My Favorite Movies

Leone is a master of cinema, and this is a great, epic last work. If it wants for anything, I wish it were even longer - and it runs for almost four hours as it is. Beautiful. A magnificent achievement.

I have never seen anything quite like it. One of the most absorbing stories of the supernatural in all of film. It draws you into a world too haunting and compelling to forget.

The very concept of this movie, not to mention the incredible feat of pulling off such seamless interaction of two film worlds, is amazing. This is a landmark work of cinema.

This is a great film. And not just because of the Beatles - it's Lester's filmmaking that really shines. If you want proof, watch his next movie after this one, 'The Knack.' It has no big-name stars and still resonates equally well. I love this guy's style.

This is a gem. One of the quintessential Swinging London films, it perfectly embodies the spirit of the time and place in a dizzy, experimental style that could easily have become dated by now but still dazzles. And it is not easily forgotten, because it carries a substantial pathos under its giddy exterior. The music is lovely.

Jeremy Irons playing the oboe. How great is that? Plus ravishing scenery and a score that is just heart-melting.

One of the most joyous, vibrant expressions in the history of cinema. It's a masterpiece, an explosion of giddy surrealism. Clair and Picabia astoundingly pack a vast array of imagination and motion into just 22 minutes. There's so much on display here. All film lovers should experience this.

I wish I could have been there to see this movie upon its original release in 1965 and watch how everyone reacted. This movie broke so many rules in its day, and even today one can't get over how it really holds true to its spirit of having 'something to offend everyone!' as the tagline reads. Really, nothing is sacred here, and the movie revels in its mischief as it delightedly mocks everything from funeral businesses to sexual morals to mother-love and obesity (those last two together in an absolutely jaw-dropping way). All in all a fantastic dark comedy, wonderfully shot, energetically acted (Rod Steiger is a standout), and often laugh-out-loud funny. And, believe me, this movie can still shock - just wait for that coffin-orgy scene.

Richard Lester at the helm, kooky Christie and tightly-wound Scott, swinging London style (but set in San Francisco) - it has all the ingredients for a perfect swinging sixties screwball comedy. Instead, it's a great swinging sixties screwball tragedy. It's bleak, and so sad, and it's all shown with a glossy, stylish surface, which makes the underlying sadness all the more potent. Nicolas Roeg's cinematography magnifies the gloss to the point where the quick flashback/flash-forward editing, by Antony Gibbs, scrutinizingly dissects it so that we can see through it and feel the emptiness inside. (The two of them later teamed up again for Roeg's 'Walkabout.') Julie Christie is simply luminous, yet poignant with subtle pain. It's amazing to see how Lester deepens over the course of the sixties, that he directed two of the most gleeful films of the decade ('A Hard Day's Night' and 'The Knack') and also one of the saddest (this one) - all three of which are among the decade's best. A wonderful marker of the downturn of the 1960s - it's an excellent companion piece and foil to 'The Graduate.'

I find it rather fascinating that the DVD release of this film comes within close range of two recent cultural/societal phenomena: Harry Potter and Virginia Tech. And over the course of 'If....' you'll probably be reminded of both. One could produce a lot of connections and insightful conclusions from all that. I have to know this film better in order to do that, but right now I'll say that 'If....' is important viewing for thoughtful people who are up for a challenging, unconventional film.

The liar and the truth-teller. Dreams and reality. Logic versus understanding. The storyteller, the showman, the exhibit, the performer, the scribe. Science, experience, perception, religion, belief. What is real, what is imagined, what is fabricated, what is dreamt. The relationships, the overlaps, the tensions, between all of these - that is this film, this achievement of Herzog and Bruno S., that gives us this amazing story and makes us ponder its existence as truth or storytelling or showmanship. Why does this man fascinate us so? His background is a mystery, and people have been so often compelled to invent stories to 'explain' it. This need to believe something when no one really knows. 'The enigma.' 'Every man for himself and God against all.' From all that we see, how do we choose to see it - what do we choose to believe? This film, for me, defies explanation.

A fantastic early comedy from Brian de Palma, and stylistically it's very much his - he loves his tracking shots and overheads. Tom Smothers is just damn likable as the dissatisfied business executive who quits his lucrative job in order to become a tap-dancing magician. From this little plot summary alone you can probably surmise that the movie is a ridiculous one, and it is wonderfully so: there are random funny bits inserted everywhere, and Orson Welles lends the unique hilarity that only Welles can to the character of the magic instructor. This movie combines de Palma's almost surreal craziness with Tom Smothers's casual humor as well as a bit of old-fashioned madcap zaniness. (Bob Einstein, known for his work on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, even turns up for one scene, as do several other familiar faces of cinema, including M. Emmet Walsh.) Maybe all the parts don't quite all fuse into a single expertly crafted vision, but so what? The movie's wonderful - wildly off-kilter and entertaining. Love it!