Television/Film References in John Waters' Favorite Films of the Year
A list of television shows and film references in the films selected by John Waters as his favorite films of the year.
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- DirectorVictor FlemingKing VidorStarsJudy GarlandFrank MorganRay BolgerYoung Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.Pink Narcissus - Actor–model Bobby Kendall’s ass: As beautiful and timeless as The Wizard of Oz.
- DirectorJean CocteauStarsJean MaraisJosette DayYvonne de BrayMichel is in love with Madeleine, so he decides to tell his parents of his intention to marry her. He thinks his announcement is innocent enough; his engagement, however, threatens to reveal dark secrets lurking within his family's home.The Virgin Suicides - Who would have predicted Sofia Coppola could bring to mind Cocteau’s Les parents terribles?
- DirectorFrank PerryStarsFaye DunawayDiana ScarwidSteve ForrestThe abusive and traumatic adoptive upbringing of Christina Crawford at the hands of her mother, screen queen Joan Crawford, is depicted.Chopper - Eric Bana, as the Australian psycho-murderer who wrote a best-selling autobiography, is as scarily likable as Faye Dunaway was in Mommie Dearest.
Cet amour-là - Jeanne Moreau is Marguerite Duras – and as much fun as Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest. - DirectorTodd SolondzStarsJane AdamsJon LovitzPhilip Seymour HoffmanThe lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.Storytelling - The director of Happiness leaves you squirming in your seat, feeling gloriously bad. What more do you want for a $10 admission?
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsPaolo BonacelliGiorgio CataldiUberto Paolo QuintavalleIn World War II Italy, four fascist libertines round up nine adolescent boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of physical, mental, and sexual torture.The Piano Teacher - Not since Salò have we had a shocker like this. Isabelle Huppert is God.
The Last Mistress - A brilliant costume drama that gets down on its tripod to worship the amazingly pillowy lips of its male lead, Fu’ad Ait Aattou. The most seductively sexual on-screen storytelling since Salò.
Nymphomaniac, Vol. 1 and 2 - I, a Woman meets Salò. I thank the director for every hideous second of this comic masterpiece. - DirectorFederico FelliniStarsMarcello MastroianniAnouk AiméeClaudia CardinaleA harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.Friday Night - he most provocative traffic jam since Fellini’s 8½. So slow. So infuriating. So sexy.
- CreatorJoe ConnellyBob MosherDick ConwayStarsJerry MathersHugh BeaumontBarbara BillingsleyThe misadventures of a suburban boy, family and friends.Ken Park - Leave It to Beaver goes hard-core. Bravo! Clark’s the only director who consistently makes the New York Times rise to his bait.
- DirectorTim BurtonStarsJohnny DeppMartin LandauSarah Jessica ParkerAmbitious but troubled movie director Edward D. Wood Jr. tries his best to fulfill his dreams despite his lack of talent.Baadasssss! - Not since Ed Wood has there been a film that captures “making of a movie” with such a firsthand knowledge and love of showmanship.
- DirectorFrank PerryStarsKeir DulleaJanet MargolinHoward Da SilvaTeenager David Clemens develops a hysterical fear that he will die if he comes into physical contact with another person. Perturbed, David's overbearing mother places him in a home for mentally disturbed young people.Head-On - A David and Lisa for the criminally insane moviegoer. You’ll feel like dating an alcoholic after seeing this Turkish/German love story from hell.
- DirectorSharad PatelStarsJoseph OlitaThomas BaptisteLeonard TrolleyThe chronicle of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and his tyranic rule from 1971 to his overthrow in 1979.The Last King of Scotland - Forest Whitaker tops the performance of Joseph Olita in 1981’s Rise and Fall of Idi Amin, one of my all-time favorite trash masterpieces.
- DirectorTaylor HackfordStarsJamie FoxxRegina KingKerry WashingtonThe story of the life and career of the legendary rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles, from his humble beginnings in the South, where he went blind at age seven, to his meteoric rise to stardom during the 1950s and 1960s.I'm Not There - A suggestion of a biography whose million little fractions add up to one knockout of a movie. The exact opposite of Ray!
- DirectorJean CocteauRené ClémentStarsJean MaraisJosette DayMila ParélyA beautiful young woman takes her father's place as the prisoner of a mysterious beast, who wishes to marry her.The Wrestler - The director may be channeling the Dardenne brothers, but Mickey Rourke eerily reminds me of Jean Marais bringing beauty to the Beast in Cocteau’s La belle et la bête. Just imagine Mickey’s Oscar speech!
- DirectorRonny YuStarsRobert EnglundKen KirzingerKelly RowlandFreddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees return to terrorize the teenagers of Elm Street. Only this time, they're out to get each other, too.Mesrine Parts 1 and 2 - Four and a half more hours about another French criminal/folk hero/stud. Who’s badder? More butch? Cuter nude? Carlos or Jacques Mesrine? Why not a subtitled ten-hour Freddy vs. Jason combined sequel about both? In Sensurround, s’il vous plaït.
- DirectorMark RobsonStarsCharlton HestonAva GardnerGeorge KennedyVarious interconnected people struggle to survive when an earthquake of unimaginable magnitude hits Los Angeles, California.Mesrine Parts 1 and 2 - Four and a half more hours about another French criminal/folk hero/stud. Who’s badder? More butch? Cuter nude? Carlos or Jacques Mesrine? Why not a subtitled ten-hour Freddy vs. Jason combined sequel about both? In Sensurround, s’il vous plaït.
- DirectorJean-Jacques BeineixStarsJean-Hugues AngladeBéatrice DalleGérard DarmonA lackadaisical handyman and aspiring novelist tries to support his younger girlfriend as she slowly succumbs to madness.Domain - My favorite movie of the year. A forty-year-old alcoholic aunt (played by Beatrice Dalle – “Betty Blue” herself!) and her gayish teenage nephew form a perversely close relationship by taking walks together. Lots of walks! So many walks you’ll be left breathless by the sheer elegance of this astonishing little workout.
- DirectorJacques DemyStarsCatherine DeneuveNino CastelnuovoAnne VernonA young woman separated from her lover by war faces a life-altering decision.Beloved - Another crackpot Umbrellas of Cherbourg homage by the French director who adores unrequited love, cigarettes, Catherine Deneuve, and especially Louis Garrel. Yes, it’s L‑O‑N‑G, but I wished the characters had kept on singing in the theater even after the projectionist had gone home for the night.
- DirectorJames WanStarsCary ElwesLeigh WhannellDanny GloverTwo strangers awaken in a room with no recollection of how they got there, and soon discover they're pawns in a deadly game perpetrated by a notorious serial killer.Amour - Misery is really in this year. “Hurts! Hurts! Hurts!” yells out the dying elderly wife to her longtime-caretaker husband, and ticket buyers will agree. Makes Saw seem like a romantic comedy.
- DirectorDavid Lowell RichStarsAlain DelonSusan BlakelyRobert WagnerA supersonic airborne disaster. In order to survive a flight headed for the Moscow Olympics, passengers of the Concorde must endure aerial acrobatics to dodge missiles and survive a device that decompresses the plane.I'm So Excited! - Flight goes queer. Right up there with Airport ’79 in the aviation-disaster genre. Only Pedro could pull off a joyously farcical yet eerily beautiful plane crash and not blow the budget by showing it.
- DirectorJerzy KawalerowiczStarsLucyna WinnickaMieczyslaw VoitAnna CiepielewskaA priest is sent to a small parish in the Polish countryside which is believed to be under demonic possession and there he finds his own temptations awaiting.Beyond the Hills - If you thought Mother Joan of the Angels was the best arty Catholic movie about exorcism, think again. The supposedly demonized young girl is not possessed – she just wants to be a lesbian!
- DirectorTod BrowningStarsWallace FordLeila HyamsOlga BaclanovaA circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.Camille Claudel 1915 - Not since Freaks has there been such a harrowing pairing of a star (the sensational Juliette Binoche) with a cast of genuinely handicapped actors. Once again, the great Dumont proves he is the ultimate master of cinematic misery.
- DirectorMac AhlbergStarsEssy PerssonPreben MahrtJørgen ReenbergThe young nurse Siv is frustrated by the strict restraints of her religious parents and her boring fiancé, Sven. At the hospital where she works a patient Heinz, a married antiques dealer flirts with her. Although she is warned that he is a philandering playboy, she allows him to seduce her and they have an affair. He tells her that he loves her and proposes to leave his wife for her. Having only just discovered a new world of sexual liberty, she rejects his proposal. She then breaks off her engagement with Sven, moves away from her parents and finds a nursing position in another city. She meets Lars, a sailor, and they begins a relationship. When he proposes marriage, she breaks up with him. She begins dating Doctor Dam at the hospital where she works. He also falls in love with her, so she stops seeing him and decides that no single man will ever completely fulfill her own desires. She has a sexual encounter with a stranger, Eric who she realizes perfectly matches her own promiscuity.Nymphomaniac, Vol. 1 and 2 - I, a Woman meets Salò. I thank the director for every hideous second of this comic masterpiece.
- DirectorAndrew JareckiStarsArnold FriedmanJesse FriedmanDavid FriedmanDocumentary on the Friedmans, a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family whose world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes.Who Took Johnny? - An amazing, lunatic head-scratcher of a documentary about missing children with plot twists that will leave you creeped out, surprised, and excited. As good as Capturing the Friedmans.
- DirectorJohn WatersStarsDivineTab HunterEdith MasseyA suburban housewife's world falls apart when she finds that her pornographer husband is serially unfaithful to her, her daughter is pregnant, and her son is suspected of being the foot-fetishist who's been breaking local women's feet.The Smell Of Us - When the director, playing a wino savant named Rockstar, actually sucks the toes of his French teen male star on-screen (with subtitles yet!), you’ll know you’re beyond Odorama. The smell here may be ripe, but Larry Clark is back in top form. Oh, yeah... it’s a great musical.
- DirectorUli EdelStarsJennifer Jason LeighStephen LangBurt YoungSet in Brooklyn during the 1950s against a backdrop of union corruption and violence. A prostitute falls in love with one of her customers. Also a disturbed man discovers that he is homosexual.Tangerine - Last Exit to Los Angeles. A beautifully shot underground transgender adventure story that’s worth seeing for the scary extras alone.
- DirectorLuchino ViscontiStarsDirk BogardeIngrid ThulinHelmut GriemThe dramatic collapse of a wealthy, industrialist/Junker family during the reign of the Third Reich.Helmut Berger, Actor - Maybe the best motion picture of the year is also the worst? One-time dreamboat movie star and lover of Visconti, Helmut Berger, now 71 and sometimes looking like Marguerite Duras, rants and raves in his ramshackle apartment while the maid dishes the dirt about his sad life. The rules of documentary access are permanently fractured here when our featured attraction takes off all his clothes on camera, masturbates, and actually ejaculates. The Damned, indeed.