Brandon Colvin's 12 Movies Meme

Happy Friday everyone! It's been a slow week for us, but we're hopping to end the week with a bang. Recently, Brandon and I were memed by Jeremy Richey at Moon in the Gutter to take a part of the 12 movie meme. It was started by Piper at Lazy Eye Theatre, and the idea (for those of you who haven't seen this meme floating around yet) is to create your own 12-movie week long film festival for New Beverly Cinema.

Here are the rules...

1) Choose 12 Films to be featured. They could be random selections or part of a greater theme. Whatever you want.

2) Explain why you chose the films.

3) Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre so I can have hundreds of links and I can take those links and spread them all out on the bed and then roll around in them.

4) The people selected then have to turn around and select 5 more people.

Although Jeremy tagged Brandon OR myself, we have decided to both do our own lists because we think it is a lot of fun, and we both created our own lists and (without telling each other) had no overlap at all in the films chosen. You can continue reading Brandon's list below...my list will be posted later tonight. (I secretly only had time to post one, and get all the materials, before I have to go to work today.)

Thanks to Piper and Jeremy for making us a part of this meme! I hope you all enjoy our lists and can fantasize about these festivals actually happening.

MONDAY:
ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955) and ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL (1974)

Melodrama at its finest. Douglas Sirk presents a glossed-up meta-analysis of Hollywood fantasy/domestic unrest and Rainer Werner Fassbinder retells the same story, this time racially-charged, with his New German grit.

TUESDAY:
THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928) and DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (1951)

Carl Th. Dreyer and Robert Bresson, two of cinema's greatest poets, spin tales of martyrdom and spiritual anguish while presenting wildly contrasting examples of stylized acting through the marvelous performances of Maria Falconetti and Claude Laydu, respectively.

WEDNESDAY:
NAKED LUNCH (1991) and ADAPTATION. (2002)

How does writing happen? David Cronenberg and Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman tackle the challenges of, well, adaptation, in these two very different films, each of which blends biography, process, exaggeration, and self-referentiality while trying to uncover how stories are made and how fiction functions in relation to reality.

THURSDAY:
DOG STAR MAN: PRELUDE-PART IV (1962-1964) and STALKER (1979)

Nearly polar opposites on the editing spectrum, Stan Brakhage's experimental opus and Andrei Tarkovsky's metaphysical masterpiece elaborate upon the strange, strange journeys of their protagonists into strange, strange lands. To see the rapidity and hyperkineticism of Brakhage's avant-garde work juxtaposed with the contemplative leisure of Tarkovsky's pacing would be pleasurably mind-stretching.

FRIDAY:
AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1972) and THE THIN RED LINE (1998)

Both Werner Herzog and Terrence Malick are adept at capturing the natural world in a powerful context that is always aesthetically cleansing. This pair of jungle films revolves around brutality, madness, and moments of beauty - sometimes only perceptible to the cinematographic eye.

SATURDAY:
LA NOTTE (1961) and THE PASSION OF ANNA (1969)

Emblematic of the explosion of European art cinema in the 1960s, Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman have been compared, contrasted, and fought over endlessly, particularly since their nearly simultaneous deaths. Undoubtedly, the two were great film artists and remain two of the most influential directors on my conception of what cinema is and should be. These two films are a couple of my favorites.

by Brandon Colvin

Hope you all enjoyed the list! I will meme a set of others with my post later tonight. Have a great (hopefully film-filled weekend!)
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