Peiratikos

Steven is gearing up for exams, so I got to spend the entire evening alone, which is the first time I’ve had 4 hours to myself in years I think. I squandered it on a gin hot toddy and microwaved Indian food and then watched Casa de los Babys, and now I’m happy. Well, happy and exhausted and headachy, but you can’t have everything. What you can have is a short post from me, it seems.

See, Casa has got me thinking about stories and scale and what people prefer. I guess this was on my mind this weekend in Pittsburgh, which I think was my first major group comics shopping expedition. Part of what I’ve really enjoyed in being a comics blogger is seeing what people like and especially why. What I’m realizing more and more, though, is that I like the little things best. I don’t care if worlds will change and paradigms will crumble; I just want to see some interesting characters do or think or say or be interesting things.

And while I’ve always assumed that at bare minimum gender keeps me out of the target demographic for Marvel and DC, I’m also just not going to be interested in whatever exploding-continuity mega-crossover story they offer not because I don’t care about superheroes but because I don’t care about the scale. I have no interest in the Marvel universe, but I think useful stories can be told within it. I know I’m talking about the same things over and over again, that I care about property damage and innocent bystanders in superhero and action movie carnage, that I’d like Vimanarama much more if it were just a love story without all the cosmic strife, that I often prefer the throwaway characters to the egotistical protagonists. I know this is all about me and it’s nothing especially new.

In Casa de los Babys, six women have come from the United States to a Latin American country, where they wait together for the babies they hope to adopt. Meanwhile there’s a fully realized world of maids and child beggars and students and bitter revolutionaries and hopeful idealists. And people live their lives and have the moments of communication and revelation and missed opportunity that happen in life, and then the movie is over. And to me that’s much more successful than if it had all been wrapped up nicely with a montage of smiling pastel babies and a soundtrack surge that reminds me I should be weepier. It helps, of course, that there was superb acting on both Mexican and foreign fronts, good writing that was specific and sturdy without being overwrought, a world without angels (or villains).

But I’m starting to wonder if I’m in the minority here, too. I keep saying I’ll write about Project Superior, which I do hope to do, but not when I’ll be into overtime hours by lunch tomorrow with a full day’s work and more on Saturday ahead of me. And the thing about Project Superior stories is that many of them were pretty straightforward and clear, making a point and then getting on with things, even the ones that presented themselves as slice-of-life. But there’s a big difference between unpretentious revelation and portentousness, and I think that’s what Alan David Doane misses in his praise for only the most trite (if still a bit touching) story in Flight 2. Not all comics have to be symbol-heavy because honestly not all comics creators have the brains and intuition to pull it off. And as an aside, I’m so tired of people saying that Grant Morrison is all ideas and no execution, because I think the opposite is far more true. (And no, I don’t think it matters what I think, either.)

It’s someone who understands taking little, mundane things and making them hold, making them strong enough to withstand some insight and inquiry that makes the kind of art I prefer and enjoy. I don’t care about the epic plots of triumph and tribulation anywhere near as much because I don’t think life requires (or allows) solving some magical jigsaw puzzle. I don’t think there’s a narrative that makes it all make sense, but it’s only because there are so many narratives that we can make sense of anything at all. And I don’t expect anyone to cater to my preferences, but I still enjoy finding things I like when and where I can. It’s like having a quiet night alone to relax and think and be happy, and I wouldn’t mind if my life had more of both.

[Edit by Steven: Fixed David’s URL.]

I’m writing this in our hotel room in Pittsburgh, because a certain member of the Peiratikos duo insisted on a hotel with free internet access. And we’ve come to Pittsburgh for the Pittsburgh Comicon, except not really. The con was fairly small and jammed full of vendors and pop culture icons (for lack of a better word) with a few artists interspersed. We came for the prospect of a blissful weekend away from reality, which really just means that there will be more bills and chores for next week than usual, and to meet fellow bloggers Ed Cunard and David Welsh, both of whom were delightful company and what I’d expected and hoped for and more. I’m amazed how comfortably real and online life parts can intersect.

I don’t really know what to say beyond that except that I was a thrifty spender (Steven is still in a mostly non-comics phase, plus I’m pushier) and we have a whole bunch of trade paperbacks to read now, although I’m strongly tempted to write something about each story in Project Superior. All of that is for later, though, since the night is young and there’s so much time for me to sleep! Before that, though, I need to preserve for posterity the photographic evidence of this historic meeting.

Rose, Ed, David, looking our best for this mug shot.

Steven, Rose, David: same setup.

And that’s it for me, happy tonight.

Actually, I’ll say one more thing about Klarion the Witch Boy.

Does it have the funniest Wiccan joke ever? It does. The whole Puritan pagan thing? Good stuff. The basic plot is nothing new (so far), as Jog points out, but, as Roger Ebert likes to say whenever he wants to justify his praise for an ‘immoral’ movie, a story is not about what it’s about but about how it’s about it. Which isn’t really true, but it’s sort of true. And how Morrison does Klarion is lovely. And how Frazer Irving does it, that’s lovely too. The art is also my favorite so far in Seven Soldiers, even with the monotonous coloring, which I actually like.

And while I’m here, I might as well announce that I’m probably not writing about comics for a few months. I’ve got my postmodern horror, a lot of science fiction (and maybe some fantasy). Look for H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, some cyberpunk and its literary and cinematic descendents. And that pomo horror. When? Whenever I stop being lazy, of course.

Rose and I were going to have one of those What We Bought This Week posts, except it would be a What We Bought This Month post since that’s how often we go to the comic-book store. Except the store didn’t have a few of the things we wanted, so we still ended up with about half what the typical comic-book blogger buys in a week. We’d only embarrass ourselves by attempting such a post.

(Just kidding about embarrassing ourselves: I take much pleasure in not being a typical comic-book blogger w/r/t buying piles of comic books every week.)

Anyway, one of our books was Klarion the Witch Boy #1. I liked it lots. Zatanna and Klarion are my favorites so far, mostly because I prefer their kind of fantastic fiction to superhero fantastic fiction. I’ll probably wait until the series are finished to comment on them, though, because (despite Grant Morrison’s claims, blah blah blah) these first issues are not at all self-contained and I suspect some of the seeming flaws (which other bloggers have commented on) will not seem so flawed in light of the complete works. But I don’t want to jump to these stories’ defense prematurely.

I do want to talk about something related, though. A while ago, Tim O’Neil said:

While we’re tangentially on the subject, man, the more I think about it the more Seven Soldiers seems like the sophisticated-superhero version of bear-bating. It’s been designed to divide the comics electorate between “cool kids” and not-cool kids, people who “care” about old continuity and the people who are too cool for that. I’ve seen a number of people commenting on the series with something to the effect that “nobody cares about these characters in the first place” - but the fact that some people do care pretty much kills that theory. The fact that some people do care means that whether or not you will enjoy the series depends on a “litmus test” of sorts […] I don’t necessarily agree that characters should be wed to continuity one way or the other, but man, any book that makes a political imperative of chosing [sic] one side or the other of the debate in order to enjoy it is just too aggressively cynical in conception for me to get concerned about.

And—sorry, what? Seven Soldiers forces you to choose between adherence to continuity and rejection of continuity? It does? Are these miniseries even “in continuity”? I haven’t seen Morrison or anybody else comment on this, but they don’t look like they are. They’re totally cut off from the rest of the DC Universe. I guess some characters mentioned the JLA in Zatanna, but other than that? They’re totally irrelevant to the rest of the DC Universe. They have no effect on anything outside themselves, and even if they are “official” (which I suspect they’re not), all of Morrison’s changes will be retconned in two weeks anyway.

Moreover: where’s the “litmus test”? Are there mobs of comic-book bloggers waiting in ambuscade for anybody unhip enough to claim a dislike of Morrison’s reinterpretations? Is Morrison sitting in his lair, cackling cynically in anticipation of all the poor unhip losers who will be saddened by his disrespectful portrayal of Klarion the Witch Boy?

I doubt it.

Seriously, “political imperative”? It’s a superhero comic book. Nobody cares if you don’t like it, I promise. (OK, I can’t promise that, but I can promise that anybody who does care is definitely an even bigger dork than you.)

Seriously—Grant Morrison has founded his Seven Soldiers project on the aggressively cynical goal of making people who don’t like it feel like dorks? Um?

But frankly, anybody who feels genuinely victimized by Seven Soldiers is a dork. Harsh but true, I think.

Edit: By the way, before you get offended because I made fun of you for being a dork, consider that I just used the word “ambuscade” in public. I don’t have the moral high ground, here.

This time Ken set me off (you guys do know it’s conceptual art, right?) but this is a post I’ve wanted to write or maybe a better way to say it is felt I ought to write about once a week since at least last summer. I know I’ve asked before where all these rape jokes among comics bloggers come from, but what worries me more is where they’re going.

I was 17 when I was raped, not even a month into my first semester in college. I was Brilliant, Attractive Girl who seems a Bit of a Headcase, though I was dangerously scrawny under my too-large clothes and had lopped off my hair to try to undermine or circumvent any potential attractiveness. And so I ended up helping a dormmate, an international student, proofread a paper he’d written. I wondered what he was doing at the school with the level of English he had, since clearly he couldn’t keep up with even the basics of his classes. I wondered what I was doing there when clearly I would fit in better if I had the money he did and, like him, spent much of it on beer. And when he pushed me to the ground, I didn’t call for help because I didn’t want it, didn’t want anyone to see me being debased, didn’t want any evidence of the most humiliating, horrifying moment of my life. I sobbed and had a panic attack instead so that he had to pry my spasming legs apart. I went back to my room still sobbing and stayed in bed a few days and crumpled those sweatpants, underwear, turtleneck in the bottom of my closet. I threw them away when I withdrew from school not long after, well before he was forced out for failing grades and drug infractions. I didn’t tell anyone until it was too late to do whatever could have been done.

I know that was a long time ago. I don’t cry about it much, didn’t even feel that gnawing ache when the season came around last year. I did my suffering already, a year I don’t remember spent depressed almost to the point of catatonia, relationships where I tried to destroy myself or let myself be destroyed. I went back to my college and did my time making reparations, working as an educator and crafting policy with the administration, supporting others, being a visible face as the out survivor on campus. I did my forgiving pretty early on because it seemed like the only tenable option to me. I can understand (sort of) how sad and powerless he must have been to think that preying on me could give him any satisfaction or status, because I was the only person around who was lower than he was. When I learned at 17 that he’d told the guys on his floor about it, I had a breakdown. Now I wonder if they pitied him too.

And that was a long time ago and I’m over it to the extent that I’ll ever be, healthy, happy, in love and loved. And so it’s not that I feel personally hurt when I read rape jokes or have to hear guys (guys, always guys) talking about the vengeance they would take if the women they love were assaulted. (And by no means do I want to minimize the extent to which men can be victims of sexual assault, especially as children. But I think a lot of the people who make jokes about prison rape do, because sex and power and masculinity are all tied up in a little package that doesn’t allow them to think of themselves as ever being at risk or unsafe.) I don’t feel hurt but just annoyed, because I know when you talk like that you’re not talking to me. Because I know what it’s like, or know what it was like for myself to suffer at least and have heard others’ stories, and I can’t make the same kinds of jokes. But at the same time I don’t think I should be forced to avoid the Fanboy Rampage comments section just because it’s pretty much guaranteed there will be someone else there who clearly thinks he can. I’m not asking for deference or even really an explanation, because I’ve never gotten one before. I’m just shocked or surprised or amazed that so many bloggers live in a world where people like me don’t exist or at least don’t read their blogs, where the constant references couldn’t be seen as hurtful. I think there’s a reason I never heard a female student say, “Oh, that test totally assraped me,” and it has something to do with the education sessions we’d do where everyone who knew someone who’d been sexually assaulted was asked to stand. While few freshman stood up, by senior year it seemed like nobody stayed seated. There’s some line between gallows humor and something that cuts too close or is just plain disrespectful, and I think that’s another reason I sometimes feel left out of the testosterone stew in these parts of the web. It just doesn’t compute.

And I don’t really know why I’m writing this except that I’m sick of having it in my head every time I do read all this casual rape-talk. I’m not trying to police anybody and I pick on Ken because I’ve talked to him about this a bit before and don’t think what I say will hurt his feelings; he likes to be inflammatory and, I think, sees rape jokes as one more extension of that. And that’s his decision and it shouldn’t have anything to do with me and won’t and doesn’t keep me from reading whatever he has to say. This isn’t a situation where first they came for the rape jokes and eventually all we could joke about were elephants jumping out of trees, or at least that’s not what I hope I’m saying. It’s more that I’m jealous of all these people who somehow have the option not to care about it, not to have that word jump out at them, to be able to use it casually and metaphorically. It’s not that I want to live that way as much as that I can’t and I’m amazed they can. The problem is the way those words self-select similar readers. I can handle them with only minor annoyance, but there are plenty of other people with personal stories much worse than mine who can’t or won’t or shouldn’t. And it bothers me that this sort of talk deliberately excludes them from any conversation it infects. But maybe there just aren’t a lot of rape survivors reading comics and comics blogs and maybe I’m completely overreacting. The problem is that none of us have any way to know for sure.

And it’s not that I think my fellow bloggers are misogynists who live in isolation, either. I think most of them who mention sexual assault, especially in this post-Identity Crisis age do so because they think it’s worth reminding everyone of the extent to which it doesn’t belong in a sensical and healthy universe, but it’s easier to do it by joking about how the only way to have a blockbuster comics is on-panel sexual assault than it is to write an over-earnest post about why sexual assault is bad. So I realize I’m upsetting the balance by taking just that tack, but I figured this was worth saying and maybe now I won’t feel I need to say it anymore.

I’m really having trouble writing for this blog lately. I don’t know if it’s spring and the last few days of warmth before my life becomes all work all the time or what, but my brain is not here.

My body’s here, though (and there were body-related reasons for my absence, including a pretty spectacular blow to the head; from now on I’ll remember where the shelf is before standing up beneath it) and I guess that’s what I’m going to talk about. Our latest comics haul included the first girl-directed manga I think I’ve read, Paradise Kiss volume 1, as well as the first female-fronted floppy comic I’ve read in a long time, the first Seven Soldiers issue of Zatanna. There was something exciting and pleasant in reading about women for a change, even though neither is all that much like me. (Okay, I am going to confess later about how very, very autobiographical my reading of Paradise Kiss is, but probably not tonight.) It’s not that I think either was a peculiarly feminine book, but I did find myself responding differently and want to think about that.

The most interesting thing about Zatanna is that it’s not as much a story as a bunch of bits of other stories thrown together into one volume. I haven’t read enough DC stories to know if the people in her superhero self-esteem support group are standard characters or whether they were created just for this. And I can assume that the locust riders are the little fellows we met in JLA Classified, although I like the hidden implication that a plague of locusts just disguises the real invasion, the tricky riders. The backstory of any of the characters who accompany Zatanna out of the world might be more interesting than her solipsistic self-analysis, but I don’t know if we’ll ever find out why Taia’s body ages and regenerates. I assume we’ll find more about Baron Winter, the separate seventh member of the crew. And all of this would have been more interesting to me than Zatanna’s self-pity (and I think it is that, rather than guilt, that really drives her here) and it’s because of this that I assume the story is supposed to be annoying, that the support group frame story is a support itself.

Because really Zatanna’s problem is that she can’t realize she’s in a story. Even though she’s been to the world of unwritten books, she somehow still thinks she’s a free agent. And so while rational people who’ve been haunted by terrifying dreams would hear the background music rumbling ominously when considering a spell that says, “Bring me the man of my dreams,” that’s not how it works for Zatanna. She thinks that because she has the power to write the world with her spells, no one or nothing could be writing her. (And I do think there are hints enough even beyond the obvious one that the author is Grant Morrison that an underlying theme of Seven Soldiers will be something about fictionality and the way people long for and reject an author and a template for their lives.) And so she does what a person who’s been sleeping badly, haunted by horrible dreams might do: she makes a stupid, thoughtless decision that makes everything worse.

But really, that’s the problem with writing your own life. You get to sabotage your character development, get yourself stuck in ruts that would drive a reader crazy. And that’s Zatanna’s problem, that she’s become a dull character. If she can take the sort of drama that wins her a prize at the superhero support group, look the end of the world in the face and still think that it’s all about her, she has issues and she’s being aggravatingly human. To me, that’s refreshing. I’m not sure there are many superhero stories that are about the complete alienation from the doing stupid, self-defeating things that seem to comprise a lot of human existence, but they wouldn’t be very interesting to me even if there were. At the end of the book, Zatanna has lost her power to write, to create with magic, and is miserable thinking of herself as just another person, another character. I look forward to watching her embrace that more than I do the presumably inevitable return of her magic powers.

I’m getting repetitive, so I’m not going to go on about this anymore and will save Paradise Kiss (which I really enjoyed) for another night. I’ll just add that when I was a tiny girl, age 3 or 4 or so, when I’d get tired I’d start talking in a sort of third person. “‘I find myself getting tired,’ she said,” I’d say. The boundaries between fiction and non- would start to blur, and I’d be narrating myself. Luckily my relatives found this endearing rather than disturbing, but I think it was a telling sign about how I viewed the world. It was hard for me to believe that I wasn’t story fodder for someone (maybe God, although I hoped he’d have the decency to check in on someone else when I was in the bathroom) and that stories weren’t real in their own ways. I was convinced that because of the word-power of my name I could hide in wild rosebushes during hide-and-seek games and that they would accept me as one of their own. This seemed to work, but maybe would have worked for anyone small who was willing to move deliberately. Later I decided I was my own writer, which has its ups and downs. I wish I were more dedicated, more self-assured, more willing to let myself have great adventures, but I instead had to focus on Zatanna’s story arc, stopping myself from being a martyr and denying myself anything that could lead to happiness or satisfaction. Now I don’t know what I believe, but that doesn’t matter to me. I know how to treat myself and try to treat the other characters I meet with respect and interest. This goes for Zatanna too.

Yes, these are real baby names. Guess them right and win a prize!

• Ahlyivia. Origin: “Latin.” Original meaning: “Olive tree.”
• Aleena. Origin: “Greek.” Original meaning: “Rock.”
• Milen. Origin: “Greek.” Original meaning: “Dark skinned.”
• Qlowui. Origin: “Greek.” Original meaning: “Blooming, verdant.”
• Tearanie. Origin: unknown!

In honor of one year of Milo George and his quest to end Endemic Treponematosis, we’re stuck with a movie meme.

But we couldn’t quite follow the rules, especially since we have a policy of not passing on these stupid things. However, if you want to swipe a copy, this one wouldn’t be your worst choice. We realphabetized the list to get things where they belong to begin with and to treat numbers differently and ignore leading articles in all titles, English or not. Foreign movies are listed by what we deem as the most readily recognizable title here in the U.S. All movies have years associated, now including ones directed by Kevin Smith (which Steven wouldn’t let me remove). The Three Colors trilogy only shows up once instead of twice, although it’s a little crazy that the Matrix trilogy gets three entries when Kieslowski and Satyajit Ray get three-in-one treatment.

And speaking of three colors, movies seen by Steven and not me are displayed in red. Movies only Rose has seen are blue. Movies we have both seen, together or separately, show up in purple, which I realize is sickeningly symbolic and romantic and whatnot. Movies we own are in bold. Because of this, we apologize to any visually impaired readers, but you’re really not missing anything if you have to skip this post anyway.

• Adaptation. (2002)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (1939)
• After Dark, My Sweet (1990)
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
• Alien (1979)
• All About Eve (1950)
• Amadeus (1984)
• Amarcord (1974)
• American Beauty (1999)
• The American President (1995)
• American Splendor (2003)
• The Animatrix (2003)
• Annie Hall (1977)
• The Apartment (1960)
• Apocalypse Now (1979)
• The Apu Trilogy (1955 - 1959)
• Around the Bend (2004)
• L’Atalante (1934)
• Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
• L’Avventura (1960)
• The Band Wagon (1953)
• The Bank Dick (1940)
• Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen) (1983)
• Batman (1966)
• Batman (1989)
• The Battle of Algiers (1967)
• Battle Royale (2000)
• The Battleship Potemkin (1925)
• Beat the Devil (1954)
• Beauty and the Beast (1946)
• Being John Malkovich (1999)
• Being There (1979)
• Belle de Jour (1967)
• The Bicycle Thief (1949)
• The Big Heat (1953)
• The Big One (1997)
• The Big Red One (1980)
• The Big Sleep (1946)
• The Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Blowup (1966)
• The Blue Kite (1993)
• Blue Velvet (1986)
• Bob le Flambeur (1955)
• Body Heat (1981)
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
• Le Boucher (1970)
• Bound (1996)
• Bowling for Columbine (2002)
• Breathless (1960)
• Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
• Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
• Broken Blossoms (1919)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
• Casablanca (1942)
• Casino Royale (1967)
• Chasing Amy (1997)
• Un Chien Andalou (1928)
• Children of Paradise (1945)
• Chinatown (1974)
• A Christmas Story (1983)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• City Lights (1931)
• Clerks (1994)
• The Color of Paradise (1999)
• The Color Purple (1985)
• Comic Book Villains (2002)
• Conan the Barbarian (1982)
• The Conversation (1974)
• Cries and Whispers (1972)
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
• Crumb (1994)
• Damage (1992)
• Daredevil (2003)
• Day for Night (1973)
• The Day of the Dolphin (1973)
• Days of Heaven (1978)
• The Decalogue (1988)
• Detour (1945)
• Die Hard (1988)
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
• Do the Right Thing (1989)
• La Dolce Vita (1960)
• Donnie Darko (2001)
• Don’t Look Now (1974)
• Double Indemnity (1944)
• Dr. Strangelove (1964)
• Dracula (1931)
• Duck Soup (1933)
• Dune (1984)
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
• The Earrings of Madame de… (1953)
• Easy Rider (1969)
• Edward Scissorhands (1990)
• Ed Wood (1994)
• 8 1/2 (1963)
• Elektra (2005)
• The Elephant Man (1980)
• Eraserhead (1977)
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
• The Exterminating Angel (1962)
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)
• Fanny and Alexander (1983)
• Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
• Fargo (1996)
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
• The Firemen’s Ball (1968)
• Five Easy Pieces (1970)
• Floating Weeds (1959)
• Four Rooms (1995)
• The 400 Blows (1959)
• From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
• From Hell (2001)
• Gates of Heaven (1978)
• The General (1927)
• Ghost World (2000)
• Gigli (2003)
• Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
• The Godfather (1972)
• Goldfinger (1964)
• Gone With the Wind (1939)
• The Goodbye Girl (1977)
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
• GoodFellas (1991)
• The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)
• Grand Illusion (1937)
• The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
• Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
• Great Expectations (1946)
• Greed (1925)
• Groundhog Day (1993)
• The Hand (1981)
• A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
• The Hearts of Age (1934)
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
• Hellboy (2004)
• High Fidelity (2000)
• Hiroshima mon amour (1959)
• Hoop Dreams (1994)
• House of Games (1987)
• The Hustler (1961)
• I ♥ Huckabees (2004)
• Ikiru (1952)
• In Cold Blood (1967)
• The Incredibles (2004)
• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
• Jackie Brown (1997)
• Jaws (1975)
• JFK (1991)
• Jules et Jim (1961)
• Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
• Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)
• Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)
• Killing Zoe (1994)
• Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
• King Kong (1933)
• Lagaan (2001)
• The Lady Eve (1941)
• The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
• The Last Laugh (1924)
• The Last Picture Show (1971)
• Last Tango in Paris (1972)
• Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
• Late Spring (1972)
• The Lathe of Heaven (1980)
• Laura (1944)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
• Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
• The Leopard (1963)
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
• The Lion King (1994)
• Lolita (1962)
• Lolita (1997)
• Lost Highway (1997)
• M (1931)
• The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
• Mallrats (1995)
• The Maltese Falcon (1941)
• The Man Who Laughs (1928)
• The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
• Manhattan (1979)
• The Matrix (1999)
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
• The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
• Mean Streets (1973)
• Metropolis (1926)
• Mon Oncle (1958)
• Moonstruck (1987)
• Moulin Rouge (2002)
• Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953)
• Mulholland Dr. (2001)
• The Music Room (1958)
• My Darling Clementine (1946)
• My Dinner With Andre (1981)
• My Life to Live (1963)
• My Neighbor Totoro (1993)
• Nashville (1975)
• Natural Born Killers (1994)
• Network (1976)
• The Night of the Hunter (1955)
• Nights of Cabiria (1957)
• El Norte (1983)
• Nosferatu (1922)
• Notorious (1946)
• On the Waterfront (1954)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
• Orphée (1949)
• Out of the Past (1947)
• Pandora’s Box (1928)
• Paris, Texas (1984)
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
• Paths of Glory (1957)
• Patton (1970)
• Peeping Tom (1960)
• Persona (1966)
• The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
• Pickpocket (1959)
• Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
• Pinocchio (1940)
• Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)
• Pixote (1981)
• Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
• Playtime (1967)
• The Producers (1968)
• The Prophecy (1995)
• Psycho (1960)
• Pulp Fiction (1994)
• Raging Bull (1980)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
• Raise the Red Lantern (1990)
• Ran (1985)
• Rashomon (1950)
• Rear Window (1954)
• Red River (1948)
• The Red Shoes (1948)
• Reservoir Dogs (1992)
• Return to Glennascaul (1951)
• Rififi (1954)
• The Right Stuff (1983)
• Roger & Me (1989)
• Romeo and Juliet (1968)
• Romeo + Juliet (1996)
• The Rules of the Game (1939)
• Le Samouraï (1967)
• Santa Sangre (1989)
• Saturday Night Fever (1977)
• Say Anything (1989)
• Scarface (1983)
• The Scarlet Empress (1934)
• Schindler’s List (1993)
• The Searchers (1956)
• Se7en (1995)
• The Seven Samurai (1954)
• The Seventh Seal (1957)
• Shane (1953)
• Shaun of the Dead (2004)
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
• Solaris (1972)
• Some Like It Hot (1959)
• South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)
• Spider-Man (2002)
• Spider-Man 2 (2004)
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
• Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
• Star Trek: The Search for Spock (1984)
• Star Trek: The Voyage Home (1986)
• Star Trek: The Final Frontier (1989)
• Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
• Star Trek: Generations (1994)
• Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
• Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
• Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
• Star Wars (1977)
• The Straight Story (1999)
• The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977)
• The Stranger (1946)
• Strangers on a Train (1951)
• Strictly Ballroom (1992)
• Stroszek (1977)
• A Sunday in the Country (1984)
• Superman (1978)
• Sunrise (1928)
• Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
• Swing Time (1936)
• A Tale of Winter (1992)
• The Tao of Steve (2000)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• The Terminator (1984)
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
• The Thin Man (1934)
• The Third Man (1949)
• This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
• The Three Colors Trilogy (1994)
• Three Women (1977)
• Tokyo Story (1953)
• Touch of Evil (1958)
• Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954)
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
• The Trial (1962)
• Trouble in Paradise (1932)
• True Romance (1993)
• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• 28 Days Later (2002)
• Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Ugetsu (1953)
• Umberto D (1952)
• Unforgiven (1992)
• Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002)
• The Up Documentaries (1964-1998 [so far!])
• Vertigo (1958)
• Victim (1961)
• Walkabout (1971)
• West Side Story (1961)
• Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)
• Wild at Heart (1990)
• The Wild Bunch (1969)
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
• Wings of Desire (1988)
• The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• Woman in the Dunes (1964)
• A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
• A Woman’s Tale (1992)
• Written on the Wind (1956)
• X-Men (2000)
• X2 (2003)
• xXx (2002)
• Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
• A Year of the Quiet Sun (1984)
• Yellow Submarine (1968)