1. Goliath- Micro indie auteur David Zellner's story about a man who finds his life coming apart. I wasn't a fan of Zellner's previous film "Dear Pillow", but this film did win some great word of mouth at the '08 Sundance Film Festival.
2. Everything's Fine- Robert DeNiro received some subtle praise for this film about a man who tries to visit and reconnect with his children. This one kinda got lost in the shuffle. I meant to watch it towards the end of 2009, then never did, then it just ended up in the middle of my queue.
3. Backtrack- One of the few films I added after the death of Dennis Hopper and the only film he directed that I've yet to see. I'm not holding out much anticipation, though, as I see the dreaded "Alan Smithee" is also attached to the thing. But damn that cast- Jodie Foster, John Turturro, Dean Stockwell....
4. Joy House- Rene Clement's mood 60's crime romance about a gangster hiding out in a mansion, falling for two different ladies... one of them Jane Fonda. Part of the Alain Delon box set released early last year.
5. Night Train To Munich- Directed by Carol Reed.... Nazis... World War 2 intrigue. I'm already hooked.
6. Femme Fatale- Giving this one a re watch. Definitely the high point for DePalma since the late 90's. I haven't seen it since watching it on opening night and wonder if it holds up.
7. Murder ala Mode/The Moving Finger- Early DePalma movie that looks to be packaged as one of those cheap "drive in" spectacular box sets... and very surprised to see such an oddity from DePalma represented on DVD. The other film, titled "The Moving Finger" sounds more intriguing though: "A rare beatnik artifact of the early 1960s, one of only a few such films made before the hippies took over Hollywood. Low budget and in b&w, it's set in Greenwich Village, with what seems like a mostly improvised script. It begins as a late film noir crime tale involving a bank robbery where only one of a group of thieves escapes with his life, as well as $90,000 in loot. Injured and on the run, he hides in a local tour bus and is soon taken in by a group of bohemians who shoot him full of morphine to ease his pain and let him sleep it off on a mattress. Mason is the head beatnik. There's also the owner of both an upstairs coffeehouse and garret, where these beatniks hang out. They, in turn, bring the tourist trade in. Although the robbery is supposed to be the main focus of the plot, it quickly turns into more of a character study featuring these rebellious bon vivants and their odd lifestyle..." Written by Richard Santoro
8. The American Friend- I'm about to go on a Wim Wenders bender. Recently, a friend gave me bootleg copies of two Wenders films that have always eluded me- "Kings of the Road" and "Alice In the Cities". Can't wait to dig into those two as well as revisiting this late 70's German New Wave masterpiece that blends American crime, comedy and film noir into a trance-inducing thing of beauty.
9. The Deep- I feel I've seen this one, but upon looking over the filmography of Peter Yates after his recent death, it was one of the few I didn't have rated. Nazi gold, deep sea diving, Jacqueline Bisset.... and all on Blu Ray as well!
10. The Sender- This is one of those shots in the dark that can either yield a tremendous experience or another early 80's trash horror flick. I added it last year during the month of October and just continued to shift movies over it. Recently, while thumbing through an old copy of Film Comment, I noticed the film listed on several "Ten Best" lists in that issue from '82. The story: "When a young man (Zeljko Ivanek) attempts suicide and fails, he's rewarded with a long-term stay in a mental hospital, where he begins exhibiting even stranger behavior. A staff psychiatrist (Kathryn Harrold) seems to be the only one willing to believe that the new patient is telepathically controlling the minds of the doctors and patients around him. But just how is he able to unleash his darkest nightmares upon them?"
Thoughts on any of these titles or ones I should add, please drop a comment.
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