I DON'T WANT TO GO TO REHAB (FIVE STAR MOVIES)

Everyone's got an addiction - mine, like many people's, is Netflix. My queue is stuffed to saturation, my day revolves around making time to watch a movie and keep my queue moving, and I've become overly familiar with the pickup times at my local mailboxes – but there's a silver lining: a cornucopia of reviews.

The reviews are broken up into three sections by their starred rating: 5 stars, 3 to 4.5, and 0 to 2.5. Movies that make my Top Ten or Top Twenty are marked as such. There's also a hall of shame -– the Bottom Ten.

FIVE STARS
Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People (1942, 1944)
Top Twenty
Cat People is one of the great fright films. Simone Simon stars as a young woman convinced she turns into a murderous feline. She’s right, but not everyone believes her, to their clawed regret. Jacques Tourneur directed this masterpiece of shadows and suggestion; the terror highlight is a nighttime walk through Central Park. However, the sequel is an entirely different affair, a weird, daffy fantasy about an unhappy girl and the strangely helpful spirit of Simon’s cat person.

Jules et Jim (1962)
Top Ten
A signpost of cinema, Jules et Jim is one of Francois Truffaut’s masterpieces, an exploration of love and its bitter discontents. Jeanne Moreau is unforgettably alluring as Catherine, the romantic cynosure of Jules (Oscar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre). Jules et Jim has acquired the weight of a masterpiece, but its gracefulness in telling a disturbing story belies that weight. Possibly the most adult film ever made, Jules et Jim is a must-see.

Liza with a 'Z' (1972)
Electrifying. Liza with a 'Z' is a long lost TV special from 1972, directed by Bob Fosse and starring a youthful Liza Minnelli. The picture’s a little grainy and the music might be called kitschy, but Liza is nuclear fission incarnate, a true star basking in the well-deserved love of her glamorous audience. A peak number is “I Gotcha” – the pink spangled Halston minidress, the supersexed-up Fosse choreography and Liza’s wacked-out divaness add up to camp nirvana. If her tabloid exploits obscured Liza’s talent and left you wondering what the original fuss was, Liza with a Z is your answer. The extras include an interview with Liza and the video restoration team that’s as pure an example of fan worship as you’ll ever see.

The Red Shoes (1948)
Top Ten
The Red Shoes is essential viewing, a Technicolor extravaganza unlike anything else in the movies and so uniquely designed, acted and filmed that it singlehandedly justifies the elevation of the movies into an art form. Based on the Hans Christian Anderson story about a doomed ballerina, and filmed by the writer/director team of Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell in a style describable as celestial kitsch. Stars the glittering Moira Shearer as the doomed ballerina, Marius Goring as her composer and lover, and Anton Walbrook as the Diaghilev-like impresario. With its glimpses of post-Ballet Russe dancing and Leonide Massine’s performance as the ballet master, The Red Shoes is catnip for ballet fans. Its aesthetic descendants include Jacques Demy’s equally entrancing The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Rififi (1955)
Top Ten
Jules Dassin’s heist flick has a hurtling dramatic power. Almost lighthearted at the beginning but ultimately a Shakespearean tragedy, Rififi is a true original, a scathingly misanthropic hair-raiser. The famously dialogue-free heist sequence is remarkable. Rififi is clearly indebted to John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and an inspiration to cinematic sponger Quentin Tarantino.

The 39 Steps (1935)
Top Ten
Hitchcock’s 1937 film of the John Buchan adventure novel is one of his best and is the ur-text for the spy film genre, the stylish Bourne Identity being its most recent variation. Suave Robert Donat stars as Hannay, accused of murder and racing to find the real killer with persnickety blonde Madeleine Carroll as his unwilling accomplice. Hitchcock’s storytelling verve is at its purest: the escape by train, the pursuit through the Scottish highlands, the encounter with the man with the missing finger are all prime examples of Hitchcock’s remarkable genius. Its ramshackle special effects are a special delight. Check out the helicopter!
Further Viewing: The Lady Vanishes, 1938.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Top Ten
Magic. Jacques Demy’s unforgettable pop-art musical of young love is one of the supreme cinematic creations. Breathtakingly lovely Catherine Deneuve stars as a young woman in love with a handsome but penniless garage mechanic (Nino Castelnuovo) who is sent off to the Algerian War. The sung dialogue is startling at first and the art direction is goofy to the point of psychedelia, but Demy spins these potential distractions and Michel Legrand’s elegant music into fairy tale gold. If you have the chance to see it on a big screen, jump! Restored to its original glory in 1992.