Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Take part in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and telling us about them - couldn't be easier!
What an interesting, tantalizingly vague topic for this week's Thursday Movie Picks! Immortals, huh? Like, gods? Or vampires? Or legends, who may die but will live forever in other ways?
Somehow, I managed to not quite go down any of those routes. Although I had initially wanted to be very cheeky and pick three movies with legendary actors playing legendary people (like, say, Lincoln, Amadeus, and Ali... not that it necessarily would have been those three exactly, but you get the idea), I decided against it because somehow, it just didn't feel quite right somehow. But still, I think these three fit the bill for this week quite nicely.
Death Becomes Her (Robert Zemeckis, 1992) What would you do if you had the opportunity to remain young forever, WITHOUT becoming a vampire? I don't know about you, but of the many, MANY things I would do, fight with my best frenemy about a wimpy, mustachioed Bruce Willis is not one of them. Oh, I kid, I kid. Willis is actually damn funny in this, as the man torn between Meryl Streep's actress Madeline Ashton and Goldie Hawn's author, both of whom have taken a potion provided by Isabella Rossellini (who else?) that provides eternal youth. This zany camp classic has aged remarkably well, and I'm not just talking about the groundbreaking visual effects. This gets to the heart of the love-hate relationships between women better than perhaps any other movie released in the modern era. It's also perfectly cast from top to bottom.
Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988) What? I had to throw in something remotely off-center! You can't deny that the "ghost with the most" isn't immortal - he's been around for over 600 years, and given the number on his ticket in the waiting room final scene, he's going to be around for a whole lot longer than that! So what if he's technically part of the after-life? He is living there, after all! Michael Keaton's performance as the titular "bio-exorcist" (a ghost who gets rid of the living) is one of the greatest comedic performances of all time, a hyper-committed work of near-insanity that creates a wholly original character out of nothing. There's nothing else like it. And come to think of it, there's nothing really like this movie, either. It's the ultimate horror-comedy, deliciously designed, perfectly cast (really, AMPAS, you couldn't find room at the Oscars for ONE of the film's magnificent Supporting Actresses?!?), and undoubtedly the work of an utterly singular director. It's a pity what Tim Burton has become over the past decade. The likelihood of getting something as fun as this from him again is LOW.
Written as part of the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Play along by picking three films that fit the week's theme and telling us about them!
The alien invasion subgenre of sci-fi got some seriously good play when I was growing up in the 90s. Even though I don't generally LOVE this kind of story, these three films are some of my all-time favorites.
Mars Attacks! (Tim Burton, 1996) But of the three, this one is probably my favorite. Tim Burton's masterfully silly send-up of old-school B-movies has an incredible All-Star Cast (Annette Bening, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Sylvia Sidney, Pam Grier) and plenty of delightfully absurd moments (what ends up defeating the aliens? Tom Jones's "It's Not Unusual", which makes their heads explode). The martians themselves are perfectly designed, and memorably voiced ("ACK ACK ACK!"). Plus, Burton cast perhaps the greatest First Family of all time: President Jack Nicholson, First Lady Glenn Close (in PERFECT Nancy Regan drag), and sarcastic First Daughter Natalie Portman.
Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996) The prototypical Dean Devlin/Roland Emmerich blockbuster is still their best, largely thanks to an incredibly charismatic lead performance by Will Smith in the first of his string of July 4th hits. Bill Pullman's classic climactic monologue has been spoofed a lot recently, but it's still pretty damn inspiring in the context of the film, which has held up surprisingly well despite its 90s-ness - Jeff Goldblum as a master computer hacker, anyone?
Men In Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997) The glory of this comic adaptation is two-fold: The crackling, surprisingly perfect chemistry between Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith, and the fantastic alien designs by master makeup artist Rick Baker. It's also REALLY funny - again, mostly thanks to the dynamic duo that leads the film. Jones's deadpan is a perfect foil for Smith's looseness as the veteran, seen-it-all agent showing the newbie the ropes as they police Earth's hidden alien population and protect "the galaxy" from an alien bug.
