100 Favorite Movies, Part 7

Hey guys, sorry about the changing type face on this post. My computer went cuckoo this week and when I tried to edit this post, it wouldn't let me open it, and then it saved it weird, and then I posted it and only the pictures showed up. So after some wrangling, this is the best I could do. It's still all mostly legible. Sorry for the inconvenience, computers can be a bitch!

ETA: I managed to fix the typeface! Go me! Yay!

• 40. THE DEPARTED (2006) - The tension in this thing is absolutely unbearable, perhaps because instead of one criminal with the heat on his back, we get two! Matt Damon plays against type as the duplicitous yet winsome mole inside the police force, and Leonardo DiCaprio is the stressed and frazzled undercover agent in the mob. Both actors hit every mark with grace and ease, never more-so than when they begin to self-destruct. The stellar supporting cast is brilliantly colored by everyone from Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen as veteran cops, the chameleon Ray Winstone as Mr. French, an indispensable Jack Nicholson as the mob boss, and Mark Wahlberg stealing scenes as the vulgar and unflappable Sgt. Dignam.

• 39. THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) - In my opinion, this is the best thing John Hughes ever wrote. The characters and experiences may be drawn a little broad, but the dialogue is snappy and memorable, many of the sentiments are touching and believable, and for a movie that is almost all talk, it captivates completely. I especially appreciate the antagonistic relationship between Molly Ringwald's spoiled princess and Judd Nelson's over-the-top bad boy. He ribs, taunts, and berates her continually, but their confrontation serves to bring the entire group closer together and expose vulnerabilities and truths from all. I also appreciate the humor of Anthony Michael Hall's kind nerd, and the way Ally Sheedy makes a sandwich.

• 38. IN HER SHOES (2005) - I don't have such a love/hate relationship with any of my sisters, but I think almost everyone can still understand the unconditional love that exists in this kind of relationship. Cameron Diaz takes on a rather unlikable character and really makes me care about her journey. She has two scenes involving poetry, one where she is exposed and vulnerable, another where she brings down the house with an emotional rendition of ee cummings. Toni Collette has the thankless role of buttoned-down older sister, but in the hands of such an accomplished actress, Rose is heartbreaking in her insecurity. And there's a winning part for Mark Feuerstein as Rose's potential boyfriend, a man who is alluring precisely because he knows himself, absolutely, and is at complete ease with exactly who he is.

• 37. BEAUTIFUL GIRLS (1995) - For me, the movie is all about the precocious and lively performance of Natalie Portman. At 14, she is Marty, the neighbor girl so effervescent and wise-beyond-her-years our hero actually falls for her despite their age difference. No worries, it's not headed for Lolita territory. But she does help him put some things in focus, and like him, she has us all wondering how Marty will turn out when she grows up.The rest of the story is a smart character study of several friends gathered together for their 10-year high school reunion, and finally growing up. A well-written, ingeniously-cast, and smartly-acted film.

• 36. GROUNDHOG DAY (1992) - Bill Murray plays wry self-absorption like it's nobody's business. Working from one of the most original screenplays, his puffed-up weatherman goes through every emotion in the book when Groundhog Day becomes the day that will not end. Murray's impeccable comic timing first has him paranoid enough to know that a life without consequences gets old after awhile, so Murray also gets to play suicidal and despondent, then rallies and finally becomes the great guy that was always hiding inside. The transformation is filled with intelligent dialogue, and a continuous gag where we see Murray slightly modify the same conversations day after day after day.

• 35. BEDAZZLED (1967) - If you've only seen the 2000 remake starring Elizabeth Hurley, you don't know what you're missing. This original British gem features Dudley Moore as sad-sack nobody Stanley Moon, who sells his soul to Satan (aka George), a witty, ingratiating chap more akin to the hero of an Oscar Wilde play than the Master of Evil. Not only does George grant Stanley wishes to change his life, but he turns up to personally ruin each of Stanley's wishes, never funnier than in the "rock star" wish: Moore desperately sings "LOVE ME" to throngs of screaming girls, only to be overshadowed by George's zen pop star, boredly monotoning lyrics like, "I don't care...just go away...you fill me with inertia, etc." The savvy script is whip-smart, and I adore that the granting of each wish is preceded by George's incantation, "And the magic words, Julie Andrews!"

• 34. STAND BY ME (1986) - Short and sweet, this movie fills me in on all the male camaraderie I missed when I was busy being a girl, not being raised in a dysfunctional home. The four child actors are all amazing: Jerry O'Connell is a pudge of timid irritation, Corey Feldman is filled with rage, Will Wheaton is the intelligent storyteller, and River Phoenix plays tough, but is wise beyond his years as he stands up for and protects the entire group. Gordie's story about the pie-eating contest is an adept combination of great writing and that immature adolescent sense of humor, and the film touchingly demonstrates that age where we lose a piece of our innocence and start to choose who we will become.

• 33. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2005) - Jane Austen's literary masterpiece, finally realized in a film as beautiful as it is clever. I'm also a big fan of the 1995 miniseries, and the two together function as companion pieces: while the mini tells the entire story, the film excels in that it feels more rustic and organic, several of the minor characters are less like caricatures that in the mini, and Jane and Mr. Wickham are both better looking - as they should be! Keira Knightley and Matthew McFadyen are wonderful leads, Knightley bringing a youthful vigor to Elizabeth Bennett, and McFadyen exposing more of Mr. Darcy's vulnerability. The scene where he unsuccessfully proposes, brilliantly filmed in the rain, is passionately performed by both, angrily airing their grievances, but still pausing a moment to dwell in the chemistry and attraction. (Also, as if I need to mention another one, it has a simply delightful score, mostly on piano, wistful and lovely.)

• 32. THE INCREDIBLES (2004) - This is an animated film that's every bit as good as any traditional action flick. Once again, Pixar takes a completely original view on familiar subject matter and turns a superhero into a pathetic family man. The movie has a lot of fun with the family's various superpowers, including Dash using his superspeed to play pranks on his teacher, and Violent using her invisibility to stalk her crush. The entire island sequence is a perfect composite of heedless joy in storytelling and gripping action sequences. I find Dash's enthusiasm infectious and hilarious, the tailor Edna (voiced by director Brad Bird) is so fabulous I have no words, and the discussion about why capes are ridiculous is a sly piece of writing.

• 31. AMELIE (2001) - Amelie is a shy girl with a wildly creative mind. When she decides to do random favors for people, she stumbles onto the perfect way to express herself with ingenuity and help others find happiness. The film is filled with odd, whimsical touches like the lamps that randomly come alive or the crush who collects discarded photo booth pictures. Star Audrey Tatou has big, round eyes full of innocent wonder and vulnerable hope, and in the course of her unique story she touches the lives of all the eccentric people around her and finds a man odd enough to complement her imagination. The film has a bright color palette of reds, greens, and yellows, and a visual flair that often feels like a surreal dream.

100 Favorite Movies Part 8

Things I Learned From Roger Ebert

By far my favorite, Ebert is the rare critic that actually seems to love movies. He can be analytical, yes, and he isn't afraid to disparage a critically popular film like Fight Club. However, he's also unafraid to love a movie that most dislike, such as Across the Universe. He writes with a clarity that is understandable even if you know nothing about film aesthetic or theory. And even if you don't agree with him, he explains himself so well you can at least see where he's coming from. I read his reviews, not only for his opinion on film, but for his keen insight into the human condition the film is attempting to convey. Many of his comments stray from the actual plot of the film into his own stories and anecdotes where he finds simples truths and discusses them with passion. Don't misunderstand my respect: I am not claiming he is the ultimate authority on any of these subjects, but his comments always provide a jumping off point for some insightful soul searching, and often help me better understand a film. Here are some of my favorite passages from his reviews.


From The Blair Witch Project:
"At a time when digital techniques can show us almost anything, The Blair Witch Project is a reminder that what really scares us is the stuff we can't see. The noise in the dark is almost always scarier than what makes the noise in the dark. Any kid can tell you that. Not that he believes it at the time."


From City of God:
"In its actual level of violence, City of God is less extreme than Scorcese's Gangs of New York, but the two films have certain parallels. In both films, there are really two cities: the city of the employed and secure, who are served by law and municipal services, and the city of the castaways, whose alliances are born of opportunity and desperation. Those who live beneath rarely have their stories told. City of God does not exploit or condescend, does not pump up its stories for contrived effect, does not contain silly and reassuring romantic sidebars, but simply looks, with a passionately knowing eye, at what it knows."


From The Woodsman:
"The reason we cannot accept pedophilia as we accept many other sexual practices is that it requires an innocent partner whose life could be irreparably harmed. We do not have the right to do that. If there is no other way to achieve sexual satisfaction, that is a misfortune, but not an excuse. It is not the pedophile that is evil, but the pedophilia. That is true of all sins and crimes and those tempted to perform them: It is not that we are capable of transgression that condemns us, but that we are willing."


From The Virgin Suicides:
"Mourn for the passing of everyone you knew and everyone you were in the last summer before sex. Mourn for the idealism of inexperience."


From Elephant:
"Truffaut said it was hard to make an antiwar film because war was exciting even if you were against it. Van Sant has made an antiviolence film by draining violence of energy, purpose, glamour, reward and social context. It just happens.....The movie is told mostly in long tracking shots; by avoiding cuts between close-ups and medium shots, Van Sant also avoids the film grammar that goes along with such cuts, and so his visual strategy doesn't load the dice or try to tell us anything. It simply watches.

"At one point he follows a tall, confident African-American student in a very long tracking shot as he walks into the school and down the corridors, and all of our experience as film-goers leads us to believe this action will have definitive consequences; the kid embodies all those movie heroes who walk into hostage situations and talk the bad guy out of his gun. But it doesn't happen like that, and Van Sant sidesteps all the conventional modes of movie behavior and simply shows us sad, sudden death without purpose."


From Brokeback Mountain:
"Strange, but true: the more specific a film is, the more universal, because the more it understands individual characters, the more it applies to everyone. I can imagine someone weeping at this film, identifying with it because he always wanted to stay in the Marines or be a cabinent-maker."


From Dangerous Beauty, a film about a courtesan (prostitute):
"I am not surprised, as I said, that the screenwriter is a woman. Few movies have been so deliberately told from a woman's point of view. We are informed in all those best-sellers about Mars and Venus, that a man looks for beauty and a woman for security. But a man also looks for autonomy, power, independence, and authority, and a woman in sixteenth-century Venice (and even today) is expected to surrender those attributes to her husband. The woman regains her power through an understanding of the male libido: A man in a state of lust is to all intents and purposes hypnotized. Most movies are made by males, and show women enthralled by men. This movie knows better."


From Capturing the Friedmans (about a father and son arrested for pedophilia):
"The film is an instructive lesson about the elusiveness of facts, especially in a legal content. Sometimes guilt and innocence are discovered in court, but sometimes, we gather, only truths about the law are demonstrated. I am reminded of the documentaries Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, which involved the trials of three teenage boys charged with the murders of three children. Because the boys were outsiders, dressed in black, listened to heavy metal, they were perfect suspects -- and were convicted amid hysterical allegations of "satanic rituals," even while the obvious prime suspect appears in both films doing his best to give himself away. Those boys are still behind bars. Their case was much easier to read than the Friedman proceedings, but viewers of the film are forced to the conclusion that the law and the courts failed them."


From The Winslow Boy:
"It is an interesting law of romance that a strong woman will choose a strong man who truly disagrees with her over a weak one who goes along. Strength demands intelligence, intelligence demands stimulation, and weakness is boring. It is better to find a partner you can contend with for a lifetime than one who accomodates you because he doesn't really care."


From A History of Violence:
"This is a movie not about plot, but about character. It is about how people turn out the way they do, and about whether the world sometimes functions like a fool's paradise. I never give a moment's thought about finding water to drink. In New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, would I have been willing to steal from stores, or fight other people for drinkable water? Yes, if it meant life for myself and my family. But I would have made a pitiful thief and fighter, and probably would have failed....At the Toronto Film Festival I saw a screening of Nanook of the North, the great documentary about Eskimos surviving in the hostile Arctic wilderness. They live because they hunt and kill. Of the three levels A History of Violence refers to, I think Cronenburg is most interested in the third, in the survival of the fittest. Not the good, the moral, the nice, but the fittest."

100 Favorite Movies, Part 6

• 50. PERSUASION (1995) - This Austen adaptation is perhaps the most grown-up of her stories. It follows Anne Eliot, a woman on the edge of spinsterhood (at 28!) who may get a second chance at love when Captain Wentworth, the man she turned down 8 years ago, returns. He is bitter about their past and determined to forget her, but they are continually forced together and eventually see they were made for each other. Anne is the most mature and compassionate of the Austen heroines, and Wentworth is a more rugged leading man, the first of Austen's starring suitors to not be a gentleman, but rather a sailor. The casting of this film also wisely strayed away from glamorously beautiful stars and instead the actors have a natural and realistic appeal that suits the wariness and lived-in qualities of the story.

• 49. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) - I can't really explain what I love about this Woody Allen masterpiece. The characters are all intelligent and talky, as in most Allen pictures, but this somehow hits a nerve. I can't explain why, but there are some films where the characters don't have to do much; you are content to listen to them talk. This is that kind of movie for me. The tangle of relationships is just inherently fascinating. It also showcases Allen in his most sympathetic performance, features inspired references to ee cummings and Bach, and youngest sister Dianne Wiest is the perfect combination of neurotic self-involvement and raw vulnerability.
• 48. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) - From the opening prologue, this film plunges us into a fairy tale that is not only fun and romantic, but ominously mysterious. The score's continuous refrain gives the story just that touch of scary magic, and the songs are some of Disney's best. Everyone knows and loves "Beauty and the Beast" and "Be Our Guest," but "Provincial Life" is a wonderful cornucopia of small town life, from the sentimental to the absurdly funny. And have we ever seen such a vain villain as Gaston? It is his very self-absorption that makes him so terrifying, and yet so funny in his self-titled (of course!) song, "Gaston." (Please, are there more amazing Disney lyrics than, "I'm especially good at expectorating!" or "And every last inch of me's covered with hair!"))
• 47. TOOTSIE (1982) - I never get tired of this one. Dustin Hoffman is the out of work actor so desperate, he dresses in drag and gets the role of a female hospital administrator on a soap opera. But while in drag, he gains some valuable insight about women and himself and starts to see the hypocrisy in many of his own credos when he falls for costar Julie (Jessica Lange). Hoffman is great as both Michael Dorsey and his alter ego Dorothy, who is warm, smart, sticks up for herself and actually feels like a separate entity. The supporting cast is also excellent, Teri Garr providing broad humor as the erratic girlfriend, and Bill Murray famously and hilariously improv-ing most of his scenes as the dryly amused roommate.
• 46. ELLA ENCHANTED (2004) - Poor Ella (Anne Hathaway) was "blessed" with the gift of obedience at birth by her drunk-ass fairy godmother. This causes her no small amount of difficulty as stupid commands like, "Wait for me," or "Shut up," affect her literally, so she sets off to get the gift removed. On her way she befriends an elf who wants to be a lawyer, a book with a man trapped inside, and Prince Charmont (Hugh Dancy), the potential love interest with his devious Uncle Edgar (Cary Elwes) in tow. The movie owes a lot to classics like The Princess Bride in the way it mixes in anachronistic details (there is a mall in her village) and views (Ella is an advocate for "Ogre rights)," but still feels like an old-fashioned adventure. The humor straddles the line between adult and kid entertainment, also containing a rousing refrain of Queen's "Somebody to Love," and a great deal of silliness, all anchored by Hathaway's grounded and good-hearted performance.
• 45. MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975) - Anyone who doesn't love Monty Python is missing out on one of the great joys of life, especially when they brilliantly lampoon the Arthurian legend of the Knights of the Round Table. In between all the ridiculousness is a lot of smart and surreal dialogue placed in far-fetched conversations and iconic scenes like The Knights Who Say Knee, the killer bunny rabbit, the weighing of the witch against a duck, the clapping of coconuts to represent horse hoofs, and most magnificently, Arthur's fight with the Black Knight. After their epic bout, The Black Knight is left limbless, shouting "It's only a flesh wound, come back and fight you coward!" And Arthur snidely answers, "What are you gonna do? Bleed on me?" I love Monty Python.
• 44. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) - Where to start! Sure this one ends on a cliffhanger with poor Han encased in carbonite, but Empire offers the most tantalizing and dark peaks into the soul of this franchise. There's the introduction of the wise Yoda as Luke learns the balance in the force. We meet the ultimate space pimp Lando Calrissian in Cloud City. Han Solo and Leia's bickering finally leads to some lovey dovey action and when she tells him she loves him, he awesomely answers, "I know." And in the most spoofed scene of the series Darth Vader tells Luke that he is his father. That revelation turns the entire story on it's head, creating a more complex and layered arc for all of the characters and making room for Vader's touching redemption in Jedi.
• 43. WHAT'S UP DOC? (1972) - Screwball comedies were staples of the '30's and '40's, but don't get made much anymore. Sure, we have romantic comedies, but they lack the zany appeal of this kooky homage. Barbra Streisand is the perfect balance of wacky instigator and coy sex kitten to Ryan O'Neal's unamused straight man. Madeline Kahn makes her film debut as his fiance, the abrasive and inimitable Eunice Burns, and the film is full of crazy subplots involving identical bags and a crowded hotel floor. The final chase scene through San Francisco is full of sight gags, throwbacks to classic silent comedy, as well as the suspense of the chase. The confrontation in the courtroom as O'Neal attempts to explain the random nuttiness of this plot is the cherry on top of a deliciously funny movie.
• 42. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004) - One of the most visually inventive films I've ever seen depicts an entire love story in reverse through the creative lens of the mind's eye. It's damn hard to get your bearings straight while watching this movie! The script cleverly juxtaposes the romance with cold science and offbeat humor, and as the wonderfully understated Jim Carrey desperately realizes he wants to keep his memories, the procedure ruthlessly yanks them away. Kate Winslet creates a truly original Clementine, all bluster and need and noise. When we finally glimpse her vulnerability it is within the construct of Carrey's memories, and that whimsical touch only serves to make the story more poignant as he watches it disappear.

• 41. ABOUT A BOY (2002) - This is probably Hugh Grant's best performance to date. He plays a cad, yes, but a cad that changes, grows and becomes a hero we root for. The romantic love story is second to the real love story between Grant's selfish Will and the awkward and honest Marcus, a thirteen-year-old boy who latches on and won't let go. Grant's narration provides amusing asides (I enjoy the way he increments his time in units) and makes the ultimate discovery that "All in all, I had a very full life. It's just that it didn't mean anything. About anything. To anyone." Toni Collette and Rachel Weisz are ideally cast and provide a necessary female point of view, and watching Will surrender and close his eyes when he finally gives in and sings with Marcus is a playful turning point.

100 Favorite Movies Part 7