Thursday, July 26, 2018

Dragon Inn


DRAGON INN (Hu, 1967)
Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date July 17, 2018
Review by Christopher S. Long

Writer/director King Hu's wuxia masterpiece “Dragon Inn” (1967) opens not with a flurry of whirling, clanging swords, but with a flurry of voice-over narration. Wisely packing all of the film's exposition into a few minutes, the narrator situates the film in the Ming Dynasty (1457 A.D. for Western audiences) against a backdrop of political intrigue, which basically boils down to the line: “Eunuchs have seized power at the palace.” Eunuchs? Oh yeah, this is gonna be a wild ride.

Beginning with a sense of the grand historical epic, the film quickly pares away all extraneous elements to pursue a simple, focused plot. The chief eunuch Cao Shao-qin (Bai Ying) has framed the loyal general Yu Qian for treason; the general is executed and the Yu family sent into exile. Eager to prevent any future problems, Cao secretly dispatches his forces to tear the surviving Yus “up by the roots.” Good guys race the bad guys (both sides being blessed with near-supernatural martial prowess) to defend the Yu family, and everyone meets at the title location, which provides the setting for the bulk of the film's action.

The Dragon Inn is a modest structure on a dusty road to nowhere in rural China, but King Hu went to great pains to construct his set with authentic, sturdy wooden material. After all, we're going to spend a lot of time at the inn and it will need to stand up a beating from both sides, corrupt government forces and the loose-knit collection of travelers and knights-errant who show up to combat them.

Master swordsman Xiao Shao-zi (Hu veteran Shih Chun) enjoys the first major confrontation with the evil Eastern Depot forces. In fact, he enjoys it over a good meal. Sitting alone in a dining room amidst a brigade of opponents, he calmly sips his bowl of noodles while deftly avoiding a bottle of poisoned wine and effortlessly snatching the occasional stray dagger tossed his way. He hardly even stands up, let alone break a sweat.

The sequence is so lengthy, it comes as a mild surprise that Xiao won't be the sole focus of the action, at least from the hero side. He is soon joined both by a pair of traveling brothers, one of whom turns out to actually be a sister, Miss Zhu (Shangkuan Ling-fung), one of the many great female action heroes King Hu brought to the screen, as well as by the innkeeper who's no slouch in the fighting department himself.

Hu, working with action choreographer Han Ying-chieh (who also plays one of the chief baddies), balances stillness with sudden bursts of action to great effect. In one major assault on the Dragon Inn, Miss Zhu strides methodically forward only to suddenly dodge a volley of arrows and then to just as abruptly find herself surrounded by warriors who appear almost out of thin air. In most duels, the combatants stalk each other, circling warily as they wait for the single sign of weakness that invites them to strike. Measure twice, slice once. All filmed in glorious 2.35:1 widescreen, which Hu and cinematographer Hua Hui-ying exploit to its very edges.

There's little doubt about which side will win, but Hu ratchets up the anticipation by withholding the battle with the evil Cao, renowned throughout the land as the greatest of all swordfighters, until the very end. The heroes will need to work together to defeat him, and they even employ a nasty trick to even the odds: they ruthlessly mock Cao for being a eunuch. Darned if those “I guess you don't have much to lose down there” jokes don't actually seem to hit home, as if he's never heard them before. It's almost enough to make you feel bad for the poor genocidal warlord – after all he was the victim of a horrible mutilation as a child but, nah, you're still cheering for him to get decapitated. Might as well lose it up top too, eh, buddy? C'mon, that really hurts!

“Dragon Inn” was King Hu's first feature after moving from Hong Kong to Taiwan, and it was a massive box-office hit, one that cemented his credentials as an independent filmmaker. It has also come to be seen as one of the defining films of the wuxia genre, a reference point for directors such as Chang Cheh, Tsui Hark, Ang Lee, and even Tsai Ming-liang, if in a rather idiosyncratic way. 


Video:
The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The film was digitally restored in 2013 by The Ministry of Culture and Chinese Taipei Film Archive, providing the source for this new 1080p transfer, supervised by cinematographer Hua Hui-ying. “Dragon Inn” is a gorgeous movie that gets a real showcase in this new digital transfer, featuring sharp image detail throughout and a subtle, naturalistic color palette. Looks fantastic, as expected from Criterion.

Audio:
The linear PCM mono audio track is crisp and does a fine job of snapping off those wooden percussive clacks that supplement the action scenes so wonderfully. No distortion or drop off is evident. Optional English subtitles support the Mandarin dialogue.

Extras:
The extras kick off with an interview (2018, 10 min.) with actress Shangkuan Ling-feung, who opens by explaining why she's conducting the interview in full martial arts costume. 'Cause she feels like it, that's why. She's quite a lively subject, delighted to share her honest impressions of director King Hu: “he had a very big head.” “Dragon Inn” was her film breakthrough, and she obviously remains very proud of it as well as the impressive career she built afterward. This is a lot of fun.

Criterion has also included an interview (2016, 11 min.) with actor Shih Chun, who also credits “Dragon Inn” with launching his career as the knight-errant of choice for discerning wuxia fans. He also discusses King Hu's fondness for the Peking Opera and its influence on the film.

In “Art In Action” (2018, 25 min.), author and critic Grady Hendrix analyzes a fight scene from the film, while also providing more background for the film, referring to “Dragon Inn” as “ground zero” for the modern action film, not just the wuxia genre.

The disc also includes a short newsreel (2 min.) touting the film's successful premiere, and a Re-Release Trailer (2 min.)

The fold-out insert booklet features an essay by critic Andrew Chan.

Final Thoughts:
“Dragon Inn” certainly wasn't the first wuxia film, but it's a landmark blockbuster in the genre, as much as “Goldfinger” was to the modern action film. This is the second King Hu film in the Criterion Collection after “A Touch of Zen” (1971) and here's hoping it's not the last.

Monday, July 16, 2018

Maborosi


MABOROSI (Kore-eda, 1995)
Milestone Films, Blu-ray, Release Date July 10, 2018
Review by Christopher S. Long

In the opening shots of Hirokazu Kore-eda's debut feature film, “Maborosi” (1995), young Yumiko chases after her grandmother, who is glimpsed only from behind and at a great distance, as a figure retreating first down a tunnel and later alongside a bridge. Little Yumiko begs her adored grandmother to come back, but the old woman states flatly that she wishes to her childhood home in Shikoku to die. Which she does.

Fast forward about eight years and adult Yumiko (Makiko Esumi) still carries the grief of this childhood loss with her. She shares her story with husband Ikuo (Tadanobu Asano) who listens attentively and sympathetically as he surely has many times before. They appear to have a good relationship, raising their baby boy together in Osaka. He works, she takes care of the baby, they talk during meals, and nothing much happens until one day when they say goodbye, same as any other day. From Yumiko's point of view, we watch Ikuo slowly walk away, glimpsed only from behind and at a great distance...

Innocuous in content, but perfectly rhymed with the opening images, this shot strikes like a bolt from a clear sky. There is little doubt that it announces another tragedy about to disrupt Yumiko's life. There is even less doubt it is the mark of a freshman feature filmmaker (a documentary veteran, however) who already enjoys a comfortable mastery of the medium. Nobody could have predicted that the next twenty-plus years would see Kore-eda become one of the leading voices of contemporary cinema, not to mention the Palme d'Or winner at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, but any viewer not wowed at the time was simply not paying enough attention.

Kore-eda has become best known for his intricate studies of family dynamics. In “Maborosi” (which translates as illusion or mirage), he paints a serene and stately portrait of grief, a grief that rarely erupts in tears but which always lingers, a parasite lying dormant at times but always ready to consume its host. The grief follows Yumiko everywhere, even when she makes her own move from Osaka to a tiny fishing village (shot on location to great effect) on the shores of the Sea of Japan to be with her new husband Tamio (Takashi Naito). The grief does not abate even when friends and family shower her with love and support, only strengthening its power as it becomes increasingly co-mingled with guilt.

Esumi, then a model making her film debut, delivers a confident performance, fully comfortable at her stillest, quietest moments, so often just marking time. Yumiko sometimes buries herself in work or in caring for her beloved son, but the past simply won't loosen its grip on her. That doesn't mean “Maborosi” offers Yumiko no hope, far from it, rather it acknowledges that we pick up certain unwelcome visitors in our lives, ones who stick around so long they eventually become defining aspects of our own identities, not even good or bad, but simply there.

Kore-eda rarely relies on close-ups, the camera hanging back at a discreet distance to observe the characters respectfully and with a clear eye. Strategically repeated sounds like the bells of a bicycle or the roar of a train provide the emotional heft of a story with few overtly dramatic elements aside from the crucial losses, which occur off-screen.

“Maborosi” was well-received on the festival circuit, but didn't play to a large audience. Kore-eda would experience a greater breakout with his next feature, “After Life” (1998), and secured international stardom with critical hits such as “Nobody Knows” (2004) and “Still Walking” (2008). “Maborosi” is as accomplished as any of them.


Video:
The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The film has a generally soft, low-key look throughout, not much in the way of sharp contrasts. This high-def transfer preserves that feel, perhaps without the razor-sharp detail some high-def releases showcase, but the final product looks quite satisfying to me.

Audio:
The LPCM 2.0 audio mix is crisp and efficient with no evident signs of dropoff or distortion. The film features a lot of silence, but its spare sound effects are still important, as is the quiet, moody score by Chen Ming-Chang. This mix does justice to it all. Optional English subtitles support the Japanese audio.

Extras:
Milestone hasn't packed this with as many extras as some of their more comprehensive releases, but they've included a few strong supplements.

The film is accompanied by a full-length commentary track by professor and film scholar Linda Ehrlich. I've only had the chance to sample the first half hour of the commentary, but it's packed with information and close textual reading so far.

“Birthplace: Makiko Esumi” (30 min.) is a short documentary which follows the film's lead actress as she returns several years later to the village that served as the shooting location for much of the film. It's a little short on insight, but it's good to see some of the places and people again.

Final Thoughts:
Hirokazu Kore-eda's debut feature shows a filmmaker already performing at his peak. Amazingly, he's managed to remain there for about a quarter century, and he may only just be getting started. This Milestone release gives viewers a chance to check out where he got started.

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Rocco And His Brothers

Alain Delon, as Rocco
ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (Visconti, 1960)
Milestone Films, Bu-ray, Release Date July 10, 2018
Review by Christopher S. Long

Fresh off the train from their tiny rural town in southern Italy, matriarch Rosaria Parondi (Katina Paxinou) and her four youngest boys are duly awed by their first glimpse of the big city of Milan. Riding a streetcar to visit eldest brother Vincenzo (Spiros Focas), they gape at the bustling urban nightlife: “Look at those shop windows, those lights. It's like daylight!”

Just as no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, any dreams of Utopian bliss are dispelled the instant mamma Rosaria stumbles into Vincenzo's engagement party, and promptly declares war on her prospective in-laws, including Vincenzo's fiancee Ginetta (Claudia Cardinale in one of her earliest roles). It all sounds like the set up for a comedic clash of cultures, even prompting Vincenzo to quip that his family arrived in town “like an earthquake,” but “Rocco and His Brothers” (1960) descends rapidly and inexorably into a tragedy of operatic proportions.

Director Luchino Visconti stated that where Federico Fellini told a tale of the “Sweet Life (La Dolce Vita)” his movie chronicled “the bitter life” of the Parondi family. He certainly delivered on his promise, or perhaps threat. Though Milan is booming from the country's recent “economic miracle” (one that left the south behind), the Parondi boys won't reap the rewards.

Ostensibly, their troubles begin when prostitute Nadia (Annie Girardot) explodes into their lives, first entering into a tempestuous relationship with the second-oldest brother, Simone (Renato Salvatori), then later with the titular brother, Rocco (Alain Delon). Both men, in very different ways, seek to control Nadia, while she struggles to maintain her autonomy. Like Nadia, Simone and Rocco ultimately sell their bodies as well, both achieving a degree of success in the boxing ring, while each paying a heavy price in the process. Savage passions ultimately pit Simone against Rocco, threatening to tear the Parondi clan apart.

The whole family struggles, though Simone's personal and moral collapse is the most dramatic and unnerving, as he transitions from the family's brightest hope to its blackest sheep, with faithful Rocco gamely trying to redeem him even long after he lurches well beyond the point of redemption. Both Visconti and his co-scripter Suso Cecchi D'Amico attributed Simone's downfall (and that of the other Parondi brothers) to the corruption of the big city and the exploitation of capitalism, but this is a dubious claim.

Simone arrives in Milan as a lazy, entitled, dishonest bully, and then becomes increasingly narcissistic, cruel, and violent. Rocco, described by his younger brothers as “a saint” with an infinite capacity for forgiveness, extends his tolerance exclusively to his own family, demonstrating little empathy for the brutally victimized Nadia, the alleged love of his life. Perhaps the Parondis weren't corrupted by Milan, but boarded the train with their own troubling set of patriarchal old-school “family values” already fully intact.

“Rocco and His Brothers” is a truly beautiful film, even when photographed amidst the squalor of Milan's seediest neighborhoods. Shooting in lustrous, moody black-and-white, the great cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno dazzles from start to finish, from an early overhead still-life portrait of Milan's train station at night to a late tableau of uniformed workers filing into an Alfa Romeo factory after an afternoon break. In between, over nearly three hours, Rotunno's camera basks in soft Lombard sunlight and pierces inky nighttime shadows with equal precision and beauty, helping Visconti to achieve his vision of a neo-realistic film with an epic scope and feel. Oh, yeah, and the Nino Rota score isn't half-bad either. 


Video:
The film is presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio.

The restoration process of “Rocco and His Brothers” was more elaborate than for many films. Parts of the original camera negative had been damaged by fungus, requiring some scenes to be replaced from a contact-printed interpositive. In addition, some scenes were censored after the film's debut at the Venice Film Festival in 1960, and these scenes appear in their unabridged version in this restoration, bringing the film back to its original 177 minute running time. The restoration was funded by Gucci and The Film Foundation, with color correction overseen by the film's cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno.

The diligent restorers appear to have resisted the temptation to buff and polish the image to excess. This high-def transfer showcases a rich, thick grainy look throughout with a remarkable amount of detail visible even in the darkest shots. The black-and-white contrast is sharp and naturalistic throughout. In short, this restoration looks phenomenal.

Audio:
The monoaural track is crisp and consistent. The sound design is fairly straightforward, consisting mostly of the dubbed dialogue (French actor Alain Delon was dubbed by Achille Millo, if you're curious) and Nino Rota's score. I didn't notice any dropoffs or distortions in the soundtrack. Optional English subtitles support the Italian audio.

Extras:
As mentioned above, the film runs 177 minutes, so Milestone has devoted the first of the two Blu-rays in this set exclusively to the film, save for a brief (3 min.) introduction by Martin Scorsese. You can choose to play the movie with or without the intro. The second disc houses all of the other extras.

Most interviews with the children or grandchildren of accomplished filmmakers consist of affectionate remembrances with little in the way of substance. The interview (41 min.) with Caterina D'Amico, daughter of the great screenwriter Suso Cecchi D'Amico, is a noteworthy exception in the sub-genre. D'Amico, a teacher and author, provides a truly impressive level of fine detail in her no-nonsense interview, covering every aspect of the film's genesis, from Visconti's first sketch of the story to her mother's involvement as one of several writers on the project, to the array of influences from the Bible to Thomas Mann to Dostoevsky. She speaks authoritatively about major changes from the structure of the plot in its earliest form to what finally made it to the page and then to the screen. This is one of the best interviews I've ever watched on any disc in quite some time.

The disc also includes a series of shorter interviews (34 min. total) with cast and crew, including Annie Girardot and Claudia Cardinale, with the longest and most substantive segment belonging to writer Suso Cecchi D'Amico.

We also get several Outtakes (6 min. total) and a brief “Before and After” piece (2 min.) on the film's restoration.

Also, as is frequently the case with Milestone releases, you can visit their website for a comprehensive press kit (this one running over 60 pages) for more information on the film and its restoration.

Final Thoughts:
“Rocco and His Brothers” generated great controversy on its initial release, drawing condemnation and censorship from Catholic groups in Italy, and playing in even worse-butchered versions overseas. The controversy may have actually helped the film to box-office success, as it earned big money in Italy and gave Visconti a crucial international breakout that opened new financing opportunities that would shape the rest of his career. The film has also exerted a tremendous influence on generations of subsequent filmmakers, a list that just begins with Martin Scorsese (Simone is certainly a Raging Bull) and Francis Ford Coppola. And as if that wasn't enough, it also provides some of the earliest prominent performances for Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale, and Annie Girardot, young actors who would go on to become major stars.

This Milestone release provides a sparkling restoration of this major landmark of Italian cinema, along with a solid collection of supporting extra features, making this one of the most important Blu-ray releases of the year.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

The Starchild and the Dancing Chicken



MY TOP TEN FILMS
by Christopher S. Long

(This is a re-post and slight re-working of a top ten list I wrote for another site that shall remain nameless. It's been a few years, but I don't think I'd really change my top ten much at all. I kinda like this piece. Hope you do too.)

One obvious common thread in this list is that the films don't feature a lot of what the kids tend to think of as acting in the traditional sense. From the models of Bresson to the somnambulists of Marienbad to the great Bruno S., there's not a whole lot of method in this madness, and they're a pretty buttoned-down bunch overall. This wasn't my intention, but it also won't surprise any of my friends who have long since tired of my complaints about “big” acting. Of course, Jack Nicholson's extra foot pounds of energy per second per second raise the average for everyone else; I'm not so foolish as to be consistent.

Four mid-century French-language films, two Kubricks, two Herzogs, and nothing before the 60s. Ten is a tiny sample and I made no effort to compose a diverse or representative selection. I might find room for a dozen Godards in my Top 100 and just as many documentaries and silent films and, yes, I am aware that not all movies are made in Europe or America. My top ten are simply my favorites, the films that have most insistently seeped off the screen and into my life.



10.  DEAD MAN (Jim Jarmusch, 1996)
Roger Ebert described Neil Young's heavy reverb score as the sound of “a man repeatedly dropping his guitar.” The untitled Track 11 runs over fourteen minutes, and I still vividly remember the time I pulled up to a bend at Badlands National Park and cranked this track up to max volume on my car stereo right at sunset. I timed it perfectly to end just as the upper edge of the sun's disc dipped below the distant hill-line, and for just a moment I had melted into transcendence. Keep dropping that guitar, Neil.

Each viewing convinces me that a movie I originally embraced for the warm friendship between Johnny Depp and the magnificent Gary Farmer  is actually one of the bleakest indictments ever made of America and its legacy of genocide that is so all-encompassing it warps not just the scorched earth of Jarmusch's American West, but even time itself. Depp's William Blake is reliving the same traumatic loop, riding that train to Machine over and over again.

Read my full review here

9.  THE SHINING (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
I have hated movie audiences for all sorts of reasons, but never so passionately as when I had to listen to a room full of hipsters howling their ironic little brains out at the sight of Shelley Duvall freaking out on the stairs of the Overlook. Whether Kubrick tormented it out of her or not, Duvall comes as close to an authentic breakdown on screen as I've ever seen, and I guess it's too much for the young'uns who prefer the simulation over the real deal. These bastards have obviously been around for a long time seeing as Duvall was nominated for one of the inaugural Razzies.

I don't think films are particularly good at being genuinely terrifying, but “The Shining” chills at absolute zero. And I cannot think of a movie sound effect that has embedded itself as deeply into my consciousness as Danny's Big Wheel rumbling  across bare floorboards, then gliding almost silently over carpets, then rumbling, gliding, rumbling as he heads to his unexpected play date.

8.  PLAYTIME (Jacques Tati, 1967)
It took a 70 mm print (or was it 65?) of “Playtime” at the Egyptian Theatre to make me fully appreciate the audacity of this enterprise. Tati risked his personal capital on the construction of the glistening Tativille and then refused to cash in fully on his most bankable asset, M. Hulot. Letting Hulot take a back seat in many scenes to the “no names” in the cast may partially explain the movie's commercial failure, but it was integral to his democratized vision of cinema (and perhaps society). The result is a spatial symphony flawless in its harmonies and deeply empathetic to each lovingly observed actor. The film's wellspring of bonhomie is the perfect counterpoint to my previous two selections. It's also the only movie on my list that frequently arranges large numbers of people in the frame. In the movies as in real life, I tend to avoid crowds, but with Tati as my tour guide I'm willing to step out with the masses.

7.  FATA MORGANA (Werner Herzog, 1971)
How neglected is this Werner Herzog masterpiece? It is currently only available in Region 1 as a “Bonus Disc” on Anchor Bay's decade-old release of “Lessons of Darkness.” Nice bonus.

Herzog touched down in the desert with a science-fiction script in hand and discarded the pages by the end of day one. What he scavenged from the Sahara instead was a menagerie of people, animals, mirages, and heat-rippled panoramas that defies categorization. Call it an essay, call it poetry, call it a collage, call it a documentary if you really want to piss off the director, but “Fata Morgana” is simply unique. Many other filmmakers have directed landscapes, but Herzog's sinuous tracking shots alongside desert dunes (some painstakingly hand-sculpted by his gonzo crew) are absolutely breathtaking. And how can you beat hearing both Leonard Cohen and Blind Faith in a Herzog movie?
 
“Fata Morgana” has to be appreciated on a scene-by-scene basis. Perhaps my favorite is the unspeakably strange studio session at a brothel in which a goggled pimp and the madam play drums and piano, respectively, while the pimp belts out an indecipherable tune that has to be one of the most haunting sounds ever produced by a human being. Herzog has a knack for compositions that are simultaneously miserablist and sublime, and... just watch it.

6.  EDVARD MUNCH (Peter Watkins, 1974)
I am no artist, but I am convinced that “Edvard Munch” is the greatest film ever made about the creative process, primarily depicted here as “working your ass off.” Watching Munch build layers of paint, scrape frantically at his canvas, and shift restlessly from one medium to the next allows us to witness an artist reporting for duty each day and pouring in maximum effort, rather than a visionary who waits for the great epiphany that has marked the cheap turning point in far too many artist biopics.

Peter Watkins's pseudo-documentary style is infinitely pliable, and his free-floating, semi-omniscient perspective incorporates virtually any technique necessary to add context and to bore to the heart of the matter. I could just as easily have selected his magisterial “La Commune” (2000) for the same reasons, but “Edvard Munch” was my first exposure to Watkins, a man to whom we should be building monuments (but not monoforms).


5.  AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Tilda Swinton recently stated that the greatest performance of all-time was delivered by the title donkey(s) of this ferocious Bresson gem, and who I am to argue with the Queen? As Swinton says, this graceful, suffering, blank-eyed donkey is a “portal for the audience to project whatever they need to” and he is surely the ultimate Bressonian model. If you see nothing in Balthazar's gaze, it might be because you're looking at your own reflection. Debates over Bresson's religious beliefs will always be with us, but for me “Balthazar” joins “2001” as one of the few spiritual films for the atheist viewer. Balthazar kneeling in a field with a flock of sheep milling about him, their bells chiming a chorus ... I weep openly. So did most of the class I screened it for.

Read my full review here.

4.  LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (Alain Resnais, 1961)
I have as many theories about “Marienbad” as anyone else does, but I would hate for any of them to be true. Appreciate this grand and elaborate puzzle for its pieces, not for the way they snap together. On my first several tours through “Marienbad” (which is not set in Marienbad; that was last year) I grooved on the poker-faced gloom, but repeat viewings have made it clear just how playful and occasionally funny the movie is. I can't believe how long it took me to spot Hitch's cameo.
I don't know which Alain deserves the most credit (director Resnais or author Robbe-Grillet) for this mesmerizing study in gestures and surfaces, but I wish to thank them both. As well as the extraordinary actress Delphine Seyrig who has the distinction of starring in my fourth favorite film of all-time...

3.  JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
...as well as my third. What can I say about the Battleship Dielman, the unsinkable vanguard of the cinematic fleet? Jeanne Dielman (Seyrig) is eternal and immutable, born to be a .gif forever peeling potatoes and breading cutlets. She is an epic figure with such a radiant presence that all the other celluloid heroes huddle in her shadow. Director Chantal Akerman transforms the domestic space into something epic. My list is populated with the most memorable sets and locations in film history: The Overlook, Tativille, the hotel in “Marienbad,” but there is no movie space I know better than Jeanne's kitchen. I can close my eyes and picture the exact positions of the chair, table, coffeepot, bottle of dishwashing detergent, and scrub brush hanging off the tile wall.

Three and a half hours of watching Jeanne do housework is nowhere near enough. “Jeanne Dielman” may be a badge of honor film to prove one's devotion to the Church of Cinema, but it needs to be stressed just how much damn fun this movie is.  I cannot remember what movies were like before I saw it.

2.  STROSZEK (Herzog, 1977)
I suspect that Bruno S. was a savvier actor than he is generally given credit for, but if he was “only” playing himself, then what a self! It is difficult to pick his finest moment: perhaps the moment where he holds up a home-made sculpture that he describes a schematic of his brain, his long soulful look after sharing his woes with a stranger in a diner, or his quiet contemplation of newborns in a hospital ward. I'll go with this scene where he stages an impromptu glockenspiel performance in an alleyway. Bruno S. gets my vote for greatest performance of all time (OK, so I'm arguing with Ms. Swinton just a little) and now I find myself pondering the happy possibilities of a film starring Jeanne Dielman and Bruno Stroszek... in Vegas! But I digress.

My top two films also feature what I consider to be the two greatest endings ever. I mentioned Herzog's ability to meld the miserablist with the sublime and there is no more perfect manifestation of this than the dancing chicken and his penny arcade. Herzog says it is his greatest sequence, and he is indisputably correct though also typically modest; it is simply the greatest sequence ever filmed. Armies of directors and their special effects teams have squandered billions of dollars representing the end of the world, but nobody has ever topped the Apocalyptic Chicken strutting to "Old Lost John."

1.  2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Kubrick, 1968)
There is a narrow highway from Gunnison, CO that crawls up a mountain to the ski resort of Crested Butte. If you drive it at night, you'll see posts with reflectors on both sides of the road, helpfully situated to prevent you from plunging off a cliff. If you crank up “Jupiter and Beyond” on your car stereo, you can pretend you're plunging through the Star Gate as you whiz past each pulsating marker. If your experience is similar to mine, all that will be waiting for you on the other side is a watered down margarita and a futon in your friend's loft, but evolution's always been a crap shoot. And at 14,000 feet, it doesn't take much alcohol to feel like a Star Child. It's the ultimate trip.

I think about “2001” at some point every single day, and that's not true of any other movie. I have seen it more than fifty times, and plan to see that many times more if I get the chance. (Update: Make that more than seventy times now.)