My Favorite Movies

One of my all-time favorites.

I saw this movie without knowing anything about it except the director (who went on to make Tommy and Lair of the White Worm), and I was stunned by how good it was. One of the most critical views of the Catholic Church I've ever seen in a film (which got it into a lot of trouble when it was first released). This NEEDS to come out on DVD.

One of my personal favorites, and one of the most hilariously pessimistic views of heterosexual romantic relationships I've ever seen. "You think I'm pathetic. You think I'm shit. Well, I'm champagne. And YOU'RE shit."

Some people have called it (and Jodorowsky's work in general) "pretentious," but this judgment overlooks its deliberate satire and absurdity.

David Lynch's best film, IMO, and one of my favorite movies, period. Really deserves multiple viewings to develop a real interpretation/appreciation. This film does what Lost Highway tried to do, but succeeds in a way that Lost Highway doesn't.

Much as I enjoyed Chicago, this is the film that should have won the Oscar that year.

Peter O'Toole was nominated for an Oscar for this role, yet almost nobody has heard of this film. I only know two other people who've seen it, and I was the one who showed it to one of them. Absurdist dark comedy criticizing the Church and the British class system--with random musical numbers.

One of the most important movies of my life. I first saw it a few years ago and the expertly-depicted message struck home: if you expend too much time, energy, and emotion on someone who just plain isn't interested in you (no matter how he might have acted in the past), you will end up going batshit insane. Finally an honest film about the pain and trial of unrequited attraction and what happens when it goes too far.

Brad Pitt should have stuck with roles like this one.

The first time I saw this movie, I wasn't told it was a horror film . . . which is probably the best way to see it. See what happens to men who lie to women in order to get laid?

. . . Although a small handful of spit is NOT going to be sufficient lubricant for anal sex, let's face it.

Klaus Kinski plays a serial killer whose father was a Nazi doctor. This movie really hates people: I think there are maybe two or three sympathetic characters in the entire film. As a b-movie, it's a lot of fun. Directed by the guy who made Puppet Master and filmed in the same apartment as the movie Troll.

Madonna is a terrible actress (Swept Away, anyone?), but was great in this film because she only has a handful of actual spoken lines: the rest is all singing. Doesn't try to idealize or demonize Eva Peron, but shows us that she was a flawed and complex woman.

It's an amusing mix of good and cheesy horror film techniques. George C. Scott overacts to humorous effect. There's a dream sequence in a sort of waiting room to heaven, which I believe was set in Grand Central or a similar train station (with a famous basketball player as Death), and an extremely creepy Jesus statue that opens its eyes and STARES AT YOU. Not to mention the long, intense rants by Patient X.

Semi-intentional hilarity, Werner Herzog style. A lot of this movie is made of Treadwell's own unused footage, including a number of clips Treadwell doubtless never intended anyone to see: getting openly pissed off at a fox who stole his hat, demanding "God, Allah, Hindu floaty-thing" make it rain to feed the bears, complaining that he wished he were gay because it would be easier to get laid, even reverently touching a lump of fresh bear shit ("this was just in her butt!"). Herzog does love movies about determined, quixotic madmen in the wilderness.

Best of the trilogy, IMO.

Great movie. It can be hard to pull off any sort of crime drama, let alone one with allusions to film noir, without making it too cheesy or macho. This film pulls it off.

Before Wonder Showzen's misbehaving puppets, there was Meet the Feebles, about a Muppet-type show with loads of corruption behind the scenes. Peter Jackson directed this over a decade before Lord of the Rings.

Tarantino's best film, that's all I have to say.

I didn't know quite what to make of this when I first saw it, but on subsequent viewings it's become one of my favorites. The visual style is a near-perfect representation of early '30s cinema. With Isabella Rossellini as a legless beer baroness.

One of those very rare movies that don't portray BDSM as something limited to serial killers, mindless sluts, laughable freaks, and perverts lurking in the shadows. It's emphasized that Lee stays in her situation because she CHOOSES to, not because she's being bullied or forced, and shows how her freedom to express her sexuality has made her stronger and more confident as a person. Also one of only a handful of movies I enjoy that could potentially be labeled "chick flicks."

Definitely a guilty pleasure kind of movie: not for all the nudity and such, because despite being a movie about topless dancing it's really not sexy at all (except those black leather outfits in one scene were kind of hot), but for its pure camp value. It's just fun to watch for the constant melodramatic cheese and really misguided attempts to be "sexy" and "daring" (see also: the pool scene).

Alexander Payne's best movie yet, it doesn't try to apologize for or "fix" the flaws of its main characters: the cocky, aging dudebro who's marrying a much younger woman from a wealthy family and STILL wants to fuck around before the wedding, even with a plain, chunky waitress from a cheap restaurant; the quiet, insecure fellow who's prone to drinking too much to quell his anxieties, is still getting over the pain of his last relationship, and is intimidated by an attractive lady who's definitely into him. Some of the few movie characters who seem like real people.

There was some cheesy acting on the part of people like whatsherface who was in 8 Mile, but all in all, great neo-noir.

Poor Bruno is really a decent guy, but has spent much of his life in various institutions and now isn't very good at taking care of himself. A change of scenery doesn't really improve his life, but only changes the facade of his tormentors. This movie sort of reminds me of a modernized version of something by Kafka (who also wrote a tragicomic novel about a man seeking his fortune in "Amerika"). What is it with Herzog and chickens, anyway?

I greatly prefer Morgan Spurlock to Michael Moore: he seems much more genuine. Plus, this soundtrack includes a track by Wesley Willis.

One of my favorites of Cronenberg's. Packs a LOT of ideas about television and media into a fairly short runtime.

The pagan community was actually depicted as far more sympathetic than the Christian cop, who was shown as uptight and priggish.

The special effects look a little dated sometimes, but are still preferable to today's obvious CGI in my opinion. Man, that Uncle Frank is a sleazeball.

Definitely more gory and surreal than the first Hellraiser. I like Julia better with the skin off. "What was on the agenda for today? Ah, yes . . . evisceration!"

Einen Mann, einen RICHTigen Mann!

A young, gorgeous Catherine Deneuve plays a frustrated housewife whose loving yet bland husband can't satisfy her hidden masochistic streak. From the very first scene, we're left wondering how much of the film is real and how much is Severine's fantasy; when she considers and begins work at the brothel, she shows a realistic hesitancy about enacting her fantasies that's quite a contrast to today's just-get-drunk-and-fuck-someone attitude toward young people's sexuality. I would have left boring, bougeois Pierre for that creepy-sexy Marcel any day, but I arguably have bad taste in men.

I saw Brown Bunny first and fully expected to hate Buffalo '66 based on my loathing of that other film. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Knowing the premise was about saving the world's only pregnant woman, I was worried this would be full of that OMGZ TEH BAYBEEZ R PRESHUS sentimentality that has marred and even outright ruined otherwise-perfectly good movies. Fortunately there was very little of that here (beyond a few mentions of Theo's dead son and a montage of children's laughter at the start of the end credits), and the worldwide epidemic of infertility was portrayed as more of a symptom of a civilization in decline than some nostalgic heavy-handed prattle about "appreciating the sound of little children's voices". This was also a small miracle of cinematography: there were certain Soy Cuba-esque scenes that must have been an all-out pain in the ass to choreograph, but the end result was well worth it: there's more of an authentic feeling of danger in combat as the camera follows Clive Owen dodging guerrillas' bullets for five uninterrupted minutes than in something like, say, that opening sequence in Gangs of New York with its almost MTV-style editing.