The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show - Prater's Creek Gazette

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Arts and Music

The Prater's Creek Gazette

15th Issue Fall 2007 Page #5

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THE BEST MOVIES OF THE PAST 25 YEARS (That I Have Seen)

I was driving down the highway with a friend of mine when I asked them what did they think was “the greatest movie of all time?”. They replied “Forrest Gump”! I said "there ain’t no way that Tom Hanks is in the greatest movie of all time!", and that "the greatest movie of all time would have to be in black and white. 'Forrest Gump' ain’t even the greatest movie of the past twenty-five years!” I replied.

I’ll admit right up front that I don’t go see a lot of movies. That’s because 99.99999% of the movies that come to our local theaters are crap! And, living here in the upstate of South Carolina, we don’t get a lot of the real good movies. If we do, they are there for a week or two at most. Thank goodness for being able to rent movies and/or order off of the Internet.

I don’t care for action movies, don’t care about movies with special effects, nor do I want to see another car chase. I mean after the car chases in Bullit and The French Connection it’s been done you know?

I can proudly say I have never seen any Rocky, Die Hard, or any Arnold Schwarzenegger movie in their entirety. And as far as the Stars Wars movies, well I saw the first one back in 1977 when it was at the $1 theater. Everybody else was seeing it for the umpteenth time and I was there to see what all of the hype was about. I wanted my dollar back.

No, I care about plot and character development. A good movie has to have good dialogue, and characters that I care about and that draw me into their world. I want to walk out of the theater THINKING about what I just saw, not walking out saying “Wow! It blowed up real good!”

I was really surprised to have a Tom Hanks movie on my list. And I was really surprised at the ratings when I looked them up. You’d think that the country in which Hollywood sits would be more in tune with “cinematic thangs” but the USA has the strictest ratings of about any country. Even Israel, which I would describe as being a religious state, has a more tolerant view of the contents of films.

FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH - (1982, Rated R) “God, doesn’t anybody knock anymore?!” Taken from Cameron Crowe’s book of the same name, where he had went back to high school posing as a teen to gather information for the book. Great writing, great cast, funny as all get out, and worth thousands of repeat viewings. And it has what is probably the greatest scene in cinema history. Phoebe Cates in and out of that red bikini.

PERSONAL BEST - (1982, Rated R) Written and directed by Robert Towne. Mariel Hemmingway, Mariel Hemmingway, Mariel Hemmingway!! The best review I can give for this movie is that Raquel Darrian’s whole life was changed after seeing this in her teens.

DINER - (1982, Rated R) Directed by Barry Levinson. Set in 1959 Baltimore, young men in their early 20’s try to grow up. It has a great scene with a Baltimore Colts themed wedding.

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION - (1983, Rated PG-13) You have to see the DVD version, the television version cuts out the funniest lines.

THE KING OF COMEDY - (1983, Rated R) “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Let me introduce myself. My name is Rupert Pupkin. I was born in Clifton, New Jersey... which was not at that time a federal offense. Is there anyone here from Clifton?”

Directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul D. Zimmerman. Robert De Niro stars as Rupert Pufkin, a grown man who wants his one big shot to make it in standup comedy. Great performance by De Niro in his first comic role, and Sandra Bernhard nearly steals the show.

BROADWAY DANNY ROSE - (1984, Rated R) “If you take my advice, you'll become one of the great balloon-folding acts of all time! Really, 'cause I don't just see you folding balloons in joints. You listen to me, you're gonna fold balloons at universities and colleges”

Written and directed by, and starring by, Woody Allen as a talent agent whose clients don’t have very much talent, but he is loyal to them, and believes in them, nevertheless.

THIS IS SPINAL TAP - (1984, Rated R) “There’s a fine line between clever and stupid” “It goes up to 11” Written by Christopher Guest and Michael McKean and directed by Rob Reiner this movie is the best movie ever made about life in a band. No matter what kind of band. Done as a “mockumenatry”, a cinematic device that has been copied dozens of time since, we follow the band Spinal Tap, a has been British heavy metal band whose claim to fame is being the “World’s Loudest Band”, on their final tour. Rockers such as Ozzy Osbourne and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler got really paranoid after seeing this movie because it was so dead on about the idiotic stuff that has went on in their bands.

Being musicians, in addition to comic geniuses, Guest and McKean wrote, and along with Harry Shearer played, the songs for the movies that had to ROCK, but be really bad. And did they ever with such classics as “Hellhole”, “Tonight We’re Gonna Rock You Tonight” and “Big Bottom”.

KISS of the SPIDER WOMAN - (1985, Rated R) William Hurt and Raul Julia are cellmates in a South American prison. Has homosexual themes; it is a prison movie after all. Sonia Braga is great as the lady in the title, who stars in the “movie” that Hurt’s character makes up and describes to his cell mates to make the time go by faster.

PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO - (1985, Rated R) I wrote about this movie, written and directed by, and starring, Woody Allen, in the Spring 2007 issue of the Gazette. Mia Farrow is in, what I consider, her best role ever as Cecilia, a woman during the Depression, who is married to a brutish husband, played by Danny Aiello, who throws all of their money away on gambling and his girlfriends. Cecilia repeatedly goes to the movies to escape into her fantasy world, and after sitting through a new picture numerous times, one of the characters steps off of the screen to woo her.

BLUE VELVET - (1986, Rated R) Directed by David Lynch. “Frank Booth is a sick and dangerous man”. Not only a great movie, but it also turned a whole new generation on to Roy Orbison. “Play Candy Colored Clown” “This is a love letter straight from my heart!”

HOOSIERS - (1986, Rated PG-13) “David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground” The fact that high school coaches of small underdog schools show this movie, or better yet, re-create the measuring of the court’s dimensions to their teams before big games, makes this a modern day classic. No matter what Spike Lee said about it being only inspiring for white people.

RIVER’S EDGE - (1986, Rated R) A weird funny movie with great performances by a Crispin Glover, Ione Skye, and Dennis Hopper.

SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT - (1986, Rated R) Written and directed by, and co-starring Spike Lee. Shot on a shoestring budget, and mostly in black and white, this was his first full length “ Spike Lee joint”, a hilarious and poignant look at a young woman who dates three different men. Not because she is “loose” but because they each have a few traits that make up, what she considers to be a complete man.

STAND BY ME - (1986, Rated R) Adapted from a Steven King short story, and directed by Rob Reiner. I’m no Steven King fan, but I like this movie. King’s ghoulish backdrop for the plot, a journey to find the dead boy’s body, only gets in the way of a great coming of age movie. Every guy who ever hung out with his pals during summer vacation in their “tween years’ can identify with this movie.

X: THE UNHEARD MUSIC - (1986, Not Rated) X, the Los Angeles based post-punk band, is one of my favorite bands of all time, but this movie, isn’t that great. But there is lots of good footage of Exene the female co-lead singer, so that puts it on my list.

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