Top Twenty Films

[Toad]

Last night I watched The Graduate. REALLY watched it. And, you know, once you get past all the iconic scenes ("Plastics", "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me" and "ELAINE! ELAINE!") you realize that Benjamin Braddock is actually just a skeevy little stalker.

I mean, seriously, the film was over for me once he decides, after about 10 minutes no less, that weepy ol' boring Elaine is his soulmate or something and he starts spying on her and barging onto buses and meet-ups with other men even in order to get close to her. Up until then though the story has been somewhat daring and unconventional, the most significant moment for me being when Benjamin, tired of the rote, conversationless sex, starts haranguing Mrs. Robinson (she's always "Mrs. Robinson") for info about her life.

She's bored and irritated, for the most part biting off one word answers during his "interrogation." But he eventually learns that she was an art major in college, and that an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and marriage derailed her life essentially. (Hey, it was the forties.) Anne Bancroft plays this scene beautifully. For a brief moment the imperious facade crumbles, and a look of profound loss shadows her face. You could say she's haunted, Havisham-like, only in this case by a groom that showed up instead of one that vamoosed.



I swear though, in those few illuminating seconds there's a whole other movie staring out from behind her eyes. And I'm burning to know more about Mrs. Robinson and her stalled life and what she REALLY thinks about the plastic/cocktail party/backyard barbecue milieux, with their golf pants and their too wide smiles and their stale bromides about getting on in the world.

But, alas, once Katharine Ross's flighty Elaine enters the picture there's an abrupt shift in the storytelling. It segues into a rather pedestrian story of a nervous guy getting the pretty girl, as a wistful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack underscores his increasingly manic exploits. By this point, Mrs. Robinson has been discarded and demonized. There's no longer any vulnerability leaking out at the edges. She's just one of the establishment villains now. And we're meant, I guess, to be rooting for Ben and Elaine as they theatrically bolt from middle class suburban assholery. Or something.

The film does at least have the decency in the end to imply that messy reality has boarded the getaway bus with them. You see it in their faces as elation slowly gives way to uncertainty and fearfulness. But you're still left gritting your teeth that the multi-layered, character-driven, anti-establishment story it could have been is spectacularly undone by having detoured into the most conventional of plots.

Any resemblance real or imagined blah blah blah...

[ricardo shillyshally]

It's like the cliches in films inform our values, or so they believe. Enjoying the film reviews. I do enjoy watching great films every few years, it's always a new perspective. Watched, The Deer Hunter, again yesterday. Incredible how many threads are woven together; from Mike's hunter relationship with nature, through stag and death. It's really about great friendship, traditions like marriage and war, and PTSD. There's also humour. It probably gets filed under Vietnam war film, but it's really about life, and people, at a moment in history. Pure Genius!

[Toad]

Holy Crap, how the HELL could I have forgotten about this film?! And why have I suddenly remembered it after all these years? I watched the hell out of it during the 80s.

After Hours Directed by Martin Scorsese, and starring Griffin Dunne.



Who looks a bit Keatonesque here, doesn't he?

Oh, how to describe it. It's a slight story really. A man in NYC meets up with a woman in SoHo, loses all his money, and spends the rest of the movie trying to get back home.

Here's the thing though. It's almost as if he's stepped into some dark, neurotic otherworld,



one where he absolutely can NOT catch a break. Every thing and every one is unnervingly off-kilter. Every situation he finds himself in is disquieting, each one spilling into the next.



And each time too the tension is ratcheted up another notch, until, finally, he's literally running for his life.



Soooo...if you like dark comedies set in a bizarrescape, then I HIGHLY recommend After Hours. There are a few short clips on YouTube, but in themselves they can't really begin to convey the cumulative sense of dread and disquiet.

[Jomi25]

"What We Do In The Shadows"! It's basically a mockumentary about vampires. Very, very funny movie! Definitely one of my current faves. I've read that there are limited screenings in the US right now. You guise should definitely see it if you have the chance.

[ricardo shillyshally]

I'll look out for After Hours. On a completely different note, it's interesting that we are presented with , but behind the scenes, partying with Eric Idle and Stones. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/star-...-slut.html

[Louise]

I'm not so sure about this new Jurassic Park movie. The original is one of my all-time faves. Apparently this one has *trained* velociraptors?
You can't train the raptors! They're supposed to be ~terrifying~. I wanna be ~terrified~. Heh. Maybe this one'll be hilariously bad. I look forward to giving a detailed review of this flick...

I'd rather have the one with Sheldon & Howard fleeing from the T-Rex on a scooter. I'd watch the hell out of that

[ricardo shillyshally]

I'm already writing, Sheldon and the Space Sluts. The story of an a-sexual being, on a planet of women. It'll be universally panned!

[Louise]

Space Sluts.

Space sluts!? Where??? Don't toy with me...

[ricardo shillyshally]

There is a whole sub genre of sci fi, the Post Apocalypse film. I suppose humans have feared an apocalypse for millennia, and that was heightened after Oppenheimer re jigged some nazi plans, and made it possible. There's are many variants; Mad Max, Planet of the Apes, Terminator, 28 Days Later, The Book of Eli, Shaun of the Dead, would all be on my list. They express our fears, and some even plan for it, including Sheldon. They often seem to involve groups of men in pick ups, driving around and killing people for resources(wait a minute that's really happening, now!), or people turning into mindless zombies(again happening!).

[Toad]

Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud is a film I haven't seen, but it sounds as though it could be up our collective alleys. Variously described as "Fellini-esque" and a "comic allegory," it stars Bud Cort (Harold and Maude) as a reclusive loner who spends his days working on a pair of mechanical wings so that he can fly. Here he is looking rather Wally-/Waldo-ish...



He's aided in his Icarus-like quest by Louise, a fairy godmother of sorts who bears some unusual scars on her shoulders, suggesting that she was once some sort of feathered creature or fallen angel. Interestingly, she warns Brewster against having sexual relations, the implication being that it's a corrupting influence and will keep him earthbound.

This film was made and released around the same time as M*A*S*H and even features some of the same actors. I gather it's never had much more than a cult following though. It was however released on DVD a few years ago so it might begin to attract a wider audience.