9. Pi, Darren Aronofsky (1998)
A few years ago, I wrote about seeing Aronofsky’s first feature Pi at the student union film theater my second semester of college. I loved it and the people I went to see it with hated it. Aronofsky’s most infamous film, Requiem for a Dream (2000) remains the all-time worst film-viewing experience of my life (close second is Dancer in the Dark, von Trier, 2000—which I also saw at that same student union).
7?/10
Alternate: mother!, Darren Aronofsky, 2018
10. The Blair Witch Project, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (1999)
Another artifact from my undergrad days. I am sure that I would be embarrassed to watch this one again, but at the time, it seemed really vital, definitely something new and different. I was taking a class which I think was called something like “electracy,” a course on “electronic literacy,” with Greg Ulmer. He showed us a bunch of Talking Heads videos I’m guessing everyone had already seen and tried to explain them, like a maniac.
We had to make two websites that semester. My first website was excellent—it was based on The Dakota building in Manhattan–John Lennon, Rosemary’s Baby, evil, the Nazis, Oprah Winfrey—it was a mess but I think it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I got a B- on it and decided Ulmer was full of shit. I made the second website on The Blair Witch Project, an afterthought. It was stupid and I was embarrassed to submit it and I made an A. I still have the other site on a hard disk somewhere.
7?/10
Alternate: Rosemary’s Baby, Roman Polanski, 1968
11. I Am Cuba, Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964
I can’t muster anything real on this one. I vaguely recall getting it from our library, around the time it was “rediscovered” (Tobias writes about that in his New Cult Canon column). My big takeaway is that PT Anderson stole a great shot from the film (but not as great as the sequence he stole from Robert Downey’s Putney Swope).
7?/10
Alternate: Putney Swope, Robert Downey, 1969
12. The Rules of Attraction, Roger Avary, 2002
I still haven’t watched this one and Tobias’s write-up doesn’t make me want to. It might be good, even great, but I doubt I’ll ever know.
–?/10
Alternate: American Psycho, Mary Harron, 2000
13. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Shane Black, 2005
A fanfuckingtastic film (or maybe just a really, really fun film) that I think I wouldn’t have bothered to check out if not for Tobias’s column. Postmodernist techniques in film can come off as too-clever or simply exhausting, but Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is assured of story, assured of its audience, and assured that its faults are ultimately its charms. Great stuff.
9/10
Alternate: The Nice Guys, Shane Black 2016
14. Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, Errol Morris, 1997
I don’t think Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control is actually a cult film. I mean, it might be, but I don’t think it is. I think it was a widely-available-on-VHS documentary feature in the late nineties, and I think that’s why I actually saw it then. I remember thinking it was Just Okay and then watching another half dozen Morris docs over the next 20 or so years and thinking that they were Just Okay.
Just Okay/10
Alternate: Literally any Werner Herzog film
Biblioklept 