Teddy-Bear Movies
Slate asked a bunch of filmmakers to name the one film they’ve watched the most. Their special teddy-bear comfort film. I gotta hand it to Jake Kasdan for having the balls to admit that his teddy-bear film is Ghostbusters. I can’t decide on just one, but the list starts with Paths of Glory, closely followed by Lolita, Dr. Strangelove …you get the drift. Early Stanley Kubrick soothes like valium.
Why does it take “balls” to admit Ghostbusters as such a film? I would say that it is one of the most quotable films ever and a serious gem of comedy output. It would be high on my list. Probably at the top, come to think of it.
Bill Murray’s stuff aside, “Ghostbusters” is, more often than not, almost frightfully idiotic and uncharming, let alone unfunny. That stuff with the gargoyles and statues coming alive at the end and the cheering crowds….you thought that was good? You thought that was witty or cool or whatever? Jesus.
It seems to me, Jeffrey, that the whole idea of a “comfort film” is highly personal. There doesn’t have to be “logic” or even good taste involved. There could be a million reasons why a film that you hate has comforting associations for somebody else. There is no point in trying to argue with someone else’s choice.
Lets see,
100+ viewings
Rear Window
Nixon
Hoosiers
70-100 viewings
JFK
Cape Fear (Scorsese)
Casino
About 9 of the James Bond films
North by Northwest
Citizen Kane
The Age of Innocence
Giant
50-70
Anthony Mann westerns (Naked Spur, Far Country,
Man from Laramie, Bend of the River, Man of the
West, et. al.)
The Fall of the Roman Empire
Cleopatra
Heat
The Insider
The Last of the Mohicans
Howards End
The Remains of the Day
Schindler’s List
The Thin Red Line
Manhunter
Ben-Hur (’59)
The Birds
Psycho
some of the other James Bond films
Batman films
Oh, a few more, but I can’t go on at this moment.
The great films of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, the Marx Brother, Lubitsch, Sturges, Capra, Hawks, Cukor and a few others from that era I can watch endlessly. Gotta pick one, it’s almost impossible, but let’s say The Shop Around The Corner.
And I love Ghostbusters.
“Bill Murray’s stuff aside, “Ghostbusters” is, more often than not, almost frightfully idiotic and uncharming, let alone unfunny. That stuff with the gargoyles and statues coming alive at the end and the cheering crowds….you thought that was good? You thought that was witty or cool or whatever? Jesus.”
Yes. Yes I do. That movie soothes my soul.
But my personal pick would be ‘Midnight Run’ by Martin Brest. One of the best scripts ever written (by George Gallo) and great performances by De Niro and Charles Grodin. Their chemistry is amazing. And the scene where De Niro meets his daughter gets me every time. Great, great film!
“Awakenings” for me. But there are many more like in Patrick’s list.
Why does it take “balls” to admit Ghostbusters as such a film? I would say that it is one of the most quotable films ever and a serious gem of comedy output. It would be high on my list. Probably at the top, come to think of it.
This is the same thing I wrote a month ago re: the same issue, but it still plays.
Wow, I’ve never heard anyone trash Ghostbusters, which might just be one of the funniest films ever…dead-pan, underplayed, sardonic wit, with ingeniously esoteric dialogue and Bill Murray at his improvisational best…too bad they weren’t rescuing New Yorkers from a capsized cruiseliner or Jeff would have loved it…
For me it’s either ‘Ghostbusters,’ ‘Goodfellas’ or ‘Goonies’…hey, I’m only 26.
Sometimes Wells can be so out of touch…’Ghostbusters,’ ‘Elephant,’ ‘City of Ghosts,’ immediately spring to mind…and then other times he is righter than right can be. ‘Green Street Hooligans’ has been in my netflix queue since Jeff’s quasi-rave, and man, that movie fucking rocked. I can’t recall in any recent film as charismatic a performance as Charlie Hunnam’s.
Yeah, I gotta say Chaplin’s “City Lights”.
Or “Mary Poppins” but that’s ’cause of childhood nostalgia. I liked it as a kid, alright? LAY OFF!
On a serious note, Patrick above made a list of “100+ viewings”. Hey, more power to ya, Patrick, if that’s true…but damn. Is that kinda the vibe of the people who read this site, that they watch movies 100+ times, or THAT many movies that many times? I’m not going to say get a life, because I’m not exactly speedboating in Italy, but come on.
Ah, no contest. All I have to do is turn on The Third Man to realize just what kind of grace and perfection are possible in this world.
There was a period where I’d watch Raging Bull or Duck Soup a couple of times a week. I wore out my taped-off-cable copy of Chimes at Midnight. I’ve saved a lot of money by purchasing rather than renting Butch Cassidey and The Sundance Kid as well as Young Frankenstein.
I have seen Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back many, many, many times. But not so much in the last decade. This is also true of Ghostbusters.
Huh? You’re bashing *Ghostbuster*?!? Ghostbusters II, slick and vile, sure. . . but the original?
Man, you are such a grinch.
Ghostbusters is a perfect example of a “flypaper movie”– one of those movies that, no matter how many times you’ve seen it, you can’t help but stop and watch if you find it playing on television. You get stuck watching it. Some flypaper movies are genuinely, objectively great films. Others are merely good, but hold a place in your heart for some reason. Finally, there are a whole slew of awful movies that simply become great guilty pleasures the more often you watch them.
Hell, there are even entire channels dedicated to flypaper movies– TNT, TBS, AMC, any of the Starz/Encore channels. I may think many of your top films are the bee’s knees, but in the end, if I’m flipping channels and Roadhouse is on, odds are I’m going to find myself stuck watching Roadhouse.
Comfort movies, Jeffrey. Not every meal is a filet– sometimes it’s a greasy burger, or even just a Twinkie (“Tell him about the Twinkie.” “What about the Twinkie?” Sheesh, Jeff. . . )
Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge
O.k., I’ll weigh in:
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Magnificent Seven
Casablanca
When Harry Met Sally
Any Leone Western
National Lampoon’s Animal House
Aliens
Assault on Precinct 13 (the original)
O.k., I’ll weigh in:
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Magnificent Seven
Casablanca
When Harry Met Sally
Any Leone Western
National Lampoon’s Animal House
Aliens
Assault on Precinct 13 (the original)
Ghostbusters worked for me at age 19, as an SNL scholar still smarting from the death of Belushi. How would it hold up now? No way to tell.
The Bad Lieutenant by Abe Ferrara is a personal comfort movie for me. Don’t know what that says about my taste but there you have it.
Ghostbusters worked for me at age 19, as an SNL scholar still smarting from the death of Belushi. How would it hold up now? No way to tell–no interest in revisiting, even for reasons of nostalgia.
The Bad Lieutenant by Abe Ferrara is a personal comfort movie for me. Don’t know what that says about my taste but there you have it.
O.k., I’ll weigh in:
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Magnificent Seven
Casablanca
When Harry Met Sally
Any Leone Western
National Lampoon’s Animal House
Aliens
Assault on Precinct 13 (the original)
Speaking of early Kubrick this showed up the other day for however long: http://mutinycompany.com/dayotfight.html
Full Metal Jacket. We basically had it playing on a loop in my suite in my freshman dorm.
Glengarry Glen Ross – The Wild Bunch – Shawshank Redemption – Heat. (Small comfort that movies like this can be made.)
For real comfort, Best Years of Our Lives. Or Friendly Persuasion.
The Princess Bride or The Sandlot. No question. Maybe even a little Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves for comfort.
Gotta agree with Jeffrey Wells on “early Kubrick”:
The Killing
Paths of Glory
Dr. Strangelove
The Shawshank Redemption
The Wild Bunch
The Godfather
The Godfather: Part II
Annie Hall
Hannah and Her Sisters
Mixed Nuts (movie with Steve Martin from 1994–underrated if all you want is a senseless comedy at Christmastime)
Jaws
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The Color Purple
Taxi Driver
Goodfellas
Casino
Nixon
JFK
Born on the Fourth of July
Citizen Kane
Touch of Evil
Casablanca
Heat
Collateral
The War of the Worlds (1953)
War of the Worlds (2005)
Bad Education
Fanny and Alexander
The Seventh Seal
The Seven Samurai
Ikiru
High and Low
Yojimbo
Once Upon a Time in the West
Malcolm X
Do the Right Thing
sex, lies and videotape
Apocalypse Now
Sling Blade
Dirty Harry
Unforgiven
That’s pretty much all off the top of my head. I’ve seen all of those dozens and dozens of times. For whatever mood I’m in, and when I don’t feel like venturing off into unknown waters with something new, I often find myself watching one of those.
Ghostbusters, watched at home without an audience in 2006, has exactly two laughs: “Yes, that man has no dick” and the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man. Sorry, but it’s true.
Anyway, it’s an interesting question what makes a film watchable over and over. I find it hard to watch masterpieces over and over like that. They take concentration and seriousness of mind, and I think what we’re talking about here is the movie you can just sit down and have a beer with for 20 minutes and just enjoy the presence of an old friend.
I suppose that makes The In-Laws my choice. My wife and I will sit there when it comes on cable and just say the dialogue along with it, loving the little bizarre throwaways (which is practically everything)– “Oh yes, there’s enormous red tape in the jungle.” “Shel, they make a chicken sandwich here, it comes on a kind of a hard roll…” “If Chiang-Kai Shek had returned to power, Billy and Bing would have been the co-anchors on the six o’clock news. That’s how beloved they are!”
Have watched Godfather I and II countless times. Have even watched the Coppola do-it-for-the-money-spliced-together-with-all-the-outtakes chronological runthrough of both Godfathers that aired on TV a while back that I have on tape.
And, oh yes, have seen Jaws a LOT… watch it before we go to the shore each year.
If I’m in need of a comfort film, it’s probably either Shawshank or Casablanca (though if someone puts on A Few Good Men, I’m instantly hooked).
For me, comfort food movies aren’t about hip or witty, it’s a pint of movie ice cream (probably not very good for you and shouldn’t be a heavy meal).
CHARADE with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. I have seen it probably 108 times. I think it is the most enjoyable movie of the 60′s. When it first came out, the critics did not get it…it got bad reviews. I saw it opening day in Chicago.
Ghostbusters 2 is better than the first one….it’s more relaxed.
I adore Lost in Translation too. Saw it nine times at the movies and have watched it 27 times on dvd. Yes, I keep track.
Like, *hunnawhuzzah*?
“Ghostbusters” boasts some utterly terrific, marvelously batshit-loopy Dan Aykroyd-penned material:
“During the Rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveler came as a large, moving Torb. Then, during the Third Reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him ?- that of a giant Sloar. Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar THAT day, I can tell you.”
…I mean, c’mon.
To me, a comfort film is a perfect comedy. I think there are two: “Dr. Strangelove” and “What’s Up, Doc?”
Jaws
Chinatown
Young Frankenstein
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein
By Slate’s criteria, the movie doesn’t have to be your favorite, or even good. There’s just something about it that gets under your skin and it can always be counted on to lift your spirits. By those criteria, mine would be:
Dawn of the Dead (Romero)
Big Trouble in Little China
Animal House
Blazing Saddles
Some off the top of my head.
The Big Lebowski
Flash Gordon (I saw it with my cousin in the theater on my birthday when it came out. You gotta love the tree stump in the swap. I have no idea why I love it. I think it’s the good acting.)
Amelie
Spirited Away
For Your Eyes Only (Another childhood favorite.)
Too me comfort films are something to watch when you’re in a lazy mood, don’t want your mind to be challenged too much, to be able to settle down into an almost hypnotic state because the film you’re watching is so familiar.
I think Ghostbusters is a perfect choice in that respect. I have hundreds of films that I could put on this list and that would be one of them. As a huge Bill Murray fan, I would also put Groundhog’s Day, Quick Change and Caddyshack on there.
Early Spielberg does it for me too: Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters, ET.
And if I’m pissed off at humanity, which is quite often the case, I might want to watch some people getting bumped off: The Terminator, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Return of the Living Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street… A lot of horror movies would classify as comfort films for me. I’m not sure what that says about me, I loved them as a kid, watched them all the time, so it brings me back to that state.
It doesn’t bother me whether you like ‘Ghostbusters’, but this just a tiny sampling of some funny f’ing material…sit back and laugh your ass off.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?
Dr. Egon Spengler: That would have worked if you hadn’t stopped me.
Dr Ray Stantz: You know, it just occurred to me that we really haven’t had a successful test of this equipment.
Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I.
Dr Ray Stantz: Well, no sense in worrying about it now.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon… what’ve you got left?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Sorry, Venkman, I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.
Dr Ray Stantz: Symmetrical book stacking. Just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.
Dr. Peter Venkman: You’re right, no human being would stack books like this.
Dr. Peter Venkman: No, no. Just asking. Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?
Library Administrator: What’s has that got to do with it?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Back off, man. I’m a scientist.
Dr Ray Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray, pretend for a moment that I don’t know anything about metallurgy, engineering, or physics, and just tell me what the hell is going on.
Dr Ray Stantz: You never studied.
Louis: Ted! Annette! I’m glad you could come, how you doin’, give me your coats. Everybody, this is Ted and Annette Fleming! Ted has a small carpet cleaning business in receivership; Annette’s drawing a salary from a deferred bonus from two years ago! They got fifteen thousand left on the house at eight percent.
[throws the guests' coats in the closet, oblivious to the Terror Dog hiding there]
Louis: So they’re okay! So, does anybody wanna play Parcheesi?
Dr Ray Stantz: My parents left me that house. I was born there.
Dr. Peter Venkman: You’re not gonna lose the house, everybody has three mortgages nowadays.
Dr Ray Stantz: Yeah, but at 19% you didn’t even bargain with the guy!
Wells to Delbomber: I was out of touch on ‘Elephant’ in what way? Your’e saying…what…a more in-touch response would have been to trash it? Early Kubricks aside, a BIG comfort film I didn’t mention is “The Big Lebowski.”
Comfort films, eh? Probably for me, “The Big Sleep”, “A Night at the Opera”, “Singin’ in the Rain”, “Charade, “Bull Durham” top the list.
Another vote for “Ghostbusters” not being *that* funny. Remove Bill Murray and you’ve got almost nothing. And as for quotability–I always find that it’s more fun to remember or read the quotes than to actually hear them in the film; they’ll always sound good in my head, but fall flat when I see them in a clip. Ditto the FX “humor” pieces. Rick Moranis is probably the best character (Murray’s a bit of a dick, if you think about it, bon mots aside), but that was the last time he was remotely funny. And Ernie Hudson is just painfully bad. Essentially, long slogs of “meh” w/a couple of “I remember it being better than that” thrown in for good measure.
ah, lebowski. classic.
also, the graduate, almost famous, annie hall, the empire strikes back, rushmore, and o brother where art thou…all films that i’ve seen a ridiculous amount of times, yet are competely comforting and entertaining when seen again.
Maybe Jeff not liking Ghostbusters is a generational thing. GB is definitely a gen-x teddy-bear movie. It was one of the first ‘raunchy’ PG movies that as a kid I loved. Even today it’s fun as hell to break the ice by quoting with old friends. It’s also incredibly nuanced for a comedy. The naturalism to how the characters smoke for example (they really smoke vs. exhaling on cue). It’s just stuff you don’t see in major Hollywood films nowadays. It’s not about the goofy Key Master plot and electrified gargoyles but the dead pan reactions the cast has to them.
Whoops! Forgot the first two Godfather movies
as well! Add them to my 50-70 viewings list.
Hell, you think that Kasdan admitting to watching “Ghostbusters” over and over is a shameful secret? Did you see the number two movie on Kasdan’s list? “Footloose”, ferchrissakes!
“Ghostbusters” is a work of Kubrickian high art compared to “Footloose”. Who is this Kasdan, anyway? Is he a giddy and giggly 12-year-old girl?
Jaws and JFK, for sure. 2001 is great to fall asleep in front of. Guilty pleasures that might require some defense for seeing them as many times as I have… David Twohy’s Below. Falls apart in the third act, but the first hour plays equally well as submarine movie and haunted house movie, and the cast of unknowns makes the mystery interesting to follow. The knee-jerk reaction will be to laugh this one off, but I swear that Jeepers Creepers 2 is, by itself, a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Forget about the first one, and just enjoy how quickly the story takes off, and the visual pizazz Salva brings to it (the image of the creeper on the scarecrow post is just awesome)and I find it endlessly entertaining.
And, of course, Lebowski. Fascinating how many different people have mentioned that one.
SHAUN OF THE DEAD is my recent comfort movie pick.
Also…
JAWS
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST
THE IRON GIANT
RAIDERS
PULP FICTION
DIE HARD
By the way, if you want to experience real pain, rent “Ghostbusters II”. I actually liked the first “Ghostbusters” (though I have no desire to ever see it again), but I was ready to walk out of GB II after the first 5 minutes. After 30 minutes I gave up hoping it would ever get better, and voted with my feet. I sneaked into another movie in the same cineplex so I wouldn’t feel so ripped off.
Murray and Aykroyd were visibly suffering as they slogged through that GB II piece of crap to their payday. I think what really added to their humiliation was that actually they wrote this garbage themselves, and they knew they were both rich enough that they didn’t have to put themselves through this ritual of self-abasement.
“Rushmore” is actually probably my greatest comfort film. The rhythms of the dialogue, the music, and the mise en scene just pull me in everytime.
I can’t fathom how one can sense comedic pleasure in The Big Lebowski and NOT in Ghostbusters. Jessus, indeed.
“mise en scene” Oh, no! You got sucked into that
Film Theory class too, huh? I pity you! HA!
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA
and BACK TO THE FUTURE
Comfort film has to be “Best Years of Our Lives” or “It’s a Wonderful Life”….
I’ve often asked people a similar question, though. What is your “Ice Station Zebra”? As you may or may not know, Howard Hughes had the Rock Hudson cold war drama on an endless loop in his Las Vegas hotel bedroom towards the later (and super looney) part of his life. If you went around the bend, grew your hair and toenails long and sat in bed watching the same film over and over again, what would it be?
Mine would probably be “The Hunt for Red October”. Sure, there are better movies, but something about it locks me in everytime I run across it on television. Two hours and ten minutes of flat-out cool.
Jeff…
Re: ‘Elephant’….out of touch in the sense that this is not something the general demographic of your audience would find satisfying, yet I seem to recall you raving. I don’t want to get into the virtues of the film, which I thought was profoundly mundane but above all pointless.
‘City of Ghosts’ was just bad, b-level type stuff.
I’ve been with you on most other stuff, incl. King Kong, the Bore of the Rings, the aformentioned Green Street Hooligans, but ‘Elephant’ is an all-time misfire (in our tastes anyway, which means nothing to you, your readers, or in the grand scheme of things, I realize).
If we’re gonna go balls out with all-time comfort movies, then let me throw my hat in the ring…I realize a lot of these are also genuinely good movies, but I’ve seen them at least a dozen times…going down my netflix ratings after the first few:
Bottle Rocket
Ghostbusters
Goonies
Goodfellas
Big Lebowski
Oh Brother! Where Art Thou?
The Abyss
Back to the Future
Bad Santa
Big Trouble in Little China
Boyz N The Hood
A Christmas Story
National Lampoon’s Vacation + Christmas Vacation
Casino
Defending Your Life
Do The Right Thing
Dr. Strangelove
Election
Funny Farm
Heat
The Hunt for Red October
Juice
Last Temptation of Christ
Menace II Society
My Blue Heaven
Orange County
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Platoon
The Princess Bride
Rounders
A River Runs Through It
Rushmore
Saving Private Ryan
Stand By Me
Suicide Kings
This Boy’s Life
The Wanderers
ok, that’s enough, I don’t have time to get into 4-stars…
Speaking of early Kubrick this showed up the other day for however long: http://mutinycompany.com/dayotfight.html
Big Lebowski is an good one, but Kurosawa’s Ikiru has to be my favorite comfort movie.
Hopefully Tom Hanks doesnt fuck it up…
Hey, delbomber, Alexander et al., the point was name ONE movie that was a comfort film. Not a laundry list. And from the phrasing in the Slate article, it would seem they were going more for “guilty pleasure.”
Which makes me think Jeff was less than honest. PATHS OF GLORY, LOLITA, DR. STRANGLOVE.. c’mon, this reads more like a list to impress dates than a truthful “Sometimes, I hate to admit, but I just put BLANK on and everything feels right in the world again.”
As to the GHOSTBUSTERS detractors, we are all so sorry that you don’t get it. Maybe it is a Gen-X thing, but the film is funny and it’s more than two lines. Sorry, but it’s true.
My favorite isn’t even a line. It’s when they are in the elevator and Harold Ramis turns on his nuclear powered backpack. Murry and Ackroyd move 6 inches away from him. The absurdity of the moment kills me.
My own comfort film? I think thats one of those things that changes. The last film I found myself watching over and over, especially if I came across it on TV already playing, was this small gem of a movie HBO made called THICK AS THIEVES. Great cast, great lines, and a casual hard-edged crime story.
Before that, it was BLADE RUNNER. As much as I like the film (I own both versions on laserdisc), I have never thought it was a masterpiece. But visually, it is stunning. And that moody Vangelis score. It’s the movie I’ve wanted to live in since I’ve seen it.
How about every HE reader list his/her Top-100? Or maybe just pick the top comfort film as mentioned.
Like this: Boogie Nights
I could easily sit here and type out the script word for word. I’m not sure if that’s impressive or sad. Maybe impressive…sadly.
let’s not forget
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
I watch The Princess Bride every time I get sick. In middle and high school, this meant watching a taped-off-Fox VHS, because we didn’t really “own” any movies, and there was no dvd yet. I still expect a commercial for Lucky Charms to come right after Inigo Montoya helps the man in black climb up the cliff.
Steve C…yeah, adding to the multiple-viewings direction of the thread…apologies for the static.
Do you remember ‘El Diablo’, also an HBO movie? That belongs on the list.
Ok, so number 1? I don’t consider ‘Ghostbusters’ a guilty pleasure because I believe it to be a genuine, finely crafted comedy. It’s a rotating answer for me at parties when asked favorite movie EVER. The “guilty pleasure” approach also eliminates ‘The Big Lebowski’ from consideration…it’s an all-time classic.
My tastes have changed or it would be ‘Juice’…decent black urban thriller with Tupac Shakur and Omar Epps. I must have watched that 100 times in high school.
If it’s simply most times watched, it’s ‘Goodfellas.’ If it’s favorite comfort movie, I would have to say today ‘Goonies’. Everything else on my “laundry list” is too good to qualify or behind it.
Ferris Bueller!!!! How could I forget the ultimate sick-day film?? That came out the same year as Princess Bride, and was frequently part of a double feature. (also taped off tv) To me, Cameron’s car will always be “a piece of TIN”, and the line from Ferris reads: “Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight, if you stuck a lump of coal IN HIS FIST, in two weeks yu’d have a diamond.” Oh, good old broadcast tv in the 80′s, where you couldn’t even say “ass”. Thanks for the reminder, gh
my best comfort films:
The Muppet Movie & Caper
Zero Effect
Shawshank
The Terminator 1 & 2
and praise on kubrick
I agree with Mark.
It seems like a silly thing to grouse over, but I doubt I am alone when I say it is irritating when people list dozens of movies when asked to pick a simple favorite.
Yes, I know it’s difficult to pick just one, but the difficulty is kinda the point. That’s what favorite means. End of rant.
As for my choice, I will simply say that watching The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn never fails to make me feel like a giddy ten year old.
My choice would be ‘Secrets & Lies’. It’s not a really “quotable” film, but it never gets old, to me at least, due to the strength of the performances–particularly Timothy Spall. I’ll watch pretty much anything he’s in.
In deference to the comments above I don’t want to make a huge list, but honorable mention to ‘Zero Effect’.
How the F#@% do you hate Ghostbusters?
I mean, there’s something fundamentally wrong with your soul if you hate that movie.
And it’s playing in 70MM at the Aero in Santa Monica on 30 June.
Moving on. Movies I keep Coming back to…
Aliens
Star Wars Trilogy (OT)
2001
Maltese Falcon
Citizen Kane
Point Blank
Matrix
Videodrome
Lawrence of Arabia
Silence of the Lambs
seriously folks
these are supposed to be “comfort” films not the BFI top 100
SEVEN SAMURAI and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK just put me in a good place every time.
As someone who grew up watching Ghostbusters as a kid, i can completely understand Kasdan’s choice. It’s one of those movies that burn into your soul when you are younger, and you end up loving it forever.
I can’t fathom how one can sense comedic pleasure in The Big Lebowski and NOT in Ghostbusters. Jessus, indeed.
Always have to watch Jaws before heading for the shore to meditate on the fact that most attacks occur in the depth of water that I’m usually in.
Always have to have at least one Godfather marathon weekend a year to watch I and II the first day, then on the second watch the miniseries for TV that Coppola made of I and II, in chronological order with added scenes, some time ago.
As genre films Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2 each have more wit and charm in any given frame than Superman Returns has in its entirety.
Hate to break it to you Jeff- missing the boat on Ghostbusters is a strong indication of geezerness
Hey Larry! I admit I’m always kind of thrilled to hear of people liking “Shop Around the Corner” as much as I do.
That said – if I watch/listen to anything too often, it ruins it for me. One of my favorite films as a teenager was “Children of Paradise”, but I watched it so many times I am now sick of it and the magic is gone – which makes me sad.
My most recent film obsession has been Bela Tarr’s approx. 9 hour “Satantango”. It plays so rarely (I wouldn’t dream of watching it on the small screen) that I have not been able to SEE it enough times to get sick of it.
I also usually try to go see “Andre Rubelov” at least every couple years or so when it’s playing at a movie theater. I also like “Throne of Blood”, “Sancho the Bailiff”, “Magnificent Ambersons”, “Citizen Kane” and seeing all the Apu Trilogy filims in one showing.
The one ‘comfort film’ I have to watch on DVD if I feel sad is “A Night on the Intergallactic Railroad” a lovely Japanese animated film featuring Italian cats that kind of defies description. I wanted to buy a DVD of Herbert Ross’ “Pennies from Heaven” a while back but it wasn’t available – now that I think of it – I think I’ll see if that situation has changed.
How the F#@% do you hate Ghostbusters?
I mean, there’s something fundamentally wrong with your soul if you hate that movie.
And it’s playing in 70MM at the Aero in Santa Monica on 30 June.
Moving on. Movies I keep Coming back to…
Aliens
Star Wars Trilogy (OT)
2001
Maltese Falcon
Citizen Kane
Point Blank
Matrix
Videodrome
Lawrence of Arabia
Silence of the Lambs
Hey gang I am late to this but I might as well add my 2√Ǭ¢…
As I understand this,, it’s not the best films or your faves but movies that you watch over and over or films that give you comfort… which is strange… what really is comfort in terms of movies? But I digress… ok… most of his films would not be on my top 10, 20 or maybe even top 50 but anytime I tune in on a John Wayne western I can’t turn it off. As for films that have special meaning from childhood or whatever they would be Adventures of Robin Hood, The Crimson Pirate and The 300 Spartans.
What films would I watch on a desert island that would ‘comfort’ me that I would watch over and over? All of QT’s flicks most of the Coens but in my heart of hearts these few movies I nevfer tire of though I might like or list others higher they are GlenGarry GlenRoss, Strangelove, Charade, Fistful of $ and the one movie I have watched in the past with friends on the phone sharing the experiance is Kelly’s Heroes.
I would have listed Butch Cassidy as well… but when I thought of it I remembered that whilst it is a pure piece of entertainment and fun I really hate the Raindrops sequence, not the song but the bike ride… takes me out of the great movie everytime… but I am always able to get right back into it. It’s kinda like 48hrs. I would have listed that a few years ago but now the Eddie Murphy set pieces do not work anymore at least in context of the movie.
These of course are my opinions…
One word.
GODZILLA.
The REAL Godzilla. Not the wimpy American one.
Love films. All kinds of films. Great ones. Not so great ones. But when I need to get in the “right” mood for anything, nothing repeat NOTHING sets me to go like a Japanese monster movie.