en may /Escalator to the scaffold /Boys don't cry/Jacobs ladder/Punishment park/ Hard candy/ Five minutes of heaven/ Reds/Cannibal holocaust/Breaking the waves/Event horizon/La Bete/Irreversible/Anatomy l'enfer/Old Joy/Into the wild/My dinner with Andre/Letters from iwo jima/Last stop 174/Travelling North/Battle Royale/Logan's run/Wigan Casino/Kids/Gozu/The silent house/I spit on your grave/Suture/Last year in Marienbad/Soylent Green/River's Edge/Repulsion /The Field/Patton/ 2001: A Space Oddyssey/Scanner Darkly/Unforgiven/La Notte/Dons Party/Peeping Tom/Alatriste/Scott Pilgrim/Red Desert/Battleship Potemkin/Knife on the water/Amacord/Triple Agent/Chloe in the afternoon/ 8.5/Ciao manhattan /Bananas/The good marriage/The aviators wife/Blood diamond/Madam Bovary/The Night Porter/Tale of springtime /Guess who's coming to dinner?/Money movers/The Plumber

Capitão's log: The Intense

What's the most intense, mind-shaking film you've seen? (Aside from I am Curious: Beige, of course). I'm thinking here of films that leave you thinking about it afterwards - rather than those that merely shock, or épater le bourgeois, as the French would have it.

I'm sure there's several I could name if I thought about it (which I haven't): but let me instead cite two Ive seen recently.

The first is Punishment Park, an extraordinary film  made by Peter Watkins in 1971, using amateur actors in a way that makes Ken Loach look like a Fabian. Its a dystopian drama set in Vietnam war era US, which is extremely effective at getting ordinary people to act out a 'side' in a very divisive time (essentially cops and officials v detainees suspected of radicalism). The involvement of the film crew late in the piece kinda blew my mind, actually - at certain points it looked as though the "cops" were going to biff the film crew.

The other is Hard Candy: an ultimate revenge fantasy film to do with creepy internet stalkers and grooming.

Yikes! What a gripper.

Got any recommendations for an old seaborne web diarist?

Capitão's log: The Horror

What's the best of the Horror genre in yer opinions? I've never been an expert, and frankly, since the scariest film you'll ever in your life see isn't even in the genre (Rowan Woods' The Boys 1998), its probably a moot point.

(Incidentally, the Australian Screen Online site has an good linked essay on Horror in Australian Cinema).

Anyway, against usual inclinations, and on recommendations I've watched some crackers lately. The Japanese flim Ring (1998) is highly recommended from O Capitão's deck, and has some great ideas (which Hollywood naturally ripped off shortly afterward in an English language remake). John Carpenter's remake of the The Thing (1982) wasn't bad either, though it all felt a touch dated to me, having not seen it at the time. I was reminded to revisit The Sixth Sense (1999) as well, which really is a stonker.

Et tu?

Pas Malle!

You know, for someone pretending to be Portuguese, I really do watch a lot of French cinema. My latest film obsession aboard the Fortaleza do Mar is Louis Malle.

Malle studied beside the master,  Robert Bresson, and directed some of the most interesting French films of the 70s. Who else but Malle would direct Lacombe Lucien, an exploration of French collaboration during the occupation. More fine films include Murmur of the Heart; an absolutely hilarious and brilliant Bildungsroman tale.

I'm almost a bit scared to watch Damage, which currently looms of the port bow - I wonder how his work will translate to English language cinema.

Update: Woah! That was about as intense as watching a video gets.

Welcome to the Jungle (2007)

Well, I don't know about you, but I'd just about watch any film set in Fiji, PNG and West Papua. The fact that this proved to be an absolute cracker was just a bonus. Loosely inspired by the mystery surrounding the disappearance in PNG of Michael Rockefeller in 1961, this 2007 horror-thriller follows two US and two Australian backpackers through the wilds of New Guinea. In a Blair Witch project meets Deliverance style, they film their own progress as things get increasingly remote and freaky.

I won't spoil the ending, though I will note that the encounter with Indonesian guards at the West Papuan border provided a few thrills in itself. I also found the dialogue between the characters - as their own relationships deteriorate - well above average quality, and genuinely amusing. Nice to see the South-West Pacific feature in commercial film at any rate - even if it is through the 'undiscovered tribe' trope. Know any others?

Ghosts of the Yeoman Dream: Lucky Country (2009)

For this to me is what New Australia means, to the landless, the homeless . . . to those who long to be manly, to be true... Come together, in all unselfishness, to trust each other and to be free. To live simply, to work hardly, to win not the gold that poisons but that home life that saves....

I really never thought I'd see an Australian film open with the words of William Lane, the 1890s utopian socialist and teetotaler who took 400 Australians to Paraguay in 1893. Somehow the movie Lucky Country (2009) passed me by without a trace last year. But its a cracker. Best Australian film I've seen in years. Where Lane imagined a collective settlement in the heart of South America, this film is set on a harsh, marginal individual selection somewhere in Australian scrub in 1902. Australian land reform movements of the late nineteenth century did lead to some marginal property being forced from squatters hands by colonial governments,  as a sop to the Yeoman dream: a vision of an agrarian society of smallholders, of a man and his family leading a stolid, moral life on the land, away from urban vice. Of course, in the land of the long white scam, most decent land actually went to the squatters' dummy bidders, and this sets the stage for the film: one Yeoman nightmare, shortly after federation.

The swaggies don't pass by anymore, but three Boer war veterans returning in failure from prospecting do. The rest I'll leave, in case you want to see it.

"Bet ya thought it was going to be all Henry bloody Lawson didn’t ya?".

You can see a trailer here.

'Brulliant rivolution: Two guys shitting themsulves un the bush'

Haha! New Zealand, 1982.

If those two concepts aren't exciting you already, make sure you see Sleeping Dogs (1982), starring Sam Neill.

The premise is that a general strike occasions the rise of an authoritarian military government in New Zealand.

Repression and general mayhem ensue.

Sam Neill is your reluctant hero in the resistance. As it happens, its ekshually a great film, and the first NZ film ever screened in the US of Ay, Bro.

Wake in Fright (1971)

Since I was a kid I've had a recurring dream of being on a beach, in light so bright I can barely open my eyes to see. This newly released on DVD classic of Australian cinema somehow captures that feeling - everything is yellow, red, light disturbs the characters, scrutinising their dark, more brutal sides. I've waited years to see Ted Kotcheff's film, and finally tracked it down on DVD. No lesser figures than Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford and Fred Schepisi regard Wake in Fright as the film that sparked the 1970s reniassance in Australian film making. The Cannes Film Festival has only ever screened two films twice: Antonioni's L'Avventura, and Kotcheff's Wake in Fright.

Though a critical success, it was apparently met by ambivalent public acclaim in Australia, with some audiences taking it all too personally, and a general feeling of "this isn't us". It certainly shines a light on male-dominated frontier towns of rural Australia - where men outnumber women and the stranger creates a rip in the fabric.

The performances are outstanding: as one critic rightly put it, Chips Rafferty as the local cop - in his final screen role before his death in 1971 - "exudes an unnerving intensity with a deceptively menacing and disturbing performance that ranks among the best of his career." Donald Pleasance is brilliant as an alcoholic doctor - and also claims my "best Australian accent by a foreign actor" award. Jack Thompson, Gary Bond and John Meillon round out the Australian all-star cast. This one will stay with me for a while. Would love to see it on the big screen.

Australian Screen Online

You know, the Australian Screen Online site really is ace. Loads of great clips you can check - from all eras. And you can search via film type, decade, or by title. See the short hand-cranked Lumiere Cinematographe clips of Queen St Brisbane in 1899, or Kanakas working on the cane fields of North Qld, or the 1896 Melbourne Cup.

Or check the later clips of hard to find Australian cinema classics like Wake in Fright (1971). I could be lost in here for days. Send cheezels and jaffas!

Abigail's Party (1977)

Its no surprise to me that Mike Leigh's early film for TV Abigail's Party (1977) was rated 11th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. I saw it recently, and it truly is a magnificent precursor to that excruciating but hilarious genre (self-important-type-makes-constant-arse-of-self-in-public) that later spawned classics like The Office.

I also think its a toss-up as to whether Prunella Scales of Fawlty Towers or Alison Steadman's potrayal of Beverly is the origin of that classic UK aspirational lower middle-class female character that ends every sentence on a patronising "okaayyyy?".

In any case, I can only agree with the Channel 4 reviewer who said that Abigail's Party "still ranks as the most painful hundred minutes in British comedy-drama." Its compelling, peek-through-your-fingers-while-you-cringe viewing. Also interesting are the class dynamics between the five characters, flung together by post-1960s suburbanism and Britain's rising lower middle class.

'I gits a stretch fer stoushing Johns' - The Sentimental Bloke (1919)

I've just seen the DVD reprint (with soundtrack by Jen Anderson) of Raymond Longford's classic silent film The Sentimental Bloke. Normally bored and already squirming in my chair by the very idea of silent film, I was quite taken with it - it really is an engaging movie, capturing the wonderful vernacular of C.J. Dennis' verse novel.

C.J. himself (who had only published it 4 years earlier) appears at the start of the film. The main female lead (Lottie Lyell) was the de facto partner (and reputed co-director) of the credited director Raymond Longford, who you can see interviewed shortly before his death in 1959 on the extras. When a print of the film was rediscovered in the 1950s and re-released, he was found - then in his 80s - working as nightwatchman on the docks.

There's some great footage of Manly and Wolloomoolloo after the war, including a genuine digger in the background on the ferry as Bill and Doreen go on their first date. I really enjoyed it, and partly, if you'll allow the digression, because I once recorded an album at Jen Anderson's studio back in my musician days. A friend and I - both in other bands at the time - recorded a lowly independent CD there as a two-piece with some spare songs our respective outfits weren't using. He suggested Jen Anderson's studio - then in Northcote - where his band had recorded before. We both lived in Brisbane then, and it was a great week down here recording and louching around with muso friends and acquaintances.

Ten years later and I live a few streets away - though Jen herself has moved elsewhere in Melbourne. Suffice to say, she really was a great producer and sound technician - and I am truly blessed - as a part-timer then, and no longer in the game - to have Jen Anderson's violin solos on a song or two of my own. It really lifted the whole thing to another plane - and made it sound like I knew what I was doing. Which, by and large, I didn't.

Coming from Brisbane, I didn't realise then how BIG her band Weddings, Parties, Anything were in Melbourne. We went to a party and met them all - they were really great people. Top memories - thanks Jen! Whatever you're up to now. Anyway, the point is: I think the sound track is beautiful, and works seamlessly.

Oh yeah - and the title of my post. Watching Underbelly this last year, I got to wondering where this "Jacks" slang for coppers had come from, as I 'd never heard it. And lo! They appear as the "Johns" in C.J. Dennis. Mystery solved?

Best Screen Devil Ever?

Bedazzled: Drimble Wedge & The Vegetations (1967).

The House of Cassel

As I may have mentioned at other times, I love it when freaky Kismet-style shit comes across my desk, here at Keating Towers.

For some time Ive been a great fan of Jean-Pierre Cassel (above) - the roguish, charming French lead in such greats as Luis Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), and Claude Chabrol's truly ace Hitchcockian classic La Rupture (1970). (Incidentally, both films also star my only genuine silver screen crush, the haute and magnificent Stéphane Audran). Cassel also played the classic dastardly Frenchman role as Pierre Dubois in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965).

Alors, well then... meet his son: none other than Vincent "La Haine" Cassel. Who knew? And there he is, playing the same sort of roles. Quality French gear like La Haine, and devilish Frenchmen in more schlocky Anglo-productions like Ocean's Twelve.

I love it when things make sense!

*rocks back and forth imperceptibly*

Haneke

Now, I'm not in the business of tarring entire nations here at BmL, but think its fair to say that Austria has enjoyed more than its fair share of sociopaths, high-profile xenophobes and general weirdos. To the casual observer, there might seem to be a disproportionate number of persons imprisoned in cellars for decades; an eerie succession of extreme Right leaders (who, it turns out, are secretly gay and having it off with each other); and perhaps a revisionist 'well it wasn't us' attitude which permits parties that would be considered extremist in Germany to be defined as 'centre-right' affairs.

So, what's going on in Mitte-Europa? One of my favourite directors, Michael Haneke, an Austrian himself (though born in Munich) clearly wants us to know just how weird shit can get when you're landlocked between Germans, Swiss, Italians, Magyars, Slovenes and Czechs. Oh, and Liechtensteinians.

I really liked Hidden (2005) so I started checking out his back catalogue. Aside from the well-known The Pianist (2002), there's some really intense and disturbing psycho-dramas such as the gripping Funny Games (Austrian version 1997, remade by Hollywood in 2008 - see the original is my call) , and the seriously screwed-up (and true) story of an Austrian middle class family's inexplicable group suicide: The Seventh Continent (1989). More cheery fare is offered in his examination of a mass killing at an Austrian bank 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994) - the third movie in his self-titled "glaciation trilogy".

I guess it doesn't sound all that appealing now, now that read over the themes! But I must say I'm rarely so mesmerised by the small screen than when Haneke directs. Can't wait to see what he's up to next.

When I get down to Hobart...

So, did you know that "the problem with human flesh is that, while rich in protein, it never really satisfies hunger because of the lack of carbohydrates, which provide energy"?

Well, read about it here in this excellent precis of the story of Tasmanian convict and cannibal-by-circumstance (later by choice): Alexander Pearce.

Of course, I've just watched the The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce tonight, and it was a stonker! Great script, great performances, and a fine dramatic soliloquy or two from Pearce's confessant. The film doesn't trouble the scorers at a neat 60 mins, and is faithful to the ripping yarn it is. From memory, Fyodor issued a heads-up on this medium-length film back at the Wreck of the Batavia: Why no film? thread. And let it be known that he was right!

Which brings me back to the theme. Come on film Australia, check out The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce. Its all feasible. And there's so many great Australian historical tales to be told. The themes are often universal - which is presumably part of the sales pitch you want to hear. I've already suggested the Batavia... and here's a few more, for nothing, just off the top of my head.

Australian historical films that must be made include:

* Pemulwoy and the Eora resistance 1789-95.
* Battle Mountain: The Kalkadoon resistance in Nth QLD
* The Castle Hill rebellion (although a mini-series partly addressed it in 1978)
* The Great Strikes of 1891. Sure, Sunday too Far Away is a classic, set during the 1956 shearers strikes. But those were tame as! In 1891 half of rural Queensland was on fire, and the QLD colonial army and assorted militia were sent in.
* The Battle of Brisbane, 1942: Can we handle an all out two-day brawl between Diggers and American GIs, which wrecked downtown Brisbane, and was hushed up by wartime authorities? Yes we can!

April March - "Chick Habit"

You know, sometimes I don't feel quite so culturally adrift in this world when groovy, kismet-style shit like this comes to my attention. A memo from emissaries in the land of popular culture landed on my desk recently, and from it I learned that Tarantino's film Death Proof (2007) has in its soundtrack none other than an English adaptation of my very fave France Gall track Laissez Tomber les Filles. Posted previously here at BmL.

Its by groovy April March, a big fan of 60s French Pop herself, and its rendered in Anglais as "Chick Habit". Not a direct translation, and not as good as the Gall original (as if!) - but still a corker!

Plus, if you've always wanted to see a bunch of hot babes beat the living crap out of Kurt Russell, this clip's for you.

Update: Cha! I just watched the DVD, and aside from one slow patch in the middle, where you meet a whole new set of characters, its a riot. The last 10 minutes ought to be sent into space on one of those intergalactic messenger craft. Wooohah! Oh, and you get April March's version of the French original too, which of course, rang my cloches.

Frost/ Nixon

If anyone was thinking of giving this movie a miss, perhaps thinking (as I did) that it was just some rehashed historical drama with B-plus grade actors, and a ready-made script, I'd urge you to think again. Its completely riveting!

It made me want to search around for snippets of the original interview (now out on DVD, I hear). Some of the original money material is below.

Film Noir: what's that all about?

Who knows, but its no doubt referred to as "film noor" in certain northern suburbs of Melbourne that shall remain ... mispronounced.

Anyhow, ill-informed, but keen as always, I trundled down the the Carlton Nova a couple of years back and saw Sin City, on various recommendations. Here's a short review of that: 5 lattes, with a biscotti on the side.

And here's a pre-review of what's next: I've got a small stack of vids lined up to investigate further. These include, inter alia, Jules Dassin' Night and the City (1950) and Allen Baron's Blast of Silence (1961). I might go watch one now!

But before that, any other Film Noir recommendations, oh ye denizens of the internet? And moreover, what is the essence of film noir anyway?

A dinner party one-liner will do - I'm that sort of guy. Shallow, with a heart of pure shiny tinfoil.

Long Weekend (1978)

Oh boy, I'm just rolling in '70s Australian cinema lately. This one is a mystery/ thriller/ suspense flic in the nature-takes-revenge mode, and one which works far, far better than I'd expected on gazing at the DVD cover. Would have been brilliant at some suburban drive-in in '78, with the Valiant boot facing the screen.

By Dugong Films, as you'll see, should you watch it. Tops!

Again I ask, where have all the good times gone, Australian film? Was it perhaps the rise of the quasi-private "film corporations", and the demise of the old state-based commissions?