Movies From A to Z ~ The Alphabetical Random Movie W/O
May 25 '05 (Updated Jul 15 '05)
The Bottom Line Would it be Bottom Line? or Line, Bottom...?
Romasuave decided to tax our brains and come up with an alphabetized list of movies, suggesting we list the first movie beginning with each letter which pops into our mind.... if you would like to join this exercise, please do so here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_4364279940
Turns out most of the ones I thought of first are some of my favorites, which I've reviewed individually... handy, that. On with the list!
About a Boy ~ Hugh Grant plays a single playboy, Will, who lives on the royalties of a one-hit-wonder song his father wrote. He's quite happy being a shallow git and living for himself, until he hits on the idea to make up a child and go to single parents meetings in order to seek out single females who may be in need of his temporary allure. heh. What I loved most about the scene with the meeting was one mother's t-shirt... it read: Lorena Bobbit for Surgeon General. Brilliant. Simply brilliant
Bad Seed ~ All seems wonderful in the life of Christine Penmark, well, except for her husband being away in DC for a time on military business. Her cherubic little girl, Rhoda, is all peaches and cream... yet something is a little too perfect, she thinks. She's proved right when the little Daigle boy turns up dead at a school picnic and his gold penmanship medal has gone missing, a medal Rhoda feels should have been hers. A true classic.
Camelot ~ Is there anything more universally intriguing than the story of King Arthur, Guenevere, and Sir Lancelot? It's been done time and again, but never as well as this classic musical from 1967. This is the usual slant, with Arthur being the king of Camelot and marrying the gorgeous Guenevere.. only to have her fall in love with his best friend and finest knight, Lancelot. Of course we have the foul son Mordred plotting Camelot's destruction at every opportunity....
Dogma ~ Kevin Smith takes on religion in this to-the-point, take-no-prisoners comedy. Funny as hell, with some good insights to boot. Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Alan Rickman, Chris Rock, and many more...
Excalibur ~ Based on Le Morte D'arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, this is the most definitive Arthurian movie to date. A sword was forged that would determine destiny. He who could remove said sword from the rock would become a King. This is the tale of Arthur.. of the wizard Merlin and the evil sorceress Morgana. Pulling the sword Excalibur from the stone is just the beginning of Arthur's adventure! This tells the tale of the birth of the famous Round Table, and the quest for the Holy Grail. Treachery and sword play abounds!
Fisher King ~ This is one of those movies I can just watch over and over. It is a beautiful story of madness and ego defense mechanisms and learning to be human. Everything is just interwoven so damn beautifully. I'll go so far as to say it's psychological masterpiece. The twists are sometimes pretty apparent... but not always.
Girl, Interrupted ~ Many movies have attempted to portray psychological disorders, but few have succeeded as well as James Mangold's 1999 masterpiece: Girl, Interrupted. This one nails it dead on. Based on the book by Susanna Kaysen (which I've not read), this story follows our author (played magnificently by Winona Ryder) through her stint at a mental institution as a teen. She's really just going through a fairly normal level of teen angst, but has been mislabled as a Borderline Personality Disorder (the flavor of the decade, I might add.. grrr). While here she meets several gals who do belong here, and as a result comes to several life-altering realizations.
Holy Grail (Monty Python) ~ Holy Grail is 91 minutes out of your life that you will never forget..or regret. Released in 1975, this is the comedy troupe's take on the story of King Arthur. You don't need to have seen Excalibur to get the humor, but it would probably help.
I Heart Huckabees ~ This one is a completely sarcastic, irreverant, warped and decidedly deviant flick. Right up my alley, all right. You've got Jason Schwartzman as a tree hugger who is being displaced from his position as head of the local swamp saver organization by a charismatic Jude Law who actually is a corporate exec for Huckabee's.... except the movie isn't all that straight forward. Hilarious!
Jesus Christ, Superstar ~ This is, as usual, the life of Jesus in the days leading up to his crucifixion. The twist this time is that it's a complete musical. I don't mean in the sense that Camelot was a musical.. no, there were no spoken lines in this one. Everything was sang... and it was glorious. Ted Neely, Carl Anderson.
Knight's Tale ~ Filmed entirely in the Czech Republic, this is a wonderful tale spanning the life of William Thatcher. Born of peasants, son of a thatcher (roof maker guy), young William dreams of becoming a knight. William's father then arranges for him to become employed by a famous knight at a very early age. In between jousting matches, his knight sorta dies...and our now grown up William get this idea in his head to impersonate the dead knight. What ensues is just delightful! Do not expect total and complete historical accuracy. Expect a fun blend of the medieval and the modern... jousting set to Queen's We Will Rock You and the like. Heath Ledger, Shannyn Sossamon, Rufus Sewel, Paul Bettany, Mark Addy, and Alan Tudyk.
Last Man on Earth ~ Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only living human left on Earth. For 3 years he's been alone after a plague wiped out humanity. He apparently was the only one who was immune to it. Morgan has much more to worry about than loneliness though... Seems some of the dead have come back to life. Now, I gotta tell ya that these were closer to zombies in look and movement... but the movie says vampires and there's the whole wooden stake and garlic thang happening, so who am I to judge? heh. Even with that one bit of weirdness, this is a great movie.
Mommie Dearest ~ Mommie Dearest is what Joan Crawford insisted her adopted daughter, Christina, call her. This film is based on their life together from Christine's perspective. Many folks got mad when this hit the scene, claiming it shed Joan in a horrible light as an abusive mother to her two adopted kids. Christina says it's truth as she remembers it. I figure the real deal is somewhere in between, with me tending to fall closer to Christina's view. A lot of things ring very true in her behavior and reactions to circumstances... In any case, it does make for a very entertaining movie.
9 Dead Gay Guys ~ (Bite me, 9 starts with an N... so there) ~ This one comes to us from merry olde England and features two unknown Irish guys in the lead roles. They've moved to London to seek their fortunes and end up giving blow jobs in a gay bar because like, it ain't real sex, it's legitimate work, innit? Well they proclaim repeatedly their hetero-ness to each other while earning their living, and all the while gay guys keep ending up dead in the most hilarious of ways. Now, I'm not saying it's funny because they're gay, I'm saying it's funny in a series of events kinda way... they just happen to be gay. Some folks may find the gay depictions a bit 'over the top' or even 'stereotypical', but that's kinda the whole point here. Never mind that I've known these folks many times in my life... no, they don't exist, it's plain ol' stereotyping. Eh yeah. At any rate, this movie is just one laugh after another.
Orgazmo ~ Bad-boy genius Trey Parker is out proselytizing for the Church of Latter Day Saints. Don't let that put you off though. If you know anything about Parker's little endeavors at all, you know the goody-two-shoes guise isn't going to last long here... and it doesn't. It gets crazy early on when he happens to knock on the door of a rather large house in which an action hero/porn movie is being shot: Orgazmo.
Princess Bride ~ Seems we have this young lad by name of Westley who is ever so maaaadly in love with some wench name of Buttercup. Now, bein' he's a lowly farm hand and all, our young scalawag doesn't think himself worthy of Buttercup and goes off to seek his fortune (and a really cool black eye patch). Along the way our dashing Westley runs into all manner of ruffians, and his precious Buttercup gets kidnapped! Having taken over the personae of a very famous(or is that infamous?) pirate, Westley pretty much keeps the upper hand. I mean, just look at the size of that sword! Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Billy Crystal, Peter Falk, Carol Kane, Andre the Giant, and Chris Sarandon.
Quills ~ Geoffrey Rush brilliantly portrays the last days of the Marquis de Sade, who is locked up in the lunatic asylum at Charenton for having published some over-the-top racy novels and plays... among other frowned-upon debauchery.
Robin Hood (1991) ~ When I stumbled across this 1991 version of Robin Hood it was a surprise. I'd never heard of one with Uma Thurman and Patrick Bergin in the starring roles. How could this be? Well, apparently it was made for TV and just slipped silently outside my, and many other people's, radar. Pity, that, because this is a damn good movie.
Serial Mom ~ Somehow I have resisted the urge through the years to off a few folks and bury the bodies in the backyard. Sometimes I think the world would have been much better off had I simply followed my urges. Some people just really need to be stopped before they breed, yanno? Well, Kathleen Turner does indeed follow those urges in the 1994 John Waters masterpiece Serial Mom. I soooo want to be her that I even finally went out bought a dress like hers. Be afraid...
Troy ~ Now, I know that some folks don't much care for the liberties taken with the traditional saga of the Trojan War epic. I also realize that some of these liberties were more than just minor changes. I also would have greatly liked to have seen a bit more of the Greek Gods. But yanno what? Movies are for entertaining, not educating.. and I got just a butt load of entertainment value. This movie was freakin fun, damn it. Besides, it has lots of men in skirts!
Usual Suspects ~ Bryan Singer's wonderful 1995 crime-thriller about 5 criminals, a police line-up, and revenge gone awry. This one should be on everyone's must see list, and not just because of the excellent cast. Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, and Pete Postlethwaite.
Van Helsing ~ Stephen Sommers (writer/director) decided to take several of our favorite childhood creature features and meld them together. I must say that it worked for me. We have Frankenstein's Monster, A brief bit with Jeckyl/Hyde, the anticipated Dracula and his wives, and werewolves. Oh my! In this version, Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing is serving a secret sect of the catholic church by going around doing away with evil creatures like only he can. The twist here, really, is that Van Helsing has amnesia and has no idea who he really is...
What Dreams May Come ~ Curious as to what women really want? Easy. Go grab this movie. To simplify, Robin Williams and his wife have died. He goes to Heaven, she does not (her death being a suicide, his being an accident). Williams finds this out and refuses to let anything get in his way in his attempt to save her from that wretched fate. Keep the Kleenex handy.
X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes ~ One of Roger Corman's batch from the 60s. We start off with Dr. James Xavier (Ray Milland), a brilliant physician who is conducting an experiment which entails boosting vision. His funding is at risk so he decides to try the drops on himself in a last ditch effort to get results. Well his funding falls through anyway, but he persists with the drops since they seem to be having a cumulative and rather unstable effect. Sometimes he can see thru to a person's organs, which is sorta what he wants..so he can easily and accurately diagnose illness. Sometimes he can just see through clothing.. an effect that of course was not expected but gives him great pleasure. heh.
You've Got Mail ~ Meg Ryan is a single gal who happens to own a small bookstore in New York. It's a bookstore that was owned by her mother before her and means a great deal to her. She also owns a computer and happens to start up a friendship with a guy on-line. Tom Hanks is the owner of a chain of mega-stores specializing in books and coffee. They're able to sell books at a discount due to sheer volume. He's opening one very close to Meg's store. He also has a computer.....
Zardoz ~ John Boorman's 1974 cult status Sci-Fi adventure starring Sean Connery as Zed, an exterminator in the year 2293, manages to infiltrate the Vortex, where the Immortals live. Being all studly and all, the Immortal women feud over what to do with him. This is one of those love it or hate it flicks... and one of the few things I actually remember from the 70s. *cough*
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Member: Lori Leidig
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