(or: Movies are Important, period.)
‘Summer was pointless--all I did was watch
movies.’
Umm, WHAT?
<The Movie Buff glares in thunderous disapproval>
Ticking movies off a well-prepared list is
by no means a bad way to spend one’s time--call it ‘cultural education’, if you
will. From campy to classy, from extravagant period dramas to realistic parallel
cinema, from musicals to horror -- and musical horror, and horrible musicals,
God forbid --each one provides ample food for thought; modules of a course that refuses to fit into
a neat, officious-sounding title. Allow me to expound -- here is a selection of
the many, many (manymany) movies I gasped, dozed, jeered, sneered and stared
(in utter rapture, mind you) my way through this break:
Za
Lou Stories - So romance is not my thing. And I
know many who feel the same. If you’re tired of the same old formula, I suggest
unconventional romances like ‘Harold and Maude’, ‘Leon the Professional’, ‘Love
Me if You Dare’ and ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, where the protagonists are far, far
from your typical limpid-eyed lovers.
Also try ‘Romeo+Juliet’-- Baz Luhrman’s typically extravagant and mad adaptation
of the Shakespearean classic.
Where
People Generally Shoot Or Do Grievous Bodily Harm to One Another- Violence is not a guy
thing--not when it defines excellently crafted movies like ‘City of God’ (so
brutal you can’t bear to watch, yet so captivating you can’t bear not to), ‘Reservoir Dogs’ (one word: Tarantino. Check
out ‘Kill Bill’ and ‘Deathproof’ before accusing him of gender discrimination),
‘The Big Lebowski’ (two words: Coen brothers), Memento (makes ’Inception’ seem
like a Disney movie) and Se7en (you’ll never forget the Seven Cardinal Sins.
Ever).
Light
Watches - These are movies that people may either
see as mindless, or fit for a fun, one-time watch with friends. While movies
like ‘Paris, I Love You’ (French precursor to New York, I Love You), We Bought
A Zoo’, ‘About A Boy’ and ‘Ocean’s
Eleven’ are actually well-made and enjoyable, I couldn’t help feeling that ‘You
Again’, ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ and ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (see
Coming-of-Age) were best left unwatched.
Coming-of-Age - This is one genre with so many immensely popular and likeable
movies that it deserves a list of its own. My personal favourites are ‘Almost
Famous’ and ‘Napoleon Dynamite’. You could start with the classic ‘Ferris
Bueller’s Day Out’ and check out ‘Rushmore’, ‘Terri’ (see Parallel Cinema),
‘Thumbsucker’ (Parallel Cinema yet again) and ‘Superbad’ (beware: Apatowian
humour is not for the prudish). Careful ,though: it’s easy to make mistakes
like ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ (as popular as this one is, I wasn’t particularly
enamoured of a scrawny and dishevelled Depp looking perpetually constipated--but
watch out for a show-stealing young DiCaprio as the autistic younger brother).
If you haven’t started wondering whether girls
ever do come of age, do so now--this genre seems to have a definite bias. ‘Fish
Tank’ (the Parallel people do love the whole ‘growing up’ deal, methinks) is a
nice change, but once again, a caveat: this is an explicit movie about the
seedy, welfare-supported side of life in UK.
Dramas- As a genre, this is possibly my favourite. Since it’s so vaguely
defined, movies could range from Tyrannosaur (bleak, intense exploration of the
cult of domestic violence) to Sense and Sensibility (period drama adaptation of
Austen novel). Some others that I liked are I’ve Loved You So Long’ (French), The
Kids Are All Right (Oscar-winning), Trainspotting (Danny Boyle at his best),
Hope Springs (the makers of ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ manage to stay away from
heavy-handedness in their treatment of a very mature topic), Precious
(hard-hitting, this one), the universally loved Shawshank Redemption and my
favourite, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.
Try to stay away from typical Oscar fodder, though--‘A Beautiful Mind’
is good, but also overrated and shamelessly traitorous to its source material.
One exception I’m willing to make is ‘Forrest Gump’.
Parallel
Cinema- This is a touchy topic. Most mainstream
moviegoers tend to stay away from this sort of filmmaking, but some of the best
movies, in my opinion, fall in this category. I’m not talking about movies
where some bloke balancing a pot on his head while humming is sold to people
labelled ‘metaphysical symbolism’ or some such thing--those are an acquired
taste at best, and at worst, shams. There are art films that surprise us by
being accessible, and remind us gently of our narrow definitions of
entertainment, art and life in general. As much as we all love Spielberg, a
great movie doesn’t necessarily need sweeping panoramas and soaring music and a
budget that could feed a small nation. Now that I’m done with my rant, you may
wish to watch movies like ‘Paper Man’, ‘The Classroom’ (French ‘Entre les
Murs’), ‘Fish Tank’ (see Coming-of-Age), ‘Terri’ (‘obese kid learning to accept
life’ sounds clichéd, but this one is worth a watch) and ‘The Kid with the
Bike’. Finally: ‘Sita Sings the Blues’-- this one will leave you tickled that
such an ‘unorthodox’ film could be so much fun.
Old-School-This isn’t a genre, really: there are all
sorts of great movies that we miss out on simply because they’re ‘old’. I, for
one, took some time to get used to the black and white picture. Start with
Chaplin classics like ‘Modern Times’ and ‘The Kid’, wait until you fall in love,
and then go on to explore other genres, like screwball comedy (‘Some Like it
Hot’, ‘His Girl Friday’), romance (‘Casablanca’), dramas (‘Citizen Kane’, ‘On
the Waterfront’) and if you dare, black comedy (‘The Ladykillers’). Two movies
that blew my mind are ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf’.
Surreal,
Larger-than-Life Stories- These movies fit in
everywhere, yet nowhere. They have an element of the surreal, and watching them
is a truly sublime experience. ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’ is a beautiful
movie about the overwhelming resilience and personal triumph of a pint-sized
girl who’ll stay etched in your thoughts. ‘Apocalypse Now’ is a very well-known
Coppola movie that exposes war in all its primeval destructiveness. ‘Into the
Wild’ probably belongs to this category, but I tend to think of it as slightly
overrated. ‘Cloud Atlas’ might as well be sci-fi, but its epical,
time-travelling storyline qualifies it for this label.
Movies
After Which You’re Scared to Go to the Toilet Alone-
This, mind you, is a generic label for movies ranging from gory ‘Saw’ to creepy,
retro ‘House of the Devil’. There are, of course, the classics, like ‘The
Exorcist’, ‘The Blair Witch Project’’ and ‘Poltergeist’, but movies like ‘The
Vanishing’ (Dutch-French), ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’, ‘Let the Right One In’
(Swedish), ‘The Orphanage’ (Spanish), Kairo (Japanese) and ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’
will change the way you look at fear and the supernatural.
***
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