The Final 21 Films To View in Sally's Summer Arthouse Cinema Course
Here's how we'll be wrapping up this movie series over the next few months and moving on to something new.
Dear Sally,
So when we started this little podcast series back in July, I was being a bit ambitious with the huge pile of DVDs in the photo above, which I hoped we could get through. I had hoped that we’d just hunker down inside during the hot August summer with our soon-to-be-installed new air conditioner and plow through a bunch of these, sometimes multiple films each day. Then we’d have plenty of fodder for daily podcasts.
But, of course, our AC took extra long to be installed properly, and my PTSD was just so vicious that often I didn’t have the ability to focus on a feature-length film. And the latter is still a problem - I wish we could do a new movie every night before bed and record a podcast each day - but as it stands now, I often just can’t handle either. So I’ve decided that, rather than hitting every movie in the pile, now we should aim for just the ones I really care about and regard as most important in your cinematic education. Many of these I brought with us to Indiana for the winter, and the others we can hit when we return home to our desert hideaway in January.
I am also taking your preferences into account here! Through this series we’ve figured out which sorts of arthouse films you enjoy and which you can’t stand (Richard Linklater!) So of the remaining 21 I’d like to hit, I suspect there are perhaps only 2-4 which there is some probability you might dislike. Here are the titles - in the order in which I propose we view them - followed by my explanations for why I think we should discuss them:
Animal Crackers
Inside Man
El Topo
Fantasia
The Master, Inherent Vice and Phantom Thread
Shattered Glass
The Fountain
Sling Blade
Together
Dr. Strangelove
Down by Law and Coffee and Cigarettes
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover
Casablanca
Dogma*
Goodfellas and Casino
High and Low
Michael Clayton
*These last five can wait until we get back to California, as I didn’t bring them, with the exception of Dogma, which one can only watch on DVD since its strange history caused it to now be owned by Harvey Weinstein himself!
So here’s what I think we should watch! Because I love you so much, I am giving you VETO POWER should any of them just sound too profoundly unappetizing to you.
So far we’ve done two Marx brothers movies and you haven’t been that impressed, so if you don’t enjoy Animal Crackers then I won’t subject you to any more. But if you REALLY don’t want to try another we can just move on to the next title on the list.
Inside Man is my favorite Spike Lee movie. It’s a very cool, clever heist thriller pitting Clive Owen, the bank robber, versus Denzel Washington, the hostage negotiator. It’s also a first-rate example of how to infuse independent, arthouse style and sensibilities into a more mainstream, conventional Hollywood genre picture.
El Topo is one of the especially oddball movies on the list and one I’d tolerate you vetoing. It’s a psychedelic western and was John Lennon’s favorite movie. It’s also an important film in the annals of ‘60s/’70s counterculture cinema. It does have a plot, but also considerable weirdness. I won’t subject you to its follow-up, the even weirder The Holy Mountain, unless somehow you end up really liking this one. I will say it is one of my absolute favorite films, so it would mean a lot if you tried it.
Fantasia, as you know, was my favorite film for a decade before The Last Temptation of Christ dethroned it last year, inspiring the name of this publishing company. I know you’ve seen it already, but it’s worth revisiting with adult eyes and an analytic view to see why it’s so special and powerful.
Next, I group three of P.T. Anderson’s more recent films together - The Master, Inherent Vice, and Phantom Thread. While I think we can and should do a podcast for each one, we should do an extra one afterward focused just on Anderson as a director, and consider his previous films too which we’ve already watched together, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, and his last film, Licorice Pizza.
Shattered Glass is a first-rate independent film of the era and one of the best “journalism movies” of them all. It also influenced me a lot as a young, developing journalist. When we watch, I suspect you’ll understand how and why. It’s got great performances and is very exciting for a movie about a political journalism scandal.
The Fountain I’ll understand if you want to veto, as I know you like your plot-centric films. This one blends together three narratives - one set in the 1600s, another in modern times, and a third 500 years into the future. It’s a spiritual tale and a beautiful love story, though, so I hope you’ll consider it, even though it can be a little challenging on the first viewing. We should probably do this one before we see director Darren Aronofsky’s new one The Whale, which is getting rave reviews. He’s another filmmaker I’ve idolized a bit over the years, regarding at a similar level of excellence as Anderson. (I slightly prefer Anderson these days. Aronofsky’s last one, the polarizing mother!, did not impress me very much even though I respect the bold experimentalism of it.)
Sling Blade is a fantastic drama and one of the iconic indie films of its time, so I suspect you’ll enjoy it. Billy-Bob Thornton really made something special with it, and his performance is legendary.
Together is a feel-good Swedish film set in a 1970s commune and I adore it. I think you’ll also really like this one a lot.
Dr. Strangelove is one that I think you’ve seen before, you may have said, but it’s one that rewards repeat viewings. I think we’ll get a good podcast out of discussing it and its myriad themes. I won’t subject you to any more Stanley Kubrick movies unless you really want to try some!
Down by Law and Coffee and Cigarettes are two more Jim Jarmusch films and I wasn’t planning to subject you to any more of his but you enjoyed Stranger Than Paradise more than I thought, so these two are probably the most accessible of the lot. (And I still haven’t seen Down by Law, which is regarded as a classic.) Minnie Driver raves about it in her Criterion closet video:
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover is another iconic arthouse film, and is really symbolic of the arthouse sensibility. It’s both high-brow in its style and artistry and also shocking and low-brow in its sex and violence. I haven’t revisited it in ages and will be eager to consider it again and to get your take.
At this point in the list, I really think we should revisit Casablanca, which I know you’ve seen. I’ve found that it just gets better with each viewing, and I suspect we could get a good podcast out of picking it apart.
Dogma is one I normally wouldn’t subject you to, I feel like I’ve kind of grown out of Kevin Smith’s work at this point, but it was an important film for me personally on many levels - the first movie I saw at my beloved old job at Castleton Arts - and a movie I adored for many years. There’s much to discuss here, I suppose, but we can pass on it if you’re not up for it.
There are many Martin Scorsese movies worth seeing, but I suspect the two that you’d enjoy most and that are most emblematic of his work are Goodfellas and its thematic sequel Casino. These are fun, exciting movies, and I suspect you’ll really be engaged by them and have plenty to say about them.
Now I haven’t hit you that hard with the foreign language films in this series - something we might rectify in a future film series! - but we really should get at least one Akira Kurosawa film into the series before we conclude, and this is probably one of his most accessible and exciting. It’s not a Samurai or historical film like most of his well-known works, but rather, a kidnapping thriller based on an American novel. I haven’t seen it in ages and would love to revisit it with you.
Finally, I think we should conclude the series with a film I now regard as one of the last peaks of indie arthouse cinema, 2007’s Michael Clayton. Now, I know we’ve already watched it, but I think considering it again in light of all the films we’ve watched and will watch through the rest of the series could be a good way to wrap things up.
So what do you think? Do these all sound OK or are there any you want to VETO right off the bat? And any titles which you’d like to interject into the mix, either others from the big pile that I’ve skipped or classics/Indies/artsy/foreign titles? HBOMax’s Turner Classic Movies tab has a whole lot of great titles, and I wouldn’t mind giving Pather Panchali another view to discuss with you, even though we’ve already seen it once together. That’s such an amazing film.
love and warmth,
David
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Check out the previous podcasts and posts in Sally and Dave’s series:
