When asked about my favorite movie, I thought hard about it and came to the conclusion that I would have to split that answer into three: one a guilty pleasure, one a genre' I write in, and one for sheer epic romance! Now Lord of the Rings and Star Wars notwithstanding, here they are:
The Ten Commandments is my all time guilty pleasure film but I can't help it. I love spectacle movies and an historical, religious spectacle movie like TTC sucks me in from the opening strains of the soundtrack until the last credits scrolling on the screen! It's huge, from the giant statue of Ramses II to the burning bush to the famed parting of the red sea (come on, I've ridden the Universal Tour from the time I was about seven but that's a whole other psychological problem, lol!), it's reverent and the all star cast doesn't hurt either! Pitting Charleton Heston against Yul Brynner was a stroke of casting genius I don't care what anyone else says. (Besides, how can you not love Yul? He was the STAR of West World, if you've never seen it, track it down, it's amazing! And Anna & the King of Siam is another masterpiece!)
So there I am every Easter season, sitting in front of the tube, sucking down all the many times slightly incorrect ancient history I can stand. Spectacle and Spectacular, just the way I like 'em!
Blade Runner. It was LA before LA knew what it was. It's the perfect dystopian society and is just technically advanced enough to be believable. This was the anthem movie of the eighties, a sort of cyberpunk gothic that showed us all the future of our city. While we may not have advanced that far (all commuters still fantasize about those flying cars) and our districts (Chinatown, Little Korea, Olvera Street and downtown) may still be a little cliquish, I still have every faith that I'll walk the downtown shopping district some night hearing a "mix of Vietnamese, Spanish, and English" (which is in reality basically any weekend night) and finding some Replicants wearing killer boots and see-through plastic overcoats flinging themselves through plate glass windows for fun.
Gone with the Wind has to get the prize for defining the epic, sweeping romance movie and in color no less! While perhaps not as politically correct as we'd like, who can resist Vivian Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara, a strong, determined heroine that saves both her family and her beloved Tara against the backdrop of the horrific scope of the Civil War and who still cannot recognize what and who is good for her. Scarlett chases her dream man, Ashley Wilkes with a passion that can only be characterized as pathological, all the while resisting the charms of (whom else?) Clark Gable (another pairing example of casting genius) as the dashing and controversial Rhett Butler. Too late she realizes that it is, in the end, Rhett whom she really loves and leaves us hanging as to whether she will really get him back because "after all, tomorrow is another day!" If you've ever been in love with the wrong man, you'll both empathize with Scarlett O'Hara and smirk with smug satisfaction that she finally got what she deserved. Either way, GWTW, is a tearjerker of epic proportions! What's not to love (and hate)?
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