A Dip In the "Nouvelle Vague"

"Nouvelle Vague" is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless," really a love letter to the whole French New Wave and its participants.  Director Richard Linklater has taken great pains to capture the look  of Paris as it existed in the early films of Jean-Luc Godard, and the whole Cahiers du Cinema cohort.   The film is shot in black and white, in the 4:3 aspect ratio, and in French language of course, reportedly with vintage lenses and film stock.  In the early scenes, Linklater introduces every notable figure who appears with a snapshot close-up and caption so that we can quickly identify Suzanne Schiffman or Raymond Cauchetier before the action starts.  It would be impossible to keep up with all the cameos and references otherwise.

It's the summer of 1959, and Paris is abuzz with filmmaking activity.  Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) is keen to get his first film made, after the successes of his friends like Francois Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard) and Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson).  With a script by Truffaut, Godard secures funds from a producer friend, Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst), a cinematographer Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat), a leading man, Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin), and even a Hollywood leading lady, Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch), fresh off of the success of "Bonjour Tristesse."  However, Godard's approach to filmmaking is unusual to say the least, which alarms and frustrates his collaborators.  Seberg in particular is worried that she's made a mistake signing on to star in "Breathless." 

I've never liked the films of Jean-Luc Godard very much, but "Nouvelle Vague" gives me a better insight on why he's considered one of the greats, and why he's so beloved by certain filmmakers. Linklater makes a smart choice positioning Jean Seberg as a major POV character, who doesn't understand why there's no script, why Godard only shoots for a few hours a day before sending everyone home, and why he's fine with using equipment so suboptimal they don't even have synchronous sound.  Godard may be a genius, who pioneers improvisational filmmaking and goes on to invent the jump cut, but to Seberg he's also an annoying, pretentious film nerd who never seems to stop talking and is bad at communicating that he knows what he's doing.  As the twenty day film shoot for "Breathless" goes on, innovations are made, tempers are lost, and cinematic history is achieved. 

"Nouvelle Vague" will be best enjoyed by other film nerds, of course, who will appreciate the detailed recreations of "Breathless" shooting locations, and recognize the other directors who keep popping up in the story - Cocteau, Melville, Rossellini, and Bresson most prominently.  However, I was impressed by how watchable the film was just as a comedy about a chaotic film shoot.  Like the film that the characters are making, "Nouvelle Vague" is light and breezy, doing a good job of evoking the creative spontaneity that Godard was known for.  I like that Godard and Seberg are pretty well matched - neither totally in the wrong nor blameless for the poor working relationship, but just operating on totally different wavelengths.  Zoey Deutch is especially enjoyable when Seberg reaches the end of her patience.   

I still don't like "Breathless" as a film.  I understand and acknowledge its importance, but for all of Jean-Luc Godard's revolutionary verve, his instincts and his sensibilities don't appeal to me at all.  Maybe it's culture clash and maybe it's his notoriously difficult personality coming across onscreen.  Fortunately, Richard Linklaters' filmmaking is more to my tastes, and Linklater's appreciation for Godard is a good bridge to help me appreciate him a little more as well.   

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My Top Ten Episodes of 2009-2010

Below, find my top ten episodes for the 2009-2010 television season below, in no particular order.  And a few spoilers ahead, including "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad."  I

Community, "Modern Warfare" - The first paintball episode is my favorite episode of "Community," thanks in large part to director Justin Lin, who perfectly executes all the action movie spoof sequences.  The cherry on the cake is Ken Jeong channeling Chow Young Fat as he faces off against Jeff and Britta with multiple paintball firearms and even a paintball IED.  None of the subsequent paintball episodes came close to topping this.

Torchwood: Children of Earth, "Day One" - One of the best things to ever come out of the "Doctor Who" franchise was this five episode event miniseries that served as the third series of "Torchwood."  It presents an engrossing invasion scenario targeting Earth's children, with a troubling moral dilemma at its center.  My favorite episode is the first with the initial worldwide threat being unveiled, and Captain Jack's team racing to figure out what's going on.

Doctor Who, "Vincent and the Doctor" - "Doctor Who" was having a very good season itself.  "Vincent and the Doctor" is one of the highlights of the Matt Smith era, written by Richard Curtis, and featuring guest appearances from Bill Nighy and Tony Curran as Vincent van Gogh.  It's a little art history lesson, a little wish fulfillment, and a little reminder of the immutability of human existence.  It's my favorite "Who" encounter with a historical figure to date.

Mad Men, "Shut the Door. Have a Seat" - I love a heist episode, and this is exactly what this episode is, as the Sterling Cooper staff gather their allies, raid the offices, and strike out on their own as a new agency under Roger, Bert, Lance, and Don.  The irony is that this is also the episode where Betty engineers her exit from her marriage and makes her own escape.  Runner up in this excellent season was "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency," for the unexpected carnage.

Breaking Bad, "One Minute" - The third season of "Breaking Bad" had "Full Measure" and "Fly," but pound for pound the most entertaining and memorable episode of the season was all about Hank Schrader, featuring his revenge against Jesse and its ugly aftermath.  Most of the episode is about Hank versus Jesse, and the tension is running so high, you almost forget about the other lurking danger in this episode - which all comes to a head with the explosive ending.

30 Rock, "Anna Howard Shaw Day" - This is the one where Liz Lemon is stuck at the dentist on her least favorite holiday trying to get a ride home, with that priceless ending tag with the Jamaican nurses.  However, I like the B-plot with Jack trying to impress Avery just as much.  And the C-plot with Jenna and her ex-stalkier ain't shabby either.  Very good use of cameos here.  And "Klaus and Greta" with James Franco and his body pillow is our runner up.

Dollhouse, "Epitaph One" - Technically this was never broadcast in the US, but it was in the UK, so I'm counting it as a summer of 2009 release.  This was our first glimpse into the show's dystopian future, quickly doing a ton of worldbuilding and giving us hints of what happened to all of the series regulars via memory flashbacks and encounters with their future versions.  The most touching is DeWitt and Topher's scene, recounting the way the world ended.

The Office, "Niagara"  - Okay, the best episode of this season is probably "Scott's Tots" based on the sheer gutsiness of airing something with that amount of cringe.  However, I'm a softie and I'm picking the double episode with Jim and Pam's wedding.  There are so many great moments here, from Andy trying to do the splits, to Jim cutting his tie in half, and the viral video recreation, and of course the actual wedding itself - both versions! 

Dexter, "The Getaway" - This was the last I saw of "Dexter" for a long time, the final episode of the Trinity Killer season.  And though I enjoyed the show, I'm glad I stopped where I did, because how could "Dexter" have ever topped this?  John Lithgow and Michael C. Hall are taking no prisoners, and the ending delivers one of the series' best shocks.  I will elaborate no further, because this is one spoiler I will take no chances with.

The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, "Finale" - It didn't last for very long, but I watched as much of Conan O'Brien's stint as host of "The Tonight Show" as I could.  He definitely had one of the most memorable exits, inviting Will Ferrell, Beck, ZZ Top, and friends to close out the show with a rousing rendition of "Freebird."

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"Fionna and Cake," Year Two

Unlike the first season of "Fionna and Cake," the second is much more clearly part of a sequel to "Adventure Time," and involves a lot of characters that I'm not familiar with, not having watched most of the later seasons and other spinoffs of that show.  However, "Fionna and Cake" is such a fantastically weird and wonderful animated fantasy, full of characters and concepts that are so endlessly inventive that I was completely entertained and invested in what was going on anyway.  

Fionna continues to struggle with her life and relationships after saving the world, especially dealing with her feelings for DJ Flame (Manny Jacinto), and potentially disappointing her other friends.  We get a second protagonist in the universe-hopping Huntress Wizard (Ashly Burch), who is on a quest to save a mortally wounded Finn.  This involves traveling to Fionna's world and tracking down the "heart of the forest."  At this point there are so many different versions of Finn and friends running around that I can't keep them all straight, but Huntress Wizard is a distinct, memorable character who isn't quite like anyone else.  She's a mysterious magic user who has plant-based powers and is very brave, but has trouble connecting to other people.  

"Fionna and Cake" is aimed at an older crowd than "Adventure Time," dealing with more mature relationships and concerns.  Fionna is riddled with anxieties and can never quite seem to get her life together.  She wants to help, but often her efforts end up hurting her friends due to her impetuousness and mistakes in communication.  Her troubles are often tied into her mental and emotional health - jealousies, self-doubt, guilt, fear of failure, and being overwhelmed.  Hunter Wizard's adventures are more externalized, a life-and-death struggle against all manner of impossible creatures, some of whom we've met before and have history with, like the Cosmic Owl.  Nearly all the major characters from "Adventure Time" appear here, including the crew from Ooo, though their current storyline is very somber and emotionally fraught.

I don't quite know how to describe the particular aesthetics of this season, currently  being showrun by Adam Muto, based on the characters and concepts created by Pendleton Ward and Nathasha Allegri.  There's a darker, more primal sort of feel to the universe, where the rules of how the magic and mysticism work are never outright explained, but follows a crude sort of dream logic.  I always liked the way that "Adventure Time" had an undercurrent of existential horror to it, and "Fionna and Cake" leans into that vibe heavily.  Hunter's magic always seems to involve some brutal transformation or sacrifice, but abstracted heavily through the cartoon style.  Death is very present throughout the show, though revival and rebirths are common.  Some of the wordless sequences showing the origins of certain characters, or revealing past events, reminded me strongly of "Scavengers Reign" in the way that very simple animated forms convey complex systems and cycles of power.  However, the visual language is folk horror instead of science fiction.

The juxtaposition between the two storylines is very effective.  Fionna's world is essentially our own, populated by young adult city-dweller versions of the "Adventure Time" cast, so it presents a stark contrast with the other worlds that resemble fanciful variants of Ooo, or Jungian projections of the unconscious, or darkest timelines, or the backstage of reality.  Our heroines are fighting cosmic beings and nightmare monsters one minute, and trying to nail down a venue for a fundraiser the next, and both trials require comparable amounts of emotional labor.  The silliness and playfulness of the original "Adventure Time" is still very apparent, especially in the way the humor works.  However, the franchise has grown up along with its original audience, and its lessons have expanded and deepened.  I find that so miraculous and so poignant.

I have no idea who I could recommend this show to, except for the people who might have grown up on "Adventure Time" and drifted away from the franchise over the years.  In its own way it's just as inventive and involving as any dramatic prestige series made for adults that I've seen over the past year.  However, this one has a translucent giant earthworm that lives in a garden that processes people's traumatic experiences.  And he's a very good singer.  

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My Most Anticipated Films of 2026 Part II

Continuing from my previous anticipated films post, this installment covers the smaller indie and foreign films, and a couple of titles from the streamers that may end up falling through the cracks.  

There is a lot that I didn't have room for.  We have new movies coming from Lee Chang Dong, Terrence Malick, Werner Herzog, Andrew Haigh, Agnieszka Smoczynska, Jane Schoenbrun, and many more.  As always, release dates are difficult to pin down this far in advance, and some of these films may not make it to theaters until 2027 or later.  "Klara and the Sun" and "The Bride!" were on last year's list.

The History of Concrete - This one just premiered at Sundance.  I've missed the documentary series "How to With John Wilson," and I'm looking forward to Wilson's latest feature project, which is definitely going to be about concrete, but is probably also going to include some of those wild tangents that the filmmaker is famous for.  Apparently Wilson arrived at this subject after failing to write a Hallmark movie.

 

I Love Boosters - I love that Boots Riley keeps making these wild, wonderful movies that don't look like what anybody else is doing.  In "I Love Boosters," it's a crew of shoplifters against a "fashion maven," with Keke Palmer in the lead role.  It's being classified as a "sci fi comedy," so I expect a few twists and turns.  "I Love Boosters" is set to premiere at SXSW, so we should see it sometime late in the year.

Wild Horse Nine - Martin McDonagh is reteaming with Sam Rockwell involving CIA agent shenanigans on Easter Island/Rapa Nui in the '70s.  John Malkovitch, Parker Posey, Steve Buscemi, and Tom Waits are also reportedly involved.  McDonagh is hit or miss for me, but his hits are some of my favorite films of the past decade.  And the last time he made a movie set on an island, we got "Banshees of Inisherin."

Tony - Matt Johnson, who made "Blackberry," is helming the Anthony Bourdain biopic with Dominic Sessa as Bourdain and Emilia Jones playing his love interest.  I'm not a foodie or an Anthony Bourdain fan, but I'm definitely on board with another biopic from Johnson, who made "Blackberry" into one of the best tech industry tell-alls, and gave his cast a chance to give some very memorable performances.  

Hope - Several directors are making their English language debuts this year, including Cristian Mungiu and Na Hong Jin.  I'm keeping an eye on Na Hong Jin's latest thriller in particular because it's going to include several international actors in the cast, including Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander.  This is expected to be another supernatural thriller, hopefully not one as soul-destroying as "The Wailing."  

The Uprising - An all star cast will appear in Paul Greengrass's dramatization of the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381, including Andrew Garfield, Thomasin McKenzie, Katherine Waterston, Tom Hollander, Stephen Dillane, Jonny Lee Miller, Jamie Bell and Cosmo Jarvis.  This one's gone through a lot of cast changes and a lot of title changes over the years, and I'm excited to see it reach screens at last.

Artificial  - And speaking of Andrew Garfield, Luca Guadagnino is making a Sam Altman movie, with Garfield playing Altman.  It seems a little early for a movie charting the rise of OpenAI, but I want to see what Guadagnino and screenwriter Simon Rich do with this.  This is being described as a comedy-drama, and Ike Barinholtz is playing Elon Musk, so there's plenty of potential here for something fun.

Jack of Spades - Josh O'Connor did so well as the lead of a Gothic mystery film last year, I assume he'll do great as the lead of another Gothic mystery film this year, directed by one of the Coen brothers.  This is Joel Coen's first film since "The Tragedy of Macbeth," and it will be set in Scotland in the 1800s.  Not much else is known, except that Frances McDormand, Lesley Manville and Damian Lewis are in the cast. 

Mayday - John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have made several fantastic comedies in a row, most recently the "Dungeons and Dragons" movie.  Their new one is a Ryan Reynolds action movie about a downed American pilot in Soviet Russia.  This would probably be on the blockbuster list if this weren't made by Skydance and being distributed by Apple TV+.  Crossing my fingers that this bucks the trend. 

October - And finally, a new Jeremy Saulnier movie by itself would be reason for anticipation, but this one is Halloween themed too?  And it's going to be Cory Michael Smith's first stab at being a leading man?  Sign me up!

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My Most Anticipated Films of 2026 Part I

As usual, this feature is being split into two parts.  The first will focus on the bigger budget studio films and the second will focus on the indie, foreign, and arthouse films that may end up breaking into the mainstream, but right now are only anticipated by film nerds like yours truly.   

This year's list features more franchise films than I'd like, but I couldn't in all honesty leave any of them out.  The entries below are listed by estimated release date.  "Coyote v. Acme" was on the 2024 list.  And here we go:

Project Hail Mary - I have such hopes for Ryan Gosling to finally have an unambiguous hit where he's the lead, because it is so overdue.  "Project Hail Mary" has all the makings of a winner, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller adapting the excellent Andy Weir novel.  However, it's an original science-fiction film, and audiences aren't great with those, so I'm trying to temper my expectations.  

Disclosure Day - At the time of writing, not much is known about this movie except that it's about UFOs and it stars Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor.  There was even some speculation that it might be a stealth remake of Hitchcock's "The Birds" after the teaser poster debuted.  This appears to be Spielberg's first contemporary genre film in a long while, though, so fingers crossed.

The Odyssey - The closer this gets, the less sure I am that this is going to work.  How can you have that cast and that budget and possibly meet expectations?  Only Christopher Nolan could even attempt something on this scale anymore, and he's never made anything like a sword-and-sandals epic before.  Maybe "Dunkirk" is kind of in the same ballpark?  Well, however it turns out, I gotta see it.  

Ray Gunn - Skydance Animation is giving Brad Bird the chance to finally make one of his dream projects, an animated neo-noir mystery set in a retrofuturist city called Metropia.  Netflix has this on the slate for sometime this year, but no release date yet.  Skydance Animation hasn't had the best track record so far, after two films, but maybe they just need to try something more ambitious and creator driven.  

Digger - This is the Alejandro G. Iñárritu film, led by Tom Cruise, Sandra Hüller, and John Goodman.  Details are scarce, but a synopsis from last October suggests that this is some kind of comedic thriller that will give Cruise a chance to do more chase and action scenes.  In any case, the teaser is fantastic and it's good to see Cruise moving on to better things after the last "Mission: Impossible" flopped.

The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender - This is the big one, folks.  This is the new sequel movie to the original "Avatar: The Last Airbender" Nickelodeon series, featuring all the main characters a couple of years after the defeat of the Firelord.  Everyone's a little older with some new voice actors, including Steven Yeun as Zuko.  This would be a guaranteed trip to the theater for me - if it does go to theaters.

The Social Reckoning - David Fincher is not coming back for this quasi-follow-up to "The Social Network." which immediately has me on guard.  I'm still interested though.  Aaron Sorkin will be directing and writing instead, and Jeremy Strong is taking over the role of Mark Zuckerberg.  Word is that we get to see the events of January 6th from the POV of everyone behind the scenes of Facebook.  

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping - Let's hear it for the last dystopian YA franchise standing.  I thoroughly enjoyed the last "Hunger Games" prequel, and the book this one is based on is supposed to be even better.  The cast list is absolutely wild, and there's already a teaser that's been out for months.  That's all I know and that's all I want to know until I can see this one for myself.  

Narnia: The Magician's Nephew - Greta Gerwig's new Narnia film for Netflix is based on the prequel to "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" that has never been adapted.  It's a weird book with a lot of Biblical allusions, and I'm expecting a weird movie, potentially much weirder than general audiences are expecting.  I trust Gerwig though, and I hope more Narnia films will follow as a result.  

Dune: Part Three - Let's see if Denis can land the ornithopter.

Happy watching

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My Top 25 of the Last 25: Remakes and Reboots

I've thoroughly enjoyed all the "Best of" lists celebrating the superlatives of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. And I'm going to be fashionably late to the party and make some of my own lists this year, looking at movies and television from 2001 to 2025.  However, I'm not going to make "Best Movie" or "Best Show" lists.  No, I'm going to do the fun stuff.  This month, I'm spotlighting my favorite remakes and reboots.

Each list will get 25 entries, but only the top ten will get write-ups.  

What counts as a remake or reboot?  This gets a little tricky, but I'm looking for cases where a specific IP is being brought back to capitalize on audience nostalgia, so no remakes of foreign media, like the US version of "The Office" or "The Departed," unless the creators appear to be specifically going after the original fanbase, like "One Piece" (2023).  New adaptations of the classics like "Frankenstein," or obscurities like "Nightmare Alley" and "Widows" aren't what I'm after either. 

Also, the new version has to significantly transform the original to some extent. "Dexter: New Blood" is a pretty straightforward "Dexter" sequel or revival because it has the same lead character being played by the original actor.  Meanwhile, "Watchmen" and "Creed" are technically sequels with some of the same characters, but have entirely different lead characters and dynamics, so that's more in the spirit of a new take on familiar material.  

For the record, I'm not counting Steven Moffatt's "Dracula," "Jekyll," or "Sherlock" series, though I enjoyed them all.

1. Doctor Who (2005) - A big factor in what ended up in the top ten was impact, and the 2005 "Doctor Who" was one of the biggest genre shows worldwide for years.  In addition to acquainting a new generation with Daleks and Cybermen, it launched many careers, set many precedents, and despites some ups and downs, managed to hang around for over twenty years.  Its immediate fate is uncertain, but there's no doubt that The Doctor will be back eventually, even if it takes a few tries.    

2. Casino Royale (2006) - Remember when Daniel Craig was being criticized as the pick for the new Bond because of his blond hair?  There were many 007 reboots and revamps over the years, but none felt like it was really turning a corner the way that "Casino Royale" did.  This is easily one of the best films to ever come out of the franchise, setting a high standard for Bond films for the next two decades.  And this wasn't only most audiences' introduction to Daniel Craig, but Mads Mikkelsen and Eva Green too.   

3. Battlestar Galactica (2004) - I'm not very far into the series yet, but it's already obvious that "Battlestar Galactica" is one of the best remakes ever made.  It took a family-friendly '70s adventure series and turned it into a bleak, harrowing survival story about the human race desperately trying to endure in the face of an implacable threat.  From a fan standpoint, this is the series that made science-fiction cool again, as "Galactica" broke into the mainstream in a way that none of its contemporaries ever did.  

4. Mad Max Fury Road (2015) - George Miller and Mad Max returned with a vengeance after a thirty year hiatus, delivering what was not only the best installment of its franchise, but one of the most beloved action films ever made.  It's not a particularly good film about its title character, who is a bit of a nonentity, but the unhinged "Mad Max" universe definitely got a major upgrade.  And some of us older fans had to wonder, is this what "Mad Max" looked like inside George Miller's head the whole time?  

5. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (2010) - I love it when a piece of intellectual property that everyone wrote off makes a comeback in a big way.  The redesigned, significantly modernized "My Little Pony" created by Lauren Faust instantly caught on with its target audience of kids, but also attracted a surprisingly loyal following of adults.  This created some inevitable fandom weirdness, but it also meant a great franchise for little girls got a lot of attention, and several others were rebooted in its wake.  

6. Fargo (2014) - Noah Hawley turned a Coen brothers movie into an anthology of larger-than-life crime stories, all involving desperate characters in the American Midwest, with a few touches of the preternatural to keep things interesting.  Sometimes the particular chemistry of the casts or the themes of each season haven't quite worked, but when "Fargo" is at its best, it's unmissable television.  It's given us Lorne Malvo, Peggy Blumquist, V. M. Varga, and Dot Lyon among its many, many fantastic characters.   

7. Westworld (2016) - The resources put into this series were incredible.  HBO created the first ongoing television series that truly felt like it had a feature film cast, populating a much harder-edged take on the premise of the 1973 Michael Crichton film, with unapologetically adult content throughout.  I watched all four seasons and found all of them well worth my time, even though the show changed considerably from the theme park-centered first season into a more conceptually thorny dystopian drama.  

8. Watchmen (2019) - An edge case, because this is actually a sequel to the graphic novel "Watchmen," and not in the same continuity as the 2009 film, "Watchmen."  However, Damon Lindelof and his collaborators definitely put their own spin on the material, using the "Watchmen" universe to explore additional racial and generational dynamics that weren't part of the original Alan Moore story.  It's so niche and requires so much additional reading, I'm amazed that this got produced in this form.  

9. Creed (2015) - Okay, so it's technically a spinoff of the "Rocky" franchise, but despite Stallone's presence and influence, this isn't his movie.  "Creed" was a major turning point in the careers of both Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler, and was successful enough to spawn two decent sequels.  It would have been easier to follow the template of "Rocky" more closely, but Coogler made some canny choices to ensure that "Creed" could stand on its own, while evoking the nostalgia for the originals. 

10. IT (2017) - Finally, "IT: Chapter Two" was clearly a bust, but that doesn't take away from this wonderfully brutal adaptation of Stephen King's "IT," which sticks to the parts about the kids thirty years in the past.  Horror reboots are very common, but "IT" stood out by being an unusually nasty film where terrible things happen to children.  It helped to shepherd along the resurgence in Stephen King media, and gave us one of the best cinema monsters of the last decade - Pennywise the Clown.

The next 15: 

True Grit (2010)

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

A Star is Born (2018)

Cobra Kai (2021)

Ripley (2024)

West Side Story (2021)

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

Duck Tales (2017)

Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Suspiria (2018)

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Matilda: the Musical (2023)

One Piece (2023)

Mickey Mouse (2013) and The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse (2020)

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My Favorite Neil Jordan Film

My favorite Irish film director is Neil Jordan, who has received a lot of attention for his contemporary melodramas, historical biographies, and sensitive transgender narratives.  He also has a habit of regularly making some really gnarly horror and fantasy films, including the '90s version of "Interview With the Vampire."  However, it was his werewolf picture that I was obsessed with as a teenager.  In 1984 he made an adaptation of Angela Carter's short story "The Company of Wolves," a feminist take on The Little Red Riding Hood.  He directed and co-wrote the film with Carter.  

"The Company of Wolves" unfolds as a literal fever dream, offering several stories about monsters, wolves, and sexual awakening through a dark fairy tale lens.  Most of the film is concerned with the familiar figures of a girl in a red hood, her storytelling grandmother, and the wolfish stranger met by chance in the woods, but in the nested realities of the additional stories told in the film, we also meet the distinguished Devil who arrives in a white Rolls-Royce, an enchantress who turns her betrayer into a beast, and multiple unfortunate creatures who are both human and wolf, or perhaps something in between.  

The film is best known among special effects aficionados for its spectacular werewolf transformation scenes, including one where a snarling wolf muzzle erupts from the mouth of the huntsman as he violently sheds his humanity.  However, other images have stayed with me longer - a woman's face smashing into pieces of porcelain when she's attacked, a wedding feast attended by wolves in human clothing, and human babies hatching from bird eggs.  Jordan purposefully leans into the psychosexual symbolism, creating this uneasy twilight world where idyllic childhood fantasies are easily twisted and corrupted into nightmares.  He also used this approach in later films like "The Butcher Boy," and "In Dreams," both exploring the psyches of disturbed killers. 

Dark fantasy films were popular in the '80s, but few were as richly rendered as "The Company of Wolves."  The surreal imagery appears throughout, often using disturbing juxtapositions and dream logic to impart a lasting sense of horror.  This reflects the origins of many folk tales as morality plays and cautionary tales, the whimsical allegories having roots in much grimmer reality.  Jordan's visuals have a beauty and a lyricism to them that is mesmerizing.  I'm not fond of most werewolf films, because they're usually so focused on the monstrosity and gore.  "The Company of Wolves" certainly has its share of blood and guts, but it doesn't forget about the seduction, that sweetest tongue comes before sharpest tooth.     

In addition to the central narrative, the film features four stories told by various characters to each other, and there were a few more in early scripts that didn't make it into the film.  They're variations on the same themes of love gone wrong and maturation bringing unexpected horrors, except the very last, which offers a more hopeful, conciliatory message.  I love that "The Company of Wolves" heavily features the act of storytelling, and it's important who tells which story to whom, and what the motives for each telling might be.  And characters who aren't telling stories are always offering advice and adages and explaining their own ideas of how the world works.  

The budget on the film was low, and clearly most of the wolves in the film are actually large dogs with dye jobs.  However, the practical effects work, the art direction, and the cinematography are all excellent, and the cast is fantastic.  Having sturdy UK thespians like Angela Lansbury, Stephen Rea, and David Warner delivering the dire warnings about never trusting men whose eyebrows meet in the middle goes a long way towards setting the mood and tone.  And it's astounding that this was Sarah Patterson's screen debut, playing our heroine Rosaleen, one of her only appearances in any film.

The moral, ultimately, is to beware of wolves in their many shapes and guises.  However, wolves lurk everywhere, as the embodiment of our deepest unconscious minds, both in men and women.  And I've never seen them summoned to the screen as beautifully as they are in "The Company of Wolves."

What I've Seen - Neil Jordan

The Company of Wolves (1984)

Mona Lisa (1986)

The Crying Game (1992)

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

The Butcher Boy (1997)

In Dreams (1999)

The End of the Affair (1999)

Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

The Brave One (2007)

Byzantium (2012)

Greta (2018)

Marlowe (2022)

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