Eric’s Top 10 last week was Top 10 Films You Can Watch Over and Over Again. This week I thought I would put the screws to myself and twist the idea a bit, so lets make it Top 10 Films You Have Actually Watched Over and Over Again. So, in literal terms, what are the ten films that, better or worse, are the movies you’ve seen most in your entire life. Clearly, this list could yield some startling results and has the potential to be a little embarrassing, but I say lets bare it all and see what it says about us as movie fanatics. So, without further ado, here are the ten films that I believe I’ve seen more times than anyone with a social life and future goals should admit to.

10. Waiting For Guffman (1996)

Still the most brilliant and under-appreciated of Christopher Guest’s mockumentary films,”Guffman” will always have a special place in my heart. Easily one of the most quotable films of the 90s, Guest magnificently spoofs local theater, one of America’s least well known subcultures. If you’ve known this world, the parody of the smalltime stage and its delusions of grandeur is as spot on as Spinal Tap is to the debauched world of rock and roll.

Corky St. Clair: And I’ll tell you why I can’t put up with you people: because you’re BASTARD people! That’s what you are! You’re just bastard people! And I’m goin’ home and I’m gonna… I’m gonna BITE MY PILLOW, is what I’m gonna do!

9. This is Spinal Tap (1984)

This Rob Reiner classic gets regularly omitted from Eric and I’s Top 10’s, most often because if we aren’t forced to exclude it out of hand it would likely turn up on every damn list. I’ve been in bands since I was fourteen years old and access to the full battery of “Spinal Tap” references at a moment’s notice has inevitably been a qualifying prerequisite in every one of them. “Spinal Tap” is pure genius. Few American comedy ensembles can vie for a shot at the title of “America’s answer to Monty Python,” and long before there was David Cross and Bob Odenkirk (“Mr. Show”), there was the ridiculously talented triumvirate of Christopher Guest, Micheal McKean and Harry Shearer. “Spinal Tap” the film never gets old, even if nauseating “This one goes to eleven…” impersonations that seem to pop up everywhere have done their college best to suck out the feeling.

Nigel Tufnel: [on what he would do if he couldn’t be a rock star] Well, I suppose I could, uh, work in a shop of some kind, or… or do, uh, freelance, uh, selling of some sort of, uh, product. You know…
Marty DiBergi: A salesman?
Nigel Tufnel: A salesman, like maybe in a, uh, haberdasher, or maybe like a, uh, um… a chapeau shop or something. You know, like, “Would you… what size do you wear, sir?” And then you answer me.
Marty DiBergi: Uh… seven and a quarter.
Nigel Tufnel: “I think we have that.” See, something like that I could do.
Marty DiBergi: Yeah… you think you’d be happy doing something like-…
Nigel Tufnel: “No; we’re all out. Do you wear black?” See, that sort of thing I think I could probably… muster up.
Marty DiBergi: Do you think you’d be happy doing that?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, I don’t know - wh-wh-… what’re the hours?

8. Jaws (1975)

I still argue to anyone who will listen that Stephen Spielberg’s uber-classic about a sociopathic shark named Bruce is among the scariest films ever made. Regardless of whether the end result was the product of Spielberg’s acute appreciation of Hitchcock-ian “less is more” techniques or what may constitute the ultimate intervention by the film gods - the failure of a mechanical movie shark, “Jaws” is both a commercial juggernaut and an undeniable edge-of-your-seat- classic. I can honestly remember being afraid to jump in darkened swimming pools at night as a young child, for fear of being chomped by a chlorine-resistant beast of the deep. I don’t know what that says about my intelligence as a child, but I’m perfectly comfortable admitting that this is one of my all-time most watched films.

Hooper: This is what happens. It indicates the non-frenzied feeding of a large squalus - possibly Longimanus or Isurus glauca. Now… the enormous amount of tissue loss prevents any detailed analysis; however the attacking squalus must be considerably larger than any normal squalus found in these waters. Didn’t you get on a boat and check out these waters?
Brody: No.
Hooper: Well, this is not a boat accident! And it wasn’t any propeller; and it wasn’t any coral reef; and it wasn’t Jack the Ripper! It was a shark.

7. Highlander (1986)

In 1986 I was completely obsessed with the rock band Queen. Just knowing that they were responsible for the massive soundtrack to “Highlander” as they had been before for 1980’s “Flash Gordon” was enough to get me to the theater the first time, it was the broad swords, trenchcoats and immortals that brought me back the next 16 times in the theater. I’ve admitted this at least once before, but I’m fairly certain the final count for viewings in the theater was 17 (it honestly may have been 14, but I think either way I have permanently soiled my reputation and solidified my standing as a card carrying member of the dork squad). “Highlander” director Russell Mulcahy took a truly original screenplay by first time screenwriter Gregory Widen and made something quite spectacular out of it. Like the first “Terminator” to the rest of the installments in the series, both film and television, the original “Highlander” had a low-budget charm and necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention-edge to it that has very little relationship to the drivel of the same name that came after. Students of film will appreciate the film’s clever dissolves and transitions as well as the depth of story and concept at the center of this spectacular film. I have no idea how many times I’ve seen it since, on VHS or DVD, but there is little doubt it will forever be the film I’ve seen most in the theater.

Connor MacLeod: You’re a liar!
Ramirez: You have the manners of a goat. And you smell like a dung-heap! And you have no knowledge whatsoever of your potential! Now.
[shouts]
Ramirez: Get out!
Connor MacLeod: Help me, I’m drowning!
Ramirez: You can’t drown, you fool, you’re immortal!

6. Real Genius (1985)

This is one of those films that I discovered after the fact, and therefore never had the chance to screen in a movie theater. As a kid the subscription to HBO and Cinemax introduced me to any number of films with varying degrees of quality and substance. “Valley Girl” director Martha Coolidge’s ode to smart kids with no social skills was just the pep-talk I needed at the time. While I couldn’t identify with the uber-intellects of the main characters, the ineptitude in nearly all other things had a thunderous resonance. Any film that climaxes with a house exploding with popcorn, that’s been cooked by the rays of a laser beam from space, done to the triumphant tune of Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is good enough for me.

Mitch: You know, um, something strange happened to me this morning…
Chris Knight: Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
Mitch: No…
Chris Knight: Why am I the only one who has that dream?

5. Top Gun (1986)

Here’s were honesty may not be the best policy, but such is life. Right or wrong, I thought this movie was the beginning and end of all things when I was a youngster. This was the exact moment I cast aside my “Star Wars” toys and began imagining myself as a hot shot Naval aviator with carnal knowledge of stuff - too bad I didn’t find out what “carnal knowledge” was until I used it incorrectly in a sentence. Every once in a great while I’ll still give this bad boy a spin, and I do, from time to time, like to take it right into the “Danger Zone.” I also enjoy quizzing friends on the identity of the now-highly credible actor/director who played the character “Merlin.”

Merlin: What are you doing? You’re slowing down, you’re slowing down!
Maverick: I’m bringing him in closer, Merlin.
Merlin: You’re gonna do WHAT?

4. Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Of all the “Star Wars” films, “Empire” was obviously the coolest and darkest thematically. I’m sure my parents took me to see the original “Star Wars” in 1977, but I was too young to remember the experience. The first film would become a constant VHS presence in years to come, but life absolutely changed after “Empire.” I had everything from storybook cassettes to action figures, puzzles and sleeping bags with Millennium Falcons and X-Wings on them. I’ve probably seen all three original “Star Wars” movies fairly equally at this point, but I still have to give the advantage to the first film of the series that I experienced on the big screen and at a time when I was old enough to have my entire world turned upside down and love absolutely every second of it.

Darth Vader: Calrissian. Take the princess and the Wookie to my ship.
Lando: You said they’d be left at the city under my supervision.
Darth Vader: I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.

3. Almost Famous (2000)

“Untitled,” Cameron Crowe’s directors cut of this film remains my favorite DVD commentary track ever. This is in my opinion a perfect film. There is nothing I would change, no cast member, no performance, no camera angle or song on the soundtrack. It is as close to my heart as any film will ever be. As a filmmaker, Crowe is analogous to my favorite songwriter (Neil Finn of Crowded House), I sometimes let them both off the hook a little easy (”Elizabethtown”), but the truth is their work resonates louder and longer than almost any of their peers, contemporary or otherwise. I have no idea what the official count would clock in at, but I know, between both the theatrical and re-cut versions, I’ve cleared the 50 views mark. Ironically, my interest in the film has also led me to one of my favorite music artists of the last decade in Mark Kozelek, the former lead singer of Red House Painters and “Almost Famous” band Stillwater’s bassist-of-few-words Larry Fellows.

Russell Hammond: You, Aaron, are what it’s all about. You’re real. Your room is real. Your friends are real. Real, man, real. You know? Real. You’re more important than all the silly machinery. Silly machinery. And you know it! In eleven years its going to be 1984, man. Think about that!
Aaron: Wanna see me feed a mouse to my snake?
Russell Hammond: Yes.

2. Apollo 13 (1995)

Now were getting down to it. My love affair with this film began the moment I heard it was in production and that NASA had approved the production to film in it’s zero-gravity inducing planes. I’ve been known to describe my vast appreciation for all things in space by claiming that if you put a hot dog in space I’ll watch it. Fortunately, for all fans of space exploration and in particular the Apollo space missions, “Apollo 13″ star and sparkplug Tom Hanks is as big a fan as anyone and took special care to create a film that had as much respect for detail as it did admiration for the three astronauts who traveled all the way to the moon, just to watch it fly by out the window and barely make it home again. Hanks would go on to produce the HBO series “From the Earth to the Moon” about many of the other Apollo missions, but Ron Howard and Co.’s “Apollo 13″ is the cream of the crop of films about the American space program - right along with “The Right Stuff.” I’ve never been able to burn myself out on the film, despite having screened it so many times that the only suspense available to me now is whether or not I will actually watch the thing all the way through to the end - and I nearly always do.

Jack Swigert: Ken, there’s an awful lot of condensation on these panels. What’s the story of them shorting out?
Ken Mattingly: Umm… We’ll just have to take that one at a time, Jack.
Jack Swigert: Like trying to drive a toaster through a car wash.

1. Princess Bride (1987)

Hands down, without question, “The Princess Bride” is the movie that I have watched the most number of times of any single film ever. I truly believe that great movies are meant to be experienced over and over again, just like an amazing record, and even I can’t fathom the number of times I’ve seen this Rob Reiner classic, based on the novel by William Goldman. There is no film more quotable or more infinitely enduring than “The Princess Bride.” I can recall my father taking me to see the film the first time, and I remember thinking just like Fred Savage does in the first scene with Peter Falk that he had lost his ever-loving mind trying to take me to a movie called “The Princess Bride,” but little did I know he was introducing me to a film that will, until the day I die, never leave my side. No one before or since has made a film quite like it, and like The Beatles’ “Revolver” or Crowded House’s “Temple of Low Men,” “The Princess Bride” is a thing that I will never tire of and I definitely can’t live without.

Inigo Montoya: You are sure nobody’s follow us?
Vizzini: As I told you, it would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable. No one in Guilder knows what we’ve done, and no one in Florin could have gotten here so fast. - Out of curiosity, why do you ask?
Inigo Montoya: No reason. It’s only… I just happened to look behind us and something is there.
Vizzini: What? Probably some local fisherman, out for a pleasure cruise, at night… in… eel-infested waters…

Tags: 10, almost famous, best of, empire strikes back, list, movies, princess bride, real genius, repeat viewings, seen a lot, ten, top, top 10 list, Top 10 Lists, top gun, top ten, watched most

Anybody who reads my writing on any kind of semi-regular basis probably knows that “This is Spinal Tap” is my favorite movie of all-time. I’ve seen it so many times that I can quote virtually the entire film back to you at any given moment. It’s not just the funniest movie I’ve ever seen. Every moment of it rings of truth, and there are still new things to discover each time I watch it. Since I’ve written about that movie ad nauseam, here is a list of 10 other films that hold those same qualities for me. I just never get tired of watching them. What are yours?

10. Miller’s Crossing (1990)

What’s the rumpus? This overlooked early movie by Joel and Ethan Coen is full of so many great little details and so dense with questionable characters and double-crosses that it may take more than one viewing to digest it all. After a friend revealed to me that this was one of his favorite movies too, I marveled at its inclusion of gay gangsters. “What?” my friend said, “There are gay gangsters in it?” Set around the Irish mob during Prohibition, “Miller’s Crossing” features one of the greatest mysterious lead characters in film—a mob advisor played by Gabriel Byrne whose loyalties change more often than his underwear. Or do they? The dialogue is so fast and full of quick-witted lingo from the 1930s that it is hard to keep up. Watch it again and again and something new opens itself up every time.

Eddie Dane: How’d you get the fat lip?
Tom: Old war wound. Acts up around morons.

9. Rushmore (1998)

Often times a great comedy is something that you can revisit time and time again and this one is so far off base from every other comedy out there that I never get sick of it. Like “Miller’s Crossing,” “Rushmore” has an anachronistic lead character. Max Fischer (played by Jason Schwartzman) is a 15 year-old private school student who has more extra-curricular activities than he does good grades. His unusual relationship with a depressed but wealthy industrialist played by a deadpan Bill Murray forms the basis of this perfectly realized creation. “Rushmore” may have shades of J.D. Salinger’s writing and Hal Ashby’s movies, but director Wes Anderson pulls humor from the trickiest of situations (the only actual jokes in the movie are bad ones, and in context, they are really funny) and always manages to surprise. For all its absurdities, “Rushmore” is also a very humanist film. Your sympathies may lie with any number of different characters each time you watch it. Whatever happens, it will probably put a great big smile on your face like it does for me.

Herman Blume: You guys have it real easy. I never had it like this where I grew up. But I send my kids here because the fact is you go to one of the best schools in the country: Rushmore. Now, for some of you it doesn’t matter. You were born rich and your going to stay rich. But here’s my advice to the rest of you: Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything but they can’t buy backbone. Don’t let them forget it. Thank you.

8. Out of the Past (1947)

My favorite classic film noir stars Robert Mitchum as a man trying to make a clean break with his past who eventually gets sucked right back into it. Mitchum is at his laconic best, Jane Greer is seductively dangerous and terribly sexy, Kirk Douglas is menacing, and Jacques Tourneur ’s direction is flawless. For as old as it is, “Out of the Past” is full of modern storytelling techniques and remarkably realized characters. Trouble keeps piling up for poor Mitchum, obsessed and in love, as Tourneur flashes back and forward, deepening the story at every turn. The script, full of quotable treats and ice-cool Mitchum narration, was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring (under the pseudonym Geoffrey Homes) from his own novel. And, unlike many noirs, the mystery here is not a whodunit, but a what-is-going-to-happen-next in a bitter love triangle with high stakes. Knowing the ending never spoils the ride since there’s so many things to enjoy along the way, least of all Nicholas Musuraca ’s beautiful black-and-white cinematography.

Kathie Moffat: Oh, Jeff, I don’t want to die!
Jeff Bailey: Neither do I, baby, but if I have to I’m gonna die last.

7. The Graduate (1967)

Even though it was made in the 60s, “The Graduate” stills feels like today for me. For every person who ever felt alienated from anything (isn’t that everybody?), Dustin Hoffman is here to let us know we are not alone. I’m starting to see a trend as I write this list and I’m wondering if an iconic character Top 10 is not in my near future. Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock is full of contradictions and as long as people remain confused about who they are or where they are going in their lives, this movie will have an audience. Director Mike Nichols tapped into something very powerful with “The Graduate.” Its stature as a classic is well-deserved, and what makes it so watchable is that he didn’t forget to fill Benjamin’s journey from aimlessness to uneasiness with lots of awkward humor—fans of “The Office,” take note. If you haven’t seen this yet, you are missing out. If you have, then you’re probably like me and you pull it out every year or so to remind yourself that life is by nature untidy and someone understands.

Benjamin: I’m just…
Mr. Braddock: Worried?
Benjamin: Well…
Mr. Braddock: About what?
Benjamin: I guess about my future.
Mr. Braddock: What about it?
Benjamin: I don’t know… I want it to be…
Mr. Braddock: To be what?
Benjamin: [looks at his father] … Different.

6. Goodfellas (1990)

Martin Scorsese’s epic examination of three decades in the mob is such an involving film that when I’m flipping channels and I see it rerun on TV, I always stop and watch it, even though I know it’s presented in pan-and-scan and half the movie is cut out. Then I have to find time to pop in a DVD and experience the whole movie widescreen and in its entire 145-minute running time. This movie crackles with energy and amazing stylistic touches—Scorsese uses long tracking shots, quick edits, freeze frames and an ongoing narration from Ray Liotta to immerse the audience into the gangster’s world. The frenetic style isn’t distracting, though—it’s essential to the storytelling. The viewer becomes an insider and is granted all access to a world few people can actually see. The fact that it is based on a true story only makes it all the more amazing. There is so much rich detail in “Goodfellas” that one viewing doesn’t do it justice.

Anthony: Tommy no, You got it all wrong.
Tommy: Oh, oh, Anthony. He’s a big boy, he knows what he said. What did ya say? Funny how? What?
Henry Hill: Just… ya know… you’re funny.
Tommy: You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it’s me, I’m a little fucked up maybe, but I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to fuckin’ amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?
Henry Hill: Just… you know, how you tell the story, what?
Tommy: No, no, I don’t know, you said it. How do I know? You said I’m funny. How the fuck am I funny, what the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me, tell me what’s funny!
Henry Hill: [long pause] Get the fuck out of here, Tommy!
Tommy: [everyone laughs] Ya motherfucker! I almost had him, I almost had him. Ya stuttering prick ya. Frankie, was he shaking? I wonder about you sometimes, Henry. You may fold under questioning.

5. L.A. Confidential (1997)

I never tire of seeing this movie. Curtis Hanson’s masterful adaptation of James Ellroy’s sprawling novel follows three detectives in 1950s Hollywood to reveal the ugliness beneath the glitz. Hanson’s Oscar-winning screenplay trimmed Ellroy’s eight labyrinthine plotlines down to three, but retained all the spirit of the characters and rounded up a perfect cast. Kevin Spacey, Danny Devito, and Kim Basinger were big names at the time, but Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce were virtual unknowns in America yet. The jazzy soundtrack and atmospheric production design are absolutely top notch, and it is thrilling to see this era come to life in an era when movies don’t have to shy away from grittiness anymore. One of the best reasons to watch a film over and over again is a rich evocation of a time period or location, and “L.A. Confidential” does that to perfection, while juggling a massive cast and storyline.

Ed Exley: Take a walk, honey, before I haul your ass downtown.
Johnny Stompanato: You are making a large mistake.
Lana Turner: Get away from our table.
Ed Exley: Shut up. A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still a hooker. She just looks like Lana Turner.
Jack Vincennes: She is Lana Turner.
Ed Exley: What?
Jack Vincennes: She is Lana Turner. [Lana throws a drink in Ed’s face]

4. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

One of the greatest screen satires of all-time is this black-and-white Stanley Kubrick movie which, for all its dated references and Cold War-era black humor, still translates 100 percent today. This film never gets old for me. One commonality I’m also noticing in this list is the fact that all these films are eminently quotable, and this one is no exception. Peter Sellers’ comic dexterity is on display in three decidedly different roles, and George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden are also drop-dead funny in caricatures of trigger-happy military types. While you try to analyze Kubrick’s war-as-sex analogy, you can marvel at the absurdity of the situations and enjoy rapid-fire dialogue that just gets better and sharper each time you hear it. Hey, if you can’t laugh at an impending government-caused nuclear holocaust, what can you laugh at?

Miss Scott: It’s 3 o’clock in the morning!
General “Buck” Turgidson: Weh-heh-heh-ll, the Air Force never sleeps.
Miss Scott: Buck, honey, I’m not sleepy either…
General “Buck” Turgidson: I know how it is, baby. Tell you what you do: you just start your countdown, and old Bucky’ll be back here before you can say “Blast off!”

3. Almost Famous (2000)

The DVD extended cut of Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age picture is retitled “Untitled” and runs a whopping 2 hours and 40 minutes, and it still leaves me wanting more. The heyday of 70s rock is chronicled through the eyes of a teenaged journalist who falls in love on the road. Nowhere else has the pure joy of rock n’ roll been illustrated so confidently. This movie makes me wish I would have been born a decade earlier so I could have grown up with rock music before it was taken over by big business. Every moment feels real, and the era is lovingly rendered with so much authenticity that it the fictional band at its core—a middle-of-the-road riff rock band called Stillwater—feels absolutely real. It also takes “inside baseball” issues that most rock bands are concerned with—like selling out—with the same sincerity it has for groupies (and why they don’t like being called groupies). Even if the rest of the movie was terrible, it would be worth it for the scene where Stillwater plays in Topeka that features the following exchange between rocker and a high schooler:

Russell Hammond: You, Aaron, are what it’s all about. You’re real. Your room is real. Your friends are real. Real, man, real. You know? Real. You’re more important than all the silly machinery. Silly machinery. And you know it! In eleven years its going to be 1984, man. Think about that!
Aaron: Wanna see me feed a mouse to my snake?
Russell Hammond: Yes.

2. Do the Right Thing (1989)

“1989 the number/another summer/sound of the funky drummer!” With that opening salvo, Chuck D announces that Public Enemy is in the house and Spike Lee’s incendiary day-in-the-life movie about a neighborhood in Brooklyn has begun. From its opening dance number to its sobering morning-after conclusion, “Do The Right Thing” is one of the funniest and most alive movies ever created. People remember this being an issue-related film, which is correct, but often times what is missing from their memory is how funny it really is. If every “serious issue” film was this much fun, they would do a lot better at the box office. “Do The Right Thing” didn’t do that well in the theaters, though, because it was way ahead of its time. Despite it being a snapshot of a certain time period (right down to its ghetto blasters and white Air Jordans), it feels absolutely timeless. The much-debated ending takes on resonance with each repeated viewing, and is always a great conversation-starter.

Da Mayor: Doctor…
Mookie: C’mon, what. What?
Da Mayor: Always do the right thing.
Mookie: That’s it?
Da Mayor: That’s it.
Mookie: I got it, I’m gone.

1. Fargo (1996)

The second appearance on this list from the Coen brothers is one of my favorite quotable movies ever, and a shining rebuttal to critic Pauline Kael’s opinion that you need not see a film more than once to get it. “Fargo” is a twisted black comedy with so much misfortune heaped upon the dim-witted lead characters that it actually gets funnier the more you see it. In a way, the movie can eventually de-sensitize you to the violence, allowing its absurdity to become front and center. A terrorized housewife with a blanket over her head tumbling down the stairs in an unconscious heap after being chased by kidnappers? Funny! A dead body in a woodchipper? Funny! Just thinking about pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) and the loving relationship she has with her artist husband makes me smile. Steve Buscemi’s foul-motor-mouthed criminal and William H. Macy’s emasculated car salesman are absolutely hilarious and heartbreaking—a far cry from the reserved tenderness that Marge shows her husband, even after a long day of fighting both crime and morning sickness. “Fargo” allows me to laugh at life’s desperate nature while simultaneously warming my heart every time. Each line in this movie is a treasure, and even the ones not necessarily meant to be funny seem to find their way into my daily conversation. All hail “Fargo”—a movie I can watch over and over again.

Marge Gunderson: So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’t you know that? And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well, I just don’t understand it.

Tags: , 10, best of, list, movies, repeat viewings, ten, top, top 10 list, Top 10 Lists, top ten

 From McSweeney’s:

Other Things
There Will Be,
in Addition
to Blood.

BY MEREDITH RODKEY AND SCOTT RODKEY

- - - -

Refreshments

A representative on hand to answer your questions

No horseplay

Minor delays

After-holiday sales

An end to this

A brief pause while we transfer your call

Light

No dessert unless you finish your carrots, mister

Consequences

Tags: in Addition to Blood, list, mcsweeney's, MEREDITH RODKEY, Other Things There Will Be, poem, SCOTT RODKEY, There Will Be Blood

I watch movies for one reason. I want to experience something emotionally. I want to be moved—it’s that simple. Whether it’s the high-flying action and romance of “Spider-Man 2” the introspective chaos of “Fight Club,” or the non-stop absurdity of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” I want to feel something. The blackest and bleakest of dramas have a tough road to travel. In order for it to be worth two hours of depression, I have to feel like there is some kind of enlightenment, some human truth. Many of these dark films, like Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist,” keep me coming back for repeated viewings. Some, on the other hand, give me that cathartic experience but also take to me to a place I’m not likely to visit again. I’m not sure that “enjoy” is the right word for this, but try renting one of these exceptional films some night when you’re ready for some artistically disturbing material. I’ve stuck to modern films to keep it to 10, but feel free to comment with additions from any era of filmmaking. Also, here’s J.D.’s response!

10. In the Bedroom (2001)

A whopper of a directorial debut, Todd Field’s adaptation of the Andre Dubus short story “Killings” earned five Oscar nominations including Best Picture. Grief overtakes married couple Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson after their 18 year-old son is unexpectedly murdered by the separated husband of his older girlfriend, played by Marisa Tomei. A slow burning rage in both of them eventually boils to a head after the murderer gets out on bail and keeps showing his face in the small Maine fishing community where they live. Wilkinson’s attraction to Tomei and his wife’s accusing glances only make the tension even more unbearable. The ending seems a little incongruent since the rest of the film kept the fury to a simmering level, but “In the Bedroom” remains an illuminating look at the unexpected side effects of severe grief.

9. Happiness (1998)

Todd Solondz followed up his darkly hilarious “Welcome to the Dollhouse” with another seriously twisted and (depending on your aptitude for masturbation and human misery) funny film. “Happiness” depicts the social misadventures of three sisters and the pathetically disturbed freaks that surround them. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a maladjusted introvert whose only social interaction with women is filthy prank phone calls. Dylan Baker plays a suburban father who turns out to also be a child molester (and who has the most stomach-churning conversation in recent memory with his 11 year-old son). Many of Solondz’s characters come to the eventual revelation that they are incapable of any real emotion at all. There are so many wrong things happening here that the iconic writer/director seems to be suggesting that the kind of behavior depicted in his characters’ search for happiness is not abnormal, but instead the norm for today’s society. It’s been ten years since I first saw this movie, and I have only been recently considering that I may be ready to watch it again.

8. Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

This beautifully-shot independent movie moved me so much when I saw it in the theaters that I bought it on DVD as soon as it was released—and then never watched it again. Hilary Swank won an Oscar for playing the true-life transgendered Brandon Teena, who lived life in a small Nebraska town as a boy until it was discovered he was really a girl. Brandon develops friendships both romantic and platonic, but his friends’ confusion manifests itself in extreme violence and guilt. Brandon himself was unprepared to deal with his own gender identity crisis, and first-time feature writer/director Kimberly Peirce (“Stop-Loss”) elucidates why none of his friends were either. The whole experience is enlightening, tragic, and completely maddening.

7. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (2007), The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

Cinematographer Oleg Mutu shot both of these disturbing neo-realist pictures, which herald a burgeoning new movement in Romanian film. Cristian Mungiu’s Cannes Palm d’Or winner“4 Months” follows the trials of two female college students in 1980s Communist Romania who seek out an illegal abortion, while Cristi Puiu’s “Mr. Lazarescu” follows an aged alcoholic widow who has a terrible headache and is puking blood through the ailing Bucharest medical system. The low-light documentary style of the camerawork and elimination of any soundtrack music only serve to heighten the reality of these awful situations. The events in each film provide very little relief from the insensitivity of human beings, even though the DVD box of “Mr. Lazarescu” calls it a black comedy. I admired both movies, and am glad to have achieved a level of emotional participation, but I never cracked a smile during either film, and I never want to watch either of them again.

6. In the Company of Men (1997)

Two misogynist yuppies set out to ruin the life of the most innocent young woman they can find in this difficult play-turned-independent feature from writer/director Neil LaBute. An ultra low-budget sledgehammer satire on modern corporate power and the male libido, “In the Company of Men” can be as funny as it is malicious, but it is anything but an easy watch. It launched the film career of Aaron Eckhart, who plays the most single-mindedly evil office worker ever—a man drunk with power and so heartless that he gets off on toying with the affections of a pretty, deaf subordinate just so he can crush her completely. There is something to be said for the unusually high level of uncompromising cruelty that LaBute puts on display here. As hard as the movie is to get through, “In the Company of Men” has a lot to say about the fear-driven complex that can lead to this kind of abuse.

5. The Sweet Hereafter (1997)

If grief was the overriding emotion that drove “In the Bedroom,” then is the soul of every frame of director Atom Egoyan’s adaptation of the novel of the same name by Russell Banks. A school bus accident in a small Canadian town leaves the residents crippled with loss. Ian Holm plays a lawyer who tries to convince the families to sue for damages (and thus keeps the town’s wounds open and fresh), and Sarah Polley is a survivor who lies to keep her sexually-abusive father from benefiting financially from the crash. This haunting movie draws a sympathetic portrait of everyone, including Holm’s lawyer, who’s dealing with his own family tragedy as well. More than any other film on this list, the pervasive downbeat mood of “The Sweet Hereafter” outweighs any specific plot developments, making it one singular, depressing examination of human suffering and healing.

4. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Often inappropriately devalued as nothing more than an extremely graphic anti-drug PSA, Darren Aronofsky’s imaginative and kinetic film will stay with you long after the final credits roll. Based on Hubert Selby Jr.’s book, “Requiem for a Dream” is really about the dangers of an unattainable dream. Every character in the movie—from Ellen Burstyn’s diet-pill abusing, infomercial-addicted elderly mother to her weak, heroin-addicted son (played by Jared Leto)—makes desperate, stupid attempts to achieve their dreams, and each are thwarted in their own unfortunate way. “Requiem for a Dream” isn’t always as downbeat as some of the other films on this list, but in one particular way, it is way, way harder on an audience than the others: Its characters have hope, and they live for that hope with every passing season. And then reality comes back into focus and kicks every single one of them in the nuts.

3. Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

This remarkable movie, helmed by Mike Figgis and starring Best Actor winner Nicolas Cage and Best Actress nominee Elisabeth Shue, is the least judgmental love story ever written. It achieves a clarity and beauty of vision that few movies about alcoholics ever have, mainly because it is all about acceptance. “Leaving Las Vegas” refuses to engage with the typical “life-changing moment” formula that almost every screenplay in the world sticks to. Instead, it observes the often stubborn immovability of the human will. By the time Hollywood screenwriter Cage reaches Sin City, he has left the shattered remains of his life behind and his goal is clear—to spend the last of his money drinking himself to death. An unlikely relationship with Shue’s hooker gives Cage something to look forward to each day, but only under the condition that his ultimate fatalistic goal remains undeterred. Figgis co-wrote the screenplay with the novel’s author John O’Brien, who committed suicide himself two weeks into the shooting of the film.

2. Dancer in the Dark (2000)

A Czech immigrant factory worker named Selma (played by musician Bjork) has a degenerative disease that’s causing her to go blind in Lars Von Trier’s emotionally draining, digitally-shot musical. Horrible situations keeping piling up for our heroine, who retreats into her mind to stage elaborate musical numbers that feature the characters in her miserable life. She holds out hope that one day she’ll be able to pay for an operation that will save her son from the same fate. Tragedy and uplifting music have been combined in many a musical before, but because Von Trier shoots in a handheld realist style and the level of heartbreak is so enormous, the effect is very jarring in “Dancer in the Dark.” Selma’s situation goes from bad to worse, but she shows great courage in the face of her misfortune and uses music to escape from an increasingly grim reality. The movie won the Palm d’Or and Bjork was awarded Best Actress at Cannes that year, but not without controversy. Supposedly, Von Trier’s method of directing Bjork was so harsh and personally abusive that the singer swore off acting for good after this. A friend of mine was so angry at the movie that he bolted out the door after its conclusion and ran down the street screaming—a reaction that I don’t find to be all that strange, all things considered.

1. I Stand Alone (1998)

There are plenty of movies out there, like Gaspar Noe’s “Irreversible,” that I never want to watch again because I learned absolutely nothing from them. But before that film, Noe made “I Stand Alone”—a movie that stands alone for me as the single most grueling cinematic experience I’ve ever had. At least the despair in “Dancer in the Dark” is broken up with false joy every now and then. “I Stand Alone” is one gut-wrenching sucker punch after another, climaxing with a title screen that abruptly comes up and warns theatergoers that they have 30 seconds to leave the theater. There I sat. For 30 seconds, it counted down: 29, 28, and so on. Some people, fed up with the relentless despair and shocking violence they had seen up to that point already, 15, 14…promptly got out of their seats and headed for the exits. 2,1…I sat there, riveted, with the hair on my arms standing at end. Set in Paris in 1980, the film follows a former butcher who lashes out at a world that condemns the lower class to abject poverty. Stuck in a loveless relationship with an overweight, screeching, pregnant woman, he grabs his gun and sets out to find the mentally-deficient teenage daughter he gave up years ago when he went to prison. As hopeless as his outlook is, we get to know the butcher through his inner monologue, which is more than I can say for the poor saps that inhabit the equally shocking but pointless “Irreversible,” which looks at the how one little decision can change the course of your life. “I Stand Alone” involved me emotionally and gave me something to think about, while “Irreversible” just pissed me off and made me feel like I’d seen an NC-17 version of “Sliding Doors” but with no Gwyneth Paltrow.

Here’s a toughie. In what 2000 movie did Aaron Eckhart get scalped by this guy?

Tags: 2 Days, 3 Weeks, 4 Months, best movies, Boys Don’t Cry, brutal movies, cruel movies, Dancer in the Dark, depressing movies, gASPAR nOE, Happiness, I stand ALONE, In the Bedroom, In the Company of Men, iRREVERSIBLE, lars von trier, Leaving Las Vegas, list, Requiem for a Dream, Solondz, Swank, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, The Sweet Hereafter, Top 10 Lists, top ten