I Keep Coming Back To Them

“Who was the best pilot I ever saw? Well, uh, you're lookin' at 'im.”
-- Gordon Cooper from The Right Stuff

“You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.”
-- Man With No Name from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

“You were right; I'm was wrong. Sorry. I'd like to be a nice guy. I would. I just don't know how to be nice.”
-- Stanley White from Year Of The Dragon

I was not joking when I said the list was only the beginning. There are hundreds of films I keep going back to for a variety of reasons. Many films hit me on a personal and emotional level; I have to go back to them. Whether they are on cable or I happen to watch them on DVD. The truth is I used to do this with VHS a lot more. Some of my all time favorite films I do not own on DVD, but sometimes the memory of watching the film and what it stands for is more important than physical ownership. Sometimes the memory, along with the film’s soundtrack, is enough to give it a permanent place in that most wonderful portable media player-- my imagination. Here is another round of films that still resonate with me and no particular order.

1. The Right Stuff-- Philip Kaufman’s 1983 birth of the Mercury Space program epic is as big as they come. The film was sadly used as a huge advertisement for Senator John Glenn’s Presidential campaign. What a shame because this is a grand film whose tagline could have not been more appropriate: “How the future began.”
I saw the film twice while it was in theaters. The first thing that always stood out was how cool Sam Shepard was as Chuck Yeager. It was one of those career defining performances. I like Sam’s later work, but he has never had a role as good as Yeager. It is a hard act to follow. His plays, screenplays with Wim Wenders and short stories are interesting, but his performance as Chuck Yeager is in a class by itself. The other standout here is Dennis Quaid as astronaut Gordon Cooper. It is as Cooper where his everyman likability begins and serves him so well throughout the rest of his career. Ed Harris is too good to be true as John Glenn. He is perfect and I dare say one of his best roles. Let me put it this way, if I were running for President, I would want Ed Harris to play me too. Fred Ward is terrific as Gus Grissom and his scenes with his wife Betty, played by Veronica Cartwright, are always hard to watch. When she does not get to meet Jackie Kennedy, her anger and disappointment grab us immediately. Scott Glenn’s Alan Shepard is another cool customer. But in the back of their minds, they know that Yeager is the best pilot who ever lived. Bill Conti’s original score is great, but it is his use of selections from Holst’s The Planets which gives the film a larger than life essence. When Yeager walks away from the wreckage of his burning plane at the end, we know who has the right stuff.

2. Spartacus-- I was always shocked to read that Stanley Kubrick never considered this his own film. He was hired on after Anthony Mann was fired by Kirk Douglas. I get dirty looks from people when I say that I prefer it to Gladiator. I do like Ridley Scott’s epic with Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix and Oliver Reed (His last film), but Gladiator does not have Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Woody Strode, Jean Simmons, Tony Curtis and Peter Ustinov. It does not have Alex North’s pulsating score. There is a wonderful episode of The Sopranos where a debate between Gladiator and Spartacus is discussed. Kubrick did not have control of the script and that is why he did not consider it his own. At one time, David Lean and Laurence Olivier were offered the director positions. Still for a film that Kubrick did not consider one of his own, it is a spectacular epic. As great as the gladiator fights are in the film, it is the “I am Spartacus” scene which is the film’s true money shot. The loyalty of Spartacus’ comrades is one of the most touching scenes in the film. It brings him to tears-- it brings me to tears. Another emotional scene is where Simmons’ Varinia shows Douglas’ Spartacus their son as he dies his slow death on the cross at the film’s end. The film gives us the opportunity to see powerhouse actors giving extraordinary performances. It is the chance to see Kirk Douglas in his greatest role. Kubrick may not have been proud of this film, but I will never forget watching it on an April Sunday evening back in fifth grade.

3. Obsession-- Blow Out is Brian De Palma’s masterpiece, but Obsession is the ultimate De Palma film to me. Before the self-homage began sometime in the Eighties, De Palma’s homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo may be the most fun the director ever allowed himself to have. Sometime in the sixth grade, I remember watching an ad on television for the film. My Mom said that it was a terrific film and I should watch it. That sometime was in 1999 and the film left a vivid impression. Cliff Robertson plays a New Orleans businessman whose life is destroyed when his wife and daughter are killed in a botched kidnap rescue attempt. While traveling in Italy many years later, he meets and falls in love with a woman who bears a striking resemblance to his dead wife. To says it owes a lot to Vertigo is an understatement, but this is where De Palma’s Hitchcock fetish served him so well. Bernard Herrmann wrote the score which is haunting and makes the film unforgettable. Paul Schrader wrote the screenplay based on a story by Schrader and De Palma-- another good reason this film turned out so well. They also had a falling out while making the film, but it still worked out well. Cliff Robertson was never better or more alive than as Courtland. John Lithgow as Robert LaSalle began a long and fruitful relationship with De Palma. Also, hearing “Daddy” takes on a whole new meaning after watching this film-- talk about a wild climax. This is when Brian De Palma was doing it right.

4. Sexy Beast-- One of the things that is evident in Jonathan Glazer’s wild British gangster film is that Ben Kingsley is playing against type as the sadistic gangster, Don Logan. He is not the only one. Ray Winstone’s Gal is also a change of pace for the actor. He is by far the lesser of two evils in the film. He has a reputation for playing tough characters and in some cases really despicable characters as in Nil By Mouth and The War Zone. As Gal, he just wants to escape the London criminal underworld, but his beautiful house in Spain filled with his wife and friends is not far enough. Logan finds him and wants him do one last mission back in London. Gal keeps telling him no and Don keeps getting more threatening. The bank heist in London is headed by Ian McShane’s Teddy Bass. Will Gal give in to Don? Kingsley has a mouth like a howitzer in this film. He is brutal. When Gal tells him he is out for good, Don punches him and rips into him with enough verbal ammunition to make anyone bend. Even before Don arrives, the look of fear and anxiety on everyone’s faces is perfect. Don is a monster, a real life monster. Ian McShane’s Teddy Bass is the one person who could call McShane’s Al Swearengen on Deadwood, a cocksucker and get away with it. Dean Martin’s “Sway” never sounded so good or so perfect. Spain never looked so beautiful. It is the strangest heist ever filmed.

5. Year Of The Dragon-- Michael Cimino’s 1985 Chinatown epic might have only been made for the beautiful morning city shot from Tracy Tzu’s (Ariane) apartment, but there is a lot I keep coming back to in this film. Mickey Rourke is at his best as Stanley White, the most decorated cop in New York. He is hell bent on bringing down John Lone’s Joey Tai. White is put in charge of Chinatown just as Tai becomes the head of the Chinese criminal underworld-- both men are on a collision course. I have always looked at this film as Cimino’s unofficial sequel to The Deer Hunter. Rourke’s White is a Vietnam veteran and has hated Asian people since the war. Mickey Rourke was at the height of his career with this film and Diner, Barfly and The Pope Of Greenwich Village and Angel Heart. John Lone is sinisterly smooth as the Triad boss of bosses in this film. He was perfect and I am taking The Last Emperor and Iceman into consideration when I make this statement. There are some incredible sequences in this film such as the violent gang assault in the restaurant, the final showdown between Lone and Rourke and the infamous girl bouncing like a pinball in between cars sequence. Still, what I will always remember about this film is some kind of fight broke out in the audience while we were watching it that weekend. I do not know what it was about, but talk about memorable theater experiences! I miss this Mickey Rourke

6. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly-- I was walking down the hall in my dorm in 1989 when I heard the chords of the music that I knew Metallica used as their entrance music. I went into a room and saw Eli Wallach’s Tuco running around the graveyard looking for that grave where the money was buried. The local stations used to have Clint Eastwood weeks a couple of times a year. You always got the gems like Play Misty For Me, Hang ‘Em High, The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter, and the Dirty Harry films. I had seen Leone’s western many times, but when I made the connection between the music and the film, a new relationship with the film began. The last time I had watched The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was in 1985. Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” is one of the most powerful pieces of music in my book. When Eastwood’s Man With No Name fires that canyon and Wallach’s Tuco falls from the explosion, movie magic begins. Eastwood, Wallach and Lee Van Cleef make up the iconic trio. I remember reading an interview with Robert Rodriquez when El Mariachi opened; he mentioned how deeply influenced he was by Leone’s films. The interviewer was shocked that someone would admit it. It was The Washington Post long before Stephen Hunter showed up to give the paper some much needed film creed. I will make time for this film any time I can. I was very happy to see the restored version at the AFI Silver back in 2003. While watching it you realize how much Eastwood was influenced by Leone in his own films. The final showdown at the end has all those wonderful close ups of the eyes that we love in Leone’s work. Eli Wallach nearly steals each scene he is in as Tuco. Ennio Morricone’s music is still Leone’s greatest star.

7. The Boys From Brazil-- Denzel Washington, Henry Fonda and Ben Kingsley have all played against type and done it very well. Gregory Peck would play against type as the notorious Nazi Doctor, Josef Mengele, in The Boys From Brazil. It is one thing to say that you played Atticus Finch in one lifetime, but is something otherworldly to say that you played Finch and Dr. Josef Mengele in the same lifetime. No one would ever call this a classic film, but I would be lying to you if I said I did not love it. Let us start with the obvious. You have an all star cast at work here besides Gregory Peck. Laurence Olivier, Uta Hagen, Bruno Ganz, Lili Palmer, James Mason, Walter Gotell, Steve Guttenberg, Denholm Elliott, Rosemary Harris and John Rubinstein round the cast. Franklin J. Schaffner directed the Ira Levin novel. Schaffner also directed Planet Of The Apes, Patton and Papillon. The real star of the show here is Jerry Goldsmith’s score. Yes, the music for this film is incredible. It goes with the film perfectly. While many would say Peck is hamming it up as Mengele wearing those awful 70’s leisure suits, even Robert Jay Lifton in The Nazi Doctors acknowledges the novel and film are part of wider spectrum of fantasy and fiction revolving around this war criminal. Peck is over the top, way over the top-- more so than even Laurence Olivier’s Dr. Christian Szell in Marathon Man. How ironic that Olivier would play Nazi Hunter, Ezra Lieberman, a thinly veiled Simon Wiesenthal, two years later in The Boys From Brazil. The plot is the same as Ira Levin’s novel. Mengele wants to clone Adolf Hitler; the method is quite unbelievable. The final confrontation between Peck and Olivier is classic. Peck delivers an over the top explanation of the plot that has to be seen to believe. Mix the two titans, Bobby Wheelock (Hitler clone) and some wild Doberman pinschers and you have a volatile cocktail of an ending. A triple feature of this film, Marathon Man and The Odessa File are essential watching. It is interesting to note that Bruno Ganz has a small part as Professor Bruckner; he would go on to play Adolf Hitler in the 2005 film, Downfall (Der Untergang). It is the most authentic and realistic portrayal ever put on film. It is anything but a caricature whereas The Boys From Brazil is.

8. The Ruling Class-- Peter O’Toole plays Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney, the 14th Earl of Gurney in Peter Medak’s wicked satire of the British ruling class in this 1972 film. It was always a given that Peter O’Toole could do comedy and do it quite well. What’s New Pussycat and How To Steal A Million proved that. As Jack Gurney, he is at his most insane as he believes that he is Jesus Christ. Jack has inherited the estate from his father, a member of the House of Lords. Jack’s film entrance is classic O’Toole. The relatives want to have him committed so they can take the estate away from him. This is a brutal and scathing indictment of British social and political institutions. A friend of mine from England hated this film. His family truly hated it as it ripped a hole in everything they held sacred. In the first half of the film he believes he is Jesus Christ, but after he is “cured” he begins to think he is Jack the Ripper. He is being groomed for the House Of Lords. Watching this and A Clockwork Orange on the same evening is the ultimate double feature in ultra wicked satires. Peter O’Toole’s Jack and Malcolm McDowell’s Alex would make quite a pair. Kubrick made sure we would never look at “Singin In The Rain” the same way ever again. Medak does the same with “Dry Bones.”

9. The Limey-- Steven Soderbergh wasted no time in following up his classic crime thriller Out Of Sight with another equally brilliant crime thriller, The Limey. The Collector, Blue and Billy Budd should have made Terence Stamp a huge star. I knew him as General Zod in the Superman films-- he was perfect as the infamous outlaw from Krypton. He had roles in many films such as The Sicilian, Legal Eagles, Wall Street and Alien Nation. He was Supreme Chancellor Valorum in The Phantom Menace and I hope he was able to make some money off his action figure sales. Poor Peter Cushing had to wait until after his death to get a Tarkin action figure made. Soderbergh pulls off a Quentin Tarantino style task of career resuscitation as he gives Stamp a role worthy of his abilities. Terence Stamp was awfully good in Stephen Frears’ The Hit and Stephen Elliott’s The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. In The Limey Stamp plays an Englishman who comes to Los Angeles to hunt down the man he believes responsible for his daughter’s death. He is an ex-con freshly out of prison. The film opens with The Who’s “The Seeker” playing as Stamp’s Wilson is arriving in Los Angeles. Soderbergh has made sure “The Seeker” and this film are forever linked. I always thought Kubrick was the master of that skill. Lem Dobbs original screenplay was written with Michael Caine in mind and that would have been an interesting film given Caine’s role in the original Get Carter. It makes even better sense to have Stamp play Wilson, not only because of his work in The Hit, but also his work in Ken Loach’s Poor Cow. Soderbergh uses scenes from Poor Cow (1967) as flashbacks to show a younger Stamp playing with his daughter. It is a touch of staggering creativity. Wilson realizes he is quickly out of place in Los Angeles. He teams up with another ex-con played by the always wonderful, Luis Guzman. Together they find out that Wilson’s daughter was having an affair with a sleazy record producer played by Peter Fonda. Fonda continues his winning streak from Ulee’s Gold. Wilson meets an aging actress, Elaine, played by Leslie Ann Warren, who knew his daughter. Her entrance takes the film to a whole other level. The Limey is simply not just a revenge film. Stamp’s Wilson was not the ideal father; he is a flawed and volatile character. After watching it, you realize that no one but Terence Stamp could bring Wilson to dynamic life. As Wilson, Stamp reminds me of Lee Marvin in Point Blank and Harvey Keitel in City Of Industry-- not bad company.

10. Oldboy-- There was a time I could spend the entire day watching nothing but indie and foreign films downtown; those days are gone. As the years went on, the fun had definitely eroded from these adventures, but there was one film that was worth going out of my way to see and that was Chan-wook Park’s majestic revenge film, Oldboy. The film was worth the entire internet buzz I had been reading about for two years. One of the film’s taglines says it best: “15 years of imprisonment…5 Days Of Vengeance.” I had been enamored with Park’s Joint Security Area. I had not yet seen Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, but I knew it was something special. Oldboy is the second film in his Vengeance trilogy-- Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance is the first film and Lady Vengeance is the third film. After a wild and drunken night on the town, Seoul businessman, Oh Dae-su (Min-sik Choi) is seized and locked up in a bizarre private prison for fifteen years. He is separated from his wife and young daughter as well as the whole world. For the last fifteen years he has no idea who did this to him and why-- revenge is the only desire that has been percolating all this time. He is unexpectedly released and he has five days to learn the identity of the person who had him imprisoned. Along his mission of vengeance, Oh-Dae su is involved in one of the greatest violent action sequences in recent cinema-- the infamous hammer corridor fight. It is a truly breathtaking sequence and the only thing that comes even close lately is Viggo Mortenson’s bath house fight in the nude in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises. It is a truly cathartic moment. Yes, the action and violence in Oldboy is fresh and inventive, but it is only scratching the surface of why the film works so well. Yeong-wook Jo’s music will stay with you long after the credits have rolled.

There is much more to come.