Five Favorite Movies

I love lists, especially movie lists. Top 10 movies of the year! Top 10 movies of all-time! Top 10 comedies! Top 10 movies featuring talking animals! So, for no other reason than I just felt like putting a list together, I present my Five Favorite Movies. I would do a Top 10, but I love so many movies that they all get sort of jumbled. (Also, I'm super lazy and writing about 10 movies seemed like way too much work.)

The Big Lebowski
I plan on writing a lot more about Lebowski once I start my Coen Brothers Project, but I have to acknowledge that it is far and away my favorite movie. Every actor is perfectly cast in their role, from Jeff Bridges' iconic turn as The Dude to John Goodman's hilariously rage-filled performance as Walter Sobchack to Jon Polito's relatively small role as Da Fino. I see or hear something new every single time I watch it. As soon as the company credits have ended and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" starts playing, I'm already giggling with delight. I've probably seen Lebowski 50 times and I'd happily watch it 50 more. I can't wait to watch my freshly arrived Blu-ray.

Zero Effect
There are two genres I'm a complete sucker for: private eye movies and heist movies. Zero Effect is writer/director Jake Kasdan's first movie and still his best (although I maintain that Walk Hard remains vastly underrated) and it's his take on the private eye genre. It's not a conventional hard-boiled detective movie, it's actually quite funny. Bill Pullman turns in a great performance as "the mysterious and elusive Daryl Zero." He's the world's greatest private detective, but when he's not on the job, he's a complete recluse and a bit of a nutjob. He holes up in his apartment (which has approximately 786 different types of anti-burglary devices) drinking Tab cola, eating from the world's largest bag of pretzels and writing terrible songs. His assistant, Steve Arlo, is played by Ben Stiller before he started getting typecast as the twitchy, awkward loser with a heart of gold he's played for the past 10 years or so. Arlo procures work for Zero since Zero never meets his clients in person. Zero's latest case involves Gregory Stark, a wealthy businessman (played by a wonderfully slimy Ryan O'Neal) who is being blackmailed. It's Zero's job to find the blackmailer and find Stark's missing keys. Along the way, he makes a connection with a paramedic named Gloria Sullivan, who is played by Kim Dickens. In true detective movie fashion, there are twists and turns along the way, but Zero is always one step ahead. Zero Effect is a wonderful little gem of a movie.

Out of Sight
Speaking of heist movies, here's one about George Clooney as Jack Foley, a bank robber who has done one too many stints in prison and aims to be in on one last score before he quits the life of crime for good. Sounds familiar, right? As the great Roger Ebert is fond of saying, "A movie is not what it is about but how it is about it." This isn't your typical "one last score and I'm out" movie. Director Steven Soderbergh fragments the narrative to tell his story. We start with Foley walking out of a building, ripping off the tie he's wearing and flinging it down on the sidewalk in disgust. What is the building? Why is he so angry? Why did he just throw away a perfectly good tie? The answers come much later in the film. Along the way, we meet Foley's partner Buddy (Ving Rhames), their idiot accomplice Glen (Steve Zahn), a former prize-fighter turned inmate Maurice "Snoopy" Miller (Don Cheadle, who is absolutely mesmerizing every time he's on screen) and the woman who is trying to put them all in jail, Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez, before she became an insufferable diva). Needless to say, you don't cast two incredibly attractive people like Clooney and Lopez in your movie and NOT have them get romantic. The two have an easy chemistry together, including one of the sexiest seduction scenes ever committed to film. Out of Sight is wonderfully directed, masterfully edited, sexy, funny and has a killer soundtrack.

Brick
A detective movie set in a high school where the kids all speak like they just walked out of a Raymond Chandler novel. Sounds gimmicky, right? It would be if writer/director Rian Johnson didn't commit so thoroughly to his vision. High school can be a scary place and Johnson recognizes that, shooting the movie primarily in cold blues, steely grays and icy whites. The tone of the film is dark and foreboding and never lets up. Johnson also deserves a ton of credit for casting Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role as Brendan. Gordon-Levitt is absolutely pitch perfect. Brick was made before Gordon-Levitt became a certifiable A-Lister, so I primarily knew him as the goofy kid with the long girly hair from Third Rock from the Sun and he absolutely blew me away in this movie the first time I saw it. He handles Johnson's tricky dialog with aplomb and turns Brendan into a self contained ball of rage and fury. He is absolutely relentless in his pursuit to find out what happened to his dead ex-girlfriend. He takes beating after beating, but he just keeps coming and won't rest until his mission is accomplished. Brick grabs hold of you and doesn't let go. (Johnson's first movie, a short called Evil Demon Golf Ball from Hell!!! is also worth checking out.)

Die Hard
The best action movie ever made. Bruce Willis plays the iconic John McClane, a New York cop who is in the wrong place at the wrong time. McClane has flown out to LA to make amends with his estranged wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) and drops in on her company Christmas party at Nakatomi Plaza. While he's upstairs in Holly's office freshening up after a long flight, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman in his best role) and his band of terrorists seize the building in order to break into the Nakatomi vault and steal $640 million in bearer bonds. It's up to McClane to stop them. Die Hard is just a master class in action film-making. Fight scenes are well choreographed, shit gets blowed up real good and the hero and villain are both extremely well drawn characters played by actors who embody their roles so thoroughly that you couldn't possibly imagine anybody else in them. Die Hard is a hell of a lot of fun. Yippee kai-yay, motherfuckers.