What’s your favorite movie?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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This is a problem.
so is this
I wept three times today thinking about it. I really think Rove will do it again.
Oh yeah, my favorite movie is probably Life of Brian. I watch selected favorite scenes on the weekends to cheer myself up.
with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. There’s a new Gap commercial that uses one of Audrey’s dance scenes from this movie to sell skinny black pants.
Right from the beginning when Kay Thompson — who wrote the Eloise books — starts singing, “Think Pink!” I start smiling and singing along. No matter how depressed I am, this movie cheers me up. It’s so ridiculous and silly and fanciful you laugh out-loud even if you’re a grump.
It’s about haute couture when that actually meant something. Richard Avedeon did the still photography and Givenchy designed the clothes. One of Astaire’s longest, unedited dance sequences is in it and the camera whirls around to keep up with him. The camp value is extremely high.
The Yanks Are Here
Why is it, that the attack on the embassy in Syria just fell off of the news or blogs? I was reading a report that speculated that it was a planned attack by the US to bolster the contention that there were still many terrorists there. You`d think with the fearmongers, that this attack would be blasted in all talk shows, no? Why did it fall off the radar?
Don’t know if I can boil it down to one. a)American Graffiti, b) A Christmas Story c)The Pink Panther (Peter Sellers version) d)The Manchurian Candidate (Frank Sinatra version) e) Dr. Strangelove f) The Godfather g)You’ve Got Mail h)Grand Prix i)Gone With The Wind j)Office Space are a few that impressed me at the time I first saw them.
I was going to list Godfather II as well!
…it’s the Marx Brothers’ DUCK SOUP.
“Join the navy and see the army.”
It’s a mad mad mad mad world. Love that movie. All the stars made it a classic. Also liked Schindler’s list, The Longest Day, Beaches, only because of Bette Midler’s singing, and Apollo 13.
Favorite movie of all time is probably the Lord of the Rings trilogy (which not coincidentally I’d also list as my favorite book) but the last movie that really blew me away is definitely:
My kids loved V, but I haven’t seen it.
My list:
Fried Green Tomatoes
Shawshank Redemption
The Princess Bride
Crash
It’s a Wonderful Life
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
I love V. I’ve probably watched the DVD 5 times since I bought it.
I just saw Crash about a month and a half ago. That was fantastic. I’m not afraid to admit that it is the last movie that made me cry.
Your first 3 would be on my list too.
And I love Singing in the Rain. It was CBtY’s favorite movie when he was in nursery school, and his teachers finally asked me who Kathy Seldin was (Debbie Reynolds’ character in the movie) and why he kept talking about her…they couldn’t believe it when I told them.
Dang! I forgot The Princess Bride (and Duck Soup and a bunch of other movies mentioned here). I must be going senile.
You reminded me of Night at the Opera with the Marx Brothers.
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much.
I just happen to have a copy of Night at the Opera here at my desk — along with A Night In Casablanca, A Day At The Races and about four other Marx Brothers movies (and O Brother Where Art Thou, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and a couple others — those ones stay at the computer).
I’m putting one of them in. Get back to me in an hour and a half.
LOVED it. Saw it at full price 8x here in Los Angeles. I never do that. I get to go to so many movies here for free it’s rare I pay for anything. LOVED it.
Being There. Stellar cast, stellar writing. Enough wit and humor and thought provoking scenes to fill any ten movies made today. Pure genius.
I cannot pick one favorite movie but Shawshank Redemption, Schindler’s List, ET, Wizard of Oz, Somewhere in Time, Crash, Rudy, Friday Night Lights, Hoosiers, V for Vendetta to name just a few.
between The Sting and Young Frankenstein.
Although I have good words to say about a number of others, such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Producers.
Honorable mention, musicals category: The Music Man and Fiddler on the Roof.
The Third Man (1949) by Graham Greene, with Orson Welles
Favorite movies:
The Piano
Oh, Brother Where art Thou (or most anything by the Coen Brothers)
Thelma and Louise
The Full Monty
Manchurian Candidate (original)
Muriel’s Wedding
La Moustache
Water
Oh gosh – the Manchurian Candidate (the original) was one of the BEST MOVIES EVER.
That scene where the men are under hypnosis and think they’re at a garden party is the best scene ever shot. FANTASTIC.
How can you pick just one????
Favorite Sweeping Epics:
Lawrence of Arabia (timely – re the middle east!)
Gone with the Wind
Favorite Comic Book-based Films:
V for Vendetta
X-Men 2
Favorite Caper Film:
Sneakers
Favorite Comedies:
Tootsie
Dave
Favorite Romantic Comedy:
Bringing Up Baby (could double for favorite comedy!)
Favorite Disney Cartoon Movie:
Hercules
Favorite Movie Musical:
Sound of Music (could double for favorite romance)
Favorite Love Story:
Casablanca
and on and on and on…..
Oh, you like Hercules too? I think it was underrated. The use of the Muses as a Greek chorus was a great addition, and there are some pretty good lines in there (“Someone call IX-I-I!!”). Plus you gotta love James Woods playing Hades as a Hollywood “Wesson handshake” type.
Disney’s non-Pixar animation has been inconsistent over the past 20 years or so. Some of their stuff was excellent (Beauty and the Beast), some would have been better off not being made (Pocahontas any any sequel other than maybe The Lion King II and The Lion King I 1/2). I don’t put Hercules in the top tier but it’s definitely better than average.
lawrence of arabia
casablanca
tootsie
dave
I watch Zoolander. Just thinking about it makes me giggle. Go figure!
I haven’t seen too many films recently. We prefer to see them in a theater, and they seem to come and go so fast — or else we’re just becoming older and slower.
Andrei Tarkovsky – Andrei Rublev, The Sacrifice, My Name is Ivan
Ingmar Bergman films of the 1950s
Pasolini – The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Theorem
De Sica – Bicycle Thief
Fellini – Nights of Cabiria, La Strada
Monicelli – Big Deal on Madonna Street
Robert Altman – Nashville, Short Cuts
John Sayles – Matawan, City of Hope
Stanley Kubrick – Eyes Wide Shut
Just saw someone else list The Third Man – have to add that one as well.
And there are so many that I have never seen.
So many fabulous movies have been mentioned but in addition, the following are some of my favorites off the top of my head:
The Graduate
The Holy Grail
Spinal Tap
Clockwork Orange
Star Wars, Duck Soup, Dances With Wolves.
Aviator, The Red Shoes, anything with Joseph Cotten, Humphrey Bogart or Hoagy Carmichael. Plus the old British television series with Michael Crawford, “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em!”
Fassbinder
Mulholland Drive
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Notorious
Casablanca
Groundhog Day
Princess Cariboo
Bruno
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
Dave
Regarding Henry
Gone with the Wind
Witness
Not in any particular order.
Amelie tops the list;
Shower Chinese and delightful from first to last scene;
The Constant Gardener great adaptation of important (but too overlooked) novel;
Farewell My Concubine one of those visually and “plottedly” compelling pix;
Excalibur the definitive Arthurian epic;
Casablanca saw it again several nights ago and rediscovered layers, meanings, nuances I’d forgotten, possibly Hollywood’s most perfectly spare script ever done.
What about The Usual Suspects?
Princess Bride. By leaps and bounds.
with O’Toole and Hepburn.
“Did the channel part for you?”
“It went flat when I told it to. I didn’t think to ask for more.”
“If I Only Had a Brain” A Heart Some Courage
“F-I Were King of the For-r-rest!”
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
It just doesn’t get any better.