The 100 Chapter 11: 78 & 77

 

Who doesn't love a list?

I devour the BFI Best Films of All Time list whenever they deem it necessary to revise and (invariably) disagree with most of the findings, but I still get a kick out of browsing. Same with Rolling Stone's inane Best 100 Albums (how does Sgt. Pepper drop from #1 to #24 in the latest incarnation?); the anger I feel subsides when I see they've put a couple of Aerosmith albums on the list! We all disagree with that number one but we keep right on scrolling through each choice.

This project, which has been percolating for quite a while, originated from the constant back and forth "good-natured bickering" between John Scoleri and myself. John invariably loves everything and I hate it all (for more of the discourse, I advise one and all to pick up a copy of bare•bones print magazine and read our debates about streaming and movie theaters to get a taste). I began to think it would be fun to compose a Favorite (as opposed to Best) 100 and compare our selections. Making it even more tantalizing, I managed to talk the third head of Ghidorah, Jack Seabrook, into participating. This could be interesting, since John's never seen a movie the two Georges (Romero and Lucas) didn't have a hand in, and Jack usually favors the flicks that have words at the bottom of the screen (dis-moi que j'ai tort, Jack!). I, on the other hand, can't wait to educate these two gentlemen as to what constitutes good cinema.

Every Thursday, we'll count down our picks two at a time. We're hoping this will generate discourse outside of our trio. Let us know just how crazy we are. This is going to be fun!—Peter

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) 

Starring the voices of Chris Sarandon, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara

Directed by Henry Selick

"This is Halloween! This is Halloween/Pumpkins Scream in the Dead of Night!"

As far as I can tell, TB's The Nightmare Before Christmas is the only "kid" movie on my list (though Finding Nemo almost made the cut) but it's not really your average kid flick is it? It's the Disney movie we always wanted when we were pre-teens (but got Herbie the Love Bug instead), hanging our mint copies of Famous Monsters on the wall and reading Where Creatures Roam with the flashlight under the covers when we were supposed to be sleeping. 

Everything about the film is perfect—the design, the stop motion, the songs, the voices, the atmosphere, everything. Pretty ballsy of Disney to pony up for a scary children's movie (one that features a mad scientist who longs for his living Raggedy Ann doll and opens his skull to scratch his brain now and then) that had no known characters. I'll still listen to "This is Halloween" and "What's This?" now and then. They're incredibly catchy tunes even outside the film. First time I saw this was with my then seven-year-old daughter at the Saratoga Six and a few months after that the DVD went into heavy rotation at the Enfantino house. Watching it again 30+ years later, it still brings a very wide grin to this old man's face.—Peter

Remarks from the Gallery:

Jack: This was a fun flick, but it's the songs that really stick in my head. There, now you've done it! "This is Halloween, this is Halloween" will play on repeat in my brain for a while.

John: While it's not in my top 100, I agree with your overall assessment on this one. That said, I've found that while I can put on the opening and watch it over and over again, once it gets past "What's This?," it's easy for me to switch it off. It's not that I don't enjoy it, it's just the opening is usually enough to give me my nostalgic fix. Looking ahead, I've got at least one film coming up that I think you would identify as a "kid" movie, but to me, if I can enjoy it as much as an adult as I can as a kid, I won't ghettoize it in that way. 

Modern Times (1936) 

Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard

Directed by Charlie Chaplin

In the middle of the Great Depression, a factory worker is fired and ends up in jail after he is mistaken for a Communist. On being released, he meets and falls for a pretty young girl without a home. Together they work hard to make their dreams come true.

Modern Times was Chaplin's last appearance as The Little Tramp, and it's a hilarious commentary on life in mid-1930s America. His skill as a physical comedian is amazing and the fact that he wrote and directed the movie, starred in it, and composed the score demonstrates why he was one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.

I could have chosen The Gold Rush or City Lights, both of which are outstanding, but I picked Modern Times in part because it represents a last hurrah for silent cinema. There is no dialogue, but Chaplin uses sound effects and music to help tell the story, and his song in gibberish near the end is the first and only time The Little Tramp would vocalize on screen. Paulette Goddard is great as the young woman and is easily the prettiest homeless teenager ever on film.—Jack

Remarks from the Gallery:

Peter: Another one I've never seen. Of course, I've heard about it, but Chaplin has never graced a screen in front of mine eyes.

John: I've bought Vonna most of the Chaplin films, as she was interested in seeing them, but I've yet to see one that has grabbed me. I'll have to give this one a try. As I mentioned last week, Buster Keaton is more my style when it comes to silent comedies.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 

Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, HAL-9000

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

"This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it."

My first exposure to 2001 was on television, and other than that it had some cool apes in the opening, it didn't hold my interest. Once I had transitioned to building a library of LaserDiscs, where I could finally see classic films in their original aspect ratios, I decided to give 2001 another shot. I was quite impressed by the audio/visual spectacle of it all. I think my wife came home one day and found me slack jawed during the stargate sequence; no artificial stimulants required. Still, I didn't come to fully appreciate the film until I read Arthur C. Clarke's novel. While you can definitely appreciate Kubrick's film without reading the book, I don't think you can fully understand it without having read it. For me, it made watching the film a far more fulfilling experience. 

I've since seen the film on the big screen several times, and I do love the immersion in Kubrick's grand visuals, surrounded by the fitting classical soundtrack. It quickly became my favorite of his films, although as fate would have it, that would be short-lived.—John

Remarks from the Gallery:

Peter: Zzzzzzzzzz. Saw this when it first came out (yep, as a seven-year-old lad at the Tropicana Drive-In in San Jose) and fell asleep. Fifty years later, I thought I should give it another try since it was such a critical darling. Zzzzzzzzzz. This is one of those "classics" (like Citizen Kane) that I'm obviously just too thick to get. I'm okay with that. Just don't try to get me to watch this thing again.

Jack: I went through a Kubrick phase at one point and I think I saw every one of his films. I remember seeing this on a giant screen in a movie theater that later got chopped up into three theaters. What I recall most is that they accidentally closed the curtains as the final scene was playing and the star child was projected on red velvet!

The Black Cat (1934) 

Starring: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

"It has been a good game"

I love the Universal Monster Movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Seen them all multiple times (some more than others, of course) but there is a safeness and formula to the vast majority. "Safe" is not a word you could apply to Edgar G. Ulmer's The Black Cat, a bizarre and sexually twisted nightmare coming in at a very compact sixty-six minutes. By 1934, Karloff and Lugosi were the "titans of terror" but this was the very first time they had teamed up in the same flick. I was always a Karloff kid, preferred Frankenstein to Dracula, and never gave Bela much more than a second glance (perhaps because of his hamminess, perhaps the accent). but I've got to admit that Lugosi shines here in the "hero" role (the stars would semi-sorta switch roles the following year for The Raven), perhaps giving the performance of his career. Karloff, of course, delivers eeriness with just a turn of his head or a cocking of his brows. No "monster star" was ever better than Boris.

The Black Cat is like a sleazy stepbrother to the other Universal horror films of that era. Karloff lives in a sterile mansion, keeps his dead wife's body preserved in a glass case in the downstairs dungeon (looking like a perfectly realized shudder pulp cover), and sleeps with his stepdaughter. No, seriously, I couldn't make this up. The big finale involves Satan worship and an honest to goodness flaying. All that's missing is a hunchback. You would be excused for believing The Black Cat was one of Val Lewton's creations as it's more in line with The Seventh Victim than House of Frankenstein. I can only imagine how this went down 92 years ago.

This might actually be the last of the Unis I caught up with. For some reason (a few I've already put out there), this never made the cut for the Saturday night Creature Feature shows, so I missed out as a kid. I finally saw this when Universal dumped a load of their classics on VHS in the 1990s. I've never seen the 1941 version starring Lugosi and Basil Rathbone but I can vouch for the quality of the 1966 Harold Hoffman-directed low-budget shocker. If this were a 100 Favorite Horror Films list, that '66 film would definitely merit a spot.—Peter

Remarks from the Gallery:

Jack: Boris is one of my all-time favorite actors, so of course I saw this and loved it. Having Bela as an extra added attraction didn't hurt. I should watch it again soon.

John: It's been a while since I've seen this one, and while I recall enjoying it, for it to make my top 100, there would be quite a few more Uni titles filling up my list. In any case, your selection encourages me to give this one a re-watch.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) 

Starring: Steve Martin, John Candy

Directed by John Hughes

"Those aren't pillows!"

It's almost Thanksgiving, and ad exec Neal Page is at a meeting in Manhattan, watching the clock, since he promised his wife and kids he'd be home to Chicago for Thanksgiving. He makes it to the airport and his plane takes off, but a snowstorm in Chicago means his flight is diverted to Wichita, Kansas. Neal can't seem to get away from Del Griffith, a loquacious, heavy-set shower curtain ring salesman who sits next to him on the plane, and the two men end up sharing a room (and a bed) at a cheap motel for the night as they wait for the planes to start flying again. Can this odd couple manage to keep it together long enough to get Neal home for the holiday?

A funny thing about making a list of 100 favorite movies is that some of the ones you recall fondly turn out to be duds when you watch them again. Such was the case with Duck Soup, a Marx Brothers classic that I remembered as very funny. Well, at age 63, I didn't find it funny at all. In fact, the 68-minute running time seemed like hours. I wrestled with keeping it on the list and trying to explain why I once liked it, or with just replacing it. I saw something somewhere that reminded me of Planes, Trains and Automobiles and thought it would fit the slot perfectly.

This is such a fun movie! I think I saw it first-run and I know I've watched it every so often in the years since. The opening scenes in Manhattan look exactly right and remind me of the two years I worked in midtown from '85 to '87. Steve Martin is great as an unlikeable man who softens and grows over the course of the story, but John Candy really carries the film as the cheerful salesman who seems to know everybody. The surprise ending, which I won't spoil, manages to put everything that came before it in a new light, which is what a good twist does. Ignore the awful '80s music and just enjoy the laughs.—Jack

Remarks from the Gallery:

Peter: I mentioned in a past post that I have a particular dislike for most movies made in the 1980s and that goes double for comedies (obviously I do like Bachelor Party, which is very much of its time but excels at satirizing the era). Well, except for some of John Hughes's films, which have an uncanny knack for being just as funny these days as they were 40+ years ago. That includes Sixteen Candles (which very nearly made my list), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (ditto), and this one. It's nearly impossible to dislike a John Candy film and his pairing with Steve Martin is brilliant. 

John: I've only seen this one once, and it didn't knock my socks off. Despite its growing popularity through the years, I've never been motivated to revisit it. While I do enjoy several of Steve Martin's films (The Jerk was under consideration but ultimately didn't make my list), I've never been much of a John Candy fan. So I'll take personal credit for Peter saying it's nearly impossible to dislike a John Candy film in his comment above. That said, Candy was in two of my runners-up (Heavy Metal and The Blues Brothers), and [SPOILER ALERT] he does show up in a forthcoming selection in my top 100.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) 

Starring: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

"Don't you want to go where the rainbow ends?"

From the opening notes of Chris Isaak's "Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing" in the trailer, I couldn't wait to see this film. And it didn't disappoint. It was as if Stanley Kubrick decided to wander into David Lynch territory, delivering what I consider a dark and disturbing horror film that's more interesting and effective than The Shining. 

As with 2001, the film is visually stunning, with a soundtrack that perfectly supports the strange events occurring throughout. Perhaps the notion of married couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman starring in the film as a married couple having their fidelity tested probably brought with it too much baggage, but I think they're both great in it—Kidman perhaps giving her finest performance. And Sydney Pollack reminds us what a great actor he was, in addition to being a fine filmmaker. 

The film was quite ridiculously digitally censored after Kubrick's death to attempt to try and protect filmgoers eyes from scenes prudish studio executives shied away from (and despite attempts to suggest that Kubrick supported the changes, the same changes were not made on international releases of the film). Thankfully, the film is now readily available in the original, uncensored international cut. 

Even having seen it multiple times, there are certain sequences of heightened tension that always manage to keep me on the edge of my seat. It continues to edge out 2001 as my favorite Kubrick film.—John

Remarks from the Gallery:

Peter: What I took away, after spending 159 minutes trying to stay awake, from Stanley Kubrick's revered masterpiece is two things: there's a hell of a lot of traffic in New York at all times of the day and night and Tom Cruise sure looks good in a winter coat. And thank God for that since approximately 140 minutes of the running time is given over to Tom walking the city streets. Tom also smiles a lot and talks in that annoying monotone. I'm going to use the line, "I'm a doctor..." next time I'm at the Dirtwater Bar and Grill and see if it opens as many doors. Doubt it. I'll give you there are a few interesting bits here and there (the ceremony being number one, of course) but so much of Eyes Wide Shut is ponderous and meandering. And you can't tell me that clumsy climactic toy store scene wasn't tacked on at the last second. For the record, my favorite Kubrick would be, naturally, The Killing.

Jack: My wife and I saw this in a theater when it was released and I recall thinking it was very good. Of course, I didn't know we were including naughty pictures on our top 100 lists! Shame on you, Mr. Scoleri.