Armchair Commentary

The 69th Golden Globes - What Went Down

The 69th Golden Globes have happened; click here for the full list of winners, including which ones you can order on DVD, Blu-ray, or Amazon Instant Video; the others you can sign up to be notified whenever they become available to pre-order. Meanwhile, check out some opnions on last night's ceremony.

Everyone will talk about the heart warming success of the The Help, or on a bigger scale the strength of important and sometimes hilarious roles for women, Bridesmaids. Of course one has to mention the definition of acting class and brilliance with the incomparable Morgan Freeman. These are the deserved themes of the evening but here are a few other, smaller moments that supplied an overall flat night with some memories.

Classy Christopher

    

Christopher Plummer. Kudos to this gentleman being recoginzed for his role in The Beginners. Although there is a whole new generation of leading men from George Clooney to Leo and Pitt, there is just something about that classic generation of Hollywood that will never be matched again. There is definitely some old school Tinseltown glamour in thanking your bartender in an acceptance speech.

 

 

 

Good for Joey

Maybe it was just me but it just felt good to see Matt LeBlanc up there receiving an award for Episodes. Not because I was rooting one way or the other but because I thought it was the most geniune and humble moment of the night. LeBlanc was authentic, truly nervous and suprised and it was heart warming.

Pure Harmony

    

It was just the moment that put a big smile on your face. Husband and wife William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman harmonizing a little ditty while presenting. How can you not like these two?

 

 

 

These "Talkies" Are Going to Kill the Movie Biz

I guess we were all wrong about this whole "sound" thing. It appears that the real darlingn of last year and this year's awards circuit might be The Artist. It's time to face reality if you're a big movie and award show fan. You are going to have to watch a silent (mostly) film. It's already won best movie at the Critic's Choice and now Best Comedy or Musical at the Golden Globes. It could shock at the Oscars.

Just Shut Up!

Madonna, you are just....obnoxious. We get it, you directed a movie. Good for you. You were sure to remind us of that in you boring and awkward speech as you uttered "My Movie" countless times. Guess what, nobody saw it and your movie career is still the source of punchlines not praise.

Best David Bowie Impersonation

      And the winner is........Tilda Swinton. Brilliant actress and I'm sure when the movie is made about the life and times of David Bowie  she will play the role and probably receive a Golden Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table We Most Want to Sit At

Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman? Yes, please. While Tina Fey's photobomb was one of the most gif worthy moments of the night, we can only imagine the champagne buzz chatter emmenating from that table. As Liz Lemon would say, "I want to go to there."

--Adam & Megan

The Terrible Eleven of 2011: The Year's Best in Horror DVDs

Following is a list of notable horror-related DVD and Blu-ray releases from 2011. A "best" list for horror can be a tricky proposition, given the spectrum of styles and degrees of intensity in the genre. Classic chiller fans may not care a whit about the latest gut-spiller, while gore aficionados may roll their eyes at a Depression Era spookshow. But the following eleven titles showcased here stood out, and therefore, were the best in our opinion, because they met two important criteria: they were distinguished by the quality of their stories and/or direction, whether stylish, unrelenting or inventive, and (most importantly) they were scary.

Here's our alarming eleven, in no particular order:

-- Island of Lost Souls Director Erle C. Kenton's outrageous 1933 adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau makes its long-over DVD debut with this deluxe presentation from Criterion. Seventy years have not dampened the film's queasy blend of pre-Code perversity and sadism in the name of Science, as embodied by Charles Laughton as a supremely arch Moreau, as well as Kathleen Burke's hot-blooded Panther Girl and Bela Lugosi's tormented Sayer of the Law. Extras include interviews with director John Landis, makeup legend Rick Baker and Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale of Devo, whose "de-evolution" manifesto was influenced by the film. An absolute essential for horror fans of all ages and preferences.

Forget Everything You Have Seen: Alejandro Jodorowsky Talks "El Topo" and "Holy Mountain" on Blu-ray

In 1970, world cinema was turned on its head by Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealistic Western El Topo. A violent fable about an unbeatable gunfighter (played by Jodorowsky) who loses his humanity to gain enlightenment, El Topo drew inspiration from a dizzying array of sources, including Zen Buddhist tracts, Antonin Artaud's "Theater of Cruelty," the films of Jean Cocteau and Sergio Leone and the art of Salvador Dali. Its head-spinning melange of arthouse and grindhouse tropes made it a sensation among the cognoscenti of the counterculture (most notably, John Lennon and Yoko Ono) and helped to kick off the "midnight movies" scene of the early '70s. Jodorowsky would follow El Topo with The Holy Mountain (1973), a equally dense-layered fantasy about a mystic (Jodorowsky again) who leads the six "most powerful people" on Earth to the title location, where they hope to unlock the secrets of the immortals.

Though Jodorowsky made several films after this powerhouse duo, including 1990's Santa Sangre, none would capture the imagination of the movie-going public like El Topo and Holy Mountain. Unfortunately, few could see the films following their initial theatrical runs; rights issues kept them in limbo for decades until they were released by ABKCO and Anchor Bay on DVD in 2007. On April 26, both entities will present Blu-ray editions of El Topo and Holy Mountain. To commemorate the occasion, Amchair Commentary spoke with Alejandro Jodorowsky via phone at his home in Paris, where he imparted his unique, decidedly frank (and possibly NSFW) views on his masterworks, the Blu-ray releases and his much-discussed future projects.

QUESTION: I want to read you a quote that you gave during the original theatrical release of El Topo. You said, "If you're great, El Topo is a great film. If you're limited, El Topo is limited." Do you still agree with this assessment?

Arthur, Straight Up: Movies and Alcohol

The new reboot of Arthur, starring Russell Brand as a lovable man-child billionaire playboy with a rather serious drinking problem also presents a rather serious problem in its comedic premise that the 30-year-old original starring Dudley Moore did not. As a piece of bright, shiny entertainment, Arthur 2011 is perfectly fine, but the subject of alcoholism kind of grates as an issue that's easy to make light of. Arthur 1981 didn't really have the same problem, partly because Dudley Moore did such a fine and funny happy-drunk act, and partly because as a societal issue alcoholism wasn't quite as much of a stumbling block. The new version doesn't always know how to handle this rather important plot point, and it gets in the way more often than not. Russell Brand has made no secret of his past as an addict and alcoholic who has found life afresh in recovery. He knows whereof he pretends, but his drunken act is rather more of a silly aside in the movie's grander scheme than anything else.

Drinking, drunks, and the subject of alcoholism on screen has had a long and varied history even before Dudley Moore's Arthur drove his limousine down the streets of New York sloshed to the gills (God help a movie studio that would portray such a thing as a comedic event today). The subject has been addressed head-on, obliquely, or as a plot point that is either inherent or tangential to character or story. As a tribute to the two Arthurs and Dudley Moore's overly theatrical drunk act -- hardly anyone has ever done it better -- what follows is a brief sampling of a few movies that, in no particular order, have tackled the issue of drink with humor, delicacy, offhandedness or the most profound gravity.

When a Man Loves a Woman (1994): Playing it completely straight, Al Franken stepped out of Stuart Smalley mode to address the reality of addiction as co-writer of this affecting portrait of a couple whose marriage slams into the very real wreckage caused by her alcoholism. There's nothing funny about the heavy duty drinking that consumes Meg Ryan and almost destroys her enabling husband Andy Garcia in a way that's just as serious. There's a happy ending, but not before some harrowing vignettes that proves Franken understands that the reality of addiction is no laughing matter.

The Upside of Anger (2005): Drink is not exactly the subject of this flawed, yet funny and poignant romantic yarn about an upscale suburban mom (Joan Allen) whose husband picks up and leaves, but it's in the background of every scene and influences a lot of the characters' motivations. Allen's four grown-ish daughters are foils caught between her rage (often alcohol-fueled) and the growing attentions of the washed-up pro baseball player who lives next door (Kevin Costner). He's also a fairly constant tippler, though he prefers talboys to her high-end vodka, and the story does indeed lob some cautionary hardballs about the dangers of mixing drink with love, comedy, and romance.

Drunks (1995): Real-life recovering alcoholic Richard Lewis leads a stellar cast in Gary Lennon's adaptation of his play, Blackout about a night in the life of a group of drunks doing their thing at an AA meeting in a seedy pre-Disneyfied Times Square church basement. Lewis, completely out of stand-up comic mode and into serious method acting territory is the riveting soul of an often scarily realistic portrayal of the way it really is for alcoholics in, out, or on the verge of recovery. Addiction isn't funny at all for these bunch of soul-baring drunks which include the likes of Sam Rockwell, Amanda Plummer, Kevin Corrigan, Parker Posey, Dianne Wiest, Faye Dunaway, and Spalding Gray.

Barfly (1987): Director Barbet Schroeder had great fun in tackling the work of famed literary drunkard Charles Bukowski in this loose adaptation of his autobiographical writings. Mickey Rourke plays the Bukowski stand-in in prime, pre-self parody Mickey Rourke form as a disgusting, loathsome, yet sometimes loveable habitue of the seediest Los Angeles dives ever captured on film. He's unrepentant and has fun -- between bouts of sickness and a sobering down-and-out lifestyle in which Faye Dunaway is his alcoholic cohort -- giving the barflies around him a kind of romantic charm. Barfly is famous among many for the oft-quoted line mumbled by a background character: "What's a guy gotta do to get a drink around here!?"

Bad Santa (2003): Billy Bob Thornton's turn as a the most disgusting, despicable, foul-mouthed seasonal Santa who ever allowed a child to approach him is a classic of offensive cinema and perhaps one of the funniest performances ever. Never seen not guzzling down a bucket of booze or barfing it back up, his portrayal of a terminal drunkard and all around jerk who hooks with up for the holidays to do the Santa act, then sticks around to clean out the safe is astonishing for being so funny in the face of the utter lack of fun he ever seems to have. He spews his lines like bile, showing the dark side of drink -- but with the darkest, funniest sides of comedy held closely in tow.

The Lost Weekend (1945): This cautionary tale brought the issue of alcoholism to the masses in a big way for audiences in 1945 and also brought Oscars to star Ray Milland and director Billy Wilder (it also won for best picture and best screenplay). Milland's character summarizes the best and worst of what alcohol does to the life of the drinker and all those around him in a remarkable soliloquy delivered barside, then showed the audiences the horrors of withdrawal in a memorable scene that has him strapped to a bed in the psych ward. The film still makes a huge impact today for the realistic way it portrays the depths of deceit and despair an alcoholic will plumb before -- or if -- he chooses to accept help.

Harvey (1950): This classic from the Jimmy Stewart oeuvre may be closes to the original version Arthur for the way it portrays a happy-go-lucky drunk who never really encounters many problems from his alcoholism. As Elwood P. Dowd, Stewart spends his days happily soused at the bar, charmed to meet anyone in his path and charming everyone he meets in return. Its sweet, slightly sad story may be a cautionary tale, but with his six-foot-tall invisible rabbit friend Harvey always in tow, Elwood never had much to worry about, and neither did the audience.

Leaving Las Vegas (1995): Crushingly sad, yet somehow hopeful in its denouement, Leaving Las Vegas won Nicolas Cage an Oscar for his performance as a man who purposefully sets out to drink himself to death. It is not a pretty picture of the destruction alcohol causes, though its message and tender romantic undertone is as sentimental as it is heartbreaking. Cage scarily reproduces the euphoria, depression, and horrible physical toll alcohol exacts on the human mind, body and spirit.

My Favorite Year (1982): As an homage to early live television -- specifically a tribute to Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, which is the thinly veiled backdrop setting -- My Favorite Year is a sweet and funny coming of age story about a young man trying to keep tabs on an old drunkard. Peter O'Toole played an Erroll Flynn-type aging heartthrob who agrees to appear on a new-fangled '50s TV comedy variety show without understanding what the concept "live" really means. The fact that he's a constant boozer to begin with doesn't help, but at least he's a happy, high-functioning drunk. His performance won him an Oscar nomination and a place in the happy-drinker hall of fame.

Days of Wine and Roses (1962): Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick both got Oscar nominations as a husband and wife who start their drinking careers innocently and with understandable nonchalance. But the booze overtakes them in harrowing ways that are portrayed with great drama and stark realism. It ends badly for them both, even though one of them successfully comes out the other side of the wreckage their drinking has caused each other and all those around them. The movie is also notable as the first to portray the organization of Alcoholics Anonymous as it actually existed, and the basics of how it works in saving the lives of those who choose to embrace it.

Great Films Come in Small Packages

It’s easy to overlook a DVD or Blu-ray disc with an unfamiliar name. Is it even from this year? And why don’t I recognize any of the stars? But tomorrow’s nobody may just be the next big thing.

Consider Fish Tank’s Michael Fassbender, who currently stars as Rochester in the latest version of Jane Eyre and was recently featured in Entertainment Weekly. Ladies, in Fish Tank you can see him with his shirt off. Enough about Fassbender’s abs; Katie Jarvis is the real star of Fish Tank. She plays a street-smart young Brit, who pushes everyone away, but secretly dreams of being a dancer--and liberating a neighbor’s chained up horse. When her mom brings home her new boyfriend (Fassbender), it almost seems like Katie’s life could change for the better. But perhaps not everything is quite as it seems.

Speaking of movies that aren’t what they seem, Catfish is one of the year’s most interesting documentaries. It shares Exit Through the Gift Shop’s “is it real or is it invented” quality (though count me as one of the believers), and makes a good companion piece to The Social Network. All I can tell you is: A man meets a young girl on Facebook. The film is suspenseful, though not in the typical “scary” way. Watch it yourself and decide: Is it real?

Another movie that might leave you shaking your head (hopefully in a good way) is the Oscar-nominated Dogtooth. This film from Denmark about a man who’s determined to shelter his family from the outside world is disturbing in all the best ways. Its inventiveness—the parents make new meanings for worlds they don’t want the “kids” to know—combine with some shocking sex and violence (and who doesn’t love that) to create a world that you wouldn’t want to live in but is worth a two-hour visit.

Visually, Enter the Void is one of the trippier big-screen visions you’ll stumble across. Paz de la Huerta (Boardwalk Empire), an actress who’s never met a piece of clothing she didn’t want to remove in front of a camera, and newcomer Nathaniel Brown star as a brother and sister who are torn apart as kids but reunite years later as adults in the playground of Tokyo nightlife. Director Gasper Noe’s view of Tokyo looks nothing like the sterile city of Lost in Translation; he transforms it into a drug-fueled fairyland.

Melbourne’s no fairytale city in Animal Kingdom. It’s more like “boy meets family of Departed-style criminals,” when J (James Frecheville) is sent to live with his maternal grandmother (Oscar-nominated Jackie Weaver). If you thought that Black Swan’s Barbara Hershey and The Fighter’s Melissa Leo were the scariest moms of 2010, just wait till you meet Weaver’s “Smurf.” Without employing any of the histrionics of the others, she delivers a chilling performance.

Have you seen a small film you want to recommend to other Amazon customers? Share it with us. But please, no spoilers. --Paige Newman

The Hit Parade: Memorable Movie Hit Men

"Dying ain't much of a living," as Clint Eastwood once famously growled in The Outlaw Josey Wales, but you sure wouldn't know it from the movies, which routinely sport a gaggle of hitmen, assassins, and people generally collecting money for doing very bad things. As Jason Statham and Ben Foster pay their dues in this week's revamp of The Mechanic, here's a look at some films featuring a few of the more memorable contractors in cinema history.

The Lineup (1958) Hitmen have been longtime residents of classic film noir (perhaps most notably in 1946's gritty The Killers), but director Don Siegel's amazing cult film stands apart from the pack. What begins as a standard police procedural permanently jumps the rails midway with the introduction of two mob professionals (Eli Wallach and Robert Keith) in town with a few hours to kill. Wallach's raging ape  in a too-tight suit is scary enough, but Keith's sweatless veteran manages to leave him in the shade. Once the film reveals exactly what Keith likes to write down in his ever-present little black book, the goosebumps run wild. Possible best touch in a movie full of them: Wallach's introduction, as he scowlingly leafs through a book on proper grammar.

Le Samourai (1967) Director Jean-Pierre Melville specialized in moody existentialism, a trait perhaps best displayed by the main character in this film, a gorgeous blank of a killer known simply as Jeff. Sporting an immaculate suit and fedora (and, in a neat touch, the white gloves traditionally worn by film editors), Alain Delon mournfully glides through the frames, as a man wholly defined by his profession. 
What are his inner thoughts about what he does? Only his symbolically caged pet bird knows for sure. His example launched a legion of cinematic triggermen with a philosophical bent, including John Hurt in The Hit, Forest Whitaker's triphoppy Ghost Dog, and most recently, George Clooney in The American.

The Mechanic (1972) Jason Statham's a big guy, true, but he's got some major shoes to fill, as his source material features the immortal Charles Bronson at his absolute squinting flintiest. Beginning with the first dialog-free 15 minutes, which shows the (anti)hero methodically setting up an untracable hit, director Michael Winner's film glories in the mustachioed mystique of a man consciously setting himself outside the law. Subtle it ain't, but the combination of Bronsonian macho cool and wincingly mod settings (particularly Bronson's ridiculously sublime house, which suggests what would happen if Hugh Hefner landed a job curating The Louvre) make it an exquitely pulpy example of 70's B-movies. Plus, you know, that ending.

Charley Varrick (1973) Don Siegel again, this time with a crackerjack heist movie that leaps to another dimension with the introduction of Joe Don Baker, as a deceptively soft-spoken assassin hired to take down Walter Matthau's hapless safecracker. Sporting a houndstooth jacket and a snazzy pipe, Baker's utter walk-through-walls relentlessness serves as a primer for both The Terminator's T-800 and No Country for Old Men's Anton Chigurh. If only they had followed his grooming advice, as well.

The Killer (1989) An acknowledged descendent of Melville's earlier Samurai, Chow yun-Fat wears his heart gloriously on his sleeve here, as a botched hit causes a master gunman to unleash torrents of emotions. And bullets. Zillions and zillions of bullets. Many filmmakers since have attempted to emulate director John Woo and Chow's patented two-gun two-step, but the duo's aura of bloodspattered soulfulness remains uniquely their own.

Pulp Fiction (1994) An easy layup for any list on this topic, of course, but the combination of Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta still proves lethal, no matter the amount of duplications. Building on the matter-of-fact carnage in Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino's particular genius here was to show that even professional killers could get bored, cracking jokes and answering the calls of nature during even the most potentially dangerous moments. The combination of pop-culture riffs broken up by occasional gunfights proved far more influential than probably even QT could have dreamed: After this, independent films in the  90's featured more people hired to kill people than actual people.

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) John Cusack's uniquely candid killer-for-hire would be inspired at any time, but coming after a glut of films about wisecracking men with guns, his neurotic second-guessing about his chosen profession seems almost heroic. Cusack and director George Armitage create a sympathetic, even endearing main character, without ever quite excusing him. As the scene involving a locker room and a pen show, potential romance and life-altering choices take a back seat to training. All this, plus Dan Aykroyd cackling to the rafters. For an example of a more mid-life assassin crisis, check out Pierce Brosnan in the sly The Matador.

Intolerable Cruelty (2003) The films of the Coen Brothers have featured more than their share of hired muscle over the years, including M. Emmet Walsh's cackling sleazebag in Blood Simple, the terrifyingly golum-like The Dane of Miller's Crossing, and, of course, Raising Arizona's Lone Biker of the Apocalypse. The mountain of a man named Wheezy Joe, however, might be their most unique, as well as the catalyst for what's possibly their most inspired sight gag ever. I'd say long live Wheezy Joe, but, well, you know. -- Andrew Wright

The Devil's in the Details: 10 Great Exorcism Movies... Besides "The Exorcist"

Talking about exorcism in movies without mentioning The Exorcist (1973) is a bit like discussing the history of rock and roll and ignoring Chuck Berry. William Friedkin's blockbuster adaptation of William Peter Blatty's novel wasn't the first screen depiction of exorcism - a scene in Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings (1927) shows Jesus casting the Seven Deadly Sins, which appear as spirits, out of Mary Magdalene - but it was, and remains, the most potent and terrifying look at this controversial ceremony. It's also the most influential movie to deal with the subject, spawning two sequels (John Boorman's surreal Exorcist II: The Heretic, 1977, and Blatty's Exorcist III, 1990), two prequels (Exorcist: The Beginning, 2004, and the ill-fated Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist, 2005), parodies (Repossessed, 1990), and a seemingly endless line of tributes, rip-offs and so on. For most viewers, The Exorcist serves as the final word on screen exorcisms.

However, the release of The Last Exorcism (2010), which will be released on DVD and Blu-ray today, serves as an excellent reminder that several solid horror films have been made outside of the orbit of The Exorcist. The Independent Spirit Award nominee, directed by Daniel Stamm, concerns a troubled minister who, in aiding a documentary crew in debunking exorcism, encounters a case where demonic possession appears to exist. Following are ten films (in no particular order) that manage to present fresh, offbeat and frightening ideas on the possibility of diabolical evil taking root in our modern world.

New Year's Resolutions You Can Keep: Watch This!

Sure, getting fit and eating better are great New Year's resolutions. But this year, why not focus on resolutions that will be easy to keep? That's right: this year, let's resolve to get caught up--or catch up our good friends--on the top buzzed-about films and TV series. You don't have premium cable? Overlooked some of the little gems on screens large and small? 2011 will be the year to set all that right:

1. Dexter -- Michael C. Hall is spellbinding as the serial killer with a conscience in Showtime's series, one of the best-written dramas in recent memory. If you don't have premium cable, don't sweat it--Dexter is great to catch up on via disc, when you can watch several episodes in a row. Each season has topped the previous, and it's best to start at the beginning of Season One. Watch for great (and dastardly) guest appearances by the likes of Jimmy Smits and John Lithgow. It's the most fun you'll have being super-creeped out.

2. The Kids Are All Right -- Lisa Cholodenko's little gem got great critical reviews but only so-so box office. But now that awards season is in full swing, more people are taking notice, and rightly so. Annette Bening, who hasn't graced movie screens in a long while, and Julianne Moore are terrific in this portrait of a family that's different, but full of love, and fully functional. (Follow it with The Who's The Kids Are Alright just for the name symmetry--and for another definition of  "all right.")

3. Breaking Bad -- Don Draper and Mad Men's  retro hipness have been in AMC's spotlight--rightly--this year. But AMC has been cranking out some other seriously great series, including Breaking Bad and the zombie-fest The Walking Dead. In Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston is outstanding as a desperate middle-aged dad whose life is crumbling around him, so he takes up dealing meth to earn money. It's a harsher, more real and human version of Showtime's Weeds, and Cranston is a knockout.

4. The Stieg Larsson Trilogy Films -- Everyone spent most of 2010 reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. And Hollywood has naturally gotten its mitts on rights to remake the original Swedish films. But don't wait to see if the U.S. versions can possibly measure up; take your time with the moody, eloquent originals and immerse yourself in the spooky calm of the Swedish countryside--and deep mysteries solvable only by the fiercest heroine in recent memory.

5. Big Love--The HBO series about modern-day polygamists has been compuslively watchable--but now its producers have announced this coming season will be its last. So get caught up on the goings-on in Sandy, Utah, with Bill Hendrickson (the excellent Bill Paxton) and his many merry mates.

6. Friday Night Lights--A critical favorite, Friday Night Lights still struggles in its viewership, and every season in the last few has threatened to be its last. Don't let this little gem about Texas high school football--and the lives that surround it--get away from you this year.

7. Biggest Loser: Power Walk--OK, so you would like to get in shape in 2011? You can do that, too, with some help from your favorite TV pals. The new Biggest Loser workout, Power Walk, is approachable and doable for every fitness level. No expensive equipment to buy, just that great feeling that if the motivated folks on the TV series can do it, so can you.

Happy New Year!

--A.T. Hurley

 

 

 

Reviewing the New Flesh: The David Cronenberg Top 10

With the release of David Cronenberg's audacious dystopian thriller Videodrome (1983) on Blu-ray this month, there comes an opportunity to review the Canadian writer-director's challenging body of work. "Body" is the appropriate term to use when addressing Cronenberg's c.v.; his best efforts address the wonders and (mostly) terrors of the human body and their connection to social and emotional extremes. But no matter how alarming the changes that occur to his characters, from producing physical manifestations of emotions (The Brood, 1979) to overwhelming mental powers (Scanners, 1981; The Dead Zone, 1983) or creating a new and possibly superior life form through experimentation (The Fly, 1986), what sets Cronenberg's films apart from most horror and science fiction films -- other than their chilly, matter-of-fact violence -- is the director's perspective, which observes these changes not as a tragedy, but as a unique mutation with its own set of rules - a new direction in evolution, not entropy, described in Videodrome as the "New Flesh."

In recent years, Cronenberg has moved away from the horror/sci-fi genre to focus on psychologically driven dramas and thrillers, but his fascination for complex inner worlds can still be seen in Ralph Fiennes' disturbed mental environment in Spider (2002) and Viggo Mortensen's  characters, who infiltrates, virus-like, and disrupts the hermetic systems of the American and Russian mobs in A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007). Following is our chronological list of Cronenberg's ten most disturbing and thought-provoking visions.

Play It Again: The Best Movie Remakes

The Coen brothers have remade the 1969 John Wayne classic True Grit, and critics, while admiring the Coens' version, have also mused on whether it was necessary to remake a perfectly serviceable film. After all, Wayne won a Best Actor Oscar for his work in the original.

But Hollywood loves a sure thing, including movies that have been a success before. And sometimes, the remake is good--even better than the original. Here, some of our favorite remakes (in a later post, we'll share some of our least favorite):

1. The Dark Knight -- This chilling, creepy 2008 telling of the Batman legend may not technically be a remake of the 1989 Batman starring Michael Keaton, since Batman TV series, films, and animated features have been legion since the 1960s. But after several sequels, it was thought that the Warner Bros. franchise had run out of gas. Enter director Christopher Nolan and stars Christian Bale and especially Heath Ledger, whose portrayal of the Joker earned him a posthumous Oscar. Whatever doesn't kill you only...makes you...stranger.

2. His Girl Friday -- Howard Hawks' splendid 1940 screwball comedy actually had several lives before the dizzyingly paced one starring Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. It started as a play by Ben Hecht, and was made into several films as The Front Page, notably in 1931 by Lewis Milestone. Interestingly, though His Girl Friday approaches perfection, it was remade at least twice afterward, too; once as a TV film and again in 1974 by Billy Wilder with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. But nothing can surpass the sparks generated between Russell and Grant.

3. Scarface -- The 1983 Al Pacino gangster film has become a legend since its release, and much of its tough, in-your-face dialogue and glorified violence has inspired legions of hip-hop artists and others. But fewer people know the Howard Hawks-directed version from 1932, starring Paul Muni. It's a worthy film in its way (and its unflinching violence barely skirted the Motion Picture Production Code). Yet it's Pacino's cool-as-diamonds portrayal that lifts Scarface from its genre.

4. Ocean's Eleven -- Eyebrows rose when director Steven Soderbergh announced he'd be remaking the quintessential Rat Pack film from 1960. But it turns out Soderbergh pulled off the perfect caper. His Ocean's Eleven made a star at long last of George Clooney, who sidled up to his costars including Don Cheadle, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts like he was having the time of his life. And so did audiences.

5. Sling Blade -- Billy Bob Thornton wrote both the 1996 version, which won a Best Screenplay Oscar and wide acclaim, as well as the short film that preceeded it in 1994, Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade. The first film was directed by George Hickenlooper (who died earlier this year of an apparent accidental overdose), and focuses only on the extremely creepy "exit" interview that Karl Childers gives before leaving the "nervous hospital." The viewer is captivated but left with an open-ended feeling of dread. The 1996 Sling Blade builds out the story of Karl after his release, showing his humanity and conscience, making it an altogether different experinece.

6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) -- Kristy Swanson's career never really recovered from starring in the lame 1992 film version. But the 1997 Joss Whedon TV series made stars out of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Michelle Trachtenberg, Alyson Hannigan, James Marsters, David Boreanaz, Eliza Dushku, and Emma Caulfield. The key to TV Buffy's success was the writing and the strong character development. Whedon and his team of writers were not afraid to face the dark side, or to take big risks with plots. After all, Buffied died not once, but twice. And saved the world. A lot.

7. Heaven Can Wait -- It's not that there's anything wrong with the original, Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). It's just that 1978's Heaven Can Wait starred the hottest couple of the day, Warren Beatty (never more appealing) and Julie Christie (feisty and delicious). The viewer can't help but want to see them together--in this life and the next.

What are your favorite movie remakes?

--A.T. Hurley