Welcome
"Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome " to the online home of Ten Bad Dates with De Niro: A Book of Alternative Movie Lists, published by Faber and Faber on October 18 2007. As Joel Grey says in Cabaret (US 1972, dir. Bob Fosse) - I am your host.
What is an 'alternative' movie list? Well, what it's not is the sort of thing you find in those bloated TV shows devoted to the 'Greatest Films of All Time'; or in film-trivia books that cite all of Alfred Hitchcock's portly cameos in his own movies, or all the famous actors who turned down the chance to be in Star Wars.
No, an alternative movie list is about celebrating the things that just plain fascinate you about cinema, in spite of what anybody else might say - we're talking private passions, guilty pleasures, cult actors and actresses, unsung directors, disreputable genres, idiosyncratic themes, styles, and motifs that just happen to plug into your particular movie-loving socket ...
To learn more about Ten Bad Dates, please check out Book Information, and Contents of Book. I hope what you'll find may amuse, provoke, or otherwise stimulate you to post your own movie lists (see What's Your Ten...?). In any event, I'll be blogging here on a daily basis, and I welcome corrections, suggestions, ripostes, reflections - feedback of all kinds.
Richard T. Kelly
Friday, 2 January 2009
Yes! Per the list below, a cast-iron excuse to feature the best bits from The Thing!
posted @8:57 p.m. by Richard Kelly
Friday, 2 January 2009
Monster, Monster!
posted @8:51 p.m. by Richard Kelly
Hello again reader(s). Wait, though, is that a monster over there? There, behind you!? Or is it a list of ten great movie monsters, recently contributed by Gabriel Featherstone? Phew. The latter. I'm doubly pleased that Gabe has written in, firstly to give the site some action, and secondly because he includes The Thing (1982), and I have been minded at times to make it a prerequisite that any submission to this site include The Thing. That, or The Long Goodbye (1973). Gabe also gets TBDwDN points for including a film with Jenny Agutter, for reasons passim.
Friday, 31 October 2008
Halloween Extra: A little taste of Suspiria...
posted @8 p.m. by Richard Kelly
Friday, 31 October 2008
New List, New Lister!
posted @7:54 p.m. by Richard Kelly
Let me declare this parliament back in session, for the simple reason that one STEVEN COWIE has sent in a list, and also offered comments on a couple of the previous (see Stephen King and Video Nasties.) Stephen's list of ten is under the heading of FANTASTIC CINEMA, a broad church but a lively one none the less, and right for the night of the year when Jack o' Lanterns are offering their jagged grins all across the (un)civilised world... In advance of Stephen's choices but in relation to his comments thereupon, I will simply say that: 1. I know more than a few movie fans who will only go see New York Trashed By Monster movies in theatres equipped for HEAVY BASS. 2. Darren Aronofsky's new movie is indeed called THE WRESTLER and does indeed star Mickey Rourke. I hope to write about it elsewhere in due course, and hope that one day some obsessive Rourke fan will post a ten to this site...
