1920: The Neighbors

The best Keaton short I've seen so far, with lots of cool stunts. A bit like The General, only shorter and without trains. (7)

1927: The Lodger

Though it is sometimes hailed as Hitchcock's first masterpiece, I was not that impressed by the story of a family who rents an apartment to a man who may or may not be the serial killer the whole town is looking for. Some interesting visuals at the beginning; apart from that it seems a little old, probably because it is. (6)

1954: Ordet

Much like Vreden's dag, another sparse Dreyer film set in the Danish countryside. Generally a nice unspectacular offering, but the young man who thinks he's Jesus's appearances border on the unintentionally comic (at least in the dubbed-into-German version I saw) and the ending is, um, unconventional. (6.5)

1945: Mildred Pierce

The story itself - about how a man came to be murdered - isn't all that interesting, but it is told at quite a pace, and the frames show this was directed by Michael Curtiz, the man responsible for Casablanca. Why this is often classified as a noir escapes me, though. (7)

1962: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

The film about a deviant youth's time in a reformatory and how he got there is generally done well, and I especially like the use of music in the running scenes. Could have done without the grandstanding in the final scene. (6.5)

1960: Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers)

Visconti tells the story of four southern Italian brothers who come to Milan in search of a better life, focusing on the tender Rocco and the up-to-no-good Simone. - It's got a last half hour to die for, but the other two have some (mild) lengths. Overall, a very good movie, though. (7.5)

1943: Vredens Dag (Day of Wrath)

In a 17th century Danish village, witch-burning is alive and well, and people are not shy to let non-witch-related influences guide their decisions about whom to denounce. Combine with the intra-family conflict in a Danish pastor's household, and you have a nice setup for this drama directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer using austere frames and deliberate (but not slow) pacing. (7)

2008: Synecdoche, New York

Brilliant movie, reviewed here. (8.5)

1960: Inherit the Wind

It is hard to stay neutral when telling the story of an actual historical case in which a science teacher in the USA's bible belt was sued for teaching evolution, and this film clearly, and perhaps a bit to forcefully, makes clear that it's not on the side of the religious zealots. Otherwise, this is a well-structured and all-around professionally done piece of political entertainment. (6.5)

1960: Village of the Damned

In an English village, a number of children are born who have apparently been begat by aliens and who are blond, precocious and eerily powerful in this crisp, entertaining and totally nonscary old horror/sf film. (7)

1961: Viridiana

This critics' favourite, directed by Buñuel, about the young, kind and beautiful Viridiana's fateful last visit to her uncle and its aftermath, leaves me cold - there's nothing wrong with it, but there's not much right with it either. (5.5)

1966: Tôkyô nagaremono (Tokyo Drifter)

Tetsu has decided to leave his yakuza gang and sworn off violence, but naturally, the past won't leave him be, so you can expect lots of shooting in this fun violence movie. Apparently, this was director Seijun Suzuki's first film in colour, and as such is remindful of pop songs from the 1960s, when stereo had just become available: Let's put one half of the instruments on the left and the other on the right, because we can! Likewise, once given access to colour, Suzuki gave the audience frames like this. Which, I think, is great. Although pistols, not swords, are used, this looks like the film that Tarantino tried to make when he did Kill Bill. The original is to be preferred. (7)

1969: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Bob & Carol go on a weekend seminar about self-actualization, or whatever you want to call it, and swallow the stuff hook, line and sinker, returning to tell their friends Ted & Alice, another wealthy couple that they want to know about their honest feelings. Within five minutes, Carol also goes on record saying that nobody should ever do anything to make other people feel degraded, so you can see a tension there; and if I had written the screenplay, within fifteen minutes there would have been violence, nuclear weapons and all. The actual film, perhaps to its credit, stays more ambivalent, though. Not a great movie, but certainly interesting, and very 1969. (6.5)

2007: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Although it's been a while since Pulp Fiction hit the screens (let alone the first printing of Tristram Shandy), nonlinear storytelling is still considered all the rage in contemporary Hollywood. There's nothing wrong with it per se, but when it is employed mainly as a gimmick, as in this thriller-drama about a robbery that goes all pear-shaped, the nonlinear fashion is a little annoying. Also, one wonders why an accomplished director like Sidney Lumet - with Dog Day Afternoon, perhaps the classic in the robbery-gone-pear-shaped genre, to his name - tries so hard to make this film look modern, making it look run-of-the-mill in the process, is a bit baffling. None of which is to say that this movie is as badly done as the previous sentence. (6)

1999: The Limey

This variant of the man seeks revenge story suffers from a bad case of The "Blimey Mate" Problem, complete with Cockney Rhyming Slang; indeed it's a pretty unsophisticated script all around. Director Steven Soderbergh perhaps should have gotten an Oscar for making it into a visually interesting, reasonably entertaining film. (6.5)

1919: Broken Blossoms or, The Yellow Man and the Girl

Girl suffers under the thumb of her adoptive father who suffers from bad English ("I'll teach yer!") and anger management issues ("I'll teach yer!"). Girl falls in love with gentle Chinaman (played by a pretty Caucasian-looking Richard Barthelmess). Violence. - There's not a lot to say about D.W. Griffith's acclaimed silent melodrama except that it's not very good. (5.5)

1948: Germania anno zero (Germany, Year Zero)

Rosselini's neorealist classic about a boy in bombed-to-pieces postwar Berlin features lay performances from lay actors and more technical ineptness than you should expect from a 1948 picture. Historically important it may be, particularly good it's not. (5.5) Better films in the same mould are Ladri di biciclette and Rosselini's own Roma, città aperta.

2007: In the Valley of Elah

Despite asking us to sympathize with an ex-soldier who managed to raise his two sons into joining the army, the first three quarters of this film, about a father trying to find out who killed his son, work decently as a mystery, until the film starts to clumsily hurl its anti-war meassage at the audience. Possibly the most hideous last scene in movie history. (5)

2002: City by the Sea

Drug addict gets into trouble with the law, re: homicide. His father is a homicide detective. Conflict. - Set in a derelict Long Beach (more derelict than real Long Beach, according to Wikipedia), the film hardly uses the setting and generally suffers from its made-for-TV aesthetics. Someone like Cassavetes or Aronofsky might have made much more of this, one feels, have made much more of this. Still, not a bad film at all. (6.5)

1960: Les yeux sans visage (Eyes without a Face)

A dead girl is found who's missing her facial skin. A surgeon's daughter, alive, is missing her facial skin. Coincidence? I think not! - The B-ish French b/w shocker is jolly good fun overall, but a bit slow at times; a good editor, I think, would have cut it down from 86 minutes to 75 or so, which is a good length for a film. (6.5)