I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
Better known as "IKWIG."Romantic fable set in the Hebrides of Scotland. The Archers' Romantic comedy is charming & filled with memorably lines, such as "There ought to be a law about trees!"
Walkabout (1971)
Nic Roeg's enigmatic film transforms a severe turn of events into a trance-like rite of passage in the Australian desert. A non-Western where civilization & the wilderness seem to co-exist in a time capsule that is a thing of beauty to behold. If viewers can tolerate the abstract juxtaposition of images, the "transportive" music & visuals will sweep them into a temporal paradise with a strange momentum of its own.
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Whenever a recent funny movie features a leopard or similarly untamed felines, this Howard Hawks screw-ball comedy comes to mind. Susan & David seem to be metaphors for the prototypical male & female in courtship mode, especially when one party is both consciously & subconsciously non-consenting. A screwy comedy that is just about as delightful as Cukor's The Philadelphia Story (1940).
The Searchers (1956)
The Classical Western. I wonder if the definition of "the western genre film" was greatly influenced by this well-studied, seminal film of the classical western style. Ethan's racism (protagonist) is sometimes argued as the film's fatal flaw, but these cententions are often taken out of context. There are plenty of other film characters that are walking contradictions, namely the self-destroying Jewish-Nazi Danny Balint (Henry Bean's The Believer); Ethan remains the outsider at the conclusion & with John Ford's classical frame/composition, we infer that our gunslinger remains condemned to the wilderness of Monument Valley.
Manhattan (1979)
This movie has been called Woody Allen's love poem to his "hometown" New York City. I share this thought.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Despite the fact that Dreyer's systematic use of the close-up dominates this one-tone film, the experience of seeing intense emotional suffering during the protagonist's act of martyrdom transcends schadenfreude. (Word of Caution: this is the least easy-viewing of the bunch)
Blue Velvet (1986)
I "Blue Velvet" for a good laugh at the cinema; to experience the state between waking dream & reckless laughter. Best experienced with a crowd, say in a college film class.
The Shop Around The Corner (1940)
Lubitsch is probably the master of the sex comedy in the mythical era sometimes called "The Golden Age of Hollywood." Remade as a Judy Garland/Van Johnson musical & Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks romantic comedy. A comfort film for those snow days.
voyeur turns against the audience and results in an intellectual complicity; when the good guys justifiably obliterate the bad men, the discerning viewer wonders if the defeated were merely replaced by something deadlier. In this dark film, trouble gravitates towards a peaceful family man & his small community when mobsters seek his attention after a publicized heroic act. Beneath the suspense & exhilaration of self-defense lurks the inelegant outcome of self-preservation. The "aw shucks" small town setting evokes Blue Velvet’s Lumberton; the evil man sports a grotesque facial disfigurement instead of a breathing mask that feeds a sewer of obscenity. However, after the thrill of the main action, the film does not conclude with the verdant landscape of sunshine on white picket fences, but a protagonist who returns an outsider from what Stephen Price would call “the wilderness” (Prince 260).
