John Cassavetes
1959

The whole movie's improvised. The actors even use their real names for added realism. You can see how influential it was, especially in American independent film. It came out around the same time as Breathless.
It's sort like if Kerouac wrote a movie where women were allowed to actually have personalities.

Samuel Fuller
1964

A melodrama about a prostitute who decides to turn her life around in a small town.
It's got sort of a 60s "social problems" film feel, but it's really interesting to look at it in contrast with Written on the Wind, which was a much more mainstream example from a couple of years earlier.
Only instead of hinting at homosexuality, nymphomania and pseudo-incest, The Naked Kiss is like "This is a prostitute. This is a pedophile." It's very honest.
There are some really striking scenes. The opening, where she totally beats her pimp senseless and takes the money she owes him to this wild jazz score, then it cuts to her putting on her wig and fixing herself up in the mirror with this normal normal score, is killer.
There is some dialogue that sounds painfully cheesy, also, but I think that judging something this obviously melodramatic by realistic standards is totally useless. Because it's dealing with a dark world, but it's not exactly the real world and it's so well put together you can't help but like it.

Terry Jones
1979

Totally saved my day from being the most horrible ever.

Jared Hess
2004

I think the dance number is my favourite part. Especially how he starts out with his hands in his pockets.

Also, the awkward scene at the dance with them standing a full arm's length apart? I've been to a Mormon dance - that was not an exaggeration. At all. Which was what was so brilliant about it.

(Also, I'd read this and forgotten, but Napoleon Dynamite is a pseudonym used by Elvis Costello, on the credits of Blood & Chocolate. Apparently this is just a huge coincidence.)

Jonathan Demme
1991

My prof (in theories of genre) described this as a "really really good ordinary movie."
Which it totally is.
I love how they play on the blood-dripping-from-the-ceiling giveaway that was so slick in Rio Bravo. (When Dean Martin schools all the bad guys in the bar who think he doesn't have what it takes because he's a recovering alcoholic, duh. What? My references are so current.)

Luke Greenfield
2004

At one point, about 2/3 of the way in, he turned to me and said "Don't movies have character development anymore?"
Total male wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Girl Next Door apparently quits her porn job to follow her boyfriend around and be supportive.

Douglas Sirk
1956

The boy picked this out, having wanted to see a Sirk picture since he saw Far From Heaven, which I just watched last week.
You can see why Todd Haynes would want to imitate the guy. From a director's perspective, this was just gorgeous. It's classic Hollywood-auteur style. He's working within the dominant style system, but you won't mistake it for anyone else's work.
That Rock Hudson was in it was interesting given Far From Heaven's whole gay husband plot. But the Robert Stack character was closer. Just like the Dennis Quaid guy in Far From Heaven, he started drinking because of anxiety over being the proper husband/father figure. Only with the possibility of sterility substituted for the homosexuality.
Although, his relationship with the Rock Hudson character felt a little bizarre. They were "like" brothers and they travelled together and stuff. And Rock Hudson is totally jealous when he gets married. He says because he's in love with Lauren Bacall. But it would make more sense that he's upset about losing his childhood companion. And also explain why he never leapt into the waiting, slutty arms of Robert Stack's sister for solace.

But then, even a gay man could love Lauren Bacall.

Michael Mann
2004

What a really excellent movie.
There are so many shitty thrillers out there, I didn't really want to see this until about 1,000,000 people (or two) told me it was good.
Tom Cruise was a good bad guy, but I've always privately believed he's an asshole anyway.

Zhang Yimou
2004

I loved every individual sequence of this movie but I'm not sure it came together as well as it could have.
Also, the let-tyrants-live-so-they-can-kill-lots-of-people-for-their-goal message? Dicey.
But I was too busy thinking either how pretty or how cool everything was to worry til the end.

Frank Oz
2004

I love when you and friends are the only people in the theatre laughing.
But it totally falls apart at the end, so you can't think too hard.
Which sucks.