The Buddhist Third Class Junk Mail Oracle

I've been working on an indexing project of underground newspapers and magazines from 1963-1968.

A lot of the titles included one or more of the following terms: liberation, movement, militant, peace, and free/freedom. The most ubiquitous name was probably [Your Town/State/Country] Free Press.

But other titles were more literary, humorous and intriguing, including my favorite: The Buddhist Third Class Junk Mail Oracle.

As it turns out, TBTCJMC was one of the first underground papers in Cleveland, Ohio, founded by a poet, artist and alternative press publisher named d.a. levy. According to Wikipedia, Levy died in 1968 of a gunshot wound to the head. Given that it was 1968, some people think he was bumped off by the government for his radical views. Given that he was a poet, others think he just killed himself. No one really knows.

In 2003, Seven Stories Press (a contemporary "alternative" publisher) brought out The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle: the art and poetry of d.a. levy, a collection of Levy's creative work. It also includes "an investigative essay on Levy's life and mysterious death."

For those interested in actually perusing original copies of TBTCJMC, Cleveland State University Library has digitized them.

The underground papers of the 1960s, often student-run, were sort of the blogs of their day. Cheap, affordable printing was the hip technology of the day. I enjoyed strolling through the list of titles. Apart from the obviously political names (Liberation News Service), you see some of the cultural influences on the radical youth of that fascinating and vibrant time. It's an interesting mix of Greek mythology, romanticism, spirituality, Tolkien, William Morris, Lewis Carroll (a lot of Lewis Carroll) and, yes, marijuana.

Rat, from New York City. (Imagine that.)

I've left out well-known papers like The Berkeley Barb or The East Village Other. This is just a list of titles that caught my attention. Ones with asterisks after the name have Wikipedia explanations below. (The information may not be needed for people more literate than I am.)

If you're interested, The University of Connecticut Libraries have an online exhibit called "Voices from the Underground: Radical Protest and the Underground Press," which provided most of my images.

So here are some of the underground rags that radicals in the 1960s were reading and printing:

Alchemist
Alice
Argo***
Artisan
Asterisk
Astral Projection
Atlantis News
Avatar
Bandersnatch***
Black and Red
Black Cat
Blue Bus
Bohemia
Brown Shoes
The Buddhist Third Class Junk Mail Oracle
Buffalo Chip
Crocodile
Cuervo International
Deserted Times
Despite Everything
Eggman
Free Pagan Press
Free Venice Beachhead
Free You
Fresh Air
Fusion
Gambit
Gandalf's Garden
Georgia Straight
Good Morning Teaspoon
Graffiti
Granpa
Great Speckled Bird
Grinding Store
Hair
Hard Core
Helix
Hotcha
Huevos del plata
Humantis
Inferno
Iron Cage
The Great Speckled Bird, from Atlanta.

Kudzu
Liar
Looking GlassLoving Couch Press
Mega Middle Myth
Middle Earth
Miss Blanche
Mother of Voices
Needle
News from Nowhere
Octopus
Old Mole
Olvidate
Open City
Oscar's Underground Ghetto Press
Other Other
Other Scenes
Our Daily Bread
Oz
Paper Highway
Pop-See-Cul
Probe
Prospectus
Protean Radish
Provo
Pterodactyl
Rabid One / Enrage
Raisin Bread
Ramparts Wall Poster
Rat
Roach
Ryce Street Fysh Markete

Old Mole, from Cambridge, MA.

Sanity
Sansculottes***
Satyrday
ScimitarThe Screw
Seventy-Nine Cent Spread
Small Change
SomethingSon of Jabberwock
Speak Easy
The Sun Flower
Super Love
Swamp Erie Pipe Dream
Tablet
Teaspoon & the Door
Ungarbled Word
Le Voyage
Walrus
Weakly Citizen Harold
Where It's At
Wild Flowers
Witzend
Xanadu
Yankee Refuge
Yarrow Stalks
Yellow Dog
Zig Zag

Argo: The ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcus to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

Bandersnatch: A fictional creature mentioned in Lewis Carroll's poems Jabberwocky and The Hunting of the Snark. The form or size of the creature is not described, nor is it clear whether Bandersnatch is singular, like the Phoenix.

Sansculottes: Sans-culottes (French for "without knee-breeches") was a term created around 1790 - 1792 by the French aristocracy to describe the poorer members of the Third Estate, according to the dominant theory because they usually wore pantaloons (full-length trousers or pants) instead of the silk knee-breeches then in fashion. The term came to refer to the ill-clad and ill-equipped volunteers of the Revolutionary army during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars, but, above all, to the working class radicals of the Revolution. From this comes the now slightly archaic term sansculottism or sans-culottism, meaning extreme egalitarian republican principles.

Richard Wright (1943-2008)

Richard Wright, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, died from cancer yesterday. He was 65.

Obituary and related articles at BBC.

Here's "Interstellar Overdrive," one of the numerous tunes that Wright co-wrote. From their 1967 debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

Say hello to Syd. . . .

The Greatest Films of All Time: 101-200

"I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like."

John Huston

Further into the rabbit hole with my exploration of the world's Greatest Films of All Time. The initial post included an Introduction and Films 1-20. [The other posts in this series include Films 21-50, Films 51-100, and The Directors.]

You can skip the following brief intro if you've already read the other posts.

Briefly, I researched and compiled 30 lists of Greatest Films from various sources around the globe, including critics such as Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum; popular magazines like Time and Time Out (UK); films journals such as Sight & Sound, Cahiers du cinema, Kinovedcheskie Zapiski (Russia); and a range of Film Archives from countries like China, India, Ecuador, Israel, Greece, and Finland.

The 30 polls produced a total of 580 films. When films weren't ranked in the polls, I assigned a numeric value depending on the total number of films included (eg. 100 films = 20 points). So, the list I'm presenting is not a ranking of films I personally think are the greatest of all time. It's simply a reflection of results from across 30 polls voted on by hundreds of other people.

My quest was twofold: To see which works were considered the masterpieces of cinema from a variety of international sources, and to see if and how the perception of great films and great directors varied from one region of the world to another.

Films 101-200

Luis Buñuel's delicious and disturbing Exterminating Angel, ranked #177 and among my own 100 Favorite Films.

Since this list is pretty long, I'm not going to offer much comment. There were a few points of interest, however.

Several classic comedies from the 1930s and 1940s, which seemed ignored in the more serious-minded Top 100, show up in this list. Howard Hawks' two defining screwball classics appear: Bringing Up Baby (#112) and His Girl Friday (#155) , which may have the fastest-spoken dialog in cinema history. Wisecracking only for the initiated.

Ernst Lubitsch and Preston Sturges each notch two entries, the former with the delightful Trouble in Paradise (#118) and The Shop Around the Corner (#185), and the latter with the magnificent The Lady Eve (#119) and Sullivan's Travels (#185). The only Marx Brothers film in the Top 200, Duck Soup (#125), shows up. And two of my favorite comedies - George Cuckor's wonderful The Philadelphia Story (#144) and Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (#152) - deservedly make the list.

The first films from the 21st century appear: David Lynch's skewed riff on Sunset Blvd., Mulholland Drive (#173) and Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love (#188).

The famous British directing team of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, who didn't have any films in the Top 100, wind up with four in this list: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (#109); A Matter of Life and Death (#113); Black Narcissus (#138), which I highly recommend; and The Red Shoes (#164).

Here's the full list:

101. (tie) Notti di Cabiria, Le [Nights of Cabiria] (1957) Federico Fellini 184.5
101. (tie) On the Waterfront (1954) Elia Kazan 184.5
103. Zangiku monogatari [Story of the Late Chrysanthemums] (1939) Kenji Mizoguchi 184
104. My Darling Clementine (1946) John Ford 181.5
105. Thiassos, O [Traveling Players] (1975) Theodoros Angelopoulos 178
106. (tie) Jazz Singer, The (1927) Alan Crosland 175
106. (tie) Olvidados, Los [The Young and the Damned] (1950) Luis Buñuel 175
108. Nashville (1975) Robert Altman 172.5
109. Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The (1943) Michael Powel & Emeric Pressburger 170.5
110. Partie de Campagne [A Day in the Country] (1936) Jean Renoir 170
111. Pandora's Box (1928) G.W. Pabst 165
112. Bringing up Baby (1938) Howard Hawks 158.5
113. Matter Of Life And Death, A (1946) Michael Powel & Emeric Pressburger 157.5
114. King Kong (1933) Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack 154
115. Condamné à mort s'est échappé, Un, ou Le vent souffle où il veut [A Man Escaped] (1956) Robert Bresson 150.5
116. Journal d'un curé de campagne [Diary of a Country Priest] (1950) Robert Bresson 149
117. Sherlock Jr. (1924) Buster Keaton 147
118. Trouble in Paradise (1932) Ernst Lubitsch 145.5
119. Lady Eve, The (1941) Preston Sturges 143
120. Belle et la bête, La [Beauty and the Beast] (1946) Jean Cocteau 141
121. Battaglia di Algeri, La [The Battle of Algiers] (1965) Gillo Pontecorvo 138.5
122. Blaue Engel, Der [Blue Angel] (1930) Josef von Sternberg 135
123. (tie) Letzte Mann, Der [The Last Laugh] (1924) F.W. Murnau 130
123. (tie) Zemyla [Earth] (1930) Aleksandr Dovzhenko 130
125. Duck Soup (1933) Leo McCarey 128.5
126. Crowd , The (1928) King Vidor 128
127. Nanook of the North (1922) Robert Flaherty 127
128. (tie) Play Time (1967) Jacques Tati 125
128. (tie) Umberto D (1952) Vittorio De Sica 125
130. Maltese Falcon, The (1941) John Huston 120.5
131. Ran (1985) Akira Kurosawa 117.5
132. (tie) Great Dictator, The (1940) Charlie Chaplin 117
132. (tie) Jetée, La [The Jetty] (1962) Chris Marker 117

Chris Marker's 1962 science-fiction film La Jetée, a 28-minute work composed of still photographs. It served as the inspiration for Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys (1995).

134. (tie) Aparajito (1956) Satyajit Ray 115
134. (tie) Apur Sansa [The World of Apu] (1959) Satyajit Ray 115
136. Clockwork Orange, A (1971) Stanley Kubrick 108.5
137. Nuit et Brouillard [Night and Fog] (1955) Alain Resnais 107
138. (tie) Black Narcissus (1947) Michael Powel & Emeric Pressburger 106.5
138. (tie) Vredens dag [Day of Wrath] (1943) Carl Dreyer 106.5
140. (tie) Shoah (1985) Claude Lanzmann 105
140. (tie) Ukigumo [Floating Clouds] (1955) Mikio Naruse 105
140. (tie) Vampires, Les (1915-16) Louis Feuillade 105
143. Performance (1970) Nicholas Roeg 103
144. (tie) Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) Chantal Ackerman 102
144. (tie) Philadelphia Story, The (1940) George Cukor 102
146. Treasure of Sierra Madre, The (1948) John Huston 101.5
147. Senso (1954) Luchino Visconti 101
148. (tie) Johnny Guitar (1954) Nicholas Ray 100
148. (tie) Stagecoach (1939) John Ford 100
148. (tie) Vivre sa vie [My Life to Live] (1962) Jean-Luc Godard 100
148. (tie) Wind, The (1928) Victor Sjöström 100
152. It Happened One Night (1934) Frank Capra 98.5
153. (tie) Monsieur Verdoux (1947) Charlie Chaplin 98
153. (tie) Star Wars (1977) George Lucas 98
155. His Girl Friday (1940) Howard Hawks 97.5
156. (tie) Foolish Wives (1922) Erich von Stroheim 95
156. (tie) Once Upon a Time in America (1983) Sergio Leone 95
158. Paisà [Paisan] (1946) Roberto Rossellini 93
159. Manhattan (1979) Woody Allen 92
160. Laura (1944) Otto Preminger 91
161. Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt [Berlin, Symphony of a City] (1927) Walter Ruttmann 90
162. (tie) Olympia, Parts 1 and 2 (1938) Leni Riefenstahl 89
162. (tie) Sweet Smell of Success, The (1957) Alexander Mackendrick 89
164. (tie) Vangelo secondo Matteo, Il [The Gospel According to Saint Matthew] (1964) Pier Paolo Pasolini 87.5
164. (tie) Red Shoes, The (1948) Michael Powel & Emeric Pressburger 87.5
166. Ukigusa [Floating Weeds] (1959) Yasujiro Ozu 85.5
167. (tie) Banshun [Late Spring] (1949) Yasujiro Ozu 85
167. (tie) Jalsaghar [The Music Room] (1958) Satyajit Ray 85
167. (tie) Oktyabr [October] (1927) Sergei M. Eisenstein 85
170. 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle [2 or 3 Things I Know About Her] (1967) Jean-Luc Godard 83
171. Rocco e i suoi fratelli [Rocco and His Brothers] (1960) Luchino Visconti 82.5
172. Las hurdes [Land without Bread] (1932) Luis Buñuel 82
173. (tie) Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Le [The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie] (1972) Luis Buñuel 81.5
173. (tie) Mulholland Dr. (2001) David Lynch 81.5
175. (tie) Piano, The (1993) Jane Campion 81
175. (tie) Sans Soleil [Sunless] (1983) Chris Marker 81
177. Ángel exterminador, El [Exterminating Angel] (1962) Luis Buñuel 80.5
178. (tie) Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Arthur Penn 80
178. (tie) Maman et la putain, La [The Mother and the Whore] (1973) Jean Eustache 80
178. (tie) Scarlet Empress, The (1934) Josef von Sternberg 80
181. Stalker (1979) Andrei Tarkovsky 79
182. (tie) Viskningar och rop [Cries and Whispers] (1972) Ingmar Bergman 78
182. (tie) Kaagaz Ke Phool [Paper Flowers] (1959) Guru Dutt 78
184. Nema-ye Nazdik [Close-Up] (1990) Abbas Kiarostami 77
185. Shop Around the Corner, The (1940) Ernst Lubitsch 76.5
186. Sullivan's Travels (1941) Preston Sturges 76
187. Do the Right Thing (1989) Spike Lee 75.5
188. Fa yeung nin wa [In The Mood For Love] (2000) Wong Kar Wai 75
189. (tie) Sayat Nova [Color of Pomegranates] (1968) Sergei Parajanov 75
189. (tie) Terra trema [The Earth Trembles] (1948) Luchino Visconti 75
191. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Vincente Minnelli 73
192. (tie) Buono, il brutto, il cattivo., Il [The Good, the Bad and the Ugly] (1966) Sergio Leone 72
192. (tie) Mean Streets (1973) Martin Scorsese 72
192. (tie) Paths of Glory (1957) Stanley Kubrick 72
195. Brief Encounter (1945) David Lean 71.5
196. (tie) Barefoot Contessa, The (1954) Joseph Mankiewicz 71
196. (tie) Casque d'or (1952) Jacques Becker 71
196. (tie) Deer Hunter, The (1978) Michael Cimino 71
196. (tie) Moonfleet (1955) Fritz Lang 71
196. (tie) Plaisir, Le (1952) Max Ophüls 71
196. (tie) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Walt Disney 71

Films ranked 101-200 that show up in my own list of Favorite 100 Films: Bringing Up Baby, The Maltese Falcon, Ran, The Philadelphia Story, It Happened One Night, His Girl Friday, Manhattan, and The Exterminating Angel.

The final installment in my series will be on the men and women who directed the Greatest Films of All Time. I encountered numerous surprises while taking a look at the directors who showed up in the 30 polls. In fact, I would go as far to say that the results changed my thinking about some of our masters of cinema. The cultural variations were also fascinating.

In the meantime, I'd be curious, once again, to know some of your own experiences with these films. And which ones would you put in your own Top 100?

Coming soon to this blog - The Directors!

Gimme Some Truth

A request from John Schertzer that I'm more than happy to oblige.

One of my favorite John Lennon songs, with George Harrison on lead guitar.

Has anything changed much since 1972? Tricky Dick was Richard Nixon, now it's Dick Cheney. The uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics and the neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians remain the same.

All I know is that Lennon's anger and yearning for truth in the midst of an absurd and corrupt environment resonates just as much now as it did 36 years ago.



I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
Money for dope
Money for rope

I'm sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mamas little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now

I've had enough of watching scenes
With schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
Its money for dope
Money for rope

Ah, I'm sick to death of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

Republican Hypocrisy in All Its Naked Glory

Excerpts from The Abyss

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

1

Is the stair here?
Where's the stair?
'The stair's right there,
But it goes nowhere."

And the abyss? the abyss?
'The abyss you can't miss:
It's right where you are--
A step down the stair.'

* * *

2

I have been spoken to variously
But heard little.
My inward witness is dismayed
By my unguarded mouth.
I have taken, too often, the dangerous path,
The vague, the arid,
Neither in nor out of this life.

* * *

Be with me Whitman, maker of catalogues:
For the world invades me again,
And once more the tongues begin babbling. . . .

* * *

3

Too much reality can be dazzle, a surfeit;
Too close immediacy an exhaustion. . . .

So the abyss--
The slippery cold heights,
After the blinding misery,
The climbing, the endless turning. . . .

* * *

4

In this, my half-rest,
Knowing slows for a moment,
And not-knowing enters, silent. . . .

Do we move towards God, or merely another condition?
By the salt waves I hear a river's undersong,
In a place of mottled clouds, a thin mist morning and evening.
I rock between dark and dark,
My soul nearly my own,
My dead selves singing.
And I embrace this calm--


From "The Abyss"
Theodore Roethke

This Time Tomorrow (Shut Up and Eat Your Kinks!)

This time tomorrow, maybe I'll actually post something . . .

Some nice images in the video.



The Kinks. From Lola Versus Powerman and the Money-Go-Round, Part One (1970)

"This Time Tomorrow"

This time tomorrow where will we be
On a spaceship somewhere
Sailing across an empty sea

This time tomorrow what will we know
Will we still be here
Watching an in-flight movie show

I'll leave the sun behind me
And I'll watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by
Seven miles below me
I can see the world and it ain't so big at all

This time tomorrow what will we see
Fields full of houses
Endless rows of crowded streets

I don't where I'm going
I don't want to see
I feel the world below me looking up at me

Leave the sun behind me,
And I'll watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by
And I'm in perpetual motion
And the world below doesn't matter much to me

Well, this time tomorrow where will we be
On a spaceship somewhere
Sailing across an empty sea

This time tomorrow where will we be
This time tomorrow what will we see
This time tomorrow...

The Trade

In a stunning turn of events, the Green Bay Packers have traded quarterback Brett Favre to the New York Jets.

Favre is a future Hall-of-Famer, winner of Super Bowl XXXI, the only three-time MVP of the National Football League, and holds every major NFL passing record. The New York Jets are . . . . well, the New York Jets.

Personally, I think Favre can be overrated as a quarterback, and I get sick of the hype over him from a disgustingly fawning sports media who think the guy can walk on water. But I have to admit, I actually let out quite a laugh when I heard the news last night. It all seems so improbable.

For one thing, I was totally shocked that the Jets managed to pull off the trade. I didn't think they had the tenacity, or would be wiling to spend the money, to accomplish such a feat. As of yesterday afternoon, reports were coming out that Favre would probably go to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Evidently, the Jets made a final bid in the middle of the night (literally - the news broke around midnight.)

Whatever the soap opera of the last month between Favre and the Packers, from a purely practical standpoint, the guy immediately gives the Jets a better quarterback than either Chad Pennington and Kellen Clemens, the two choices they had for the coming season. And they really didn't give up that much to get him. If he plays more than 50% of the season, they give up a 3rd-round draft pick next year. If he plays 70% of the time and the Jets make the playoffs, they give up a 2nd round pick. If they actually make the Super Bowl, they give up a 1st round pick.

Will the Jets make the Super Bowl with Favre? Very unlikely. After going 4-12 last year, I'd be happy to see them go 8-8 and stay in the wild card hunt for most of the season. Though Favre may be overrated, the guy did have one of his best seasons last year, and I think he can still play at a fairly high level. Also, after what went down with Green Bay, the revenge factor - the "I'll show you I can still play" factor - may be a good motivator.

Favre can be a drama queen. And personally, I thought he should've stayed retired. But, hey, if he wants to play football, and the Packers don't want him, I welcome him to the black hole of the New York Jets. We'll see if his greatness and stature as a player are any match for the long, sad and psychologically twisted history of Gang Green.

Whatever the outcome of the season, Favre is one of those rare athletes whose obvious love of playing football makes watching him a lot of fun. (Except, of course, when he's throwing those terrible interceptions in key moments.) One of my favorite football moments ever was watching him play in the snow against the Seattle Seahawks in last year's divisional playoffs. (Sorry, my Seahawks fan.) His youthful enthusiasm took me back to my own childhood and the sheer exhilaration and enjoyment of play.

Sadly, his arrival means the immediate departure of Chad Pennington, who will be released by 4 PM today. There are few professional football players I've admired on a personal level as much as Pennington. The man suffered two serious shoulder injuries, one of which would've been enough to end the careers of most players, but through hard work, determination and a great attitude, he came back and continued to play. When his father suffered a major heart attack, Pennington slept on a chair in the hospital room on his off-days during the season. He's one of the most intelligent, likable and quality players in football. Despite tremendous adversity, he always seemed hopeful, and in a realistic, determined way. But as much as I liked him as a person, he wasn't the answer for the Jets at quarterback. I'm sorry he's leaving the team, and I hope he lands in a good situation somewhere else.

Broadway Joe Namath's sad end in LA

The NFL is full of sad tales of great players who should've retired sooner and wound up on other teams at the end of their careers. I think immediately of the most famous Jets quarterback, Joe Namath, who spent one last pathetic season on the Los Angeles Rams. Or Johnny Unitas, considered by many to be the greatest quarterback of all time, in a dismal final season in San Diego, after 17 years with the Baltimore Colts.

On the other hand, Joe Montana, after 13 seasons and three Super Bowl victories with the San Francisco 49ers, played his last two years for the Kansas City Chiefs and led them to the AFC Championship Game.

Though he's 38 years-old, I think Favre is in better shape than most of the players in these sad stories. Namath was hobbling around on knee braces at the end of his time in New York. Favre, on the other hand, holds the NFL record for Most Consecutive Starts by a Quarterback at 253 games, a truly amazing feat. To give you an idea of the significance of that number, the previous record - held by Eagles' quarterback Ron Jaworski - was only 116 consecutive games. Favre is also playing better late in his career than either Namath or Unitas were before they were traded. Unitas was already riding the bench by the time he went to San Diego.

It's a strange situation, and I'm not sure how a self-admitted "country boy" like Brett Favre is going to deal with the bright lights of New York, not to mention the crazy and often brutal media scrutiny. The fact that the Jets don't really play in the city, and that the new team headquarters will open in New Jersey at the end of the month, appealed to Favre. There are woods and hunting in New Jersey, which, from one report, did bring him some comfort.

Favre will be 39 in October. He's gone to a team that went 4-12 last year. And he's suddenly having to learn a new system. Things may not go very smoothly. (But, then, they never do for the Jets. So what did they have to lose?) All in all, it should be fascinating to see how the story unfolds. I know one thing, my interest in the coming season, which was pretty low before last night, has suddenly increased.

Favre's coming to the Jets!

The Greatest Films of All Time: 51-100

You can argue forever about the content of a film, its aesthetic, its style, even its moral posture; but the crucial imperative is to avoid boredom at all costs.

Luis Buñuel

Another installment in my exploration of the world's Greatest Films of All Time. The initial post included an Introduction and Films 1-20. [The other posts in this series include Films 21-50, Films 101-200, and The Directors.]

You can skip the following brief intro if you've already read the other posts.

Briefly, I researched and compiled 30 lists of Greatest Films from various sources around the globe, including critics such as Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum; popular magazines like Time and Time Out (UK); films journals such as Sight & Sound, Cahiers du cinema, Kinovedcheskie Zapiski (Russia); and a range of Film Archives from countries like China, India, Ecuador, Israel, Greece, and Finland.

The 30 polls produced a total of 580 films. When films weren't ranked in the polls, I assigned a numeric value depending on the total number of films included (eg. 100 films = 20 points). So, the list I'm presenting is not a ranking of films I personally think are the greatest of all time. It's simply a reflection of results from across 30 polls voted on by hundreds of other people.

My quest was twofold: To see which works were considered the masterpieces of cinema from a variety of international sources, and to see if and how the perception of great films and great directors varied from one region of the world to another.

Films 51-100

51. The Third Man (1949) Carol Reed 396.5 points - 7 mentions
52. Sunset Blvd. (1950) Billy Wilder 379 - 7
53. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) Robert Bresson 373.5 - 7
54. Apocalypse Now (1979) Francis Ford Coppola 371 - 7
55. Ivan Groznyy I and/or II [Ivan the Terrible] (1944) Sergei M. Eisenstein 370 - 7
56. Raging Bull (1980) Martin Scorsese 367.5 - 7
57. Fanny och Alexander (1982) Ingmar Bergman 359.5 - 6
58. North by Northwest (1959) Alfred Hitchcock 357 - 6
59. Modern Times (1936) Charlie Chaplin 355 - 7
60. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) Orson Welles 350.5 - 6
61. Il Gattopardo [The Leopard] (1963) Luchino Visconti 347.5 - 7
62. Rio Bravo (1959) Howard Hawks 340.5 - 6
63. L'Age d'or (1930) Luis Buñuel 340 - 7
64. The Birth of a Nation (1915) D.W. Griffith 329 - 7
65. Barry Lyndon (1975) Stanley Kubrick 317.5 - 8
66. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Stanley Kubrick 317 - 6
67. Persona (1966) Ingmar Bergman 316 - 8
68. Pierrot le fou (1965) Jean Luc Godard 315.5 - 7
69. Viridiana (1961) Luis Buñuel 309.5 - 6
70. Pickpocket (1959) Robert Bresson 303.5 - 7
71. The Wizard of Oz (1939) Victor Fleming 292 - 7
72. Il Conformista (1970) Bernardo Bertolucci 288.5 - 5
73. Jules et Jim (1962) François Truffaut 279 - 6
74. All About Eve (1950) Joseph Mankiewicz 275 - 6
75. Rear Window (1954) Alfred Hitchcock 272.5 - 4
76. Sanshô dayû [Sansho the Bailiff] (1954) Kenji Mizoguchi 267 - 6
77. La Strada (1954) Federico Fellini 264.5 - 4
78. Notorious (1946) Alfred Hitchcock 263.5 - 7
79. The Apartment (1960) Billy Wilder 248.5 - 5
80. Amarcord (1973) Federico Fellini 247.5 - 6
81. L'Année dernière à Marienbad [Last Year at Marienbad] (1961) Alain Resnais 243.5 - 7
82. Gertrud (1964) Carl Dreyer 243 - 6
83. The Wild Bunch (1969) Sam Peckinpah 241 - 5
84. Roma, città aperta [Rome, Open City] (1945) Roberto Rossellini 236 - 6
85. Hiroshima mon amour (1959) Alain Resnais 234 - 4
86. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) Max Ophüls 233.5 - 6
87. (tie) Nosferatu (1922) F.W. Murnau 232 - 7
87. (tie) Madame de… (1953) Max Ophüls 232 - 4
89. (tie) Double Indemnity (1944) Billy Wilder 231 - 6
89. (tie) Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes [Aguirre: The Wrath of God] (1972) Werner Herzog 231 - 5
91. To Be or Not to Be (1942) Ernst Lubitsch 227.5 - 4
92. Ikiru (1952) Akira Kurosawa 227 - 6
93. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) Sergio Leone 225.5 - 5
94. Broken Blossoms (1919) D.W. Griffith 219.5 - 6
95. Napoleon (1927) Abel Gance 210 - 5
96. Dekalog (1989) Krzysztof Kieslowski 209 - 6
97. (tie) Blade Runner (1982) Ridley Scott 197 - 5
97. (tie) Un chien andalou (1929) Luis Buñuel 197 - 5
99. Schindler's List (1993) Steven Spielberg 195.5 - 5
100. (tie) Freaks (1932) Tod Browning 195 - 4
100. (tie) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) John Ford 195 - 4

Dekalog: Krzysztof Kieslowski's 1989 Polish mini-series on the Ten Commandments

Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder seem to have done particularly well in this section of the list, with three films each. In the end, Hitchcock wound up with the most films in the Top 100, a total of five. Wilder, along with Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini, had four films in the Top 100. Directors with three films included: Buñuel, Chaplin, Coppola, Dreyer, Godard, Griffith, Kubrick, Kurosawa and Welles.
Whereas the most recent work in Films 1-50 was from 1976 (Taxi Driver) and the average year of production was 1949, Films 51-100 tended to be a little newer. The most recent work was from 1993 (Schindler's List) and there were four films from the 1980s: Raging Bull, Fanny and Alexander, Dekalog and Blade Runner. The average year of production was 1956.

Technically, Kieslowski's Dekalog is not a motion picture but a series of ten one-hour programs shown on Polish television. But it often gets included in polls of great "films." And, according to IMDB, Stanley Kubrick said Dekalog was the only masterpiece he could name in his lifetime. So, there. Whatever it is, it's one of the most powerful works I've ever seen.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was Kubrick's 1975 period piece, Barry Lyndon, ranked #65, just ahead of the more well-known Dr. Strangelove. Again, these two Kubrick's films didn't do well outside of the US/UK polls, though Cahiers du cinema did include Barry Lyndon. I've never seen this one by Kubrick and would be curious to hear from others who have.

Another surprise was Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West cracking the Top 100 at #93, even ahead of his own Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo [The Good, the Bad and the Ugly] (1966), which I always thought was more popular - it's currently ranked #5 at IMDB. Three other westerns showed up in Films 51-100: Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo, ranked #62, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, at #83, and John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, tied at #100. (Ford's The Searchers was the top western at #16.) Of the five westerns in the Top 100, I prefer The Wild Bunch.Peckinpah's western also made it two films for William Holden in the Top 100, along with Sunset Blvd. (#52)

Other actors who showed up in multiple films: John Wayne (The Searchers, Rio Bravo, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) Jimmy Stewart (Vertigo, Rear Window and It's a Wonderful Life), Cary Grant (North by Northwest, Notorious), Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca, Notorious), Robert De Niro (Godfather II, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita, 8½) , Jean-Paul Belmondo (À bout de souffle, Pierrot le fou), Jack Lemmon (The Aprtment, Some Like it Hot), and, of course, Peter Lorre (M, Casablanca). Charlie Chaplin also starred in all 3 of his films: The Gold Rush, City Lights and Modern Times.

The actor who showed up the most in the Top 100: Orson Welles. He starred in all three of his own productions (Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil and The Magnificent Ambersons), and also gave an unforgettable performance as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's The Third Man (#51). And, of course, there's his little-known but amazing tour de force as Munchkin #27 in The Wizard of Oz.I didn't officially track actors in the list; I'm just eye-balling the film titles - so there may be others who appeared in multiple films. (Ah!, Claude Rains, for example: Notorious, Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia. And Anthony Quinn: Lawrence of Arabia and La Strada.)

Freaks, directed by Tod Browning (Dracula 1931), was an interesting case. It didn't show up on any US/UK lists, and I always considered it a minor cult film, but it was very highly regarded in other areas. The Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique chose it as one of the 20 Greatest Films of All Time, the Fundación Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela as one of the 24 Greatest of All Time, and the Cinémathèque Française as one of the 33 Greatest. It also ranked highly in the other French poll - #21 (tied) - the Cahiers du cinema Top 100.

It's interesting to note how much of a drop off there is in votes received between the #1 film, Citizen Kane, and #100, Freaks and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Kane showed up in all 30 polls and had a total of 1,735 points. The films at #100 each only appeared in four polls and had a total of 195 points. Only 16 films showed up in at least half of the 30 polls. After that, the number of movies considered "greatest" begins to grow exponentially. From that information, I would say that any kind of film canon must exist in a fluid state. Maybe that's why the IMDB Classic Film Board Top 200, which changes every two months, strikes me as a useful poll.

In the end, there were 46 English-language films from the US/UK in the Top 100. Non-English European films accounted for 47 titles (if you include Russia). Among individual European countries, France accounted for the most productions, with 19. Asia only had 7 titles in the Top 100, six of them from Japan.

Films ranked 51-100 that show up in my own list of Favorite 100 Films: Sunset Blvd., Apocalypse Now, North by Northwest, Pierrot le fou, The Wild Bunch, Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes [Aguirre: The Wrath of God], Double Indemnity, and Dekalog.

I would like to hear about your own experiences with the films listed 51-100. Faves, ones you can't stand, etc.

Until the next reel. . . .

Films 101-200

A Murky Olympics

Beijing's Olympic Village - 11 Days Before the Opening Ceremony

"In Beijing, Blue Skies Prove Hard to Achieve"

Less than two weeks before the Olympics, Beijing’s skies are so murky and polluted that the authorities are considering emergency measures during the Games beyond the traffic restrictions and factory shutdowns that, so far, have failed to clear the air, state media reported on Monday.

Other murky business . . . .

"China to Limit Web Access During Olympic Games"

Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages — among them those that discuss Tibetan issues, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown on the protests in Tiananmen Square and the Web sites of Amnesty International, the BBC’s Chinese-language news, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.

The restrictions, which closely resemble the blocks that China places on the Internet for its citizens, undermine sweeping claims by Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, that China had agreed to provide full Web access for foreign news media during the Games. Mr. Rogge has long argued that one of the main benefits of awarding the Games to Beijing was that the event would make China more open.

“For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet,” Mr. Rogge told Agence France-Presse just two weeks ago.

"I.O.C. Member Accuses Committee of Betrayal on Censorship Issue"

The senior International Olympic Committee member who on Wednesday made the announcement that Chinese government censors were blocking sensitive Internet sites despite assurances that Web access in China would be unfettered has accused the I.O.C. of “betrayal.”

The official, Kevan Gosper, an I.O.C. member for 31 years, told the Sydney daily The Australian on Thursday that his reputation and that of the I.O.C. had been damaged by China’s actions.

“I don’t know who did the deal,” Gosper told The Australian. “I am still finding out. I understand it was reached with very senior officials. Whoever was involved in that shift, that position should have been made known to the international media community. As a conduit to that, I should have been informed, too, instead of being isolated and given misinformation for some time.”

“China changed course at some stage,” Gosper told the newspaper. “I don’t know when. I can’t guarantee there won’t be other changes.”