Amph 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: Now Disc. "Heat" (1995)

Next: "The Unforgiven"(1992)

USA 131m. Colour

Director: Clint Eastwood

Producer: Clint Eastwood

Screenplay: David Webb Peoples

Photography: Jack N. Green

Music: Clint Eastwood, Lennie Niebhaus

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Gener Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Ricahrd Harris, Saul Rubinek

A odd, stoic Western, with a great script, and excellent cast.

 

Next: "Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer"(1992)

UK 87m. Colour

Director: Nick Bloomfield

Producer: N/A

Screenplay: N/A

Photography: Barry Ackroyd

Music: N/A

Cast: Nick Bloomfield, Arleen Pralle, Aileen Wuornos

"But the film's greatest observation is that in America, even the poor and loveless--not to mention the criminal--can be commodified and pimped by someone, and seemingly everyone."

 

This is, of course, the serial killer that inspired the Charlize Theron film, Monster. I never caught Monster, in part because I really would rather see this one.

 

Next: "A Tale of Winter"(1992)

France 114m. Colour

Director: Eric Rohmer

Producer: Margaret Menegoz

Screenplay: Eric Rohmer

Photography: Luc Pages

Music: Sebastian Erms

Cast: Charlotte Very, Frederic van den Driessche

Begins in summer, when the heroine has a brief summer romance, and inadvertantly conceives a child and mistakenly gives the wrong address to her lover...

 

Next: "The Actress"(1992)

Hong Kong 167m. Colour

Director: Stanley Kwan

Producer: Jackie Chan, Leonard Ho

Screenplay: An-Ping

Photography: Poon Hang-Sang

Music: Huang Jin Chen

Cast: Maggie Cheung, Han Chin

The story of an actress known as the Chinese Garbo, the negative of the original of this film was destroyed, and only survives in an Australian TV version.

The real Ruan Ling-yu

 

Next: "Man Bites Dog"(1992)

Belgium 92m. Colour

Director: Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel, Benoit Poelvoorde

Producer: Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel, Benoit Poelvoorde

Screenplay: Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel, Benoit Poelvoorde, Vincent Tavier

Photography: Andre Bonzel

Music: Jean-Marc Chenut, Laurence Dufrene

Cast: Benoit Poelvoorde, Jacqueline Poelvoorde-Pappaert

A film crew films a serial killer at work.

 

Next: "The Crying Game"(1992)

UK/Japan 112m. Colour

Director: Neil Jordan

Producer: Stephen Woolley

Screenplay: Neil Jordan

Photography: Ian Wilson

Music: Simon Boswell, Anne Dudley

Cast: Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson

I won't say how this goes, in case you haven't seen it.

 

Why must this be seen? The "surprise" is fairly obvious when you see the person in question.

 

Yeah, most everyone knows the surprise by now, but there is still a whole half of the movie to go after that! This is a fantastic film, well acted by Rea, Davidson, and Richardson. I think if they had ended it one scene sooner, it would have been a bit better, but I'll give Neil Jordan a pass.

 

This is one of those movies where the twist has achieved such cultural saturation that I can't even remember how I first heard about it. It seems like something I've always known about. But I still would like to see it. Stephen Rea's a great actor.

 

I generally like Jordan's films, and I'm sure I'd like this one. But the hype about the surprise always turned me off. I initially thought it must be something else, because the surprise seemed ridiculously obvious to me the first time I saw the trailer.

 

Honestly the surprise is more in how they reveal it. "Oh, hey, there it is!"

 

I love this movie. Not so much because of the twist but because of where the movie goes with it.

 

Next: "Farewell, My Concubine"(1993)

China/Hong Kong 171m. Colour

Director: Kaige Chen

Producer: Feng Hsu

Screenplay: Wei Lu

Photography: Changwei Gu

Music: Jiping Zhao

Cast: Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang

This film is about a 50-year relationship between two male Beijing Opera singers, during the turbulence of recent Chinese history.

 

Next: "Goundhog Day"(1993)

USA 101m. Colour

Director: Harold Ramis

Producer: Trevor Albert

Screenplay: Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis

Photography: John Bailey

Music: George Fenton

Cast: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Christ Elliot

This doesn't quite sustain itself to the end, but it's very close to a very good comedy.

 

Next: "Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould"(1993)

Canada/Portugal/Netherlands/Finland 101m. Colour

Director: Francois Girard

Producer: Michael Allder, Niv Fichmand, Barbara Willis Sweete, Larry Weinstein

Screenplay: Francoise Girard, Don McKellar

Photography: Alain Dostie

Music: Bach, Wagner

Cast: Colm Feore, Sean Ryan et al.

Glenn Gould was an *extremely* eccentric Canadian pianist, who died in 1982 at 50. Girard composes (in the form of the Goldberg Variations) 32 short films about him, in a variety of styles.

 

I just want to say that Farewell My Concubine is a frigging masterpiece. It's emotionally draining and almost unbearably painful at times, but it really is a must see. It's about this central relationship between these two opera singers, cast adrift on the ever changing currents of Chinese history. It's just gripping. And, believe it or not, it actually kind of got me into Chinese opera, which is totally different from Western opera.

 

Next: "Short Cuts"(1993)

USA 187m. Colour

Director: Robert Altman

Producer: Cary Brokaw

Screenplay: Robert Altman, Frank Barthydt

Photography: Walt Lloyd

Music: Gavin Friday, Mark Isham, Doc Pomus

Cast: Andie McDowell, Bruce Davison, Jack Lemmon, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine et al.

 

Next: "Philadelphia"(1993)

USA 125m. Colour

Director: Jonathan Demme

Producer: Edward Saxon

Screenplay: Ron Nyswaner

Photography: Tak Fujimoto

Music: Howard Shore, Bruce Springsteen

Cast: Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas

 

Hanks gives a genuinely great performance; he kind of overshadows Washington, which is too bad as Washington, I think, gives an even better one: his slow transition from slick, unethical lawyer to a legitimately compassionate person is the most moving arc in the film. Beautifully directed and some scenes, like the aria scene, stick in the memory like glue.

 

Demme whitewashed the theatrical release by deleting the 'bedroom scenes' between
Hanks and Banderas; he then added a needlessly maudlin ending. Still, this is a fine
movie, especially Hank's performance.

Springsteen's PHILADELPHIA doesn't hurt, either.

 

Next: "The Puppetmaster"(1993)

Taiwan 142m. Colour

Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien

Producer: Chiu Fu-Sheng

Screenplay: Chu t'ien-wen et al.

Photography: Lee Pin Bing

Music: Chen Ming Chang, Zhang Hongda

Cast: Li Tianlu, Lim Giong

Part of a trilogy loosely based on Taiwanese history, this section is about the Japanese occupation (1895-1945)

 

Next: "Jurassic Park"(1993)

USA 127m. Colour

Director: Steven Spielberg

Producer: Kathleen Kennedy

Screenplay: Michael Crichton, David Koepp

Photography: Dean Cundey

Music: John Williams

Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Samuel L. Jackson, Wayne Knight

Made the same year as the ultra-serious "Schindler's List", this film shows the other side of the Spielberg coin--the entertainer.

 

Fun movie that should be on the list.