Annie Hall (1977)

This is a great movie, one of Woody Allen's best done at a time when he had really found his voice. It stars Woody and his then-partner Diane Keaton, making it pre- Mia Farrow so there's no need to get into any of the thorny issues arising from that relationship. Also it was made in an era when Woody could still play the heroes of his movies before he started casting stand-ins like Owen Wilson and John Cusack. Both perfectly good performers but not better at being Woody, than Woody.

Synopsis:

Woodie begins the movie with two jokes one of which about not wanting to be a part of a group that would have him as a member he says sums up the problems he's had with women. Then he tells us that he and Annie have broken up, which he can't believe. The rest of the movie we see his relationship with Annie in flashbacks - out of order glimpses of times in their relationship in an effort to see what went wrong. We don't just look at the time he was in the relationship, we look at Woddy's childhood, we get a glimpse of Annie's when they go to her family's Midwestern home. we even see part of his relationships before he met Annie to see how they colors the later relationship. There are wonderful moments and painful moments and through it all we get a really good picture of the relationship.

Review:

Because he has been so prolific, chances are you have seen at least one Woody Allen movie by now. However, if you have not seen this movie you really haven't seen the best Woody Allen film. It won the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. That is an unheard of number of awards for a comedy. Comedies are notoriously overlooked at award time - not given the respect of hard core dramas, and even though this counts as part drama, part comedy it still was an amazing feat to win those awards. This is one of Woody's best scripts and that is saying something because no matter what one might think of him - the man can write ..... and direct. The performance of Diane Keaton is brilliant and charming. Not for nothing was her quirky clothing style from the movie copied by every woman in America that year. The clothes became a phenomenon because her performance was phenomenal. The supporting players are also excellent, including Carol Kane as the old girlfriend, Tony Roberts, a Woody Allen regular for years as Woody's best friend, Shelley Duvall, Colleen Dewhurst, and even Christopher Walken in a small but HILARIOUS part. The most notable supporting cast member is Paul Simon - the Paul Simon the songwriter - that alone makes it worth seeing. I promise that this is the quintessential Woody Allen movie, so if you see it and you don't like it you have an excuse not to see any others.

The American President (1995)

The movie that gave birth to the TV show The West Wing because Aaron Sorkin's research for this movie led him to admire the people who work in the White House so much that he decided to dramatize what they saw. That piece of trivia aside, this movie is a real stand out all by itself. If you know The West Wing or A Few Good Men or anything else that Aaron Sorkin has written you know that he is probably the most talented writer working in Hollywood today. Add to that some brilliant performances and a great and unusual love story and you have a really wonderful movie to watch.

Synopsis:

The movie opens with President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) is being briefed about his itinerary for the day - we begin to get a behind the scenes look at his life while also learning key information about the current state of his democratic presidency. We also learn that the President is a widower and that he has a teenaged daughter. He is joined gradually by more and more members of his staff. Meanwhile across town at an environmental lobbying group a new political strategist is being hired, Sidney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening). As the President is ushered from one meeting to another, Ms. Wade and a co worker arrive at the White House to meet with the Chief of Staff (Martin Sheen). While they are in the meeting with the Chief of Staff, Ms. Wade gets particularly tough on the administration just as the President pokes his head in. He then asks her to step into the oval office and discusses the issue with her further. There is an immediate spark between the two although she is as much in awe of the office as she is attracted to the man.

Soon the President decides to ask her out - or rather over to the White House - for a date. The occasion of the date is an upcoming state dinner so the publicity is immediate. Soon after that they are dating in earnest and soon the press, the opposing party, her boss and his staff are following the romance and all of its fallout. The rest of the movie deals with the issues that arrive when a modern day president is dating as well as the issues that arrive between the two of them.

Review:

This is a wonderful and unusual romantic comedy. Unusual because the situation is unique. Beautiful because it is well written, well acted and well directed. Aaron Sorkin has a turn of phrase that is memorable and lyrical. His characters talk like we all wish we could, sounding both down to earth and erudite at the same time. These actors are all tops in their field and give fantastic performances. Martin Sheen does such a great job as Chief of Staff in this movie that he got promoted to President for The West Wing. Annette Bening is so much more than beautiful, she has an obvious intelligence that can sometimes be lacking in the lead of a romantic comedy. Michael Douglas is at his liberal best with a presence that is unmatched on screen. The director of all of this is Rob Reiner who not only is a great director, he knows his politics having been an activist for years. If you like any of these people you owe it to yourself to see this movie.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

This movie is so well known that it's title has become a cliche used to describe any relatively inexperienced person recently elected to national office. Political reporters regularly use this as the frame of reference for filibusters - assuming that people have seen the filibuster from the movie. In reality, many have seen clips of the filibuster but not the actual movie and that's a shame. It is a wonderful look at the capital as it used to be which, sadly, is not that different from how it is now, except the news moves much, much faster. There is corruption involving moneyed interests, cronyism, scapegoating and all the greatest hits. Unlike life, however, the movie was directed by Frank Capra so you know it will all turn out OK in the end.

Synopsis:



The movie centers around Mr. Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) who is appointed to the Senate after the junior Senator from an un-named western state dies.  He's chosen because he's a local hero who is seen as too green to object to some of the slimier deals that already exist between the head of the State's political machine (Edward Arnold), the State's bumbling Governor, and the other Senator from the State (Claude Rains).  The very wise secretary of the dead Senator (the sublime Jean Arthur) is ordered to babysit Jeff Smith and be sure he doesn't get into any trouble - or uncover any trouble for the public. Instead she becomes so disgusted with her job and feels so sorry for this sap that she put him wise as only the hard charging broad from a movie in the 30s could do.  Jeff decides to fight and stand up for the people (hardly a surprise given his resume).  His fight culminates in the famous filibuster scene - can you imagine someone putting a filibuster scene in a movie today!  

Review:

Mr. Smith was nominated for 11 Oscars - only two fewer nominations than Gone With the Wind received. Though it won only for screenplay - it's important to keep in mind that 1939 is widely regarded as the best year in history for movies so competition was steep. Besides which, Jimmy Stewart frankly admitted in his life that he believed the Oscar he won for Supporting Actor for The Philadelphia Story was given to him at least in part because he did not win in 1939. Furthermore, the reason he did not win in 1939 was not the powerhouse that was Gone With the Wind, it was the performance by Robert Donat in Goodbye Mr. Chips in which he didn't portray Mr. Chips he really seemed to become Mr. Chips. All of this is to say that this is probably the best performance of Jimmy Stewart's career and that is saying something. He even had a method actor moment on this film choosing to stay up all night and take something to sound more horse when doing the filibuster scene.

Just as important is the performance by Jean Arthur. She was one of many tough, sometimes tough-talking women who were real stars of the movies they were in in the 30s and early 40s. These women were not simply the girl waiting to be rescued by the hero. These were true partners on screen even if it all ended in very traditional marriages. These were, to use the vernacular, broads and Jean Arthur was one of the best. She joined Katherine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, Irene Dunne and to some extent Ginger Rogers. This is a great vehicle for that kind of woman. Think of some of the great political roles for women that now exist on TV, in VEEP and House of Cards there are at last women of this strength level on screen again, but this was the 1930s!! Her character Saunders knows so much more than Jimmy Stewart does about Washington it's not clear they are on the same planet. Yet she isn't hard, from the beginning her humanity shows through and her vulnerability. That's hard to do but she does it with aplomb and she too was nominated for an Oscar. The other smaller parts are well done as well - particularly Claude Rains playing the senior senator who long ago gave up his ideals in order to get re-elected. His interactions with Stewart's Jefferson Smith bring those ideals back to him in a very uncomfortable way.

The Usual Suspects (1995)

Check it out a movie that's actually from the lifetime of people who use social media - I'm so proud of myself. More important than it's relative newness, however is the fact that this movie meets my two primary criteria for inclusion on this list, 1) it is a brilliant movie and 2) not enough people have seen it. It has a cast of people who have, for the most part only become more popular and in demand than when they did the movie, but most importantly it has Bryan Singer as director. If you love the X-Men movies you owe it to yourself to see what Singer did with a more terrestrial script.

Synopsis:

The action of this movie is told almost entirely in flashback. The only exception is the very stylized, very brutal murder of one man by another. They clearly know each other, but it is not clear, how or how well. Immediately after the murder the boat is lit on fire and explodes. We are immediately transported to the interview of Roger 'Verbal' Kint (Kevin Spacey) who says the story began six weeks prior when a hijacking of a truck in New York caused the police to round up several criminals with connections to hijacking and to put them in the line up. In other words, they rounded up the usual suspects. (For those who don't know the title is taken from Casablanca in which the hapless police of Vichy France were told on more than one occasion to round up the usual suspects) We then see, in flashback the lineup these guys were put in and through that scene (which is very funny) we meet our other main characters including the man who was shot in scene on on that boat, Dean Keaton, played by Gabriel Byrne, a former cop who went REALLY bad. Michael McMannus played by Stephen Baldwin, is the regular crime partner of Fred Fenster, played by Benicio del Toro before he became really famous. Finally we meet Todd Hockney played by Kevin Pollack a loaner with a very colorful vocabulary. We see that Verbal has a bad limp and no use of one hand and it isn't clear what he's doing there with these more serious criminals.

As this group of criminals are cooing their heels in a holding cell after the line up, McMannus and Fenster decide that now might be a good time to recruit partners for a score they have in the works.  Dean Keaton wants nothing of the plan insisting that the whole line up was a set up and that he is going straight. The others are interested however and Verbal comes up with a plan but it requires 5 guys so he talks Keaton into joining them.

Soon we cut away to the blown up boat. We are told there are 15 or so fatalities and the only survivors are a cripple being talked to by the D.A. whom we recognize as Kint, and a man in a coma at the hospital. We are introduced to two investigators Dave Kujan of US Customs (played by Chazz Palminteri) and FBI agent Jack Baer (Giancarlo Esposito). Kujan is primarily interested in the involvement and death of Dean Keaton - they have history and he's not sure about the story he's heard Kint told the authorityes. (There are simply too many unanswered questions - why did so many people die for dope that wasn't there? It's all very confused but it is clear that  cares about Dean Keaton and him only, at least at first. He manages to gain access to Verbel Kint and question him one on one.  And Kint tells him the whole story - interspersed with parts of his own personal history the he throws in to apparently obfuscate his primary story. The rest of the film unfolds as Kint tells Kujon the story.

Review:

This really is one of those serendipitous movies in which everyone is at the top of their game and it all comes together in a taut. terrifying, fascinating thriller that you will talk about long after you see it. Because it is one of those stick to your ribs movies you will find that friends who have seen it reference the movie often. That is one of the reasons I would put movies on this list if they are conversation producers. But this is so much more. This is one serious tour-de force by Kevin Spacey. The plot is so complicated there is a very good chance that two viewings will be needed. I heard a story shortly after it's release indicating that even Gabriel Byrne was confused about a major plot point until he saw the final cut.  In addition to bringing many of these actors, and the wonderful director, to the fore for the first time, the screenwriter is engaged in his first big hit as well. It's a modern movie (ok absent cell phones and social media) with a real old fashioned film noir feel to it. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

OK so once upon a time (1958) a man named Peter George wrote a novel called Red Alert. It was a serious novel about the possibility that the madness of one low level military general could lead to all out nuclear war. Stanley Kubrick was intrigued by the novel and it's concept, but the more he thought about it the less possible it seemed to take the disastrous circumstances seriously. Consequently, for a serious interpretation of the book, one must turn to the rather turgid movie Fail-Safe. Kubrick instead decided to present the blatant absurdity that mankind could choose to annihilate itself.

Synopsis:

The action begins with General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) being informed of the crazy actions of Brigadier General Jack Ripper played by Sterling Hayden (yes even character names are absurd in this movie). He has issued an order for his bombers to drop their nuclear bombs over the Soviet Union. He was able to do so thanks to a loophole that was designed to allow us to blow up the Russians even if the first assault against us managed to take out the President and other people in the chain of command. The Brig. Gen then goes incommunicado, making it impossible to obtain the recall codes without which the planes will, indeed, drop their bombs on Russia. Soon all the powers that be have been assembled in the war room (a FAR more impressive location than the White House situation room) in order to brainstorm - and I use the term very loosely -- about how to stop the attack. Not everyone, I should point out wants to stop the attack, some, notably Scott's Turgidson believe that the U.S. should take advantage of this inevitable first strike to push ahead and finish off the enemy. Others, most importantly President Merkin Muffley (one of three roles played by Peter Sellers) disagree. Can and will the attack be stopped in time???

Now nuclear war may not sound that funny but with Terry Southern's script, Kubrick's direction and the madness of Peter Sellers it is HILARIOUS! Now don't get me wrong - it isn't hilarious like the three stooges or even the hangover it's dry as dust humor and humor you have to think about a minute. But I promise it is hilarious. In addition to the mealy mouthed president, Sellers plays a rather demented nuclear scientist (Dr. Strangelove) who was clearly a Nazi before he joined the U.S. team (not unlike many of our actual nuclear scientists and rocket scientists in the 60s), and he plays the only truly sane character in the movie, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake who spends most of the movie trying to pry the recall codes from the mouth of the brilliantly insane Sterling Hayden. There is the Russian Ambassador played by Peter Bull who not only has his own role to portray but also gets to relay the words of Soviet Premier Kissoff who has been raised on the red phone as part of the effort to avert disaster. The interaction of all these men (and they are all men with the exception of brief moments with Buck Turgidson's secretary/girlfriend there are no women in the movie) most of whom seem determined to prove their manhood, by destroying their lives and everyone else's, is hilarious because it is just so stupid.  This really is a movie you will find people reference regularly, meaning it's worth seeing just so you know what they are talking about. Fortunately, it's also very fun to watch.

Chinatown (1974)

I recently had a friend tell me that they did not really think that Jack Nicholson was that great an actor, then she admitted that she had never seen Chinatown. That is unacceptable. I don't think Nicholson has ever been better (even though he didn't win an Oscar until One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest the next year) or better looking. Faye Dunaway had not yet started chewing the scenery as she has in most, if not all, of her post Mommie Dearest roles. Roman Polanski was still living in the United States, and Robert Towne, still one of the best writers in Hollywood, when he feels like it (we won't count Mission Impossible II) wrote one of the best scripts ever.

The basic idea behind the movie was to do a crime drama about the really big crimes perpetrated by men who don't go to jail, instead they get their names on buildings. Towne took the basic narrative of the men who created Los Angeles by solving it's water problem and added some VERY dramatic fictions, then drops a Sam Spade-esque private investigator in the middle of it and in a position where he feels he must unravel it all. It's the 1930s, the depths of the depression and J.J. 'Jake' Gittes (Jack Nicholson), former cop and PI is making a living specializes in sleazy matrimonial work - meaning spying on cheating husbands. Hired for what appears to be just another job catching a cheating spouse by Mrs. Mulwray he instead finds himself in the headlines, threatened with lawsuits, attacked with a knife, attacked by a crazy family of farmers trying to guard their water, falling in love, and threatened by one of the most powerful men in town. It's a fascinating and complicated plot.

Every time I watch this movie (and that's a lot of times) I notice something I never noticed before. A couple of years ago I noticed a song that was playing in a restaurant scene between Nicholson and  Dunaway and in the next scene, which was undoubtedly shot weeks later or earlier, Nicholson is humming that song as if it got stuck in his mind when he was in the restaurant. That's the kind of touch that tells you this is a really special movie. The performances are hard to beat and Polanski's direction is probably why people in Hollywood have been unable to condemn him for his personal faults. The powerful man that Gittes comes up against is played by John Huston, legendary director and father of Nicholson's real-life long term lover Angelica Huston. This adds an interesting dimension to the scene they play together. I cannot stress enough that if you haven't seen this movie you must see it soon.

Henry V (1989) or (1944)

Actually the technical title of Olivier's Henry V - the 1944 movie is The Chronical History of King Henry the Fift with his Battel fought at Agincourt in France but that is just too much of a mouthful for me to deal with so I will treat both as being titled Henry V. I just returned from Forest Park in St. Louis where I was rained out from seeing Henry IV so I had Shakespeare on the brain. While there are no really famous movies of Henry IV these two versions of Henry V are both excellent and well worth seeing.

Synopsis:

When he is Prince Hal in Henry IV this member of the British Royalty was very worrisome to his relatives - running around with a bad crowd, drink, debauchery and even some law breaking. Now however, his father has passed and Prince Hal is Henry V faced with an important decision. Should he go to war with France winning back the territory originally held by his Norman ancestors - thereby continuing what would become known as the 100 years war? He decides that God is indeed on his side and the side of his ancestors and so he raises an army and invades.

Meanwhile in a MUCH seedier part of London, Sir John Falstaff, Henry's close friend in Henry IV, dies. The other former friends of the younger Prince Hal decide to follow their former friend to war. Meanwhile, in France, Charles VI and his son the Dauphin disagree about how big a threat is posed by Henry V. The Dauphin still views Henry as the playboy from Henry IV, while his father takes the threat more seriously. Next the action moves to the battlefield in France. We see not only the battle, but all of the doubts and worries that fill the minds of the various players the night before.

After the battle, (Spoiler alert if you don't know history) in which the British win handily over the numerically superior French forces, Henry and the daughter of the French King Charles VI meet and decide to marry, meaning that Henry's heir will be heir to France as well.

This is one of Shakespeare's best known history plays and both movies really do it justice. They are both faithful to the text (for the most part, there is always need for some cutting when Shakespeare is filmed to avoid a four hour movie) Despite Olivier's iconic status when it comes to filming Shakespeare, I personally prefer the 1989 version filmed by Kenneth Branagh. He was more age appropriate for one thing (Branagh was 29 which is exactly the same age Henry was while Olivier was in his 50s.) Furthermore, Olivier's version begins as if it were being performed on stage at the Globe - a device praised by many but one I find off-putting and distracting. Either way though, the play/movie is a must see. You won't believe how many well known lines originate in the play. The casts are excellent though most of the names in the Oliver version will be unknown to today's audience, Branaugh's version includes Derek Jacobi, Ian Holm, Paul Scofield, Judi Dench and Branagh's then-wife, Emma Thompson.The direction of both could not be better as each is a demonstrated master of film directing.