It’s been a busy few weeks for me. The third Lachlan Fox novel, BLOOD OIL, came out late August. I’ve toured for it and I’m happy with the final product and the feedback from readers is so far, so good. Other than that, I started another novel late August, and finished it mid-September. It’s outside the Fox series and it has 15 year-old protagonists, so I guess it’s a teenage-audience book, but I like to think that all ages will read it as it’s an archetypal story of identity and survival told in a way I’ve never seen or heard. I wrote it un-contracted and it will be interesting to see what publishers think of it.
Highlights from what I’ve been reading…
James Frey’s BRIGHT SHINY MORNING. He’s described it as a love letter to LA, only the kind of letter you’d write to a lover you’ve been with for ten years. It’s that and more. I caught up with Frey when he was in Melbourne and he mentioned that he’s very much carrying the torch of Norman Mailer which was nice to hear because that’s exactly how I think of Frey’s writing: he works in prose but he’s essentially, like Mailer, an essayist and chronicler of the self and the times around him. His best subject has been himself, much like Mailer, a man I never met Mailer and it’s a regret because I sense that he, the artist, the observer, was the most interesting part of his fictional creation. Mailer never really had the big novel that I’m sure he’d hoped for, certainly not as big as his precursor Hemingway. Much of his best work are now period pieces, which is not a bad thing in itself and they were important and current and immediate reads at the time I’m sure (AN AMERICAN DREAM, and WHY ARE WE IN VIETNAM?). In this regard he was closer to Orwell, who was an essayist better than a prose writer and his books lacked any real future importance. Frey mentioned that in a discussion he had when dear old Mailer was still alive, that the man said to him and I may paraphrase: “You’re it now. It was Hemingway and then me and now it’s you.” I think that anxiety of influence crippled whatever real originality Mailer might have developed, as it did to Hemingway with his artistic competition to Tolstoy. Hemingway’s greatness was his short stories, which rival any other master of that form, Joyce, Chekhov, Babel, and he’s certainly the best short story writer we’ve seen since Joyce’s DUBLINERS (although my readers will know I have an affinity for Proulx and Winton as modern virtuosos of the sublime). Hemingway was the master of ellipses and his longer works, particularly THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, misses this virtue of aesthetic economy. William Faulkner praised this book as Hemingway’s best but then his taste was a little off some of the time. It’s at once a Christian parable and a work of sentimentality and it’s far too much for the novel to bear. To Frey’s credit he has none of that. I’d not say Frey’s strongest point of writing is his brevity for he details his prose as a painter might paint a canvas and apply stroke after stroke to built a picture that’s as rich as it is intriguing but what he achieved as a writer of literature is develop a parataxis that is at the forefront of achievement of 21C writers. I have no doubt that one day in the not too distant future, should Frey tackle an issue that strikes a chord with a time or generation, such as Mailer did with his VIETNAM etc, then he will receive the recognition that he deserves and strives for. He will be studied at universities, they will no doubt incorrectly read his work, but he will be appreciated as a poet observer beyond the limited view we have of Mailer, because he’s capable of better writing. Frey has written about his writing process that he approaches the page and task much like a method actor, to really get into the mindset that the given scene requires. I’ve tried that with some of my works but have found it to be too self-destructive and dangerous to everything around me. I do hope, and I trust, that Frey will get to write a canonical novel beyond the immediate that will last the ages and place him in his country’s best writers, to make them, as he says, insignificant. The danger, if he does not achieve this, as I believe that Hemingway realized he had not produced a novel to beat Tolstoy (THE SUN ALSO RISES came closest, but even it was beaten by Hemingway’s own short work, seen in much of the FIRST FORTY-NINE STORIES). In a letter to his publisher Charles Scribner, Hemingway wrote: “Am a man without any ambition, except to be champion of the world, I wouldn’t fight Dr. Tolstoy in a 20 round bout because I know he would knock my ears off. … If I can live to 60 I can beat him. (MAYBE).” Hemingway’s suicide at 61 had its reasons beyond anything hereditary and more than any sickness, like we saw only a few years ago in Dr Gonzo, another genius journalist-writer. Sadly, that door in the psyche is still an option for too many talented, ambitious artists, particularly and usually young men, which I might discuss in detail another day.
If we look at 20C American literature Nathaniel West’s MISS LONELYHEARTS rates right up there. Pynchon couldn’t touch him, only Faulkner holds the higher title. Of living writers, McCarthy’s BLOOD MERIDIAN ranks, as does DeLillo’s UNDERWORLD. Steinbeck was crippled by the shadow of Hemingway, as I believe Mailer was crippled to produce a work of sublime aesthetic achievement by Mailer himself, a Mailer constantly sparring with both himself and Hemingway. I mention these writers because of this: Faulkner’s AS I LAY DYING, West’s MISS LONELYHEARTS, Pynchon’s GRAVITY’S RAINBOW, and BLOOD MERIDIAN, UNDERWORLD, etc, go on through time to prove to us what literature can do, and these works go on harming and teaching and killing us with every read.
I don’t think that such a canonical work is beyond his reach of Frey and it’s certainly within the scope of his ambition. He has the ambition to be heavyweight champion of the literature world, to obliterate the others - if there are any remaining with similar ambitions - into obscurity, and I love him for it. The best I can hope to muster would be to muscle up and fight these guys, as Hemingway did against Stevens - which I’ve written about here before - and I like to think I’d be able to rank pretty high in those stakes. Sure, it’s been tempting to me as it is for so many young writers to write something of such worth and greatest that it will be remembered through all time as something of the finest aesthetic beauty, and maybe one day I’ll dedicate the time to do that but maybe I’ll just keep at my thing, whatever that is. At any rate, Frey’s proved with his third novel that he has reach beyond himself, and produced something that isn’t too restricted to time and place, which is a reach greater than Mailer could ever muster as he placed himself too near events time and time again. Frey’s A MILLION LITTLE PIECES is Mailer’s ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF and BRIGHT SHINY MORNING could well be THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG. Mailer was his own best fiction complete with every nuance New Journalism brought along. Frey was there and now he’s broken the mould and stretched his wings. Mailer wrote in ADVERTISEMENTS: “…I pointed to the farthest fence and said within ten years I would try to hit the longest ball ever to go up into the accelerated hurricane air of our American letters. For if I have one ambition above all others, it is to write a novel which Dostoyevsky and Marx; Joyce and Freud; Stendhal, Tolstoy, Proust and Spengler; Faulkner ad even old moldering Hemingway might have come to read, for it would carry what they had to tell another part of the way.” Hemingway characterized ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF, in a letter to George Plimpton, “as a sort of ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.” It’s easy to read Frey and say that he might share much with Mailer, much more than we may ever realize. Mailer as described by Richard Poirier: “…insists on living at the divide, living on the divide, between the world of recorded reality and the world of omens, spirits, and powers, only that his presence may blur the distinction. He seals and obliterates the gap that he finds, like a sacrificial warrior or, as he would probably prefer, like a Christ who brings not peace but a sword, not forgiveness for past sins but an example of the pains necessary to secure a future.”
Over the coming years I’m excited to watch just how far the reach of James Frey can go, and I look forward to him carrying the torch another leg of this great relay, to hit the ball out of the park and show the world what literature can still achieve.
What I’ve been writing…
My newest novel, titled ALONE.
I’ve read a heap of “Young Adult” fiction because I’ve just written my first, a little break in-between writing Fox novels. I read like 50 or so, from Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl (a couple of my childhood favs) to Robert Muchamore and Matthew Reilly. The older books still hold up, even Marsden’s TOMORROW Series reads well, so does OSC’s ENDERS GAME. I flinch at a lot of Blyton, as I’ve done with other period pieces of fiction that I’ve re-read as an adult like LORD OF THE FLIES and KING SOLOMON’S MINES, and while there’s still something to like in them they never live up to the memories of the first read when I was full of youthful ignorance and ready to be carried away. Contemporary YA fiction, with the exception of perhaps Jasper Fforde (if you’d call his stuff YA) is so utterly boring. It’s action and thrills but it’s hollow and doesn’t say much about anything. Golding’s first novel in LORD OF THE FLIES is relevant today but only if you are a teenage private school boy, likely an English one at that, who identifies with those weak characters; that’s all those characters were, private English school boys, and that’s all they ever will be, products of an author who had been through that system and continued a similar one by serving in the Navy and further residing in that system in teaching. I just now re-read Huck Finn, and yes, again I flinch at the language that we now know to be very non-PC, but Huck has so much more depth than any of Golding’s characters. Huck has irony, not seen in Ralph et al, and Golding’s “creations” are no more than humourless names with embarrassingly small views and ridiculously limited minds. There’s nothing universal about LORD OF THE FLIES, it certainly is not an allegory of moral depravity, it’s nothing more than a story of a few cardboard private school boys continuing their existence in a situation that a mature writer would have explored and mined for richness beyond the literal and expected, making names on a page resonate through the ages.
Now that books are marketed to kids like never before we need some bright shiny voices and stories available that are beyond the ordinary. We need the KIM and HUCK of today. So, I’ve created Jesse, in my first YA novel, ALONE. It’s McCarthy’s THE ROAD but set during the apocalyptic event rather than years after, with four teenagers at the centre as seen through Jesse’s eyes and without the overt writerly influences that hampers McCarthy’s effort. ALONE is a product of today and written for today’s readers and like THE ROAD, LIFE OF PI, THE BOOK THEIF, THE ALCHEMIST, ENDERS GAME, THE HOBBIT, THE LITTLE PRINCE, and SIDDHARTHA, I can see it will be read by adults as well as teenagers as well as advanced kids, and I hope they all identify with the archetypal qualities in the story. We follow four teenagers for three weeks and we see how they cope and survive in a city that has been attacked, and through it Jesse struggles with his identity and ego and self as much as his friends’. It holds no punches. It’s raw and it’s real and it will be interesting to see what publishers think of it. Clearly I’m biased - but I’ve admitted on many occasions to not liking my previous work when I’m working on the next project - and this has not happened with ALONE. I’m writing FOX 4 and 5 back-to-back, as the storyline and through-arcs carry through them both and I figure it’s smart to mine this creative zone that I’m in while it lasts. But when I think back about those four lonely characters in ALONE, I still love them and I love their story and it was a great month of writing. I’ve never looked back and felt that way about anything I’ve ever written. Usually I’m glad the writing ordeal is over and the world I’d created and lived in for months on end is behind me.
What I’ve been watching…
A few DVD’s.
GONG BABY GONE. Enjoyed it about as much as the book. The twists still worked, even though I expected what was coming. Ben Affleck did a great job of directing. The only thing I had issues with was the small jump cuts in the scene where they were in the house of the mother - they worked fine, but it seemed out of place as a device and the first couple jarred until I was used to it. Still, it’s a little thing, like the little things I pointed out with Tony Gilroy’s first effort in MICHAEL CLAYTON. Make no mistake, both these guys can direct better than most, it’s just my super-critical eye because I expected so much. What pleased me the most with both their efforts is that they have such a minimal, old-school approach that is not reliant on any visual gimmickry.
STREET KINGS. I like David Ayer and I expected so much from this film and it didn’t deliver. TRAINING DAY was a deceptively good script and well acted and executed. In fact, I didn’t love it that much on the first run through but after reading the script and re-watching I got so much more from it, but perhaps that’s either me not being in the mood in the first instance to take it all in, or they filmmakers didn’t do a good enough job putting the script to screen. I suspect a bit of both. HARSH TIMES remains my favourite Ayer film and it’s small-budget genius. Chris Bale and Freddy Rodriguez were perfect; Bale’s character was utterly riveting and frightening and most importantly incredibly empathetic, which cemented Bale in my mind as one of the best actors around. Anyway, STREET KINGS could have been the story that I wanted to write, and when I’d read early news about it I was disappointed that I’d never get to write a similar novel that I’ve been kicking around in my head for a while, the third of a cop trilogy. But, I will write that novel one day soon, about a cop who’s hard and tough as can be because of the two novels before it (both storylines of which came to me in separate dreams with the same cop characters – go figure), because STREET KINGS and its ridiculous cast did not deliver.
You’ll recall I recently compared McCarthy’s Boy IN THE ROAD to the Son of Macduff. It seems it resonates with me to this day; perhaps I am growing something of a paternal nature. Maybe it’s an awakening of the anxiety of influence. Certainly, I am always not too far from Shakespeare in my thoughts, writerly and otherwise. Still I cannot comprehend much of what makes Hamlet such a character at what, twenty years of age? Perhaps it’s that I see Shakespeare’s own son in Hamlet’s eyes, as I see the Bard as the Ghost, who we know he played on stage. This has been on my mind for years now, and I release upon rereading my own text that there’s the skeleton of both Hamlet and his father’s Ghost in the Lachlan Fox we meet in BLOOD OIL. I’ve written in such territory before, only it’s more thinly veiled now; Shakespeare, who named both father and son Hamlet in that play, lead to germ of an idea in a short story that I wrote titled “Soliloquy for One Dead.” Indeed it is a soliloquy, because if there is one thing that I am more keenly aware of over anything else, it’s that Shakespeare taught me this: how to overhear ourselves when we talk to ourselves.
I don’t follow a particular faith. My parents were raised Catholic and decided to teach me all religions, something that I am eternally grateful for. There is suppressed Judaism in my ancestry and I attended a primary school where we sang Hebrew folk songs in class more often than any Celtic traditionals. As an adult, I’m probably more drawn to Buddhism that any other organised belief, though not without subjectivity. I take few pains to point out that I am open to all reasonable beliefs of faith and respect all those before me; I’m sure this is evident to those who know me. All this said, I am a steadfast follower of Bardolatry, the worship of Shakespeare, which should be even more of a secular religion than it already is. His plays are the outward limit of human achievement, never to be reached by us mortals, and I belong to the school, of which Harold Bloom must be the headmaster, that acknowledges Shakespeare as the inventor of humanity. Bloom posits this by saying that his plays abide beyond the mind’s reach, that we have no hope of catching up to them. But more on that another day.
I bring up religion here because I went to a christening the other day, the Catholic baptism of an infant. I can’t agree that babies are born into original sin (which is the one element of baptism that I am talking about here); it seems to me odd that such an innocent should pay for sins that Jesus himself paid the ultimate sacrifice for, let alone the fact that a months old human has the capacity to sin. After the christening, I said this to some of the attendees, and when pressed I gave the age that I thought such a cleansing of the soul to be seven. This is the age of mens rea, I said, to which they looked dumbfounded, which disappointed but didn’t surprise me. I joked that I could perhaps be baptised that day as well. They laughed and said: you’re too old. I’m twenty nine, I said. Far too old, was chorused, even a couple laughs. Jesus was twenty nine when he was baptised. More dumbfounded silence, accompanied with uncomfortable looks. I was left wondering how many of them knew the Book by which they lived, and which version they knew. Instead, I quipped that Christopher Marlowe died at twenty nine, and wondered aloud what would have happened had John the Baptist accidentally drowned Jesus at twenty nine. Or if Marlow’s friend Shakespeare had left us at twenty nine, how the world would be a different place because we would think and feel and speak differently. Our ideas would be different, particularly our ideas of the human, since they were, more often than not, Shakespeare’s ideas before they were our own. Bloom taught me that much and Shakespeare has proved it to me time and time again in ways that go beyond literal meanings. Frye too has added to my understanding of the symmetry of verse in almost every text I read, stemming from the work of Blake that Frye took to the point of conviction by articulating that the Bible provided Western societies with the mythology which informed all of Western literature.
Most of us, like those present that christening day, would probably cite the King James Bible as the version de jure, even if it is the product of the Church of England and the Book of protestants. In true Australian form, most of my ancestry hails from Ireland, so the irony here is not lost. Certainly, I find the KJ version the most lyrical of biblical prose that I have read, and it seems ingrained in my consciousness as I hear its metre when I read Hemmingway and Steinbeck and Lincoln and now in Obama’s oratorical timbre in the audio book version of his refreshing “An Audacity of Hope”. That this version of the bible was written in Shakespeare’s time fascinates me to the point that I will write about it fully some other day.
This thinking about the purity of children’s souls had me thinking as I watched two films the other night: The Kite Runner (2007) and The Italian (2005). There’s something in the performances of these child actors that belies their age and in their inherent innocence something transcends expectations and moves me so. The two young actors in the Kite Runner were more than worthy at playing the roles of Hosseini’s creation and their portrayals will stay with me for some time. I am a fan of Marc Forster and he did exceptionally well here. The Italian, part of a recent vanguard of remerging brilliance in Russian cinema, was not as technically proficient as Forster’s film but then I didn’t expect it to be. The boy in this film carried the beauty against the beast of the system that was necessary to make us care beyond the ordinary; the final shot of the film, in the context of the story, was perfection.
Reminiscing here, some of my other favourite child/adolescant performances have been Salvatore Cascio as the little boy in Cinema Paradiso (1998 – original version only), Giorgio Cantarini as the son in La Vita e bella (1997), and Oksana Akinshina in LILJA 4-EVER (2002). Each one of these performances has had that artistic quality that like Shakespeare, like Mozart, like Caballet, like so many great artists, has emotionally moved me in ways that literal meanings can’t. Without Shakespeare, without the writers of what became biblical texts such as the J writer (who I love to believe was a woman), without Aristotle and Plato, I can’t imagine we would have had the cognitive power to comprehend such emotions, let alone have the ability to create such artistic material. And it’s in this artistry that defines us as human. Indeed, in my career as a novelist, every day I am working within the limitless confines of the novel, which can, beyond any other art, encompass all the various disciplines and interests of humanity. I am, forever, deeply entrenched with an anxiety of influence of genius that I cannot know how to touch but I’d hate to live a life without the hope of attempting to try.
I’ll leave the last word here to Bloom, on the study of Shakespeare… “We have to read Shakespeare, and we have to study Shakespeare. We have to study Dante. We have to read Chaucer. We have to read Cervantes. We have to read the Bible, at least the King James Bible. We have to read certain authors…They provide an intellectual, I dare say, a spiritual value which has nothing to do with organized religion or the history of institutional belief. They remind us in every sense of re-minding us. They not only tell us things that we have forgotten, but they tell us things we couldn’t possibly know without them, and they reform our minds. They make our minds stronger. They make us more vital. They make us alive…Shakespeare is universal. Shakespeare is the true multicultural author. He exists in all languages. He is put on the stage everywhere. Everyone feels that they are represented by him on the stage…I don’t know who Shakespeare was. He has hidden himself behind all of these extraordinary men and women…One cares about wisdom, and in the end one wants to be judged by wisdom. If one hasn’t got it, one has to ask the biblical question “Where shall wisdom be found?’ And I suppose, for me, the answer is: wisdom is to be found in Shakespeare, provided you get at it in the right way.”
Final quote from: “Harold Bloom Interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel”
Queen’s Quarterly v102, #3 (Fall 1995) PAGES 609-19.
Here’s a list of films (by no means complete) that I’ve seen and recommend. From memory, all the films listed I liked the original version, not a remake. There’s the old joke in Hollywood: Why do they continue to remake films? Because they didn’t get it wrong the first time.
I’ll eventually get around to talking about each film, and I’m happy for you to reply with a discussion about any of the films here and I can reply with my thoughts. I’m sure I’ll add more films as I remember them, and the occasional new one that manages to rise to the top.
300
2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY
25TH HOUR
28 DAYS LATER
48 HOURS
A BETTER TOMORROW
A BOUT DE SOUFFLE
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
A FEW GOOD MEN
A FISH CALLED WANDA
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
A PERFECT STORM
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
A ROOM FOR ROMEO BRASS
A SCANNER DARKLY
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
ABOUT A BOY
ABOUT SCHMIDT
ADAPTATION
AFTER HOURS
AIR AMERICA
AIRPLANE
ALADIN
ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
ALIEN
ALIENS
ALIVE
ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN
AMADEUS
AMERICAN HISTORY X
AMERICAN PSYCHO
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
AND JUSTICE FOR ALL
ANIMAL FARM
ANNIE HALL
APOCOLYPSE NOW
APOCOLYPTO
ARACHNOPHOBIA
AS GOOD AS IT GETS
BABE
BABEL
BABETTES FEAST
BAD BOYS 1 + 2
BAD LIEUTENANT
BATMAN
BATMAN BEGINS
BEFORE NIGHT FALLS
BEFORE SUNSET
BEHIND ENEMY LINES
BEING THERE
BEN HUR
BETRAYAL
BETTLESHIP PTEMKIN
BIG
BLACK HAND
BLACK HAWK DOWN
BLADE RUNNER
BLOOD DIAMOND
BLOOD SIMPLE
BLOODY SUNDAY
BLUE VELVET
BODY HEAT
BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES
BONNIE AND CLYDE
BOOGIE NIGHTS
BORAT
BOURNE MOVIES
BRAM STROKER’S DRACULA
BRAVEHEART
BRAZIL
BRINGING OUT THE DEAD
BRINGING UP BABY
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
BROKEN FLOWERS
BULLITT
BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
CANDY
CAPE FEAR
CAPOTE
CASABLANCA
CASANOVA (FELLINI’S)
CASINO
CASINO ROYALE
CHARIOTS OF FIRE
CHASING AMY
CHINATOWN
CHOPPER
CINEMA PARADISO
CITIZEN KANE
CITY OF GOD
CITY OF MEN
CKICKEN RUN
CLEAN AND SOBER
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
CLOSER
COMING HOME
CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND
CONSTANTINE
COOL HAND LUKE
COP
COURAGE UNDER FIRE
CRACULA
CRASH
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANERS
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
DANCES WITH WOLVES
DANGEROUS LIAISONS
DAWN OF THE DEAD
DEAD CALM
DEAD MAN
DEAD MANS SHOES
DEAD POETS SOCIETY
DEAD RINGERS
DEATH IN VENICE
DERAILED
DESPERADO
DIE HARD
DINER
DIRTY HARRY
DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS
DO THE RIGHT THING
DOG DAY AFTERNOON
DOG SOLDIERS
DOG TOWN AND Z-BOYS
DONNIE BRASCO
DOOM
DR STRANGELOVE
DRUGSTORE COWBOY
DRUNKEN MASTER
DUNE
DUSK TILL DAWN
E.T.
EASTERN PROMISES
EASY RIDER
EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN
EL MARIACHI
ELIZABETH
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
EMPIRE OF THE SUN
EQUILIBRIUM
ETERNAL SUNCHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU
EVITA
FAHRENHEIT 9/11
FALLING DOWN
FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE
FAREWELL MY LOVELY
FARGO
FAT CITY
FEAR
FEAR AND LOTHING IN LAS VEGAS
FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF
FIGHT CLUB
FINDING NEMO
FIVE EASY PIECES
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS
FORREST GUMP
FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL
FULL METAL JACKET
GALLIPOLI
GANDHI
GHOST WORLD
GHOSTBUSTERS 1 + 2
GLENGARRT GLEN ROSS
GLORY
GONE BABY GONE
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK
GOOD WILL HUNTING
GOODFELLAS
GRAND CANYON
GREED
GROSSE POINT BLANK
GROUNDHOG DAY
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
HAPPY FEET
HARD TIMES
HARSH TIMES
HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE
HEAT
HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER
HIGH FIDELITY
HOT FUZZ
HOTEL RWANDA
HOWARDS END
HUSBANDS AND WIVES
I AM SAM
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE
INTO THE WILD
IRREVERSIBLE
JACKI BROWN
JAWS
JERRY MAGUIRE
JFK
JURASSIC PARK
KING OF NEW YORK
KINGPIN
KISS KISS BANG BANG
KRAMER VS. KRAMER
L’AMOUR FOU
LA DOLCE VITA
LA VITA E BELLA
LANTANA
LAST TANGO IN PARIS
LAYER CAKE
LE REGLE DU JEU
LEAVING LAS VEGAS
LETHAL WEAPON
LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS
LORDS OF DOGTOWN
MAD MAX
MAN BITES DOG
MAN ON FIRE
MANHATTAN
MANHUNTER
MEAN STREETS
MEET THE PARENTS
MEN IN BLACK
MICHAEL COLLINS
MIDNIGHT COWBOY
MIDNIGHT RUN
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III
MOBY DICK
MODERN TIMES
MONSTER’S BALL
MONTY PYTHON - ALL
MOONSTRUCK
MOULIN ROUGE
MURRIELS WEDDING
MY DOG SKIP
MY LIFE AS A DOG
MY NAME IS JOE
MYSTIC RIVER
NARC
NASHVILLE
NED KELLY
NETWROK
NIGHT ON EARTH
NIXON
ON GOLDEN POND
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA
ONCE WERE WARRIORS
ORDINARY PEOPLE
OUT OF AFFRICA
OUTBREAK
PARENTHOOD
PARIS, TEXAS
PATRIOT GAMES
PLATOON
POINT BLANK
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE
PSYCHO
PULP FICTION
PUNCH DRUNK LOVE
Q & A
RABBIT-PROOF FENCE
RADIO DAYS
RAGING BULL
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
RAIN MAIN
RAISING ARIZONA
RASHOMON
RATATOUILLE
REGARDING HENRY
RENDITION
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
RESCUE DAWN
RESERVOIR DOGS
REVERSAL OF FORTUNE
RISKY BUSINESS
ROBOCOP
ROCKY
ROMEO AND JULIET
ROMULUS, MY FATHER
RONIN
RUNNIGN ON EMPTY
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
SCARFACE
SCHINDLER’S LIST
SERPICO
SEVEN
SEVEN SAMURAI
SHAWN OF THE DEAD
SHINE
SHORT CUTS
SIDEWAYS
SIN CITY
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
SINGLE WHITE FEMALE
SLEEPERS
SLEEPLESS IN SEATLE
SLINGBLADE
SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS
SOLARIS
SOMETHINGS GOTTA GIVE
SPARTACUS
SPARTAN
SPIDERMAN 1, 2, 3
STAND BY ME
STANGER THAN FICTION
STAR WARS
STEEL MAGNOLIAS
STRANGER THAN PARADISE
STRICTLY BALLROOM
SUPERMAN 1, 2
SYRIANA
TAXI DRIVER
TEARS OF THE SUN
TENDER MERCIES
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST
THE APPLE
THE BASKETBALL DIARIES
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
THE BEACH
THE BIG BOSS
THE BIG CHILL
THE BIG RED ONE
THE BIG SLEEP
THE BIRDS
THE BOURNE MOVIES
THE BREAKFAST CLUB
THE BRIDGES OF MADDISON COUNTY
THE BROTHERS GRIMM
THE CASTLE
THE CONVERSATION
THE COOK, THE THEIF, THE WIFE AND HER LOVER
THE CRYING GAME
THE DEER HUNTER
THE DEPARTED
THE DIRTY DOZEN
THE ELEPHANT MAN
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
THE ENGLISH PATIENT
THE EUROPEAN
THE EXORCIST
THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
THE FIRM
THE FISHER KING
THE FLIGHT OF THE PHEONIX
THE FLY
THE FOUNTAIN
THE FOUR FEATHERS
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
THE FRIGHTENERS
THE FUGITIVE
THE GENERAL
THE GODFATHER
THE GOLD RUSH
THE GOOD SON
THE GRADUATE
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
THE GREAT GATSBY
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE
THE HOUR OF THE WOLF
THE HURRICANE
THE HUSTLER
THE ICE STORM
THE INSIDER
THE ITALIAN JOB
THE JOY LUCK CLUB
THE KID
THE KINGDOM
THE LAST EMPEROR
THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
THE LAST SEDUCTION
THE LAST STARFIGHTER
THE LION KING
THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY
THE LONG GOODBYE
THE LORD OF THE RINGS - ALL
THE MACHINIST
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
THE MARK
THE MATRIX
THE MISFITS
THE MORNING AFTER
THE MUMMY 1 + 2
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
THE ORDER aka THE SIN EATER
THE PASSENGER
THE PASSION OF CHRIST
THE PATRIOT
THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLINT
THE PERFECT STORM
THE PLAYER
THE PLEDGE
THE PRODUCERS
THE PRESTIGE
THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO
THE QUICK AND THE DEAD
THE QUIET AMERICAN
THE RAINMAKER
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
THE RETURN OF THE JEDI
THE ROSE
THE SEVEN SAMURAI
THE SHINING
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY
THE TERMINATOR 1 + 2
THE THIN RED LINE
THE THING
THE TREASUE OF THE SIERR MADRE
THE UNBEARABLE LIKENESS OF BEING
THE UNTOUCHABLES
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
THE VERDICT
THE WAR OF THE ROSES
THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK
THE WIZARD OF OZ
THE WOODSMAN
THE YEAR MY VOICE BROKE
THE YEAR OF LVING DANGEROUSLY
THELMA AND LOUISE
THEY LIVE
THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE
THIS IS SPINAL TAP
THREE KINGS
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
TIGERLAND
TIGHTROPE
TITANIC
TO DIE FOR
TOOTSIE
TOP GUN
TOTAL RECALL
TOUCHING THE VOID
TOY STORY
TRADING PLACES
TRAINING DAY
TRAINSPOTTING
TRANSFORMERS
TRON
TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME
TWO HANDS
UNCLE BUCK
UNDERWORLD
UNFORGIVEN
UNITED 93
VANISHING POINT
VERONICA GUERIN
VERTIGO
WALL STREET
WAYNES WORLD
WHALE RIDER
WHATS EATING GILBERT GRAPE
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY
WHITE MEN CANT JUMP
WHITNAIL AND I
WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT
WITNESS
X MEN 1,2,3
YESTERDAY
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
ZODIAC
ZULU
