Ten Films Worth Watching on DVD

Those of us who are dedicate cinephiles will be happy to learn that "Film Comment" magazine announced in its dvd section that the rare, hard-to-see cult classic "Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment" with Vanessa Redgrave is available. Though many films like "Pretty Poison" (1966) with Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins that were very difficult to see for years are now available through Netflix several others, such as the cinematic version of "The Subject Was Roses" (1969) are still hard fish to put in the net.

Here is a list of ten films I recommend at the moment. We are including the spaghetti western "Bullet for the General" (1969) since J.Hoberman wrote a great piece about the subgenre in the same current issue of "Film Comment."

Here is the list:

1. Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966. Dir-David Mercer)

2. A Bullet for the General (Italy. 1969. Dir-David Damiani. w/Klaus Kinski)

3. Blow Out (1981. Dir-Brian DePalma)

4. Contagion (2011. Dir- Steven Soderbergh)

5. Bal (Turkey. 2010. Dir- Semih Kaplanoglu)

6. Trollhunter (Norway. 2010. Dir.-Andre Ovredal)

7. Being There (1979. Dir-Hal Ashby)

8. Senna (doc. 2011. Dir-Asi Kapadia)

9. A Dangerous Method (2011. Dir-David Cronenberg)

10. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011. Dir-Tomas Alfredson)http://www.filmlinc.com

Happy Halloween...

Happy Halloween to everyone!

Many people are surprised to know there is a Turkish film version of the Dracula story called "Drakula Istanbul'da" (Dracula in Istanbul). The 1953 film is actually based on a novel called "Vlad the Impaler" by the Turkish novelist Ali Riza Seyfi
(1879-1958).

Atif Kaptan (1908-1977) played the Bela Lugosi role, and according to a book I read by cult film authority Pete Tombs, smoke scenes were devised when the film's director Mehmet Muhtar (1925-1995) told crew members to smoke lots and lots of cigarettes!

In his later years, Kaptan appeared in several action movies with the Turkish cinematic icon Cuneyt Arkin.

Happy Birthday, Cuneyt Arkin

Today, we celebrate the 74th birthday of '70s Turkish action movie icon Cuneyt Arkin who turned 74 on September 7th. Arkin was born on this date in 1934 in Eskisehir, Turkey.

While he has over 300 films to his credit, we only have time to mention four here.

The first one is "Hayatim Sana Feda/My Life is For You, Feda" (1970),a romantic comedy, melodrama which was likely influenced by 1950s Hollywood melodramas, which were often directed by Douglas Sirk and starred Rock Hudson.

In this film, a Romeo who has burned his bridges has a chance to reclaim his Juliet, a female Turkish lounge singer played by Turkan Soray, the queen of Turkish cinema who often starred with Arkin, after she goes blind.

In 1973, Arkin starred in the first of what would be several films based on the popular "Kara Murat" comics, including "Kara Murat Versus the Black Knight" (pictured here). The basic plot is that Kara Murat, an ancient warrior in the days of the huns, goes after the bad guys and kicks some major ass in the process.

Turkey and Greece went to far over Cyprus in July of 1974, which lead to the production of many action films with nationalist themes. This would include "Once Vatan/My Country First" (1974) in which Arkin plays a Turkish agent who goes to Cyprus and goes kung fu on the Greek villians. Such films were, to my knowledge, also made in Greece around this era, with the roles reversed. And, yes to answer your question, "Once Vatan" is basically a Turkish Chuck Norris movie.

Lastly, Arkin will always be best known for "Dunayi Kurtaran Adami/The Man Who Saved the World" (1982), which is also known as "The Turkish Star Wars." The film borrows music and actual sequences from the George Lucas classic, but the similarities end there. The plot is a very strange one to summarize, but the film has aliens in muppet-fleece who decide that central Turkey is for unexplained reasons the best place to invade. But, they are no match for Arkin's gymnastics tumbling and kickboxing abilies.

Ten Films That Might Be Worth Watching on DVD

Here are twn films, most of which have been recently released on dvd, that might well be worth your time:

1) "Zazie dans le metro" (1960. France. dir-Louis Malle). I must profess that I forget if I've seen this film or not, just as I forgot Bill Clinton, the only president I forgot to name on mentalfloss.com presidents' names quiz earlier today. But, Malle was a great director, especially during the French New Wave years.

2) "Blue Valentine" (2010. dir-Derek Cianfrance). I was actually in the minority of 'haters' on this one (well, I would give the film two and a half stars). But, this dark romance with Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling might merit a second look for those of us who saw it in cinemas, and certainly it is worth a first look for those who have yet to see the film.

3) "The Ilusionist" (2010. France. dir-Slyvain Chomet). This looks like a good animated film.

4) "Mickey One" (1965. dir-Arthur Penn. With Warren Beatty)- I saw this film several years ago at the Virginia Film Festival with Penn, who has since died, in attendance. It is noteable for being the first pairing of Penn and Beatty who would go on to work together on "Bonnie and Clyde."

5) "Cedar Rapids" (2011. dir-Miquel Arteta). This is a fairly good satire of convention life on the road; it is, of course, set in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

6) "Cul de Sac" (1966. dir-Roman Polanski). It appears that all of us cinephiles may actually get to finally see this Polanski film after all these years, perhaps!

7) "Life During Wartime" (2009. dir-Todd Solondz). I am an unabashed admirer of Todd Solondz films, even in the rare times when they don't work. This is not his very best film, but it's great dark humor that makes the Coen Brothers' "Fargo" look like "Bambi."

8) "Potiche" (2010. France. dir-Francois Ozon). Actually, I had nil interest in seeing this film until I found out it was a period piece set in the 1970s, the decade I find most interesting, perhaps because I was born in 1970.

9) "The Wiz" (1978. dir-Sidney Lumet). Why this supposedly silly movie?, you may ask. Well, the Lincoln Center in New York has been showing retro-screenings of Sidney Lumet's films since the veteran director died earlier this year. It's bound to be better than "Rubber," a new bad movie about a killer tire.

10) "Takva" (2006. Turkey. dir-Ozer Kiziltan). I have been disappointed with both the limited number of Turkish films that have been released in the United States and the artistic quality of these films. But, aside from Nuri Bilge Ceylan's work (the director of "Distant"), this film about Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey (the film was made by secularists) is perhaps the most remarkable Turkish film one can find on Netflix.

My Choice for the Best Films of 1971

I had no intention of having two blog entries within a few days featuring fruits, but since we had problems finding a good image of Malcolm McDowell's Alex (and there were other snafus while putting this together!), we thought we would opt for (what else?!) some oranges.

McDowell lists his personal favorite guilty pleasures in the current issue of "Film Comment" and two of the films are ones that he was in. Amazingly, he did not list "Caligula."

Generally, we don't go with popular films for our own choices for the best films of a given, but "A Clockwork Orange," my own personal favorite Stanley Kubrick film, and I say this expecting a full rebutal from my friend Bilge Ebiri who prefers "Barry Lyndon" (1975), is also my favorite film from 1971, a year when I was just one year old.

Many people have said that 1971 was amazing year in cinema, and I have to agree. For whatever reason, filmmakers around the world, made amazing films and many of the films which will not make the cut on the list, such as "Two-Lane Blacktop" and "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," could have been the best film of years with few good films, such as 1989, which only had a few memorable films like Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing."

Here are my choices for the best films of 1971:

1) "A Clockwork Orange" (dir. Stanley Kubrick)

2) "The Last Picture Show" (dir. Peter Bogdanovich)

3) "Harold and Maude" (dir. Hal Ashby)

4)* "The French Connection" (dir. William Friedkin)

5) "Death in Venice" (Italy. dir-Luchino Visconti)

6) "Murmur of the Heart" (France. dir-Louis Malle)

7) "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (dir. Robert Altman)

8) "Punishment Park" (dir. Peter Watkins)

9) "How Tasty My Little Frenchman" (Brazil. dir- Nelson Pereira dos Santos)

10) **"Baba/The Father"(Turkey. dir-Yilmaz Guney)

*-Oscar-winner for Best Film

**-"Baba" is only available on VHS, and in very limited supply, in the United States.

The Next Ten Films in My Netflix Que

Just in case you were wondering, Humpty Dumpty is for Eliot Spitzer; the Norwegian fiag pin is for the Norwegian horror film "Hidden." We wanted something more flamboyant for the Norwegian film, but oh well!

Here is the list; I have yet to see any of these films yet:

1. "No One Killed Jessica." (2011. Dir-Raj Kumar Gupta. India)

2. "Angel's Fall." (2005. Dir- Semih Kaplangul. Turkey).

3. "Hidden." (2009. Dir- Pal Oie. Norway)

4. "Irreversible" (2002. Dir- Gaspar Noe. France)

5. "A Tale of Springtime." (1990. Dir- Eric Rohmer. France)

6. "Les Bonnes Femmes" (1960. Dir- Claude Chabrol. France).

7. "The Baader Meinhof Complex." (2008. Dir- Uli Edel. Germany.)

8. "Marwencol" (2010. doc. Dir- Jeff Malmberg).

9. "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer." (2010. doc. Dir- Alex Gibney).

10. "Dogtooth." (2009. Dir- Giorgis Lanthios. Greece).

Special Quote of the Week- Albert Camus

Today, we conclude with a spillover entry from the month of May, in which we posted quotes from famous novelists, with a quip from the late French writer Albert Camus
(1913-1950). Like the subject of our other entry on our other blog who was George Orwell (1905-1950), both writers were born abroad and died at age 46. While Orwell was born in India, Camus was born in Algeria. He often wrote about the plight of the north African country which remains an area of concern today given the political upheveal in neighboring Libya. Prior to the Libyan mess, there were earlier uprisings in neighboring Tunisia, which lead to the 'Arab Spring."

In addition to his criticism of colonialism, Camus was an outspoken critic of the death penalty, saying that it would never deter perspective murderers because 'the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in the state of equilibrium.'

Alas, the likes of Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va) and Gov. Rick Perry (R-Tex.) and others on the anti-intelllectual right will assuredly always find a way to dismiss any logic that challenges their self-righteous Christian hypocricy.

McDonnell will be speaking at the Virginia United Methodist Assembly Center in Blackstone, Va. on June 11th, according to Eskii Kebede of "The Collegiate Times," the Virginia Tech student-run newspaper in Blacksburg, Va. The topic will be the faith of the founding fathers. Assuredly, any arguments about how a man who sees himself as an upstanding Christian can support the morally inconsistent pro-death penalty argument will not be brought forth.

Camus, who recieved the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, is known for three novels "The Stranger" (1942), "The Plague" (1947) and "The Fall" (1956).

Surreally enough, the much-heralded Turkish film director Zeki Demirkubuz loosely adapted "The Stranger" into his well-recieved 1999 film "Yazgi" ("Fate). I'm sure Camus would have been proud; here is his quote:

"An intellectual is someone who mind watches itself."