The Magnificent 7
Seven movies that are timeless and brilliant. From directing to casting these movies are flawless. Connection to the character is everything and you won’t find a better seven lead actors that could have carried these movies the way they did. Equally as important is the supporting cast which is just as strong. as Every “House” needs a great “foundation”.
You will always find seven movies that perhaps I have missed and that are just as timeless and brilliant as those that are listed below. Maybe you will agree or perhaps agree to disagree. Either way enjoy the seven!
The Shawshank Redemption
In case you didn’t know: Shawshank chronicles the experiences of a formerly successful banker (Tim Robbins) as a prisoner in the gloomy jailhouse of Shawshank after being found guilty of a crime he says he did not commit. The film portrays the man’s unique way of dealing with his new, torturous life; along the way he befriends a number of fellow prisoners, most notably a wise long-term inmate named Red (Morgan Freeman).
Why it Works: Morgan Freeman of course and that soothing voice as both narrator and main character. You forget sometimes that it is a Stephen King story because it has none of the characteristics of most his books or movies. Timothy Robbins anchors the movie with his mumbling dialog of psychological sea-saw of whether or not he actually killed his wife’s lover. Almost appearing deranged at times until he reveals his true intellect at the end when he turns the table on a corrupt warden.
Scene Stealer: So many great scenes to sink your teeth into. The roof top hot day where Red and a few inmates are allowed to tar the prison roof and spend time after they were done to a drink a bucket of cold beers. Every time that scene comes on I want to drink a beer even if it’s morning. Now that is acting.
Repeat Factor: 100% Never not in the mood to watch it.
Cast-away: Red’s character is described as a middle-aged Irishman in the book Novella by Stephen King. Thoughts of Harrison Ford were pitched to play Red. Tom Cruise to play Andy. I like the way it turned out.
The Help
In case you didn’t know: An aspiring author (Emma Stone)during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African American maids’ point of view (Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer)on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.
Why it Works: Viola Davis. Even though Octavia Spenser (Millie) portrays the outspoken housekeeper in which the Academy of Motion Pictures awarded her with the well deserved Best Supporting Actress Award, it is Davis’s performance as Aibileen Clark who is understatedly fantastic! The raw emotion she carries from bigotry throughout the film while still loving with all her heart the little girl she took care of is insanely gut-wrenching. All along Aibileen’s suffers the grief of the death of her only son with only a picture that hangs in her kitchen to remember him by.
Octavia Spencer plays the outwardly tough skeptic who takes it upon herself to speak for all the housekeepers in making sure that Skeeter (Emma Stone) writes her book with the right intentions. Millie battles her own demons being a victim of domestic violence feeling powerless both at home and at her housekeeping job. You forget that Octavia was a supporting actress in this film.
Emma Stone (Skeeter) ties it all together as the only white person who tries desperately to understand the struggle of bigotry. She nervously inserts herself into the housekeepers world while fighting off the neighborhood housewives at every turn. Ancillary characters such as Skeeter’s Mother played by Allison Janney and Bryce Dallas Howard who plays Hillie are not throwaways in this movie. They give award winning performances to round out the full complement of gritty actors. And less we not forget appearances by Sissy Spacek and Cicley Tyson. Not a bad roster!
Scene Stealer: Not the one you would think with the “chocolate pie”. Millie (Octavia Spencer) having to go to the bathroom so bad during a thunderstorm but was not allowed to use the inside bathroom. Hillie (Bryce Dallas Howard) forbade Millie and would only allow her to go out into the lighting storm to use the designated bathroom. We get the sense that we all had to go to the bathroom the way Spencer bounced around trying desperately to hold it in. If I didn’t have to go pee at that that moment then right after I was hitting nearest toilet. An unbelievable acting job of pulling your audience in to feel what you are pretending to feel.
Repeat Factor: 100%. Disturbing actions of the human race in America at that time and still today to a different degree. However, from a “movie” standpoint, never not in the mood to watch it. The acting is fantastic!
Cast-away: Katy Perry was almost cast in “a small role” but had to turn the role down, due to scheduling conflicts with the release of her album “Teenage Dream.”
The cast includes two sets of same-year Oscar winners for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer): 1980’s Spacek (Best Actress) and Steenburgen (Best Supporting Actress) and 2017’s Stone (Best Actress) and Davis (Best Supporting Actress).
The Pianist
In case you didn’t know: In this adaptation of the autobiography “The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939–1945,” Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jewish radio station pianist, sees Warsaw change gradually as World War II begins. Szpilman is forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, but is later separated from his family during Operation Reinhard. From this time until the concentration camp prisoners are released, Szpilman hides in various locations among the ruins of Warsaw.
Why it Works: Enormous attention to detail throughout the entire movie capturing war-torn Warsaw and pouring out the devastation of the Jewish people to the audience as if you were walking with them. Every scene is cinematography excellence! Adrien Brody transforms from a slightly cocky celebrity pianist to a beaten down broken man.
Scene Stealer: Food is a great scene stealer and how an actor relates to food in a given scene can be fascinating. The scene where a German Soldier brings Szpilman a loaf of bread and homemade jam makes you salivate. However, it is the greeting that actor Adrien Brody gives the fresh loaf of baked bread and how he first tastes the jam with his finger and scoops it into his mouth will bring you to tears. After all he hadn’t eaten in days and you could have given him all the money in the world and it would not have mattered to Szpilman (Brody).
Repeat Factor: You need to devote 2.5 hours to being entertained by the acting and period scenes of war and emotionally drained at the same time. Every time it is on I stop to watch it so 100% just not the entire movie unless I am in for the night.
Cast-away: Over 1,400 actors auditioned for the role of Wladyslaw Szpilman at a casting call in London. Unsatisfied with all who tried, director Roman Polanski sought to cast Adrien Brody, who he saw as ideal for the role during their first meeting in Paris, around the time Brody was shooting The Affair of the Necklace (2001). Method actor Brody made a lot of personal sacrifices to get into the mindset of the resilient Jewish pianist.
To embody a man who had lost everything, Brody left his girlfriend and went on a dangerously extreme diet, losing 30 pounds in weight. His diet consisted of two boiled eggs for breakfast, some chicken for lunch and a small portion of chicken or fish and steamed vegetables for dinner.
Polanski also made Brody practice the piano for four hours a day, until he could master passages from some of Chopin’s finest works.
Despite having very little energy, starving himself to experience the desperation that comes with hunger, Brody was determined to press on with his piano lessons.
In an interview, Brody said: “The beauty of what I do is it gives you the opportunity to give up who you are and attempt to understand someone else, another time, other struggles, other emotions. If you really do experience a lot of them, you connect, and it’s very rewarding.
“I gave up my apartment, I sold my car, I disconnected the phones, and I left. I took two bags and my keyboard and moved to Europe.”
The Silence of the Lambs
In case you didn’t know: A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.
Why it Works: Anthony Hopkins and Jodi Foster. Foster’s nervous interaction with Hopkins character throughout the movie was the result of actually be nervous and scared. Hopkins, being a method actor, stayed in character and stayed away from Foster in order to build the tension you felt between the two of them. Not until the end of shooting did Hopkins approach Foster while she was eating a tuna fish sandwich. They both proclaimed to be afraid of each other where Foster felt he was being kind as how could he be afraid of Agent Starling?
Scene Stealer: Agent Starling’s slow walk to where Hopkins is jailed behind a glass partition and his Hamish smile. You can feel Lecter psychologically dissecting Starling with his eyes even before he utters his first words to her. Chilling! You can almost hear the FBI training voices in Starling’s head as she tries desperately to recall all those classroom hours of Psych preparation for this moment of meeting her first serial killer.
Repeat Factor: 100%. However, you need to be in the right mood to be creeped out by Hopkin’s award winning performance as Hannibal Lecter.
Cast-away: Michelle Pfeiffer turned down a role in Jonathan Demme’s “The Silence of the Lambs” because of the film’s “evil” script. Pfeiffer said she was uncomfortable with how evil wins at the end of the movie.
Sean Connery was the first choice to play Hannibal. Connery read the script and found it “revolting”. Daniel Day-Lewis was also considered.
Serpico
In case you didn’t know: An honest New York cop named Frank Serpico blows the whistle on rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.
Why it Works: The accurate portrayal of dirty New York City in the 1960’s and 70’s mirrors the dirt of corruption that Al Pacino unpacks playing an honest cop. You feel like you need to take a shower during and after the movie watching the filth of garbage and graffiti covering New York. Also, the innocent eyes of Al Pacino peering out in disgust at his peers as they steal and kill just to mail in a half hearted days work fighting crime. Al Pacino was much more endearing as the character of Frank Serpico than the real Frank Serpico. This “Pacino” charisma made you want to stick-up for him at every turn as if he was your little brother.
Scene Stealer: “The girl Next door”. Literally. Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) moves into his apartment in NYC and is outside on his patio when he is interrupted by a sweet voice from a young lady out on her patio. She notices the Italian music he is playing and offers a guess on who is singing. Serpico asks her over to sit with him and have some espresso. She politely declines as she is a nurse who is do at the hospital for her shift. Her parting to words to him is “Love your garden”. Commenting on his plants and flowers. To which Pacino says; “You know what they say?’. As she is walking inside her apartment she turns to him and reply’s; “No what do they say”? Pacino right back at her; “If you love the man’s garden you need to love the man”. Very sweet.
Repeat Factor: 100%. Al Pacino’s easy style of acting is like a rocking chair. Even with the heavy content of Police Corruption. Pacino manages to glide you in and out of tough street battle scenes.
Cast-away: In 1976 David Birney starred as Serpico in a TV movie called Serpico: The Deadly Game (also known as “The Deadly Game”), broadcast on NBC. The NBC TV-movie served as a pilot to a short-lived Serpico TV Series the following fall on the same network.
The film was first planned as a star vehicle for Paul Newman and Robert Redford, following their success in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Redford was to play Frank Serpico and Newman was to play his lawyer friend David Durk (a character renamed “Bob Blair” in the final film, where he is played by Tony Roberts).
The Bourne Identity
In case you didn’t know: A man is picked up by a fishing boat, bullet-riddled and suffering from amnesia, before racing to elude assassins and attempting to regain his memory. “Supremacy”, “Legacy”, “Ultimatum”, and “Jason Bourne” followed. All starring Matt Damon other than “Legacy” in which Damon took a break and Jeremy Renner created a different character for the series.
Why it Works: How can you hate a movie that is one long car chase on the road and on foot? There are very few moments of no physical action. Even the down parts (no cars being smashed) are quietly intense. “Riveting”, where you never want to take your eyes off the screen. Each movie leaves you wanting another one. Matt Damon (Jason Bourne)convinces you that he is a man that truly doesn’t know who he is or why he is being chased. Damon is as intense from the start of the movie until the end.
Scene Stealer: “The Money Scene”. Damon’s character offers the co-star $10,000 for a ride. The actress (Maria) looks thoroughly annoyed and is urgently looking for her keys in her pocket book when Damon flashes the cash. Instantly the actress face changes and she is fully engaged in what Damon has to say. Money does talk! Another great scene is when they are both driving and after Marie accepts the money and she casually eyes Damon as someone she is beginning to be attracted to. Who is this mysterious guy with all this cash and who started out so annoying and suddenly became hot? She says it all with her eyes.
Repeat Factor: 100%. Never not in the mood to watch it. All of the installments are packed with action. Other than the one when Matt Damon was not in it (Sorry Jeremy Renner) every installment is equally thrilling.
Cast-away: Among the many stars that almost played Jason Bourne, Brad Pitt appeared to be the one closest to getting the job. At the time, Pitt was one of the biggest rising talents in Hollywood after performances in Se7en, 12 Monkeys, and Fight Club. Liman and Universal offered Pitt the chance to make a true action movie, but he was already attached to star opposite Robert Redford in Tony Scott’s Spy Game. Negotiations between Pitt’s team and the studio weren’t able to reach an agreement on the production schedule to accommodate Pitt, so he was forced to pass. It wasn’t long after that Damon was offered the starring role and began prepping to be in The Bourne Identity.
Damon but several others were rumored to be in the mix. Liman reportedly approached Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe about playing Jason Bourne, as well as established action star Sylvester Stallone. It’s unclear how seriously Liman considered any of these actors for The Bourne Identity, but it came down to Pitt and Damon at the end of the day. Once Pitt formally passed, Damon was ready to step in and change the course of his career.
Misery
In case you didn’t know: After a famous author is rescued from a car crash by a fan of his novels, he comes to realize that the care he is receiving is only the beginning of a nightmare of captivity and abuse.
Why it Works: The overwhelming feeling of helplessness by James Caan’s portrayal of best selling author Paul Sheldon is palpable throughout the movie. You feel strapped to the same bed that Cann’s character was confined to after a nearly fatal car accident on a snowy mountain. Equally helpless is what you feel about a bully “Super fan” Annie Wilkes who takes in Sheldon only to torture him physically and mentally. Caan’s large frame is compromised and no match for a short stout Wilkes who holds his recovery in her chubby little hands.
Scene Stealer: After Annie Wilkes catches Sheldon leaving the room she confined him to she decides to punish him by re-breaking his legs with a sledge hammer. Ouch! I can still feel the pain all these years later.
Repeat Factor: 100% Never not in the mood to watch it.
Cast-away: James Caan accepted the lead role after Jack Nicholson turned it down. Caan had previously turned down Nicholson’s Oscar-winning role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), in which he also is the victim of a psychotic nurse, Louise Fletcher, who also won an Oscar for her role.
Roseanne Barr and Rosie O’Donnell were considered to play Annie Wilkes. Roseanne did play her in an SNL parody. Ironically her on-screen sister, Laurie Metcalfe, would play Annie Wilkes on Broadway.
HONARABLE MENTIONS
The Sixth Sense
A boy who communicates with spirits seeks the help of a disheartened child psychologist. Haley Joel Osment was fantastic as the little boy “who could see dead people”.
Although a wonderfully surprising twist all the way through the movie, once you know the secret that Bruce Willis character is dead the entire time it changes how you view it in repeats?
The Wrestler
The finest performance by Mickey Roark certainly of his career. Roark plays a broken down Wrestler who is well passed his prime trying to hang-on. He is reduced to making appearances at firehouse “fan-fests” which only adds to the sadness. He tries to make amends with his estranged daughter played by Evan Rachel Wood but she is ultimately not willing to forgive him.
Roark deserved the academy award for best actor as he literally threw himself into the role by ramping up the steroids and drudging up his real life personal life treachery to exude a self loathing sad character of himself. The problem with the movie is the less than intriguing ending. Roark goes on to continue wrestling even at the expense of his health and the final scene shows him leaping off the ropes of an arena to make that final point. This movie would have made much more sense if Roark’s character killed himself or died lonely and alone (which he was through the entire movie) albeit a predictable ending it would have made a better theater. I loved the movie up until that last 15 minutes.
