JULY 1997:

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAV-O-RITE THINGS...

It seems when you visit internet chat rooms with a movie theme, one question always comes up. Well, one question besides 'Age/Sex?' that is. That question is, 'What's your favorite movie?'. It's amazing how much we can tell about someone from their answer to this question. (Or how much we think we can tell - and isn't it more fun and less work to just assume we know all about people by their answer to a meaningless question? I prefer it, anyway...) For instance, if a person picks GONE WITH THE WIND as their favorite movie, I peg them as someone who likes to go along with preconceived notions of what they should like. If they name JURASSIC PARK, then I figure they're young and enjoy spectacle over substance. And if they pick something like JURY DUTY, I just assume they're a fucking moron.

In any event, I thought I'd make a list of some of my favorite films, to allow you to see whether I fall into the 'likes to go along', 'spectacle over substance' or 'fucking moron' category. Now, by calling these my 'favorite' films, I mean just that - they are personal favorites. I don't necessarily consider them the best films ever made, just films that are special to me. Special because I saw them at a specific time in my life, or with certain people, or even (radical as it may seem) because they're pretty danged good movies.

Listed alphabetically, they are:

ANNIE HALL: Woody Allen made a series of classic comedies in the 1970's that is rivaled only by Preston Sturges' amazing streak in the 1940's. Both men enjoyed complete control over their films, and what emerged were distinctive comedies not watered-down by any 'creative' interference. TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, BANANAS, SLEEPER, LOVE AND DEATH, MANHATTAN, STARDUST MEMORIES - that's a mind-boggling string of films. But ANNIE HALL is still my favorite, because it's the movie that began Allen's transformation from a maker of goofy comedies to one of the great filmmakers working today. Well, working in the 70's and 80's, anyway. ANNIE HALL is a mix of humor and emotion, analyzing the ins and outs of relationships with a great deal of invention. This is hardly pedestrian filmmaking. Allen uses flashbacks, split screens, fantasy sequences, breaking the fourth wall - every trick in the book - to tell his story. And it's a great story with fresh characters (this is before all his dialog started sounding like the subtitles to a foreign film). I don't know if I think ANNIE HALL is Woody Allen's best film - I could make arguments for MANHATTAN, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS or STARDUST MEMORIES - but it'll always be special to me.

A touching, adult romantic comedy from a guy who, it turns out,
doesn't much like touching adults. Ba dum bing.

BRINGING UP BABY: For my money, this is the best of the pure, go-for-broke, be-as-funny-as-possible screwball comedies. Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, a leopard named Baby, a dog named George and a missing intercostal clavicle all combine to make this a classic farce. I love that all this film wants to do is make you fall out of your seat laughing. We don't get bogged down in all the needless crap that people think we need in comedies these days. If this script were to go to a studio today, they'd have these notes: Hepburn's character is trying to steal a man away from his fiancé, that might make her seem unsympathetic... All Cary Grant's character does is react, we need him to be more assertive - why's he going along with all this?... The dog and the leopard fighting could get us in trouble with animal rights groups - we don't want to offend anyone... It seems static once we get to the house in the country, all they do is follow the dog around - can't we open it up a little? And etc. In other words, let's analyze it to death, all of which serves to suck the humor out of every situation. Thankfully nobody worried about the dark secrets in these characters' pasts that make them act the way they're acting (movies constantly offer up amateur psychology from people with values more twisted than Ebenezer Scrooge). All this movie wants to be is funny, a goal it achieves wonderfully.

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID: This is the first film I ever saw that I realized had been written by someone. In a good way, that is. It's the first time I realized that all that cool dialog, and all the neat-o stuff Butch and Sundance were doing... someone created that on the page first. I understood the theme of one era passing and another coming in, I got the running joke of "Who are those guys?" and actually realized it was a running joke, and I liked the way the characters spoke, in a stylized, humorous way that often hid the pain of what they were going through. Now this may be pretty basic stuff to you, but I was 8 when I saw this film. And all those realizations coming one on top of another at 8 is a very big deal. This film, more than any other, made me want to be a screenwriter. It made such an impression, in fact, that I think I've been trying to write it ever since - my partner and I seem to have a soft spot for buddy comedies with goofy banter. BUTCH is also the first movie I acted out with my friends. My next door neighbor and I would re-create scenes from the film and pretend to be Butch and Sundance - always careful to get the dialog just right. I always insisted on being Sundance, by the way. If any armchair psychologists want to chew that over and tell me what it means I'd be more than happy to listen.

Blood, guts, brains, guns, more blood, machetes, more guts...
there must be a sale at Fashion Gal!

DAWN OF THE DEAD: DAWN proves that a horror film can be about more than one thing - blood and guts! Okay, okay - and our consumerist society. It's this subtext (fancy writer term #37) that makes DAWN more than a gore-fest. In other words, its brains aren't all splattered on the walls, some were actually used in the making of the film. To say that viewing this film for the first time was an intense experience is an understatement. My friends and I had an inkling of what we were in for, having read a few of the reviews... and then seeing a credit in the opening titles for 'Weapons Supplied by' further tightened our puckers. I'll never forget the audience reaction to the first ten minutes of this film - after a SWAT team shootout in the halls of a tenement building (in which heads are blown off and chunks are bitten out of people by zombies - all in bright, juicy color!) there was a stunned silence during the first quiet scene. And then this murmur started. It was low at first, then spread like wildfire around the theatre as people turned to whoever they were with to ask if they had really seen what they thought they'd seen. Little did they know, they hadn't seen nothin' yet - there were still heads to chop off and people to eviscerate! But to dismiss DAWN OF THE DEAD as only a violent film is an injustice. Sure, it's not for those with weak stomachs, but if you're able to stick it out you'll have seen a film boasting great characters, a terrific plot, an inspired setting, and a whole lot of humor. Not to mention fancy writer term #37. This is as close to an 'epic' horror film as you can get. But it's not its scope that's epic, it's its ideas.

HALLOWEEN: This is a terrific horror film because it does what many in the genre cannot - it scares the beejabbers out of you. I saw this movie at a drive-in the first week it came out (that pretty much sums up my high school life, folks - I went to the drive-in and actually watched the movies). I remember watching the amazing first POV shot (well, 'shots', actually... but that's nitpicking) and getting more and more excited by the virtuosity on display. Jeez, maybe this director actually knew what he was doing! Boy, did he. HALLOWEEN is John Carpenter's best film because it's so simple and straightforward. All it wants to do is give you the willies. Period. That's it. The boogeyman has come to a small town and is killing people one-by-one. The script is remarkably devoid of any stylistic flourishes... but Carpenter's direction is not. He masterfully uses the Steadicam and the widescreen format to keep you off-balance, with the killer popping up in unexpected places within the frame. And the music - also very simple and straightforward - only serves to heighten the suspense. I found it interesting that at the end of SCREAM, when HALLOWEEN is playing on the TV, its music makes the scenes more creepy and atmospheric than the score of the main film. It's unfortunate that HALLOWEEN's success went on to inspire a string of sleazy imitations and sequels, because they make it easy to forget that this is truly a great film. Not just a great 'horror' film - a great film.

John Carpenter's classic. A great film which has spawned
more crap than an incontinent elephant.

MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL: This is the film that first showed me you can be totally, hopelessly, irreverently silly - and still be very, very smart. That's the quality that makes all of the Python films (and of course their BBC television show) so wonderful. They're able to write about important, weighty subjects with great knowledge and intelligence... and make some really stupid jokes about them. I think THE LIFE OF BRIAN is a more complete film than HOLY GRAIL, but there's something about the thrill of discovery that makes GRAIL my favorite Python movie. I had heard about this movie for a long time, and when I finally located a theatre showing it (about 60 miles away) I pestered my mother until she agreed to drive me to see it. So I saw GRAIL for the first time sitting next to my mother - and was amazed that she thought it was as funny as I did. Way to go, mom! From the opening credit sequence ('llama' is a funny word, no two ways about it), to the abrupt ending followed by the endless organ music, my mother and I both laughed at the silliest, goofiest - cleverest - comedy we'd ever seen. It was a great moment for me - which I guess is another reason GRAIL occupies a warm place in my memories. Of course the other film on the bill was PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, and that one didn't go over quite so well with mom. Oh well... one outta two ain't bad.

ONCE BITTEN: Of course it's on my list of favorites! It's on my list of least favorites, too. I love that this film got made. I love that on my 25th birthday I had written the #1 movie in America. I love that when people ask me if I've been produced I can say 'yes'. But I hate that this film got made so poorly. I hate that on my 25th birthday I had the #1 movie in America... and I was working at a Thrifty Drug Store scooping ice cream. And I hate that when people ask me if I've been produced they inevitably follow it up with "Anything I'd have seen?" I've gotten to the point where I tell them, "I wrote Jim Carrey's first film." The downside is I actually get offended if they come back with, "Oh - you wrote RUBBERFACE?" So I guess there's still a little pride rattling around for the crappy ol' thing after all.

Love it or hate it - I do both. This scene was cut...
presumably because it was attempting some sort of 'atmosphere',
and therefore didn't fit in with the rest of the film.

STAR WARS: This film was such a phenomenon that I still tell time by it. When I try and remember things from my past, my mind inevitably goes back to 1977 and STAR WARS as a reference point. (Typical guy-thing, right? Do I use my marriage as a reference point? Naw - a science fiction movie with a big hairy thing called a Wookie, that's what's important.) I was 16 in the summer of 1977, so it was a pretty special time of life - I was discovering all sorts of 'new' things, and hanging out with friends had a weight that it'd never quite have again. And one of the places my friends and I hung out was in line to see STAR WARS. Again, and again, and again. Two, three, four hours at a pop. And it was NO BIG DEAL! Now if I have to wait two minutes while sitting inside the theatre I'm put-out and impatient. But it was worth it, because in my mind STAR WARS was the perfect film to turn 16 to. Everything seemed new to me - but here was a movie that really was new! We hadn't seen anything even remotely like this before! It was, to regress back to 16 again, bitchin'. From that great opening shot of the huge spaceship cruising overhead to the ending attack on the Death Star, STAR WARS is filled with more sheer invention than any ten movies. There is a reason this film packed in audiences when it was re-released earlier this year: It's still bitchin'.

I was 16 when STAR WARS came out. I stood in the lines. I bought the stuff.
I stood in the lines again. Yup, I was a geek.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: I'd heard about this film when it first came out from a friend whose parents had taken him to see it. Now let's think about that a moment. We were both 13. What in the living hell could these parents have possibly been thinking? It isn't like the title doesn't accurately describe the type of film you're about to see! Oh well, forget it - this kid was already pretty psycho anyway. Needless to say, my (non-psycho) parents weren't about to let me go see a film about a cannibal family who chops up people for barbecue, so I had to wait until I was 19 before I got a chance to experience it. And what an experience it was. Three friends and I piled into a car and drove 50 miles to a drive-in where it was showing. I believe this drive-in may have been owned by cousins to the family in the movie, as it was the grungiest, scariest, FILTHIEST place you've ever seen. Which of course, made it the ideal place to watch this particular film. After making the mistake of going to the snack bar ("Is the butter topping on the popcorn supposed to be green?") we settled down to watch the film. Settled way, way down. Like, on the floor of the car. We were so freaked by the movie that we actually HID from it! I managed to see most of it - though I saw it backwards, because I had twisted the rear view mirror around so I could watch without having to poke my head up above the safety of the dashboard. Ironically, we all watched the second feature with no problem - an Italian import called HACKSAW or something. HACKSAW really made you appreciate the artistry behind CHAINSAW... as well as the benefits of power tools over manual. Man, it took forever to get that woman's leg off!

The most inventive comedy troupe since the Nixon White House.

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN:This film marks the first time I realized the power of comedy. YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN caused such a stir when it was released that I remember anchors on local newscasts talking it up and repeating the jokes for weeks on the air ("More on that terrible train derailment in a moment, but... 'Pardon me boy, is this the Transylvania Station?' Heh heh heh..."). My family would repeat the jokes, people at school would repeat the jokes - everyone was suddenly acting like they were in a Mel Brooks movie (and since this was pre-SPACEBALLS, that was okay). I must have seen this film ten times when it was in the theatres, which was fairly unusual for 1974. But I was hypnotized by it. Not only by how wonderfully funny it was, but by the effect these jokes seemed to have on people. I began to understand that comedy could do more than provide a quick chuckle - it could change peoples' lives, influence them, make them look at things in a different way. I realized that comedy was important. (Well, good comedy, anyway. I don't think Carrottop has changed anyone's life - except to make them wish they owned a gun.) If BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID made me want to be a screenwriter, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN made me want to write comedies. (Just a side note: In junior high a girl and I acted out the scene from Y.F. between the blind hermit and the monster. I played the monster, and the girl played the hermit. Unfortunately, the girl was a good foot taller than me, causing unintentional laughs when she identified me as "an incredibly big mute". Oh well - a laugh's a laugh.)

And what's my absolute favorite film of all time? Easy. Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI. For me, it's got it all: action, romance, epic scope, intimate relationships between magnificent characters, a great sense of humor, an even better sense of pathos... and samurai! It is, quite simply, the coolest movie of all time. When I first saw this film at a revival house I was behind two guys who I don't think were expecting to sit through a three-hour film with (gasp!) SUBTITLES! Needless to say, they got bored and talky pretty quickly. Now, if you've seen the film, you know that an actor playing one of the villagers has a classic, sad-faced expression. About an hour into the movie one of the guys in front of me turns to his buddy and says, "You know, that Emmett Kelly is a pretty good actor." To this day I'm sure they tell their friends, "SEVEN SAMURAI? Yeah, it was alright - but Emmett never did his 'sweeping up the spotlight' routine. What a gyp!"

So those are some of my favorites. For today, anyway. Ask me tomorrow and I might come up with a completely different list. One that includes M*A*S*H, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, APOCALYPSE NOW, LORD LOVE A DUCK, JAWS, THE EXORCIST, LOST IN AMERICA, ANIMAL HOUSE, THE ROAD WARRIOR, THE LOVED ONE... the list goes on. What can you tell about me from my list of fave-raves? I happen to think you can tell I'm an intelligent, discriminating individual with a soft spot in his heart for gooey horror movies. But I'm sure to some of you I'm still just a fucking moron. Oh well... at least I know that Emmett Kelly never appeared in any Japanese samurai flicks.

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