This was  a great month of films for me. I saw all kinds of fantastic films, including several 2011 releases (and one 2011 release that was just awful). As usual, I also saw several really great classics on the big screen at the Castro (Brighton Rock, The Third Man, Dinner At 8, Libeled Lady, the Moroder version of Metropolis, The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus). I also went to the Roxie theater for the first time this month. This Saturday Midnites for Maniacs did a triple feature of Laura, the Twin Peaks pilot and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I did an interview with Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, who runs Midnites for Maniacs, over at YAM Magazine. You might notice I also watched a lot of short films this month. This was mostly due to a class I am taking that requires us to watch three to five shorts a week outside of class and then often we watch one or two in class. I really recommend you watch Validation if you’ve got about 17 minutes to spare. It is fantastic. As always, full list of films after the cut.

1. 50/50
2. The Cat and the Canary (1927)
   
3. 3 Bad Men
4. Out West
5. The Angel Wore Red
6. Murder With Pictures
   
7. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)
   
8. The Navigator
9. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
10. Real Steel
11. Dream House (2011)
12. Fool For Love
13. Vincent (1982)
14. In The Name of the Father
15. For The Birds
16. The Limits of Control
17. Geri’s Game
18. The Old Man and the Sea (1999)
19. The Ides of March
20. Spider (2007)
21. And The Red Man Went Green
22. Take Shelter
23. Island of Lost Souls
24. The Big Trail
25. Brighton Rock (1947)
    
26. The Saphead
27. Validation
28. Balance
29. The Big Year
30. F For Fake
31. The Heart of the World
32. Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair
    
33. L’arroseur arrosé
34. The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952)
    
35. An Exercise in Discipline – Peel
36. Lady of the Tropics
    
37. Audrey Rose
    
38. Three Smart Girls
39. The Great Gatsby (1949)
40. In My Merry Oldsmobile
    
41. Micmacs
42. The Capture
43. Der er en yndig mand (This Charming Man)
44. West Bank Story
45. The Evictors
46. Mr. Arkadin
47. Midnight Express
48. Dead Man
49. I Married A Witch
50. When It Rains
51. Passionless Moments
52. Istället för abrakadabra (Instead of Abracadabra)
    
53. Around The World With Orson Welles
54. Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley
55. The Falklands Play
56. Margaret (2009)
57. Lifted
58. Kiwi!
59. Presto
60. In The Bedroom
61. The Cat That Hated People
62. La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In)
    
63. Sayonara
64. Arizona (1940)
65. All Good Things
66. George Lucas In Love
    
67. The Black Cat (1934)
    
68. The Invisible Ray
69. Pleasures of War
70. The Powers of Ten
71. Miss Austen Regrets
72. Suburban Plight
73. Blood and Sand (1941)
74. Videodrome
75. Martha Marcy May Marlene
76. Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinémathèque
77. In Old Arizona
78. ‘Neath the Arizona Skies
    
79. Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse
    

1880s: 1
1890s: 0
1900s: 0
1910s: 1
1920s: 6
1930s: 9
1940s: 6
1950s: 5
1960s: 1
1970s: 6
1980s: 7
1990s: 7
2000s: 21
2010s: 9

I wrote about The Skin I Live In for YAM Magazine (you can find the link above), so I decided not to include it in the featured section. I also really want to recommend Martha Marcy May Marlene, which was phenomenal. The five films I decided to feature include one 2011 release that is in my top five so far for the year, two documentaries, the last Jarmusch film I needed to see and a David Cronenberg film that I’m pretty sure I would have hated about five years ago but totally loved.

Take Shelter, 2011 (dir. Jeff Nichols)

I really hope Michael Shannon gets some love come awards season for his performance in this film. He is so captivating and at times downright devastating. Jessica Chastain has had an amazing breakout year, with three performances worthy of a Best Supporting Actress nomination (Take Shelter, The Help, The Tree of Life). This is an unsettling movie. In a different way than Martha Marcy May Marlene, but when I think about it, they’d make a killer double feature. This is definitely a film I feel like I need to watch again to catch everything.

F For Fake, 1973 (dir. Orson Welles)

Basically, this is Orson Welles having fun. He’s having fun with cinema as art and cinema as fakery and cinema as magic. Anyone who loves films will love this film, which may well be Welles’ most personal and reflective.

Dead Man, 1995 (dir. Jim Jarmusch)

I did it! I finished Jim Jarmusch’s filmography. This was everything I love. It was a western. Y’all know how I love westerns. It was filled with sly Jarmuschian humor and such exquisite long takes. This is definitely one of the most beautifully shot films in the last twenty years. Johnny Depp was great, as were all the (many) cameo appearances. Basically, I love everything about Jarmusch and I can’t wait for his next film.

Videodrome, 1983 (dir. David Cronenberg)

This is a film that I probably would have hated five years ago. I would have found it disturbing and just “too weird.” But I guess my cinematic comfort zone has widened a lot in the last few years because instead of being disturbed by the film, as I was all prepared to be, I was just fascinated by it. Part of what I love about cinema, especially now that it’s so accessible, is that when you watch something years after its original release a new layer can be added by time that was never intended by the filmmaker. In this case, at one point in the film O’Blivion says something about someday we’ll all have “special names,” referring to our becoming one with the television. I found that fascinating, because nowadays we all have “special names” that we use on the internet. It’s interesting how the sort of ideas regarding television that this film brought up are now go more hand-in-hand with the lives we live on the internet. This is another film I want to give a second viewing.

Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinémathèque, 2004 (dir.  Jacques Richard)

Lastly, I wanted to talk about this documentary about Henri Langlois, who is basically the greatest film curator there ever was. He is the man behind the Cinémathèque Française, which is where many of the great French New Wave directors went to “eat films” and learn and absorb everything cinema had to offer. These are my people and anyone who also suffers from “rabid cinephila” ought to see this film.

Overall, October was a great month for me. I’m still as much in love with cinema as ever. Maybe more. I cried in public several times (well, if dark movie theaters count as public). November looks to be just as great, what with all the Oscar contenders coming out and the Castro doing Woody Allen Wednesdays (I know, right?!) and Minites For Maniacs showing Ishtar so I can finally see how it ends and just so many other great cinematic expeditions on their way. I hope y’all had a great October, too!