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This is my first encounter with Stephen Chow, distinguished Hong Kong comedian with a decent worldwide following and acclaimed director of the recent films Shaolin Soccer and Kung-Fu Hustle. As an early outing for Chow as director, the direction is a bit creaky at times, perhaps because Chows comedy is far more developed than his skills as a director at this point. The plot follows the downfall of the “God of Cookery”—a powerful and arrogant chef (played by Chow) who is revealed to be a fraud, left in the gutter only to mount a killer comeback after studying martial arts cooking at Shaolin Temple. The jokes range from hilarious to pitiful and by the time the well staged ending rolls around it feels a bit too little and a tad too late. Still, as an entertainment this film works just fine and I cant say I’m not looking forward to checking out the rest of the Chow oeuvre.

Wes Craven has essentially made a children’s film with this modern day PG-13-take on the Universal classic The Wolf Man (or is it Teen Wolf?). Craven’s focus on the familial unit and the lack thereof of parental figures is still present, but the rest of this overblown moneymaking scheme is essentially a trodden pile of shit. The laughs come at the expense of the cast of recognizable pop-icons and their stilted performances, leaving me wishing that at least some of these people would end up getting horribly mauled. Alas, this being “a family film” of sorts, we get no such thing and the only horrific mauling it delivers is to the name of a once great horror film director.

A documentary about those fast-talking auctioneers at American cattle events, this is classic Herzogian material—an alluring blend of the mundane and the macabre. For those people who take issue with Herzog’s documentaries claiming that he displays a lack of respect for the material and his subjects (a claim I happen to vehemently disagree with), you will be happy to find that Herzog has largely distanced himself from the material in this film, remaining a casual viewer, and allowing his images/audio to speak for themselves. You get the feeling that in Herzog’s mind this is like one gigantic horror show complete with ranting and raving cowboys, chewing tobacco, bake sales, and ugly patterned house dresses. His thesis is simple—what is it about the American capitalist drive that has necessitated the development of this strange new language? The answers are not as straightforward, and the film (rightly so) leaves you to address that on your own time. Herzog used one of his quick-tongued subjects to auction off Bruno S.’s house in his film Stroszek.

I have to admit that I’m a little pissed off that Herzog decided not to go through with the “real” Loch Ness documentary, but that’s not why this comedic sham fails to work. The idea is great—Werner Herzog sets out to make a documentary about the Loch Ness Monster while his Hollywood minded producer (Zak Penn) stages all kinds of elaborate hoaxes in order to spice up Herzog’s film. Before long Herzog catches onto Penn’s little tricks and the two clash, but not before possibly clashing with the real Loch Ness Monster. Given Herzog’s megalomaniacal reputation for pushing himself and his production crew to the very limit in his quest to capture the “ecstatic truth,” this had terrific comedic potential. In the end however, many of the great stories from Herzog productions past (the most famous of which has Herzog directing Klaus Kinski at gunpoint on Aguirre) wind up being too esoteric to stage lengthy jokes around, and to avoid having this lost on the viewer, the filmmakers reach out and try to walk the audience by the hand through the material, butchering the joke in the process. Another downfall is the presence of Zak Penn himself. Unlike Herzog who remains cool and totally convincing, Penn comes across as unfunny, thoroughly unbelievable, and even a tad obnoxious. Loch Ness on the other hand is completely gorgeous and the film remains compulsively watchable despite having failed as a comedy. Whether or not Penn and Herzog manage to succeed in their less obvious goal—to make a comment on the nature of truth in documentary filmmaking--remains debatable.

11. Legendary Weapons of China (1982, Hong Kong) Liu Chia-Liang - ** worth seeing

12. Chunhyang (2000, S. Korea) Im Kwon Taek - **** Masterpiece

13. The Premature Burial (1962, USA) Roger Corman - ** worth seeing

14. Shaolin Soccer (2001, Hong Kong) Stephen Chow [102 min. domestic cut] - *** a must see

15. The Dark Half (1993, USA) George A. Romero - ** worth seeing

16. Story of the Weeping Camel (2003, Mongolia) Byambasuren Davaa & Luigi Falorni - *** a must see

17. Kung Fu Hustle (2004, Hong Kong) Stephen Chow - 2nd viewing

18. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989, USA) Rob Hedden - • worthless

19. Murder, My Sweet (1944, USA) Edward Dmytryk - *** a must see

20. Hello, Tomorrow (2005, USA) Spike Jonze [commercial] - highly recommended - view here

21. Ikiru (1952, Japan) Akira Kurosawa - **** Masterpiece

22. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996, USA) Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky - **** Excellent

23. Sátántangó (1994, Hungary) Béla Tarr - **** Masterpiece

24. The Ghouls (2003, USA) Chad Ferrin - • worthless

It’s nice to see Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) back and working with power tools again. His latest film, essentially a straightforward slasher flick, sees the filmmaker returning to his long absent fascination with cheap lighting effects and grotesquerie make-up. I never thought I’d say this, but it’s a tad refreshing to see a slasher film getting made. After the horror market became watered-down in the late eighties, slasher films essentially died off (as an aside, a quite similar trend is taking shape these days with imitation Japanese ghost stories), but taken in small doses these films can be quite entertaining. I wish there was more of a script here, but the execution is nice and there are quite a few gory indulgences. It has been posited before, but I must say it again—one has to wonder if Hooper and other filmmakers of his era (Romero, Craven, Carpenter) still take filmmaking very seriously. I know these guys are capable of better.

A very silly horror film from New Zealand about a serial killer recounting his murders in flashback to a criminal psychiatrist who is trying to determine if he is sane or not. Even if like yours truly, you find yourself getting the chills over the sight of a straight razor being run through human flesh, you won’t find yourself very shaken by any of this. All of the blood in the film is rendered to look like black ink—some kind of profound statement into the killer’s psyche that eluded me, and by the time the grand finale rolls around everything is wallowing in enough Dressed to Kill nostalgia to induce groans.

29. Night and the City (1950, USA) Jules Dassin - **** Masterpiece

30. Robots (2005, USA) Chris Wedge & Carlos Saldanha - * has redeeming facet

31. Theory of Achievement (1991, USA) Hal Hartley - *** a must see [short]

32. The Devil Rides Out (1968, UK) Terence Fisher - ** worth seeing

33. Leave Her to Heaven (1945, USA) John M. Stahl - *** a must see

34. Spring Break Shark Attack (2005, USA) Paul Shapiro - * has redeeming facet [TV]

I can confidently state now, without any reservations whatsoever, that João César Monteiro was a Master. Directing exactly ten feature films since 1978 and a dozen more shorts, he developed an eccentric and paired down style along with a savagely funny and self-reflective on-screen persona that was entirely his own. Yet, despite receiving critical acclaim from publications such as Cahiers du Cinema and winning numerous awards at festivals such as Venice and Cannes, you rarely hear Monteiro’s name dropped w/r/t contemporary world cinema as you might Kieslowski or Kiarostami. This is truly a shame since no other filmmaker has given me this much inspiration, not to mention laughter, since I discovered the late period work of Luis Buñuel. Monteiro is most recognizable for his appearance—a frail and lecherous man, Nosferatu mixed with Buster Keaton—his performance was the center of most all of his films. The Keaton comparison is suitable for the stone-faced performance, but Chaplin’s Tramp might better sum him up, take this quote from Keaton for example, "Charlie's tramp was a bum with a bum's philosophy. Lovable as he was, he would steal if he got the chance…" This perfectly sums up Monteiro’s Deus character, add to it a piss and vinegar taste of surrealism and a prolific collection of woman’s pubic hairs and I think you’ll be able to form a suitable portrait of the kind troublemaker this guy was. Sadly, Mr. Monteiro passed away from cancer in early 2003, a major loss to the artistic world, that I’m sure anyone who has been afforded the experience of viewing one of his films can agree with, and for those of you who have not, I say you have not experienced cinema until you have sampled at least one Monteiro film. Dialogue excerpt from film found here.

As Jonathan Romney lucidly points out about Monteiro’s final film, “At once a fond farewell, a joyous celebration of sex and the lawless imagination, and an unrepentant 'fuck you' to the world, Come And Go sees Monteiro going out in inimitable style.” This three-hour masterpiece alternates between a public park in Portugal, a city bus, and Monteiro’s apartment, and is perhaps the closest the Portuguese master ever came to making a Tati film. Essentially a deconstruction of the director’s filmic persona, this is bound to illicit some head scratching from those unfamiliar with Monteiro’s “Deus Trilogy” (comprised of Recollections of the Yellow House, God’s Comedy, and God’s Wedding). But for the adventurous viewer, and for those who can appreciate this eccentric brand European humor, plan to be enraptured. The final shot is a stunner.

38. China Girl (1987, USA) Abel Ferrara - ** worth seeing

39. Go West (1925, USA) Buster Keaton - *** a must see

An interesting film for sure, part thriller, part masculinity crisis, you will no doubt be glued to your seat as this suspenseful tale unfolds. A husband and wife take a road trip to pick their children up from summer camp, while an increasing amount of booze and tragic foreshadowing mounts to an unforeseeable detour. Director Cédric Kahn has an innate gift for eliciting brilliant performances from his actors; his earlier film l’Ennui for example was one of the best-acted films of 1998. In this case, the performance by Jean-Pierre Darroussin is a tour-de-force, not just servicing the script, but actually breathing life into this character, and should make you question the validity of such soulless award ceremonies like the Oscars. Kahn is by all means a director to look up if you haven’t already done so.

41. Sweet Movie (1974, Canada/France/Germany) Dusan Makavejev - ** worth seeing

42. The Dirty Dozen (1967, USA) Robert Aldrich - *** a must see

43. À propos de Nice (1930, France) Jean Vigo [short]

44. Taris (1931, France) Jean Vigo [short]

45. Zéro de conduite (1933, France) Jean Vigo - *** a must see

46. The Apple (1998, Iran) Samira Makhmalbaf - *** a must see

47. Inside Deep Throat (2005, USA) Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato - ** worth seeing

48. Try and Get Me (1950, USA) Cy Endfield - **** Masterpiece

49. Not on the Lips (2004, France) Alain Resnais - **** Masterpiece

50. Passion (1982, France) Jean-Luc Godard - **** Masterpiece

51. Le Boucher (1970, France) Claude Chabrol - *** a must see

52. The Big Carnival (aka Ace in the Hole) (1951, USA) Billy Wilder - **** Masterpiece

53. Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000, France) François Ozon - *** a must see

54. Kiss Me Stupid (1964, USA) Billy Wilder - *** a must see

55. Lady Windermere's Fan (1925, USA) Ernst Lubitsch - *** a must see

56. The Savage Innocents (1960, USA) Nicholas Ray - **** Masterpiece