This is my They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They 1000 Greatest Films update, the last of the dull end-of-summer update posts for SBBN.
I haven’t seen nearly as many of the films on my TSPTD1K list (or the supplemental Scorsese and IMDb lists) as I’ve wanted for various reasons, mostly because I’ve been spending a lot of time this year watching Kevin Brownlow’s Hollywood series, as well as The Story of Film. They are both excellent but at about an hour per episode, they really cut into my layin’ around time.
TSPDT1K Recently Watched:
22. ANDREI RUBLEV (Andrei Tarkovsky / 1966 / USSR / 185m / Col-BW)
80. JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (Chantal Akerman / 1975 / Belgium, France / 201m / Col)
128. WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, A (John Cassavetes / 1974 / USA / 155m / Col) – had not seen the whole thing
379. STRANGER THAN PARADISE (Jim Jarmusch / 1984 / USA / 90m / BW)
462. DEVILS, THE (Ken Russell / 1971 / UK / 109m / Col) – instant review: Holy mother of god
592. DEAD MAN (Jim Jarmusch / 1995 / USA, Germany / 121m / BW)
839. FORT APACHE (John Ford / 1948 / USA / 127m / BW)
The IMDb Top 250 recently watched:
#6 The Dark Knight (2008)
#14 Inception (2010)
#16 Star Wars (1977)
#49 The Departed (2006)
#105 Batman Begins (2005)
#170 There Will Be Blood (2007)
#176 The King’s Speech (2010)
#178 The Hunt (2012)
#202 Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
I enjoyed all of these to varying degrees, with the exception of Batman Begins, which would just not stop beginning. The Dark Knight was half boring, half excellent — the excellent half thanks mostly to Heath Ledger — and I’m really not looking forward to the third of the trilogy. For whatever reason, I’m not particularly down with modern big-budget films anymore.
And something I noticed in Jeanne Dielman was that the butcher shop was at number 23 of whatever street it was on — the “23” was clearly visible outside of the building. I had assumed the title was meant to indicate the address of Dielman’s building, but is it possibly the address of the butcher? Anyone?
As far as the rest of the list goes, my plan, such as it is, is to get all the movies on these lists that I’ve seen part of together, because it’s possible I’ve seen the whole film and just don’t remember, as well as the films I have sitting around the house just waiting to be watched. Once I go through them, that’ll knock out about 75-100 of these movies, which is no small feat.
Regular SBBN posts will begin soon, and as I mentioned in Friday’s post, there may (may!) be an announcement about a new website by the end of the year. Stay tuned!