Best Movies Alphabetically T part 1 Review

Here are some movies that may be worth owning or giving as gifts this Holiday Season.  They are not for everyone, but represent in my opinion a rewarding viewing experience.

This is not a definitive or complete list by any means, but meant to offer you some slightly different choices than you might think of on your own when considering what to watch.

Enjoy.... more ideas and choices are on the way.

Take the Money and Run (1969) Co-written, directed by and starring Woody Allen

Woody's 2nd directorial effort (his first was the dubbed What's Up Tiger Lily ) is this documentary satire about the criminal life of a clumsy and not very successful thief and bank robber who keeps winding up in jail. It's told with a running Untouchables style voice over narrator that makes it even sillier. See it with a few friends and be prepared to laugh a lot at this silly, inventive film packed with lots of funny one liners and puns. "What is a GUB?"   Even if you usually don't like Woody, this one is more like an Airplane! type of spoof (less manic of course) and I'd suggest giving it a try.


Talk to Her (2002) directed by Pedro Almodovar

There is nothing else like this film. It shouldn't work as a warm, touching, unforgettable film that examines love, obsession, friendship, and compassion, but it does. I mean we're talking about a film that features a ballet student in a coma, a female bullfighter, a hospital worker and a writer of travel books. It's also a film full of images so beautiful they seem like they should be hanging in a museum -- Not panoramic location shots, but perfectly composed frames of light and color, even when they are of a hospital room!!! Pedro Almodovar's film prior to this was the brilliant All About My Mother. This one is almost as good and easier for most to like. He followed it up with the excellent BAD EDUCATION IN 2004. 


Targets (1968) Directed by Peter Bogdanovich

This is a very low budget film that was made when Roger Corman gave Peter Bogdanovich the opportunity to write and direct his first film. The conditions were that he would have the use of Boris Karloff for just a couple of days, and that 20 to 30 minutes of the film The Terror would be used. Bogdanovich and his then partner Polly Platt took the assignment. They wound us getting Karloff for a few additional days and they wound up using less than 10 minutes of The Terror. Two stories run parallel with each other but we know they will meet up at the end of the film. The first is about a young man who decides to methodically shoot people. He first does this from water towers near the freeway and randomly shoots at some cars. Meanwhile Boris Karloff plays pretty much himself. He is an aging movie-star who has agreed to make an appearance at a drive in that is premiering his latest horror film. He is retiring from film because he's convinced real life is much scarier than any of the silly horror films he has made. The film turned out so good that instead of being marketed just like other cheap little Corman exploitation films, the film got positive critical notices at some special screenings and Corman sold the film as an A picture to Paramount. Unfortunately just as Paramount released the film, Bobby Kennedy was shot and it would have been terrible timing to promote film about a crazed assassin. An anti-gun prologue was added to the film but it did little business in a nation that was mourning the assassination of another Kennedy. So the film did little business and was forgotten until after Bogdanovich had a big critical success with Last Picture Show in 1971/1972. 



The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1932) Director Fritz Lang

It wasn't seen in the U.S. until 1943 as the edited, Last Will of Dr. Mabuse; also known as The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse. It's one of the best ‘mad doctor' movies ever made and this time there's a supernatural theme. This time the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse rules the underworld from inside an insane asylum. It's not quite as stylish as the silent Lang films. Controversial film banned by the Nazis. An entertaining classic. 


The Third Man (1949) directed by Carol Reed

Graham Greene's mystery novel becomes a classic film noir thriller (Greene wrote the screenplay) with Director Reed and Cameraman Kasker (with some assistance from Welles) creating visual art with incredible compositions of shadows and light. Joseph Cotton plays an American writer of pulp westerns who arrives in Vienna to take a job with an old friend. His friend however is dead. It had to have been murder didn't it? Was his friend a Cold War spy and involved somehow with the extremely mysterious and manipulative Harry Lime (Orson Welles in a supporting role). You'll remember the incredible under ground sewer sequence, the Ferris wheel and the distinctive zither music of Anton Karas. A superb film. 


THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984) Directed by Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner shot hours of footage creating this partially scripted, greatly improvised mockumentary classic about a tour of a past their prime rock band called Spinal Tap. The released product painted a P.G. rated view of a rock star's road life, while in a lot of the edited footage a closer to reality view was on hand. A few hours of additional footage is on one of the DVD versions of the film and it's highly recommended. Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and supporting players like Bruno Kirby and Paul Schaeffer worked beautifully together under Reiner's guidance. Most of the players minus Reiner and with the addition of SCTV veterans Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara would re-unite a few years later and create Waiting for Guffman, and then later Best in Show and A Mighty Wind and 2006's For Your Consideration-- all quite enjoyable though for most Guffman is best and Best in Show funniest..


Throne of Blood (1957), aka Kumonosu-jo or The Castle of the Spider's Web or Cobweb Castle, Japan, directed by Akira Kurosawa

Although the film has been completely transformed into a story that takes place in feudal Japan and you might not realize it-it is Shakespeare's Macbeth as you've never seen it before. The finale is absolutely incredible and worth waiting for. We are in the world of Samurai and Toshiro Mifune and Minoru Chiaki are brave warriors who are on their way to see the emperor so that they can collect their deserved rewards. On the way they meet an old woman who can see the future and sees that Mifune will become a ruler-but his reign will be very short. They dismiss her negative premonition and decide she is mad. Oh but she is not. Immerse yourself in the wonderful Japanese details of the film and be transported into a completely different world.


Through a Glass Darkly (1961), aka Sasom I En Spegel, Sweden, director by Ingmar Bergman

Not many are going to watch the Bergman films I throw down here, but I wish you'd give several of them a try. This is the first and best part of Bergman's Silence of God Trilogy. Harriet Andersson plays the grown daughter of a very oppressive manipulative family who is recovering from severe schizophrenia. Her psychologist and husband are also vacationing on a secluded island. Then she starts having visions of God where God looks like a giant spider. Very upsetting and powerful film. This was followed by Winter Light and then The Silence.


To Have and Have Not (1944) Directed by Howard Hawks

Howard Hawks takes Hemmingway's ‘worst novel" and makes a great film out of it. Call it Hawk's version of Casablanca if you insist, this one is much better written and has a better plotted story. It was Lauren Bacall's first film (she even sings a little song and not too badly) and the Bogart/Bacall chemistry was real and red hot. They later got and stayed happily married till Bogie's death. Bogie's a charter boat captain in Martinique who gets mixed up reluctantly with a beautiful lady and the French resistance during World War 2. We get a scene stealing performance from Walter Brennan as the rum-soaked ship's mate and Hoagy Carmichael as the piano man. It doesn't get much better than this.


7 MORE terrific T movies in part 2.