Feature - 10 Perfect 10s (Filmic Forays' 3-Year Anniversary)

There are no rules. Wim Wenders on film-making.

(See? Capra said it too!)

I started this blog in September 2016 because I enjoy cinema as much as I enjoy writing and - Caboom - it suddenly struck me as a no-brainer. Since then I've regularly considered including retrospectives on older films I've admired for many years, but there simply hasn't been time. So on this, the Filmic Forays 3-Year Anniversary, let me present to you ten movies which for me deserve nothing less than a 10 out of 10. I say 'perfect' 10, but refer you to my January 2019 article on what constitutes a top score, and the phenomenon (as identified by my humble self) of the 'imperfect 10'. That's a film so spectacular and/or groundbreaking that any deducting of marks for perceived flaws would be nothing more than pathetic nit-picking and worthy of a slap round the head.

That said, here are my very personal thoughts on some randomly selected, and totally disparate films that have on thing in common - they've earned a bit of Filmic Forays high-scoring birthday love.

1. His Girl Friday (1940)                                                                                                             

Think of the wittiest modern relationship comedy you know, with the sharpest dialogue and the snappiest delivery. Howard Hawks' screwball delight His Girl Friday is wittier, sharper and snappier - that I guarantee. Cary Grant is the newspaper editor, Rosalind Russell his one-time top reporter and ex-wife. When she pops back into his office to announce her imminent second marriage, she can't help but get caught up in the thrill of a breaking story - and then of course the romantic sparks begin to fly all over again. He's suave and infuriating, but she's got sass on tap and a barbed come-back for every finely-honed jibe of his. The one-liners richochet off the walls, all of them delivered with a finesse that has inspired fast-talking film comedies for generations without ever being bettered. While much humour inevitably dates, this just keeps proving its genius.

2. 12 Angry Men (1957)

Sidney Lumet's debut as a cinema director is one of the greatest ensemble movies of all time. Based for virtually all its running time in a real-time jury room setting, it depicts the struggles of Henry Fonda (Juror No. 8) to swing the opinions of his co-jurors on a verdict that might send a young man to the electric chair. Every single juror is characterised neatly and played to perfection, as tension and claustrophobia mount on the hottest day of the summer. Lumet's scrutinizing close-up camera traps each man in the frame, picking out every drop of sweat as anxieties, agendas and prejudices are laid bare. Only Fonda remains calm and utterly inscrutable as the story's moral centre. It's a masterful drama and as an examination of the US jury system it will surely never be bettered.

3. Psycho (1960)

Now here's an exploitation film for the ages, but one that's also a great deal more. There's a popular tendency to reduce Alfred Hitchcock's seminal slasher to a handful of shocking moments, but it's everything else that makes those moments so impactful. Think about the opening act that sets up Marion Crane as the morally straying heroine, who resolves to redeem her own actions before being so cruelly and unforgivingly cut down. That's what makes her death so horrific, not the chocolate sauce so famously used as blood in the scene. What about the portrayal of the killer himself - a tragic case in his own right, twitchy and vulnerable with something ironically mother-able about him? We end up sympathising with him to the extent that our breath is held, when his attempts to cover up the gruesome crime threaten to go astray. Contrast that with every two-dimensional slaughter-dispenser who's followed Norman Bates as slasher-movie antagonist. Psycho is deceptively simple in its construction, but complex in its characterisations - and all the more deliciously creepy for it.

4. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)                                                   

For a Clint Eastwood fan such as myself it's tough to select the first Sergio Leone spaghetti western not to feature the original 'Man With No Name'. But everything Leone did so wonderfully in 'Dollars' trilogy, he does even better here. In widescreen magnificence, backed with one of the most playfully memorable scores Ennio Morricone has ever written, he portrays nothing less than the establishing of America's new frontier through one simple human story. All four of the central characters are iconic. Charles Bronson takes the Eastwood role of ostensible hero 'Harmonica' and does a terrific, inscrutable job. Jason Robards is hilarious and strangely moving as scoundrel/outlaw Cheyenne. Henry Fonda (showing up in my list a second time) plays chillingly against type as family-slaughtering villain Frank. And as the steely, glamorous widow McBain, a catalytic presence in all their lives, Claudia Cardinale has more innate strength than any of them. Watch the brilliant ten minute opening sequence (three assassins waiting in near-silence for Bronson's arrival by train) and see if you're not hooked.

5. Witness (1985)

My favourite Harrison Ford movie doesn't involve human-wookie bromances or the fleeing of huge booby-trap boulders (don't hate me, anyone). Witness, directed by Australia's wonderfully talented Peter Weir, is - if you don't remember - the story of a tough city cop, forced to take refuge in a rural Amish village, after a boy from that community bears witness to a murder that ties into high-up police corruption. There's no shortage of romantic dramas, culture-clash movies or taut cop thrillers to choose from. This is all three films in one and each works a treat. Ford's relationship with the boy's mother (Kelly McGillis) is restrained, while crackling with sexual electricity. The way he interacts with the community always feels authentic, as does his father-son connection with the boy (a young Lucas Haas). And the final act throbs with menace, as the outside world comes closing in on Ford in the Amish village. Add to that a clutch of unforgettable sequences - the barn-building, dancing to Sam Cooke on the radio, the explosive encounter with bullying rednecks in the town, the...er...tub scene - and you have a classic tale that bears serious rewatching.


6. Schindler's List (1993)                                                                       

Steven Spielberg's based-on-a-true-story Holocaust drama is too emotionally exhausting to bear more than very occasional rewatching. Quite apart from the worthy subject-matter it's a fine piece of film-making - stark and restrained throughout (making the instances of casual slaughter all the more disturbing), with the director ironically at his least sentimental for much of the running time. There's genuine power here, much of it stemming from the depth in the screenplay and its recurring theme of how much a human life is actually worth. Take the congenial chat over a brandy between Oscar Schindler and commandant Amon Goeth, regarding what the businessman is willing to pay for a single Jewish worker; in Goeth's mind the question is horribly utilitarian, but for the audience it's the deepest one that could be asked. The heart of the drama is Schindler's wrestling with his own response - and the solution to which he comes. One cynic commented that 'only Spielberg could make a feel-good movie about the Holocaust', referencing the story's focus on a group's deliverance from the Nazis. It's a sharp one-liner, but I think it misses the point. There's no shortage of despair in Schindler's List, but a humane and redemptive element is the only thing that gets us through the film's murky darkness. 

7. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

I had to get a Coen Brothers title in here somewhere. While there were a few conten-out-of-tenders from the sibling-auteurs' filmography, a bit of levity feels necessary following the existential darkness of Schindler's List and no Coen movie is more exuberantly funny and life-enhancing than Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Framing a Depression-era tale of three chain-gang escapees like a retelling of Homer's Odyssey does sound like the Brothers' typical too-clever-by-half-ness, but who cares, when it's this entertaining and visually impressive? George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro are the hapless trio on the run and in search of a concealed treasure, and they're all as hilarious as each other. What seems like a series of disconnected vignettes gradually knits into a narrative of cunning design, while the verbal and visual motifs accumulate to ever greater comic effect. The period design is of course spot-on, remembering at all times that this is a Coen-esque movie version of the 1930s. But it's the music - all rootsy Americana from bluegrass to gospel to folk - that really pushes this to a top score. And the Soggy-Bottom Boys' rendition of 'Man of Constant Sorrows' will stay with you forever.  
               

8. Memento (2000)

Is this still my favourite Christopher Nolan film? I'd need to watch most of them again to decide - and that would be no chore, believe me. Memento was my introduction to the director and a crazily intricate puzzle-box of a movie that I only really began to figure out on my second viewing. (Even then it left a bunch of tantalizing questions). Its classic revenge-plot is skewed by the fact that the protagonist - Guy Pearce's Leonard Shelby - has short-term memory loss and has to carry out his investigations into his wife's killer by way of labelled polaroid photos and messages tattooed on his own body. That premise would still make for a relatively standard thriller, but for the fact that the main part of the narrative is told in reverse, with the backward-moving colour sequences intercut with linear black and white scenes that serve to build up a sense of dread and paranoia. The genius of the structure is that as each colour scene opens, we have no more idea as to where Leonard is and what is going on than he does. Has he gone down the correct investigative route? Are the clues he has provided for himself reliable? Should he trust either of the two key people who keep popping up in his life? Beyond the intricacies of the plot, however, is a deep sadness and a meditation on the relationship between memory, identity and truth. Deep stuff. Now... where was I?

9. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

No. 9 - that's where I was. You know, just thinking about Little Miss Sunshine makes me smile, particularly when I recall its gob-smackingly outrageous final act. Abigail Breslin (you know, the loveable youngster from Signs and Zombieland) is Olive, younger child of the Hoover family, who by default has snagged a place in the final of the eponymous child beauty pageant. Financial constraints send her and the entire dysfunctional Hoover family cross-country in a cranky VW mini-van, to get her to the contest. The chief joy of the film is how it contrasts the era's success-fixation (father of the family Greg Kinnear is a demonstrably failing self-help guru) with the shambolic, sometimes despairing members of the Hoover clan. Toni Collette, Steve Carell and Paul Dano all put in terrific turns, while Alan Arkin threatens to steal the film as Olive's disreputable but doting grandpa. The Hoovers' progress is as faltering as their mode of transport, but they're just possibly my favourite cinematic family - like - ever. And that final sequence is a reminder that success simply isn't everything. Sometimes being a bunch of messed-up failures together can be truly glorious.   

10.The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

If you read my review of Isle of Dogs you'll know how much I love the sheer virtuoso craftsmanship of Wes Anderson's work. And while sometimes his films can be alienating in their oddness, at their best (and this is manifestly his best) they're both superbly made and utterly captivating. I won't even attempt to summarise the Grand Budapest plot. Let's say that it's a story (framed within another couple of stories) of Ralph Fiennes' Monsieur Gustave, concierge of the impossibly magnificent titular hotel, and the misadventures he experiences along with his faithful lobby-boy Zero in a war-torn and fictionalised version of 1930s Europe. There's regular film-design and then there's the obsessive type you see in movies like Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood. This is the latter - every detail from the writer-director's fiercely vivid imagination captured on screen, so that there's delight just in looking. But there's so much more here than entrancing visuals, courtesy of the screwball narrative, ripe dialogue and delightfully weird gallery of characters (none more delightful than Fiennes' hilariously debauched yet always dignified lead). It's a movie-making triumph - and I've just reminded myself to watch it again, along with the rest.

(My TV is bigger than that one. Just saying.)

So that, Filmic Friends, is a random sample of the movies that have risen to the top for me over years of avid watching. Some are widely regarded as top-ranking classics, others are more personal to me. (And I've just realised (1) there's no David Fincher anywhere in there and (2) I've not included a single title from the 1970s!!!, so I'll have to do it again sometime - probably a year from now.) Anyway I hope that you'll check out any of the above titles you may have missed, and that they live up to my hype. 

Here's to further fabulous forays into all things filmic. Pop the corn! There's movie-watching to be done.