Sunday, November 21, 2010

Thanksf'ing #5: Five Movies for Which Alex is Thankful

It's November, and that can mean only one thing at F This Movie! -- it's time to celebrate the holiday of Thanksf'ing. Throughout the month, all of the F This Movie! crew will be sharing the movies for which they are thankful. Because the Mayflower.

Today's entry comes courtesy of Alex:

1. Fargo (1996) - There's not one thing about the Coen brothers' magnum opus of Midwestern malfeasance that doesn't work for me. I remember seeing this when I was probably too young for the content, but also too young to define what makes a movie really "work." I know that it's flawlessly written, directed, photographed and acted, but when I was just a wee one, I remember coming away from Fargo thinking, "Well, that just really worked."

2. Inglourious Basterds (2009) - While I enjoyed Death Proof a lot (more than most, even), I left it thinking that Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction magic was a once-in-a-career type of spark. It's my firm belief that the discovery of Christoph Waltz propelled this movie to the heights it achieved. It's also the best work of Brad Pitt's career and I can scarcely recall a movie that had me so gleefully invested in the interest of both the "good" and the "bad" guys simultaneously the way Inglourious Basterds does.

3. Hoop Dreams (1994) - For a deliberately paced, meditative documentary that nearly touches the three-hour mark, Steve James' documentary remains relentlessly rewatchable for its at-once heartbreaking and soaring take on the American dream played out on basketball courts from Cabrini green to affluent private high schools.

4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) - The movie that served as a comforting shoulder upon which a whole new generation of sad single people could cry. That sort of sounds like an insult, but the fact of the matter is that Michel Gondry's pitch-perfect bittersweet valentine took the lovable rom-com, a genre that had been summarily drawn and quartered in the early 2000s, and turned it completely on its head, delivering one of the most original love stories ever to grace the screen.

5. Team America: World Police (2004) - Mostly because of this. Also because I do believe it to be one of the most patriotic films released in the past 20 years. Seriously. Further deepening that sentiment is the fact that I can't help but swell with pride when I contemplate the notion that I live in a country where a film about marionettes who fuck and kill each other whilst simultaneously lampooning elite Bush-era conservativism and elite Hollywood liberal douches gets a wide release. America? Fuck yeah.

Got a movie or movies you're thankful for? Email us at fthismoviepodcast(at)gmail.com and share. We'll be reading submissions on the podcast all month long. Happy Thanksf'ing!

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