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| The ONLY time I watched a movie in 3D, which was Guardians of the Galaxy. Great movie, overpriced glasses |
A few people know me as a movie buff. I'm not just a lover of the films themselves, I love the "behind the scenes," the creative processes, the cultural influences they absorb and produce. I also like all kinds of movies. If a "romantic comedy" is good, I call it a good movie! If a scary movie is good, I call it a movie! And so on. Movies are awesome! And they can be garbage too. My parents realized early on what impact they had on me and sought to educate me on their favorites, and I picked up a few of my own. So here's my Top Ten
Favorite Movies! I said favorite, not best. Sometimes the best isn't the most enjoyable, so no Citizen Kane here (definitely one of the best). So here they are, and you can tell me how wrong I am in the comments section! ;)
10. Amadeus (1984). You may claim to hate classical music, but I bet you know and even like Mozart. His music has been part of our lexicon for centuries, and the music is the star of this beautiful period piece. Here the wild and brilliant Mozart isn't the star, his antics and genius is observed with delicious and heartbreaking envy by his wannabe rival Salieri (played by F. Murray Abraham). I sometimes find myself even sympathizing with the devious and very-human villain of Salieri, while letting the soaring soundtrack and beautiful 16th century Vienna wash over me. It's a masterpiece, and I highly recommend this Oscar winner. (A footnote, the sad decline of Mozart who died young freaked out my sister when we watched it together at a young age. The memory still tickles me...siblings you know).
9. The Wizard of Oz (1939). Kids watching the Wizard of Oz is like a rite-of-passage. You have the amazing musical score, those lavish colors, a delightful cast of characters, a million catch phrases we repeat to this day, a classic story, and.....its scary! This movie scared me as a kid! Not the whole thing mind you, but there are many images in this film that I can recall the kid in me that frightened me; the Wicked Witch of the West (I mean Come On!, what a no nonsense embodiment-of-evil villain, I could talk hours and hours about her), those freaky flying monkeys, the Wizard of Oz, "the Great and Powerful version," those bully apple trees, and the fantastic tornado bringing terror and chaos to the Kansas countryside, even watching Dorothy's terror as the red-sand hour glass ticked by. A countdown done right can really add the tension. Heck even certain scenes in the movie produced terror within me, the cruel Miss Gulch taking Toto (that poor dog, and poor Dorthy's helpless tears), the charging armies of the flying monkeys to the Witch's army, the disemboweling of Scarecrow in the Haunted Woods, to the Witch taunting Scarecrow with fire constantly, yeesh! I had seen it enough times to know there's a happy end, still I would feel the urge to look away but couldn't. It's a darn good story that's beautifully crafted, and when my son is ready to watch, we'll cringe and laugh together. (And for the record, I do not like musical Wicked, at all. Prequels ruin good villians. See below at #1).
8. Ghostbusters (1985). This movie still has the ability to make me laugh. It's Bill Murray's best movie, and all you have to do is look at the guy and you'll crack a grin. Also, who doesn't like busting ghosts?! For me this made Halloween fun. You know, when there's something strange in the neighborhood, so who ya gonna call? You see, Ghostbusters in a way taught me that those creepy-crawly scary things can be defeated! Ghostbusters had a curious draw on me growing up. As a kid I loved the ghosts, the proton beams, the amazing comical team of Winston, Ray, Peter, and Egon, the NYC setting, and the Staypuff Marshmallow Man, it just reeked coolness! Now grown up, I watch it now and realized how the "adult" jokes went over my head back then, especially scenes between Peter (Murray) and the Ghostbuster's first customer Dana (Sigourney Weaver). That helps keep the movie fresh and timeless for me (and by the way, when Dana is first taken to be possessed by the monster Zuul [you know, the chair], it scared the crap out of me). It's a fun, exciting,
and funny movie, a rare combo that I love it dearly.
7. Rear Window (1954). I had to get Alfred Hitchcock in here, and this is (I would argue) his best movie. The story is simple, a photo-journalist Jeff played by Jimmy Stewart broke his leg on the job and is stuck in a wheelchair for months while his leg heals. To pass the time he has taken on the habit of watching his neighbors in the apartment high rises across from his own. They're strangers to him, but he loves watching them, giving them names, and giving them stories. We have the dancer he calls Mrs Torso, a lonely single woman he names Mrs Lonelyheart, the traveling salesman with the sick wife, the couple who lowers their little house dog in a basket to the ground for restroom breaks, and the sculptor whose work changes as the movie moves on. Well one rainy night Jeff hears a scream across to the other apartments and one of his neighbors goes missing. Jeff is convinced there was a murder, but only has his peeping observations to share, which isn't good evidence, or ethical.
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| "Jeff's" view becomes the audience's. It's clever, funny, and tense. |
The movie picks up from there as he tries to convince his friends that something is wrong but here's the lovely catch; the movie never leaves Jeff's perspective. There are no "cuts" to the other building, no scenes at the other apartment, or cuts to his friends talking out in the hall debating Jeff's sanity; we the audience are in the same boat as the bedridden Jeff. We also become voyeurs with Jeff, which in our world of social media, over-sharing, and gossip carries a certain commentary today. We share in Jeff's curiosity over his neighbors and this possible murder mystery, and we plead with Jeff for his friends to believe him. It also doesn't hurt that the goddess Grace Kelly plays Jeff's wise and affectionate girlfriend "Lisa," who humors Jeff as he tries to work her into the role of detective. It's an amazing movie, funny and tense, and is a wonderful ride!
6. The Shining (1980). Every time I watch it, I get drawn further in. It's like diving into the deep end of a pool, trying so hard to reach the bottom, getting deeper every time, but you have to stop and come up for air or else you drown. You might get deeper everytime, and while you long to reach the bottom, you kind of hope you never do. The Shining is like that, you long to understand it, but realize the journey to understand is much more fun than any explanation. It's also darn frightening, which I love. I like to be scared in movies, and most "scary" movies today just can't do it. The scares are too predictable, the stories are done over and over, and to compensate the lack of scare in "scary" movies, today studios rely more on gore and torture to compensate. #eyeroll. It's not the "scares" that make a scary movie great, it's the story and the slow rise of tension. The Shining is all about rising the tension, slowly and methodically (like Hitchcock), as we journey deeper down the rabbit hole with the Torrance family in this classic retelling of the "haunted house" scenario. The movies starts out as Jack Torrance played by Jack Nicholson is a struggling writer, who with his wife and son agree to be the sole caretakers of a giant hotel in Colorado during the winter while the snows make it inaccessible. The hotel has a history of death and violence (shocker), but what works is that the "ghosts" aren't like the ones in Ghostbusters. It's clearly implied that the ghosts may be no more than figments of the imagination of each family member. Whenever Jack speaks or interacts with a "ghost," you'll find a mirror in the room, like he may be talking to himself. And Jack's son Danny has mental powers that allow him to hear the thoughts of others, or see traumatic events from long ago, so the "ghosts" he sees may be in his own mind...maybe. We watch Jack's sanity slip down and down, we watch this broken family break down and down, it's like watching a train-wreck, and we can't look away. We feel like we should look away, but we can't help ourselves. Many people have tried to make sense of this movie and explain its confusing plot. That may be a fools errand, but it's half the fun. It's not so much a story as it is a place, like the cursed room 237. We can't help ourselves but to return again, and again. It's my favorite scary/horror movie.
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I love the original poster; it matches the mood
of the film better than the "boxing" ones |
5. Rocky (1976). Don't laugh! The original Rocky is wonderful and sweet! The sequels, not so much. The first Rocky has a close place in my heart. It's a lonely movie, the lowly boxer Rocky (played by Sylvester Stallone who wrote the story) walking the city streets of Philadelphia that appear deserted to him most of the time, which for a city is weird but fitting here. Rocky could have been great, but the world judged him to be a bum (today we would use the word loser), and he agrees with the world. He fights forgettable local grunge boxing matches, works as muscle for a seedy local loneshark, and lives a meaningless existence. Despite his rough exterior, his heart aches for the extremely shy girl Adrian who works in the pet shop. Rocky buys pets there just so he can talk to this girl who feels as lowly as himself. Adrian's brother Paulie wants Adrian to date his friend Rocky, but is hurt and lashes out as she withdrawals from Paulie's own anger and self-loathing. Rocky's trainer "the rough cranky old man" Mickey also first appears like a cartoon, but in one scene at Rocky's lonely and empty apartment we find him feeling aged, tired, and burdened with regret. These people feel real, and we root for them to crawl out of their holes and into the light. Que the classic story of luck as Rocky is given a chance to take on the boxing champion of the world Apollo Creed, a Muhammad-Ali figure of equal charisma, arrogance, and skill. You can enjoy the parts about the training and the fight, but I'm drawn to the quieter moments; Rocky begging Adrian for a kiss, Adrian finding her voice against her abusive brother, Mickey sadly walking down the street as Rocky screams his own frustrations at him, Rocky exhausted and broken after his first long morning run of training, Rocky confessing to Adrian that he doesn't want to feel like a bum anymore. It's those emotional cornerstones that make the boxing match at the end so satisfying, as we are cheering for each of these characters to discover their own self worth. When I'm feeling down and lowly I often dream, and in my dreams I sometimes find myself in a place that looks like Rocky's apartment, disgusting and empty, longing for someone to come and end my loneliness. I guess what I'm saying is that I empathize with Rocky. That may be why I love it so, just as Rocky discovers how awesome he really is through the person that knows him best, Adrian, I look to my wife whom I allowed myself to be vulnerable to and helped me discover the champion within. I can still hear Rocky explaining to Paulie why he wants to date his depressed and quiet sister, "I don't know, she fills gaps. I got gaps, she's got gaps, together we fill gaps." (A little disclosure, my wife is not quiet or depressed, she's confident and freakin awesome! I may be like Rocky in some ways, but she is NOT Adrian!)
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This promotional poster captures
the spirit perfectly |
4. The Little Mermaid (1989). This is an inspired film. If you didn't know, at the time Disney Studios was on the ropes. They were out of money and out of ideas, and were debating closing its cherished animation studio. Out of that desperation they sought new creative minds, and from that came The Little Mermaid. What a breath of fresh air it is. I can remember sitting in the theater, riding on Prince Eric's massive sailing ship, atop the mighty ocean, and then following one lucky fish into the sea, down, down, down into the depths. Gliding past glowing jellyfish, massive giants of whales, schools of glistening fish, and the music rises, and then soaring past the camera are the mermaids! Brilliant! We see a world we want to explore, to enjoy, to just see, and we think we'll get that chance through the eyes of the protagonist Ariel, the daughter of the ocean ruler King Triton. And then the story flips us around; Ariel isn't interested in this marvel of a living ocean at all. Ariel longs for the wonders of the world "up above," ours. As an audience we get to marvel at both, long for both, and do we ever. Add onto that a brilliant cast; the worried but wise crab Sebastian, Ariel's nervous best friend the tropical fish Flounder, the dimwitted but lovable seagull Scuttle, the honorable and caring prince Eric, and the entertaining and crafty villain the sea-witch Ursula, and you have a classic. I love that the villain has a brain, so many movies have dumb or shallow villains and it's annoying. And the music, dear God it's powerful, memorable, and engaging. I also have enjoyed my changing perspective on Ariel as I've gotten older. At first I pulled for her with all my might as I empathized with her youthful passion. Then as I got older I found her gullible and shallow. Today I've grown to appreciate her street-smarts and drive. Everything that Disney has produced since then was built on the brilliance of this original. While I love much of what they've made since, this remains my favorite of the Disney animated films.
3. Pulp Fiction (1994). I wish I could explain it, but I adore this movie. I think the best word I can use to explain it is the word "cool." This is a "cool" movie. Now the people in it are not cool; hitmen, drug addicts and dealers, gangsters, armed robbers, a violent boxer, and an annoying coffee drinker, but man, Pulp Fiction just gets better with every viewing. The dialogue is the key, it's a joy to listen to. Every conversation is filled with rich and awesome conversations. A cheap movie would have characters say something just to move the plot along. For example, at the beginning as two hitmen are headed toward their next assignment a cheap movie would have them explain why they're in a car, why they have guns, what they're supposed to do, and then they would arrive. Not here, the writer and director Quentin Tarantino wisely knows the audience will figure it out, and instead uses that car ride establishing who these guys are using funny and witty dialogue about hamburgers and hamburgers in France. And what does that lead to? At their assignment, the men they meet are eating hamburgers, and they talk about it. An easy and enjoyable payoff that keeps repeating. Every piece of dialogue sets up the next part of the story. Sometimes is overt. Sometimes it's extremely subtle (I don't want to spoil it), and every new discovery is a joy to find. The story in of itself isn't all that original, but it's delivery (also done out of chronological order) elevates it above itself. Every viewing this movie just gets better and better.
2. Ben-Hur (1959). When mom told me we were watching a 3+ hour movie I cringed. The last time she suggested that was Gone With the Wind, and I wasn't a fan of it. Not here, Ben-Hur has everything! Roman armies, naval battles with fire, a chariot race that is just about perfect, a great story of revenge and redemption, boo yeah! This is also the movie I point to as my favorite "Jesus" movie. Why? You never hear Jesus speak, you only see him from the back of the head, and occasionally you hear people talk about him. Why would I say this is the best Jesus movie? Because the director William Wyler understood something most Biblical filmmakers then and now don't; it's not trying to recreate the Divine in art that draws us closer to God, it's our stories and retelling of our own experiences with the Divine that draws us to closer to God. Take for example the Sermon on the Mount and the words, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Most Christians have heard those words dozens of times. I can hear the latest Jesus actor try to take it on and try to make it sound godly, and all I can hear is a British accent over hushed tones. Been there, done that, over and over again, blah. Instead in Ben-Hur we get the vengeance-driven fallen prince Judah Ben-Hur (played perfectly by Charlton Heston) forced to hear those sacred words delivered by his loving fiancee Esther who we see earlier waiting to hear Jesus' sermon on the mountain. Which version sounds more authentic? I think B. This is the standard that I judge all Biblical epics, and almost all others fail. I watch it almost every Easter as my personal tradition.
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| "Ben-Hur" meeting Jesus. It's not Jesus' face that sells a scene (which you never see in the film), it's the reactions of everyone else. Much like us today. |
1. Star Wars IV, A New Hope. Surprised? Now I would say that the Empire Strikes Back is the best of the trilogy, A New Hope is my favorite. As a singular film, it's perfect, as Empire builds on top of it (to perfection too, but this is my favorite. The prequels are garbage as they ruin the greatest villian ever Darth Vader, and from here on I will not reference them again). As a child I dreamed of going to these places. I wanted to walk the sands of Tatooine, sit at Han Solo's table at the cantina, sit at the feet of Obi-Wan Kenobi, marvel at the giant mechanical marvels of the Jawas' landcruiser, see a Star Destroyer, or fly into the Death Star. I wanted to ride with Luke down the long trench of the Death Star. I wanted to intervene and save Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. I wanted to chat and giggle at C3P0 and R2D2. I wanted to be in the same room as Darth Vader and just feel his commanding presence. I looked upon Princess Leia with awe and respect (she's no shrinking violet, breaking the "princess" cliche!). I wanted to scream to our band of heroes, "There's a monster in the trash water, and you're in a trash compactor!" I wanted to duel with lightsabers, darn the consequences of lost limbs! Since I was 5-6 years old this is still the place I find my imagination going back to. It's why I have this movie memorized completely (and 99% of Empire Strikes Back and 95% of Return of the Jedi). Even to this day kids find inspiration and excitement in this movie. It's timeless. The special effects STILL look good! Heck at the time it came out it was received as a message of hope and optimism to a nation trapped in a de
cade of war and scandal. To this day, I am able to pretend that I am seeing it for the first time when I sit to watch it. Here's what happens when I do;
I can feel my pulse quicken as Luke races down the trench of the Death Star, Vader in hot pursuit, Luke's friends on the moon planet below in peril. He's all alone, and it looks hopeless. Then comes Han Solo, "You're all clear kid! Now let's blow this thing and go home!" Then the musical score turns to building pulses, and I freeze. The proton torpedoes hit their mark, but the Death Star charges its planet-destroying weapon, I find myself holding my breath. Then at the last possible second, the Death Star explodes, and our heroes triumph, I hear the voice of our beloved Obi Wan, and feel tears glisten my eyes. Movies don't get better than this.
Star Wars IV is my favorite movie of all time, and the best.
Honorable mentions that didn't make my FAVORITES list, listed alphabetically; Alien, Blade Runner, Cool Hand Luke, The Dark Knight (which might make my top ten list eventually), Die Hard, The Exorcist, The Godfather, Groundhog Day, High Noon, It's a Wonderful Life, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Princess Mononoke, Psycho, Seven, Silence of the Lambs, There Will Be Blood, Up, Vertigo. Did I miss any?
