Fashionably late (by a year and a half)

So way back when I had the time and mental capacity to write, I was doing this thing I called the 1981 Project, wherein I'd watch a lot of films from the year 1981, write a review for a good chunk of them on this here blog all with the intention of posting something of a Top 10 and Honorable Mention list, and then well, I'd do the same thing the next year for 1982, then 1983, et cetera. Well, I think its high time I finally finish what I star---

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, so I am going to start actually posting my Honorable Mentions and Best of lists this week, and even though I reviewed a grand total of zero films from 1982 for this blog, I did watch my fair share of films from that year and plan on following this up with my Best ofs from 1982 in the near future (note: the near future is comprosed of any time from a month up to the destruction of the planet and the human race's eventual enslavement by the our new overlords the Jupiterians, all hail the Jupeiterians!)

But before that, let's take a trip back in time to the halcyon days of 2011 when your humble author routinely had uninterrutped full nights of sleep, left the house after 6:00pm and had time to add his opinions on films to the chattering masses on the internet.

Here are links to all the films I reviewed for The 1981 Project:

…All the Marbles

An American Werewolf in London

Blood Beach

Bloody Birthday

The Burning

The Cannonball Run

Continental Divide

Dark Night of the Scarecrow

Dead and Buried

Deadly Blessing

Death Hunt

Dogs of War

Enter the Ninja

Eyes of a Stranger

Fear No Evil

The Final Conflict

Fort Apache, The Bronx

The French Lieutenant’s Wife

Friday the 13^th part II

The Funhouse

Galaxy of Terror

Ghost Story

Graduation Day

Halloween II

The Hand
Happy Birthday to Me

Hell Night

The Howling

Looker

Ms. 45

My Bloody Valentine

Neighbors

The Nesting

Night Hawks

Nightmare

On Golden Pond

Paternity

Possession

The Prowler

Road Games

Scanners

Sharky’s Machine

Southern Comfort

Strange Behavior

Tattoo

Victory

Wolfen

Don't Call it a Comeback...

...well namely because I am not quite back, but today marks the four month anniversary since my last post and I wanted to let you all know I am not planning on letting this become a ghost town, because, well, because I've got some shit I need to say. Life has been busy, but a change at work should allow for a bit more free time to devote here, and believe me I do have the itch. Thanks for anyone who's kept my link up on their site and still check this place from time to time. And I do read you good people's blogs, just usually from my phone where replying is a bit of a hassle.

I did start a Tumblr a few months ago, which allows me to easily post stills, videos and the such, I plan to keep that operational, but my "writing" will be done here still, just think of this as an addendum to this site.

The tumblr is The Neon Slime.

Also, I have a profile on Letterboxd, the social networking site for film lovers, where you can see what I've been watching and what I graded them, as well as a few list. If you're there, please add me as a friend and I will return the favor.

My Letterboxd profile.

So please be patient as I get my broom to clear out all the tumbleweeds here, and I will be back soon (hopefully)

I leave you with this picture of Roger Ebert wearing 3-D glasses for his review of Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, because that's the way he would want us to remember him (RIP Rog!):

Why do they call them Great Whites anyway? They're mostly grey, why not call them Great Greys?

I always get a kick out of noticing the random set dressing on old sitcoms, be it the inappropriate for the character band posters on a teenager's wall, the protagonist's VHS collection, cereal boxes with the logos blacked out or books lining the shelves. I have been rewatching Cheers starting with the first season on Netflix Instant, and amongst the classic Boston sports ephemera lining every square inch of the bar's wallspace is a poster for future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley. While Eckersley had a solid career as a starter for the Red Sox, and had been with the team for five years in 1982 when Cheers debuted, including one 20 win effort, he was nowhere near the superstar he would be when he became the dominant closer for the late 80's-early 90's Oakland Athletics.

Seinfeld is another goldmine in this regard, for example if you pay close attention at any episode where the quartet goes to the movies you will notice this poster for the long forgotten 1992 Tim Daly/Penolope Ann Miller comedy Year of the Comet, which shares Seinfeld's production company, Castle Rock Entertainment. Recently, while watching the 14th episode of season three, The Pez Dispenser, I noticed none other than Carl Gottleib's journal of the making of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, The Jaws Log, on Jerry's bookshelf. I wrote briefly about the Jaws Log a few years ago, which you can check out here.

There it is on the second shelf, two books up from James Clavell's Shogun. Somebody might want to inform Jerry that a good conditioned copy of that edition is going for $35 on eBay.

2012 Film Viewing Stats

It’s time again to reflect on my film viewing habits for the year 2012. This seems to be a popular post here and I enjoy this endeavor myself. You can see prior year’s summary posts by clicking on the year: 2008; 2009;  2010; due to circumstances I never completed 2011’s list.

Also, if you are interested in which particular films I viewed during 2012, check out my Letterboxd profile, and if you read this and are on that site, add me to your friends’ list.

Of course the big change for me this year was becoming a father on February 17^th. While that definitely ate into my film watching schedule, having a few months off of work helped even everything out, and despite the fact that I watched 61 fewer films than in 2011, that year was a bit of an outlier, and this year’s total matches 2010’s and exceeds 2009 and 2008’s totals. The major impact that my son did have was a lot less visits to the cinema. The last two years I watched 59 films in theatre for an average of just over one a week, the total this year is down by more than half of that, and let's not mention the 80+ trips to the cinema I made in 2008 & 2009! Hopefully, my wife and I can find some reliable babysitters to try to increase that number in 2013.

Total # of Films watched in 2012:  353

First film watched: The Godfather (Blu Ray) on 1/1/12

First film watched theatrically: Hayware (at the Arclight Pasadena) on 1/21/12

Last film watched: The Kid with a Bike (Netflix Instant) on 12/31/12

Last film watched theatrically: Lincoln (at the Arclight Pasadena) on 12/29/12

Films by decade

Note: As I got closer to the end of the year I set a goal of watching at least ten films from every decade starting with the 1920s and up, I mistakenly had notated the years of two films which led me watching two 1920s films the last few days of the year

1920s: 10

1930s: 13

1940s: 12

1950s: 15

1960s: 31

1970s: 60

1980s: 97

1990s: 20

2000s: 22

2010-2012: 73

Films by method watched:

DVD: 186

Netflix Instant: 52

Blu Ray: 46

DVR: 34

Theatre: 29

Online (Amazon Prime, Youtube, etc.): 6

Films by number of time I have watched them:

1^st Viewings: 237

2^nd Viewings: 51

3^rd or more Viewings: 65

By month:

January: 37

February: 29

March: 31

April: 27

May: 27

June: 29

July: 34

August: 17

September: 32

October: 35

November: 26

December: 29

By country of origin:

United States: 235

England: 35

Italy: 20

Japan: 14

France: 12

China: 6

Canada: 5

Germany: 4

New Zealand: 3

Australia: 3

Spain: 2

South Korea: 2

Belgium: 2

Denmark: 2

Mexico: 2

Thailand: 1

Sweden: 1

Netherlands: 1

Indonesia: 1

Turkey: 1

Iran: 1

Directors with 3 or more films watched in 2012:

Sam Peckinpah: 5 (Junior Bonner, The Getaway, Pat Garret & Billy the Kid, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, The Killer Elite)

Steven Spielberg: 5 (E.T., War Horse, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Lincoln)

Robert Zemeckis: 5 (Back to the Future, Back to the Future part II, Back to the Future part III, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Flight)

Clint Eastwood: 4 (The Gauntlet, Firefox, J.Edgar, Honkytonk Man)

Josef vonSternberg: 4 (Blue Angel, Shanghai Gesture, Crime and Punishment, Macao)

Guy Hamilton: 4 (Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun)

Lucio Fulci: 3 (New York Ripper, Don’t Torture a Duckling, The House by the Cemetary)

Peter Jackson: 3 (Fellowship of the Rings, Two Towers, Return of the King)

Enzo G. Castellari: 3 (Street Law, Keoma, The Big Racket)

Ridley Scott: 3 (Alien, Blade Runner, Prometheus)

Walter Hill: 3 (The Driver, The Warriors, 48 HRS)

William Wellman: 3 (Wings, Safe in Hell, Night Nurse)

Terrence Young: 3 (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Thunderball)

Lewis Gilbert: 3 (You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker)

Terence Fisher: 3 (Curse of the Werewolf, The Brides of Dracula, Dracula: Prince of Darkness)

Buster Keaton: 3 (Sherlock Jr., The Navigator (co-directed), Seven Chances)

Here’s wishing everyone a satisfying 2013, how many films did you watch in 2012?

Ghosts of Halloweens Past

The last three years I was able to celebrate my favorite month of the year, October, with a post each day dedicated to the horror genre. With less than a week before the end of the month (and Halloween) I have not posted once this month. However, I have been watching a lot of horror films per tradition and hope to give you a little rundown of short reviews by the 31st, but like everything I have promised on this blog take that with a huge grain of salt with an asterisk attached.

But I thought I'd give some links to posts from the last three years, highlights if you will, for those that might have missed them or for those that are nostalgic for the time I actually updated this blog on a regular basis.

2009:

Posterized: The Psycho series
24 Frames: Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchock)
Prince of Darkness (1987, John Carpenter) review
Posterized: The Universal Horror series part one and part two
24 Frames: Dracula (1931, Tod Browning)
Trick R Treat (2009, Michael Dougherty) review
Posterized: Stephen King on film
Silver Bullet (1985, Daniel Attias) review
24 Frames: Carrie (1976, Brian DePalma)
Posterized: The Halloween series
24 Frames: Halloween (1978, John Carpenter)

2010:

The Movies Go to the Movies: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 at the Rialto Theatre (Pasadena, CA)
My Top 20 Horror Films (as of October 6th, 2010)
The Fog (1980, John Carpenter) review
MIA on DVD (and still to this day, if I am not mistaken): Twisted Nerve (1968, Roy Boulting)
Psycho III (1986, Anthony Perkins) review  
Five Great Horror Movie Opening Scenes
24 Frames: Suspiria (1977, Dario Argento)
Fade to Black (1980, Vernon Zimmerman) review
New Year's Evil (1980, Emmett Alston) review
Posterized: David Cronenberg in the 1970s and 80s
24 Frames: The Brood (1979, David Cronenberg)
10 Underrated Horror Films
24 Frames: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, Tommy Lee Wallace)

2011:

I was most proud of dedicating the month of October last year to one review a day of a horror film from 1981, so I would humbly recommend you check out the whole series here. But here are a few of my favorite films I reviewed if you need some recommendations for your seasonal viewing:

Eyes of a Stranger (Ken Wiederhorn)
An American Werewolf in London (John Landis)
The Howling (Joe Dante)
Bloody Birthday (Ed Hunt)
Friday the 13th part II (Steve Miner)
My Bloody Valentine (George Mihalka)
Possession (Andrezj Zuwawlki)
Dead and Buried (Gary Sherman)
Road Games (Richard Franklin)

The Movies Go to the Movies: Blade Runner

What made Blade Runner such a revolutionary visual feat, and one of the most pardon the pun, replicated films in recent cinema, was that the vision of the future displayed by director Ridley Scott, cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth and the art and production design team not only contained your typical sci-fi future conventions (IE flying cars and artificial intelligence), but accounted for the how the present and past would integrate over time, as well as being cognizant of the impending multiculturalism of our cities. Gone are the antiseptic nearly exclusively interior sets of THX-1138 and Logan's Run, replaced with a film noir dark palette.

Part of this aesthetic includes incorporating classic architecture amid the futuristic developments, including the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Hollyhock House which serves as Deckard's home and Downtown Los Angeles' historic Bradbury Building, home of Replicant designer J.F. Sebastian. Across the street from the Bradbury Building is the Million Dollar Theatre, which you can see in a few shots:

The Million Dollar Theatre was built in 1918 as part of Sid Grauman's chain, and was serving as a live venue for musical performances by 1945. Beginning in the 1970's, as the beautiful downtown Los Angeles theatres were experiencing their last years of full time operation, it catered to the vast Mexican population with Spanish language films and musical performances, which is evident in the marquee during the filming of Blade Runner (the multicultural thread of the film probably lead Scott to leave the marquee as it was). After a recent renovation, the Million Dollar was reopened for speciality showings of classic films (I visited it a few years back as part of the Last Remaining Seats series), and live performances, but has recently lost it's lease and has returned to a dormant state. Hopefully, the future will be kinder to this treasure of a theatre.

...And I still do as I please

Adam Yauch (1964-2012)

I apologize for the lateness (five whole days!) of this in general terms of the expedience of how information passes through the interwebs these days (and here I will offer a RIP to Maurice Sendak another important component of my youth, and whose books I will surely read to my son Elliot, who in fact already possesses four), but the passing of Adam Yauch (aka MCA) last week has left a, surprising even to myself, immeasurable cloud of sadness over me.

Upon reflection, I understand that a part of my childhood has passed. License to Ill was one of the first cassettes I ever purchased with my own money, the other, purchased at Gemco at the same time was Peter Gabriel So, a symbol of how much my ten year old self watched MTV (and subsquently, how much MTV has fallen down the shitter). But it’s deeper than that. Because the Beastie Boys weren’t just a component of my youth, they have been around for the last 25 plus years of my life. Their initial incarnation might have been kind of a joke, though a joke that with a few wincing moments aside still holds up, but they constantly evolved and matured, while still having a good time and never taking themselves too seriously, and it’s hard not to see my growth as a person reflected in their work. Yauch made perhaps the greatest evolution from the most lewd member of their first incarnation to a Buddhist who would literally not hurt a fly due to his religious beliefs. They were there for me in high school, college, and even last year as a married middle aged guy, with their final release Hot Sauce Committee part 2, a throwback album that showed neither their skills or joie de vivre had diminished.  While they always respected their past (and would still perform songs from License to Ill in concert with a few notable lyrical alterations), they never became a legacy act; you would never see anyone at a Beastie’s show looking at their watch waiting for “Sabotage” as they patiently went through their new material.  I do not know anyone who didn’t like or at the very least respected the Beastie Boys, and quite frankly, I’d prefer not to.

They were also complete film nerds, dropping references to Taking of Pelham One Two Three, High Plains Drifter, Dirty Larry, Crazy Mary and Dolemite in their rhymes, sampling the scores of Psycho, Superfly and Jaws and paying tribute to Mario Bava’s pop art comic masterpiece Danger: Diabolik in their “Body Movin’” music video, which was directed by Yauch, or technically his lederhosen sporting alter ego Nathaniel Hornblower. Hell, they’re the only band to have a video compilation released as part of the Criterion Collection! Yauch’s passion for cinema lead him to create the distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories with David Fenkel a few years ago. In an age where “independent cinema” has become deluded with so many toothless biopics, “quirked out” comedies and bad horror films, Oscilloscope has one of the better track records of getting interesting and challenging fair to an audience, including two of my favorite 2011 releases, We Need to Talk About Kevin and Meek’s Cutoff; in full admittance, they released probably my least favorite film of 2011, Bellflower, but even I will admit that is a distinctive personal work.

This week I, as I am sure many of you, find myself listening again to the Beastie’s discography for comfort, and as I listen to Yauch’s scratchy voice bragging that he has more suits than Jacoby and Meyers or informing listeners that he does not, in fact, rock the mic with the pantyhose, it is hard to come to grips with the fact they are a thing of the past, but as you listen to their records, it is impossible to grieve, because the Beastie Boys music is and always shall be, the soundtrack to the very celebration of life itself. 

Please read Outlaw Vern’s peerless thoughts on Adam Yauch’s life here.

Where I've Been, When I'll Return and a List

My wife gave birth to our first child, my son Elliot, two weeks ago. Since then, things have been a little busy needless to say. I just wanted to log in and chime a hello to those that still check for updates here, and assure you that I will return, hopefully by this month's end, when I will finally wrap up my 1981 Project with my Top Ten and Honorable Mentions list. After that I have an idea for a longer weekly series related to 1982 that is reminiscent of my 31 Days of '81 Horror series (fingers crossed I will have the time and energy for this).

But with those looming, something has got to go, and I decided to cease with the films I watched in 2011 poster posts. They are too time consuming with very little reward to the reader. If you are interested in what I've been watching in 2012 though, I have been keeping a log at this new site letterboxd.com. It's a fun social networking place centered around film where you can post reviews and lists (kind of similar to the Netflix friends feature before that was scrapped). I think it's still in beta test mode but I have two invites left, if you want to leave your email in the comment field, I'll send you one.

So see you back here (and on your blogs, I owe some of you comments) towards the end of the month, but to give you something to discuss until that time, I present with no comment, my Top 20 films of 2011.

Okay, a little bit of comment...This list is as always with these things, completely personal. Some of you are going to hate some of these films (I particularly do not recommend # 2, 4, 9 and 17 to the less adventurous or short attention spanned viewer), as I am sure some of the films you love I am not so fond of (Academy Award winner The Artist currently sits at #50 of the seventy-one films I watched for example). I think this list comprises a good variety in the type of cinema that I personally respond to be it high art, personal, bizarre or well executed genre pieces. As always, your mileage may vary.

1. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish)

2. Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

3. Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn)

4. Love Exposure (Shion Sono)*

5. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)

6. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Thomas Alfredsson)

7. Hugo (Martin Scorsese)

8. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar)

9. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)

10. Senna (Asif Kapadia)

11. Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo)

12. Submarine (Richard Ayoade)

13. Shame (Steve McQueen)

14. Beginners (Mike Mills)**

15. 13 Assassins (Takashi Miike)***

16. Moneyball (Bennett Miller)

17. Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)

18. Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)

19. The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)****

20. Contagion (Steven Soderbergh)

* Technically a 2008 release that made the festival circuit in 2009, Sono nearly four hour epic ode to love, religion and upskirt photography received it's stateside theatrical premiere run (and DVD release where I finally caught it) early in 2011, and so impressed me, that I had to make a space for it on my list

**The surprise of the year seeing how I utterly despised Mill's debut feature Thumbsucker

***Another surprise as the cult of Miike had alluded me thus far

****The single most integral use of 3-D amongst any of the modern wave I've seen. Not sure if it would have the same impact at home (unless you got one of them fancy 3-D teevees)

And here's the films I failed to catch that I hope to eventually get around to: The Muppets, The Interrupters, that Woody Allen documentary, Carnage, Weekend, Paradise Lost 3 (really upset about missing that one), Young Adult (not a big fan of Jason Reitman, but hear only positives about this one), Snowtown, The Black Power Mixtape, Into the Abyss, Project Nim, A Dangerous Method, Terri, Margaret, The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse (did both of these Spielberg joints which opened within days of each other disappear from theatres in a flash or is it just me?)