*These moves are in no particular order
Evil Dead II (1987)
Sam Raimi is
a master of combining horror with comedy. One minute you’re laughing youre head
off, the next you’re trying to keep your lunch down. While I think he perfected
this combination in Drag Me to Hell,
it was a blast to see him figure out the balance over the course of the Evil Dead trilogy, and Evil Dead II is my favourite of the
three, mainly because I think it strikes the balance most closely to perfect as
Drag Me to Hell did. This was
absolute cheese, from the horrifying smiling deadites to the absolutely
hilarious scene of Ash fighting his own demon-possessed hand while it’s still
attached to him, all the way up to the all-important moment where Ash gears up
and drops his iconic “Groovy” for the first time.
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
This is such
an incredibly smart and stupid film, blatant in its silliness as it cleverly
satirises rock band documentaries. It’s simple in its goals, and it executes
them near-perfectly, getting a laugh out of me just about every minute.
Duck Soup (1933)
“Will you
marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first.” Duck Soup is some of the most sublime
comedy I’ve ever seen, running at a mile a minute and never stopping to let the
audience breathe. Joke after gag after pun, the film takes any singular set up
and gives it a Marx Brothers spin, from simple joy in clever pranks to lightly
scathing social satire. The film rarely worries about the impact of any one
joke because it’s always making new ones, and the few times it sticks to a joke
it’s because the joke is solid gold.
Some Like it Hot (1959)
This is one
of the funniest movies I have ever seen. The comedic timing of this film is
absolutely perfect, starting slow and then escalating each scene as they slip
so seamlessly from build-up to punch-line. The set-up is gold: two musicians
have to get out of town after witnessing a mob hit so they disguise themselves
as women and join an all-women travelling band. It’s as silly as it sounds, and
almost never failed to get a laugh out of me. The dialogue is fast and clever,
dropping punch-lines to long set-ups so nonchalantly you could blink and miss
them, happy to continue dazzling with its fantastic dialogue and equally
tremendous performances, particularly from Jack Lemmon. A side note: White Chicks copied this movie beat for
beat and I never knew it until now.
Boy (2010)
Taika
Waititi is one of the best directors working today. He has this great sense of
humour, a straightforward, slightly glum but uplifting body of work, and seems
to specialise in either making something ridiculous relatable or exploring with
a silly grin what we are capable of. Boy leans
towards the latter, as we are witness to a lovely yet sobering story of a young
boy living in a New Zealand country town whose father suddenly returns home
after a number of years. It’s heartbreaking to see the child comes to terms
with the fact that his father is not the hero he built up in his head, and just
as moving as we see the father broken down and finally admit to his mistakes so
that the family can all learn to grow and work together.
The Invisible Man (1933)
Classic
horror is downright campy and I love it for it. With this in mind, it was hard
to choose between this and House on
Haunted Hill, but The Invisible Man
won out for the maniacal performance from Claude Rains as the Invisible Man.
The film is filled with what people used to find scary, and standing from my
own position I found it absolutely charming in how dramatic yet tame it was by
today’s standards.
Time Bandits (1981)
This movie
is about a history-loving child who falls in with a group of time-travelling
little people; that is literally the best idea for a story I’ve ever heard.
This film is hilarious and whimsical, an adventure yarn with a slant for a
younger audience that is a delight from start to finish. It’s got a lot of
heart, with important character growth and some clever metaphor to boot, with
an appearance from all of the surviving members of Monty Python; what’s not to love?
Colossal (2016)
Colossal combines some considerably
uncomfortable gaslighting with a unique use of Kaiju and superb performances
from its leads for an undoubtedly novel experience. The film uses its strange
gimmick to considerable effect, finding ways to justify its existence while
searching for meaning beyond the personal story of the main character.
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
John
Carpenter has been one of my favourite directors since I watched They Live a few years ago. The man has a
complete lack of subtlety that is layered in its own way, and his early work
pushed the envelope on what you could get away with showing people, something
that Assault on Precinct 13 is a
prime example of. Even now, 41 years after its initial release, I was not
prepared for and completely shocked when a character in the film mercilessly
gunned down a little girl going for ice cream. Films simply don’t do that, even
now and especially not then, and Carpenter knew it. This film starts slows and
then turns in to tight tension fuelled by morally grey action and builds to a
blatant but considering the context fair
questioning of how we position people in society.
Superman (1978)
Superman is
the ultimate superhero, and this movie is a love letter to everything that
makes Superman who he is. This film knows the idea of a man who so strongly
believes in the good things like ‘truth, justice, and the American way’ is
incredibly corny, so they contrast it with a more cynical world and audience
stand-in with Lois, who scoffs at this ideal and the way Superman upholds it
despite the fact that so many others have discarded it. Superman is a wonderful showcasing of what makes the iconic
superhero great, and it left me grinning ear to ear every time the guy did
basically anything, because the film puts so much emphasis on the fact that
Superman is a hero by virtue of the fact that he does heroic things for no
other reason than that they need doing.
Published December 30th, 2017
Published December 30th, 2017
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