Eddy's favourite movies

I don't generally like movies, but here are some of my favourites. As you can see, I have a thing for movies that: are from the 80s, take place in New York City or underground, feature rats, or explore the darker and less savory side of the human psyche (about which we could all stand to learn a little more). I tend to like gritty, stark reality: seeing life for what it is—unvarnished, depressing, or gory as it may be (I guess this makes me a "Dickensian personality" or a "noir" type). My top favourites are Ordinary People; Girl, Interrupted; The Virgin Suicides; The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner; and The Exorcist.

• 12 Angry Men (in this classic 1957 film about group pressure, persuasion, and the legal system, one dissenting juror slowly but surely wins over each of the other 11 men)
• 9 to 5 (Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda; 1980)
• Adventures in Babysitting (1987)
• An Affair to Remember (I like this 1957 movie starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr only because a major part of the story involves the Empire State Building)
• American Psycho (based on Bret Easton Ellis's book of 1991; sort of like a case study of modern existential angst; well, at least the book was, anyway; movie 2000)
• Barbarians at the Gate (based on Bryan Burrough's book of 1990; based on the downfall of RJR Nabisco; movie with James Garner,1993)
• Big Business (Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin; two sets of identical twins in 80s corporate America; 1988)
• The Browning Version (or, Les Leçons de la Vie; 1994)
• Blue Velvet (1986)
• Boiler Room (2000)
• The Bonfire of the Vanities (based on Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel in which he satirises ambition and greed in New York City; 1990 movie stars Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, and Melanie Griffith)
• Buffalo 66 (Christina Ricci, Vincent Gallo; 1998)
• Butcher Boy (disturbing, but thought-provoking movie based on Patrick McCabe's book of 1992; movie 1997)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas (TV, 1965)
• Christine (1983; based on Stephen King novel of the same year)
• A Clockwork Orange (based on Anthony Burgess's novel of 1962; movie 1971)
• Dark Days (documentary about squatters living in NYC's underground, near Penn Station, next to the Amtrak tracks; 2000)

• Death and Life of Nancy Eaton (aka Deadly Friends; based on 1985 murder of department store heiress, 23-year-old Nancy Eaton, by 17-year-old childhood friend Andrew Leyshon-Hughes; based also on William Scoular and Vivian Green's 1990 book, A Question of Guilt: The Murder of Nancy Eaton)

• The Exorcist (based on William Peter Blatty's book of 1971, detailing true events; movie 1973)
• Fatal Attraction (Michael Douglas, Glenn Close; 1987)
• A Flintstone Christmas (TV, 1977)
• Girl, Interrupted (Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie; based on Susanna Kaysen's book of 1994, retelling true events from the 1960s; movie 1999)

• Glamorama (based on Bret Easton Ellis's 1999 novel, this satirical movie revolves around the glittery, hedonistic, self-absorbed life of a male model who decides to open a nightclub but somehow ends up involved with a shadowy group of model terrorists who bomb airplanes, hotels, and glamorous hangouts)

• Good Will Hunting (1997)
• Heavenly Creatures (Kate Winslet; based on true events; 1994)
• High Anxiety (Mel Brooks; about a psychiatrist terrified of heights; 1978)
• I ♥ Huckabees (Lily Tomlin; a young man hires two a husband-wife team of "existential detectives" to figure out why his life has taken the turn it has; corny, but better than much of the truly mindless fluff that plays on the big screen these days; 2004)
• I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (the story of one woman's addiction to Valium, the culture that encouraged it, and the cavalier experts who claimed they knew what was best for her; based on Barbara Gordon's 1980 book; movie 1982)
• Less Than Zero (based on Bret Easton Ellis's 1985 novel, this film explores the tedious, empty, aimless life of rich Los Angelino youth; the 1987 movie stars Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr, and James Spader)
• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (explores the life of a poor juvenile offender in working class Britain in the 50s and 60s; gritty movie that captures the grayness and dampness of Britain quite well; based on Alan Sillitoe's short story of 1960; movie, 1962)
• The Lottery (a small town holds a yearly lottery in which one person is chosen to be stoned to death; 1996 made-for-TV movie starring Dan Cortese)
• Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock film, 1964)
• The Mother (depressingly gritty reality at its finest; 2003)
• The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
• Nine 1/2 Weeks (two lonely New Yorkers embark on a wild, erotic affair centering on seduction, control, and complete submission; Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger; 1986)
• Other People's Money (starring Danny DeVito, this is another movie about 80s greed; based on Jerry Sterner's play of 1990; movie 1991)
• Philadelphia, Here I Come (a young man is torn between his real self and his public self as he plans to move to Philadelphia from his home in Ireland; based on Brian Friel's 1965 play of the same name; movie 1975)
• P.S. (a woman in her 30s is re-united with the 24-year-old doppelganger of a boyfriend who broke up with her and died in a car crash two decades ago; 2004 movie based on Helen Schulman's book of the same year)
• Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock's original from 1960)
• Ordinary People (Timothy Hutton, Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland; based on Judith Guest's book of 1976; movie 1980)
• The Rats (made-for-television movie about rats invading New York City)
• Reckless (British miniseries, with Robson Green, Francesca Annis, and Michael Kitchen; 1997)
• Rosemary's Baby (classic horror film directed by Roman Polanski and starring Mia Farrow; based on Ira Levin's book of 1967; movie 1968)
• The Rules of Attraction (a look at childish and self-absorbed students in a New England liberal arts college who are involved in all manner of chaotic sexual relationships; the movie is criticised for lack of depth, banal characters, and excessive repetition, but, like the 1987 Bret Easton Ellis novel on which it is based, these are precisely the qualities which advance the story because they exemplify the mindlessness and emptiness which these students experience; the movie, released 2002, stars James Van Der Beek)
• Shock Corridor (excellent b-rated movie about a journalist who impersonates a sexually perverted insane man in order to commit himself to a psychiatric hospital and solve a murder that recently occurred there; 1963)
• A Stranger is Watching (explores a whole other world in New York's underground as it tells the story of two people who are kidnapped and held captive in a bunker below Grand Central Station; based on Mary Higgin's Clark's book of 1982; movie 1982)
• Subway (several lives intertwine in the Paris Metro system; I love anything taking place underground!; 1985)
• Sugar (troubled suburban teen meets a Toronto hustler who introduces him to the gay ghetto and shows him a side of life he has never seen before; 2004)
• Thirteen (Holly Hunter, Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed; 2003)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (in a racially divided Alabama town during the Depression, a white lawyer agrees to defend a black man accused of rape; based on Harper Lee's book of 1960; movie, 1962)
• Vincent Price films (The Tingler [1959], Tower of London [1962], and Last Man on Earth [1964])
• The Virgin Suicides (a dark, depressing coming-of-age film about five teenage sisters who all eventually commit suicide; based on Jeffrey Eugenides's 1993 novel; movie 1999, by Sofia Coppola)
• Wall Street (Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen; 1987)
• Waydowntown (who can live the longest in downtown Calgary without going outside?; 2000)
• Working Girl (another classic 80s movie about making it in the Big City; Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford; 1988)