An Evening Illuminated

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An Evening Illuminated – the latest updates for which are linked to below.

The Ghost of St. Michael's (1941)

Where's That Fire? (1940)

Good Morning, Boys! (1937)

Where There's a Will (1936)

The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942)

The Pickaninnies (1894)

Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1894)

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A Band Apart: Greatest Films Poll (2011)

The full results, including individual ballots, can be found here. My ballot, which I drew up a couple of months ago (reproduced underneath the main results below), already feels (inevitably) out of date.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2. Pulp Fiction (1994)
3. Taxi Driver (1976)
4. Stalker (1979)
5. Persona (1966)
6. Mulholland Dr. (2001)
7. Mirror (1975)
8. City Lights (1931)
9. The Godfather (1972)
10. Apocalypse Now (1979)
11. À Bout de Souffle (1960)
12. Vertigo (1958)
13. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
14. 8½ (1963)
15. Citizen Kane (1941)
16. Andrei Rublev (1966)
17. Psycho (1960)
18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
19. Come and See (1985)
20. M (1931)
21. The Seventh Seal (1957)
22. The Shining (1980)
23. Wild Strawberries (1957)
24. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
25. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
26. Seven Samurai (1954)
27. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
28. Metropolis (1927)
29. In the Mood for Love (2000)
30. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
31. Blow Up (1966)
32. La Dolce Vita (1960)
33. Casablanca (1942)
34. Blue Velvet (1986)
35. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
36. Fanny and Alexander (1982)
37. Dead Man (1995)
38. Vivre Sa Vie (1962)
39. The Four Hundred Blows (1959)
40. Barry Lyndon (1975)
41. Wings of Desire (1987)
42. Goodfellas (1990)
43. Chinatown (1974)
44. Sunrise (1927)
45. 12 Angry Men (1957)
46. Blade Runner (1982)
47. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
48. The Big Lebowski (1998)
49. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
50. L'Eclisse (1962)
51. Rashomon (1950)
52. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
53. Le Samourai (1967)
54. The Conformist (1970)
55. The Third Man (1949)
56. Sátántangó (1994)
57. Solaris (1972)
58. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
59. Rear Window (1954)
60. Double Indemnity (1944)
61. Last Year in Marienbad (1961)
62. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
63. Raging Bull (1980)
64. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
65. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
66. Ordet (1955)
67. Paths of Glory (1957)
68. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
69. Schindler’s List (1993)
70. Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
71. Tokyo Story (1953)
72. Some Like It Hot (1959)
73. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
74. Modern Times (1936)
75. Se7en (1995)
76. Dogville (2003)
77. The Double Life of Veronique (1991)
78. Viridiana (1961)
79. Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
80. Annie Hall (1977)
81. L'Atalante (1934)
82. Dekalog (1989)
83. The Cranes Are Flying (1957)
84. Woman of the Dunes (1964)
85. There Will Be Blood (2007)
86. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
87. Chungking Express (1994)
88. Pather Panchali (1955)
89. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
90. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
91. Days of Heaven (1978)
92. Badlands (1973)
93. Alien (1979)
94. L'Avventura (1960)
95. Battleship Potemkin (1925)
96. Fight Club (1999)
97. Manhattan (1979)
98. The Ascent (1977)
99. Cries and Whispers (1972)
100. The Thin Red Line (1998)
101. Landscape in the Mist (1988)
102. The Last Picture Show (1971)
103. Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
104. La Règle du Jeu (1939)
105. The Graduate (1967)
106. Playtime (1967)
107. The General (1927)
108. Three Colours: Blue (1993)
109. The Tree of Life (2011)
110. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
111. Back to the Future (1985)
112. Death in Venice (1971)
113. The Great Dictator (1940)
114. Léon (1994)
115. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
116. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
117. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
118. Fargo (1996)
119. City of God (2002)
120. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
121. The Sacrifice (1986)
122. Lost Highway (1997)
123. Amadeus (1984)
124. Sansho Dayu (1954)
125. Orpheus (1950)
126. Last Tango in Paris (1972)
127. Nosferatu (1922)
128. Eraserhead (1977)
129. Three Colours: Red (1994)
130. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

My ballot (1-Aug-11):

• Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
• Alice in the Cities (1974)
• All About My Mother (1999)
• Andrei Rublev (1966)
• The Apartment (1960)
• Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
• Au Revoir les Enfants (1987)
• The Bank Dick (1940)
• Barton Fink (1991)
• Begone Dull Care (1949)
• Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)
• Bicycle Thieves (1948)
• Big Business (1929)
• A Blonde in Love (1965)
• Brief Encounter (1945)
• Bringing Up Baby (1938)
• A Canterbury Tale (1944)
• Caught on a Train (1980)
• Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• Claire's Knee (1970)
• Close-Up (1990)
• Comrades (1986)
• The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
• Dance Party, USA (2006)
• Dawn of the Dead (1978)
• A Day Out (1972)
• Days of Heaven (1978)
• Dead of Night (1945)
• Dekalog (1989)
• Diamonds of the Night (1964)
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
• Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
• Don't Look Now (1973)
• Duck Soup (1933)
• Early Summer (1951)
• Edvard Munch (1974)
• Elephant (1989)
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
• Exotica (1994)
• Faces (1968)
• Faust (1926)
• Festen (1998)
• Five Easy Pieces (1970)
• Gertrud (1964)
• Girl Shy (1924)
• Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
• Great Expectations (1946)
• Hana-Bi (1997)
• Harold and Maude (1971)
• High Hopes (1988)
• Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
• Hunger (2008)
• Ikiru (1952)
• Il Posto (1961)
• In the City of Sylvia (2007)
• In the Mood for Love (2000)
• Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959)
• Jeanne Dielman (1975)
• Le Jour se Lève (1939)
• Journey to the Beginning of the World (1997)
• Kes (1969)
• King & Country (1964)
• Last Days (2005)
• The Last Laugh (1924)
• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
• The Man in the White Suit (1951)
• The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
• MASH (1970)
• Modern Times (1936)
• Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
• Morvern Callar (2002)
• O Lucky Man! (1973)
• Our Daily Bread (2005)
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
• People on Sunday (1930)
• Persona (1966)
• Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
• Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
• Pyaasa (1957)
• Rear Window (1954)
• Red Angel (1966)
• The Red Desert (1964)
• La Règle du Jeu (1939)
• Rosetta (1999)
• Sátántangó (1994)
• Shall We Dance (1937)
• Stardust Memories (1980)
• Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
• A Swedish Love Story (1970)
• Syndromes and a Century (2006)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• Tony Manero (2008)
• The Turning Gate (2002)
• Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
• Uzak (2002)
• Vendredi Soir (2002)
• Vive l'Amour (1994)
• When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)
• Woman of the Dunes (1964)

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CFB's Top 40 Films of 1998 (2011)

1. The Thin Red Line (1998)
2. The Big Lebowski (1998)
3. Happiness (1998)
4. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
5. Run Lola Run (1998)
6. The Truman Show (1998)
7. Gods and Monsters (1998)
8. Festen (1998)
9. Dark City (1998)
10. A Simple Plan (1998)
11. American History X (1998)
12. Shakespeare in Love (1998)
13. Show Me Love (1998)
14. Pleasantville (1998)
15. Pi (1998)
16. Central Station (1998)
17. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
18. The Opposite of Sex (1998)
19. Elizabeth (1998)
20. Flowers of Shanghai (1998)
21. The Last Days of Disco (1998)
22. Black Cat, White Cat (1998)
23. Rushmore (1998)
24. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
25. The Red Violin (1998)
26. Eternity and a Day (1998)
27. Out of Sight (1998)
28. The Apple (1998)
29. Velvet Goldmine (1998)
30. An Autumn Tale (1998)
31. Buffalo ‘66 (1998)
32. Xiao Wu (1997)
33. The Idiots (1998)
34. Wild Things (1998)
35. Primary Colors (1998)
36. Inquietude (1998)
37. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998)
38. Last Night (1998)
39. The Dream Life of Angels (1998)
    There’s Something About Mary (1998)

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CFB's Top 25 Obscure Films of 1998 (2011)

1. Cabaret Balkan (1998)
2. Christmas in August (1998)
3. The Power of Kangwon Province (1998)
4. 42: Forty Two Up (1998)
5. Mr. Zhao (1998)
6. Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998)
7. Of Freaks and Men (1998)
8. The Terrorist (1998)
9. The Farm: Angola, USA (1998)
10. The Last Days (1998)
11. Confession (1998)
12. Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998)
13. Barrio (1998)
14. Dr. Akagi (1998)
15. Flammes (1998)
16. Secret Défense (1998)
17. Flatworld (1998)
18. Talking Heads 2 (1998)
    Billy’s Balloon (1998)
19. Ruskin (1998)
20. The Quarry (1998)
21. Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream (1998)
22. Jeanne et le Garçon Formidable (1998)
23. Place Vendome (1998)
24. David and Lisa (1998)

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Fawlty Towers: Series 2 (1979)

Essential Viewing

UK

Television Series

Director: Bob Spiers

Writers: Connie Booth, John Cleese

Cast: John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Andrew Sachs, Connie Booth, Ballard Berkeley, Brian Hall

Though Cleese’s performance is slightly less manic and physical than in the first series, and his character a tad more sympathetic, this second series is, if anything, even funnier, smarter, and more memorable than its hilarious predecessor.

1. Communication Problems

When Basil surreptitiously has a bit of luck on the gee-gees, his winnings get passed from person to person in an effort to keep it a secret from his disapproving wife – but, unfortunately for him, a deaf guest, who refuses to switch on her hearing aid for fear of running down the batteries, reports a similar amount of money to have been stolen from her room, leading to much suspicion and confusion.

2. The Psychiatrist

A holidaying psychiatrist does his best to ignore the odd behaviour of his manic host, Basil Fawlty; but said hotelier’s inability to avoid the breasts of a comely young Australian woman and his obsession with the sexual habits of another guest make doing so particularly difficult.

3. Waldorf Salad

When a pair of holidaymakers from California arrives after the kitchen has just closed, Basil has the idea to play at being chef, despite having just been bribed to keep the kitchen staff on with four crisp five pound notes – alas, all does not go smoothly, as the American gentleman and his British wife are soon unfathomably ordering screwdrivers and Waldorf salads (and they’re fresh out of waldorfs).

4. The Kipper and the Corpse

When a guest dies during the night, Basil, as keen (though incapable) as ever to keep up a level of propriety, soon has his staff carrying the body from room to room in order to hide its existence from his other guests – inevitably, he fails spectacularly.

5. The Anniversary

Having forgotten their anniversary the previous year, Basil, to mark their fifteenth, arranges a surprise party with some of their closest friends – unfortunately, Sybil takes his faux forgetting for the real thing and drives off in a huff, leaving him to concoct an unworkable, illness-related excuse for when their guests arrive,

6. Basil the Rat

When a health inspector gives them a long list of things to clean and fix in order to avoid being closed down, the staff of Fawlty Towers quickly and busily gets down to it; unfortunately, just as he’s due to return, Manuel’s pet rat – he thought that it was a Siberian hamster – escapes, leading to much panic, confusion, and poisoned veal. Iain.Stott

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Fawlty Towers: Series 1 (1975)

Essential Viewing

UK

Television Series

Director: John Howard Davies

Writers: Connie Booth, John Cleese

Composer: Dennis Wilson

Cast: John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Andrew Sachs, Connie Booth, Ballard Berkeley

A bigoted, elitist hotel owner – prone to fawning over nobility and treating with disdain the common man – manages to find himself in farcical situation after farcical situation, in this hilarious, brilliantly written first series, which benefits greatly from Cleese’s wonderfully physical comic dexterity.

1. A Touch of Class
Fed up with the riff-raff that usually patronise his hotel, who he treats with utter disdain, Basil Fawlty takes out a £40 ad in a swanky magazine, looking to attract a better class of customer; so when a certain Lord Melbury checks in, he proceeds to fawn all over him, near enough ignoring the rest of his clientele – unfortunately, though, the titled gentleman is not all that he appears to be.

2. The Builders
Instead of hiring a respectable builder like Stubbs – as his wife, Sybil, had requested – to put through one door and block up another, Basil hires cowboy builder O’Reilly, with whom they’d had trouble previously, who proceeds to fill in the wrong door and put another were one was not needed, much to the unsurprised chagrin of his no-nonsense better half.

3. The Wedding Party
When an unmarried couple tries to book into a double room, Basil refuses to accommodate them, but Sybil, his more enlightened wife, does so any way, leaving his imagination to run wild; and before long he is seeing carnal desire everywhere, and comes to believe that the hotel is filled with sex maniacs, causing him to make a fool of himself when he asks them all, including his waitress Polly, to leave.

4. The Hotel Inspectors
After hearing a rumour that there are three hotel inspectors in town, Basil comes to believe that a particularly demanding guest is one of said assessors, and begins to fawn all over him; but when his true occupation comes to light, his sycophantic deference soon turns to irrational rage.

5. Gourmet Night
The inaugural not-for-riff-raff Fawlty Towers gourmet evening runs anything but smoothly, when their new Greek chef, the best that they've ever had, gets steaming drunk after a romantic rebuff from Manuel, leaving him unable to cater the event, and forcing Basil to quickly change the menu and look to their old chef André, now running a successful restaurant and who had recommended the soused Kurt in the first place, to come to the rescue – now, if only he’d paid a professional to fix his car.

6. The Germans
With Sybil in hospital to undergo an operation on an ingrowing toenail, Basil is left at the hotel with instructions to hang a moose’s head in the lobby and to perform a fire drill – a set of tasks that inevitably proves to be beyond him; and before long, concussed after a blow to the head, he finds himself unable to serve lunch to a party of German guests without making constant references to the war. Iain.Stott

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Northern Exposure: Season 2 (1991)

Recommended

USA

Television Series

Creators: Joshua Brand, John Falsey

Cast: Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, Cynthia Geary, Elaine Miles, Peg Phillips

The second season of Northern Exposure, following the misadventure of a Jewish New York doctor marooned in the rural no-man’s-land of Cicely, Alaska, is a consistently entertaining work with no real weak episodes and at least one classic – Episode 2: The Big Kiss

1. Goodbye to All That
On the eve of a two week trip to New York, Elaine, Joel’s fiancée, sends him a Dear John letter, detailing her love for a retired judge, sending him into an almighty funk, and prompting Ed (with the assistance of Holling and Maggie) to seek to ease his pain; at the same time, Shelly becomes addicted to television, when Holling buys her a giant satellite dish.

2. The Big Kiss
After a viewing of Boys Town (1938), Ed becomes curious about the identity of his parents, and sets out to find them with the aid of his 256-year-old spirit guide, One-Who-Waits, who also advises Chris, who has had his voice stolen by a beautiful stranger passing through Cicely, that he must sleep with the most beautiful girl in town (Maggie) in order to remedy his situation.

3. All Is Vanity
When a John Doe drops dead in Joel’s office, the town’s populace, led by Chris and Maurice, take it in turns to watch over the body until a decision can be made about what to do with it; a stray comment from Shelly has Holling contemplating circumcision in order to please her; and Joel reluctantly agrees to play the part of Maggie’s boyfriend, when her judgmental father comes for a visit.

4. What I Did for Love
When Maggie has a dream about his death in a plane crash on the eve of his trip to New York, prompting the town’s populace to begin saying their goodbyes to him, the usually unsuperstitious Joel, already full of suspicion about his too-good-to-be-true temporary replacement, begins to rethink his travel plans, whilst also investigating Maurice’s breathing difficulties, reported to him by an astronaut groupie who visits him annually.

5. Spring Break
Just before the ice breaks, an event celebrated by the Running of the Bulls, the residents of Cicely become gripped with unusual passions – Joel and Maggie struggle to resist each other; Shelly develops a taste for reading; Maurice falls for a domineering state trooper; the usually placid Holling is itching for a fight; and somebody is stealing all of the town’s radios.

6. War and Peace
Nikolai Ivanovich Appalanov, a Russian singer loved by all but Maurice, arrives in town for a vodka-fuelled good time and, if the former astronaut agrees to it, a deadly serious game of chess; elsewhere, Ed falls for bad girl Lightfeather Duncan, and begins to woo her with the aid of Chris’s two-wheeled erotic poetry; and Holling, beset with vivid, unsettling dreams, struggles to get a decent night’s sleep.

7. Slow Dance
Further credence is given to idea of Maggie being cursed, or at least to all of her beaus being cursed on her behalf, when Rick is killed by a falling satellite; Maurice’s delight at finding buyers, with whom he has a great deal in common, for a property of his is soon tempered by the revelation that they are gay, prompting him to reconsider his decision to sell to them; and Shelly becomes the green-eyed monster when an old flame of Holling’s, who is closer to his age and has more in common with him, arrives in town. Iain.Stott

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