It isn’t as though I gave up going to the cinema, I have never
been an avid moviegoer, and if I’m honest there are not that many films that
have made a huge impression on me. In the days when it used to be years between
a film being released and it appearing on TV, cinema-going made sense if you
wanted to see new releases. Since the advent of films on video and DVD, and
even more so nowadays with streaming services, the period between a film
appearing at the cinema and being able to watch it at home has been compressed;
actually going to the cinema is only really necessary if you want to be among
the first to see a particular film.
The films that I am listing here are not, in the grand
scheme of things, cinematic masterpieces. Call me a philistine if you wish, but
this list doesn’t include anything deep, meaningful, profound or particularly influential.
Of the British Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Films of All Time[1],
I have seen precisely seven, and none of them features here.
The first film on my list, while not especially deep, or
meaningful did cause a major stir when it came out, and I did actually go to
the cinema to see it. I was never a great fan of Monty Python on TV – too hit
or miss for my taste – but when their third film, The Life of Brian, was
released in 1979, it was immediately apparent that we were in the presence of
genius. Littered with memorable lines, of which "He's not the Messiah;
he's a very naughty boy," is the most quoted, hilarious set-pieces (the
stoning, Biggus Dickus, and the Crucifixion scene), The Life of Brian is 94
minutes of sheer pleasure (unless you consider it blasphemous of course). Apart
from the controversy that the film provoked, it generated a lot of good
television debating it – Michael Palin and John Cleese discussed it with Malcolm
Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark, and Not the Nine O’Clock News featured
a sketch lampooning the criticism that is as funny as the film itself. The joy of The
Life of Brian is that you can watch it again and again, and laugh afresh at
lines you know as well as the back of your hand.
Keith Waterhouse is one of my favourite writers, and he made
something of an industry of his greatest creation, Billy Liar. The tragic-comedy story of a
day in the life of undertakers’ clerk and would-be comedian/script-writer
Billy Fisher first saw the light of day as a 1959 novel, which spawned a film, a stage play, musical, and
TV series. Released in 1963, the film of Billy Liar belongs to the British New Wave
"kitchen sink drama" movement, but unlike contemporaries such as Saturday
Night and Sunday Morning, or Look Back in Anger, the gritty realism of a young
man’s quite mundane life in a Northern city is offset by humour and the fantasy
of Billy’s day-dream life as President of Ambrosia. And because
Waterhouse co-wrote the screenplay with long-time friend and collaborator
Willis Hall, it is as faithful to the book as a film can possibly be. It was
shown on TV a few weeks ago, and it engrossed me as much as it ever did.
 |
| Tom Courtney as Billy, and Julie Christie as Liz in Billy Liar |
Super-hero films have become cinema’s biggest money-spinners
in recent years. The Marvel Cinematic Universe dominates and their long-term
rivals, DC, don’t really have characters with such enduring appeal in my
opinion: except one – Batman.
Batman has always been my favourite super-hero but the 1966
film was too comic (in the humorous sense), and Tim Burton’s series of films
started well but declined alarmingly with the George Clooney vehicle, Batman
and Robin, the subject of much derision. The first two of Burton’s films, with
Michael Keaton in the lead role, were great entertainment, but it wasn’t until
Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy that Batman got the treatment that the
character deserved. Batman Begins – the origin story – lacks the glamourous
villains that we associate with these sorts of films, but it’s brooding, dark
and absorbing. The Dark Knight is a film that I’ll happily watch over and
again, and as good as Christian Bale is as Batman, the late Heath Ledger’s
performance as Joker is exceptional. And as I’ve written before, Batman and Joker
have a symbiotic relationship which this film exploits to the maximum.[2]
I came late to the third film– The Dark
Knight Rises – and it was a good few years after it was released before I saw
it. It rounds off the trilogy neatly, and as much as I’d like another Batman
film from the same people, this left me satisfyingly wanting more but not at
the risk of any deterioration in quality.
If the Batman movies are films that I can watch over and
again, then Terminator 2: Judgement Day is one I will watch over and
again. It’s on so frequently that it is often the case that I’ll be scrolling
through the channels on the TV and see that it’s on, and no matter how much of
it I’ve missed, I’ll watch however much is remaining. Terminator 2 is good, old
fashioned hokum and its charm has not been matched in any of the subsequent films
in the series (especially not Terminator: Salvation). The success of the first film
and that of Arnold Schwarzenegger demanded a sequel, especially one where Arnie
could be a good guy. Terminator 2 does what it says on the tin and it’s none
the worse for that. Independence Day, starring Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum, or
the Men In Black films (Smith again, with Tommy Lee Jones) are a few more I’ll
happily watch any time, either completely, or just in part, but none of them
is quite up to Terminator 2’s standard.
Honourable mentions must go to some films, most of which I saw at the cinema
that were in some way groundbreaking:
- Star Wars (the first one that came out in 1977, and is now number four in the canon) and Alien were science fiction at their best. I’m by no means a Star Wars fan, and I have a feeling that if I watched the original film in the series again now, I’d not be as impressed by it as I was back then.
- The Long Good Friday (1980) was a gritty British gangster film that bridged the gap between the superficially gaudy but impoverished 1970s and the emergence of the more affluent, aspirational decade that followed it. Rightly, it marked a period of success and popularity for its star, Bob Hoskins.
- I remember little of The Accused (1988), but distinctly remember being very much impressed by Jodie Foster's Oscar winning performance.
- The much-lauded Blade Runner is a film that I could, perhaps should have included in my list of favourites, except it flatters to deceive, and as good as it is, there’s just something missing.
- The Warriors - I think I only went to see it because there were calls for it to be banned. It was really rather innocuous.
- Airplane! - Ridiculous and hilarious, surely one of the most original comedies of the 1980s - and don't call me Shirley.
- Finally a film released in 1977 that I loved the music from but, until about eighteen months ago, had never seen, believing it not to be my 'thing.' That film was Saturday Night Fever. A lot grittier than I'd expected and with music that took me back forty years, it was a surprise and a delight.
My preference is for films that offer escapism that I can watch
again and again, which applies to all of the above, in spades.
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