Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

Guy: Goodbye, beautiful.

Jill: Watch out for the melodrama.

I've always loved that line so much -- "Watch out for the melodrama." This is such a great film, one of Peter Weir's best (and fuck if that ain't saying something, given Peter Weir's career), and no I will never let what a racist piece of shit Mel Gibson turned out to be rob me of this movie's glory so don't ask. Can it really be that this movie doesn't have a blu-ray release? Or at least an American one? Much less a 4K???? Just an old DVD!!! This is criminal! Actually what I need is for Curzon to put out one of their big beautiful box-sets of Peter Weir's filmography like they have for Lars Von Trier and Michael Haneke. Prized possessions, those beauties. 

Anyway long story short -- it's Sigourney Weaver's 76th birthday today! And we love her more than chocolate milkshakes so we wish her a very happy day. I'm going to be seeing her next new movie in a couple of weeks, and it's not just any ol' "next new movie" -- it's Bryan Fuller's Dust Bunny! As I told you it's screening at the Brooklyn Horror Fest here in NYC and I'll be there. See? There are good things still in the world. I too was beginning to wonder...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Last Wave (1977)

David: We've lost our dreams. Then they 

come back and we don't know what they mean.  

A happy 80 to the great Peter Weir today! If you've never seen this strange little apocalyptic fever-dream of a masterpiece go seek it out, it's unforgettable. (It is streaming on Criterion right now, as well as being available on 4K blu -- I should probably replace my Criterion DVD at this point.) Anyway you can't go wrong with watching ANY Peter Weir movie. Just masterpiece after masterpiece. I've said this a half billion times but now but what an underrated genius he is.

It's Raining Criterion Awesomeness This April

Besides Criterion putting out Lone Star today (which I just posted about) they're doubling down on awesomeness because it's the middle of the month and they're announcing their new releases! These releases are for April, and they kick off with (like Lone Star) a vastly underrated 90s drama -- Nancy Savoca's 1991 sweet-as-heck love story Dogfight starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. And also like Lone Star this is a movie I haven't seen since it came out so this will be a wonderful chance to refamiliarize myself with its wonders. Specifically River Phoenix with a buzzcut. I was young when this was out but this was the movie where I finally got River's dreamboat appeal. Boys in them 60s clothes and haircuts -- swoon. This hits disc on April 30th, check out all of the extra features (which includes a chat between Savioca, Taylor, and the great Marry Harron!) at the above link. 

And April is a big month for 4K upgrades from our fave physical media label -- they're upgrading three masterpieces with new restorations of Matthieu Kassovitz' La haine (mmmm Vincent Cassel). Mikhail Kalatozov’s legendary 1965 portrait of revolution I Am Cuba, and Peter Weir's perfect sumptuous and haunting Picnic at Hanging Rock (which is one of my favorite movies of all time). You can literally never go wrong with Peter Weir. And then to top off the awesomeness on April 16th they're dropping a 4K restoration of  Béla Tarr's hypnotic wonder Werckmeister Harmonies from the year 2000 -- this was the first Tarr film I ever saw and it is burned deeply in my brain. An incredible black-and-white astonishment, this one.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Truman Show (1998)

Truman: The early bird gathers no moss!

The rolling stone catches the worm!

Happy 25 to Peter Weir's great and prophetic movie!

We are all Truman now.

15 Off My Head: Siri Says 1998

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Siri is giving me the whiplash! The last few editions of our beloved far and wide "Siri Says When" series -- in which I ask the voice inside of my telephone for a number between 1 and 100 and then use that number to name my favorite movies from the corresponding year -- have taken us from the 1920s to the 1960s to the 1990s to the 1930s and now, today right on back into the 1990s again. I think the fewer numbers that remain the wilder these swings will get, but funny enough Siri gave me a number we've never done on the very first try today -- 98! So I guess Siri really wants us to look at The Movies of 1998 today! Whatever you says, Siri!

And you know, 1999 gets all the credit for being an amazing year of cinema -- which it really admittedly was, and funny enough 1999 remains the only year of the 90s I have yet to do one of these posts for -- but 1998 really should get more credit than it does, because hot damn there are a ton of movies from 1998 that rocked my face off. So many that today's list isn't the usual 5 -- it's not even the occasional stretched-out-to-10. No today we're doing a Top 15 because I couldn't possibly chop off a single one of these 15. I refuse! And unless you can find the secret sub-basement from which I am now posting this post and chop off both of my hands before I hit "publish" you can't make me! Ha!

My 15 Favorite Movies of 1998

The Truman Show

(dir. Peter Weir)

-- released on June 5th 1998-- 

Happiness

(dir. Todd Solondz)

-- released on October 16th 1998 -- 

Wild Things

(dir. John McNaughton)

-- released on March 20th 1998 -- 

The Opposite of Sex

(dir. Don Roos)

-- released on May 22nd 1998 -- 

Babe: Pig in the City

(dir. George Miller)

-- released on November 25th 1998 -- 

Hands on a Hardbody

(dir. S.R. Bindler),

-- released on July 10th 1998 -- 

Love is the Devil

(dir. John Maybury)

-- released on October 7th 1998 -- 

Velvet Goldmine

(dir. Todd Haynes)

-- released on October 23rd 1998 -- 

Dark City

(dir. Alex Proyas)

-- released on February 27th 1998 -- 

Pleasantville

(dir. Gary Ross)

-- released on October 23rd 1998 -- 

A Simple Plan

(dir. Sam Raimi)

-- released on January 22nd 1998 -- 

Out of Sight

(dir. Steven Soderbergh)

-- released on June 26th 1998 -- 

Gods & Monsters

(dir. Bill Condon)

-- released on November 4th 1998 -- 

Living Out Loud 

(dir. Richard LaGravanese)

-- released on November 6th 1998 -- 

Rushmore

(dir. Wes Anderson)

-- released on October 9th 1998 -- 

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Runners-up: Saving Private Ryan (dir. Steven Spielberg), There's Something About Mary (dir. Farrellys), A Bug's Life (dir. John Lasseter), Shakespeare in Love (dir. John Madden), Apt Pupil (dir. Bryan Singer), Great Expectations (dir. Cuarón), The Big Lebowski (dir. Coens), The Spanish Prisoner (dir. Mamet)...

... Lost in Space (dir. Stephen Hopkins), High Art (dir. Lisa Cholodenko), The Last Days of Disco (dir. Whit Stillman), The X-Files (dir. Rob Bowman), Buffalo '66 (dir. Vincent Gallo), Pi (dir. Aronofsky), Lolita (dir. Adrian Lyne), Halloween: H20 (dir. Steve Miner), Snake Eyes (dir. De Palma)...

... The Slums of Beverly Hills (dir. Tamara Jenkins), Blade (dir. Steven Norrington), Pecker (dir. John Waters), 54 (dir.), Cube (dir.), Your Friends and Neighbors (dir. Neil LaBute), Urban Legend (dir. Jamie Blanks), Beloved (dir. Demme), American History X (dir. Tony Kaye), Psycho (dir. Gus van Sant), Croupier (dir. Mike Hodges), The Faculty (dir. Robert Rodriguez), The Thin Red Line (dir. Terrence Malick)...

... Hurlyburly (dir. Anthony Drazan), I Stand Alone (dir. Gaspar Noé), Ringu (dir. Hideo Nakata), Meeting People is Easy (dir. Grant Gee), Very Bad Things (dir. Peter Berg), Beseiged (dir. Bertolucci), God Said "Ha!" (dir. Julia Sweeney), Hideous Kinky (dir. Gillies MacKinnon), The Butcher Boy (dir. Neil Jordan), Clay Pigeons (dir. David Dobkin), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (dir. Sullivan)

Never Seen: Life is Beautiful (dir. Robert Benigni), Mulan (dir. Barry Cook), Little Voice (dir. Mark Herman), Affliction (dir. Paul Schrader), The Prince of Egypt (dir. Brenda Chapman), Spice World (dir. Bob Spiers), Bulworth (dir. Warren Beatty), He Got Game (dir. Spike Lee), Clockwatchers (dir. Jill Sprecher), Sliding Doors (dir. Peter Howitt)...

... Hilary & Jackie (dir. Anand Tucker), Can't Hardly Wait (dir. Harry Elfont), The Wedding Singer (dir. Frank Coraci), The Boxer (dir. Jim Sheridan), The Celebration (dir. Thomas Vinterberg), Rounders (dir. John Dahl), Henry Fool (dir. Hal Hartley), Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss (dir. Tommy O'Haver), Practical Magic (dir. Griffin Dunne)

---------------------------------------

What are your favorite movies of 1998?

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Bats By Pattz

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I have gotten behind on my RPattz news! And lordy lordy there's a little. First thing first that shot above from Rob's Dior Homme campaign somehow slipped by me -- click it, it embiggens a bunch. (See the previous stuff here.) Now on to meatier things -- today comes official word that Pattinson is re-teaming with his High Life director Claire Denis for a film called The Stars At Noon; we've known they planned on re-teaming, they clearly adored each other, but this is official official. The movie will also star Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actress Margaret Qualley, and is about a "passionate romance" between an American journalist (Qualley) and Rob's businessman set against the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1984. And yes, we should all probably be picturing Sigourney Weaver and Mel Gibson in Peter Weir's tremendous The Year of Living Dangerously when we read that description, since that's basically the same plot.

That said Denis and Weir are pretty different filmmakers so they'll probably come up with pretty different films. And this sounds sort of close to Denis' film White Material with Isbaelle Huppert to me, too? (Also for the record I did not like WM at all, so I hope not.) Anyway I look forward to Denis & Pattinson working together again -- I thought High Life was a marvel. Moving on to the other RPattz news I can't believe I haven't posted the first look of him as Batman:
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I think I was off-line the day this dropped so I missed all of that conversation. I use "conversation" broadly since it mostly seemed to be a bunch of people making jokes about how dark the images are. Still it's good to have confirmation that Rob's astonishingly jawline is killing it under the cowl -- not surprising, but good to see.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Fearless (1993)

...Max: People don't believe in god so much as
they choose not to believe in nothing.

Peter Weir's Fearless, one of my favorite movies that I nonetheless haven't re-watched in at least a decade, was released 25 years ago on this day. I was just talking about the movie a couple of weeks ago when I wished Rosie Perez a happy birthday at the start of September - clearly it's on my mind and is well over-due for a re-watch. Fans? Anybody? Really I should just re-watch the entirety of Peter Weir's filmography because he's worth it.

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Oh Rosie

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If you click on over to The Film Experience I gave the birthday girl Rosie Perez some love this afternoon -- she's a deep fave from way back and any chance I get to do just that I'm gonna. Excited to read she's in Dee Rees' next movie - perhaps we can get a good and proper Rosie-assaince! I am here for it.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Gallipoli (1981)

Camel Driver: How did [the war] start?
Archy: Don't know exactly,
but it was the German's fault.

A happy 74 to director Peter Weir today!

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Truman Show (1998)

Mike: Christof, let me ask you, why do you think
that Truman has never come close to discovering
the true nature of his world until now?
Christof: We accept the reality of the world with
which we're presented. It's as simple as that.

Peter Weir's master-class in existential comedy turns 20 today!

There's a good piece at Vulture talking about how the film

for-saw our future but it's all there in those lines above.

Seems as if people have given up their desire to even

choose their own realities now - think? Why think? 

Good Afternoon, Good Evening & Good Night!

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We already wished Peter Weir a happy birthday earlier with some Naked Gay Mel Gibson but we like him enough as a director to keep the party going and so we devoted this week's "Beauty vs Beast" at The Film Experience to his absolutely terrific 1998 flick The Truman Show - click on over to vote!

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Good Morning, World

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All I know about this little flash of Mel Gibson kissing another dude is it's from Peter Weir's 1981 film Gallopoli - it looks like it's behind-the-scenes footage from the set, but I have never seen Gallopoli (I know, I have been saving it for a rainy day since Weir's so unprolific) so I don't know that for 100% sure. But Gallopoli sure seems like it was a gay ol' time for Mel.

Anyway sorry to start off your Monday by making you mourn what we lost Mel-Gibson-wise between hot gay 1981 and racist crazy 2017 - what once was so wonderful has turned to ashes in our mouths. (But then this is true for more than just Mel Gibson.) But it's Peter Weir's 73rd birthday today and we wanted to wish him a happy. Please make another movie, Peter!

5 Off My Head: They Call Him Harrison

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As you might already know today's the 75th birthday of the national treasure that is Harrison Ford. I wish I'd realized it earlier (preparation is our friend) but we're winging this - I went through our Harrison Archives and saw five years ago we did a nice big gratuitous post for his 70th birthday, so that's out. But here's something I was surprised to see I hadn't done -- I have never given love to his actual performances! You know, that whole "acting" thing he does. (Not every time, but sometimes.)

Now a list like this is obviously at the outset completely eaten up by his three biggest most iconic roles - and by "iconic" I don't mean for just him; I mean for The Movies. A picture of Harrison Ford in character as Indiana Jones, Han Solo, or Rick Deckard would feel safely ensconced in a representation of The Movies, period. So we're leaving them out!

Here are my 5 favorite performances that aren't those 3...

John Book, Witness

"I'm learning a lot about manure. Very interesting."

Norman Spencer, What Lies Beneath

"It was a passive aggressive masterpiece."

Jack Trainer, Working Girl

"The earth moved. The angels wept.
The Polaroids are, are, uh... are in my other coat."

Dr. Richard Kimble, The Fugitive

"Are you suggesting that I killed my wife? Are you saying that I crushed her skull and that I shot her? How dare you! When I came home, there was a man in my house. I fought with this man. He had a mechanical arm. You find this man. You find this man."

Dr. Richard Walker, Frantic

"No corpse stinks that much after only 12 hours.
Take my word for it."

-----------------------------------

Weird that three of these are doctors right?
(Four if you count the scientist he plays in Beneath.)
He plays doctors an awful lot - I never noticed that.

What are your favorite Harrison Ford performances?

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