When I consider storytelling in film, I think of two words: concise and explicit. Film is concise, stories told in a few hours, with a lot of information being conveyed in a relatively short amount of time. And film is explicit, an absolute rendering in some manner, whether photographic, animated, or what have you, of a series of events.

 

I like film because you can get a short but in-depth story, along with an incredible audiovisual experience by bringing into play visual composition and aural sensation. I don't like film because its explicitness can at times be its downfall. When reading a novel, each reader has a unique conjuration of a world. When watching a movie, everything's already been done for you, and while interpretations can differ, the frames being seen are still the same.

 

Here are some films I really like, or feel are otherwise worth watching. Click the images for links.

In the visual arts, I define strong composition as meaning an instance where a work is greater than the sum of its parts, and where no single aspect noticeably detracts from the whole of the work. Three Kings is an excellent example of strong composition in film.

 

It is a work that has colorful, dynamic characters, an interesting storyline for a war movie (Gulf War heist) with well structured plot, and powerful moral undertones flowing underneath it all that progressively evolve and take shape as the characters get more and more entrenched in the conflict and get to truly understand the people of the country they have just invaded.

 

It is a tale of decision and consequence, and how those decisions end up dictating one's moral fiber, not the other way around. Plus it's damn fun. The exploding cow scene is pure genius.

"...this isn't Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."

 

Critics might deride The Big Lebowski as being senseless, pointless, and ridiculously overwrought. These are the critics who do not have the patience or maturity to recognize genius when they come across it in a form that they do not like.

 

The Big Lebowski is a work that explores the perception of reality, the nature of human existence, and the fundamental reasons for living in the modern world, with subtle political overtones, all in an absurdist, hilarious manner. This is what you would get if Kurt Vonnegut was a young stoner living in LA in the 90s and went bowling on the weekends with John Goodman.

 

The Coen brothers, makers of the film, have crafted a work that is enlightening, engaging, beautiful, and, indeed, hilarious. It can only be appreciated, though, if you can abandon standard preconceptions of what an intellectual work really is and embrace its absurdism.

Memento is possibly the hardest hitting movie I've ever seen. Its reverse structure is gorgeous, challenging all our previous conceptions of time and chronology. Yet it's the movie's deeper undercurrents of meaning that hit so hard, so powerfully, elegantly forcing us to consider the eternal question, "What is the point of it all?" in the disorienting context of the modern world. This is a meditation on existence and its fragile embodiment in memory, and it's something that needs to be seen to be believed, for there's just nothing else out there quite like it.

Heat is possibly one of the most well executed character studies ever done in the film medium. These are the thieves and the enforcers of our world, but above all, they are professionals, and you care about every one of them in some fashion. The constant, even pitched battle between Robert De Niro's thieves and Al Pacino's policemen gives the movie a constant sense of tension. These are all men who know what they are doing. Yet things derail, plans shift, and traitors emerge.

 

But it's not simply this powerful plot that makes this movie so brilliant. All of this is set against the backdrop of the characters' personal lives. As their professional goals start to derail, so too do their personal relationships. It's an entirely new dimension layered on to the already strong action movie framework, and it gives the movie a real sense of humanity.

 

Clocking in at 3 hours, this is as epic as you can get while still maintaining an incredible level of depth in terms of character, character development, and character relationship.

 

On an unrelated note, I totally want to eat at the table in the restaurant where Robert De Niro and Al Pacino first meet.

Most stories I come across these days are fundamentally mediocre, especially in film. This is not necessarily because people are less talented nowadays than in the past, but because people no longer have any standards when it comes to art. We are not intelligent people. We are not sophisticated people. We are hedonists, wanting only to indulge in our philistine sentimentalities. We want explosions, blood, and sex, and we want it cheap, for money is always on the mind.

 

But sometimes, once in a long while, I come across a story that doesn't simply take me by surprise, but, indeed, floors me, leaving me stunned, enraptured, and in bliss. Fargo is one such credit to the potential genius of the human race. The characters are brilliantly real, raw people, not characters you would ever expect from a modern American movie. The setting of Minnesota and North Dakota is beyond genius. This is truly the deep heartland of America, frigdly white and painfully ordinary and nice - Minnesota nice. The horror that takes place throughout the movie serves to powerfully drive the story, but represents an even deeper reflection on banality, human ambition, and the state of the modern man. Yet through all of this, the Coen brothers manage to insert a sense of dark, unsettling humor that makes you question your interpretation of things constantly, and your own ethics as well.

 

Seriously, this movie does pretty much everything right. And listening to the soundtrack, all I can say is that this is what I call a masterpiece.

When I first watched Fight Club, I thought it was just going to be a movie about men beating the blood out of each other. Instead, I stumbled upon transgressive fiction at its finest. Fight Club is a movie that violates. It violates standard notions of character. It violates normal sensibilities concerning plot (stealing human fat to make soap?). It violates our beliefs on what drives a person to live. And, most of all, it violates the viewers own perceptions and expectations concerning the film itself.

 

This is a movie that assaults the idea of civilization, its anarcho-primitivism viscerally attacking the perceived reasons for man's existence in the modern world. Now this is what I call a classy movie.

Surprisingly, Wrath of Khan is actually a completely solid film. It has great characters: the timeless Captain Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the Enterprise crew, as well as the immortal Ricardo Montalban (aka Khan) as the perfect nemesis to Kirk. It has a decent enough story for a Star Trek movie, interweaving elements of classical literature and storytelling as well, which caught me completely off guard.

 

And it has something that none of the other movies on this list really has; it's campy! The campiness, executed quite well in this installment, really makes the movie so much fun. I can still remember Chekov screaming, "The creatures in my brains!!!!" or something of the sort. Good times.

Citizen Kane gets on a lot of "Best Movie" lists, but I don't think people really understand the heart of this work, especially younger folks (like myself) weened on Barbie and G.I. Joe. We watch this movie, and we just don't get it. We don't get it because we aren't compelled by it anymore. It doesn't make us cry. It bores us. We don't seem to realize that, ironically, that is exactly what this gorgeous film is about. If you watch and aren't moved, then you don't understand, and there seems to be nothing else to do but lament the fact that cultured civilization has been reduced to such a state.

 

Citizen Kane is pretty much the most effective reflection I've ever come across on the slow death of the human spirit in the modern world and, consequently, the ultimate fall of man.

 

Watch it. It's terrific.