favorite movie #91 - halloween edition: only lovers left alive

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #91 - Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) - I love this beautiful movie. I have written about it at length before. Here is a snippet from that earlier article:

Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive is an extremely romantic film. It has been dubbed his "vampire movie." but it is less a horror film and more a romance that concerns two vampires. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are Adam and Eve, a (really) old married couple. They live a world away from each other, he in Detroit, and she in Tangier, Morocco, but are inextricably linked. ...

The film is gorgeous to look at, with cinematography by Yorick Le Saux. The world of the film only exists as night, naturally, and Jarmusch (Night on Earth) is an excellent director to highlight the shadows and mysteries of sunless streets, cities at night. Vampires don't need to do housekeeping or even comb their hair, and the set and costume design renders their dusty and cluttered surfaces and persons in loving detail. The film moves slowly and elegantly, much like its protagonists — that is, until chaos, in the form of Eve's younger "sister" Ava (Mia Wasikowska) turns up. ...

You can read the whole review here.

Happy Halloween!

favorite movie #90 - halloween edition: eyes without a face

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #90 - Eyes Without A Face (1960) - A truly unique movie that finds its horror in the possible, the familial. The evil scientist (Pierre Brasseur) is a guilt-wracked doting father who wants to restore his daughter to her former beauty after his reckless driving resulted in her disfigurement. The "Igor" (Alida Valli) is a faithful, grateful patient who will do anything for the doctor who helped restore her own scarred face. The monster (Édith Scob) is an innocent girl, whose burned and scarred face is destroying her — from within and without. Director Georges Franju doesn't avoid showing the horrors, in gory detail, of the face transplant operation. There are times the viewer will want to look away. It is an uncomfortable, haunting film to watch. But it is also unforgettable — especially the many shots of Scob's eyes, behind her mournful mask.

favorite movie #89 - halloween edition: suspiria

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #89 - Suspiria (1977) - Dario Argento's Suspiria may be a giallo film, but its primary color palette is red, red, red. The horror thriller features Jessica Harper as Suzy, a young American ballerina who attends a dance academy in Germany. That is just the framework for hue-saturated set pieces which feature veteran Hollywood star Joan Bennet, Alida Valli and one ingenious, gruesome, and gory death after another. The film is ostensibly about witchcraft and devil worship, but it plays more like a nightmarish fairy tale. The young, mostly female victims are drenched in either blood-red lights or the real thing. It's hard not to think of the "horrors" of coming of age and a woman's intimate relationship with blood. Whatever Suspiria is about, it is so arresting to watch it could have been interesting even if it had been a silent movie. The moment Suzy walks through the sliding doors at the airport and into the stormy night, her adventure, and ours, begins.

Suzy (Jessica Walter( is not in Kansas anymore

Suzy's roommate Olga (Barbara Magnolfi)

Suzy's friend Sara (Stefania Casini) tries to warn her that the school is a strange place

Young and handsome Udo Kier, post-Warhol 

favorite movie #88 - halloween edition: wolf

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #88 - Wolf (1994) - I've written about this film before, one of my favorite Jack Nicholson and werewolf movies:

I recently caught another film that Nicholson did with Pfieffer, Wolf (1994), and really liked it. Directed by Mike Nichols, it is a dark urban fairy tale and love story. Wolf at first seems a pretty standard werewolf update, and in some ways it is. Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London) does the make-up effects, but this is not a movie that cares about showcasing the special effects of the werewolf transformation. It is about the after-effects of the transformation and its effects on the hero. 

Nicholson plays Will Randall, a New York editor-in-chief at a publishing house, who one night, while in Vermont, gets bitten by a wolf. Will soon starts to develop some enhanced abilities — smell, hearing, perception. And he sparks the interest of Laura Alden (Pfeiffer), a poor little rich girl with a huge chip on her shoulder — who also happens to be his boss's daughter. Will sums up Laura's privileged, bratty attitude when they first meet in some dialogue that was tailor-made for Nicholson to recite. Can you even imagine any other actor being able to not only say these lines convincingly, but intrigue a woman like Michelle Pfeiffer while saying them? 

"You know, I think I understand what you're like now. You're very beautiful and you think men are only interested in you because you're beautiful, but you want them to be interested in you because you're you. The problem is, aside from all that beauty, you're not very interesting. You're rude, you're hostile, you're sullen, you're withdrawn. I know you want someone to look past all that at the real person underneath, but the only reason anyone would bother to look past all that is because you're beautful. Ironic, isn't it? In an odd way you're your own problem."

You can read the entire review here.

favorite movie #87 - halloween edition: the shining

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #87 - The Shining (1980) - I didn't actually like this film much when it first came out, but it has really grown on me. Jack Nicholson's performance as Jack Torrance has become iconic. As much as I like Stephen King's original novel, this adaptation by Stanley Kubrick stands on its own as a brilliant, separate artwork. So many wonderful, symmetrical shots. Redrum!!!

Related:

the shining

room 237 — wheels within wheels

doctor sleep and the lure of the sequel

stephen king's on the night shift again