The View From My Room – Year Four – #33
(This portion in parentheses does not appear in the newspaper version of my column. Unfortunately, I screwed up and missed telling readers two things about this list. One, I didn’t consider any Christmas movies. They are a list in their right. There’d be too many on this list, crowding out other titles. I’ll leave the top ten holiday films for another time. The second thing I should have said was that these movies are movies that are not necessarily deemed high quality films. I simply love them for whatever reason and could watch them back to back to back to back. Hope you enjoy the column.)
It’s the end of April already! Now we’re cookin’! In my previous life, I’d be thinking Prom, Memorial Day weekend, graduation and summer vacation! Now? My thoughts run along these lines: What can I do in May that I couldn’t do in previous years? And so begins our weekly visit!
After last week’s rather somber topic, I thought I’d flip the tone to one much lighter this week. Let’s talk movies! I know not everyone has the passion for films like I do, but what the heck. Maybe this will still be fun for those of you who fall into that category.
How many times have you said, “Oh, that’s one of my favorite films”? How many favorites do we have as film lovers? Someone recently asked me to name my top five films. It was sort of easy. I began to think later, What about my top TEN? So, I’m going to share with you my top TEN films. As I stated, the first five are no-brainers for me to list. It’s the last five that didn’t come as easily.
My top film of all time. If someone tied me into a chair and said, “You’re going to watch this movie for 24 hours, non-stop,” I’d smile and ask if I was going to be fed popcorn and soda. The Wizard Of Oz. Mind you, it runs a close second to the next film, but because I have more history with Wizard, I’d have to say it reigns supreme. It has everything I love in a movie; Music, Adventure, Humor, The classic chase scene. Magic. It was always an Easter-time staple in our house. CBS would air it and it became a family event. It was and remains the best.
My second film is a close second to Wizard. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. It’s missing the songs but has a great soundtrack, and it has everything else Wizard does, including a scene that never fails to move me. Silly as it sounds, I could jump into the movie at the point where E.T. is saying goodbye in the forest as his people have come to pick him up and return him home. The music, the cinematography, the simplicity of the scent…chokes me up each and every time. E.T., runner up!
My third film. It’s a film released in 1978. It stars Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn, Dudley Moore and Burgess Meredith. The movie is Foul Play. Goldie Hawn accidentally gets involved in a plot to kill the Pope. Chevy Chase is a cop. Meredith is Hawn’s landlord, and Moore is someone who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time throughout the film. It’s got a couple of Manilow lyrics in it including the main title’s theme song, Ready To Take A Chance Again. Total fun. It’s got a great chase scene in the final fifteen minutes of the movie that had the theater in howls of laughter when it was first released. I go to the movies to escape. This is total escape.
Number Four. A Neil Simon film. No screenwriter wrote better dialogue in the 70s. His repartee between characters was quick and witty in his early work that went to film. For example, The Goodbye Girl embodied that description; however that isn’t my third choice. Rather, it’s Simon’s Chapter Two with Marsha Mason and James Caan. A cute and charming, light-hearted love story. It’s actually based on Neil Simon’s life after dealing with the death of his first wife. The lead female, Marsha Mason, was actually Simon’s wife after that tragedy. The soundtrack is Marvin Hamlisch’s, and his music was the best in any film he scored. The man was a musical genius.
My fifth film. Another love story. Same Time, Next Year (1978). However, not a traditional love story, by a long shot. I believe the original play ran a long time in one of the northern burb theaters in my early tenure here in Minnesota. The movie starred Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. They are essentially the only two people in the movie. They meet by accident at the restaurant of summer resort, decide to have dinner together, and then return to one of their cabins, only to find themselves waking up next to each other the next morning. The movie is about their relationship over the course of 26 years as they continue to have their secret yearly rendezvous, despite both being married. The writing, again, is superb. It goes from humorous to dramatic as the lives of each person over 26 years changes due to life’s joys and pains. The music, more of Hamlisch, only enhances and accentuates an entertaining storyline.
There ya go. My top five. So, what would be your top five films?
Oh, as for my remaining five: Lilies of the Field, The Court Jester, It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, and The Music Man. What about yours?
Let’s go to the movies! “Lights! Camera! Action! Roll ‘em!”
The View From My Room 