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Ishtar
(May, 1987)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (OOP)
(Ross, 1976)
The Devils
(Russell, 1974)
The Pirates of Penzance
(Papp/Leach, 1983)
The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Brewster McCloud
(Altman, 1972)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)

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1930's-1950's
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Sh! The Octopus
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Bad for Each Other
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The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
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House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Saint Joan
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Macabre
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The Fiend Who Walked the West
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Five Gates to Hell
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1960's
Key Witness
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Summer and Smoke
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The Chapman Report
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Bachelor Flat
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The L Shaped Room
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The Chalk Garden
(Neame, 1964)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
The Whisperers
(Forbes, 1967)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
The Landlord
(Ashby, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
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Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
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Made For Each Other
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The Day the Clown Cried
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Slither
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Man on a Swing
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Open Season
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The Tamarind Seed
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Law and Disorder
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Homebodies
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Stardust
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Celine and Julie Go Boating
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1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
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At Long Last Love
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Hearts of the West
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Welcome to L.A.
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W.C. Fields and Me
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Citizens Band
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Twilight's Last Gleaming
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Looking for Mr. Goodbar
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Girlfriends
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Movie Movie
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The Medusa Touch
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American Hot Wax
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Hot Stuff
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Scavenger Hunt
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Players
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Rich Kids
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Nightwing
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Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
Resurrection
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The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
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God's Angry Man
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Fast-Walking
(Harris, 1982)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
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When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Old Times
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Prospero's Books
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City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

March 5

Alice in Wonderland

Brooklyn's Finest

The Secret of Kells

March 12

The Exploding Girl

She's Out of My League

Stolen

SuicideGirls Must Die!

Tapes from the Script

March 17

Mid-August Lunch

Good As It Gets

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I've just come from the first TIFF screening of Rodrigo Garcia's Mother and Child, and if someone picks it up and puts it into NY and LA theatres before 12.31, it's a Best Picture contender. Because sophisticated filmgoers of a certain age are going to cream over this. All right, don't trust me...I don't care. I know what I know and I go to sleep with that every night.

This is a great woman's film except it isn't, not really, because it got to me big-time and I generally don't fall for films aimed at the opposite genre market so go figure. It's so good and so exactingly and humanistically right that a fair-sized portion of the Julie and Julia audience may reject it because it's not coarse or common enough.

On top of this Annette Bening, who gives what I feel is possibly the best performance of her life in this film, will be a Best Actress contender.

I know what Mother and Child is and I'm not going all breathless and gah-gah because that's what some critics do when they see a new film at a film festival. For what it is -- a super-sensitive, perfectly acted and exquisitely written adult drama about (the title kind of indicates this) mothers and daughters and parenting and re-establishing connections, Mother and Child is really and truly as good as this sort of thing gets. It's got Fox Searchlight or Focus Features written all over it.

That's all I have time to say right now. I'm at an IFC dinner party and I'm tapping this out on a bar and I don't want be rude to my hosts.

Do You Party?<< previous | next >>Agony of the Todd

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 14, 2009 at 5:37 PM

comment #1

raygo says ...

Bening can face off with Hillary Swank again for the Oscar. That'll be fun.

Posted by raygo at September 14, 2009 7:06 PM

comment #2

renorambler says ...

This wasn't even on my radar but Bening is a phenomenal actress so I hope she gets a nomination. Hmmm, could it be Muligan against Bening for BA?

Posted by renorambler at September 14, 2009 7:10 PM

comment #3

televisiontears says ...

"I know what I know and I go to sleep with that every night."

I love this line so much and I can't really describe why.

Posted by televisiontears at September 14, 2009 7:36 PM

comment #4

Gabe Rodriguez says ...

Wow, Jeff...I had written this off as a sure-bet also-ran for the fall fest circuit given Garcia's ham-fisted attempts at theatrical directing thus far ("Passengers" was horribly guided; even "Nine Lives" carried the air of a Lifetime movie-of-the-week despite its cast of strong ladies), the weepy on-the-nose title "Mother and Child," and the cast of proven greats all of whom have tripped into disastrous projects due to lack of foresight (Bening in "Running with Scissors," Watts in "Le Divorce," Washington in "Fantastic Four," etc.).

You're the last person I'd ever expect to step up as an advocate for "Mother and Child," which makes everything you've said here remarkably believable.

Posted by Gabe Rodriguez at September 14, 2009 7:47 PM

comment #5

googs says ...

How was Sam Jackson in it? I love Sam but he hasn't given a tame performance in a while.

Posted by googs at September 14, 2009 8:23 PM

comment #6

DeeZee says ...

Ford indirectly admits the script for Indy 4 sucked.
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/access-hollywood-indiana-jones-5.html
The Bruce-ster returns for Spidey 4.
http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/15144/campbell-on-spidey-4-ford-on-indy-5
Watchmen's Joker is in Red Dawn 2.0.
http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/15139/morgan-joins-red-dawn-remake
R.I.P. Norma Rae.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/norma-rae-dead-68-after-two-year-stru
Roger returns for more Silent Hill.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ia88ac756513e0fd9c64722a77d02496f
THR loves to Whip It.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/whip-it-film-review-1004011879.story
Stevie says he's still doing his Abe movie, too, honest.
http://weblogs.variety.com/bfdealmemo/2009/09/the-lincoln-derby.html
That nazi guy replaces Cage as the villain in 'Hornet.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118008576.html?categoryid=13
Kidman plays a post-op woman for "Let the Right One In" guy.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118008616.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Posted by DeeZee at September 14, 2009 8:28 PM

comment #7

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Yes, Daniel, the rest of us read MCN too.

And you still managed to miss the story of the day: Dalton is Dead (while ironically linking to a story about the RED DAWN remake no less)

Posted by Deathtongue_Groupie at September 14, 2009 8:33 PM

comment #8

DeeZee says ...

Deathtongue: Josh mentioned it another thread, so I'm just waiting for Jeff to make an official update.

Posted by DeeZee at September 14, 2009 8:39 PM

comment #9

DeeZee says ...

Seth McFarlane's aggressive Emmy marketing campaign. http://www.youtube.com/user/WheresMyEmmy

Posted by DeeZee at September 14, 2009 9:54 PM

comment #10

BurmaShave says ...

Dee, "Tomas Alfredson to direct THE DANISH GIRL" would be the real headline, that is if you actually cared about movies.

Posted by BurmaShave at September 14, 2009 10:08 PM

comment #11

moorish says ...

" I generally don't fall for films aimed at the opposite genre".

In many ways this typo absolutely makes the article for me. The battle of the sexes summarised through the power of storytelling genres.

Posted by moorish at September 15, 2009 3:16 AM

comment #12

Pomerania says ...

love your column Jeff. Always check it in with it. Others are bland in comparison to you. But why do you refer to this film as a Woman's film simply because the central characters are female? Does that preclude it having universal appeal? Do you have an insight into what a fundamentally patronising attitude that is?

Posted by Pomerania at September 15, 2009 5:42 AM

comment #13

Blepyrus says ...

Delroy Lindo was supposed to play Sam Jackson's part.

Posted by Blepyrus at September 15, 2009 6:10 AM

comment #14

Noiresque says ...

Fantastic news! I'm a huge Rodrigo Garcia fan. His multi-character plots in Nine Stories, Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her and In Treatment always interest me.

So it is a shame about the presence of Annette Bening. It's her face - her pretty, pert and snarling self-satisfaction is a total turn off. She's someone I just can't bare to watch in anything, including The Grifters.

Posted by Noiresque at September 15, 2009 6:14 AM

comment #15

JohnCope says ...

Maybe Bening and Firth can both win this year and we can have a Valmont reunion. That would be awesome!

Posted by JohnCope at September 15, 2009 8:31 AM

comment #16

propecia says ...

But why do you refer to this film as a Woman's film simply because the central characters are female?

Posted by propecia at November 9, 2009 3:07 AM

comment #17

Terramundi says ...

Yes obviously if a female is the lead character it is usually referred as female centric movie.

Posted by Terramundi at November 9, 2009 12:04 PM

comment #18

gaiko says ...

Yes, I think so. A man like him should make only adorable art. I am curious about this film now. Will find more information. Thanks! Dissertation.
Regards,

Posted by gaiko at November 17, 2009 4:49 AM

comment #19

gaiko says ...

Looks great with the synopsis and story trace back. Why don;t they play it at local cinemas? Sample Research Paper.
Regards,

Posted by gaiko at November 17, 2009 4:54 AM

comment #20

badpete says ...

Maybe Bening and Firth can both win this year and we can have a Valmont reunion. That would be awesome!

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Posted by badpete at December 8, 2009 2:42 AM

comment #21

doublexjohn says ...

Annette Bening and Naomi Watts will headline "Mother and Child," a multilayered drama from scripter and helmer Rodrigo Garcia.

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Posted by doublexjohn at December 13, 2009 9:45 AM

comment #22

sparesr4sissies says ...

I'm still waiting to see this movie. Thanks for the reviews, I look forward to seeing it.

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Posted by sparesr4sissies at December 13, 2009 5:43 PM

comment #23

badpete says ...

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Posted by badpete at December 17, 2009 3:00 AM

comment #24

badpete says ...

Maybe Bening and Firth can both win this year and we can have a Valmont reunion. That would be awesome!

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Posted by badpete at December 18, 2009 7:29 AM

comment #25

badpete says ...

Dee, "Tomas Alfredson to direct THE DANISH GIRL" would be the real headline, that is if you actually cared about movies.

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Posted by badpete at December 20, 2009 9:12 PM

comment #26

badpete says ...

love your column Jeff. Always check it in with it. Others are bland in comparison to you.

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Posted by badpete at December 21, 2009 9:33 AM

comment #27

badpete says ...

Wow, Jeff...I had written this off as a sure-bet also-ran for the fall fest circuit given Garcia's ham-fisted attempts at theatrical directing thus far ("Passengers" was horribly guided

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Posted by badpete at December 21, 2009 10:45 PM

comment #28