the guillermo del toro syllabus

Saw A GHOST STORY tonight. A moving, precise and eloquent film poem. An art film, yes- so, perhaps not for everyone. It was perfect for me. [original tweet]

Film: Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) Oz Perkins.  Oblique, Elliptical and not for all tastes- but I enjoyed it and was entirely mesmerized.

Game: Little Nightmares- Spirited Away meets Eraserhead via Little Big Planet. Tense, imaginative and fabulous world creation.

20TH CENTURY WOMEN by Mike Mills. A beautiful, low-key enchantment. Annette Bening is rewatchable in every scene she steals. 

"Forgotten" masterworks of film:  THE STUNTMAN by Richard Rush.

Movie: The Train by John Frankenheimer. A beautiful, muscular, smart thriller. Production fraught w complications birthed a great movie.

script by blacklisted Walter Bernstein. Lancaster, caught in mid-career hubris, a colossal presence. Scofield his intellectual foe.

the final act has been much-imitated. The film holds as strong today as it did in its day. Box office failure in US, a hit abroad.

Michel Simon is great in it as is Jeanne Moreau and it has a great Jarre score.  Seek it

What Lancaster achieves on the last third of the film, at 50, with a torn knee is more than most stuntmen could do in good health.

Terriers. Amazing. Perfect. Cancelled. Too god for this cockeyed world.

In hardboiled fiction, there is this hardcore Italian guy I suggest: Massimo Carlotto. tough as fuck.

IF you are not in @shudder Join now!!  And watch Ken Russell’s The Devils. A highly political, savage film by an undomesticated genius!

My favorite Fellini- but unavailable in USA, no?

If any of you likes hardboiled fiction, check out ZEN, a brilliant, engaging limited series w Rufus Sewell as the eponymous character.

[original tweet]

@FredrikSewell It was phenomenal. Human, melancholic, tough, smart- so good. I wish you had done more too, sir!

Do yourself a favor and buy TODAY the wonderful Paracuellos by Carlos Giménez, published by the titan IDW. A life changer. 

MATTHEW J LEVIN  American. Quirky and mesmerizing. Three-dimensional snapshots of the bizarre. https://t.co/oTB2QAdnHu

Film: Steve Jobs by Danny Boyle: A Symphonic, lyrical film w Sorkin's dialogue as metronome. Clockwork precision and immense humanity.