Last Ten Films We've Seen (earlier in June): James Franco Directs

Greetings to our blog readers in Australia, Canada (Happy Canada Day), and Norway......

Today, we look at ten films we've recently watched. Many of them, like "The Lifeguard,""Cold in July" and "Before I Disappear"were independent films shown at the Sundance Film Festival. James Franco did in fact direct "As I Lay Dying," a film based on a William Faulkner novel, and it was almost an artistic success.

Perhaps, the most unique film on the list is "Blume in Love," a Hollywood studio with a highly controversial plot twist that would assure the film would not be made, at least by a studio, today.

The Turkish film "Destiny," which is on this list, was not released in the United State.

We got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine http://www.filmcomment.com

The images above are in reference to 1) "The Lifeguard" (though the film has nothing to do with "Baywatch"), 2) David Copperfield, the magician, is something we thought of for "Before I Disappear," but the film is not about a magician, and 3) perhaps, most confusing, we went with an image of a Maine lobster for "Cold in July" because Maine is one of the few places we can think of where it is actually cold in July (the film takes place in Texas).

Here is the list:

1. Hateship/Loveship. director: Liza Johnson. 2013. w/ Kristen Wiig

2. As I Lay Dying. dir: James Franco. 2013

3. The Lifeguard. Liza W. Garcia. 2013 w/ Kristen Bell

4. HairBrained. Billy Kent. 2013 2/Parker Posey

5. Blume in Love. Paul Mazursky. 1975. w/ George Segal

6. Destiny ("Kader"). Turkey. Zeki Demirkubuz. 2006.

7. Before I Disappear. Shawn Christensen. 2014

8. Cold in July. Jim Mickle. 2014 w/ Michael C. Hall

9. Force Majuere. Sweden. Ruben Ostlund. 2014

10. Sister. Switzerland. Ursula Meier. 2012.

Last Ten Films I Saw Before the Last Ten Films I've Seen: Reexaming Freddy Krueger

Greetings to our blog readers from New Zealand, Poland and Egypt.

The images above are of: 1) Freddy Krueger from 'The Nightmare on Elm Street' film series, he is now a Republican congressman from Alabama, 2) Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, who will soon be starring in a reality tv show about narcissists. The film "The Fifth Estate" is about him and 3) well, it's just a human skeleton (we are using it for the movie "The Skeleton Twins," which stars Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig).

1) "Mean Streets." 1973. dir: Martin Scorsese

2) "Nightmare on Elm Street." 1984. dir: Wes Craven

3) "Yeelen." Mali. 1987. dir: Souelymane Cisse

4) "Rush." 2013. dir: Ron Howard.

5) "The Fifth Estate." 2013. dir: Bill Condon.

6) "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One" (documentary/experimental film). 1968. dir: William Greaves (alas the director died this year)

7) "Don's Party." Australia (in English). 1976. dir: Bruce Beresford.

8) "Labor Day" 2013. dir: Jason Reitman (with Kate Winslet)

9) "The Skeleton Twins."2014  dir: Craig Johnson.

10) "Frank." Ireland (in English) 2014. dir: Lenny Abrahamson