build a list of my favourite films

my list for a while. Need to concentrate on the important stuff.

A Wim Wenders film about the false dichotomy of human existence. We see ourselves in terms of mortal/immortal, East Berlin/West Berlin,
joy/agony…but our emotions, our lives are not split so evenly. Our life is not black and white. The cinematography is beautiful. The film is inspired by a poem, and is a poem on film.

Easily my favorite film of all time. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, and Tim Holt. Directed by John Huston. A wonderful film about human relationships and greed. Most famous (misquoted) line,”We don’t need no stinking badges!”

Shaun Of The Dead (2004), directed by Edgar Wright, is a British ‘romantic comedy with zombies’ or the popular way of putting it ‘rom zom com’.

Synopsis: Shaun is having many problems in life. His long-time girlfriend has dumped him due to their almost-daily expedition to Shaun’s favorite pub, the Winchester. His temporary management job isn’t going well at Foree Electronics, with his subordinates not even giving him the time of day. His deadbeat flatmates, Pete and Ed, are at each others’ throats. And, oh yeah, London is overrun with multitudes of zombies. In the midst of this, he must save himself, Ed, his ex, his mom, and his precious record collection. There is a time when a hero must rise…from his couch.

Cast: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Nicola Cunningham, Peter Serafinowicz, Penelope Wilton, Jessica Stevenson and Bill Nighy.

This is a film I chose to write an essay on in Film Studies last year, so I actually ended up watching it quite a few times, especially one particular scene. This actually resulted in me being sick of the film for a while. It no longer does that and is still one of my favourite films and part of my DVD collection.

This is a hilarious film, with several references and homages to other zombie and horror movies. Definitely worth a watch.

My third entry on my favourite films is about Finding Nemo, a computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, released in 2003.

Synopsis: In the colorful and warm tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef, a Clownfish named Marlin lives safe and secluded in a quiet cul-de-sac with his only son, NEMO. Fearful of the ocean and its unpredictable risks, he struggles to protect his son. Nemo, like all young fish, is eager to explore the mysterious reef. When Nemo is unexpectedly taken far from home and thrust into a dentist’s office fish tank, Marlin finds himself the unlikely hero on an epic journey to rescue his son. In his quest, Marlin is joined by a good Samaritan named Dory, a Regal Blue Tang fish with the worst short-term memory and biggest heart in the entire ocean. As the two fish continue on their journey, encountering numerous dangers, Dory’s optimism continually forces Marlin to find the courage to take risks and overcome his fears. In doing so, Marlin gains the ability to trust and believe, like Dory, that things will work out in the end. Confronting seabirds, sewer systems, and even man himself, father and son’s fateful separation ends in triumph. And the once-fearful Marlin becomes a true hero in the eyes of his son, and the entire ocean.

I’m not sure how many times I have watched this film, but I think it’s about time to watch it again. I went to see it at the cinema with my family and that was probably one of the best cinema trips, because it was almost full and you could hear everyone else was loving it as much as you. Another time I watched this was when two friends stayed over. One of them had seen it before like me and we were quoting lots of the film and probably ruining it for the friend who hadn’t seen it. This is almost certainly the film I know the most off by heart.

• The scene where the seagulls attack mimics several of the shots in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963).
• The music that accompanies Darla’s entry is a pastiche of Bernard Herrmann’s score for Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960).
• One of Gill’s scars on his face is in the same place as Tony Montana’s from Scarface
• Bruce the shark yells “Here’s Brucey!” through a hole he has hacked through a boat. This scene is modeled after Jack Nicholson’s famous “Here’s Johnny!” after he hacks a hole through a door in The Shining

• Boo’s fish mobile from Monsters, Inc. (2001) is hanging in the dentist’s office.
• The boy in the dentist’s waiting room is reading a “Mr. Incredible” comic book, a reference to the Pixar film The Incredibles.
• The Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story (1995) and Luigi, a car from the upcoming Pixar film Cars (2006) can be seen driving by the dentist’s office.

I don’t really know what it is that makes the film watchable over and over again. It’s been said the film’s success is from the look and feel of the underwater world. I just love the whole film and it definitely deserves to be in this list of my favourites.

Second film to ramble about is The Big Lebowski by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Summary: Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is the ultimate LA slacker, until one day his house is broken into and his rug is peed on by two angry gangsters who have mistaken him for Jeffrey Lebowski, the LA millionaire, whose wife owes some bad people some big money. The Dude becomes entangled in the plot when he goes to visit the real Lebowski in order to get some retribution for his soiled rug, and is recruited to be the liason between Lebowski and the captors of his now “kidnapped” wife.

Cast: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Peter Stormare, John Turturro, Julianne Moore

I only saw this film last year although it came out in 1998. It wasn’t even me who had chosen to rent it, my mum had and I didn’t know what to expect. In fact I don’t think I was told anything about it. That may be a factor to why it has become one of my favourites – I had no expectations.

Now, I’ll gladly admit it is a crazy film. It has fantastically funny characters who are in over their heads working on a scheme, which is one of many typical themes of the Coen brothers. Other themes being misunderstanding, repeated lines, kidnapping, violence, death and a regular cast they use.

If that wasn’t all enough (and excuse my language for this bit but).....it is number 11 in films to say “fuck” the most times, being 251. “Dude” including variations are said 139 times and “man” is uttered 174 times.

This film is totally hilarious and I have and will watch it many times in the future. It introduced me to the Coen brothers work (although seeing Raising Arizona before) and for that I am very glad.

Donnie Darko. I would say it’s the film I’ve watched the most times, but then I think back to watching toy story a lot and it might not be quite true. It is directed by Richard Kelly and the cast include Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, Jena Malone and Drew Barrymore.

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, well first of all I urge you to do so, but I’ll give a little plot summary…..
It’s about a troubled teenager, Donnie Darko, who gets a disturbing vision that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. With the help of various characters, including a 6 foot rabbit called Frank, he slowly discovers the mysterious physical and metaphysical laws that govern his life and that will lead up to the destruction of the universe.

Now, I don’t know of a single person who understood the total film the first time they saw it. It is certainly a thought provoking film and there is a lot to be left for the audience to try and get their head around by the time it ends. I hadn’t tried to look up the answers to the film on the internet until recently, when I came across a site, but that just got me confused all over again. So I recommend interpreting it in your own way and probably watching the film multiply times to get the most out of this film, and I know I will be watching it many times in the future still trying to work everything out, but loving it all the same.