“Son of a Gunderon, I’ve always wanted to be a mariachi!”

A Double Feature of Repentance

Well with less than a week in January, I have completed the first of my 12 month program to atone for my cinema sins. I originally did not have El Mariachi on the list but when I realized I had never seen the debut feature of one of my favorite directors. I knew I had to do a double feature. With this being the last day of January I am here to report.

1. Fargo

I am really glad I finally got to see this Coen Brothers masterpiece. Sadly they were robbed at the Academy Awards. Thankfully Frances McDormand got a much deserved recognition for Best Actress. I loved the pacing of the film and the care placed in showing the almost immediate unraveling of this so called plot and Marge Gunderson’s polite police work to solve the case. Fun and quirky.

2. El Mariachi.

I feel I did myself a disservice not seeing this film sooner. I love pretty much all of Robert Rodriguez filmography and Desperado is my second favorite after Sin City. El Mariachi reminds of a pseudo prequel/remake/reimagining of Desperado. It almost had a sort of Hitchcockian feel of a case of mistaken idea combined with the mastery of Sergio Leone. Good action and very stylish camerawork show that Rodriguez is still one of the most consistent directors cinema.

One step to repentance complete.

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A (Late!) CinemaShame List by @TapwaterAlice

Only twelve? Because you know, I could easily double or triple the list… okay, I’ll stop now.

There are a handful of films that I’m proud to say I’ve seen (8½, El Topo, Citizen Kane and nearly all the David Lynch movies), but countless more that I’ve yet to. Like fellow Shamer @007hertzrumble, this could be a by-product of my preoccupation with the James Bond franchise; I’ve revisited films like GoldenEye numerous times and can nearly quote it word-for-word. Highly acclaimed classics like Seven Samurai or Lawrence of Arabia don’t give me quite the same level of gratification that I get from watching Roger Moore raise his eyebrows, but it’s the classics that ultimately teach us more about the craft of visual storytelling. And I am very guilty of skipping a few.

On to the list:

January: Oldboy (dir. Park Chan-wook)

February: 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. Stanley Kubrick)

March: Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

April: Fargo (dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)

May: Annie Hall (dir. Woody Allen)

June: Fight Club (dir. David Fincher)

July: Taxi Driver (dir. Martin Scorsese)

August: Apocalypse Now (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

September: Repulsion (dir. Roman Polanski)

October: Wait Until Dark (dir. Terence Young)

November: The French Connection (dir. William Friedkin)

December: La Dolce Vita (dir. Frederico Fellini)

Aside from a few criteria, i.e. choosing twelve films that interest me, as well as choosing one film per director, there isn’t much of a unifying theme here. Films I’ve enjoyed the most tend to deal with notions of masculinity, or a subversion of masculinity, so there may be a few of those here. Overall this was a tough list to make and I’m sure I forgot to include a few essentials.

Let the penitence commence!

Confession of Shame by @deacon05oc

Twelve Never Seen

by Eric Jones

In my family I am the movie man. I’m the one everyone comes to for Anything cinema related. 9.9 times out of 10 if you ask me if I’ve seen a movie. I’ve seen it. Most of the time if it’s considered a classic, I have seen it. What tends to slip through the cracks are films that are classics of pop culture, those movies that the masses have seen that have become mainstays in common conversation. If someone says they have never seen Star Wars or The Maltese Falcon, it’s no big deal. Yet I incur the wrath of hell for not yet have seeing Pulp Fiction or Anchorman. Well I am here to atone for my film loving sins. Behold this list of 12 that I have never achieved viewership for. I shall view 1 per month and I pray I shall be forgiven by the pop culture masses.

I’m not sure yet on which one I will watch and what the order will be. but some of these I do own and other are currently on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video so I will watch according those schedules as well.

1. Fargo
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Blazing Saddles
4. Enter The Dragon
5. Anchorman
6. White Heat
7. Barbarella
8. The Goonies
9. 3:10 To Yuma (The Original)
10. Friday the 13th (The Original)
11. Old School
12. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation