Movie Recommendations, Rants and Ruminations
One of the main threads of Toy Story 3 is how the toys escape (while sending up virtually every convention of the prison movie genre). On NPR’s Fresh Air, Toy Story 3‘s editor Lee Unkrich and screenwriter Michael Arndt recently discussed how they watched many prison movies for inspiration. The interview is here.
The movie that they call the “most boring” is Le Trou, which actually tops my list of Best Prison Movies.
We’re living in a good time for crime drama. When I think of this genre, I generally think of The Godfather, Goodfellas, and the film noir of the 40s and 50s. But there are some excellent contemporary ones. This year, we have had A Prophet, The Secret in Their Eyes, Ajami, Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Animal Kingdom. (Interestingly, two of those films are French, and the others are Australian, Argentine and Israeli.)
Here are some more outstanding crime dramas from the past seven years: The Lookout, A History of Violence, Layer Cake, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Tell No One, Gomorrah, Sin Nombre, In Bruges, Zodiac, Maria Full of Grace and Eastern Promises. All of them have inventive, fresh takes on the crime genre. All of them are on my list of best films for its year.
For descriptions and trailers, see Best Recent Crime Dramas.
My pick for 2010’s best movie to date is Winter’s Bone, which is just now available on DVD. A 17-year-old Ozarks girl is determined to save the family home by tracking down her meth dealer dad – dead or alive. The girl’s journey through a series of nasty and nastier Southern Missouri crank cookers is riveting – without any explosions, gunfights or chase scenes. Every moment of this film seems completely real. Winter’s Bone won the screenwriting and grand jury prizes at Sundance.
With just her second feature, Debra Granik has emerged as an important filmmaker to watch. She presents an unflinching look at this subculture without ever resorting to stereotype. Granik hits a home run with every artistic choice, from the locations to the spare soundtrack to the pacing to the casting. I’ll be watching for her next film.
As the protagonist, 20-year-old Jennifer Lawrence is in every scene. With a minimum of dialogue, she creates a lead character of rarely seen determination.
Dale Dickey is exceptional as a criminal matriarch. John Hawkes (the kind Sol Star in Deadwood) also gives a tremendous performance as the ready-to-explode Uncle Teardrop.
For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week. Winter’s Bone is on my lists of Best Movies of 2010 – So Far and 5 Great Hillbilly Movies.
By popular demand, I have updated my list of 10 Most Memorable Food Scenes. Many of you have pointed out deserving scenes that I left off my first draft. Paula reminded me of the dining-as-foreplay scene in Tom Jones. Rick mentioned The Freshman, in which the The Fabulous Gourmet Club charges a $1 million prix fixe “for the privilege of eating the very last of a species”. And somehow I had forgotten the food fight scene from Animal House.
And Judy reminded me of a movie that I had erased from my memory because I hate, hate, hate it – The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Nevertheless, I admit that the final (and I mean final) dining scene is most memorable.
Here’s my pick for the most memorable food scene in the movies:
For the most tantalizing food in the movies, see my completely different list of 10 Food Porn Movies.
Tony Curtis has died. He was a very handsome and sexy guy, and the first half of his career was at the tail end of Hollywood’s Studio Era. As a result, he played the pretty boy leads in lots of mediocre action movies. He and first wife Janet Leigh (parents of Jamie Lee Curtis) made up one of Hollywood’s most glamorous couples ever.
But Tony Curtis could act if he got the right role, and he made at least three great movies. The fact that these movies come from three very different genres (screwball comedy, contemporary drama, sword-and-sandal epic) is a testament to his ability.
Some Like It Hot (1959): This Billy Wilder masterpiece is my pick for the best comedy of all time. Seriously – the best comedy ever. And it still works today. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play most of the movie in drag (and Tony is kind of cute). Curtis must continue the ruse although next to Marilyn Monroe is at her most delectable. Curtis then dons a yachting cap and does a dead-on Cary Grant impression as the heir to an industrial fortune.
Sweet Smell of Success (1957): This has Curtis’ most subtly acted role as a Broadway press agent who is completely at the mercy of Burt Lancaster’s sadistically nasty columnist. Many of us have experienced being vulnerable to the caprice of an extremely mean person – Curtis perfectly captures the dread and humiliation of being in that position.
Spartacus (1960): Once in a while, a grand epic is a really good movie , and Spartacus qualifies. Curtis plays a slave who is hit on by Laurence Olivier’s Roman patrician in a scene of BARELY implicit homosexuality. “Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?”, Olivier leers from the bath. It was a gutsy scene for a studio actor at the end of the 50s.
A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop was only okay, but it did have one great noodle making scene.
I’ve added this scene as a bonus to my list of 10 Food Porn Movies.
Also see my 10 Most Memorable Food Scenes.
My sister-in-law just asked me a great question: name five movies that will introduce a high school student to classic American films. (Even more interesting, the student is here on an exchange program from Europe.) So I came up with a list in just a few minutes: a drama, a comedy, a Western, a suspense thriller and a film noir:
All About Eve
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Strangers on a Train
Double Indemnity
Sullivan’s Travels
If you see these five movies, you will be introduced to directors John Ford, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Preston Sturges, plus movie stars John Wayne, James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Edward G. Robinson, Lee Marvin, George Sanders, Joel McRae and Veronica Lake – not a bad intro.
To see descriptions along with trailers or clips, go to A Classic American Movie Primer – 5 to Start With.
Well, we’re at the halfway point of the movie year – the summer movies are winding down, and the Oscar bait is still ahead of us in the autumn and holidays. So it’s time to take stock of the year’s movies to date. I now have ten movies on my list of Best Movies of 2010 – So Far. You can read my comments and watch the trailers on the Best Movies of 2010 – So Far page.
Better yet, you can see Toy Story 3 and Inception in the theater this week.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, A Prophet, The Girl on the Train, Fish Tank, The Ghost Writer and Sweetgrass are all available on DVD right now. Sweetgrass is also available on Netflix streaming video.
The Secrets of Their Eyes will be available on DVD on September 21. The DVD release of my top film of the year so far, Winter’s Bone, is October 26.
So how does A Prophet stack up against other films in that time honored genre – the Prison Movie? Can a French film rank high among the Alcatraz, Sing Sing and Folsom fare?
My top ten includes familiar themes – the fact-based stories, the great escape attempts, the characters who resist the oppressive authority and those who work the system to become crime bosses. Plus Death Row. My list includes American penitentiaries, British, French and Turkish prisons, enemy POW camps and Southern chain gangs. But some of the best known prison movies do NOT make the cut.
See my list of 10 Best Prison Movies.
Both of my recommended surfing films are mentioned in my Best Sports Movies. I have a list of 10 Best Sports Movies and also a top movie for each sport. What’s my top pick for a basketball movie? Or football? Or wrestling? Or skateboarding? Or rowing? Or shuffleboard? Is shuffleboard a sport?
Here’s a clip from my pick for best bodybuilding movie. You will probably recognize this guy.