“A film is a ribbon of dreams. The camera is much more than a recording apparatus; it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world that is not ours and that brings us to the heart of a great secret. Here magic begins.”

-Orson Welles.

And here we continue with part two of our films that we love, and perhaps even adore, that we feel should make the jump over to the Criterion Collection, if, for no other reason, just to make ourselves a little happier. But here we hit a little closer to home with some domestic picks…

Marco Sparks: My first choice is Putney Swope, 1969, directed by Robert Downey, Sr. and it’s a simple and easy choice.

This film is red hot burning satire, hilarious at times, and an excellent example of what an American film can look like. We’ve all seen it and it’s been better described elsewhere, so I don’t have to say a whole lot here, but if for some reason you haven’t seen it (and you’ve certainly seem homages to it if you’ve ever seen a single P.T. Anderson film), get your ass on it. It’s worth your time.

Obviously, a Criterion no brainer, I would think. August?

August Bravo: Shadow Of A Doubt, 1943, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Probably my favorite Hitchcock film (David Mamet’s, too), and most likely Hitchcock’s as well. I had the pleasure of watching this for the first time in my cinema class. My teacher told the class to pay particular notice to the number 2 in this film, something I thought nothing of until much, much later.

The story is about a man named Charlie. The first scene shows him on the run from two men. Not much is known, but one thing etched into my memory are the bars over his face, coming from the shadow cast by the window. A great bit of foreshadowing. Or maybe not. He visits his married  sister, and her kids. His favorite of the kids is also named Charlie, who’s ecstatic to see her uncle. Weren’t we all like that as kids? So excited to see family, but now as adults we do anything we can to get away from them. But maybe that’s just me.

I don’t want to reveal too much, but the relationship between the two Charlies and how it develops throughout the movie is something that I’ve always found interesting. There’s a pretty strong theme here for 1943, something I still find eerie to this day.

Once again, not having a completely satisfying ending, or maybe it does, is something I thoroughly admire about this film. I enjoy thinking about a film days after I’ve watched it, or at least, I like movies that stick with you for days after you’ve finished them. Not many have that kind of staying power anymore, but Shadow Of A Doubt stays with you for years. Several of Hitchcock’s other films have made their way into the ranks of the Criterion collection and I feel that this film strongly deserves that same level of infamy.

Marco: August has just shamed me wonderfully since Shadow Of A Doubt is one of the few films by the master that I have yet to see, along with Notorious. I’ll get there, man. I’ll get there.

But for my last film for today, I’m going to keep it painfully simple: My Dinner With Andre, 1981, directed by Louis Malle.

There’s quite a bit I could say about this film, which is easily in my top 5 of all time and one that I watch at least once a year, so the trick here will be to say the least. I saw it written somewhere that this film is about two men who meet for dinner, eat in real time, and talk. Yeah, but that’s kind of missing the point, and they don’t even really eat in real time, but there’s such a fine attention paid to detail here that you probably do feel like you’re the silent man at the table during the conversation that takes place here.

Semi based on their real selves, Wallace “Inconceivable!” Shawn is a playwright on his way to dinner with an old friend, New York theater director Andre Gregory, “a man I’d been avoiding, literally, for a matter of years,” who had troubled out of sigth for a while, reportedly traveling the world. But one day a friend encounter Andre  leaning against a building in Manhattan and weeping, having just walked out of an Ingmar Bergman film, where a particular piece of dialogue had left him devastated: “I could always live in my art, but not in my life.” This is what sets up their dinner encounter.

And what an encounter it is. Andre has indeed been around the world and seen some amazing things, and the stories he has for Shawn are incredible. Shawn, a man of simple desires, who wants merely to have a littl money and to be able to lay in bed with his girlfriend, warm under their electric blanket, and read his biography of Charelton Heston, has his eyes opened by a Gregory’s almost explosively adventurous and spiritual look at the world. And so did I. What starts like the ravings of a mad man from Gregory will slowly begin to show you that there is so much more to life if you take one second to not be content with just being another fat, dumb, and happy somnabulist.

Both men are wonderful here and the script was compiled from their real life conversations together, and when you add to the beautiful way that Malle photographs this film, it’s perfect. Like I said, I watch this movie at least once a year and I’d love to tell you that it’s my litmus test for people to pass or fail as they enter my life, but I can’t. Everyone would fail, sadly, and this just isn’t a film for everyone.

I’ll end with this bit from Roger Ebert’s review of the film: “Someone asked me the other day if I could name a film that was entirely devoid of cliches. I thought for a moment and then answered, ‘My Dinner With Andre.’”

Anyway, August and I will be back tomorrow or the next day with a few more domestic selections from you, continuing and possibly concluding our series. I don’t want to leave you with a cheesy statment, like… “Go watch a good film!” so instead, I’ll just say… Watch your step.