Bloggers Reveal Their Favorite Movies Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Posted by Baba Oje in Baba Oje, bite the hand that feeds you, Bloggers Gone Wild, F*ck, this has a lot of links!, Great Movies You Might Have Missed, Jesus confusion, mouth parties.Tags: instant drunken midnight movie reviews, the departed
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You’ve heard about their favorite baseball players and picks for this year’s MLB season, so now its time to hear some the interweb’s best bloggers (I mean that in a good way, promise). So if you want to know what must see movies the writers of blogs such as Kissing Suzy Kolber, The Dugout, and The Big Lead have in their DVD player, hit the jump.
Big Daddy Drew – Kissing Suzy Kolber
Caddyshack. It has tits, gratuitous dick jokes, quotable dialogue and Ted Knight. I wish I had a more original choice, but I’ve watched Caddyshack more than any other movie ever.
B – The Dugout
My favorite movie is Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru, about a man with stomach cancer who decides he should do something worthwhile with his life before he dies or is remade 50 years later as a limp-wristed vehicle for Tom Hanks, or whoever. If you told me at age 15 that an old man singing on a swingset would make me burst into tears and change my life, I would’ve busted you upside the head with my VHS copy of Independence Day.
Thigh Master – Thighs Wide Shut
of all time? 4 way tie for #1
A Clockwork Orange – no time for the old in-out, love, I’ve just come to read the meter
Citizen Kane – dude, it’s Citizen Kane
Psycho – my most favorite Bates, next to master
Trainspotting – made me never want to use a needle, or take a dump in Scotland
[I’m assuming the picks represent each of the three writers over at The Big Lead. All decisions were made 2 days BCC (before Colin Coward). -Baba]
COMEDY
Wedding Crashers – best opening hour of a movie, bar none
Old School – tremendous opening 45 minutes … then a drastic falloff
American Pie – when it first came out, instantly the best comedy i had ever
seen
GENERAL
Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind– Like movies that make me think.
Vanilla Sky – Universally hated, but loved by me.
Departed – Awesome
DJ Gallo – Sports Pickle, ESPN
Censored by ESPN
Yes, it appears Gallo has a clause in his contract that disallows him from writing for
anybody outside of ESPN and the Sports Pickle. That being said, he couldn’t have been nicer about it, sending a very nice email explaining his predicament but happy to have the “honor” of being invited by DeadOn. Stand up guy, that DJ. I’m also afraid to say anything bad about him because it looks like he will assassinate me, no questions asked.
Big Blue Monkey – I Dislike Your Favorite Team
There’s one movie that I think is a grossly under watched piece of brilliance. The Third Man directed by underrated Englishman Carol Reed. Screenplay by Graham Greene. Possibly the most haunting score ever in movie history, exclusively zither music.
Carol Reed, who was used to working with children, was able to contain the prima donna aspects of his big star, Orson Welles, and yet still make him one of the finest villains the Movies have ever seen. Joseph Cotten plays American Western writer Holly Martins*, who goes to post WWII Vienna to seek out his old college buddy Harry Lime, who is apparently in a spot of trouble, and/or dead.
That’s all I can say, without giving away the movie. Think of a Memento from 1949, or some other great thriller. But with fucking Orson Welles, and Joseph Cotten, and Graham Greene pulling the strings. To my mind, still the best movie ever. Citizen Kane can suck it.
* I can’t even look at Nigerian striker Martins without hearing English actor Trever Howard saying “Martins?”
Eternal Sunshine (of course). I like it because it reminds me of my relationship with Will Leitch.
also, for my non everyone-already-loves-this-movie submission, I select Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. I think in 2001 it was the perfect movie to pledge your love and allegiance for ironically. In 2007 the love is pure like the wool on a virgin sheep …
Thanks to all the bloggers that replied, and to those who didn’t, expect to hear from my attorney, Colin Cowherd and Associates.
DeadOn... 
Boy, that ESPN Kool-Aid is strong stuff.
This is a great idea for a column.
I’ve been looking for that song from “Ikiru” on and off for three years now.
Drawn out epilogue aside, it’s one of my favorite movies.
I think the song is called Life is So Short, but I should probably just pay for an import soundtrack.
Well done Baba.
Nice call on The Third Man, BBMonkey.
“Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”
Agreed on Third Man. Beatifully shot and just all around excellent. Everyone should watch it.
I too agree on Third Man mostly because you KNOW Orson Welles had a big hand in directing it. Carol Reed was a patsy.
Also, it’s a trendy choice, but really is my favorite film: Le Samourai Directed by Melville. No one has ever been cooler than Alain Delon is in that film.
Chief Wahoo – what did you think of Ghost Dog?
The other great thing is I saw The Third Man for a film class as a freshman, and then I saw the Pinky and the Brain episode that does the entire film in 22 minutes, and I realized how great it is, except no kid is ever going to get the parody.
Elric, Parts of it were amazing, namely Forest’s performance, Cinematography, Direction, Art Direction, in that order. The majpr flaw I saw in the picture was the performances by the B-list hacks that played the various Mafiosi. Some atrocious acting going on there. To my mind that was all that kept it from being a great picture. Jarmusch’s best work in a while for sure.
Your thoughts on it?
Chief Wahoo – I agree completely about the Mafiosi – a few better actors (Chris Meloni?) would have made the film a lot better. But otherwise, I enjoyed it a lot. And Forest Whitaker is awesome.
One of the things I can never decide is if I like how transparent the cinematic references are in Ghost Dog. Sometimes I think it’s too much and other times, I think it’s a great blend of homage and original material. Or if nothing’s original, at least a very good job cribbing from various sources.
Elric,
I have no problem with borrowing as long as the new work is good. I actually kind of dig it. Tarantino is the king of this, but I think it works. Ringo Lam’s “City on Fire” was the source for an inordinate amount of “Resevoir Dogs” but both were good films, so ok. “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” was also derivative and didn’t work at all, so it felt cheap. Not really fair, maybe, but how I feel.
Are you going to check out the Director’s cut of “Payback”?
[…] Bloggers Reveal Their Favorite Movies […]
Chief Wahoo – There’s nothing wrong with borrowing. It’s just so blatant in some films, but then again, like you point out, Tarantino and people who do it less well then he can take that and use it to make their movies better. It’s not even kitsch or self-awareness.
I didn’t even know the Director’s cut of Payback was coming out – I’ll have to see if I can Netflix it – that’s going to be significantly different from (and probably better than) the theatrical release if the amount of editing I’m reading about is accurate.
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First Blood: Rambo!
Bold tech, all the rambo movies kicked ass. I grew up on bond movies, still like them every now and then but Im really into vampires now…oh and the league of extraordinary gentlemen. Stewart townsend is hot and he played the character dorian grey really well. I also like julian sands in rose red. Anyway ill stop before I go on to much. Go Dracula with bela legosi!
We clearly missed the email in our inbox, but our favorite is obviously a toss-up between Dunston Checks In and Bodyslam starring Dirk Benedict and Rowdy Roddy Piper.
Spiderman 3 anyone? I can’t wait to watch it
Good post!
-Matt
http://www.mattgunn.ca
Sports Hernia, c’mon, that isn’t even the best Roddy Piper movie. Hello, “They Live”.
I’m late to responding, but Rob I. you so crazy! The mythology around the Third Man is that Carol Reed directed Orson much as he did his child actors (with whom Carol was well known for being genius at). See “the Fallen Idol” (finally out on DVD) to see what I mean about Carol’s ability to coax great performances out of whiny babies.
How can we talk “They Live” without:
“I’m here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubble gum.”