Things I Love ...

Inspired by the original article 100 Things I Love About The Movies and its following set, (and stealing more than a few from them as well) this is my own personal list that I'll continue to compile as time goes on.

Thus, in no particular order except by which they come across my mind, things I love about the movies:

  1. Janet Leigh’s blood spiraling down the drain in Psycho…
  2. And the tracking shot from Janet Leigh to the suitcase
  3. along with Hitchcock’s Freudian affection for blondes
  4. And his Freudian examination of mother-son relationships 
  5. And his obsession with audience voyeurism and the male gaze
  6. Jack Lemmon hearing “Nobody’s perfect!” after confessing to his future, um… “husband” that he’s not really a woman at the end of Some Like it Hot
  7. Battleship Potemkin‘s incredible montage sequence on the Odessa Steps
  8. Rango‘s double homage to both Deliverance and Apocalypse Now in a single scene
  9. And Rango‘s homage to the genre of Spaghetti Westerns, including- but not limited to- a rattlesnake that looks like Lee Van Cleef
  10. And Rango's influence from Tex Avery, and the Coen bros
  11. Seriously, Rango really is that good
  12. The hilarious yet grisly fates of every child tourist visiting Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory
  13. Charles Foster Kane’s sled was probably a symbol for a vagina (I'm not so sure about this theory, but just the idea of it and that fact it exists is awesome)
  14. But since we're on the topic, there's also the silent film sequence from  Hable con ella
    1. Talk to her / Hable con ella by zmin_inc
  15. Whatever the hell was in this briefcase:
  16. That Pulp Fiction is about post-modernity, being Fonzie-cool, redemption, and absolutely nothing all.
  17. Ennio Morricone scores. All of them.
  18. A very long, very detailed discussion of Madonna’s songs in Reservoir Dogs
  19. W/ Messers. Brown, White, Orange, Pink, Blue, and Blonde
  20. Italian neo-realism
  21. Luis Buñuel’s fierce satire of every social institution imaginable
  22. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” 
  23. Fritz Lang’s little slice of pre-Nazi Germany zeitgeist in M, which includes a suspiciously meticulous police state and a whole lot of public vitriol and vigilante justice
  24. The early experimental use of sound in M
  25. The opening looking-for-Elsie sequence
  26. Peter Lorre whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King"
  27. Peter Lorre's monologue 
  28. Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai was re-made as The Magnificent Seven
  29. That the plot for both  Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven was the basis for Pixar's A Bug's Life
  30. The behind-the-scenes-nobody-knows-about-her work of Thelma Schoonmaker, the film editor that makes Martin Scorsese films possible
  31. Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers
  32. “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”
  33. Vertigo is actually about necrophilia
  34.  And transexualism, the Male Gaze, and ...well, vertigo
  35. This wallet
  36. Roooooose Buuuuuud
  37. Humphrey Bogart
  38. Karen Hill stuffing a gun into her panties in Goodfellas 
  39. "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster"
  40. The "Layla" sequence
  41. And garlic that melts in the pan
  42. Heath Ledger as The Joker
  43. Martin Scorsese’s love affair with Motown and the Rolling Stones. 
  44. The hobo last supper in Viridiana
  45. Peter Lorre’s creepy bulging eyes  
  46. The juxtaposition of the beauty of classical music with the brutality of boxing in Raging Bull
  47. "I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!"
  48. How Network helped defined a generation and predicted the future
  49. That The Social Network (get it?) also defined a generation 
  50. "I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!"
  51. "I know it was you, Fredo."
  52. The Man with No Name 
  53. Eli Wallach as Tuco 
  54. "What business is it of yours where I’m from, friendo?"
  55. Javier Bardem's hair in No Country for Old Men (it's a love/hate)  
  56. "I’m not even supposed to be here today!"
  57. Evaluating the Star Wars series
  58. Jay and Silent Bob's bromance
  59. The opening home movie sequence with the song "Be My Baby" at the beginning of Mean Streets
  60. "Jumpin' Jack Flash" playing as Robert De Niro walks into the bar in Mean Streets
  61.  Marlon Brando's pure animalism as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire
  62.  Billy Wilder's wonderful sense of dark humor and the morbid in just about every movie he did
  63. Pedro Almodovar's passion for films, filmmaking, melodrama, women, death, the color red, film noir, Madrid, and well...passion
  64. The singing scene of Volver
  65. Feeling like I was gonna be attacked in my own hometown after watching David Fincher's Bay Area-set Zodiac
  66. The 15min. ballet sequence of An American in Paris
  67. Almost any/every dance sequence choreographed and danced by Gene Kelly 
  68. Judy Garland's heartbreaking vocals and life-story
  69. "Let me sing you a waltz, Out of nowhere, out of my thoughts..."
  70. The gritty, visceral human violence of Amores Perros
  71. "My boy's wicked smaahht"
  72.  Any scene with Porky and Buckwheat from the '90s version of The Little Rascals
  73. Love/Hate the WTF moment in To Live when the doctor isn't able to save Fengxia's life, since he was incapacitated by eating too many steam buns at once with water.
  74. Ambiguously homosexual characters/storylines from old conservative Hollywood
  75. Claire de Lune - it doesn't matter from which movie
  76. "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room."
  77. The utmost importance of cellphones in The Departed
  78. The Godfather Part I
  79. The Godfather Part II
  80. At the very least, the last 20minutes of The Godfather Part III
  81. Nino Rota's cinematic scores
  82. The portrait-like photography of La dolce vita
  83. The fact that Elia Kazan basically ratted people out to HUAC, was hated in Hollywood but then made On the Waterfront about ratting out the gangsters that controlled the docks, and won an Oscar for it.
  84. The consistent/impressive quality level of the whole Harry Potter film series.
  85. Harry Potter 3, 5, 7 Part I, and Part II (Part II if only for Neville's superhero transformation)
  86. The rejuvenated X-Men series in X-Men: First Class and the depiction of a great bromance
  87. The complex social-class relationships intertwined with sexuality in Y tu mamá también
  88. The Coen brother's depiction of Middle America and the Southwest
  89. The cinematography of The Tree of Life (in other words, the only part of the movie that made sense to everyone/anyone)
  90. People think the shoes were cool, but I'd rather have this jacket
  91. "ONE-POINT-TWENTY-ONE GIGAWATTS!!!"
  92. Ryan Gosling in a white jacket with a scorpion on the back, leather driving gloves, and this song.
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)