100-something Movies You Should See If You Like Movies: E-H

Continued from part 1, which also describes the methodology behind this list in case the title doesn’t make it clear.  Newer entries will be labeled u1, u2, u3... uX depending on when I add them, so use your internet word searcher and check back in several months to follow my ongoing chronicle of the best that Hollywood has to offer.  Links to other sections are appended at the bottom.

Edge of Tomorrow –

The helicopter scene alone merits a spot on this list.  And Emily Blunt doing pushups.  Is there something on her face?  Too bad Emily Blunt had to go and make such a dumbkopf of herself.

Edward Scissorhands –

Old but complete review here.  A very sad yet very wonderful movie.

Empire of the Sun –

Spielberg’s historical magnum opus, much better than the also strong Saving Private Ryan.

Enemy –

Jake Gyllenhaal plays two physically identical characters, or two versions of the same character, depending on how you try to make sense of the story.  I don’t know why people think this is slow-paced. Of all the nonsensical, symbolism-fueled arthouse pictures I’ve seen, this is probably the most riveting.  I’m not really convinced that it’s a split personality movie.  I really want it NOT to be another split personality movie.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind –

A very imaginative and experimental movie about love, memories, and how our past defines our present.  Charlie Kaufman is kind of an annoying artsy-fartsy hipster (see the movie he wrote about himself writing the very movie that you’re watching), but bravo to him for pulling this script off.

Evil Dead II and Hausu (u1) –

A couple basic things I learned about filmmaking from watching Evil Dead II: 1. Cutting scenes on action can be very startling and effective; 2. POV shots are sorely underutilized in modern cinema; 3. Practical effects can look really cheesy, and sometimes that is charming; 4. Humor and horror are a lot less separate than one might think.  Both rely on setting up and subverting expectations, and a great director will allow his viewers sufficient leeway to laugh or recoil as they will.  This is what separates a political comedy like Borat from a TV sitcom like Friends, or a Sam Raimi horror film from the latest chapter in the Insidious-Conjuring saga.

I affix Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 film House to the more customary Evil Dead not because it’s more entertaining or because it inspired the latter (House wasn’t released in the United States until Janus/Criterion picked it up in the 2000s), but for lifting some symbolical weight from the whacky horror comedy genre and for pushing the limits with its visual weirdness.  It’s also just more pleasing to look at all around, achieving moments of simple beauty in its colorful sunsets and killings, whereas Evil Dead II delights viewers more by its homespun, unabashedly cheap aesthetic than by Raimi’s painterly eye for composition.  In truth, if you were to watch any of the ugly Evil Dead movies every week for a lifetime, you’d probably get sick of the world pretty fast.  The Hausu Blu-ray comes with subtitles, so you could induce yourself to take a pleasant, 90-minute nap nearly every time.

Ex Machina –

Unpredictable, thought-provoking, and extraordinarily beautiful robot movie that exploits modern liberal sensibilities on the rights of the nonhuman and shockingly rejects those sensibilities in the final act.  It doesn’t wield quite as much staying power on second viewing, but then what movie does that packs so many astonishing, last-minute twists?

Exit through the Gift Shop –

The less that’s said about Mr. Brainwash, Banksy, and the other street artist icons mythologized by Exit Through the Gift Shop, the better, because their documentary is a bit of a trip.  The story told herein seems too outrageous to be true, and that’s kind of the point.  People have debated how much of Brainwash’s journey is real and how much is a carefully constructed fabrication of director Banksy, whoever he is, but the crucial moment in the drama – people lining up in droves to fork over massive sums of money for what’s essentially a worthless piece of hodgepodge, mishmashed junk – is completely factual.  Exit Through the Gift Shop is in essence a movie about marketing and all the trickery involved, so why do so many people care if the movie itself is an engineered work of entertaining trickery?  Maybe art is just a joke, but doesn’t the art of deceiving stupid people lie at the core of all American politics and commerce?

Fantastic Mr. Fox –

The stop-motion Wes Anderson comedy with talking animals we never knew we wanted.  What the cuss kind of movies list would this be without it?  Really old review from the dark days of The Author’s Files featured here.  Read it to see how far we’ve come.  All the sentences are just like this one and the one after it.  They start with a noun, follow with a verb of being, and end with an adjective describing the noun.  That kind of writing just isn’t very interesting.  Even for a wild animal.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High & Election –

These two go rather hand in hand, both aiming to expose a darker and more worldly aspect of high school that’s often glossed over in the genre, and not in a crass, extravagant way a la 21 Jump Street but with a sobering maturity and sincere awareness of real social faults.  Teenagers in both these films are accurately and/or idealistically portrayed as horny, malicious, power-hungry, jealous, injudicious, petty, rabidly sexual beings.  Fast Times is particularly renowned for a poolside fantasy experienced by Judge Reinhold, Election deals more frankly with the reality of pervy high-school teachers than perhaps anything else, and young Reese Witherspoon is anything but America’s sweetheart in the latter movie.  I prefer the satiric Election for all the political observations it milks from student government proceedings, though both are strong pictures of young adults’ life in their respective periods.  Fast Times originally left a sour taste in my mouth because of how lightly it ended up treating abortion, but then I mulled it over for a longer time and ceded that the movie’s not really concerned with judging any of the characters, just with honestly depicting moral dilemmas that many people really face in high school.  Both these movies do this very effectively.

Fight Club –

Superbly entertaining to watch, with captivating, moody cinematography, snappy writing, and great performances, while also being thematically perplexing enough that people fifteen years later can still argue about what the heck it really means.  Regardless, it’s mostly great for being so slick and absorbing.  See the outro scene that made a Pixies “fan” of everybody for the prime example of how to end a movie with a bang, like literally.  I am Jack’s remnants of a once brilliant mind blown to smithereens.

The Fly –

For a special effects-driven movie about a scientist turning into a human fly, this was surprisingly emotional and effective at making me care about Jeff Goldblum’s tragic metamorphosis.  No one questions the enduring magnificence of its revolting makeup and prop design, but it also packs one of the saddest endings ever put to screen.

Full Metal Jacket –

Me love this movie long time.

Ghost in the Shell 1.0 and 2.0 (u1) –

Densely philosophical science-fiction that’s animated immaculately and often strains one’s ability to follow the plot.  Treads a lot of the same ground since covered by Ex Machina, Snowpiercer, and of course The Matrix, and I maintain a weird theory that the art team of the game Mirror’s Edge must have spent a lot of time pouring over Ghost’s future Hong Kong.  I actually prefer the second movie for its more involving narrative and action, so if you find the original too plodding and unapproachable, give Innocence a shot. Or go watch the Scarjo remake soon to hit theaters that looks like generic, PG-13, robot-fighting-for-its-freedom trash.

Gladiator –

Russell Crowe has so many good lines within this film, it’s almost tragic that he’s just a made-up movie character.  And who could forget what a sickly, horrifying creepazoid Joaquin Phoenix made as Commodus?

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly –

I would say they just don’t make them like they used to, but then I’d fall into the trap of romanticizing the movies of the past as exponentially, universally superior to the movies of the present, which they most definitely aren’t.  Unless the older movie is directed by Sergio Leone and scored by Ennio Morricone.

The Graduate –

Mrs. Robinson is the most attractive of all Dustin Hoffman’s parent’s friends, but he thinks she’s trying to seduce him.  A very messy, nontraditional story of free spirits falling in love and running away ensues, resulting in a fabulous fusion of everything that makes a movie stand out as a movie.

Hard Candy (u1) –

Allow me to cut the tension: Hard Candy is an extraordinarily unrelenting and stylized experiment in generating empathy for a really messed-up guy, propelled by powerhouse acting and luscious, ethereal filmmaking.  Its centerpiece, which stretches on for at least 15 minutes in several shots that bleed into each other, has to be the most uncomfortable scene for male viewers in modern American cinema. Simply put, it took a lot of balls to make this movie, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to feminists.  Or maybe I would.  I don’t know.

On a side-note, Hard Candy introduced me to my favorite song by Blonde Redhead, which sounds all the more punchy and hypnotic after the near-total absence of musical score in the rest of the movie.  If you do plan on watching something with a title and a poster like Hard Candy, then don’t click on the link to Elephant Woman.  If you don’t, however, plan on that, then do click on the link.

Hardcore Henry (u1) –

I’ve swayed back and forth in my mind on whether Hardcore Henry belongs on a list of movies for people who like movies.  It’s certainly a movie for those who like video games, and for those who, recognizing the numerous faults of modern first-person shooters, criticize such perversions of gaming form with knowledge and passionate urgency.  The majority of mainstream critics, having attained the age or elitist sophistication that apparently precludes one from recognizing interactive storytelling as art, don’t hate Hardcore Henry’s inspirations with knowledge or with passion or with urgency, which led nearly half of them to dismiss it as dumb, mindless fun instead of crediting it for what it is: an intelligent and pointed parody that one can also passively enjoy as an extremely fun and over-the-top action movie.  In truth, Hardcore Henry skewers nearly every gaming cliché imaginable – formulaic level design, in-game tutorials, bad NPC lines, overlapping dialogue, boss battles, a silent protagonist, equestrian transportation, scantily clad warriors – and does so through a highly entertaining POV presentation that hasn’t been executed so well by the artiest of art films.  But I suppose you wouldn’t know that if you’ve never held a video game controller.

Heathers (u1) –

They just don’t make high-school movies like this anymore, movies that gleefully revel and find humor in the kind of hot-button topics that Millennials’ mollycoddled and puritanical culture has anointed not to be questioned or transgressed.  Upon consideration, I don’t think that any mainstream teen movie has succeeded the irreverence of Heathers, which owes in part to the patronizing notion that movies about or aimed at young people should have an explicitly moralizing function.  Believing high-schoolers haven’t yet developed the moral compass to discern independently that Winona Ryder and Christian Slater are playing really unethical and depraved people, studios prudishly refrain from OK’ing any script starring a teenage starlet as an anti-hero unless it verbally labels her an anti-hero and reforms her through her experiences.

Heathers has no such reservations about the satirical comprehension of its viewers.  This is a daring and different pre-Columbine comedy, and one that I am very glad exists.

Hellboy –

Really old, unexhaustive review here paired with commentary on Shrek.  It’s funny, stylish, emotional, occasionally beautiful, and laconically sums up the philosophy by which any man should live: “I can promise you two things.  One, I’ll always look this good.  Two, I’ll never give up on you.”  Hellboy 2 is also visually creative and entertaining fan service but can’t compete with the originality of the first, which I just realized is not an origin story.

Her –

Probably the most intensely sensual film I’ve yet seen, it portrays a man’s longing for intimacy without any of its trials, disappointments, or uncertainties.  It may be early to make this call, but ten years from now, Her will also be recognized as one of the most prescient cinematic visions of the future, taking a slightly exaggerated version of our present, cell phone-addicted society and forming an all too probable conclusion about the corrosive effect technology will continue to have on human relationships.  I almost cried.

Hero (without kung fu) –

A very interesting, little remembered film starring Dustin Hoffman, it’s basically about what makes a person good or bad, whether it’s a pattern of behavior that we sustain throughout our day-to-day life or the momentary choices we make in times of extreme tribulation.

Hero (with kung fu) –

I don’t know if I’ve seen a movie that exudes more epicness than Hero. Every shot is designed for maximum visual sensation, and not in the aggressive, Rick Berman fashion of shoving unnecessary crap into the frame for the sake of “denseness”, but in a gentle and caressing manner that seduces your eyes with the splendor of the colors, the hugeness of the settings, and the fantastical beauty of the cinematography. Aside from being a landmark work of photographic art, it’s also a great film to show any aspiring creative writers, weaving a nonlinear, not always objective story through multiple layers of flashbacks and eschewing a traditionally happy ending for a much more somber resolution open to individual interpretation.

Holes –

Let me tell you girl scouts a story.  Once upon a time, when I was just a little kid who couldn’t watch most PG-13 and R movies, there was a magical movie called Holes, where it (almost) never rained, where there was a surprising amount of killing and starving and danger for a Disney film, where Shia Labeouf was just a cool teenager.  Louis Sachar’s script simmered with memorable one-liners and characters.  The end.

Hoodwinked –

If you think that Pixar movies are the pinnacle of creative writing in the animation medium, you’ll probably think Hoodwinked feels a lot like hot coffee, all over your neck, very, very painful.  If you like layered storytelling that draws on multiple points of view, cleverly contorts existing folklore, alludes to other cultural touchstones, and tells a musical fable of going over the woods and through the river, then here’s a story I hope you’ll like.

How To Train Your Dragon –

I didn’t really get the hype about this the first time I watched it in the theater with stupid 3D glasses.  Then I grew up a little bit, and How To Train Your Dragon grew with me.  That may be the dumbest, most falsely sentimental sentence I’ve written in praise of a film.

The Hunt (u1) –

In a time when campuses like the regrettably-named Emerson College actively discourage misandrist, brainwashed youths from using neutral qualifiers like “alleged” or “accused” in reference to sexual assault, the themes of this uncommon Danish movie seem all the more poignant and vital.  Intentionally or not, The Hunt feels like a convicted rebuttal to the all the most trumpeted tenets of rape culture ideology (and the narcissistic #MeToo fad). So argues the film, that the severity of the claim doesn’t inherently give it credence, that people lie for a multitude of reasons, even about rape/assault/harassment, and that persecuting someone found innocent in the name of justice is just about the most unjust, uncharitable, and un-Christian thing that one can do.

If this had been an English-language film, Mads Mikkelsen would currently be an Oscar-winning actor.

Fast-travel to other parts:
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100-something Movies You Should See If You Like Movies: A-D

Whilst finalizing a massive hit piece on the respected critical aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes (the same one that ranks all three Toy Story movies, Finding Nemo, E.T., Boyhood!, and the Wizard of Oz among its “Top 100 Movies of All Time”), it occurred to me that writing such an exposé would inevitably spark rebuttals of, “OK, Mr. Josephos, you can fling your dirt at movies other people love, but what movies do you love yourself?  Do you even like movies?”

Seeing as how every other online critic seems to have a numerical countdown of his own all-time favorites, there’s a case to make for The Author’s Files publishing its own.  Not a numerical one, of course, on one hand because rearranging all the entries to accommodate a new one would be a real pain in the arse, on the other because all the films that would make it onto such a list deserve better than to be pitted against each other in a competitive, mostly subjective ranking system.  There’s simply no definitive scientific way to claim that Memento is a ‘better’ movie than Interstellar by 0.24 points out of five.  I may draw slightly more entertainment or intellectual stimulation from one than from the other, but both represent the pinnacle of storytelling in their respective genres, so it’s kind of frivolous and stupid to say that one is factually superior to the other.

Video games and television are constrained enough in quality that I could likely make a top-fifteen list for each and systematically rank all the contenders with confidence, but the worlds of literature and film are so expansive in style and theme that it’s utterly vain to give them the same treatment.  So here’s part one of my alphabetically arranged rundown of movies that uncommonly affected, stirred, or motivated me to think. Think of it as an inconclusive list of movies for any adult who loves all sorts of movies.  The criterion for inclusion is basically anything that left me thinking, “Whoa,” or, “That was really good.”  Some of these I had to watch twice before I got them.

Well-regarded films that impressed me in some aspects but didn’t quite make the cut or just bewildered me include Taxi Driver, 2001, Akira, Looper, Cloverfield, Road to Perdition, Signs and The Sixth Sense, The Lion King, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Gran Torino, It Follows, Gravity, The Guest, The Fifth Element, Westworld, the 2009 Star Trek, Star Wars Episode Whatever, pretty much every John Hughes movie, The Skin I Live In, Juno, The Thin Red Line, Short Term 12, Rabbit Proof Fence, Blue Ruin, Pan’s Labyrinth, Avatar, The Winter Soldier, The Prestige, I, Robot, Raising Arizona, O Brother, Fargo, and Burn After Reading.  Who knows if they’ll stay off the list, though, as it’s entirely possible I’ll come back to them as a more mature and knowing person and discover truths formerly concealed to me as a floundering, socially isolated Beatissima undergrad who vainly seeks out truths in entertainment where there’s only falsity and propaganda.

And here, we, go.

About Time –

A surprisingly clever, funny, and unconventional time travel romance about accepting the disappointments and appreciating the blessings life deals you on a daily basis. The British guy from Ex Machina is charmingly awkward and incompetent at using his powers to procure the attention of beautiful women.  Rachel McAdams is ridiculously cute, like serious wifey material, omg. Great, great movie for all my male readers to show to that lady friend they don’t have, but if any of you fellows are spoken for, then she’s probably already shown it to you.

The Abyss –

Up until the tacked-on anti-war conclusion that vaporizes all the mystery and suspense that surrounded the aliens’ existence (see The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Fifth Element, and the scene in T2 where John Connor conjectures, “We’re not gonna make it, are we?”), this was probably my favorite film of James Cameron, a gripping, strange, and incredibly produced undersea thriller that only feels more astounding when one reads about the drama that went on behind the production. Superb CG alien design and practical effects, a marriage in its final throes, mutiny and madness in a contained environment, submarine warfare – all this could easily have turned into an overstuffed demo reel grasping at every technical marvel and plot point Cameron could think of, but it’s all so perfectly executed. It’s just too bad I can’t ignore the final ten minutes.

Alien and Aliens –

I prefer Aliens for repeat viewing because it’s so damn fun, though both work on their own level. Almost every scene of the latter is instantly memorable and quotable. I’ll link the original reviews here and here, but it won’t make any difference.

Amadeus –

Alternately funny, disheartening, triumphant, and somber, it’s a gloriously inaccurate and a-historical meditation on envy like no other.

American Psycho –

Metrosexual, elitist music snob Christian Bale says the darnedest things when he isn’t murdering people in his head. The whole film has a clear, crisp sound and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the scenes a big boost!

Apocalypse Now –

Apocalypse Now is a long trek into misery and darkness, one of which a fellow Beatissima student commented something like, “Well, that movie really makes you feel bad about humanity.” Joseph Conrad couldn’t have asked for a better adaptation of Heart of Darkness.

Apocalypto –

An unrelenting and enthralling story about noble savages raping, enslaving, and sacrificing each other before the evil white men came to their shores and ruined their idyllic, humble society. This is action moviemaking condensed to its most primal and powerful form, and I couldn’t ask for a more visceral rebuttal to all the penitent, holier-than-other-historians BS I’ve had to amuse in Alan Taylor’s stupid American Colonies book.

Arrival (u1) –

When Arrival first came out in the aftermath of a deeply traumatizing, hyperbolic election, critics hailed it as a globalist science-fiction parable specifically for our times; however, it’d really be more accurate to call it a science-fiction story unstuck in time, which suddenly veers into a strange and beautiful love story for all times. Certain scenes early on drag more than necessary, and there’s arguably an overuse of media montages. If I could see the whole film front to back, I can’t say I wouldn’t change anything, but I’d definitely still go through with seeing it. Since November, I’ve somehow watched it thrice with three different sets of people and it has affected me on every occasion. The soundtrack is phenomenal.

The Bad News Bears –

I don’t feel all that bad about the scarcity of sports-related movies on this list, but I’m very grateful for the existence of The Bad News Bears. Evaluated by today’s standards in cinema, the actions demanded of the Little Leaguers are shockingly offensive and even archaic, as they smoke, joke about breasts, butts, and sex, and utter pretty much every gay and racial slur in the book. Maybe I’m a little sick for loving that someone had the bravado to cram so much bigotry and filth into a movie starring children, but nonetheless I love it. I also like that it doesn’t have the typical ending where the underdogs are getting whipped until the second half, make a comeback, tie it up, and triumph by a hairsplitting goal/throw/hit. But I mostly like it because it hails from an era when people didn’t get so worked up over something being Racist. In 2005, Richard Linklater directed and/or castrated a lame and gratuitous remake for a generation of the perpetually offended. I could proffer 50 unique reasons why the Linklater version is a cheap and soulless imitation of the original, but there are probably ten people in this world who care enough about The Bad News Bears to read them, so for now I’ll pass.

Beasts of the Southern Wild –

A raw and eye-opening film about extremely “poor” bayou-dwelling people who make do with very little but need very little to lead a whole, contented life. When I heard the little girl in the movie got an Oscar nomination, the cynic in me thought, “She’s just reading lines and doesn’t even know just what she’s doing.”

She knew exactly what she was doing.

A Beautiful Mind –

The movie that almost every one of my freaking college professors likes to freely talk about as if the whole class already knows the twist. Fortunately I beat them to it. Do yourself a favor and watch it as the Author did, not reading anything beforehand about the movie or the person Russell Crowe is playing in the movie. If you do, you’re making a conscious decision to ruin the whole first half of the film, and the very fact you can ruin it implies it must have been pretty special to start.

Being John Malkovich (u1) –

“I know what my passion taking hold feels like!”

Blade Runner –

I honestly didn’t care much for Blade Runner the first time I watched it, finding its plot unduly convoluted and its then-innovative themes all too familiar and simplistic by today’s standards. How many movies since Blade Runner have tried to humanize the robot slave or meditate on the frailty of human life and memories, which briefly and irrevocably dissolve into time, “like tears in rain”? Then I tried it again as a slightly older college student and got a completely different impression. Having more foreknowledge of the narrative’s direction and the characters’ relations to each other, I was able to appreciate Blade Runner’s structure as a series of things that I, like Deckard, just couldn’t believe, moments that shine brightly and briefly before fading into a mounting atmosphere of fatalism, hopelessness, and death. There’s the “Let me tell you about my mother” scene, the Voight Kampf test of Rachel, the cat and mouse hunt played out between Batty and Deckard, the unicorn dream sequence, and of course the stunningly creative, Vangelis-accompanied visuals of a future Los Angeles roamed by replicants in hiding. The film is gorgeous in a moody, rain-soaked sort of way, and I found the characters’ remorse much more palpable when I focused on the artistic look over any of the dialogue.

A Boy and His Dog (u1) –

Falling on the cheaper end of the post-apocalypse dystopian spectrum, A Boy and His Dog feels ironically expansive and open to exploration, more Fallout, less The Book of Eli. Factions and distant pastures are suggested but not shown, and the foundational customs of the underground oligarchy in the latter half are left largely to the viewer’s abstraction. The movie goes whatever dark places it wants to go and doesn’t tarry for general audiences to catch up. Because it so respected the intelligence and moral discernment of everyone who would happen upon it, A Boy and His Dog inevitably bared itself to accusations of “misogyny” and “nihilism”, two buzzwords no one in critical media knows how to use properly. Regardless, it serves as a valuable and well-aged reminder a) that a protagonist doesn’t need to be likeable or just, and b) that representing something is not the same as endorsing it. Would A Boy and His Dog be a better or more virtuous film if the dog turned to the camera and lectured us that pound sign Rape Is Rape, and one should never, ever think to rape? On the contrary, I assume that director L.Q. Jones already knew that rape was wrong, and he probably assumed that moviegoers would have known as much.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid –

Virtually defines the epic western.

Byzantium (u1) –

Byzantium isn’t made of the same technical caliber as some of the other horror movies on this list, but it does have an abnormally challenging story structure and tackles head-on questions of good and evil and the value of life, which is more than one can say about a lot of recent films in my favorite genre. I formerly wrote a short essay about its sly euthanasia criticism and moral philosophy, which you can read here.

The Cabin In The Woods –

Despite its torturously generic title, The Cabin in the Woods is anything but a generic slasher tribute to The Evil Dead. There are so many layers of symbolism and subtext at play here you could probably make a movie about the making of the movie, but The Cabin in the Woods already is that movie.

Cast Away –

A movie about a guy who just keeps breathing even after losing everything he loves, twice. I found it surprising how well it holds up even now that we’re inundated with shows purporting to show real people surviving the real deal. Zemeckis took a very simple story on paper and made something extraordinary out of it through subtle images, strong sound, and staggering cinematography.

Chronicle –

The filmmakers basically abandon the found footage framework at the very end, but I didn’t care because the storytelling method by that point had become irrelevant. If you liked Man of Steel and its 40-minute ending battle, you probably won’t like Chronicle, which has about 10 minutes of violence in total and fills the rest of its runtime with character development. If, like me, you’re sick of superhero origin depictions and need something to restore your belief in the artistic merit of the genre, Chronicle proves that they can be as intelligent and empathetic as any other drama.

Courage Under Fire –

Just a thought-provoking Gulf War moving starring Denzel and Meg Ryan. I don’t remember much about it, but ’twas good.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon –

Saying nothing of the action, what a phenomenal ending does this movie have.

Dancer in the Dark (u1) –

As of the first update, my favorite film is generally a toss-up between this and Memento and Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance. When I say Mr. Vengeance, it’s usually because I’m trying to confuse somebody; when I say Memento, because I’m trying to bond with another Christopher Nolan fanboy; but when I say Dancer in the Dark, it’s just because I’m being honest. Never before I have found a film so alternately beautiful and bleak, believable and fantastical, and so emotionally crushing throughout. It really can be referred to as The Björk Movie, which is reason enough for people who appreciate her music to seek it out, but it’s also an unimpeachable Lars Von Trier film, masterfully channeling his dogmatic resolve for art imitating reality while reining in the lurid indulgences of his later, much less watchable movies (hello Depression Trilogy). I could write pages upon pages about how intelligent every aspect of its production is – the varying shooting styles, the way in which Selma’s industrial world creeps into her internal music, the use of the songs in general – and someday I hope to find the time to fully expound its brilliance.

The Dark Knight Trilogy –

Rises has to be my favorite of the three for showing what happens when Somebody’s house turns into Everybody’s house, for focusing the most on Bruce Wayne, and for delivering the most in sheer scale, but all of them are pretty great.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes –

Full review here. A surprisingly monkeyavellian war film that incidentally has nothing to do with gun control.

The Descendants –

I tried complaining about the swearing in Descendants when I first watched (and reviewed) it two years ago; in retrospect, this was mainly due to the lack of anything else that really warranted complaining. Later, upon venturing to Beatissima and watching it again with fresher (or filthier) ears, I realized there’s barely any swearing worth noting in The Descendants, even from Shailene Woodley, who may have then hit the peak of her talent and natural beauty before moving on trashy YA junk. Everything about it works: the music, the writing, the actors, the scouting, Sid’s retarded younger brother.  It isn’t for people who prefer their movies happy and uplifting, but what it is is very moving and deftly executed all around.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels –

Just watch it.

District 9 –

The worst thing to be said about District 9 is that it gives up the documentary feel halfway through to look like a normal sci-fi movie. That is actually the worst thing anyone has said about District 9. CG prawns blend seamlessly with the scummiest of urban landscapes, ideas on apartheid/racism are powerfully stated, and masterful acting by Sharlto Copley sells the most hideous and poetic of external transformations.

Dogville (u1) –

Abounding in Jesus symbolism, long-suffering, and eloquent narration by the late, great John Hurt, Dogville ranks among the most emotionally draining and anti-humanist of Lars Von Trier’s works. The movie builds impeccably to a dramatic precipice like no other, a roughly 10-minute argument between an Old and a New Testament god figure over the merits of freely giving grace to those intractably given to sin. The meaning of the title isn’t fully explicated until the final shot, and even if one doesn’t agree with Trier’s pessimism, Dogville is a parabolic town well worth visiting, as is the follow-up movie Manderlay, which is in many ways more incendiary and provocative, sometimes to its detriment.

Dredd (u1) –

I can’t for the life of me fathom how this movie wasn’t lavished with more awards. Dredd was dabbling in the tough-as-nails, beautiful chick who isn’t overtly sexualized and steals the spotlight away from the titular hero well before Mad Max: Fury Road, and arguably does a better job at imbuing Anderson with distinctly feminine, lenient traits than does the latter film with Furiosa. Dredd masterfully balances character development and themes of justice with comic book panache, unique music, and weighty action, but also feels like an earnest, unadulterated sci-fi movie from the era of Terminator or Robocop that was preserved in a warehouse until 2012.

What a shame its lousy marketing team couldn’t fetch an audience for it in theaters. Dredd may have been a failure at the box office, but according to me, it’s a pass.

Fast-travel to other parts:
E-H
I-L
M-P
Q-S
T-Z

On Reality TV Marriage Proposals

Dear future wife,

It is really late, and I should be in bed.  Why I’m writing to you at such a time and so far in advance of our loving each other in kind is well beyond my ability to explain, though I’m sure it owes a little to me feeling kind of bored and horny, and who on earth will be a better object of my baser yearnings than you, my dearly beloved?  I justify my obstinacy in this hour by saying that I’m studying for an important test tomorrow, but the test is all about Genesis, and I’m half-listening to junky reality TV in the background as I read my notes.  I wouldn’t say this impairs my preparation because the program in question doesn’t intrigue me in the slightest and I’m only watching in anticipation that someone, anyone will dare to sing a song of actual, legitimate quality.  Alack and alas, so far I’ve been foiled by an endless succession of excruciating country ballads, sappy R&B soul, and sellout Ed Jazeeran singer-songwriter schlock.  I think it’s safe to say that no one will be singing Radiohead, unless they take a swing at Creep, you know, that Radiohead song everybody who doesn’t like Radiohead claims to like – the one from their most uninspired, generically alt-rock album Pablo Honey.  Hell, at this point I’d be astonished to hear anybody cover No Doubt, Maroon 5, or Pharrell, all of whom make decidedly safe and mainstream genre music that may still be too edgy and experimental for this show despite their leaders sitting on the judges’ – that is, the coaches’ panel.  What was I talking about?  Oh, right.  Netflix, Starbucks, Chipotle, Starbucks, Netflix, Spotify, iPhone, iPad, Facebook, Starbucks, Insta, Netflix, Radiohead.

Still, the deficiency of all these wannabe singers’ musical tastes is hardly Problematic enough for me to write a letter to my future wife, representing nothing more or less than the run-of-the-mill radio jams one should expect of such reality programming aimed at an audience that can’t be bothered to listen to Real Music even when it’s all online for no additional charge.  But tonight the show did something so vexing and abhorrent to my conscience that I couldn’t miss a chance to call it out.

Dearly beloved, when I ask you for your hand in marriage, I won’t be asking on a television show in front of hundreds of live strangers and millions of later couch potatoes.  How would it occur to me that such a gesture could possibly be a good idea?  If I truly loved you and strove to put your safety and needs before my own, why would I force you under such a spotlight and effectively strip you of your negating power in the most significant decision you’ll make all your life?  It certainly wouldn’t be to prove my own bravado or manhood, because how could you deny me before so many prying, begging, tear-filled eyes of so many lifeless, brainwashed proles?  How much more valiant, how much more earned would it be if I proposed to you alone in the untouched solitude of some romantic venue, or in the great expanse of nature, where no spectators would raptly look on our affair, excitedly beseeching your acceptance?

But my proposal will have nothing to do with proving myself a man; as far as I’m concerned, I already did that by convincing you to go out on a second date, saying nothing of the first date, which was in itself a Herculean labor to initiate and took a lot more stress and patience than they care to replicate in all the movies.  Regardless of the efforts I go to in order to win your heart, I won’t propose to prove a point or assert some confidence in my masculinity.  A wise man once thought silently to himself, “It’s not about you; it’s about her,” and so it goes with proposals.  It’s not about making me look good, at least not to anyone but you, and the point is really just to make you happy.  So it goes with weddings.  Nobody cares about the groom’s apparel, because the wedding’s not about him, so whose business is it how he got the bride to say yes?  It may be our family’s or our closer friends’, but it’s certainly not a stranger’s or the whole wide world’s.  It’s not the business of some random housewife watching The Voice at night after reading Wild or Lean In or Gone Girl or Unbroken or some John Green horse crap written for moody teenage girls.  It is only the most intimate, meaningful, and personal moment most couples will share before their wedding day.

Dearly beloved, why would I sensationalize that moment for myself, ruin its profundity for you?  Why would I take the most precious and pivotal landmark of our relationship and reduce it to a reality television farce for sadder people’s amusement?  What joy or rush could I derive from dropping to my knees like an idiot and embarrassing us in front of millions of people?

Dearly beloved, for now I’m finished ranting about reality TV and the nonsense people do on it.  Until the next time you don’t read my letter, I’ll be processing my feelings on the utter uselessness of makedown and the social causes that impel people to use it... I’m just kidding.  There are much more worthy things to get angry over in this world than makedown, and with such a quantity of outrage tinder proliferating in today’s news, I don’t get that outraged over makedown anymore.  Makedown is annoying, dearly beloved, and most men find it really stupid, but a little makedown never killed anybody, nor is it a part of womynshellf, unlike birth control, abortion, sex change surgery, etc.