Filmically Perfect

Our first attempt at a call-in show was wildly successful, at least as far as we were concerned! Thanks so much to all who called, especially those who were not able to get on the show! We are now planning to do more of these and some other outlets to let our friends be heard!!

One of the most reverential and human films about the subject of religion, Robert Duvall’s The Apostle has rightfully earned its place on the List of Perfect Movies. This is a film about real people, told by an actor with a keen eye. A film that can be enjoyed equally by the religious as well as the secular.

A powerful film from one of the hot new directors of the late 1960’s, Arthur Penn. One of the few films that successfully manages to tweak “the old west” while at the same time being highly reverent to the ways of the American Indians. A truly great film, to be watched again and again, if only for the wonderful scenes between Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George.

What can we say? This is it--the original article. The one and only real, genuine, except-no-substitutes KING KONG, in glorious, luminous Black & White. Not someone else’s idea of what the story should be but the REAL DEAL. A film that has survived the ravages of time and will be long remembered after the fourteen different edits of the recent “remake” have faded away in a digital haze. Do we love...

Richard Donner’s magnificent, half-finished epic has become the iconic embodiment of The Man of Steel, regardless of the machinations of the suits at Warner Bros. and DC Comics. Christopher Reeve’s portrayal is up there with Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera and Sean Connery as James Bond: Often imitated, never equaled. Ironically, Donner has been allowed to “fini...

Lewis Milestone’s ground-breaking sound film epic treats WWI not as an allegory, as many of its predecessors had, but as a painfully human story, showing the hopes and fears of a group of young men being thrust into battle. While in no way an obscure film, it had been cut to ribbons by a variety of editors over the years until it was merely a shell of its former self. Enter The Library of Congress...

It is thought that these shorts were made so that the executives at Paramount could see just how good or bad W.C. Fields was on the talking screen. I guess he must have impressed them as he was immediately pressed into feature films! Of the four shorts he made for “King of Comedy” and golfing buddy Mack Sennett, these two are the most unusual and, ironically, are also both public domain, allowing...

Gordon Parks’ breakthrough detective film resonates with as much or more power than it did when it exploded on the scene back in 1971. Richard Roundtree leads the cast as John Shaft, the hero of Ernest Tidyman’s series of novels. The fact that Tidyman was a white novelist makes this film’s resonance all the more amazing. Below left is one of Gordon Parks’ best known photographs, taken in 1942. Par...

Henry Hampton’s fourteen hour journey through the American Civil Rights Movement should be required viewing for all, especially those groups today who feel they are getting a bad break. Here is the story of a people, born and raised in the USA, citizens all, expected to follow the laws and pay their taxes, yet still treated like property in many parts of the South. A powerful tribute to truly brav...

“Are you a mod or a rocker?” “I’m a mocker.” Ringo’s exchange sets the tone for Richard Lester’s wild, free and groundbreaking little film. In the pantheon of musical performance films, everything is either before HDN or after HDN. This movie, release just about a half year after The Nutty Professor shows the world of teens as it was becoming: not the staid, old big bands and stodgy dances of the...

Jerry Lewis’ first film with a strong storyline is also one of his best. A film full of flash and color and fun! Jerry takes R.L. Stevenson’s classic tale, Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde and turns it on it’s head, giving it his own wacky flavor. Regardless of how many times others try to remake it (and with 2007 there will be three!), this version will arguably be the first and best, at least to those of...

Whom better to make a film about the American South than British director John Boorman? Well, he was arguably the right choice as the longevity of this simple yet harrowing film attests. Shot under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, with a tiny budget of $2,000,000 and no insurance underwriting, this film, based on James Dickey’s popular first novel has become, in a rather disturbing way, on...

Arguably one of Bruce Dern’s finest moments on the screen, Douglas Trumbull’s enviro-cautionary fable still resonates today, more powerfully than more ham-fisted attempts such as The Day After Tomorrow. A simple film, where not much seems to happen, but it gets inside your head and travels around with you. In this heated episode of Filmically Perfect, host Niki Dakota declares her dislike for Sile...

They said we were mad! They said we were crazy! Crazy? Yes, crazy like a fox! To include this seventeen-minute Three Stooges short with the likes of to Kill A Mockingbird and Sunrise? You got it, Bunky! In our proud personal pantheon of perfect productions, this one fills a special place--and in our hearts as well. Jerome “Curly” Howard so shamelessly steals this film from everyone, including his...

Frank Capra’s first film after WWII was of the utmost importance to him--would audiences still accept what so many critics had labeled “Capra-corn?” In 1946, the answer was “no.” But then, a strange thing happened--television. Slowly, the film began to gain momentum. Then, in the seventies, when it fell into Public Domain, the sudden abundance of viewings, plus the availability on the new home vid...

Ties? A new bathrobe? Socks?? Fuggedahboudit! What every red-blooded cinema fan wants for Christmas (or Hanukkah or whatever celebration you’re into this season) is movies on DVD. Let me qualify that: GOOD movies on WELL PRODUCED DVDs! In this Extra Special episode of Filmically Perfect, J.Todd and Geo., the Film Guys, and Niki Dakota, our most wonderful host, take a look at some of the best sets...

Does it amaze anyone else that one of America's favorite Christmas movies comes from Canada? Or that its director had previously made Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, Black Christmas, and Porky’s? Yes truly, Bob Clark “paid his dues” before reaching what might well be the zenith of his career with this wonderful romp through Jean Shepherd’s mind. Unless there’s something about Baby Genius...

“Chicken Every Sunday?” Do you remember that movie? No? Well, in order to get Miracle on 34th Street made, director George Seaton had to sign on to direct the other film, a project near and dear to Darryl F. Zanuck, the boss of 20th Century-Fox. Seaton did make the film and it was released in 1949, where it garnered no awards and no nominations. Even today, it is not available in any video format...

From George Miller, the creator of Mad Max and The Road Warrior comes Babe, a film without a single truck chase or sharp-edged boomerang (although it does have at least one feral child)! Arguably the best talking pig movie ever, it was one of the first to successfully mix traditional puppetry, animatronics, computer animation AND actual live animals to tell this heart-warming but not mushy or cloy...

Brad Bird, now best known for his film The Incredibles, created this beautiful, poignant, and emotionally charged animated film in 1999, where it got totally lost in the flurry of summer movies, grossing less than half of its $48,000,000 budget. This is sad in that it was just the kind of movie people had been crying out for; a family film with stuff for both kids and adults. A film with a lesson,...

Just mention the title To Kill A Mockingbird, and most people will get a faraway look in their eyes and just sigh, for Harper Lee’s semi-autobiographical paean to childhood strikes a chord in the heart of those who have read the Pulitzer Prize winning novel or seen Robert Mulligan’s award-winning movie, a “studio film with indie sensibilities.” Telling people that this is a Perfect Movie is like t...

Wes Craven taps into the unconsciousness of the “Me” decade with his 1984 Magnum Opus, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Unlike its many sequels, this film, the story of a resurrected child killer and his relentless pursuit of four teens in their dreams is still truly frightening. Freddy Krueger is a monster in this film, not a comic prop.

On another very special episode of Filmically Perfect join Niki Dakota and the Film Guys as they discuss some of the history of horror films and those “disturbing moments” that remain permanently etched in our minds from those classic horror films of the past.

Social Allegory or Zombie Gore Movie? George A Romero’s taut little horror film proves that a “perfect movie” need not be perfect. Made on a shoestring budget of $114,000 in Pittsburgh, PA and unleashed upon an unsuspecting world in 1968, Night of the Living Dead remains the fount from which all zombie movies have sprung, including several helmed by George A. himself. And while the effects have go...

Director John Landis first wrote this script in 1969, during the time he was working in the film Kelly’s Heroes. The script got him lots of jobs, but none of them involved directing this movie! The studios said the script was either too funny to be scary, or too scary to be funny. They couldn’t see both elements existing in the same film. After the success of National Lampoon’s Animal House, Landi...