Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Bulworth (1998)

Bulworth: Yo, everybody gonna get sick someday / But nobody knows how they gonna pay / Health care, managed care, HMOs / Ain't gonna work, no sir, not those / 'Cause the thing that's the same in every one of these / Is these motherfuckers there, the insurance companies!

Tanya: Insurance! Insurance!

Bulworth: Yeah, yeah / You can call it single-payer or Canadian way / Only socialized medicine will ever save the day! Come on now, lemme hear that dirty word - SOCIALISM!

Up front I have to admit that I have never seen Bulworth -- I guess I was into what the kids call "cringe" before the kids were calling it "cringe" because the sight of Warren Beatty rapping in the trailers for this movie in 1998 made all of my insides recoil right up into my insides and I never got over it. But I have heard good things about Bulworth -- any fans of it out there? I was going to say that it's a shame it was the last movie Warren Beatty ever directed, but it's not actually that at all -- I think I can be forgiven for forgetting 2016's Rules Don't Apply exists though. (Sorry Alden Ehrenreich.) Anyway it's Warren's birthday today and we wish him a good one, where ever it is that he's been squirreled away by Annette Bening -- there's a really ridiculously long rap quoted on this movie's IMDb page that I came really close to using as our quote in this post but chickened out; it's kind of terrifying how much of what he was saying in 1998 remains true / has only worsened with time, though. We're falling apart. Happy Monday!

The Heroic Mrs. Miller

It's another month where this time of the month totally snuck up on me -- it's Criterion Announcement Day! And here I didn't even realize until the news popped up in my inbox again, for shame. I'm always angry at myself when I'm too busy and distracted to keep my eyes on this one because I am actively disallowing myself that Christmas Eve feeling the night before, where I can get all excited thinking about what movies might be announced. But a surprise kiss can be good sometimes too and that's what this feels like -- a surprise kiss from McCabe and Mrs. Miller era Warren Beatty no less. Yes please. That 1971 classic neo-western is getting the 4K upgrade from our Criterion friends and tops the list of today's February 2024 releases. Per usual it's loaded with extras, check 'em out at the link. Next up...

... we have a double-feature of the Heroic Trio movies! From Johnnie To in 1993 we're getting a double-feature of The Heroic Trio and its sequel Executioners, which star Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui, and Michelle friggin' Yeoh as "kung-fu heroines" fighting baddies -- I've only seen the first one but it's an absolute blast, and not just because you get to watch Maggie Cheung act like a total bad-ass as seen in the gif above. (But that sure doesn't hurt.) 

After that there's another box-set of Eric Rohmer movies -- his romantic "Tales of the Four Seasons" films, which were made across the 1990s. I have never seen any of them, can you believe it? Shame on me but Criterion once again comes to my rescue. And speaking of movies I shamefully haven't seen the other two titles on their February docket are, 1) Raoul Walsh's 1939 gangster flick The Roaring Twenties with Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart playing former Army buddies who become enemies in Prohibition-era New York, and 2) the 1964 Civil Rights drama Nothing But a Man which starred Ivan Dixon and was apparently a fave of Malcom X himself.  Lots to get on come February, it seems!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Buck: Hey, you wanna hear a story 'bout this boy? He owned a dairy farm, see. And his ol' Ma, she was kinda sick, you know. And the doctor, he had called him come over, and said, uh, "Uhh listen, your Ma, she's lyin' there, she's just so sick and she's weakly, and uh, uh I want ya to try to persuade her to take a little brandy," you see. Just to pick her spirits up, ya know. And "Ma's a teetotaler," he says. "She wouldn't touch a drop." "Well, I'll tell ya whatcha do, uh," - the doc - "I'll tell ya whatcha do, you bring in a fresh quart of milk every day and you put some brandy in it, see. And see. You try that." So he did. And he doctored it all up with the brandy, fresh milk, and he gave it to his Mom. And she drank a little bit of it, you know. So next day, he brought it in again and she drank a little more, you know. And so they went on that way for the third day and just a little more, and the fourth day, she was, you know, took a little bit more - and then finally, one week later, he gave her the milk and she just drank it down. Boy, she swallowed the whole, whole, whole thing, you know. And she called him over and she said, "Son, whatever you do, don't sell that cow!"

A very happy 93 to Gene Hackman today!

What's your favorite Hackman performance?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Last Emperor (1987)

RJ: Words are important. 

Pu Yi: Why are words important? 

RJ: If you cannot say what you mean, your majesty,

you will never mean what you say and

a gentleman should always mean what he says.

The extraordinarily talented Bernardo Bertolucci was born on this day in the year 1941 (he passed in 2018) -- I just watched The Last Emperor over this past weekend because when I did the year 1987 for last week's edition of my "Siri Says" series I couldn't remember if I had seen it before; turns out I had, I remembered as I watched it, but it had been a very very very long time and I had definitely been too young to appreciate it when I had seen it. 

Now in 2022 Current-Me thought it a damn masterpiece (and also that John Lone is a total babe) but then I am pretty solidly in the tank for most everything Bertolucci when it comes down to it. Oh and I did it as a double-feature with Warren Beatty's film Reds, which turned out to be an absolutely spectacular way to spend a Sunday. 1980s Communist Epics, who'd have thunk? But I do mean an entire Sunday, as that's a full three-hundred-and-sixty-three minutes of entertainment there in just two pictures.

Doing this as a double-feature today pic.twitter.com/evsAVxmN4w

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 13, 2022

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Reds (1981)

John: Freedom, Mrs. Trullinger? I'd like to know

what your idea of freedom is. Having your own studio? 

Louise: I'd like to see you with your pants off, Mr. Reed.

One of the greatest lessons the movies ever taught me was the need to see Warren Beatty without his pants on -- and the selfish bastard hardly ever complied! Talk about a Never-Nude. Anyway Diane Keaton dated Beatty for a minute...

... so she won on that front. Among many fronts! And we wish her a happy 76th birthday today in honor of these multiple accomplishments. Last year I listed my 5 favorite Keaton performances, see those here -- they obviously haven't changed in the year, but I am pretty excited that a 40th anniversary edition of Reds just hit blu-ray this past November so I can revisit this movie properly. It's been a long while. What an ace film. Definitely Beatty's finest, I think? Ooh let's put that to a vote:

bike trail guide

Criterion'd on the Wind

Happy Criterion Announcement Day! The four titles for next February have just been unleashed and top billing goes as it must to Douglas Sirk's 1956 grand camp melodrama Written on the Wind, one of the most over-the-top and enjoyable flicks where everyone is constantly and totally miserable that you will ever in your life see. It's one of my favorite movies -- I've seen it dozens of times and it never fails to perk me up. Guess I'm upgrading my DVD. This one will be a new 2K restoration, no doubt making those psychotic technicolors pop even poppier -- cannot wait to abuse my retinas upon this one.

ME SEEING THAT @CRITERION IS FIIIIIINALLY UPDATING DOUGLAS SIRK'S WRITTEN ON THE WIND TO BLURAY: pic.twitter.com/hBorFHhu9a

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 15, 2021

But wait, there be more -- the Coens' classic Miller's Crossing is also getting the 2K upgrade treatment, and this one sounds stuffed with interviews with everybody involved. Then there's Ann Hui's 1982 "Hong Kong New Wave" classic Boat People, which sees a Japanese photojournalist taking in the horrors of Vietnamese refugees escaping due to the war (anybody seen this one?) as well as Leo McCary's 1939 classic weepie Love Affair starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne as star-crossed and doomed lovers in New York. I've never seen this version, only McCary's own 1957 remake An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. I actually don't think I ever saw Warren Beatty's 90s version either? I guess I should do a triple-feature come February!

5 Off My Head: Keen on Keaton

I have to admit that I am a wee bit surprised, having glanced back through our Diane Keaton Archives here on the occasion of the actress' 75th birthday, that I have never done this before, but it appears true -- I have never done a list of my favorite Diane Keaton performances. Now perhaps there's a reason for this -- perhaps I knew beforehand that my list of favorite Diane Keaton performances wasn't going to light anybody's beak on fire? My favorites are kind of exactly what you'd think my favorites are. But still -- my favorites are really favorites -- when she's good she's so very good. That run in the 70s is just gee-gosh-gee I mean you know. An all-time fave.

My 5 Favorite Diane Keaton Performances

Kay, The Godfather (1972)

Theresa, Looking For Mr Goodbar (1977)

Louise Bryant, Reds (1981)

Sister Mary, The Young Pope (2016)

Annie, Annie Hall (1977) 

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Runners-up: Manhattan Murder Mystery, Love and Death,

The First Wives Club, Something's Gotta Give, Manhattan

Never seen: Crimes of the Heart, Marvin's Room, 

Baby Boom, Shoot the Moon, Mrs. Soffell

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What are your favorite Diane Keaton performances?

It's a Conspiracy! A Criterion Conspiracy!

When I tell you that I watched Alan J. Pakula's 1974 conspiracy-thriller classic The Parallax View for the very first time this past May I do not want you to believe me. Because that was six months ago and here, in November of the same year, I am forced to admit that I remember exactly nothing about The Parallax View. I know I watched it. I tweeted about it. I listed it on the list I keep of the movies I watch. And yet... nothing. I should remember a movie that stars Warren Beatty in those pants. But I don't, and this fact calls into question whether I actually saw the film for the first time in May or if I've seen the movie dozens upon dozens of times and I just keep forgetting it. Maybe The Parallax View is my own Eternal Sunshine. Maybe some nefarious group from the future has been traveling back in time to erase me having watched it from the past. Is that actually the plot of The Parallax View? Damned if I know!

Anyway Criterion announced today -- OR DID THEY??? -- that they are releasing The Parallax View on blu-ray in February. We'll have to wait and see if that actually happens in February, or if time is a loop constructed by pin-headed communists from an alternate reality where everyone walks on the ceiling -- I'm not placing any bets either way. The other movies being released by Criterion in February -- two flicks from the fantastic Rahmin Bahrani (Man Push Cart and Chop Shop, both phenomenal), Ousmane Sembène's Sengalise Society Satire called Mandabi, and Joyce Chopra's fantabulous Joyce Carol Oates' adaptation Smooth Talk, which introduced the legend Laura Dern to the world. Speaking of beautiful men in well-fitting pants Treat Williams was really something in Smooth Talk...

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1962

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Last week's edition of our "Siri Says" series -- where I ask my phone to give me a number between 1 and 100 and then list my five favorite movies from the year that corresponds to that number -- was a tough one, sending us tumbling into Silent Film, so I was relieved this week when, after about a dozen or so tires (the years we've got left are getting scarcer and scarcer) Siri plunked us down into a decade I've seen many more movies from, the 1960s, with the number "62." And then I started looking at The Movies of 1962 and I realized that my likes from that precise year -- which featured both the height of the Cold War and the birth of Spider-man -- tend towards outside-the-mainstream. Meaning that there are big beloved movies from that year that I feel very little towards! 

It's a terrific year of movies but an odd inconsistently-matched batch, including big swings between challenging international cinema which was booming, bargain-basement cult oddities from the likes of Roger Corman & Co, and of course the smooth pretty product line that was rolling out of Hollywood. The latter's where my interest wanes, and so as I skimmed through all the titles for the year I found myself wanting to (mostly) highlight the weirder stuff at the expense of the more popular titles.  But then the weirder stuff is my brand! As is, apparently, the black-and-white in the time of color stuff...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1962

Knife in the Water

(dir. Roman Polanski)

-- released on March 9th 1962 -- 

What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?

(dir. Robert Aldrich)

-- released on October 31st 1962 -- 

The Manchurian Candidate

(dir. John Frankenheimer)

-- released on October 24th 1962 -- 

Carnival of Souls

(dir. Herk Hervey)

-- released on November 2nd 1962 -- 

The Exterminating Angel

(dir. Luis Bunuel)

-- released on May 16th 1962 -- 

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Runners-up: La Jetée (dir. Chris Marker), Dr. No (dir. Terence Young), Cape Fear (dir. J. Lee Thompson), Day of the Triffids (dir. Steve Sekely), L'eclisse (dir. Michaelangelo Antonioni), Jules and Jim (dir. Truffaut)...

... Panic in the Year Zero (dir. Ray Milland), Lolita (dir. Kubrick), Long Day's Journey Into Night (dir. Lumet), Vivre sa Vie (dir. Godard), Lawrence of Arabia (dir. David Lean), To Kill a Mockingbird (dir. Robert Mulligan)

Never seen: The Music Man (dir. Morton Dacosta), The Miracle Worker (dir. Arthur Penn), The Longest Day (dir. Andrew marton), All Fall Down (dir. John Frankenheimer), A Kind of Loving (dir. John Schlesinger), Billy Budd (dir. Peter Ustinov), Cleo From 5-7 (dir. Agnes Varda)...

... The Intruder (dir. Roger Corman), How the West Was Won (dir. Henry Hathaway), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (dir. John Ford), The Trial (dir. Welles), Cartouche (dir. Philippe de Broca), Days of Wine and Roses (dir. Blake Edwards)

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What are your favorite movies of 1962?

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Elmer Gentry (1960)

Lady in red on Christmas Eve: That's the trouble
with this stinking world. Nobody loves nobody.

108 years ago today the director Richard Brooks was born.

That's a picture of him (with some actor guy). Maybe you don't recognize Brooks' name? I wouldn't hold it against you because until a couple of weeks ago I could never remember it myself, even though the man's responsible for one of my all-time favorite movies (that would be Looking For Mr. Goodbar) and several others that I might not think of as "favorites" necessarily but that I still consider near perfect -- they would be the one-two "Paul Newman does Tennessee Williams" punch of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof & Sweet Bird of Youth...

... and then his brutally gorgeous 1968 adaptation 

of Truman Capote's true-crime tale In Cold Blood.

A man who directs those four movies should have his damn name remembered -- his understanding of how violence does and should register on-screen via just Goodbar and Blood alone is top tier! But for some reason Brooks' name was like sand through fingers and I never could keep it in place. Then TCM screened those two Tennessee Williams adaptations a couple of weeks back and I had this realization, regarding my Richard Brooks blindness, I really registered it, and I did what I usually do -- I tweeted about it!

I feel like, given the evidence of these four fantastic films, I should do a dive into Richard Brooks. What else should I see? I have never seen Elmer Gentry... https://t.co/1v7q3VlnYk pic.twitter.com/SQyO92WFUg

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 2, 2020

If you follow that tweet over to Twitter you'll see a lot of fine folks who follow me there then schooled me on what else I oughta been watching from Mr. Brooks' career, outside of those four films, and for once in my godforsaken existence I actually did the homework. In the past couple of weeks I've checked out Brooks' 1971 bank-robbery caper titled $ (yes just a dollar sign, although I think you pronounce the title in plural, as in Dollars) starring Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn...

Thanks to those of you who recommended $ (typing that title still feels silly), the 1971 bank robbery caper with Warren Beatty & Goldie Hawn -- watched it this morning and it's a ton of fun (And BONUS Warren gets real sweaty in his white dress shirt at one point) pic.twitter.com/IGrpyTpMtQ

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 2, 2020

... and I liked the film quite a bit. In fact it's one that's been sitting pleasantly on my mind, making space for itself, in the two weeks since -- I can feel that "like" turning into a maybe "love." I'm not a huge fan of Heist Films (I talked about this in relation to Hustlers last year) but $'s last act really goes weirder and more idiosyncratic than I expected, and now the movie kinda won't let me go. I have a feeling I'll be revisiting it often.

To make an already long post longer the second movie I did my Richard Brooks Homework with I just watched this past Saturday afternoon, and it's the one this post began with -- the Oscar-winning (and really very timely with regards to the world right now) movie Brooks made smack-dab in between his two Paul Newman adventures: Elmer Gentry with Burt Lancaster playing the drunk turned barn-storming phony-ass Christian Evangelist. The film got nominated for several Oscars and won acting statues for both Lancaster and for Shirley Jones as the preacher's daughter that Gentry long-ago corrupted, who comes back to get her vengeance in the film's final act.

Jones is good in the movie but seeing just now that she beat Janet Leigh in Psycho for that statue really clenches my fists into tight little balls -- no, she certainly did not deserve to win over Janet Leigh. If I was going to give an acting statue to any actress in Elmer Gentry it would've gone to Jean Simmons, who gives the best performance in the whole damn movie as Sister Sharon Falconer, a cynical maybe maybe-not true believer -- Simmons truly keeps you on edge every moment she's on-screen.

Lancaster though is great as well -- I never think of myself as a Burt Lancaster fan but then I see him in something and remember what a truly surprising and risky career he really gave himself. Going to Italy in 1963 to make a glorious movie with Luchino Visconti; strutting around butt-ass naked for a film truly as weird as they come with The Swimmer in 1968...

... he really didn't rest on his football-stud shoulders and call it a day. As an aside, speaking of those shoulders, you can see some pictures of Lancaster in his 1947 prison movie Bruce Force (which was written by Richard Brooks) over on our Tumblr. But I digress -- I'm not here to talk Lancaster but rather birthday boy writer-director Brooks. I can now say I have liked-to-loved all six of his films that I've seen, and I think I should dig deeper. Maybe his 1966 Western The Professionals with Lancaster again and Lee Marvin? Bette Davis and Debbie Reynolds in The Catered Affair?

Brooks worked with Sidney Poitier a couple of times -- I've seen pieces of Blackboard Jungle but never the entire thing so maybe I should give that a go? Or what about Something of Value, Brooks' 1957 movie with Poitier that also starred Rock Hudson? Before I keep listing Richard Brooks' entire filmography let's end on that note, and hit the jump for a bunch of pictures of those two fine-looking movie-stars making for a mighty fine-looking pair...

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1981

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I know I should be putting the finishing (or thereabouts) touches on our "Best of 2018" list but I need a break from that, so let's distract ourselves this afternoon with an afternoon round of our "Siri Says" series, which we haven't done since before the holidays. So I asked the lady who lives inside of my telephone for a number between 1 and 100 and today's pick is "81" so we will now head to The Movies of 1981 and pick our five favorites.

One sidenote about this year: 1981 is known far and wide as the prime year for my beloved Slasher Film genre - dozens of them were released in the wake of the enormous success of the original Friday the 13th the year before, capitalizing on its patented brand of nubile things plus knife tips. There are enough that I could make a list from just those and have plenty left over! Maybe I will sometime. But not today. Today we're being classy. Well, you know, as classy as I get. I still made room for Sam Raimi and exploding heads. I ain't no dummy.

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1981

Raiders of the Lost Ark

(dir. Steven Spielberg)

-- released on June 12th 1981 --

The Evil Dead

(dir. Sam Raimi)

-- released on October 15th 1981 --

Blow Out

(dir. Brian de Palma)

-- released on July 24th 1981 --

Scanners

(dir. David Cronenberg)

-- released on January 14th 1981 --

Possession 

(dir. Andrzej Zulawski)

-- released on May 27 1981 --

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Runners-up: An American Werewolf in London (dir. John Landis), Time Bandits (dir. Terry Gilliam), Mommie Dearest (dir. Frank Perry), Reds (dir. Warren Beatty), Halloween II (dir. Rick Rosenthal), Body Heat (dir. Lawrence Kasdan)...

...... The Decline of Western Civilization (dir. Penelope Spheeris), Lili Marleen (dir. Fassbinder), Lola (dir. Fassbinder), The Burning (dir. Tony Maylam), Pennies From Heaven (dir. Herbert Ross), Road Games (dir. Richard Franklin), My Bloody Valentine (dir. George Mihalka), The Howling (dir. Joe Dante)...

... Polyester (dir. John Waters), Looker (dir. Michael Crichton), Superman II (dir. Lester / Donner), Happy Birthday To Me (dir. J Lee Thompson), The Funhouse (dir. Tobe Hooper), Escape From New York (dir. John Carpenter), Excalibur (dir. John Boorman), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (dir. George Miller), Friday the 13th: Part 2 (dir. Steve Miner)

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Never seen: Thief (dir. Michael Mann), Gallipoli (dir. Peter Weir), My Dinner With Andre (dir. Louis Malle), Shock Treatment (dir. Jim Sharman), Taxi Zum Klo (dir. Frank Ripploh), Endless Love (dir. Shana Feste), Arthur (dir. Steve Gordon), Chariots of Fire (dir. Hugh Hudson), Diva (dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix), Quartet (dir. James Ivory), Modern Romance (dir. Albert Brooks), The Postman Always Rings Twice (dir. Bob Rafelson)

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What are your favorites movies of 1981?

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