This is it, kids and clowns, the last look at our summer lists. The final entry is, of course, flickerfilms. Or “photo-plays” if you’re visiting us from 1917. Our friend chicken flava is putting a bid on an abandoned drive-in movie theater as we speak, just to showcase this list–it’s that good. Until he clears the red tape, tack a white sheet to your garage door, fire up the projector and invite the mosquitoes over for a eyeball-melting movie marathon.
And don’t forget the popcorn. And booze.
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Aguirre: the Wrath of God
tyler re: intones: “Klaus Kinski and his conquistador co-conspirators smudge their way across a treacherous Amazonian landscape in search of El Dorado in director Werner Herzog’s legendary hallucinatory film. Call it a road movie with copious amounts of monkeys and death.”
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A Room with a View
carine tarazi murmurs: “The best of Merchant Ivory: scenes of Florence, scenes of English countryside, and a happy ending to boot. Daniel Day-Lewis and Julian Sands are the cherries on top.”
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The Matrix
walter crunkite exclaims: “So the sequels weren’t quite as awesome as the original, but the plot of the trilogy rocked my world. I didn’t even understand what ‘The Matrix’ was until I watched the movie two or three times. Okay, so I was a little slow on the uptake, but that doesn’t mean the movie wasn’t awesome. The Animatrix also cleared up some of the questions I had and was similarly totally boss.”
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The Man with a Movie Camera
ari gratch contends: “Summer is that time where we long to be outside and make up for all that time we spent in cramped closed quarters the rest of the year (cuz we all live in Seattle, right?). Go watch The Man With a Movie Camera (1929, Dzigo Vertov) and realize that all you need in order to make something awesome is your imagination and the contention that boundaries were made to be transgressed.”
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Northfork
andy reynolds exults: “My favorite movie of all time: The small town of Northfork is going to be wiped off the face of the earth in two days when the state opens a dam and turns the town into a lake. A father and son take on the job of driving through the town convincing the quirky citizens who are left to evacuate, while a little boy on his death bed dreams of weird characters in the town. The story gets stranger as it goes on, as the line between what is real and what is dream becomes meaningless.”
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Romantico
krupnick krupnick expounds: “Carmelo wanders around San Francisco stopping in and out of taco joints playing mariachi tunes with his best mate. He’s about sixty years old, earnest, and weathered from an intense trip over the border. At some point, he decides to return to his native town and family in Mexico, but finds it frustrating as a freelance mariachi guitarist, and mounts a return trip to the States.”
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Dirty Dancing
rachel simhon decries: “The quintessential seasonal classic: an American family, a summer vacation, a little bit of scandal, a little bit of romance, and a soundtrack of drunk-girl slumber party music for generations to come. Not to mention ‘No one puts Baby in a corner.’”
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Brazil
k.o. from the kteam musik queries: “Holy shit when was the last time you saw Brazil?? Well watch it again, fool. This is not your typical summer movie (though the titular song featured, quite ironically, throughout it is a balmy beach tune). Instead, this is the movie you watch after watching your typical summer movies, to remind yourself how inspiring, original, intelligent, and visionary movies can be.”
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Foreign Correspondent
chicken flava opines: “I’ve been falling asleep to noir recently. This here is a highly underrated wartime Hitchcock thriller. Last scene is AWESOME. Completely worth it if thats your vein.”
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Photo credit: wired
Joel McRea (he’s in Foreign Correspondent) is an under-rated old time leading man. If you haven’t seen Sullivan’s Travels, put it on your queue, etc., because it’s got one of the best artistic messages ever. Plus Veronica Lake’s in it.
Hawt.