Lost Highway review

 Number 635 on the top 1000 films of all time is David Lynch's surrealist neo-noir psychological thriller 'Lost Highway.'

Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) is a saxophonist who is accused of murdering his girlfriend Renee (Patricia Arquette.) After being jailed, he mysteriously disappears only to be replaced by a completely different man - Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty) a mechanic who has connections with frightening mobster Mr Eddy (Robert Loggia.)

This is film is classic Lynchian horror - think Mulholland Drive. It is surreal beyond belief. Painfully surreal. And too often that surrealism got in the way of what could have been a very psychological thriller.

I'm not the smartest or most attentive of viewers so I struggle in following neo-noir films or even the old-time noir films like The Big Sleep at the best of times. This was only exacerbated by the surrealism. I could just about follow the storyline without the body-swapping or abstract dreams, but with? I was more lost than the titular lost highway.

This is probably a criticism of my own cerebral capabilities rather than Lynch's direction - although I would argue that the film started very slowly. It dramatised Fred and Renee's sexual relationship. It was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes, but it felt like it was going on for ages. And I think the film's pacing is a legitimate criticism. At times, it moved along at a blistering pace. At other times, all his momentum stopped whenever things got more abstract.

What I can't criticise is the casting of Robert Loggia who brought an electrifying energy to his role of Mr Loggia the bad guy. It had the same fear factor of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet. Appropriately after being passed over for Blue Velvet, Loggia directed a tirade at Lynch - which is what subsequently won him the part here.

I've seen a few Lynch films now and with the exception of The Straight Story, I can't say I'm a fan. All too weird for me.

Barton Fink review

 Number 548 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Coen Brothers' black-comedy Barton Fink.

Barton Fink (John Turturro) is an aspiring screen-writer who finally gets his big break in Hollywood. However, the true reality of Hollywood screen-writing is far removed from the dream. Jon Polito and John Goodman co-star.

In the pantheon of Coen Brothers' films, I would rank this as one of their lower-tiered efforts. The brothers are well-known for their surreal films like Oh brother, wherefore art thou or The Big Lebowski, as well as more straightforward films like Miller's Crossing and No Country for Old Men. Barton Fink seemed to straddle both worlds without really landing in either.

Barton soon becomes mixed-up in a murder which sees him strike up an unusual friendship with the gregarious Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) which, in fairness, does finish in a fiery and dreamscape climax. Yet the earlier parts of the film deal with more grounded ideas like Barton trying to write a script to appease the big-shot Hollywood producer Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner.) If the film could have been surreal or straightforward, I would have been okay with it, but not both.

John Turturro and Jon Polito also starred in Miller's Crossing - a prohibition-era gangster film. Both of them were terrific bringing frenetic energy to the role. They were memorable. Here I can't say the same. Granted Jon Polito was only a supporting character - a lackey to Michael Lerner, but he didn't bring the same energy to the role. Neither did Turturro. They played the roles with restraint when excess would have been better.

That summarises my criticism of this film really: it tried to be too many things and ended up being hardly anything.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas review

 Number 555 on the top 1000 films of all time is Terry Gilliam's black-comedy 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.'

Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) is a journalist sent to Las Vegas to cover an important motorcycle race. He is joined by his friend and laywer Dr Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro.) Once there, they get high on every drug doing and get into all manner of chaos.

Terry Gilliam is well-known for his surreal, incomprehensible films like Brazil and Twelve Monkeys. However, while those films had some semblance of a storyline 'Fear and Loathing' was an exercise in excess. 'Brazil was about a civil servant looking for love in a hellscape world while Twelve Monkeys focussed on trying to reverse an apocalypse. Sure these films were weird, but I think there was at least supposed to be a point. Or for Twelve Monkeys anyway. Like Brazil, Fear and Loathing seemed to be weird for the sake of weird.

The antics of Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo soon became tiresome especially as Dr Gonzo is a pretty nasty psychopath. It didn't help that neither Depp or Del Toro were particularly memorable in their roles. And this is saying something considering the calibre of the actors: Del Toro went onto win a Best Supporting Oscar for Stephen Soderbergh's Traffic a few years later. Depp also has a few Oscar nods under his belt. Yet he was just boring lacking any of the usual charisma he brings to a role. And I didn't like Dr Gonzo so I didn't care for Del Toro's performance.

In terms of comedy, it didn't make me laugh very much. Sure, the situations are black and we're supposed to be laughing at and not with the characters, but I spent much of the film rolling my eyes rather than laughing out loud. None of the psychadelic visuals or quirky camera angles could do anything to make the film more interesting.

Instead this was a tedious, overly-indulgent affair which was about two hours too long. I was very glad when the credits started rolling.

Waking Life review

 Number 530 on the top 1000 films of all time is Richard Linklater's animated surrealist drama 'Waking Life.'

Wiley Wiggins plays an unnamed protagonist who undergoes an existential crisis. He has a series of philosophical conversations before he realises that he is in a lucid dream that he must wake up from.

I don't think I've seen such pretentious Oscar-bait since Megalopolis. Don't get me wrong, Waking Life was beautiful to look at. It had a unique rotoscoping animation technique, but beyond that, the film was about as interesting as any of the films mentioned on my list of films that will put you to sleep. It was an arthouse film that was all style and no substance.

It's a shame as this was the same Richard Linklater who directed the brilliant Before Trilogy and the hilarious School of Rock. Yet Waking Life lacked the same humour and heart as Linklater's other efforts. This is despite how the Before Trilogy similarly had a lot of talking and little action.

The difference was that this talking occured between interesting characters who I actually gave a damn about. I couldn't say the same about Waking Life. Whereas the Before Trilogy had sparkling dialogue, Waking Life had the most boring philosophical discussions ever. Interestingly, the two leads from the Before Trilogy: Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delphy) also cameo here in one of the many scenes that are tangential to the main plot.

Rather than one continuous film or dream in this case, Waking Life was a collection of unrelated dreams that you forget as soon as you wake up. Although I can't ever remember dreaming about pseudo intellectual discussions a la Woody Allen. Also what was with the Alex Jones cameo? Apparently Richard Linklater just dismissed him as funny quack. Little did he realise how consequential Alex Jones would be in later life.

Maybe I just wasn't clever enough to understand the true genius of this film, but I also didn't care. Never mind Waking Life, this was a bad dream that I couldn't wait to wake up from.

Delicatessen review

 Number 527 on the top 1000 films of all time is the French, post-apocalyptic, black-comedy Delicatessen.

Delicatessen is set in a ruined apartment building over a butcher shop. A mysterious apocalypse has occurred and food is in short supply. Don't ask what type of meat the butcher/landlord Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfuss) is selling. Hopefully, it won't be new tenant and circus clown Laison (Dominique Pinon) or his beau Jane - Clapet's daughter (Marie-Laure Dougnac.)

In the US, this film was released as being presented by Terry Gillam. Although I'm not sure why as I couldn't see any evidence of him having anything to do with the making of this film. Perhaps it was because this film was purely Terry Gillam.

Once being part of the legendary Monty Python comedy troupe, he has gone onto direct the famously surreal and incomprehensible Brazil and Twelve Monkeys. Delicatessen was similarly surreal and incomprehensible. It was all far too weird and zany for me.

Perhaps I'm just not clever enough to truly understand the true genius behind the film, but it seemed weird for the sake of being weird. From the firey colour palate to the strange cast of characters, it was all so strange. I could follow the main story well enough - the clown and his girlfriend are trying not to become dinner. As for everything else? Not a clue.

If you want to say this is a bad review, I wouldn't blame you. But can you critique a film that is so difficult to understand? It was all too weird for me.

Nosferatu review

 Number 330 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1920 silent, German expressionist horror film 'Nosferatu.'

Count Orlock (Max Shreck) has just moved into the fictional German town of Wisborg. He purchases a house from estate agent Thomas Hutter (Gustav Von Wangeheim.) However, Thomas and his wife Ellen (Greta Schroder) start to expect something more sinister is at work.

Like how Night of the Living Dead pioneered the zombie-horror genre, Nosferatu laid the groundwork for not only the vampire film, but also the horror film in general. Except, it wasn't horrific. Obviously, I'm not expecting the torture porn or excessive jump-scares that dominate modern horror, but I was expecting at least an unsettling atmosphere like you get in the Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

I thought that the atmosphere was too happy to qualify for a horror film. Happiness is fine if you can feel there is some dramatic tension building toward something, but I felt little tension. It didn't help that you had the subtitles saying "happy German music is playing."

I'm also not an expert on German expressionism, but this didn't seem very expressionistic. Unlike the likes of Metropolis, it stayed grounded in the real, rather than the abstract. Okay, I know that vampires aren't real, but I thought Nosferatu would be more surreal.

Nosferatu was a strange one. Considering its mighty reputation, I was expecting something more, but I was left disappointed.

Brazil review

 Number 299 on the top 1000 films of all time is Terry Gillam's dystopian black comedy drama Brazil.

Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a low-level bureaucrat in an unnamed dystopian future. He frequently dreams of saving a mystery woman from death. When a typing errors results in the erroneous death of cobbler Archibald Buttle, instead of rogue heating engineer Archibald Tuttle (Robert De Niro) Lowry tries to undo the mistake which brings him into contact with the woman he has been dreaming about.

Surreal? Arthouse? Experimental? A satirical look at the modern world? However you look at it, there is no denying that Brazil is a weird film. Made by Terry Gillam and co-starring Michael Palin, it was a bit like a twisted Monty Python misadventure. Rather than one cohesive narrative, the film jumped from surreal scene to surreal scene - we have Sam Lowry dreaming of being a winged warrior saving a woman from falling to her death, the next we jump to Archibald Buttle being arrested and sentenced to death and then Sam is fighting this massive robotic samurai. It really was just bizarre and after a while the weirdness all became a bit much. I just don't have the patience for it. Maybe if there was an obvious deeper meaning than I would get it, but it just seemed like it was being weird for the sake of being weird.

Having said that, Terry Gillam was inspired by 1984, despite having never read it. Gillam was also highly inspired by Fellini and I could see his influence here. Brazil was like a grotesque parody of both Fellini's work and of 1984. Lowry is the stand-in for Winston Smith, another low-level bureaucrat stuck in a totalitarian system. It's not Big Brother and Emmanuel Goldstein, but it is dystopic nonetheless. The origins of this world are not explored in any great detail, but there is an over-reliance on technology which usually malfunctions. And *spoiler alert* just when it looks like Lowry has escaped and will live happily ever after, it was all a torture-inspired hallucination.

And I know this was in the eighties, but the special effects looked awful. From the tinny explosions to the flamethrowers that were obviously painted paper, they really looked like they were from a cheap B-film. Terry Gillam has referred to this as the second in his trilogy of imagination, and it was nominated for best original screenplay. There is no doubt that this was an original, imaginative film. Confusing, surreal and abstract, but definitely original. I can safely say that I haven't seen anything like it before.

La Dolce Vita review

 Number 212 on the top 1000 films of all time is Federico Fellini's 'La Dolce Vita.'

Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni) is a tabloid journalist who is going through a mid-life crisis. To rediscover his passion in life, he spends seven days and nights journeying through Rome.

This is my third Fellini film after 8 1/2 and La Strada and I was really hoping it would be closer to the latter than the former. But alas it was not to be. Just like 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita was slow, boring and surreal. It reminds me of Modernist literature where nothing happens in the real world. Everything plays out in the character's minds. And there's nothing inherently wrong in having films that are effectively character studies, but you need to have interesting and likeable characters. Similarly, to the Great Gatsby, La Dolce Vita is populated by rich people having existential moments. These are people I'm never going to relate to or care about. You can only imagine my horror at realising that I have to watch these characters for three bloody hours.

And that is especially true of the arrogant and unlikeable Marcello who very much has a meltdown at film's conclusion. All of the movie's themes culminate in the surrealist and most vulgar way. Marcello and his friends break into a beach house. Marcello becomes drunk and tries inciting the partygoers into having an orgy. He then has a young woman crawling on her knees and starts to ride her before covering her in alcohol, ripping a pillow and sticking feathers to her. And he only does this out of spite as the partygoers refused to agree to his demands. Yet the young woman is fine with it? And nobody else reacts to this. It's just so weird.

You get surrealism and then you get Fellini. He is on a whole other level. Let me tell you, I did not have a good life while watching this film.

Donnie Darko review

 Number 209 on the top 1000 films of all time is Richard Kelly's science-fiction, psychological thriller 'Donnie Darko.'

Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a schizophrenic high schooler who also sleepwalks. He is haunted by an apparition of a man in a bunny mask who warns him about the coming end of the world. Meanwhile, Donnie also becomes fascinated by the notion of time travel and starts researching into spaceships and portals.

This was a weird, surreal film. A film that you think has to mean something. But maybe it doesn't mean anything and maybe that's the point. Nihilism is a central theme of this film. Donnie might be mentally unstable, but he is also very intelligent. His English teacher Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore) thinks so when he gives an astute interpretation of Graham Greene's short story 'the Destructors.' His physics teacher notices Donnie's interest in time travel and gives him a book called 'the Philosophy of Time Travel,' written by once famed scientist Roberta Sparrow, now a senile old woman living on the edge of town. But Donnie also not afraid to challenge authority and to take the meaning that's so important to adults and reducing it to nothing.

His gym teacher Kitty Farmer (Beth Grant) plays self-help tapes by self-help guru Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze) as part of her class. Donnie openly criticises these trapes. When Cunningham visits the school, Donnie publicly challenges his ideas. A meaning that holds so much value so so many is scattered into the wind.

And, of course, lots of meaning has been attributed to Donnie's hallucination of the man in the bunny mash. As well as providing ominous warnings, it also acts as the devil on Donnie's shoulder - pushing him into delinquent acts like flooding his school or burning down Cunningham's house. Perhaps the rabbit represents our unconscious desire to cause or mayhem or to challenge the system. it's always waiting in the background ready to strike, only leashed by our own vague senses of morality. A fluid morality that can change on the drop of the hat. 

The time travel aspect links in nicely to a key theme of the film - you have to find happiness wherever you can. As the film progresses, Donnie's nihilism slowly dissolves as he starts to finding meaning, partially due to his new girlfriend Gretchen (Jena Malone.) Once he has found his meaning and his happiness, he enters a wormhole sending him twenty-eight days back in time.

Having said all of that, considering the film's nihilism, a lot of my review is completely meaningless as well. So, I'll end on an unobjectionable point. Gary Jules' cover of Mad World by Tears for Fears, is the perfect way to conclude this film, as well as one of the best covers of all time.

8 1/2 Review

Number 181 on the top 1000 films of all time is Fellini's 1963 surrealist, comedy-drama 8 1/2.

Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastrioianni) is a famous Italian film director who experiences a creative block when directing his latest science fiction film. To overcome this block, he revisits pivotal points and relationships in his life.

Much like any of Ingmar Bergman's film, 8 1/2 is a film that can only be enjoyed if you're a diehard cinophile. I know that I'm doing a challenge to watch the top 1000 films of all time, but I am not a diehard cinophile. I'm not that deep when it comes to films. There's stuff I like and stuff I don't. And 8 1/2 wasn't something I particularly liked or could follow. Films like these are usually surreal - to the point of frustration, and I don't have the patience to wade through the many dream sequences or worse have to figure out what's a dream and what's reality.

Films about films like Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood have an air of superiority. They're not so much a reference to what came before, but an ego trip for directors proving how much of a film buff they are. Granted being made almost sixty hours before OUATIH, 8 1/2 didn't have the same air of superiority, but it did feel like Fellini was dangling ideas over my head that I'm not intelligent enough to know they're even there.

But like I say, I'm not a cinophile and probably not intelligent enough to even begin interpreting this film. One IMDB reviewer noted you have to watch the film a few times to understand it. I probably won't be doing that anytime soon unless I have trouble getting to sleep.