One Hundred Movies!!! (51 through 60)

And away we go with ten more movies that I like a whole lot. Yup. A whole lot, I say! With this entry we get halfway through the Byzantium One Hundred:

60. Nanny McPhee

This Emma Thompson vehicle is one of the better childrens’ films of recent years. It’s the tale of an English household where the Father can’t provide adequate discipline for his kids, who terrorize one nanny after another until a horrible woman named Nanny McPhee arrives, with her discipline techniques that don’t seem…quite…possible. I always enjoy British stories for children; the Brits seem generally more aware than Americans that kids are often not very nice at all.

Signature moment: The wedding; nothing like a bunch of stiff Brits doing slapstick.

59. X-Men 2

I remember being quite frustrated with the first X-Men movie when it came out in 2000 or whenever. It felt like the producers had taken a really, really good superhero movie and cut half an hour from it, thus turning it into a merely pretty good superhero movie. Luckily, they got it right with X-Men 2. They didn’t scrimp on the running time or the character development, making for a slickly fine film. I haven’t seen the third movie yet, having heard little good about it. But X-Men 2 really is quite good.

Signature moment: Ian McKellen as Magneto has a tiny moment when he gives his helmet a knowing tap. Hard to describe, but it’s a perfect moment.

58. Batman Forever

Ah, the strange trip of the Batman movies. I never much liked the first one, actually; for all the talk of its dark tone, I found it decidedly un-dark, with much of the film outright played for laughs. The production design was amazing, sure, as were the performances, but it just left me cold. The second film, Batman Returns, worked a lot better for me. This one actually was quite a bit darker. Batman Forever is the film with Val Kilmer in the title role, and this is my favorite Batman film yet. (Full disclosure: I haven’t seen Batman Begins yet.) The tone is a bit more fun, but not so campy as to be, well, Batman and Robin.

Signature moment: Alfred,w hen he tells Bruce Wayne that Mr. Grayson has borrowed the car – the “other” car.

57. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Tim Burton’s version of the Roald Dahl story is chock full of creepy weirdness as befits a filmed version of a Roald Dahl story. I was skeptical of a second filmed version of this book, but Burton did well, I think. Johnny Depp’s turn as Willy Wonka is interesting; he seems at times to be channeling Michael Jackson.

Signature moment: The animatronic “It’s a small world” type display thing at the outset of the children’s visit to the Wonka Factory…and that display’s horrible destruction.

56. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

And here’s the earlier classic. This film is much sweeter in tone than Burton’s later effort, choosing to emphasize heart and warmth over the Burtonesque dark fantasy. There is still some fairly dark stuff, particularly the fates of the naughty children and the world reaction to the news that Willy Wonka is going to allow visitors to his factory.

Signature moment: “Pure Imagination”.

55. The Incredibles

Superheroes, via Pixar, who have yet to make a bad movie. (I wasn’t wild about A Bug’s Life, but it’s not bad.) This movie boasts some terrific design, and some sneakily dark material, such as the roster of heroes who have fallen before the villain’s steady progression of improved killing machines. Michael Giacchino’s music is reminiscent of John Barry’s James Bond scores. This is kind of a “meta-superhero” movie.

Signature moment: The Sam Jackson character shouting, “Honey, where is my super suit?!”

54. The Fugitive

What a great movie! I don’t think it gets enough love these days, but it was certainly highly regarded back in 1993 when it came out, getting a Best Picture nomination and a Best Supporting Actor win for Tommy Lee Jones. It’s just a taut, riveting story that still manages to depict its characters as real people with genuine concern.

Signature moment: Is there another one? The train wreck. One of the most spectacular such sequences ever put on film, and even more impressive by virtue of not being computer-generated.

53. Excalibur

I don’t know why this film works as well as it does, because it probably shouldn’t. Telling the King Arthur story in a single film is hard enough, as the Matter of Britain consists of a huge number of interrelated stories. The film’s design is highly stylized, with often-impenetrable dialog. The music is a mish-mash of original scoring by Trevor Jones combined with selections from classical works like Carmina Burana and Wagner. Nevertheless, the movie in many ways sets production precedent for later fantasies like The Lord of the Rings, with its carefully selected locations and stylized shots.

Signature moment: Merlin’s magic to help Uther seduce Igraine.

52. The Man Who Would Be King

The Rudyard Kipling story, with Sean Connery and Michael Caine as the British con-men and adventurers who journey to a distant land in India and convince the locals that they are gods and kings, is a grand entertainment, funny and poignant and sad.

Signature moment: The last time Connery sings “The minstrel boy”.

51. Legends of the Fall

This big-hearted horse opera is a tale of three brothers (Brad Pitt, Aidan Quinn, and Henry Thomas) and the woman (Julia Ormond) who comes between them. It’s set in the rural country of Montana. There are scenes set in World War I France. Anthony Hopkins plays the family patriarch. The tale spans several decades, and features mystical narration by a wise old Native American. There is nothing at all that’s subtle about this movie. Maybe that’s why I like it so much; it plays out with operatic intensity (helped along by one of James Horner’s best scores).

Signature moment: When Tristan (Pitt) meets Susanna (Ormond).

All for this week. Next time we’ll delve into the Top Fifty. You may have noticed that thus far on the list we haven’t referred to a certain sextet of space opera films. I wonder how long that can last?

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