"Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets."

Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese, 1976

I first saw this a few years ago because it was the top rated movie (the only 100% at the time) on Rotten Tomatoes. Back then I thought it was a film that must have been cutting edge when it was made but didn't withstand the test of time. This time I definitely appreciated it more. So much has been written about this film I risk plagiarism by writing anything over fifteen words.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia.

"Did we come all the way to Europe just to smoke pot?"

Hostel
Eli Roth, 2005

Two friends from school are backpacking across Europe when they arrive in Amsterdam with an Icelandic man they encountered during their travels. They hit some hash bars then start chasing some Amsterdamian tail only to find a pimp that highly recommends Slovakia for beautiful, easy women. Once they arrive in the eerily quiet town, they check into a Hostel and everything starts to go to hell. Then, the movie progresses just like every other one in the genre, creepy twist and everything.
If you like Eli Roth movies (Cabin Fever, Hostel II) you'd probably like this. It has the requisite gore (to the extent that when you see the back of a man's head explode from a gunshot it appears rather tame) and subverts the former tendency of horror movies to punish those of questionable morals while saving the righteous. My patience for these movies is wearing thinner and thinner.

Image Courtesy of TheSydneyMorningHerald.com,
which provides a less biased review that touches on the question of whether this type of film is merely voyeuristic, or a shove to recognize the horrors of real-world cruelty.

"Sometimes I wonder what we're doing here... grown men making mud pies to sell to the great unwashed. "

The Day of the Locust
John Schlesinger, 1975

A film adaptation of Nathanael West's novel, The Day of the Locust deals with a group of Hollywood outsiders and their desperate failed attempts to make it big during the golden era of the 1930s. I discovered this film while reading Masters of Light, and the legendary Conrad Hall said that he considered this film to be the closest he had ever come to technical perfection. I ended up writing an annotated bibliography about the successes and failures of the film as an adaptation of the novel which touched on the paradox of using the Hollywood system, both as subject matter and in terms of production, in an allegory whose main purpose is to attack the artifice and destructive nature of The American Hollywood Dream. I learned a lot about the film as well as West's novel throughout the process, but this space is much too limited to offer a full discussion on all that nonsense. It's all academic drivel anyway.
The standout of the film was Donald Sutherland as the only sympathetic character in the film, Homer Simpson. Not since Dogville has a film made me so angry at how despicable humanity can be, but when all is said and done the catharsis offered by these films validates the bleak and often infuriating subjects they depict.

Image Courtesy of aintitcool.com

"I Can Feel It...and I'm Afraid"

2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick, 1968

I went from thinking this film was a self-indulgent piece of crap, to really liking it, to thinking it was an extremely drawn out piece of self-indulgent crap to really enjoying the film as a whole. The film is truly drawn out in every sense of the label. Both static shots and entire scenes seem to be held out longer than is comfortable for today's general viewer, but overall it lends the film a unique feeling and tone. The stark portrayal of space is an interesting counter to more recent sci-fi films as the silence of space is emphasized not only in lack of diagetic sound, but in the absence of a soundtrack. Generally, viewers rely on some sort of ominous music or soundtrack to inform them about how they should feel regarding otherwise ambiguous imagery. This film embraces silence which I feel conveys a greater sense of discomfort.
This film is considerable amount older than I originally thought, and I can't imagine how stunning the final chapter would have been to a contemporary audience. I thought the middle chapter was an eerily relevant cautionary tale and you won't see me consent to any form of artificial hibernation any time soon.

Image Courtesy of litmuse on Flickr.