Forever transforming intricate layers of sleaze into something profound, Shohei Imamura continued on the same path he’d journeyed in 1963’s The Insect Woman with its follow-up, Intentions of Murder. The 1964 film approaches many of Imamura’s favorite subjects, notably an unremarkable and unhappy woman dragged through conflict and emerging with complicated victory. The women in [...]

Living where I do and having an interest in some form of the popular arts (film, music, literature) has allowed for many opportunities to view people whom I admire up close. It’s a weird sensation, undoubtedly, but even stranger is when it stops seeming like a big deal. I never have anything worthwhile to say [...]

Samuel Fuller was trying to find a home for his pet project The Big Red One, intended as an epic account of the 1st Infantry squadron Fuller himself had been a part of in World War II, when studio head Jack Warner instead talked him into making Merrill’s Marauders. As Fuller writes in his [...]

As the weather cools and the leaves fall, the Lists Project’s oversized, bespectacled head emerges once again. After working my way through the 1940s and 1950s, the decade of radical changes is now up. The 1960s marked a stinging decline in the quality of Hollywood films, but the international output blossomed beyond expectation, enjoying perhaps [...]

It’s easy to forget just how good John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate is. Despite the director’s lofty accomplishments, especially throughout the 1960s, he’s most remembered for this film and, perhaps, decades of struggles afterwards, probably reaching a low point with the Marlon Brando abomination The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1996. [...]

So many times I’ll look forward to seeing a film only to lose patience when I’m actually watching it, disappointed that my expectations haven’t been met. Then something extraordinary happens: the ending. Great endings should enhance everything you’ve seen earlier in the film. More than making up for the viewer’s wandering attention [...]

The Collector is a terrifying film, much more so than the dozens of progeny it’s spawned, either directly or not, in the forty-plus years since the film was released. The story of a man so obsessed with “collecting” that he catches another human being for the purpose of making her fall in love with him [...]

Through a happy coincidence, the letter ‘B’ plays a vital role in this entry. For some unknown reason, I find myself drawn to films beginning with that letter, both in watching and in writing. I’ve written about this sort of ‘B’ film more than any other letter, as evidenced by my index. [...]

Pitfall was the debut feature from Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara, newly celebrated by the Criterion Collection in a superb four-disc box set. It’s what one might describe as an art film, less concerned with narrative and tying up loose ends than creating disturbing images that become etched into the viewer’s mind. But what images. Surreal [...]

Marvin.  Lee Marvin. 
An odd thought, but can you imagine Lee Marvin as James Bond?  Ignoring the accent, he would have been incredible, bringing the sadistic and amoral side to Bond that Daniel Craig has adopted in Casino Royale.  Marvin is one of those actors that make me question the auteur theory.  I normally write about films in the [...]