My Top 10 Favorite Movies (right now)

My Top 10 favorite movies (right now)

Hey everyone! How are you tod- (ducks from behind the desk as all the guns start firing towards where I was sitting before. Hides under the desk covering head until the bullets stop firing. Alec leans his head up while waving a white flag to see if the coast is clear) Ah….huh….I  can see the Star Wars Fan Base still hasn't gotten over my, ah- eclectic, in-depth and constructive criticism from my lengthy review of "The Phantom Menace" so to try and just let all this behind me, I've decided to post a list of my favorite movies. Usually people like to list their favorite movies of all time, but that's way too tricky for me because, for God's sake, I watch too many movies, a lot of them, you wonderful casual movie goers, may not have even heard of them (but just to test you, anyone here familiar with Francois Truffaut's "The 400 Blows?" No? Well, that's all right, it was worth trying). So I guess in an effort to save time in trying to pick out films that influence me or make me sound like a snob (that's Roger Ebert's job) I'm just gonna pick out, in alphabetical order since listing out what you think is the best from 10 to 1 is too hard and I have valuable time I could be wasting. So, here we go:

1. Aladdin (1992)
You know how people have that one nostalgic movie that they watched over and over and over again and even when they grow up, it still holds up? "Aladdin" that film for me. I loved the adventure and the imagination, I loved the Genie, and I loved the colors. As an adult, I was able to really appreciate more out of it that I didn't care for as a kid. The characters are well-written, you get a sense for what they want and you are allowed time to root for them and want them see to their goal. The story, while familiar, holds it's own and grabs your attention. As for the Genie? I loved the Genie then and I still love the Genie now. I know some people have a sort of hate/love thing going for Robin Williams (I admit, I have that too when I look at the bad movies he's made) but overtime I hear Robin Williams voicing the Genie, I just try to imagine him in the recording studio and all the other voice actors around him trying to keep a straight face while he acts totally zany. I still scour YouTube hoping to find some recording of Robin Williams in the
But zaniness aside, the movie does set aside time to develop the relationship between Jasmine and Aladdin where they have the sort of "fell in love first sight" cliche but these two are very likable and their overarching drama coincides nicely with the drama of the story, which, for me, really works. Jafar is such a classic Disney bad guy, so much so, I've tried to grow his beard (really, I'm not kidding. Though I can't get it to curve just right, comment below if you have any tips how to get your goatee beard to curve like Jafar's). The side characters, I like them too, especially Abu, I love his expressions in this movie, they lead themselves to comedy gold, especially with the magic carpet. The music is memorable, the animation is a treat to behold and I crack up every time Jafar says "It's time to say good-bye to Prince A-boo boo."
This film still brings me great memories from when I was a child and I enjoy watching this movie every time, it's one movie that I can't bring myself to possibly give the Nostalgiaview treatment.

2. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
John Landis is like the genius that came before Tarantino when he blended genres to make some of the funniest films anyone had ever seen. While he is acknowledged for his collaboration with Michael Jackson for the famous music video "Thriller," the movie that horror fans remember him best for is this hilarious romp that combines actual scares with with absurdist humor. I've discussed this movie once a long while ago when I was a really snobbish film critic on how the werewolf transformation was better than "Twilight" (which still is considering the hard work put into creating the illusion of transforming into a wolf in hard light) but as someone who went through the notions of film-making and screenwriting, I get to appreciate this film for it's brilliance in being so outrageous. The story is the typical werwolf story; two friends from America, Jack and David, are hiking the English countryside but get attacked by a werewolf, Jack is killed but David survives and recovers at a hospital. Jack's ghost comes to him, all bloody and managed and yet the first thing he says is "can I have apiece of toast?" and they talks some what casually about how Jack's funeral was. David goes to the the apartment of this nurse he meets at the hospital and without warning, they somehow become lovers while "Moondance" plays. It's abrupt but it perfectly sums up the humor in this film. The music is also a hilarious choice as it's mostly upbeat jazz songs with "moon" in the title, this works well to clash with the horror and lends itself to great laughs.
If I had to pick a favorite scene, for me, it'd probably be where David meets the really badly decomposed Jack in a porno theater and David says to Jack "You look awful" and Jack responds with "thank you." but that's only one of the really funny lines this whole film contains. If you haven't seen this film, you're doing yourself the disfavor of not enjoying great comedy made by the guy responsible for "The Blues Brothers."

3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)
Probably my favorite silent movie of all time. The visual imagination put into the backgrounds, the way the story is told from the perspective of our narrator, it's imagery that you don't forget too easily. Even Rob Zombie made a music video in the same style for "Living Dead Girl." Probably the best that German Expressionism offered in my opinion and also the most influential in the horror genre, this movie both eerie and artistically stimulating. I would describe the plot about a mad scientist that has a somnambulist (sleeping zombie) kill people he either knows or doesn't know while people try to figure out who the killer is but that would reveal the really epic twist ending. See it for yourself if you want to know what I'm talking about.

4. Captain Blood (1935)
One of the films that inspired the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, this film was recommended to me by a college classmate and boy am I glad I took his word for it. The best way to describe this movie is "fun and exciting," while that's something that can be used to describe any swashbuckler, this film has one thing those swashbucklers don't: Errol Flynn. I would go gay for that man…wait, did I just say that out loud? oh CRAP!! IGNORE THAT!!!!!
The story is familiar, but still engaging; Dr. Peter Blood, staying neutral during the revolution against King James, tends to a gravely wounded revolutionary but is caught and tried with treason against the crown and are sold into slavery in the English colony of Port Royal where Blood steals the heart of Colonel Bishop's niece and hatches an escape where he steals a ship and begins a life of piracy. The rest is everything you want from a pirate movie: swordfights, dashing heroes and ship battles. Oh and who could forget: Basil Rathbone. He made a career of playing such suave and cool bad guys (also playing Sherlock Holmes but that's a movie for another day) but his sword fight with Errol is both iconic and exciting.
The love story is probably the most boring part of the film, but if you can tolerate that, the rest is some of the most fun you'll have and if you want to see where "Pirates of the Caribbean" got it's heavy influence, you won't be disappointed.

5. Dark City (1998)
Did John Murdoch commit the murder in the hotel? Who is this Dr. Daniel Schreber looking for him? Why does the sun never rise in this city? A lot of questions that create this inventive and smart science-fiction that was lost amongst the line of other science-fiction film that came out around the late 90's like "Cube" and "The Matrix" that dealt with societal illusions and worlds that change, but Dark City goes beyond that with a mystery that you'll either feel cheated by or really impressed with.
This film not only helped propel Alex Proyas career int he science-fiction field, it also expanded the ideology of control that "The Matrix" would also suggest, but in a more magical sort of way than any form of science or reality. Regardless, like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," the images of "Dark City," are not images you forget all too easily, the way the skyscrapers collapse and are replaced by new ones are outstanding, such effects would later be taken into account by Christopher Nolan for his movie "Inception." But not only that, it's an excellent noir film, the mystery gets your head thinking and the characters are interesting enough that you want to see where they go with the ideas they toss around. I'd be lying if I said I didn't find the ending a tad bit anti-climatic, but what it does present and the way it builds up, totally makes it worthwhile.

6. Down By Law (1986)
Why did independent cinema become a big deal in the movie industry when back then it was largely an untouched and ignored genre? Well, Jim Jarmusch was the force that helped revitalize interest for it for the 80's into the 90's. This movie, by definition, is apron escape film, but what makes it unique is the conventions it breaks and how it works on the elements usually ignored in prison escape films, that being how the characters were imprisoned and what they did after their escape. In this case, we never actually see the character escape, we see them discussing about a hole they found and then the next minute, they're in the sewers making a run for it. The cinematography and the acting as well as the film's symbolic metaphors are the highlights that makes this movie really interesting. We have two characters wrongly sent to prison after being betrayed by their "friends" and one man, who can't speak English very well, in prison accused of killing a man with a billiard ball (though I interpret that, dunno if it's accurate or not) and yet, this man with the lack of understand English, is the glue that holds the trio together on their escape while they make a run from the law.
It is a very fascinating albeit slow-moving film, but if you like that and can tolerate that, this is a very well-crafted indie film.

7. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
It's interesting that I never liked this movie when I was a kid. I thought it was too frightening and Edward himself scared me, with his pale face, wild hair, black leather attire and scissor hands. Yet it wasn't until I was in high school that I took the chance to see this film again and enjoyed it for all the surrealism. As an adult, I seem to find more enjoyment out of the movie and I find it rather ironic that my childhood self stayed wary of this movie just because of Edward's appearance, his appearance being one of the major themes of the movie and how the weird neighbors view him. In a lot of ways, I connect to Edward Scissorhands, he represents me growing up; I was quiet, tried to avoid people often, dressed differently (I had a thing going on where I would wear vests all the time, can't explain why except that it later became my carrying case for carrying books and pencils around wherever I went) and I didn't really understand a lot of things that people seemed to understand clearly. That's the strength of Edward Scissorhands, he's a guy that any lonely and awkward person can relate to and why I continue to fall in love with this movie every time I watch it.
Danny Elfman's score enchants me, the cinematography is like a mixture of Leave it to Beaver suburban with Burton's usual surrealist German Expressionist backdrop, the chemistry between two of my least favorite actors (yeah, sorry fangirls, Johnny just ain't my #1 choice for best actor) is believable. It's truly magical film that contains all the usual cliches that people have used for years, but it's Depp's performance that steals my heart and makes me tell my nitpicky half to "shut up and enjoy the movie."

8. La Planete Sauvage/Fantastic Planet (1973)
I think I described this one before, so I don't think there's anything more I can say except, go see it if you want to see some of the most surreal animation and the trippiest music you'll hear next to Pink Floyd, this is the right movie for you. Just a warning to all the impressionable kids in the audience, this movie was made by a French animating company, so expect uncensored boobies.

9. Throne of Blood (1957)
Trying to label which is Akira Kurosawa's best movie is like trying to label what is Alfred Hitchcock's best movie or Stanley Kubrick's, it comes down to preference essentially. Kurosawa though has so many great movies that trying to pick a best out of the bunch is like trying to pick out the type of white paint you'll paint your walls with. While I personally love "Rashomon" for telling a conventional story in a non-conventional way, this is a list of movies that I'm dubbing my favorites right now, and right now, it's Kurosawa's Shakespeare adaptation of "Macbeth." This movie, like many Shakespeare adaptations, takes a few liberties and changes the story when necessary, but out of all the adaptations of Macbeth I've ever seen, this comes the closest to being the best out of all of them.
The story is familiar enough for anyone who has read the original play; a Samurai commander named Washizu who learns from a spirit in the forest that he will become the Lord of Forrest Castle. Sensing an opportunity, Washizu's wife  orders him to kill Tsuzuki and take the throne. But his escalating guilt gets the best of him as it all climaxes with his amazing scene of Washizu's own men turning on him and firing numerous arrows upon arrows on him and yet he still screams and yells while being riddled with them.
Like all Kurosawa samurai films, the cinematography is outstanding, the acting by Toshiro Mifune is remarkable and Kurosawa's direction of this famous adaptation really corresponds into this remarkable film that I feel anybody who's at all interested in William Shakespeare HAS to see this adaptation. Seriously, you owe it to yourself to see it at least once in your life.

10. The Woman in the Dunes/The Woman of the Dunes (1964)
My last film in this list comes, once again, from the land of the rising sun with a movie I doubt anyone has heard of because this film is a prime definition of avant-garde. It's a type of film that will leave you both fascinated and also pissed off.
An entomologist roaming the beach dunes for insects to collect misses his bus and is offered a place to stay from the local villagers to sleep in this house at the bottom of a pit with a young woman who digs sand every day to save her home from being being buried from incoming sand. But the next morning, he discovers it's a trap from the villagers to force him to engage in the oppressive and monotonous task of digging out sand so the villagers can sell it illegally for construction. He tries to escape, that is when he's not boning the titular woman and holding her hostage and getting covered in sand.
It's a very, very dry movie that requires repeated viewings to really get an understanding for it's very mysterious film choices. After all, would anyone in their right mind what to see a movie about a guy stuck in one place for a majority of the movie? Well, possibly, but in a location that makes your mouth dry and makes you feel irritated (sand can do that too) but what makes this film remarkable is the direction and what the director has the actors do and say that really subjects us to the broken and twisted psychoses  of these two people. Being trapped in this one location, it not only drives the characters batty, it drives the audience batty too. So why do I love it? Because of how it breaks the characters down to reveal their dark sides and how it makes you feel like you too are trapped and you are forced to watch these people be utterly destroyed and resigned to their fate of scooping dirt just to survive. Why don't we see more avant-garde films like this anymore?

Well, there you have it folks, hopefully we can all move on away from "The Phantom Menace" and just go on with our daily lives and just live on with our lives- (perks head and turns to look at the window to see headlights pass by) oh not again! (ducks down as a hail of bullets and star wars lasers riddle the windows, walls, TV, DVDs, Blu Ray player, couch and posters on the walls. The  shooting stops as Alec sits up and looks over the damage) Now, a Hardcore Star Wars fan would say something like "this damage represents the damage in their soul for the things I said. But I didn't hold a machine gun up to you and force you to agree with what I said, did I?" (stands up and looks over the damage and mumbles) "These Star Wars fans need to include the words "satire" in their dictionary..." (sighs and walks over and grabs a broom to begin cleaning up.)