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An error has ocurred. Please try againBirth Name: Néstor Almendros Cuyás
Born: October 30, 1930 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Died: March 4, 1992 (age 61) in New York City, New York, USA
Does NOT include films that were initially rated lower than 4 stars but were later included on the Great Movies List.
These are: 25th Hour (3.5 stars), Annie Hall (3.5 Stars), Baraka (3 stars), Barry Lyndon (3.5 Stars), The Big Lebowski (3 stars), The Big Red One (3 stars), Blade Runner (3 stars), La ceremonie (3 stars), A Christmas Story (3 stars), Contact (3.5 stars), Dog Day Afternoon (3.5 Stars), The Dead (3 stars), Don't Look Now (3 stars), The Double Life of Veronique (3.5 stars), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (3.5 stars), The Godfather Part II (3 Stars), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (3 stars), Groundhog Day (3 stars), The Long Goodbye (3 stars), Manhattan (3.5 stars), Mystery Train (3.5 stars), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (3 stars), Picnic at Hanging Rock (3.5 stars), Plains, Trains and Automobiles (3.5 stars), The Pledge (3.5 stars), Richard III (3.5 stars), Saturday Night Fever (3.5 stars), Seven (3.5 stars), The Shawshank Redemption (3.5 stars), The Silence of the Lambs (3.5 stars), The Terrorist (3.5 stars), Unforgiven (3 stars), The Whole Shootin' Match (3 stars), Vengeance is Mine (3 stars)).
Nor does this list include Great Movies that were released before Ebert started reviewing (1967).
Two titles that wouldn't show up on the drop down menu and therefore didn't make it on the list are Yes (2004) and Saving Face (2012). You can probably guess why on the first one. Not really a distinct title. But Ebert did indeed give it four stars and even had on on his top ten list for that year. As for Saving Face, there are many titles listed, but none were the ones I wanted. It's the 2012 short documentary about a plastic surgeon who works on acid attack victims in the Middle East.
Also, you'll notice that most of these titles feature psychological or realistic horror as opposed to fantastical/supernatural. That is simply because I am no longer (or never was) terrified by ghosts, vampires, invincible masked-men, or any other "monsters". As I grew older this becomes more and more true because every day I witness something that proves human beings are the scariest monsters. That being said, I can definitely be scared by the unknown too. It works better if the unknown is portrayed enigmatically and not revealed, especially in a gimmicky way.
Reviews
Mysterious Skin (2004)
The Ultimate Carthasis of Two Broken Souls Coming Together
I have a special love for films that portray the desperation, impatience, and soul-searching of youth where the world is composed of midnight rendezvous in serviceable cars that get parked in local playgrounds and where conversation is sustained by common passions and dreams. A world where the rest of the world hasn't fully invaded yet and so dreams flourish and therefore energize the will. A world cocooned by music, by intimacy, by that youthful obstinacy that refuses to accept life as anything other than something to sleepwalk through. A hazy existence buoyed by drugs, music, trysts, defiance, and the love of disorderly conduct.
"Mysterious Skin" is one of the best of these kinds of films, and all the more so since it is directed by Gregg Araki who specializes in them. This film is the apotheosis of his oh-so-90s shoegaze and synth aesthetic, and it is his masterpiece because it is more than a "youth film." The film enters into thematic territory that is rarely explored and rarely discussed. This is what gives the film its value.
Pedophilia and its profoundly harmful consequences on its victims are subjects that are for the most part avoided in cinema and other forms of story-telling. They are unpleasant, nauseating, and incomprehensible (at least for those who haven't lived with them) subjects. "Mysterious Skin" does not steer clear of this unpleasantness, this nausea, this incomprehensibility. How could a film do so if it meant to honestly depict pedophilia and its consequences? It is for this reason that this film is not for everyone, and that it will disturb viewers as it should.
I can already hear people saying, "Well, I'm already depressed, I don't need to be made more so by choosing to watch such a dark film." And while I understand that impulse, I also believe that brave and open-minded viewers will be rewarded with an uncommonly powerful dramatic experience.
The film is endlessly empathetic towards its two main characters, two young men who had the common experience of being raped by their baseball coach as children, but whose similarities end right there. With close-ups that often break the fourth wall, we are situated right there with them in the disturbing intimacy of their horrific experiences of molestation. And while this sounds like a disturbing cinematic experience, Araki's direction is always aimed with gentleness, care and a desire to portray events as honestly and as productive as possible.
The first boy is Neil, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the performance of his career, impressively detailed for such a young actor. He plays Neil passionately as if he fully understands everything that makes Neil, Neil. There is a furious independence that Gordon-Levitt nails. It is a reckless independence generated by his premature induction into the world of sex, an independence that all at once inspires desire and feelings of abandonment in his two best friends, Wendy and Eric. There is even a scene where Wendy confirms this ambivalence by warning Eric not to fall for Neil, telling him that at the center of Neil's being is a black void that will suck him in. Eric replies by saying, "But he's so beautiful." Gordon-Levitt's highly energized performance makes this believable. He simply IS that person we all know an example of: someone exotic that others can't help but gravitate towards only to have their hearts broken by that person's fierce independence.
The other boy is Brian, played by Brady Corbet in a less flashy but no less compelling performance. His trauma, unlike Neil's, does not lead to that reckless independence because, unlike Neil, he is a shy, frail child with an already vulnerable ego. Whereas Neil embraces the molestation as an honor (in one scene he calls himself the coach's favorite and admits that this is a sort of badge of honor for him) and so willingly engages in it over and over again, Brian is victimized in the course of one strange night, the memory of which metamorphosizes into a narrative of alien abduction. The dichotomy is stark, with Neil becoming a male prostitute and Brian becoming an obsessive recluse looking to validate his memories of alien abduction. Neil, with his lifestyle choices, is arguably inviting further victimization out of a desire to recreate the circumstances that led to his feelings of being the favorite, of being special. Brian, not feeling that sense of specialness, and victimized only once by the coach, has his memory of that single event distorted presumably by the brain's need to protect itself from the harshest realities. After all, being abducted by aliens is far more palatable, far less shameful than being raped as a child by your baseball coach.
The portrayal of this dichotomy goes a long way to show the variety of ways in which an individual will cope with long-lasting trauma. Some, like Neil, might lean into it, might embrace it for the sake of preventing it from swallowing them whole. Others, like Brian, might not have been abused more than once and so their brains are better able to design a cover-up that over the years makes less sense, built on ground that gets shakier and shakier as the years pass.
The film's strength is in how it brings these two young men back together. In the culminating scenes at the end of the film, Neil introduces Brian to the reality of his trauma, that it was not invaders from outer space who experimented with his body, but his youth baseball coach. By bringing them together, the film shows us how solidarity between sufferers of abuse is the ultimate treatment for something that can never be cured. Neil, seeing Brian's pain upon learning about the coach, begins to see how awful it really was to be victimized by the coach, and Brian, learning the truth regarding the origins of his pain, can start out on the path of healing in way that was prevented by a false narrative.
This ending is one of the most powerful and stunning endings in film history. It would not have been so had it not been for Gregg Araki's tender direction and the dedicated performances by the two leads. It is not a pleasant film that inspires one to revisit it again and again, but it is an important film because it portrays something that is too often hushed. Trauma cannot be healed by hushing it up. It must be confronted honestly, and that is a courageous and necessary step for anyone to take. Everyone involved in this production took that step.
The Prowler (1981)
Its Got Guts Going for It
"The Prowler" has all the 80s slasher narrative clichés. There's the lackluster love interest, there are the mindless teenagers, the horny exhibitionist girls, and the contrived killings which exist only to showcase the use of a particular weapon. It might for this reason seem like a film to pass over as yet one more negligible film in the pile of giant refuse that is the slasher film catalog. And I wouldn't blame you for feeling that way. All that "The Prowler" has going for it, all that is distinguishable, by most reviewers' estimations, is its ultra-realistic gore effects by the legendary Tom Savini. In fact, Quentin Tarantino himself theorizes that someone had to have gotten a blowjob in order for this film to get released. He's not far off. One can easily imagine not only the producers but the director and the crew themselves utterly shocked by the realism of the carnage. Had the acting and script been worthy of them, the effects might have propelled "The Prowler" into notoriety as one of the more legitimately frightening films in the slasher film catalog. Even the cinematography itself is surprisingly good and goes a long way at evoking the right mood. The technical aspects are therefore covered. However, in the areas where it matters most, "The Prowler" is ultimately a let-down. The characters are wooden and act in one-dimensional ways. The actors themselves seem eager not to play their characters but to await the box office returns. For this reason, it stands out merely as a curiosity and a testament to Tom Savini's abilities, far ahead of their time as they were.
Ballade vom kleinen Soldaten (1984)
Human Bondage
"It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded." --W. Somerset Maugham.
Werner Herzog's 45 minute documentary succinctly captures the reality of this achingly honest quote from W. Somerset Maugham. One moment in particular hammers it home. From an eager distance, Herzog's camera watches as a hired instructor bellows quick commands and warnings to cherubic soldiers waiting in line to test out a mortar. We can see down the line as each face reveals itself from behind the comrade's head in front of them. We see, despite the violent circumstances and the impoverished economic situation of those soldiers, delighted white marbles smiles and we recognize in that moment the happy-go-lucky face of childhood. We know, from our own experiences of childhood, from within and from observation, that these children cannot possibly grasp the full extent of their presence, right there in that field, dressed in scroungy uniforms and preparing for the use of weapons, no less. They only know that, as soon as their turn comes, they will get to operate an explosive weapon and behold its trajectory and its landing without the added screaming and carnage of battle.
What eventually happens is devastating. In one of the many shots capturing pairs of mortar operators, an extremely young soldier, perhaps only 7 or 8, is fumbling with the shell as his comrade holds the cylinder upright. The shell refuses to slide with ease down the tunnel of the mortar and there's an uneasy few seconds where you're certain something is going to go wrong, particularly when the instructor only minutes earlier warned the young soldiers about the dangerously sensitive fuses on the mortar. Instead of facilitating the situation safely, the instructor gives the little boy an adult sized wallop on the shoulder. The shell eventually finds its way down the tunnel, shooting right back out with a soft pop and a cloud of smoke. Immediately afterward the instructor gives the hesitant child soldier yet another wallop before the child soldier and his comrade go to the line where the soldiers who already shot a mortar round wait for further instructions.
In the moment of preparing that shell, Herzog closes in on that child soldier's face. In the blink of an eye we see that child's face go from eager anticipation to one of absolute despondency. What's terrifying is that this despondency arises not out of the child's realization that he just participated in the testing of a deadly weapon, but out of a reprimand from an older soldier. In this moment we see just how attentive those little ears, how expectant those little eyes, and how heartbroken those little bodies are. They, like all children (despite rough exteriors in some), are little followers, wanting only to please their instructors (both military and family) and be good sons and brothers. Their leaders, the hired instructors who teach the boys to shoot, march and stomp, are would-be older brothers. The tragedy is that in reality they turn out to be nothing more than enforcers of code whose necessity is only explained in terms of vengeance. When Herzog asks a child soldier why he wants to kill other little boys, the child soldier responds with something to the effect of, "They killed my mother and my brother and now I want to kill." These boys can only understand (and then still so very poorly) war in terms of schoolyard conceptions of an eye-for-an-eye and being brave. They are vulnerable, and, in one instructor's words, "pure" and ready to accept training with an "uncorrupted" (here meaning "unquestioningly willing") constitution. We thought we knew what it meant for a soldier to be called "fodder" but we don't really know until we see Herzog's close ups of the child soldiers in formation with instructors standing by and basically advertising their worth as killing machines. And if this fails to disturb us, then Denis Reichle's (co-director) postulations on the situation will. From behind the formation he looks down on the backs of the heads of the child soldiers. Turning away from them and looking off to the distance, Reichle tells us that this experience is too much for him because when he was only 11 he was recruited to fight for the Nazi's in their last hold over Berlin. "A lot of us died," Reichle says, "and it's hard not to see these children as already dead." He is right to say this because, in so many ways, these children ARE already dead. Their youths have been robbed from them, much more prematurely than we in privileged societies know and understand. Their parents, their siblings, their friends have been robbed from them. Their sense of safety in their homeland has been robbed from them. And just like the village woman with a ransacked house that Herzog interviews, they have been robbed of damn near everything except their fragile, saddened lives.
Herzog conveys all of this so simply and without affectation. The result is a deeply disturbing and wholly necessary film that tells a classic story (the stealing of youth by war and other destructive adult activities) in a singularly devastating way. You won't be the same after seeing it.
Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980)
Keeping Up with Godard
Godard is fearless. Of that there is no doubt, and if that were enough to warrant him as a master of filmmaking, then countless filmmakers would be labeled masters for making films not for the audience but for themselves. Every director, to an extent, is making the film for themselves. But in the process of making it for themselves, they come into contact with and then disseminate elements that later speak to someone who might be watching the film. With the majority of Godard's films, it feels as though he is laughing at an in-joke or propagating an anti-societal agenda with elements only he is capable of deciphering. The result, at least for me, is almost always a drunken flurry of images, incongruous sounds, and inexplicable character actions that show me method in madness but distance me from feeling the madness in the method. "Every Man for Himself" is a perfect example of this. It jumps around and gets inside (as all Godard films do) a number of different characters, many of whom have nothing to do with anything other than perhaps preach a shocking aphorism here or there. The film starts with a woman, shows her in various countryside locations riding her bike and standing with wind in her hair. These are not actors but models, and NOT in the Bressonian sense. Bresson used his actors as models, true, but he still somehow was masterful at imbuing them with a sense of purpose (even if the purpose is dealing with purposelessness) and a sense of orientation. Godard fails at this, and perhaps because he WANTS to fail. It's clear watching any of his films that he is a man who cringes at the slightest hint that his art might be compared to another's or that an audience member dares "understand" his film. I understand this impulse, but not Godard's execution of it, with the exception of his work on everything before and including Pierrot le fou. In those films, Godard reached us with his passion for cinema (particularly American films) and his daring vision of contemporary life at odds with itself. It just seems, at a certain point, that Godard's filmmaking offers us little pieces of insight, little moments of cinematic ingenuity that do nothing to enhance the raw impact of his films but instead commend him as what he primarily is: a theorist and critic with more thought than execution going on in the majority of his post-60s films.
Deprisa, deprisa (1981)
Deprisa, Deprisa: Too Fast to Look Behind
Much like the renegade lovers of Terrence Malick's classic independent debut "Badlands," the renegade lovers of Carlos Saura's "Deprisa, Deprisa" are hollowed-out creatures with jittery instincts and a desperate need to escape, more than anything, boredom and the inevitably painful disillusionment of young adulthood. However, Malick imbues his film with a nostalgia of lost youth that gives way, almost hypnotically (Sissy Spacek's Holly seems to be in a trance the entire film), to the empty-headed, unaffected, face-life-head-on bravado of the dissatisfied and delusional Kit. Unlike Kit and Holly, Pablo and Angela of Saura's film aren't hypnotized or going through the motions. Their crime spree is not an existential courtship either. Theirs is a materialistic crusade against the press of time and the demands of society. They will make their living on their own terms, and they're not in the least bit afraid to don ski-masks and cheap fake mustaches, to carry pistols and sawn-off shotguns, and they're not afraid to make a run for it. For them, it's a carnival ride, whereas with Kit and Holly, it was a spiritual journey through the hostility of the deserted badlands. Saura is not so romantic. He sees his youths as ticking time bombs with their heads far above the clouds. The enthusiasm with which they carry out their makeshift robberies is indicative of a childish imitation of such romantic outlaws as Bonnie and Clyde. They are in over their heads, playing catch up with their fantasies. What Pablo and Angela fail to realize is that their fantasies are much to fast to catch. Hence the title. Saura portrays this with such distinction, with such control and attention to character that we cannot help but be caught up with Pablo and Angela despite our unease in watching their recklessness. This is the mark of a truly powerful filmmaker, one who can bring us along the journey and make us feel the feelings of the characters in the process. When Angela walks off into the purple evening sky during the last shot of the film, we know that she knows her life has lost its luster in the furious pursuit of some wild dream. We know that the future only holds a lack of the past for her and that any speed she maintained with her lover is coming to a screeching, unforgiving halt.
The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)
A Satire on Scavengers, Small Town Despots, and Sheep People
"The Cars That Ate Paris" is delightfully shocking in a way that still resonates today. I say delightfully because there is every indication in the subtext of the film that what we're watching is a biting, hilarious satire. It works as a satire because of the naturalness of the actors. It doesn't work so well to caricaturize personalities in film as much as it does in literature because caricaturization loses its shock and becomes simply a cause for unbelieving laughter. Instead, satire works better in film when the personalities of the characters are as honest as can be against the backdrop of outrageous circumstances. I'm sure I could think of exceptions, like Dr. Strangelove for example, which needs the caricaturization I think because its plot deals with the mechanisms of government and war. When the scale is that large, caricaturization works. But "The Cars That Ate Paris" doesn't have such lofty targets. It deals with the ordinary people in the world who are easily swept into the agendas of others, sometimes by their own mindlessness. Speaking again for the naturalness of the actors, the "ordinary people" in this film all seem like real citizens of a dusty, scavenger town with delusions of order and efficiency. I was particularly stunned by John Meillon who plays the mayor of the dusty, scavenger town called Paris, Australia. His performance is so seamless, so richly mixed between an authoritative assurance and a desperation to hide from the truth, that he is frightening, frightening in what seems to be his complete lack of introspection or morality. And there doesn't seem to be the need for either in Paris. His character, while in control of most of the goings-on in the town, doesn't seem to need to order anyone around. It's as if they accepted him and his authority as a matter of practicality, as if it were unfathomable to do otherwise. He therefore carries an almost metaphysical command over the actions (and even appearances of) the other characters in the film. It's a hefty role to take on and make real, but John Meillon succeeds marvelously. It's one of the great bad guy performances that isn't really a bad guy performance. As an audience member you just feel the entropy and instability vibrating behind the eyes of Meillon. Aside from the natural acting, the film succeeds because of Peter Weir's vision, which finds its greatest catalyst in the "wild west," sepia toned cinematography by John McLean. The camera is focus more on the faces of the actors than anything, and anytime it steps out into the dirt roads of Paris, it exposes hardly anything other than the commotion and impenetrability of the town. It's a skillful early work from Weir who would later succeed again in satirizing authority and control over the events of life with The Truman Show in 1997. The only thing that wasn't all that awesome was the performance by Terry Camilleri as Arthur, the man who comes to live in Paris by accident. It seems like he was uncomfortable as an actor, almost unable to get into his character's shoes. However, it doesn't ruin the film when Meillon's performance is so intoxicating.