Roger Ebert:"...What is the point of ``Days of Heaven (1978)''--the payoff, the message? This is a movie made by a man who knew how something felt, and found a way to evoke it in us. That feeling is how a child feels when it lives precariously, and then is delivered into security and joy, and then has it all taken away again--and blinks away the tears and says it doesn't hurt."
Ebert, you fuckin’ rule. rogerebert.com

no excuses: it took me far too many years to finally sit down and watch The Last Picture Show (1971) entirely from beginning to end. and though this American masterpiece was the launch pad for a raft of individual talent, it's whole remains greater than its parts, a remarkable feat given the illustrious writer, crew and cast. famously set in the "tiny, dying town of Anarene, Texas", filmed entirely in parched black and white, there is one scene embedded as firmly in my head as in my heart: Ben Johnson and Timothy Bottoms share a quiet talk while fishing on a cloudy day when straying sunlight sets their images magically aglow. we learn from the director that this effect, which arrives with stopwatch timing, was completely serendipitous. Peter Bogdanovich explains (in the director's track) that he originally had other plans for the scene - the intention to capture it in one, unbroken take - but serendipity, and motion picture history, stealthfully intervened.

it's not to be overlooked that the popular Danish title for this film is "Der HollenTrip", for if 2001: A Space Odyessy is the cinematic equivilant of LSD, Altered States (1980) is bad acid for sure. tucked away at the wee tip of William Hurt's career (his screen debut), this film was a lively entry in the weary convention of mad scientist tales – effectively fusing action and sci-fi genres – actually inspired by the scientific commotion surrounding a series of '70s isolation-tank experiments conducted by Dr. John Lilly. thoughtful, exciting and weird, this is the standout film of director Ken Russell (working from a screenplay/novel by Paddy Chayefsky), who pulls out the stops with a some of the most hallucinatory, mind-blowing imagery ever committed to mainstream film. Altered States begins strong (with one of the most memorable opening sequences ever) and just keeps getting better.