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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Part V:

NEXT LOT. I know I promised Baby Boomers, but that's not completely accurate, any more than the things which Baby Boomers are anxious to take credit for are really their accomplishments. For example, neither the Beatles nor the Stones were Baby Boomers, even though they became the soundtrack of that entire generation of self-obsessed jerks. The miserably sad truth is that Baby Boomers have produced almost nothing memorable, significant, or new in their whole time on earth. With that disclaimer delivered, here's the final set of my list of 25.

21. Walk the Line

Consider this one a kind of book end to Bird (No. 19). It's popular among American intellectuals to celebrate black contributions to music, which originated with uneducated folk among the rural poor, and to laugh out loud at country music, which originated with uneducated folk among the rural poor. No wonder they're so convinced we're a racist nation. This movie fills a couple of holes in our movie picture of America. It shines a light on the other distinctively American contribution to our nation's hold on the world's music (quit chortling: the Stones owe as much to country as they do to Motown), and it also acknowledges, as Hollywood almost never does, the powerful cultural impact of our agrarian population -- you know, the people who drive pickup trucks, wear cowboy boots, and grow the food we and a big chunk of the rest of the world eat. Like Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash (not a boomer) became a transcendant figure, beyond genre and beyond the reach of critcs. But unlike the other two, his persona was not a manufactured or gimmicky invention. He was exactly what he looked like on stage -- a barely contained force of nature who intertwined rage, love, lust, violence, and tenderness so tightly into his voice that the contradictions produced the permanent bass quaver which made every song sound like the five minutes of roller-coaster tension before a prison riot. This movie is the story of his life, the good and the awful both, and it's one a huge percentage of Americans can relate to. The first terrible thing happens on the farm, and it never stops resonating through all the subsequent ups and downs of Cash's life. Which is exactly how life can be. Even in the pampered place The New York Times sums up as white America. With stunning performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, and the busiest actor in show business, Robert Patrick. This is about country. Our country. (clip) (and a bonus) [DO watch the last clip. It's IP's theme song, too.]

22. The Deer Hunter

For this choice I have to give a nod to Ed Morrissey at Hotair. He named it as one of the worst movies of the past 25 years, which finally decided the debate I'd been having with myself between The Deer Hunter and We Were Soldiers as the necessary Vietnam movie to include here. [Singling out The Deer Hunter as a 'worst' on any list that also includes Forrest Gump, Apocalypse Now, Coming Home, Born on the Fourth of July, and Platoon, {a.k.a. the Oliver Stone Poor Poor Pitiful Me Story} is about as outrageous as it gets... but enough about Morrissey.] I happen to know the part of Pennsylvania where the characters in The Deer Hunter lived, and I can assure you the rendition of their lives -- in the wild, on the road, and in the bars -- is pitch perfect. The performances by John Savage, Meryl Streep, and most of all the amazing Christopher Walken are astonishing. The movie shows what other Vietnam movies don't, the wrenching dislocation of lives effected by a war in which the role of soldier was changed from winning battles and territory to mere killing . It has more impact because it is long and slow, because it shows us the lives of the men before their service, and the amplifying effects of memory after the fact, when memory cannot coexist with the life that would have been lived without a soul-destroying derailment onto a hell nothing in their previous lives could have prepared them for. It's not a Hollywood movie in any traditional sense. It's a journey to the heart of darkness Coppola could never have filmed because he had read the book, and the characters in this movie never did. They just lived it. (clip) (and another) Between these two clips, there's a brief, exploding lifetime of unbearable pain. Was the movie long? Not as long as the distance between a western Pennsylvania bar and a bloodsport gambling den in Southeast Asia. We're still living that distance down today.

23. Apollo 13

One of my all-time favorite movies about men. No, not the Clint Eastwood/John Wayne sort of men. The real kind. Smart, creative, focused, perseverant to the last second of the last gasp of the last chance. And they wear plastic pocket protectors the whole time. This is the movie where you can see the real pioneering spirit that probably won the west during the age of Manifest Destiny. The careful planners who packed exactly the right combination of food and water and ammunition and spare parts for the conestoga wagon, plus a few handy tools to fix things if the worst happened. "Houston, we have a problem." And such a problem. Unprecedented and wholly unanticipated. Bringing our men home from a certainly fatal disaster in space that they then passed off as a routine "doing what we're paid to do" example of ordinary competence. (See Slasha and CP's response in the Comments section of this post.) It's a perfect mix of both kinds of American hero -- the ostentatiously risk-taking hero-type heroes that have always been part of out national story, who live up to their own highest expectations even as the awkward, shy, too-smart-to-fit-in antihero-type heroes put their minds and their faith on the line to do the impossible. THIS is what Americans can do, and it's all BIG. The budget, the technology, the objective, the calamity, the eventual triumph against prohibitive odds. And the wives. God, women are wonderful. If Obama has seen any movie on this list, I hope the most that he has seen this one. (clip)

24. All the President's Men

You'll note that the press has played a part throughout this list, usually in their historical role as buzzard opportunists feeding on the travails of real people doing real things while the parasites prosper. I have looked, but it's almost impossible to find a movie that treats the press without scorn, satire, or wry cynicism (including especially this, 7:40 in) until All the President's Men. Which is the story of the Washington Post doing everything it can to bring down a president of the United States (who, quite coincidentally, they had hated since his first appearance in public life.) More than any other movie on the list, this one served as a recruiting tool that brought armies of young people into a trade for reasons precisely opposite the stated principles of the (so-called) profession. They watched this piece of fiction and signed up as journalists to "make a difference," "save the world," and "speak truth to power." None of which has anything whatever to do with reporting the facts, without fear or favor or emotion or bias or slanted diction, to the people who buy newspapers. If 'On the Waterfront' is the best American movie, this is the most important American movie, and its message to its audience was, and is, absolutely corrupting. Why are The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune, and The LA Times dying with withered claws outstretched for a federal bailout from what used to be their sacred target? This movie. That's why. Anyone who saw this movie and joined the press afterwards is the journalistic equivalent of a crack whore. Fact. These are the people who are the source of Bush Derangement Syndrome. But you can't understand America without seeing this monstrosity of a movie. And, God, how they LOVE this image of themselves. If they only knew what a sickness they've infected us with... (clip)

25. The Guys

So far, the best 9/11 movie. A small production, a small budget, a small focus. A freelance writer (Sigourney Weaver) helping a New York Fire Department captain (Anthony LaPaglia) write last words about his men who died in the terror attack on the Twin Towers. It's our new reality. Still. No politics. No hysterics and no bathos. No speculation (why United 93 isn't on the list). No special effects. Just people. Americans. Which is who we are. And hopefully will remain, no matter how high-flown the oratory from the bully pulpit of The One. See it. (clip)

There you have it. And now I have to admit I've failed. There are still holes. This is too big a country to be understood in just 25 movies, no matter how carefully chosen. I have another ten Honorable Mentions that are actually cheating. Because they're as important as the first 25. What an amazng country we live in. Stay tuned for the Tacked-On Ten, as well as some observations about interesting patterns I've observed in my selections.

Still. Go ahead and sharpshoot. The ones that didn't make the 25 didn't make the 25 and I'm accountable for what I've chosen. It's just that there's more, and we're more than what I've picked out.

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