let there be pagans (and peckinpah films)
Thursday 17 March 2005 | I like a cookie
Because a blog isn’t all just tawdry ravings, right? So here’s a link to Earth Wisdom Teachings, run by Blade, local fixture and reasonably brainy witch; I think Persephone has been to one of her moon lodges and wants to be a herbal wisdom apprentice. Don’t we all!
But that link’s just a pretext for today’s tawdry entry; really I’m here to give, in my very dear friend Nej’s own words, her somewhat expanded
TOP TEN LIST OF ALL-TIME CINEMATIC GREATS
8 1/2 (Otto e Mezzo) Fellini)
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)
The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
Badlands (Terrence Malick)
The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Sergio Leone)
The Vanishing (George Sluizer—Dutch/French version! NOT AMERICAN!)
Mondo Cane (Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti)
King of Hearts (Philippe de Broca)
Raging Bill (Martin Scorsese)
Mean Streets (Scorsese again)
Taxi Driver (oh these Italians!)
King of Comedy (a Scorsese no one’s seen)
Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock)
Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
The Godfather (Coppola)
The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino)
The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergmann)
Miller’s Crossing (Coen Brothers)
Raising Arizona (Coen Brothers)
Blood Simple (Coen Brothers)
Hoop Dreams (Steve James)
Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson)
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
To Die For (Gus Van Sant)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Tom Stoppard)
Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston)
Drunken Master (Jackie Chan)
Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick)
Clockwork Orange (Kubrick)
Gothic (Ken Russell)
Track 29 (Nicolas Roeg—if only for the sheer joy of watching Gary Oldman be vigorously spanked by Sandra Bernhard)
Quiz Show (Robert Redford)
Zelig (Woody Allen)
Conan the Barbarian (BECAUSE OLIVER STONE WROTE IT, THAT PHONY!)
As I look back on it now, it’s pretty much the list any self-respecting morose and bloodthirsty college girl would have made in 1995, with perhaps the addition of some QT—right down to the fact that it’s unself-consciously closer to 50 films than 10. I remember being overawed by it, when she first sent it to me, not long before she gave the commencement address at our graduation; Nej was also the movie reviewer for our weekly newspaper and I admired her to the point of acute discomfort.
But now I’d change and add so many things, even just in the realm of documentaries—When We Were Kings, e.g., which I think had just been released. If you’re going to have Nicholas Roeg, you must also include Performance! Or if you’re going to have Gus Van Sant, My Own Private Idaho! [Though now, a year later, rereading this, I disagree with myself pretty strenuously.] There are great gaping lacuna of the stodgy European Tarkovsky-Eisenstein variety—no nouvelle vague or even vielle vague—no Kieslowski, no Dogme, no John Waters or Ed Wood, nothing too weird or pretentious, just fast cheap and outta control. I’m only slightly surprised she left out Goodfellas, to say nothing of Trainspotting—though I think that came out in 1996 as well. Not a drop of Merchant-Ivory. No Pinter screenplays. Only one Hitchcock, and that one his first. And last but not least, where the hell’s Leon—or The Professional—whatever we call it here?
But we should note that, as far as IMDb is concerned, we need only like film, as long as we love programming:
IMDb is hiring!
Love programming Perl? Like film? Join our Seattle team and develop exciting web-based applications!
And an oddly repetitive set of headlines from the same source:
Celebrity News Thu 17 March 2005
• Swank Is Desperate for a Baby
• Marcia Cross Puts Gay Rumors to Rest
• Zellweger Desperate for a Break
Why are all these ladies so goshdarn desperate—for babies, for vacations? This is where I sneak in with elaborate casualness that I had unprotected sex yesterday way too close to ovulation for my comfort. I should start my period next Thursday, and I’d better. I’ve been walking around the house all day quietly giving myself little shakes and demanding of myself, Are you really as smart as they all say you are? Sometimes I do wonder me.
post your glowing encomium (or bitter philippic) »
Follow this heated, lively discussion through its very own feed; also, you can pingback or trackback from your own doubtlessly much more interesting site.
