I only recently discovered my nana was a veteran. My nana didn’t like dwelling on painful times. So nobody ever told me. History books leave a lot out. It wasn’t until college that I learned a more honest telling of history. In the Money Talks short they make a few riffs that I never would’ve gotten if I settled on what I learned in high school.
There are a few plot holes in the film, and she tends to fall into all of them. From what I can tell it was mainly her husband doing the heroics and she tagged along, or she and her husband did heroics and she took a break from it while in Paris. I’m still wondering what the bartender managed to do to get banned from the US.
Don’t feel badly for not liking a “classic.” There are plenty of classic movies and books I don’t like.
the first 2 minutes of apocalypse now. If only to contrast to how almost all other movies begin with a barrage of names that at the very least absolutely removes you from the one thing theatre is supposed to do, remove you from the analytical brain and into the experiential brain. If i go to a film to experience something beyond the scope of my imagination, to suspend disbelief and embrace story, the last thing on earth i need is a kinda of advertisement, “Brought to you by” and sit there and analyze if i recognize names or if i can give a litany of other projects the cinematographer and director and stars have been involved in. As to the whole film you can not do without seeing, the uber tiny canadian film strangers in good company, or the company of strangers.
plus you get to hear mr. rollergator at his absolute best, doing voice over, standing in for his brother while he was busy having a heart attack.
One film I would argue everyone should see and really, REALLY think about would have to be a film from all the way back in 1932. A film that, when you think about the current social structures we have today, was far, FAR ahead of its time for turning the portrayal of the “good” and the “bad” (for lack of a better term) on its head. And also a film which more or less ruined its director, a man who was riding high on “directing” (there’s some significant questions about how much he actually had to do with directing the film, considering he was usually passed out drunk during filming) a film which is still considered a classic today; 1931’s Dracula, with Bela Lugosi.
I’m speaking, of course, of Tod Browning’s movie Freaks.
As I mentioned, Browning had “directed” the 1931 Dracula film, which is largely credited with introducing the “modern” depiction of vampires to the movie-going public. Eager to capitalize on that success, MGM hired Browning to direct a horror film of his choice, but little did they know how dark his visions were. You see, Browning grew up in the circus, and he knew the so-called “freaks” of the sideshows. He wanted to translate his appreciation for the so-called “outcasts” into film to share with everyone, and so he decided that his film was going to feature real sideshow performers. Not people in makeup made to look like them. So he scoured the country and assembled his cast, which included approximately five “pinheads”, or microcephalics, the most famous of whom was probably Schlitze (who was actually a man but who wore dresses to make it easier for his caregivers to change his diapers). The cast also included Violet and Daisy Hilton, conjoined twins, Prince Randian, an armless and legless sideshow performer who could shave himself and roll and light a cigarette without aid, Johnny Eck, known as the Half Man for obvious reasons, plus an assortment of dwarves, armless women, a bearded lady, and other sideshow performers. The main plot of the film, summarized, is that one of the dwarves in the circus, who is engaged to another of the dwarves, is due to inherit a fortune, and the circus’s aerial performer, along with the circus strongman, decides to seduce the heir and murder him for the money owing to the fact that our dwarf friend is half in love with the aerialist despite his engagement. The only problem is, the other “freaks” find out about her plot and proceed, while the circus is traveling to its next location in a torrential downpour, to corner the strongman and the aerialist and enact their own form of vengeance/justice on the two of them; the strongman is castrated, while the aerialist is transformed into a grotesque human/chicken hybrid; her eye is gouged out, her arms amputated, her entire bottom half covered in feathers, and she can only squawk incoherently.
The main thrust of the plot is of course to show that just because someone is different doesn’t mean they aren’t human; Browning took care to show that the sideshow performers led perfectly normal lives when they weren’t performing, marrying, having children, and showing a sense of humor and honor, even going so far as to welcome their friend’s new “love” when our dwarf friend marries the aerialist, chanting how they accept her into their midst (Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble, we accept her, one of us!) only to see their welcome be violently rejected when the aerialist in a drunken rage screams at them that they are “FREAKS!” It makes for a satisfying conclusion to see the two of them later get their comeuppance.
Of course, at the time this message was completely lost upon the movie-going public, and even during filming actors and workers at MGM studios were constantly complaining to the higher-ups about the invasion of sideshow performers; F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was at the time on MGM’s payroll as a screenwriter, while nursing a hangover, observed Daisy and Violet Hilton ordering lunch off the same menu he himself was getting ready to order off of, which prompted him to run outside and throw up, allegedly. And when they received the final cut of the film, MGM wouldn’t accept it as is; they filmed a new prologue and a “happy ending” which were totally outside of the film’s tone, held their collective breaths and cautiously released it to the general public, only to have it be generally crucified. People were organizing protests against the film, it was banned in many locations, and one woman even sued MGM, claiming the film had caused her to suffer a miscarriage. MGM promptly pulled the film from distribution and stuck it in their vaults, and there it sat until the 1960s, when people started to ask about this strange little film that, in a plea for tolerance, was drowned out by a sea of misunderstandings and vilification, and it started being shown again, quietly, finally gaining something of a mainstream status, including being branded “culturally significant” by the National Film Registry, where a copy is preserved. Unfortunately, Browning never lived to see his film gain the status it should have from the beginning; Freaks effectively ruined his moviemakeing career, and he died in 1962 after battling alcoholism for most of his life. Had he lived to see how those who are different are slowly becoming more and more accepted in the world today, perhaps he might have lived longer. But the end result is that this is a film I wholeheartedly believe everyone should view and should try to understand; being different does not mean you are less, it merely means you are different. Which is a lesson I believe everyone should be taught from a young age.
Apologies for the length, but the film truly deserves the background I’ve given here and loses something if you don’t know the story behind why it was made.
Casablanca? Well, the main one is there was no such thing as “Letters of Transit”.
Jaws. It is a must watch for sure. And, for something not so main stream, I would say Big Trouble in Little China.
If you haven’t seen Brazil DO IT RIGHT NOW
I see what you’re doing there, and I love it!
Preferably at an early age. Right before chicken pox and fever dreams. Preferably.
Requiem for a Dream
Since we’re getting close to Halloween…
Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein
I try and watch it once a year and it still makes me laugh every time.
The Passion of…
oh movies everyone SHOULD see…
Not avoid…
AHH. I see. Well then.
The Usual Suspects…NEVER saw that ending coming.
Turns out he was dead the whole time!
Rebel Without a Cause ('55)
Not exactly a top ten for me, but I think it’s accessible and insightful in ways I think most people can appreciate.
It’s crazy to think that we were THIS CLOSE to having Joel Hodgson portray Philo in UHF!
But also this close to having Luke Not-Skywalker shot into space by mad scientists. 
Heh… there’s a real Marvel’s What If for ya, no?
Smokey and the Bandit gets my vote. It is a very 70s movie and definitely a period piece of sorts.
That is a great film to watch for Halloween.