The films run the gamut of feature films, documentaries, shorts, even student films and significant "home movies." A list of films already chosen (since 1989) can be found here.
This year's list is no less eclectic, no less broad-based; the earliest, made in 1919, and the latest, assembled in 2002.
They are listed here, with the Board's comments for inclusion, written in white (Arial), with samples of the work (when they can be found on the web).
My comments, where applicable, are in the customary gray Verdana.
Part of the vibrant New Wave of independent African-American filmmakers to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s, Billy Woodberry became a key figure in the movement known as the L.A. Rebellion. Woodberry crafted his UCLA thesis film, "Bless Their Little Hearts," which was theatrically released in 1984. The film features a script and cinematography by Charles Burnett. This spare, emotionally resonant portrait of family life during times of struggle blends grinding, daily-life sadness with scenes of deft humor. Jim Ridley of the "Village Voice" aptly summed up the film’s understated-but-real virtues: "Its poetry lies in the exaltation of ordinary detail."
Brandy in the Wilderness (1969)
This introspective "contrived diary" film by Stanton Kaye features vignettes from the relationship of a real-life couple, in this case the director and his girlfriend. An evocative 1960s time capsule—reminiscent of Jim McBride’s "David Holzman’s Diary"—this simulated autobiography, as in many experimental films, often blurs the lines between reality and illusion, moving in non-linear arcs through the ever-evolving and unpredictable interactions of relationships, time and place. As Paul Schrader notes, "it is probably quite impossible (and useless) to make a distinction between the point at which the film reflects their lives, and the point at which their lives reflect the film." "Brandy in the Wilderness" remains a little-known yet key work of American indie film-making.
Cicero March (1966) During the summer of 1966, the Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., targeted Chicago in a drive to end de facto segregation in northern cities and ensure better housing, education and job opportunities for African Americans. After violent rioting and a month of demonstrations, the city reached an agreement with King, in part to avoid a threatened march for open housing in the neighboring all-white town of Cicero, Ill., the scene of a riot 15 years earlier when a black couple tried to move into an apartment there. King called off further demonstrations, but other activists marched in Cicero on Sept. 4, an event preserved on film in this eight-minute, cinema-vérité-styled documentary. Using lightweight, handheld equipment, the Chicago-based Film Group, Inc. filmmakers situated themselves in the midst of confrontations and captured for posterity the viciousness of northern reactions to civil-rights reforms.
Decasia (2002) Errol Morris, the director of such highly acclaimed documentary features as "The Thin Blue Line," "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control" and "Mr. Death," is noted to have sat drop-jawed watching "Decasia" and stammering, "This may be the greatest movie ever made." Created from scraps of decades-old decomposing "found film," "Decasia" hypnotizes and teases with images that fade and transform themselves right before the viewer’s eyes. Culling footage from archives across the country, filmmaker Bill Morrison collected nitrate film stock on the very brink of disappearance and distilled it into a new art form capable of provoking "transports of sublime reverie amid pangs of wistful sorrow," according to New York Times writer Lawrence Weschler. Morrison wedded images to the discordant music of composer Michael Gordon—a founding member of the Bang on a Can Collective—into a fusion of sight and sound that Weschler called "ravishingly, achingly beautiful."
Decasia is a trip and one could see that it wouldn't be everybody's cup of burning nitrate. The music by Michael Gordon is enough to drive you to a psychiatrist's couch. But, nonetheless, it's fascinating to watch, as if David Lynch was working in the silent era of film-making. But, it's ordinary film, shot on the high volatile nitrate stock, which after years of wear, and sticking and fading has had its emulsion so deteriorated that the ordinary scenes of fiction and non-fiction films take on the look of a surreal nightmare. It's an extraordinarily good advertisement for film preservation.
Yes, sure it's based on the "Cinderella" story, but Ella Cinders's more direct inspiration is the United Features comic strip written by William Conselman and drawn by Charles Plumb that was started in June, 1925 and ran until (get this!) 1961.
It follows the strip (and fairy tale) quite closely, and, yes, Moore is a delight, although fully half of her films are now considered lost. Sje made a lot of money in the stock market, though, becoming a full partner at Merrill Lynch. F. Scott Fitzgerald called her "the torch" of the Jazz Age.
The film seems a little dated viewing it now, in the decades post-Stars Trek and Wars (you can certainly see where it influenced the '60's TV series, especially in its pilot episode, "The Cage")—the costumes are a little "Flash Gordon", the humor a bit puerile—but the sophistication of the story (Shakespeare is so malleable) and the effects (out of the Disney studio) are still wonder-inducing. It is not (what Stanley Kubrick called) "the proverbial really good science-fiction movie," but for the genre, at the time, it was as sophisticated as it could get without falling into the metaphorical territories of philosophy or propaganda. And, as much as I like Leslie Nielsen's later comedic career, it's always fun to see him play "straight" drama.
"Disaster to the wench who did wrong by our Johnny," toasts club owner Ballin Munson (Macready) when he wonders at the dour nature of his newly-acquired right-hand man Johnny Farrell (Ford). Trouble is, it's more than implied that the wench is Munson's wife (also newly-acquired) Gilda (Hayworth). This one is, no doubt, the most sizzling, almost-giddy love-hate relationship in films, with clever writing and two smoldering performances from Hayworth and Ford (both of whom were rarely better), where you can practically see daggers flying from their eyes. It's a "noir" love story without the gats, but there's a lot of danger in the air, and an unspoken back-story that would probably get in the way, anyway. It's nasty fun. My favorite moment: Munson brings Fallon up to meet his new wife and, entering their bedroom, calls: "Gilda, are you decent?" There's a waterfall-rush of tawny hair across the screen, then Hayworth's face pops up and smiles in mock surprise: "Me?"
The Hole (1962) With "The Hole," legendary animators John and Faith Hubley created an "observation," as the opening title credits state, a chilling Academy Award-winning meditation on the possibility of an accidental nuclear catastrophe. Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie and actor George Mathews improvised a lively dialogue that the Hubleys and their animators used as the voices of two New York construction workers laboring under Third Avenue. Earlier in his career, while he worked as an animator in the Disney studios, John Hubley viewed a highly stylized Russian animated film—brought to his attention by Frank Lloyd Wright—that radically influenced his ideas about the possibilities of animation. With his new vision realized in this film, the Hubleys ominously, yet humorously, commented on the fears of nuclear devastation ever-present in cold war American culture during the year that the Cuban Missile crisis unfolded.
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Selecting as its focus the "Justices Trial" of the post-World War II Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, rather than the more publicized trials of major Nazi war criminals, "Judgment at Nuremberg" broadened its scope beyond the condemnation of German perpetrators to interrogate the concept of justice within any modern society. Conceived by screenwriter Abby Mann during the period of McCarthyism, the film argues passionately that those responsible for administering justice also have the duty to ensure that human-rights norms are preserved even if they conflict with national imperatives. Mann’s screenplay, originally produced as a Playhouse 90 teleplay, makes "the value of a single human being" the defining societal value that legal systems must respect. "Judgment at Nuremberg" startled audiences by including in the midst of its narrative seven minutes of film footage documenting concentration camp victims, thus using motion-picture evidence to make its point both in the courtroom and in movie theaters. Mann and actor Maximilian Schell received Academy Awards and the film boasted fine performances from its all-star cast.
Director Stanley Kramer had a certain stodgy quality to his directing that seemed to work best in courtroom films, and Judgment at Nuremberg is one of his better ones. Claude Rains had played the Spencer Tracy role on television (directed by George Roy Hill), and the late Maximilian Shell played the impassioned German defense attorney in both versions (although Marlon Brando actively pursued the role—rare for him). The cast is one of those Kramer assemblages that is legendary (his next completed film—probably as a result of the intense subject matter of this one—was the all-star comedic romp It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), including Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, and Marlene Dietrich, and the performances are eclectic in manner, with Garland and Clift's being noted for their shattered emotionalism, Lancaster and Tracy's for their subtlety, and Schell and Richard Widmark providing the courtroom fireworks. The film makes extensive use of the city of Nuremberg, where many of the Nazi landmarks were still standing.
It's certainly one of Kramer's best films, and his extensive use of war footage in the film is a good example of the director breaking style for maximum effect.
Director Stanley Kramer had a certain stodgy quality to his directing that seemed to work best in courtroom films, and Judgment at Nuremberg is one of his better ones. Claude Rains had played the Spencer Tracy role on television (directed by George Roy Hill), and the late Maximilian Shell played the impassioned German defense attorney in both versions (although Marlon Brando actively pursued the role—rare for him). The cast is one of those Kramer assemblages that is legendary (his next completed film—probably as a result of the intense subject matter of this one—was the all-star comedic romp It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), including Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, and Marlene Dietrich, and the performances are eclectic in manner, with Garland and Clift's being noted for their shattered emotionalism, Lancaster and Tracy's for their subtlety, and Schell and Richard Widmark providing the courtroom fireworks. The film makes extensive use of the city of Nuremberg, where many of the Nazi landmarks were still standing.
It's certainly one of Kramer's best films, and his extensive use of war footage in the film is a good example of the director breaking style for maximum effect.
A lot of "firsts" in this jamboree, demonstrating the power of "jazz" to its audience, The King of Jazz is one of those examples of the now-extinct film genre of "revues," a sort of filmic variety show. Even though the film offered "something for everyone," audiences stayed away, making the film a financial failure for Universal.
The Lunch Date (1989)
Adam Davidson’s 10-minute Columbia University student film examines the partial erosion of haughty self-confidence when stranded outside one’s personal comfort zone. A woman has a slice-of-life, train-station chance encounter with a homeless man, and stumbles through several off-key reactions when they share a salad she believes is hers. Winner of a 1990 Student Academy Award, "The Lunch Date" stands out as a simple, yet effective, parable on the vicissitudes and pervasiveness of perception, race and stereotypes.
Quite lovely, really.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
The popularity of this Western, based on Akira Kurosawa’s "Seven Samurai" (1954), has continued to grow since its release due in part to its role as a springboard for several young actors on the verge of successful careers: Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn and Horst Buchholz. The film also gave a new twist to the career of Yul Brynner. Brynner bought the rights to Kurosawa’s original story and hand-picked John Sturges as its director. Sturges had earned a reputation as a solid director of Westerns such as "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955) and "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957). Transporting the action from Japan to Mexico, where it was filmed on location, the story portrays a gang of paid gunslingers hired by farmers to rout the bandits pillaging their town. Contributing to the film’s popular appeal through the decades is Elmer Bernstein’s vibrant score, which would go on to become the theme music for Marlboro cigarette commercials from 1962 until cigarette advertising on television was banned in 1971.
When one looks at the entire career of director John Sturges, you see a learning process honing his craft and then a fifteen year "bump" where he started to make some really fine films that benefited from his take-a-chance casting, his eye for wide-frame composition, and his gravitation to mature themes with just a bit of a wink to them. This "translation" of Kurosawa's film (which, itself, was influenced by American Western films) takes the basic framework of the samurai film and moves it South of the Border. Sturges benefited greatly from a cast of young turks out to prove themselves (McQueen was always trying to upstage Brynner who countered with "All I have to do is take off my hat...") and a Coplandesque score by Elmer Bernstein that gave so much verve to the film that you barely notice Sturges' directorial pace is going considerably slower than the score's. Kurosawa's is clearly the better film, but this one sure is a lot of fun.
Mary Poppins (1964)
Alleged to be Walt Disney’s personal favorite from all of his many classic films, "Mary Poppins" is based upon a book by P.L. Travers. With Travers’ original tale as a framework, screenwriters Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, with the aid of songwriters the Sherman Brothers (Richard M. and Robert B.), fashioned an original movie musical about a most unusual nanny. Weaving together a witty script, an inventive visual style and a slate of classic songs (including "A Spoonful of Sugar" and "Chim Chim Cher-ee"), "Mary Poppins" is a film that has enchanted generations. Equal parts innocent fun and savvy sophistication, the artistic and commercial success of the film solidified Disney’s knack for big-screen, non-cartoon storytelling and invention. With its seamless integration of animation with live action, the film prefigured thousands of later digital and CGI-aided effects. With its pitch-perfect cast, including Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Jane Darwell, Glynis Johns and Ed Wynn, "Mary Poppins" has remained a "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" achievement.
Last year's Saving Mr. Banks seemed to want to cast a pall over Disney's film of the children's book—a personal favorite of his daughters'—but the fact is that Mary Poppins, perhaps because of the conflicts with its author (and perhaps not), is a great film of vintage Disney operating on all of its creative cylinders, pushing its boundaries as far as technique, special effects and underlying philosophy. It was the last film that Walt Disney personally supervised, and afterwards, with his death in 1966, his company coasted, resting on its laurels and theme parks, and becoming...rather "mickey mouse." But, this was a fresh, European-evoking, tart and sweet film, with eye-popping sequences and a child-memorable song every few minutes or so. Yeah, the hipsters might knock Mary Poppins, but then they haven't seen it in awhile, if at all. Their loss. This was the very definition of "magical" for a child in the 60's, and to overlook its value is like...re-appraising Star Wars because you didn't like the prequels.
Oooh....
Men and Dust (1940) Produced and directed by Lee Dick—a woman pioneer in the field of documentary filmmaking—and written and shot by her husband Sheldon, this labor advocacy film is about diseases plaguing miners in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Sponsored by the Tri-State Survey Committee, "Men and Dust" is a stylistically innovative documentary and a valuable ecological record of landscapes radically transformed by extractive industry.
Midnight (1939)
Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche and John Barrymore light up the screen in this Mitchell Leisen romantic comedy. Liesen is often described as a "studio contract" director—a craftsman with no particular aesthetic vision or social agenda who is efficient, consistent, controlled, with occasional flashes of panache. Leisen’s strength lay in his timing. He claimed he established the pace of a scene by varying the tone and cadence of his voice as he called "ready…right…action!" This technique served to give the actors a proper "beat" for the individual shot. In addition to Leisen’s timing, "Midnight" also boasts a screenplay by the dynamic duo of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. Hilarity ensues when penniless showgirl Colbert impersonates a Hungarian countess, aided by the aristocratic Barrymore, until, despite her best efforts, she falls for a lowly taxi driver (Ameche) —all this amidst a Continental sumptuousness abundant in Paramount pictures of that era. The staggering number of exceptional films released in 1939 has caused this little gem to be overlooked. However, in its day, the New York Times called "Midnight" "one of the liveliest, gayest, wittiest and naughtiest comedies of a long hard season." Reportedly unhappy with Leisen’s script changes, Wilder found the motivation to assert more creative control by becoming a director himself.
Good Lord, a second movie based on Cinderella! The same year Brackett and Wilder wrote Midnight, they wrote the more popular Ninotchka. Wilder, who had directed one film in his native Germany, before he emigrated to escape the Nazi's, stayed on set watching Howard Hawks direct his script of Ball of Fire in 1941, and got his chance to direct with his next script with Brackett, The Major and the Minor.
Quite lovely, really.
When one looks at the entire career of director John Sturges, you see a learning process honing his craft and then a fifteen year "bump" where he started to make some really fine films that benefited from his take-a-chance casting, his eye for wide-frame composition, and his gravitation to mature themes with just a bit of a wink to them. This "translation" of Kurosawa's film (which, itself, was influenced by American Western films) takes the basic framework of the samurai film and moves it South of the Border. Sturges benefited greatly from a cast of young turks out to prove themselves (McQueen was always trying to upstage Brynner who countered with "All I have to do is take off my hat...") and a Coplandesque score by Elmer Bernstein that gave so much verve to the film that you barely notice Sturges' directorial pace is going considerably slower than the score's. Kurosawa's is clearly the better film, but this one sure is a lot of fun.
Martha Graham Early Dance Films (1931-1944)
("Heretic," 1931; "Frontier," 1936; "Lamentation," 1943; "Appalachian Spring," 1944)
Universally acknowledged as the preeminent figure in the development of modern dance and one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Martha Graham formed her own dance company in 1926. It became the longest continuously operating school of dance in America. With her company’s creation, Graham codified her revolutionary new dance language soon to be dubbed the "Graham Technique." Her innovations would go on to influence generations of future dancers and choreographers, including Twyla Tharp and Merce Cunningham. This quartet of films, all silent and all starring Graham herself, document four of the artist’s most important early works. They are "Heretic," with Graham as an outcast denounced by Puritans; "Frontier," a solo piece celebrating western expansion and the American spirit; "Lamentation," a solo piece about death and mourning; and "Appalachian Spring," a multi-character dance drama, the lyrical beauty of which is retained even without the aid of Aaron Copland’s famous and beloved music.
Last year's Saving Mr. Banks seemed to want to cast a pall over Disney's film of the children's book—a personal favorite of his daughters'—but the fact is that Mary Poppins, perhaps because of the conflicts with its author (and perhaps not), is a great film of vintage Disney operating on all of its creative cylinders, pushing its boundaries as far as technique, special effects and underlying philosophy. It was the last film that Walt Disney personally supervised, and afterwards, with his death in 1966, his company coasted, resting on its laurels and theme parks, and becoming...rather "mickey mouse." But, this was a fresh, European-evoking, tart and sweet film, with eye-popping sequences and a child-memorable song every few minutes or so. Yeah, the hipsters might knock Mary Poppins, but then they haven't seen it in awhile, if at all. Their loss. This was the very definition of "magical" for a child in the 60's, and to overlook its value is like...re-appraising Star Wars because you didn't like the prequels.
Oooh....
Men and Dust (1940) Produced and directed by Lee Dick—a woman pioneer in the field of documentary filmmaking—and written and shot by her husband Sheldon, this labor advocacy film is about diseases plaguing miners in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Sponsored by the Tri-State Survey Committee, "Men and Dust" is a stylistically innovative documentary and a valuable ecological record of landscapes radically transformed by extractive industry.
Good Lord, a second movie based on Cinderella! The same year Brackett and Wilder wrote Midnight, they wrote the more popular Ninotchka. Wilder, who had directed one film in his native Germany, before he emigrated to escape the Nazi's, stayed on set watching Howard Hawks direct his script of Ball of Fire in 1941, and got his chance to direct with his next script with Brackett, The Major and the Minor.
You can watch it here.
Funny how they say "utterly derivative" like it's a GOOD thing.
The one film of the features selected I'm not altogether enamored with. Oh, parts are great—the segments with Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson's philosophical hit-man—but there's a lot of crap, too. We never find out what's in "that" box (probably because it was cribbed from Kiss Me Deadly without any thought other than cribbing it), why the bullets go through the hit-men at one point, and the whole "Date with Uma Thurman" is so precious it just leaves me cold (still the "popular" dance sequence is below). The film is helped immeasurably by its unconventional sequencing, which manufactures resonance that might not be there "in sequence." Tarantino was already a critical darling with this film. I didn't come on-board until his next film, Jackie Brown, and I still find Tarantino's parabolic learning curve a little hit and miss. It's still up in the air whether, looking back, his career will resemble Sergio Leone's or Ed Wood's.
The dance scene—even though it kinda narrowly recalls Hawks' singing
collaborations, it's still just a chance for Tarantino to go through his record collection.
collaborations, it's still just a chance for Tarantino to go through his record collection.
Surprised he didn't have more shots of their feet.
Gee, what would happen if you couldn't use the word "sentimental" in a review of a John Ford film? You'd have to use words like "unpretentious" and "folksy" and "heart-warming," I guess. But, then the hoi-polloi couldn't damn with faint praise.
It's a great film made with love and quite a bit of blarney. Ford managed to convince Republic Pictures, a C-movie studio ("C" for "Cheap"), to fund this Ireland-based film, in return for making a couple westerns. Republic got a nice return on them, as well as The Quiet Man, the story of a boxer, Sean Thornton (Wayne), who comes to Ireland to get out of America for awhile, only to find that the fighting comes without a paycheck, but wedding rituals generally do. He is hit like a lightning bolt by the sight of Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara), and the rest of the film involves the highlands and lowlands of their tempestuous love...and her tempestuous brother. There is a longish boxing brawl between Thornton and the elder Danaher, but I can guarantee that is far more interesting and more fun than your standard duke-em-out in theaters these days.
A 3 hour box-office bomb, The Right Stuff finally found its audience in the burgeoning home video market. Thank God. Because the film is a fascinating homage/myth-buster to test-pilots and the Cold War-inspired space race of the 1960's. It's a crowd-pleaser, but not a fawning one, showing the warts-and-all process behind the gleaming suits and reputations of the media-darling astronauts, while at the same time, talking about the Wild West days of post-WWII jet-testing and military attempts to break the sound barrier. Director Kaufman (who wrote the screenplay) manages to tell the story of the space race, and in some weird alchemy (as the above description so aptly puts it) "creates his own history, debunking a few myths as he creates new ones," doing so in a fascinating amalgamation of archive footage, live action and special effects model work, that blends seamlessly. The result if a very cynical movie that still manages to be "rah-rahing" at the end. "The Right Stuff," indeed.
Sam Shepard's Col. Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier for the first time.
Michael Moore's first movie, and the first example of his combination documentary and comedy lecture style of film-making. It takes a certain kind of personality to do that, and Moore's pugnaciousness and chutzpah are entertaining, but also a bit distracting from the subject at hand. He may be the master of the humiliating juxtaposing image, and he's a master manipulator (What? Documentaries aren't supposed to be manipulative? Then who edits them?). As a result, Moore's ideological opponents spend more time attacking him then they do addressing what he's talking about, and that's not an effective tool for change (other than educational).
A Virtuous Vamp (1919)
Employing a title suggested by Irving Berlin, screenwriter Anita Loos, working with husband John Emerson, crafted this charming spoof on romance in the workplace that catapulted Constance Talmadge, the object of Berlin’s unrequited affection, into stardom. During the silent era, women screenwriters, directors and producers often modified and poked fun at stereotypes of women that male filmmakers had drawn in harsher tones. The smiles of Loos’ "virtuous vamp"—as embodied by Talmadge—lead to havoc in the office, but are not life-threatening, as were the hypnotizing stares of Theda Bara’s iconic caricature that defined an earlier era. In this satire of male frailties, the knowing innocence of Loos’ character captured the imagination of poet Vachel Lindsay, who deemed the film "a gem" and called Talmadge "a new sweetheart for America." 
While working on an adaptation of Charles Webb's "The Graduate," comedian and Broadway director-extraordinaire Mike Nichols took on the daunting task of directing Edward Albee's controversial, acidic play about well-liquored domestic academia...as his first film. He may have been stunt-casting to hire "Lizn'Dick" (the most famous Hollywood couple at the time) to portray the antagonistic husband and wife (Jack Warner had wanted Bette Davis and James Mason, while Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill premiered the roles on Broadway), but their energy galvanizes the film, and certainly brought in the crowds. Their celebrity brought them in, but audiences got a master-class on how good the two could be, especially when sparking off each other, something you couldn't miss with Nichols' boozily up-front camera work, and a spareness of anything else but the words, the actors, and capturing the take. It was a red-hot warm-up for what was to come.
Sad to say I haven't seen this one, despite my fondness for the films of Wellman—this one came five years after Wings and two years after The Public Enemy, and four years before his one-two punch of Nothing Sacred and A Star is Born. But, the clips are interesting, sort of a junior version of a gangster film, but without the bootlegging and tommy-guns.
Actually, now, I have seen it and it's rather astonishing what Wellman got away with on this picture (it was pre-Code), a Warner—sorry, "First National" pot-boiler with the veneer of social reform.
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