The Spy in the Sandwich

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

6:39 PM | Movies For My Life (With Additions)

[meme from the coffee goddess]

Total number of films I own on DVD, VCD, LD, and VHS: Around 400 titles or so in VCD and DVD, but I donated all my films in VHS (about 200 titles) to the Silliman Library last year. Yes, I am that kind of rabid cineaste. Why not rent, you say? Because I know my dismal record as a video renter: it takes me days, sometimes months, to return videos -- which totals to a hefty amount of penalty. I'd rather own a film than pay fines.

The last films I bought: Jim Sharman's The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know. Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny. Francois Truffaut's Day for Night. Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend. Orson Welles's Touch of Evil. Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Sylvia Chang's 20/30/40. Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape. Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Sydney Pollack's Tootsie. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's Inside Deep Throat. Ron Howard's Cinderella Man. Q. Allan Brocka's Eating Out. Nicolas de Boiscuille's To the Extreme

Five films which I watch a lot: (1) Audrey Wells's Under the Tuscan Sun -- every time I feel my life is going nowhere. (2) Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally.... -- every time I want to see how magical movies -- and screenplays -- can be. (3) Nora Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle -- every Valentine's Day. (4) Chris Columbus's Home Alone -- every Christmas. (5) a toss-up between C. Jay Cox's Latter Days and the entire first season of Bravo TV's Queer as Folk -- every time I want to feel kilig.

And five more... (1) Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society -- still my manual for teaching. (2) Mark Waters's Mean Girls -- because it is really, really witty. And educational. (3) Blake Edwards's Breakfast at Tiffany's -- because it is beautiful, and has Audrey Hepburn singing "Moon River" in it. (4) James Cameron's True Lies -- the one action picture that doesn't bore me to death. (5) Richard Linklater's Before Sunset -- the perfect sequel to Before Sunrise, which chronicles our pain and accommodations, ten years after our breezy march through exhilarating youth. Can you say everybody's autobiography?

Five films that mean a lot to me: (1) Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction -- because it blew me away with its revolution in film writing and directing. (2) Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters -- because New York is my fabled city, and Allen its foremost storyteller. (3) Fred Schepisi's Six Degrees of Separation -- because it hits me between the eyes with its power. (4) Steven Spielberg's E.T. The ExtraTerrestrial -- because it makes me remember when I was a kid. (5) Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies -- because it makes us see the human tragedy in war.

And eleven more... (1) Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together -- because it gave me the mood for love. (2) Lino Brocka's Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang -- because it taught me first about what Filipino filmmaking could offer. (3) Peque Gallaga's Oro Plata Mata -- because it blew me away, even in memory. (4) Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman -- because it first showed me Asians can be masters of film as well. (5) Anh Hung Tranh's Scent of Green Papaya -- because it showed me how silence can be beautiful in film. (6) Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain -- because it taught me how musicals can rise above song-and-dance crap. (7) Mike Nichols's Working Girl -- because it was truly funny. (8) Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock -- because it is eternally haunting. (9) Wash West's Naked Highway -- the best gay porn ever made, so much so that I don't even want to call it porn. The film moved me, dammit. (10) Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre -- because it is about two people talking for two hours, but you're hooked. (11) John Hughes's Ferris Bueller's Day -- because Hughes is adolescence's philosopher, and more so than The Breakfast Club, this should be every young person's cinematic Bible.

Guilty pleasures, or bad movies (or just sly geniuses) that I truly, truly love. Andy Warhol's Blow Job. David Mirkin's Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. Garry Marshall's Pretty Woman. Emile Ardolino's Dirty Dancing. Robert Wise's The Sound of Music.

[to tag naya, ginny, james, and paolo -- all of whom I can't directly link here, darn]

Labels: film