MOVIES!!

My Top 40 Movies: Andrei Rublev to Amorres Perros

My top 40 movies reviewed since April 2008 (9 months in which I've watched over 250 movies and averaged a movie a day) this is a personal and subjective ranking based on my own 6 star system. The movies here all rank at the very top with the first 12 winning my full 6 star rating. Many great 5 star movies were excluded to keep this list short and current. A few years ago my #40 Amorres Perros would have been listed as #1- things change. Of these 40 movies it can be added that all have had at least some critical acclaim. I tend to watch multiple films of a director if I like their work- some directors are represented more than once. My sole criteria- a great movie transcends the screen! Enjoy.


#1) Adrei Rublev, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia- 1966
2) The Grapes of Wrath, dir. John Ford, USA - 1940
3) There Will Be Blood, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA - 2007
4) The Empire Strikes Back, dir. George Lucas (not Irvin), USA- 1980
5) 2001, dir. Stanley Kubrick, USA- 1968
6) Rashomon, dir. Akira Kurosawa, Japan - 1950
7) Red Beard, dir. Akira Kurosawa, Japan- 1965
8) To Have and Have Not, dir. Howard Hawks, USA- 1944
9) Stalker. dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia- 1979
10) Todo Sobre Mi Madre, dir. Pedro Almodovar, Spain -1999
11) Habla Con Ella, dir. Pedro Almodovar, Spain- 2002
12) Rear Window, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, USA- 1954
13) Once Upon A Time in America, dir. Sergio Leone, Italy/USA - 1984
14) Apocolypse Now Redux, dir. Francis Ford Coppola, USA- 1979
15) The Dark Knight, dir. Christopher Nolan, USA- 2008
16) The Asphalt Jungle, dir. John Huston, USA- 1950
17) Seven Samurai, dir. Akira Kurosawa, Japan- 1954
18) Blade Runner, dir. Ridley Scott, USA- 1982 (see new director's cut)
19) On The Waterfront, Elia Kazan USA- 1954
20) A Woman Under the Influence, John Cassavetes, USA- 1974
21) Faces, John Cassavetes, USA- 1968
22) Night of the Iguana, dir. John Huston, USA- 1964
23) Hiroshima Mon Amour, dir. Alain Resnais, France- 1959
24) Days of Being Wild, dir. Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong- 1991
25) Fitzcarraldo, dir. Werner Herzog, Gemany- 1982
26) Three Times, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Taiwan- 2005
27) Treasure of the Sierra Madre, dir. John Huston, USA- 1948
28) The River, dir. Tsai Ming-Liang, Taiwan- 1997
29) Opening Night, dir. John Cassavetes, USA- 1977
30) Killer of Sheep, dir. Charles Burnett, USA- 1977
31) Killing of a Chinese Bookie, dir. John Cassavetes, USA- 1976
32) Tampopo, dir. Juzo Itami, Japan - 1986
33) 2046, dir. Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong - 2006
34) Vive L'Amour, dir. Tsai Ming-Liang, Taiwan, 1994
35) Millennium Mambo, dir. Hou Hsiao Hsien, Taiwan - 2001
36) Ashes of Time Redux, dir. Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong - 2008
37) The Return, dir. Andrei Zvyaginstev, Russia- 2003
38) Chinatown, dir. Roman Polanski, USA - 1974
39) The Maltese Falcon, dir. John Huston, USA - 1941
40) Amorres Perros, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, MEXICO- 2000

My 10 "Ultimately Bad" Worst movies

10) W, dir Oliver Stone, 2008
9) Enigma of Kasper Hauser, dir. Werner Herzog, Germany - 1975
8) Waiting for Happiness, dir. A. Sissako, Africa - 2002
7) 10,000 BC, dir. R. Emmerich, 2008
__Special disgust for the entire French New Wave including but not limited to the next three directors (hipsters cringe now):
6) Jean Luc Goddard's films of 1960's, FRA (Pierrot Le Fou and Breathless excluded as those are 4 star films worth watching)
5) Robert Bresson's film Pickpocket and L'Argent, FRA- 1959 (A Man Escaped is maybe worth seeing once)
4) All Jean-Pierre Melville's films, FRA, 1960s (except of course Army of Shadows, a classic)
3) Nashville, dir. Robert Altman, USA- 1975
2) Max Payne, dir. who cares, 2008
1) TIme of the Wolf, dir. French wannabe, FRA, unwatchable, 2003


FIN!

The #1 post on Obama's "Change.gov" website- 95,000 people voted "YES" and counting,...

Ending Marijuana Prohibition
I suggest that we step back and take a non-biased "Science Based" approach to decide what should be done about the "Utter Failure" that we call the War on (some) Drugs.
The fact is that Marijuana is much less harmful to our bodies than other Legal Drugs such as Tobacco and Alcohol. And for the Government to recognize Marijuana as having Medicinal Properties AND as a Schedule I drug (Has NO medicinal Properties) is an obvious flaw in the system.
We must stop imprisoning responsible adult citizens choosing to use a drug that has been mis-labeled.

I like Nader now,... see what I mean.

Oh Boy,...ugh,..

IMF and World Bank

What are the IMF and World Bank?

The IMF and World Bank have been empowered by the governments which control it (led by the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Germany, France, Canada, and Italy -- the "Group of 7," which holds over 40% of the votes on their boards) with imposing economic austerity policies in the countries of the so-called "Third World" or "global South." Once Southern countries build up large external debts, as most have, they cannot get credit or cash anywhere else and are forced to go to these international institutions and accept whatever conditions are demanded of them. None of the countries has emerged from their debt problems; indeed most countries now have much higher levels of debt than when they first accepted IMF/World Bank "assistance."
Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)

The IMF/World Bank conditions -- "structural adjustment programs" -- force Southern countries to promote sweatshops, exports to rich countries, and high-return cash investment. The resulting increase in international commerce -- corporate globalization -- led to demands by corporations and investors for ways to lock in their privileges and protection against the perceived danger of governments seizing assets or imposing new regulations. The WTO was the answer to those demands, an institution whose secret tribunals can overrule national laws if they are found to violate the rights of corporations.
The World Bank is best known for financing big projects like dams, roads, and power plants, supposedly designed to assist in economic development, but which have often been associated with monumental environmental devastation and social dislocation. In recent years, about half of its lending has gone to programs indistinguishable from the IMF's: austerity plans that "reform" economic policies by suffocating the poor and inviting corporate exploitation.

Although the IMF finally got some of the criticism due it with the East Asian financial crisis (where it imposed austerity programs on South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand), the two institutions continue to be the chosen tools of the political and business elites for ruling the global economy, and run, to one degree or another, about 90 Southern countries' economies. These countries are forced to adopt policies even more committed to deregulation and withdrawal of government from insuring public welfare than those in the U.S. Considering how impoverished many of these countries were to start with, the effects of these policies have been predictably devastating. The of "emerging market success stories" we sometimes read about generate wealth which goes to very small segments of the populations, and much of it ends up in the North. The great majority of the people of the South are enduring increased poverty, decreased access to basic services, and decreased control over their own economies.

SAPs Work for Corporations and Elites--Impoverish the Rest

How--and why--do the structural adjustment programs that the IMF & World Bank impose create conditions that multinational corporations desire and that devastate most people in the Southern countries? A look at the most common SAP conditions show how economic "advice" is used to maintain the interests of the wealthy at the expense of continued suffering for the bulk of the people.






So Why Do Countries Agree to SAPs?

SAPs are anti-democratic in more than one way. The institutions are correct in saying that the plans are formulated in part, and agreed to, by the governments. But the government officials involved are usually limited to the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank, usually among the most conservative, Northern-educated, and wealthy members of the government -- in other words, those most likely to agree with IMF economics and benefit from the policies. In many cases even they feel coerced into going along with IMF/World Bank demands. If they don't cooperate, the consequence can be a complete cut-off of credit because other lenders follow the lead of these institutions.
With such unpopular policies, it is the rare government that can "sell" structural adjustment to its people, especially after 20 years of similar failed policies. The slogan "short-term pain for long-term gain" sounds hollow when people have heard it for a whole generation. SAPs encourage instability in democratic countries by forcing elected governments to institute measures which make them illegitimate among their people. It has been argued that the IMF prefers dictatorships to democratic governments, because dictators can more successfully impose SAPs. And once the rules are in place the WTO extends the attack on democracy by overruling any regulations that corporations claim interfere with their right to profits.

The fact that institutions based in Washington and largely controlled by the U.S. Treasury Department have been starving peoples around the world for two decades is a scandal. That people in the U.S. are barely aware of the fact is a disgrace.