6 greatest movies of ALL TIME

In no special order:

• Singin' in the rain
• Citizen Kane
• West side story
• The godfather
• Cool-hand Luke

And, number six,  . . .

Update:  Come to think of it, maybe that is the right order.

Who has time to blog?

I've seen an unusually number of very good movies lately. A week or two ago I mentioned All about my mother after watching it for the second time; it features lesbians, pregnant nuns, she-males, snippets of Tennessee Williams, a young Penelope Cruz, and an absolutely astonishing performance by Cecilia Roth as a grieving parent.

Since then, I've netflixed:

• The politician's wife, a 3-part BBC mini-series (the weakest of the shows I'm listing, but still very good);
• Monsieur Hire, a story that seems outrageously far-fetched at the beginning but becomes more and more believable as it progresses through various twists and turns to its surprising end. I defy anyone who watches it to listen to Brahms's piano quartet in g minor without thinking of the beautiful young Sandrine Bonnaire;
• Queen to play, the wholesome (and largely predictable) story of a middle-aged hotel maid who takes up chess. I defy anyone who watches it to think of that game again without thinking of the luminous and no-longer-young Sandrine Bonnaire.
• The secret in their eyes, which I guess might be called a police procedural, with some ghastly images of violent crime, interwoven with a sweet story of missed opportunity and second chances.
• Bread and tulips, An unhappy housewife (Licia Maglietta) who's taken for granted by her philandering, self-centered husband takes an unplanned vacation in Venice.
• The last detective, another BBC series, this one the charming story of a mild-mannered, disrespected London detective and his quirky friends. (The 4 episodes of season 1 are excellent; season 2's initial installment is a disappointment.)

The BBC shows are the only ones in English; the others are, in order, French, French, Spanish, and Italian. When I think of all those years when I refused to consider foreign language films – “I don't like to read my movies” – I could kick myself. By one estimate, only about 20 percent of the movies produced each year are made in the United Sates. There's a whole bunch of films I've never even considered over a whole bunch of years.

5 stars

"All about my mother"

"TIGER, tiger, burning bright . . . "

"Dead Man" -- William Blake, channeled by Johnny Depp, with the help of . . . Jim Jarmusch?! Yep. And pretty darned good, too.

Movies

The wonderful wife and I saw "The Descendants" a few weeks ago. At the time, I thought it was OK, but not much more than that. It starts with a husband who's supposed to be detached and uninvolved and with two bratty kids, but before you can say Jack Robinson (where did that come from?) he's mister sensitivity and the kids are supernaturally supportive. And it starts with him preparing to make a big score selling the patrimony but by the end he's a virtual recruiter for the Sierra Club.

Over the next few days, however, I found myself thinking better of it. The acting was very good. The husband's eventual forgiveness of his wife's betrayal was, well, noble. And I wonder whether his refusal to sell the inheritance was admirable (he wanted to prevent despoiling the virgin landscape with shopping centers and golf courses) or was it vengeful (he wanted to deprive his wife's lover of that big commission)? Of course, he wound up doing both, but I kind of like the ambiguity behind his motivation.

Last week we saw "The Artist." An imaginative and pleasant little movie with a charming star (the woman, not the man), but I don't understand why it's gotten all the raves it has. Though I did laugh out loud at the end, when the silent movie stars did a dance number, a la "Singin' in the Rain."

From Netflix, "True Romance" and "Everything Is Illuminated" both rate close to 4 stars.

"Dean Spanley"

I hadn't watched a Neflix movie in I don't know how long, but I watched one tonight. And the thought occurs that Peter O'Toole is not a great actor, but he is, perhaps, the most riveting that I've ever seen. (I wonder if that's different from saying he's one of the hammiest I've ever seen.)

Véra Clouzot

Mme. Clouzot died of a heart attack.

Twice.

Once in Les Diaboliques. And again, 5 years later, in real, um, er, ah, . . . , death.

Les Diaboliques, by the way, is a pretty darned good movie.

Movies

• The King's Speech was very good. It earned its Oscars. In fact it earned more; Geoffrey Rush should have won as well.
• True Grit was a terrific cowboy movie. The young girl won great praise for her performance, but I'm not sure it was merited. The character was wonderful, but I think most any actor worth her salt could have nailed it.
• Winter's Bone was also excellent -- at least the 80 minutes or so of it that we were able to watch last night before our Netflix disk died. The young woman in this movie (Jennifer Lawrence) is FABULOUS!

Best films of all time

Vertigo is number 2. Really.

Vertigo is number 2???!!!!!!

What are these people thinking? Vertigo couldn't crack my top 200!

But I say to you, . . .

But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.

If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well.

Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.

Good Video

"Doc Martin," a BBC series. Instant play on Netflix.

I give it four stars out of five.

Watch these movies

• "Departures" -- a small, sweet, predictable Japanese movie.
• "Invictus" -- a big, sentimental, American movie.

I liked them both.

What Arab-Israeli Conflict?

We just finished watching The Band's Visit.

Roger Ebert gets it almost right: "A quiet, sympathetic film about the loneliness that surrounds us."

If he'd wanted to get it exactly right, he'd have said: "A quiet, sympathetic, funny small film about the loneliness that surrounds us."

John Cazale

Who?

The actor who played Fredo Corleone in "The Godfather" and "The Godfather, Part II" and Sal in "Dog Day Afternoon." All three are great movies. He also acted in "The Deer Hunter," (which I hear is a great movie) and "The Conversation" (which I'm not familiar with -- yet). And they're the only five movies he made. See http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001030/bio

"Death at a funeral"

An uninvited guest shows up at a funeral; hilarity ensues. Hilarity as in Fawlty Towers and in Laurel and Hardy. No subtlety here. Far from it. And there is lots of vulgarity (one review I saw said the movie puts the FU in funeral), and there is even a gross bathroom scene. The first laugh doesn't come until 10 minutes into the show, but then they don't stop.

Check it out at Netflix.

Infamous

Infamous is one of the funniest sad movies in recent memory.

From a review in the Denver Post

Indeed.

And what makes it even more noteworthy, Sandra Bullock acts. Not acts cute or acts sweet or acts lovable -- she just acts, period. I didn't know it was possible.

The movie tells the same story as Capote a couple years ago, and for my money it's just as good in every respect except the . . . what, cinematography? I don't know if that's the word. Capote, if I'm remembering correctly, had wonderfully composed and photographed images, especially of rural and small-town Kansas; is that cinematography? I didn't see much (any) of that in Infamous. But the storytelling and acting in Infamous compare very favorably with Capote.

The willing suspension of disbelief

Add You kill me to your Netflix queue. It's very enjoyable -- if you're able to convince yourself that babe Tea Leone could fall for 70-year-old drunk Ben Kingsley. And that she doesn't mind that he's a murderer.

The Burmese Harp

An odd, but excellent and affecting movie available from Netflix. The camera-work is wonderful. Lots and lots of close-ups of remarkably expressive faces. The close-ups look like they could have been shot by Ansel Adams. (I had a similar reaction to the camera-work in an old movie by the Indian director Satyajit Ray, which I saw a few years back.)

Sicko

In the latest New Yorker, Atul Gawande nails Michael Moore and his movie:

The documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has more than a few insufferable traits. He is manipulative, smug, and self-righteous. He has no interest in complexity. And he mocks the weak as well as the powerful. (Recall his derision, in “Roger and Me,” for an impoverished woman in Flint, Michigan, who slaughtered rabbits to make ends meet.) For all that, his movie about the American health-care system, “Sicko,” is a revelation. And what makes this especially odd to say is that the movie brings to light nothing that the media haven’t covered extensively for years.

Sick and Twisted