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Thursday, March 28, 2024
David tops off the year with his top five films

David Cottrell

David tops off the year with his top five films

Recently, I re-watched the quality flick ""High Fidelity."" It's one of those rare movies that I can watch perpetually without it ever feeling stale. The movie follows a group of record store employees who have a penchant for conversing in lists: top five songs to play on a Monday morning; top five musical crimes perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the 80s and 90s; top five track one, side ones—you get the idea. In this ""top five"" spirit, my last column of the semester is a countdown of my top five favorite movies. These aren't the five movies I think are the best for any technical, artistic or cultural reasons. These are simply the movies that make me love movies.

5) ""High Fidelity"" (2000)

""High Fidelity"" is the rarest breed of adaptations—It's actually better than its source material. I do love the Nick Hornby novel of the same name, but I love the movie that John Cusack and his co-writers distilled out of it even more. I'll admit, part of my specific love for the movie was the change in setting from London to Chicago, but there's much more to love. Jack Black, as the boisterous, opinionated record clerk, practically steals the movie from under Cusack in quite possibly my favorite role of his career. In the novel, his character is rather uninteresting and fades into the background, but Black changed that for the better. Cusack managed to incorporate Hornby's witty and hilarious prose in a way rarely seen in movies by breaking the fourth wall continuously throughout the film, talking directly to the audience, recalling his top five worst breakups as he searches for exactly where he went wrong in life.

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4) ""Ferris Bueller's Day Off"" (1986)

Every kid I know has yearned for a Ferris Bueller's day of his or her own. It's a movie that celebrates friendship, the capriciousness of youth and Chicago, one of the best cities in the world. John Hughes defined a decade in teen movies, and I would argue that ""Ferris Bueller's Day Off"" is his magnum opus. Film critic Richard Roeper described it as ""one of my favorite movies of all time. It has one of the highest ‘repeatability' factors of any film I've ever seen ... I can watch it again and again."" His love of the film is showcased by by his tribute license plate, ""SVFRRIS."" I couldn't agree with him more. Any movie that can make skipping school to hang out in the Art Institute of Chicago seem unquestionably cool is good in my book.

3) ""Scott Pilgrim vs. The World"" (2010)

I've already written at length this year about ""Scott Pilgrim,"" so I'll keep it short. While crafting this list, ""Scott Pilgrim"" proved quite troublesome. I knew it had rightfully earned its spot on the hierarchy—but that meant, to borrow a common saying from fiction writing, I had to kill one of my darlings. ""Fight Club,"" a usual top five staple of mine, got the axe, but, admittedly, rightfully so. ""Scott Pilgrim"" manages to be both a groundbreaking and exceptionally entertaining flick. The movie moves at the speed of light in order to fit everything in—from screenwriter Michael Bacall's plethora of quotable quips to director Edgar Wright's astoundingly detailed shot composition and eye-popping visual effects. There is so much crammed into every frame of the film, multiple viewings are a requirement to truly appreciate everything it has to offer. If you've seen it once, see it again—trust me, you'll appreciate it even more the second or third time around.

2) ""Pulp Fiction"" (1994)

What made Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery's script for ""Pulp Fiction"" so revolutionary was that it managed to break almost every engrained rule of screenwriting—and yet it still worked. It assaulted the formulaic aspects of storytelling that were becoming fundamental to American cinema. Tarantino managed to singled-handedly resurrect not just film noir, but the career of John Travolta as well.

After winning the Palme d'Or (Best Picture) at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, and proceeding to become a mainstream theatrical success, ""Pulp Fiction"" changed the game for indie film by proving that a low-budget, independently financed movie could crossover into public success. But all those external implications are secondary to the fact that ""Pulp Fiction"" is a seriously solid movie—there's a reason a week doesn't go by without the heavily censored version playing on some basic cable channel. The move is jam-packed with iconic scenes and tied together with Tarantino's characteristic stylized dialogue. ""Pulp Fiction"" defined a decade in filmmaking and deservedly so.

1) ""Rushmore"" (1998)

Co-written by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, ""Rushmore"" is loosely based on the experiences the two childhood friends shared attending an elite prep school in Houston. While it may seem like typical John Hughes coming-of-age material at the onset, Anderson quickly pulls the rug out from under you, abandoning the standard high school movie clichés and cultivating an air of unpredictability. By the time you reach the film's halfway mark, you honestly have no idea where Anderson will take you next.

Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray deliver outstanding, off-kilter performances and give Anderson's clever dialogue the punch it deserves. Anderson is one of those directors that packs every inch of the frame with detail, no matter how miniscule, and, as a result, you'll undoubtedly notice something new on every subsequent viewing of his films. And, as an added bonus, the film's soundtrack—hand-picked by Anderson—is an exceptional collection of British Invasion tracks, so even with your eyes closed, ""Rushmore"" is a joy to behold.

David will be back as film columnist in the fall. If you have any ideas for column topics that you'd like to see, e-mail him at dcottrell@wisc.edu.

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