John's Favorite Films


   Most of my free time is spent working on this, but when the opportunity presents itself I'll make time for a movie. The following are my favorite films, and why I like them.

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Reasons to watch: Forget that one with Kevin Kostner. (While we're at it, let's forget everything he did after Dances with Wolves.) This film, with Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, is the Robin Hood.

Cars

Reasons to watch: Cars makes—what?—seven consecutive winners for Pixar. The technical work gets better and better each time, and the story is good, too.

Cinderella

Reasons to watch: Cinderella has one of the most realistic characterizations of evil ever shown in film. There's no blood and no murder, just a rotten old lady who never passes on a chance to crush her stepdaughter's spirit. Rotten. Rotten to the core.

Dances with Wolves

Reasons to watch: If Kevin Costner had stopped making films after this one, Hollywood would be about two hundred million dollars richer. Considering what Hollywood does with its money, maybe it's a good thing Costner didn't quit.

Anyway, this film portrays the Native Americans when they are peaceful, warlike, tolerant, bigoted, greedy, generous, and so forth. The real strength of this film is its emphasis on the thing that makes life genuinely worth living: Our relationships with other people.

Fantasia

Reasons to watch: Why tune into MTV, and see a lame video set to music you won't be hearing six months from now, when you can watch the original music videos, set to music so good that it's still being played even though nobody's getting rich from it?

Fantasia 2000

Reasons to watch: Fantasia 2000 is one of those rare, rare sequels that is every bit as good as the original. The state of animation technology has greatly improved in the intervening sixty years, and even better, the technology is not tasked to support the art; rather, it is used to facilitate what would have been done anyway.

Galaxy Quest

Reasons to watch: Forget Spaceballs. Galaxy Quest will certainly go down as the very best SF comedy ever shot.

The Incredibles

Reasons to watch: The Incredibles mixes the sheer action of the Star Wars saga, the visual creativity of Johnny Quest on steroids, and the fish-out-of-water humor of Galaxy Quest. Yeah, there's a didactic moral to the story, but who cares?

The Iron Giant

Reasons to watch: The film has a number of distinct flaws. The boy-meets-bot interaction is rather annoying. There are glaring continuity errors and serious implausabilites, but they do not detract from the movie's two strengths.

First, the robot is very cool. The people who made those silly Robocop films ought to be saying to themselves, "We could have done that..." A man dressed as a robot will always look like a man dressed as a robot, and will never be as convincing as a computer-generated one (although C-3PO from Star Wars was given enough motion limitations to make him more convincing than most). There are slight nits in the Iron Giant's modeling and animation, but you have to be paying attention and know what to look for to notice them. This movie is a showcase for what computers can do for traditional animation. George Lucas has stated that computer graphics will enable science fiction and fantasy filmmaking to flourish, and this film proves that he is dead on the money.

The other strength of the film is its message. Even though the robot is essentially an artificially intelligent weapons platform of unearthly power, even though the U.S. armed forces get involved in the fray, even though the good townspeople of Rockwell, Maine have to be saved from a mistakenly-fired nuclear missile, the film's message is not out of the pacifist handbook. The bad guy is not the general, not the robot, but a civilian government official; his flaw is not his paranoia about the robot—a perfectly understandable reaction—but his belief that the cause he claims to serve entitles him to trample the rights of ordinary people (which he does). Like all such people, he is driven to prove that trusting him with power is a good idea, and takes extreme measures when this idea is endangered. This makes him one of the most realistic villians ever developed, because there really are people just like him.

The Man who Shot Liberty Valance

Reasons to watch: This is a tale with two themes. One is a tale of how myth displaces fact; the other is the yielding of one way of life to another, as epitomized by Tom Doniphon, who yields his rightful fame to Ransom Stoddard.

The two themes combine to make an interesting irony, that of myth leading to a greater truth than fact. It is true that Ransom did not shoot Liberty Valance, but it is true that Ransom, who defies evil from a position of weakness, is a braver man than Tom, who merely defies evil from a position of strength. It is true also that the rule of law is better than the rule of the fastest gun; but had the truth of who really shot Liberty Valance come out, the representative of the greater way would have garnered no followers, and the better way would have been delayed.

Monsters, Inc.

Reasons to watch: While I was watching this movie, I lost count of the number of times I forgot I was watching an animation. The realism of Pixar's graphic work grows with every film they release. The shot where Sully is lying down in the snowstorm is itself worthy of the admission price (well, if you're a CGI hobbyist like I am).

The Polar Express

Reasons to watch: The Polar Express is, possibly unintentionally, a fairly interesting allegory of Heaven. The computer graphics are good, too.

The Quiet Man

Reasons to watch: The Quiet Man is the very best romantic comedy ever filmed. There is none higher. This film depicts Ireland as it is: The most beautiful piece of real estate on the planet.

Ratatouille

Reasons to watch: Pixar's winning streak now stands at eight. In order to bring this film to us as a computer animation, Pixar had to solve a number of technical issues that hadn't turned up in earlier films.

Scaramouche

Reasons to watch: The story is a good yarn with a nice twist in the ending. Andre Moreau's friend is forced into a fatal duel; Moreau vows to avenge him, and at the end of the film gets his opportunity.

The film is marred by the hero's rejection of Ms. Parker's character in favor of some aristocratic gal with no notable personality.

If you like duels, you will love this film, and you will want to watch the final duel at the end about a zillion times.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Reasons to watch: Percy Blakeney, a.k.a. the Scarlet Pimpernel, matches wits with the Reign of Terror, rescuing condemned aristocrats from the guillotine. Monsieur Chauvin almost catches him. Almost.

Best piece of dialogue: "We give you your life." "God gave me my life, and He will take it away when it pleases Him."

Shrek and Shrek 2

Reasons to watch: These movies pokes fun at a number of fairy-tales, and makes a number of other allusions to pop culture that raise a hoot as well, but it's the graphics that impress me the most.

I wonder how long Hollywoood will need actors. The human characters are clearly computer-animated, but the quality of everything else signals that it is merely a matter of time before only Broadway needs live action.

And the sequel was even better. Too bad the third one sucked.

The Star Wars Saga

Reasons to watch: The Star Wars universe runs on one principle: If George Lucas thinks it's cool, it's in there. Lightsabers look cool. The name Millenium Falcon sounds cool. Darth Vader is cool. The vast variety of ships, robots, and equipment is cool. Chewbacca cracks Imperial Stormtroopers like eggs because it's cool. Pint-sized Yoda whups big burly guards because it's cool.

The Cool Rule is invoked even when the results are impractical. AT-AT walkers would be sitting ducks for real-world artillery (we have non-nuclear rockets that can punch through yards of solid concrete). Riding a jet bike through the forest would be suicidal. The atmosphere of a planet that is completely ice or completely desert isn't going to be breathable.

Ewoks and Jar-jar have their place because George Lucas mistakenly thought they were cool.

Finally, good versus evil is cool. The rest of Hollywood, when it is not denouncing conservatives as evil, is trying to make us think that evil doesn't exist. We know better, and that's why we like Star Wars.

Support Your Local Sheriff

Reasons to watch: If you're looking for a western comedy that's fit for children, here you go.

Toy Story and Toy Story 2

Reasons to watch: Pixar's first major release, and the follow-up to it, are excellent works of moviemaking and storytelling.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Reasons to watch: This is one of the few movies that is as good as its book, and there are two reasons for this. First, Roald Dahl wrote both the book and the screenplay. Second, the casting is perfect. Jack Albertson and Gene Wilder were put on this earth in order that they might play the roles they have in this film. The four bad kids are believably bad, just annoying enough to make you enjoy their self-inflicted doom.

The Wizard of Oz

Reasons to watch: While watching this film, it remains difficult to remember that it was made in 1939, when all special effects had to be done by hand, without computers, and even by the standards of modern-day FX there are only a couple spots that fall short. The twister at the beginning is certainly as frightening to children today as it was when I was six.

But it isn't just the FX; the casting, writing, music, directing, acting, you name it, in this film it was done right. Well, okay; the Scarecrow's geometry formula at the end is dead wrong, but the rest of the film is great.

For students of cinematography this film best serves as an archive of the vaudeville entertainment style.



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