1. Harry and Tonto

2. Nashville

3. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

4. Network

5. A Woman Under The Influence

5. Harold and Maude

6. Mikey and Nicky

7. The Godfather

8. McCabe and Mrs. Miller

9. A Clockwork Orange

10. Taxi Driver

11. The Godfather: Part II

12. One Is A Lonely Number

13. Chitchat On The Nile

14. Fat City

15. Sunflower

16. Autumn Sonata

17. Five Easy Pieces

18. Stroszek

19. Annie Hall

20. A Brief Vacation

21. Next Stop, Greenwich Village

22. An Enemy of the People

23. Dog Day Afternoon

24. Barry Lyndon

(I know I made a mistake with two #5's, but it was hard not only picking 25, and also tough using IMDB scores as a reference, and deviating from it based on how I feel right now)

My favorite decade for film -

Gonna stop at 10:

2. Network

3. French Connection

4. Godfather

5. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

6. Omen

7. Marathon Man

8. Day of the Jackal

9. And Justice for All

10. Dracula (1979)

My one concern, is/was, that too many of these films are "known" and were released in America to the public, thus, the appreciation of some of these movies compared to an Antonioni, Bergman, Truffaut or Godard, comes apart real quick, and to me this is sad ... there is, and has been for over 50 years some exceptional films in many other countries ... to the point where some "admins" at the PIFF (Portland FF), laughed at my comments on a public board that in the Festival, we should try and watch the small foreign films, instead of the new Almodovar, the new American film and the new British film ... ALL OF WHICH WOULD END UP IN VIDEO! 

I thought that all the other films would make for a much more interesting festival ... no matter ... several Spanish films that did not have "Almodovar" stamped on their butt, did not even get 100 folks into the theater ... and this was shameless and a concern for me, as I was putting together program notes for the fans, and I put together 5 films ... and they did not use the notes, because they wanted to make sure the notes went to the theaters that were FULL ... not the empty ones! All of a sudden, the commercial interest is right up there, slapping you in the face ... and of course, Almodovar got kissed left and right, and Olea, Saura, and many others ... who gives a damn, anyway!

It's just sad for me to see this, and maybe my having been cross cultured was important for me, but it has been sheer hell around me ... so few people show it as much as I do ... and too many "famous" released films end up in the listing, and while I won't say they are not good, there were a lot of much better and valuable films than those out there ... but no one saw them, and today, with the 2 main film websites making sure you can not see any foreign films ... because their series are more important to them money wise.

We have to stand up for the arts ... we can't continually ignore them, and list "favorites" in so many of the best sold films at the time, which were fun to watch, but they were not that great ... they just hooked you into thinking they were great! Again, advertising ... something that the film companies were 50 years ahead of all of us ... and we still don't get it!

Ken Russell ... be damned ... WOWOWOW ... and we never saw them, or thought much about it.

The Mahler film is fabulous, although some will criticize it because it loves the music too much ... but it is wonderful, and sad towards the end ... but we can't even enjoy a wonderful sunset with some Mahler on it, as the film comes to a close after his wife left him, anyway! The irony behind it all ... is just so parallel elsewhere, it's scary!

Savage Messiah is a very nice film ... but since it is not about a famous this or that no one cares!

The Boyfriend, is the best Berkeley era musical ever made ... and Ken just made it look even better and more spectacular ... yeah, yeah, yeah ... I hate musicals too!

The Devils ... a massive, and very valuable film in terms of its spiritual nature, although many folks think that the film is just an orgy for all the extras in the RSC who finally got to fudge whoever they wanted on film, and no one else would know the difference! It's a fantastic film, with incredible performances, and for me it fits with MARAT/SADE as one of the great films/performances for the place and time!

The Music Lovers, is not for everyone ... it is about Tchaikovsky, although its biggest knock has always been the ending with everything going crazy ... but considering the composer's mental and physical state at the time ... why are we surprised at all the hallucinations and weirdness? Ohhh ... excuse me, it gives a chance for the fans to get their middle finger in!

 1974 Mahler

Not able, as yet to compile my listing ... I'm going through my reviews and spread sheets in the hope that I can do this ... but seeing some of these things left behind, and 3 of these are about artists and their art ... is a bit weird ... I always thought that appreciating one's work was important ... 

Back to my dreams ... I'm depressed enough already!

Eraserhead (David Lynch)

Eight Fatal Shots (Mikko Niskanen)

Thundercrack! (Curt McDowell)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes)

Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky)

Suspiria (Dario Argento)

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog)

Série noire (Alain Corneau)

Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky)

Kings of the Road (Wim Wenders)

Stroszek (Werner Herzog)

Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti)

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese)

The Tenant (Roman Polanski)

Wicker Man (Robin Hardy)

Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa)

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pier Paolo Pasolini)

Wise Blood (John Huston)

The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle)

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick)

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah)

Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman)

Alien (Ridley Scott)

once again, only one movie per director. and also lots of European movies. and once again the numbers are not rankings; they just help me count to 25. original titles; English titles in brackets:

1) Volker Schlöndorff - Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) (1979)

2) Nicolas Roeg - Don't Look Now! (1973)

3) Hal Ashby - Harold and Maude (1971)

4) Werner Herzog - Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972)

5) Harry Kümel - Malpertuis (1971)

6) Alfred Hitchcock - Frenzy (1972)

7) Hark Bohm - Nordsee ist Mordsee (difficult to translate; literally "North Sea is Murder Sea") (1976)

8) Roman Polanski - Chinatown (1974)

9) Luis Buñuel - Le Fantôme de la liberté (The Phantom of Liberty) (1974)

10) Claude Chabrol - Le boucher (The Butcher) (1971)

11) François Truffaut - Une belle fille comme moi (Such a Gorgeous Kid like Me) (1972)

12) Reinhard Hauff - Messer im Kopf (Knife in the Head) (1978)

13) Wim Wenders - Der amerikanische Freund (The American Friend) (1977)

14) Eric Rohmer - Le genou de Claire (Claire's Knee) 1970

15) Stanley Kubrick - Barry Lyndon (1975)

16) Federico Fellini - Fellini Satyricon (1970)

17) Pier Paolo Pasolini - Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom) (1975)

18) George Roy Hill - The Sting (1973)

19) Robert Altman - Remember My Name (1978)

20) Carlos Saura - Cría Cuervos (Raise Ravens) (1976)

21) Liliana Cavani - Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter) (1974)

22) John Boorman - Zardoz (1974)

23) Dick Richards - Farewell My Lovely (1975)

24) Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Die Ehe der Maria Braun (The Marriage of Maria Braun) (1979)

25) Louis Malle - Lacombe Lucien (1975)

(in no particular order)

Themroc

the Exorcist

Taxi Driver

Apolcalypse Now

Scum

Love and Death

Annie Hall

Sleeper

Broadway Danny Rose

Alien

Monty Python's Life of Brian

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Carrie

the Tenant

O Lucky Man!

the Deer Hunter

the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Halloween

Wake in Fright

Walkabout

the Omen

the Wicker Man

High Anxiety

Young Frankenstein

Midnight Express

ah, Themroc! what a crazy movie! Michel Piccoli returning to the state of the caveman