356. Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far: This year’s Memorial Day movie is about a major American (well, Allied) defeat in WWII. Perhaps a bit overlong, but holy shit, look at that cast. Liv Ullmann speaking English!

70s Fassbinder:

354. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Martha: Darkly comic horror tale of a bad marriage. Karlheinz Bohm is more terrifying in his role here as a sadistic husband than as a murderer in Peeping Tom, but he’s also hilarious. This is superb. 

355. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s In a Year with 13 Moons: Gruesome footage in a butcher, a musical number, and Eva Mattes. All I got on first viewing. 

353. Robert Altman’s Gosford Park: Today I was having a conversation with a friend about our frustration with the aimlessness of Downton Abbey, and coincidentally, I finally took this out of my shelf and watched it shortly after that. I say coincidentally, because I had no idea that the creator of Downton Abbey (Julian Fellows) won an Oscar for Best Screenplay with Gosford Park which deals with incredibly similar topics: early 1900s British upstairs/downstairs social structure whatever with Maggie Smith and the house looks completely identical. At 137 minutes this is relatively tightly paced, and the cast is uniformly excellent with Kelly MacDonald being the standout. Definitely need to watch a few more times.

The Cavalry Trilogy for John Wayne’s Birthday:

350. John Ford’s Fort Apache: Twenty years before Once Upon a Time in the West, Henry Fonda played a different kind of western villain, a strict military officer who would not talk peace with the Native Americans. Strangely enough, is this the only film where John Wayne is on the side of talking peace with the Native Americans? One of the earliest mature westerns, and it’s my favorite part of the trilogy. Bonus: Shirley Temple looks fucking great here. It’s OK, she’s 20!

351. John Ford’s She Wore a Yellow Ribbon: The only part of the trilogy in color and it had a young (and thin!) Ben Johnson. That’s all I remember about this one.

352. John Ford’s Rio Grande: Luckily, it’s not as romantic as the poster suggests, but a large portion of the film is about the relationship between John Wayne, his wife and son within their cavalry unit. More Ben Johnson!

349. John Sturges’ Ice Station Zebra: Cold War action/adventure film. Pretty good. Great leads. Ernest Borgnine with a Russian accent!

Martini Movies? Martini Movies. Odd DVD line.

347. Sidney Lumet’s The Anderson Tapes: Very good heist film with a superb cast (feature film debut of Christopher Walken) that deals with surveillance. Dyan Cannon, please sit on my face, and not just because you were married to and had a child with Cary Grant. 

348. Richard Fleischer’s The New Centurions: Gritty cop DRAMA. Very serious and pretty brutal in parts, but there’s a fantastic hilarious scene where George C. Scott and Stacy Keach pick up prostitutes in a police wagon and then get them scotch and milk to get drunk off of so they don’t work the streets that night.

346. William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A.: “I’m too old for this shit.” “Three days until I retire.” “I’m following this lead on my own.” Hey, buddy, you are going to fucking DIE. Totally 80s in style with a soundtrack provided by Wang Chung, this film’s ending might even be bleaker than The French Connection and Sorcerer.

The Evil Dead Trilogy:

343. Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead: I feel horrible for saying, and admitting this, but tree rape… it turns me on it the most awful way.

344. Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II: Favorite in the series for Campbell’s faces, screams, and all that gore.

345. Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness: Definitely the most entertaining and hilarious in the series. Cocky Campbell is fantastic.

Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog travel down the Amazon looking for great wealth, both set to the music of Popol Vuh:

341. Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God: Favorite film out of Europe. Kinski’s madness and Herzog’s vision are both brilliant, but let’s give it up for Perucho! Little mother, two by two, wafts the wind on my hair.

342. Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo: I like Jason Robards and Mick Jagger, but no way could their combined talent best Klaus Kinski’s performance here. An incredible film where the making of, Burden of Dreams, might be more fascinating than the film itself. Regardless, they both have the highest recommendation.

Two collaborations between Lillian Gish and D.W. Griffith.

339. D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation: That first half (Pre-Civil War America) is incredibly well done with some superb battle sequences, but everyone forgets it due to the second half (Reconstruction) where white actors in blackface take over congress and eat fried chicken and drink malt liquor, a white woman sees a white man in blackface and jumps off a mountain and dies, and the KKK saves the day. One of the most controversial films ever made, this might be the most historically important with films now being taken seriously as feature length pieces of art.

340. D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East: One of the stops on the apology tour for The Birth of a Nation, D.W. gives us a melodrama that is one of film’s earliest feminist tales, and it is quite excellent with a fabulous leading performance from Gish.