The Movie Challenge

                I have become worse and worse at maintaining a blog.  My world of ideas to write about apparently orbits in the Etch a Sketch that is my mind.  I shake my head too hard and they all disappear, and I am back at square one.  Thankfully I have a wife who has grown tired of me sitting watching the wall on my summer vacation.  She has presented me with a challenge.  You see, I have a vast movie collection.  I am not exactly sure how many I have, but it is more than the average human.  I have to keep them organized alphabetically in order to find what I am looking for.  I spend about as much time staring at them selecting which movie to watch as I do watching them.  I have at least one movie in each letter of the alphabet. My wife has challenged me to decide which is my favorite movie of each letter of the alphabet, and explain why. 

            Now, I am not an expert on movies.   I simply know which ones I enjoy.  To be honest, I can probably find something I like in almost every movie.  I am not as harsh a critic as other people I know.  What I do know is there is something special about the movies.  We have this ability to put ourselves in these often impossible worlds and be completely entertained.  Our imagination can come to life and be played right in front of our eyes.  We see our dreams, our nightmares, our passions, and our sorrows played out in front of us. 

            The first movie I ever saw in the theater was E.T.  I was only three, and I can remember vividly, how that movie made me feel.  I obviously couldn’t understand the story at age three, but I remember screaming my head off when he was chased at the beginning, and being sad when he is leaving his friends at the end.  I remember the lasting impression that movie gave me, and I still get a feeling of awe every time I sit in a movie theater. 

            When Jenn presented this challenge to me, I thought it would be no problem.  Then I looked at all my A movies.  I immediately had a problem.  It was like asking to choose a favorite child.  Some letters are easier.  A big thank you to the letters Q and Z for only having two choices!  By the time I got to letter C, I realized what I had taken on when Casablanca didn’t win the top spot.  It was heart breaking for me to turn it down.  I wanted to give honorable mentions to each letter, but another friend said that would be weak and indecisive.  So here we go.  ONE and only one movie from each letter, and they have to be in my personal collection, not a movie I have seen and loved.  Sorry Avengers. 

A

Apollo 13 – I am sure I have already lost many of you (or at least the 2 people who read this), but this is one of my favorite movies of all time.  The golden age of space flight is so elegantly portrayed in this film.  There are so many tense moments created from real life situations, that this movie is an absolute thriller.  My generation missed out on all the real amazing discoveries of the space program, so to have a well-acted film that depicts one of the greatest triumphs of the space program is important to me.  Yes I define the Apollo 13 mission as a triumph.  I know the mission itself was a failure, but it was an ultimate success in human ingenuity, and strength of will.  Tom Hanks turned in a stellar performance (not that he doesn’t usually) but others around him held their own just as well.  The cinematography is some of the best, and the special effects hold up today.  It was about as close to space flight as I will ever get.

B

Blazing Saddles -  That’s right I said it!  I really believe comedies are the most over-looked genre when it comes to Oscar nominations.  My favorite comedy, and perhaps the bravest of all time, is Blazing Saddles.  This movie takes a shot at every race, religion, sexual orientation, and whatever other category you can make fun of.  It does this to show how insane it is to hate someone for their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.  This movie has perhaps the most insane ending of any comedy and it honestly loses focus there, but nothing beats Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder in KKK outfits.  Perhaps this movie should be taught in elementary schools to show kids at an early age how stupid you look when you hate.

C

Cool Hand Luke – My single favorite movie of all time.  The one that can even take out Casablanca.  Paul Newman is an actor that I believe commands more attention from the viewer when he is not even speaking.  I think James Dean was much the same way.  This movie about challenging the rules of an institution, or being caged by them, never disappoints me in all times I have seen it again and again.  Then on top of a brilliant performance of Paul Newman’s you have an equally brilliant performance by George Kennedy as Dragline.  My favorite scene comes when they are working on the road crew for the chain gang and it starts storming.  Immediately all the inmates run for the truck with the exception of Luke (Paul Newman).

Luke: Let him go. Bam, Bam.
Dragline: Knock it off, Luke. You can't talk about Him that way.
Luke: Are you still believin' in that big bearded Boss up there? You think he's watchin' us?
Dragline: Get in here. Ain't ya scared? Ain't ya scared of dyin'?
Luke: Dyin'? Boy, he can have this little life any time he wants to. Do ya hear that? Are ya hearin' it? Come on. You're welcome to it, ol' timer. Let me know you're up there. Come on. Love me, hate me, kill me, anything. Just let me know it.
[He looks around]
Luke: I'm just standin' in the rain talkin' to myself.

Absolutely brilliant writing, and even better delivery.  It gives me shivers writing it.

D

Day the Earth Stood Still – No not Keanu Reeves.  We are talking the 1951 classic starring Michael Rennie as the alien Klaatu who has come to Earth to learn about us and provide us with a warning.  This movie was extremely brave to come at the height of the Cold War.  It meant to show humans as a young race that had just entered the age of nuclear power, and how we were acting like children with an uncontrollable toy. The message of this movie still resonates 61 years later.  We need to find a way to resolve our differences or be destroyed.  Besides, who has seen this movie and not wanted to own their own Gort, or scream out Klaatu barada nikto!

E

E.T. – Obviously.  It still has an impact to this day.  No, I no longer scream at the opening chase scene, but I still choke up at the end. 

F

Frankenstein – Horror is a genre that I really struggle with.  I enjoy being scared, but it takes a really good story and strategic scares to get my heart racing, not blood and guts.  My earliest introduction to horror movies came with the typical classics of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Vincent Price.  I choose Frankenstein here over some amazing movies, because it really made me believe in monsters both human and created.  Karloff’s performance as the monster is so iconic that it is the reason most people believe the name of the monster is Frankenstein.  However, Colin Clive’s performance as Henry Frankenstein is the most impressive to me.  His ever slipping mask of sanity is portrayed so well.  He comes off as brilliant, psychotic, passionate, and potentially evil all at the same time.  It is a wonderful film.  F was a particularly hard letter surprisingly.

G

Godfather Part II – Really, can there be any other.  Part I could easily take this spot, but Part II really is a perfect movie.  The double storyline with pitch perfect performances by both Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro make this the better of the two films.  Pacino in Part I really embodied the character by the end of the film, but carries the weight of Michael Corleone well throughout Part II. 

H

His Girl Friday – I could put just about any Carey Grant film on this list and it would be a perfect fit.  If you want a film that is all about dialogue, you cannot beat this 1940 Howard Hawks classic.  Hawks had worked for a newspaper before and really wanted to get the feel for the hustle and the bustle of the paper business.  In order to do this he made the dialogue so rapid fire it seemed like it was coming out of a tommy gun.  The actors often overlapped their dialogue to get a sense of the urgency of the newsroom.  You have to have multiple watchings of this film in order to catch even half of the best jokes.  Each viewing of this movie makes me learn a new line.  The dynamic between Carey Grant and Rosalind Russell is phenomenal.  Rosalind Russell dominates scenes with her take no prisoners’ persona.  She is a testament to the empowerment of women at an early time.  She was women’s lib before women’s lib was cool.  Carey Grant as always is pitch perfect.  He was James Bond before there was a James Bond.

I

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark - I could put The Last Crusade just as easily here, but the first introduction of Indiana Jones will have to do.  Whoever thought you could make archeology seem so cool?  Spielberg has proved time and time again that he is a premier filmmaker.  George Lucas can create stories and worlds better and more exciting than most. (Although he can’t always write dialogue)  The ark as the MacGuffin works much better than the ones from the second or fourth movies putting this one ahead of the rest. 

J

Jaws – I didn’t have to think twice about this letter.  I think Jaws is about the most rewatchable movie of all time.  It is the one movie I absolutely will not change the channel on if I stumble across it.  What turned out to be Spielberg’s and the filmmakers’ nightmare during the filming turned out to be the strongest aspect of the film… the shark didn’t work.  For most of the movie, all you see is a dorsal fin and the theme song.  Two notes written by John Williams turned out to be two of the most haunting notes in history.  Everyone who goes in the ocean at some point has the Duh Duh run through their head.  Not revealing the whole shark til the end made the movie what it is.  The importance of this movie to film history should not be overlooked.  Never has a movie scared a population the way this movie did.  People would not go near the water.  It also announced the true arrival of Steven Spielberg, and the world is a better place for it. 

K

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – One of the harder letters to choose because there is not a huge selection, maybe only five or six, but none of them particularly stand out to me.  So if there is someone out there who actually reads this, I am picking Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in hopes that more people will see it.  It isn’t really an under the radar movie, but I am surprised by the number of people who have not seen it. Many people believe that Iron Man was the resurgence of Robert Downey Jr., but I think it was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.  This stylish, funny, crime noir style movie has some of the best delivered lines of any comedy.  The story is extremely funny, and borders on some great emotion, but never takes itself too seriously.  This movie is what you get if Raymond Chandler wrote comedies.

L

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – I have gone back and forth on this choice.  This was the best of the trilogy by far.  The culmination of one of the greatest journeys ever filmed.  You literally have never rooted harder for the little guy.  Peter Jackson has come an incredibly long way from his days of horror films like Bad Taste and Dead Alive.  This movie is a true representation of friendship, and will hold up for years to come. 

M

The Muppet Movie – The original Muppet movie is one of the greatest movies secretly made for adults that targets children as its main audience.  Kermit and company are something that is near and dear to my heart.  A road trip movie with “a frog, a bear, and a …. whatever” (Gonzo) that is all about following your dreams, and realizing friendship. What can be better than that?  I also truly believe that Rainbow Connection is the greatest song ever written for a movie. 

N

North by Northwest – Alfred Hitchcock is the undisputed master of suspense.  This is my favorite film of his, and makes a charge at my favorite movie of all time.  This mistaken identity story that leads to a world of espionage, love, betrayal, and suspense is a classic.  Cary Grant shines as always as Roger Thornhill, who gets mistaken as George Kaplan.  This simple mistake that could be made in real life by anyone, takes him into a world where you cannot be sure of who to trust.  Eva Marie Saint plays the beautiful and possibly dangerous love interest, and James Mason and Martin Landau play amazingly devious and evil villains.  Hitchcock created one of his bests with this one.

O

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Jack Nicholson has long been considered one of the greatest actors of all time, yet nothing to me shows it better than this film.  Sentenced to a mental institution, R.P. McMurphy (Nicholson) meets some unexpected friends.  Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched delivers perhaps one of the greatest villain performances of all time.  I truly believe sitting down to dinner with Hannibal Lecter would be more pleasant than time spent with Nurse Ratched.  A great supporting cast fills a wonderful insane asylum. Danny Devito, Christopher Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, and most importantly Will Sampson as Chief Bromden are all terrific.  This movie will make you cheer, get you angry, and break your heart, just in time to make you cheer once more. 

P

Pulp Fiction – Let it be known that I am still bitter about the 1994 Oscar Awards.  As much as I love Tom Hanks, I hate Forest Gump.  I know I know.  I am not even sure what it is about that movie that still irks me to this day.  Forest Gump was the Best Picture winner of 1994 over Pulp Fiction and  Shawshank Redemption.  That is just criminal.  I think Shawshank deserved it, but the most creative breath of fresh air came from Pulp Fiction that year.  Quentin Tarantino is a love him or hate him kind of director, but at least he is original.  Other than The Matrix and its fight scenes, I can’t think of a film style more copied in the last 20 years than Pulp Fiction.  The hip style with which Tarantino writes his dialogue cannot be duplicated, and the story not following an actual timeline was intriguing.  We also have to thank this movie for bringing back John Travolta, but not as the disco dancing man we once knew, but as a hip killer which in turn gave him an action star resurgence in the 90’s.  Pulp Fiction did justly win Best Original Screenplay, but Forest Gump owes it and Shawshank some more hardware.

Q

Quantum of Solace – Only have two Q films.  This one was easy even though it is the lesser of the two Daniel Craig as James Bond movies.  However, I like the new approach to Bond, making him the intelligent killer that was portrayed in the books.  I think after this film it is easy for me to say that Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Sean Connery, and if the films continue to progress, he may even earn that top spot.  Sacrilege I know. 

R

Road to Perdition – An adaptation of a comic book that looks like a classic gangster picture.  Most people aren’t even aware that this comes from a comic.  Tom Hanks takes a turn as Michael Sullivan, a cold blooded killer and enforcer who also is a family man.  His family comes right in the line of fire of the very same crime family he works for.  Trying to keep his one remaining son safe, he wages war on the crime family he comes from.  This was a huge leap for Tom Hanks in my opinion.  I would have rather of seen him receive Academy attention for this than for Forrest Gump.  Featuring amazing performances by Daniel Craig, Jude Law, and one of the last on screen efforts of Paul Newman, this movie deserves more recognition than it gets.  Jude Law as an assassin is one of the more unique terrifying characters in this movie.  Sam Mendes proves he can shoot a film.  The Tommy Gun scene in the rain, is one of the most beautifully shot action sequences of all time. 

S

Superman: The Movie – I thought S was going to be a challenge because there are so many AMAZING movies in this letter.  However, it took me about two seconds.   Superman is the kind of movie that makes me love movies.  I remember the first time watching it.  I immediately tied a blanket around my neck and jumped off of every piece of furniture I could because this movie convinced me that a man could fly.  I zoomed around my house singing John William’s theme song.  Christopher Reeve was brilliant casting as a basic unknown.  Gene Hackman was a great Lex Luthor.  The movie was a perfect blend of action and comedy and made the pages of a DC comic come to life.  As an adult I cried the day Christopher Reeve died.  He was and always will be Superman. 

T

To Kill a Mockingbird – One of the best book to movie adaptations of all time.  I love both the book and the movie.  Gregory Peck breathes life into Atticus Finch, one of the greatest literary characters of all time.  Brock Peters as Tom Robinson is fantastic as a falsely accused attacker who faces an uphill battle due to race.  In 1962, this movie still stands as extremely brave as it attacked prejudice right in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement.  Fun fact, Robert Duvall made his movie debut as the enigma that is Boo Radley.

U

Up – Pixar does not make a bad movie.  They have struck gold time and time again, but my one of my absolute favorites is Up.  Who would have thought that you could make a fascinating children’s movie where the main character is a retiree?  And then on top of that you throw in some amazing themes including a miscarriage, and an eternal love.  The love story told in the first fifteen minutes of that movie is one of the best of all time on screen. 

V

Valkyrie – V is much like K in that there are not many choices that really stand out to me.  I choose Valkyrie because of its ability to build up tension and stress despite the fact we already know the outcome.  The assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler by high ranking officials of Germany’s government and military is portrayed with such intensity you believe in might actually happen.  You also realize how close they came to ending the insanity of World War II early. 

W

Wall-E – The second Pixar movie to make this list beat out some serious competition.  However, the large majority of this movie is a silent film in a modern era.  Again Pixar shows that they can take a difficult concept and focus it for children.  Many people argue the merit of this movie, but I think the statement about people’s apathy towards hard work and the consequences of relying on technology is a strong one.  Pixar really is the best movie house in the business today. 

X

X-Men 2 – I had to pick one of the X-Men films.  It’s all I got.  I choose the second, because of the opening scene with Nightcrawler alone.  The assassination attempt on the President of the United States and the teleporting is one of the best comic movie action sequences ever.

Y

Young Frankenstein – Surprisingly the only Y movie I own.  It wins by default, but would possibly win against any competitor.  Just see the reasons listed in Blazing Saddles.

Z

Zombieland – Again, I lack options, but a zombie clown may be the scariest thing to ever grace a movie.  This is a must see movie in order to prepare for a potential zombie apocalypse.  Rule 1: Cardio.