Seconds (1966)
QFS No. 212 - Long drought of essays will be overcome by finally resuming periodic takes on films! We resume with John Frankenheimer’s Seconds (1966). Frankenheimer helmed some of the landmark films of the 1960s and ’70s and continued working into the 2000s. The great American filmmaker is one in a long line of great directors who started in television, working alongside the legend Sidney Lumet and, like Lumet, was influenced by the storytelling and production rigors required for the small screen.
Terms of Endearment (1983)
QFS No. 175 - For our 175th film, the QFS Selection Committee chose one of the most decorated Oscar-winners in the last quarter of the 20th Century with eleven nominations and five wins, including for Best Picture. Terms of Endearment for a long time has been the most recent Best Picture winner I, your humble curator, have never seen.
Rome, Open City (1945)
QFS No. 174 - Oddly, this is our first QFS selection of a Roberto Rossellini film. One of the filmmakers who inspired Martin Scorsese (and whose daughter Isabella Rossellini was once married to Scorsese) and a pioneer of Italian post-war neorealist movement, his films have for some reason eluded our esteemed selection committee of excellence.
Chan is Missing (1982)
QFS No. 173 - Chan is Missing was the first feature film by an Asian American to have a significant theatrical release and critical reception – and it wasn’t all that long ago during most of our lifetime’s, 1982.
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
QFS No. 169 - Billy Wilder, one of the American greats, now can add another posthumous feather in his cap – three-time QFS selectee. There can be no greater honor. We previously selected The Lost Weekend (1947, QFS No. 84) and Ace in the Hole (1951, QFS 136), and this week’s selection Witness for the Prosecution has been on my to-see list for a while now.
Touch of Evil (1958)
QFS No. 160 - Let’s get this out of the way first – in Touch of Evil Charleton Heston plays a Mexican. (But… barely.) Do with that information what you will. Just about the only negative I have about this film. Everything else in Orson Welles’ masterpiece places it high on my list of personal favorites.
City Lights (1931)
QFS No. 159 - It’s that time again at Quarantine Film Society – time to watch a Silent Film!
Carnival of Souls (1962)
QFS No. 155 - I deliberately know nothing about Carnival of Souls (1962) but it’s an influential horror film and this is the time of the year for influential horror films.
Scarface (1932)
QFS No. 149 - In 1931 and 1932, there were a few gangster pictures that helped established the genre – Little Cesar* (1931), The Public Enemy (1931) and this week’s selection Scarface (1932).
Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959)
QFS No. 147 - Kaagaz Ke Phool – which translates to “Paper Flowers” – is known as one of the great films from the Golden Age of Hindi Cinema.
High and Low (1963)
QFS No. 139 - It’s been entirely too long since we’ve selected a Kurosawa film here at Quarantine Film Society. It was way back in July 2020 when we were young and terrified but watched the masterpiece Yojimo (1961, QFS No. 13. The offending parties to this nearly four-year gap have been reassigned to new minor roles within The Society.
The Seventh Seal (1957)
QFS No. 127 - Sweden’s legendary director Ingmar Bergman is one of those essential filmmakers whose work you’re required to familiarize yourself with if you go to film school and intend to be a director. And with good reason. His films are deeply empathetic and explore what it means to be human in a style that I would characterize as part of the Neorealist movement that swept through post-war Europe.
Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
QFS No. 122 from September 27, 2023 - Another Italian film, you say? Well, you longtime members of QFS will remember that Sharat is making his way through the film requirements he was supposed to be have finished before beginning as a grad student at the American Film Institute.
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
We return to legendary John Ford, last seen in 2020 for QFS No. 26 with his Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), a film he made two years earlier than this week’s selection. The great American filmmaker turns his gaze outside the US in a film that won five Academy Awards including Best Picture. But to me it has always been known as “the film that beat out Citizen Kane.”
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943)
QFS No. 3 - Preston Sturges is one of my favorite American filmmakers of the pre- and early post-war era. His Sullivan’s Travels (1941) and Hail The Conquering Hero (1944) are exceptional works of writing and subtle-to-overt social criticism through satire – especially during the studio system era.