There is a random quality to Netflix’s instantly streaming program that I really love. Not everything is available all the time; movies come and go. So when I saw “Diner” in my recommended queue Saturday night, I immediately clicked through. Netflix then recommended “Breaking Away,” which made for a very nice 80s double-feature.
BA is charming, but creaks a little with age and sentiment. (Although props to the filmmakers for a) Paul Dooley’s speech outside the library b) the look on the bad guy’s face at the climax, which makes him less of a bad guy.) Diner has aged beautifully. It is almost a perfect film, Mr. Lippman and I agreed. We would change two things:
1) The shiksa goddess on the horse. This character shows up again in Levinson’s personal films and it’s okay that she’s utterly baffling to the boys who woo her, not so okay that she’s baffling to the writer.
2) In the White Castle after their triumphant outing at the strip club — a moment that comes a little too close to a trope I despise, the white-guy-so-cool-he-makes-black-people-dance* but Timothy Daly’s coiled anger and the lack of actual dancing keep it from going too far — the stripper asks Daly’s character if he has a girl. He says he’s in love, but doesn’t have a girl. Does she know, the stripper asks? “I told her,” he says. The stripper’s response (“Told her? Didn’t you show her?” IIRC) is too on-point. Cut the line, Mr. Lippman and I agreed, and the scene would be better.
Pauline Kael saved Diner. She reviewed the film for the New Yorker despite its absence of a true release and, IIRC, shamed the studio into releasing it. Granted, Baltimoreans of a certain age are going to prize it more than anyone, but it’s a remarkably well-made, well-written and tender film with a lot of great young actors. Plus, it features Michael Tucker’s very authentic Baltimore accent. Tucker later went on to become famous via LA Law, but he was a Baltimore boy, bred and buttered as the saying goes. I met him at a book event once and admitted that I had a hard time doing a Baltimore accent. “I have a hard time not doing one,” he said.
Nominations for perfect films, in the comments section, please.
I want to second Diner. I have never been to Baltimore, but love that movie. I saw it numerous times when it came out.
I could go on and on about films I love, but would like to mention one fairly obscure Australian film – Chopper, starring Eric Bana. It’s hilarious and terrifying at the same time. Bana gives one of the best performances I have ever seen. I now call my best friend Uncle Chop.
“and they say crime doesn’t pay.”
Loved DINER.
I have to say that ANNIE HALL and THE STING are two movies that just seem perfect to me.
You’ve Got Mail. I’ve been stuck on this one for years. I watch it EVERY time it comes on TV.
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Brilliant cast, amazing adaptation, wonderful story, BEST courtroom scenes in film.
I don’t know if it holds up – haven’t seen it in forever but someone can report if KING OF HEARTS still works.
I love THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT for feel-goodness and acting talent. when folks call certain actors “luminous” I almost never know what they mean. Here, Annette Bening is luminous.
As is Liv Tyler in another just right movie THAT THING YOU DO.
I’d love to know your take/Mr L’s take on THE BIG EASY which features an actor who steals every scene she’s in – my buddy Lisa Jane Persky (I love Facebook – I get to have real fangirl moments even now.)
I know i have more BUT
My perfect film, my favorite number one of all time is John Sayles RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS 7.
Can’t believe someone hasn’t already mentioned The Shawshank Redemption.
I love Feast of Love, among many others.
Favorite films: “Dr. Zhivago”(the best, no question),”Godfather I&II”,”All the King’s Men” (1949, best American film ever made),”Out of Africa”,”A Man for All Seasons”,”Good Night, and Good Luck” (David Strathairn, best living actor),”A Place in the Sun”,”How Green Was My Valley”,”Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (or anything with Jimmy Stewart, the best actor ever), “JFK”, “Taxi Driver”, “Seabiscuit” (glimpses of Pimlico racetrack in Baltimore), and “The King’s Speech”.
I think Breaker Morant is a lovely, talky, affecting, memorable movie (Edward Woodward and Bryan Brown are marvelous, as is the guy who plays their lawyer); as is North by Northwest (I really love that one) or a very different Cary Grant movie – Father Goose. I’d only ever seen Father Goose on late night regular tv, all chopped up with commercials, and this past Christmas the young folks got me the dvd – which is superb.
The Wizard of Oz always, always takes hold of my heart; it’s one movie I almost prefer to watch on regular tv with commercials, because that’s how I grew up with it.
And if we’re going to watch gunplay and blood, Warren Beattie and Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde…and Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons, come to think of it, have the all-time bloody claim (at least on my imagination).
And as for movies that simply capture something – that always stop me cold and pull me in – John Hughes and his Molly Ringwald movies are IT! Breakfast Club has so much casual truth in it – and Sixteen Candles has such a visceral appeal, I find them irresistable.
Thelma & Louise, still crazy (good) after all these years
“House of Games” by David Mamet, an extraordinary feat of plot construction that makes its staginess work, and “A Face in the Crowd,” which ought to be required viewing before anyone registers to vote. Patricia Neal’s performance in “A Face in the Crowd” is one of the best ever filmed.
“Vickie Christina Barcelona” is beautifully filmed, well acted, and superbly written (Woody Allen). It’s become one of my favorite movies.
I just saw “The Fabulous Baker Boys” again and thought it had aged very well. Only the clothing gives it away. Jeff Bridges at his physical peak, I think.
It’s that word perfect that is hanging me up. Perfect as in any time I am flipping channels and it is on, I have to watch it just one more time? That would be “Notting Hill”, “Rebecca” and “Holiday Inn” for a start.
If you mean perfect as in if extraterrestrials landed and asked to see what we do for entertainment, then “Sunset Boulevard”, “Some Like It Hot” and “All About Eve” for a start.
King of Hearts still works–have watched it twice in the last month. But my fave is A Thousand Clowns–not on DVD yet. Also Black Orpheus is pretty damn great. And The Graduate. And The Sting. And Paper Moon.
Was just thinking about The Reincarnation of Peter Proud over the weekend, and then find out today that Michael Sarrazin just died. Weird.
And lately I really, really like White Irish Drinkers, but I’m biased.
Saturday Night Fever and Say Anything.
Perhaps too lowbrow for y’all? Tremors.
I think “Blue Velvet” is just about perfect in terms of doing what it set out to do. Same with “An Unmarried Woman”.
Although, “Blue Crush” is probably also perfect by this criterion. Maybe I should say a film can only be considered perfect in this way if the bar is set pretty high.
“the best years of our lives”; “to kill a mockingbird”; “gone with the wind”; “dr zhivago.”
I love The American President and I love Legally Blonde. I watch them all the time, but the best ever for my money is The Big Chill
First, let me second ‘Shawshank’ and ‘Mockingbird’, and I do love ‘Vickie Christina Barcelona’.
Trying to narrow down my all-time perfect favs has had me in a dither:
Casablanca
Blade Runner
Rashomon (all Kurosawa/Mifune collaborations)
Walkabout (never ceases to haunt me)
Man on Wire (who woulda thunk a documentary?)
The Triplets of Belleville (recent discovery)
The Maltese Falcon…
…speaking of which…after you turned me on to Megan Abbott last summer, Laura, and I gobbled her up (she IS to die for), my renewed thirst for b&w noir blood has most recently been slaked by Fritz Lang’s ‘Scarlet Street’, plucked off the library shelf. (Oh, that sly Dan Duryea, and the reverse-Cheshire of Edward G’s incomparable mouth.)
Ha ha, Michael. Back in the day, even though I used to claim I didn’t run with herds, Fred Ward and his jewelry-making wife, Silvia, were on the Venice Beach edge of my California posse. Fred was one of that rare breed of solid working actors you could hang out with, and not be wondering if he was for real, or just playing a role. It does my heart good to see ‘Tremors’ as your choice.
DellaDash, please tell me that you have seen “M” (1931), directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre as one of the creepiest characters ever on film. It’s worth seeking out. I can’t call it perfect, but it’s haunting. You’ll never look at a balloon the same way again.
Clair @2 – I’ve been flashing on ‘A Face In The Crowd’ lately…every time I take in precocious, yet somehow smarmy, country-croonin, 17-year-old Scotty on American Idol.
Ditto, on the sublime Patricia Neal. And that brings ‘Hud’ to the list.
Thanks for the tip, Marjorie. I have seen ‘M’, but it was too long ago to be on my radar. I do think a full-on Fritz Lang retrospective might be in order.
Nothing is too lowbrow here and I love the suggestions. I am curious if people think these films are perfect (or near perfect). I can see how a case can be made for most of them, although — forgive me, Zelda and Andi! — I have a serious bone to pick with The American President: What savvy lobbyist would celebrate _before_ a vote?
The perfect movie, of course, is The Wizard of Oz. Timeless music, great comedy and drama and imagination and a compelling mix of wide-eyed optimism and wink-wink cynicism; plus, ALL the power in the movie – for good or for evil – was held by the women (from Auntie Em right through to the Wicked Witch of the West); and all the men were idiots or frauds (from Uncle Henry right through to the Wiz himself)
There is a very great truth, right there
Rear Window! Broadway Danny Rose! Curse of the Cat People! Stolen Kisses!
The Shop Around the Corner! The More the Merrier! The Tall T!
I like a Noah Baumbach movie called HIGHBALL. I keep getting other people to watch it and they keep falling asleep. But it’s perfect!
Loading up my Netflix queue and library ‘hold’ slots.
It’ll be fun to revisit familiar titles, as well as check out new ones (curious about ‘White Irish Drinkers’), with a critical eye towards its ‘pq’ (perfection quotient), as loosely defined by the Lippman-litmus test of “is there anything about this I would change?”, or “does anything violate my suspension of belief?”.
There are also Marjorie @5′s guidelines of perfection to consider, Brian @25′s mash-up of perfection elements, and Naomi @7′s “in terms of doing what it set out to do”, (although that’s a very subjective moving target).
Any other ideas on what comprises a film’s PQ?
Well, now that I have pondered a bit and in the interest of total disclosure, I have to add, as a very personal perfect favorite, “Now, Voyager”. Bette Davis as an old maid, plumpish with thick eyebrows, dominated by the mother from hell (Gladys Cooper). Bette as Charlotte Vale (of the Boston Vales) finally finds her way in the world, though not without pain and compromise. It’s melodramatic and romantic and Bette is wonderful. Add in Claude Rains giving a lovely performance as her doctor and one of my all time favorite character actresses, Mary Wickes, as a nurse with smarts and patience and I can watch this move over and over. For me, it’s the fantasy film in which we old maids can find a ray of hope.
I can watch ‘Now, Voyager’ over and over, too, Marjorie, as well as ‘Rebecca’ and ‘All About Eve’…
“The Color Purple”. I could watch it every day and see a new brilliantly placed nuance. And if that’s too heavy:”Roman Holiday”.
I don’t remember the name of the movie-caught it the other night-black & white-starred I believe Ginger Rogers-but main story-she lived in boarding house in NY,NY and didn’t have job yet. Landlord rented top floor to artist who needed the ‘garret’ during the day, so he moved her into it-she had it from 8pm to 7am, the artist 8am to 7pm. Of course the 2 meet-happy ending, but the movie was really funny!! Wish I could remember the title!!
Crochetlady: “Rafter Romance”!.
I think we’re a little light on foreign movies. I’m partial to Lina Wertmuller’s “Seven Beauties” myself. And, a movie about a Stasi agent, set in Germany post WWII, would be on the list, if I could remember the name of it!
American movies just aren’t that great anymore, but I loved “Lars and the Real Girl.”
Linda, it’s “The Lives of Others” and it was very good.
I loved Westmuller back when I was in high school, but on re-viewing a couple of them, they don’t have the same magic for me.
The one about the convent school based on the book by — well, my memory just blew up.
Love the mentioning of “Breaking Away,” as it was filmed in my hometown, and just about everyone I know is in it somewhere. Times when I get to feeling a wee bit homesick, I’ll put it on and just scan it for all the sites that mean “home” to me.
As for the movie that I truly enjoy, though, that’s a bit embarrassing to admit. It is an Ida Lupino film, so one might normally think “noir.” While I do love her dark,, edgy stuff, it is the youth flick “Trouble With Angels” that gets my emotions flowing. I love it so much, I even own a rare copy of the book it is based upon- hard to come by as it only came out in paperback. Anyway, next time you really want to have a good laugh, feel decidedly nostalgic, and even enjoy a good cry (or two), I highly recommend you check it out. Whether you’ll be seeing it for the first time or are rediscovering a childhood favorite, like me, this is one movie that has little to no affectations, just some good old-fashioned humor and heart.
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN; BRINGING UP BABY, SOME LIKE IT HOT, MANHATTAN, KAWASAKI’S ROSE, PELLE, THE CONQUEROR, GOD AND MEN, THE SWIMMER, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, RIFIFI, THE GODFATHER, PART 2, IT’s A GIFT, THE LIVES OF OTHERS, REAR WINDOW, NORTH BY NORTHWEST.