In Which More Favorites Are Tacked Onto Our Growing Communal Cinematic Orgasm

All the cinema you can handle, all the time, at least until tomorrow. A.C. takes us back to ten of his classics. 

Ten to Treasure In Your Heart Forever 

by A.C. Hawley

I should note two things before I begin with this endeavor. The first is that this list is safer on quicksand than it is in my hands. Secondly, these films will not be in any actual order. Blame my non-competitive upbringing, but I’m not a huge ranker of things. I like watching other people rank things, but it’s not my scene.

kill bill references guide

Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2

A lot of people don’t like Quentin Tarantino and rightfully so. Tarantino likes to plagiarize from other films. This would probably slide if Tarantino weren’t also such a huge ass. But he is, and many hold it against him. I’m indifferent towards his outward persona because his films are amazing.

Just like the gang in A Clockwork Orange, I like a bit of the ultraviolence myself, and Tarantino knows how to deliver ultraviolence. In addition to delivering the violence, Tarantino shoots a beautiful film. More than many other films, the camera work of Kill Bill stands out as extraordinary, especially the scenes where The Bride (Uma Thurman) fights U-Ren Ishii’s (Lucy Liu) gang The Crazy 88 and when The Bride awoke trapped in a coffin. Both scenes were in B & W and absolutely gorgeous.

L’Avventura

To continue on the theme of well-shot monochromatic films, recently deceased Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura has always been a favorite. A beautifully austere film, Antonioni follows the search for a woman. Along the way, the two searching for the woman travel along the rocky road that is love. The dialogue in this movie is quite lean, and it is for the better. Monica Vitti’s expressions say more than her words. Additionally, the lack of dialogue allows for the emotions between the characters to be at the forefront of the movie. This attention to detail made the movie for me. This is a perennial favorite for sure.

Michael Haneke, Juliette Binoche

Caché

Michael Haneke’s Caché was one of the most unsettling films that I’ve ever seen. Revolving around a series of tapes, the movie documents the failure of a middle-class French family as it descends further and further into paranoia. This is the film that The Ring wanted to be: subtly creepy. There is no outward violence and not a lot of unnecessary gore and violence. The movie simmers with a tense fear of what will come next. If anyone wants to make a psychological thriller in the future, I hope that they would turn to this film for inspiration.

David Lynch and his husband

Blue Velvet

David Lynch’s Blue Velvet is the film that sold me on the Lynch vision. More immediately likable than Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet featured a young Kyle MacLachlan as a nosy kid investigating a lounge singer. As well, I always liked this movie because of Dennis Hopper (who is particularly disturbing in this movie) endorsing Pabst Blue Ribbon, which is also one of my preferred beers. And, no, hipsters are totally lame, and I don’t aspire to be one.

The Crying Game/Secrets and Lies

While The Crying Game & Secrets and Lies are two very different films, their general premise is the same, hence the pairing. The basic premise is this: one person striving to connect with another, but a great displeasure arrives after the true identity of that person upsets the relationship’s balance. While this sounds simple, its results usually are not. Emotionally intense and gripping, both of these films are strong representations of British filmmaking as well as high quality examples of what it means to study the human condition. They are unflinching and brutal, but not in a nihilistic way; they are just very realistic.

 

“Afternoon Sister” — Air (mp3)

“Ghost Song” — Air (mp3)

“Playground Love (vibraphone version)” — Air (mp3)

The Virgin Suicides

Way back when I was a moody teenager listening to shoegaze, I saw The Virgin Suicides. I loved it. I thought it was the best movie ever. I couldn’t tell you why because I don’t really know. I can tell you it has nothing to do with the totally awesome soundtrack done by Air; it actually does involve the movie. All I know is that every time I watch this movie as a jaded twenty-something who still listens to shoegaze, I remember why my 16-year-old self and my current self love it all the same.

The French Connection

In the days before action movies became soulless shells of films, there was The French Connection. Starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider as police officers chasing Fernando Rey (of Buñuel film fame), a Marseilles-based drug smuggler. Unlike modern action films, the movie made the viewer consider the actions of the good guys. It was not the good guy did it, and he’s infallible. The good guys are just as crooked as the bad guys. This made watching the film very satisfying as it wasn’t a regular passive action film. In addition, the whole film was all done with gritty, shaky camerawork, conveying the frenetic nature of both their hunt and NYC, which was the background for the movie. As if all of this weren’t enough, it featured the second best car chase in history, only behind the car chase in Bullitt.

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

I actually first saw this movie after I finished watching City of God. Apparently, I was on a huge downer and needed my sunny day completely ruined. While City of God was filled with a lot of real violence, They Shoot Horses… was considerably more violent in terms of the tolls that it took on both the contestants and the viewers. I was emotionally tired after seeing this movie, but that is a document to the film’s quality. While City of God shocked me, They Shoot Horses… haunted me. I couldn’t stop thinking about this movie for weeks after seeing it. Thinking about it now haunts me a little bit, in fact.

Office Space

Just to prove that I’m not a humorless downer, Office Space, along with amusing me greatly, was the film that committed me to being the anti-establishmentarian that you see today. Well, that and the fact that my mom works in an office that shares a disturbing resemblance to Initech, the fake company in the movie. Yes, this is probably your favorite dudeguy and broski’s favorite movie as well, but whatever, they can’t have bad taste all of the time. And, they will also eventually sell out. I’m not selling out…bitchez.

Pink Flamingos

Frankly, I don’t think that I could make a list that didn’t include at least one camp masterpiece. Frankly, I love John Waters movies. He has yet to do a bad movie to me.

Amongst all of them, this is the grossest, most vile, most insidious, and greatest of all of his films. Featuring the John Waters players (Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, etc.) and shot on a shoestring budget, every scene is an exercise in grossout. Everyone’s sensibilities will be offended by different components of this film. Whether it is the incest, the baby ring, the anal dilation at the picnic, Edith Massey eating eggs in a playpen, something in this movie will offend you (I was grossed out by the eggs; I get a shiver thinking about it). All of this is fitting as the plot revolves around the efforts of the Marbles (Mink Stole and David Lochary) to strip Babs Johnson (Divine) of her crown as the filthiest person in the world. Every time I see this movie, I like it more than the last time, and I can’t say that for a lot of films I watch.

A.C. Hawley is a contributor to This Recording. He lives in West Virginia, and writes at ohstewardess.blogspot.com. You can find some of his previous work on This Recording here and here.

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