1960's Top 20

First of all, what people need to understand and have in mind (I saw some comments here that blowed my mind), is that this was made in 1968... 1968! You have to understand that number. That's almost 40 years! What we need to ask ourselfs, and try to answer truly, is that if we could possibly have the vision to do something like this in that time. And the answer is obviously NO! I don't have the slightest doubt when I say that this film is one of the greatest achievements in Cinema history! The way Kubrick imagined the 'future', 2001, our present (or past), is brilliant and fascinating. Technicly the film is flawless, considering it's time, and there are moments, scenes that I actually didn't believe that that was made in 1968! Of course I understand people who say it's boring. As a classic has to be recomended to anyone who loves Cinema, but it's not for those who expects action and dumb entertaining. What I would say is that this is one of the most 'difficult' films to wacth and analyse. It just can't be watched if you're sleepy, as simple as that... Anyway, I said it and I say it again: this is one of the most important achievements in the history of Cinema! That's why it's one of the few that deserves 5 stars...

NOTE: This review will discuss the film's ending. If you haven't yet seen it, beware.

"Hate the smell of dampness, don't you? It's such a, I don't know, creepy smell."

The film that made a generation wary of the shower, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is a landmark of cinema, one of the high-water marks for the man many consider to be one of the greatest directors in history. Janet Leigh stars at Marion Crane, a rather ordinary secretary who one day decides to steal $40,000 from her boss and run off with her unsuspecting boyfriend. After napping on the side of the road, she arouses the suspicion of the local authorities, but nothing comes of it. Nearly in the clear, she stops on a rainy night at the secluded Bates Motel. She rents a room, shares a pleasant enough discussion with Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), the son of the hotel's owner. Then, she is brutally murdered. Meanwhile, back in Phoenix, Crane's boss starts to worry, both about his secretary and his cash, so he sends a Private Eye (Martin Balsam) looking for her.



While a great number of people would rather forget it ever happened, we all know Psycho was remade in 1998 by Gus Van Sant. Employing a shot-by-shot approach and starring Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche, the remake is generally considered to be a preposterous travesty - which, for me, is being nice - but it actually has some value for the purpose of explaining how genius the original is. One would assume that a shot-by-shot remake would approximate the quality of the original, at least to some extent. It doesn't. So what does this tell us about film? Well, for one, one could argue that the contributions of actors holds more value than originally assumed. After all, that's the major variable at play. Beyond that, though, it suggests that perhaps Film is an art form where genius lies between the shots. That is, if the shots are identical and the script is identical, then what does it do to the auteur theory? Van Sant is no slouch of a director, so you have to wonder if his remake indicates that perhaps we're spending too much time analysing the specifics of a shot, if perhaps there isn't something larger at play that conventional criticism can't put a finger on. It is, at very least, something to ponder.

As for the masterpiece, to fully understand the impact Psycho had when it was originally in theatres, you have to know a little of the backstory. Hitchcock purchased the option to Robert Bloch's little-known novel without telling anyone, then proceeded to buy every available copy he could find. During the production, which was filmed under the fake title "Wimpy", he planted casting rumours in the press that he was considering Helen Hays for the non-existent role of Mother, had a chair on set reserved for the character, and went to the trouble of billing Janet Leigh as the film's lead, despite the fact that she dies in the early going. Effectively this created two stunning plot twists with the dual benefit of being completely unexpected both in the context of the film and in the reality of anyone familiar with the various Hollywood machinations of casting. Few expect the lead to die in the first half of the film and fewer still expect the casting rumours to involve a character that is a figment of another character's madness.

Part of what makes Leigh's death scene so powerful is that the film never gives us any indication that it isn't going to be about her theft of the money. It invests a great deal of energy in developing her story, from the opening scene of her in a hotel room with her lover, to the nerve-racking encounters with the police, we are completely behind her as a protagonist. So when Hitchcock "kills" her, revealing the theft as the ultimate MacGuffin, it has the ability to take your breath away, but the way Hitchcock films it - with quick cuts and lots of screaming - creates one of the most harrowing scenes ever put on film. It is such a vivid scene that many audience members swore they saw red blood washing down the drain, when in fact the film is done entirely in black and white.

With the protagonist gone, the audience is left scrambling, open to suggestion and manipulation and all sorts of trickery. So we focus on the relationship between Norman Bates and his mother, or what we believe to be his mother. Hitchcock wisely gives us only as much information as is absolutely necessary for us to be convinced of her existence - a shrill voice, a silhouette in a window, a shadowy figure in a dress - but none that might suggest otherwise. Yet the ending survives our suspension of disbelief, partly due to the psychiatrist's explanation but largely thanks to the performance of Anthony Perkins, who is nearly flawless as the boy with the Oedipal complex. He's a friendly enough person, perfectly comfortable with small talk, but note the slight shift in his eyes when someone mentions his mother. He reflects both devotion and a quiet desperation, but more importantly goes from helpful to protective. It should be clear that he's got something to hide, but the devotion to one's mother can be a fierce one, so a son protecting his mother's health isn't all that insane. Only, in this case it is.

To me, one of the most powerful aspects of Psycho is the way the film presents two false realities without undercutting the impact or validity of what's truly going on. So often a twist ending is either telegraphed well in advance by excess foreshadowing or so far-fetched that no reasonable person would ever believe it. But Psycho manages to avoid both pitfalls, striking a perfect balance where it is both shocking and realistic. Factor in Hitchcock's unique ability to ratchet up tension shot by shot and what you've got is one of the greatest thrillers ever filmed, the likes of which most films can only dream of duplicating, even if they duplicate everything else.

"He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."



Widely hailed as the greatest black comedy ever filmed, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is Stanley Kubrick's subversive take on a common Cold War theme. Deranged General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) has sent his squadron of planes an order to attack the Soviet Union as they held at the fail safe point, and subsequently made it impossible for anyone other than him to call the planes back. When news of this reaches Washington, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) calls his advisors to the war room, where General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) suggests the best plan of action may be to back the planes up with a coordinated all-out offensive that's sure to cripple the Soviet forces and limit American casualties to twenty million, tops. But the Russians, to everyone's surprise, have just completed a "Doomsday Machine" designed to destroy all plant and animal life on the planet, and even they cannot prevent it from retaliating.

Combine the plot details with Kubrick's direction, and it's probably safe to assume that few people in 1964 automatically assumed Dr. Strangelove would be a biting political satire. But on second thought, maybe they did. In retrospect, Dr. Strangelove feels like a departure from Kubrick's normal fare, like 2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket, but Dr. Strangelove pre-dates them all. So a comedy doesn't seem like a Kubrick project to us, but it makes sense when you view it in context. This is a man who had done several self-produced projects, which he had parlayed into the Kirk Douglas war film Paths of Glory. When Douglas couldn't get along with Anthony Mann, he replaced Mann with Kubrick for Spartacus, primarily to serve as a figurehead through whom Douglas could operate. Naturally, this didn't work. Kubrick took over, then made Lolita, a 'light-hearted' version of the Vladimir Nabokov novel that featured a supporting turn by Peter Sellers. All this is to say that when you view Kubrick's career in that sequence, a Peter Sellers dark comedy isn't all that unexpected. In fact, it's a rather natural progression.

But enough history, let's look at the film itself. The primary settings for Dr. Strangelove are deceptively simple: the interior of a plane, the War Room, and General Ripper's office. Apart from a few others, that's pretty much it. A knowledgeable audience member realizes that much of the film is shot on sound stages, but a couple of choices in staging and camera work gives the impression of so much more.

The plane interiors are filmed as if the camera is being operated by one of the crew. There are no long tracking shots or wide establishing shots. They are instead framed in a way that at no time are we given the feeling that the production has taken out a chunk of the plane so that the camera can get the perfect angle. This gives the scenes a cramped, uneasy feeling further heightened by the borderline mental instability of the pilot, Maj. T.J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens). Our level of closeness to him and the rest of the crew is uncomfortable, especially when you consider the nuclear bombs stored below. Contrast that with the scenes in the War Room, where Kubrick goes to great lengths to show us just how big it is.

He seats all the advisors around the type of enormous round table you only see in a film, with a circular florescent light hovering overhead. Behind them is the "big board", a large map of the Soviet Union with lights indicating the position of the planes. The room itself is so big that even the widest wide-angle shot cannot show it all. Clearly rooms of this size do not exist, but Kubrick uses it to remind us of the great power the men in this room hold, but at the same time, he often puts them in the lower part of the frame, an indication that despite all their power, there is little they can do in this situation.

And the one man in the room who should be able to prevent a nuclear holocaust, comes across as the most ineffectual of them all - President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers). Originally conceived by Terry Southern as a character with a bad head cold, the President is shocked to learn that not only has someone authorized an attack, but that there's no way to bring them back. And to top it off, the bill that enabled such a bizarre scenario is one that he approved. It is a politician's worst nightmare.

Of the three characters Sellers plays in the film (Muffley, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, and Dr. Strangelove), this is the most memorable, or at the very least my favourite. His telephone conversation with the Soviet Premier ranks as one of the best comedic exchanges in all of cinema, and it's all that more impressive that we can only hear one half of the call. The Premier is drunk, so Muffley must explain things to him multiple times and deviate from a very important issue to reassure this man that "Of course I like to speak to you! Of course I like to say hello!" The three-pronged performance by Sellers is clearly one the best from this comedic genius. Much of Muffley's scenes are played against Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson (George C. Scott), a military advisor a little too enamoured with the business of war and highly distrustful of the Russians.

Scott, a criminally underrated actor, is perhaps the best thing in the film. Chomping violently on multiple sticks of gum, he's all big movements and facial contortions, ready to fly off into a rage at a moment's notice. Secretly he's thrilled with the turn of events and a little perturbed that he must waste valuable time convincing this damned politician to launch a coordinated attack. Acting-wise, Scott is off in his own little world, but it's important to note that even as he launches nearer and nearer to madness, he stays firmly grounded in the reality of the film. Few actors can chew the scenery with such vigour without detracting from the film. It's a fine line, and Scott walks it perfectly.

There's little doubt that Dr. Strangelove serves as the high-water mark for anti-war films, but it also ranks alongside not only the best comedies ever made, but also the best films. For such a timely film, it feels as fresh today as it did in the Cold War. But what's most remarkable is that it was even made at all. Imagine the modern equivalent: a dark satire about terrorism featuring the melody "We'll meet again" playing over footage of the explosion. It's the sort of bad taste no one would permit, but when you have people as bold and talented as Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers, they find a way to make it work. In their able hands, the gruesome becomes absurd and the horrific becomes somewhat campy and sweet. It is, hands down, one of the greatest and most brilliant things ever put on film.

Everything that was made after 1967 regarding the mix of comedy and romance - the so called 'romantic comedies' - has in The Graduate its main source of inspiration. Owner of one of the most ridiculously perfect endings ever!

The best Bond film ever made. No one will ever top this, just like no other actor will ever top Sean Connery.

One of the most strong and unbelievably emotional film experiences I've ever had in my life, and ever will. One of the dozens of Bergman's masterpieces. Such a beautiful and moving film that it could very well be a poem or a garden. Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson give two (sometimes feeling like one, of how perfect they are at completing and helping each other) of the most memorable, history-making performances in cinema history.

Field Reporter: "Chief, if I were surrounded by eight or ten of these things, would I stand a chance with them?
Sheriff McClelland: Well, there's no problem. If you have a gun, shoot 'em in the head. That's a sure way to kill 'em. If you don't, get yourself a club or a torch. Beat 'em or burn 'em. They go up pretty easy."



Regarded as the grandfather of the modern zombie film, Night of the Living Dead is a legendary achievement in both horror and independent filmmaking, one that, like all great horror films, retains its power even as our ideas of what's scary change. Deceptively simple, the film builds dread and fear with layers of psychological conflict, action, and a kind of relentless exposition that gives a nationwide scope to a claustrophobic problem. It was innovative in many ways, and though it didn't really create the zombie film as a genre, it crystallized it and set the pattern for future entries, becoming the standard by which they would be measured.

It was the late sixties. Vietnam was proving that America was not all-powerful, and asking questions about who were the good guys, about motivation, about the human race as a whole. Anti-war protesters were being beaten and gassed for what they believed, while America was attempting to destroy another place... for what they believed. Hippies were spreading a message of love, new ideas were flourishing in all areas, from making peace to making war, and technology was becoming more important and influential. The result was that the good guys were often over-looked, good deeds were mostly forgotten, and many lives were thrown away aimlessly and without purpose. Those who survived wondered why, and had no clue why they were here. It seemed outside, bigger forces were at play, and that unseen beings were controlling the public. Two films which would change the course of cinema were released: Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

Barbara (Judith O'Dea) and Johnny (Russel Streiner) are sister and brother,
who arrive at a cemetery in the countryside to put flowers on their father's grave. An old man wandering in the distant background suddenly attacks Barbara, and Johnny is killed when he intervenes to save her. Barbara runs from her relentless attacker to an abandoned farmhouse, and as more strange, mindless assassins gather around the house, she meets with fellow survivors of similar attacks: Ben (Duane Jones), a young African American who quickly takes control of the situation; Harry and Helen Cooper (Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman), a middle-aged couple with an injured daughter (Kyra Schon); and Tom and Judy (Keith Wayne and Judith Ridley), young lovers out on a country drive. As the traumatized Barbara slips into a catatonic state and Ben and Harry argue about the best plan of defence against these monsters, radio and TV broadcasts gradually reveal that they're facing an army of the walking dead, animated by radiation from space and feeding on the flesh of the living. Things get worse.

One of the things that I always notice about the film whenever I see it is how big a role the media plays. The characters are as isolated as those in any other horror film, but thanks to technology they (and we) get to find out what's happening, even if this doesn't actually help them in the long run. That this was very much a contemporary film was significant at the time, as the general trend over the past decade had been towards Hammer's Gothic/Victorian monster-fests, as isolated from the present day as the Universal horror films of the thirties and forties. Here was something taking place on our doorstep, happening to regular people, and happening to everyone. While not unprecedented, this was still unusual, and the overall effect is to make the horror seem more pervasive and unstoppable; simply being smarter than the average horror film protagonist isn't going to get you out of this one.

The film broke a lot of rules that were informally in place. Certain characters die who would be thought invulnerable in other horror films of the day, the apparent heroine goes into shock and becomes absolutely useless for the rest of the film, and the zombies (never actually called that in the film) behave more like a "real" phenomenon than supernatural entities; the rules which apply to them have little to do with ritual or ceremony and everything to do with contagion and a kind of warped biology, their brains still being active and hence their one vulnerable spot, like a vampire's heart. But I think the emphasis on strategy is really what sets this apart. Everyone is forced to think in practical terms about what can be done right away, and the central conflict between the human characters is about the safest course of action for surviving the night. And it's here that the film gets really complicated.

Ben, as the eventual protagonist, is a proactive and charismatic figure, generally wise and level-headed. Harry is, let's face it, a jerk, twitchy, short-tempered and vindictive. But Ben's plans do have a way of going awry, and Harry does have the makings of a good idea in that he wants to stay in the cellar, which is the safest room in the house. But whether or not he's right doesn't matter, because he's more preoccupied with being right than with helping people out. The tension between the characters complicates the already difficult task of surviving a zombie attack, and as the series progresses we'll see Romero's interest in psychological and social obstacles as ways of showing how humanity just might find itself in a losing war against a brainless slow-moving enemy.

A larger theme of social upheaval is also present, as the zombies represent a kind of new society overthrowing the old. Even at points where it seems like the problem might actually be contained, it's at the cost of anything resembling a familiar status quo - the dead need to be callously gathered up and burned before they can revive, the bonfires a contrast to the cemetery of the film's opening. Homes and families are placed under siege and traditional community seems to fall by the wayside. (The legendary ending seems to suggest a final disintegration of essential humanity, even if humans manage to survive.)

The proceedings are always tense, even in the slower moments, something emphasized by a loud score and the frequent bangs of hammering. The performances are manic and generally strong. Judith O'Dea goes overboard at times, but at others is strangely effective (there's always at least one performance like this in a Romero film, for some reason.) While it's always clear that we're looking at a low-budget film, there's something very efficient about the timing and structuring of scenes, and it looks a lot better than it should. Gore-wise, the film may not be shocking any more, or frightening, but it is compelling and utterly intense. Its combination of black and white photography and grisly horror is particularly unsettling, and gives the film a grimy, realistic quality.

George Romero has said that he laces all his zombie films with social commentary. In Night of the Living Dead he cast an African American as the hero (the race wasn't specified in the script) who saves the white girl, in an era when civil rights were still very much an on-going debate. Add to this the fact that all of the mindless zombies have pasty white faces, and Harry the intolerant white man wants to hide in a safe place and not worry about anyone else. We have an African-American hero who may be up against the undead in the text of the film, but is faced with racism in the subtext. I don't know if the choice of filming in black and white was part of this metaphor (in 1968 it was a choice). But it looks so perfect that it makes me wonder why black and white isn't used much for horror any more. Perhaps it's because the majority of black and white horror films didn't go for grisly gore, and most horror films are cheap knock-offs of each other. When people came to copy Night of the Living Dead they copied the zombies, and the arguments, rather than things worth copying like cinematography and theme.

Night of the Living Dead is one of the best, greatest and most influential horror films ever made, but chances are you knew that. But it's always worth taking a second or twenty-third look at the film, especially around a certain time of the year or whenever you feel like not getting to sleep easily. It may not be the best of the series, but it's a close second, and it'll always be a classic in its own right. Horror films would never entirely be the same after this, and it's still got a few lessons to teach, forty years later.

Field Reporter: "Are they slow-moving, chief?
Sheriff McClelland: Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up."