Oprah Movie Club Pick for July: The Godfather

1972 movie

Rating: 20/20 (Jen: 18/20)

Plot: A powerful mafia family makes the transition from one Don to another Don, interesting since nobody in the family actually seems to be named Don. After Vito refuses to help out a rival family involved in the drug trade, violence and eventually a war break out. Youngest son Michael who had distanced himself from his family's criminal activities is drawn into the family business. 

I apologize for this being several months late, but that sort of thing happens when you're going through a mid-life crisis. Actually, I was just waiting for somebody to make me an offer that I could not refuse or at least spice up my mornings by putting a horse's head in my bed. At the end of August, I did wake up, look under my covers, and start screaming, but it was for different reasons. 

I would like to see a retelling of this story from the perspective of that decapitated horse, by the way. This makes two animal decapitations in a row for me, at least according to the order I'm writing about things on the blog. But hear me out on this retelling/remake. The film starts with the horse, probably played by Adrian Brody, talking to Babe the pig from the movie Babe. The horse is talking about how he may have to leave the farm because some old rich guy wants to buy him and use him to breed racehorses. Babe, a little naive, says, "You mean, some rich guy is going to mount you?" and the horse says, "No, I'd be having relations with other horses--girl ones." Babe would say, "Lucky you! That sounds pretty hot!" and the horse will answer, "No, Babe. You're forgetting that I'm a gay horse." Then, they have an off-screen sexual encounter. That's plot twist #1. Later, Brody is at his new home. He's daydreaming, and the audience gets to enjoy a montage of the horse and Babe having gay old times--including some on-screen sexual encounters--while an original song that I wrote called "Horsey Porking [Love in B-Minor]" plays. The daydreaming is interrupted when Woltz, played by either a CGI-John Marley or an animatronic one, comes in and says, "Get ready for action, horse!" He brings in a girl horse played by Sarah Jessica Parker. She whinnies, and Adrian Brody Horse has to pretend that he's sick to avoid an unwanted sexual encounter. Tom Hagen shows up, and the horse gets an idea. He chops off his own head and throws it in Woltz's bed--with the help a scarecrow, some dancing and singing mice (because I want this to be something that children can also enjoy), and Johnny Fontane. That's right--he chopped off his own head! That's plot twist #2 and possibly the reason why I'm on my way to an original screenplay Oscar. The head is discarded, but in yet another plot twist, the horse is still alive and, with the help of his pig lover Babe, flees to Sicily where he befriends--you guessed it--Michael Corleone and gives him advice on stuff. This is after his head is fused to the body of (Plot twist #4!) a unicorn. I'm not sure if there's a horse seen during the wedding scene in Sicily in this The Godfather movie, but Coppola's pal George Lucas can help him digitally insert one in there. 

Anyway, I need to work on an ending. 

I'm amazed at how simply such a complicated story is told. There are gaps in the storytelling, but what's missing isn't exactly vital anyway, and the whole thing is structured like a Shakespearean tragedy. The dynamics between the characters are never spelled out but become clear as the characters grow right on the screen. The acting must be good in this thing because those characters become so real, their intentions so clear, and their inner conflicts so rich without the help of anything we're told in the movie. Pacino and Caan are both great playing two very different sons. Pacino does inner conflict so well that you can almost see the inner monologue bleeding through his eyes. And Caan plays unhinged in such a way that you almost worry about the real James Caan. Everybody's just so good in this movie. Duvall's as good as I've seen him as Hagen, Abe Vigoda begging for his character's life with Duvall might be the former's finest acting moment. Loved the aforementioned non-animatronic Marley as Woltz, and his horse was pretty good, too. And no, I'm not ignoring the very best acting performance in this movie--Sofia Coppola as the baby. God, I hope Sofia Coppola's in the sequels!

What about female characters? My wife was a little bored with this. It was the first time she had seen it. I speculated that it's a "boy movie" because the women are mostly in the background, but my father assured me that it was not a "boy movie" at all. There is a little romance with Michael and the gal with the nipples in Sicily but it's only developed to the point where its conclusion will matter. Diane Keaton is really good as his love interest in America, and Rocky's wife is fine whenever she's on the screen, but I wouldn't call them important characters. No, this movie's more of a proverbial sausage fest. The most notable lack of screen time would be Vito's wife. How many lines does she get in this movie? Anyway, do females like this movie? 

This movie opens with a considerable amount of black screen before the slow pull back shot with Bonasera talking about how much he believes in America. Is that where the makers of The Sopranos got the idea to end their series with a black screen? Probably! I like this semi-soliloquy to start the film, by the way. It forces you to consider the American dream in the context of the whole story. I don't have the energy to flesh out those details exactly, but there's got to be something there. And then you meet Vito for the first time, Brando acting with nothing more than a right hand. And then you see Brando for the first time and he's manhandling a kitty. 

My question: What happens to that cat? It's not in the movie anymore after this first scene. Why give the Godfather a cat for only one scene in the entire movie? Does the cat do something wrong and is dispatched? Brando's character is a criminal, but he's also clearly a loving family man. Is the cat an easy visual way to show the two sides of this complex character? 

I love how much you learn about Vito in the early wedding scenes. You see him dealing with people, and the respect they have for him is obvious. Love watching Luca Brasi practicing his interaction with Vito in a simple scene that shows you so much. Lenny Montana is really good, probably the best performance by a former wrestler if you take Tor Johnson's work in Plan 9 from Outer Space or The Beast of Yucca Flats out of the picture. 

What can you say about this nearly-perfect movie? There are so many memorable scenes--Sonny getting it at the toll booth and Brando's reaction to seeing his son's bullet-riddled body, the horse head in the bed, the brilliant montage with the juxtaposition of the hits being carried out and Michael renouncing Satan at the baptism where he literally becomes the Godfather, Michael's retaliation in the restaurant where Pacino does so much with his eyes, Brando's ability to gyrate his forehead, that final shot of Michael in the doorway after his life leaves. I think the simple matter-of-fact style of the movie enhances the moments. Really, it's such a simple style. The cinematography is very dark at times which seems intentional at times, but there's almost no flash to the direction and nothing that stands out as a stylistic touch. This film seems old school because it's the storytelling and characters created by great acting that make it all work so perfectly.

My favorite piece of trivia from this: Mario Puzo had an issue with a part in the script that called for a character to "brown some sausage" and crossed out "brown" to replace it with "fries," adding "Gangsters don't brown" in the margins. That's just great.

My favorite character: Enzo.

A question: Was there ever a board game based on The Godfather? Kind of like a Candyland thing but with more Italians and violence and less color and candy? If not, why? I mean, if they made a Welcome Back, Kotter board game, why not a Godfather one?

Raging Bull

1980 boxing movie

Rating: 20/20

Plot: The story of boxer Jake LaMotta and how Jake LaMotta leaked all over the floor.

Ok, I know I just called it a boxing movie, but it's not really a boxing movie. It's a movie about a boxer. There's a difference, and that difference is what elevates this to its status as one of the greatest movies of all time. This has scenes that take place in boxing rings. They're filmed in a way that puts the audience right in the ring. The use of slow motion, the black and white grime, a camera that just leers, background sounds and the way those background sound (including birds?) are recorded just forces you to focus, and that's true of the scenes in the ring as well as outside the ring. Scorsese has this way of making this movie stuff, in some weird way, more real than reality, and that's even with the boxing scenes probably not looking all that realistic. But again, it's not a boxing movie, and Scorsese and company aren't all that interested in creating realistic boxing scenes. No, they want to create a picture of a self-destructing man's soul, the colors of that soul's bruises, the depths of its creases, and the shapes of its scars. It's not necessarily a soul you want to spend much time with, but this, maybe more than any other biopic, just traps you in there and almost forces you to watch. After a couple hours with LaMotta, you really almost feel like you've been pummeled for fifteen rounds. And there's such a range of emotions you feel with this subject. You hate the guy, you sort of feel bad for the guy, you laugh at the guy, you're scared for the guy, and you're scared of the guy. A lot of the power in this character and this movie comes from De Niro's otherworldly performance, that ability to crawl inside LaMotta's skin. De Niro likely had to take extra long showers after some of these scenes. LaMotta's character is one that doesn't make a lot of sense, but De Niro makes him make sense, makes all his flaws real. It's one of the greatest performances of all time, the kind of performance that is so good that it could almost kill a movie if that makes any sense. The kind of performance that could completely overshadow what everybody else is doing. I remember seeing this as a kid and actually believing that old flabby LaMotta was being played by a different, chubbier and older actor. Still have trouble believing that transformation. With De Niro's brilliance, it's remarkable that anybody else in this movie can float, and the fact that they do is evidence of their own abilities. Pesci can freak out like the best of them, and every single scene that Pesci and De Niro share has this great rhythm to it, as well as this electricity that you just don't see with a pair of actors all that much. Part of it might be the writing, but the words didn't stand out so much. They could have been reading grocery lists back and forth to each other, and it still might have worked. And Cathy Moriarty's performance is simply stunning. In a movie about men, she manages to not be completely swallowed up. Her eyes cut through the screen, blink right in your living room. She and her character have this power, and it's amazing to me that can deliver this type of performance since A) she was only 19 or 20 when it was filmed and B) it was her first movie. Just amazing. Scorsese's directing tricks are subtle, but he's a master, here squeezing this raw intensity on the screen. A terrific, exhausting movie.

Shane Reviews the Greatest Movies Ever Made: 2001: A Space Odyssey

1968 nerd space mind pornography

Rating: 20/20 (Buster: dnf)

Plot: Monkeys discover a monolith and beat each other senseless with bones. Millenniums later, mankind finds itself a lunar monolith, and a crew of five--two awake and three in hypersleep--ventures to a distant planet to find the source of a mysterious humming. H.A.L. goes apeshit.

I remember watching this the first time--post Star Wars--and thinking, "What the fuck is with the monkeys?" I think the forty-five minutes of monkeys at the beginning of this kept me from believing this movie is as great as it is. Watching it for a third time as a more seasoned cinephile, I appreciate the monkeys (or ape men or whatever they are) a lot more. In fact, there's not a single shot in that takes place on earth that isn't suitable for framing. And you have to give credit to whoever trained those monkeys because they are great.

Flash forward to space, a bone transforming into a spacecraft of some kind. And it's all so beautiful. I can imagine more-scholarly hippies and nubile astronomers furiously masturbating from the very first shots in space until the mind-melting climax with the color assault and bewildering space fetus, just blasting off and Milky-Waying sticky theater floors like geeky Paul Reubenses. In space, no-one can hear you ejaculate. At least that's what I've heard. Just check out that moon. It looks more moon than the footage of the moon landing. It's so clear and so beautiful and textured that I had an overwhelming desire to move closer to my television set. These are effects that are so good that I don't even think about how they are made--I just assume that the actors and crew are actually in space.

At 25:30, you get the first spoken word, but none of the words in this thing really matter because this film's all about the images. And sound. Kubric uses classical music--Also sprach Zarathustra, Blue Danube, the creepy Gyorgy Ligeti stuff, et. al.--better than anybody. I love the space exploration as ballet, and that combination of the Strauss with that endlessly spinning space station transforms science and technology into something a little closer to art. It reminds me of how Star Wars was originally supposed to have a classical score. Speaking of Star Wars--A New Hope was less than 10 years away when this came out, but does anybody else think the effects for this are even better than the ones in that movie? I might. Anyway, back to that music. The way the movements of the human characters and space things match the music is so beautiful, but when the music is a little more modern and experimental and almost clashes with what's happening on the screen, that's just as beautiful--beautiful in a chilling way. Of course, Kubrick knows when not to use music as well, and the loneliness of some of the scenes without music, especially the ones where Dave's buddy is propelling through nothing on his way into nothing, is almost impossible for a person watching the movie not to feel. Kudos to Kubrick for creating a palpable alienation, loneliness, claustrophobia, and paranoia through his imagery and sound.

The audience also gets to appreciate the minutia of space travel with scenes of the two astronauts sitting around, running around, and sitting around more. The shots of the astronaut exercising is just so cool. Who thinks of including something like that in a science fiction movie? There's an immediate disorientation created, and it's those little details that do help the viewer empathize with the characters and make what could be a really cold experience be a little more profound and emotionally stirring. People tell me that this movie is boring. They're the same people who probably think baseball is boring because there's all this space (pun intended) available for pondering. You really appreciate and welcome the minutia. It might seem boring because of the lack of dialogue. As I mentioned, there's no dialogue until the 25:30 mark, and we learn soon in that conversation that Howard Johnsons exist in space. But almost none of the human dialogue actually matters, and as a fan of silent movies, I love that. H.A.L.'s voice, provided by Douglas Rain, is perfect, and it's that little red light that gets the most emotional dialogue, stuff that even tops the human characters' interaction with their daughter or parents.

I'm not going to pretend what it all means, especially the bewildering last twenty minutes or so--another silent twenty minutes or so to bookend the stuff with the ape men. The anachronistically designed room, the hovering fetus, the flashing lights that would have given me a seizure had I moved closer to the television to see the moon like I almost did. Monkeys, three monolith sightings, what may or may not be aliens, luminescent space fetuses, lots and lots of space funk. It's a staggering work, one that is as mysterious as every other science fiction movie probably should be. It's one of those museum movies, an artsy-fartsy heavy-handed and bulbous movie that is long and slow enough to be boring but manages to be completely watchable and absolutely stunning.

Stanley Kubrick--that guy was pretty good.

New prank idea that I got from this movie: Set up a monolith at the foot of friend's bed while he is sleeping. Wait for him to wake up. When he touches it, hit him over the head with a bone. Laugh hysterically.

Pulp Fiction Redux

1994 masterpiece

Rating: 20/20 (Dylan: 15/20)

Plot: See here for a comprehensive plot synopsis.

Part two of my son's Quentin Tarantino education. Here's all he had to say about this one: "There was only one character I liked." That was, maybe predictably since my son is a black teenager who really enjoyed those Star Wars prequels, Samuel L. Jackson. Speaking of Samuel L., I was playing that board game Apples to Apples last night at my dad's house. The green clue card was "Cool" and "Cold-blooded" was one of the other words on the card. I confidently threw my Samuel L. Jackson card. How the hell does that not win? Anyway, my son, like has been with every other movie with the exception of Raiders of the Lost Ark, is wrong. I don't think there's a character in this movie who isn't great, and I would also say that about the actors and actresses who play them. This is a movie that has a unique energy, and yes, I'm using the word unique correctly here. There isn't another movie with the wall-to-wall energy that Pulp Fiction has, and the movie has this weird power to make other movies worse. You watch another movie, think to yourself "This isn't Pulp Fiction," and not like the movie as much. Other movies just have no chance, probably because they have any of the following:

--Uma Thurman and John Travolta dancing. My God, I absolutely love how Uma Thurman moves, both in this and obviously the Kill Bills. I don't know if it's how Tarantino dressed her or films her or just the way she's shaped, but watching her move in Jack Rabbit Slim's just makes my penis giggle.

--The rapport between Travolta and Jackson. Who would have guessed that in 1993?

--Christopher Walken's ass watch story. That's just one of those things that exists only to make the world a slightly better place.

--John Goodman's voice? I swear that's him as the boxing announcer.

--Baggies and twistiks.

--"I said God-damn!" I'm going to devote 2013 to saying that just like Uma for regular everyday thing. Picture me taking a bite of a burrito, lifting my head, and exclaiming, "I said God-damn!" It's happening.

--"I don't think Buddy Holly's much of a waiter." This probably won't go down as one of Buscemi's best roles, but shouldn't it?

--The Wolf's notes: "One body no head" cracks me up. And his line, "Well, let's not start sucking each other's dick quite yet." Ah, I love Harvey Keitel.

--Bruce Willis going ballistic in the hotel room. If you'll allow me to call that a fight scene, Bruce Willis vs. hotel room might be one of my favorites.

--The Honey Bunny/"Execute every last one of you" juxtaposition, goose-pimply funny. Upon repeat viewings, you watch and wait for that moment, and then it happens and is magical.

--"Mmmm, that's a tasty burger." The entire scene in the apartment is electric. Just so so good!

--Pop Tarts, Butch? You're risking it all for Pop Tarts?

--Speaking of breakfast--Fruit Brute cereal. I think I just assumed it was Tarantino-invented. Now, however, I've been tricked into thinking I remember it from my childhood. It's definitely within my window of childhood.

--Lava product placement. Whoever makes that product has a perfect "bloody towels" commercial here.

--Jack Rabbit Slim's little fella.

--"Miserlou" to "Jungle Boogie". Who changes the channel on the radio dial during the opening credits?

--Ving Rhames. "No, man. I'm pretty fucking far from OK" and that bandaid on his neck.

--Divine intervention. Travolta and Jackson's faces after that guy comes in with a hand cannon. Hand cannon!

--That tracking shot following Willis to his apartment to fetch his watch. And while I'm thinking  of Bruce, I also like his face as he looks upon Vincent.

--The way Esmeralda says "Butch" and maybe actually everything she says. Angela Jones should be a movie star!

--Vincent's confusion when using the intercom.

--Finally, "My name's Paul and this shit's between y'all." It just occurred to me that I have a name that rhymes with a lot of things. "My name's Shane and my interest in this shit's started to wane." I don't know. Surely I can come up with something better than that.

I can't wait to see Django Unchained. I might have to hit the theater.

Freaks

1932 circus soap opera

Rating: 20/20

Plot: A circus strongman and a trapeze artist conspire to steal a sideshow little person's fortune. Gooble gobble.

This is a special movie. A lot of its specialness is the context. It's 1932 when talkies are mostly awkward, and as expected from both the time period and the use of non-professional actors, this is stagy. But you look past that because so much of this is stuff you've never seen on screen before and will likely never see again. Sure, certain directors revel in showing audiences the grotesque, but in Freaks, Browning shows it all so casually, and instead of exploiting the sideshow performers in this movie, they're just nonchalantly shown going about their business and are easily more likable than the "normal" characters. This is prior to the enforcement of the Hays Code, and a couple years later, this movie wouldn't have been allowed to exist. Predictably, it was banned in several places as well as being heavily edited by the studio. The studio also decided to tack on a happier ending.

Here's my context: I had heard about this movie long before I saw it. I saw a VHS copy at a library and took it home to give it a spin. I enjoyed the antics of the titular freaks, but the 1930's movie aesthetics were distracting while the story was weak. It's really a side-show soap-opera rather than the horror cult classic that I was setting myself up for. However, I couldn't shake it, especially the climactic scene in the rain that is so wonderfully filmed. I watched it again, and what I thought were flaws the first time I watched it didn't seem important at all. Now that I've seen it a third time, I think it's a masterpiece.

At the heart of the movie is Hans, the little guy whose infatuation with the "most beautiful big person" he's ever seen leads to the tragedy. He's played by Harry Earles who unfortunately has a small discography which includes another Tod Browning movie called The Unholy Three which I liked. He was also in the Lollipop Guild. His wife in this movie is played by his sister which, if you ask me, is all kinds of creepy. His character in this is such a player. Harry and his sister Daisy are both great, and they have these great little people voices. The best Hans scene is when he raves about "Swiss cheese heads" with tiny clinched fist body language. The "laughing" speech is also really good. Of course, this movie isn't just about little people. The first shot of the microcephalic children from the circus with "La la la" circles is plenty shocking, but there's also something beautiful and wonderful about the whole thing. Add conjoined twins, one who is marrying a stutterer; Johnny sans the lower half of his body whose deft maneuvering using on his arms is beyond impressive (Johnny Eck--a guy referenced in a Tom Waits' song); a marriage between a thin man and bearded lady whose offspring just made me try picturing a thin-man-and-bearded-lady sex scene in my head; a guy with no arms and no legs who lights a cigarette (Prince Randian in his only role); a bird-girl; Schlitzie, one of the "pinheads" whose incomprehensible dialogue doesn't even get subtitles; and the 2'11" Angelo Rossitto who gets the "Gooble Gobble" chant started during the great wedding reception scene. From the torn title screen leading into a carnival barker's foreshadowing intro about the "code of living monstrosities" to the shocking rain-drenched finale, this is about as fascinating as movies get, one that has really grown into one of my favorites.

Shane Reviews the Greatest Movies Ever Made: Citizen Kane

1941 movie

Rating: 20/20

Plot: A rich guy dies, and newspapermen investigate why he would have said "Rosebud" as he passed away and broke his snow globe.

It's hard to believe that this could be anybody's directorial debut. It's also hard to believe that anybody can roll into the movie game and be this pretentious, and if one isn't in the right mood, this would seem bloated and empty. The visuals and fragmented story-telling technique are way ahead of his time, predicting so many other pretentious masterpieces that would follow this. The death montage at the beginning of all this (or the end depending on how you look at it) sets up all of this so nicely, and if that was the only thing that survived from Orson Welles' career as a director, it'd be enough to make cinemaphiliac snobs jizz into their popcorn buckets. Actually, forget I typed that because a movie snob isn't going to lower himself to holding greasy popcorn buckets in their laps. This movie actually does feel a lot like a warm--but not excruciating--metallic popcorn bucket pressed right up against the junk. And there are some people who like that kind of thing a lot, probably too much, while others would rather do something else with both their time and junk. There's no way I was mature enough to grasp this the first time I watched it at my dad's house when I was six, but even then, the look of this thing floored me. You get jaw-dropping visual flair around each black and white corner, and while it often feels like a pointless exercise, the camera tricks and angles are always more interesting than the film's plot, often overshadowing it. I love the way the camera captures these characters; they're filmed in a way that adds as much to the characterization as the dialogue does. I don't think that's a problem at all. The acting's phenomenal, Welles especially. I especially love the scene where he destroys a room like a rock star in a hotel and an extended shot of his face while he watches his wife butcher music on the stage. The physical changes the character goes through are also impressive. This might be a movie that I admire way more than I feel, but that's not stopping me from giving it a 20/20.

Jen fell asleep during this. She claims she saw it in high school, but she also claims that she read Moby Dick.

The Wizard of Oz

1939 fantasy

Rating: 20/20 (Dallas: 1/20; Rodrigo: 1/20; Treslynn: 10/20; Osni: 19/20; Dutch: 1/20; Lance: 17/20; Breanna: 19/20; Ig'Enid: 20/20; Jonathon: 3/20; Kimberly: 9/20; Reinn: 1/20; Mary: 15/20; Jaidah: 12/20; Kuenton: 8/20; Justin: 2/20; Cierra: 20/20; Matthew: 20/20; Donnyha: 17/20; Daniel: 3/20; Sarah: 14/20; Tyler: 1/20)

Plot: The first movie ever made about the effects of bath salts! Dorothy, as a way of revolting against her elderly guardians who give away her dog, becomes a drug addict, shoe thief, and murderer. She also takes some apples that don't belong to her. She decides to run away from home in the most illogical way imaginable--via cyclone--and meets more little people than I'll ever meet in my entire life. She befriends a stupid scarecrow, an apathetic robot, and a chickenshit lion (Oz trivia: Originally, the Cowardly Lion was called the Chickenshit Lion.) and searches for the titular wizard so that she can get out of a coma.

Monkeys and Munchkins and talking trees--oh my! First off, yes I do have a student named Donnyha. We watched this as school to reward our students for a nine weeks of embarrassing mediocrity. One teacher suggested we watch Beastly, but I threatened to quit on the spot and this one was settled on. 8th graders were not happy that it was a) partially in black and white, b) filled with songs, or c) kind of "gay," but I was entertained as I hadn't seen the movie in a while, so who cares about them? They're all a bunch of punks anyway. I did love one conversation I had with a student:

Girl: What movie are we watching?
Me: The Wizard of Oz.
Girl: (Pause) The Wiz?
Me: No, not The Wiz. The Wizard of Oz.
Girl: Oh. I've not seen that. I've only seen The Wiz.
Me: Right. That makes perfect sense.

My students poked fun at the special effects, but check out that tornado! I think that's an astounding effect for the late-30s. It looks realistic enough and is such a menacing presence as it gets closer and closer. That tornado, something I saw every single year as a kid since this was on yearly, is one of the reasons I first started loving movies. So yes, this looks dopey in some places, but the painted backdrops, the fact that this is obviously made on a stage, and the dated effects give this a feel that Tim Burton has been trying to duplicate for years while knowing that he never will. That tornado has passed, Mr. Burton. And that color! When Dorothy opens the door, that color just splashes at you. Wonderful!

This also has to be one of the most arousing moments of all time, and I'm really glad that my lower half was hidden behind a desk in a semi-darkened room during this. It starts with Auntie Em. Yeah, she's bitchy, but she's also undeniably hot. And then there's Margaret Hamilton in those dual roles. That voice just does it for me. Don't even get me started on the Munchkins because things might get inappropriate. The good witch singing "Come out, come out" scene where the Munchkins "come out" might be the most arousing moments in cinematic history.

I remember watching this as a kid and thinking that all little people must sound like the Munchkins and always wanting to meet one. That impressive array of costumes and facial hair. And the Lollipop Guild. If I ever formed a street gang, I'd call ourselves the Lollipop Guild, and we would roll pretty hard. Billy Curtis is also in there somewhere.

The performances are so good in this. I've already mentioned Margaret Hamilton. If she's not the perfect witch, I don't know who it would be. That nose and that voice would be enough to get her in the Witch Hall of Fame if that existed, but her posture is also so perfect. My favorite Margaret Hamilton moment is when her image replaces Auntie Em's in a crystal ball and she starts mocking Dorothy--"Auntie Em, come back!" Oh, and that laugh! Frank Morgan is also great in his multiple roles, and he gets a lot of the best lines--his terrific alliteration, calling the scarecrow a "Doctor of Thinkology," the famous "Ignore the man behind the curtain" and the "Oh, you liquidated her" which should be just as famous. Ray Bolger's physical, elastic shenanigans as Scarecrow are fun to watch even for the 47th time. When you see him early on as "Hunk" (Hunk?), he seems like the worst actor of all time, probably because of the way he says "Finga," but then you find out it was Scarecrow foreshadowing and makes perfect sense. The foreshadowing in this is really neat, one of the reasons this is so much fun to watch again and again. I always thought Bert Lahr was one of the Stooges. Jack Haley is the weakest link, but he's still good.playing the more-than-likely gay Tin Man. Of course, there's Judy Garland as flat-chested Dorothy. Shirley Temple might have ruined this movie. What I like most about Garland's performance is that she never overdoes anything. She's the main character of the movie, but you never notice her all that much, and for whatever reason, that's the way it should be here.

The Munchkin hanging himself in the background of one shot (ok, so it's one of those weird birds), the irritable trees who really have a legitimate argument, the "Clever as a gizzard" line, all those flying monkeys that I'm still convinced are mostly real, the Cowardly Lion's "Pullin' an ax on me, eh?" followed by the "Whoo-uh, whoo-uh" growl which might be the worst growl of all time, that giant menacing green hall that leads to the Wizard, the first glimpse of the Wizard's disembodied head with all that fire and all that noise, the Scarecrow holding a gun in one scene (I never noticed that until I watched the movie this time--what the heck is the Scarecrow doing with a firearm?), the wack blinky bird effects, the army of Alan Thickes with their "Ooh-ee-oh" song that has always been my favorite song from this movie filled with all kinds of great songs (although that one Alan Thicke's voice when he says "She killed her" proves that they shouldn't have talked at all), Toto's impression of Lassie (did you know, by the way, that Toto made 125 bucks per week while the Munchkins earned less than half that?), the witch using the inefficient Hourglass Method of Murder which she must have gotten from the Batman Villain School of Villainy, the beauty of the unleashing of the monkeys scene and the dark scenery detail when the characters are atop the witch's castle, Morgan's uttering "Bless my buttons" and the Lion's expression right after. There's just so much here to love again and again which is probably why this should start being shown annually on network television again.

My only two gripes--

1) I've never liked the second solo the Cowardly Lion gets while they're waiting for the wizard, the "King of the Forest" number where it seems like Lahr had an "R-trilling" clause in his contract or something. It might include the great line "The chipmunks genuflect to me," but the song is about fifteen minutes long and just passes time.

2) The poppy field scene also has always seemed extraneous, just a silly distraction.

Other than that, this is perfect. And with the hefty little person bonus, it's easily a 20/20 for me.

Just spellchecked and am pleased that "Munchkin" is a word while "Donnyha" is not.

Shane Reviews the Greatest Movies Ever Made: Vertigo

1958 movie

 

Rating: 20/20
 



Plot: A skinny detective with a dopey, long-legged walk watches a cop fall to his death during a rooftop chase and develops a bad case of the titular inner-ear disorder. At least that's what I think it is. I'm not in the mood and don't have the time to look that up, so if you're somebody who stumbled upon this blog because you're trying to figure out what vertigo is, I apologize. I know you have to wear a corset after you get it though, and as far as I can tell, you also develop unhealthy infatuations with women who have weird eyebrows. The detective--Scottie or John or Johnny, depending on who you ask--agrees to follow an old pal's wife around to find out whether or not she's possessed. It all leads to an encounter with a creepy nun.
 

Every guy remembers the moment when he reached that magical age and first wanted to sleep with a girl. For me, that girl was Natalie. And cinemaphiles, if they're anything like me, probably remember that first movie that made you fall in love with movies. I watched Vertigo with my dad when I was a freshman in high school, and it's been my favorite movie since then unless I'm in a mood and tell people that The Big Lebowski or Manos: The Hands of Fate is my favorite movie. Regardless, Vertigo is the first movie I ever wanted to sleep with.

 

It's a movie I've loved for more than half my life without fully understanding. I'll watch it again and probably another time or two before I die, and I doubt I fully grasp what's going on here. There's a mystery that attracts me. It's a movie that I feel that I understand on levels that I can't understand. When I was a kid, it was the ending that really grabbed me. Holy hell! I was tickled that a movie could end like that. Of course, I still love the ending--the "I heard voices" creepy nun thing still almost shocking even when you know it's coming. Now, I like to go beyond the story with poor Scottie. He'd already lost the love of his life once not far removed from the traumatic experience that ended his career, and now he's lost her again. At least crazy Midge would probably still screw him if he gave her the chance. That's, of course, if Scottie can even get it up. We start with references to the guy feeling less than a man because he has to wear a corset, and the film's first dialogue links sex and brassieres with fear and dizziness. And the way Jimmy Stewart walks in this movie seems to suggest that he's not quite capable. That's right--Jimmy Stewart walks like an impotent man. All those references to water and boats, that "dolly cam" or whatever trick Hitchcock uses to show the audience the protagonist's vertigo that makes the staircase look so vaginal, just a monstrous oppressive vagina? I should have kept track of phallic symbols in Vertigo. There's the bell tower, obviously, giant sequoias (one which is cut down), and Coit Tower. Coit Tower? No wonder everybody in San Francisco is a homosexual!

 

And I can piece together that place and time is really important to this movie and its characters, but I can't get beyond that. Look at all the references to time though: an early picture in the husband's office of San Fran in the 19th Century, a line about how "anybody could be obsessed with the past," a cross section of the cut-down phallic symbol, a perfectly-preserved mission, Jimmy saying that they're "going back to the past, one more time," the amount of times characters talk about how it's too late. And the idea of control--Novak's character is controlled by two different men--hair color, dress, activities--in this movie. What's going on there?

 

Calling Hitchcock a master isn't exactly profound. His genius is on full display in this movie though. He uses setting so well. I love seeing San Francisco in the 1950s, and it's winding undulating streets almost seem to symbolize Scottie's experiences in this movie. The backgrounds often reflect the moods or changes in moods, most notably with the sequoias and the rocky beach where Scottie and Madeline kiss for the first time, a perfectly timed kiss accompanied by rising music and a perfect splash. Incredible. A lot of times, Hitchcock uses the setting to make Novak look absolutely stunning, a gal who--despite those weird eyebrows--is worth obsessing over. That profile against a background of gaudy red wallpaper? The colors zing in this movie. Speaking of Novak, how wonderful is the provocative title screens with Novak lips and an eye close-up that might, unless I'm just goofy, recall the eye-slicing shot from Un Chien Andalou? More shots just, especially after repeated viewings, drop the jaw. I wonder if I'm--with the knowledge that she knows she's being followed--really picking up on things during Scottie's following of Madeline. I could have sworn that I picked up a subtle glance or two. More tricky Hitchcock when Stewart's wandering around and thinking that he's seeing Madeline. I just know that's Novak in some of those shots. I also like the way Hitchcock makes the ceiling look so large and oppressive following that "trial" or whatever it was, Midge's walk down a gray hallway, that nutty dream sequence, the ghostly image when Judy puts her hair back and re-enters the room, the revolving kiss with the washed-out colors transforming into an entirely different setting before transforming back again, the really lengthy dialogue-free scenes where Scottie follows Madeline around with only the sound of footsteps and the music, the "dolly cam" and the shot of Stewart walking down the stairs after Madeline's death. Oh, and I love the slow pan across Scottie's apartment after he's saved Madeline from drowning in the bay, a slow pan that reveals her clothes hanging in the kitchen which lets us all know that he's seen her naked. This is a movie you watch and every single second seems intentional. If you've seen this movie recently, you're probably thinking, "Shane seems pretty easily impressed with all this," and maybe I am. But all these perfect little moments just add up to a perfect motion picture.

 

Stewart and Novak are terrific, really two of the finest performances you're likely to see. You really only need to watch one scene with a look the two exchange in the car on their way to the mission for the first time to find out that I'm right. Yes, Novak's eyebrows are the most distracting in the history of movies, but everything else about her is almost perfect. Perky breasts, eyes that know more than the audience does, lips that want to tell us more than the screenwriter is allowing her to tell us. My favorite Novak moment in this might be the first time she speaks, right around the 46 minute mark. Her "What am I doing here?" is such a simple but perfectly written line, another little part of this movie that just seems so brilliant when you watch this a second time. Stewart's even more brilliant in what I think is his best performance. If a Jimmy Stewart aficionado read this blog, maybe he could put in his two cents. He's masterful here though. The body language when he steps onto a chair, the way he stretches his neck to look at something, his gripping of a steering wheel. I also like how he walks up the hotel stairs, almost like he has to poop or something. The way his eyes examine Novak before and after the rescue, the madness in his eyes after Madeline's death, the way he becomes so quietly crazed, the little smile he gives Novak after she asks him what he is doing when they're making their second trip to the mission. He's speechless for a couple big chunks of this movie and still has this way of making his character say so much. It's brilliant.

 

Is this movie flawless? Probably. Sure it's got those eyebrows, and I'm not always entirely sure I like the big reveal and where it takes place. And sometimes, I have trouble figuring out why there's so much Midge in the movie. But then I realize that I don't know what I'm talking about and go back to believing that this is a perfect movie. It's one that I can't think of a single thing that needs to be changed about it.

 

Bernard Herrmann's score is one of my favorites, and so is that movie poster up there.

 

Next in the "Shane Reviews the Greatest Movies of All Time" series is Citizen Kane, the former "Greatest Movie Ever" on the Sight and Sound movie list. I'll write about that one on October 1st and not like it as much as Vertigo. 



Stranger Than Paradise

1984 comedy

Rating: 20/20

Plot: A guy in New York has his life disrupted by a visit from his young Hungarian cousin. She stays for a week and grows on him, enough for him to drive with his pal Eddie to visit her in Cleveland with money from gambling. Later, they go to Florida.

Here's another one of those great one-and-done performances. Cecillia Stark, who plays Aunt Lotte, played this part when she was 85 or 86 and died in 1985. When I watched Stranger Than Paradise this time, probably my fourth or fifth time, she was my favorite thing about the movie. "You son of a bitch!" might be the funniest delivery of a line ever, and her way of answering the door when Willie and Eddie visit cracked me up. Hers isn't even the best performance in this movie. No, that would be the brief appearance of Rammellzee as the guy who gives Ava some money. Almost shockingly, this was his only acting job. He didn't die though. Rammellzee, who sounds like he stole his name from a fairy tale or something, probably just figured there was no way he was topping this. Nice glasses, by the way.

I forced somebody to see this once, and he didn't like it so much. He liked the characters fine but was annoyed because they didn't have anything to do. I don't know why good movie characters need a lot to do anyway, but one of the main reasons I think this movie is funny is because these characters don't have much to do. It lets them and their relationships grow in a unique way. These characters exist in a kind of purgatory, characters shaped by forces they can't understand. Willie whines about Eva "disrupting" his life which is funny because he doesn't really seem to have much of one. He watches T.V., eats T.V. dinners, plays Solitaire, stands or sometimes sits around, occasionally goes to the track. Of course, that is while Eva is in town, so who knows what kind of exciting life the guy has when she's not around. The character doesn't do anything and trudges through this kind of bleak existence because there's nothing for him to do. Jarmusch's characters live in these empty worlds, these dead lonely cities. New York never looks this completely empty in any other movie, Cleveland's bleak, and even Florida looks like the most depressing places on earth. I imagine Budapest was just as depressing. It's not the place that shapes these characters' lives. They all look the same according to Eddie. Eddie gets that who you are is not shaped solely by where you are. The forces that control us are the same in New York, Cleveland, Florida, and Budapest. Twice, Eddie talks about how beautiful a place--Cleveland, Florida--is and responds to "Have you been there?" with a "No." During the scene in a car where you can see the person operating the camera in the rearview mirror for a length of time that almost made me uncomfortable--seriously, he's got like the fifth most screen time in the movie--Eddie asks is Cleveland looks like Budapest. He knows though. You can't escape your circumstances, Eddie and Willie, and there are horse and dog races all over the place. And I love that this movie is bookended with planes.

Don't get me wrong. Watching this movie is not a bleak experience, and I think it's a little funnier every time I see it. "It's Screaming Jay Hawkins and he's a wild man so bug off" gets me every time, and a scene in a movie theater might be one of the funniest scenes without dialogue ever. It's not comedy for everybody, but for me, it's a pretty special movie. Jarmusch almost invented his own film language, his own rhythm. It never really feels like the language and rhythm of real life--more like a fairy tale that Rammellzee could feel comfortable in--but it somehow ends up more authentic than real life. It's like real life stripped of its skin, and there's something so refreshing about that. And funny!

Ironically, the one reader who would most agree with me probably didn't read this because it's got too many paragraphs.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark Redux

1981 adventure

Rating: 20/20 (Jen: 16/20; Dylan: 20/20; Emma: 16.5/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: The titular archeologist/professor globetrots in search for Noah's boat. He runs into some Nazis, a group of people who historically weren't very nice.

I've already written poorly about this movie twice, but Abbey picked it for family movie night. It's not one that I'll complain about having to watch again. That's part of the beauty of the thing. It's more than likely the film that I've seen the most times with the possible exception of Toy Story. Anyway, I'm dividing my thoughts into three categories for this--questions, noticings, and things-I-freaking-love.

Questions:

How can this be rated PG? It's got face melting/exploding. Face exploding, by the way, would be a horrible way to go, wouldn't it?

What's the body count? Next time I watch this, I'm counting.

Where the hell did Belloq get that goofy outfit and that staff? The only thing I can think of is that there must be a Ark-Opening Clothes "R" Us on that creepy island.

Speaking of that creepy island, how's Indy ride on the outside of a submarine for the distance shown on the map? Dylan explained that submarines are faster when they surface, so they probably wouldn't have gone under. If not, then why would they even use a submarine in that situation?

Is that Ralph Macchio preparing dates?

Why don't the Germans wonder why there are people off digging in a different place from everybody else? Belloq eventually notices them, but you'd think somebody would walk up to them and ask, "What the heck are you digging here for?"

How do you get a monkey to Heil Hitler salute? Or are monkeys just naturally hateful creatures? I wouldn't put it past them.

How many extras were in this movie? The big dig, the streets of Cairo. There are so many people in this!

How can Indy fans have so much of a problem with aliens and refrigerators in the new movie but not have a problem with melting faces and burning crates in this one? And speaking of the swastika burning scene, what's up with that rat? He looks like he's about to boogie.

Was Shooby LaBoof conceived on a submarine? I'm going to have to check the date for that fourth movie! If he was, it explains a lot.

Noticings:

All these movies start with monoliths, don't they? Or maybe just a plain rock.

There's a lot of man screaming in this movie. 1) The guy with the stocking cap screams at the statue as they're trudging through the forest. 2) Alfred Molina screams like a woman at a skeleton. I also freaking love how that skeleton turns his head to glance at Molina. 3) Toht (a role turned down by Klaus Kinski if you believe a word that guy says) gives his first girly scream when he grabs the hot medallion. Hot Medallion would be a great band name, by the way. 4) Random guy with turban screams when the Well of Souls is opened. Then there's Sallah's "Eeahahahhaheh" which, at the very least, isn't all that feminine. 5) The cobwebby skeletons in the Well of Souls scream. That makes even less sense than all of those different kinds of snakes living in there. 6) Toht gives the best scene of the movie during once the spirits from the ark start wreaking havoc until 7) the guy who screams after him manages to top it!

Scream bonus: The Wilhelm Scream is used when a dude spills from the back of the truck in the big chase scene.

The natives with their spears and blowguns are as accurate as the stormtroopers in the Star Wars movies. And a bonus question. There were a lot of spears being thrown in that chase scene. Once you're an extra in that scene who has thrown his spear--you know, shot your wad--do you keep chasing? You were probably handed another spear, right?

The guy trying to outdrink Marion looks like George Wendt, Norm from Cheers. I don't think that's a coincidence. All guys who look like that are big drinkers.

Indy almost consumes that "bad date" several times. It's a neat little detail.

The map room has an obelisk. I'm too lazy to see if that is architecturally correct. I had Indiana Jones actions figures and a map room, by the way. That's a really cool scene in the movie with the beam of light and Indy brushing away sand, but it wasn't all that fun to reenact in your bedroom. Also, there's one building in the map room that looked like it had been tagged. Was a street gang down there at one point or did the Nazis mark it?

Things I Freaking Love about This Movie:

That first shot of Indy--absolutely iconic. Framed by waterfall and mist, quick edited shots of bullwhip frenzy, Jones stepping out from the shade. So awesome. To think that Indy was almost Tom Selleck makes me slightly ill.

Indy's shadow on the wall of Marion's bar. Also so awesome. And I love their dynamics in that scene with dialogue perfection. You find out just enough about their past without it seeming like it was written in a script just so the audience could catch up.

Sallah: "Why does the floor move?" At this point, by the way, Jennifer informed me that she had never seen this movie all the way through. What the hell?

Toph! Love his beady little eyes. His little giggle--once when he walks past Belloq after they seal Indy and Marion in the Well of Souls and later after the ark is opened. And his hanger is the most bad ass hanger in movie history. And yes, I'm including the hangers in Birdemic: Shock and Terror. And that bald head of Toph's? It's nefarious.

I love how Indy fights so dirty during the brawl with that big bald Nazi guy--dirt in the eyes, using a chunk of wood as a weapon, the old point-at-your-opponent's-shoe-to-divert-his-attention trick.

How Belloq says "idiot."

Head explosion!

"It's not the years. It's the mileage."

The way Indy saves Molina by grabbing his belt. Poor Molina, by the way. This was his first movie, I think, and he starts his career by having tarantulas all over him, screaming like a girl, and getting killed by a booby trap that he had already seen which makes him one of the dumbest characters ever.

That gunfight in Marion's place? The best ever, the type that can make me type in hyperbole! But that motley crew of thuggery, the "Whisky?" from Indy, a guy punching with an arm that is on fire? All sans music, just the crackling fire, the rat-a-tat gunfire, breaking bottles. What a terrific scene.

Another action sequence--the Cairo street brawling. It's lively and exciting in the midst of an adventure story, but there's such a personality with the fight scenes. There's humor mixed in with the mayhem, all while Harrison Ford's got the runs.

And that guy who Marion threatens with a pan only to watch him pull out a knife? The dude's teeth are even scarier than his blade!

I love the mystical guy with the high-pitched voice they visit. You know he's a mystic because he's wearing bright blue and has his own telescope.

Terry Bradshaw's "Waa-ehh" as he gets run over. And before that, the "Let's see how you like it!" toss out the front window. Indy's so pissed. Before that, there's a shot of a guy on the windshield and Indy and his passenger look at each other and laugh. That guy's expression and the shared laugh of enemies makes me smile just thinking about it.

Indy putting his hat on against a sunset backdrop--just beautiful. That is one evil-looking sky as they find the edges on top the Well of Souls.

Not everybody likes the music in this (I'm eyeing you here, Laurence), but I love it. It's the soundtrack for my childhood outside play. That's the music I heard when I ran around my backyard with a fake gun and an invisible whip, and it's the music I heard when I stepped up the plate in the last inning of a baseball game in college with a chance to drive home the winning runs. In this movie--the familiar music when Indy, fleeing from 15,000 natives while dust from the cave flies off him in that terrific scene, swings from a vine like Shooby LaBoof and dives into the water. Boom!

After the booby-trap-packed cave climaxing with a fiberglass boulder chase, I'm hooked forever. If you're not, you're a child without a heartbeat.

Top men. Endless boxes. Where was that shot? That place has to really exist. What's in all the boxes? Other than dead alien bodies, of course.

What did I miss? What do you love about this movie?

M

1931 silent film with words

Rating: 20/20

Plot: A guy with giant eyes won't stop buying balloon animals and other treats for children, and for some reason, adults in the small German town have a problem with it. Maybe it's all the whistling.

I decided not to dock Fritz Lang points for M being situated in that weird transition time between the silent era and the talkies, primarily because I think this is the very best talking picture released in the five years following The Jazz Singer. Of course, like every other thought that I share on this blog, I'm typing that without really thinking about it and just picking an arbitrary amount of time period of five years. I don't like movies from the 1930s, but this one feels so modern. I think it's mostly the use of the montage and some unusual camera angles and this experimental playfulness. There's a montage of emptiness early on, one of those times when normally perfectly beneficent images describe so much more than words could. You get an abandoned ball, an empty chair, a drifting balloon. It's gripping stuff, somehow more disturbing than a scene where you actually see Hans strangle (or whatever) the child would have been. Later, there's an extended shot where the camera maneuvers over a bunch of lowlifes in a room, through a sheet of glass, and into a room with a couple little people and a guy with a peg leg. Lang throws out one of the finest examples of how to tell a story without a lot of words, and this could have easily been just as successful as a completely silent picture. I also like the almost complete lack of music which I think adds to the overall tone. Well, there's the leitmotif (the theme from "Inspector Gadget") which makes whistling sound a little more foreboding than it ever should. At the same time, there's this conflicting playfulness to the way Lang approaches the subject matter of little kids being murdered. There' s a scene where a table of gentlemen are arguing in a restaurant with one guy smoking this absurd pipe and another guy whose glasses keep falling off. Or another scene with titled camera angles during a disagreement between a really big guy and a really little guy. It's almost comical. And the first time we actually see Lorre? He's making faces at himself in the mirror, almost like Soderbergh in Schizopolis. And by the way, how many shots in the first half of this movie feature either two Lorres--like, the real one seen simultaneously with a reflection--or a Lorre seen through glass? It seems like a bunch of them which I'm sure means something. Peter Lorre's so good here although his eyes, nearly iconic, kind of overdo it. It's a tough character because on the one hand, he's murdering children and on the other hand seems kind of dopey, the former making you really want to respect the guy while the latter makes you not care what happens to him. (I'm joking, of course. Dopiness should always be applauded.) But his despicability is mixed with enough vulnerability to make him a pretty daring character for a 1931 movie. It's a great performance, especially for this transition period. These days, Hollywood would take this character to absurd levels and probably give him CGI eyeballs that have a diameter of ten inches or so. (That's another randomly-picked number, by the way.) One of my favorite smaller details from this--during the opening scene where some children are playing a game in the street, there's this kid in the back who can't stand still. He's got to be Fritz Lang's nephew or something because he would otherwise have been kicked out of the movie for being obnoxious. Or maybe he was left in the movie so that audiences would develop sympathy for Hans? I guess that's something to think about.

Taxi Driver

1976 movie

Rating: 20/20

Plot: Travis Bickle gets a new job driving a taxi, makes a few buddies, starts a hobby collecting guns, gets involved with politics, gets a pretty girlfriend, and decides to experiment with his hair.

I may have given bonus points for this for being indirectly responsible for nearly getting Ronald Reagan assassinated. Just think about how powerful that is for a moment. Yeah, I know that The Cat in the Hat could probably drive a person to kill, too, but that's different.

Some questions for my readers who have seen this:

1) Is Travis Bickle a hero?
2) Isn't Travis Bickle dead at the end of this movie? Is that meant to be ambiguous or am I missing something? If he's not dead, is it a happy ending?
3) Is this a war movie?

Here's the most disturbing thing, for me at least: Travis Bickle is relatable. Think about that, too. He's a lonely figure in one of the most crowded cities in the world. He's trapped in this insomniac pessimist fever dream. He can't understand why his date isn't happy about being taken to a pornographic movie theater. It's almost like this story was ripped right out of every man's diary.

I love how that Bernard Herrman sax-heavy score and the filthy backdrop of New York City's prettiest bits almost sexualize the parts of a taxi cab at one point in this movie. I was aroused, and I don't even really find cars all that attractive. I think it might be the color yellow. Then again, Cybill Shepherd's hair didn't do much for me at all. Oddly, Albert Brooks' hair did.

Another question: Did Jodie Foster have good parents?

Harvey Keitel and Peter Boyle's characters should have gotten spin-offs or prequels.

Love Gene Palma as "Street Drummer" enough here to check out every other film he's ever been in. That's only two movies, one a documentary about pornography and one a John Ritter movie. He should have also gotten a spin-off.

I love the linearity of Bickle's story. Every scene is a step in the direction this character is going. And every single scene, arguably, is important.

Here's a question for discussion: If you could invite any six movie characters to have dinner with you, which six would you invite? For me, it would be Travis Bickle, Mary Poppins, and four others. I haven't finished my list yet.

Double Indemnity

1944 noir classic

Rating: 20/20

Plot: A horny insurance guy meets a dame (I think that's what they were called back then) with gams (I think that's what they were called back then) that don't quit and decides to help her kill her husband in order to impress her.

Sorry to tell you this, but if you don't like this movie, you just don't like movies. True, you could probably say that about every Fred MacMurray movie that doesn't involve him turning into a dog. I remember seeing this for the first
time after knowing MacMurray only for The Shaggy Dog and the Flubber movie and having no idea he could be this cool. I guess we can't give credit to MacMurray for these gems though:

"I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man."
"How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?"
"I wanted to see her again. . .without the silly staircase between us."

No, Raymond Chandler gets credit for those. I'll give MacMurray credit and possibly a lifetime achievement award for the way he lights a match though. I dig everything about this movie, from title credits with the approaching shadowy figure to the Stanwyck's terrible wig. A slow-moving train, a hide behind a doorway, excessive perspiration, the A-ha look that Edward G. Robinson has in his eyes throughout the entire movie. Double Indemnity is probably the purest example of noir storytelling, all Venetian blinds and femme fatales and shadows, and although it's reportedly Ass Masterson's 7th favorite movie of all time, it's impossible not to see it as the classic that it is. jHe probably just likes it because none of the characters are happy at the end though. This picture of depravity, greed, and horniness is just perfection.

Edward Scissorhands

1990 movie

Rating: 20/20

Plot: An Avon lady discovers a lonely manchild with scissors for hands when she ventures to the dilapidated mansion to sell her wares. She brings him to her colorful suburban neighborhood. He's instantly the talk of the town as he shows off his mad topiary and tonsorial skills, but not everybody is thrilled to have somebody so different in the neighborhood.

This cry-out against conformity seems a little simplistic and whiny since the first time I watched this, back when Burton's themes resonated with me as I searched for excuses to be a weirdo. But this one's still got a special place in my heart, and not just because it's a beautiful final film appearance for one of my favorite actors or because I'm secretly in love with both Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder.

First, the history. I didn't ask girls out on dates when I was in high school because I was smart enough to know that girls don't like weirdos. I might as well have had scissors for hands, too. But there was a girl named Jennifer who I fell for while I watched her ride a merry-go-round, and when this movie came out, I decided to ask her to go see it with me. The very idea sickened her, naturally since I was wearing a rayon shirt when I asked her and couldn't keep my nose from running. She didn't say no exactly; she just sort of laughed until I went away. I got in my parent's mini-van which for some reason I had driven to school and started home. I didn't make it though because I was driving way too fast on a gravel road, something that I don't believe they warned me about in the driver's training manual, and flipped the van upside-down into a ditch. I sat there upside-down for a while and thought about whether or not I should see Edward Scissorhands by myself. I decided against it.

But enough about me. Nobody reads this blog because they want to find out more about me. Heck, nobody actually reads this blog, but if they did, it would be for my expertise on all things cinematic. This movie's Tim Burton's finest hour. It's got my favorite Hollywoody score, Danny Elfman at his most Danny Elfmanest. It's also got all these terrific pre-CGI sets, from the sprawling and oh-so-colorful suburban hell suspended in time to the contrasting house of Vincent Price. And that shrubbery! There are little touches that I like, too, like the car choreography as the men of the neighborhood head to work and Edward's fireplace "bedroom" collage. Speaking of Vincent, his scenes are touching. His character is a spiffy dresser, really pulling off that ascot, and you've got to love the elaborate way he makes cookies. That's such an awesome scene, Vincent shuffling and watching the cookie-making mechanism and almost moving to Elfman's music. His death scene makes me cry although admittedly, I cry from the beginning of this movie. But why did he give Edward scissors for hands in the first place? Why would that have ever made sense?

This is my favorite Winona Ryder, too. I've admitted before that the only reason I wrote "Speedwalk Fantasy" and wanted to start an alternative rock band was because I wanted to sleep with Winona Ryder. Love her look in this so much. During the dancing-in-the-snow scene, spinning Winona's got this almost classic silent beauty look. I love a scene where Depp looks at Winona Ryder's picture for the first time.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, here's some more Shane trivia: Kevin, Winona's little brother, has the same baseball sheets I had as a kid.

This one also appeals to my quirky sense of humor. I like the freak slapstick of the displaced character and can't help smiling every time I think about Edward slamming his head into the window on the drive home, poking the water bed, or trying to put on a pair of pants. Alan Arkin is hilarious as the dad, especially his reaction and first line while he watches Edward eat. I also love how he just sits in a lawn chair and watches bowling in his backyard because in this Burton world, that's really pretty normal. "No no no. That's a terrible idea." "We don't want him rusting up on us." Fantastic delivery.

This has a much darker second half that almost clashes with the fairy tale-ish and comic first half, and you really have to be willing to suspend your disbelief to get any enjoyment out of this. For instance, a black cop in this neighborhood? That just doesn't seem believable. And where the hell does Edward get all the ice at the end of this movie?

But I cry every single time I watch this movie. I cry because Tim Burton and his characters pull just the right heart strings. I cry because Jennifer would never have had any interest in seeing this movie with me. And I cry because Winona Ryder would never have had any interest in sleeping with me no matter how high "Speedwalk Fantasy" charted. Even the old woman Winona Ryder who, by the way, I'd still want to bang.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

1975 movie that should be on everybody's top-500 list

Rating: 20/20

Plot: McMurphy is lazy. Unfortunately, he's also a criminal and has to serve time in prison where they'll make him work. But he's got a plan--pretend to be insane so he can be transferred to a mental institution and serve out the remaining days of his sentence without having to work. He adds a little chaos to the gentle existence of the asylum, changing a few inmates' lives for better or worse. He also finds an enemy in the head nurse--Nurse Ratched.

I could have sworn that this came out in 1973.

First off, I'd like to point out that I don't see Nurse Ratched, stoically played by Oscar winner Louise Fletcher, as the real villain. She's a bit passive-aggressive maybe and gets on McMurphy's nerves, more as a symbol or maybe as a woman than through anything she actually does, but it's not like she's outrageously malicious or anything. McMurphy's biggest antagonist is himself, and each time I watch this, I see Nicholson's character as a failed Christ figure who, although he does do his part to save a soul in the end, ends up getting in the way of himself as he tries to do fulfill whatever mission he might have. He takes his "disciples" fishing, retiring to the bowels of the stolen ship in order to have sexual relations with a woman (don't think Jesus did that), and botches a few miracles. Jack's electric in this, really one of my favorite acting performances ever. I love the last moments of the big going-away party at the end when McMurphy sits and waits for Billy to finish doing his business. There's an extended shot of just Jack's face, and his expressions in that fifty seconds or so show loss, optimism, fear, indecision, happiness. Amazing stuff. But the ensemble cast around Nicholson is also great, portraying these crazies in a way that doesn't blow them up into comic figures (though there is plenty of comedy here) but creates these very human moments where you really feel the characters' pain. Observe that first therapy session--you have the circle of guys who can communicate, eventually fit in with society again, or whatever surrounded by all the lunatics who will never fit in again, the ones who stand in the background staring at nothing, hit a punching bag with a cane with a persistence that makes him almost a hero, or elegantly dances to the music in his head. I really like the expression on Harding's face when he realizes that nobody will help him with his problem. During that entire scene and probably all the conversations the "group" has, director Forman uses close-ups and distance shots perfectly. Danny DeVito (I'm counting him as a little person, by the way) is really good as Martini, William Redfield could easily have won something as Harding, Christopher Lloyd plays ornery and angry so well as Taber, and Brad Dourif and his Lyle Lovett-esque hair are heartbreakingly good as Billy and Billy's hair respectively. And Will Sampson is unforgettable as the Chief. I love that scene where he's striding across the court during that basketball game, the first time his character shows any personality whatsoever. He says so much for being a mute. I also like the nurse who is always with Nurse Ratched but whose only line is a lengthy scream near the end of the movie. When I saw this movie as a youngster, its themes of conformity and freedom resonated. I think it's captured best in the looks on the inmates' faces when Nurse Ratched asks, "Did Billy Bibbit leave the grounds of the hospital?"

Now, let's see why this isn't on Cory's top-500 movie list.

Awakening of the Beast

1970 didactic drug movie

Rating: 20/20 (See: Coffin Joe Movies Get a 20 or He'll Eat Your Face Off Rule)

Plot: Psychologists test the effects of hallucinogenics by monitoring volunteers. Coffin Joe invades their lobes and chaos ensues.

What I learned from this movie because Coffin Joe taught it to me and if I even suggest that he's wrong, I'll end up having my face eaten off: Coffin Joe's world is strange and made up of strange people, but none are more strange than me. That's how he introduced this delightfully messy movie.

I promise this is the last Coffin Joe movie I'll review because I don't know where I'm going to find any more of them. This is the one that halted his career, banned for twenty years, probably because it's perverted and subversive. Also known as Ritual of the Maniacs (I would have guessed Ritual of the Sadists from both the content and the Portuguese on the gruesome poster above), this is sort of like a Brazilian Reefer Madness as directed by somebody really evil. It's almost like a collection of cinematic short stories, each one a sort of cautionary tale about what might happen if you take LSD. In the opener, some creepy men picture a gal naked while a little record player plays a song about war. Then the girl starts stripping and they all watch before unwrapping a chamber pot. They all laugh, and the record reaches its scratchy conclusion.

In the next scene, a pretty girl is taken to an apartment. There's a guy suspended from the ceiling, a guy playing drums (not quite as manic as the piano guy in Reefer Madness), a guitarist lying on the floor, some guys who burst into song. She sees a guy smoking something; another guy starts stripping. Everybody starts snapping at her like they're all beatniks or extras in West Side Story before somebody asks, "Dig it, baby?" She craws through a window and stands with her legs apart on a table while the men take turns putting their heads up her skirt. They circle around her while holding up a finger and first chanting but later whistling "Colonel Bogey March" from Bridge on the River Kwai. They take turns, well, poking her before Jesus walks in and violates her with a long staff. That's what drugs can do to you, kids.

The third scene is much simpler--a guy watches three women remove their brassieres. He smells them, of course. They bend over and he kicks them.

One fantastic mini-story involves a well-to-do woman setting it up so that her black butler and her daughter (I think) get it on. She watches from a hiding spot while snorting cocaine and fiercely petting a pony.

And there's a scene I'm surprised isn't really famous, one that involves the washing of undergarments and a guy with an absurdly bulbous phallic jug.

A lot of the more gruesome scenes near the end, the ones that involve sadism and cannibalism and Marins' Boschian idea of Hell, are a lot of the more memorable scenes in the incoherent compilation Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind. One would guess that they'd make more sense in context, but they really don't. And that's the beauty of Marins and this misogynist acid trip or filthy nightmare or whatever you want to call it. Did I dig it, baby? Yes, I did, Coffin Joe! Yes, I did.

Toy Story

1995 movie

Rating: 20/20 (Jen: 20/20; Abbey: 19/20)

Plot: Cowboy Woody is Andy's favorite toy. Andy goes everywhere and does everything with Woody--helps him stop antagonistic potato heads with diabolical schemes, throws him around, repeatedly smacks his groin on a stair railing. Woody and the other toys are happy. Until the threatening arrival of a new spaceman toy, Buzz Lightyear. Wait a second. The characters' names are Woody and Buzz? That seems kind of dirty.

Go ahead and try to argue with me that this isn't a 20/20. Go ahead. I dare you, readers. An impressive start to Pixar's reign of delight with terrific "new" animation (Jen and I saw this in the theater without the one child we had; I was mesmerized) and wonderful characters. The Pixar peeps hit a home run right away with a story that has their unique brand of humor and heart and creative spirit and depth. The often funny and exciting and occasionally touching and (surprisingly) human story's aided by a lively score from the ubiquitous Randy Newman. The voice talent, especially stars Tom Hanks and Tim Allen who were not Pixar's first choices, are great, adding real personalities to the characters. This is not my favorite Pixar movie, and when you've watched it over a thousand times (bad parents that we are, we let Dylan watch it over and over again after it came out on video), you notice some flaws, mostly continuity errors. For example, Andy must live in a tower or something because I'm pretty sure he's got windows on every wall in his room at some point in the movie. The "You're flying!" moment still gives me chills almost every time. Movie magic!

Note: If you care to read it, I do have an alternate "Andy is psychotic" reading of the movie. In it, the toys are of course not actually alive, Sid is actually Andy, Andy's mother is chopped up and stuffed in a toy box, and Pizza Planet is the cafeteria at an asylum.

Santo and Blue Demon against the Monsters

1970 masterpiece

Rating: 20/20 (Kairow: 20/20)

Plot/Review: See guest reviewer Kairow's thoughts here: Kairow's Blog


I don't have much to add to what he had to say. The other Santo movies I've seen have had him up against one or two monsters. This one has a ridiculous amount of monsters, making it even wackier than the others. Which likely makes this the wackiest movie I've ever seen. Any Santo movie gets an automatic 20/20. See "Santo Rule" described in the entry for Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter).

Other Santo movies on the blog:

Santo in the Vengeance of the Mummy
Santo vs. the Vampire Women

Evil Dead 2

1987 greatest movie ever candidate

Rating: 20/20

Plot: Ash and his girlfriend accidentally unleash evil in a secluded cabin. The evil longs for their souls, and Ash has to fight against trees, anthropomorphized decor, zombie creatures, his dead girlfriend, a deer head, and his own hand in order to save his.

Question: Is there a better performance in the history of cinema than Bruce Campbell's here? I doubt it! Once this thing gets going, it stays going. Horror-comedy chaos, quotable, a disturbing (and impossible) amount of blood, ingenious special effects, a creative visual sense. This movie's got it all! The scenes that make me want to watch this over and over again: 1) the possessed hand, 2) the scene where everything in the room starts laughing at Bruce Campbell, 3) the woodshed transformation scene, 4) the scene where the evil thing is chasing Ash through the house, 5) almost every other scene in the movie, the exception being the scene where his dead girlfriend is dancing. No, that's brilliant, too! Evil Dead 2 also has a great ending, one that really makes the lame sequel even more disappointing. This movie is and will always be a religious experience.

There will be no comments for this movie because I don't want anybody wasting their time typing about how right I am.

City Lights

1932 romantic comedy

Rating: 20/20 (Jen: 16/20; Emma: 2/20; Abbey: 1/20)

Plot: After interrupting the unveiling of the city's new statue, a little tramp has a pretty good day. He meets a beautiful but blind girl selling flowers. It's love at first sight. He also befriends a drunken millionaire after saving his life and gets to spend the night on the town with him. He has a series of misadventures while trying to use his new friendship to help out the flower girl.

Any discussion of this movie really should start with the ending, a perfect one that gets me every time. There are lots of humorous moments (unless you're a girl in the third or sixth grade apparently) but there's nothing outrageous here. No scaling the side of a building or running from police or being attacked by monkeys while on a tightrope here. The humor is quiet and graceful. The opening scene is also great (and you get to hear Chaplin's voice for the first time; sort of), and it's followed by a lot of funny episodes, highlighted by the boxing scene and a trip to a restaurant with the millionaire. There's magic in every scene with the tramp and the blind girl. It's the little things that develop their relationship and set up one of the best endings in movie history. Chaplin stubbornly refused to make this his first talkie, and I'm so glad he did. Words would have ruined this one. City Lights is Chaplin's masterpiece and one of my favorite movies.