1. Godzilla (Honda)
2. Brief Encounter (Lean)
3. The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch)
4. Dancer in the Dark (Von Trier)
5. Double Indemnity (Wilder)
6. Germany Year Zero (Rossellini)
7. Tango Bar (Reinhardt)
8. The Place Without Limits (Ripstein)
9. Deep Cover (Duke)
10. Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
"Clearly one of the best writers and critics on the internet" - Marilyn Ferdinand
"I find it difficult to think you teach film and suggest there's one milligram of connection between (Harmony) Korine and Wong Kar-Wai: there is none" - Jon Jost
"A wonderful instructor" - Susan Doll
"Excellent" - David Ehrenstein
"Very very interesting blog" - Marie Rivière
© Michael Glover Smith, whitecitycinema.com, michaelgloversmith.wordpress.com, 2010-2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts, pictures and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Michael Glover Smith and whitecitycinema.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
March 11th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
I loved the original Japanese version of Godzilla. A large amount of my childhood was centered on the American rehash and the Mothra films, but when I saw Honda’s film about a year ago, I knew right than that that was the original and best.
I was also disappointed with Roland Emmerich’s, which turned Godzilla into just a mutated fire-breathing lizard. but I’m actually looking forward to Gareth Edwards’ upcoming reboot, which Toho studios will be collaborating on. Have you seen his recent film, Monsters?
March 11th, 2012 at 1:42 pm
Zach, I have never seen any Japanese monster movies before but I was blown away by how good Godzilla/Gojira was. I will be including it in the Post-War Japanese Cinema Primer that I will be posting soon.
March 11th, 2012 at 2:24 pm
I’ll look forward to seeing that.
Monsters is actually a British independent film, and is a very good modern take on giant-monster movies. Like The Host, it contains plenty of interesting creature effects and political commentary.
March 11th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Interesting list as usual. I just finished Altman’s _Thieves Like Us_. I would be curious to hear your thoughts sometime on the “distribution of movies” nowadays. I get a lot of movies through Netflix Instant-Play and occasionally by downloading on iTunes. In “my defense”, often they are HD, and you can hook up with a 3 dollar cord the computer to a large-screen TV. Anyway, what surprises me are the UTTER dearth of many of the movies on your lists, both on instant play and on iTunes. Even via mail through Netflix, many of these movies just are not there. I can actually see the appeal of this — like the specialness of having a record collection makes playing the record more meaningful than if you can just play the song on Youtube. Still, I’ve had Godard’s _Weekend_ “saved” in Netflix (for when it becomes available through some distributor) for two years now!
March 11th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
Well, I’m certainly not trying to be some kind of “film hipster,” only watching movies that no one else has heard of! Pretty much every time I post a Last Ten Movies list, most of them are titles that I screened in a class. (That’s true, for instance, of 6 out of the above 10 titles.) I have rent-by-mail accounts with both Facets and Netflix and I also buy a lot of titles so that’s where I get them. Some of the Facets titles are invariably VHS tapes that have never been released digitally. The biggest fallacy of the digital revolution is that now you can see “anything.”
Streaming and downloading, obviously, are the future of how movies will be distributed. I personally think it’s unfortunate because 1) I love physical media (not just blu-rays and dvds but books, CDs and vinyl) and 2) the image quality of HD streaming is still far inferior to blu-ray. Right now I own about 500 movies. The idea of having all of those movies on a hard drive (or worse in a digital storage locker on some site like amazon) makes me nervous.
March 11th, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Any idea where I can get Rabies on DVD? I can’t find it on Netflix or at Facets.
March 11th, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Here’s the other problem with the rise of streaming – if you want to see certain titles on DVD or blu-ray now, you HAVE to buy them. Rabies was released on DVD by Image Entertainment, a big distributor, on Feb. 28. Since no video stores carry it, it looks like the cheapest way you can see it is to “buy” a digital copy on amazon for $9.99: http://www.amazon.com/Rabies-Ania-Bukstein/dp/B0064SVNMQ
Netflix is cutting back more and more on the number of new movies they carry on physical DVDs/blu-rays every week. There are so many new blu-rays I’m dying to see but I can’t watch them because NOBODY rents them! This includes Hitchcock’s Spellbound and Rebecca, Nothing Sacred, A Star is Born, etc.
BTW, does anyone feel a sudden urge to buy some blue jeans after visiting this joint?
March 11th, 2012 at 8:13 pm
I think the same with books — there’s something “distilling” about the fact that a good book can be “drowned out” by anyone’s and everyone’s book available online. Still, the good ones always seems to get through eventually. Even so, I have no desire to get a Kindle.
Anyway, one reason I get all my movies online is because the ONE video store here in Davis (well, the one I’m aware of) — it’s not exactly far-reaching. Actually, if you could just do a Google search of all their titles or something, you could probably find a good one, but just browsing, I think every few hundred movies there’s an interest-piquing one. (Actually, I just realized you COULD go annoy the store clerk at the front and perpetually ask them to search their database, but that would be a little annoying). As an experiment last year I went in and tried to find a title from your list “Best Noir” (I think that was the list). I did not find ONE title (and this was after walking around to alphabetically find the titles) for about twenty mins. I think I bought “The Maltese Falcon” and left.
I don’t get the blue jeans joke??
March 11th, 2012 at 9:20 pm
I’m seeing blue jeans ads all over my blog today. Maybe the ads are different for you? Still waiting on that first payment from WordAds!
March 11th, 2012 at 9:26 pm
Look, it’s a “fit made for you”. That’s all I have to say.
March 11th, 2012 at 9:28 pm
Oh and by the way Godard’s Weekend will be released in new blu-ray and DVD editions by the Criterion Collection this year. Woo-hoo!
March 11th, 2012 at 11:30 pm
Can you remember any other Noirs that have lots of psycho activities of the murder besides Double Indemnity and Woman in the Window? I like this kind of Noir very much.
March 12th, 2012 at 6:00 am
The first thing that comes to mind is Lang’s While the City Sleeps, a terrific noir about the search for a serial killer although the main focus of the film is the media. Also, Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker has a great psychopathic villain.
March 12th, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Great recommendations,thanks man.