brady's top 24 movies

Criteria: Some movies are bad, some movies are good, some movies are great but they leave me cold ("Citizen Kane", "Godfather"), some movies are great but are so horrifying I'll never watch them again ("Schindler's List", "The Killing Fields"), some movies can be watched over and over again yet don't feel right on a list like this ("Amadeus", "Swimming To Cambodia"), some movies are spectacularly beautiful but just don't seem to have enough heart ("Ran", "Pillowbook"), then there are the movies I forgot...these are the other movies.

1. Antonia's Line - Marleen Gorris. 1995
This movie makes me appreciate the lives of the people around me. A movie that helps you understand life, death and other people and makes you feel like a better person after watching it is a thing to be treasured. If I could live in one movie it would probably be this one.

2. Bride With White Hair - Ronny Yu. 1993
Like a beautiful and violent ballet... Incredible sets combined with amazing choreography plus two of the greatest Chinese actors ever, Brigitte Lin and Leslie Cheung, at their best. In one scene a drunk Leslie Cheung leisurely clobbers swordsmen with blades of grass, in another Brigitte Lin chops a horseman into 8 pieces with her whip. So you know when these two meet there will be fireworks. After they fight to a standoff they fall in love of course and make sweet (and somewhat hilarious) love in a pool of water. But the movie is only half over...

3. Wings of Desire - Wim Wenders. 1988
The closest I've ever seen to a movie that is built out of poetry. The fact that it manages to be interesting is what makes it transcendent. The look on the Angel's face when the man he's looking after slips over the edge of the roof and commits suicide...

4. Angel At My Table - Jane Campion. 1990
Speaking of poetry - a beautiful movie about the painful life of an artist. One of the most convicing arguments I've ever seen that beauty can come from suffering.

5. Wild Strawberries - Ingmar Bergman. 1957
A quiet movie about enjoying life while you can. I suspect my favorite scene is when the old main character is poignantly "serenaded" by his young friends before they say goodbye. I hope I get the chance to say goodbye to life that way someday.

6. Arizona Dream - Emir Kusturica. 1993
Every scene in this movie is almost perfect whether it's sad or slapstick or both. Lili Taylor is one of the best character actors ever and she is well placed in this movie. Kusturica, like Fellini, and Wenders can amaze me with the beauty he finds in the simple everyday things.

7. Notti di Cabiria, Le (Nights of Cabiria) - Federico Fellini. 1957
No one can make you feel the joy and sadness of love as well as Giulietta Masina can.

8. Withnail & I - Bruce Robinson. 1987
One of the funniest sad movies I've ever seen. A movie that changes with you as you grow older. The best drug humor and the best use of a Hamlet soliliquy ever in the same movie. My favorite line: "We have made an enemy of our future."

9. Bottlerocket - Wes Anderson. 1996
A great and understated character study. One of my favorite beginnings to a movie ever as Anthony makes a "daring" broad daylight escape from the hospital from which he's just been released. Of course he has to make an escape because he doesn't want to disappoint his friend Dignan who drew up the escape plans.

10. Thundercrack - ? 1960s?
Not for everyone. This X-rated (for sex) movie has a scene where someone receives fellatio from an ape (don't worry it's actually someone in a REALLY bad ape suit so no real apes were abused.) Thundercrack descends from Ed Wood in that it contains amazingly, wonderfully bad and overblown acting, dialogue and even camera work. Anyone who appreciates shocking and shockingly bad movies should see it.

11. Basquiat - Julian Schnabel 1996
A beautiful movie about a wonderful artist. Actually more than one...David Bowie is wonderful as his old friend Andy Warhol. I don't mean this as a comment on the movie but don't see it sober if you can avoid it.

12. Evil Dead 2 - Sam Raimi. 1987
In one scene Bruce Campbell stabs his own hand (which has turned evil) with a butcher knife and cackles "Who's laughing now!? Who's laughing now?!" Normally this sort of question would be rhetorical but in this case it really does call for an answer and his hand isn't talking, so he answers it himself: "Ha ha ha!!!"

13. Dogfight - Nancy Savoca. 1991
Lili Taylor and River Phoenix in an unusual love story. Lili can express emotions through the way she moves her hands, through the look in her eyes that other actors have never even thought about.

14. The Killer - John Woo. 1989
Another great Chinese actor, Chow Yun Fat, in probably his greatest role. Chow plays a hired killer who is trying to atone for his misdeeds. Some of his other movies, such as "Hard Boiled" have more action but none were as nicely shot or had such a great story line. Contains the classic scene where Chow and his nemesis/friend-to-be hold guns to each others heads while Chow's blind girlfriend serves them tea unaware of what is happening.

15. Fargo - Joel Coen. 1996
I'm from Minnesota so I was both annoyed and strangely proud of the portrayal of Minnesotans in this film. I was almost never so happy to see someone win an Academy award as I was when Frances McDormand won for her portrayal of Marge Gunderson the pregnant police chief. Marge is one of the single greatest protagonists ever in my opinion.

16. Fallen Angels - Wong Kar-Wai. 1997
Wong Kar Wai's movie are so beautiful I would compare them to Peter Greenaway but while Peter hates plots and characters because they detract from his cinematography Wong has plots and characters as wonderful as his scenes.

17. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Mike Nichols. 1967
I adore intelligent and emotional displays of complexity. This has to be the greatest ever.

18. Breathless - Jean-Luc Godard. 1960
Belmondo in arguably his greatest role. Just seeing him make faces in the mirror is a treat. Sometimes it's difficult to explain an emotional response to a movie.

19. Down By Law - Jim Jarmusch. 1986
I had to put Jarmusch in here. It could have been "Mystery Train" it could have been "Night On Earth" even "Dead Man" I chose "Down By Law" for the fact that it starred Tom Waits and it's the movie that Jarmusch made just as he was finding his voice. Such transitional movies are always special.

20. La Strada - Federico Fellini. 1954
I'm in love with Giulietta Masina, what else can I say?

21. Glengarry Glen Ross - James Foley. 1992
"You know what it takes to be a salesman? Brass balls!!"

22. Chung King Express - Wong Kar-Wai. 1994
I'm drawn to strange love affairs. This movie has not one but two of the strangest ever.

23. La Femme Nikita - Luc Besson. 1990
An intelligent action thriller. Until I saw this movie I didn't really think there was such a thing.

24. Sid & Nancy - Alex Cox. 1986
"But Sid! What about the farewell drugs!?" I don't want to live fast and die young (too late?) but I can appreciate those who do. I though about putting "Repo Man" here instead...I don't know. I've made my choices and I'm not looking back.

bradyh@bitstream.net

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