100 Film Favorites – #23: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart, 1971) Today’s entry is another family musical from the team of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, the same pair that scored 1967’s Doctor Dolittle. Adapted from Roald Dahl’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the film tells the story of Charlie Bucket,…
100 Film Favorites – #24: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Ken Hughes, 1968) Today’s film stars Dick Van Dyke and features songs written by the Sherman Brothers, but it’s not Mary Poppins. It was adapted from a novel by Ian Fleming and produced by Albert R. Broccoli, but it’s not a James Bond movie. It’s Chitty…
100 Film Favorites – #25: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones,1975) “On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.” Today, we sally forth into the final quarter of our Countdown. Thanks once again to everybody who has been following along for the last 75 posts.…
100 Film Favorites – #26: Labyrinth (Jim Henson, 1986) Over the span of a few years in the mid 1980s, the American mass media suddenly became aware of the growing popularity of the fantasy genre, spurred by the debut of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game in the late 70s. While some conservative groups responded…
100 Film Favorites – #27: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Edgar Wright, 2010) Okay…so, way back in Post #63, I emphatically declared Wreck-It Ralph to be the best video game movie ever. Well, it has some competition. Based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley and directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the…
100 Film Favorites – #28: Cast Away (Robert Zemeckis, 2000) A word of preface: From 2010-2012, my fellow members of the William & Mary Wind Symphony elected me “Best Person to be Stranded With on a Desert Island” in three consecutive years of band superlatives. I’m not exactly sure why; perhaps I exude a mysterious…
100 Film Favorites – #29: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) “I recall the time they found those fossilized mosquitoes, And before long, they were cloning DNA…” Today we plunge onward into the “roaring” 20s with probably the greatest “dinosaur movie” to date. In Jurassic Park, a genetic engineering firm led by eccentric billionaire John Hammond…
100 Film Favorites – #30: WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008) In today’s entry, Pixar does post-apocalyptic. I think I was in love with this movie from its opening instant. A shout of “Out there…” from Michael Crawford (the original Broadway “Phantom”) accompanies the sudden appearance of a spectacular stellar panorama. The song “Put On Your Sunday…
100 Film Favorites – #31: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Jake Kasdan, 2007) “Life’s a race, and I’m in it to win it. And I’ll walk as damn hard as I please.” In recent years, it has often been said that the art of parody, at least in film, is dead. People frequently cite…
100 Film Favorites – #32: The Mask of Zorro (Martin Campbell, 1998) “When the people need him, Zorro will be there.” Most of these posts have started off with a plot summary, then followed up with some relevant historical factoids. Today, we’re shaking things up and beginning with the history lesson. The character of Zorro…