Top 10 Films: BSA106 (Screen Arts 1) Week 1

BSA106: Week 1 (Screen Arts 1)

For the first class of Screen Arts 1 we are expected to make a top 10 list containing our favourite movies or animations:

• Little Shop of Horrors (1986) Dir. Frank Oz - The unfortunate case with a lot of the movies I grew up watching is that I fell out of love with them, seeing more and more good movies made me realize just how bad so many of my childhood favourites were. That never happened to Little Shop of Horrors, a movie ,that even today, I watch on a regular basis and still enjoy every subsequent viewing. Part of that might be because it's a musical, a genre that can become infinitely watchable and a genre that I personally love, or maybe it's the 1950's sci-fi horror parody elements, another genre and time period I have a personal liking towards, but I honestly think it's just a great movie, and one that is extremely well executed. The first thing people think of when thinking Little Shop of Horrors is the amazing puppetry work on display, and while that is amazing and even outshines much more expensive movies today, I think the finesse in film-making on display here goes way beyond just that one element. By taking inspiration from older musicals and from other 50's classic, Oz creates a very clean and precise movie, by combining some of the best blocking I've ever seen with some complicated camera work, he creates a movie in which the camera moves seamlessly throughout the scenes. Watching the special features I realized just how careful and specific the filmmakers had to me when making this, and re-watching it takes me back to a time where "movie magic" was still an appropriate and accurate adjective.

                               

• Inglorious Basterds (2009) Dir. Quentin Tarantino - Personally I prefer some of Tarantino's later work over his earlier outings, unlike most people I find his period-pieces much more interesting than his crime movies (e.g. Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs). That said I had a really hard time deciding between Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, but different times, different preferences, and at the moment I'm in an Inglorious Basterds kind of mood. Of course the best thing about any Tarantino movie is the dialogue, and I think here it might be the best he's ever written. I think a large part of why that is, is because of the structure. He's used the five chapter structure multiple times in his career and I think it works extremely well in this movie. What it allows is for more fully fleshed out scenes to take place without disrupting the flow of the film. Because it is chapter based, Tarantino can write scenes like the bar scene or the opening chapter that stretches for long periods of time and works completely on tension without seeming out of place or becoming stale. This type of structure makes the movie feel like a series of interconnected short stories, which I guess is fitting since he originally intended it to be a TV show. The reason I think this helps the film is because it really makes it feel like an epic while still allowing the meat of the story to be personal and contained. Combine that amazing writing with a beautiful execution (the cinematography, the performances, Tarantino's unique cinematic flares, the use of music) and you have yourself a war movie classic.

                             

• Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Dir. David Lean - I love movie epics and I think of all the ones I have seen Lawrence of Arabia is the best. Not just because it does an epic story so extremely well, with it's editing, adventure vibe and breathtaking cinematography, but because it's a truly interesting and honest character study. It meshes spectacle and emotion perfectly. The ending is one of my favourite scenes ever, an understated goodbye to the land the character came to love as the military arrives. It's such a small ending for such a large-scale movie and really showcases what's important, that being the main character. What made me really fall in love with Lawrence of Arabia, more so than other movie epics from the same period (e.g. Ben-Hur) is that it feels like a very personal and ultimately small movie. The character is so well realized and by the end of the movie the viewers know him inside and out. It's kind of crazy that Lean and the rest of the creative team were allowed to tell a story like this on such a big budget.

                             

• Ponyo (2008) Dir. Hayao Miyazaki - Once again, different days, different preferences, with Miyazake's films it's always a battle between Spirited Away and Ponyo for me. The reason I love Ponyo so much is that it contains everything that makes this director's movies so unique. It's less about the story and more about the characters and their emotions. The characters in Ponyo feel very real, thanks to the accurate animated portrayals of how people move and act, you can't help but immediately take a liking to them. The thing that puts Ponyo apart from it's siblings for me is it's dreamlike sense of immersion. It's really hard to explain why I enjoy this movie so much just because of how different it is. Watching it transports you this other world, it is utterly immersive. And this is why it ranks as one of my favourites, I feel like I can return to it at any time, in any mood, and get completely sucked in.

• The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966) Dir. Sergeo Leone - I didn't grow up with westerns, so The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was the first one I ever saw - and what a good introduction this was. The problem is that every subsequent Western I saw paled in comparison, even the good ones. What really let's this film rise above it's contemporaries is that Leone made it more than just a spaghetti western. With a civil war backdrop, a morally gray sense of good and evil and a commentary on greed and war, he transformed it into an epic. Another one of my favourite scenes in movie history is one of the character's search for a grave in a crowded graveyard. Leone built scenes like these around the music created by Ennio Morricone, so it absolutely merges with the score. Along with the relevance in the story and the much needed breather, this scene is not only great on it's own but also in the greater sense of the movie as a whole.

• Silver Linings Playbook (2012) Dir. David O. Russel - What David O. Russel is really good at is writing interesting, yet realistic characters, and I think the perfect showcase for that is Silver Linings Playbook. The dialogue and performances are very realistic in a way where it draws you into the world of these characters and yet it's also a good, light hearted comedy. The best kind of comedy is character based comedy, and the characters here are fully fleshed out in a way where they actually feel like real people. What I love most about this is that it's an honest portrayal of the bi-polar disorder while also realizing how ridiculous people with this disorder can appear. It's making fun of it in a sincere and loving manner, just as you would of your own family. It's a pretty generic romantic comedy plot, but done incredibly well. It's like saying: "what if the people in these movies actually acted like normal people?" - the result is extremely entertaining. For example the climactic dance sequence, in which the routine the main character's chose reflects their own erratic and inconsistent personalities.

• In Bruges (2008) Dir. Martin McDonagh - In Bruges is an extremely good comedy. Once again it achieves this, not just through good writing, but by creating three dimensional and engaging characters. What I admire most about this film is the dialogue and structure of the comedy, like a good stand-up routine, the jokes and gags intertwine and flow throughout the story. A joke isn't just told and left to the wayside for a cheap chuckle, it usually makes a return down the line or in some manner evolves naturally with the plot. The jokes also support who the characters are and the movie explores their morals and personalities. Most jokes serve two purposes - one, to get a laugh, and two, to show a character's state of mind. It's a far cry from the standard fare Hollywood puts out these days, and manages to be both extremely funny and to tell an interesting story.

• Where the Wild Things Are (2009) Dir. Spike Jonze - Where the Wild Things Are is one of the best adaptations I have ever seen, I saw the film first and was extremely intrigued in what the book must have been like, only to be surprised to find that the book was a short, simple children's picture book. What Spike Jonze did here is extremely smart, he took a simple story and started adding layers to it. The film explores the state of mind and thought processes of a young boy who runs away. I love metaphors in anything, and here it is very interestingly done, where the metaphors aren't definitive, instead blurred. Watching the movie the viewer is constantly trying to figure out which characters in the boy's imaginary world represents which ones in the real world, only to find that the lines are blurred and that it's less about a direct translation and more about how a young boy would process those events and emotions. The way the imaginary characters change throughout the film is very interesting to watch, as the main Wild Thing (representing the boy) goes from being the lovable outcast to the villain. I like it because it shows how the boy's point of view of the situation changes and he realizes he is in the wrong. It's an extremely relate-able plot, we've all been in the same situation as the boy in the movie, we might not have run away, but we've all been through that process of realizing that the people around us and rest of the world isn't to blame, the problem lies instead with our own attitude. NOTE: Some of the best special effects I've seen in the last twenty years, the perfect combination between practical and CGI.

• The Double (2013) Dir. Richard Ayoade - The Double is a very smart comedy and unfortunately very hard to explain. Once again, like Ponyo, it's a very unique film. It's an adaptation of a play, which itself is an adaptation of an 1866 Russian novella. What makes the film stand out is it's amazing use of atmosphere through the combination of cinematography and music. Very immersive and very unique, the type of film I'd like to see more of.

• The Prestige (2006) Dir. Christopher Nolan - I'm not the biggest Christopher Nolan fan, and making this list I was actually surprised that he beat out other director's like Danny Boyle and Alexander Payne, but credit where credit is due. Without a doubt The Prestige is Nolan's best film, I have watched it too many times to count and for some reason I keep coming back even if the twist is already spoiled for me. And that is where I think The Prestige's genius lies, in it's re-watchability. Other than my personal gravitation towards illusion and stage magic (something which has always intrigued me) I think what makes The Prestige so good is it's structure and editing. My favourite graphic novel is Watchmen and the way Christopher Nolan structured the Prestige really reminded me of that. In that book some issues are written specifically to explore certain characters and in those issues the way the story is told changes. Same idea with The Prestige, the movie takes on the essence of it's source material and the structure reflects it, it is written as if it itself is a magic trick.

Honorable Mentions:

• Amadeus (1984) Dir. Milos Forman
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2008) Dir. TIm Burton
• Coraline (2009) Dir. Henry Selick
• Steve Jobs (2015) Dir. Danny Boyle
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Dir. Ang Lee
• Spider-Man 2 (2004) Dir. Sam Raimi
• Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Dir. Wes Anderson
• Nebraska (2013) Dir. Alexander Payne
• M (1931) Dir. Fritz Lang
• Looper (2012) Dir. Rian Johnson
• Citizen Kane (1941) Dir. Orson Welles