The Snowed-in Cabin Fever Selection, Fall 1999: Ann &
Stan's Top Movies
 Ann
Since music lends itself much more to images
of being stranded on a desert island, then movies lend themselves
to images of being snowed in, cuddled in a sofa with a blanket,
a TV and a video player. These are my favorites, and except for
the addition of  Fargo and Velvet Goldmine,
haven't changed much in the past few years at all, unlike music
which is more in flux all the time. I found this list extremely
limiting, and wished I had been able to include others like movies
from Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood, but then it would be a top
twelve instead of a top ten. No fair. They are listed below in
alphabetical order...who can pick a #1 anyway?
 Also be warned...I like black comedy, I
am not offended by violence in fiction, and I like sick villains.
But something else that is very important is a good film score
or soundtrack. I'm not talking John Williams either. (gag) All
these movies (and more!) we own on VHS.
Please take time to click on the links below and read the
reviews given by third parties...one thing I'll never be is a
great critic in terms of using knowledgable lingo to describe
art and genres, so other viewpoints are helpful.
 Ann's List
A Clockwork Orange
Amadeus
Fargo
Fire Walk With Me
 Gothic
Kalifornia
The King of Comedy
Pulp Fiction
Repo Man
Velvet Goldmine
Stan
There are a lot more movies that I like, and
can see perhaps once or twice than I can mention or even remember.
More importantly there are thirty or so movies that I hope to
see many times over the remaining course of my life. From this
handful of choices it seems unnecessary to make a top ten list,
but I can select the most important by thinking of the ones that
contain the most of what I need in a movie. Movies must be fierce
and wonderful to get a thumbs up from me. I don't like to watch
sentimental feel good, and isn't life just a  sappy bowl of pleasant goo, dialogue
in a star filled sequence of landscapes that really seems like
some kind of government propaganda video on how everyone is expected
to be living their really fakey feely goody lives. No way - none
of that holy hollywood mental rot on my list because when I watch
a movie I expect sinister madness, seductive beauty and the trancendant
spectacle of seeing them inseparably linked within the same silver
screen  imagery. When I see a movie I want
images that can make almost anyone feel the sorrow of blood seeping
through the rocks where Cain gets murdered and entertain ideas
that end in realizations that there actually could be someone
ignorant and stupid enough to actually kill the guy. A really
worthwhile movie needs either an external world or an internal
journey that evolves within a five alarm tragedy that either
transforms the souls of whomever it touches or completely destroys
the people who are unwilling to be changed. In a movie I would
be willing to see again and again I need to be able to find beauty
and sorrow woven deep within the film's images and people. Here
they are in alphabetical order:
 Stan's List
A Clockwork Orange
Apocalypse Now
Blue Velvet
The Devils
 Far Away So Close
 Fire Walk With Me
Gothic
Pulp Fiction
Repo Man
Velvet Goldmine.
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