Chinatown (1972), directed by Roman Polanksi.

There he is, with his switchblade, talking about nosy little kitties. Roman Polanski, the unnamed assailant, emerging from the shadows. “Who’s the dwarf?” Nicholson’s Jake Gittes asks, nodding at Polanski. The nameless little man is startled, offended. So he puts the tip of the stiletto in Gittes’ nose and jerks it back, slicing open the nostril and sending a shocking spray of blood across Nicholson’s face.

That’s right: Monty Python. A television show? And why not? Is television not a part of the medium? And did not the madness of this troupe of six perhaps over-educated actors, writing their own material, change the face of television… and movies? Show me an unconventional comedy–perhaps like this last weekend’s Zombieland–and I will show you Monty Python.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), directed by Peter Yates.

Weary.

That’s how I would describe Robert Mitchum. Even when he was a maniacal beast, as in Night of the Hunter or Cape Fear, he appeared to be carrying the weight of the world on those massive shoulders of his. Mitchum looked like a man on the wrong side of the law, his eyes watery as if from being hung over or drunk, his peepers framed by large bags, his voice barely audible, his shoulders drooping, a look that indicated a thorough disappointment with the world and the people around him. Crime paid in Robert Mitchum’s cinematic world. It just never paid that well.

Yes, there’s Peter Lorre. Bernard Herrimann and Sam Peckinpah, Warren Oates. The great cinematographer Gregg Toland, Elisha Cook Jr., Thelma Ritter, John Huston and his dad, Walter. I can talk about the stars in Hollywood’s firmament, and the ones who weren’t stars but could have–and often did have–books written about them, or at the very least articles by esteemed scholars. And I will, trust me I will.

Apollo 13 (1995), directed by Ron Howard.

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, I’d like to draw your attention to a great little movie about America’s space travel program. No, it’s not the gorgeous For All Mankind, a new Criterion DVD release well worth watching (and which has been written up enough, in my opinion.) No, I’d rather you go to your local DVD store or library and grab Ron Howard’s Apollo 13.

The Hurt Locker (2008), directed by Kathryn Bigelow.

The Hurt Locker, a film about three members of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) squad stationed in Iraq, opens with a very literal bang. Sergeant J. T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), and their leader, Sergeant Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce), have sent a robot to detonate an Improvised Explosive Device (IED–a road bomb) left in a pile of trash by a busy Baghdad neighborhood.

“Because there was once a god who roamed the earth named Warren Oates.” –Richard Linklater, on one of the sixteen reasons he loves Two-Lane Blacktop

Rumor has it that there’s a documentary out there about Warren Oates, something that might sum up the man from Depoy, Kentucky. I doubt it… I mean, really, how do you sum this guy up? In fact, he should’ve been ridiculous, the way that Elisha Cook Jr.–a great character actor by any standard–often was portrayed.

Our hero came from Nowhere– he wasn’t going Anywhere and got kicked off Somewhere. –Opening title card from Keaton’s short, “The High Sign”

Did you know that Buster Keaton broke his neck making Sherlock Jr.? This sublime picture (screening this weekend at the equally incredible Tryon microcinema at 7:00 and 9:00 pm–some shows are sold out, so check for availability) includes a film-within-a-film, a deadly billiards game with an exploding 13 ball, love lost and regained, and Buster getting tossed off a train by a violent spray of water. That’s how he broke his neck–falling off a boxcar head-first onto an iron rail. Literally a break-neck movie.

Who was Bernard Herrmann? Well, he was one of the top men in Hollywood for a very long time, a man whose work you’re probably familiar with. See, Herrmann was a composer. He did the scores for so many classic films that it simply boggles the mind. Citizen Kane, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Taxi Driver. That theme for “The Twilight Zone” you whistle when things get strange? Bernard Herrmann.

The Wire (2002-2008), created by David Simon.

You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps the holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided. –Franz Kafka

In season five of The Wire, Bubbles (Andre Royo), a recovering heroin addict, is handed a worn slip of paper by his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor Walon (Steve Earle). Written on the scrap, no doubt in a barely legible hand, is the above quote. Neither Bub nor Walon know shit about Franz Kafka, but it doesn’t matter. They understand what he was saying, are moved by the words, and we know that that paper, worn soft over years of reading and rereading, will change hands yet again. For Bubs will not hold back, he will lend himself to the suffering. And if we’re lucky, we watch The Wire, and will not hold back from the suffering ourselves.