My Thoughts on the 2013 1001 Movies Additions

Posted on September 16, 2013 by jaycluitt

It’s that time of year again, and the new edition of the 1001 Movies You M 2013_1001_Movies_Hardcover ust See Before You Die book has been released. However, instead of the usual 10-15 films from the past year being added, the book has been subjected to a much-needed overhaul, and in fact closer to fifty new entries have been added. I’ll update my master List page in due course, but for now here’s the new films that have been added, and my thoughts on them so far (if any): Continue reading →

Slacker

Posted on September 12, 2013 by jaycluitt

Various aimless yet opinionated wander around early ’90s Austin, Texas, as we see short snippets of their lives. There’s no plot, and the camera follows characters seemingly at random, as soon as it’s done with one conversation, the speaker is abandoned and forgotten, never to be seen again as we track some other person go about their day.
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Double Indemnity

Posted on August 12, 2013 by jaycluitt

When a successful insurance salesman visits a client’s house to discuss the renewal of some expired car policies, the last thing he expected was to become embroiled in a plot involving murder and deception, yet that is exactly what happens when he meets his client’s beautiful yet scheming wife. Continue reading →

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Posted on July 31, 2013 by jaycluitt

A smalltime L.A. strip club owner out celebrating after settling his gambling debts soon finds himself at a poker table with the mafia. Things don’t turn out too well, and he ends up deeper in their pocket than intended. Instead of paying his way out, they offer him a deal – if he kills the eponymous small time Chinese bookie then his debt will be cleared. Initially the man is reluctant to take the deal, but once he accepts, the assassination attempt doesn’t play out exactly as planned. Continue reading →

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Posted on June 29, 2013 by jaycluitt

Two men, sat in some sort of woodland, are swapping stories of unbelievable exploits they have encountered. One man, Francis, tells the tale of Dr. Caligari, a carnival performer with a somnambulist, or sleepwalker, who has been asleep for 25 years, but which Caligari will wake up as part of the show. As soon as the man and his attraction arrived in Francis’ home town of Holstenwall, strange murders began to take place, made even more bizarre by their apparent prediction by the sleepwalker. When his lady-friend seems likely to be the next victim, Francis attempts to uncover the truth behind the murders, starting with the prime suspect of Caligari, who may not be quite what he seems. Continue reading →

Out of the Past

Posted on June 27, 2013 by jaycluitt

In the small town of Bridgeport there lives a man named Bailey (Robert Mitchum). He leads a simple life running the town’s gas station with his deaf mute assistant (Dickie Moore), and frequently heads out with the town’s pretty girl-next-door Ann (Virginia Huston). He seems to be fairly well regarded by most people in the town – apart from Ann’s mother – but all this changes when a mysterious stranger named Joe (Paul Valentine) rocks up and takes Bailey away with him. You see, Bailey isn’t just a mild-mannered gas station owner. No, he has a past, and things are about to come out of it. Oh, I get where the title came from now.
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Top 10… 1001 Movies I’m Most Looking Forward To

Posted on June 15, 2013 by jaycluitt

Last weeks’ Top 10 1001 Films I’m Least Looking Forward To didn’t exactly leave me in a positive mood in terms of looking ahead at all the terrible films I’ve got to come, and to be honest your many comments regarding the films I’d missed off didn’t really help the situation either! This could be why I’ve not actually posted or watched anything this week, although I’ve not actually had the time to anyway. So, in an effort to cheer myself up and inspire me to move on with this list thingy, here’s my Top 10 1001 Movies that I’m Most Looking Forward to, and thankfully this was an incredibly difficult list to put together, mainly due to the wide variety of truly excellent-sounding films I’ve got to come.

My criteria for this list was simple, I just had to not have seen the film before, as this made the whole thing a lot easier, by jettisoning a good few hundred films, but still left me with the majority. As with the previous list, I’ve separated out the films into different categories, and only included one from each.

Honourable Mention: Metropolis
Metropolis is a film that I don’t think I’d ever get around to watching were I not going through the 1001 List, which is one of the reasons I’m working my way through it. This is mainly because it’s a silent film – something I’d never indulged in before the List – and also because it’s a German silent film at that. I’ve been introduced to director Fritz Lang’s work, and I must say that I loved M when I saw it a few years ago, so that it definitely one I’m looking forward to revisiting, but Metropolis looks amazing, and it heavily features a robot! The main reason I’m looking forward to it though is because there’s an episode of the Lambcast that’s been entirely devoted to it, and I’m refusing to listen to that episode until I’ve seen the film. The same can be said for Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, but I’m not looking forward to that one quite as much, mainly because I know practically nothing about it other than it features Johnny Depp.
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Top 10… 1001 Films I’m Least Looking Forward To

Posted on June 8, 2013 by jaycluitt

I recently appeared on the LAMB’s second podcast, The Film Pasture, hosted by Pat of 100 Years of Movies. We, along with Steve from 1001Plus, spent the episode discussing that most illustrious and time-consuming of movie goals, the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, that both Steve and I are working our ways through, although o course Steve is both much faster and further along his quest than I am. As it stands, I have around 800 films still to watch and review from the list (which, including all the films that have been added or removed over the years, stands at 1103 films), however many of the reviews I have written didn’t necessarily give the film a fair chance, or they’re just not very good reviews, so I may well go back and re-review some of them – something I intend to do shortly with 1903’s The Great Train Robbery.

I started working through the List to try and gain a better understanding and appreciation for film, and there are many films amongst its pages that I am genuinely looking forward to watching. For many it will be a re-watch of something I’ve loved before, or possibly something that’s fallen from my memory, but for others I long for the experience of seeing a bonafide classic for the first time – something I experienced last year with the likes of Casablanca and Brief Encounter. However, the compilers of the List are a bunch of stuck-up, pompous, cruel sadists, who have taken it upon themselves to pepper the List with some of the most tedious, aggravating and downright grotesque productions ever made, and they even go so far as to claim that these outlandish qualities are the very reason they’ve been included. As such I thought I’d exacerbate my apprehension for eventually watching these films by looking into the List and picking out those films that I’m least looking forward to. I’ve tried to separate the films out into specific categories, and given the most egregious entry from each. As I haven’t actually seen these films yet, this is all based upon rumour, reputation and reviews from others in the 1001 club.

Honourable Mentions The Color Purple
There are some films on the List that I know a little bit about, or that I’ve read the book of. I’m quite looking forward to watching To Kill A Mockingbird, because the book is great and I hear only good things about the film. The Color Purple, on the other hand, is the worst book I’ve ever read, possibly because I was forced to read it in college, but also because it’s thoroughly depressing and downright difficult to read, given the unintelligible vernacular with which it was scribed. Therefore, I’m really not looking forward to watching it unfold on screen, even if it is directed by Steve Spielberg. The fact that it stars Whoopi Goldberg and features Oprah Winfrey may have something to do with it too.
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The Bridge on the River Kwai

Posted on June 5, 2013 by jaycluitt

During World War 2, a squadron of British soldiers are ordered to surrender to the Japanese, and are taken to a prisoner-of-war camp in Thailand. There, they are instructed to assist in the building of a bridge (over the river Kwai), and every soldier must help, regardless of rank. The Geneva convention clearly states that officers are exempt from such duties, s when they are forced to work alongside the rest of the men, the officers are thrown into containment. Meanwhile, a small group of men outside of the camp are planning to make their way through the jungle to destroy the bridge.
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Voyage Dans la Lune

Posted on May 21, 2013 by jaycluitt

Professor Barbenfouillis (thank you IMDb) has a plan. He wants to visit the moon, and he wants to take his esteemed friends and colleagues with him. So, the professor has built a rocket and a giant cannon with which to launch it, and he – along with five others – gamely climb aboard and set off on their voyage of discovery.

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