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Best Movies Alphabetically M Movies beginning with the letter M ...
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ChrisJarmick's Review
Great M movies to love, watch, share, give to others, and enjoy
into movies that tell a great story, a Movie Guru, a lover of quirky unique films, a cult film connoisseur, a fan of movies that take chances, a movie connoisseur
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DEC
18
2008
M
M (1931), Germany, directed by Fritz Lang
60 years Before Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector there was Peter Lorre as the self-loathing compulsive child killer. It’s an incredible performance in a remarkable poignant film about the last days of a child murderer hiding from the police and an underground network of citizens who want to take the law into their own hands and make sure justice is done. Director Fritz Lang's masterpiece was based on real life serial killer Peter Kurlen and he based part of it on Jack the Ripper as well. Lang considered it his finest work. I find no reason to argue with him. Not only does Lorre dazzle with his unforgettable performance, the cinematic qualities of the film are top-rate.
THE MAGICIAN (1958) directed by Ingmar Bergman 1958
This is a surprisingly less known and under-rated Bergman. It ranks up there with his very best. Max Von Sydow is Albert Emmanuel Vogel a 19th century hypnotist and magician who has studied with Mesmer. When Vogler’s Magnetic Health Theater arrives outside of Stockholm, the local police chief and some prominent townspeople are very skeptical since they have heard rumors about charlatans and suspect Vogler is exactly that. The prominent townspeople insist that they get a preview show before the rest of the public sees anything. Vogler desperately needs money and agrees to their conditions. Several try to expose Vogler and his troupe as phonies and con-artists.. There’s also a sick drunken man that the troupe has picked up and tries to care for. The film doesn’t have a classic chess with death scene like Seventh Seal, but it’s every bit as memorable. Don’t miss it.
The Maltese Falcon (1941) Directed by John Huston
Humphrey Bogart is just about as perfect a Sam Spade as you could get in this outstanding adaptation of Dashiel Hammett’s detective novel. May Astor is the client, Peter Lorre is the shady Joel Cairo, Sidney Greenstreet (in his talkie film debut) is the fat man and Elisha Cook is the paranoid Wilmer. This was Huston’s first directorial effort (he wrote the screenplay too) and features a cameo by his father Walter Huston (as Captain Jacobi). It’s the 3rd version of the novel (first in 1931, and then in 1936 as Satan Met a Lady –an inferior version with Better Davis as the client looking for a ram’s horn). Fast paced, suspenseful classic.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) directed by John Ford
Classic Ford Western. Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Strother Martin, Edmond O'brien, Andy Devine, Woody Strode, Lee Van Cleef, John Carradine and Lee Marvin playing one of the most detestable villains every put on screen (and one he would parody in Cat Ballou).
MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA (1929) Directed by Dziga Vertov
Since 1922 Russian documentary film-maker Dziga Vertov declared the new language of the cinema as practices by D.W. Griffith and other fiction film makers was false and numbing intellectual growth. In 1929 he created a masterpiece of camera and editing innovations and tricks to comment on on the tone, styles and methods of film-making and it's role and uses in society. It's partially a political film, but it's also a work of art—though never stuffy. When you sit and watch it you are watching a 68 minute collection of images which will probably remind you of the more recent docu-message films : Koyaanisquatsi or Powaqquatsi or Baraka. They took the best of Buster Keaton and took it to the next level. Man with a Camera is a masterpiece, but one that deals with form and content and the juxtapositions of images and how edits can create messages, comparisons, ironies, or ideas. The film does not have a plot or actors, or sets, or even inter-titles. Vertok believed the most important contribution filmmakers could make was to show life as it really was and catch people unaware -- as in unaware of the camera. On it's surface the film looks at a typical day from dawn to dusk in a large Russian city. Director Vertov believed in the power of the ‘kino-glaz' or cinema eye. And he wanted to compare city life to human life. The Camera--- like windows in a building. Static--- like the mannequins in storefronts, but more useful--- like a machine created to help with work tasks. The people wash themselves, the city streets are washed, and the people walk or perform tasks, and so on and so forth. Comparisons are made throughout the film. One of my favorites is between sewing machines and operators in a busy factory and Vertov's wife editing a film. One need only remember that the earliest movie cameras were made with parts from sewing machines to realize what an apt parallel Vertov and Kaufman have found. And indeed, combining pieces of cloth to make a finished piece of clothing, is not unlike splicing together bits of film stock to make a complete movie.
Manhattan (1979) Directed by Woody Allen
The overall production (look) of Manhattan is superb. Gordon Willis’ velvety black and white photography combined with that Gershwin score makes New York City look like one of the most enchanting urban centers in the galaxy. Allen plays a television writer who decides he has to do more with his creativity, but his quirks and neurosis’s trip him up. His friends are even playing games with him and don’t get started on his ex-wife (Meryl Streep) who is now living as a lesbian and authored an embarrassing book about her past married life. There’s more, the Woodman’s character is trying to end his relationship with a young high school senior (Mariel Hemingway) who is in love with him (and much more mature emotionally than he is), so that he can get together again with Diane Keaton. But just as it looks like that on again, off again relationship might happen, it turns out Diane is sleeping with the Woodman’s best friend played by Michael Murphy. It’s funny, its serious, it’s painfully hilarious and it’s a masterpiece.
Mary Poppins (1964) Director Robert Stevenson
Here’s a family fantasy film classic that has an incredible amount of charm and wit. It’s nearly impossible not to like this supercalifragilisticexpealodocious film. Julie Andrews as the practically perfect nanny from P.L. Traver’s book is an utter delight. Dick Van Dyke with that ridiculous cockney accent is equally brilliant. Many wonderful songs, supporting performances, movie magic special effects that still hold up rather well are all part of this family friendly classic set in London circa 1910. Unfortunately its success meant that many, many copy-cats and also rans tried to duplicate what it did and all came up short. Don’t blame this film for that, though. Lots of deserving Oscars were won. It’s like five spoonfuls of sugar without the calories.
Masculin Feminin (1966), aka Masculine Feminine, France/Sweden, directed by Jean-Luc Godard
A young man just released from the Parisian Army gets involved with some protestors and find himself falling in love and having an affair with a radical woman singer. This is a charming, easy to like film and many consider it Godard’s best. Do give it a try.
McCabe and Mrs. Miller 1971 directed by Robert Altman
Altman decided to do a Western film and he made it with one of the most controlling, egotistical personalities in Hollywood (the talented) Warren Beatty. They clashed a lot but the result is a film that bends the genre while retaining period details. The look is stylized and isn’t does’t look muddy or distorted as some of the prints, t.v. showings and old VHS releases might lead you to believe. Get the DVD release. I could explain to you how amazing the bar scene is where you hear various real conversations going on around the bar and we shift from one to another and focus in on the most important one (while others are still going on). No one was making movies that looked or sounded like this one does. It’s a remarkable achievement. Beatty plays a man who has reinvented himself into something he is not. He pretends he’s a tough smart entrepreneur. Lucky for him Julie Christie comes into town and she is a tough smart entrepreneur who is smart enough to know she needs a guy like Beatty to make the brothel she wants to run work as well as it can. Unfortunately there’s some gunmen who want satisfaction from Beatty and he is going to have put up and prove himself. That will take more than words and attitude. We also get Leonard Cohen music that in some cases introduces scenes for us like a modern Greek Chorus. Wow.
Mean Streets (1973) D: Martin Scorsese
Owing a huge debt to Fellini (I Vitelloni), Scorsese’s technically dazzling film about the street life of some low level Mafiosi hoods and wanna-bees in New York City’s Little Italy is unforgettable. It delivered electrifying performances by Harvey Keitel as a small time hood, Robert DeNiro as an irresponsible friend, along with David Carradine, Robert Carradine, Amy Roginson, Richard Romanus, David Proval and others. A knockout.
PART 2 OF THE M MOVIES ON ITS WAY....
Last edited on Jan 28, 2009
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