The Red Circle

Like the intro said: These are my favorite movies. I don’t consider them to be the “best” films ever made in a quantitative sense (although some are). They are the movies that shaped me cinematically and personally. They’re the movies I can turn to when nothing else feels right. They’re the movies that made me fall in love with the movies.

So, here they are, in ascending order:

10. Shaun of the Dead

Shaun of the Dead is a curiosity. Part romantic comedy, part honest to god zombie movie, it is the template for post-2000 filmmaking. Aside from a couple unnecessary quick cut collages, there is nothing wrong with this film. As will happen for some of the movies on this list, it was made by an obscenely young man (Edgar Wright, only 29 at the time he directed one of the best films ever made) and features the best script of the decade, co-written by star Simon Pegg.

It is genuinely touching, hilarious, gory, and honest. If this movie were made in the 80’s and I had more time to spend with it, I have no doubt it would rank much higher on this list. That being said, this movie will never, ever, get old, or tiring, or passé’. How many other films convey the heartbreak and triumphs of a relationship by having people get ripped apart by the living dead? Yeah. Just this one. It is the definition of lightning in a bottle, and while it is certainly not the best film to be released this decade, it is far and away my favorite.

9. Die Hard

Despite the generally decreasing quality of the sequels, the original Die Hard is a singularity in action films. It sent the Schwarzeneggers and Stallones packing, and made way for the everyman to win the day while getting the complete shit kicked out of him.

Just as McGoohan will always be Number 6, and Brando will always be Don Corleone, Bruce Willis will ALWAYS be John McClane. A New York cop stranded in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, forced into dealing with a bunch of party-crashing German terrorists, John McClane lives through gunfire, glass, explosions, punches, hostage situations, and a helicopter with a rail gun ALL WITHOUT WEARING SHOES.

No other action film has ever come close to being this good on so many levels, and director John McTiernan has never been this good ever again (Even with Predator and the 1999 Thomas Crown Affair under his belt). I watched this film for the first time with my dad in a Washington DC hotel room when I was about eight years old. It scared the life out of me, and I was hooked for good. Both then and now, I was convinced that there is only one bad guy in the history of movies, and his name is Hans Gruber.

8. The Iron Giant

It is the best animated film of all time. It is the only movie that almost makes me cry. Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant is a complete masterpiece and a paean to the power of storytelling. Yes, yes, I know I’ve just included a movie toplined by Vin Diesel and Jennifer Aniston on my top ten list. I’m completely at ease with this. Bird’s story, set in the 1950’s involves a gigantic robot from space who gets adopted by a science fiction obsessed nine-year old. The problem – it’s the beginning of the cold war, and once a sleazy government agent gets wind of a giant robot running around, it can only be the Russians, and it can only be bad.

The theme of overcoming your “programming” to be the person you want to be is something that still strikes home to me. But the most powerful part of the movie is the characters, and the story they act out. Agent Mansley is one my favorite villains of all time simply because he is portrayed as a non-villain. It’s obvious he’s the bad guy – he’s out to destroy the main character! – but his arc is defined more by a man living by a completely backwards moral code than someone who seeks to cause destruction.

But the real reason this movie is on the list is one word. The last line of dialogue spoken by the Giant shatters me in every positive way. It is an undying testament that there is true goodness in this world, and only the bravest among us will ever achieve it.

7. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I was a band nerd in high school. It is a ritual for everyone who is in High School Band to love and watch and quote this movie incessantly. It’s an integral part of my humor and my existence. Monty Python are my comedic heroes, and the funniest five (six?) people to walk the earth. It’s not even that Monty Python and the Holy Grail is their best work, or their most cutting, or their most subversive. It is, however, this specific movie, and its complete lack of any thematic structure that makes it (until the almost equally brilliant Anchorman in 2004) a unique comedy in film history.

The jokes don’t form a framework to build a movie on. They are more than likely improvised for a majority of the scenes, but they grow organically from the characters adventures in the ridiculous reality of the film. It is the epitome of making the absurd the ingenious.

The movie makes you do a double take at the screen as often as it makes you laugh out loud, and it should be lauded for such an accomplishment. I have a very few comedies on DVD; they lose their luster on multiple viewings. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of the exceptions. I have watched it more than any other movie ever made, and it is as funny on its fiftieth runthrough as it is on its tenth.

6. The Third Man

The Third Man is my arthouse guilty pleasure. Sure, it happens to be one of the best movies ever made, but director Carol Reed treats this milestone like a first independent feature. Shot in skewed angles and scored entirely by zither (!!!), The Third Man sounds on the surface like a failed college experiment. That is, until you realize it has a brilliant script, fully realized characters, and has an exquisite cinematic palette for being a monochromatic film.

The movie also features the most famous “star” role in history from Orson Welles as Harry Lime. He is the impetus for the plot, the motivation for the characters, and the ending of the film – and the character is on screen for less than twenty minutes. If Welles has never done War of the Worlds, had never made Citizen Kane, had never done Touch of Evil, he would still be renowned and idolized for THIS. His rapid fire delivery, glaringly stepping over his co-star’s lines, is legendary. It’s shocking that this film was shot in 1949 because aside from a few stylistic fashion inconsistencies on the part of Alida Valli’s Anna, this movie feels like it could be made today. If you can ignore the setting of post WWII Vienna, that is. This movie is in the process of being remade, and it is a futile endeavor.

The film is near perfect, and its place as one of the only “positive” noir films (I say this knowing full well that the main character loses his best friend and doesn’t get the girl) gives it a special place in my heart. Plus, if it’s good enough for Jack White, it’s good enough for me.

5. Charade

Splitting genres is a tricky thing. Stanley Donen manages to combine a spy thriller, a romantic comedy, a slapstick comedy, and an action movie into two hours. It also helps that Peter Stone wrote one of my favorite scripts of all time. The banter between Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn is legendary, and the rogues gallery (and there actually is one!) sent to terrorize them is filled with real characters, even though they may on the surface be defined by a characteristic or quirk. Bonus: Walter Matthau.

There is no sense talking about the plot here. If you’ve seen it, you know. If you haven’t, you should. It’s a gripping, hilarious film that hits all the right notes and never ceases to amaze. The central mystery is so well written and twisted, that no audience I’ve seen it with yet has figure out the secret until that pivotal scene where it becomes blatantly obvious.

Charade is a blast, and one that is guilt-free. There may not be a whole lot of subtext involved in this film, but it provides a roller coaster of a ride led by legends. Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn ooze chemistry despite their age differences, and Matthau and James Coburn turn in memorable work as would be protagonist and antagonist.

They simply don’t make movies like this anymore. There’s no irony, no winking at the audience, no pop culture references. It’s an intelligent, deeply constructed thriller/comedy/action/romance/brilliant film that allows us to relax and enjoy while still engaging us on levels far beyond the modern movie’s ability.

4. Heat

There is a divide here. Most would fall on the side of Goodfellas. I can’t. Something about Michael Mann’s Los Angeles crime epic talks to me deeper than Scorcese’s deconstruction of a gangster ever could. Maybe it’s the workaholic nature of Vincent Hannah. Someone whose family falls just a little bit south of repair due to his full time commitment to keeping the bad guys behind bars. Maybe it’s the philosophy of Neil MacCauley and his strict adherence to never allow anything into his life that he cannot drop in 30 seconds if the heat turns up. I’m a lot more like that than I’d freely admit.

Maybe it’s the fact that there is no better supporting cast assembled in the nineties than Danny Trejo, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman, Ted Levine, William Fichtner, and Dennis Haysbert. Just read those names. Maybe it’s the fact that Michael Mann makes movies like nobody else makes movies, and Heat is without a doubt his crowning achievement. Maybe it’s the fact the movie features last names like Waingroh, Cheritto, Shiherlis, and Breeden.

Maybe it’s that famous coffee scene – the first time in history that Pacino and DeNiro looked each other in the eye on film. Maybe it’s Kevin Gage twisting a hooker’s neck off. Maybe it’s the dead man on the other end of this line. Maybe it’s because she’s got a great ass, and you’ve got your head all the way up it.

Or maybe it’s because this is an ode to crime. An ode to order. And ode to work. An ode to failure. And ode to ethics. An ode to life. An ode to Los Angeles. An ode to humanity. It’s the last epic masterpiece dedicated to dedication, and all of the spoils and shame it can bring.

3. Star Wars

If you ever get a chance, thank George Lucas for making me who I am. His film not only introduced me to cinema outside of cartoons, but also made me into the roaring nerd I am today. The story of Star Wars is nothing spectacular. The characters work, but are mostly archetypes from other, older films. The reason Star Wars is so highly regarded is the world building that Lucas did in his films. It wasn’t that he just populated the cantina scene with as many odd looking creatures as he could find – it was that he GAVE THEM ALL NAMES AND OCCUPATIONS. It wasn’t that he invented the lightsaber, the coolest weapon in history, it was that HE ACTUALLY HAD A RITUAL ON HOW TO MAKE ONE. All of this, I knew. I knew it because it enhanced my understanding of the film. Yeah, these characters never showed up again. We never got to see Luke Skywalker build his green lightsaber. But I knew how he did it, and that made all the difference.

George Lucas involved me in his filmmaking, and I was forever changed by it. While I can’t say the same about the Prequels, they did for kids today what the originals did for me. That’s all that’s necessary. Star Wars deserves a place in history. Hell, it deserves a Nobel Prize for continually inspiring otherwise normal kids into becoming professional nerds.

Despite the fact that it’s been a long while since I’ve revisited the original trilogy’s universe, its effect on my life, loves, and understanding is immeasurable, and this list would be woefully incomplete and incorrect without it.

2. Jaws

Maybe it’s the countless hours of Shark Week I watched on the Discovery Channel, but JAWS has long been the movie that I turn to as old reliable. It’s a movie I could watch any time of any day. It is probably the only movie I would shell out ANY amount of money for on a blu-ray release. Limited edition with an Orca replica for $80? Sold. A mechanical Bruce (the shark, natch) case for $120? Sold. Very few movies speak to me like JAWS does. It’s a monster movie that focuses away from the monster and on the people whose unenviable task it is to deal with it.

Steven Spielberg was TWENTY-EIGHT when he made the best movie of his career. And he did it all by accident. Without a working mechanical shark, Spielberg was forced into Plan B (which was miles better than Plan A). He made a nightmare of suspense – showing the carnage the shark wreaked instead of the shark. And he populated it with three of the best characters in modern cinema with Hooper, Brody, and Quint. Plus, John Williams outdid himself on what is one of my favorite scores. It was a stroke of genius to substitute the “buh bum” music cue for the shark, but the true masterstroke was the integration of Quint’s “Spanish Ladies” shanty into the Orca’s chase music. As a tradition, the first song I ever play in a new car is Rush’s Dreamline. The first song I will play in any boat I buy will be that track from this soundtrack.

JAWS is ostensibly a movie about a killer shark, but it is everyone other than Bruce that makes this movie so brilliant. Think about it. The last half of this movie focuses around three people in one location and it NEVER GETS BORING. That damn shark breaking is the best thing that ever happened to Steven Spielberg, and the best thing to ever happen to adventure movies.

1. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

If you don’t like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, you don’t like cinema. Maybe you enjoy going to watch movies in a theater, or grabbing some friends for a night in with a good flick. But you don’t LIKE movies. You don’t LOVE movies. You ENJOY movies. Sergio Leone’s masterpiece (one of three) IS cinema. It is the essence of what makes movies such a powerful art form, and the culmination of every aspect of filmmaking holding hands and kicking ass. There has never been a better director of movies than Sergio Leone. Some people knew how to get a truly evocative performance out of an actor. Some knew how to weave a brilliant story through the subtleties of editing. Some knew how to capture your heart and mind, but no one – NO ONE – could fill a frame like Leone.

The first footage of the film switches from a landscape vista wideshot into a closeup in ONE SHOT. The fact that Clint Eastwood informed a generation of boys on how to become men is bonus. The character of Tucco Ramirez is bonus. The Ecstasy of Gold – the single greatest piece of music ever recorded for a motion picture – is bonus. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is a documentary of a master painting a masterpiece. It is three hours of distilled CINEMA. If I had three hours left to live, I would fill it with Family, Friends, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

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Those are the ten films that made me the incorrigible bastard (Editor’s Note: This is an understatement, more like henious scornful…) I am today. I’d put my runners up, but that’s just a weak excuse for not having the balls to only pick ten films. Sometimes sacrifices must be made, and it’s the better of us that can make them.

That’s the end. I hope you will share your favorite films with us this Christmas. We’d love to know about the people that pop into our site occasionally. We wish you a fantastically cinematic holiday, and we hope to see you in 2010.

What are your favorite movies of all time? Leave ‘em below!

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