Movies I Have Loved
Some of My Favorites
I have responded to Elena Tucker’s challenge to write about my favorite movies, as she always responds to my challenges with delightful stories of her own. Here’s hers:
This will not be a comprehensive list of all my favorite movies. We really don’t have that much time. I’m just going to talk about the ones that pop into my mind when I think of movies I have loved.
The Sting, a 1973 gem starring Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Robert Shaw, and many others, is about as close to perfection as a movie I’ve seen has ever come. Once, when I was on my first ship in the Navy, an old World War II leftover Destroyer (Gearing-class), I managed to get myself restricted to the ship for about a month. I don’t remember which infraction earned me this honor — I was always getting into some kind of trouble my first few months on that ship.
They would show movies in the Mess Decks every night, after dinner, but it would be the same movie every night for a month. The Sting happened to be the featured movie during my month of restriction. It made an otherwise lousy month tolerable. No matter how bad things were in the engine room each day, and they were pretty bad, I always knew I had The Sting to look forward to that night.
I never got tired of it. They showed it on a sheet hung in the middle of the mess decks, so I could see it frontways, or backways, depending on which side of the sheet I would be sitting. I’d even take this one over Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for a great Redford-Newman flick.
The bad guy (played brilliantly by Shaw)got it, but good, in the end, and the crew set him up, beautifully. This movie just had it all — great acting, impeccable timing, good music, and marvelous storytelling.
Drop Dead Fred is the next one that comes to mind. Phoebe Cates was simply brilliant in this 1991 comedy, and Carrie Fisher played a great supporting role. This one could have been really bad, but the players carried it, and turned it into a hilariously funny movie, with a powerful message about self-love in the end. Really beautifully done.
When Cates’ character gets unceremoniously dumped by her sleazebag, cheating husband, she winds up back home with an overly controlling, “told-you-so” Mom, and there’s only one way for Lizzie to deal with this impossible situation.
Her old, childhood imaginary friend, the devil-may-care Drop-Dead Fred, comes literally bouncing to the rescue. Chocked full of hilarious scenes, my favorite has to be when she (with Fred’s considerable support) manages to sink her friend’s (Fisher’s character) house-boat, with Fred at the helm. Fisher’s character’s reaction is priceless.
No favorite movie list of mine could be complete without mention of Donnie Darko, a 2001 cult classic, a very weird and disturbing movie the first time you watch it, until you see how it ends, and then you have no choice but to watch it again, knowing what you now know.
If you’re like me, you’ll watch it ten or twenty more times, and enjoy at as much or more with each watching, as you did the first time. I consider it one of Jake Gyllenhaal’s best efforts as an actor. It was also my first introduction to Jena Malone, who was wonderful in it, and Mary McDonnell as Donnie’s mom was stellar, as well.
Several lines from it just randomly pop into my head from time to time, always at the perfect time. “Rose, sometimes I question your commitment to Sparkle Motion.” “Fwank?” I know that I will never be able to look at a bunny rabbit mask the same, ever again, after watching Donnie Darko.
Of course, another classic that will always be a favorite of mine features Bette Davis at her finest — Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, from 1964. I won’t say too much about it, other than that it’s a suspense thriller, but I do have to mention one of the reasons it remains among my favorites.
My brother Brian and I had seen it at the movies when it came out. A couple years later, it was featured as a late night T.V. thriller movie. Gathered around the television in our darkened living room were about ten kids watching it, just gripped by the drama of the movie.
A little while before a certain scene that Brian and I knew was coming up, I carefully snuck out of the room, got my altar boy cassock (black robe) that was hanging in the hallway, tiptoed up the stairs, buttoned the cassock up around the top of my head, and waited, peaking through the gaps between buttons for the scene.
In the movie, Bette’s cousin is at the top of a long, spiral staircase, carrying a box in her hands, with Bette at the bottom looking up at her. Her cousin trips, and out of the box pops the head of Bette’s former lover, who she has long been suspected of having murdered when they were teenagers in love.
The head rolls down the stairway and lands at Bette’s feet, her screaming in horror all the way. Just as this scene was happening in the movie, I stomped my feet at the top of the stairway, and threw my body down the stairs and rolled right into middle of the living room, appearing headless in the dark.
The screams were deafening, but the loudest of all the screams came from the oldest one in the room, my older brother Ken, screaming, “OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD…PETE! IS THAT YOU?!? GODDAMNIT, PETE! IS THAT YOU!?!?!?”
I was shaking uncontrollably with laughter inside the black cassock, as my brother Brian was rolling on the floor laughing at the very best of all practical jokes we’d ever pulled off. It still makes my laugh to think about it!
This memory makes Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte one of my all-time favorite movies.
How about you? What are you favorite movies?
