Dez's Favorite Flicks, #'s 20-16

This batch has the last of the horror movies, I promise. Francis Ford Coppola is well represented here.

20. Night of the Living Dead (1968), dir. George Romero
Years ago I would have picked the sequel Dawn of the Dead as my favorite of George Romero’s epic zombie series, but of late I’ve grown to really appreciate the first. Afficianados know that Romero uses his zombie flicks as social and political commentary, and this one looks at both racial issues in the United States at the time and Cold War tensions. This (along with John Carpenter’s Halloween) may be the ultimate low budget flick that had a surprising cultural impact. Romero was bold in 1968 to cast a black actor (Duane Jones) as his heroic lead, especially when Jones basically takes charge in a group of frightened and largely incompetent white men, women and children. Larger social commentary aside, this is also top notch horror thrills and chills, and the stark black and white is brilliantly used as the tense siege plot unfolds as the group of survivors hunker down in a remote farmhouse to fend off the zombie attack.

19. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), dir. Tobe Hooper
In my humble opinion, this is the greatest horror film ever made. The low budget was a huge asset, making the more intense moments so up close and personal that it comes uncomfortably close to feeling like a snuff film at times. Many critics have commented that one of the things that makes Chainsaw so effective is that it come across as a low budget documentary. What a wonderfully twisted “family” we have here in the three generations of cannibalistic murderers that cross paths with, of course, the group of unwitting teenagers who can’t escape. While Leatherface has become the most famous, I love the Dad, played with sadistic glee by Jim Siedow. Both number 20 and 19 prove that sometimes low budgets can be a blessing, unleashing the human imagination and creativity when those are your only assets in your arsenal.


ABOVE: Leatherface has a thing for power tools

18. Apocalypse Now (1979), dir. Francis Ford Coppola
I watched this again recently and was surprised by the power it still has over the viewer. The opening alone is worth the price of admission, a genius mixture of music (The Doors’ “The End”) and visuals (napalm bombing and Martin Sheen going crazy). Most of you probably know already, this was a film adaptation of the Joseph Conrad novel 'Heart of Darkness,' but Coppola brilliantly changed the setting from colonial Africa to the Vietnam War. As legendary as the film itself are the stories of its troubled production: Sheen’s heart attack, the typhoon in the Philippines destroying the set, Coppola throwing his life savings into the production and having a nervous breakdown, Marlon Brando showing up (being paid $1,000,000 for a week’s work) overweight, uncooperative and not having even read the script, calmly telling Coppola that he would prefer to improvise. All of these hardships, funny enough, help the film with its manic, feverish quality. Sheen, Dennis Hopper, Brando and the others are not just acting crazy. They were all going a bit crazy in the tropics on this shoot. Sheen later admitted that he did not think he would live through the end of production. In a film about men who, out of necessity, must ignore the rules of civilized society and embrace savagery in order to survive, Col. Kilgore’s (Robert Duvall) famous quote below makes perfect sense.


“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

17. Ed Wood (1994), dir. Tim Burton
Edward G. Wood, Jr. has been long acknowledged as the worst filmmaker of all time (his opus Plan 9 From Outer Space is thought by most to be the worst movie ever made). So what an odd subject for a loving, quirky biopic, but Burton and Johnny Depp (as Wood) put together a wonderful tribute to a type of fearless (or clueless) filmmaker and a bygone DIY era of filmmaking. This is more than a tribute to a man, it is a tribute to the b-movie world of 50’s and 60’s Hollywood, far away from the big studio backlots. Depp and his ragtag outcast group of friends lie, cheat and steal in order to get the meager resources to make their shlock. But in Wood’s own mind he is the next Orson Welles. And, in a sense, Plan 9 is the Citizen Kane of bad movies. The true highlight is Martin Landau’s stunning performance as an elderly, morphine-addicted, down-on-his-luck Bela Lugosi. Landau does more than merely portray Lugosi, he becomes Lugosi. By the time Lugosi started appearing in Wood’s crappy b-horror/sci-fi flicks, it was a long way from his Dracula heyday. Landau plays Lugosi with sympathy, anger, spunk and wisdom.


ABOVE: A great scene showing the true nature of a b-movie shoot. Here Lugosi (Martin Landau) must fight with an octopus, but they have no motor for the beast, so he must also throw its tentacles around to make it look as if it is killing him. The story he tells, by the way, about Lugosi turning down Frankenstein because he didn’t think it was a good part, is true.

16. The Godfather Pt. II (1974), dir. Francis Ford Coppola
Whereas the first Godfather film tells an epic tale, the sequel tells two epic tales. We are already familiar with the Corleone family dynamic, but GII bookends that first film, going both back in time to before the first film, and also picking up and moving forward from where the first film ended. We get the juxtaposition of a young Vito Corleone (Robert de Niro brilliantly taking Brando’s portrayal from the first film and transforming him into a young man) and a wiser and colder Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) trying to secure his family’s criminal empire. I love how the de Niro scenes in a bustling, turn of the century Little Italy in New York are full of life and optimism, whereas the 1950’s Corleone empire is much more powerful, but also devoid of joy and corroded. It is an ambitious and complicated film about power, politics and family (I had to watch it several times to fully understand all of the byzantine plot twists and turns), but it is fascinating. The rare sequel that is equal to its predecessor. And one of my all time favorite scenes is Tom Hagen's (Robert Duvall) talk with Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo) about the old days and the Roman Empire. Both men know what Pentangeli must do, but it is never stated directly, only hinted at through their discussion of the Roman ways. (I tried to find the scene on YouTube, but to no avail. They had it in Spanish, but not English!)


ABOVE: "It was you, Fredo! I know it was you. You broke my heart."