My Nerdy Friend

It’s hard to write funny when we are in our 10th month of COVID isolation and boredom, and I apologize in advance for that. At the same time, there’s a vaccine (actually at least three of them) and we are about to bid a not-so-fond farewell to the year 2020. Hello twenty-twenty-won, and goodbye twenty-twenty-lost! In honour of what will no doubt be a year of 2021 v 2020 comparative hopes and dreams and crap, I thought I would pit a few of our movies in a similar spy versus spy style contest. Let’s see who comes out on top.

The Philadelphia Story versus High Society

Winner: High Society, but really just because of Louis Armstrong.

Choosing between these two movies is tough. They are the same movie (literally, the exact same movie). On the one hand, The Philadelphia Story stars Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart. On the other hand, High Society stars Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and Frank Sinatra. However, High Society is also a musical (!!!) AND it includes extra-special guest star Louis Armstrong as part of the musical flair. One knock against High Society is that Grace Kelly’s love interests were respectively 14 and 27 years older than her, while the three leads in The Philadelphia Story are all in their mid 30s. This is a recurring theme in Hollywood as we all know. Older men = sexy and attractive, older women = yucky and invisible.

Meet Me In St. Louis versus Guys and Dolls

Winner: Guys and Dolls

Musical versus musical, another tough choice. Meet Me In St. Louis follows the everyday life (and love life) of the Smith family, including Judy Garland as one of four sisters, in the year prior to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. While it features a few familiar songs – Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis and The Trolley Song – it’s most renowned for Judy Garland’s rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. (Quick bit of trivia – the original lyrics were significantly more sombre, and more apropos of 2020 TBH, but Garland thought they were too depressing and asked that they be rewritten.) Meanwhile, Guys and Dolls is a surprisingly charming movie, from the attempts by the “guys” to find a home for a floating craps game to the “dolls” either wanting to get married or convert everyone to the church. It also adds another entry to my growing list of favourite Hollywood “dolls” (Jean Simmons, not of Kiss fame), and gives us a different side of Marlon Brando as he attempts to sing and dance his way through Luck Be A Lady. I can’t WAIT to watch him in The Godfather after this!

Rosemary’s Baby versus The Wicker Man

Creepfest Winner: The Wicker Man

In Rosemary’s Baby, Mia Farrow is impregnated with (spoiler) Satan’s child. I understand this concept was pretty terrifying when it was released in 1968. Now, however, in 2020, the rise of the antichrist is both commonplace (after 15 seasons of Supernatural) and sometimes even comedic (Good Omens, both book and miniseries). What you are left with is not at all scary, but still qualifies as an entertaining and extremely well-made movie with subtle and artistic attention to detail.

The Wicker Man, however, is a movie that has sustained its creepiness over almost the same amount of time. Take careful note that I am not referring to the notoriously bad 2006 Nicholas Cage version (we are thinking about adding a Rule 6…) but instead to the original 1973 version starring Edward Woodward. I refuse to spoil the ending here, because wow! But I will say you’ll never convince me this movie wasn’t inspiration for the summer Burning Man festival.

There Will Be Blood versus Captain Blood

Winner: Captain Blood, by a LONG shot. This is barely even a contest.

Apart from the acting and the startling ending, I can’t figure out what all the fuss is about for There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day Lewis’s character is a power hungry oil tycoon and Paul Dano is a power hungry religious fanatic (so maybe the ending isn’t that surprising after all) but other than the two trying to out-power-grab each other, I’m not sure what I was supposed to get out of this. I’m thinking of retitling it to There Will Be Boredom.

Then there’s Captain Blood, a swashbuckling adventure (There Will Be Fun) starring Errol Flynn in a dry-run of his Robin Hood character. Flynn plays as a doctor-turned-pirate, sailing on the high seas and fighting for his freedom, his town, and his girlfriend (who else but Olivia De Havilland, practicing for her future role as Maid Marian.)

The Night Of The Hunter versus In A Lonely Place

Winner: Ummmmmmm ….

The Night of the Hunter is a dark movie. A psychotic con man tries to compel two children to reveal where their daddy hid money that he stole, after he (daddy) is hanged for his crime. When they refuse, he marries and then kills their mom, and eventually resorts to hunting them across the land after they run away. The happy-not-happy ending attempts to suggest that these two children will be fine, and not at all bound for psychotherapy for the rest of their lives.

In A Lonely Place is also dark, but has the decency to confine it’s morbid story to adults. Humphrey Bogart has a bad attitude and a worse temper, and as a result is suspected of committing a murder that he did not, in fact, commit. He gains a happy alliance and an alibi in his neighbour, but his paranoia and anger eventually alienate her and lead him to an unhappy end.

The Graduate versus Breaking Away

Winner: Breaking Away.

The Graduate is a movie that doesn’t age well. Dustin Hoffman has an affair with Mrs. Robinson, a friend of his parents. You know her name is Mrs. Robinson because he calls her this 700 times throughout the movie (“Oh no, Mrs. Robinson”, “Maybe we could do something else, Mrs. Robinson”, “Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson”. Etc. Etc. Etc.) This gets annoying pretty quickly. He eventually decides to trade Mrs. Robinson in for her daughter and the daughter is ultimately FINE with it. WTF? Boy, that’s gonna make for some awkward pillow talk…

Breaking Away, on the other hand, is more timeless, except perhaps for the hair and the ridiculous shorts. It’s a sweet movie pitting the local “townies” against Indiana University students in the annual Little 500 bicycle race. A real, heart-warming, underdog sports story. As an added surprise, it stars a young Dennis Quaid as well as introduces Daniel Stern (of Home Alone fame) in his first feature film.

The Heiress versus Babette’s Feast

Winner, and new crown jewel of Christmas movies: Babette’s Feast

The Heiress is a movie about a rich, but shy and plain-looking woman in search of love, but is held back by her overbearing father who assumes any suitor is just after her money because she lacks any other redeeming qualities. Thanks a bundle, Dad.

In Babette’s Feast, a poor refugee woman (Babette) is welcomed into a pious village community where she works for two sisters who gave up prospects for marriage to care for their father, the local minister. After winning the lottery, Babette offers to pay for and cook a most amazing feast for the village. Babette is loved and supported, and returns love and support to the community that adopted her. Take note, Heiress dad! Babette’s Feast is a gift; a beautiful movie, deliberately paced, and joyful. It’s a perfect Christmas movie, even though it has less to do with Christmas than Die Hard. It embodies Christmas spirit without ever having to blow up a building or put up a tree.

I present to you ten more movies, and just in case you (unlike me) don’t actually have 25 hours at your disposal, I have offered up some alternative viewing opportunities. One or the other should appeal!

A Streetcar Named Desire

Husband and wife Stanley (Marlon Brando) and Stella (Kim Hunter) have a classic abuse-pattern marriage. When Stella’s sister Blanche (Vivien Leigh) moves in to their tiny apartment, Stanley has somewhere else to redirect his rage and abuse. Throw in a baby and a shady past and you’ve got yourself a movie! I particularly appreciated the scene when Brando says the following about being Polish: “I am not a Pollack. People from Poland are Poles. They are not Pollacks. But what I am is one hundred percent American. I’m born and raised in the greatest country on this earth and I’m proud of it. And don’t you ever call me a Pollack.” I was “jokingly” called a Pollack by a friend in university (you know who you are, Ian) and I wish to death I’d had this quote in my arsenal at the time.

You could also watch: Seinfeld episode “The Pen”. Elaine yelling STELLLLA while on pain killers never gets old!

Freaks

An age-old story of a woman who seduces a man into marriage for his money, this time set with the backdrop of a circus sideshow. The cast is, in fact, almost entirely made up of well-known sideshow circus performers, including Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, Living Torso Prince Randian, and Half Boy Johnny Eck. According to internet trivia, people’s sensibilities were quite offended when this movie came out. They were not, however, offended at the exploitation of differently-abled people for the purpose of profit and entertainment. No no no. They were offended at having to SEE the “freaks” on screen. Ah, people. This movie also takes the gold medal for cigarette lighting, when Prince Randian literally rolls over to a match box, removes and lights a match, and then lights his own cigarette. Seems pretty trivial until you realize that the Living Torso is, in fact, just a torso.

You could also watch: X-Files episode “Humbug”. One of my 7 favourites, along with the other 6 episodes written by Darin Morgan.

An American in Paris

Love triangles, older women with younger men, and a huge 17-min musical dance finale – this movie is all that!! There’s also a seductive chair-dance which seems pretty racy for 1951.

You could also watch: Flashdance’s “He’s a Dream” scene, available here on YouTube.

All About Eve

Margo (Bette Davis) is a Broadway star who attracts the attention of Eve (Anne Baxter). Eve manoeuvres her way into becoming Margo’s sycophantic assistant and then slowly appropriates her life. In an unexpected and yet satisfying turn, Margo seems to relish her expanding freedom even as Eve is increasingly constricted by the demands of fame and glory. Expanding Freedom is what I hope retirement is going to feel like!

You could also watch: “The Favourite”, a much stranger but equally dazzling movie about another assistant charming her way into favour that also turns out to be more than she bargained for.

The Killers

The movie story is told through a series of flashbacks, after Ole “Swede” Anderson (Burt Lancaster) is killed in the opening scene, while hiding out as a gas station attendant. Insurance investigator Jim Reardon tries to solve the Swede’s murder and find the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. Turns out the Swede’s glamorous girlfriend Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) played a less-than-innocent part in his life of crime and ultimate death.

You could also watch: “Out of the Past”, where a gas station also serves as a place to try and disappear.

Out of the Past

This time it’s a private investigator (Robert Mitchum) looking to escape is past who is hiding out as a gas station attendant. Eventually his past finds him, and things go downhill. Kirk Douglas plays a bad guy, so you can continually be distracted by how much he reminds you of Michael.

You could also watch: “The Killers”. Maybe being a gas jockey isn’t the best way to hide?

Cabaret

A great but messy little movie about a messy time in history. The flamboyant and chronically flirty Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) performs in a Berlin Cabaret while the Nazi Party gathers footholds around the periphery of her life. The most shocking thing about this provocative musical is that I had never seen it before.

You could also watch: Schitt’s Creek episode “Life Is A Cabaret” where Stevie’s performance of Maybe This Time will bring a tear to your eye, unless you’re made of stone.

12 Angry Men

An accurately titled movie – there are men, there are 12 of them, and they are angry most of the time. Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) works to convince the others that at the very least, they should talk about the evidence since they are deliberating a murder trial. Meanwhile, the others try to rush to a verdict either because they have baseball tickets or they hate poor people. Much has been made of this movie as a framework for effective negotiating strategies (enough that I wrote a separate blog about it for work).

You could also watch: WKRP In Cincinnati episode “A Mile In My Shoes”

Bride of Frankenstein

What I appreciated most from this movie was not the origin story of Magenta’s hair in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Instead, it was that the movie used many of the bits from the book that were left out of the original Frankenstein movie. Particularly touching were the moments when Frankenstein tries to form some kind of connection with people, his only success being a blind man who was unable to see his face.

You could also watch: The Carol Burnett Show episode “Bride of Frankenstein” for a more humourous take.

The Haunting

Kind of a weird movie about a woman with mental issues who visits an alleged haunted house with a pair of ghost hunters. It’s not overly scary, unless the seemingly constant portrayal of women as psychotic and unbalanced terrifies you.

You could also watch: The Changeling. Now *that’s* a for-real scary movie!

Today, I shamelessly steal from my old movie critic heroes, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. This assorted collection of 15 movies almost catches me up to the present. However, COVID rages on and we have a PVR loaded up with about 50 more movies to carry us through Christmas.

A couple of things to know in advance about classic Hollywood movies (“classic” = “old”, or perhaps “black and white”). 1) Villains always get their just desserts. This includes people who betray, cheat, steal, and rape (why, always, with rape???). 2) EVERYBODY smokes ALL the time. We have a new fun movie-watching game where we try to spot new ways of lighting matches. One of the best so far was a desktop Ronson Touch Tip lighter used in the Maltese Falcon. This vintage collectable is available on e-Bay for about $150-300. I’m seriously considering it ….

Atlantic City, USA

It is a lame, uninspired choice to use Good/Bad/Ugly as a movie rating system so I made a slightly adjacent choice. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly is not so much my kind of movie (although there was a Bard on the Beach interpretation of Taming of the Shrew that was set in a the wild west, using this movie as inspiration, that might be one of the best things I’ve ever seen … but I digress). The Good, The Bad, and the Weird, however, is one of four excellent South Korean films* that I’ve seen and as a rating system I think it fits better. It’s not much of an improvement over “lame” but hey, it’s a pandemic and imagination is hard to come by.

A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune)

The Good: This 13 min French movie from 1902 can be found on YouTube and you should definitely stop everything you’re doing right now and go watch it. It is fantastic, hilarious, and oddly ahead of its time in many aspects of travel to the moon (albeit not so much once they land there where they wander around breathing the “air” and encountering alien creatures.) You are probably familiar with this movie from the iconic image below. For 13 mins, you really should just watch it. 1902! Telephones didn’t even exist yet!

Diner

The Bad: A college buddy movie that struggled to hold my attention. TBH I’m pretty sick of guy buddy movies where the women characters (if there are any) are basically just props. Strangely, a lot of people seem to think highly of it. Who knows, maybe I slept through the important parts.

Gunga Din

The Weird: A strange romp through British-ruled India during a Thuggee uprising. It features the comedic antics of Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Victor McLaglen, along with Sam Jaffe playing the title character, an Indian-native-British-soldier-wannabe, as they try to quell the Thuggee mob. The cherry on top of this peculiar sundae is that the story is based loosely on a poem by Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book. (A quick personal aside: Kipling also wrote the poem The Sons of Martha which, in 1922, became part of the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer performed by Canadian engineers at their graduation.)

An American Werewolf in London

*The 4 Korean movies are The Host; The Good, The Bad, and the Weird; Oldboy; and Parasite. I can recommend them all, but be warned Oldboy is very hard to watch.

20 movies, 10-word reviews. In hindsight, I should have done haikus!

Giant – Texas rancher’s life seemingly unfolds in real time. Reeeaaaalllll tiiimmmmmmeee.

Some Came Running – Unrequited three way love triangle leads to tragedy. As usual.

The Thin Red Line – Three long, confusing hours about a long, confusing war.

From Here to Eternity – Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr make out in the surf.

His Girl Friday – Witty woman holds job as ace investigative reporter – in 1940!

Buffalo ’66 – Victim contracts Stockholm Syndrome after meeting her kidnapper’s psycho parents.

The Big Red One – Five infantry members survive war while others die around them.

Videodrome – James Wood’s stomach is a VCR player. Not a joke.

The Defiant Ones – Two escaped convicts overcome racism, become friends, to elude capture.

Fatal Attraction – Love me or it’s rabbit stew for dinner … stew, then?

The Lady Eve – Barbara Stanwyck hustles Peter Fonda; he falls for her anyway.

Arrival – Aliens arrive, conversation ensures, we bomb them. Seems about right.

Detour – When your hitchhike driver dies, best just call the police.

All that Heaven Allows – Family unimpressed when widow has romantic relationship with younger man.

Mad Max – Vigilante policeman fights biker gangs in Australia, spawns dystopian franchise.

Duck Soup – Marx brothers play at politics, never actually eat any soup.

The Evil Dead – The Bruce Campbell version of The Cabin in the Woods.

Do the Right Thing – 1989 racism unfolds just like it does today, in 2020.

The Fireman’s Ball – Firemen in communist Czechoslovakia throw a very unusual birthday party.

Hell or High Water – The Dude must rob banks to save the family farm.

There are a lot of movies that I have been wanting to see based solely on the fact that they contain a line of dialogue that made top 100 list of Hollywood’s best quotes of all time. I’m just that shallow. Luckily, 1001 movies seems to have included several (dozen) movies, possibly for this same reason, and so my need-to-see list has gotten notably shorter. What movies? I’m glad you asked!

Sunset Boulevard: All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.

Gloria Swanson delivers multiple award-winning lines in this movie, including “We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces!” and “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” The movie is narrated by William Holden (Best. Voice. Ever.) who plays Joe Gillis, a down-on-his-luck writer who winds up in the clutches of Norma Desmond, who in turn is looking to make a comeback from her silent picture days of glory. Just your basic house of cards waiting for the catalyst to knock it all down.

Dirty Harry: You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?

This is Clint Eastwood’s best role ever. I’ll grant you as a close second the opening sequence of Sudden Impact (“Every day for the past ten years, Loretta there’s been giving me a large black coffee. Today she gives me a large black coffee, only it has sugar in it. A lotta sugar.“) Sure he was nominated for acting Oscars for a couple of other movies, but I stand by this claim.

The Maltese Falcon: The stuff that dreams are made of.

It’s a quarantine-perfect film-noir mystery starring Humphrey Bogart as P.I. Same Spade. He’s hired to find a gem-encrusted statue of a falcon, a gift from Malta to the King of Spain. His search takes him through complex trails of assassination, intrigue, and espionage.

Citizen Kane: Rosebud

By now, most of us know that Rosebud is the last thing Citizen Kane says before he dies, and we probably also know what Rosebud refers to, thanks to Fraser Crane on Cheers. However, the movie still manages to hold onto a few more surprises that make it worth checking out.

Silence of the Lambs: A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

Whenever I watch this movie, I am surprised at how good it is, because the book was honest-to-god awful. And sadly, it’s the book I always seem to remember (because of how awful it is). The movie is just full of crazy if you enjoy this sort of thing (like I do) – Ted Levine is making a skin suit, Anthony Hopkins eats people, and Jodie Foster goes off on her own to catch a serial killer.

Psycho: A boy’s best friend is his mother

A Hitchcock classic! Norman Bates is the quintessential mamma’s boy, and is also a psycho-killer which really rounds out his personality. There’s nothing more to say except that this is a MUST SEE movie if you are lucky enough to have never watched it.

This is Spinal Tap: The numbers all go to eleven.

Spinal Tap is a cult classic parody of life on the road of a heavy metal band. Despite the obvious comedy extremes (the band is on its 33rd drummer, because the 32 previous drummers inexplicably died), several famous musicians found it so close to the truth they initially thought it was a real documentary. A mildly disturbing thought.

Dracula: Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.

There are more than forty(!) different variants of Dracula if you search IMDB, so to be clear, I am referring to the original 1931 version. In what might be the most perfect casting decision of all time, Count Dracula is played by the iconic Bela Lugosi, who never blinks once during the entire movie (true fact, trivia buffs!). Dracula is, of course, a vampire, and is sucking the blood of every young maiden he can find in order to turn them into young Lady Vampires. Fortunately Dr. Van Helsing figures everything out and saves the day with a handy wooden stake.

Frankenstein: It’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!

A 1931 classic Dr. Frankenstein builds Boris Karloff from dead body parts and brings it to life. Later, a mob of torch-carrying nazis…. sorry, villagers … hunts him/it down and burn him/it back to death. It’s a tale as old as, well, yesterday.

There’s no end of movies in the 1001 book of men behaving like big fat jerks. Here are seven of them that we “enjoyed” throughout pandemic house arrest.

Mean Streets – Harvey Keitel is a conflicted catholic/gangster, who places upon himself the penance of looking after his best friend, Robert de Niro, who is practising for his next role in the Godfather.

Heat – This time, Robert de Niro is a bank robber, and Al Pacino is looking to take him down. De Niro and his gang kill a bunch of people, including a number of cops during a shoot out which doesn’t seem to trigger the rage-vengeance you might expect. Meanwhile, an ex-gang member is making trouble, while murdering prostitutes on the side (which also fails to trigger any rage-vengeance). Eventually the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and all the women get abandoned. Much the better for them, frankly.

Scarface: The Shame of the Nation – In the original 1932 movie, Paul Muni becomes second in command of a Chicago crime syndicate but prefers the role of first. He kills a bunch of potential competitors, wants to date his sister, and steals his boss’s girlfriend instead. This is rumoured to be one of Al Capone’s favourite movies, which tracks, since it barely conceals the fact that it’s basically about him.

Paths of Glory – A glory-seeking general orders his army on a suicide mission, but the companies fail in their mission and fall-back after suffering major casualties. The general is angry about this loss of his anticipated glory and orders 3 soldiers chosen at random to be charged with cowardice and executed. Kirk Douglas steps in to defend them while Richard Anderson (of “gentlemen, we can rebuild him” fame) pretends to prosecute in a sham trial that has already been decided. ASIDE: Despite the badly behaved men, this movie is actually quite fantastic, a stirring war-opic, and well worth watching.

Peeping Tom – Karlheinz Bohm plays sociopath Mark Lewis, photographer by day and serial killer of women by night. In one memorable scene, he stuffs the body of a victim into a trunk and then does a photo shoot using the trunk as a prop. No mental problems there. Released in 1960, it is considered to be one of the first slasher films in horror movie history.

Double Indemnity – Straight-laced insurance salesman Fred MacMurray (My Three Sons) falls for the breathtaking Barbara Stanwyck and joins her in a plot to murder her husband. He convinces her to make the murder look like a train accident so that she can claim twice the payout on a life insurance double indemnity clause. Three guesses if their get-rich-quick scheme works.

Marnie – Sean Connery meets a feisty Tippi Hedren (Marnie), a small-time thief and defrauder. He falls for her immediately and, sensing hesitation due to a troubled past, quickly forces her to marry him. When he then discovers that she refuses to let any man touch her, he forces her to let him do so anyway, and then rapes her because, well, they’re married. When she tries to kill herself, he steps in to rescue her, perhaps forgetting that he is the cause of her current despair. Finally, in case his heroism is still in doubt, he forces her to confront her troubled past and magically fixes her. What a swell guy!

Two Buster Keaton silent movies feature in the 1001 Movies book: The General and Steamboat Bill, Jr. I can’t even find the words to describe how great these movies are, and what a fantastic comedic actor Buster Keaton is! (I can’t find the phrases, either, judging by that poor sentence structure.)

Buster Keaton is the original physical humour actor (I have no idea if this is true, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?). In a time when CGI didn’t exist, he stumbles onto the front “cow catcher” part of a moving train, he stands fixedly while an actual brick wall falls down, encircling him perfectly in an open window, he misses his footing and falls of the end of a dock into a raging river. After mentioning to my husband that he’s virtually a circus performer, I found out that his parents were, in fact, Vaudevillian comedians who travelled with in a show that included their friend, Harry Houdini. It makes so much sense now!

In Steamboat Bill, Jr. Keaton joins his father’s riverboat crew, and falls Romeo-and-Juliet like for the daughter of an upscale riverboat competitor. The antics really amp up when a cyclone hits town, which is when the aforementioned falling wall stunt occurs.

The General takes place during the Civil War. Keaton is the engineer of a train called “The General” which is stolen by Union Spies. The climax of this movie involves a train bridge collapsing as a train is passing over it, a stunt that was (and still is) the most expensive sequence in a silent movie. Take a look:

Peter Sellers plays three of his best characters in Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It’s hard to point to one thing that makes this darkly satirical movie so brilliant – and alarmingly relevant today. Is it the Doomsday Machine as a deterrent to nuclear war? Fluoridation as a devious communist plot? No fighting in the War Room?

A Hard Day’s Night is actually a fun day in the life of the Beatles in 1964. We get to enjoy their humourous antics while they sing some songs and prepare for a live TV appearance. This may in fact be the perfect COVID lockdown movie.

EVERYONE in An Affair to Remember is a vertitable Good Guy. When Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr meet on a sailing journey and fall in love, they agree to take 6 months to break up with their respective partners, find proper employment, and then meet atop the Empire State. Even when things go awry, the ex-boyfriend sticks around to help Deborah Kerr sort out her life and repeatedly encourages her to get in touch with the man she truly loves, and the ex-girlfriend similarly offers simple supportive friendship to Cary Grant. WHAT kind of make believe land IS this??? Quick aside: Deborah Kerr might be one of my favourite actresses of all time. I love her.

In another dazzling array of Good Guys, George (‘Hannibal Smith’) Peppard falls for Audrey Hepburn – and really, who wouldn’t? – in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The real crime of this movie is how long it took me to finally watch it. Audrey Hepburn is an adorable, party-throwing, delightful socialite who charms the pants off her neighbour (almost literally) George Peppard. And just when you thought this movie couldn’t get any cuter, there’s even a cat named Cat. Spoiler – everything ends happily! Quick aside #2: Audrey Hepburn is in a close race with Deborah Kerr for the winning the distinction of Risa’s Favourite Actress.

There are no rule-breakers in this list, unless one of them won an obscure Oscar that I missed. Seems that abiding by the rules is still not enough to guarantee quality. The 1001 Movies guy has some unusual choices …

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane: Bette Davis and Joan Crawford play out their hatred for each other on-screen, for us all to enjoy.

Secret Beyond The Door: Michael Redgrave takes his new bride, Joan Bennett, to his (their) home, a huge mansion which turns out to be a murder museum. As the foundation for any long-lasting marriage, he has thoughtfully set one room aside especially for her. Disappointingly, this strategy works better than you might expect.

The Last Picture Show: A star-studded coming-of-age movie that is worth it just to see Cybill Shepherd (her film debut) and Jeff Bridges in their early 20s as the small-town Texa on-again off-again couple. It’s also just a really good movie.

The Man With The Golden Arm: Frank Sinatra is addicted to heroin, but Kim Novak is here to save him. First, though, he needs to foil the plans of his crippled wife who wants to keep him gambling and under her control, and those of his dealer, the delightful Darren McGavin, who I expected at any moment to announce that his heroin was “a major award”.

Man of the West: Gary Cooper is a rehabilitated bad guy who’s now good. At least he is until his old gang pulls a train-job to capture him and force him into helping them rob a bank while they molest his girlfriend. That kind of behaviour just leads to everyone getting shot, as befits a western. Gary and his GF then ride off together into the sunset. Or something like that.

During a pandemic, it goes without saying that movies will have alcoholic accompaniments, and I thought it would be helpful to share some of mine.

The Wizard of Oz is a movie about a girl trapped in a strange land full of weird people. She takes up with three emotionally challenged friends and they go seeking help from a wizard who turns out to be an ordinary dude who hides behind a curtain while making himself look more powerful than he actually is. So, pretty much a parable for corporate life. Pair with: Emerald Isle (1.5 oz gin, 1 tsp green crème de menthe, 2 dashes bitters.)

Night of the Living Dead is literally the original zombie movie, and establishes much of the canon for all zombie movies and TV shows for the next 52 years (and counting). In it, a group of strangers wind up hiding from zombies in a farmhouse and then fight about how best to defend themselves. Then they all die. It’s fantastic! Pair with: Zombie (1 oz each of white rum, golden rum, dark rum, apricot brandy, pineapple juice, papaya juice, 1/2 oz 151-proof rum, dash of grenadine.)

Dawn of the Dead is, of course, a sequel to Night of the Living Dead. We watched the 1978 George Romero version, but I’m told with confidence that the 2004 Zack Snyder remake is at least as good, and maybe even better. This time around, our heroes hunker down in a shopping mall and settle into a routine of raiding stores for survival supplies. This works well until and motorcycle gang shows up and a pie fight breaks out. So predictable. Pair with: Bloody Mary (2 oz Vodka, 4 oz Tomato juice, dashes of horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, celery salt, pepper, smoked paprika. Garnish with assorted body parts left behind by the zombies.)

Withnail & I is a delightfully dark comedy about two unemployed actors who decide to go on a country holiday where things hilariously derail. In a modified version of an actual movie drinking game, take a sip every time a character in the movie drinks. Pair with: Pimm’s Cup (2 oz Pimm’s Cup No. 1, 2 oz Ginger Ale, slices of orange, lemon, and cucumber. Garnish with sprig of mint.)

In Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, Catherine Deneuve faces a difficult decision when her lover is sent off to war. So far, it sounds pretty basic, but every word of dialogue in the movie is sung. Not like a big-production musical, it’s just ordinary dialogue, except that they sing it. Before you judge, it’s a beautiful and bittersweet movie that is absolutely worth watching. If the singing drives you crazy, mute it and just read the subtitles 🙂 Pair with: Mimosa (1 part orange juice, 1 part Champagne. Garnish with paper umbrellas.)