Five Stars

I review movies (or I used to) in an entirely different blog, so I'll spare you my real opinion of the clip I posted here, from House of the Long Shadows.

One of the biggest complaints I hear about studying popular culture or whatever media we have loved from childhood, is that we are no longer able to enjoy that media. English majors say they can't just sit and read a novel anymore. Film studies students can't watch the summer blockbusters with the same empty glee. Because we've learned how to analyze, and how to criticize. We have a much broader collection of fabulous memories, and new creations rarely measure up. Once we've learned how to enjoy sushi, how can we go back to twinkies?

I have noticed a tendency in myself to criticize media in the context of all other media I've ever experienced, and as a consequence I blame a movie/book/poem for all the things it doesn't do to me, or doesn't accomplish, and praise it only for the ways in which it imitates the things I have loved, or for how near it approaches the best times I ever had.

It's unfair to both myself and the media. I watch a lot of terrible movies. My film review blog is not meant as a reaction to the latest thing, but as a place to relearn how to enjoy the art in everything. Also, it's a great place to revel in mediocrity. Even the saddest, most forgotten films have a kernel of personality, have SOMETHING to love about them, to geek out over, to hipster myself to death on (you really haven't ever seen my favorite movies). Okay, most of them have something to love, and I think that inside my love of the obscure hides the reason I can still love Summer Blockbusters, even after developing a taste for art film. Under all the destruction porn (how many times we gotta smash through New York/Toronto?), there's an idea that I can really get behind.

So I'm ending this post with a list of my top ten favorite movies you've probably never seen. I'd love to convince you to see just one, but they might be an acquired taste.

1) The Truth About Charlie (2002) - This is a remake of Charade (1963), starring Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton. It sounds like a bad idea. It sounds like a terrible idea. Why would you remake a film that was so extraordinarily iconic not because of the story, but because of the stars, and (worst of all) THE SURPRISE ENDING!? Why would you strip away the best parts of a film, and remake it over the mediocre bones? I don't care. It's fabulous. Plus, Charles Aznavour.

2) They Might Be Giants (1971) - Yes, the band named themselves from this film. I can't decide if the ending makes me hopeful, or suicidal. This movie breaks my heart, and makes me laugh. It's Don Quixote (the title suggests it as well), but modernized, and complicated. But there's a thread running through the whole film that's so completely sweet, and it ties it up in a delicate, nearly invisible bow. Watch the chemistry.

3) My Name is Nobody (1973) - I didn't understand how perfect this film was until I watched it for the thirtieth time. I exaggerate, but I have seen this movie many, many times. It's taciturn, and yet heavy-handed at the same time. It's exactly what Heidegger was thinking of when he imagined the work of art. Terence Hill (Nobody) captures the perfected naivete from his Trinity films, and redeems it. Henry Fonda makes me cry.

4) The Pirates of Penzance (1983) - Bits and pieces of the broadway cast fill this brilliant filmed/stage production. The set is dorkily cartoony, if you even notice it, but Kevin Kline heads an hilarious crew that captures all the energy that Gilbert and Sullivan didn't realize they'd written. There are several similar versions, but this is the one you want.

5) House of the Long Shadows (1983) - Was clearly a good year for obscure films. And I'm finally breaking the "four word title" trend. I saw and loved Long Shadows when I was a child (probably mirroring my father), and reluctantly revisited it just this week. It held up quite well, if you know what you're getting into. ALL THREE KINGS OF HORROR. Plus Desi Arnaz Jr. (?). It was based on a terribly play by Earl Derr Biggars called "Seven Keys to Baldpate." (Yes, I read it, because the movie hasn't been available for the last thirty years. It really was terrible.) You might consider ignoring the second twist ending; it's a bit gratuitous.

6) Dark and Stormy Night (2009) - (back to four words) Larry Blamire, of Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, and The Lost Skeleton Returns Again fame made this riotous sendup of old thrillers. One of my favorite games is playing "catch the allusion" because for every dumb gag in this movie, there's an equally serious moment in an obscure, black-and-white thriller from the '30s/'40s. You can catch a bunch of them if you watch The Thirteenth Guest before seeing this. I laughed myself sick. My dad hated every minute.

7) Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) - Joss Whedon supposedly hated the film, from which is incredibly popular franchise sprang, fully-formed. I adored it, because I think all teenage melodrama should be tempered with humor, and not just biting wit, though this film has some of that, too. It's bitchy and campy, where Whedon seems to prefer a more subtle tongue-in-cheek.

8) MirrorMask (2005) - Watch this movie for Dave McKean's art. Most people watch it for Neil Gaiman's story, which is good, but like most of his stories, it sits quietly in the background, well-balanced, while other really cool things are happening.

9) Return to Oz (1985) - This sequel, fortunately, totally bucks the sappy stupidity of the first Dorothy film, and goes straight to your childhood. It's frightening, imaginative, and depends on making you remember what it was like to be a child.

10) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997) - There are probably a dozen versions of this movie you could watch, and most of them will have avoided the great pitfalls this film stumbles headlong into. But they won't have the same repressed passions and . . . I don't know. Maybe I just love this movie because Paul Gross. Do I need a better reason? Probably, if I'm going to convince you. Watch it for the really questionable makeup decisions.