My Favorite Movies
My Favorite Movies 45: Up in Smoke (Lou Adler, 1978)
I was never much of a drug user. I mean, sure, like everyone else, I’ve tried plenty in my time, but I just couldn’t ever get anything to stick I guess. Hell, I don’t even drink to get drunk (though, to be fair, that Scotch I drink is too expensive to do something as barbaric…
Read MoreMy Favorite Movies 44: It’s a Gift (Norman McLeod, 1934)
It’s a Gift is one hell of a depressing comedy. It’s like just being on the edge of going to sleep with a mosquito buzzing in your ear, and no matter how many times you try to swat it, you only end up smacking yourself in the head. And instead of this routine only lasting…
Read MoreMy Favorite Movies 43: Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)
For someone who has always been a silent comedy fan, it took me a while to give the humor of the Marx brothers a chance. Sure, the visual gags were still there, especially with Harpo running around like a feral, rapey Carrot Top, but otherwise, the Marx brothers practiced a decidedly scripted and verbal form…
Read MoreMy Favorite Movies 42: This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)
This is Spinal Tap is not the first “mockumentary,” but it is probably the most famous one. And, in a time when the genre can be seen all over film (Borat, Bruno, and the slew of mockumentaries made by the Spinal Tap team) and TV (The Office, Parks and Rec, and Modern Family), I’m pleased…
Read MoreMy Favorite Movies 41 – Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
For the uninitiated, film noir can be a disappointing thing. The colorful dialog often veers dangerously close to camp Calvin and Hobbes “Tracer Bullet” self-parody, while the B-movie visuals sometimes aren’t quite as stylish as modern audiences whose only exposure to the style is from Sin City comic books. Of course, there are films noir…
Read MoreMy Favorite Movies 40 – Gummo (Harmony Korine, 1997)
Gummo is a movie people either hate or love. Or, more accurately, Gummo is a movie people either hate, or are apologists for–and today I guess I will be taking the apologist tack. After all, I understand the complaints, I won’t even argue that they are unfair. Hell, I even wavered back and forth about…
Read MoreMy Favorite Movies 39 – Beware of a Holy Whore (R.W. Fassbinder, 1971)
German director R.W. Fassbinder has always been fascinated with the human desire for love and the soul crushing games of power that the human desire for love wreaks on those who attempt to be loved. In today’s film, the bridge between his earlier masterpieces (which began in 1969 with Love is Colder than Death) and…
Read MoreMy Favorite Movies 38 – The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950)
Man do I love heist movies. I’m not talking about wacky romps like the Ocean’s 11 movies (though they are fine for what they are), I’m talking about the old school heist movies where EVERYBODY fucking dies. I’ve discussed some of my favorite heist film elements before (while distinguishing them from the not at all the same “crime…
Read MoreMy Favorite Movies 37 – The Warriors (Walter Hill, 1979)
The Warriors is one of the manliest movies ever made. A gang of sweat-soaked, half-naked men run across three burroughs of New York City, periodically stopping to roll around on the ground with men from other gangs while attempting to avoid the deadly, siren-like snares that every woman who gets in their way represents. Actually, The Warriors…
Read MoreMy Favorite Movies 36 – Destry Rides Again (George Marshall, 1939)
As one of the first, and most famous, “pacifist westerns,” it is tempting to discuss Destry Rides Again in terms of the fascinatingly contradictory tenants of that genre. However, because I’ve already discussed pacifist westerns, I figured that today I would instead discuss what it takes to be a “classic western,” something of which today’s film is…
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