'Brazil'

While watching this film, I wondering who was the richest, most successful member of the Monty Python troupe.

Graham Chapman died too early and didn't do much after the break-up. Terry Jones, too, hasn't done much. I would suspect Eric Idle and Michael Palin come next. Then John Cleese.

That leaves the soft-spoken, rarely-seen Terry Gilliam. The guy behind the animation from the Python sketches and films. The only American.

He's directed The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, Jabberwocky, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Time Bandits and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Add in the abandonment of the Don Quixote film and Heath Ledger's death during Imaginarium gives him a sort of mythic appeal, as if he's part of the mystic of film.

Furthermore, he turned down opportunities to direct Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Braveheart.

I'd declare Gilliam the most successful, but there's nothing wrong with what the others have done with their careers. Gilliam happens to be a very good filmmaker. Brazil is just a bit of that success.

'Fat City'

Interesting tidbits about Fat City:

1. Stacy Keach in his role of "Tully" was well regarded. In the New York Film Critics Circle, he received multiple votes for Best Actor. At the time, the circle was a heavy influence on the Oscar voters. Keach, however, only got a few votes along with fellow contender Marlon Brando, in his role of Vito Corleone in The Godfather. The organization quickly changed the rules forcing the winning to get a majority of the votes. Neither Keach nor Brando could get a majority. The voters compromised with Laurence Olivier for Sleuth.

Both Olivier and Michael Caine were nominated for Oscars for Sleuth. Keach wasn't. And Brando took home the Oscar. Bottomline: Keach was screwed.

2. Brando was initially offered the role of Tully.

3. Beau Bridges was initially offered the role of Ernie. He declined and offered up his brother, Jeff. Jeff, of course, won the Best Actor Oscar this year for Crazy Heart. Beau is doing another episode of Stargate.

'The Bitter Tears Of Petra Van Kant' & 'The Marriage Of Maria Braun'

Two films from Rainer Werner Fassbinder, already reviewed twice before on this blog for Fox and His Friends and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.

The two themes that combine all four of these films are loneliness and hurt. Both themes tied together under the umbrella of relationships.

Whether it's homosexual in nature, between people of different races and ages, between a manipulative woman and her lovers, or a battered old hag and her manipulative lesbian lover, Fassbinder didn't seem to see too much into relationships. And he was really unwilling to make anyone the hero, or good guy.

Bitter Tears ... and ...Maria Braun are particularly good bookends. Both feature manipulative and borderline sociopathic or sadistic women hellbent on hurting everyone in their path -- from daughters, husbands, former lovers and friends. Nothing will get in the way between them and a good screw. Whereas Braun set her sights on making money, there was still the inkling of insecurity. As if when she was at the very top, even she knew it was temporary or not real.

Petra Van Kant, on the other hand, was not on top and she knew it. There was one way up and that avenue was closed and there was nothing she could do about it.

'Pickpocket'

Pickpocket explores the oft-visited argument that certain people are exempt from the human laws that keep us from stealing from and killing each other.

People need money. Why shouldn't some other sap have it taken away from him or her in order to fulfill this need? There are worse arguments out there. At least once in all of our lives do we take advantage of a situation because we feel like we deserve it or it's someone else's loss, even if that someone is a major corporation.

I think pickpockets are neat. And it was fascinating watching our hero learn the tricks of the trade and practice them on chairs and tables in his apartment.

I think pickpockets have balls. If I'm in a big city, I'm always wary of pickpockets. I don't know if they even exist or exist enough for it to be an actual problem. I'd like to think that I would be aware if someone was sticking their hand deep into my pocket to steal my wallet or cash.

Then again, pickpockets wouldn't exist at all if they were unable to dupe a sap like me.

'Way Down East' & 'Intolerance' & 'Orphans Of The Storm'

While riding with a friend recently, he plugged in his iPhone and put his downloaded songs on shuffle.

One of the songs that comes up is Run DMC's "It's Tricky." I don't necessarily react, but my friend states that the group and, thusly, the song were relevent because they were pioneers of the rap or hip-hop genre.

I got to thinking about this. It's a common substantiation of particularly artists, that they were some of the first to do it therefore they are due some sort of respect or props for doing so. For essentially being at the right place at the right time.

Are Run DMC a better group because they were one of the first to perform rap at a high level?

Is D.W. Griffith a good director or just one of the first of the prolific ones?

I tend to believe he's the latter: Someone that was at the right place and the right time. The guy who invented baseball, but he was no Babe Ruth, Willie Mays or Frank Robinson.

Again, I'll be tickled pink when I'm done with these silent films. I've had enough. I've never seen someone say less in three hours than Griffith.

'Audition'

Truly one of the more grisly films I've ever seen. Makes your skin crawl.

I'm not alone. In screenings in Ireland, filmgoers apparently were passing out. Feminists have complained that the film backs up every female stereotype known to man.

Of course, you could take that criticism and turn it around and make the film itself a criticism of those same stereotypes. Art, it's fantastic!

The creepiest aspect of Audition is that this poor man is being physically and emotionally tortured, but that we don't know why he's being tortured like he is. Was it because he was attempting to meet a wife under false pretenses? If so, wouldn't that mean that just about every person with a penis should have his feet lopped off with a wire?

There's other forces afoot. Bad things happening to good people even if its unfair is understandable if there's some sort of reason. Because there is no reason, it scares you even more. Randomness ain't cool.

'Rosshalde'

Rosshalde, to me, is just another chapter in the literary transition of the turn of the century, provincial lifestyle, the rise of the middle class and the death of the mores that dominated through the beginning of the 20th century.

Rosshalde is no different from Howard's End or any other E.M. Forster novel or The Remains of the Day.

In this case, it's the dismemberment of the family establishment and the disenfranchisement of marriage. Veraguth's disillusionment of his marriage (and thus his older son, who he actually has entirely more in common with unlike the youngest, Pierre, who seems to despise art) and also with the provincial life in the country speaks volumes about the sea change in the way we see families and archaic ways of living through the middle of the 20th century.

Essentially, everything about the way we thought and felt changed. From the latter stages of the Industrial Revolution (mobility, communication), to civil rights, the Great Depression, the World Wars, the 1960s and the "flattening" of the world makes us currently completely unrecognizable to even someone like Veraguth and possibly Hermann Hesse.