63. Gilda (1946)

A film so steeped in Casablanca, it's almost embarrassing as it isn't any where near as good.
The plot is ludicrous and rather boring (tungsten cartel anyone?)
It is the performances that make this a worthy watch. Hayworth is smoking hot as the eponymous temptress. At one point she performs a sexy striptease and manages to drive a crowd of men bonkers rapey, even though she only removes her evening gloves! A highly unpleasant character though. The entire film oozes misogyny. The character of Gilda is seemingly a metaphor for womankind. Whores who drive men mad and create havoc wherever they are. Serious mommy issues from the writer.
Gilda is merely a distraction of a bad element. As a post-war film we do get the requisite German bad guys, but they are such downplayed characters they exist only as plot devices. The main bad egg is Ballin Mundson, lusciously played by George Macready. He steals the show for me as a man who is not only full of hate, but positively thrives on it. His relationship with Johnny and Gilda (for it does play like a strange threeway) is a powder keg ready to explode.
Sadly the story just gets a bit too messy. After a bizarre plot twist where Ballin fakes his own death and does one, the Gilda abuse fires up even more, so much so that I really didn't buy the neat ending.
It is a gorgeous film to look at. The entire film seems to be set at night as the cast is swathed in gorgeous evening wear. Rita Hayworth's hair should really have billing. It is a wonder to watch when she dances.
So worthy of a watch for the performances and the quite blatant homoeroticism between Ballin and Johnny.

62. Apocalypse Now Redux (1979)



Director Francis Ford Coppola's task in making this war epic was no easy one. It was fraught with setbacks from start to finish. Most of this is documented in sublime detail in the documentary Hearts of Darkness (see future post.)
Emerging from this lengthy mess of production is possibly the greatest film about Vietnam. It was certainly the first big picture to question the war.

We follow Captain Willard and his crew as they travel into the jungle to search for Colonel Kurtz, who has turned renegade and gt himself a touch of god complex. Willard has been ordered to execute Kurtz with extreme prejudice.

What is achieved is a study of one man's journey into 'the abyss'. Martin Sheen's spectacular central performance is where the viewer is grounded. The fact that he himself is on the cusp of crazy, makes it all the more provoking.

The film is littered with set pieces. From the opening scene where we meet Willard in his Saigon hotel room, dishevelled and driven mad by his inner demons; to the Wagner accompanied napalming of a village; to the final face off between Willard and Kurtz. It's all brilliantly atmospheric. The lightness and black comedy of the Colonel Kilgore(loves the smell of napalm in the morning dontyaknow) pre jungle scenes is most welcome.

It's a bit of a hypnotic trip, but you do come out the other side having scene a true classic.

61. Back To The Future (1985)

Marty McFly is a teenager who despairs of his wimpy father and so spends an unhealthy amount of time with ageing eccentric inventor, Doc Brown. Doc's new invention is  time travelling DeLorean car which is fortunate as the doc is gunned down by random 80s terrorists. The time jump is Marty's escape route and he goes back to 1955. There he meets the younger version of his parents, gets them together, makes bad on the school bully, finds his way back home (with the help of the seemingly ageless Doc) and introduced Rock'n'roll to an unreceptive small town America.

It's an 80s classic and it was good in it's day. I was never really a fan myself. I never really found a likable character in it. Everyone is a bit weird or creepy. It's not a bad film by any means, but it does puzzle me when it comes up on peoples all time lists.
To me, it's just OK. Okay? Part 2 was so bad that I have never bothered with part 3, though I hear that it's watchable. Oh I am just full of glowing reviews of this franchise!

60. Babe (1995)

I have to say I was a little taken aback of the inclusion of Babe in this list. That quickly ended as I watched it and remembered what a thoroughly charming film it is.

Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell) wins a piglet at a fair and they form a bond. Being a little out of place on a sheep farm, the pig is adopted by a sheepdog and learns the ways of sheep herding, only in a much more polite and agreeable fashion rather than just barking orders and biting them. Hoggett decides to enter him into a sheepdog trial.

Adapted from the children's book 'The Sheep Pig' , this film is quite an excellent kids film. It certainly doesn't gloss over the running of a farm and does become quite dark in places. There is plenty of light relief though. Ferdinand the duck is a particularly amusing character who decides that to avoid being eaten he must become of use around the farm and decides to take over the roosters job of crowing at dawn. Pigs acting like dogs, duck acting like roosters; it's quite the mixed up farm.

The film looks stunning and the visual effects are par excellence. A seamless mixture of live animals, puppets courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature shop and CGI effects make you believe that the animals are talking. Great voice characterisation from the likes of Miriam Margolyes and Hugo Weaving and a stalwart performance from Cromwell as the farmer of little words complete the recipe for an enchanting film.

59. Au Revoir les Enfants (1987)

A very personal piece from Louis Malle and probable career best.
It's an autobiographical account of his experience in a Catholic boarding school during the second world war.

Julien is sent away to boarding school with his brother to avoid the bombings in Paris. He becomes friends with a new boy, Jean Bonnet, and eventually learns that Jean and some other new kids are actually Jewish children with assumed names being hidden by the schoolmasters. Julien has little knowledge of anti-semitism and the film trundles along with the day to day life of the school. Quirky teachers, friendships formed and broken, practical jokes. Apart from the occasional air raid siren, the war has little impact on the school. Alas harmony is broken as a disgruntled ex employee decides to inform the Nazis of what is going on there. When the officers descend on the school, it is an inadvertent act from Julien that betrays Jen. The guilt is lasting and the film seems to be a sort of atonement for Julien/Louis's action. The voice over at the end admits that he has never forgotten about that morning.

This a poignant film that is alive with details you know come from real life. The eccentric habits of teachers, the 'black market exhange' in presents from home, the hints of sexual awakening. Even the films portrayal of Nazis as a mixed bag of gentlemen and thugs. It's a very worthy and honest portrayal of war through a child's eyes.

58. Atonement (2007)

Briony is a 13 year old precocious brat who has a small crush on the housekeeper's son, Robbie. After misinterpreting scenes between Robbie and her sister Cecilia, she labels him as a sex maniac and when her cousin Lola is raped, she tells the police she saw Robbie do it. What a bitch! It was clearly the creepy chocolate guy(is that Sherlock Holmes?)
Consequently Robbie is sent to prison then into military service. Cecilia, who is actually in love with Robbie, estranges her family and becomes a nurse. They meet up before he leaves for battle and make plans to be together on his return.
A more mature Briony decides to forsake a place at Cambridge and also becomes a nurse, possibly as some penance for the wrong he did. She meets up with the reunited couple and pledges to make right her lie. Especially after seeing that Lola has now married Sherlock Holmes.
Unfortunately the whole film is the elderly Briony's last novel. Finally telling the truth of her misdeed as a teenager. The reality is not as happy an ending, but a great twist.

I had read the book before seeing the film, so it was hard to separate the two. Ian McEwan's book is a masterpiece, but I believe this stands alone as a good film. The performances are great, in particular the three actresses playing Briony. Saoirse Ronan's 13 year old is very accomplished and she comes across as the true spoilt horror. Romola Garai as the 18 year old has the cracks showing as the horrors of war enforce how much she has done wrong. Vanessa Redgrave has a brief appearance at the end as the elderly Briony. It's as part of a television interview about her latest book. It's here that she confesses the reality of her secret. Briony is a coward and it's up to you if you forgive her. Redgrave certainly makes you feel sorry for her. Keira Knightley didn't bring much to the table, but then her character is quite glossed over.

The film is shot with great achievement by Joe Wright. The 'one shot' scene at Dunkirk is particularly affecting, haunting in the desperation of the situation.
It is a good adaptation. There is a whole chunk of the book missing as Robbie walks the long road to the coast. Here it is slight and rushed to get to that scene. I think there was more made of the class separation. It is touched on here, bu the divide between Robbie's mother, Robbie and the Tallis family is more pronounced in the book. Really should stop comparing it to the book though.

Okay one last time. As a film, it's a good costume drama. I wouldn't say it was worthy of the list. The book is most certainly on the 1001 books before you die list!

57. The Apartment (1960)

In the film Brief Encounter, Alec is lent the use of a friend's apartment to meet up with the woman he is having an affair with. Billy Wilder took inspiration from this scenario and wrote about the third man. The man who would lend out his apartment for such a sordid use.

Jack Lemmon plays CC Baxter. A clerk in an office who is allowing his apartment to be used by executives, who meet up with their mistresses there, on the promise of a promotion in the company. At first he comes across as a bit of a doormat having to wait outside his apartment when the trysts run over, but we quickly learn that we have entered this story well into a situation that is now beyond his control. This is epitomised in a comic scene as Baxter struggles to balance his diary to allow himself a night alone in bed to recover from a cold.
Baxter's boss, Mr. Sheldrake, gets to hear of this apartment and now wishes to use it to conduct an affair. Unfortunately the affair is with Fran Kubelik. The one woman who pays attention to Baxter and someone he finally has a date with. Poor Baxter, always the played, though he finally gets his promotion.
 It's Fran who is being played along too and after finding out that Mr. Sheldrake's promises to divorce his wife are false and she is one in a long string of mistresses, she takes an overdose of pills in Baxter's apartment. Baxter finds her in time and with the help of his doctor neighbour, save her life. She is told to stay put for a couple of days and the two strike up a friendship further strengthening Baxter's feelings for her, but can h give her up when Mr. Sheldrake wants her back? Will she finally settle for Mr. Sheldrake?

This is a mixed genre piece. Starting off as a satirical comedy, dipping into emotional drama and then finishing with romantic comedy it certainly never gets boring. I'm not sure I find Lemmon and Maclaine to be a particularly believable couple though. I can buy them as friends though and with the excellent last line and the fact that she never shows any romantic inkling to Baxter, I can take it that they will be just good friends. Poor Baxter. Will he ever get what he wants or even deserves?!

Despite their lack of chemistry, Maclaine and Lemmon both shine here. The whole ensemble is great. Particular dues to Jack Kruschen and Naomi Stevens playing Baxter's next door neighbours. He has them convinced that it's him who is partying with different women every night. "Mildred! He's at it again!"

A clever punchy script, acted well and shot lovingly. It's not Wilder's best, but it's certainly up there. Certainly belongs on this list.