Top 10 Movies For Your Deserted Island Adventure

So, we were talking the other day, my group of usual suspects and myself, and we got onto the subject of movies you’d take with you to a deserted island. The conversation started at five movies but that’s a ridiculous number. I mean, if I’m executing some sort of twisted fantasy, I’m going to break some rules along the way. What we ended up with is a discussion of ten movies. That’s better. I like ten.

Now, moving on with my own set of custom rules, my island wouldn’t end up so deserted. We’re talking: running water, electricity, internet, housing, maybe a smoke monster? I guess I’m going all LOST on everyone again and in my fantasy have joined the Dharma Initiative.

With the island out of the way perhaps it’s time to get down to the movies.

Honorable Mention – RETURN TO SAVAGE BEACH

Okay, so I’ve already broken my own rules. I will have eleven movies on this list but again, I really don’t care about rules.

So, Return To Savage Beach. Some of you may be wondering exactly what the hell this movie is and I’ll tell you this: It’s not a good movie. It’s basically the worst action/espionage movie mixed with a mediocre softcore porn. It also features one of the quickest movie start to nude scene ratios I’ve ever seen. But why is it on this list? That’s a little story.

My brother and I stumbled upon this accidental gem one night in Blockbuster Video. Remember Blockbuster? Anyway, we brought it home and spent the next eighty or so minutes wondering what the hell we’d just done. Like I said, this is not a good movie. What happened next is why it’s on this list. Friends of ours came over and the movie got watched again. And again. And again. It became a bit of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in our house over the course of the ensuing year. A film everyone knew we’d have a good time watching and I’d bring this movie with me anywhere. Yet, one mystery still remains unsolved: We’ve seen Return but was there ever an original Savage Beach? One that required a return? We may never know.

10 – 28 DAYS LATER

My favorite horror movie. I had been partial to the original Dawn Of The Dead until Danny Boyle knocked our dicks in the dirt with this gem. Quiet when it needed to be and explosively violent and scary in alternating fashion, this redefined zombie horror. Fast zombies! Boyle also veered wildly into a different film during the third act just to make sure we never felt comfortable. The tire changing scene alone is worth watching the entire film. Tension like never before.

9 – HOT FUZZ

One thing about lists: You have to have an Edgar Wright film included. It doesn’t matter what the list is about, an Edgar Wright film most likely belongs somewhere in there. I could’ve put any one of the Cornetto trilogy on here but went with my overall favorite of the three. Wright put together one big homage to British film and action cinema all rolled into one ridiculously entertaining movie. At once over the top, charming, and witty, the film also plays with genre tropes and veers into horror. The final thirty minutes are legendary in the action depicted on screen and deserves to be seen over and over again.

8 – TROPIC THUNDER

Robert Downey Jr. plays an award winning Australian actor playing an African American soldier during the film shoot from Hell. Argument over. This movie is pure genius. Maybe the single funniest movie of the past ten years. Tropic Thunder can also lay claim to resurrecting Tom Cruise’s career.

7 – LOST IN TRANSLATION

Usually these lists are dominated by straight out comedies but Lost In Translation holds a very special place in my heart. First, it’s Bill Murray, my favorite actor. Second, it’s Tokyo, a place I desperately wish to visit and until I do, this feeling will not recede. And lastly, it’s about my wife. It’s about spending her birthday, our first together as husband and wife, and sneaking champagne filled coke bottles into Lincoln Plaza to see this film. One of my all time favorite nights and this film brings me right back there every time.

6 – ALMOST FAMOUS

A truly inspiring film for anyone wishing to write. It’s a film about growing up, about chasing fame but not the bullshit that comes with, about loving the impossible, about friendship, about the beauty of music, about heartbreak, about Philip Seymour Hoffman stealing the film in only a handful of scenes, about Kate Hudson’s career peaking. What do I love about this film? In a word: Everything.

5 – GHOSTBUSTERS

I’ve loved this movie for thirty years. My wife and I just went to see this again in theaters during the anniversary re-release and it’s just as good as ever. Everything about this movie works. Need more? I can further sum this up with two words: Bill Murray.

4 – STAR WARS

My first love. There’s only one movie I’ve ever watched more than Star Wars. This also serves as the perfect example of differences in lists. Everyone knows that Empire is the superior film but the original is the only one that stands on its own. Nearly perfect in every way.

3 – OCEAN’S ELEVEN

I could watch this movie every day, for the dialog alone. Soderbergh shot the living shit out of this one, Ted Griffin’s script is pitch perfect, and the cast is killer. Clooney is as cool as ever. Pitt is eating in every. Single. Scene. This is, for some reason, hilarious to me. Bernie Mac’s handshake. Everything Elliott Gould says. Everything Matt Damon does. Don Cheadle’s slang. Carl Reiner’s character from a completely different movie. And then there’s Scott Caan and Casey Affleck who are the least respected albeit most important members of the team. Pure fun.

2 – PULP FICTION

Speaking of dialog, there’re too many classic quotes to count. Pulp Fiction is the most re-watchable movie I’ve ever seen. Tarantino’s playfulness with structure is the biggest reason for this because it creates the unique experience where you can watch this movie from any point and still receive maximum enjoyment.

1 – RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

My favorite anything. Best film ever made and Hollywood has yet to come close to topping this one. No other movie has been watched more by me. Indy is my all time favorite character and it’s possible for people to find pictures of five year old me dressed up like Indy after raiding (get it?) my parents’ closets. For me, everything about this movie is perfect. As a kid, I watched this on a bootleg VHS so much that as soon as the credits rolled, I could hit rewind, close my eyes and know the exact moment to press play and restart from the first frame.

Well folks, that’s my list. Good, right? Listen, you don’t need to tell me how good my list is, okay? I know how good it is. I’m the one who made it.

My hope is that, barring my marooning on an actual deserted island, I’ll be able to share these movies (and many others) with my niece and niece/nephew. Except for Return to Savage Beach; that’s not for a niece’s eyes. I guess if my brother has a boy It’ll be okay. I’ll have to get a ruling on that one. It IS a time honored tradition after all.

Well, shit. I went and forgot all about Dazed and Confused. So my ten, er eleven, now becomes a list of twelve. I have no choice because I love them Linklater movies. I get older and they stay the same age.

Trance (or) How To Defeat Love Through Revenge

propulsion – n. The process of driving or propelling.

I don’t know about you but I’d wager that Danny Boyle has that definition memorized because all of his films are exercises in propulsion. There’s a beat, a vitality to his films you don’t find anywhere else. The man directs with a manic energy that at it’s worse is interesting and at it’s best is unbearably exciting. His new film, Trance, falls neatly in the middle. A high concept, high energy story of art thieves, memory loss and manipulation.

In Trance we follow James McAvoy as an employee of an auction house who gets robbed by a band of criminals led by Vincent Cassell. He’s hit on the head and loses a bit of memory, namely where he hid the piece of art in question. He’s captured by the thieves where we find out that he was supposed to be part of the crew but screwed up somewhere along the way. McAvoy is sent to a hypno-therapist played by Rosario Dawson in order to retrieve his lost memories and hopefully the painting.

What ensues is a film exploring the very nature of perception — of what we allow to manipulate us and how that alters our “reality.” It’s a complicated narrative that gets bogged down in the middle and almost collapses under it’s own weight. Boyle shows a deft hand to speed us through as quick as possible, keeping us off balance for the frenetic, absolutely bonkers finale. The actors are all operating at the top of their game here and lend their roles some real levity in the face of the ridiculous nature of the story they find themselves in. The finale takes that patented Boyle left hand turn into madness but relies on too many coincidences to have any real weight. It’ll make your head spin when you realize that you’re now watching a different film than you set out to watch in the first place and warrants a second viewing. I’m not trying to be harsh on the film because it’s quite good, it just seems to fall short of its lofty expectations.

Boyle is a filmmaker who, in recent years, has seen his confidence rise to a level where it now matches his audacity and that’s an exceptional thing to behold. He makes films on another level and I’d be surprised if we ever saw a “dud” out of him as long as he remains active. Trance isn’t his best film by any stretch but it’s a fun one. A lesser work that steals a bit from each of his prior films. It doesn’t quite hit the emotional highs of say, Millions or the genre bending genius of 28 Days Later but it’s a solid film and definitely one worth checking out.