The only movie on this list I have seen is Adventureland. It was horrible. Was it supposed to be a comedy or an after-school special? It was nearly humorless and poorly written.

If it is anything like these other movies I will avoid them all.

I have to say I've enjoyed all three of his movies; Metropolitan, Barcelona and Last Days of Disco; but I can't relate to any of his characters...indeed his characters are too detached and navelgazey and usually generally unlikeable (especially Chris Eigeman who is in all three). But, there's something voyeristicaly appealing about them, this insular bubble of wealthy New York young adults in the 1980's; perhaps in the way F Scott Fitzgerald was, in some degree, 60 years earlier. Their world is ending among the old money set as globalization and the nouveau riche insider traders take over; yet they are oblivious, wrapped up in petty pursuits or naive romantic pusuits.

Thanks for the reminder. Any of these three might bear another viewing.

Thanks for highlighting both of these films. They are marvelous. The Criterion Collection edition of 'The Last Days of Disco' is flawless and put the film back in the hands of the fans. The movie has been unattainable and out of print for many years. Both films capture a generation with sweet complexity. I hope Stillman has more in him but if not, I have 3 great films in my library!

Ryan Reynolds was fantastic in Adventureland. I really didn't know he could act until I saw this.

Am glad to know about the last three obscurities (and want to vouch for ADVENTURELAND which will surely find its deserved audience-- a deeply romantic film too funky for genre). But am sorry you didn't use this opportunity to tell readers about newly available O'HORTEN. DVD viewers may think they're not ready for the adventures of a just-retired Oslo bachelor train-engineer but boy, are they mistaken!

Looks like I'll be shopping for some DVDs later on. I've seen two already, "Disco" and "Audition" and enjoyed both of them. I'm surprised "Audition" made it into the list as I never expected more than horror buffs to recommended it (love horror!). Yes, Takaski Miike is definitely one of the grandfathers when it comes to the torture porn genre so that should be a warning to those interested in watching his movie. It's not too gory until you get to the last half-hour to fifteen minutes which all the anticipation amounts to. And it just builds and builds throughout the entire movie (watch out for that big bag that moves by itself in our villainess's apartment!). Indeed, middle-aged men looking for a young thing to have an affair with should beware as age and gender doesn't equal power.

Adventureland is really a great movie. Kristen Stewart very much impressed me. The characters are well written and more interesting than you'd think.

I wish I knew where Whit Stillman went. All of his movies were deeply moving and well done. I don't know if any of his characters were quite like Nick Smith in Metropolitan. An asshole with a surprising deepness, whose motivations are only hinted at. Stillman never filmed a better scene than his bittersweet goodbye on a platform in Grand Central.

I'm sorry, it had its moments, but overall I gave it a Slightly Passing grade at best and a Pretty Disappointing grade at worst. The best stuff was early on - the milieu of the cheesy 80s amusement park was captured well and with some great humor here and there, and the lead actor is appealing. But Kristen Stewart, here as in Twillight, acts with her hair, and by exhaling air in too-cool exasperation every few minutes while rolling her eyes; she basically sucks the life out of every scene she's in. The romantic, wholly unbelievable coda at the end in NYC was a dud too, but most comedies nowadays never sustain themselves past their midpoint.

That said, it's still smarter than 99% of what Hollywood puts out, so maybe I'd recommend it on that sliding scale of diminished expectations alone.

A Hampshire grad who's still a virgin?

File that one under science fiction.

I truly wish I'd never seen "Audition." I wish I did not have those images in my memory.

I guess I don't get what would be so "dry" and "academic" about a social history of 20th-century Czechoslovakia (it's got a fascinating history all around), or why you keep bringing in the anti-intellectual clichés. Your writing would be easier to admire without them.

Thanks for the interesting and academically-informed review of "Antichrist," by the way.

I disagree that Last Days is Stillman's best film. Metropolitan has great dialogue, but it's an apprenticeship movie, about people exactly like Stillman. Last Days is Stillman distill(man)ed, but the process has drained it: it's etoliated, enervated, and other words beginning with E.

Barcelona, however, is fantastic: acute, witty and full of life. The Americans in it who are brought up short by their discovery that being American is not a magic shield that will automatically protect them from terrorism has a lot to say to a post-9/11 America.

Let's see:

A man sexually assaults a woman, burning her.

She then cuts off both his feet.

She proceeds to work in a bar, dismembering the woman in charge.

She then amputates both feet of a man, removes his tongue, chops off an ear, and hacks 3 fingers. Then she sticks him naked in a sack, feeding him vomit.

She next finds a widower whose son wants him to love again. Seeing a picture of his dead wife, she kills his dog and amputates the man's leg. Before she can lop off the second and start butchering his son, she falls and breaks her neck.

All to avenge some cigarette burns and a few penile insertions lacking permission.

Hey, sounds fair to me.

And, no doubt, Hitler.

But let the perp be male--- and most of the victims female--- and there'd be global feminist protests.