Day Thirty-Six: Taxi Driver

Ranking on IMDb Top 250: #40
Year: 1976
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster

After a short introductory phase to his career consisting of movies ranging from total flops to minor successes, Martin Scorsese became the Martin Scorsese that we know and love today with 1976's Taxi Driver, a film that explores the psyche of a cab-driving Vietnam veteran with undiagnosed insomnia who gets wrapped up in the lives of the people he encounters on his route. I'll be the first to admit that it's a complete and utter travesty that it took me until now to see this movie. I can hardly think of any movies that are more universally praised and critically acclaimed, and I generally like Scorsese's work, so it's unforgivable that I never saw it. After going back to see it, it's obvious what an impact Taxi Driver would have stylistically on Scorsese throughout the rest of his career. Robert De Niro delivers a top-notch performance as Travis Bickle, and Jodie Foster paves the way for Natalie Portman in The Professional and Chloë Moretz in Kick-Ass with her role as a preteen girl with her innocence shattered by her lifestyle, even though Portman and Moretz didn't play child prostitutes like Foster does here. Pound for pound, this is one of Scorsese's finest moments as a director, even if my weird obsession with Gangs of New York prevents me from calling it his masterpiece.

The beauty of Taxi Driver is that, up until its climax, very little happens. Sure, Bickle shoots that robber in the convenience store, but he spends the rest of the first three-fourths of the movie driving around, talking to people, watching porn, working out, and buying guns. He saves most of his energy for his grand finale, which more than justifies the buildup. SPOILER ALERT: He kills three gang members to protect Iris, Foster's preteen prostitute. What's beautiful and tragic about it is that it doesn't really feel like he did it in an attempt to clean up the city or make an example or even because he cared deeply about Iris and didn't want her to get hurt. It essentially feels like he was bored with all of the wakeful hours his insomnia brought him, so he decided to do something violent. He originally wanted to assassinate a presidential candidate, and hell, he didn't even want to live through the ordeal; he left a note for Iris saying he'd be dead before she'd see him again, and in an iconic shot, he sits on the couch after the shootout with all of his guns empty, pointing his index finger at his temple and repeatedly pulling the trigger with a depraved smile on his face. Instead, he gets to be a hero, and the papers write about the great thing he did as if he wanted the publicity.

The denouement is something that has been debated endlessly, and I won't add my contributions simply because I don't know what to think. Bickle drops off the woman he had been courting at the beginning of the film at her house, pays her fare for her, then drives off. He hears a distorted sound, looks into his rear view mirror, and the scene cuts. Scorsese has said that this is meant to represent the fact that Bickle is not a hero, and that he could snap again at any moment. That's satisfyingly unambiguous, even if it is a bit of a cop-out on Marty's part. The movie wouldn't be as great as it is without its ending, and De Niro sells it hard with those steely eyes of his.

The Good: Even if it wasn't technically the thing that set Scorsese up for one of the greatest directorial careers of all time, it effectively was. He comes into his own and pulls out a lot of the tricks we'd see in future works here.

The Bad: It might be slightly overrated, just because I've seen it on so many people's lists as their #1 movie of all time. I can't quite dig that, but it is extremely good.

The Skinny: Deserves its place.

Day Thirty-Five: Groundhog Day

Ranking on IMDb Top 250: #159
Year: 1993
Director: Harold Ramis
Starring: Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell

It's shocking to me that it took me until now to finally see Groundhog Day, considering the fact that there was a well-worn copy of the VHS tape in my house ever since it was released. It's one of my old man's favorite movies, and I always kind of associated it with being shitty for that reason – his other favorite movies, mind you, are Multiplicity and Fools Rush In. When I saw that it was on the IMDb Top 250, though, I figured he must have had a lapse of judgment and accidentally decided to like a good movie. Even so, the fact that a mid-'90s Bill Murray comedy, regardless of existential bent, made the IMDb Top 250 is rather jarring. Upon actually watching the movie, my skepticism was validated. If Groundhog Day has an all-time classic reputation, then it's highly overrated.

Unfortunately, Groundhog Day isn't a particularly impressive movie. The concept is novel: A cynical weatherman played impeccably by Bill Murray is forced to relive Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania every single day. He learns how to ice sculpt and play piano, he spends countless days trying to impress his producer (Andie MacDowell), he kills himself over and over again, he commits crimes, and he does generally anything he wants to do to kill time since he'll continue to come back the next morning, with Sonny and Cher's "I've Got You, Babe" playing on his clock radio at 6 a.m. The joy of this movie is watching all the things that Murray does once he realizes that he has to keep reliving Groundhog Day. Once you get past the initial horror of it, you can start to enjoy it, and he spends hundreds of Groundhog Days doing just that, and vicariously punching an obnoxious insurance salesman in the face and making a beautiful Andie MacDowell fall in love with you through Bill Murray is exhilirating enough.

But the film ends up being a one trick pony, and without the surface-level fantasy of it all, the message reveals itself as a muddled one, and the ending is unsatisfying. SPOILER ALERT, AND ALSO A QUESTION FOR MY COMMENTERS: So, like, he had to help every single person in Punxsutawney in one day so he could get to the next day? Is that even what happened? Isn't that arbitrary? And unnecessarily difficult? Didn't he just help all of those people so he could finally move on to the next day and get the girl, and if so, doesn't that make him just as selfish as he was all along? I need answers, people!

The Good: Murray has a lot of fun with the role and it's good for plenty of laughs.

The Bad: The ending is both horrendously rushed and deeply unsatisfying.

The Skinny: Not sure how it wound up so high on the list, but I don't think it should be on it at all.

Day Thirty-Four: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Ranking on IMDb Top 250: #219
Year: 2003
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this movie is considered one of the more controversial selections on the list, or that my position – I love it – is going to be attacked because this isn't a film that fits the traditional mold of greatness. Don't be fooled by the haters, though; we all know they're gonna hate. The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy is a shining example of what an epic summer adventure movie can and should be, and the best film of the three is the brilliant first installment, The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Gore Verbinski is one of the most underrated directors of our time, in my opinion. Despite being at the helm for one of the scariest and best horror movies of all time, The Ring, as well as the original Pirates trilogy – the stuff that in ten years we'll be calling canon after some other schmuck eviscerates the series with God knows how many sequels to the At World's End – and yet he's never talked about when great directing is being discussed. That's a shame, because the Pirates movies have some of the best cinematography of the last decade and best use of CGI of all time. Seriously. Between that and getting one of Johnny Depp's greatest performances in not one but three movies, playing the only role he has ever appeared in more than once, Verbinski should be at least in the conversation of the most important director of the last ten years.

The first Pirates flick – and unlike most of the films on this list, The Curse of the Black Pearl is definitely a "flick" – takes the very loose concept of a Disneyland ride and builds a complex but never overwhelming mythology around it. We meet a whole slew of characters, but most notably Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, a drunkenly staggering, somewhat effeminate pirate whose knack for getting in (and out) of trouble is unparalleled on the Seven Seas. Aside from Heath Ledger's Joker, I'm not sure a more iconic character has come out of the last decade of film. Sparrow has been betrayed by a crew who mutinied when he was in charge, and they return to ransack towns and ships as cursed men who turn into skeletons in the moonlight. They kidnap female protagonist Elizabeth Swann, played solidly by a gorgeous Keira Knightley. Her secret love Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) teams up with Sparrow to get her back, and finds out that he's more of a pirate than he thought. This all successfully progresses the plot and also gives the viewer tons of badass scenes of skeleton pirates fighting flesh-and-blood pirates on the ocean. In fact, half of what makes this movie great is just what it gives you to look at. Verbinski would milk this even further in his sequels, but the perfect balance is struck here on Curse.

I'm not saying this movie should be discussed with Casablanca (my go-to Hollywood classic?) when lists of all-time greatest movies are being made. What I'm saying is that in the tradition of Jaws and Indiana Jones and Star Wars before it, Pirates of the Caribbean is a series of viable summer blockbusters that execute what they set out to do to near perfection. When The Curse of the Black Pearl comes on TV, there's no one in America who's not going to watch at least five minutes of it before they move on. It's one of the most fun movies ever made, and you'd better believe it deserves to be on this hallowed list.

The Good: Johnny Depp gives his best performance besides Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and creates one of the most iconic characters in film history.

The Bad: Orlando Bloom will never be able to act. Legolas is the worst part of The Lord of the Rings, and yes, Will Turner is the worst part of Pirates of the Caribbean.

The Skinny: Deserves to be on the list, possibly a lot higher, definitely a little higher.

Day Thirty-Three: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Ranking on IMDb Top 250: #4
Year: 1966
Director: Sergio Leone
Starring: Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach

There are two kinds of people in the world, my friends: those who have been profoundly affected by The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and those with bad taste in movies. There are very few movies that have changed the landscape of cinema more than this one. Even knowing that the Westerns director Sergio Leone shot prior to this were very good, it's still out of left field how incredibly good this movie is. It's undoubtedly the most modern-looking film that had been released as of 1966 in terms of camera techniques and cinematography in general, and even with the crude dubbing – Leone had his international cast of actors shoot the film in their own native tongues then had all but the titular characters played by Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef dubbed into English at a later date – the movie holds up extremely well. It has changed not only the way that films are made and the way audiences expect movies to be, but also the way we envision the Old West and even the way we speak. The way I end every entry on this very blog only exists because of that fantastic turn of phrase that Sergio Leone invented. Since I feel that a plot summary is frankly below this movie, I'm going to jump right into that part. Don't worry, you're not being shortchanged; "The Good" section will have more than that of damn near every other movie I'll write about for this list.

The Good: Ennio Morricone's iconic score that influenced everyone from classical composers to drone metal bands. Clint Eastwood's performance which finally assured that he could work in motion pictures for as long as he felt like doing so; thankfully, he's still riding that wave today. Lee Van Cleef's truly evil role as Angel Eyes. Eli Wallach's wildly underrated and movie-best performance as Tuco. Sergio Leone's extreme closeups by which all other closeups must be measured, as well as his brilliant long shots of Spain that redefined the way we see the American West. The opening credits with Morricone's score and bright reds and yellows introducing the cast and crew. The breakfast table scene. The first false hanging scene. The walking through the desert scene. The gun store scene. The prison camp scene. The bridge blowing scene. The graveyard scene, and especially the graveyard shootout scene. The wide-angle parting shot of Eastwood riding into the distance like he always does. Everything that takes place between hitting "Play" on your DVD player and hitting "Eject" with either a shit-eating grin or a slack-jawed look of disbelief on your face is what is good about this movie. Very few others are in its league, and I haven't talked about any of them yet, so this is your first opportunity to see me in true fanboy mode. Soak it in, and laugh if you must, but whatever you do, watch this movie.

The Bad: The first time I watched it, the dubbing was juuuuuust distracting enough that I noticed it. I was still awestruck by everything else going on, though, so I wouldn't worry about that too much if you're new to the film.

The Skinny: #4 on the IMDb list and very nearly that high on my own.

Day Thirty-Two: Gone With the Wind

Ranking on IMDb Top 250: #156
Year: 1939
Director: Victor Fleming
Starring: Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable

Sportswriter Bill Simmons has a cardinal rule about movies: If you're going to be longer than two-and-a-half hours, you'd better have a damn good reason. After going through two discs and four hours of Gone With the Wind, which feels more like a modern miniseries than a true motion picture, I can't help but think of how much the Sports Guy would hate it. Now, I don't know his opinion on the film, but if I'm using his rule – one which I don't generally abide by, as I like to think of myself as a more patient connoisseur of film – this epic of the American South is a prime offender. For starters, it is the only film I've ever seen with a so-called "overture" before its opening credits to go with its completely unironic intermission, both of which have the same sappy string quartet music as the rest of the film. Those are big red flags, warning of the overly long film that lies ahead.

You'll notice I haven't said that anything about this movie is bad except for the soundtrack, and that's because nothing really is. As a series of vignettes about the antebellum, wartime, and Reconstruction South, it's a very effective movie. But watching Vivien Leigh's immortal Scarlett O'Hara pine for the same lover for four hours does start to get tiresome, and long before the denouement. In essence, it's a masterpiece of a two hour movie trapped in a merely great four hour movie's running time. Leigh, Clark Gable, and the venerable Hattie McDaniel all give stellar performances, and despite some dated devices like title cards used to progress the plot and sometimes-garish Technicolor, the film holds up remarkably well in 2010.

If there's anything to complain about, it's that the South is portrayed as a kingdom befitting only the most noble people when in reality it was a place where people could legally own people and make them do their hard work for them. While director Victor Fleming does an adequate job of communicating the way that war tears everyone asunder, no matter whether they were on the traditionally just or unjust side, the title cards especially make the Confederacy sound like the one sane place in an increasingly crazy world. That's inaccurate at best, and borderline racist at worst. Eventual Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel famously wasn't allowed to attend the premiere because she was black, so it's obvious that this movie was made in a very different time than our own from a racial standpoint. That shouldn't justify the movie's thinly veiled portrayal of the Old South as Camelot, and I think it's perfectly reasonable to feel uncomfortable about such comparisons.

It's interesting to me that this movie only comes in at #156 on the list, since it's usually considered by AFI types to be right up there with Casablanca as an all-time greatest movie; a classicist's classic. IMDb types aren't AFI types, though, and if Inception and Toy Story 3 are top 10 movies, it shouldn't really be that surprising that Gone With the Wind isn't. It's still definitely worth watching, even if the marathon length makes it so you can only watch it once.

The Good: Hattie McDaniel's performance as Mammy is virtuosic and touching. It basically feels like she's playing herself; it's that good.

The Bad: I don't usually like to invoke Bill Simmons' ADD tendencies, but it is definitely too long.

The Skinny: I would put it a lot higher than it is just because it's such an important Hollywood staple. #156 feels like it's almost writing it off. It might be overrated by old-timers, but it deserves better.

Day Thirty-One: Se7en

Ranking on IMDb Top 250: #27
Year: 1995
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman

Anytime I tackle a movie higher than about #50 on this list, I have to treat it carefully. Even a normal, non-movie obsessed person is bound to watch that many movies over the course a year, so over the course of movie history, to be counted among the fifty greatest films ever is an untouchable feat. Hundreds of masterpieces will be left out in the cold. That doesn't mean, of course, that the top fifty should be arbitrarily chosen among masterpieces simply because there's so many great films. I say all this because Seven is a really fantastic movie, but when I went to look at its position on the list and saw it sitting at #27, my initial reaction was disbelief. I mean, it's great, but is it the twenty-seventh greatest movie ever? With a little bit of reflection, I came around. It really probably is that great.

If you don't know the plot by now, you probably aren't breathing: A serial killer stalked by two detectives is carrying out a series of murders based on the Seven Deadly Sins. There is an eventual twist/revelation that brings the movie full circle. Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey both give stellar performances, and a still-pretty-young Brad Pitt does his best to play a psychologically complex cop. The movie cemented David Fincher as one of the most promising young directors of the 1990s, and rightly so. It gave a new twist to the Law and Order-style investigation film and had some truly terrifying images – Gluttony and Sloth come immediately to mind. There's a lot more to say about this movie than I have the mental capacity to say right now, as I am extremely tired and have to get up soon, but I'll invite the same thing I invited when I wrote about Amadeus: If you want to have a discussion about this movie or pick my brain about it, use the comments section to do so and I'll be happy to reply!

The Good: Psychologically taut script with some truly stark cinematography.

The Bad: Pitt hadn't come into his own as one of the greatest actors in Hollywood just yet.

The Skinny: I hope it's not too bold to agree with this movie's position on the list, but I'm quite okay with it.

Day Thirty: The Departed

Ranking on IMDb Top 250: #51
Year: 2006
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon

The Departed is a movie that I resisted watching for about the first three-and-a-half years it was out. It wasn't that I thought it would be a bad movie; when it won the Best Picture Oscar, most of that doubt would have been removed anyhow. I just thought it looked like far too much of a standard Marty Scorsese flick, that it would bring nothing to the table I hadn't seen in his earlier work or in the plagiarisms of his earlier work that flood the theaters every year. When I went off to college and a new friend (and dedicated reader of this blog – hi, Max!) told me that The Departed was his favorite movie of all time and that he wouldn't let me escape Bloomington without watching it, I got a little more interested. Once we finally got around to watching it, I instantly regretted avoiding the film for all that time. Unlike Shutter Island, which sees Scorsese venturing into new territory and being only partly successful, The Departed sees him dominating his old stomping grounds with the sort of knowing virtuosity that hasn't been seen since Clint Eastwood revisited the Western genre in 1992's Unforgiven.

So yes, this is definitely a traditional cops-and-criminals movie, but it elevates the genre to its highest form, while most new movies in the style (Like Brooklyn's Finest? That exists, right?) dwell at its stereotypical nadir. Scorsese waltzes through the picture with the deft hand of a master and earns every ounce of the statue he took home for directing it. He gets phenomenal, Boston-accented performances out of Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, and Vera Farmiga. Putting that much star power on one screen without it feeling like a parade of movie star cameos (like I'm afraid The Expendables might be) is impressive enough by itself, but to get some of the finest performances of all of those actors' careers is simply otherworldly direction.

Scorsese doesn't turn the genre on its head here, either. He simply makes a film that meets all of its requirements and executes them exceedingly well. The key element in the movie that serves as its driving force is a bastardization of the double agent concept. A boy brought up in the Irish Mafia (Damon) grows up to become a cop, and a disgraced police officer (DiCaprio) gets disturbingly close to a member of the Irish Mafia (Nicholson). Since most of the intrigue stems from here, the quality of the performances is crucial. Needless to say, all three guys totally nail their parts. The story keeps the twists and turns coming, and it's impossible to be anywhere but the edge of your seat when you're watching it all unfold. There's too many good things to say about this movie to cover in a blog post. It's not one of my favorite movies of all time because I'm just not a huge fan of cops-and-criminals movies, especially ones involving the Mafia.

In fact, while we're at it, here's a brief and incomplete list of genres or movie subjects that will automatically prevent a movie from becoming an all-time favorite: cops-and-criminals, the Mafia, boxing, romcoms, stupid comedies, torture porn horror. They're all kind of dealbreakers. Films can be incredibly good within that genre, but they won't challenge my top, let's say, 25 list. Ever. Sorry, I'm very petty.

Anyway, to get back on track: The Departed is about as good as any movie of its ilk could ever aspire to be. Nothing less, nothing more.

The Good: Everyone involved does their job brilliantly.

The Bad: 2.5 hours of Boston accents is enough to make you want to splatter your brains against the wall behind you. Thank God I live in the Midwest. And if anyone is reading this in Boston...I'm sorry, but still, learn to talk normal.

The Skinny: I'm okay with #51. Hell, if I made a list of my favorite movies of all time that extended that far, it would probably be right around #51.