Monday, October 08, 2007

What's In the Netflix Queue #10

Another round:

1. Nip Tuck Season 4 (HD DVD, 4 discs)- You know, this really is one big male soap opera. Transgenders, lurid sex, preposterous story lines with serial killers- but its all so damn fun and I've been with it since episode 1.
2. House of Voices- I've seen so many horror films, its kinda ridiculous so I have to find my scares in smaller, hidden affairs. This 2004 French film concerns a housekeeper (Virginie Ledoye, remember this beauty from "The Beach"?) who gets involved with a haunted house.
3. Serpico- With Lumet's brilliant "Prince of the City" finally on DVD, I felt the urge to go back and re-watch this Pacino classic. I've said it before, but nobody does New York crime like Lumet. Here's hoping his latest film is half as electrifying as the two above mentioned flicks.
4. Room 666- Wim Wenders film where he sets up a camera in a room and interviews various directors during the Cannes film fest one year.
5. The Fifth Horseman Is Near- Straight from the capsule review on Netflix: After being barred from practicing medicine in Prague, a Jewish doctor takes a job in a Nazi-operated warehouse. But when a political fugitive is critically injured, he risks everything to ease the man's pain. Zbynek Brynych directs this nuanced political allegory that's much more than a historical drama; it's also a finely wrought study of the pitfalls of contemporary communist Czechoslovakia.
6. Battle Royale- Originally saw this about 3 years ago, and its time for another viewing. I remember it being balls-out fun!
7. Vanishing Point- After all the talk about this film when Tarantino's "Death Proof" was released, I figured it was time to see what I was missing.
8. Entrails of a Beautiful Woman- Again, only the capsule can do this any justice: The Japanese Yakuza have stepped up their reign of terror, amping up the brutality of their crimes. After they drug and assault a young woman, she winds up killing herself in front of her doctor (Kazuo Komizo), who decides to seek revenge in her patients name by taking on the mob herself. The punishment she metes out is worse than anything concocted by the criminals, who are rendered helpless by her endless quest for justice. This is one of those left-over Asian cult cinema picks from an earlier list.
9. The Bridge- Controversial documentary released last year about the Golden Gate Bridge. Director Eric Steele placed his camera, motionless, for over a year at the bridge and captured numerous suicide jumps.
10. The Burmese Harp- Criterion finally released two of Kon Ichikawa's greatest films earlier this year and this is part 1 them. I can't wait to pair it with "Fires On the Plain", two searing anti-war dramas.

2 comments:

PIPER said...

Glad you liked Prince Of The City. It is one of my favorites and I don't feel it gets the respect it deserves.

Joe Baker said...

It is one of the greats, Piper. I saw an old VHS copy about 10 years ago, but for whatever reason, I didn't recognize just how good a film it is. Maybe that's because without seeing enough 'crime pics', its hard to understand just how detailed and painstakingly Lumet recreates this investigation. I bought the deluxe DVD when it came out earlier this year and have watched it at least 3 times since.