Oh, what the hell ...
As long as I'm courting legal action, herewith a few Lists posted by me to a certain well-known purveyor of printed merchandise:
I. Best Westerns: The Masterpieces (& the Incredibly Overrated)
1. The Searchers
If any film gives the lie to John Ford’s claim of not being an intuitive, deliberate artist, this is it. Strikingly bitter, vastly influential, and John Wayne is stunningly good.
2. Red River
Isn’t it interesting that the much-beloved Wayne, like James Stewart, is at his best playing murderous obsessives? Walter Brennan is a stitch, and Montgomery Clift is so beautiful it hurts.
3.) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Not Ford’s final film, but his valedictory none the less. Achingly humane, this lyrical meditation on the western myth feels more profound with each new viewing.
4.) Rio Bravo
A Western with nothing much on its mind is usually a Western best avoided. But not with Howard Hawks directing, Wayne at his most likable and Walter Brennan toothlessly chewing (gumming?) the scenery.
5.) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Ford’s most effortlessly beautiful movie, and his gentlest and most elegiac. Wayne is shockingly tender, even pacifist, in his most effortlessly moving performance.
6.) Stagecoach
The Grand Hotel of the horsey set. This is where all the cliches and stereotypes come from. Watch for Wayne’s star-making entrance.
7.) Winchester ‘73
This, and Anthony Mann’s The Naked Spur, would make a great “Jimmy-Stewart-as-civilized-madman” double feature. Stewart nearly breaking Dan Duryea’s arm still has the power to shock.
8.) The Naked Spur
Mann and Stewart’s unnerving masterpiece. There’s a remarkably staged raid that comes, seemingly, from nowhere, and Robert Ryan is slyly winning as the conniving outlaw.
9.) Bad Day at Black Rock
Robert Ryan was perhaps the least acclaimed great screen actor of his era. (See above.) An impressively tight little thriller that should never be seen in pan&scan.
10.) My Darling Clementine
Another Ford beauty. Fonda is superb, which isn’t surprising; but so is Victor Mature, which is.
11.) The Wild Bunch—The Original Director’s Cut
No one so brilliantly explored the effect of violence as Sam Peckinpaw. Still has the power to make you walk around in a daze afterward. William Holden’s sad, weathered face is ineffably moving.
12.) McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Arguably the most eccentric—and beautiful—of all Westerns. Poetic, funny, and with a revelatory performance by Warren Beatty. Utterly unwatchable on VHS.
13.) Bite the Bullet
Richard Brooks’ powerfully empathetic, lyric poem finds decency in every character. Gene Hackman is perhaps the gentlest cowboy of all time. Should only be seen in widescreen.
14.) True Grit
Not a masterpiece, but awfully entertaining. In little Kim Darby, John Wayne finally met his match. Great Elmer Bernstein score.
15.) Unforgiven
A rare Oscar winner deserving of all its prizes. Curiously, misinterpreted by many of its critics as having it both ways. Nonsense.
16.) The Outlaw Josey Wales
Eastwood's first great film as a director. Angry, expansive and exciting. And how could anyone not love Chief Dan George?
17.) The Clint Eastwood Gift Set (A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)
You can argue the authenticity of Sergio Leone’s approach, but not his style, nor that of Ennio Morricone’s trend-setting scores. Smart, surprising and just plain entertaining.
18.) Support Your Local Gunfighter/Support Your Local Sheriff
Sheriff is funnier, but both of Burt Kennedy’s spoofs are endearingly loopy. Harry Morgan gets funnier and funnier every time he bellows, and Jack Elam is what Goofy might be like if he was human.
19.) Hour of the Gun
A striking re-interpretation of the Wyatt Earp mythos. Garner is as intense here as he is amusing in the Support Your Local ... series. Terrific score by Jerry Goldmsith.
20.) The Big Country
William Wyler’s smart “anti-Western,” with a terrific cast, some stunning cinematography, and one of the greatest of all film scores, by Jerome Moross.
21.) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Special Edition)
William Goldman’s screenplay is occasionally too smart-ass for its own good, and the movie as a whole isn’t as emotionally resonant as The Wild Bunch. But what a ride it is. “Who are those guys?”
22.) Blazing Saddles
Only Mel Brooks could have done it. Yiddish Indians, hip black sherrifs, Harvey Korman, and Madeline Kahn out-Dietrichring Dietrich. Vulgar, profane, infantile? Yes. Hilarious? Woof!
23.) How the West Was Won
Surely Cinerama couldn’t have made this overstuffed farrago much better. Dull, cliched, and—shockingly—made with almost no real sense of the visual.
24.) High Noon
With Shane, one of the two most overrated Westerns of all time, despite Gary Cooper. Forsake it, my darlin’.
II. Billy Wilder: He was Big—It’s the Pictures That Got Small.
1.) Some Like It Hot (Special Edition)
Arguably the greatest sound comedy, certainly the finest of the post-war era. Jack Lemmon’s best comic performance—so why did they give the Oscar that year to Charleton Heston?
2.) Sunset Boulevard (Special Collector’s Edition)
No one, not even Robert Altman, has made a more incisive dark comedy about Hollywood. Holden is so good it hurts, and Swanson is far more than the crazed harpy she seems.
3.) The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Wilder’s most underrated movie. A bittersweet variation on the canon, which the director was forced to butcher before release. The un-cut version is a Holy Grail of film restoration.
4.) The Apartment
Both bitter and sweet; the most vitriolic satire of American business is also one of Wilder’s most moving love stories. MacLaine is astonishing, Lemmon magnificent.
5.) Ace in the Hole (AKA The Big Carnival)
They keep changing the title (see also The Big Carnival) but its original, the punning Ace in the Hole, sums it up best. May be Wilder’s most misunderstood movie. And one of his greatest.
6.) Double Indemnity
Wilder’s unconscious film noir (too early, and not a B movie) is a dead-solid perfect depiction of American avarice gone haywire. Stanwyck was never more libidinously carnivorous.
7.) One, Two, Three
The most frenetic of Wilder’s comic eruptions, and one of his funniest. Cagney quit movies after this one; its pace may have put him on the verge of a breakdown.
8.) Stalag 17
For anyone who doubts William Holden's genius. He got the Oscar he should have won for Sunset Blvd. for his performance here as a good man hiding his grace behind a cynic’s crooked grimace.
9.) The Lost Weekend
Wilder’s examination of alcoholism is, inevitably, dated. But his visual approach to the story, the subtle emphasis on time, and Ray Milland’s desperate performance still throb with hellish power.
10.) Irma La Douce
The only complaint against this delectable farce is that it’s not quite Gallic enough. But that’s a minor cavil next to the good, dirty fun of it. MacLaine and Lemmon give classic comic performances.
11.) Love in the Afternoon
This one has all the Continental flair Irma lacks, and Audrey Hepburn besides. Wilder’s most consciously Lubitschian comedy is delicate, salacious and utterly charming. Bound to be remade, badly.
11.) Sabrina
Not nearly so good as Love in the Afternoon, just more well-known. Still, Audrey is at her most effortlessly charming and Bogart is oddly moving as a heel unexpectedly caught on emotion's hook.
12.) Witness for the Prosecution
Utter fluff and nonsense, but nonsense done in high style. Charles Laughton makes a veritable feast of every scene; even Dietrich is hard pressed to top him.
13.) Avanti!
Another of Wilder’s under-appreciated comic gems. Lemmon’s tight-rope walk as insufferable prig turned human by love is remarkable and sure. A celebration of love stymied but un-bowed by convention.
14.) A Foreign Affair
Dietrich was never more audaciously, selfishly sexy than in this dark farce of love in the unconquered ruins of Berlin.
15.) The Major and the Minor
Wilder’s directorial debut is a sunny, if slightly foreboding, farce of mistaken identity and pre-Lolita sexual panic. Rogers was never better.
16.) Five Graves to Cairo
Virtually forgotten, Wilder’s second movie as a director is a taut, beautifully sustained war-time thriller with some welcome touches of salubrious eroticism.
17.) Kiss Me, Stupid!
This heart-felt farce was denounced from press and pulpit alike. Would have been far better if Peter Sellers hadn’t been replaced by Walston, but it’s still a moving testament to marital commitment.
18.) The Emperor Waltz
Wilder marking time, albeit in three-quarter. Slight but charming, with Der Bingle’s usual cavalier insouciance softened by private anguish.
19.) The Fortune Cookie
Although its idealized sentiment toward a wronged, black athlete is heavy-going, it gave Matthau a well-deserved push to stardom. His shyster lawyer is perfectly pitched, and unrepentantly hilarious.
20.) The Front Page
No masterpiece, but Wilder’s hommage to his own days as a tabloid reporter has a vicious charm, a sweet performance by Austin Pendleton and a superb turn by Matthau as the ultimate press jackal.
21.) The Spirit of St. Louis
A curiosity. The great Stewart is much too old, and the Wilder touch is submerged in biopic convention. But the flight sequences are beautiful and heart-stoppingly effective.
22.) Buddy Buddy
Inconsequential but frequently hilarious. Matthau’s performance as a dead-pan paid assassin virtually defines the art of being funny without giving the game away.
23.) The Seven Year Itch
The absolute nadir. Wilder’s only truly bad film, redeemed only by Monroe’s innocent lubriciousness. A smutty sexist joke unworthy of the man who made The Major and the Minor & A Foreign Affair.
24.) AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Billy Wilder
Well worth having, if only for glimpses of the great now dead (Lemmon, Matthau, Wilder). A nice pocket history of Wilderian pleasures.
III. “A Guy You’re Gonna Like”: The Best of Jack Lemmon
1.) Some Like It Hot (Special Edition)
Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s masterpiece; Marilyn was never better, Curtis more inspired, nor Joe E. Brown so memorable. Lemmon’s greatest comic performance. Or anyone else’s.
2.) The China Syndrome
Lemmon’s superb turn as a good man shattered by circumstance haunts you long after the move ends.
3.) Save the Tiger
Lemmon won his second Oscar for his almost unbearably raw performance in this dark examination of success’s underbelly.
4.) The Apartment
Wilder & Diamond’s still-scorching satire on office politics and sexual hypocracy. MacLaine is utterly adorable. Lemmon is asked to do everything an actor can do, and does it better than anyone else.
5.) Days of Wine and Roses
May be Lemmon’s greatest dramatic performance. His destruction of a greenhouse cannot be forgotten; his equally terrifying stint in a straight-jacket is as good as acting gets.
6.) The Odd Couple
Captures for posterity Matthau’s definitive Oscar Madison and features a strikingly felt Lemmon performance as fuss-budget Felix Ungar.
7.) Irma La Douce
Delicious sex comedy from Wilder and Diamond has Lemmon doining double duty as a reluctant pimp and his own rival. MacLaine is superb in the titular role.
8.) Avanti!
Wilder & Diamond’s rueful, lovely late romantic comedy is an unheralded masterwork. Lemmon plays a man you start out despising and grow to love, which surprises him as much as us.
9.) The Great Race
No one could have been funnier than Jack Lemmon as the cape-wearing, mustache-twirling villain to end all cape-wearing, mustache-twirling villains. Absolutely inspired.
10.) Mass Appeal
Bill C. Davis’s theatrical two-hander gets a lovely adaptation. Lemmon is extraordinary as the eager-to-please parish priest, and Zeljko Ivanek is astonishing as an impassioned seminarian.
11.) The Prisoner of Second Avenue
Neil Simon in a nervous vein. Bancroft and Lemmon lend what might be too much reality to this bitter comedy. Lemmon’s “comic” nervous breakdown is rather terrifying.
12.) Mister Roberts
Lemmon bounces off every available wall as the inexhaustably lazy Ensign Pulver. James Cagney gives him a run for his money as the dispeptic captain of a WWII delivery ship.
13.) My Fellow Americans
Not nearly as successful as the Grumpy Old Men entries, but much smarter, and far funnier. Lemmon and Garner are blissful as ex-Presidential enemies wrathfully joined at the hip.
14.) The Fortune Cookie
Even minor Wilder & Diamond is worthwhile. Lemmon takes a deliberate back-seat to Matthau, whose shameless shyster lawyer "Whiplash Willy" is a classic comedy performance.
15.) The Out-of-Towners
This one got hammered by the critics. It is fairly relentless, but it's also a deliciously nasty love/hate letter to New York. Lemmon and Dennis are pitch-perfect as the eponymous Ohioans.
16.) Grumpy Old Men
No great shakes as comedy or social portraiture, but it's got Jack & Walter feuding, Ossie Davis’s warmth, and an uproariously scatalogical Burgess Meredith as Lemmon’s father (!)
17.) It Should Happen to You
“A guy you're gonna like” was Columbia’s weak endorsement of Lemmon in his debut film, a gentle satire on instant celebrity, with a great Judy Holliday performance. Lemmon has enormous appeal.
18.) That’s Life!
Blake Edwards’ affecting improvisatory comedy/drama features a breath-taking Lemmon performance. But why is the DVD in full-screen format???
19.) The Front Page
Slightly mis-timed Wilder & Diamond, with Lemmon in a lower key. Matthau’s cagy portrait of newspaper snake Walter Burns may lack suavity, but who cares when it’s this funny?
20.) Glengarry Glen Ross
A powerhouse cast (including Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin, and Al Pacino) squares off in this visually undistinguished Mamet adaptation. Lemmon is heartbreaking as a blowhard salesman on his last legs.
21.) The Murder of Mary Phagan
Lemmon gives a rich, understated performance as a Georgia politico who risks his reputation to save an innocent man’s life in this superb TV movie which also stars Peter Gallagher and Kevin Spacey.
22.) The War Between Men and Women
Underrated gem with Lemmon as a Thurber stand-in who's going blind; the great Barbara Harris is his bemused wife.
23.) A Life in the Theatre
Broderick is the young actor, Lemmon his unwanted mentor in this bittersweet David Mamet playlet. Gently amusing, and rather sad look at the profession.
24.) Buddy Buddy
More minor Wilder & Diamond, but very funny. Lemmon is a walking disaster as a suicidal censor; Matthau is droll and hilarious as a dead-pan paid assassin.
IV. Brooks & Reiner, Reiner & Brooks
1.) Oh, God!
Reiner’s finest hour as a director, with a superb, rueful screenplay by Larry Gelbart. If George Burns isn’t God, who wants to go to Heaven?
2.) All of Me
A delirious tour-de-force physical performance by Martin, and a savvy, witty one by Tomlin. A true gem. (Alas, no widescreen DVD.)
3.) Ten From "Your Show of Shows"
Hard to locate, but worth the effort. A dizzying compilation, capped by Howward Morris’s screamingly funny Uncle Doofy in the "This is Your Life" parody. DVD, please?
4.) The 2000 Year Old Man
Charming, quirky, and well-edited visualization of excerpts from the canon.
5.) Young Frankenstein (Special Edition)
May not be Brooks’s funniest, but it’s certainly his best. Beautifully directed, with Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn at the height of their loopy inspiration.
6.) Blazing Saddles
Crude, vulgar, obvious ... and as hilarious now as it was in 1974. Madeline Kahn’s take on Dietrich is treasurable. Only regret: Warners wouldn’t let Brooks cast Richard Pryor as Bart. Sigh.
7.) The Complete 2000 Year Old Man [BOX SET] (Audio CD)
The Rosetta stone of comedy recordings. Reiner & Brooks seem to anticipate each other's responses in an almost uncanny fashion. They feed off each other like great jazz musicians at their peak.
7.) The Producers (Special Edition)
The filmmaking is almost primitive, but with this much pleasure, who cares? Gene Wilder was never more inspired.
8.) Recording "The Producers"—A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks
Not as artful and definitely not as heartbreaking as the great Pennebaker film on the Company session, but a treat watching Nathan Lane & Co. get down their tracks.
9.) The Producers (2001 Original Broadway Cast)
Who would have guessed that Mel Brooks would write the most delicious, tuneful, gut-wrackingly funny score heard on Broadway in decades? Sondheim needn’t lose any sleep, but what a pleasant surprise.
10.) The Producers (1968 Film) [SOUNDTRACK]
Worth owning if only for "Springtime for Hitler," it also allows you to savor the genius of Zero Mostel, the hysterical brilliance of Gene Wilder, and the inspired Teutonicism of Kenneth Mars.
12.) The Producers: The Book, Lyrics, and Story Behind the Biggest Hit in Broadway History!
It’s all here, and in glorious color. But a question that borders on sacrilege: wouldn’t Martin Short have been a more appropriate choice for Leo than Matthew Broderick?
13.) The Man with Two Brains
Silly premise done to a comic T. (Again, not available in widescreen.) "Into the mud, Scum Queen!"
V. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?: A Hawks-eye View
1.) To Have and Have Not
The most entertaining of all Warner Bros. WWII adventures, and one of the most entertaining movies ever made. You can see Bogie and Bacall falling in love on camera. All that, and Hoagy Carmichael!
2.) His Girl Friday
The most accurate and hilarious of the Front Page adaptations, with Grant at his most slyly engaging, and some astounding rapid-fire overlapping dialogue. "Sold American!"
3.) Rio Bravo
The prototype “small-band-up-against-it” movie. Leisurely, exciting, character-driven, witty, with some attractive songs tossed in. Great Leigh Brackett script. And was John Wayne ever more charming?
4.) Red River
Hawks’ answer to High Noon, the most influential of all non-Ford westerns. Wayne is staggeringly good, Clift almost supernaturally beautiful, and the commencement of that cattle drive a marvel.
5.) Twentieth Century
Barrymore’s best film role, and Lombard blossoms into one of the greatest of screen comedians while you watch; her feet going up and down like pistons is one of the most beguiling sights in movies.
6.) The Big Sleep
Hawks claimed neither he nor Raymond Chandler ultimately knew the identity of the killers (the novel is pretty explicit) but it hardly matters. Maybe the finest of the hard-boiled detective movies.
7.) Only Angels Have Wings
An ode to male bonding in the approved Hawksian manner. But Grant’s devotion to Thomas Mitchell is, finally, no match for Jean Arthur.
8.) Hatari!
An expansive, low-key and leisurely jungle movie with a good heart (the hunted animals aren't killed) and an especially relaxed and generous performance by John Wayne. Great Mancini score.
9.) The Thing from Another World
Did Christian Nybie direct, or did Hawks? The overlapping dialogue and male-female banter suggest the latter. In any case, a tremendously exciting bug-eyed monster tale.
V. The Magnificent Elmer: Film Scores by The Other Bernstein
1.) To Kill A Mockingbird: Original Motion Picture Score (1996 Re-recording)
There is probably no other film score I love quite as I do this one. Gentle, lyrical, with an exquisite theme. Its finale is among the most moving of its kind ever written.
2.) The Great Escape (Score)
Exciting, original, with a hopeful march theme and some beautiful character work. Best heard on the full-length Varese Sarabande Soundtrack Club release.
3.) The Magnificent Seven
Along with Jerome Moross’s The Big Country, this is the source of all those Western scoring cliches. Big, expansive theme, perfectly orchestrated and performed.
4.) The Man With the Golden Arm
Not the first jazz film score (Alex North’s Streetcar Named Desire came before) but among the best, with great Shelly Manne drum solos augmenting a tough, even harrowing story.
5.) Far from Heaven
How this could have failed to win an Academy Award is a mystery and a source of great frustration. Mockingbird-like sensitivity and passion make this the perfect capstone to a master’s career.
6.) The Grifters
Stanley Kaufman complained that this score was “hysterical.” Did he hear it? A mocking, Kurt Weillesque main theme that hints at the quirkiness to follow.
7.) Christopher Parkening: Elmer Bernstein—Concerto for Guitar (Bernstein, Isaac Albeniz, Jack Marshall)
Utterly beguiling. Listen to this, and bemoan how little Bernstein wrote for the concert stage.
8.) How Now, Dow Jones (1967 Original Broadway Cast)
Universally panned, this odd musical comedy boasts an impressive, playful score and some of Carolyn Leigh’s sharpest lyrics. Dares you to find in it any trace of the Hollywood composer.
9.) Oscar
Charming light comedy score for a Stallone curio. A delicious homage to 1930s-style arrangements, composed and conducted with wit and brio.
10.) Midas Run/The House/The Night Visitor (Bernstein, Henry Mancini)
Mostly Mancini, but graced by one of Bernstein’s evocative, entrancing and subtly moving scores for short films by the Eameses.
VI. Last Partisan of the Old Republic: The Essential Gore Vidal
1.) United States
The distilled wisdom of a lifetime's thought. Our greatest essayist in his element.
2.) Palimpsest: A Memoir
Vastly entertaining. And nearly every page contains a dagger, perfectly aimed at just the right hearts.
3.) Imperial America : Reflections on the United States of Amnesia
If more people had read this before last November ...
4.) Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
And this ...
5.) Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta
And this ...
6.) The Last Empire : Essays 1992-2000
Not to mention this ...
7.) Inventing A Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson
Both a perfect pocket history of our beginnings and a devastating comparison to where we are now.
8.) The American Presidency (The Real Story Series)
Where else will you find a remark by the British ambassador reminding his correspondent to remember that Teddy Roosevelt is "only five years old."
9.) The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (The Real Story Series)
Splendid little collection of essays—a perfect introduction to the man, his themes, and his style.
10.) Washington, D.C.: A Novel
The first published volume of Vidal's American Chronicle series (though not the first chronologically) is a witty take on pre- and post-war political chicanery.
10.) Burr : A Novel
In what may be Vidal's most enjoyable novel, Aaron Burr recalls the Revolutionary period from his own slippery perspective. An utter delight.
11.) 1876 : A Novel
A Centennial novel published at the Bicentennial, Vidal's Burr follow-up takes us through an American Presidential election eerily like our own 2000 edition.
13. Empire : A Novel
Could be subtitled "How the Republic Was Lost and Imperialism Took the Day." A bitter satire with a cast that includes a bellicose TR and a baroque-tongued Henry James.
14.) Hollywood
Vidal's penultimate "Family" novel is also a knowing depiction of the precise moment when image replaced substance.
15.) The Golden Age : A Novel
The final installment in the series is, at base, a revision of (and improvement over) Washington DC—richer, more expansive, and more personal yet just as astringent and amusing.
16.) Two Sisters
This "novel in the form of a memoir" is among Vidal's finest—a dizzying feast that is part reproach to Anais Nin, burlesque of her style, comic extravaganza and deft, moving sexual epic.
17.) Myra Breckinridge/Myron
No other native American writer has written so hilariously about sexual matters as Vidal in these two fables. Outrageous, pointed and utterly unique in American letters.
18.) Lincoln
A masterful attempt at explicating an enigma, Lincoln also contains penetrating portraits of Sewell, Chase, Mary Todd, and John Wilkes Booth.
19.) The City and the Pillar: A Novel
The first unapologetic popular American novel with a homosexual protagonist. Hints here of Vidal's own adolescent affair with the late Jimmy Trimble.
20.) Screening History
A series of Harvard lectures summing up, in a most appealing manner, the author's life-long attraction to the moving image.
21.) Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings
Trenchant and provocative. Vidal's sane, ecumenical views on sex have always been bracing and erudite. Here's a very good sampling.
22.) The Best Man
Arguably the best (and funniest) political play ever written by an American. (The movie, which Vidal wrote and produced, is very fine as well.)
23.) An Evening with Richard Nixon
Political satire at its most scathing ... and much of its comes verbatim from RN's own words, with which Vidal hangs him quite thoroughly.
25.) Views from a Window: Conversations with Gore Vidal by Bob Stanton
A very fine compendium of Vidal's views on politics, American history, fiction, and sex.
26.) Bob Roberts
As the soon-to-be ousted Senator Paste in Tim Robbins' splendid satire, Vidal seems to have improvised his dialogue from own collected statements. It sure sounds like him.
VII. You'll find such gaiety there: Great movies for Gay men
1.) Parting Glances
The late Bill Sherwood's only feature is wry, tender, witty and empathetic. Richard Ganoung is utterly right, and Steve Buscemi is a revelation. Just about perfect in every way.
2.) The Times of Harvey Milk
An alternately inspiring and heartbreaking documentary. If you don't dissolve in tears during the last third, you may not have a heart.
3.) An Englishman Abroad
Alan Bennett's small masterpiece about Coral Browne's encounter with an aging Guy Burgess is probably the single finest hour of television ever.
4.) Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Arguably John Schlesinger's masterpiece, with a beautifully compassionate and novelistic script by Penelope Gilliatt and a towering performance by Peter Finch.
5.) Gods and Monsters
As the great James Whale, Ian McKellan gives a performance of such compassion it tides you over the rougher spots, and Brendan Fraser is almost staggeringly good.
6.) Midnight Cowboy
Hoffman and Voight wanted John Schlesinger to film a scene of physical intimacy between their characters, but the homoeroticism is vividly implicit in this astonishing evocation of hustler angst.
7.) Longtime Companion
Craig Lucas's taboo-breaking AIDS quilt still packs a wallop, especially in the devastating scene in which Bruce Davison tells his lover to "let go."
8.) Wilde (Special Edition)
Stephen Fry is so perfectly cast he seems less like an actor than a medium. Jude Law is astonishing, and the final scene is utterly devastating; you want to warn Oscar to run the other way.
9.) Heavenly Creatures
Peter Jackson's best film is a wild, rich, comic, visually stunning look at a real-life tragedy. Kate Winslet is revelatory.
10.) Word Is Out
This movie made such a difference in my life at 17 I can scarcely begin to extol its virtues - nor those of the once bold, now castrated PBS that aired it in 1978.
11.) Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss
See how sweet and likable Sean Hayes was before he went over the top on Will & Grace (and became so coy about his sexuality). A unique, funny, eccentric comedy.
12.) Prick Up Your Ears
Alan Bennett's dark comic take on the irrepressable Joe Orton. Oldman is spectacularly good, but Molina is woefully miscast.
13.) Get Real
A real gem. Ben Silverstone is a revelation (is it me, or does he resemble a cuter version of Rowan Atkinson?) in this ultimately sunny, compassionate comic drama.
14.) Edge of Seventeen
Another gem. Chris Stafford, as the quintessential sensitive (and slightly queeny) gay teenboy gives a performance of rare depth and sweetness. Painful, sweet and very true.
15.) In & Out
A little of Paul Rudd's smart-ass dialogue goes a long way. But Kline is brilliant, his how-to handbook scene one of the funniest pieces of character acting of the last decade.
16.) Victor/Victoria
How gay is this one? Ehh. But Blake Edwards's classy comedy is beautifully realized, Garner is (as usual) a low-key delight and Robert Preston is non pariel. Was he robbed at the Oscars? Yes!
17.) Another Country
Another fictionalized look at the Guy Burgess story, with a superb script, incandescent direction and a great central performance by Rupert Everett.
18.) The Wedding Banquet
Ang Lee's breakthrough film is both hilarious and deeply moving in its honest depiction of parental anguish and private desire. (And Winston Chao is gorgeous, which doesn't hurt.)
19.) The Birdcage
I wish Elaine May had retained the son's apology to his "mother," but this is still one of the funniest farces of the past 20 years. Lane and Azaria are in the grand tradition of inspired comic genius
20.) Beautiful Thing
The Thames accents and dialogue are a bit impeneterable at first, but the movie is so loving and exuberant it floats you along to the sweetly charming finish.
21.) Maurice—The Merchant Ivory Collection
Slow but exquisitely beautiful Merchant-Ivory rendering. Rupert Graves is not only perfect casting, but mouthwateringly beautiful to boot.
21.) Torch Song Trilogy
Yes, it's too short, and bowdlerized, and not nearly sexy enough. But Matthew Broderick is adorable, and it's got Harvey's indelible performance.
22.) Before Stonewall
The first undeniably great television documentary about gay liberation. Frank Kameny alone is worth the price of admission.
23.) The Celluloid Closet (Special Edition)
Okay, so the narrator's in the closet. But where else would you get to see Gore Vidal, Jay Presson Allen and Arthur Laurents holding forth about the bad old days?
24.) You Are Not Alone
A lovely, underseen gem about adolescents, rebellion, and burgeoning sexuality. The final scene is astonishingly fresh—no American moviemaker would ever go near it.
I. Best Westerns: The Masterpieces (& the Incredibly Overrated)
1. The Searchers
If any film gives the lie to John Ford’s claim of not being an intuitive, deliberate artist, this is it. Strikingly bitter, vastly influential, and John Wayne is stunningly good.
2. Red River
Isn’t it interesting that the much-beloved Wayne, like James Stewart, is at his best playing murderous obsessives? Walter Brennan is a stitch, and Montgomery Clift is so beautiful it hurts.
3.) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Not Ford’s final film, but his valedictory none the less. Achingly humane, this lyrical meditation on the western myth feels more profound with each new viewing.
4.) Rio Bravo
A Western with nothing much on its mind is usually a Western best avoided. But not with Howard Hawks directing, Wayne at his most likable and Walter Brennan toothlessly chewing (gumming?) the scenery.
5.) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Ford’s most effortlessly beautiful movie, and his gentlest and most elegiac. Wayne is shockingly tender, even pacifist, in his most effortlessly moving performance.
6.) Stagecoach
The Grand Hotel of the horsey set. This is where all the cliches and stereotypes come from. Watch for Wayne’s star-making entrance.
7.) Winchester ‘73
This, and Anthony Mann’s The Naked Spur, would make a great “Jimmy-Stewart-as-civilized-madman” double feature. Stewart nearly breaking Dan Duryea’s arm still has the power to shock.
8.) The Naked Spur
Mann and Stewart’s unnerving masterpiece. There’s a remarkably staged raid that comes, seemingly, from nowhere, and Robert Ryan is slyly winning as the conniving outlaw.
9.) Bad Day at Black Rock
Robert Ryan was perhaps the least acclaimed great screen actor of his era. (See above.) An impressively tight little thriller that should never be seen in pan&scan.
10.) My Darling Clementine
Another Ford beauty. Fonda is superb, which isn’t surprising; but so is Victor Mature, which is.
11.) The Wild Bunch—The Original Director’s Cut
No one so brilliantly explored the effect of violence as Sam Peckinpaw. Still has the power to make you walk around in a daze afterward. William Holden’s sad, weathered face is ineffably moving.
12.) McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Arguably the most eccentric—and beautiful—of all Westerns. Poetic, funny, and with a revelatory performance by Warren Beatty. Utterly unwatchable on VHS.
13.) Bite the Bullet
Richard Brooks’ powerfully empathetic, lyric poem finds decency in every character. Gene Hackman is perhaps the gentlest cowboy of all time. Should only be seen in widescreen.
14.) True Grit
Not a masterpiece, but awfully entertaining. In little Kim Darby, John Wayne finally met his match. Great Elmer Bernstein score.
15.) Unforgiven
A rare Oscar winner deserving of all its prizes. Curiously, misinterpreted by many of its critics as having it both ways. Nonsense.
16.) The Outlaw Josey Wales
Eastwood's first great film as a director. Angry, expansive and exciting. And how could anyone not love Chief Dan George?
17.) The Clint Eastwood Gift Set (A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)
You can argue the authenticity of Sergio Leone’s approach, but not his style, nor that of Ennio Morricone’s trend-setting scores. Smart, surprising and just plain entertaining.
18.) Support Your Local Gunfighter/Support Your Local Sheriff
Sheriff is funnier, but both of Burt Kennedy’s spoofs are endearingly loopy. Harry Morgan gets funnier and funnier every time he bellows, and Jack Elam is what Goofy might be like if he was human.
19.) Hour of the Gun
A striking re-interpretation of the Wyatt Earp mythos. Garner is as intense here as he is amusing in the Support Your Local ... series. Terrific score by Jerry Goldmsith.
20.) The Big Country
William Wyler’s smart “anti-Western,” with a terrific cast, some stunning cinematography, and one of the greatest of all film scores, by Jerome Moross.
21.) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Special Edition)
William Goldman’s screenplay is occasionally too smart-ass for its own good, and the movie as a whole isn’t as emotionally resonant as The Wild Bunch. But what a ride it is. “Who are those guys?”
22.) Blazing Saddles
Only Mel Brooks could have done it. Yiddish Indians, hip black sherrifs, Harvey Korman, and Madeline Kahn out-Dietrichring Dietrich. Vulgar, profane, infantile? Yes. Hilarious? Woof!
23.) How the West Was Won
Surely Cinerama couldn’t have made this overstuffed farrago much better. Dull, cliched, and—shockingly—made with almost no real sense of the visual.
24.) High Noon
With Shane, one of the two most overrated Westerns of all time, despite Gary Cooper. Forsake it, my darlin’.
II. Billy Wilder: He was Big—It’s the Pictures That Got Small.
1.) Some Like It Hot (Special Edition)
Arguably the greatest sound comedy, certainly the finest of the post-war era. Jack Lemmon’s best comic performance—so why did they give the Oscar that year to Charleton Heston?
2.) Sunset Boulevard (Special Collector’s Edition)
No one, not even Robert Altman, has made a more incisive dark comedy about Hollywood. Holden is so good it hurts, and Swanson is far more than the crazed harpy she seems.
3.) The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Wilder’s most underrated movie. A bittersweet variation on the canon, which the director was forced to butcher before release. The un-cut version is a Holy Grail of film restoration.
4.) The Apartment
Both bitter and sweet; the most vitriolic satire of American business is also one of Wilder’s most moving love stories. MacLaine is astonishing, Lemmon magnificent.
5.) Ace in the Hole (AKA The Big Carnival)
They keep changing the title (see also The Big Carnival) but its original, the punning Ace in the Hole, sums it up best. May be Wilder’s most misunderstood movie. And one of his greatest.
6.) Double Indemnity
Wilder’s unconscious film noir (too early, and not a B movie) is a dead-solid perfect depiction of American avarice gone haywire. Stanwyck was never more libidinously carnivorous.
7.) One, Two, Three
The most frenetic of Wilder’s comic eruptions, and one of his funniest. Cagney quit movies after this one; its pace may have put him on the verge of a breakdown.
8.) Stalag 17
For anyone who doubts William Holden's genius. He got the Oscar he should have won for Sunset Blvd. for his performance here as a good man hiding his grace behind a cynic’s crooked grimace.
9.) The Lost Weekend
Wilder’s examination of alcoholism is, inevitably, dated. But his visual approach to the story, the subtle emphasis on time, and Ray Milland’s desperate performance still throb with hellish power.
10.) Irma La Douce
The only complaint against this delectable farce is that it’s not quite Gallic enough. But that’s a minor cavil next to the good, dirty fun of it. MacLaine and Lemmon give classic comic performances.
11.) Love in the Afternoon
This one has all the Continental flair Irma lacks, and Audrey Hepburn besides. Wilder’s most consciously Lubitschian comedy is delicate, salacious and utterly charming. Bound to be remade, badly.
11.) Sabrina
Not nearly so good as Love in the Afternoon, just more well-known. Still, Audrey is at her most effortlessly charming and Bogart is oddly moving as a heel unexpectedly caught on emotion's hook.
12.) Witness for the Prosecution
Utter fluff and nonsense, but nonsense done in high style. Charles Laughton makes a veritable feast of every scene; even Dietrich is hard pressed to top him.
13.) Avanti!
Another of Wilder’s under-appreciated comic gems. Lemmon’s tight-rope walk as insufferable prig turned human by love is remarkable and sure. A celebration of love stymied but un-bowed by convention.
14.) A Foreign Affair
Dietrich was never more audaciously, selfishly sexy than in this dark farce of love in the unconquered ruins of Berlin.
15.) The Major and the Minor
Wilder’s directorial debut is a sunny, if slightly foreboding, farce of mistaken identity and pre-Lolita sexual panic. Rogers was never better.
16.) Five Graves to Cairo
Virtually forgotten, Wilder’s second movie as a director is a taut, beautifully sustained war-time thriller with some welcome touches of salubrious eroticism.
17.) Kiss Me, Stupid!
This heart-felt farce was denounced from press and pulpit alike. Would have been far better if Peter Sellers hadn’t been replaced by Walston, but it’s still a moving testament to marital commitment.
18.) The Emperor Waltz
Wilder marking time, albeit in three-quarter. Slight but charming, with Der Bingle’s usual cavalier insouciance softened by private anguish.
19.) The Fortune Cookie
Although its idealized sentiment toward a wronged, black athlete is heavy-going, it gave Matthau a well-deserved push to stardom. His shyster lawyer is perfectly pitched, and unrepentantly hilarious.
20.) The Front Page
No masterpiece, but Wilder’s hommage to his own days as a tabloid reporter has a vicious charm, a sweet performance by Austin Pendleton and a superb turn by Matthau as the ultimate press jackal.
21.) The Spirit of St. Louis
A curiosity. The great Stewart is much too old, and the Wilder touch is submerged in biopic convention. But the flight sequences are beautiful and heart-stoppingly effective.
22.) Buddy Buddy
Inconsequential but frequently hilarious. Matthau’s performance as a dead-pan paid assassin virtually defines the art of being funny without giving the game away.
23.) The Seven Year Itch
The absolute nadir. Wilder’s only truly bad film, redeemed only by Monroe’s innocent lubriciousness. A smutty sexist joke unworthy of the man who made The Major and the Minor & A Foreign Affair.
24.) AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Billy Wilder
Well worth having, if only for glimpses of the great now dead (Lemmon, Matthau, Wilder). A nice pocket history of Wilderian pleasures.
III. “A Guy You’re Gonna Like”: The Best of Jack Lemmon
1.) Some Like It Hot (Special Edition)
Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s masterpiece; Marilyn was never better, Curtis more inspired, nor Joe E. Brown so memorable. Lemmon’s greatest comic performance. Or anyone else’s.
2.) The China Syndrome
Lemmon’s superb turn as a good man shattered by circumstance haunts you long after the move ends.
3.) Save the Tiger
Lemmon won his second Oscar for his almost unbearably raw performance in this dark examination of success’s underbelly.
4.) The Apartment
Wilder & Diamond’s still-scorching satire on office politics and sexual hypocracy. MacLaine is utterly adorable. Lemmon is asked to do everything an actor can do, and does it better than anyone else.
5.) Days of Wine and Roses
May be Lemmon’s greatest dramatic performance. His destruction of a greenhouse cannot be forgotten; his equally terrifying stint in a straight-jacket is as good as acting gets.
6.) The Odd Couple
Captures for posterity Matthau’s definitive Oscar Madison and features a strikingly felt Lemmon performance as fuss-budget Felix Ungar.
7.) Irma La Douce
Delicious sex comedy from Wilder and Diamond has Lemmon doining double duty as a reluctant pimp and his own rival. MacLaine is superb in the titular role.
8.) Avanti!
Wilder & Diamond’s rueful, lovely late romantic comedy is an unheralded masterwork. Lemmon plays a man you start out despising and grow to love, which surprises him as much as us.
9.) The Great Race
No one could have been funnier than Jack Lemmon as the cape-wearing, mustache-twirling villain to end all cape-wearing, mustache-twirling villains. Absolutely inspired.
10.) Mass Appeal
Bill C. Davis’s theatrical two-hander gets a lovely adaptation. Lemmon is extraordinary as the eager-to-please parish priest, and Zeljko Ivanek is astonishing as an impassioned seminarian.
11.) The Prisoner of Second Avenue
Neil Simon in a nervous vein. Bancroft and Lemmon lend what might be too much reality to this bitter comedy. Lemmon’s “comic” nervous breakdown is rather terrifying.
12.) Mister Roberts
Lemmon bounces off every available wall as the inexhaustably lazy Ensign Pulver. James Cagney gives him a run for his money as the dispeptic captain of a WWII delivery ship.
13.) My Fellow Americans
Not nearly as successful as the Grumpy Old Men entries, but much smarter, and far funnier. Lemmon and Garner are blissful as ex-Presidential enemies wrathfully joined at the hip.
14.) The Fortune Cookie
Even minor Wilder & Diamond is worthwhile. Lemmon takes a deliberate back-seat to Matthau, whose shameless shyster lawyer "Whiplash Willy" is a classic comedy performance.
15.) The Out-of-Towners
This one got hammered by the critics. It is fairly relentless, but it's also a deliciously nasty love/hate letter to New York. Lemmon and Dennis are pitch-perfect as the eponymous Ohioans.
16.) Grumpy Old Men
No great shakes as comedy or social portraiture, but it's got Jack & Walter feuding, Ossie Davis’s warmth, and an uproariously scatalogical Burgess Meredith as Lemmon’s father (!)
17.) It Should Happen to You
“A guy you're gonna like” was Columbia’s weak endorsement of Lemmon in his debut film, a gentle satire on instant celebrity, with a great Judy Holliday performance. Lemmon has enormous appeal.
18.) That’s Life!
Blake Edwards’ affecting improvisatory comedy/drama features a breath-taking Lemmon performance. But why is the DVD in full-screen format???
19.) The Front Page
Slightly mis-timed Wilder & Diamond, with Lemmon in a lower key. Matthau’s cagy portrait of newspaper snake Walter Burns may lack suavity, but who cares when it’s this funny?
20.) Glengarry Glen Ross
A powerhouse cast (including Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin, and Al Pacino) squares off in this visually undistinguished Mamet adaptation. Lemmon is heartbreaking as a blowhard salesman on his last legs.
21.) The Murder of Mary Phagan
Lemmon gives a rich, understated performance as a Georgia politico who risks his reputation to save an innocent man’s life in this superb TV movie which also stars Peter Gallagher and Kevin Spacey.
22.) The War Between Men and Women
Underrated gem with Lemmon as a Thurber stand-in who's going blind; the great Barbara Harris is his bemused wife.
23.) A Life in the Theatre
Broderick is the young actor, Lemmon his unwanted mentor in this bittersweet David Mamet playlet. Gently amusing, and rather sad look at the profession.
24.) Buddy Buddy
More minor Wilder & Diamond, but very funny. Lemmon is a walking disaster as a suicidal censor; Matthau is droll and hilarious as a dead-pan paid assassin.
IV. Brooks & Reiner, Reiner & Brooks
1.) Oh, God!
Reiner’s finest hour as a director, with a superb, rueful screenplay by Larry Gelbart. If George Burns isn’t God, who wants to go to Heaven?
2.) All of Me
A delirious tour-de-force physical performance by Martin, and a savvy, witty one by Tomlin. A true gem. (Alas, no widescreen DVD.)
3.) Ten From "Your Show of Shows"
Hard to locate, but worth the effort. A dizzying compilation, capped by Howward Morris’s screamingly funny Uncle Doofy in the "This is Your Life" parody. DVD, please?
4.) The 2000 Year Old Man
Charming, quirky, and well-edited visualization of excerpts from the canon.
5.) Young Frankenstein (Special Edition)
May not be Brooks’s funniest, but it’s certainly his best. Beautifully directed, with Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn at the height of their loopy inspiration.
6.) Blazing Saddles
Crude, vulgar, obvious ... and as hilarious now as it was in 1974. Madeline Kahn’s take on Dietrich is treasurable. Only regret: Warners wouldn’t let Brooks cast Richard Pryor as Bart. Sigh.
7.) The Complete 2000 Year Old Man [BOX SET] (Audio CD)
The Rosetta stone of comedy recordings. Reiner & Brooks seem to anticipate each other's responses in an almost uncanny fashion. They feed off each other like great jazz musicians at their peak.
7.) The Producers (Special Edition)
The filmmaking is almost primitive, but with this much pleasure, who cares? Gene Wilder was never more inspired.
8.) Recording "The Producers"—A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks
Not as artful and definitely not as heartbreaking as the great Pennebaker film on the Company session, but a treat watching Nathan Lane & Co. get down their tracks.
9.) The Producers (2001 Original Broadway Cast)
Who would have guessed that Mel Brooks would write the most delicious, tuneful, gut-wrackingly funny score heard on Broadway in decades? Sondheim needn’t lose any sleep, but what a pleasant surprise.
10.) The Producers (1968 Film) [SOUNDTRACK]
Worth owning if only for "Springtime for Hitler," it also allows you to savor the genius of Zero Mostel, the hysterical brilliance of Gene Wilder, and the inspired Teutonicism of Kenneth Mars.
12.) The Producers: The Book, Lyrics, and Story Behind the Biggest Hit in Broadway History!
It’s all here, and in glorious color. But a question that borders on sacrilege: wouldn’t Martin Short have been a more appropriate choice for Leo than Matthew Broderick?
13.) The Man with Two Brains
Silly premise done to a comic T. (Again, not available in widescreen.) "Into the mud, Scum Queen!"
V. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?: A Hawks-eye View
1.) To Have and Have Not
The most entertaining of all Warner Bros. WWII adventures, and one of the most entertaining movies ever made. You can see Bogie and Bacall falling in love on camera. All that, and Hoagy Carmichael!
2.) His Girl Friday
The most accurate and hilarious of the Front Page adaptations, with Grant at his most slyly engaging, and some astounding rapid-fire overlapping dialogue. "Sold American!"
3.) Rio Bravo
The prototype “small-band-up-against-it” movie. Leisurely, exciting, character-driven, witty, with some attractive songs tossed in. Great Leigh Brackett script. And was John Wayne ever more charming?
4.) Red River
Hawks’ answer to High Noon, the most influential of all non-Ford westerns. Wayne is staggeringly good, Clift almost supernaturally beautiful, and the commencement of that cattle drive a marvel.
5.) Twentieth Century
Barrymore’s best film role, and Lombard blossoms into one of the greatest of screen comedians while you watch; her feet going up and down like pistons is one of the most beguiling sights in movies.
6.) The Big Sleep
Hawks claimed neither he nor Raymond Chandler ultimately knew the identity of the killers (the novel is pretty explicit) but it hardly matters. Maybe the finest of the hard-boiled detective movies.
7.) Only Angels Have Wings
An ode to male bonding in the approved Hawksian manner. But Grant’s devotion to Thomas Mitchell is, finally, no match for Jean Arthur.
8.) Hatari!
An expansive, low-key and leisurely jungle movie with a good heart (the hunted animals aren't killed) and an especially relaxed and generous performance by John Wayne. Great Mancini score.
9.) The Thing from Another World
Did Christian Nybie direct, or did Hawks? The overlapping dialogue and male-female banter suggest the latter. In any case, a tremendously exciting bug-eyed monster tale.
V. The Magnificent Elmer: Film Scores by The Other Bernstein
1.) To Kill A Mockingbird: Original Motion Picture Score (1996 Re-recording)
There is probably no other film score I love quite as I do this one. Gentle, lyrical, with an exquisite theme. Its finale is among the most moving of its kind ever written.
2.) The Great Escape (Score)
Exciting, original, with a hopeful march theme and some beautiful character work. Best heard on the full-length Varese Sarabande Soundtrack Club release.
3.) The Magnificent Seven
Along with Jerome Moross’s The Big Country, this is the source of all those Western scoring cliches. Big, expansive theme, perfectly orchestrated and performed.
4.) The Man With the Golden Arm
Not the first jazz film score (Alex North’s Streetcar Named Desire came before) but among the best, with great Shelly Manne drum solos augmenting a tough, even harrowing story.
5.) Far from Heaven
How this could have failed to win an Academy Award is a mystery and a source of great frustration. Mockingbird-like sensitivity and passion make this the perfect capstone to a master’s career.
6.) The Grifters
Stanley Kaufman complained that this score was “hysterical.” Did he hear it? A mocking, Kurt Weillesque main theme that hints at the quirkiness to follow.
7.) Christopher Parkening: Elmer Bernstein—Concerto for Guitar (Bernstein, Isaac Albeniz, Jack Marshall)
Utterly beguiling. Listen to this, and bemoan how little Bernstein wrote for the concert stage.
8.) How Now, Dow Jones (1967 Original Broadway Cast)
Universally panned, this odd musical comedy boasts an impressive, playful score and some of Carolyn Leigh’s sharpest lyrics. Dares you to find in it any trace of the Hollywood composer.
9.) Oscar
Charming light comedy score for a Stallone curio. A delicious homage to 1930s-style arrangements, composed and conducted with wit and brio.
10.) Midas Run/The House/The Night Visitor (Bernstein, Henry Mancini)
Mostly Mancini, but graced by one of Bernstein’s evocative, entrancing and subtly moving scores for short films by the Eameses.
VI. Last Partisan of the Old Republic: The Essential Gore Vidal
1.) United States
The distilled wisdom of a lifetime's thought. Our greatest essayist in his element.
2.) Palimpsest: A Memoir
Vastly entertaining. And nearly every page contains a dagger, perfectly aimed at just the right hearts.
3.) Imperial America : Reflections on the United States of Amnesia
If more people had read this before last November ...
4.) Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
And this ...
5.) Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta
And this ...
6.) The Last Empire : Essays 1992-2000
Not to mention this ...
7.) Inventing A Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson
Both a perfect pocket history of our beginnings and a devastating comparison to where we are now.
8.) The American Presidency (The Real Story Series)
Where else will you find a remark by the British ambassador reminding his correspondent to remember that Teddy Roosevelt is "only five years old."
9.) The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (The Real Story Series)
Splendid little collection of essays—a perfect introduction to the man, his themes, and his style.
10.) Washington, D.C.: A Novel
The first published volume of Vidal's American Chronicle series (though not the first chronologically) is a witty take on pre- and post-war political chicanery.
10.) Burr : A Novel
In what may be Vidal's most enjoyable novel, Aaron Burr recalls the Revolutionary period from his own slippery perspective. An utter delight.
11.) 1876 : A Novel
A Centennial novel published at the Bicentennial, Vidal's Burr follow-up takes us through an American Presidential election eerily like our own 2000 edition.
13. Empire : A Novel
Could be subtitled "How the Republic Was Lost and Imperialism Took the Day." A bitter satire with a cast that includes a bellicose TR and a baroque-tongued Henry James.
14.) Hollywood
Vidal's penultimate "Family" novel is also a knowing depiction of the precise moment when image replaced substance.
15.) The Golden Age : A Novel
The final installment in the series is, at base, a revision of (and improvement over) Washington DC—richer, more expansive, and more personal yet just as astringent and amusing.
16.) Two Sisters
This "novel in the form of a memoir" is among Vidal's finest—a dizzying feast that is part reproach to Anais Nin, burlesque of her style, comic extravaganza and deft, moving sexual epic.
17.) Myra Breckinridge/Myron
No other native American writer has written so hilariously about sexual matters as Vidal in these two fables. Outrageous, pointed and utterly unique in American letters.
18.) Lincoln
A masterful attempt at explicating an enigma, Lincoln also contains penetrating portraits of Sewell, Chase, Mary Todd, and John Wilkes Booth.
19.) The City and the Pillar: A Novel
The first unapologetic popular American novel with a homosexual protagonist. Hints here of Vidal's own adolescent affair with the late Jimmy Trimble.
20.) Screening History
A series of Harvard lectures summing up, in a most appealing manner, the author's life-long attraction to the moving image.
21.) Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings
Trenchant and provocative. Vidal's sane, ecumenical views on sex have always been bracing and erudite. Here's a very good sampling.
22.) The Best Man
Arguably the best (and funniest) political play ever written by an American. (The movie, which Vidal wrote and produced, is very fine as well.)
23.) An Evening with Richard Nixon
Political satire at its most scathing ... and much of its comes verbatim from RN's own words, with which Vidal hangs him quite thoroughly.
25.) Views from a Window: Conversations with Gore Vidal by Bob Stanton
A very fine compendium of Vidal's views on politics, American history, fiction, and sex.
26.) Bob Roberts
As the soon-to-be ousted Senator Paste in Tim Robbins' splendid satire, Vidal seems to have improvised his dialogue from own collected statements. It sure sounds like him.
VII. You'll find such gaiety there: Great movies for Gay men
1.) Parting Glances
The late Bill Sherwood's only feature is wry, tender, witty and empathetic. Richard Ganoung is utterly right, and Steve Buscemi is a revelation. Just about perfect in every way.
2.) The Times of Harvey Milk
An alternately inspiring and heartbreaking documentary. If you don't dissolve in tears during the last third, you may not have a heart.
3.) An Englishman Abroad
Alan Bennett's small masterpiece about Coral Browne's encounter with an aging Guy Burgess is probably the single finest hour of television ever.
4.) Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Arguably John Schlesinger's masterpiece, with a beautifully compassionate and novelistic script by Penelope Gilliatt and a towering performance by Peter Finch.
5.) Gods and Monsters
As the great James Whale, Ian McKellan gives a performance of such compassion it tides you over the rougher spots, and Brendan Fraser is almost staggeringly good.
6.) Midnight Cowboy
Hoffman and Voight wanted John Schlesinger to film a scene of physical intimacy between their characters, but the homoeroticism is vividly implicit in this astonishing evocation of hustler angst.
7.) Longtime Companion
Craig Lucas's taboo-breaking AIDS quilt still packs a wallop, especially in the devastating scene in which Bruce Davison tells his lover to "let go."
8.) Wilde (Special Edition)
Stephen Fry is so perfectly cast he seems less like an actor than a medium. Jude Law is astonishing, and the final scene is utterly devastating; you want to warn Oscar to run the other way.
9.) Heavenly Creatures
Peter Jackson's best film is a wild, rich, comic, visually stunning look at a real-life tragedy. Kate Winslet is revelatory.
10.) Word Is Out
This movie made such a difference in my life at 17 I can scarcely begin to extol its virtues - nor those of the once bold, now castrated PBS that aired it in 1978.
11.) Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss
See how sweet and likable Sean Hayes was before he went over the top on Will & Grace (and became so coy about his sexuality). A unique, funny, eccentric comedy.
12.) Prick Up Your Ears
Alan Bennett's dark comic take on the irrepressable Joe Orton. Oldman is spectacularly good, but Molina is woefully miscast.
13.) Get Real
A real gem. Ben Silverstone is a revelation (is it me, or does he resemble a cuter version of Rowan Atkinson?) in this ultimately sunny, compassionate comic drama.
14.) Edge of Seventeen
Another gem. Chris Stafford, as the quintessential sensitive (and slightly queeny) gay teenboy gives a performance of rare depth and sweetness. Painful, sweet and very true.
15.) In & Out
A little of Paul Rudd's smart-ass dialogue goes a long way. But Kline is brilliant, his how-to handbook scene one of the funniest pieces of character acting of the last decade.
16.) Victor/Victoria
How gay is this one? Ehh. But Blake Edwards's classy comedy is beautifully realized, Garner is (as usual) a low-key delight and Robert Preston is non pariel. Was he robbed at the Oscars? Yes!
17.) Another Country
Another fictionalized look at the Guy Burgess story, with a superb script, incandescent direction and a great central performance by Rupert Everett.
18.) The Wedding Banquet
Ang Lee's breakthrough film is both hilarious and deeply moving in its honest depiction of parental anguish and private desire. (And Winston Chao is gorgeous, which doesn't hurt.)
19.) The Birdcage
I wish Elaine May had retained the son's apology to his "mother," but this is still one of the funniest farces of the past 20 years. Lane and Azaria are in the grand tradition of inspired comic genius
20.) Beautiful Thing
The Thames accents and dialogue are a bit impeneterable at first, but the movie is so loving and exuberant it floats you along to the sweetly charming finish.
21.) Maurice—The Merchant Ivory Collection
Slow but exquisitely beautiful Merchant-Ivory rendering. Rupert Graves is not only perfect casting, but mouthwateringly beautiful to boot.
21.) Torch Song Trilogy
Yes, it's too short, and bowdlerized, and not nearly sexy enough. But Matthew Broderick is adorable, and it's got Harvey's indelible performance.
22.) Before Stonewall
The first undeniably great television documentary about gay liberation. Frank Kameny alone is worth the price of admission.
23.) The Celluloid Closet (Special Edition)
Okay, so the narrator's in the closet. But where else would you get to see Gore Vidal, Jay Presson Allen and Arthur Laurents holding forth about the bad old days?
24.) You Are Not Alone
A lovely, underseen gem about adolescents, rebellion, and burgeoning sexuality. The final scene is astonishingly fresh—no American moviemaker would ever go near it.
posted by Scott Ross at 9:24 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home