My Top 10 Less Serious FILMS/movies/flicks/pictures

I'm sticking with the concept that the words films and movies are interchangeable. 

My Top 10 Actually Favorite FILMS

Here are my top ten movies that I'd love to watch in a repetitious fashion if I had to and it would be hard to get tired of them. I plan on using a more casual tone here, because these are my favorites, and I'd like to go on about them in a way that feels most natural to me. 

They Live

I'm very disappointed in myself that I didn't see this movie until I was in my thirties. Now, it's my favorite. I am almost too pressed to post this to bother with writing about why this is one of the greatest movies to laugh at and enjoy. I have a love/hate relationship with John Carpenter's music, and I can't help but giggle at the simplicity of his writing and synth tones. It's like Eugene Belcher wrote it. Keith David is an immaculate actor, and Roddy Piper is a wrestler. With their powers combined, they catalyze the greatest fight scene of all time, which lasts far too long, and yet, not long enough.

Run Ronnie Run

This movie has been a part of my life since my early adulthood. I quote this movie to myself all. the. time. And honestly, it's not a good movie. It's abrasive in some ways, it's outdated in others, and it really doesn't hold up unless you're able to view it from the same satirical lens as when it came out. But hoo boy, do I love the Mr. Show team and the elaborate array of celebrities that bring their presence to the film. One of the greatest scenes has both Patrick Warburton and Scott Thompson (my hero) poking serious fun at the very silly idea of the "gay agenda", and twenty years later it still smacks. The silliness present in this movie infects every inch of my being, and my gender expression as a result is simply "abrasive comedy". 

Robocop

I recently completed watching "RoboDoc", a four-part series about the casting and making of Robocop. Paul Verhoeven had made a gorgeous variety of hits and misses in his career, and his first American project, Robocop, had a quasi beginner's luck in US theatres. I love a few of his later films, like Showgirls and Starship Troopers to death. Robocop may not have been out to create a genius satire. The production team started with a simple action movie inspired by bionic men. Yet, looking back on it today, forty years later, they created a lot of film effects for the first time that made the movie stand out not just for its biting commentary, but the unique visuals. Above all, Robocop is highly quotable, and a well-placed Robocop citation always warms my heart. Stay out of trouble.

To Wong Foo: Thanks For Everything - Love, July Newmar

I'm not one of those Dirty Dancing ladies. I don't care for Ghost (unless it's the band), Point Break is okay, and Roadhouse is honestly my favorite "masc" Swayze film because he's pure elegance. Someone on instagram noted that, and I reinterpret in my own words, Swayze encapsulates what is the most athletic, masculine affect while also showing the delicate deliberation of feminine grace in his subtleties. Patrick Swayze and Wesely Snipes have the bulging build of Lucy LaDuca or Brooklyn Heights - as tall as a tree, as strapped as Michealangelo's marble figures, while John Leguizamo's Chichi has a daintiness that respectfully recalls Angel from Paris is Burning. I realize that playing "gay" is for gay actors, but these men, in the face of societal pressure, were producing affectionate portrayals of queer people, effectively standing up for them in their own communities. This movie changed my life as a child, and showed me that it doesn't matter what people look like, it's their actions that speak for their hearts. Furthermore, it eats endlessly.

Funky Forest 

Funky Forest is a bizarre, acid-laced work of theatrical genius by the Japanese master Katsuhito Ishii, who also created The Taste of Tea, one of my Top 10 Films for Films Sake. Funky Forest features a series of comedic or overly awkward, interconnected vignettes or sketches between a variety of characters in a small city and village in rural Japan. The family poised as our main characters works collaboratively on a manga, while hosting a little ginger American boy who enjoys eating chocolates. The oldest brother is a guitarist, who whiles away his day playing his rad riffs for his new "brother". Funky Forest has one incredibly unique scene that always stands out to me, with multilingual music and idiosyncratic, alien choreography, set upon a moonlit beach like a surreal dreamscape in which you never know what will happen next.

What We Do In The Shadows

Rarely do I deem a movie funny and cute enough to share with my mom. Jemaine Clement, be still my heart, but hark! Taika Waititi?! This movie should make anyone feel tickles coming from the inside. The whole cast created an entire universe upon an improvised concept. Jemaine is of course the "ogre that works at the library" half of Flight of the Conchords, already a hinge of American comedy, present in Disney's Moana and FX's Legion. For him to participate in a smaller project based in NZ surprised me, but not after waching it. Before this time, I'd never seen Taika Waititi or Taika Waititi act, and I honestly wish he'd do more acting again. His character is one of the most adorkable creations, and it warms my heart that he gets a happy ending. This movie also features some legendarily sexy dancing that is right up there with Christopher Guest's dancing in Waiting for Guffman.

Coco

A Disney movie? Oh yeah. I cry watching Coco, without fail, every time. I've been crying watching Coco ever since I read an article comparing the immigrant experience on the cempasuchil bridge being like crossing into America, and though people haven't passed, they're separated. At the time this movie came out, I had several Spanish-speaking students, many from Mexico, and it made it feel like I had some means to offer them hope and guidance without words in the form of this movie. I also feel that Coco is one of the best Disney movies not only for the music but also because of the care and ultimate detail put into developing it around the history of Mexican art and culture, of which I am a respectful observer. 

Goodfellas

This is actually a more serious film, but it doesn't fit as much into the other categories I write about. I think Goodfellas has everything going for it. Scorcese's scripting here is sharp and clever, the visuals and photography are at the top of their game. This movie really engages the viewer in a sensory experience, from the textures of the vintage couches, the glass tables, and the smell of a smoky bar. I can practically taste the sauce they cook up in prison. There are so many memorable moments born from Goodfellas, and the soundtrack paired with the narration and phrasing of its final monologue has been lovingly, and justly reproduced in homage all over American popular culture. I adore this movie because of the Italian American heritage it validated for me in some ways, obviously not the murder part.

Best In Show

Christopher Guest carried the torch away from Spinal Tap and engendered a much needed tradition of the mockumentary in Hollywood. I love his ensemble, which usually features Parker Posey, Eugene Levy, Jane Lynch, Michael McKean, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard, I could go on, I do not apologize for leaving anyone out. I'm sure no one is reading this.

I feel that Best in Show's costume design really stands out to me as a way that the characters were built. I assume much of Best in Show is improvised, which adds to the genius of the actors, who are using this absolutely ridiculous visual manifestation to create a person. I just lose my mind over the couple who only wear neutrals, and who caught eachother's eye from their respective Starbucks across the street from one another, perusing their J Crew and LL Bean catalogs. Parker Posey with braces melts my soul. Jennifer Coolidge wears the most divine numbers, all perposterly, overly ornate with just too much chintz and pizazz. Jane Lynch graces the screen with her cool, collective, mommy lesbian goodness, and steals every scene shes in with her natural talent. 

Youth In Revolt

(Another remake of a book, one that I've obviously not read.)

This movie is full of ridiculous, teenage boy, toxic behaviors. Yet, somehow it makes a lighthearted and inane black comedy out of the idea. 

Nick Twisp is a sad little boy, overly romantic about a bygone era of romance (and in reality, wife-beating singers like Frank Sinatra). Preoccupied with the past, Nick fancies himself a cineaste in his own life. Nick isn't unintelligent, though he constantly makes massive mistakes. Enter Sheeni, the apple of his eye. Sheeni draws Nick in and convinces him she loves a bad boy, and Nick pushes that to dangerous limits. He creates an internal, alternative identity narrative named François Dillinger- a sleazy, Jean Belmundo-inspired rebel who knows no boundaries. In short, eventually, he blows up Berkeley. 

I do not condone Nick's acts in real life, that would be criminally insane. He's a sociopath with dissociative identity issues, but a romantic one. It has notes of "I love you, Phillip Morris". Hopefully after winning Sheeni he wouldn't feel the need to act out similarily, but I wouldn't be so sure.

Honorable Mention - Run Fatboy Run 

(but it would be silly because I included Run Ronnie Run)