Grand Illusions

Which ten films should everyone see? And see? And see?

Prompted by the recent opening of the Galaxy Uptown Theatre in Gig Harbor, with its ten screens promising to illuminate our collective yearnings (coming soon: Harrison Ford, older and, well, older, but still wearing the fedora), we wondered what films would be playing always in a Dream Cineplex. Think of it as the home theatre of Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961): the same select titles playing over and over and over, in a timeless, if perhaps slightly disorienting, sanctuary for the Raisinette-addicted. A handful of locals who know and love the movies (as which of us does not?) plus Bob Holman, a Manhattan poet who will be visiting town on May 10 for a Conversation with Chuck Close at the Pantages Theater (live, not on film), responded with lists of movies to play forever.

Bob Holman, poet, The Bowery Poetry Club, NYC

1.    The Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau, 1930) One of the early Dada and Surrealist films. These films are poems, and vice versa, still unparalleled in imaginative force and invention.

 2.    The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) Munchkin Land burst into color; I cried.

3.    Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964) His masterpiece, where youth is dangerous, beautiful and full of love, sex and possibility.

4.    Death to the Tinman (Ray Tintori, 2007) Spend $1.99 to download this Sundance-winning shorty — hilarious brilliance and the best humans-can-fly scene I’ve ever seen. Oh yeah, it happens to star my daughter, Sophia Holman.

5.    La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) Sheer genius! All of Fellini should be playing constantly.

6.    Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996) My mother and I always watch this during my annual visit to Florida. It is the ultimate Coen. Classic American tragicomedy.

7.    Play Time (Jacques Tati, 1967) Achingly, beautifully, hilariously, totally human! An unsung genius, of you I sing!

8.    Slam (Marc Levin, 1998) This film captures the liveliest grassroots arts movement in the country: the Poetry Slam. Full disclosure, I cameo as the Cat in the Hat, host of the slam.

9.    North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) Star-crossed lovers Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint crawling over Lincoln’s nose at Mount Rushmore — classic!

10.    Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, 2007) Shouldn’t there be a screen devoted to the last great film you’ve seen, the enveloping ongoingness of the world of cinema, a universe in the dark, watching a movie from inside the womb, careful with the popcorn please?

Brad Young, sales assistant, Stadium Video

Like a Rocky Horror Picture Show marathon, these films should be shown someplace all the time to bring comfort when we’re disturbed and to disturb when we’re too comfortable.

1.    Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974) Salvation through decapitation? The hero’s journey ain’t what it used to be.

2.    The Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987) Resplendent and life-affirming.

3.    Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch, 1992) Would that it were the three-plus-hour version that was resoundingly booed at Cannes!

4.    The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957) “Love is the blackest of all plagues, but you don’t even die of it, and usually it passes.”

5.    Slap Shot (George Roy Hill, 1977) I laugh just thinking about this movie.

6.    The Who’s The Kids Are Alright (Jeff Stein, 1979) The definitive “rockumentary.”

7.    When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996) An inspiring documentary about the ’74 Ali/Foreman fight in Zaire.

8.    Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978) Lest we forget the zombie menace looming in our future.

9.    Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968) The ending gives me chills every time.

10.    Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) In a word: dynamic. Alternately hilarious and tragic. True to life.

Ryan Loiselle, filmmaker, Vinny Vegas

1.    Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986) When I first saw it, I did not like it at all. Now I see each scene as a perfect piece of art.

2.    Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (Sam Raimi, 1987) Raimi is my hero. He made a horror film with his best friend in film school and it was so incredible he made it again.

3.    Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) One of Lynch’s more sensible films.

4.    The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, 1998) You can’t not like this movie.

5.    It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) Because it made me cry the first time I watched it.

6.    The City of Lost Children (Marc Caro and Jean Pierre Jeunet, 1995) Those crazy French filmmakers have a lot to make any filmmaker extremely jealous. This movie always takes me away to another land.

7.    Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Terry Gilliam, 1998) Based on a book by Hunter S. Thompson. Benicio Del Toro’s performance is mind-blowing. Reminds me of a time when it was GO-TIME.

8.    Mallrats (Kevin Smith, 1995) I can watch this every day. A square-peg-in-a-round- hole kind of movie.

9.    The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973) Everyone should see this once. I suggest not experimenting with LSD during the viewing. Maybe just a few Percocets and a bottle of wine…or two.

10.    The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) Will always bring back memories.

Kati Irons, development librarian, Music and Film Collection, Pierce County Library System

The alpha and omega of the movie going experience for me.

1.    Truly Madly Deeply (Anthony Minghella, 1990) The final scene makes me cry every time.

2.    Bells Are  Ringing (Vincente Minnelli, 1960) Judy Holliday was one of the great comic actresses. This is her final movie: classic comedy. Classic music. Classic clothes. Classic everything.

3.    The Bourne Identity (Doug Liman, 2002) From the moment you spot that blinking light floating in the water, to the final scene sweeping over the Corfu coast, your heart is in your throat.
4.    Soapdish (Michael Hoffman, 1991) I could quote zingers from this movie all day long, except no one would know what I was talking about. Everyone needs to watch it so I can use “I’m working on my one-man Hamlet” in regular conversation.

5.    The Matrix (Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski, 1999) Every action/kung fu flick since 1999 is but a pale imitation of this film’s seamless special effects vision. The first time I saw it, I felt like a kid transported to the best adventure ride ever.

6.    The Jungle Book (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1967) The one Disney for all time, combining human and animal characters with awesome music and the most fearsome Disney villain ever: a man-eating tiger, Shere Khan. I could listen to George Sanders’ voice all day.

7.    Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1995) This movie combines my favorite author, Jane Austen, my hero, Emma Thompson, and one of the world’s greatest directors, Ang Lee. I can’t really be rational about how much I love this movie.

8.    Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001) Thank Mira Nair for bringing the colorful, musical world of Indian cinema to us in this rich, complicated story about love, families and marigolds.

9.    Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005) Everything that is great about independent filmmaking.

10.    The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) An awesome movie with the most terrifying Ferris wheel scene in motion-picture history.

Philip Cowan, executive director, The Grand Cinema

1.    Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988) The relationship between a boy and his mentor.

2.    No Country for Old Men (Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, 2007) Makes me think about how things don’t always come neatly wrapped in a standard ending.

3.    Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) For its quirky sense of humor.

4.    Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003) I never liked Bill Murray until this one.

5.    The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand, 2003) A man, not so well liked in his life, has the chance to die surrounded by all the people who were important in his life. Very moving.

6.    Chocolat (Lasse Hallström, 2000) Shows us that people claiming to have morality on their side oftentimes don’t. Nor should they. A whimsical film about a topic I love: chocolate.

7.    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004) Odd but sweet.

8.    Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979) There has to be some Monty Python in my Dream Cineplex, so half the audience can laugh while the other half knows all the lines.

9.    The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick, 1951) A man with the perfect invention is crushed by big business. Very funny and one you could see happening.

10.    Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989) I love baseball.

Claudia Gorbman, professor of film studies, UWT

1.    The Mirror (Jafar Panahi, 1997)  A young Iranian girl doesn’t get picked up after school. What follows feels like a documentary but isn’t. Or is it?

2.    The Eel (Shohei Imamura, 1997)  An American filmmaker would probably treat this story as guy-on-the-run. But what Imamura does with a barber shop and, yes, an eel is amazing.

3.    The Man Without A Past (Aki Kaurismäki, 2002) Very funny — in a wry, Finnish way.

4.    The Taste Of Others (Agnès Jaoui, 2000). For pure, ultra-intelligent entertainment.

5.    Chaos (Coline Serreau, 2001) An out-and-out feminist revenge comedy starring an abused Algerian prostitute and a middle-class French wife.

6.    Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001) From sweetest romance to conflicts surrounding caste and incest, it’s all seen through a joyful lens here.

7.    Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh, 1996) A stunner. When I first saw it, I remember wondering why other people bother to make movies at all.

8.    The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2006) A deeply religious movie in western clothing.

9.    Still Life (Jia Zhang Ke, 2006) Two characters’ lives play out against a documentary backdrop. About a Chinese city being demolished to make way for the Three Gorges dam.

10.    La Moustache (Emmanuel Carrère, 2005) In a quiet way, this film explores the profoundest questions of individual, national and global identity. A pleasant married Frenchman decides to shave off his moustache.  ‹

Illustration by Chris Balliasiotes