Posted on 03/24/2002 6:51:58 AM PST by SlickWillard
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-020324greene.column
From the Chicago Tribune
Bob Greene
March 24, 2002
Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony will bestow trophies upon the motion pictures and performers deemed to be the best of the year just past, but what we're going to do here today may be more fun than that.
Here's the question:
If you were stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life, with no chance of being rescued and taken back to civilization, and you had no companions with you, no books, no radio, no television set, no computer with satellite uplink capabilities . . .
If you were stranded on that desert island, and you were given a chance to choose five movies to have with you — five movies and only five movies, to watch for the rest of your life . . .
What would those five movies be?
Now — the question being presented to you today is not: What are the best five movies ever made? That's an entirely different thing: Some of the greatest movies ever made are movies you might want to see only once — they might be works of art, they might be deep and disturbing and thick with symbolism, testaments to the creative visions of their directors, but you wouldn't necessarily choose to see them twice, thank you, never mind for the rest of your days.
No — this is about movies as good friends. Movies as sustenance — movies you know you can depend on to fill you up.
Five movies, to watch over and over, never to get sick of. (Well . . . you can get sick of anything. But these five movies, if you give them a break for a few days, will be ones you can return to and still know that you will be warmed, that you will feel something.)
By the end of the column today, we will explain how you can enter this little exercise — how you can submit your list of five movies for a desert island. By the way, this is going to be an e-mail-only deal — no U.S. mail or phone calls accepted. We'll get to that.
How would you see the five movies on the island, you ask? How, on a desert island, would a motion picture be presented to you?
Look — this is a fantasy. Make up any means of seeing it you want. Wide-screen with just one comfortable seat atop the sand for you; big video monitor with a VCR attached . . . however you like to watch movies. But it's an audience of one on that island: you. And your movie library consists of five films — no more, no less. Forever.
To emphasize: These do not have to be movies from anyone's greatest-achievements-of-all-time list; "Citizen Kane" or "Casablanca" don't have to be there, although they can, if you think they're among the five movies you would want to see over and over for the rest of your life. The key to this is that these are movies as buddies: movies that, even if you know every line of dialogue, you aren't going to get tired of. They don't have to be old movies from the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood — if newer ones are the ones you want with you on that island, it's your choice.
All right — here are the rules:
Make a list of your five desert-island movies. Write one paragraph — and only one paragraph — about each movie, explaining why you've chosen it.
E-mail it to this column. The e-mail address will be at the end of today's column. If you are reading this on your computer (www.chicagotribune.com/greene), look just to the right of the column itself — there's something that says "Send e-mail to Bob Greene." If you click on that , you can write the e-mail and send it from right there.
Your list must be sent as the e-mail itself — not as an attachment. If you send your list as an attachment, it will be deleted without being read. Sorry about that, but it's the way we have to do this. Firm but fair.
Include your name, and where in the world you read the column — the city in which you see it, whether in your newspaper, or on your computer screen.
The best of your answers — the best of your personal five-movies-for-a-desert-island lists, and your reasons for choosing your five — will be printed here as a series of future columns.
(By the way — as you may have imagined, the guy who's writing these words has his own very definite idea of what those five movies should be. Won't tell you now — but after you've sent in your movies, I'll lead off the series of results with my own list of five.)
All right — start your engines. The e-mail address follows the last paragraph of this column. A plea:
Don't leave the final "e" off my last name. If you do, your e-mail goes to a very nice fellow named Bill Green, who works in the circulation department of the Baltimore Sun, a Tribune-owned paper that shares the same e-mail system. I've never met Bill in person, but it seems as if he spends half his time forwarding to me e-mails that readers have sent to him by mistake because they've left off the last "e." Give him a break — don't load his mailbox up with your movie lists. Although, Bill, if you'd like to enter, please do.
E-mail: bgreene@tribune.com
"Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade"...charming performance by Sean Connery, lots of historical information, great special effects
"Independence Day"...good explosions and I liked the combination of characters; good mindless entertainment
"Stripes"...I don't know why, I just like it.
"Ben Hur".....inspiring, great acting, fabulous sets, accurate costuming, good attention to detail
Just Kidding. They would have to be movies one could watch over and over...
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Casablanca and Repo Man come to mind. Off the top of my head, I can't think of others which I can watch repeatedly.
The Godfather (I presume I can bring all of the sequels as well, although I'd leave Part 3 behind or use the DVD to signal passing planes and start fires).
Fantasia (there has to be an animated film in the group, and this is the best of the lot).
Kurosawa's Ran (I could brush up on my Japanese).
Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. Its 15.5 hours long.
Since I would have to have some source of power to play these movies on the island, I would also try to smuggle one of those worldwide satellite cell phones in the FedEx package in "Cast Away" to call for help when I got bored.
My 5 are:
Star Wars
Jaws
Serial (with Martin Mull)
Independence Day
True Lies
2) Bronco Billy - this is one the critics were RIGHT about, Clint Eastwood's best about America and what it is to be an American.
3)Animal House - No explanation needed.
4) The Longest Day - No explanation needed here either
5) Battle in Outer Space - Japanese Sci-fi classic c. 1959. A childhood favorite...
Okay ... I'll take Christmas Story as #5.
--Boris
P.S. Running for top 5:
Destination Moon
Delicatessen
Malcolm
The Patriot
The Twelve Chairs
The Gods Must be Crazy
Apollo 13
October Sky
It's #1 on my list.
4 More, uh er ....
"Back to the Future"
"Star Wars"
"It's a Wonderful Life"
"Big Jake"
Romper Stomper
Zulu!
The Long Good Friday
Glory
The Sound Of Music
Monty Python Holy Grail
Godfather II
Shawshank Redemtion
I Claudius
The Natural
2. Flora and Fauna of the Islands.
3. Raft Building 101.
4. Why Tom Hanks Almost Died.
5. Long Term Ocean Survival - US Navy.
Memento
O Brother, Where art though?
American History X
The Patriot
The Black Stallion
Groundhog Day
Harvey
Arsenic and Old Lace
and Castaway (just for ideas)
In Harm's Way
The Great Escape
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Fritz the Cat.
Animal House - reason, It's Animal House!
Gladiator -Because honor is restored.
Braveheart - Because every man dies but, not every man truely lives!
Rocky Horror Picture Show - Every man dies but, not every man truley does the Time Warp!
I know its over the limit but, you might want to include 'Castaway' in this list.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned The Outlaw Josey Wales.
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