Classic Films
A Streetcar Named Desire (51 Vivien Leigh –Leigh’s second Oscar; first for “Gone With The Wind” and Marlon Brando’s first nomination/’95 Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin)
African Queen (Bogart’s Oscar and Katherine Hepburn nominated ‘51)
Blonde Venus (Marlene Dietrich)
Cat on A Hot Tin Roof (’58 Liz Taylor and Paul Newman/ 76 Olivier, Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner/85 Jessica Lange and Tommy Lee Jones)
Cool Hand Luke (Paul Newman)
East of Eden (James Dean)
Equus (amazing script, disturbing)
Face in a Crowd (megalomaniac)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Marilyn Monroe)
The Graduate (Dustin Hoffman as a Young Man, Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson, great soundtrack)
Hud (Paul Newman)
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (Bette Davis, spooky)
Hustler (pool, Paul Newman)
Mommie Dearest (Joan Crawford acted by Faye Dunaway)
Razor’s Edge (great novel- mediocre film there were two versions one in ’46 with Tyrone Power & Anne Baxter/one in the 80s or 90s with Bill Murray -- ’46 better)
Rebel Without a Cause (James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo)
Seven Year Itch, The (Marilyn Monroe)
Some Like It Hot (Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon)
Suddenly Last Summer (Montgomery Clift, Katherine Hepburn and Liz Taylor)
Tea and Sympathy (’56 Deborah Kerr, John Kerr – not related)
To Have and Have Not (Bogart and Bacall with the chemistry of new lovers)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, ’62 great acting, Davis spectacularly weird)
Who Killed Teddy Bear (subtle by today’s standards, but spooky)

Films By Great Directors
Altman: Come Back To The Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean (slow but beautiful/ Cher is great, Fool For Love (Sam Shepard wrote the play and acted in the film…don’t miss), M*A*S*H* (not as good as the TV show but served as the inspiration), Nashville (Check out Lilly Tomlin)
Woody Allen: Take the $ and Run, Annie Hall, Radio Days, Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (Woody Allen is the white Spike Lee soooo annoying, but…)
PT Andersen: Magnolia (great soundtrack by Aimee Mann)
Besson: la Femme Nakita, 5th Element (shallow but hot)
Tim Burton: Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks, Sleepy Hollow
Jane Campion: Angel at My Table (amazing story of a writer locked up as insane)
Capra: Arsenic and Old Lace
Coen Bros: Fargo, Barton Fink, Big Lebowski, O Brother, Raising Arizona
Coppola: Apocalypse Now (Heart of Darkness)
Terry Gilliam: Brazil, Fisher King
Hal Hartley: Henry Fool, Trust, No Such Thing, Book of Life (PJ Harvey plays Mary Mag in this one/Long Island Humor)
Hitchcock: The Birds, Psycho, ****Stage Fright (Marlene Dietrich cameo)****, To Catch a Thief
Jarmusch: Stranger Than Paradise, Night on Earth
Kubrick: Dr. Strangelove
Ken Loach: The Navigators, Bread & Roses (UNION)
Spike Lee: Do It A Cappella (’90 tv), Malcom X, Bamboozled
Merchant and Ivory: A Room With A View (Forster novel), Ballad of a Sad Café
Mira Nair: Monsoon Wedding, Mississippi Masala
Potter: Pennies From Heaven (the BBC tv series)
Russell: Altered States
Savoca: Dogfight (Lili Taylor)
J. Sayles: Secret of Roan Inish
Scorsese: Taxi Driver (hard core)
Tarantino: Jackie Brown
John Waters: Serial Mom (funny)
Orson Welles: Citizen Kane (megalomaniac)

Great Foreign Directors
Fassbinder: Tin Drum

Goddard: Alphaville (old black and white sci fi), In Praise of Love (video verses black and white film), Hail Mary (modern day virgin birth story)

Tony Gatlif: (gypsy music and beautiful dancers) Vengo, Swing (based on the story of Gatlif’s own childhood summer in France), Latcho Drom

Kieslowski: Blue (Juliette Binoche)

Malle: Elevator to the Gallows (Miles Davis sound track to French Murder mystery), Damage (Juliette Binoche cheats on fiancé with future father in-law Jeremy Irons, naughty and hot), Pretty Baby (young Brooke Shields, should her mother have pimped her out as a sexual object at just 13?)

Polanski: Rosemary’s Baby (classic horror), Oliver Twist, Macbeth

Rohmer: Autumn Tale, Rendezvous in Paris (accordion scene)

Truffaut: Fahrenheit 451 (novel is better)

Lars Von Trier: Dancer In The Dark, Dogville, Breaking the Waves (a psychological study of woman as victim)

Wim Wenders (poetic, my favorite) Until the End of the World, Wings of Desire, Far Away So Close, Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones practice session)

Action
Batman Begins
Billy Jack
City of Lost Children (FRE)
Clay Pigeons
Fight Club
GI Jane
The Grifters (Angelica Huston is fantastic)
Inspector Morse
Long Kiss Goodnight (G. Davis and S. Jackson give one liners, cheer them on!)
Papillion (prison film)
Picture Claire
Prime Suspect (UK female detective series w/ Helen Mirren)****
Thelma and Louise
Witness

Stand Up Comedy
Lewis Black: Unleashed, Back on Broadway
Margaret Cho: Revolution, Notorious, Assassin, I’m The One That I Want
Funny Ladies (collection)
Kathy and Mo (HBO special) Parallel Lives
Eddie Izzard: Dressed To Kill, Unrepeatable
Suzanne Westenhoefer (HBO special)
Whoopi Goldberg

Comedy
Absolutely Fabulous (British TV show/ hilarious)
An Everlasting Piece (Irish)
Being There (Peter Sellers at his Best)
Best In Show
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (action soap, Josh Whedon is witty)
But I’m A Cheerleader
Danny Deck Chair
Da Ali G Show season one
Dirty Filthy Love
Eating Raoul (the 70’s sets are amazing)
Fear and Trembling (French and Japanese)
Goldfish Memory (Irish/ terrific soundtrack)
Harold and Maude (Cat Stevens soundtrack. Great love life story)
Happy Accidents
The Jerk (Steve Martin)
Lilly for President (Tomlin)
Midsummer Night’s Dream (Branaugh)
Moonstruck (I love Cher and Nicholas Cage in this romantic comedy)
Mystic Pizza (Lili Taylor)
Pricilla, Queen of the Desert (Australian, gay, funny)
Private Benjamin (Goldie Hawn)
Saved (born again humor)
The Saddest Music In The World (Isabella Rossalini/bizarre)
Say Anything (Lili Taylor)
Shirley Valentine (Woman ?’s her life)
Stir Crazy (Richard Prior and Gene Wilder)
Strictly Ballroom (Australian, hilarious)
Triplets of Bellville (animated/French)
Tootsie (Dustin Hoffman)
The Truth About Cats and Dogs (Uma Thurman and Janeane Garofalo)

Drama
13 Moons (Indy, sad clowns)
The Accused (Jodi Foster, terrible rape story)
Almost Famous (boy rock and roll reporter)
Ballad of Jack and Rose (narcissistic progressive and his unstable daughter)
Beautiful People (many intertwined stories)
Benny & Joon (Depp. Great soundtrack)
Between Strangers (three women transform and interconnect)
Big Night (food and dreams)
Boys Don’t Cry (sad, based on true story)
Boys on the Side (Whoopi)
The Breakfast Club (high school)
Brother To Brother (echoes of Langston Hughes)
By Hook or By Crook (great script, beautiful video footage)
Carnal Knowledge (Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, Art Garfunkl)
Charlotte Gray (English woman joins the French resistance)
Children’s Hour (Lillian Helman)
Coal Miner’s Daughter (story of Loretta Lynn)
The Color Purple (novel is better)
Crash (racism in LA)
Crying Game
Daughters of the Dust (South Carolina Island, escaped slave boat maintains African culture undetected)
Death in Venice (based in novella by Thomas Mann)
Dear Frankie (Scottish tale of the lengths one would go to)
Dresser (theatre)
Doing Time For Patsy Cline (Australian)
Everyday People (story of a city diner)
Female Perversions (Camille Paglia)
For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow was enuf
Frances (Jessica Lange/ based on a true story/ actress gets lobotomy/ sad)
Fried Green Tomatoes
Gandhi
Go Fish (gay girls)
Good Will Hunting
Happy Accidents
Henry and June (Anais Nin and Henry Miller story)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
In America (Irish, family film)
Iron Jawed Angels (women fight for the right to vote, based on history, good soundtrack)
I Shot Andy Warhol (Lili Taylor plays Valerie Solanas)
Lakawana Blues
Ladies in Lavendar (Dench)
The Laramie Project (based on a true story)
Lord of the Flies (novel is better)
Love Song for Bobby Long (I didn’t suspect that Travolta had it in him)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (INDY)
Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Express
Music of Chance (spooky)
My Beautiful Laundrette
Mysterious Skin (warning rape scene)
Nell
‘ Night Mother (great play by Marsha Norman)
Norma Rae (Sally Field/Union)
Once Were Warriors (Australian Aborigine, disturbing)
One Flew Over The Coo Coo’s Nest (Jack Nicholson)
Oranges Aren’t the Only Fruit (BBC Janette Winterson story. Read her books!)
Our Song (girls at a city school/ being closed down, great acting by unknowns)
Paper Moon
Patsy Cline (Jessica Lange)
Pi (freaky)
Real Women Have Curves
Requiem for A Dream (dizzying camera angles as characters struggle w/ addictions)
The Station Agent
Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Silkwood (Cher is great/story of a whistle blower)
Shawshank Redemption (prison film)
Sling Blade (Tommy Lee Jones)
Soldier’s Girl (terrific script by Ron Nyswaner and excellent acting!)
Stage Beauty (Shakespearean actor must begin to play male role)
Strangers In Good Company (Canadian story of wmn on a bus that breaks down)
Sybil (Sally Fields plays girl with multiple personality disorder)
Terms of Endearment (Larry McMurtry novel better than film)
Till Human Voices Wake Us… (Helena Bonham Carter)
The Theory of Flight (Helena Bonham Carter beautifully touching story)
True West (Sam Shepard Play featuring John Malcovich as young method actor)
Tic Code (Gregory Hines, nice story)
Unbearable Lightness of Being
Virgin Suicides (great soundtrack by Air, French electronica group)
Waiting For The Moon (story of Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein)
Welcome To The Dollhouse (modern existential)
Without You I Am Nothing
The World According To Garp (Robin Williams/ check out the novel)
Waydowntown (indy)
What Dreams May Come (Robin Williams goes to hell)
What's Eating Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp)
When Night Is Falling (Australian, circus, colorful, gay)
Yes (modern film, script in verse)
You Can Count On Me (a brother trying to get it together)

Documentary
Alberto Giacametti (French)
Aileen Wuornos; selling of a serial killer
Billabong Odyssey (surfing 60 foot waves)
Bush Family Fortune
Capturing the Friedmans (crime documentary)
Citizen King
Crumb (cartoonist)
The Gleaners and I (French/ vignettes of people who glean/well done)
Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst
Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam
Hitler’s Secretary (German)
In The Mirror of Maya Deren (Documentary about avant garde film maker)
Jupiter’s Wife (story of Homeless woman)
Life and Debt (World Economy and Jamaica)
Maya Lin (the Vietnam Memorial)
My Architect
Paradise Lost (murder?)
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Stonewall
To Have and To Be (French kindergarten teacher)
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill**** (watch this film!!!!)

Family
The Bad News Bears (Tatum O’Neil)
Charlie’s Chocolate Factory
The Dark Crystal
Freaky Friday (Original with Jodi Foster/ Modern version with Jamie Lee Curtis)
Into the West
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate…
Whale Rider
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The Wizard of Oz (has been re-released on dvd with additional songs and dances cut from the original)

Foreign Films

Czech.
House of Fools (King of Hearts meets One Flew Over the Coo Coo’s Nest with an accordion)
Up and Down

Dutch
Babette's Feast (What a menu)
Question of Silence, A (union)

French
8 Women (murder mystery musical farce)
The Accidental Hero (boy and mother)
A Man And A Woman (great soundtrack)
A Man And A Woman (20 Years Later)
Amelie
Betty (beautiful cinematography)
The Barbarian Invasions
Blue (part of the Kieslowski trilogy this one stars Juliette Binoche)
Camille Claudel (story of sculptor in love with Rodin)
Celestial Clockwork
Chaos (comedy)
Chocolat
The Closet (comedy)
Diva (opera singer)
Dreamlife of Angels
Drycleaners (a night at the disco club changes a couple’s life forever)
Elevator To The Gallows (Miles Davis soundtrack/black and white/suspense)
Eyes Without A Face (wow…noir?? Out of sight, check it out)
French Twist (comedy)
Girl on the Bridge (knife thrower)
Ghost River (beautiful cinematography, nice soundtrack, Isabelle Hupert)
Green House (great story, grandfather is inspired to become a hero by granddaughter)
Irma Vep (nice scenes of Paris at night)
It Starts Today (elementary school teacher in France faces class struggles)
Jean de Florette (classic)
King of Hearts (classic)
Kings and Queen
La Buche (family reunites at Christmas after not talking for many years)
La Lectrice (woman reads to people for an adventurous career)
Le Petit Amour
Les Miserables (not what you think it is)
Love Me If You Dare (great frustrating love story)
Madame Bovary (Isabelle Hupert is disgusting as Madame Bovary)
Manon of The Spring (classic sequel to Jean de Florette)
Man on A Train (Two men imagine what it would be like to have lived differently)
Ma Saison Preferee
Ma Vie en Rose (sweet)
Pour Quoi Mas? (funny, gay)
Purple Noon (scary, gay)
Rosetta
Redlights (adventure)
Ridicule
Same Old Song (musical comedy)
Son of Gascogne
Swing (gypsy music)
Time of the Wolf (apocalyptic, ambiguous, troubling, poetic)
Umbrella’s of Cherbourg (Catherine Deneuve at fifteen)
Vagabond (sad and beautiful)
Widow of St. Pierre

German
The Edukators (revolutionary)
Fanny and Alexander (classic)
Goodbye Lenin
In July (road trip buddy romance with good soundtrack)
Run Lola Run
Shultz Gets The Blues (polka player can’t help but play zydeco)
The Legend of Rita (radicals forced to reinvent themselves)
Tin Drum (classic)
Until The End of the World (favorite, people addicted to dream machine)
Wings of Desire (favorite, angels and people discussing time)

Icelandic
Cold Fever (interessant)

Indian
The Bandit Queen (radical)
Monsoon Wedding
Spices (radical)

International
Tuvalu (multiple languages, surreal film conceptually based on a real place that is being covered with water as the sea level rises)

Israeli
Walk on Water (In German and Israeli)

Italian
The Bicycle Thief
Life Is Beautiful (cry, cry, cry)

Mexican
El Norte (powerful, if you find this film let me know where)

Spanish
Don’t Tempt Me (an angel and a devil both hot fight for the soul of a boxer)
Like Water For Chocolate (food and love)
Motorcycle Diaries (the inspiration of Che’)
Nine Queens (scam after scam, great fun)

Martial Arts
The Drunken Master (hilarious)
The Real Jackie Chan (Documentary about Jackie Chan’s training and life)

Musicals and Movies with Music
8 Women (musical farce French)
The Commitments (Irish)
Coal Miners Daughter (Sissy Spacek plays Loretta Lynn)
Hair (mean hippies)
Jacque Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris
Jesus Christ Superstar
The Music Man (with original Broadway Cast)
Moulin Rouge
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Rose (Bette Midler in Joplin-esque tale)
A Star Is Born (Kris Kristofferson and Barbara Streisand)
Same Old Song (French)
Sweet Dreams (Jessica Lange plays Patsy Cline)
Umbrellas of Cherbourg (French classic)
Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory
The Wizard of Oz (new dvd release includes song and dance routines cut from original as well as award footage)

Music Videos and Documentaries
Antonio Carlos Jobim: An All-Star Tribute
Buena Vista Social Club
Big Time (Tom Waits)
Cuba Feliz
Diana Krall (live)
Don’t Look Back (Bob Dylan 1967)
Down from the Mountain (the concert film for Oh Brother)
Elevator To The Gallows (French Film Miles Davis Sound Track)
Everything But The Girl: Like The Deserts Miss The Rain
From a Whisper To A Scream (The Living History of Irish Music)
Indigo Girls: Live at Uptown Lounge
Indigo Girls: Watershed
Joni Mitchell Shadows and Light
K.D. Lang Live by Request
The Last Waltz
Last of the Mississippi Juke Joints
Man in the Sand: Billy Bragg and Wilco
The Work of Director Michel Gondry (music videos some English some French)
Naked Songs: The Life & Times of Rickie Lee Jones
Norah Jones Live in New Orleans
The Quintessential Peggy Lee
Rickie Lee Jones: Live at the Wiltern
Standing in the Shadows of Motown
Sympathy For The Devil (Stones, long rehearsal)

Porn
Annie Sprinkle
Lucas

Sci Fi
Alien
Aliens
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Dr. Strangelove
ET
The Man Who Fell To Earth
Tank Girl
X-Files

Westerns
The Lonesome Dove (series books by Larry McMurtry are great)

updated February 2006