A Couple of Lists

Happy Independence Day to everyone.  Today's post will be truncated due to the holiday.  I'm sure you understand.

THIS WEEK'S TOP TEN BETS FOR TFF #38

Here's last week's ten bets in order of greatest likelihood of playing at this year's Telluride Film Festival:

1) The Descendants
2) The Artist
3) The Kid with a Bike
4) Young Adult
5) Le Havre
6) A Trip to the Moon
7) Gazing Into the Abyss
8) Dark Horse
9) We Have to Talk About Kevin
10) Shame

This week's Top Ten Bets:
1) The Descendants
2) A Trip to the Moon
3) Young Adult
4) The Artist
5) The Kid with a Bike
6) Le Havre
7) Gazing Into the Abyss
8) Dark Horse
9) We Have to Talk About Kevin
10) Shame

MY PERSONAL TOP TEN LIST

Frequently when talking about films I will find myself claiming that some film in the discussion is one of the ten best films ever made.  Over the years friends, students, passersby, have asked what's on  my list.  I had to answer "Well, I don't actually have a list, but that film would be on it..." So I finally decided to come up with one so that I have an actual answer.  Here it is in chronological order.  I just can't make myself put it into an order of tenth best to all time best. (And you'll see that I have cheated, there are 11):

CASABLANCA (1942)...Greatest romance film of all time.  Bogie, Bergman, Rains, Henreid, Greenstreet, Lorre and let's not forget Conrad Veidt and Dooley Wilson!  More quotable film lines than any other film...ever!

ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)  Brando (who I met in 1979!) at the height of his powers.  Great support from Karl Malden, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint (saw her in a live performance in New Mexico in 1980) and the irrepressible Lee J. Cobb.  Elia Kazan directed this after he named names in front of HUAC.  regardless of the political and personal implications, it is an undeniably great film with a one of the great performances in film history.

THE APARTMENT (1960)  Billy Wilder's take on corporate culture and what it takes to get ahead as American was getting ready to move from the 50's to the 60's.  "Mad Men" long before Don Draper entered the scene.  Tremendous work from Shirley McLaine as the object of everyone's interest, Fred McMurray as the sleazeball boss and Jack Lemmon as the poor schmo that wants to get ahead but is challenged because he finds he has a conscience.  And let's not forget the fine work from long time character actor Jack Kruschen as the good doctor next door.  You might say this is dated...but again...look at how popular that "Mad Men" is...

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)...It's so rare when a film does justice to its source material.  It's even rarer when the source material is monumentally great.  It NEVER happens that a book is monumentally great and then the film is also...except here.  Robert Mulligan directed this adaptation of Harper Lee's classic and the film does a magnificent job of translating the novel to the screen.  Gregory Peck is perfect as Atticus.  PERFECT.  And the kids...great performances from Mary Badham (Scout), Phillip Alford (Jem) and John Megna (Dill).  And I can't forget to mention the rest of the supporting players that knock it out of the park.  Brock Peters as the wrongly accused Tom Robinson, Collin Wilcox and James Anderson as the morally repugnant Ewells, William Windom as the County Prosecuter (I met William Windom once at a performance of Thurber material, he taught me a bar trick...really) and finally, but not incidentally, Robert Duvall launching his film career as Boo Radley and he is PERFECT.

THE GRADUATE (1967)...Plastics!  Dustin Hoffman stars as Benjamin Braddock...done with college and hopelessly lost within himself.  Who will he be?  Desperately trying to define himself through the two Robinson women played by Katherine Ross and Anne Brancroft.  Mike Nichols directs the screenplay from Buck Henry and Calder Willingham.  The scene at the end when Hoffman and Ross are riding off together and clearly still lost...priceless.  A film that says a whole lot about where young people were at this point in America.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)...Boy, was Hoffman hot at this point, or what?  Hoffman creates his second iconic character in just two years.  Joining him was Jon Voight who would never be any better again.  Director John Schlesinger creates a New York that you can smell through the screen.  Working from Waldo Salt's screenplay, Hoffman and Voight create two characters that we should find reprehensible, but their essential humanity and their attempts to survive and, God help them, reach their pitiable  dreams make you empathize with them.  "I'm walkin' here!"

THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974)...For my money it's a better film than Godfather I.  Al Pacino (who I saw live in Central Park last year on the closing night of "The Merchant of Venice.  He was Shylock.  He broke character to wave at passing helicopters)  picks up Michael Corleone where he left him, as the new Godfather.  Meanwhile, Francis Ford Coppola shows us the story of the rise of Vito Corleone with Robert DeNiro in the role that Brando (did I mention that I met Brando once?) had created in the earlier film and had won the Oscar for.  DeNiro is PERFECT.  He would win the Oscar as well.  Oh, and John Cazale as Fredo.  Tough role.  Cazale =PERFECT. Godfather I was the practice round.  Godfather II got it right.

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)...Jack Nicholson becomes R.P. McMurphy.  Who's crazy?  Us or them?  Who is "us'?  Who is "them"?  Is there any difference.  And, like a lot of Nicholson's film work, it's about rules...and breaking them.  And the cast of crazies: Danny DeVito, Chistopher Lloyd, William Redfield and Brad Dourif...PERFECT and Will Sampson as the Chief fully realizes the creation Kesey set out in the book.  Like "Mockingbird" above, this was a tremendous adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel.  Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben somehow managed to translate the book, told from the point of view of Chief Bromden to the screen and keep the feel of the book in tact.  Nicholson shines, winning an Oscar, as did director Milos Forman, Hauben and Goldman, Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched.  This was the first film since "It Happened One Night" in 1934 to win the Big Five Oscars (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay).  "Silence of the Lambs" would do it again in 1991.

TAXI DRIVER (1976)...Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle...also insane...but in such a different way than R.P. McMurphy.  This is Martin Scorsese's best film.  You can have your "Raging Bull" and your "Goodfellas" and your "The Departed".  This was his best.  DeNiro...again PERFECT and scary and so very much a reflection of the American zeitgeist at the time.  And that scene with Scorsese in the back seat of the cab...wow!  And the scene that concludes Travis' rampage to rescue Jodie Foster's character with DeNiro out of ammo and unable to put the exclamation point on it all through what he clearly plans to be his suicide...maybe the singularly most chilling character moment in the 70's.

SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)...Steven Spielberg's masterwork.  He had never been better.  I don't think he'll be this good again (although "Saving Private Ryan" comes close).  Liam Neeson plays the title role and he's fine, but its Ben Kinglsley's Itzhak Stern and Ralph Fiennes' Amon Goeth that set the bar in this true story of a man who saved thousands of Jews in World War II Germany.  You ask yourself if you could do what these people did?  And the conclusion when we see the actual people that are portrayed in the film...brilliant.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)...Paul Thomas Anderson's meditation on greed, corruption and religion in America through the prism of the oil boom in the early 20th century.  Brilliantly written by Anderson and fully realized by Daniel Day-Lewis.  Day-Lewis' creation of Daniel Plainview is every bit as frightening as Brando's Vito Corleone or Boris Karloff's monster in the original "Frankenstein."  Johnny Greenwood's score is PERFECT.  It's the newest addition to my list but I just couldn't knock off any of the existing top ten.

  Close but no cigar: "It's a Wonderful Life" "Dr. Strangelove" "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" "American Graffiti" "Chinatown" "L.A. Confidential" "Pulp Fiction" "Saving Private Ryan" and "Annie Hall"

What do you think?  What's on your top ten list?  Comment? 

Have a great 4th of July!