Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Some films to create your own Dennis Hopper retrospective with.

Some suggestions for at-home cineastes who want to program their own Dennis Hopper festival before museums and revival theaters follow suit:
EASY RIDER, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, TRUE ROMANCE, APOCALYPSE NOW ORIGINAL AND/OR REDUX, RUMBLE FISH, BLUE VELVET, HOOSIERS, BACKTRACK [one of Hopper-as-director's most idiosyncratic films with a spectacularly diverse cast including Hopper, Vincent Price, Joe Pesci, Bob Dylan and Jodie Foster], OUT OF THE BLUE, THE RIVER'S EDGE, ELEGY, SPEED, COLORS, WATERWORLD.

THE LAST MOVIE--a rather controversial art-and-life-imitate-each-other curio from the days (specifically 1970-71) when Universal Pictures gave Hopper, Peter Fonda and Monte Hellman carte blanche to make low-budget counterculture extravaganzas--isn't on DVD yet, but will be worth seeking out for the serious Hopper appreciator. Brad Stevens of the British Film Institute makes a case for THE LAST MOVIE's artistic validity in this article: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/exclusive/dennis-hopper-obituary.php

Also, KID BLUE (a 1972 comedy-Western with Hopper as a man who doesn't fit in well with early 20th-century life) is worth a look if it resurfaces on Fox Movie Channel.

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