Buzzwords are a slippery slope. Best. Greatest. Classic. The parameters to determine what makes a film a classic, or the best, or the greatest, vary greatly, and, frankly, can cause much hang-wringing amongst the film community – fandom groups, in particular. And trying to rank movies as if pitting them in a free-for-all battle royal to determine a champion is a creative pursuit that requires me to take an aspirin and drink a Coke.
Favorite. Now that’s a buzzword that doesn’t give me a headache. It gives the impression of liking something to such a degree you feel the need to shout it from the rooftops as if you were Billy Crudup in Almost Famous. A favorite film is something you champion and would recommend to others.
Author Dave Karger follows a similar tact in his new book, 50 Movie Nights: Contemporary Stars on Their Favorite Classic Films. Don’t let “classic” in the title fool you; Karger uses the word to represent the movies that mean the most to the stars he interviewed. For Scarlett Johansson it’s Easter Parade, to which she describes as the “perfect escapist musical” and one her very favorites since she was a kid. Growing up as the daughter of cinephiles, Johansson was drawn to Judy Garland and films like Meet Me in St. Louis (selected by the late costume designer Bob Mackie) and Molly Shannon’s pick, The Wizard of Oz.
Flipping through the pages, and reading the entries from filmmakers and personalities reflecting on their attachment to a particular work, I admire the thoughtfulness in their responses. For fashion designer-turned-filmmaker Tom Ford, Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show didn’t leave much of an impression after an initial viewing at a Texas drive-in. Watching it again in his teenage years, and later as an adult, Ford was more taken in by its themes. This Bogdanovich film is one he feels his better to watch alone when you feel great emotion.
The choices selected follow the requisite the films be from the 20th century, spanning the 1930s through the 1990s – well, through 2000, as Andy Cohen selected the already mentioned Almost Famous. Karger, a frequent host on TCM, a network synonymous with showing the golden age of classic Hollywood, would be the first to tell you films from the 1980s and 1990s deserve a seat at the table and be mentioned in the same breath as Singin’ in the Rain (Carol Burnett’s pick), It’s a Wonderful Life (Kathryn Hahn), and Woman of the Year (Brian Cox). As I did the math in tabulating the years of release, to my surprise the decade most represented was the 1970s with 14 titles. 1979 accounted for five. The only years to come close were 1939 and 1946 with three titles apiece.
As Karger has noted in interviews, while the selections range from comedy and drama to musicals, westerns, and thrillers, each had a human story at its core. People and relationships. Sometimes those relationships take a turn. As is the case with Lawrence Kasden’s The Big Chill (Julianna Margulies). A group of college friends reuniting after one commits suicide. Such a great ensemble piece with great dialogue and discussion. Marguiles thinks the prime audience is some time right after college but before hitting middle age. Actually, the starter to try before Kasdan’s film would be Richard Curtis’s pick, Breaking Away – which is my favorite coming-of-age movie. High school graduates with no direction followed up with baby boomers whose promising optimism have grown cold in the decades following college.
Laura Linney owns a prized piece of movie memorabilia. A hockey puck. The movie she chose: Slap Shot. The Oscar-nominated actress from You Can Count on Me and The Savages just adores the cult hockey comedy starring Paul Newman. But the selection to make my Spidey movie sense tingle the most was from Wes Anderson. Considering his body of work, I was expecting some obscure European comedy set in the Swiss Alps. Nope. He went with Arthur Mann’s The Tall Target, which he saw fairly recent. This 1951 crime Western stars Dick Powell as a police sergeant who tries to stop the planned assassination attempt of Abraham Lincoln as the president-elect travels to his inauguration.
50 Movie Nights is an insightful read with plenty of ideas for planning your next movie night. Perhaps a night of new discoveries and rediscovering one you haven’t thought about in quite awhile. Excuse me as I add Withnail and I (Paul Rudd) and The Battle of Algiers (Don Cheadle) to my watchlist, and cue up Tootsie (Kyra Sedgwick).
