My Best Movies Ever

Post on 12 July, 2020 by Dallin Malmgren

I have a long his­to­ry with movies, but a ter­ri­ble mem­o­ry for them. Real­iz­ing this, I have for many years writ­ten down every movie I watched and giv­en it a grade. I can tell any­one if I saw a movie and how much I liked it. For one span of my writ­ing career, I gave screen­writ­ing a try, so I watched tons of movies, con­sid­er­ing it a form of study­ing. Recent­ly my friend Chip Brookes invit­ed me to pick my top ten movies and post it on Face­book. Hav­ing my movie list made the project a lot eas­i­er. Here is what I came up with:

King of Hearts (1966) – My all­time favorite for­eign film and the most enter­tain­ing anti-war movie ever. And what a con­cept: an insane asy­lum as the san­est peo­ple on the plan­et! Work­ing six years in a men­tal hos­pi­tal taught me there’s some truth to that. This movie also taught me the word lyri­cism.

Nashville (1975) – My favorite Robert Alt­man movie, and he deserves an essay of his own. This movie demon­strat­ed to me that a human being and a coun­try both have a soul—and they can both be lost. The com­plex­i­ty and inter­weav­ing of rela­tion­ships (a pre­cur­sor to Crash, anoth­er movie I liked) fas­ci­nat­ed me. I think the end­ing is total­ly redemp­tive (when the girl picks up the mic), but that might be my own opti­mism. I’d love to know what some­one else thinks.

Ben Hur (1959) – No movie touched me spir­i­tu­al­ly like this one. Jesus is in the movie three times—you nev­er see Him—you just see the effect He has on the peo­ple in front of Him. So pow­er­ful. Ben Hur is also an epic story—saw it on Christ­mas Day when I was ten years old. God had His fin­ger on me even back then.

Ordi­nary Peo­ple (1980) – This movie made me real­ize you can love some­one and not be able to show it, and how trag­ic that can be. I loved the dad…he had the kind of heart I want­ed to have. I fell in love with Pachebel’s Canon in D Major in the open­ing scene. This is also one of those rare movies that cap­tured a great book.

Dazed and Con­fused (1993) – I taught teenagers for 33 years and wrote sev­er­al books about them, but Richard Lin­klater got them way bet­ter than I did. O how shal­low, and how alive! I had every one of those char­ac­ters in my class­room at one time or anoth­er. Also loved how adults and espe­cial­ly par­ents were almost aliens to us back then.

Lone Star (1996) – Stick­ing with my Texas love affair…this movie is sooo Texas, the good and the bad. It’s also about the com­plex and rocky rela­tion­ship between a father and a son, which is right up my alley. John Sayles is the most under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed direc­tor I know. (I gave A’s to five straight films that he made—list avail­able if you want it.) I need to go back to him.

Com­ing Home (1978) – I missed the Viet­nam War by the flick of a policeman’s flash­light (anoth­er sto­ry), but this movie brought home to me the dam­age it could do to the Amer­i­can sol­dier. Also had an amaz­ing sound­track. Jon Voight’s speech to a high school assem­bly is one of the most pow­er­ful warn­ings I’ve ever heard. (I have to men­tion that this film bare­ly edged out The Deer Hunter as the most impact­ful Viet­nam War movie I saw. By some twist of fate, I saw The Deer Hunter alone in a the­ater. I drove home, didn’t turn on a sin­gle light, laid down on my bed and just thought. I was blown away.)

The Last of the Mohi­cans (1992) – I con­fess to a per­son­al bias on this one—the only Thanks­giv­ing my wife and three chil­dren ate at a restau­rant (we were mov­ing), and then we went to the movies. All five of us loved it! This is the most hero­ic movie ever. When peo­ple ask—“…if you could have been born into a dif­fer­ent era…”—this is the time/place I would choose.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) – Anoth­er great book = great movie mir­a­cle. A per­fect cast—Gary Coop­er and Ingrid Bergman are stun­ning, but it’s Pilar and Pablo that raise it to a whole oth­er lev­el. I would bet you that Hem­ing­way him­self loved this movie.

Butch Cas­sidy and the Sun­dance Kid (1969) – Absolute­ly the coolest movie ever! Sun­dance and Butch nailed the entire spec­trum of cool—from qui­et but dead­ly to gre­gar­i­ous and love­able. Kather­ine Ross was even pret­ti­er than she was in The Grad­u­ate. I would be hard-pressed to find a movie that had more won­der­ful lines of dialogue.

Sor­ry, could not stop at ten.

The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy (2001, 2002, 2003) – When I was a young man, I read these books—and imme­di­ate­ly re-read them. Two years lat­er read ‘em again. Then I swore I wouldn’t pick them up for 20 years. When I heard of Peter Jackson’s project, I read each book before each movie came out—dang if he didn’t nail it! The spec­ta­cle, the grandeur, the awe­some­ness. I could quib­ble about a few plot omis­sions, but the man gave us over nine hours of pure entertainment!

The first thing evi­dent from my list is that I am an old fogey. My most recent movie is 2003 and the old­est is 1943! But I have to be honest…I just can’t han­dle the super­hero, spe­cial effects mul­ti­plex stuff that Hol­ly­wood has been hand­ing out for so long. I like movies that make me think and feel, not just anes­thetize me. It has become hard­er and hard­er for me to sit through a movie. Is that me or is that Hol­ly­wood? Some of both, no doubt. (By the way, I only left The Grad­u­ate off my list because I have already writ­ten an essay about it.) What this list has done for me is encour­age me to go back and watch some of the true clas­sics. I don’t have that many movies left.

Comments

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    Out of Africa, woman under the influ­ence, Vir­ginia wolf, only lovers left alive, stig­ma­ta, fun­ny girl, sound of music,scarecrow, to kill a mock­ing­bird, glass bot­tom boat, house of spir­its, won­der boys, old yeller, the last Waltz.

    I know, too many

    Gretch13 July, 2020

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