Wednesday, April 22, 2015

My 150 Favorite Movies - #37

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Each Saturday night, Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies has a discussion with a guest programmer on which they show and discuss a movie considered "essential." Well, by any definition, Sullivan's Travels is an "essential" movie. Hugely influential (see O Brother, Where Art Thou and Stardust Memories for two prime examples), it never fails to be both entertaining and moving. The plot concerns Sullivan, a filmmaker who is no longer interested in making comedies as he feels it is more important to show the suffering of humanity. To that end, he hits the road embarking on life as a hobo, and gets more than he bargained for in terms of suffering. By the end of the movie, all is resolved, and our hero sees that in life sometimes the most important thing we have is laughter. Directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Joel McCrea, and Veronica Lake (who was six months pregnant at the start of filming), this film is one for the ages.

Monday, April 13, 2015

My 150 Favorite Movies - #38

The Big Lebowski (1998)

The Coen brothers already had a cult following before the release of The Big Lebowski, but their careers arguably went to a whole new level of cool afterwards. Jeff Bridges, who forever after has been referred to as "The Dude," gave a comic performance for the ages, as a restless slacker who gets caught up in an identity scam leveled at him by some very dicey, if wealthy, people, resulting from the bad fortune of sharing someone's name. John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Julianne Moore, and Philip Seymour Hoffman are among the colorful characters populating this slightly skewed world.