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Essential Movies

What is an essential movie? To me it is a movie that you give as a reason why you love movies. It’s a movie you wish to share with everyone you know and spend hours talking about it. It’s a movie that on some level changed your life. These are my essential movies.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Writers: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore

The Big Lebowski may be the most analyzed film by the Coen Brothers, and while I've read a few, I really don't care. Sure, it's loaded with metaphors and film technique and is quite brilliant and I appreciate all of that, but I love it because it is a terribly funny and entertaining movie.

The only subtext that speaks to me is the dynamic of Bridges' and Goodman's characters, both Vietnam veterans of a sort, and the strange friendship between two complete opposites. That dynamic, representing the divide that Vietnam created, is incredibly heartwarming. There should be terrible animosity there because of wounds that haven't healed, but we have a deep and true friendship born through America's true national past time of bowling. Both of them are firmly stuck in their past, but commune with each other in the present.

As a comedy I feel it is quite underrated. The movie has almost a laid back Marx Brothers feel to it with quick and clever lines delivered just a bit slower than Groucho would, and quite a bit of physical comedy. Take some time to watch it just on the surface. Just be entertained.

This is a movie that has been written about way too much, so I'm keeping this brief. The Big Lebowski is an epic filmmaker's film on one level, a slapstick comedy on another, and a movie about unlikely companions, friendship, and how we aren't all that different from each other if we set aside the past, the politics, and stop to learn about each other over a simple game.

Rating: 5/5

Favorite Quotes:

The Dude: That rug really tied the room together.

Blond Treehorn Thug: [holding up a bowling ball] What the fuck is this?

The Dude: Obviously you're not a golfer.

The Dude: It's all a god damn fake, man. It's like Lenin said: you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh, you know...

Donny: I am the walrus.

The Dude: You know, you'll uh, uh - well, you know what I'm trying' to say...

Donny: I am the walrus.

Walter Sobchak: That fucking bitch!

The Dude: Oh yeah!

Donny: I am the walrus.

Walter Sobchak: Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!

Donny: What the fuck is he talking about?

The Stranger: Take it easy, Dude.

The Dude: Oh, yeah!

The Stranger: I know that you will.

The Dude: Yeah, well - the Dude abides.

[Exits with beers in hand]

The Stranger: [to the camera] The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners.

Sherry in 'Logjammin': [on video] You must be here to fix the cable.

Maude Lebowski: Lord. You can imagine where it goes from here.

The Dude: He fixes the cable?

Maude Lebowski: Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey.

Walter Sobchak: Fuck it, Dude, let's go bowling.

#moviereview #essentialmovie #seethis #the big lebowski #the coen brothers #jeff bridges #john goodman #review #film #movie #1998

Essential Movies

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Directors: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise

Writers: Linda Woolverton (animation screenplay by), Brenda Chapman (story by)

Stars: Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson, Jesse Corti

It's hard to say if this is my favorite Disney animated film, but at times, usually after I have just watched it again, it often is.

It is not the best animation I've seen from the studio, it lacks a level of detail that their best work has, but it is some of the best character design and background work they've ever done. The capturing of the movement of the characters, especially Belle's dresses and the Beast's movements are some of the best in all of animation. It also has a wonderful story that combines the best Disney traditions of humor, adventure, romance, and a fair bit of the darkness that all good fairy tales bring. Plus the awesome awfulness that is Gaston, the paragon of the patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Rarely has there been a better villain.

It is a classic, and the music is some of the best they put out at a time when they could do absolutely nothing wrong in that department. You find something new every time, sometimes something wonderful like the painterly textures on some of the backgrounds that are reminiscent of impressionist brush strokes...and sometimes something that shocks you that you never noticed it, like the fact that the curse had lasted 10 years, and ended on the Beast's 21st birthday.

He was 11 years old when he was cursed. Someone needs to do something about these out of control enchantresses! And his parents, did they just abandon him out of shame? It lends a whole different level of tragedy to the story, and explains much more about the Beast's behavior...cursed as a child, abandoned, and raised by his staff who were also cursed for no good reason.

I love this movie, and I will never get tired of returning to it.

Rating: 5/5

Favorite Quotes:

Gaston: It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas and thinking.

Gaston: [rudely flipping through Belle's book] How can you read this? There's no pictures!

Belle: Well, some people use their imagination.

Cogsworth: Well, Your Highness, I must say everything is going just swimmingly. I knew you had it in you, ha ha!

Beast: [sadly] I let her go.

Cogsworth: Huh, huh, huh! Yes, yes, spled...

[stops]

Cogsworth: You what? How could you do that?

Beast: I had to.

Cogsworth: Yes, but, but, but but why?

Beast: Because I love her.

Belle: [singing] I want adventure in the great wide somewhere. / I want it more than I can tell. / And for once it might be grand / To have someone understand / I want so much more than they've got planned.

Belle: Gaston, you are positively primeval!

Gaston: Why, thank you, Belle!

#seethis #moviereview #essentialmovie #beauty and the beast #1991 #disney #animation #movie #film #review

Essential Movies

Big Fish (2003)

Director: Tim Burton

Writers: Daniel Wallace (novel), John August (screenplay)

Stars: Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup

Big Fish is one of those movies that feels perfect, and that it was made just for me.

It's a comfort.

It's happiness.

It's an escape and a joy.

I am a big Tim Burton fan and while I love his unique style my favorite film of his is the one that is the least recognizable as one of his films.

Big Fish is an ode to storytellers, an ode to love, and an ode to sons who wait to long to understand their fathers. They are everything when we are children, and then we grow up and see their faults, and they loom so large in contrast to the man we thought they were. We rebel and want to become anything but the man we assume they are. And sometimes it's too late that we realize that they are simply human, for good and bad, and often not as bad as our shattered expectations led us to believe.

I love Ewan McGregor as an actor. He's a throwback. He should be filmed in black and white, firing off sharply written lines, and making leading ladies swoon in his arms. He is always charming and I love watching him act. He never attacks a role, he just slides into it. It doesn't win you many Oscars, but Oscar count is a terrible determination of acting talent.

Burton makes a very smart decision to be so utterly reserved with his camera and effects while telling a story about tall tales. If he has cut loose too much of the humanity in the tales would have been lost. Keeping the effects simple, like with the perfectly capture frozen popcorn sequence, keeps the film grounded.

Big Fish is one of my all time favorites. I want everyone to see it, but I also don't care if you do or not. Some movies are fine just being all mine.

Rating: 5/5

Favorite Quotes:

Ed Bloom: They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up.

Will Bloom: A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal.

Ed Bloom: There's a time when a man needs to fight, and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny is lost... the ship has sailed and only a fool would continue. Truth is... I've always been a fool.

Ed Bloom: It was that night I discovered that most things you consider evil or wicked are simply lonely, and lacking in the social niceties.

Ed Bloom: I don't know if you're aware of this, Josephine, but African parrots, in their native home of the Congo, they speak only French.

Josephine: Really?

Ed Bloom: You're lucky to get four words out of them in English, but if you were to walk through the jungle, you'd hear them speaking the most elaborate French. Those parrots talk about everything. Politics, movies, fashion. Everything but religion.

Will Bloom: Why not religion, Dad?

Ed Bloom: It's rude to talk about religion. You never know who you're gonna offend.

Will Bloom: In telling the story of my father's life, it's impossible to separate fact from fiction, the man from the myth. The best I can do is to tell it the way he told me. It doesn't always make sense and most of it never happened... but that's what kind of story this is.

#moviereview #essentialmovie #seethis #big fish #tim burton #ewan mcgregor #review #film #movie #2003

Essential Movies

The Lady Eve (1941)

Director: Preston Sturges

Writers: Monckton Hoffe, Preston Sturges

Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn

Barbara Stanwyck is my joy. She is my favorite actress of all time, and one of the reasons why classic films are one of my favorite things in life.

The Lady Eve is a 1941 comedy starring Stanwyck and Henry Fonda, directed and written by the brilliant Preston Sturges. Sturges is one of the greatest and most underrated comedic directors in film history. Then again, almost all comedic directors and performers are underrated. I consider this to be one of Stanwyck's greatest acting performances but it never gets the credit her dramatic performances do. Her timing and delivery are impeccable.

This is a film that works as well today as it did the day it was released. It is loaded with so much sexual innuendo it's a blessing that most of the code censors of the time were too dim-witted to catch any of it. The film is a satire of Eve and the apple in the garden of Eden, and Sturges doesn't really bother with being subtle about it going as far as having Eve deliberately drop an apple right on Henry Fonda's "Adam" when she first sees him and she's also deathly afraid of snakes.

This movie contains some of the smartest, funniest, and smartly delivered dialogue of any movie ever made. It can almost overwhelm you at times and it is that smart kind of funny that makes a smarty pants like myself just squeal with joy.

Stanwyck just glows in this movie. She is beautiful and I am in love. Every time, it is love at first sight for me. Does this color my perceptions of the film and her performance? Of course it does! Who cares? She's amazing and I'm going to tell you about it. Her character is a brilliant and merciless con artist who works with her card sharp father to swindle the wealthy on ocean voyages.

Henry Fonda plays her current victim, the wealthy son of a brewery man who aspires to be a scientist. He's adorable as the clumsy and naively romantic nerd who literally falls for Stanwyck. He reminds me of Harold Lloyd's character in Girl Shy, a man who's experience with women is all in books he's read, but he has a huge heart. Fonda would have been an absolutely brilliant silent film performer. His performance here is a direct carry over from that era, mostly physical and built on his facial expressions more than his words. Stanwyck gets all of the dialogue, and we're all better for it.

Stanwyck's outfits are gorgeous, designed by the legendary Edith Head. The first one we see her in is absolutely stunning and the only victim of the motion picture code as it was required that her navel be covered. Damn you censors!!

When they first meet and are in her cabin the innuendo just explodes as Strurges. Her fingers stroking his ears, his gently reaching to her upper thigh but only to lower her hemline. Fonda's body language couldn't be stiffer *wink nudge*. There is sex just bubbling under the surface and it makes the movie so much more entertaining and hilarious.

I love Barbara Stanwyck, she can do no wrong, and the scene where Fonda confronts her about who she is breaks my heart every single time. It also makes me yell at Fonda every single time for being such a boob. Thirty two thousand dollars and no sense indeed.

The movie is also overflowing with some of the nest character actors of the time, especially the fellow con artists. Great actors acting as a person who is acting is always fun to watch. Timing is everything in comedy, and everybody hear hits it perfectly. Even the horses have impeccable timing.

The Lady Eve is one of my favorite movies ever, and my favorite performance by Barbara Stanwyck which is saying a lot. My only complaint about the movie is the ending. Why? Because you're not good enough for her Fonda!!! You're not!! Ya spoiled lucky bum.

See this.

Rating: 5/5

Favorite Quotes:

What I can't understand is how he finished fifth!

There were only five horses in the race. What do you expect when you bet on a goat called "After You?"

Do you think they're dancing anyplace on board?

Don't you think we ought to go to bed?

You're certainly a funny girl for anybody to meet who's just been up the Amazon for a year.

Good thing you weren't up there two years.

Boy, would I like to see you givin' some old harpie the three in one!

Don't be vulgar, Jean. Let us be crooked, but never common.

But he says she says she won't have anything to do with lawyers.

That's entirely irregular!

Well, it's a thought!

Ah, there you are. Well, it certainly took you long enough to come back in the same outfit.

I'm lucky to have this on. Mr Pike has been up the river for a year.

#the lady eve #essentialmovie #moviereview #seethis #barbara stanwyck #henry fonda #preston sturges #1941 #movie #film #review

Essential Movies

The Sting (1973)

“Set in the 1930's this intricate caper deals with an ambitious small-time crook and a veteran con man who seek revenge on a vicious crime lord who murdered one of their gang.”

Director: George Roy Hill

Writer: David S. Ward

Stars: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw

The Sting is an excellent period drama about a couple of grifters running the long con on a big time Chicago gangster.

It takes place primarily in Chicago in 1936 and stars Robert Redford , Paul Newman, and Robert Shaw along with an amazing cast of some of the best character actors Hollywood has ever seen.

Redford is a young but talented grifter who lucks into a big score running a small con, not realizing the man he stole from is a big time gangster. His partner takes this opportunity to retire and gives his young partner the name of a man who can further his education.

The story is paced perfectly, and keeps you guessing and on the edge of your seat wondering if their scheme will fall apart. They have hit men, dirty cops, and even the feds waiting around every corner and one of the most dangerous men in the country in their sights.

The story is so well told that it's even better during a second viewing so you can see how all the pieces fit together. And there's no greater compliment to a film with so many twists, turns, and surprises than to say it holds up to multiple viewings even after you know how everything turns out.

Redford and Newman are two of the most underrated actors I've ever seen. They are certainly popular, but they never really got credit for their acting skills as much as their good looks. Throw in a truly evil and menacing Robert Shaw and a cast of impeccable character actors and you have a veritable acting school in this film.

The set design is fantastic. Everything feels very real, and very dirty, and it all has a scent to it. Nothing can take you out of a period movie more than something looking out of place.

The main theme is instantly recognizable, and fits the period perfectly. Something you'd expect running over the top of a silent film. There are few musical pieces of note beyond the main theme, which runs throughout the film at different speeds and tones for different moods.

The Sting is pretty much a perfect film from top to bottom. Just plain fun to watch and a master class in quality film making.

See this.

Rating: 5/5

Quotes:

Doyle Lonnegan: Your boss is quite a card player, Mr. Kelly; how does he do it?

Johnny Hooker: He cheats.

Luther: How much did you lose?

Johnny Hooker: [winces] All of it.

Luther: In one damn night? What are you spraying money around like that for, you could've been nailed.

Johnny Hooker: I checked the place first. There were no dicks in there.

Luther: But you're a con man! And you blew it like a pimp!

Doyle Lonnegan: You see that fella in the red sweather over there? His name's Donnie McCoy. Works a few of the protection rackets for Cunnaro when he's waiting for something better to happen. Donnie and I have known each other since we were six. Take a good look at that face, Floyd. Because if he ever finds out I can be beat by one lousy grifter, I'll have to kill him and every other hood who wants to muscle in on my Chicago operation.

#essentialmovie #moviereview #the sting #1973 #george roy hill #david s ward #paul newman #robert redford #robert shaw #seethis #movie #review #film

Essential Movies

Barry Lyndon (1975)

“At long last Redmond Berry became a gentleman--and that was his tragedy.”

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Writers: Stanley Kubrick (written for the screen by), William Makepeace Thackeray (novel)

Stars: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee

Barry Lyndon is one of the few Stanley Kubrick directed film I had yet to see. I'm not sure why it took me so long to see it, but after finally getting around to it I'm truly upset it took me this long. I wish I was writing this after my 2nd or 3rd viewing because it is such a dense film.

I understand why it tends to be one of the least well received of his films. It is very dry on the surface, it lacks a traditional protagonist arc, and it moves at it's own pace. All of which is intentional, all of which begs the viewer to go beyond the passivity with which we view film. Like great works of art in a museum, echoing a scene late in the film, we are not meant to just appreciate the brush strokes and colors. Kubrick taunts us with his passive view, static scenes, filmed with a painterly touch, expansive vistas echoing the great impressionists, interiors glowing with the soft warm colors of the baroque masters.

The cinematography is beyond incredible, as it Kubrick's painstaking perfectionism seeking perfect natural light for every scene. John Alcott's camera is god like. Using an experimental camera lens developed by NASA in order to capture interiors lit only by candlelight. There is such beauty in this film.

There is also much to delve into in this character study. Redmond Barry is played with the same passivity by Ryan O'Neal that Kubrick places behind the camera. We are pushed to view him with the same contempt as his contemporaries, his heart ever hidden from us except in rare moments, his fate told to us in advance by the indifferent narrator.

Barry is a man ever seeking to appease a father he never knew, as the film is detached study begging the audience to view it not as an audience. The audience is forced into the role of the bourgeois, to see Barry as the heartless upstart, a commoner seeking status through contemptuous means.

Barry Lyndon is unique for Kubrick because it is unique for film making. I know now why it rarely gets mentioned among his greatest works, though it clearly should be. It cannot be viewed with a passive eye, it is not your traditional coming of age story. It has no traditional hero. It is a masterly painting that refuses to make it easy on the viewer. It will not, like it did not for the young men in their duels, receive satisfaction so easily.

See this.

Rating: 5/5

Quote:

Narrator: [voice-over] Fate had determined that he should leave none of his race behind him, and that he should finish his life poor, lonely and childless.

Narrator: [voice-over] A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one. This heart of Lischen's was like many a neighboring town and had been stormed and occupied several times before Barry came to invest it.

Captain Grogan: [dying] I've only a hundred guineas left to give you for I lost the rest at cards last night. Kiss me, me boy, for we'll never meet again.

Sir Charles Lyndon: Have you done with my Lady?

Redmond Barry: I beg your pardon?

Sir Charles Lyndon: Come, come, sir. I'm a man who would rather be known as a cuckold than a fool.

#essentialmovie #moviereview #barry lyndon #stanley kubrick #william makepeace thackeray #ryan o'neal #Marisa Berenson #seethis #1975 #john alcott

Essential Movies

Stray Dog (1949)

“In Akira Kurosawa's gritty Stray Dog, a young police detective gets his pistol stolen on a crowded bus during the oppressive heat of a late 1940s Tokyo summer. The gun is later used in a robbery and murder making finding it even more important.”

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Writers: Ryûzô Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa

Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji

Stray Dog is a film noir crime drama set in steamy post war Tokyo by Akira Kurosawa.

A very young Toshiro Mifune plays a young cop and war veteran who has his gun pick pocketed on the bus, and the recovering of it leads him and a veteran cop portrayed by the amazing Takashi Shimura deeper and deeper into a maze of crime and murder.

This is an amazing crime drama, and one of my favorite pieces of noir. Kurosawa doesn't hold back on his storytelling skills and innovative techniques, especially during an extended sequence with almost no dialogue where Mifune wanders the poverty stricken streets hoping to be approached by a gun seller.

The whole film has an oppressive atmosphere as no scene fails to remind you that this is taking place during a terrible heat wave. Sweat is never not being wiped from necks and brows, soaked through clothing. You feel it as a viewer, relate to it, and it makes what the characters go through that much stronger.

The climactic sequence in the film is one of the most amazing I've seen in a movie. It builds and builds, piece by piece, increasing the tension to a tautness that you expect can only break, and then it pauses, and only a piano is heard, until it finally snaps and emotions flood out. It's worth seeing just for how Kurosawa sets this up, like a composer building a symphony.

This is a brilliant noir film, and a brilliant crime drama that pretty much created every trope that still exists in buddy cop films to this day. It is also a strong commentary on the effect war has on soldiers. It makes this a universal and rather important film as we see the two extreme directions life can push a man, when war ends and life begins, to light or dark. Where hope can be such a very very ethereal thing to hold on to, and can so easily slip away and leave you falling.

Toshiro Mifune is my second favorite actor ever, and he is young and brilliant in this, but he is outshone by Takashi Shimura who plays the veteran police officer that shows him how to work a case, to hold his emotions. The veteran seems the more empathetic of the two, more patient in his treatment of criminals and witnesses, but this turns by the end as we learn how ambivalent he has become with each case, while the younger man still has pity for the criminals and feels this terrible responsibility for what is being done not just with his stolen pistol, but by a man who could very easily be himself.

There is great depth of story here, and also tremendous skill in storytelling. Movies like this are why I love movies and why Kurosawa is my favorite director.

See this.

Rating: 5/5

Quotes:

Police Inspector Nakajima: Bad luck either makes a man or destroys him. Are you gonna let it destroy you? Depending how you take it, bad luck can be a big break.

Det. Sato: He'll rob again. Once does not a habit make, but the second time, a stray becomes a rabid dog. Am I wrong?

Det. Ichikawa: You know this guy, don't you?

Ogin: Who knows? At my age, I've stopped noticing handsome young men.

Det. Ichikawa: You're slippery as the eels on the menu here.

Det. Murakami: You have to feel sorry for Yusa.

Det. Sato: Oh, no. Thinking like that won't get you anywhere as a cop. It's easy to develop delusions, chasing criminals all day. We can't forget the many sheep a lone wolf leaves wounded. Half those citations were capital cases. There's no help for a cop who doesn't believe he's protecting the masses. I say leave the psychoanalysis to the detective novels.