My Favorite Things - Part 2

Some of my favorite movies:

Gosford Park
I could watch this movie every week and not get tired of it. The inner workings of a shooting party at an English country manor are on display in Robert Altman's film. The murder/mystery plot is an excellent vehicle to deliver fully fleshed-out characters, expertly portraying the roles and relationships of the house's staff and guests.

L.A. Story
Steve Martin is a genius, and one whose talents are not solely relegated to comedy. While L.A. Story is a great, smart, silly comedy, it's also a magical and powerful love story. The love on the screen is equally shared for his co-star and ex-wife Victoria Tennant, and for the city itself. You'll laugh and cry; the latter mostly caused by the former.

Amelie
I was already a fan of director Jean-Pierre Jeunet from his beyond-excellent film, The City of Lost Children. Amelie is his masterwork. This is the Parisian version of L.A. Story; no less magical, powerful or wonderful than its American cousin.

The Fountain
Darren Aronofsky's film was originally set to have a much larger budget and much larger stars, but that would have resulted in a much different film, which I am thankful didn't happen. Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz's love spans a millennium as he goes beyond the ends of the earth to save her. History, science and science fiction come together to tell the story of a man determined and devoted to keep his world from falling apart. Aronofsky would go on to direct The Black Swan.

The Fall
A dark motivation drives a visually striking fairy tale. A hospitalized, suicidal stunt man creates a vivid, fantastic story for a young girl as an enticement to garner her assistance in his demise. The juxtaposition of the real world and the main character's motives/manipulation compared to the fantasy world of the story and the girl's innocence makes the film emotionally complex. The child actress is perfect at being a child instead of an actress, which causes extreme emotional empathy at the film's/story's climax.

Blades of Glory
Pure silliness. I laugh hard whenever I watch this movie. Two disgraced male figure skaters with opposite personalities find a loophole that will allow them to compete again as a same-sex pairs team. Aside from his Saturday Night Live work, I'm not really a Will Ferrell fan, but he is outstanding in this film and Stranger than Fiction.

A Nun's Story
Audrey Hepburn as a young woman entering the convent and attempting to adhere to its ways and habits (get it? nyuk, nyuk) while struggling with her own personal desires. A serious movie treated with dignity and respect.

Young Frankenstein
Talk about comic genius! Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman and Cloris Leachman and Teri Garr and Madeline Kahn. Ridiculous and sublime.

Kwaidan
A collection of Japanese ghost stories filmed with minimal dialogue and mostly subtle dread. Released in 1964 and available as a Criterion Collection dvd.

Brazil
Terry Gilliam's masterful futuristic black comedy fantasy of bureaucracy gone wrong. Well, much more wrong than is customary. In addition the film shows the dangerous things that can happen when you start believing in yourself and pursuing your dreams.

Signs
It's a shame what M. Night Shyamalan did to his career after this movie, but oh well. (The Village was mostly decent). Signs is a dark lesson in faith brought on by an alien invasion. The impending dread leading up to the invasion is masterful. With some truly terrifying moments allowing the viewer to actually experience what it would feel like to know, not necessarily to see, but to know that malevolent aliens or monsters were within a stone's throw, watching and waiting.

Contact
On its surface Contact is a film about discovering that we are not alone. Jodie Foster is a SETI (look it up) researcher who discovers a signal, and creepily, instructions, from another galaxy. The quest to decipher the signal and whether or not we should follow those directions inform the rest of the film. At its heart, the movie is about the dichotomy of belief into faith versus science, and explores each with an intelligence not seen before in film.

Ok, I could go on and on, but this was originally only meant to be a top 3 or top 5 list. Instead it's the top 12 of ? I'll have to break this into installments.