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shalannaI was thinking the other day (dangerous, as always) and wondered . . . if I could choose three actors and have (on my magic TiVo) EVERY film ever made with those actors in it, but not watch any others, which three actors would I choose?
Well, this is a silly idea, but no sillier than the OTHER memes floating around. So I thought, why not?
First off, I'd have to choose Gregory Peck. And that's kind of out of left field, as he's not my FAVORITE actor (although I do think he's one of the best, and he's definitely on my top ten list.) Why? Because then I get two of my favorite movies, _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and _Roman Holiday_. I get a number of other great films along with these, as well.
Similarly, I'd have to choose James Stewart. He's actually above Gregory Peck on my Top Ten list, and that way I get _It's a Wonderful Life_*, _Harvey_, _Bell, Book, and Candle_, _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_, _The Philadelphia Story_, and many other greats.
[Voted the #1 inspirational film of all time in AFI's "100 Years, 100 Cheers" (June 14th, 2006); ranked the #1 Most Powerful Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute (2006); Jimmy Stewart's best performance, most believe; my favorite film on even days, sharing the honor with TKaM on odd days. "Attaboy, Clarence!"]
At this point, the THIRD is impossible to choose. I don't want to miss out on having (on that magic TiVo) all of Bobby Darin's films, but I only get one (by virtue of having it also star Gregory Peck), _Captain Newman, M. D._ Of course, that's the one Bobby got his Oscar nomination for, and he looks supercute in it, so maybe that's okay. I can't choose Sandra Dee, either, although I love her personally . . . her Gidget films are good kitsch, her Tammy films have a certain "period piece" charm, and I like _Come September_ (on the set of which she met Bobby Darin, the love of her life), but her other films wouldn't be enough to sustain me . . . I'd need the other classics.
Ditto here for my love Jerry Lewis. Although he is my favorite actor/person, just about, I wouldn't be fulfilled by having just all of his movies. Even though I irrationally* love all his movies, embarrassing as some of them may be. (His early films with Dean actually hold up pretty well, as do several of his later solo efforts. And you do realize he was wonderful in _King of Comedy_ with DeNiro.)
* (I don't have a drop of French blood, as far as we know--all Irish/German/Choctaw with a bit of Dutch/English. Still see JL as genius. Call it an eccentricity.)
You'd think I would choose an actress the third time, too. Such as maybe Kate Hepburn. Although I have her in _Philadelphia Story_, that's not my favorite of her films. I love _Holiday_, _Bringing Up Baby_, all her Spencer Tracy collaborations (especially!), and I even get gems such as _Little Women_.
Similarly with Audrey Hepburn. I already have her in _Roman Holiday_ from selection 1, but there's _Breakfast at Tiffany's_, _My Fair Lady_, and several others that I don't want to miss out on.
And Bette Davis--how could I not choose her? What did she ever make that I *don't* love? Okay, a few of the ones she was in with Mommie Dearest (Joan Crawford, who did make some doozies herself), might not be tops on my list, and some of her later flicks don't blow you away, but watch Jezebel sometimes, and The Film That Must Not Be Named (title initials D. V.) because it is bad luck to even think of such situations, in which B. D.'s character slowly dies. . . . There's _Of Human Bondage_, _The Little Foxes_, _A Stolen Life_, and a bunch of great oldie melodrama/tearjerkers.
There are a few actresses I could choose in order to get _All About Eve_, _The Women_ (which could be updated for today with some major changes, and maybe someday I'll steal that plot and fix it up so you don't even recognize it), and some of the others, but I'm not willing to choose Marilyn Monroe just to get _AAE_, _Some Like it Hot, _Seven Year Itch_, and _The Misfits_.
Elizabeth Taylor . . . I'm not a particular fan of hers, but she did make some great movies. _The Sandpiper_ may be obscure, but it's good, as are all her collaborations with Richard Burton. With her, you get "National Velvet" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
Then I thought . . . why not choose an actor who has been in literally a hundred flicks? John Wayne comes to mind here. You'd get dozens of Westerns (I don't care much for Westerns, but then all of director John Ford is genius), plus an early one with Don DeFore that's really cute about a train trip, _The Quiet Man_ with all that lush scenery of Ireland, and great dialogue. ("The hell I won't!") And he was my father-in-law's favorite.
But David Niven! How could I do without _The Bishop's Wife_ (and see next actor!), _Please Don't Eat the Daisies_ (another guilty pleasure; you have to "get it," perhaps by watching it as a young child, but if you do "get it," you love it), _Bachelor Mother_, etc.?
Cary Grant. Aaahhh. I'd get Hitchcock (_North by Northwest_) and a bunch of funny stuff like _Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House_. . . .
Doris Day is no slouch. If you like Doris Day (and I admit that she's possibly a no-go for people after my generation, but I grew up watching and loving her, even in "kitsch," and she spent a lot of time on worthy causes such as animal rescue as well) . . . there's not only the fluff, but _Midnight Lace_ with Rex Harrison, a don't-miss if you like psychological thrillers. The fluffies include _The Thrill of It All_ with James Garner (priceless scenes of kitsch plus the driving-into-swimming-pool scene and the soap-bubbles-in-pool bit), both her Rock Hudson collabs (_Pillow Talk_ is the one I can think of offhand), and several others. But, again, missing too much to choose only her films.
I'm not forgetting Bogie and Bacall. Together or separately, they have made some wonderful films. _The African Queen_ comes for free with Kate Hepburn, as well, but Bogie's the way to get _Casablanca_, _To Have and Have Not_, _Key Largo_, and several series (such as the detectives he played.)
All good choices, methinks.
But I'd STILL be missing some of my always-watch movies, though. _A Christmas Story_ with Darren McGavin (I love him . . . why didn't he get more/better movie roles? He does have one Jerry Lewis movie to his credit).
_Real Genius_, which is the only movie about smart people/college geniuses that I think gets us RIGHT all the way around, plus it has Val Kilmer at his best looks-like-my-first-true-love age. Don't forget Kilmer's other obscure but hilarious film, _Top Secret_, in which he SINGS!
_The Boyfriend School (Don't Tell Her It's Me)_, which is a guilty pleasure of mine.
Still don't have _Sunset Boulevard_, do I? I forgot to mention William Holden up there when I was musing on actors. You'd get a lotta goodies with him, as well. Isn't he in _Bridge Over the River Kwai_, too? Maybe not . . . maybe that was Alec Guinness.
Or Weird Al's movie, _UHF_. I know, really off the wall, but I love that one. I knew a guy like the mad scientist in the flick. Hell, I *dated* him.
Wait--Jack Lemmon! Whoa. Don't want to slight _Some Like it Hot_, _The Apartment_, and all his Walter Matthau collaborations, beginning with _The Fortune Cookie_ and going on from there. I even like _Under the Yum Yum Tree_, probably because I saw it when I was around ten and didn't realize how sexist that era's bachelor-swinger stuff is. But of course _Bell, Book, and Candle_ is on my Top Ten list, and he's in it.
I couldn't give up William Powell and the _Thin Man_ movies he made with Myrna Loy, and I also like his _My Man Godfrey_ (and several others--wasn't he in Clarence Day's _Life with Father_?)
And that makes me think of Clifton Webb in _Cheaper by the Dozen_, which also stars Myrna Loy.
Mickey Rooney was in an incredible number of films, too, including those great Andy Hardy ones with Judy Garland. Judy Garland! Now there's somebody whose _oeuvre_ I wouldn't want to give up, and look what you get: _The Wizard of Oz_, _Meet Me In St. Louis_, Summer Stock_, _A Star is Born_, etc.
Ronald Reagan was a good actor, IMHO, BTW. I am thinking now of his masterpiece, _Kings Row_, that I cannot bear to watch now (because it upsets me, like the Bette Davis film which Must Not Be Named, because he gets unfairly zapped in that after a train wreck), but I also think _The Girl from Jones Beach_ is really cute, and the Bonzo movies are neat. Shut up--I really mean that. He doesn't always get upstaged by the monkey, either.
Ooh, Paul Newman! Not just for _Cool Hand Luke_, HUD, and_Butch Cassidy_, but for all the steamies he made with his wife Joanne Woodward. (_From The Terrace_ once was on Channel 11 here in D/FW in the middle of the night on Friday night, and I had my best friend staying over; she and Mama and I were lying on various fold-out couches watching the film when about three-quarters of the way through, the sprockets screwed up, the film jammed, and it actually *caught on fire*. Yes, back then, they showed movies on film. Don't ask me why or how, but this would have been around 1970 or so, and we SAW the film freeze and the frame start to melt and the flames begin! Whoever was out there as the all-night engineer then realized and put up the slide "Please Stand By," which is another thing you simply don't see nowadays--they don't have those kinds of technical difficulties now. Anyway, there was such an outcry from people who had been watching that WFAA re-ran the film a couple of weeks later, after they obtained a new print. This was in the days WAY before video stores, let alone home VCRs and TiVos!!)
I'm also (so far) missing _The Manchurian Candidate_. If you know a lot about that historical era and about the Kennedy years, you'll get quite paranoid when you watch that original flick. You'll also come away with a different feeling about Miss Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury plays an eeeevil be-yotch in this one, unlike her victim role in _Portrait of Dorian Gray_). And you'll come away admiring Frank Sinatra's performance almost as much as you do Laurence Harvey . . . it is said that Sinatra is the one who managed to suppress the film for many years after the Kennedys and MLK were assassinated, simply because the film suggested conspiracy theorists were on the right track, and feelings in the USA ran so high about all of it. I dunno . . . I just know that the original film is a masterpiece, and it'll make you think.
Note that when I mention a film, I don't mean the remake. Except with _Little Women_, which was made once with Katharine Hepburn and once with Elizabeth Taylor. And then some other times that don't count.
You may be thinking around now, "Doesn't she watch ANY films made after 1988?" Well, not a heck of a lot of them. There are some greats, though.
That makes me think of Dustin Hoffman . . . I was a wild fan of his in the 1970s. _The Graduate_, _Marathon Man_, _All the President's Men_, _Straw Dogs_ (in which he plays a mathematician, reminding Mama and me of my dad, which made this an even more powerful story for the two of us), and even _Kramer vs Kramer_ were all films we saw in the theater (a few of them in revival houses or on the UTD campus in the days when they ran lots of old movies and were a graduate institute rather than a four-year university.)
And we even had a Richard Dreyfuss stage in this household ("The Goodbye Girl" is a little cheesy, but we watched anything with him in it, including "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" and "Once Around," which is actually poignant and sad.)
I suppose I'm forgetting Jane Fonda and Robert Redford . . . together in "Barefoot in the Park," another kitschy guilty pleasure of ours (and by that I mean me and my mother, because hubby doesn't watch anything much except SF/fantasy and bad humor). But both Fonda and Redford were in a number of really great films as well. I'm thinking also of the one with the nuclear reactor, and note that Jack Lemmon plays the sacrificial lamb/atoner in that one.
Ooh, I'm forgetting _Paper Moon_, one of my old standbys that seemed a bit more shopworn the last time I watched it (it's definitely a period piece in more ways than one), but that makes me think of Madeleine Kahn (she co-starred in PM) and of course all her films for Mel Brooks! And then Mel Brooks' original _The Producers_ with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and _Young Frankenstein_, and _Blazing Saddles_. Those are so great! (_History of the World, Part I_, is on MY list, but is probably an acquired taste.)
Barbra Streisand made a couple of really funny films (that she hated and tried to suppress for literally YEARS, but which are finally out on DVD and back on the movie channels now). _What's Up, Doc?_ was always my favorite (again, I first saw it at age ten or so, and I didn't see the cheeze), but now I love _The Owl and the Pussycat_ (with another unsung great, George Segal) and _For Pete's Sake_ (Mama's favorite of the three, although she likes the super-cheesy _The Way We Were_ and cannot be trusted in these matters). Don't get on me about this. _Owl_ was scripted by Buck Henry and originally contained NUDE scenes by The Streisand, believe it or not (they were cut out before the film's theatrical release).
Speaking of George Segal, he was also in the Real Version of _Fun with Dick and Jane_, which my best friend Ann and I saw in the Canyon Creek Theater when it came out, and which was famous in our circle for showing Jane Fonda sitting on a potty (although she wasn't "going," just sitting and thinking.) It's still a funny film, though I suppose you could get your knickers in a knot about the "not so feminist" or "dated" details here and there. With films like this, as with _Casino Royale_ and all the "real" James Bond movies, you have to take them as period pieces.
[Speaking of the Bond flicks, there were parodies of those before Austin Powers came on the scene. Try _In Like Flynt_ and the Dean Martin "Matt Helm" series. They are hilarious. Oh, and Honey West! That was funny stuff.]
Where's _Blade Runner_, _Back to the Future_, and _Brazil_? All on my favorites/perfection list.
Still missing _Dr. Strangelove_ here, which makes me remember Peter Sellers and all his great films (_The Mouse that Roared_ and the Pink Panther series, to name a few).
I forgot Dan Aykroyd. You'd get the Ghostbuster flicks, the Blues Brothers, _Coneheads_ (which I remember fondly, but which might not be that great in reality). And most of all, one of my guilty pleasures and my fave of his films, _Trading Places_. That one even has Don Ameche (Alexander Graham Bell!) and Ralph Bellamy!
_Groundhog Day_ didn't star Dan, but instead the great Bill Murray. But I couldn't live on a diet of _Stripes_, _Caddyshack_, and _Tootsie_ alone, so let's not go there.
I hate to miss out on Jack Benny's movies. Did you even know he made any? _The Horn Blows at Midnight_ is a must-see*, but I also love _George Washington Slept Here_ (a _Money Pit_ house story like _Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House_) and _To Be or Not To Be_, the one he made with Carole Lombard.
(And that reminds me of _On Borrowed Time_, another supernatural-type tear-jerker that's better than _Topper_ and _Meet Joe Black_ and the others of that era.)
I should've mentioned Carole Lombard and the screwball comedies up there (one with her hubby Clark Gable, _It Happened One Night_.) Speaking of screwball comedies, did you know that the Coen brothers' film _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ is the film that the Joel McCrea flick _Sullivan's Travels_ is supposedly about? And speaking of Lombard, she reminds me of another screwball comedy great, but I can't think of her name at the moment. . . .
I also would like to have _Mary Poppins_ and _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_, which brings to mind Dick Van Dyke, and _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_, which presents us with Gene Wilder, leading to Gilda Radner and from there to SNL and the Blues Brothers and to Dan Aykroyd again. _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ should be on the list of musicals somewhere. Don't get me started on musicals, because I'd have to have _Singin' in the Rain_, _The Music Man_, _The Sound of Music_, _Bye Bye Birdie_, and so many others.
The Kevin Smith films are all guilty pleasures of ours (and this time by "ours" I mean hubby's and mine), but I wouldn't rank them with The Greats, so I'll have to regretfully pass. I mean, how could I leave out _Cool Hand Luke_ and include _Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back_?
Nope, I can't pick a third actor. I'm just stuck.
It would be better to start with directors. Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Mike Nichols, Michael Curtiz, maybe Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith if I'm in a certain mood, sometimes Steven Spielberg, sometimes Robert Zemeckis, even sometimes Brian DePalma. . . .
Or perhaps with screenwriters. Buck Henry, Mel Brooks. . . .
I can't choose.
Who would your top three choices be?
# # #
Well, this is a silly idea, but no sillier than the OTHER memes floating around. So I thought, why not?
First off, I'd have to choose Gregory Peck. And that's kind of out of left field, as he's not my FAVORITE actor (although I do think he's one of the best, and he's definitely on my top ten list.) Why? Because then I get two of my favorite movies, _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and _Roman Holiday_. I get a number of other great films along with these, as well.
Similarly, I'd have to choose James Stewart. He's actually above Gregory Peck on my Top Ten list, and that way I get _It's a Wonderful Life_*, _Harvey_, _Bell, Book, and Candle_, _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_, _The Philadelphia Story_, and many other greats.
[Voted the #1 inspirational film of all time in AFI's "100 Years, 100 Cheers" (June 14th, 2006); ranked the #1 Most Powerful Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute (2006); Jimmy Stewart's best performance, most believe; my favorite film on even days, sharing the honor with TKaM on odd days. "Attaboy, Clarence!"]
At this point, the THIRD is impossible to choose. I don't want to miss out on having (on that magic TiVo) all of Bobby Darin's films, but I only get one (by virtue of having it also star Gregory Peck), _Captain Newman, M. D._ Of course, that's the one Bobby got his Oscar nomination for, and he looks supercute in it, so maybe that's okay. I can't choose Sandra Dee, either, although I love her personally . . . her Gidget films are good kitsch, her Tammy films have a certain "period piece" charm, and I like _Come September_ (on the set of which she met Bobby Darin, the love of her life), but her other films wouldn't be enough to sustain me . . . I'd need the other classics.
Ditto here for my love Jerry Lewis. Although he is my favorite actor/person, just about, I wouldn't be fulfilled by having just all of his movies. Even though I irrationally* love all his movies, embarrassing as some of them may be. (His early films with Dean actually hold up pretty well, as do several of his later solo efforts. And you do realize he was wonderful in _King of Comedy_ with DeNiro.)
* (I don't have a drop of French blood, as far as we know--all Irish/German/Choctaw with a bit of Dutch/English. Still see JL as genius. Call it an eccentricity.)
You'd think I would choose an actress the third time, too. Such as maybe Kate Hepburn. Although I have her in _Philadelphia Story_, that's not my favorite of her films. I love _Holiday_, _Bringing Up Baby_, all her Spencer Tracy collaborations (especially!), and I even get gems such as _Little Women_.
Similarly with Audrey Hepburn. I already have her in _Roman Holiday_ from selection 1, but there's _Breakfast at Tiffany's_, _My Fair Lady_, and several others that I don't want to miss out on.
And Bette Davis--how could I not choose her? What did she ever make that I *don't* love? Okay, a few of the ones she was in with Mommie Dearest (Joan Crawford, who did make some doozies herself), might not be tops on my list, and some of her later flicks don't blow you away, but watch Jezebel sometimes, and The Film That Must Not Be Named (title initials D. V.) because it is bad luck to even think of such situations, in which B. D.'s character slowly dies. . . . There's _Of Human Bondage_, _The Little Foxes_, _A Stolen Life_, and a bunch of great oldie melodrama/tearjerkers.
There are a few actresses I could choose in order to get _All About Eve_, _The Women_ (which could be updated for today with some major changes, and maybe someday I'll steal that plot and fix it up so you don't even recognize it), and some of the others, but I'm not willing to choose Marilyn Monroe just to get _AAE_, _Some Like it Hot, _Seven Year Itch_, and _The Misfits_.
Elizabeth Taylor . . . I'm not a particular fan of hers, but she did make some great movies. _The Sandpiper_ may be obscure, but it's good, as are all her collaborations with Richard Burton. With her, you get "National Velvet" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
Then I thought . . . why not choose an actor who has been in literally a hundred flicks? John Wayne comes to mind here. You'd get dozens of Westerns (I don't care much for Westerns, but then all of director John Ford is genius), plus an early one with Don DeFore that's really cute about a train trip, _The Quiet Man_ with all that lush scenery of Ireland, and great dialogue. ("The hell I won't!") And he was my father-in-law's favorite.
But David Niven! How could I do without _The Bishop's Wife_ (and see next actor!), _Please Don't Eat the Daisies_ (another guilty pleasure; you have to "get it," perhaps by watching it as a young child, but if you do "get it," you love it), _Bachelor Mother_, etc.?
Cary Grant. Aaahhh. I'd get Hitchcock (_North by Northwest_) and a bunch of funny stuff like _Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House_. . . .
Doris Day is no slouch. If you like Doris Day (and I admit that she's possibly a no-go for people after my generation, but I grew up watching and loving her, even in "kitsch," and she spent a lot of time on worthy causes such as animal rescue as well) . . . there's not only the fluff, but _Midnight Lace_ with Rex Harrison, a don't-miss if you like psychological thrillers. The fluffies include _The Thrill of It All_ with James Garner (priceless scenes of kitsch plus the driving-into-swimming-pool scene and the soap-bubbles-in-pool bit), both her Rock Hudson collabs (_Pillow Talk_ is the one I can think of offhand), and several others. But, again, missing too much to choose only her films.
I'm not forgetting Bogie and Bacall. Together or separately, they have made some wonderful films. _The African Queen_ comes for free with Kate Hepburn, as well, but Bogie's the way to get _Casablanca_, _To Have and Have Not_, _Key Largo_, and several series (such as the detectives he played.)
All good choices, methinks.
But I'd STILL be missing some of my always-watch movies, though. _A Christmas Story_ with Darren McGavin (I love him . . . why didn't he get more/better movie roles? He does have one Jerry Lewis movie to his credit).
_Real Genius_, which is the only movie about smart people/college geniuses that I think gets us RIGHT all the way around, plus it has Val Kilmer at his best looks-like-my-first-true-love age. Don't forget Kilmer's other obscure but hilarious film, _Top Secret_, in which he SINGS!
_The Boyfriend School (Don't Tell Her It's Me)_, which is a guilty pleasure of mine.
Still don't have _Sunset Boulevard_, do I? I forgot to mention William Holden up there when I was musing on actors. You'd get a lotta goodies with him, as well. Isn't he in _Bridge Over the River Kwai_, too? Maybe not . . . maybe that was Alec Guinness.
Or Weird Al's movie, _UHF_. I know, really off the wall, but I love that one. I knew a guy like the mad scientist in the flick. Hell, I *dated* him.
Wait--Jack Lemmon! Whoa. Don't want to slight _Some Like it Hot_, _The Apartment_, and all his Walter Matthau collaborations, beginning with _The Fortune Cookie_ and going on from there. I even like _Under the Yum Yum Tree_, probably because I saw it when I was around ten and didn't realize how sexist that era's bachelor-swinger stuff is. But of course _Bell, Book, and Candle_ is on my Top Ten list, and he's in it.
I couldn't give up William Powell and the _Thin Man_ movies he made with Myrna Loy, and I also like his _My Man Godfrey_ (and several others--wasn't he in Clarence Day's _Life with Father_?)
And that makes me think of Clifton Webb in _Cheaper by the Dozen_, which also stars Myrna Loy.
Mickey Rooney was in an incredible number of films, too, including those great Andy Hardy ones with Judy Garland. Judy Garland! Now there's somebody whose _oeuvre_ I wouldn't want to give up, and look what you get: _The Wizard of Oz_, _Meet Me In St. Louis_, Summer Stock_, _A Star is Born_, etc.
Ronald Reagan was a good actor, IMHO, BTW. I am thinking now of his masterpiece, _Kings Row_, that I cannot bear to watch now (because it upsets me, like the Bette Davis film which Must Not Be Named, because he gets unfairly zapped in that after a train wreck), but I also think _The Girl from Jones Beach_ is really cute, and the Bonzo movies are neat. Shut up--I really mean that. He doesn't always get upstaged by the monkey, either.
Ooh, Paul Newman! Not just for _Cool Hand Luke_, HUD, and_Butch Cassidy_, but for all the steamies he made with his wife Joanne Woodward. (_From The Terrace_ once was on Channel 11 here in D/FW in the middle of the night on Friday night, and I had my best friend staying over; she and Mama and I were lying on various fold-out couches watching the film when about three-quarters of the way through, the sprockets screwed up, the film jammed, and it actually *caught on fire*. Yes, back then, they showed movies on film. Don't ask me why or how, but this would have been around 1970 or so, and we SAW the film freeze and the frame start to melt and the flames begin! Whoever was out there as the all-night engineer then realized and put up the slide "Please Stand By," which is another thing you simply don't see nowadays--they don't have those kinds of technical difficulties now. Anyway, there was such an outcry from people who had been watching that WFAA re-ran the film a couple of weeks later, after they obtained a new print. This was in the days WAY before video stores, let alone home VCRs and TiVos!!)
I'm also (so far) missing _The Manchurian Candidate_. If you know a lot about that historical era and about the Kennedy years, you'll get quite paranoid when you watch that original flick. You'll also come away with a different feeling about Miss Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury plays an eeeevil be-yotch in this one, unlike her victim role in _Portrait of Dorian Gray_). And you'll come away admiring Frank Sinatra's performance almost as much as you do Laurence Harvey . . . it is said that Sinatra is the one who managed to suppress the film for many years after the Kennedys and MLK were assassinated, simply because the film suggested conspiracy theorists were on the right track, and feelings in the USA ran so high about all of it. I dunno . . . I just know that the original film is a masterpiece, and it'll make you think.
Note that when I mention a film, I don't mean the remake. Except with _Little Women_, which was made once with Katharine Hepburn and once with Elizabeth Taylor. And then some other times that don't count.
You may be thinking around now, "Doesn't she watch ANY films made after 1988?" Well, not a heck of a lot of them. There are some greats, though.
That makes me think of Dustin Hoffman . . . I was a wild fan of his in the 1970s. _The Graduate_, _Marathon Man_, _All the President's Men_, _Straw Dogs_ (in which he plays a mathematician, reminding Mama and me of my dad, which made this an even more powerful story for the two of us), and even _Kramer vs Kramer_ were all films we saw in the theater (a few of them in revival houses or on the UTD campus in the days when they ran lots of old movies and were a graduate institute rather than a four-year university.)
And we even had a Richard Dreyfuss stage in this household ("The Goodbye Girl" is a little cheesy, but we watched anything with him in it, including "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" and "Once Around," which is actually poignant and sad.)
I suppose I'm forgetting Jane Fonda and Robert Redford . . . together in "Barefoot in the Park," another kitschy guilty pleasure of ours (and by that I mean me and my mother, because hubby doesn't watch anything much except SF/fantasy and bad humor). But both Fonda and Redford were in a number of really great films as well. I'm thinking also of the one with the nuclear reactor, and note that Jack Lemmon plays the sacrificial lamb/atoner in that one.
Ooh, I'm forgetting _Paper Moon_, one of my old standbys that seemed a bit more shopworn the last time I watched it (it's definitely a period piece in more ways than one), but that makes me think of Madeleine Kahn (she co-starred in PM) and of course all her films for Mel Brooks! And then Mel Brooks' original _The Producers_ with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and _Young Frankenstein_, and _Blazing Saddles_. Those are so great! (_History of the World, Part I_, is on MY list, but is probably an acquired taste.)
Barbra Streisand made a couple of really funny films (that she hated and tried to suppress for literally YEARS, but which are finally out on DVD and back on the movie channels now). _What's Up, Doc?_ was always my favorite (again, I first saw it at age ten or so, and I didn't see the cheeze), but now I love _The Owl and the Pussycat_ (with another unsung great, George Segal) and _For Pete's Sake_ (Mama's favorite of the three, although she likes the super-cheesy _The Way We Were_ and cannot be trusted in these matters). Don't get on me about this. _Owl_ was scripted by Buck Henry and originally contained NUDE scenes by The Streisand, believe it or not (they were cut out before the film's theatrical release).
Speaking of George Segal, he was also in the Real Version of _Fun with Dick and Jane_, which my best friend Ann and I saw in the Canyon Creek Theater when it came out, and which was famous in our circle for showing Jane Fonda sitting on a potty (although she wasn't "going," just sitting and thinking.) It's still a funny film, though I suppose you could get your knickers in a knot about the "not so feminist" or "dated" details here and there. With films like this, as with _Casino Royale_ and all the "real" James Bond movies, you have to take them as period pieces.
[Speaking of the Bond flicks, there were parodies of those before Austin Powers came on the scene. Try _In Like Flynt_ and the Dean Martin "Matt Helm" series. They are hilarious. Oh, and Honey West! That was funny stuff.]
Where's _Blade Runner_, _Back to the Future_, and _Brazil_? All on my favorites/perfection list.
Still missing _Dr. Strangelove_ here, which makes me remember Peter Sellers and all his great films (_The Mouse that Roared_ and the Pink Panther series, to name a few).
I forgot Dan Aykroyd. You'd get the Ghostbuster flicks, the Blues Brothers, _Coneheads_ (which I remember fondly, but which might not be that great in reality). And most of all, one of my guilty pleasures and my fave of his films, _Trading Places_. That one even has Don Ameche (Alexander Graham Bell!) and Ralph Bellamy!
_Groundhog Day_ didn't star Dan, but instead the great Bill Murray. But I couldn't live on a diet of _Stripes_, _Caddyshack_, and _Tootsie_ alone, so let's not go there.
I hate to miss out on Jack Benny's movies. Did you even know he made any? _The Horn Blows at Midnight_ is a must-see*, but I also love _George Washington Slept Here_ (a _Money Pit_ house story like _Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House_) and _To Be or Not To Be_, the one he made with Carole Lombard.
(And that reminds me of _On Borrowed Time_, another supernatural-type tear-jerker that's better than _Topper_ and _Meet Joe Black_ and the others of that era.)
I should've mentioned Carole Lombard and the screwball comedies up there (one with her hubby Clark Gable, _It Happened One Night_.) Speaking of screwball comedies, did you know that the Coen brothers' film _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ is the film that the Joel McCrea flick _Sullivan's Travels_ is supposedly about? And speaking of Lombard, she reminds me of another screwball comedy great, but I can't think of her name at the moment. . . .
I also would like to have _Mary Poppins_ and _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_, which brings to mind Dick Van Dyke, and _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_, which presents us with Gene Wilder, leading to Gilda Radner and from there to SNL and the Blues Brothers and to Dan Aykroyd again. _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ should be on the list of musicals somewhere. Don't get me started on musicals, because I'd have to have _Singin' in the Rain_, _The Music Man_, _The Sound of Music_, _Bye Bye Birdie_, and so many others.
The Kevin Smith films are all guilty pleasures of ours (and this time by "ours" I mean hubby's and mine), but I wouldn't rank them with The Greats, so I'll have to regretfully pass. I mean, how could I leave out _Cool Hand Luke_ and include _Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back_?
Nope, I can't pick a third actor. I'm just stuck.
It would be better to start with directors. Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Mike Nichols, Michael Curtiz, maybe Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith if I'm in a certain mood, sometimes Steven Spielberg, sometimes Robert Zemeckis, even sometimes Brian DePalma. . . .
Or perhaps with screenwriters. Buck Henry, Mel Brooks. . . .
I can't choose.
Who would your top three choices be?
"...authentic writers write even if there is little chance for them to be published; they write because they cannot do otherwise, like Kafka's messenger who is privy to a terrible and imperious truth that no one is willing to receive but is nonetheless compelled to go on.
"Were he to stop, to choose another road, his life would become banal and sterile. Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship; were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories."
Elie Wiesel, in The New York Times on June 19, 2000, vialisalemonjello
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-25 12:47 am (UTC)*Generation gap again, I suspect*
Sorry about that being so long. Didn't realize it was getting so long. There's a dilemma about the LJ cut stuff, though--I find that if I encounter a cut, I may or may not bother to click through right away because I'm just skimming (and I'm scrolling past anyway) and plan to come back later, and I could forget to come back. So one school of thought is just to hit 'em with it and let 'em scroll past it. That way, you have a chance that something that interests readers will catch the eye. On the other hand, stuff with graphics and really big stuff ought to be behind a cut. I just don't always think of long posts as "long." I am the original three-page-paragraph geek. *GRIN*
Thanks for replying.
Actors
Date: 2006-08-24 01:43 pm (UTC)Re: Actors
Date: 2006-08-25 12:43 am (UTC)I'm generally tuned to TCM. I did set up the TiVo to catch a movie called "Camp," though, because I heard it was not only campy but about drama nerds going to a dramatics camp. Just up my alley!
I miss character actors. In more recent films, I really don't see so many character-actor parts. I'm thinking of people like Edward Everett Horton, Leon Ames, and that German guy who played the shopkeeper or the uncle in so many old movies. There just aren't good roles for older characters in new movies. They're all about the perfectly beautiful lead players. Maybe I'm just not givin' them enough of a chance. . . .
no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 03:06 pm (UTC)Off topic, but I've been thinking of you...any word from your prospective agent?
no subject
Date: 2006-08-25 12:40 am (UTC)Keep fingers crossed. . . .