The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
John Ford’s brilliant western is both a romantic, three-way, love story and a look at the west on the cusp of change. Watching it again I realized how political a movie this is. There are battles between two factions. Those who want to remain a territory and those who want to become a state. It’s a typical rich versus the everyman battle. The future versus the status quo. Even the film’s love story, a triangle between a tenderfoot, a gunslinger, and the woman they love represents a dying western way of life. John Ford blends it all together with this filmmaking classic, his last great western.
The Graduate
Some films are indelibly burned into your psyche for many reasons. It may have to do with the heart of every audience member jumping into their throats the first time the shark comes out of the water in “Jaws,” or the blaring rock sound of The Ronettes great song, “Be My Baby,” on the soundtrack in “Mean Streets,” or the discovery of a little know film called “The Panic in Needle Park” as you watch a then unknown actor named Al Pacino blow you away. There are certain films that are etched into your life and become a brick on the wall that helped build your love for movies. For me “The Graduate” was one of those films. It’s one of the seminal films of the 1960s ushering the “New Hollywood.”
Bananas
One of the early, funny films that the more mature Woody Allen would dismiss later in his career. That said, this disjointed, sometime hodgepodge of a film remains funny. The jokes come fast, some fall flat, others remain fresh. Of all of Allen’s films “Bananas” is the closest he ever came to the satirical lunacy of the Marx Brothers (think “Duck Soup”). Here Allen’s banana republic of San Marcos meets Freedonia! Look for an unknown Sylvester Stallone stretching himself as an actor playing a subway thug.
National Lampoon’s Vacation
This is no masterpiece but there is a dark streak of satirical comedy running through the film as it strikes at the ideal the perfect American family trip. Yes, the Griswold’s are on an ill-fated trip across America. Destination? The vacation promise land, Wally World, (think Disney World). It’ a bumpy road but there’s enough fun along the way thanks to Chase, Imogen Coca, and especially Dennis Quaid as the family’s country hick cousin (“I don’t know why they call this stuff Hamburger Helper. It does just fine by itself”). There’s a great soundtrack headed by Lindsay Buckingham’s catchy “Holiday Road”.
A Kiss Before Dying
John Greco Author/Photographer 
Reblogged this on Twenty Four Frames.
LikeLike