Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Today's soundtrack: REM "Imitation of Life" ::
By the bone crushing "suggestion" of my reader Tiffany, do I present to you the following:
The Ten Movies I Must Watch Before I Die (the horrible and disfiguring most likely zombie swarm induced death I know is coming)
1. The Bicycle Thief. This Italian film is supposedly one of the quintessential of classic foreign cinema. I have heard only great things about it from multiple sources. This film has recently been released on DVD in the USA, so hopefully, I'll be seeing it soon.
2. Rashomon. I have seen a few of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's movies and have thus far enjoyed them greatly. So WHY haven't I seen one of his most famous? I haven't a clue!
3. Anatomy of a Murder. I do so like a good murder tale, and one starring Jimmy Stewart and George C. Scott (and what I hear is superb acting by the cast all around) in a courtroom battle with numerous Academy Award nominations to its credit is one I should definitely see in the not too distant future.
4. Sherlock, Jr. Silent film is something I'm crazy for, but unfortunately for me, most people aren't so they can be hard to find sometimes. Try looking for a silent picture at your local rental place. I dare you. As a big fan of Lon Chaney and Charlie Chaplin, I surprisingly have actually never seen a single Buster Keaton film. I've heard that this is one of his most famous and therefore probably a good place to start.
5. Sunset Boulevard. This is pure celluloid history right here. Reportedly this was the first film to take a dark look into what Hollywood was really like and not the sparkling dream factory it pretended to be to the outsider. Often quoted and parodied, this Billy Wilder classic is something I must see.
6. All About Eve. A film about a young actress who pretends to idolize an aging lady of the stage in order to engineer her own ascent to stardom (using and stepping over everyone to do it). Sometimes I feel like I'm the only film buff not to have seen it.
7. American Graffiti. I know, what is the matter with me? One of the first and supposedly best coming of age stories with an astounding cast of then-unknowns (Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford) who were catapulted to stardom by this tale of reflection and nostalgia. Most end-of-high school films disappoint in some way, but this one always looked the most promising of them all.
8. Vampyr. This is am absolute classic vampire film, but it is often overshadowed and overlooked because Bela Lugosi's Dracula came out the year before. This film is often misunderstood due to its ahead of its time thinking in artistic production (the celluloid was mildly exposed to light on purpose to produce a certain look). It makes me nothing but curious.
9. Fahrenheit 451. It's a tale of an oppressive future by famous writer Ray Bradbury and that alone sets my mind afire. I also hear-tell that this is a story on the verge of being retold by Hollywood, so have got to see the original before my brain gets too polluted by the new stuff.
10. The Gods Must Be Crazy. I've always been intrigued by this comedy. It's about an African "bush village" who encounter for the first time a glass Coca Cola bottle. They have no idea what it is and it causes much controversy in the village and the whole thing is narrated like one of those National Geographic nature shows. It just sounds so out there yet silly that I have to see it.
Wow, you have no idea how difficult assembling this list actually was. You see, I have a subscription to Netflix, like most movies lovers ought to have. Several years ago I realized I had never seen the classic scary movie Rosemary's Baby and was determined to rent and watch it that day. The four movie rental establishments in my area did not carry it. This movie had won an Academy Award and was directed by Roman Polanski for goodness sake! They stocked The Exorcist, Psycho and nearly any cheesy slasher flick you could possibly want (I'm SURE the people were simply queued up around the block for the release of Leprechaun 4: In Space), but NOT Rosemary's Baby. Therefore, as soon as I had heard Netflix existed, I got a subscription and have been happy as a clam ever since as my list of not-seen must-sees has gone down dramatically. Why just in recent years I've been able to view everything from oldies like M and The Collector to weird new stuff like Brick and the Singing Detective, not to mention all of the anime and other foreign fims I can rent at any time. Yes, yes, this is beginning to sound like a Netflix advert, but I guess what I'm saying is creating this list here has just given ideas what to add to my rental queue, so I'll probably be seeing nearly all of these sometime in the next six months. Which is awesome because as well all know, the dreaded zombie apocalypse can be upon us at any time.
William (kickin' back, watchin' movies)
