Bet you can't pick just one

[gwyn]

Since others have done that "pick a movie that people probably haven't seen" meme that's going around everywhere with movies that I would recommend (so nice to see people mention Big Eden and Strange Days and Wings and all kinds of truly great stuff), that didn't leave me with the huge list I was putting together in my head. But here's a couple that I would highly recommend:

1. The Sweet Hereafter. I'd be hard pressed to say "best movie ever made" about anything, but this one comes close. I think it's as close to film perfection as I may have ever seen. It's a tragic story, and I think this turns a lot of people away, but it's also ultimately hopeful, and gets at the heart of what makes humans resilient even in the face of staggering personal loss. Starring Ian Holm, Bruce Greenwood, Sarah Polley, Alberta Watson from LFN, and a host of Canadian actors almost everyone will recognize if they've watched Canadian-made shows (and all three of those lead actors mentioned are jaw-droppingly incredible), and directed by Atom Egoyan from a novel by Russell Banks (who helped write the script), this is essentially the tale of a lawyer who arrives in a small Canadian town to start a lawsuit over the deaths of a busload of children, whose bus crashed into a frozen lake. It jumps through time (I love stories that mess with timelines) and back and forth between the individual characters' stories, and it's suffused with a kind of gorgeous grief and longing that's palpable. It's haunting, redemptive, and heartbreakingly beautiful.

2. The Limey. Also another story that screws with time, and turns the concept of voiceover narration on its head, this masterpiece by Steven Soderbergh takes many of the tricks he employed on the lovely Out of Sight and The Underneath of time-displacement and disjunctive narrative style and uses them to astonishing effect. It's also one of the most visually arresting movies I've ever seen. Terence Stamp plays a career criminal who has just been released from prison, and goes looking for the man who killed his daugher in Los Angeles just prior to his release. Peter Fonda and Barry Newman are amazing as the would-be bad guys, but Stamp just burns through the screen in every scene he's in. He's especially incredible with Luis Guzman, here in one of his few good-guy roles. One of the best crime stories I've ever watched, it has the coolest "shoot-out" too, totally scary because it's so realistic it spooks you. And it uses footage of a young Stamp in the '60s Brit movie Poor Cow as flashbacks, because Stamp is essentially playing the same character decades later. A story of personal redemption and recovery, and the effect of memory on present action, it has one of the loveliest endings on film, and also had the single greatest one-sheet poster ever created, in my not-humble opinion.

3. The Iron Giant. Because this lovely animated film came in at a time when computer animation was taking over, it was dumped on by Warner Bros and never got the attention it deserved. Similar in some ways to Lilo & Stitch (another highly recommended, largely hand-drawn animated film), this is a story about a boy in the late 1950s who befriends a giant robot who doesn't know where he came from, and doesn't know that he is essentially a defensive weapon. Director Brad Bird's comment was "What if a gun had a soul?" It's beautiful, funny, poignant, sweet, filled with wonderful adult jokes and kid-pleasing visuals, and really deserves to be seen by more people. (The little making-of on the DVD hosted by Vin Diesel, who does the voice of the Giant, is a huge extra treat, btw.)

And then there's this movie called The Fast and the Furious that... ha ha, just kidding.

Comments

[sweet-ali.livejournal.com]

Ah, more reasons to love you, because The Sweet Hereafter is truly one of my favorite movies. The way it's filmed, the entire cast, it will forever stay with me. Images, the family that lost their child "Bear", the school bus in the lot, the father in the car behind waving at his twins, the flashback with the lawyer's daughter, knife a-ready to open her trachea if need be, the grief of the couple having the affair, the image of the bus going over the cliff, the phone calls between the lawyer and his daughter now grown and lost, and of course, the final scene with Sarah Polley and the lawyers. She and Iam Holm did such amazing jobs, and Polley's voice was a perfect sad melody for the movie.

Oh...i really need to go watch that again.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

One of many reasons I adore you. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about Sarah Polley when she walks into the light at the end, reading from The Pied Piper... ah, god, that was so gorgeous.

The thing that was a revelation to me was Bruce Greenwood. I'd always disliked him before, intensely, and this movie just blew my conceptions about him right out of the water. So I went and rented one of the other films he'd done with Egoyan and he blew me away even more. Totally became a Greenwood fan after that.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

Do you review professionally? Because those were marvelously written reviews. You make me want to see The Sweet Hereafter and The Limey, something no reviewer ever succeeded at before you.

And yeah -- the floppage of Iron Giant was wrong, wrong. They just flushed that wonderful movie. It had superlative art and a moving, unusual story.

Lately studios seem to be thinking that perhaps the world is big enough for both traditional animation and CGI, but Iron Giant was released just as a wave of Oh No It's Like the Talkies All Over Again! swept Burbank. Dorks. What a pity.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did, actually review for a few years. It was one of the most wonderful times I've ever had, but it was a penurious living (basically, I made no money), and I knew early on that getting a decent-paying job at a newspaper was never going to happen. Of course, now there are internet markets, but I can't imagine anyone ever wanting a Seattle-based old fart on their bylines. I also had a hard time with the snobby old guys and their Cahier du Cinema mindset -- I love action, genre, etc. When Blade Runner came out, I was the only person out of over a hundred reviews I read who praised it. Now, all those asshats think it's brilliant, but... stupid asshats.

SH and Limey are really cool movies. I just read some moron's "review" on IMDB and I just wanted to find him and beat him. I think The Limey is the best thing Soderbergh's ever done, and that's saying a lot -- he's one of my all-time favorite directors.

[klia.livejournal.com]

I think The Limey is the best thing Soderbergh's ever done, and that's saying a lot -- he's one of my all-time favorite directors.

Ditto to both. Soderbergh's an incredible director, and The Limey is definitely his best. Much as I love his other stuff (I haven't seen Full Frontal or Solaris, though) I think it's my favorite of his because the acting is outstanding, yet the cast isn't all typical Hollywood beautiful people, which makes it feel more "real" to me.

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

I echo the comments about The Sweet Hereafter. It will never let me go. The thread of the movie that haunts me most is his personal journey through the 'spider' incident. It strikes me as the seemingly simplest movie that you follow along thread by thread, until it 'accordions' out most unexpectedly and beautifully. Yes.

And yes, I agree with you - these guys must be 'stupid asshats'! And they should now hire you.

On a completely different subject, I love hearing about Seattle through your life. I don't know if you remember me, (I'm a Pros/Roy Dupuis fan who ordered some tapes from you a while ago) and I got the biggest surprise when they were shipped from Media Cannibals because I moved a year ago after living on that same street for 9 years, just a little further south ... It's wonderful to hear the familiar sprinkled in your writing - things like Scarecrow and Swedish... Although I'm happy where we are now (must convince myself!), my heart is still there.

Still thanking my lucky stars that I found lj and you!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Hi!!! A Roy fan *and* a Pros fan -- bet there aren't many who can claim entre to our club, right? Welcome! (Did you live on California? or 47th?)

That whole scene in TSH and the way he recounts that story is just amazing -- and the way he describes himself in it... I still get goosebumps thinking about it. I should watch it again. That was one movie I didn't wait for to get on DVD -- as soon as it was out, it was mine.

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

Yes, it seems to be a *very* exclusive club. Roy, Ray and Bodie - the creme de la creme!

I lived on N Whitman and 42nd, in Wallingford - I don't think that it was you who mailed my tapes, from Whitman :)

I realized later that referring to Swedish was very thoughtless of me - the last thing I want to do is bring up unhappy things... Sorry. I've been thinking of you and your sister. ::hugs::

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

Ohmigod. The Sweet Hereafter is such an incredible film. I saw it years ago, and I'm still not fully recovered. I don't think I'd argue with you about "best movie ever made." It also made Ian Holm my own personal "best actor." Just thinking about him in that movie makes my insides go into a little clenched not.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I know. Ian Holm=God of acting. That scene towards the end when he sees the bus driver... I'm getting all goosebumpy again. And Bruce Greenwood stunned me -- I never liked him at all and then I was just gobsmacked. That scene where he and Ian meet at the bus was just... they should show that in every acting class everywhere.

Entertainment Weekly got it right -- they named it best movie in '99, and I always really liked them for that.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

I loved The Sweet Hereafter. When we went to see it at the theatre two women came in with small children because the Bond movie at the same theatre was sold out. The overheard our shocked murmurings and asked what the movie was about. They left and I like to think that we saved two children from years of therapy.

Have you seen My Life Without Me? Sarah Polley's performance saves the premise from melodrama and Mark Ruffalo plays a guy in such angsty pain that he's like a walking exposed nerve.

I heard Sarah Polley interviewed on Fresh Air a couple of years ago and she's quite impressive in her intelligence and activism. I saw Dawn of the Dead only because she was in it.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

You know, I keep getting it in my Netflix recs, and I never do rent it, but I suppose I ought to. Right now I feel a little fragile about stories of people dying young, but it might be worth it anyway.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

I can understand that with all that's going on with your sister.

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

you have excellent taste in movies, if i do say so myself. 'the sweet hereafter' is one of my favorite films. sarah polley is so luminous in it. atom egoyan first caught my attention with the film 'exotica,' and i've been a big fan of his work ever since. i have to snurch this little meme, because talking about films is just so fun.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Luminous, yes. That's *exactly* the perfect word to describe her. I liked your choices for the recs, too!

[slackerace.livejournal.com]

I love all three of these movies. I am always recommending The Sweet Hereafter to people. I love that movie.

[barkley.livejournal.com]

"The Sweet Hereafter" came on the TV a few years ago as I was working on my computer. (I'm trying to remember if this was pre or post LJ and if I should bother digging through my archives to read what I wrote if it is in fact there because I'm curious) but anyway, it was the sort of movie that made me get off the computer and plop my butt down in front of the TV. I was drawn in by the pied piper voice over and it never let go. It was just a gorgeous movie.

[fileg.livejournal.com]

I love that you put The Sweet Hereafter and The Iron Giant on the same list. Therefore, I will add The Limey to my Find List.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Hopefully you won't be disappointed! If TSH messes with time, The Limey totally destroys it. I've never seen anything quite like it. It's also got some hiarious criminals in it, with some great dialog.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

That, to me, is its truly astounding achievement -- that you never feel as if you've been manipulated by it. To have a story that's at its core about the death of children, yet not yank people's strings, is something I doubt few filmmakers could ever manage.