Thursday Movie Picks: Comfort Movies
1) Gothika
Might as well get the weird one out of the way. If I can't decide on a movie to watch, I almost always throw this one in. I don't know why, I find it's creepiness comforting in a morbid way.
2) The Secret of NIMH
This is one of my favorite cartoons when I was a kid and we watched it as a family quite often. I watch it with my own family now, and it serves as a nice memory of home when things were normal. Plus, I always remember when we sat down as a family to watch the sequel and were all horrified at how bad it was. That was a Christmas present, and my dad actually apologized to me.
3) The Shawshank Redemption
This movie is on TV ALL THE TIME. And you'd think I'd be able to click past it. Nope, watch it every time. This is a perfect boring Sunday afternoon movie.
I had to be convinced to watch Shawshank, I had read the short story it was based on and hadn't thought that much of it also I'm not that big of a Tim Robbins fan, but I had a friend who just loved it and she finally wore me down. Which I'm glad she did, I ended up really liking it. it's not something I return to with regularity but I have watched it more than once.
ReplyDeleteI'm not an animation fan but I've watched The Secret of Nimh with my nieces and nephew when they were small and it didn't make my eye twitch which for me means it wasn't too painful.
I've never seen Gothika, the premise never appealed to me and Halle Berry & Robert Downey Jr. are performers that keeps me from a film rather than draws me to it.
This is obviously a wide open theme and I have many comfort films. I went with the first three that came to mind. I can watch any of them at the drop of a hat and enjoy them as much as the first time I saw them.
The Prize (1963)-It’s Nobel Prize week in Stockholm and as the winners gather reprobate writer Andrew Craig (Paul Newman) begins to suspect that one of the other winners physicist Max Stratman (Edward G. Robinson) has been replaced by an imposter. As he blunders about looking for answers his initially doubtful chaperone Inger Lisa Andersson (a very beautiful Elke Sommer) comes to believe him and tries to help. Both fun and suspenseful this is the Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock didn’t make!
Women’s World (1954)-Ultra luxe, star studded drama of a corporate competition for the top job at an automobile company. Three couples, the loving Midwesterners (June Allyson & Cornel Wilde), the wry but troubled East Coast couple (Lauren Bacall & Fred MacMurray) and a Texan and his rapacious wife (Van Heflin & Arlene Dahl) are brought to New York by the owner of Gifford Motors, (Clifton Webb) so he can assess not only who is best for the job but whose wife is the most suitable. Shot in Cinemascope, laced with humor, nicely directed in sumptuous settings (the offhandedly mentioned country house is a mansion of enormous size!) with a fine group of performers cast to their strengths this makes no heavy demands on the viewer, like wrapping yourself in a warm, cushy blanket.
My Dream is Yours (1949)-Doris Day’s second film is a bandbox pretty concoction. She plays Martha Gibson, a hopeful widowed singer with a young son discovered by radio agent Doug Blake (Jack Carson) who has a hard time getting her a big break despite the fact that she sings like a bird. That doesn’t stop him from trying everything under the sun with the help of his good friend Vi (Eve Arden). In the meantime Martha falls for radio star Gary Mitchell (Lee Bowman), a pompous jerk with a drinking problem. Eventually her chance comes, she’s a smash but there’s pesky romantic complications to deal with. Cheery musical loaded with great music, a bright studio sheen and Doris at her early best. There’s a sequence where she and Jack Carson dance with Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird and other animated Warner cartoons that is like some kind of fever dream!! Though it’s radically different from the other movie Martin Scorsese has sited this as his inspiration for his “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”.
Berry is very hit and miss but she's great in Gothika. I haven't seen any of your picks. Shocker. lol
DeleteI love all three obviously but if you like Hitchcock you should really give The Prize a shot. I watched it with some friends once who had missed the opening credits and they swore when it was over that they had thought throughout the whole film that it was directed by Hitch.
DeleteI'm trying to grow my Hitchcock watch list but so far I enjoy his style. That sounds like a good starting place.
DeleteYou're so lucky! The Shawshank Redemption is never on TV here in Italy :(
ReplyDeleteI swear it's on weekly here. lol
DeleteI saw The Secret of NIMH once when I was VERY young and almost completely forgot about it... until after I read the book in school and suddenly had flashes of the movie version in my head. It was weird. It may not be one of the all time greats, but it's pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI've still never seen Shawshank, and I think it's insane popularity has almost kind of made me not want to? LOL
How have you managed to escape it? That's amazing. lol
DeleteI guess the NIMH movie is nothing like the book. I've never read it.
Movies like Shawshank that are on repeat on television are the ultimate comfort movie. I feel that way about Forrest Gump too, because it's always on...aaaaaaallllways!
ReplyDeleteYep! Forest Gump is a good one too.
DeleteI love...love Shawshank and consider it a great film. I saw Gothica in the summer but can't remember the ending now. I haven't seen the other film and not sure I will but you never know
ReplyDeleteSecert of NIMH is a classic. Easily one of my favorite animated films.
DeleteThe Secret of NIHM, I liked that one as I also liked Shawshank. Gothika is OK but I always associate that film w/ that awful cover of the Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" by ugh.... Limp Bizkit.
ReplyDeletelol I completely forgot about that song until you mentioned it. Limp Bizkit, Oh, early 2000's...
DeleteThe bane of my existence in those days. When Fred Durst talked some shit about Trent & NIN, he became an enemy for life.
Deletelol I think I remember that. I remember when Undertaker became the "American Badass" and used Rollin' as his entrance theme.
Delete"I find its creepiness comforting in a morbid way.">>>Is it bad that this statement makes perfect sense to me? :-) I should check out Gothika. It's one of those movies I've thought about watching plenty of times but just never got around to.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad it makes sense to someone else lol. I really like it, it's not groundbreaking or anything but it's freaky.
DeleteNIMH! Love this film - same here - used to watch it all the time. My DVD copy doesn't work anymore for some reason so if I get a craving to see Mrs B again, gotta watch a shitty copy on youtube.
ReplyDeleteI bought it on DVD a few years ago, the only bad part is it was only available as a two pack so I had to buy the sequel with it. lol
DeleteI guess that's how they move copies of the sequel. :)
DeleteI vaguely remember Gothika...it's the one where Halle Berry, a psychiatrist finds herself as a patient right.
Yep! That's the one.
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