#5: That'll Do, Pig

(Babe, Chris Noonan, 1995)

We watched this movie unexpectedly. We were just hanging out, and it happened to be just starting on HBO so we decided to watch. We've both seen it before (though not for many years), and it ended up being a great idea. Especially because after it was over we realized that it was on the list. Which is awesome.

And Babe totally deserves to be on the list. You see, the best way to make a great movie for kids is to use adorable, talking animals. And, if there was a competition for cutest talking animal movie, Babe would probably win. I know that Pixar has made some very popular movies featuring talking critters (Ratatouille, Finding Nemo), and though I love those movies, the truth is that animated mice (okay, I know, rats) can't really compete with real mice as far as cuteness goes. And Babe uses real animals, so it wins. And oh, does it win.

Babe tells the story of a young pig who gets raised by Border Collies and in turn wants to become a sheepherder himself. It's a simple premise. Cute pig. Cute dogs. Cute sheep. And the overreaching moral of the story is that if you are polite and ask for things nicely, then people (or sheep) will be much more willing to do what you want. While that is not always the case, it's a really great lesson to be teaching little kids. And Babe is adorable, so they'll listen to him. And it's wonderfully nice. Also wonderfully nice is the relationship that Babe has with Farmer Hoggett. Because Farmer Hoggett might be the nicest man ever. It's just a beautiful example of how powerful a relationship man and beast can have, and yet another reason why the movie is so great for kids.

Now, at the end of the film, unsurprisingly, Babe successfully herds his sheep and wins the herding competition. Babe is happy, everyone cheers, and Farmer Hoggett just looks down at Babe and quietly says one immortal line: "That'll do, pig. That'll do." While we watched it I silently tried (and failed) to hold back tears. When I was young I didn't understand the poignancy of this scene, but now that I'm older (and have lost a pet more significant than a hamster or goldfish) it just pulls at my heart. I didn't want Jack to see me crying over a movie intended for kids, but as I looked over at him he was silently wiping a tear away as well, and suddenly everything was okay.

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I could count on one hand the number of movies that have made me not want to eat bacon. Actually, I really only need one finger, because Babe is the sole film to hold the power to potentially drive me away from that miracle food-stuff. I love the taste of fried pig skin as much as the next guy, but after watching Babe, you don't just want to avoid eating pork; you don't want to eat ANYTHING made from animals (For the record, with my goldfish-esque memory, I still eat bacon).

I distinctly remember seeing Babe in theaters with my parents back when it first came out, and loving the heck out of it. Thinking about it now, it seems odd that it would have had such a hold on me as a kid, especially when you consider how dark it is. His mom dies in the first five minutes, for Pete's sake! Add on to that the threat of animal death at seemingly every turn, some crazy wild dogs and the titular pig almost dying of pneumonia, and you have a "children's" movie that is reaching the echelons of Up for tragedy.

Fortunately, Babe doesn't stand out because it's the most depressing movie about animals ever made. Instead, the movie is cute, funny, a little scary and ultimately, mind-blowingly uplifting. A large part of this is due to James Cromwell's outstanding performance as Farmer Hoggett. He only has 171 words of dialogue, and 61 of them are sung, yet his presence is so commanding that it garnered him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He keeps his emotions close to the chest for most of the movie, which makes the Act III bursts of passion all the more moving. Plus, he gets to utter one of the best lines of dialogue in all of film: "That'll do, pig."

Aside from that, there's not much else to be said about Babe. All the animals' lip movements were done by the Jim Henson Workshop, so it looks like the filmmakers found actual talking critters to populate their movie. And Hugo Weaving is the voice of the lead sheepdog Rex, who doesn't wear a Guy Fawkes mask or beat Keanu Reeves heavily about the face and neck, but does provide a nice redemptive moment towards the end of the film.

Really, if you haven't seen Babe yet, you are absolutely missing out. It's pretty significant that it was the last G-rated film to be nominated for Best Picture (it lost to Braveheart, by the way). And if you don't cry during the climactic finale, your heart is made of stone (clearly, my heart is made of the opposite of stone).

#4: I Am a Big, Bright, Shining Star

(Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)

There's a story that floats around Hollywood that nobody believed P.T. Anderson wanted to make a movie about porn. And on paper, that doesn't sound like the most successful of ideas. Anderson, a master of dramatic character studies, doesn't really seem like the right person to lead the audience on a trip through the gaudiness that was the LA porn scene in the late '70s to the mid-'80s. But that's just it: Anderson knocks it out of the park.

Boogie Nights is actually based on a short film Anderson made called The Rise and Fall of Dirk Diggler back in 1988. This was before anyone knew who he was, which makes the leap to the success of Boogie Nights all the more impressive.

Boogie Nights has arguably one of the best ensemble casts of the '90s, with Mark Whalberg as Dirk Diggler serving as our central character, but featuring out-of-this-world performances form Burt Reynolds, Heather Graham, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, Luis Guzman, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Alfred Molina. Perhaps the most incredible thing about this cast is that it didn't cause all the reels to erupt from the awesomeness.

A movie with this type of cast and a run-time of over 2 and 1/2 hours could feel bloated, but Anderson manages to keep the film moving along. There's never a moment that feels out of place, and, if anything, we wish we could spend more time learning about these characters than the 155 minutes we're allotted. But Boogie Nights makes ample use of its time.

Anderson's strongest weapon in his filmmaking arsenal is the use of the long take, which he uses with incredible skill. The long take forces the audience to pay attention to everything that's going on on-screen, lest we miss some important detail about the characters. Conversations fly by in rapid fire succession, making the audience an active participant in each scene, gliding through the scenes as if we too were one of the actors.

I think the most satisfying thing about Boogie Nights is that the whole film is simultaneously a serious drama and a laugh-out-loud comedy. Each character carries some pretty immense personal baggage, but it's impossible to not laugh at how dorky John C. Reilly is as Reed Rothchild, or Alfred Molina's obsession with the song "Jessie's Girl." Boogie Nights works because it never pulls too far in one direction. It is immensely satisfying to watch a film that works perfectly in all departments, and Boogie Nights goes above and beyond the call of duty.

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It's quickly becoming a problem for me that this list is composed primarily of really good movies because I've realized that I have trouble writing about movies (or things in general) that I like. It's really easy to rant and rave about movies that I think are terrible because I can find new and interesting ways to say "this sucks." It's very hard for me to find new and interesting ways to say "this is awesome." That being said, this was a very hard post to write. Because Boogie Nights is really awesome.

Boogie Nights is about porn. I just thought I'd let you all know, because until about 5 minutes before it started I had no idea. I suppose that's my fault because Burt Reynolds' mustache should have been a pretty powerful porn beacon, but I really didn't know. But, at least on the surface, that's what this movie is about. Porn. Lots and lots of porn. And lots and lots of those things that come with porn. Like big penises. Enter Mark Wahlberg.

Mark Wahlberg starts out the film as Eddie, a young man with...let's just say "unique talents." After quickly getting snatched up by renowned porn director Jack Horner (Reynolds), Eddie realizes that his humdrum name just won't cut it in the business of skin flicks. So he has a revelation, and tells Jack that when he closes his eyes he sees a name "in bright neon blue lights with a purple outline." That name is Dirk Diggler. And so the greatest porn star of the seventies is born.

I struggled with this blog because I didn't know where to focus, but when thinking about Eddie and the revelation he has about his new name I realized that names are really one of things that makes this film so great. There are lots of jokes about porn star names being explicit and raunchy and (in all honesty) pornographic, and there's the old game you play where you decide your porn name based on your first pet's name and the street you grew up on (incidentally, my porn name would be Scooter Summerwood, which is amazing), but there's never any pretense that porn stars have subtle names. But in Boogie Nights they do. Julianne Moore's character is simply named Amber Waves. Heather Graham plays Rollergirl. Burt Reynolds, though not a porn star, gets Jack Horner. And even the star, the king of porn in the film's universe, gets Dirk Diggler. The names are subtle. They are everything that the porn industry is notorious for not being. But that's kind of how Boogie Nights is, too. Sure there's an awful lot of sex and drugs and other adult situations, but the plot is extremely nuanced and deals more the emotional stress of the characters than pure raunchiness.

I like Boogie Nights. I like it a lot. It's dirty and sexual, but the characters are shockingly sympathetic, and it reminds the audience that porn stars are people, too. And that's alright by me.

#3: Dignity, Always Dignity

(Singin' In the Rain, Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952)

I've had a deep, passionate love for musicals for as long as I can remember. Watching a musical is one of my favorite forms of escapism because not only do they generally end happily, the insertion of singing into a film adds an entirely new layer of fantasy. In my opinion, there are not enough musicals on this list (one egregious omission is The Sound of Music, which is really the musical to end all musicals), but I am glad that Singin' In the Rain made the cut because not only is it a musical, but it's also a movie about making movies, and I've always found that to be sort of wonderful. I will now try to not use the word "musical" for the rest of my post.

I don't exactly remember the first time that I watched Singin' in the Rain, but I believe it was when I was in music class in elementary school (probably around fourth grade). I remember that no one really payed attention because we were young and uninterested and lacking the required focus pr knowledge of movies to appreciate some of the jokes (e.g. the scene in which the picture and the sound are not in sync). I do, however, recall being amazed by Donald O'Connor singing "Make 'em Laugh," and being completely awed by his physical comedy (even though I was somewhat unaware of just how skilled he was in that field). As I've gotten older, my understanding of what this movie is really about has grown along with my appreciation for it. While Donald O'Connor doing backflips off of a vertical wall is still impressive, I also find meaning in the film's exposition about the evolution of the motion picture.

I don't feel like I need to write a whole lot in order to convey this message: Singin' in the Rain is one of those movies that EVERYONE should see. It tells a classic Hollywood love story while also shedding light on the industry that created it. It's deep and intelligent, but it's still fun and light and entertaining. And to me, that makes it classic.

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New York Times film critic (and thus one of my favorite people) A.O. Scott said, "The thing about Singin' in the Rain that makes it so special is not that it's greater than the sum of its parts, but that it IS the sum of its parts." And, really, I think I have to agree.

Singin' in the Rain is one of those movies where you can just read the cast list and a one-sentence explanation of the premise and know it's going to be a hit. For your money, there is no better dancer/comedian/star than Gene Kelly, with the only possible exception of Donald O'Connor, his co-star. O'Connor is funnier than Kelly, but the two play off each other in a way that makes them seem as if they've been buddies for life.

And we can't forget our female stars. Debbie Reynolds is smolderingly sexy while retaining an air of innocence that never goes away. That, and her singing voice is off the charts. She spends the bulk of her screen time with at least two Hollywood heavies (Kelly and O'Connor) and more than holds her own. Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont operates perfectly in the film's world of stars, providing instant comic relief any time she chooses to open her mouth.

On top of that, add one of the most powerful studios of its day (MGM) as well as team well-versed in song-writing and dance choreography (the same team created Meet Me in St. Louis, Annie Get Your Gun and An American in Paris), and there's basically no way for Singin' in the Rain to fail. And for an audience in 1952 it was a smash hit.

But here's the thing: a modern audience can enjoy it just as much. Sure, some references are dated, as is some of the slang. It's a movie made in the '50s about the '20s for crying out loud. But musical scenes like "Make 'Em Laugh" and the titular number are so joyous and full of life that it's impossible not to smile. They don't make 'em like this anymore, and that's a darn shame.

BONUS: Did you know George Lucas remastered Singin' in the Rain? Check it out here.