Surprisingly?

Yeah... I really enjoy the stuff Mike Moore does, and definitely think all of his previous films merit a lot more discussion than they get -- but he does tend to go off on a tangent and looses any hope of having 50% of his audience listen to him (something I'm also guility of). Sicko treads the line a bit more carefully. Some of the things he covers aren't the full picture (eg his painting of the NHS in the UK as entirely free -- which it is, but you don't get ALL drugs on the NHS as certain expensive cancer drugs and things aren't covered). But overall, I think it's a needed film, and hopefully does something to chip away the media image of socialism and French people equalling The Devil.

My friend attended the American premier of Sicko and met MM. She said it was incredible.

Bon bon, I like Edward Copeland quite a bit and not just because his list and mine have a lot of similarities. But he's crazy for loving Network so much.

Hee, bon, I like that list:

53 Psycho directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Every time I hear that a friend or acquaintance is going to have a baby, I make the same simple request: Do everything in their power to keep all knowledge of this movie away from them until they see it. I would have loved to have seen it without knowing that the shower scene was coming or the truth about Norman Bates. I hope others can have that experience.

Here's one for JZ:

20 It's a Wonderful Life directed by Frank Capra

No one gives this film the credit for its darkness that it really deserves. This isn't sappy sentimental drivel, this is about a man who feels as if he's been pissed on all his life and finally reaches the end of his rope. James Stewart's talent, Capra's gifts and the script by Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett make George Bailey's journey plausible and touching. Only a Mr. Potter could hate this film.

!! He's got His Girl Friday on his list, at number 12! Aw, I love that movie. Was it even on the AFI list?

Nice list, bon. Thanks. I have no idea who that guy is, though.

He's a NJ-based critic who's part of the blog crew at Matt Zoller Seitz's The House Next Door.

The IAWL thing reminds me that there was a discussion at TT when the 1997 list was released where many of the hardnosed posters came out in support of IAWL over Mary Beth's explicit dismissal of it on many of the same grounds.

Copeland's list: There are about 15 or so on that list I haven't seen, including all the Bergmans. Apparently some of my favorites just missed the cut-off, including The Court Jester, Diabolique, and The Red Shoes.

The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!

Oh, that's awesome! I actually had great difficulty watching it when I was bottoming out in my worst bouts of depression; there are moments in it that were just too blackly true and raw and bleeding with despair.

Even now I can hardly bear to watch the scenes with the kids. When he's coming totally unglued, kissing Zuzu and petting her head and making sure she's facing away from him so she can't see him unraveling -- that tiny gesture of a hand on the head and turning his face away so she won't be terrified of her daddy's bleak bugfuck face, that one small protective gesture is all he's got left in him. And the looks on Mary's and the older children's faces when he's just smashed his architectural model to bits: even her totally hackneyed, "Oh George, how could you, in front of the children!" is perfect, because when you've seen the partner of your heart and bed and life disintegrate and you're frightened to death, of him, what's left but the smallest plainest words?

And yet, also, small rich radiant moments too. I so deeply love the scene where she tells him she's expecting their first child, drowsing in their narrow little bed (I still want to know how Capra managed to sneak in this scene of them sharing a bed; I thought the Hayes Office frowned on that, even for married couples?). How he drapes his long body across hers, how they melt into a dreamy half-asleep kiss. You totally believe in the marriage, in that bed, that their bodies know each other; it's homely and familiar and one of the first images that made me think that marriage and domesticity could have their own deep eros, just as much as discovery and newness.

Mmmm. Love that movie.

I'm tired of it.(Although it seems I haven't watched it closely in some while...I've never noticed the scenes JZ mentions.) But it's invaded me anyway...my biggest fear is that Clarence would show up and find nothing.

George Bailey Lassos Stork is one of my favorite scenes, too, JZ.

I love the movie along with you.

erika, if you've seen it on broadcast TV you may never have seen the in-bed scene -- it's sometimes cut to make room for commercials, since the fact that she's having a baby is revealed in the very next scene and this one is therefore clearly unnecessary. Sure, it's all warm and rich and character-revelatory, but what's that compared to an extra 100K in ad revenue?