Top Ten Films

February 2! It’s Groundhog Day. Local radio says the groundhog saw his shadow so there’ll be six more weeks of winter. If the rest of winter is like recent days we’re all going to be stir crazy.
But Groundhog Day brought something else to mind – the movie starring Bill Murray, one of my Top Ten films of all time as Groundhog Day keeps repeating for him. He woos a woman and robs an armoured truck among other activities.
I got thinking about my top ten movies of all time of which I give Groundhog Day a full-hearted position. Here are the others:
Have to have an Elvis movie so I pick Jailhouse Rock. Except I’ve always wondered about the line “number 47 said to number 3, you’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see.” Did Elvis realize he was promoting homosexuality?
Number 3 got on my list when I was 12. I went to an afternoon matinee showing the usual suspects: The Three Stooges and Hopalong Cassidy. When those were over, the manager came on stage and announced that if anyone’s parents told them to come home after the matinee, now was the time. A girl hauled her little brother up the aisle but the rest of us stayed for Rebel Without A Cause starring James Dean. So that’s what life ahead will look like, we all thought, car racing and wild women.
Number 4 is probably on everyone’s list: The Godfather. Need I say more?
Number 5 is another thriller, Rear Window, to my mind the best of Alfred Hitchcock’s work. James Stewart watches his neighbours in the quadrangle outside his apartment window. He sees many sights, but did he just see a murder? You’ll have to watch to find out if it was.
Number 6: Just about anything with Jack Nicholson, the most nominated male actor at the Academy Awards. We recently watched Chinatown, a movie you can see every few years and always find much that you missed before.
Number 7 is the original Frankenstein with Boris Karloff. Once was enough for me.
Number 8 is Steel Magnolias mostly for Dolly Parton but also the entire manic gang of women.
Number 9 is On The Waterfront even though Marlon Brando mumbles incoherently most of the time. “I could have been a contender.” He is.
Number 10 is a Canadian movie, Goin’ Down the Road.
What are your faves?