You feed them, shelter them, and try to teach them the relative societal value of Janis Joplin and Christine Aguilera. Then it's time for them to go off to college and you realize all the things you forgot to tell them. As we prepare to send my son off to school in a few short months, it hit me suddenly that if it doesn't involve pressing "Start" on the microwave, he can't cook food, and laundry to him is some magic trick that takes place in a part of the house with which he is mostly unfamiliar. So we have an agenda for the summer.
But what I feel most guilty about is not having provided him with the proper grounding in something that should have been easy for me. He just hasn't seen enough culturally significant movies to chat about with his future college classmates. I teach film, and yet he is woefully lacking in the basics. I'm not talking Welles and Godard here. I'm thinking of the core movies that every young man pursuing higher education in 2012 ought to be familiar with.
So as a public service for other parents who, like me, have been negligent, here's a brief filmography. Twenty-five films that ought to be in a young man's lexicon. I have confined myself to movies that came out before 2000, figuring that the young man may well already be familiar with the recent ones.
Horse Feathers (1932, though any early Marx Brothers movie will suffice): The most modern of all early comedy teams, the Paramount films in which they were the leads are the height of comic anarchy. This one centers on college football, so it seems most appropriate.
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965): Moms, leave the room. Hyper violence and mythically-endowed women. And to make it less sexist than later versions of the same formula, it is the mythically-endowed women who are actually performing the hyper violence.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966): Clint Eastwood is very old now. He wasn't always. It took an Italian director, Sergio Leone, to make Westerns cool and Clint a star.
Five Easy Pieces (1970): Jack Nicholson wasn't always old either. Do not watch the diner scene before going to argue with a professor about a grade.
Pink Flamingoes (1972): Dads, join Mom in the other room. Before there was The Human Centipede, there was John Waters, who presented gross-out movies with a twinkle in his eye.
The Godfather (1972): The Magnum Opus. Your father's favorite movie.
Animal House (1978): The Comic Magnum Opus. Your father's other favorite movie.
Halloween (1978): Often imitated, never topped.
Life of Brian (1979): American audiences tend to favor Pythons' Holy Grail. Prove how international you are by favoring the one that the rest of the world prefers. Plus, it has the greatest closing number. You can't help but whistle.
Airplane! (1980): Abrahams/Zuckers were Judd Apatow before there was Judd Apatow. Hard to find anything funnier.
Caddyshack (1980): Depending on where and when you grew up, this might be the most quoted comedy of all time. So it has that going for it.
Diner (1982): The ultimate in male bonding.
Blade Runner (1982): See both original and director's cut so you can take part in the great film school/auteur debate.
Blue Velvet (1986): Top of the list material. Be prepared to argue with your girlfriend over this.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986): It's hard to imagine anyone made it through high school without having seen this, but just in case...
The Naked Gun (1988): If you don't like Airplane! you can skip it. But the other 98 percent will love it, especially convicted thief O. J. Simpson playing a cop.
Goodfellas (1990): The highs and lows of being a made man.
Reservoir Dogs (1992): Where Tarantino began. See it before Pulp Fiction.
Dazed and Confused (1993): Bid a fond farewell to high school. The '70's version of American Graffiti with an unrivaled '70s soundtrack.
Clerks (1994): Where Kevin Smith began. See it before Clerks 2. On second thought, skip Clerks 2.
The Usual Suspects (1995): The coolest of them all. Written by a guy in his 20s who didn't even go to college.
Trainspotting (1996): Just say no.
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998): You will spend some part of your college years pretending to be Jason Statham. Consider this homework.
The Big Lebowski (1998): You will have graduate teaching assistants in college. They will be quoting this movie. More homework.
Fight Club (1999): Quod erat demonstrandum.
That's my list. What have I forgotten? The Summer goes fast.
My mom feels - and I think rightly - that some chick flick stuff should also be on there, to help the good man out on dates and general female interaction. We decided: When harry met sally, Pretty woman, The princess bride, and sleepless in seatle would form a good chick flick foundation. you've got mail is sleepless in seatle 2 and he could substitute that one if he wanted, or watch both for extra education.
I feel you. I mean, I know you're anxious about your kid going off to college this fall. But there's "preparing your son for the real world", and there's "trumpeting your own generation's importance in the guise of caring about your son's well-being".
I haven't spent too much time around 18- and 19-year-olds these days, but if ignorance of Sergio Leone and the Marx Brothers is a serious social impediment, I'd be surprised.
Good study habits? Check. Laundry, cooking? Also good. But music and movies? I promise you, he will find his own way. His own, generationally-appropriate way. Just as I'm sure you did. That is what college is for.
Try reducing the list by about 80%, rather than trying to expand it, would be my first suggestion.
A few vintage "guy movies" that I think would hold a young man's attention while teaching him something about his own essential "guyness": Stalag 17, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Bad Day at Black Rock, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Man Who Would Be King.
It's never too soon to prepare a young buck for the day when he becomes a feckless laughingstock in his own home (that is, a husband and father). Add Laurel & Hardy's "Sons of the Desert" and W.C. Fields's "It's a Gift" to your cart.
And no son of mine would be fully prepared for life without knowing how stupidly and stubbornly self-defeating men can be -- so I'd add "Raging Bull" to the list. Also, for the same reason, "The Hustler."
That's another list, which the author is perfectly capaple of compiling. And those are the movies you watch in college -- the Kubrick, the Kurosawa, the Antonioni--rarely before.
I was flipping channels a few weeks back and came across Animal House--still hysterical after all these years. "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son." Best. Line. Ever. And best advice a young man can ever receive--even if was delivered by the odious Dean Wormer.
To my list I would add: To Kill a Mockingbird ("Stand up, Miss Jean Louise, your father's passing"--also a contender for best movie line ever); Jaws ("We're gonna need a bigger boat. . ."), The Sting, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, What's Up Doc? The Breakfast Club, There's Something About Mary, and Adventures in Babysitting. Some of my additions would also make the list more "girl-friendly."
And, of course, I'd have another list comprising just Hitchcock. . .
And let them find their own dreck - don't make them watch 'Kill P'cat Kill Kill', 'Lock Stock etc' or 'Halloween'.
In fact just throw out some titles but allow them watch what they want.
Casablanca, It Happened One Night, Roman Holiday, It Takes a Thief, Topkapi, Never on Sunday, Babette's Feast. the list is too long and some movies are indispensable and others merely necessary!
But when it's this broad, everyone's going to have an opinion.
How's about "The Graduate" or "Risky Business?" Or more recently, "Good Will Hunting?"
The James Bond series
The original Star Wars series
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Water (still topical)
The Comedians
Il Gattopardo
8 1/2
La Caduta degli Dei
Dr. Zhivago
Lawrence of Arabia
Brazil
Casablanca
The Caine Mutiny
Down Periscope
The Blue Max
Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli)
What a low, base list.
Even John Waters would tell you to skip Pink Flamingos!
Yo College dudes!
You can do better than this!
Go to AFI.com and check out their 100 Greatest Movies list and start there.
Some of this guys movies are on there but there are so many more great ones.
http://www.afi.com/100years/movies10.aspx
Sunset Blvd, The Graduate!, On The Waterfront, Some Like It Hot, Chinatown, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE!, Midnight Cowboy (The X Rated Best Picture winner) on and on.
I think my taste in film is very different from yours! And NOTHING befor the 1960's? No film noir or classics? That's so wrong!
I think you should watch "The 400 Blows," "The Seventh Seal," and "Rashoman!" A lively
discussion should ensue!
I would pick John Ford's "The Searchers" over "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" any day of the week! And no WWII movies?? How about "The Dirty Dozen" and "Stalag 17," or "The Bridge on the River Quai?"
And "Sunset Boulevard" is one of the best movies ever made! Everything about it is just perfect! No Humphrey Bogart? How about "The Maltese Falcon?" I'm pretty partial to "The Asphalt Jungle," as well! "Gun Crazy" would make a good double feature with "Faster Pussycats!"
How about James Dean in "A Rebel Without a Cause?" Or Brando in "A Streetcar Named Desire?"
Such great performances!
No "Dr. Strangelove," or "2001, A Space Odyssey?" Or "A Clockwork Orange?" But "Blade
Runner" is an excellent choice! And I just love "Clerks!"
And if he hasn't seen ""Monty Python and the Holy Grail," he hasn't lived!
And it's hard to top Errol Morris'"Vernon Florida" for just plain wonderful weirdness! Or Michael Moore's "Roger and Me."
You're heavy on the pop culture, comedy, and action, not that there's anything wrong with that!
Another one that is great, which he might like, is "Excaliber." Such a great, well-made film, with an outstanding cast. I know my niece likes Shakespeare, so I'm probably going to send her Julie Taymor's latest version of "The Tempest." It's a really cool version of the play, and with Russel Brand appearing in it, it should appeal more to the youngsters!