Bugsy Malone – 1976 Parker
Alan Parker’s debut and it is a crazy concept- a gangster film with one big twist—all actors under 16, most of them younger- Jodie Foster here at 13 and already a seasoned pro Tongue-in-cheek for
The Mercenary – 1968 Corbucci
Clearly meant to challenge (or capitalize) on Leone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly from 1966. Corbucci’s film isn’t as strong (few films are) but it features a great Morricone score (parts seem just
The Matrix Reloaded – 2003 Wachowski
There are two films here really broken up by about the first hour of the movie vs. the second hour-- one is an uninteresting slog (the first half), the other is spectacularStarts with the emerald-infused
The 175th Best Director of All-Time: Ang Lee
Ang Lee. Lee can deftly jump from genre to genre and can make art from any scale or budget. He began with films in Taiwan and quickly turned into one of the major studio directors
Extraction – 2020 Hargrave
Certainly wasn’t expecting Extraction to be the first archiveable film from 2020I won’t wait to get into the main reason the film is in the archives-- to the stunning 11 minute tracking shot. It happens
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence – 2014 Andersson
The final film of Roy Andersson’s “Living trilogy”—one of the great feats of cinema in the 21st century—the compositions are among the greatest in cinema history—it is on that level Winner of the Golden Lion
Willow – 1988 Howard
It’s achievement is neither Star Wars that proceeded it a little more than a decade before or Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings that followed a little more than a decade after, far from
The Awful Truth – 1937 McCarey
The greatest artistic achievement here is from Cary Grant—this is like his 30th feature (and 6th archiveable film) but until The Awful Truth he had mostly been playing the handsome beefcake-type roles (he is always
The Matrix – 1999 Wachowski
Don’t hold the other brilliant films from 1999 against The Matrix- just because it isn’t the best film of the year doesn’t mean it isn’t a magnificent cinematic achievement An inarguable triumph of special effect
It – 1927 Badger
A 1920’s variation on Pygmalion—or the rich man and poor girl seen through the ages in films like My Fair Lady and Pretty WomenThe main reason to archive the film is the performance of Clara
Parasite – 2019 Bong Joon Ho
two viewings-- November 2019, April 2020Bong’s strongest achievement to date—a razor sharp script, engaging narrative, funny, sociopoliticalA brilliant opening shot from the basement of the Kim’s semi-sunk apartment (with drying socks as their chandelier). It
The Nanny – 1965 Holt
A Hammer film and a 1960’s Bette Davis film so you might think it was going to be wild, with violence, darkness and over-the-top-ness from Bette Davis but it’s not—Davis is pretty reserved and the