Top 5 Films

And to continue the "Top" posts as a way of further introducing myself, today we have films. Tough task again whittling it down but was eventually able to make it a Top 5.

Casablanca (1942)





Not particularly original given its picked as one of the greatest movies ever made on a lot of lists. But I genuinely love this film for a variety of reasons and it was definitely one of the first that I made my wife sit through as part of her classic film education (I deemed it an education. She probably just thought watching it would stop me hassling her).

The main reason for my attraction is the dialogue. Apparently the script was still being written as the movie was being produced so an enormous achievement to come up with that many one-liners in such a short time and under such pressure. One of the writers must have had a notebook that he/she compiled over a number of years and thought here’s a chance to throw them all in. Although I have heard it was an adaptation from a play so perhaps a lot of the dialogue had already been written.

Anyway, six lines from Casablanca appeared in the American Film Institute top 100 movie quotes, the most of any film:

“Here’s looking at you kid.” (5th)

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (20th)

"Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" (28th)

"Round up the usual suspects." (32nd)

"We'll always have Paris." (43rd)

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." (67th)

But my favourite piece of dialogue is this one. The ultimate insult, delivered with ultimate indifference:

Ugarte (Peter Lorre) to Rick (Humphrey Bogart) – “You despise me don’t you?”

Rick in response – “If I gave you any thought at all, yes I probably would.”


The Godfather – Part I (1972)




The whole story of the Corleone family crosses over three films and nearly 9 hours of running time. Parts I and II are ‘list’ favourites as well but deservedly so. Especially as Part II is one of the only occasions in film history where a sequel has come close to equalling the original. Alas, I’ve had to chose just one of them and I’ve given it to Part I as that was my introduction and made me forget I’d been watching it for over 3 hours. Beautifully scored and an unravelling plot that makes you sit on the edge of your seat waiting to see what happens next to him, and to her and to the ‘family’.

Brilliantly directed by Francis Ford Coppola and outstanding acting from an unknown Al Pacino at the time as the subplot to the film is Michael transforming from being the only innocent ‘civilian’ in the family with a college education and American girlfriend (Kay, Dianne Keaton), to a scheming and ruthless boss whose committed murder and ordered the murders of others.

Particularly the last scene, where he’s being confronted by Kay about being involved in organising the murder of his sister’s husband (for helping set up the murder of Sonny, Michael’s brother). She's then ushered out of the room and watches from the open door as other members of the mafia family bow down and kiss Michael’s hand as a gesture of respect and acknowledgement of him as the new Don. And then the door closes on Kay as a symbol of her estrangement from Michael as he’s been radically transformed from the man she first met.

Again, massive fan of the script and some notable pieces of dialogue (put in link):

“Leave the gun, take the cannoli”

“Mr Corleone never asks a second favour once he's been refused the first. Understand?”

“Hey, whaddya gonna do, nice college boy, eh? Didn't want to get mixed up in the Family business, huh? Now you wanna gun down a police captain. Why? Because he slapped ya in the face a little bit? Hah? What do you think this is the Army, where you shoot 'em a mile away? You've gotta get up close like this and - bada-BING! - you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit. C'mere...”

And this:
Michael – “My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.”
Kay – “Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don't have men killed.”
Michael – “Oh Kay, who's being naïve now?”


Apocalyse Now - 1979




Watched this for the first time as a 16 year-old after listening to my father wax lyrical about it for years. For a naïve and impressionable young mind, it was a total brain f#*k. War movies up until then had been old 1950s and 1960s British/American WWII stories where our gallant ‘everyman’ heroes triumphed over incredible odds and won the day for the Allies. But this. Wow. I walked away with my head spinning and it took a while for me to return to reality and truly reflect on the film as a story and piece of art.

Another Francis Ford Coppola film, it was based on the Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness which is set in the Belgian Congo during the 19th century and includes a critique of European colonialism. Coppola adapted it to become Apocalypse Now and turned the story into a war one set in Vietnam and a critique of American interventionism instead.

The chaos and craziness of the plot itself was matched by the film’s production as told in the ‘making of’ documentary Hearts of Darkness. Filming started in the Philippines in March 1976 with a proposed five month shoot. Typhoon Olga then came in and wrecked a lot of the sets and production had to be closed down. Two months into the shoot, the film was already six weeks behind schedule and $2M over budget. As Coppola has said “We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane."

Filming resumed in June with Marlon Brando flying in and wanting to completely rewrite the script. Then Martin Sheen had a heart attack and was ordered to rest for six weeks. Principal photography eventually ended in May 1977 but then two years of production problems resulted in the film not being released into theatres until August 1979.

One of best scenes, and one of my favourites, is the first, with Captain Willard (Sheen) sitting around in his room in Saigon while waiting to be assigned to his mission. Its unbelievably hot and his drinking heavily as he attempts to take stock of his life and pass the time until he’s summoned. Unbeknownst to me when I first saw it, this scene was unscripted and Sheen was actually drunk on set as he was fighting his own demons after having the heart attack. As he stumbles around the room holding a bottle and sobbing, he unintentionally punched a (real) mirror and was bleeding profusely from his forearm. Some of the film crew got up to assist but Coppola told them to sit back down as this was exactly what he wanted.

Reckon that scene and how it was shot pretty much acts as a metaphor for both the movie and its making of. Anyway, here’s some memorable quotes:

“When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing. I hardly said a word to my wife, until I said 'yes' to a divorce.”

“Lieutenant, bomb that tree line about 100 yards back! Give me some room to breathe!”

“We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!”

Kurtz – “I expected someone like you. Are you an assassin?”
Willard – “I'm a soldier.”
Kurtz – “You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.”


The Blues Brothers (1980)





Now to lighten things up a little and completely change the mood. I love this movie for reasons that are completely different to the others on this list. While they take you in and confront you in many ways, this is about complete entertainment and a bit of a laugh.

It’s a tale of redemption for two brothers who are on a “mission from God” to save their old orphanage from the taxman and hatch a plan to reunite their old band in an attempt to raise enough money. A lot of the plot doesn’t quite make sense (Carrie Fisher character in particular) but that doesn’t matter as the soundtrack makes up for it and includes awesome cameo appearances by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker and Chaka Khan.

The Blues Brothers concept was actually borne out of a Saturday Night Live skit performed by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. It become such a hit that an R&B band was formed to support them and an album released, Briefcase Full Of Blues, before becoming a movie in 1980.

My favourite scene has to be car chase at the end as Jake and Elwood rush to pay the tax assessor in the Bluesmobile after pulling off the gig at the Palace Hotel Ballroom. It held the record for being the biggest car chase in film history at the time (before being broken by Blues Brothers 2000) and apparently 60 old police cars were purchased and destroyed for the scene and more than 40 stunt drivers used. The frame where the Bluesmobile arrives outside the building and the car disintegrates as they jump out also took a mechanic several months to rig up.

Another sign of a great movie is how it permeates popular culture, particularly if people are still quoting it years down the track. Dialogue from the Blues Brothers movie has certainly become part of the banter amongst my friends with a beer now being an orange whip (“Who wants an orange whip? Orange whip? Orange whip?”) and “hey, you on the motorcycle” whenever you’re trying to get someone’s attention.

Other memorable quotes then:

“What kind of music do you usually have here? Oh, we got both kinds. We got country and western.”

“It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it!”

Jake – “First you traded the Cadillac in for a microphone. Then you lied to me about the band. And now you're gonna put me right back in the joint!”
Elwood – “They're not gonna catch us. We're on a mission from God.”


Pulp Fiction (1994)





This is placed in my Top 5 because its the only film where I’ve returned to the cinema to see it again within a week of first seeing it. Granted I was at university at the time and had plenty of spare hours up my sleeve, but the first viewing blew me away with its intersecting charactors, mix of violence and humour, and again, eclectic dialogue and script. And as you’ve probably worked out from the other movies on this list, I love a good gangster story, which essentially is what Pulp Fiction is all about, involving covert schemes, outrageous luck and misfortune, and a little black comedy.

The film was also a bit of a cultural watershed, especially for Gen Xers like me, for the way it was developed, produced and marketed like no other film before. I know Reservior Dogs (which I love also) went about it in a similar fashion but it wasn’t accepted either critically or commercially to the same extent as Pulp Fiction and therefore didn’t have as much of an impact.

Fav scene? Has to be the “The Bonnie Situation” where Tarantino himself plays Jimmie, a friend of Jules (Samuel L Jackson) whose been called upon to help out with the bloodied car and body after Vincent accidently shoots Marvin in the face (“Chill out man. It was an accident. You hit a bump or something”).
The situation with Jimmie is delicate because his wife, Bonnie, is due home from work in an hour or so and “if she comes home from a hard day's work and finds a bunch of gangsters doin' a bunch of gangsta' shit in her kitchen, ain't no tellin' what she's apt to do.” Jules and Vincent then get their boss, Marsellus Wallace, on the case who engages The Wolf (Harvey Keitel) to ‘fix’ the situation.

The Wolf – “You must be Jules, which would make you Vincent. Let's get down to brass tacks, gentlemen. If I was informed correctly, the clock is ticking, is that right, Jimmie?”
Jimmie – “Uh, one hundred percent.”
The Wolf – “Your wife... Bonnie comes home at 9:30 in the AM, is that right?”
Jimmie – “Uh-huh.”
The Wolf – “I was led to believe that if she comes home and finds us here, she'd wouldn't appreciate it none too much?”
Jimmie – “She wouldn't at that.”
The Wolf – “That gives us exactly forty minutes to get the fuck out of Dodge. Which, if you do what I say when I say it, should be plenty. Now, you've got a corpse in a car, minus a head, in a garage. Take me to it.”

Again, some other great quotes and dialogue in this, including many that have made their way into folklore:

“Mmm-mmmm. That is one tasty burger.”

“Don't be tellin' me about foot massages. I'm the foot fuckin' master.”

“Nobody's gonna hurt anybody. We're gonna be like three little Fonzies here. And what's Fonzie like? Come on Yolanda, what's Fonzie like?”

“The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.”

“That’s thirty minutes away. I’ll be there in ten.”

Just released most of those lines are delivered by Jules. Definitely one of the best characters in film history by my reckoning, with lines that a lot of actors would have killed for.

Anyway people, there’s my 5 favourite films (so far). Let me know what floats your cinematic boat as I’m always open to new recommendations. Not too mention a good list debate.

Til next time,

EDM.