29 - 25: Blucher!

29. Young Frankenstein
Mel Brooks, 1974

“Put the candle back”

This may be the funniest movie of my youth. I have no idea how many times I watched this one growing up, but it was a lot. Man, I’m a great writer. Now, this is another one of those movies that, if you haven’t seen it, you’re a fool. Plain and simple. It is, without question, one of the funniest movies of all time. True, it is pretty much a spoof of the Universal Horror cycle and the James Whale/Boris Karloff Frankenstein films in specific, but you don’t need to have seen a damn one of them to get this movie. Although, now that I have seen a few of those movies, Young Frankenstein seems all the funnier. If you have the time, I highly recommend comparing the hermit scene in Bride of Frankenstein with the Gene Hackman hermit scene in Young Frankenstein. Genius!

I should point out that there is one Mel Brooks movie that I like better than this, but this one probably has the finest cast of any of Mel’s movies. Gene Wilder is doing some of the best work of his career, if not the best, as Fredrick Frankenstein (or is that Frodrick Fronkensteen?), Marty Feldman is a delight as Igor (it’s pronounced Eye-gor), and Madeline Kahn is her usual gorgeous and hilarious self as Fredrick’s fiancee. There’s only one word to say about her, here or anywhere, “woof.” Rounding out the cast is Kenny Mars, with both a hilarious accent and a monocle placed over an eye patch, the aforementioned Gene Hackman, and a very sexy Teri Garr. Then, of course, there’s Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher (lightning crashes, horses whiney), who scares me as much today as she did when I met her when I was like five. Blucher!

28. To Kill a Mockingbird
Robert Mulligan, 1962

A few years back, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch as its number one greatest screen hero of all time. To be brief, I was underwhelmed. But, then, I hadn’t seen this film yet. I know. I know. What the hell had I been doing with my life? Didn’t you read the book in grade school (I didn’t)? Didn’t they make you watch the movie (they didn’t)? Well, finally, I saw the movie and I’ll be damned if it isn’t one of the most moving pictures you’ll ever see in your life. It is the story of one magic summer, of Scout and Jem and Dill Harris and of Boo Radley. At its center is the portrait of Scout’s and Jem’s father, Atticus, perhaps the finest man to ever grace the silver screen. Played with amazing power by Gregory Peck, Atticus is a small town lawyer. He is, at first glance, an ordinary man. He holds no grand title and lives in no especially important place in history. That’s at first glance. As the film unfolds, however, it becomes clear pretty quickly that Atticus is a great man, a man of steel convictions and amazing clarity of mind. He does live in the right place and the right time and he will make a profound difference, if only to the minds of his own children, who he loves so much. There is a part of this movie that gets me misty every time. Atticus has just defended Tom Robinson (Admiral Cartright to you Star Trek fans), a black man clearly falsely accused of attacking a white girl, in court. Things look bad for Tom. The courtroom empties, except for the second floor. This is where all of the black spectators sit. They and Scout and Jem. Finally, Atticus turns to leave. Ever sole on that second floor stands up in respect of the passing of a great man.

27. Blade Runner
Ridley Scott, 1982

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

This is the ultimate sci-fi film noir. Harrison Ford is Deckard, a Blade Runner. For the record, a Blade Runner is a detective who hunts down Replicants on Earth. For the record, a Replicant is a sort of highly advanced android, indiscernible from man except by the use of a special psychological exam. Oh, it’s crazy, man. With four replicants, including the awesome Rutger Hauer and the super hot Daryl Hannah, loose on Earth, Harrison Ford is a busy guy. To make things worse, Rutger and his pals have decided to hunt down their creator while Deckard meets yet another replicant, Sean Young, who may be a robot in real life, who is significantly more human than any replicant he’s ever met. The plot is full on noir, with lots of running around to seedy places and asking questions of seedy people. The scenery, meanwhile, is both beautiful and futuristic. It is cramped and sometimes dreary. There are blimps and flying cars and neon signs and skylines to melt the brain. It’s a hell of a thing to watch. The narrative is a little complex, but incredibly worthwhile. Oh, and did I mention that Deckard might be a replicant himself? Like I said, crazy man.

26. 2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick, 1968

It starts with a bunch of half evolved monkeys (and some tapirs, but the less said about those things, the better; I mean, what the hell are they, horses? pigs?) and then leaps to man’s most ambitious space mission - a launch to Jupiter to examine some sort of mysterious obelisk (which also might have been responsible for the evolutionary jump from monkey to man). On board the space ship? An artificial intelligence, HAL. Well, friends, HAL goes bat shit insane and tries to kill the two astronauts on board, Dr. Bowman and Dr. Poole. The astronauts strike back and eventually make contact with the obelisk, resulting in what hours of amphetamine ingestion leads to believe is the next major step in man’s evolution: space babies. Yeah, man! Of course, this is both a shit load of plot and not really all that much. The movie clocks in at about two and half hours, but there isn’t a whole lot of dialog. What there is a lot of is a perfect score, comprised of well chose classical music, and a series of absolutely amazing fucking shots. I mean, my God. The film looks incredible. So many of the shots, have been cribbed in parodies and homages, so their impact is somewhat lessened today by exposure, but they are no less amazing. I could watch it all day. That said, most of you may want to consider liberal use of the fast forward button.

25. Suspiria
Dario Argento, 1977

This is one of the best horror movies of all time and certainly one of the most stylish. The plot, in print, is goofy as hell. A young girl, Suzy, goes to German to go to ballet school. Turns out, the ballet school is run by witches. The witches are bent on vague evil. Well, when I saw this description on the old Tivo (I was watching a documentary about Mario Bava on IFC and this was going to be on next), I couldn’t have turned the channel faster, except that I was absolutely exhausted. So I let the thing start. The credits begin to role and reveal that the music for the film was provided by a band called Goblin. Goblin. Does anything sound more crappy eighties metal than that? Well, the soundtrack kicks in soon enough and, I’ll be damned, creepy as hell. It’s not metal. It’s not what you would expect out of a band called Goblin at all. Lots of bells and strings and just a great, nicely repetitive, genuinely creepy score. Then, the movie itself starts. Suzy is walking out of an airport. From the lighting and everything, it’s immediately apparent that this is going to be one amazing looking movie. It is immediately incredibly stylish, with exceptional use of color, red in particular. When Suzy then finds herself outside the school in the pouring rain, the red of the building is more intense than I thought possible on film. Of course, the style, the compositions, and the color just get better and better throughout the film. The whole thing manages to look like nothing else and provide an actually suspenseful and shocking narrative throughout. Truly amazing stuff. There are several set pieces here which are perfect, including the opening murder in a truly psychedelic hotel/apartment building and the murder of a blind man, standing in an open square. That one is particularly good. Here, we have this blind guy and his dog, stopped dead in a city square. There is something there, but we don’t know what. There are sounds, they sound like wings, but we don’t know where they’re coming from. Argento, the film’s director, gives us glimpses of nearby gargoyles and roof tops. Is something there? We’re never sure. We can’t look for long enough. And the blind guy? He sure as hell doesn’t see anything. Well, the scene goes on for some time, building suspense. We know he’s gonna die. We just don’t know where it’s coming from. When it does come, it’s from the most unexpected source of all. Great stuff. If you’re at all a fan of horror, run out and get this. Like I say, at first glance it may seem like it’s going to be pretty goofy, but it remains one of the two or three most effective horror films I’ve ever seen.

Next week: fast cars, demonic children, papers of transit, Gozarians, and a mine shaft gap!