Please go to the comments section of this post where Sal asks the question:
You have to explain America to someone from not here, but you can only use ten movies to do it. Which ten do you choose?
(Now, these do not have to be history movies, they can illustrate something unique about American values or character or the American experience.)
How fun is that?? Go and see people’s choices – and go add your own.
I’ll put mine here:
1. Casablanca
2. Field of Dreams
3. Running on Empty
4. His Girl Friday
5. Citizen Kane
6. Bonnie and Clyde
7. Taxi Driver
8. Its a wonderful life
9. Woman of the year
10. Election
But then I had to re-think it – and I have to say that I think Apollo 13 should be on my list – so sadly I have bumped off Running on Empty although I think that film illuminates an extremely important part of the American psyche. EXTREMELY. (Not to mention it being in my perpetual top 5 films of all time – along with Empire Strikes Back, Fearless, and Only Angels Have Wings. Other films come and go off my Favorite Films list – but those always stay at the tippity-top.)
As you can see, I chose films that show the positive side (Field of Dreams) – and also the dark side (Taxi Driver). Because you cannot understand America without understanding both elements.
Such a great question – and I LOVE people’s choices so far. So go add your choices to the list.
I love that someone put Groundhog Day on their list!
I’ll probably be thinking about this list all day. I’m trying to think of a good movie to show how thin the delineation between class boundaries is. Along the lines of An Officer and a Gentleman, Working Girl. Except better. Just drawing blanks at the moment.
Officer and a Gentleman definitely crossed my mind as well.
Actually – one of the most perfect movies ever made deals with a class issue: A Place in the Sun.
A chilling film. Not exactly the feel-good American Dream film you might be looking for though. It’s the dark side of class and ambition in this country.
Great movie.
Ooh. Coal Miner’s Daughter is another great example – a more positive example.
Caddyshack 2?
Or how ’bout Pretty in Pink? You know … how she’s from the “wrong side of the tracks” … and James Spader, the rich 35-year-old high school senior, torments her … The haves vs. the have-nots have never been so clearly portrayed.
Kidding, by the way.
I always thought it was funny how she was supposed to be “wrong side of tracks” and yet she still managed to have a really cool side-flip hairdo – and also: at that time in our lives, the vintage look was IN. EVERYBODY looked like Molly Ringwald at that point … so having all the rich girls snickering at her vintage clothes was so SILLY!
However; love the film. Love every stinkin’ second of it.
What gets me about PiP (you just KNEW I’d pop in here, huh?) is that Molly Ringwald is so freakin’ pretty! In what Bizarro World High School is a hot chick with a slammin’ rack UNPOPULAR?!
Oh, because she’s pooooooor.
Well, I’m sorry, but at my high school, and every other high school I’ve ever known, pretty trumped poor every day of the week.
Did you just say “a hot chick with a slammin’ rack”?
And did you make sure to drop the “g” on the word “slamming”?
Lisa, I swear to God. You are my hero.
Oh and yes, it was true in my high school too. Hot trumped wealth.
Bwah! Believe it or not, I’m walking on air.
It’s also what also bugs me about The O.C.. Seth Cohen (the ADORABLE Adrian Brody) is a “dork.” He’s “unpopular.” Uh, what the hell? He’s the grandson of the RICHEST. MAN. IN. TOWN. He lives in the biggest house on the street. We’re supposed to think he’s NOT the coolest kid in school with THAT POOL?
Whatever, stupid writers. How long has it been since you were in high school? Rich trumps EVERYTHING in high school. How do you think Abercrombie stays in business?
Note to Cullen: there was no “Caddyshack 2,” just as there was no “Ghostbusters 2,” and Stripes ends when they finish Basic Training. You have been deluded. ;-)
Kinda like Jar Jar Binks? Like – can we all agree that that never happened?
Add Godfather III to the list, and I’m up for starting an international conspiracy to have them eliminated.
John Hughes movies always have the most retarded view of what “poor” really is. The “poor” kids lived in two story houses. They had cars and cool toys like expensive musical instruments. They wore fifty dollar shoes. In a John Huges movie, “poor” is anyone who doesn’t get a Corvette on their 16th birthday and trashes their parents’ mansion.
I love Caddyshack 2. I love Ghostbusters 2. I love Stripes from beginning to end.
Jar Jar was a painful mistake. Have you seen Star Wars: The Phantom Edit? Somebody took The Phantom Menace and pretty much removed Jar Jar from the movie. It was phenomenal.
the phantom edit … hahahaha
No, I never saw that!
Oh Sheila, I had just about erased Jar jar from my memory, and there you go reminding me of how much he sucks.
SUCKS!
Good thing EpI ends with the coolest lightsaber battle of all six movies. It kind of makes up for JJB.
Cullen, I almost included Caddyshack (the original) in my list at Tracey’s, but opted for Office Space instead.
Another one that I almost put in there, but it just missed the cut, was Shaft…(yes, the original, not the horribly disappointing remake).
A story about it:
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2001/11/05/phantom_edit/?x
Wikipedia’s entry on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Edit
I’m sure it can still be found somewhere. Most likely Sci-Fi cons are silly with ’em.
I heard that the Phantom Edit is really good, though I haven’t seen it myself. Can we also remove all words spoken by Jake Lloyd as the Young Anakin?
“Are you an angel?”
Whenever I see that scene (in Watto’s shop) I feel embarassed. I have no idea why, but it makes me want to crawl under my couch, it’s just so blatantly schmaltzy and out of place in Star Wars.
Emily, good point re: Godfather III.
I did not ever buy the DVD box set specifically because it includes Godfather III, which is banned from my house.
That’s because Lucas can’t write anything besides dark hero saying pithy one liners, villians retorting and precariously positioned-but-plucky heroine lines hating A. life B. the situation C. the villian or D. the hero.
1. citizen kane
2. star wars
3. the thin blue line
4. midnight run
5. thelma and louise
6. roots
7. all the president’s men
8. the producers (the original, not nathan lane eating all the scenery and some of my furniture too)
9. king of comedy
10. crimes and misdemeanors
i had thought to put goodfellas on there, but to tell you the truth, i am sick and tired of ordinary thugs being pointed to as some sort of yardstick in our culture. they can be entertaining and thought provoking, but they are totally run of the mill. if you went back to roman times, you’d recognize these idiots. but if you went back to roman times, would there be ANYTHING like crimes and misdemeanors?
Brendan, The Producers is a very interesting choice. Makes me want to add Blazing Saddles to my list … hmm.
Oh man. Crimes and Misdemeanors – that may be my favorite of all of Woody Allen’s films. SUCH a good movie.
I need to do a new list. I need to include Sounder on it.
Brendan, Midnight Run is a great inclusion. One of the funniest movies ever made.
crimes and misdemeanors is a perfect movie and i will have an old-fashioned duel with anyone who argues with me. i will shoot a big round gun that has like, a rock inside of it that doesn’t even look like a bullet at them.
PERFECT. every cut, every music snippet, every acting moment, EVERYTHING.
and that is all i have to say about that.
Others worth putting on the list:
Crooklyn
Bad Lieutenant
Dirty Harry
Boogie Nights
Saturday Night Fever
Urban Cowboy
Rounders
The Color of Money
Again, others:
Friday
Moscow on the Hudson
Dummy
Short Cuts (you could almost have a sub-category – what 10 Julianne Moore movies would you show?)
Wayne’s World (my mind works in mysterious ways)
Um, I’ll have others …
One more that I missed:
Hard Eight
I love that movie.
hate to be one of those people, but “birth of a nation” probably deserves to be on there somehow. double billed w/roots.
fantasia?
toy story?
animation ought to be represented, y’all.
What was that rock and roll movie Bakshi did? Ah … American Pop, that’s an animation movie I would show.
Ooh! Ooh! On that note, just giving myself an idea from that last post, I believe I would show Ken Burn’s Jazz series.
Id put Apollo 13 on that list too, sheila. Not sure I could compile quite that long a list, as my movie-going acumen is not very sharp. But I do think Apollo 13 highlights the best of American ideals and attitudes.
Groundhog Day is an absolutely perfect choice too – a way of Americans poking fun at themselves!
Really can’t think of anything else that would be good to add those.
LA Confidential?
Gone With The Wind?
I think I might add Fried Green Tomatoes to that list, as well as To Kill a Mockingbird. I know Ive made heavily Southern suggestions, but Southern-hood *is* an indelible part of teh American psyche – as in “are you or are you not?”
I can’t add to the list, but I do love that you’d be invaluable in the endless Star Wars vs. Empire – which movie is better argument we end up in around work on a regular basis. (yes. I work with geeks) (I’m in the Empire camp.)
The Thin Man
High Noon
Operation Pettycoat
Stalag 17
Pillow Talk
Manchurian Candidate
Animal House
I can’t possibly be the first person to suggest Gangs of New York.
Melissa,
It’s no contest: Empire wins.
There really is only one camp, and that is the Empire camp. You’re in the right place, melissa!
i understand that empire is a superior film, but star wars is the one that has to be shown. sorry!
star wars: lots of style, but seems hand made
america: lots of style, but seems hand made
star wars: handsome rogue kills randomly
america: ditto
star wars: good vs. evil and incestual overtones
america: ditto
star wars: small freedom fighters good, giant superpower bad
america: ditto (er, well, sort of…)
hee hee!
no politics!
Much agreed, Empire is the trump card. Empire Records on the other hand …
Well, of the movies I didn’t see mentioned:
Patton
1776
Blackboard Jungle
That Thing You Do
The Magnificent Seven (Yes, I know, Seven Samurai. It still says quite a bit about the US.)
Hard Times
Unforgiven
And some number of:
Big Jake
The Shootist
True Grit
I’d like to have a real civil war movie, but can’t think of one both iconic enough and that I like enough to include.
Interesting bit of trivia about Blackboard Jungle. That movie pretty much caused the birth of rock and roll. Bill Haley and the Comets had released Rock Around the Clock as a B side and it had pretty much fizzled when released. However, it was used in the soundtrack to Blackboard … and it became a huge hit surging an interest in more of that kind of music.
While Ike Turner can claim the rights to the first rock and roll song — Rocket 88 — Bill Haley and the Comets (up to that time a rock-a-billy band) can claim the song that made rock and roll famous.
cullen – awesome!
Check out this snippet from Pauline Kael’s review of the film.
wow. patton and unforgiven. great choices. the vengeful sherriff building the leaky house? can you top that for a metaphor?
Brendan – I included a Mickey Mouse cartoon on my list at Tracey’s- “The Clock Cleaners”, a perfect Mickey-Donald-Goofy fest.
Great additions, all!
Love the Patton suggestion. I’m a war movie guy, so I’ll add Band of Brothers. I know, not a movie. But I always include it any best war movie list, and the characters demonstrate a cross section of American values and sensibilities. Oh yeah, and the characters…real Americans. Throw in the documentary We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company, a collection of interviews with the living members of Easy Company that were portrayed in Band of Brothers. Gotta love the Airborne attitude!
And someone mentioned the Ken Burns Jazz series, but I would have to add his Civil War series.
I could list a ton more, even some non-military movies, but I’ll stop with those two non-movies.
OH PATTON – how could we forget Patton!
I’ll vote for Patton. Great one Jay!
Didn’t Ken Burns do a whole baseball one as well?
Cullen and Sheila, a PSA for you: Jailhouse rock will be on Sunday morning at 8AM on TCM (I think…I set my TiVO to grab it.)
And Sheila, Sounder will be on TCM on 1/16, I forget the time for that one as well, but you should be able to find it on the Turner Classic Movies website. If you can’t, just let me know and I’ll double-check my TiVO.
I’ve never seen either one, and will be watching based on what was said on this thread as well as the one over at Tracey’s.
I live for this crap.
Oh, I own Sounder, Alex. hahaha One of my all-time favorites.
Every time I watch that last scene it’s like my heart is the Grinch’s heart – it bursts out of my chest.
Sheila — What a discussion this question has generated! (Too bad I can’t actually take credit for it.)
Alex — Just have to say I love “Hard Eight”!
And “Sounder” — oh, wonderful!
Alex – I’m excited to hear what you think of Sounder.
That was one of the only movies my parents let us stay up late to watch when we were kids. (The two other films were What’s Up Doc? and The Sting. My parents have great taste. They figured it would be okay if we were up until 11 because these were great movies).
I still remember my mother during the last scene in Sounder – I was about 8 or 9 – and HER response to it is emblazoned in my mind. It just catapulted the whole movie into the Pantheon in my mind.
I wrote a long essay about it when Paul Winfield died last year – but i won’t post it because it gives away the last scene.
Cicelyl Tyson is incredible – the story itself is just AWESOME – it’s one of the most HUMAN movies I’ve ever seen.
I am not really arguing the quality of these films. These are just a few possibilities that no one has mentioned.
Nashville
The Candidate
The Natural
Coming Home
That’s Entertainment
Tender Mercies
Alex, man I wish I had TCM. I am living with the barest mininum of cable right now. However, that may be changing in the near future.
DBW –
Awesome additions – Nashville, indeed – and Tender Mercies is perfect. I loooove that movie.
Sheila, you know what?
I have never seen The Sting. (Or What’s Up Doc? for that matter.)
This brings us back, of course, to a comment I made on one of your posts in the past, where I wondered aloud how it is that I have not seen (insert seminal, important, or otherwise great film here), yet have seen, in its entirety, the “From Justin To Kelly” American Idol movie.
It’s definitely a problem.
I would do an Expert Essay on how to watch the American Idol movie without killing yourself by the 39th minute, however, I would have to re-watch it to do a good job and I don’t think I could do so and not fight off the urge to leap headfirst into a fully spooled-up jet engine.
It’s that kind of film.
Oh you have to see The Sting!!! And I am kind of curious about that Justin to Kelly movie – the review were so awful that it made me think: How bad could it be??? That was the impetus for me going to see Gigli and Brown Bunny – so I could see for myself just how bad those movies were!!!
And about What’s Up Doc:
People who see that movie, and DON’T find it funny – I openly think less of them.
It’s like people who don’t “get” Monty Python. Whatever, they may be nice people – but I could never feel truly close to such a person. Because of my contempt.
America at 24 frames a second
Taking a break from what’s threatening to become an obsession… Sheila O’Malley found an interesting exercise. Explain America to someone from somewhere else by giving them 10 movies to watch. The idea is not to give them a history lesson, so you don’…
Explain America in 10 movies
Julia is disseminating an intriguing meme that she picked up from Lance Mannion. It’s called America at 24 frames/second. Lance explains how you play: Explain America to someone from somewhere else by giving them 10 movies to watch.The idea is