THE GREATEST YEARS FOR FILM

Whether it was in the cosmos or just chance, once in awhile, it occurs that a string of great films are all released within the same year. It doesn’t happen as often as you think, and even though movies are all subjective, over time, certain films have gained a certain amount of fame or notoriety and have stuck in the subconscious of moviegoers everywhere. Here are five specific years (with a couple of others peppered throughout as well) that stand out as the most extraordinary years for the film going experience.

 1957

Many critics will tell you that the 1950s were largely responsible for the shift in cinema that has been ongoing ever since. Before the 50s, movies were typically produced by the five big studios; 20th Century Fox, RKO Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and MGM. But the 1950s brought one innumerable phenomenon that would change pop culture forever: television. Big studios struggled to find new ways to attract audiences to theaters, while changes occurred throughout the movie world. John Cassavetes was directing independent films in New York, and Francois Truffaut changed everything when The 400 Blows was released in the latter part of the decade. In America, movies were still clinging to their old-fashioned sensibilities while being challenged by new wave techniques. 1957 saw a host of great films being made including The Bridge on the River Kwai, 12 Angry Men, Paths of Glory, Witness For the Prosecution, and Sweet Smell of Success. It was a particularly amazing year for non-American filmmakers as well. The Cranes are Flying, Ingmar Bergman's phenomenal double whammy of The Seventh Seal & Wild Strawberries, Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria and Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood were all released that year.

 1968

1968 is probably the most memorable and infamous time in American history. It was a cultural, social and political landmark year. Both Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated that year. The U.S. continued its arduous fight in Vietnam. Richard Nixon began one of the most controversial presidency’s in history. And thanks to Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones and Stanley Kubrick, pop culture would never be the same again. Notable films include Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, the Steve McQueen classic Bullitt, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, Faces, The Producers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and The Planet of the Apes.

 1976

You can pick any year from the 1970s and you’ll find a host of extra special films that have held up as some of the best movies ever made. Take for example, 1973, which saw the release of Paper Moon, Mean Streets, Papillon, Serpico, The Sting, and The Exorcist. There’s also 1975, with movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Man Who Would Be King, Jaws, Barry Lyndon, Nashville and Dog Day Afternoon. 1979 was a brilliant year for movies with releases like Apocalypse Now, The Warriors, Kramer vs. Kramer, Breaking Away, All That Jazz, Being There, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Ridley Scott’s Alien, and Woody Allen’s Manhattan. But the year that stands out the most is 1976, which features a host of classics that have penetrated the heart of movie lovers and popular culture for decades. These movies are synonymous with cinematic success in every meaning of the word. 1976 was simply the apex of cinema with releases like Taxi Driver, All the President’s Men, Carrie, Network, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Omen, Rocky, The Front, The Last Tycoon, Marathon Man, Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900, Roman Polanski’s chiller The Tenant and finally Alfred Hitchcock’s last film before his death, Family Plot.

 1980

1980 was the last great year for the golden age of cinema that started in the 1960s. After the release of Star Wars in 1977, studios systematically took back control of their films from directors and gave it to the executives who were looking to repeat the success of the effects-heavy Star Wars series. This meant that the conscious heavy intellectuals who were given unprecedented freedom and creative control in the 60s and 70s either had to adapt to the enormous change in how movies were made or be shunned by critics and audiences. 1980 was headlined by Martin Scorsese's brilliant Raging Bull. Scorsese had made this picture after a three year break from movies. The film was meant to evoke the atmospheric, black & white style of the movies Scorsese grew up watching. It was to be his entry into the lore of great American cinema of the 20th Century. Scorsese hoped to pay homage to his childhood heroes--Huston, Ford, Welles, Kazan, Hitchcock--all masters of film directing. In doing so, he secured his place in movie history. At the Academy Awards that year however, the film, quite like its protagonist, went down losing. Despite Robert De Niro's triumph as Best Actor, Raging Bull lost the coveted Best Director and Best Picture categories to Robert Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People. Also that year, William Friedkin made Cruising, a film about underground gay clubs in New York starring Al Pacino. John Landis directed The Blues Brothers. Stanley Kubrick did The Shining. David Lynch did The Elephant Man. Bruce Beresford scored an Oscar nod for his great Australian film Breaker Morant. There was Alan Parker’s Fame, Michael Cimino’s infamous Heaven’s Gate, Ken Russell’s Altered States, as well as other notable features like The Empire Strikes Back, Somewhere in Time, American Gigolo, The Big Red One, The Long Good Friday, Stardust Memories, and the Foreign Language Oscar Winner Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears.

 1994

Filmmakers spent the majority of the 90s paying homage to the films of the 70s. Independent cinema was gaining ground, and most filmmakers were attempting to revive the spirit of the 60s and 70s, and 1994 was the year when it all came together for many of the best filmmakers of the time. It was the year that saw the releases of movies like Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Hoop Dreams, Nobody’s Fool, Quiz Show, Once Were Warriors, Luc Besson’s The Professional, James Cameron's True Lies, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors: Red, Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express, Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, Yimou Zhang’s To Live, Nikita Mikhalkov’s Burnt by the Sun and Kevin Smith’s no-budget cult film Clerks.

There have been several other memorable years for film. No one can forget 1939, when The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington were all released. There was also 1950, with releases like All About Eve, Rashoman, and Sunset Blvd. More recently, 1999 was a huge year for films, which saw another shift after the release of The Matrix, in addition to American Beauty, Magnolia, Fight Club and The Green Mile. 2006 was a relatively great year for movies as well with releases like The Departed, The Lives of Others, The Prestige and Pan's Labyrinth. Forgive me if I've left out some of your favorite movies, and if I've missed anything that was released during any of these years, please make note of it.

SCARECROW (JERRY SCHATZBERG, 1973)

Scarecrow, USA, 1973
Dir: Jerry Schatzberg
Cast: Gene Hackman, Al Pacino

Ultimately, a film is considered a comedy or tragedy based on its conclusion. In the case of Scarecrow, it is a bittersweet tale of an unlikely friendship that stands out as one of the best buddy pictures ever. The film stars Gene Hackman and Al Pacino as two drifters who meet by the side of a road and form a connection that takes them through a journey across the U.S. Mr. Hackman portrays Max, an ex-con with a tough attitude who decides to partner up with Lionel, a former sailor, played by Mr. Pacino. The two are an odd couple in the classic sense. Max is a hard-nosed criminal with hopes of opening up his own business, while Lionel is gullible but friendly and eager to befriend Max. The two set out to find closure and sow up old ties—Max with his sister in Denver, and Lionel with his ex-girlfriend in Detroit.

Directed by Jerry Schatzberg, this was his second collaboration with Pacino. They first made The Panic in Needle Park in 1971, Pacino’s screen debut, which centered on a group of heroin addicts on the Upper West Side in New York who hung out in what was then known as Needle Park. Both men received attention after the film’s release, and Pacino was then hired to play Marlon Brando’s son in The Godfather.

Many critics dismissed the Scarecrow script as weak, but it’s the ups and downs of these two loners, the struggles that continue to derail their ultimate goal of cleaning up their act and opening up an honest business together that makes the film so interesting. It’s a movie about outsiders, so going down the straight and narrow path is not in the fortunes of these characters and first-time screenwriter Garry Michael White makes sure never to make the road to the straight life an easy one for them.

Also amazing is Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematography, which is simply spellbinding and captures a slice of Americana on celluloid that was common during the period. Zsigmond was a relative unknown at the time, but he'd go on to lens other classics like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Deer Hunter.

Scarecrow is a film that has not aged well, and has been overshadowed by the more high profile films of Hackman and Pacino’s careers. Hackman had just won the Academy Award for Best Actor for The French Connection the year before, and Pacino was fresh off of The Godfather and Serpico and was getting ready to do The Godfather Part II and Dog Day Afternoon. It was the golden age of cinema, a time when movies didn't have the obligatory happy endings that Hollywood force feeds us today. It is also of no surprise that both lead actors give exceptional performances, and make for one of the best pairings in movie history.

Scarecrow is currently available on DVD from Warner Home Video. Don’t miss this one.

COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN (ROBERT ALTMAN, 1982)

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, USA, 1982
Dir: Robert Altman
Cast: Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is a movie about many things. For one, it's about lasting friendships that never die no matter how much time passes by. The movie reminds us that the past can never be erased and the memories will never cease to exist even as people grow apart and change. Directed by the legendary Robert Altman, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is based on Ed Graczyk's 1976 play of the same name. The superb cast includes Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black and Kathy Bates, who star as women reunited in their high school hangout diner on the 20th anniversary of their idol James Dean's death. What starts out as a nostalgic reunion unfolds into a shocking revelation of the secrets and lies that each character holds within themselves.

It’s a film that touches upon social issues, femininity, homosexuality, false identities, and the fleeting illusion of fame. It's one of Altman's most interesting pieces, a film which limits the boundaries of cinema and takes place entirely in one location juxtaposing two very distinct time periods, the 1950s, a time when Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson grabbed all the headlines, and muscle cars and Elvis Presley ruled youth culture, and the 1970s, when the U.S. was in a recession during one of America's darkest periods, following the Vietnam war and the Watergate scandal. It was a time when many realized that the dreams of the past had evaporated, and all that was left was a country in decline.

Altman, directing the picture in 1982, uses the hindsight afforded to a filmmaker who chronicles events of the past, to remind us that the past can be an ugly creature, and that change is inevitable. The nostalgia and 50s doo-wop atmosphere add a special ambience to a story filled with emotions and unsolved issues between old friends.

Especially terrific are Sandy Dennis as a forlorn woman in her 40s, still obsessed over her teenage idol and unable to let go of the past, and Karen Black, whose character is the most normal of the bunch, yet holds the biggest secret of them all. Dennis, mostly known for her Oscar winning turn in Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? proved to be terrific as a James Dean extremist in another ensemble film, a role she originated (along with the other cast members) on stage.

Altman, known for his varied work such as MASH, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, 3 Women, The Player and Short Cuts, delivers one of his most underappreciated yet profoundly shocking films which he also, briefly, brought to the stage on Broadway the same year of its movie release. Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is exactly the type of film Altman tried to perfect throughout his career, the type of film that moves around like a snake, irksome, and unraveling secrets that otherwise weren’t expected to be unraveled. In his 1982 review of the film, Roger Ebert began by saying “If Robert Altman hadn't directed this movie, the reviews would have described it as Altmanesque. It's a mixture of the bizarre and the banal, a slice of lives that could never have been led, a richly textured mixture of confessions, obsessions, and surprises.”

Although the film has yet to have a DVD release, it has still gained a cult following over the last 30 years and was the first dramatic performance of Cher’s movie career. It was recently restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and still manages to screen at art houses around the country.

NETWORK (SIDNEY LUMET, 1976)

Network, USA, 1976
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Cast: William Holden, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway

"All necessities provided. All anxieties tranquilized. All boredom amused."

Have people forgotten about this movie? Network, directed by the legendary Sidney Lumet, is a classic that remains as timely and relevant today as it was four decades ago. The film was released theatrically during a time when America was recovering from a war overseas, the resignation of President Richard Nixon due to the Watergate scandal, and a nation undergoing a recession that mimics the one the U.S. is currently in.

Written by Paddy Chafeysky, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated and successful screenwriters, he is the only person to win three Academy Awards for his scripts, the last of which was this brilliant satire of television and consumerism. The cast is magnificent, and rare, three different actors won Oscars for their roles, one of only two films in history to do so (the other is A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951). Headlined by William Holden, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, and Robert Duvall, it is a spectacular arrangement of veteran actors at the peaks of their careers.

The film’s plot shrewdly deals with a news program and television station that are rocked after a news anchor (Finch) has a nervous breakdown on live television and begins to preach his rants to audiences watching. Meanwhile, the new head of the network (Duvall) tries to cash in on it, collaborating with a female programming executive (Dunaway) on a show built around his prophecies.

Lumet is at the top of his game in this film. His masterful direction behind the camera can only be described as being sinister silkiness. Released in 1976, the film was beloved by audiences and critics alike. That same year, several other masterpieces were released like All The President's Men, Taxi Driver, Marathon Man, The Omen, and the eventual Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards, Rocky.

Lumet passed away in April of 2011. He left behind a glorious legacy of work both in television and film. His close collaborations with his actors resulted in some of the best performances in cinema history. Who can forget Al Pacino as the controversial cop Frank Serpico in Serpico? Or Sonny from Dog Day Afternoon screaming “Attica, Attica!” Or Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men, Paul Newman in The Verdict, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Lumet’s final movie Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. The master was 86 years old when he passed away.

One scene that stands out in particular is one where the chairman of C.C.A., the company that owns the television station known as UBS, Arthur Jensen, explains to the mad prophet Howard Beale (Finch) how the system of the world really works. The scene is exemplary and his words are frighteningly still true nearly 40 years after they were spoken. It is the only scene that Ned Beatty, who portrayed Jensen, appears in the film and it was enough to win him an Oscar nomination for it.

Network excels at being prescient and prophetic, all the while reflecting the scary reality of politically and socially changing times. Network retains that honesty and brutality through words in modern times. It still packs a punch, as they say, and remains a timeless political and social satire. And it will continue to be one of cinema's most significant accomplishments in its history.

DEEP END (JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI, 1970)

Deep End, UK/West Germany, 1970
Dir: Jerzy Skolimowski
Cast: John Moulder-Brown, Jane Asher

Jerzy Skolimowski’s marvelous and unknown treasure Deep End has enjoyed a cult following ever since its initial release over 40 years ago. The film concerns a 15-year old boy, Mike (John Moulder-Brown), who has just started working in a public bathhouse as an attendant. The only other attendant at the bathhouse is Susan (Jane Asher), a sexy, slightly older girl who Mike falls in love with. Released in 1970, Deep End is an unjustly neglected film that is now beginning to receive the recognition it has long deserved. The film is finally out on DVD and Blu-Ray through BFI, and received repertory screenings in London and New York this year.

A highly influential coming-of-age drama, Deep End also features a cool soundtrack comprised of mostly psychedelic rock that permeated British culture in the late 1960s, mixed with softer music a la Cat Stevens. Reminiscent of the seminal French and Italian new wave pics of the era, Skolimowski’s depiction of adolescent hormones gone wild is tender yet humorous.

The film’s stand out is Asher, that redheaded Beatles-muse that was once engaged to Paul McCartney in the mid-60s. Her character in the film is shallow, yet seductive. And Mike’s naivety falls prey to her fiery ways. He begins to stalk her, and follows her to the movie theater on a date with her fiancé in a particularly humorous sequence, which involves a dozen hot dogs, a cardboard cutout of Asher, an X-rated film called The Science of Sex, and a prostitute with a broken leg. The actors were given freedom to improvise and the results are golden, as the two protagonists, despite a gap in age and personality, enjoy great chemistry together onscreen.

Co-writer and director Skolimowski cut his teeth working on projects with fellow Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski and even shares writing credit on Polanski’s brilliant debut, Knife in the Water from 1962. Skolimowsky followed it up with this British/West German production and continues to make small-market films to this day.

Everything about this quietly ambiguous, yet profound film–-the photography, the imagery, the music--feels vibrant and alive in a way that makes most modern coming-of-age movies look formulaic and of little depth. Four decades after its release, Deep End remains a quirky if disquieting film from the Polish new wave. The tragic ending is one of cinema’s most visually appetizing, and most memorable. And just try not falling in love with Asher after watching the film! She is sublime, and Deep End remains the finest work of her career.

HOUSE OF PLEASURES (BERTRAND BONELLO, 2011)

House of Pleasures, France, 2011
Dir: Bertrand Bonello
Cast: Alice Barnole, Iliana Zabeth, Jasmine Trinca

2011 saw many independent and foreign films go mostly unnoticed with major audiences. If it was something from overseas or independent, and it wasn’t called The Artist or Beginners (both overrated), then it probably wasn’t going to make it with audiences in American theaters. Instead, moviegoers preferred Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, and Harry Potter Part 7 Part 2, both of which grossed over $350 million in the US.

Turning the attention away from those blockbusters and sure-to-win-come-awards-time films, it is worthy to note a little-known French film by veteran Bertrand Bonello.

Bonello’s fifth feature-length film, House of Pleasures, is that rare type of film--both shocking and disturbing to the eye, yet provocative and intriguing enough to captivate you. Based on a screenplay written by Bonello himself, House of Pleasures takes place entirely in a Parisian brothel at the turn of the 20th Century. Its inhabitants vary from naïve teenagers who seek independence from their families and girls in their late 20s, already considered old and brittle. Each girl has a sad story to tell, each with enormous debts forced to pay them off by living and working in the house. Life is difficult for the prostitutes. They have no future, no hope. Their debts will never be paid off. Some will catch fatal diseases, which is unavoidable; others suffer a fate far worse--mutilation and lifelong humiliation. A client assaults one girl so badly that she ends up with the nickname “The Woman Who Laughs.”

The movie was immediately written-off by critics after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May. It is difficult for critics to praise the film, since it consciously resists definition and meaning by traditional standards. It is a shame though, because House of Pleasures is worthy of an audience outside of the art house crowd. From the start, the film draws you in with sensuous, ethereal imagery. Helmer Bonello's self-penned score alongside use of playfully old-fashioned soul music and 1960s rock tunes infuse a modern sensibility that keeps the period flavor from becoming overly sentimental.

It should be noted that Bonello never seems to resist alienating his audience, forcing the viewer to squirm in their seat, yet the landscape is so exquisite and stylish that they cannot turn away completely. House of Pleasures, also known as House of Tolerance in the United States, is a brave, titillating and unrelenting work of art. While it may not please a wide range of audiences, the film retains an odd appeal, which might explain its strange effect on the viewer. Bonnello does a great job in creating a beautifully constructed alternative art film. It stands as the one of the finest motion pictures of the year, and certainly the most underrated.

COMEDY IN DRAMA -- COMEDIANS AND SERIOUS ROLES

I have long had a fascination with comedians in dramatic roles. They are rare but usually brilliant. There is Art Carney who won an Oscar for Harry and Tonto in 1974. Richard Pryor gave a great performance in Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar in 1978. The last 25 years however have brought us some of the best performances from the unlikeliest of actors. In 1984, Bill Murray had already scored hits with Caddyshack and Stripes before exploding with Ghostbusters (and its subsequent sequel released a few years later). But in 1988, Murray decided to star in a black comedy directed by Richard Donner, Scrooged, a variation on Charles Dickens classic tale of A Christmas Carol.

Murray continued making serious efforts at comedy with 1993’s Groundhog Day and 1998’s Rushmore, directed by Wes Anderson. His budding friendship with Anderson led to two other films, 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums and 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Around this time, Murray was courted by Sofia Coppola, cousin of Jason Schwartzman, who co-starred with Murray in Rushmore. At first, Murray declined the role of a jaded celebrity stuck in Tokyo in Coppola’s upcoming Lost in Translation. Eventually however he agreed to star in the film, and won an Academy Award nomination for his performance. He lost to Sean Penn in a controversial Best Actor race. Since then, Murray has starred in several other dramas including Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes and Broken Flowers.

Other successful comedians in the last two decades have turned to drama after becoming stars in comedy. Jim Carrey won acclaim and two Golden Globes for his performances in The Truman Show and Man on the Moon in the late 90s. He also starred in The Majestic, an underrated 1940s tale directed by The Shawshank Redemption filmmaker Frank Darabont. Carrey also starred in the Oscar-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, before turning in a poorly received performance in the 2007 thriller The Number 23.

Will Ferrell, who first found fame on Saturday Night Live, and continued his hot streak as America’s favorite comedy star with films like Old School and Elf, experimented with drama in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda in 2004 and Marc Forster’s Stranger Than Fiction in 2006. He has since gone back and forth between comedy and drama, making silly comedies like Step Brothers and The Other Guys, and more independent fare like Everything Must Go earlier this year.

Another example of a great comic who has recently starred in dramas is Steve Carell. Carell first found success in 2005 both on TV with The Office and on the big screen with The 40 Year Old Virgin. He also starred in the highly acclaimed and Academy Award winning Little Miss Sunshine, in which he played a gay, suicidal uncle. Most of these actors gave brilliant performances, particularly Murray in Lost in Translation and Carrey in both The Truman Show and Man on the Moon (he portrayed deceased comic Andy Kaufman in the latter). However, the reception to their performances was mixed. Murray is the only one who received so much as an Oscar nod for his work.

There is also Adam Sandler, who was unrecognizable in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love in 2002. Sandler was also interesting in Judd Apatow’s Funny People, in which he played a foul-mouthed comedian who learns he has only months to live. It was a shrewd and dark comedy that did not achieve the same reception as Apatow’s previous, more traditional comedies like The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Filmmakers typically known for comedy have also given a try at dramas. In 2005, Woody Allen directed Match Point, a Dostoyevsky-ian thriller set in London. The film was a departure from the romantic comedies that made him famous, but was received well by audiences and critics. He directed another thriller in 2007, Cassandra's Dream, starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell.

Currently, several funnymen are transitioning into drama. Jonah Hill, of Superbad fame, recently starred in Moneyball with Brad Pitt about the Oakland Athletics baseball team of the early 00s. The film was written by Oscar-winners Steven Zailian and Aaron Sorkin and directed by Bennett Miller. And it’s not just the gentlemen who are making waves as comics turned serious actors. Comedienne Monique won praise and an Academy Award for Precious in 2009.

What is it about seeing an actor most associated with films filled with laughter playing a role that fills you with sadness that is so intriguing? Is it because we expect him to make funny faces but instead portrays a thoughtful and solemn character? If that’s the case, then that might be the exact reason why the films receive a lukewarm reception from critics and audiences. No, the real reason the movies don’t receive the proper level of recognition is different. The real reason is that most actors are only adept to one genre throughout their careers. And when Jim Carrey shows his face in a drama, the drama people tune in, and the comedy people tune out.

The only thing is, the comedy people outnumber the drama people five to one in this country, so less people see the dramas. Or, maybe, I’m wrong. Maybe it is just very strange to see an actor who is always funny and making you laugh now try to make you feel something more emotional and complex. Maybe, we as audiences are programmed for certain kind of films and actors. Marlon Brando probably wouldn’t have made a very good comedy actor. So we probably don’t want to see Ace Ventura in a serious film either. Perhaps that is the most perplexing thing of all -- the vast psychology of the average moviegoer.

DARLING (JOHN SCHLESINGER, 1965)

Darling, UK, 1965
Dir: John Schlesinger
Cast: Julie Christie, Dirk Bogarde, Laurence Harvey

Darling is cool, and raw and cold in its depiction of sexuality, both hetero and homo. It is aided by a brilliant and witty script by writer Frederic Raphael. John Schlesinger, who later won an Academy Award for Best Director for Midnight Cowboy, directed Darling. The cast is a special one, headlined by Julie Christie, who also starred in David Lean’s epic Doctor Zhivago during her star making year of 1965. The film also stars Dirk Bogarde, as her love interest, and Laurence Harvey as a charming young London socialite.

The film won three Academy Awards in 1965 including Best Actress for Christie and Best Screenplay for Frederic Raphael, an American-born, British-educated screenwriter who would later pen Two For the Road, and most recently Stanley Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut. Darling became notorious for describing the urban way of life for London’s rich and famous.

This was precisely the time when films were radically changing across the globe. Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut in France, Bernardo Bertolucci in Italy, Roman Polanski in Poland, Milos Formas in the Czech Republic, Andrei Tarkovsky in Russia, and filmmakers like Mike Nichols and Dennis Hopper were making headlines in the United States for their radical approaches to film as well. Meanwhile, England also saw a new wave of young filmmakers who were making groundbreaking pictures such as Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones and Lindsay Anderson’s If… in addition to Schlesinger whose career in movies began in the 50s, as an actor.

Darling was his first international success as a director and it helped him land Midnight Cowboy, when Hollywood began knocking on his door. Darling features a brilliant cast, and Christie excels as a bored, young and naïve girl hungry for stardom and happiness. Released during a period known as the swinging 60s, Darling was a perfect film for its time. Raphael’s script seamlessly builds a foundation for characters that are shallow, yet vulnerable and complex. The film perfectly personifies London in the 1960s. The film says a lot about the illusions of glamour and fame that women are compelled to fulfill.

Darling is still as timely today as it was then, since there are still so many women who cling to the images and myths of ideal womanhood, and whose goals lead them to believe that social climbing will lead to happiness. Our own era has an even more all-pervasive cult of celebrity than the ‘60s did. Darling was a quasi-landmark film. It introduced to the world one of the finest stars of the 60s and 70s. It also paved the way for more provocative dramas, shooting in masterful black and white for more flavor and feel. Darling remains an underrated classic nearly 50 years after its release.

LIKE CRAZY (DRAKE DOREMUS, 2011)

Like Crazy, USA, 2011
Dir: Drake Doremus
Cast: Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence

We've all been there. We meet the right one. Then we lose them, but only for a short while, then we get back together, and then one of us fucks up and we lose each other for good. Hollywood drums up a similar tale, Like Crazy (as in “I love you like crazy"). The film is being released this weekend in select cities across the U.S. and is directed and co-written by 28-year-old Drake Doremus, who based many parts of the film on his own failed marriage experience.

It has become a tradition that the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival receives monumental attention, including a theatrical release, and in recent years, multiple nominations at the Academy Awards. In 2006, Indie darling Little Miss Sunshine won two Oscars and grossed over a $100 million domestically. In 2009, Lee Daniels directed Precious, which earned him two Oscar nods and was one of the most critically acclaimed releases of the year. In 2010, Winter’s Bone, which also won the top prize at Sundance garnered great reviews upon release and was nominated for four Academy Awards. So it comes as no surprise that this year’s best film as voted by the Sundance jury gets its share of kudos and acclaim now that the awards seasons has begun. Like Crazy, starring Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones as Jacob and Anna, is a typical love story told in a refreshing and intimate way.

Yelchin and Jones excel as a couple that are kept apart by immigration laws and secret affairs and they help create an absorbing and touching love story. Many parts of the film, however, were improvised. Director Drake Doremus said he often left the camera rolling for up to a half an hour at a time just to capture the two together. As the pair is torn apart by distance and time, the film grows sparser and more pained, the uncertainty between Jacob and Anna more obvious. The film also features Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Samantha, Jacob’s secretary and on again/off again girlfriend.

Like Crazy was produced far outside the Hollywood studio system for just $250,000 and surprised everyone when it became an unexpected sensation at this past year's Sundance Film Festival. The project was a true collaboration. Director Drake Doremus and Co-Writer Ben York Jones put together a 52-page outline for the movie, creating characters very loosely based on their past long-distance relationships. Once they cast Yelchin and Jones, they gave the actors room to bring the script to life with improvisation that created its own unique reality.

The film beautifully illustrates and explores the complex fragility of first love. After an impressive effort from a group of extremely talented 20-somethings, one is eager to see what the future holds for the artists and performers involved. Like Crazy might not be the most talked about movie of the year, but it is certainly one of the best films you’ll see all year.

POISON (TODD HAYNES, 1991)

Poison, USA, 1991
Dir: Todd Haynes
Cast: Edith Meeks, Evan Dunsky

The Sundance Film Festival has long been known as a breeding ground for up and coming filmmakers. It is the elite gathering of the best independent films from the U.S. and around the world. Among the festival alumni include some of the best-known filmmakers of today, such as Jim Jarmusch, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Darren Aronofsky, and Christopher Nolan. Most of them rose to fame in the 1990s, which was a decade that can be characterized as being the time period when film transitioned from the emergence of the franchise movie in the 80s to an independent haven with dozens of small-studio production and distribution companies, most of which did not survive the decade other than the most successful ones like Miramax and Fox Searchlight.

In 1989, provocative, queer-themed director Todd Haynes had just finished Superstar, a 40-minute dramatization of Karen Carpenter’s life starring Barbie dolls in place of actors. The film was a big underground success, and the summer after its release, Haynes and his producer Christine Vachon began working on their first feature together, Poison, based on the novels of renowned poet and scholar, Jean Genet.

The 1990s played host to dozens of groundbreaking, and brilliant movies directed by 20-somethings with little or no money at all at hand. Haynes was wittingly or unwittingly now part of a movement. The same independent movement that would produce films like El Mariachi, Clerks, Spanking the Monkey, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Swingers, and Pi. Todd Haynes’ Poison is an excellent example of the quality of the work that was being produced during this period.

The film is told in an unconventional manner with a trio of rotating story arcs, distinguished in the credits as “Hero,” “Horror,” and “Homo.” Completely unrelated to each other, the segments deals with a different subject, in different genres. “Hero,” told in mockumentary-style, centers on a small town that is recovering from the strange disappearance of a boy who killed his father. “Horror,” the only segment shot in black and white, is an homage to 1950s paranoid thrillers about a scientist who becomes infected with a disease after drinking a potion he was working on. The final story, “Homo,” is perhaps Hayne’s most personal. It deals with a prisoner in 1940s Paris who is haunted by memories of a prison camp he was held in as a youth, where inmates was forced to perform homosexual acts of violence.

The film broke ground for not just gay-themed filmmakers, but independent artists of all backgrounds hoping to break boundaries without the fear of harsh criticism. Poison eventually won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1991, but was slapped with an NC-17 rating when released in theaters, and was one of the most controversial films of the year. Following his semi-experimental debut, Haynes directed several mainstream films (or as mainstream as Todd Haynes could get) including the 2002 Oscar-nominated Far From Heaven and the HBO Mini-series Mildred Pierce earlier this year.

Hayne’s Poison, his explicit and thought provoking debut, is still a landmark in American independent cinema and an exemplary work of the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s.