Email here for additions & corrections.

The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
The Fox
(Rydell, 1967)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)
Mike's Murder
(Bridges, 1984)
Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
(Seiter, 1936)
Sh! The Octopus
(McGann, 1937)
The Mating Season
(Leisen, 1951)
Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956)
House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Macabre
(Castle, 1958)
The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959)
1960's
Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960)
Summer and Smoke
(Glenville, 1961)
The Chapman Report
(Cukor,1962)
Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
(Newman, 1971)
Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
'Doc'
(Perry, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
(Hopper, 1971)
Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
(Edwards, 1972)
Pete 'n' Tillie
(Ritt, 1972)
Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing
(Pakula, 1973)
Man on a Swing
(Perry, 1974)
Open Season
(Collinson, 1974)
The Tamarind Seed
(Edwards, 1974)
Law and Disorder
(Passer, 1974)
Homebodies
(Yust, 1974)
Stardust
(Apted, 1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974)
1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
(Richards, 1975
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1975)
Hearts of the West
(Zieff, 1975)
Welcome to L.A.
(Rudolph, 1976)
W.C. Fields and Me
(Hiller, 1976)
Citizens Band
(Demme, 1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming
(Aldrich, 1977)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(Brooks, 1977)
Movie Movie
(Donen, 1978)
The Medusa Touch
(Gold, 1978)
American Hot Wax
(Mutrux, 1978)
Hot Stuff
(DeLuise, 1979)
Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
(Harvey, 1979)
Rich Kids
(Young, 1979)
Nightwing
(Hiller, 1979)
Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Running on Empty
(Lumet, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Men Don't Leave
(Brickman, 1990)
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

July 30

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

Charlie St. Cloud

The Concert

Dinner for Shmucks

The Dry Land

The Extra Man

Get Low

Helen

Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel

Smash His Camera

What's the Matter with Kansas?

Who Killed Nancy

Hope, Fear, Adventure

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Yesterday I explained my objections are to kids and kid movies, particularly ones that celebrate childhood as something sacred and wondrous where wild things run free. The best line of the piece: "The wake-up call of the Great Recession means that the age of the 'infantilization of movies' -- a term coined by Pauline Kael, as I recall, in an attempt to describe the influence that Spielberg and Lucas began to exert in the mid '70s -- is coming to a blessed and merciful end."

I should acknowledge that HE reader "Cde." pointed out the following: "I don't want to spoil the ending, but I'll just say that [Where The Wild Things Are director] Spike Jonze seems to have a similar view to your own, which is exactly the reason that the studio freaked out and got into the huge battle with him that lasted eighteen months. They wanted reassuring, obvious bullshit that celebrates childhood and he made a film about the necessity of facing reality.

"A better way of putting all of that would be to say that Jonze wanted to make a film that was true to Maurice Sendak's feelings that, while children certainly have compassion, they are often unconsciously cruel or insensitive because of their lack of understanding of the world and those around them."

"Ralph...siddown!"<< previous | next >>Evil Trio

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 26, 2009 at 7:59 AM

comment #1

actionman says ...

The trailer for Where the WIld Things Are is one of the best trailers I've ever seen.

Posted by actionman at March 26, 2009 8:15 AM

comment #2

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

That looks good, but I don't think it looks amazing. Maybe it's because of my Deafness, but people claim that the music makes the trailer even better. For me, it's just blah.

Posted by DeafBrownTrashPunk at March 26, 2009 9:00 AM

comment #3

Movie fan09 says ...

The only problem I have with what you're talking about Jeff is that kids are finding this out too soon and becoming adults (in dress and vernacular) much more sooner than before.

You guys hear about this kid who became a father at 10 with a 13 yr old girl?

wtf...?!

How do you keep reinforce certain stereotypes for kids and tell them it's going to be ok too?

Posted by Movie fan09 at March 26, 2009 9:34 AM

comment #4

George Prager says ...

Amazing coincidence: DNA test proves that Alfie is not the father:

http://jezebel.com/5185323/alfie-patten-is-not-a-13+year+old-dad

Posted by George Prager at March 26, 2009 9:37 AM

comment #5

actionman says ...

DeafBrown -- it's the imagery in the trailer that grabs me the most.

Posted by actionman at March 26, 2009 9:54 AM

comment #6

MovieBob says ...

Heh. I'm almost halfway to "called it" i.e. Jeff liking the movie ("because I divine that Spike actually agrees with me!") and then hating it once it makes money and the damn thing isn't even OUT yet ;)

Also, it occurs to me that MOST childhood-fantasy films - the good ones - DO have this as their basic message. Peter Pan (from the original story on down) is about rejecting eternal boyhood, "Labyrinth" is about Connelly's character getting out of her extended-adolesence and being responsible with the kid brother, even "The Goonies" (currently the go-to movie for web-based movie writers to slag on in order to prove their non-geekiness to the mainstream press) comes dwon on the side of the main kids growing up, facing fears, dealing with their various issues etc.

Same for Old Yeller and it's spiritual successor E.T. (at the end of the day, magic bikes and all, E.T. is about Elliot accepting A.) responsibility for somethin outside himself and B.) to accept impermanence, something he's been fighting against since his parent's divorce.) If you want to see a "childhood fantasy"-worshipping Spielberg movie, it's not ET, it's Close Encounters: The main character acts like a hypperactive six year-old lost in his own imaginary world, is proven to have been 100% correct while everyone who didn't indulge his whimsy is proven to have been wrong not to do so, and then his heroic-sendoff is essentially abandoning his adult responsibilities to go off to alien-fairyland.

Posted by MovieBob at March 26, 2009 10:07 AM

comment #7

MAGGA says ...

TrashPunk, the music makes my impression of the trailer a lot better because it's such an unusual choice for a children's film. Makes me see it as more serious, or more Eternal Sunshine for kids than Harry Potter.

Posted by MAGGA at March 26, 2009 10:09 AM

comment #8

MAGGA says ...

MovieBob, I agree fully, but would argue that Close Encounters A) is also a brilliant metaphor for what can happen when an artistic seed is sown and is nurtured at the cost of everything else, and B) works better today than ever before because movies do indulge our fantasies and escapist needs, and that the nightmarish descriptions of family life and responsabilities followed by the momentous escapist climax strike a stronger chord the more we struggle in our humdrum lives. The bills are still there when we switch off the BlueRay.

As for real adolescent rubbish you can't go wrong with the new testament, as we will not die, our situation is not permanent, and that all our wrong doings are corrected by a scapegoat on a cross as long as you don't think accept alternative theories about why we're alive etc. If politicians are required to believe that fairytale it seems like kids not "growing up" is a moot point.

Posted by MAGGA at March 26, 2009 10:21 AM

comment #9

mtgilchrist says ...

If Wells' expectations come true that might be a good thing, but much like 9/11 was supposed to precipitate the end of the age of irony, I somehow doubt that the Recession is going to stop people from wanting to see massive, escapist spectacles like Transformers, which means that people will still make them. I would love to think that we might advance into an era where filmmaking is more thoughtful and personal again, but the machine's already working and way out in the field, and without just nuking the whole damn thing and starting over I think the best filmmakers are going to be able to manage is giving it a tune-up every now and then, making it work better, more efficiently, or more effectively.

Posted by mtgilchrist at March 26, 2009 10:28 AM

comment #10

D.Z. says ...

action: If the trailer was made 25 years ago and called Neverending Story, I'd agree.

gil: I'm assuming(or at least hoping) people will avoid TF 2 because the first one sucked, regardless of the economy.

Posted by D.Z. at March 26, 2009 2:01 PM

comment #11

corey3rd says ...

I liked the trailer although that's more than in those 20 something pages.

The book is about being pissed at your parents, living the wild life and then eventually getting bored of the party and wanting to go home for a mom's cooking. It's a good thing to tell your kids - which is who first reads you this story when you're supposed to go to bed.

Posted by corey3rd at March 26, 2009 2:36 PM

comment #12

Nate West says ...

Yesterday I explained my objections are to kids and kid movies, particularly ones that celebrate childhood as something sacred and wondrous where wild things run free. Today, I would like to extend my objections to people and to movies about people generally, particularly ones that celebrate human life as something sacred and wondrous. We all know the converse to be true. Life is, without exception, brutal and grim, where fleeting moments of apparent "happiness" only make the inevitable miseries more difficult to endure. Give me a soda, a carton of Milk Duds, and movies without hope, and I'm content.

Posted by Nate West at March 26, 2009 6:45 PM

comment #13