Movies I Love~*

Just for fun, as part of the last days of February posts, I thought I'd throw in some of my top loves-- yesterday was music, today we are going to the movies~*
I've explained my attitude towards films before.  I generally don't go to theaters, and I have the attention span of a toddler flea.  
I watch movies to be entertained.  I suppose I've got enough excitement in my own life, I don't enjoy watching a realistic depiction of someone else's tragedies, heartbreaks & stress.  I'm not much for romances or dramas, subsequently, unless they are heavily wrapped in something weird.  
There are movies I enjoy having on when I'm doing something else.  Movies like Jurassic Park, Chicago, The Mummy(ies)-- that I know like the back of my hand & can hear a line of dialogue and picture the scene, no sitting down necessary.  Then there are movies that I adore for somewhat sentimental reasons, like Star Wars (not the new abominations, the originals) or the Star Treks-- they played a key role in my youth, and inspired my love of sci fi.  Good Sci Fi.  And of course, the Indiana Jones' that inspired my love of academics, archaeology & Harrison Ford.

Sigh.  Isn't he dreamy?

Anyway.  This list isn't for those movies, as much as I love them.

This list is for movies that I literally have to stop and watch.  That if I leave the room, I'll pause.  That I can repeat the dialogue verbatim, but still sit still as you please to observe.  Nuanced.  Complicated.  And totally out there odd.  Most of them are classics-- the "newest" one is from 1985-- because classic movies are classic for a reason.

Now that you are properly prepared, here are my top 4 movies~*

For a brain spinning chaos and a mystery you can watch time after time and still not quite figure out, I present, The Big Sleep.  Whoever said that the 30's and 40's were a kinder, gentler time has clearly never seen this flick.  It has drugs, it has sex, it has gambling, murder, and the best witty banter ever scripted brilliantly performed by Bogart & Bacall.  Enough said.

I have a deep passion for all things Terry Gilliam.  He is brilliant.  He is a visionary.  He was the only American in Monty Python.  And he directs movies that are just like my dreams.  The crowning glory, at least at this point in his career, has to be Brazil.  I really can't describe it.  Its a semi futuristic, semi-steampunk, sort of big brothery bureaucratic kind of world where an average middle accountantcy schlubb gets caught up in a revolution.  Kind of.  Robert De Niro plays a rebel heating repairman, whose rebellion is...well...repairing heating units without the proper forms.  

Dude.  You'll just have to watch it.

Bonus clip!  Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.  Fraught with publicized budget difficulties and the inherent problems in bringing a visionaries visions to life, the film flopped when it failed to live up to over-hyped expectations.  

But its actually a dream of a movie.

Back to the list and to the  forties.  Another film noir mystery, but in this one the cop falls in love with the corpse, Vincent Price plays a skeevy love interest and one of the characters is named Waldo Lyedecker.  Seriously.  Waldo Lyedecker.  It has to be good, right?

And finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't include a Hitchcock in this list.  Dial M for Murder is one of those Hitchcock's that the viewer is told who the murderer is fairly early in-- its how his brilliant plot is unraveled that is...well...brilliant.  Plus it has Grace Kelly in 1954 fashion.  And the trailer is 50's epic trailer glory~*

Second Bonus Clip!  High Society: Satchmo, Frankie, Bing, and Grace in the 1956 musical version of the ultra awesome Philadelphia Story.  Its just jazzy, bluesy, swingy lovely~*

That's it! So, what movies out there hold a particularly special place in your heart?