arkibetDon't take too long to think about it. Fifteen films you've seen that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.
Some of these are films I went into more detail on during the Thirty Day of Movies Meme and others are ones that just popped into my head while writing down 15 films as quickly as I could.
1. Breakfast at Tifanny's-I figure you're all sick of my Tifanny's obsession by now, so I'll just state for the record: My ultimate dream of fucked up, romantic glamour and a New York in 1961 I wish I could have lived in.
2. The Big Sleep-Bogie and Bacall. Fast talk, high-sheen black and white. Elisha Cook Jr. ending up the way Elisha Cook Jr. always does. Sexy Dorothy Malone. And we still don't know whodunnit. Another movie that's dream of a life I wished I could live.
3. Murder My Sweet-The even darker side of Philip Marlowe and the sexiest Dick Powell ever got.
4. The Breakfast Club-I was Ally Sheedy and I hate it. I hate how much I love this film and how deeply it still cuts.
5. The Band Wagon-Another beautiful New York movie, this time in technicolor. My favorite musical, with the best songs, the best legs and the brilliant bitchy cutting wit of Oscar Levant. We need Oscar Levant now, more than ever.
6.From Here To Eternity-Yes, it's all about that damn beach scene, but not so much the idea of actually doing it on a beach, as much as the way that Burt Lancaster lowers her to sand and just looms over her with his mighty masculinity. Bonus points for Monty Clift, Sinatra, et al. It's hard to know exactly who to slash there, but the idea of Burt and Monty getting something on off-screen is nearly irresistible.
7. Fathom-one of the cheesiest, dumbest, why am I watching this movies to come out of the 60's. I'm watching it because I saw it once when I was a kid and the shininess and glamour and smarminess of Tony Franciosa totally got to me. The idea of him and Raquel Welch...mrrrow. So much that I'm even willing to put up with him calling her "Poppet" throughout the movie.
8. Reds-this movie gets to me on so many levels. In some ways my grandparents and great grandparents were those people. This is the tradition I come from. The wobblies and progressives and free-thinkers. Throw in the epic romance and Jack Nicholson's incredible performance as Eugene O'neill. I honestly think this was both Beatty and Nicholson's finest hour. The interviews with the "witnesses" make me cry, since so many of them are gone now.
9. Bladerunner-Original cut, with the narration and the somewhat hopeful ending. GAH! Ridley Scott was/is a visual genius and he got such great performances out of the cast. Each little moment is perfect and it makes a cohesive whole that just leaves you breathless and a bit shattered. I love Harrison Ford in almost everything he did until Mosquito Coast, but he was never sexier than when he was telling Sean Young "Say I want you."
10. Charade-More classic glamour with Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Henry Mancini's music and OMG! PARIS!
11. Apocalypse Now-(Original cut)I saw this the night it opened, when I was probably too young for it and I consider it one of the movies that changed my life. As far as I'm concerned Coppola gets a free pass for anything else (including Dracula) and Martin Sheen speaking those opening lines is the sexiest voice I've ever heard in my life. Every line he says sparkles. "They were going to make a general for this and I wasn't even in thier goddamned army any more." *shivers* Sheen gets a free pass for life too, because even if he's getting old, he'll still be Willard in my mind.
12.Cabaret-Fosse! Liza! The beautiful Marissa Berensen. The sexually ambiguous Michael York. Kander & Ebb. The unholy chill of the Hitler Youth singing Tomorow Belongs To Me. And the single greatest dialogue ever to appear in a musical.
"Screw Maximillian"
"I do!"
"Well so do I!"
13.The Godfather-Another movie that deeply affected my sexuality because of the scene of Sonny screwing Lucy standing up against the door. (I read that scene in the book over and over and over.) And it's, you know, a great fucking movie, with every single performance ringing true and the epic spreading out over the big screen.
14. Out of Africa-About the only film from the 80's that I can stand Meryl Streep in. "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills." Redford just before he started looking like a saddle. The GREAT Klaus Maria Brandauer totally stealing the movie. I would do him SO HARD in this film, which is too bad because of that whole syphillis thing. Sidney Pollack showing how it's done, gorgeous scenery and that score. THAT SCORE! Some of the most beautiful music ever composed for the screen. I need to get it on I-tunes. Like now.
15-To Live and Die in LA
Another great score on the other side of the musical spectrum. I know it sounds nuts, but Wang Chung totally kicked butt with that score. If you've only seen William Peterson in CSI, seeing him as Richard Chance, BAMF extraordinaire will be an eye-opener, plus you get early performances by John Turturro an Willem Dafoe. And the best car chase EVER! So good I saw it twice in a row and went back the next day to see it again.