The Facts:
The Film Experience's popular series "HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT" returns tomorrow night for a new season, every Wednesday @ 10 PM EST. To play along you just post your favorite shot from that week's movie (write up suggested but not mandatory) and we link up. The more the merrier.
Wed March 16th MEMENTO (10th Anniversary)
Wed March 23rd A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
Wed March 30th PSYCHO (1960)
Wed April 6th: HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)
more TBA
Will you be joining us?
Last season on Hit Me: Requiem for a Dream (2000), Se7en (1995), Black Narcissus (1947), Pandora's Box (1929), Bring it On (2000), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Showgirls (1995), Mean Girls (2004), Night of the Hunter (1955), X-Men (2000) and Angels in America (2003).
Reader Comments (9)
I'm ALREADY freaking out on that imminent Streetcar post. Oh lord, which to pick.
(PS. Did you ever watch/review DOCTOR ZHIVAGO when you were going through your classics' binge?)
As an aside, I know you're not a big fan of Kate H. but can we please have one of her films for Hit Me With Your Best Shot This Season? Please, please, please, Pretty Please.
Are you ever going to finish the Film Bitch Awards?? Lol :-)
Mia -- never, no.
i kid. i keep meaning to. i suck.
lol can't rush genius!
SIDE NOTE:
How GREAT was it on last night's RuPaul's Drag Race when the Heathers quoted Mean Girls "Stop Trying to make Fetch happen, it's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN"
I almost peed lol
At the risk of being redundant, the H stands for Hepburn not Hudson.
Suggestion: I'd love a mass dissection of Performance. Such an amazing movie, and I REALLY can't believe you'd raise M*A*S*H above it if you've never seen it. (Altman is #1 or 2 four times in the 70s. It'd take him down one peg. Another film I think there's no way you've seen with your current placements is The Tree of Wooden Clogs.)
Best Pictures in the 70s:
70:
M*A*S*H
Performance - Gold
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - Silver
The Bird With the Crystal Plumage
?
71:
A Clockwork Orange - Gold
Harold and Maude - Silver
The French Connection
Sunday Bloody Sunday - Bronze
Get Carter
72:
The Godfather
Solaris
Cabaret
?
?
73:
Don't Look Now
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid - Gold
The Sting
The Spirit of the Beehive - Silver
Badlands - Bronze
(6th: The Exorcist.)
74:
Chinatown - Gold
The Godfather Part II - Bronze
The Conversation
A Woman Under the Influence - Silver
Young Frankenstein
75:
Shampoo - Silver
The Man Who Would Be King - Gold
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Bronze
Jaws
Barry Lyndon
76:
Carrie - Bronze
Taxi Driver - Gold
Network - Silver
Bugsy Malone (you like musicals, right?)
The Outlaw Josey Wales
77:
Annie Hall - Silver
Close Encounters - Bronze
Suspiria
Eraserhead - Gold
Star Wars
78:
The Tree of Wooden Clogs - Gold
Superman - Silver
Dawn of the Dead - Bronze
Grease
Days of Heaven
79:
All That Jazz
Apocalypse Now - Gold
Alien
Life of Brian - Bronze
Manahattan - Silver
That's my current grasp of what was great and interesting in that decade. Some years are not complete at all (70 and 72 are my weakest) but I'm incredibly strong on 73 and somewhat strong on 71.
I really think you should include some foreign movies in this series. I mean, what about a Japanese visual masterpiece, like Ran or Kagemusha? Or an Italian classic (a Leone western or a work by Vittorio Storaro - the best cinematographer since 1970)? Or maybe some modern eye-candy collaborations (WKW and Christopher Doyle, Meirelles and Charlone, or even Jeunet and Delbonnel)?
Cal -- that's a great suggestion. Normally I try to include some films i haven't seen along with favorites so I'll do some of those and make sure at least one or two of them are foreign. I'm suddenly realizing that La Dolce Vita is missing from the index above but we did do that film last year.
Ok, so here's a suggestion: The Conformist. The best work by Storaro and one of the 5 best jobs in cinematography ever.