Lance's Werthwhile Top 5- Dramas

Hello Werthwhile followers!

If there's one question I get when I'm out and about more than any other- well more than, "How do you stay looking so young?"- it is "What are your top ten favorite movies?"
I wish I could answer that. I am a fan of so many movies for so many different reasons, that it's just hard to narrow it down to ten. My favorite movies are like my children. I couldn't pick one or two above the others. I couldn't live with myself if I had to tell one of my kids, "You're the best-est!"  and another, "You're ugly."

But I can't deny you wonderful folks my wise cinema guidance, so I've decided to break the Top 10 Movie Favorites Idea down to Top 5 and into genres so that it's easier for you to swallow. Now these lists are not definitive. There will always be a buttload of good movies that I don't talk about- and if you ask me after I've had three vodka tonics, I could give a totally different list. I also might be saving a couple gems for a future category. But one thing you can be sure of, you won't go wrong with any of the five that I talk about

So to start us off- let's go with the category of Lance's Werthwhile Top 5 Dramas!

1.) The Color Purple (1985)

Have you heard of this director named, Steven Spielberg? As prolific as Hitchcock and as superb a showman as DeMille, Spielberg, whether loved or loathed, is one of the most recognizable living American directors. He has been making movies since 1971, some of which (Jaws (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) , and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)) have become cultural touchstones and the gold standard for popular American film. Heck! He even shot an episode of Night Gallery (1970) with Joan Crawford!

Many people are grossed-out by Spielberg's over-sentimental story-telling and schmaltzy cinematic tricks. But I'm a sucker for it. If a movie makes me choke up and bawl- it has somehow hit all the right movie g-spots in me- and I think that's what good movies should do. The Spielberg movie that makes me cry on cue three times is my favorite- The Color Purple.

Based on the equally stunning novel by Alice Walker, the film follows Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), a young black woman in rural Georgia in the early 1900's. Celie's life is a steady stream of tragedy: raped by her father, her children taken away from her at birth, married off  to an abusive husband, and her beloved sister driven away from her in a hail of stones. But Celie somehow endures and falls in love with juke joint chanteuse Shug Avery (Margaret Avery), giving her life a shimmy she never knew. The film is full of stunning vistas, touching moments, and great performances. The Quincy Jones score is evocative and beautiful- and makes me get all tear-y when I hear it on my i-Pod. In short- it's a typical Spielberg masterpiece.

The film was highly touted and the lesbian love scene (however slight it was compared to the book) caused a loud hub-bub. When the film earned eleven Academy Award nominations, it was assumed it would make Oscar history. It did- by being the most nominated film to not win a single award. It's  too bad- because I personally prefer Color Purple to Out of Africa. Oh well. Spielberg went on to make plenty of successful movies, Whoopi launched a movie career, and Oprah- well she's Oprah.

2.) Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Lots of film folk point to Easy Rider (1969) as being the film that changed American movies- ushering in a new, independent era. But there is a better movie released at the same time, that I think can easily be called the first shot fired in a new American cinema, John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy. 

Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is a young country boy with dreams of fame and fortune in the big city. Wearing his cowboy hat, boots, and fringed jacket, Joe gets off a bus at Port Authority with the intention of taking Manhattan by storm with his good looks and charm. Instead, he meets washed-up con-artist and grifter Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) who puts him up in an abandoned apartment building that is days away from the wrecking ball- much like these two disillusioned, lost men. The performances from Voight and Hoffman are unforgettable. Hoffman went from playing a confused, clean-cut college grad in The Graduate (1967) to a dilapidated, coughing derelict- proving he was one of the most exciting young actors of the time.

The film was shot in New York City with the grit, grime, and sleeze of the real city oozing out of the frame. The film doesn't shy away from the unsavory acts that some people had to do to get by- which originally earned it an X Rating from the MPAA. Schlesinger (who was a Brit) was able to take the realism coming out of foreign films at the time and apply it to an iconic American city- and the iconic American Dream- and expose both for the disappointment that they can be. The film took home three Oscars including Best Picture. I dare you to watch it and not hum the ear-worm theme song "Everbody's Talkin'" by Nilsson for the next three days,

3.) Network (1976)

People often say this or that film is prescient. Network is prescient. Directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Paddy Chayefsky, the film starts with bad news. Veteran news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch whose untimely death meant he won the first posthumous competitive Oscar) is told his sagging program ratings have made him disposable. Beale then announces on live television that he is going to kill himself on his final telecast. The ratings skyrocket and Beale becomes a sort of cultural televangelist flailing against the government, industry, and pop culture.

What makes this film such a great crystal ball is that it shows the ridiculous lengths a corporate-run news industry will go to to get ratings. It foreshadows not only the 24 hour news channels that build every story up to epic, life-threatening proportions until the next story comes along, but also the reality entertainment craze that has us watching the mental breakdowns of housewives, bachelors, and Kardashians everywhere.

The film is flawlessly paced with a career-best performance from William Holden and fantastic turns by Faye Dunaway, Ned Beatty, and Beatrice Straight. Straight won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for what amounts to five minutes of screentime, but the film lost Best Picture to Rocky. I will be peeved about that forevs.

4.) Caged! (1950)

When I say the words "women's prison film" you probably think of scantily clad women showering and shiv-ing each other in front of butch guards. Caged! is so much more than that. Marie Allen (a pre-Sound of Music Baroness Eleanor Parker) is arrested for driving the getaway car for her armed-robber hubby. It's a bad day for her because her husband is killed and in her pre-lock-up physical, she discovers she's pregnant. It only gets worse from there.

Caged! is different from the typical women's prison film because the elements of bitch-ery and lesbianism aren't played for shocks or laughs. They are real parts of the prison system that ultimately degrades the women it is supposed to rehabilitate.

The cast in this movie are not pretty ingenues who have had their hair styled to look "unfortunate." This cast is chock full of character actresses with lined, scarred faces and bodies that look as if they have led lives on the wrong side of the tracks. It's a form of realism that you don't see often in films of this era especially with actresses.

Parker is a revelation, slowly losing her humanity until she becomes one of the animals in the zoo. Hope Emerson as the ward boss is a physical mountain who dominates her scenes with her hands on her hips and a lipstick scowl on her face. The great Agnes Moorehead rounds out the cast as a progressive prison warden whose hopes for these girls keep getting dashed by the system. Both Parker and Emerson were nominated for Oscars for their work.
Don't get me wrong. There are some good laughs here with gems lines like, "Line-up tramps!" But when I saw this film for the first time at Film Forum, my jaw hurt from hanging open. It's my favorite unexpected find.

5.) Meet John Doe (1941)

When people rattle off their favorite Frank Capra films, It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) often top the list. But I'm most fond of another Capra classic called Meet John Doe. Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) is a newspaper writer who's given a pink slip. She's so mad, she writes her final column about a "John Doe" letter she received from a man who due to all the ills of the world has vowed to kill himself on Christmas Eve (Capra must love Christmas) by throwing himself off the roof of city hall. There's just one problem. There is no John Doe. Clever Ann made up the letter herself. When the readership of the paper explodes over the column, Ann and the paper have to come up with someone to play Mr. Doe to keep the papers selling.

Enter Gary Cooper as an ex-baseball player who has fallen on hard times and is willing to play the part for enough money to buy a donut and get back on the rails with his hobo pal, The Colonel (irrepressibly gruff Walter Brennan). With his down-to-earth, homespun rhetoric, John Doe becomes a symbol for the American Everyman, igniting a political movement he doesn't wish to be part of.

Capra was always obsessed with American society- its politics and influences, and John Doe deftly illustrates not only the needs of the people, but how those needs can be used by greedy politicians to gain power. He seems to say we need a populist movement- but the very existence of such a movement means those needs will be ground-up within the political machine. He offers no jingoistic answers here- and in fact warns us to fear anyone who speaks in slogans and political platitudes. "Make America Great Again!" anyone?

Stanwyck does what she does best- playing a feisty gal who can turn on the waterworks when it's called for. Cooper's skill at playing a simple man is done so beautifully in this picture, you can't help but love him. We all want to be Stanwyck clutching him on top of that snowy city hall, begging him not to jump.




So those are my Top 5 Dramas. What are yours?