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There are a gazillion movies in existence, and in honor of BendFilm returning for its 23rd year, and our advance coverage of the indie film festival, I thought I’d highlight a few of my favorite movies this week. These are the movies I can’t stop watching, the ones I’ll stop what I’m doing if I stumble upon a screening.
You’ll see I like comedies and adventure. Put them together and you get most of this list.
“Breaking Away,” 1979
This sleeper of a comedy united budding stars Jackie Earle Haley, Daniel Stern, Dennis Quaid and Dennis Christopher as four post-high school townies in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University. Driven by the collective talent of the quartet, and a fantastic supporting cast that includes Paul Dooley, the four contemplate their futures, swim in abandoned quarries dug by their fathers, feud with the stuck-up college kids, and an epic, climactic bike race. This film sets the standard for every underdog sports movie made, even if “Bad News Bears” and “Rocky” predated it. I was 11 when I saw it one hot summer day in a cool, dark theater, and I think I understood it from the start. They do not make movies like this anymore.
“The Princess Bride,” 1987
Everyone knows this movie because it is perfect. My kids were raised on it. The late, great Rob Reiner directed a string of great films, but I don’t know if any of them matched the brilliance of this one. From the direction to the story to a cast that includes Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest and Robin Wright in her debut, it’s just pitch perfect. I saw this movie over and over again when it debuted, especially during its second run in dollar theaters.
“Midnight Run,” 1988
Here’s where comedy meets action. “Midnight Run” stars Robert De Niro as a down-on-his-luck bounty hunter tasked with bringing in an accountant played by a very deadpan and hilarious Charles Grodin, and the rest of the cast, includes Dennis Farina and Joe Pantoliano, is excellent, too.
“Joe vs. The Volcano,” 1990
This fantastic comedy pairs the always great Tom Hanks before he was a perennial Oscar contender with affable, comedically brilliant Meg Ryan, who nails not one but three roles in the movie. Hanks plays Joe Banks, a guy conned into jumping into a volcano, but as a friend once put it when I tried to explain why I liked it so much: “That movie has layers!” Nevertheless, as thegoodsreviews.com puts it, “It was actually a modest box office success, but it earned the reputation as a flop.” Hey, your loss if you wrote it off. “Joe” captures the beauty and absurdity of modern life, with one quotable line after another.
“The Shawshank Redemption,” 1994
I’m not alone in loving this movie, based on the 1982 Stephen King novella of similar name. “Shawshank” stars an almost ethereally good Tim Robbins and a peak-of-his-powers Morgan Freeman as his best friend-in-prison, and the film’s watchful narrator, Red. The movie speaks on sweeping themes of the human spirit, freedom and the human condition, and I will cry my eyeballs out at the ending every time.
“Spider-Man,” 2002
I wasn’t so much a comic book nerd as a kid as a Spider-Man wannabe. Creator Stan Lee knew what he was doing when he took a shy, smart Peter Parker, played here by Tobey Maguire, and imbued him with the ability to climb walls and swing on webs. I’ll never forget sitting mesmerized at age 34 by the kind of web-slinging stuff I could only see drawn in comic books or dream of.
“Apocalypto,” 2006
I know. I KNOW. Mel Gibson directed it, but the guy understands action movies. Here’s Wikipedia’s short descriptor: “Set in either Yucatán or Guatemala during the year 1502, Apocalypto portrays the hero’s journey of a young man named Jaguar Paw, a late Mesoamerican hunter and his fellow tribesmen who are captured by an invading force.” The film packs visceral punch upon punch as Jaguar Paw must dodge his would-be executors to rescue his family from drowning. Hurry!
“Superbad,” 2007
I love a great comedy, and there are so many I’d like to include, but this late, great entry to the canon of teen films is top drawer stuff, starring Michael Cera, Seth Rogen, Emma Stone and Bill Hader, among other comedic forces, about smart, irreverent high school kids on a last-day-of-school mission.
“Zombieland,” 2009
Here again, comedy plus action — but also, horror. Take Woody Harrelson as a fearless badass, Jesse Eisenberg as a take-no-chances, rule-following survivor, set them in a zombie apocalypse, and you’ll have the gruesome good time that is “Zombieland.” Emma Stone is also in this film! She was on a roll.
“Mad Max: Fury Road,” 2015
Speaking of rolling: George Miller’s “Mad Max” films of the 1980s were great, but with 30 years between the third (the diminished returns of “Beyond Thunderdome”) and “Fury Road,” the franchise’s fourth, I missed the theatrical release of “Fury Road.” but I knew its reputation, and was in awe of its brilliant spectacle once I caught it streaming. Its themes are of survival, feminism, patriarchy and love, and it has some of most brilliantly choreographed action sequences ever caught on film. I didn’t know a film with so much action and so little dialogue could be so moving. Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron are incredible, even if there were tensions.
