Another Two Fistfuls of Favorites! (Matt’s Picks)

    It’s that time of year again.  Brad and I put down in stone (blog) the next ten movies in our lists of all time favorite films.  (See my 1-10 here, and 11-20 here).  The further into the list I get, the more weird I feel about it.  Not bad.  Just weird.  Of course, picking favorite movies is like picking favorite children.  Still, some kids are better than others.  And dang it.  Where’s Citizen Kane?  2001?  Hard Ticket To Hawaii?  I love those movies.  Well, maybe in the next installment.

30.  Cat People:  “Look at that boat…Look at that boat.”  I’m not a kinky guy.  But this movie drips in kink and I love it.  John Heard plays a successful me (you know, if I ran the zoo, and all that), wrapped up with a very special kind of femme fatale.  Nastassja Kinski is that fatale, a sweet natured girl with giant eyes and deep naivete.  They’re a perfect match, except for one thing.  Beautiful, deliberately paced, and with plenty of time spent on character, this weird mystery takes more than one unexpected turn.  Not for the easily upset, it features some rather unusual ideas, none too few of them depicted on screen.

29.  In a Lonely Place:  I’ve been a Bogart fan since I was around 10, when we got a VCR at my house and saw Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and Key Largo on a VHS my dad had.  Bogie was so cool, so tough, and so beautifully ugly.  Over the next 25 years, I watched those three films many times, and slowly watched others in his filmography.  But it was In a Lonely Place that struck me like a bolt of lightening.  Like when I read Henry Rollins’s poem I Know You, I felt my heart and soul were being ripped out and shown to me in their raw form.  Here was a film where my favorite actor was playing me, or at least the version of me I’m most ashamed of, most scared of.  I think it’s his best performance, and though the ending is a bit sensationalist, the movie feels like a brutally honest piece of self assessment by a writer about being a writer.

28.  Zardoz: "I have seen the future and it does not work."  It doesn’t get a heck of a lot more British-weird than this 70s masterpiece of the bizarre.  Sean Connery plays an ubermensch uplifted from the shattered remnants of humanity who sneaks into a pampered paradise of bored immortals.  Everyone plays it straight, no matter how crazy it gets.  And it gets CRAZY.  Zardoz is not for everyone…Scratch that.  Zardoz is not for most.  But for those lucky few, this movie is like no other and it’s wonderful.

27.  The Creature from the Black Lagoon:  I saw this film at such an early point in my life that I only have the vaguest sense of when it was.  I couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6, and it would likely have been on the Creature Double Feature, seen at a friend’s house (they had cable, and got Channel 56 out of Boston).  I’m sure it wasn’t the first monster movie I saw, but it was the one that stuck with me, that made me a lover of the genre.  And it was my introduction to the Beauty and the Beast plot archetype, which has remained a favorite of mine ever since.

26.  Escape from New York:  Kurt Russell is a one eyed monster getting all up in the Big Apple’s prison hole.  Great cast, great score, lots of awesome action, and Snake Plissken, one of the most ridiculously tough tough guys of cinema.  I don’t think anyone but Russell could have pulled it off.

25.  An American Werewolf in London:  Like John Carpenter’s The Thing, I’d heard a lot of negative stuff about this movie before I rented it, but just minutes in and I loved the Hammer Horror vibe, the humor, and the surprising twists.  I laughed and jumped and marveled at the horror.  The effects are some of the best put to film, the cast is extremely charming, and the story wonderfully tragic.

24.  The Iron Giant:  The design and animation are excellent, but the story is the thing.  A lonely boy living in Cold War era Maine finds and befriends a giant robot from outer space.  It’s a good movie all around, but the ending.  Man, it gets me.  Superman indeed.  Niagara Falls.

23.  The Virgin Spring:  A beautifully filmed medieval story that straddles Ingmar Bergman’s symbolic and visceral sides comfortably.  It’s gut-punch brutal and lyrically mystical in turns.  A family’s love, the destruction of innocence, and the calculated vengeance of a grieving man.  This was the movie that made me a Bergman fan, and it’s a darned fine film.  Human ugliness displayed in a beautiful package.

22.  Coffy:  The rough, tough, and sexy Pam Grier shotguns her way through the criminal underworld as a one-woman war on corruption.  Reveling in the weird fashion and décor of the 70s, while slinging slang and splashing house-paint blood, it may not be the best Blaxploitation (Trouble Man, maybe?) or the best Pam Grier film (Jackie Brown), but it’s my favorite, and my go-to.  It’s the film that brought me to the genre, and the one I find myself popping in the DVD player most often.

21.  Alien:  A fantastic cast of characters, stunning production design, wonderfully slow then nightmarishly fast pacing, and one of the most beautiful creatures ever designed.  It’s a haunted house on a space ship.  It’s a creature feature.  It’s a pretty darned good slice-of-life science fiction film.  Everything about this film is top notch.  But I think it really comes down to the script and performances.  (See my detailed review here).

-Matthew J. Constantine

A Fistful of Warm Bodies! (Brad's Picks)

Just when you think they've run out of fresh brains, zombie audiences are forced to feed on the undead teen romance.  Gross.  But weirder for me is that I'm actually interested...now if only it got super necropheliac disgusting, but I somehow doubt it.  Anyway - Forget Zombies!  I'm tired of talking about them.  Let's talk about our favorite cinematic barbecues instead!

5.  Cropsey (The Burning):  Freddy Krueger might seem like the obvious choice when it comes to horribly burned child murders run amuck, but for my money Cropsey is just a touch ickier in the cooked face department.  A group of campers attempt to scare the old weirdo caretaker & the result is the incredible melting manstrosity.  Five years later Cropsey awakens and sets out for some fiery revenge - with the added bonus of garden sheer impaling.  Imagine Friday the 13th with less polish - yikes, right?  The Burning is a sick little gem filled with twisted kills and oddball casting choices (Fischer Stevens!  Jason Alexander!); strictly B (um...) D Movie territory, but an essential entry in the lesser known slashers.

4.  The Creature (Creature From The Black Lagoon):  It's quick.  Blink and you'll miss it.  But when The Creature oversteps his bounds on man's boat he gets his reptilian ass set ablaze.  Just think of stuntman, Ben Chapman, already covered in a cumbersome suit of rubber and now imagine that suit melting around his flesh.  Nasty business, fire stunts.  But they sure do look cool.

3.  The Unkillable Chev Chelios (Crank 2 - High Voltage):  There is just no topping the climax of Crank 2.  After surviving his skyfall execution of the first film, Jason Statham charges through the sequel as rage personified.  It all builds to the beachfront massacre - where Chev's army of prostitutes and homosexual bikers machine gun it out with the pickled head of Ricky Verona and the ferret obsessed Cliffton Collins Jr.  It's absolutely bonkers and must be seen to be believed - when The Stath is ignited he's more than happy to take the licks.

2.  The Bennings Thing (The Thing):  This is the first fire effect I ever remember seeing.  And it's still as effective today as it was in '82.  After MacReady and the gang exterminate the horrors of the dog kennel, they quickly discover that one of their own (poor moaning Bennings) has been infected/transformed by the alien creature.  This is the turning point in the film - Trust No One.  And burn 'em all.

1.  Sergeant Howie (The Wicker Man):  It's rough being a righteous virgin on an island full of sun worshipping pagans.  First they confound the hell outta you with their the wall thumping nudity of Britt Ekland then they wrap you in wicker and light your ass on fire.  Well, at least he didn't get Nicolas Cage's Bees.

--Brad

Dork Art: Justin White is Rated G

Boy, it's been too long since I've posted any Drive Dork Art.  I feel much better now.  Slashfilm just posted some exclusive art from Justing White's upcoming Rated G show and it's all kinds of adorable.  White apparently made his bones through Threadless shirts, and now he's hanging out with those cool kids over at Gallery 1988.

--Brad

Dork Art: Mondo's Universal Monsters

Mondo's got another amazing gallery show ready to hit Austin.  Starting October 19th, the lucky locals will be able to see great works of art from Drew Struzan, Rick Baker, JC Richard, Rich Kelly, Kevin Tong, etc and all devoted to the Universal Monsters.  Hope you've saved your pennies folks.  The above prints from Ken Taylor, Francesco Francavilla, and Laurent Durieux are just a taste.  Can't wait to see what the heavy hitters have in store.

--Brad

Dork Art: Francesco Francavilla's Water

This is why Francesca Francavilla is awesome.  Over at the What Not blog, artist Philip Bond chose Water as this week's artist theme.  And since last week, for the 70s theme, he did the ultimate fisherman's blockbuster JAWS, this time around he went for the killer whale knock-off, Orca.   Now if we could only get prints of JAWS and Orca to go along with Francavilla's watery Creature From The Black Lagoon Mondo print than I'll be endlessly happy.

--Brad

A Fistful of Monsters! (Matt’s Picks)

    All right, with Halloween just a matter of hours away, we here at In the Mouth of Dorkness are looking at our favorite movie monsters.  Now, I love a good movie monster.  I used to read books about ‘em as a lad.  Early fond memories include seeing Reptilicus on the Creature Double Feature at my friend’s house.  What are my five favorites?  I don’t know for sure.  But, here are five I really love. 

5.  The Machine-Man (Metropolis):  A mad inventor tries to recreate a mechanical version of his dead love, but is pushed into casting it into the image of Maria, the idealistic rabble-rouser and object of affection for the fortunate son of the city’s top man.  It gets so complicated.  But, not for faux-Maria.  She is bent on her evil goals, driven to corrupt and sow discord.

4.  Triffids (Day of the Triffids):  Danged plants from outer space.  They seem fine when they first land and start growing.  Just a new weed to arouse momentary curiosity.  That is, until a strange light show in the sky blinds most of the population and triggers something in the plants.  It isn’t long before they grow enormous and begin to take a more active role in getting proper fertilizer.

3.  The Cenobites (Hellraiser):  Are they demons?  I don’t think so.  Simply beings beyond human understanding.  Tired of exploring time and space, they’ve turned to other explorations.  And generally, unless you call them, they leave you alone.

2.  The Xenomorph (Alien):  Though I know my co-Dork Brad picked this creature, too, I can’t leave it off my list.  Weird as this may be, I find the thing simply beautiful.  I find it at least as fascinating as Ash or Bishop do.  There’s something special about it.  A reality and a natural beauty that is rarely captured.  It’s a walking, killing piece of art.

1.  The Creature (The Creature from the Black Lagoon):  An iconic monster that has held a special place in my heart since I can remember, I don’t know when I first saw The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but it had to have been pretty early (5 or under).  He looks amazing and is just darned cool.  No wonder I responded to H.P. Lovecraft and his Deep Ones when I read them so many years later.

-Matt