Films I Love
(That You Probably Never Saw)
When people ask me about my favorite movies, certain ones will come up that most people just never got around to seeing. Here a few of those.
Beautiful Girls
Took me forever to see this one. I saw it on my friend Russ's recommendation, and since he's not much one for the touchy-feely character film, I figured this must have been a pretty good one for him to be selling me on it. Went out and rented it, and it became one of my favorite character movies. A brilliant little film by the late Ted Demme, it stars one of my favorite forgotten actors, Timothy Hutton, along with a host of others you'd recognize, like Matt Dillon, Michael Rappaport, Uma Thurman, Rosie O'Donnell, Lauren Holly, and someone you probably won't recognize but is one of my favorite actors off the show Homicide, Max Perlich. Oh, and let's not forget who steals the show...a young Natalie Portman who may have done the best acting of her career right here. Funny, insightful and honest, it's about a man traveling back to his home town for a reunion, and explores friendships, love and growing up. And it's a movie you need to go rent.
Before Sunrise
This was a date film for me, one I took my ex to on our last Valentine's Day. I only picked it because it was about the only romantic film out at the time and seemed to fit the occasion. I had no idea I'd be so blown away by it. If memory serves, this was the first film shown at the Sundance Film festival. I remember Robert Redford commenting on how he thought it perfectly captured the spirit of the independent film. I agree. Set in Europe, it opens with a young American (Ethan Hawke) meeting a french girl (Julie Delpy) on a train. The rest of the film is all dialogue, and I have to believe a lot of it is improvised. It's just about two people meeting, talking, discoursing on relationships, falling in love. Not the film for you if you're looking for explosions or car chases, but if you're looking for a real film about real people, they don't get much better than this.
Birdy
No, it's not the Clint Eastwood-directed film with Forest Whitaker. That's the one people always think I'm talking about. That was "Bird". This is "Birdy", a haunting, engaging film by the remarkable Alan Parker. It stars Matthew Modine (back in the 80s when he could still find work) and Nicholas Cage. It's set in the Viet Nam era, and (without giving too much away) Matthew Modine's bird-obsessed character is in a psyche ward and unresponsive after an incident in the war, and his recently wounded pal Cage, dealing with his own issues, has to somehow bring him back before they ship him away. That's a very simple description of a very complicated film. Moments of great drama and unexpected comedy, along with fantastic performances from both leads, make for an unforgettable film experience.
Boondock Saints
This is the film I share with everyone. I love finding people who haven't heard of it. I hadn't, until my friend Renee from work, whose husband worked at Blockbuster, brought it to me after he brought it home one night. She insisted I take it home and watch it, saying it was so "me". It so was. This is one of my favorite unexpected indie films. I don't even want to get into what it's about. I just want you to watch it and let it unfold. It's devilishly funny, operatically violent, and it has what I consider to be the best Willem Dafoe performance of his career. Just go rent the thing and do like I did...let it play, knowing nothing about it, and enjoy (I hope!).
Citizen X
This was a made for HBO film, and it scarred me...in a good way. It may have been made for TV, but it's on my list of favorite films ever. It's based on the true story of the first serial killer in the USSR, and one Russian detective's attempts to stop him with the whole Soviet system seemingly against him. It takes place over years, and along this journey, we also get to watch the heights and downfall of Soviet Russia. The feelings of repression we get through this detective, played by Stephen Rea, and the sense of drowning in a system gone mad are palpable. It's suspenseful and heart-wrenching, and at the same time glorious. I love, love, love this movie.
Creator
A really whacked character film set at a university campus, where an unconventional professor (Peter O'Toole) is trying to clone his dead wife. He takes on a new student (Vincent Spano, a very forgotten actor) and a local girl for her genetic material (Muriel Hemingway, who I'm not normally a fan of but love her in this), and it the film centers around their relationships...oh, and Spano's relationship to a young Virginia Madsen as well. You will laugh, you will likely cry, you will do some thinking, and you will enjoy. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.
High Fidelity
This is one of the two most honest films about men out there that I've seen (along with Swingers). Men need to see it to see themselves in the John Cusack character, women need to see it to understand men better. Based on the novel by Nick Hornby, but translated from the U.K. to the U.S. in the film, it's all about John Cusack's character Rob, owner of a record store, and his quest to get over or win back his girlfriend, and to understand relationships...much of this through reliving his old ones. It's very funny (mostly thanks to the genius casting of then-little-known Jack Black), very personal (lots of Cusack talking to the camera), brutally and beautifully honest at times about relationships, and, in its own way, quite profound. You'll love it. Just watch out for that Ian guy...
The Hudsucker Proxy
People either never saw this one, or saw it and didn't get it. Which makes me very sad. I saw it on Arizona's biggest screen, back before they tore that beautiful theater down, and it stunned me. A film by the Coen brothers (God bless 'em), it's a comedy like none you've likely seen, and one of the best comedic performances ever by Tim Robbins. Set in the 50s, it follows the rise of...well, kind of an idiot...to sudden stardom for a familiar invention. Stellar performances by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman and Charles Durning punctuate this tale that's part Capra, part Kane, and 100% phenomenal. Don't listen to people who didn't get it! Go experience it for yourself! I guarantee you'll find yourself walking around for about a week saying, "You know...for kids!"
Indian Summer
This was was really overlooked, a sentimental and funny character comedy about a group of childhood friends returning for one last trip to the summer camp where they all met...before it closes down. It's filled with those b-level actors that never quite make marquee status, but are always out there giving us good work. Starring Vincent Spano (who I'm pimping again), Julie Warner, Kimberley Williams, Diane Lane, Kevin Pollack, Bill Paxton and Elizabeth Perkins as the grown-up campers--and Alan Arkin as Uncle Lou, the owner and head of the camp all these many years--it's a great already-came-of-age film that deals with growing older, grown-up relationships, and finding your inner child. Great stuff.
Memento
A film of startling brilliance, Memento has probably the most creative use of story narrative I've ever seen. The story is told backward, and it's the story of a man who has no long term memory, who forgets everything that happened to him not long after it has. His tortured existence is made possible by notes his leaves himself, and polaroids he takes...and tattoos he puts on himself. It's a mystery done in a way I've never seen, and is so daring (using this method could have gone really wrong) you just have to applaud the script itself. This is one of those rare films that actually stuns me, and I tell everyone I can about it. Hey, that includes you now...
Outside Providence
You either didn't see this film or may have been disappointed by it because it wasn't what you were expecting. It was the first film for the Farrelly Brothers (but only written, not directed--based on a novel by Peter Farrelly, I was surprised to discover) after their There's Something About Mary success. And it was marketed as such, to look like a wacky comedy. It wasn't. It was a period film, set in the 1970s, basically a coming of age movie about a guy from less than ample means going to a prep school. I really fell into this film because I was a kid during this time, and I remember the era, and the music (great soundtrack!). The best part of the film is probably Alec Baldwin playing the kid's father...an overlooked role for him where he really shined and did something different. One of my favorite "I found it on cable" character movies which you should really think about trying.
Rounders
I think this was actually my first Matt Damon film. I'd heard about him, like everyone else, but had missed his stuff, most importantly having somehow missed Good Will Hunting. This is one of my favorite screenplays ever written, a film about a law student deep in the poker world...and in the dark underbelly of it. I rented it one night and found some of my favorite actors in it--Edward Norton (as Matt's wonderfully sleazy pal Worm), John Torturro, John Malkovich and Martin Landau. But the center of the film is Damon. It takes a great actor to carry a film with voiceover, and he did it. Slick, dark and moody, Rounders ends up a great underdog film that made me a Damon fan for life.
The Royal Tenenbaums
This is another film you either missed or you didn't quite get. I saw it over a Christmas holiday while visiting with family in Chicago. The end credits rolled, and I was in stunned silence. I thought this was one of the most brilliant films I'd ever seen. The family I was with? They were all a little annoyed and disappointed, which left me dumbfound. I guess it's not everyone's film. It's very indie and very strange (as one should expect from a Wes Anderson film), and the sense of humor is really edgy. It's got the best Gene Hackman performance in years, and has an enormously talented cast (Luke and Owen wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller and Bill Murray to name just a few). How do I describe it? Not sure if I actually can in one paragraph. Let's just say it's the story of a very unusual family and their relationships to each other, and leave it at that. If you didn't see it and get baffled by it...go see it (and maybe get baffled by it). One of my favorite movies.
Slam Dance
No, it's not a movie about dancing. I think this is what killed the film, myself, and why no one but me seemed to have seen it. This very stylish post-modern noir 80s film from Wayne Wang involves a cartoonist named Drood (played by one of my favorite actors ever, Tom Hulce) whose relationship with a slain mystery woman leads him down a dark and mysterious path to find the truth behind it. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays his estranged wife, the beautiful Virginia Madsen the dead Yolanda, and Adam Ant turns in an exceptional performance as Drood's club owner friend. If you like a very twisted mystery with a wry sense of humor and a very cool 80s soundtrack, try this movie and let me know what you think.
Something Wild
Actually wrote a paper on this film back in college in a film class, and it's one no one really saw but me. Jeff Daniels is a straight-laced business guy with a hidden dark side who falls in with a mysterious wild girl played by Melanie Griffith (who I'm usually not even a fan of) and ends up on a journey of discovery. The big score for director Jonathan Demme, though, was casting the then-unknown Ray Liotta as her dangerous ex-con husband who comes into the picture, and his performance just lit up the screen. Fun at times, funny at others, and very dark along the way, the film takes you on quite a ride. Try it sometime and maybe I'll let you read my paper.
Stealing Home
One of the great overlooked films of the 80s, this film came to me when my sister had found it on cable and told me I had to see it. It stars Mark Harmon as a washed-out baseball player who finds out that a girl from his past (Jodie Foster) has committed suicide and wants him to dispose of her ashes. She left no instructions, saying he'd know what to do with them, and the film is about him trying to figure it out. The flashbacks are the best part, where Jody really shines, and where Jonathan Silverman plays young Mark's (William McNamara) buddy Applebee and really makes the movie. What's even better is when we meet the adult Applebee and find out he's played by Harold Ramis. The quest for the mystery become a quest for a man to find himself again. It's touching, very funny, and a definite feel-good film. So rent it...and feel good. Or call me, and I might loan you my copy...
The Stoned Age
No, this is not Dazed and Confused. That's what people always think when I ask them if they've seen it. A very different movie. I discovered this one night on Showtime at like 3:00 a.m. and laughed myself silly. Set in the 70s, this low-budget flick takes a slacker guy named Joe on the classic hero's journey, one of self-discovery...and a lot of Ox 45, skank weed, and the Schnappster (ping!). Don't let the title fool you. It's not a big drug film (very little stoned stuff in the Stoned Age). It's a very funny movie with a bunch of young actors, and it's a lot smarter than it looks. The best part of the film is the character of Tack played painfully well by Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez (that was not a typo. Maybe that's why he's since changed his name to Clifton Collins Jr.). Don't miss this quest for love, meaning...and fine chicks.
Street Smart
Another one most people missed, this 80s drama starred Christopher Reeve as a journalist whose life becomes entwined with a street pimp named Fast Black (played by Morgan Freeman, who hadn't made a name for himself by this time) when the two end up needing each other. It takes us into the dark world of street prostitution, and with a very scary performance by Freeman, we really feel like we're there. Great performances by Mimi Rogers as Reeve's girl and Kathy Baker as one of Freeman's street walkers that gets wrapped up in the mess. Very tense and suspenseful, and one of the great unknown Christopher Reeve roles.
Things Change
I've got a soft spot for David Mamet films (as you'll find if you read the "My Directors" page). A lot of people don't. His has a very distinctive style, both in filmmaking and in the dialogue he writes, and you either like it or you don't. But I think this is one of his more accessible films. It's the tale of a low-level mobster (played by Joe Mantegna) who screwed up, and as penance has to babysit and old Italian shoe shine man (played brilliantly by the late great Don Ameche) who's going to be testifying in court and lying to be the alibi of another mobster to get himself his greatest wish...a boat. The two end up in Tahoe, and end up mistaken for big mob guys, and something of a comedy of errors ensues, and things, of course, start to go wrong. It's a funny film, a great unconventional buddy movie, and has some nice messages and wisdom. It's a great deal of fun that you don't want to miss.
Waiting For Guffman
This is the KING of "I've never heard of that one" greats. Directed by and starring Christopher Guest, the film is a fictional documentary about a small town (Blaine, Missouri) that's having its sesquicentennial, which includes a big pageant and a play about the town's history...to be directed by Guest's hilarious character Corky. Much of the film is improvised, which shows off the talents and comic genius of such actors as Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard and Parker Posey, who are all townsfolk trying out for and starring in the play. This is hand-down one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, and became the first in a series of films by Guest using the same mockumentary format and using many of the same actors (Best In Show and A Mighty Wind would follow). Be prepared for something different, grab a stool (that's a Guffman in-joke) and sit down with this film. You'll thank me.