My favorite films and why they are my favorite

This list is not in order of best to worst of most favorite to least. I really couldn’t do it that way. I have a list of films that I enjoy. They are my favorites as a director ( I can’t remember which one) explained film like putting together a mosaic. You take each little piece (the acting performances, the music, the screenplay, etc) and polish them up and put them together. Hopefully when you are finished you have a design that is appealing.

Certainly there are good actors in wonderful parts. The best ones are the ones you cannot imagine anyone else in that part. Moreover, you are completely convinced you aren’t watching an actor at all – Robert Duvall in The Apostle, Benecio Del Toro in Traffic, Johnny Depp in Blow.

Comedies don’t fit my list. They either make me laugh or they don’t. Comedy on film is not an easy task. A film like Borat, got praise for being socially relevant and funny – I found the film only to be socially relevant. I realize I’m in the minority with this one and I don’t care. Borat is not funny. Ali G is a different story as is Sasha Baron Cohen. I don’t need comedy to be socially relevant, but some of the Marx Brothers’ films did and Chaplin’s The Dictator was relevant in a big way.

Horror films don’t really fit. I like some suspenseful films like Seven, but I really can’t compare it against any of the Nightmare on Elm Street films.

1. Chinatown – Growing up in Los Angeles makes you a little jaded when you see films. You know a lot of the technical secrets and you also have a hard time suspending you disbelief when you know darn well from the trees in the background that you aren’t in Vietnam, you are in the Warner’s Brothers lot in Santa Clarita or you aren’t in Tombstone, Arizona - that’s Vasquez Rocks. There is nothing in the background setting that gives Chinatown away. You are completely convinced you are in 1930’s Los Angeles. Also Jack Nicholson and the wound his nose through most of the film is great. I can think of few other actors that would pull it off. The story is compelling, Roman Polanski has a cameo. What else could you want.
2. Ed Wood – For a lot of the same reasons regarding the setting, Ed Wood pulls of 1950’s in Hollywood. Johnny Depp is pretty over the top, but it fits with the subject nature. Martin Landau is completely deserving of his Oscar performance. It is a really fun film.
3. JFK – I find it really funny that congress thought so much of this film, that they opened a new investigation into the assassination. I have seen this film a number of times, and they never really come to a conclusion who killed Kennedy. They really only come to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald did not, which is laughable. Politics aside though, this is a tremendous film. There are more great actors in this film, I think, than any other – Gary Oldman, Jack Lemon, Joe Peci, Kevin Bacon, just to name a few. This film I think gets a lot of criticism for its historical inaccuracies. I say if you want history, watch a documentary. This is a film, and a great one at that.
4. Dead Man – Yeah, I said it. I know Jim Jarmusch is the darling of indie film, but I don’t care. This is a great buddy film. I also particularly like his technique of telling how far west you move by the class of people that are on the train. It moves from the upper class and their teacups to ruffian cowboys shooting at buffalo through the windows.
5. Basquiat – I think it would be tremendously difficult to direct a story about a painter. Especially a painter that was your friend. This is a wildly interesting film. Visually, it has a lot of wonderful touches as do the performances. My favorite moment of the film is when slacker, stoner and all around hanger-on, Bennie, pretty well nails how long it takes to get famous and how to stay famous. He tells it to Jean Michelle during a casual moment shooting baskets.
6. Seven – As much as I want not to like Brad Pitt, he if often very thoughtful in his performances. Seven is one of them. This is probably the best opening title sequence on film to date. It is like a Wiktin photograph come to life. I particularly like that despite having gory and gruesome references, the film is not a blood bath by any means, in fact I can think of only of two, bloody scenes.
7. Citizen Kane – Yeah, I know it makes everyone’s list, but it should. If film is a mosaic, the Citizen Kane is photo realism. Every piece is polished, ever scene, and angle, performance sound, story it meticulous. If you think it is over rated, you have to consider that nothing looks like Citizen Kane before the film debuted, but nearly everything looked like it (or started to) soon afterward.
8. Pulp Fiction – For the same reasons as Kane, it was the first film to shake up the format of film. I think I saw it 9 times in the theater. It was the first to use titles for each scene and the first to shake up the story order. Again, nothing looked like Pulp Fiction before it came out, but now even t.v. shows use many of the film’s devices.
9. The Wizard of Oz – I know now my list is beginning to look cliché, but the thing about this film is that is was made in 1939 and nothing in it really gives that fact away. That in itself is amazing and unlike any other film.