Feature Blogs

As I promised last week, I'm about to take a look at my favourite 10 films from the past 1,100 reviews (almost 7 years).  This was a tough list.  I've only awarded 30 films an A+ rating so I had to refine that list even further and it wasn't easy.  In fact, I've given myself a little slack and included 11 films below.  They are in alphabetical order because when films get this good, I think it's unfair to differentiate.  All these films must (and I repeat must) be seen.  Here we go:

American Beauty

Released: January 26, 2000

When Did I First See It:  January 21, 2000 at 6:40pm at the old Greater Union City Cinemas.

You see a street that looks like any other street.  Look closer.  You see a man who's hardly there.  Look closer.  Look closer.  Look closer.  With a balanced mix of both comedy and drama, this film manages to make us think about life and how "beautiful" it is.  All the characters are nuts and yet we can understand what they're going through which makes it feel so special.  In such a sort space of time, the film has become an enigma with make copy-cat films trying to revive the feel.  They have failed.

There's an abundance of great scenes and lines I could single out.  When the "psycho next door" Ricky Fitts keeps appearing from nowhere and is obsessing over Jane with his videocamera.  When Lester is sitting at the dinner table and asked about his day - "Today I quit my job.  Then I blackmailed my boss for almost $60,000.  Pass the asparagus."  When Lester is working at Mr Smiley's and sees his wife with her lover drive up to the drive-thru window.  When Angela and Lester bicker constantly at the dinner table and in bed.  My favourite line has to be the catchphrase spoken by Ricky - "sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it."

It was director Sam Mendes' first film and he's since gone on to make The Road To Perdition.  It was writer Alan Ball's first film and he's since gone on to make the TV show Six Feet Under.  These achievements prove that American Beauty was no one hit wonder.  The film was a shoe-in for every major award winning both the Oscar and the Golden Globe.  Nothing else stood a chance.

An absolutely insane film.  Craig Schwartz is very good at filing and is working at a job on floor seven and a half of an office building.  Behind a filing cabinet, he finds a doorway that is portal into the mind of John Malkovich.  That's only the start of things to come.  This is the most unpredictible film I can imagine.  Just when you think you've seen it all, the film changes tangents and I don't know how writer Charlie Kaufman wrote this madness.

It look a long time to convince Malkovich to take the leading role.  If he refused, they were going to offer it to Steve Buscemi.  Somehow Being Steve Buscemi doesn't have the same ring to it.  I love the whole film but the nice twist in the final 3 minutes was the icing on the cake.  Those closing credits underwater to the music of Carter Burwell is hypnotic.  I can remember sitting in the cinema feeling both drained and stunned.

As I type, I'm looking at an original poster from the film on my wall and just behind me on the shelf is the DVD which has received a lot of use.  Even the trailers and TV ads were original.  In America, the film was promoted with fake infomercial adds asking the question - "Ever wanted to be someone else?  Now you can!  Call JM Enterprises today!"  Nominated for 3 Oscars but missed out - probably because of a lack of star power and commercialism.

This is easily the best feel good movie I have seen.  It found its place in the heart of everyone thanks to the amazing first-time performance from Jamie Bell in the title role.  A poor kid from a working-class mining town in England discovers he has a knack for ballet and makes it his passion.  Against all the odds, he succeeds.  But there's an added senitmentality to the film as his story inspires his local community and then brings them back down when he leaves their lives and heads to ballet school.  That scene late in the film with Julie Walters standing on her own in the boxing hall is one of my all-time favourites.

At the British Academy Awards, 12-year-old Bell was nominated for best actor against Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, Geoffrey Rush and Michael Douglas.  He won.  So too did Julie Walters for best supporting actress.  I remember the excitement this film gave me and the numerous times I was recommending it to others.  In all, I saw it 5 times at the cinema - a record for me.

I've had a quiet smirk on my face seeing Bend It Like Beckham compared as "this year's Billy Elliot".  Already, Billy's story has become the benchmark against which other English feel good flicks will be judged.  The film score was never released in Australia and I had to spend $10US on ebay acquiring it from overseas.  There's an indiciation of how strongly I feel for this film.

Nicolas Cage won the Oscar but it's been a downhill slide for him ever since.  This is certainly the most depressing film of the bunch.  It's about a guy who's life has fallen apart, so he goes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death.  He goes, drinks, drinks, drinks, night after night and yes, he dies.  But whilst he expected to be easy, it was complicated by the fact that he meets a hooker (Elizabeth Shue) who he feels a connection with.  They start seeing each other but she has to promise never to make him stop drinking.

Mike Figgis was behind the camera and the film was bypassed at the Oscars despite winning a string of lead up awards.  Like other films in my list, it was considered too arthouse to reward with film's highest honour.  Rated R for its strong sexual content, this is effectively a love story - but not a run-of-the-mill one.  Developed from a true story, it'll tear you up.

Shue and Cage share wonderful dialogue.  Ben: "I came here to drink myself to death", Sera: "How long will it take you?", Ben: "I'd say about three to four weeks".  Sera: "Is drinking a way of killing yourself?"  Ben: "Or, is killing myself a way of drinking?"

Here's a really different film.  I had free tickets to a sneak at 8:30pm and expecting to be out around 10:30pm, I walked out at 11:45pm.  It's a film about a bunch of people who go about their lives only for us to find they are connected in some way.  There's a boy genius on a quiz show with an overbearing father, there's a wife who's married an old man for money and is now having regrets, there's a gay loser trying to pick up a young bartender, there's a male nurse caring for a dying man, there's a guy who hosts seminars on how men can pick up women, there's a police officer looking for love and there's a young drug addict girl coming to grips with demons from her past.

There's so many little things to appreciate about Magnolia and of all the films in my DVD collection, I've seen this one most of all.  Not a month usually go pasts before I pop it in and look at some of my favourite scenes over and over again.    It won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival and earned Tom Cruise an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe victory.  It's fresh and inventive and something I'd expect from the director of Boogie Nights.

Don't let me spoil the ending which will surprise you.  It's open to interpretation too.  The music is exceptional from the opening montage to Amiee Mann's Oscar nominated song which rounds out the credits.  I love Roger Ebert's comments "Leave logic at the door. Do not expect subdued taste and restraint, but instead a kind of operatic ecstasy. At three hours it is even operatic in length, as its themes unfold, its characters strive against the dying of the light, and the great wheel of chance rolls on toward them."

I've had to send explanations to many people who have seen this film.  I don't think there is a definite answer as to what the film means but there are some answers that seem to make more sense than others.  The film is completely anti-Hollywood and in a rare event - makes you think about it and talk about it after leaving the theatre.  The admission price is well worth it even if you don't know what's going on.

It's my favourite film of the current year and a freaky one at that.  The DVD came out a few weeks ago and has some cool special features.  One is an interview where director David Lynch is quizzed by a French press guy who has absolutely no idea.  Lynch is sarcastically mocking the stupidness of his questions but the interviewer doesn't pick it up.  I'm elated to see this on the DVD as it's a great feature to add to the film's hype and mystique.

It's two and a half hours long but it'll take me even longer to explain it all to you.  So why bother?  Take the time to see it since it's so fresh on video store shelves.  And if you figure out what it all means, let me know!

He may be a scum bag but porn magazine creator Larry Flynt is a hero in my eyes.  He's taken on the American legal system and won.  Why has he done this?  Because he has money and "that gives him the power to shake up the system".  His magazines were supressed and a priest sued him for defamation but he's still around today and this awesome film made by Milos Foreman tells his tale.

There's a zillion quotes I'd love to list right now.  There's a scene where he tells everyone at a political rally how crazy our perseptions are in that sex is legal and can't be shown in film and yet murder is illegal and can be shown.  One of my favourite actors, Edward Norton, plays Alan Isaacman, his attorney.  The conversations between Woody Harrelson and Norton are superb.  To single out one scene, here's Isaacman's closing argument to the jury at his case before the Supreme Court - "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard a lot toady, and I'm not gonna go back over it, but you have to go into that room and make some decisions. But before you do, there's something you need to know. I am not trying to suggest that you should like what Larry Flynt does. I don't like what Larry Flynt does, but what I do like is the fact that I live in a country where you and I can make that decision for ourselves."

It's a very important film and will become more important in years to come.  I enjoy movies that end with words on the screen.  This film has some beauties before fading into the credits and the song Dream Weaver.  Awesome.