In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept of Blindspot, it’s where you pick 12 films you’ve never seen but feel you should have and resolve to watch one per month over the course of the year. Some people review them every month too, but I’m far too disorganised in my posting schedule for such things (I still have pieces on four of my 2016 picks in draft stage).
It’s also what I used to call “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” (aka WDYMYHS), but in a foolhardy move to mark my 10th blogiversary (did I mention that yet?) I’ve decided to make these two goals. I mean, when you’re already trying to watch 100+ films in a year, why not specify what almost a quarter of them will be? Okay, I don’t have a 100% track record with even trying to watch 12 a year, but I have hit 91.7%, so…
In the past I’ve developed a complicated system using multiple “greatest films” lists to dictate what my picks should be, but I’ve used a variation on that for WDYMYHS this year, so instead I’ve just chosen these 12 myself. The criteria? I went through every unwatched DVD and Blu-ray I own and tried to pluck out films that it shocked me I haven’t seen — and I am me, so I dread to think what you all think (probably “why does he think we care about what films he has or hasn’t seen?”) I’ve tried to keep some variety in era, genre, country, etc, though there’s a slight bent towards sci-fi because, as an avowed SF fan, those gaps glowered at me the most.
Anyway, that’s enough ado. Here are the 12, in alphabetical order:
The 39 Steps
The Cabinet
of Dr. Caligari
The Conversation
Dances with Wolves
District 9
The Exorcist
Forbidden Planet
Jackie Brown
A Matter of
Life and Death
Nashville
Planet of the Apes
Yojimbo
Now, on to my WDYMYHS picks…
2014 Academy Awards
As we know, the Oscars are racist and always have been, especially recently. Like two years ago, when they didn’t give a load of nominations and several awards to a film about slavery from a black director and black screenwriter.
who will break your heart, and Michael Fassbender, who is overdue the gong for his many varied and accomplished performances. (I doubt his forthcoming triple of 
Guy Ritchie’s second feature met with relative indifference 16 years ago, consensus deeming it 
#183 
#192 About Time (2013)
Favourite Film of the Month
Le Mépris establishes its two main themes with its two opening shots. First, a static shot of the film’s cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, filming a scene from the film, over which writer-director Jean-Luc Godard reads out the credits, which never appear on screen. This is a movie about moviemaking, and its inherent artifice. Second, a shot of Brigitte Bardot’s naked bottom. This is a movie about a man being in love with Bardot (well, the character she plays), and another man lusting after her, and what happens when the first man pats a different bottom. Maybe.
They go round in circles about staying together or being apart. The point? Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps it’s the unknowableness of the other gender (whichever gender you are). Perhaps it’s just the unknowableness of other people fullstop. Perhaps it’s the unknowableness of our own emotions — eventually Bardot decides she does want to leave the playwright to run off with the producer, but no one seems to know why.
Yet more dystopian sci-fi! Who doesn’t love some dystopian sci-fi? Here we’re in the ’70s, though (makes a change from the ’80s), with writer-director Stanley Kubrick adapting Anthony Burgess’ novel into a film so controversially violent the director himself eventually banned it from release in the UK for decades. Almost 45 years on, it’s testament to the film’s power that it is still in parts shocking.
unfortunate byproduct of the film’s age. Other parts just go on a bit too long for my taste — there’s barely a sequence after Alex’s arrest that I didn’t feel would benefit from getting a wriggle on. I don’t think this is me bringing a youth-of-today “everything must be fast cut” perspective to the film, I just found it needlessly languorous at times. Maybe I was missing a point.
Kubrick ends on a much more ambiguous note… so ambiguous, I’m not really sure what it’s saying… or even what all the ambiguities actually are…
I normally aim for a “critical” (for want of a better word) rather than “bloggy” (for want of a better word) tone in my reviews, just because I do (that’s in no way a criticism of others, etc). Here is where I fail as a film writer in that sense, though, because I’m not even sure how I’m meant to review Terry Gilliam’s dystopian sci-fi satire Brazil, a film as famed for its storied release history as for the movie itself.
I’m sure there’s a thorough list of differences somewhere, but one good anecdote from Gilliam’s audio commentary tells how the ‘morning after’ scene was cut from the European release so last-minute that it was literally physically removed from the premiere print. (Gilliam regretted it immediately and it was restored for the video release.)
It’s just an ordinary day at the US Antarctic research base staffed by helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) and his compatriots, until a helicopter buzzes overhead dropping grenades on a dog it’s pursued across the ice fields. The dog finds sanctuary in the US base; the helicopter and its crew are less fortunate. Realising it’s from a Norwegian facility an hour’s flight away, MacReady and the doctor brave inclement conditions to investigate. They find numerous corpses and the base burnt to ruins. What horrors befell the Norwegian base? And have they inadvertently brought them into their own…?
Even if you don’t want to get deep about it, The Thing has the “who’s human?” thrills to keep you engaged on that level. Accusations of boredom no doubt stem from the fact it’s a bit of a slow burn, the early acts building suspicion and unease as MacReady and co investigate. Even after the true nature of the threat is revealed, Carpenter paces himself, though the frequency of incidents begins to mount inexorably as we head towards the climax. Well, that’s just good structure.
For me, it’s the psychological quandaries that are gripping and exciting, rather than any enjoyed disgust at the emetic special effects. However, knowing the characters a little better — thus caring if they’d been replaced or not, and also perhaps allowing us a chance to try to guess for ourselves — would have just made it that bit superior.
Poorly reviewed and a box office flop on its release, Buster Keaton’s The General has undergone a stark re-evaluation since: the United States National Film Registry deemed it so “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” that it was added to the registry in its first year, alongside the likes of 
It was reportedly a very expensive film, and it looks it: there are tonnes of extras, not to mention elaborate choreography… of trains! Who knew old steam trains were so agile? There’s impressive physicality on display from Keaton, but the well-timed movements of those big old locomotives are quite extraordinary, especially for the era (I mean, for the past couple of decades you’ve been able to do pretty much anything thanks to a spot of computer-controlled what-have-you. Not much of that going on in the 1920s.)
100Films.co.uk 