March 2020 to March 2021 was a harrowing experience for most everyone. With most of the fun things in life stripped away, we all had to find ways to keep ourselves entertained right?
Even though I’m a big fan of movies, in March 2020, my movie history was lacking. So I used all the free time 2020 alotted me to get a movie history degree. And that I did.
213 movies!!!!!!!!!
I got to experience all sorts of amazing stories from all across the planet, helping fortify a weak historical view of cinema.
Thanks to all of you for indulging in my shared experiences this year; I hope I gave you some insight into famous movies from that past, and if you think they might be worth your time.
As one final treat, here are the 6 best films from the end of my movie history lesson. Along with the 15 I opened with, here are 6 more than you should consider some of the best stories out there.
| Movie Title | Akira (1988) |
| Movie Rating | |
| The Hook | 31 years after an atomic bomb has dropped on Tokyo, biker gangs roam about the new city, wreaking havoc, and also uncovering all sorts of sinister behavior going on that even they couldn’t comprehend. |
| Why Is This Movie Special? | After Japanese animators sucked us in with Studio Ghibli magic and innocence, Katsuhiro Ohtomo’s movie enters like a bat out of hell and beats us to a pulp. The R rating for this film is well earned, fusing the possibilities of animation with hyper violence and crazy set pieces around motorcycles and giant cityscapes. The story whips you back and forth, and even if you’re not totally following along, you’re completely engrossed in the kinetic energy on display. Most of the great sci-fi films made after Akira actively reference it as one of their inspirations (The Matrix for example), a testament to how rip roaring fantastic it is. |
| Movie Title | Catch-22 (1970) |
| Movie Rating | |
| The Hook | Movie adaptation of the famous book, about a military Captain trying to navigate his way through the armed conflict he is in. |
| Why Is This Movie Special? | A catch-22 is a circular logic scenario from which there is no escape. The movie, like the novel, sets the story in the military, an organization built on catch 22s (you can only be safer by adding more troop and more weapons!). Buck Henry’s script is filled with pitch black humor that makes you cringe and laugh in equal measure. Alan Arkin is our protagonist, confused and angry with every catch-22 he falls into. Whenever there’s a problem, he finds himself looping back and forth to try to solve it. The movie does a great job hammering home how these situations are great for profiteering, but terrible for humanity in general, as the catch-22’s strip humans out of the equation. |
| Movie Title | Broadcast News (1987) |
| Movie Rating | |
| The Hook | Members of a television news organization try to find love and fulfillment out of their journalistic endeavors. |
| Why Is This Movie Special? | James L. Brooks became the romcom king of the 80s with this gem. The film is fantastic on several fronts. The depiction of a news team behind the scenes is fascinating and completely captivating in its own right, and ties nicely into the romantic elements. The casting nailed the 3 leads: William Hurt as the charismatic doofus, Albert Brooks as the hopeless neurotic romantic, and Holly Hunter as the badass producer torn between them both. And finally, the script ties these pieces all together, with Brooks navigating effortlessly between work and romance, using all the talents of the three leads and their complex relationship to craft one of the best romcoms of the decade, and in the running for all time as well. |
| Movie Title | The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) |
| Movie Rating | |
| The Hook | Terrorists take a NYC train and its passengers hostage, putting the transit police front and center of a negotiation/ransom scenario. |
| Why Is This Movie Special? | Some of the best films of the 1970s are thrillers, especially ones involving hostages or New York City (Serpico, The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon for example). While all of those films take themselves very seriously, Pelham stands out because it doesn’t. The NYC Transit Police, led by Walter Matthau, are more pissed that this situation is messing with the commute and their day than the fact that people might die. Watching civil servants fail to rise to the situation is also darkly funny and leads to some of the best jokes the movie has to offer, ending with a stare to end all sarcastic stares. |
| Movie Title | Freaks (1932) |
| Movie Rating | |
| The Hook | A movie about all the strange people that make up circus performers and what happens when a couple of normal people join the traveling sideshow. |
| Why Is This Movie Special? | This movie is all about upending expectations. Knowing how many monster movies were made in the early 30s (Dracula, Frankenstein for example) I was all ready to be “scared.” Instead, Tod Browning makes the movie simply a day in the life of some strange looking but otherwise normal people. They work hard, they have thoughts, feelings, desires. Browning juxtaposes these “freaks” with the normal looking but emotionally rotten normal humans, who only care for themselves. You start laughing, then you get confused, forcing your brain to unravel all the biases in your head. And while most of those 30s monster movies claim to be scary, the final 10 minutes of this is terrifying still today, and left me in the fetal position, completely discombobulated. |
| Movie Title | American Graffiti (1973) |
| Movie Rating | |
| The Hook | On the last night in their home town, a group of college bound teens go out for one last night of fun and frivolity. |
| Why Is This Movie Special? | Before Space became his thing, George Lucas made this gem about hot rodding 1960s teenagers. This film spawned what would become a new genre: the all in one night movie (Superbad, Can’t Hardly Wait, Sixteen Candles, all owe debts to this film). It also was a launching pad for several careers: Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfus, Mackenzie Phillips, Cindy Williams, and Harrison Ford. All of that new stuff is managed beautifully by George Lucas, who inserts all sorts of emotional heft inside his crazy night (the doomed high school relationship, the joy of an unlikely connection, the never ending search for something better, that might be non existent) of police chases, car theft, and greaser gangs. |
Now onto Movie History 2021!