Winter Movie List
Time has changed and the days are getting shorter and shorter. I really hate that. But there is good news tonight. In less than 7 weeks, the days will start to get longer again. So to help you through the winter doldrums, here is my recommended winter movie viewing list. My criteria are very simple: a good story, and the movie must take you to a different time or place. Enjoy.
1) Blazing Saddles: Mel Brooks single handedly stunted the growth of political correctness by years in this 1974 comic tour de force. It’s marked with stellar performances by Gene Wilder, the late Cleavon Little, and the late Madeline Kahn in one of her best roles as Lili Von Shtupp, the Teutonic Titwillow. Never again will you hear those immortal words: “The Sheriff is a nig…..”
2) Ghosts of Mississippi: Alec Baldwin and Whoopee Goldberg almost made me turn liberal in this powerful story about the criminal prosecution of Byron De La Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers 30 years after the fact. James Woods is boffo as De La Beckwith, so ordinary but so filled with hate and bigotry. Be sure to sit through the closing credits and enjoy Nina Simone singing “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”. The song is used earlier in the movie, but Simone’s version is a classic by a classic.
3) The Man Who Came to Dinner: This 1942 gem is comedy at its best. With stars like Bette Davis, Monty Woolley, Ann Sheridan, and Jimmy Durante, how can you go wrong? Based on the Broadway play, the only play more butchered by high school productions is Arsenic and Old Lace. This brings you back to a wonderful time when men had names like Beverly and Sheridan. The mucky muck English accents give new meaning to haughty, but you will laugh out loud silly. This is difficult to get on DVD, but is available through Barnes and Noble. It also is available on VHS. There is a newer version from PBS starring Nathan Lane and Jean Smart. It’s ok, but stick with Monty.
4) Conspiracy: No fictional horror movie can match the real life horror of the Wannsee Conference held outside of Berlin in January of 1942. This HBO movie chronicles this very civilized meeting of 15 Nazi elite wherein the Final Solution to the “Jewish problem” was planned over dinner, wine and cigars. Kenneth Branagh as Reinhard Heydrich and Stanley Tucci as Adolph Eichmann are chilling in the absolute normalcy in which they surround themselves. Snow falling outside your window will only enhance the experience of the evil found in the falling snow outside the meeting room. Powerful, frightening, moving, and so….normal. This is one everyone should see and remember.
5) Finding Graceland: This unpretentious 1998 movie didn’t get wide release. It tells the story of a young man who feels responsible for the death of his wife. While running away from the memory of the tragic event, he picks up a hitchhiker, played by Harvey Keitel, looking for a ride to Memphis. You guessed it, the hitchhiker claims to be Elvis. Implausible….laughable. C’mon, do you really expect us to watch something like this? Yes. And bring your Kleenex box. You will get hooked like me. Priscilla Presley was the Executive Producer. This is a great, little film. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll believe, too.
6) The Fast and the Furious 1 and 2: Both of these movies are guilty pleasures and filled with hip hop, fast women, fast cars, foul language and violence. Awlright!!!! I hate rap music, and it is pervasive throughout both of these movies. But the automobile choreography and hokey story lines won me over. The first of these flicks stars Vin Diesel. Who needs more? It is about hyper car drag racing in southern California and undercover cops looking for truck hijackers. The race sequences are spectacular. The sequel, a more straight forward cops and robbers flick, brings these same undercover cops to Florida to look for drug dealers. These are no-brainer movies, and not for everybody. But give ‘em a chance. Turn on the 50” flat screen, turn up the surround sound, chill out, and count how many times Paul Walker says “bro” in the sequel.
7) Home Alone 2; Lost in New York: This movie is extremely well done and captures Christmas in New York City like no other movie I have seen. The background music and the visuals, such as the pigeons flying around the bag lady in Central Park, are stunning. Macaulay Culkin is a tad older so he is not so terminally cute, although some of the scenes for Home Alone 2 were filmed simultaneously with the first movie. Pretty music, pretty scenery, a good story line, and Christmas in NYC...it’s a winner.
8) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: This, the first in the Harry Potter movie series, is on my short list for best movie ever made. I saw it the first time totally unfamiliar with the Rowling books. From the opening sequence, I was hooked. This is movie making at its best. Pure magic, and moves Chris Columbus up to the ranks of great film makers. Enough said. Quidditch anyone?
9) The Producers: I think I am one of the few people who thought the original movie starring Zero Mostel was kind of stupid. I didn’t like it one bit. So when Mel Brooks decided to make money off the same story twice with a Broadway musical, I thought “ehhh”. Notwithstanding, I sprung for tickets to the road show in Pittsburgh, and I was on the floor. I have never laughed so hard in my life. The movie, albeit a tad long, lives up to the Broadway production. Laugh out loud funny, your sides will hurt for a week.
10) Auntie Mame: Live! Live! Live! Rosalind Russell, in probably her best role, camps it up as Mame Dennis, the free thinker who lives life to the fullest in this 1958 comedy classic. It traces her efforts to raise her nephew, whose care she has inherited. In the last part of the movie, she tries to come to terms with her nephew's future anal retentive in laws...and it is just plain funny. Don't be put off if you saw the perfectly awful movie version of the Broadway musical "Mame", which was based on this film. A "long in the tooth" Lucille Ball should have watched the the 1958 original. Well, as the movie says, everyone has their "ups and downs". And by the way, yes, that is Peggy Cass of What's My Line and To Tell the Truth fame playing Agnes Gootch.
11) Hunt for Red October: Dive! Dive! Dive! Take your claustrophobia pills to watch one of my all time favorites. Alec Baldwin (again with Alec Baldwin?) plays CIA analyst Jack Ryan in this movie adaptation of Tom Clancy's techno-novel about a top tier Soviet naval captain (Sean Connery) attempting to defect to the United States in a state of the art, silent propulsion submarine. The ocean is cold and stormy. The acting is top notch. The musical score is outstanding. And compared to what we are facing today, makes you wax nostalgic for the Cold War. Where is Nikita Krushchev when you need him? (For those of you under 35, think pounding the shoe at the United Nations).
1) Blazing Saddles: Mel Brooks single handedly stunted the growth of political correctness by years in this 1974 comic tour de force. It’s marked with stellar performances by Gene Wilder, the late Cleavon Little, and the late Madeline Kahn in one of her best roles as Lili Von Shtupp, the Teutonic Titwillow. Never again will you hear those immortal words: “The Sheriff is a nig…..”
2) Ghosts of Mississippi: Alec Baldwin and Whoopee Goldberg almost made me turn liberal in this powerful story about the criminal prosecution of Byron De La Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers 30 years after the fact. James Woods is boffo as De La Beckwith, so ordinary but so filled with hate and bigotry. Be sure to sit through the closing credits and enjoy Nina Simone singing “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”. The song is used earlier in the movie, but Simone’s version is a classic by a classic.
3) The Man Who Came to Dinner: This 1942 gem is comedy at its best. With stars like Bette Davis, Monty Woolley, Ann Sheridan, and Jimmy Durante, how can you go wrong? Based on the Broadway play, the only play more butchered by high school productions is Arsenic and Old Lace. This brings you back to a wonderful time when men had names like Beverly and Sheridan. The mucky muck English accents give new meaning to haughty, but you will laugh out loud silly. This is difficult to get on DVD, but is available through Barnes and Noble. It also is available on VHS. There is a newer version from PBS starring Nathan Lane and Jean Smart. It’s ok, but stick with Monty.
4) Conspiracy: No fictional horror movie can match the real life horror of the Wannsee Conference held outside of Berlin in January of 1942. This HBO movie chronicles this very civilized meeting of 15 Nazi elite wherein the Final Solution to the “Jewish problem” was planned over dinner, wine and cigars. Kenneth Branagh as Reinhard Heydrich and Stanley Tucci as Adolph Eichmann are chilling in the absolute normalcy in which they surround themselves. Snow falling outside your window will only enhance the experience of the evil found in the falling snow outside the meeting room. Powerful, frightening, moving, and so….normal. This is one everyone should see and remember.
5) Finding Graceland: This unpretentious 1998 movie didn’t get wide release. It tells the story of a young man who feels responsible for the death of his wife. While running away from the memory of the tragic event, he picks up a hitchhiker, played by Harvey Keitel, looking for a ride to Memphis. You guessed it, the hitchhiker claims to be Elvis. Implausible….laughable. C’mon, do you really expect us to watch something like this? Yes. And bring your Kleenex box. You will get hooked like me. Priscilla Presley was the Executive Producer. This is a great, little film. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll believe, too.
6) The Fast and the Furious 1 and 2: Both of these movies are guilty pleasures and filled with hip hop, fast women, fast cars, foul language and violence. Awlright!!!! I hate rap music, and it is pervasive throughout both of these movies. But the automobile choreography and hokey story lines won me over. The first of these flicks stars Vin Diesel. Who needs more? It is about hyper car drag racing in southern California and undercover cops looking for truck hijackers. The race sequences are spectacular. The sequel, a more straight forward cops and robbers flick, brings these same undercover cops to Florida to look for drug dealers. These are no-brainer movies, and not for everybody. But give ‘em a chance. Turn on the 50” flat screen, turn up the surround sound, chill out, and count how many times Paul Walker says “bro” in the sequel.
7) Home Alone 2; Lost in New York: This movie is extremely well done and captures Christmas in New York City like no other movie I have seen. The background music and the visuals, such as the pigeons flying around the bag lady in Central Park, are stunning. Macaulay Culkin is a tad older so he is not so terminally cute, although some of the scenes for Home Alone 2 were filmed simultaneously with the first movie. Pretty music, pretty scenery, a good story line, and Christmas in NYC...it’s a winner.
8) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: This, the first in the Harry Potter movie series, is on my short list for best movie ever made. I saw it the first time totally unfamiliar with the Rowling books. From the opening sequence, I was hooked. This is movie making at its best. Pure magic, and moves Chris Columbus up to the ranks of great film makers. Enough said. Quidditch anyone?
9) The Producers: I think I am one of the few people who thought the original movie starring Zero Mostel was kind of stupid. I didn’t like it one bit. So when Mel Brooks decided to make money off the same story twice with a Broadway musical, I thought “ehhh”. Notwithstanding, I sprung for tickets to the road show in Pittsburgh, and I was on the floor. I have never laughed so hard in my life. The movie, albeit a tad long, lives up to the Broadway production. Laugh out loud funny, your sides will hurt for a week.
10) Auntie Mame: Live! Live! Live! Rosalind Russell, in probably her best role, camps it up as Mame Dennis, the free thinker who lives life to the fullest in this 1958 comedy classic. It traces her efforts to raise her nephew, whose care she has inherited. In the last part of the movie, she tries to come to terms with her nephew's future anal retentive in laws...and it is just plain funny. Don't be put off if you saw the perfectly awful movie version of the Broadway musical "Mame", which was based on this film. A "long in the tooth" Lucille Ball should have watched the the 1958 original. Well, as the movie says, everyone has their "ups and downs". And by the way, yes, that is Peggy Cass of What's My Line and To Tell the Truth fame playing Agnes Gootch.
11) Hunt for Red October: Dive! Dive! Dive! Take your claustrophobia pills to watch one of my all time favorites. Alec Baldwin (again with Alec Baldwin?) plays CIA analyst Jack Ryan in this movie adaptation of Tom Clancy's techno-novel about a top tier Soviet naval captain (Sean Connery) attempting to defect to the United States in a state of the art, silent propulsion submarine. The ocean is cold and stormy. The acting is top notch. The musical score is outstanding. And compared to what we are facing today, makes you wax nostalgic for the Cold War. Where is Nikita Krushchev when you need him? (For those of you under 35, think pounding the shoe at the United Nations).
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