Recently, I decided to update my favorite movies list, and figured I would do some brief write ups gushing about some of the things I love about these movies. Note that this list is not comprehensive, but as I don’t have a central streaming thing for films like Spotify or a way to keep track of all of the movies I’ve seen (yes, I could use letterboxd but I’m lazy), there’s bound to be some I’m forgetting. Since making the list about an hour ago I’ve realized I’ve already forgotten at least one - I’m sorry, Shaun of the Dead.
Finding Nemo (2003)
I’ve included a couple kids movies throughout here because they are genuinely some of the greatest movies made, and this is the first of them. Geoffrey Rush as a pelican is a selling point enough, but this movie practically dominated my childhood. From the soundtrack that I was blasting when I wasn’t listening to my Playhouse Disney CD to the computer game I’d play for hours and hours on end to the submarine ride at Disneyland that I’d wait for an ungodly amount of time to go on (even once I was too tall to comfortably fit in the submarine), Finding Nemo was everywhere. Thinking about it now, it may even have contributed to my fear, or at least dislike, of the dentist. Characters like Crush the sea turtle who totally isn’t a massive stoner and the three bonehead sharks would be forgettable caricatures in most kids movies but in Finding Nemo they’re vibrant characters that stick in my brain 20 years later and not having seen the movie in full in at least 5 years. A movie deserving of being at the top of most Pixar tier lists and rankings.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
My childhood was fairly hands off, and that led to many things both good and bad throughout my life. One of the good ones, however, was having a TV in my room for the majority of my childhood. Staying up late (11 being late for a 2nd grader), I’d watch movies on what was then called Comcast On Demand and the various dedicated movie channels. One of the movies that stuck out to me then was Pan’s Labyrinth - I didn’t quite get all of the story but the imagery and fairytale quality of a lot of it was captivating to me. Eventually, I grew out of my first movie phase as I started poking around on the Internet a lot more and getting into music as a hobby. Fast forward to a couple years ago as my roommates put on Pan’s Labyrinth, it’d been forever since I’d seen it but I remembered loving it so I figured I’d sit down and rewatch it. To say it was as good as I remember is an understatement - I was floored. Everything I loved about the movie was still there but being at least a decade older the gravity of the main story hit me far harder and the visual effects still held up, unlike some movies I remember looking amazing as a kid only to see now as pretty cheap CGI. No other del Toro film does what this does for me, but man is he a fantastic filmmaker and man is this a fantastic film.
Hard to Be a God (2013)
Everyone has their own niche, unique vibe in media that they seek out, and I’ve struggled to put mine into words. It’s somewhere within the realm of “evoking the feeling of a medieval world from another dimension lost to time after the last great reset of society”, but I’ve found it’s easier to point to media that nails that vibe than put it into words. In terms of music, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic by King Crimson and, more recently, Peasant by Richard Dawson are both fantastic examples and in terms of film, Hard to Be a God is one as well. Generally, films with medieval settings are either overly shiny or completely soaked through with fantasy elements, so it’s nice to see that setting treated with the level of genuine mystique and grit that I feel it often needs. Sure, it’s a bit gross at times, but the visuals are unparalleled and the immersion is fantastic. As a YouTube comment puts it, it makes Game of Thrones look like Teletubbies. It would take several thousand words to begin to do this film justice, and even then it’s something I’d rather just say “watch it - I can’t do it justice”.
The House by the Cemetery (1981)
I am an absolute sucker for horror movies but at the same time I’m incredibly picky when it comes to them. There are a large handful that I think are fantastic and a large large majority of them that I think are bland, unconvincing, cheesy in an unendearing way, or just not very interesting. The House by the Cemetery, however, is so astonishingly low budget and bad that it is up there with the greats in my eyes. Pretty much every aspect of this film is a jumbled mess from the directing to the writing to the acting to the tone, but it all comes together in a fantastically terrible way. There’s a bat that spews what must be liters if not gallons of blood when it is stabbed with scissors, the main child actor is so unbelievably punchable, the main villain isn’t shown until the last five minutes but looks like a rotten apple, the ending is still confusing to this day after having seen this film a dozen times and the last shot is a complete non sequitur quote. In short, The House by the Cemetery has every terrible and bizarre quirk you’d want from a D tier horror movie all in one nice package. Best viewed with friends inebriated in some way.
The Mist (2007)
It would be a crime to not have some kind of Stephen King adaptation on this list, but The Mist is one of the few that I think stacks up to the novelization, and is probably the only one that I think is better than the original story with Darabont’s changes to the ending. Any praise I could give this film is mostly tied to the original story already being fantastic, but Darabont’s casting, many of whom are regulars in his movie, and the atmosphere he creates in bringing this story to life really sells it. It’s easy for a King adaptation to end up like Cujo, but fortunately Darabont knocks this one out of the park.
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
This won’t be the last time the dynamic duo of director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski show up on this list, but man are they a good pair. The making of this movie is part of what I love about it - for those who don’t know, Fitzcarraldo is about the somewhat real story of a rubber baron who wanted to move a steam ship through the Amazon jungle. Herzog took this story a little too close to heart, and the troubled production included the crew trying to haul a 320-ton steamship up a steep hill along with Herzog and Kinski clashing to the point that the indigenous people of the area asked Herzog if he wanted them to kill Kinski, and a local logger cutting his own foot off with a chainsaw to prevent venom from a snake bite from spreading. Mick Jagger was supposed to be in this movie at some point too, but a movie where a fact like that is an afterthought compared to everything else that happened on set is already insane. Kinski is just as insane on screen as he is off screen and pulls off the role of Fitzcarraldo incredibly well. This is already a fantastic film but knowing they were at each other’s throats during the entirety of filming makes it that much better.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
To a lot of people, this is one of Kubrick’s most long winded and boring movies in comparison to films like 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, but it might be my favorite of his. The setting is fantastic and the atmosphere is pulled off perfectly, with no shot feeling too long or wasted. The length lets a lot of the cameos and tertiary characters shine and stick out more than they normally would, and Ryan O’Neal is an equally fantastic lead. The movie itself already looks beyond stunning, but learning about the amount of manipulation in regards to light and lack of electric lighting that was used in the movie makes it that much more impressive. This is also probably the last movie I’d expect to see a Patrick Bateman-esque sigma male edit about, but it exists. Somehow.
The World, The Flesh, and The Devil (1959)
There are few movies these days that are carried by a cast of just three, and even fewer that are good while being that barebones. While the ending might be a little limp and inconclusive, Belafonte alone is more than enough to carry the film and the eerie atmosphere the film builds is perfect. On later rewatches, this movie has grown off of me a smidge, but the nostalgia of watching it over and over when I was younger still keeps it up there as one of my favorites. The closest thing I could compare it to is one of the moodier, less science fiction focused Twilight Zone episodes without the crazy twist endings, and in a sense it’s the film stand in on my list for that series.
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