There was only one choice. If you haven’t seen this Pixar animated film, please do. And have a box of Kleenex with you for the first ten minutes.
Here’s an IMDB synopsis:
Determined to save his home and keep the promise he made to his wife, widower Carl Fredricksen embarks on a journey to the mysterious Paradise Falls in an airship of his own invention. Along the way he meets his childhood hero, forms a bond with a boy who has an absent father, and realizes the preciousness of the life he lived as well as the one he now lives.
IMDB
Not much to say here. It’s a lovely movie. Just lovely.
There were lots of T movies, but this film is brilliant. It’s a musical, but not in a Sound of Music way. It’s very modern and smart and it’s based on a specific part of Jonathon Larson’s life. Here’s an IMDB synopsis:
New York, 1990. Jonathan Larson is an aspiring musical theatre writer. He has been working on his musical Superbia for several years – it is consuming all of his energy. At last he has managed to land workshop of it and an audience for it but he is still needs a song to complete Act 2, a song that he seems unable to compose. While that clock is ticking his girlfriend is looking to move for a job, leaving him with a decision to make. To crown it all he’s about to turn 30 and feels he should have accomplished something by then.
IMDB
Andrew Garfield embodies Larson. He is a force in this film. I can’t stress enough how amazing he is. It’s an intimate film about a man who is on a work and personal deadline and it’s beautiful. The music is by Larson and it’s executed brilliantly, which is what you expect by something directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
In the end, we find out that Jonathon Larson died the day before the off-Broadway debut of his award-winning (posthumous) musical, Rent, of an aortic dissection. I went in not knowing anything about Larson and I’m glad I did. If you enjoy true stories and/or musicals, this is a must watch.
Runners up: Titanic, Trainspotting, To Catch a Thief, That Thing You Do!
Another personal one. I didn’t see this one until a few years after it came out, but it quickly became a favorite. I’ve probably seen it over 50 times. Here’s an IMDB synopsis:
It’s been four months since irresponsible saxophone player, Billy; young Republican, Alec; his girlfriend, Leslie; struggling journalist, Kevin; drama queen, Jules; lovesick waiter, Kirby, and Wendy, a social worker with a heart of gold, graduated from Georgetown University, and they are still reluctant to let go of college life. However, as the ugly side of truth is closing in on the young pipe-dreamers, the complexities of adulthood, and the struggle of maturity, are starting to put their sacred friendship and fragile relationships to the test. In the end, what does it take to find your place in the real world?
IMDB
This is a film about friendship and finding yourself. And it’s the perfect Brat Pack movie. In the 80s, there was the Brat Pack, a play on Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack. Andrew McCarthy is making a documentary about them now. The Brat Pack consisted of several actors who mainly were in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire. Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, and sometimes Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald and Robert Downey, Jr. were written in magazine articles as members, but they were really in a separate categories. Downey was only in Less Than Zero with McCarthy and Ringwald was too young to really be a part of the group.
So, that’s the Brat Pack. At. Elmo’s also has great quotes:
Wendy (Mare Winninghan): “No diet works. The only way to lose weight in the thighs is amputation.”
Jules (Moore): “Don’t you enjoy anything anymore… like girls? Kevin (McCarthy): I enjoy being afraid of Russia. It’s a harmless fear, but it makes America feel better, Russia gets an inflated sense of national worth from our paranoia. How’s that?”
Wendy: That doesn’t leave much.
Jules: I thought you were taking steps to phase out everything that wasn’t working in your life.
Kevin (McCarthy): “You know there are more people in law school right now than there are lawyers on the entire planet? Think about that.” — to Kirby, who is in law school
Billy (Lowe): “Jules, y’know, honey… this isn’t real. You know what it is? It’s St. Elmo’s Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them… there was no fire. There wasn’t even a St. Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going when times got tough, just like you’re making up all of this. We’re all going through this. It’s our time at the edge.”
Firstly, I’m sorry for not getting to your comments earlier, Wordpess switched to Jetpack for comments and I didn’t have notifications turned on. Now, onto the film.
Rear Window, 1954
One of Hitchcock’s best (can you tell I’m a big fan?) and most and most simple. This and Rope have mainly two locations and are both. psychological thrillers. Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly are wonderful in this. And Kelly’s costumes are to die for. I’m not going to spoil it for you, in case you haven’t seen it, but I’ll include one IMDB synopsis.
Professional photographer L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race. Confined to his New York apartment, he spends his time looking out of the rear window observing the neighbors. He begins to suspect that a man across the courtyard may have murdered his wife. Jeff enlists the help of his high society fashion-consultant girlfriend Lisa Fremont and his visiting nurse Stella to investigate.
IMDB
What’s interesting about this film is that it’s all one set. You’ll second-guess me when you see it, but it’s true. Also, skip the Christoper Reeve version. Trust me.
What a hard letter. This is probably the only film on the list I’ve only seen once. It’s a good film. Dame Helen Mirren won the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance. Here’s an IMDB synopsis:
In 1997, after the death of Princess Diana in a car accident in Paris, the reluctant Queen (Dame Helen Mirren) and the Establishment do not accept to honor the “People’s Princess” as a member of the Royal Family. However, the public and the media question the utility of the monarchy and the just-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) advises the Queen to make a public speech mourning the loss of Diana.
IMDB
Perfection. There’s not a lot to say here. It’s definitely worth a watch. I’ll have to rewatch it soon.
My personal favorite movie. I took the photo of the cassette soundtrack because it shows the awesome collection of artists assembled for this film. It’s the best. I went through two cassettes and two CDs back in the day. Onto the film. I had to write an IMDB synopsis and submit it because the three they had were terrible (all written by men) and didn’t get what the movie was about. One called Andie awkward. Excuse me. Ok, here’s my synopsis:
Andie (Molly Ringwald) is an outcast at her Chicago high school, hanging out either with her older boss (Annie Potts), who owns the record store, Traxx, where she works, or her quirky classmate Duckie (Jon Cryer), who has had a crush on her for years. When one of the “richies” and popular kids at school, Blaine (Andrew McCarthy), asks Andie out, it seems too good to be true. As Andie and Blaine start falling each other, they are determined to not let their social statuses affect their relationship. Will that happen or will it break her?
Kerry Faler
I saw Pretty in Pink first when I was almost 12. I was already listening to the college radio station in my town, and though being only a pre-teen, I identified with Andie. My family never went without, but we didn’t have money. We lived in an increasingly more rough area of town. I saved babysitting money to buy records. When I was in middle and high school I had clothes from The Limited and Express, but not many. Those were my nice clothes. My other clothes were from J.C. Penney. My first homecoming dress was a blue knit two-piece with a ruffled skirt. I think it was on clearance at Dillard’s. I wore that dress two years in a row. Same thing with my other homecoming dress. Andie had a rougher life than me, but I loved her music, her music, and her hair. And Andrew McCarthy.
The big difference between truth and fiction was that all of my friends, save one, had money. Lots. Not a word was ever said about where I came from or what my parents did for a living. This is a theme of Pretty in Pink. Andie was poor. She literally lived on the wrong side of the tracks. We see the tracks!
At the end of the movie, Andie puts the final nail in the coffin of who she is. She goes to the prom, sans date, and when her father asks if she really wants to go, she says “I just wanna let them know they didn’t break me.” That’s the core of the film. And the music is amazing.
With an elaborate scheme to strike it rich etched on his mind, slick con artist Danny Ocean contacts his friend and right-hand man Rusty the day he gets out of prison. And eager to get to work, the two partners in crime assemble a hand-picked team of specialists to rinse the impenetrable vault of stone-faced Las Vegas casino magnate Terry Benedict–$150 million in cash from the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand, to be precise. However, such a robbery attempt is without parallel in the annals of crime. Can Ocean’s Eleven pull off the perfect heist and live to tell the tale?
IMDB
This was hard because my runner-up is so great. You’ll see. My pick is Ocean’s Eleven because of its rewatchability. It’s one of my favorites, period. I could watch it right now and be very content. The lines are snappy. The pacing is fantastic. The actors aren’t bad to look at. Bernie Freaking Mac. You have Rust (Brad Pitt) eating for no reason in every scene. It’s great.
AND it has my favorite line of any movie in the past 20 years, from Reuben (Elliot Gould):
“Look, we all go way back and uh, I owe you from the thing with the guy in the place and I’ll never forget it.”
If you haven’t seen North by Northwest, I don’t know what you’re doing with your life. It stars Cary Grant (the rich man’s George Clooney) and Eva Marie Saint in a mistaken identity thriller that’s also funny. It’s Hitchcock at his finest.
Here’s an IMDB synopsis:
Madison Avenue advertising man Roger Thornhill finds himself thrust into the world of spies when he is mistaken for a man by the name of George Kaplan. Foreign spy Philip Vandamm and his henchman Leonard try to eliminate him but when Thornhill tries to make sense of the case, he is framed for murder. Now on the run from the police, he manages to board the 20th Century Limited bound for Chicago where he meets a beautiful blond, Eve Kendall, who helps him to evade the authorities. His world is turned upside down yet again when he learns that Eve isn’t the innocent bystander he thought she was. Not all is as it seems however, leading to a dramatic rescue and escape at the top of Mt. Rushmore.
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