Welcome to 211 IN PROGRESS, a new blog devoted almost exclusively to heist movies. Each week, I'll look at a different film or set of films, many of which will come from the 101-day long heist movie marathon that I began one year ago today.
To explain: in September of last year, I was laid off from my job. Besides finding a new job, the most important thing when you're unemployed is to keep your spirits up...and not just with spirits. As a good friend of mine put it, heist films are a seemingly inexhaustible subgenre. More importantly--with their propensity for the precise, the logical, and the daring willful--they are an inexhaustible source of joy for me.
Or maybe it was the poster.
You see, I have this gorgeous re-release poster for Jacques Becker's Touchez pas au grisbi hanging in my living room, and a year ago, I was spending way too much time thinking about what to watch on that day, when I turned and stared at it for a while.
Jean Gabin's old, crusty face. A stack of bills, sandwiched between a pistol and a pool of blood.
I needed to watch this movie again. Right away.
The next day, I watched The Split, a Parker adaptation that I'd wanted to see for some time, and a copy had finally fallen into my hands. I watched another the next day, and another...until I just wanted to see how far I could go. Friends gave me suggestion after suggestion; some were standards that I hadn't yet gotten around to, and others were way, way out of the box. And after 101 days, I felt a sense--however minor in the grand scheme--of accomplishment having watched that much heistacular cinema. (I'm sure Amy Adams will play me in the movie.)
And now it's high time I start posting my thoughts on some of these movies, as well as ones I didn't included that I watch along the way. While I may take the occasional literary or comic diversions (e.g. Duane Swiercyznski's excellent This Here's a Stick-Up: The Big Bad Book of American Bank Robbery, Darwyn Cooke's beautiful Parker adaptations), I mostly aim to stick with the flicks.
I'm hoping that those of you who read this will provide me with your own recommendations, both for movies that you like and for what you'd like to see out of this blog, which if not the first, is certainly one of the few dedicated hideouts for heist cinema. After all, a great heist needs a great crew, and if you enjoy this blog, be assured that I consider you part of my crew. So speak up. Tell me what you think.
That being said, the best crews operate with the highest level of professionalism. I welcome your thoughts, your feedback, your good humor. What I do not welcome, and what I will not tolerate, are unprofessional comments made solely for self-aggrandizement, to annoy yours truly, or especially to provoke fellow readers.
To recap: good humored conversation? Absolutely. Honest debate? You bet. Hateful snark? Peddle it elsewhere.
This blog is open for business, or should I say in progress? Certainly, it's under construction, and I ask for your patience while I get it just the way I want it, which will take some time.
In the meantime, here's the breakdown of my original heist marathon. You'll note some...interesting choices...and believe me, I can justify them all. Note, I said I can justify them all; I didn't say I liked them all.
Next time, I'll be back with a look at The Split.
From October 14, 2009, through January 22, 2010, in the order I watched them:
Touchez pas au grisbi (Jacques Becker, 1954)
The Split (Gordon Flemyng, 1968)
Out of Sight (Steven Soderbergh, 1998)
The Thomas Crown Affair (John McTiernan, 1999)
Topkapi (Jules Dassin, 1964)
Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
Thief (Mann, 1981)
The Thomas Crown Affair (Norman Jewison, 1968)
Ronin (John Frankenheimer, 1998)
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Michael Cimino, 1974)
The Good Thief (Neil Jordan, 2002)
Bob le flambeur (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1955)
The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
Heist (David Mamet, 2001)
Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson, 1996)
The Italian Job (Peter Collinson, 1969)
Quick Change (Howard Franklin & Bill Murray, 1990)
The Anderson Tapes (Sidney Lumet, 1971)
$ (Richard Brooks, 1971)
The Hot Rock (Peter Yates, 1972)
Ocean's Eleven (Soderbergh, 2001)
Ocean's Twelve (Soderbergh, 2004)
Ocean's Thirteen (Soderbergh, 2007)
Inside Man (Spike Lee, 2006)
Sneakers (Phil Alden Robinson, 1992)
Underneath (Soderbergh, 1995)
Dog Day Afternoon (Lumet, 1975)
Die Hard (McTiernan, 1988)
The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950)
The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton, 1951)
Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak, 1948)
Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
The Getaway (Sam Peckinpah, 1972)
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)
Dead Presidents (The Hughes Brothers, 1995)
The Great Muppet Caper (Jim Henson, 1981)
Charley Varrick (Don Siegel, 1973)
Straight Time (Ulu Grosbard, 1978)
After the Sunset (Brett Ratner, 2004)
The Italian Job (F. Gary Gray, 2003)
Three Kings (David O. Russell, 1999)
The Code (Mimi Leder, 2009)
Blue Collar (Paul Schrader, 1978)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Anderson, 2009)
The Driver (Walter Hill, 1978)
Family Business (Lumet, 1989)
The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (Philip Kaufman, 1972)
City of Industry (John Irvin, 1997)
Classes tous risques (Claude Sautet, 1960)
Le Cercle rouge (Melville, 1970)
The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995)
Beverly Hills Cop II (Tony Scott, 1987)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998)
The Brink's Job (William Friedkin, 1978)
Kansas City Confidential (Phil Karlson, 1952)
Blood and Wine (Bob Rafelson, 1997)
City on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1987)
Mannequin (Michael Gottlieb, 1987)
Two-Way Stretch (Robert Day, 1960)
A Man, a Woman and a Bank (Noel Black, 1979)
Ocean's Eleven (Lewis Milestone, 1960)
Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958)
Kelly's Heroes (Brian G. Hutton, 1970)
Once a Thief (John Woo, 1991)
Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991)
The Silent Partner (Daryl Duke, 1978)
A Fish Called Wanda (Crichton, 1988)
5 Against the House (Karlson, 1955)
To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955)
Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
High Sierra (Raoul Walsh, 1941)
Seven Thieves (Henry Hathaway, 1960)
How to Steal a Million (William Wyler, 1966)
The Aura (Fabián Bielinsky, 2005)
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (Simon Wincer, 1991)
Full Contact (Lam, 1993)
Cops and Robbers (Aram Avakian, 1973)
The Bank Job (Roger Donaldson, 2008)
Cruel Gun Story (Takumi Furukawa, 1964)
The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)
Die Hard with a Vengeance (McTiernan, 1995)
Going in Style (Martin Brest, 1979)
The Bank Shot (Gower Champion, 1974)
Odds Against Tomorrow (Robert Wise, 1959)
The Hard Word (Scott Roberts, 2002)
Grand Slam (Guiliano Montaldo, 1967)
The Heist (Stuart Orme, 1989)
Hudson Hawk (Michael Lehmann, 1991)
Flawless (Michael Radford, 2007)
The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (Charles Guggenheim & John Stix, 1959)
The Hard Easy (Ari Ryan, 2005)
Larceny, Inc. (Lloyd Bacon, 1942)
Welcome to Collinwood (Anthony & Joe Russo, 2002)
Gonin (Takashi Ishii, 1995)
Set It Off (Gray, 1996)
The Real McCoy (Russell Mulcahy, 1993)
Robbery (Yates, 1967)
The League of Gentlemen (Basil Dearden, 1960)
Le Deuxieme soufflé (Melville, 1966)
Rififi (Dassin, 1955)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Leonard Nimoy, 1986)
The Breakdown:
101: Films
101: Days
51: Films Watched for the First Time
24: Most Films from One Decade (1990s)
13: Directors with Multiple Films in the Marathon
7: Most Films with One Actor (George Clooney)
6: Remakes
5: Most Films by One Director (Soderbergh)
5: Most Films from One Year (1978)
3: Number of films it takes to inflate actor/director stats (not a complaint, merely an acknowledgment)
The Loot:
A few swirls of paint, a cuss-ton of food, a jeweled dagger, some jeweled eggs, a little black box, a device that can turn lead into gold, a case that should contain ice skates but probably doesn't, 2 humpback whales, 1 whole bank, and eleventy gajillion dollars in cash, stones, and gold bars. And Kim Cattrall.
Thanks for reading. See you next time.
