Sheersy's Top Five: Films

Hey, it's my first 'regular' feature! Woo hoo, break out the Cherry Lambrini.

Probably as long as I've been reading books, I've been watching films [or 'movies', as our Atlantically-challenged cousins refer to them]. While I don't remember the actual occasion, I'm assured by my parents that I was taken to see Star Wars [it is called Star Wars, not Episode Whatever] in early '78, shortly after its UK cinema release, and the superlative space opera trilogy was an overriding obsession for a sizeable chunk of my formative years.

George Lucas shrewdly secured the rights to any and all associated merchandising - board games, action figures, clocks, mugs, duvet covers and so on, judged by 20th Century Fox to be entirely worthless - in lieu of a standard director's fee, netting hundreds of millions of dollars as a result and pretty much enabling him to self-fund the sequels. This may explain why subsequent films have become an ever more cynical exercise in toy marketing. Nevertheless, my brother and I shared a fairly comprehensive collection of the figures, vehicles and playsets released to accompany each of the first three films, so at least part of Lucas's unsightly Jabbajowls - barely concealed behind an outsized-but-still-far-too-small goatee - was constructed directly from our pocket money.

Our collection included most of the elusive Last 17, the final limited distribution run of niche interest figures [obscure Rebel pilots, Jabba's courtiers, Imperial dignitaries and second-string Ewoks], which we snapped up during a family holiday to Belgium in 1985. I should admittedly have known better by that age than to continue chucking good money away on plastic crap, but partial vindication came years later when I was able to eBay a single Yak Face figure - in good nick, but without backing card or accessories - for £60. Sixty smackeroos! For a little plastic man with the face of a yak! I should have invested in a whole boxload of Belgian Yak Faces. Stupid hindsight.

So, yes, films.

My criteria for this Top Five are films that particularly struck me on first seeing them - so much so that I will have obsessively rewatched each of them several times since. They have informed my cinematic tastes and represent my personal benchmark for films of their genre. While they may not offer any surprises to those familiar with my tastes, I like to think they showcase my geek cred in a straightforward and unpretentious way.

#5 - Star Wars [1977]

OK, I've already been banging on about this in the above pre-amble, but my denigrations didn't really address the film or its seismic impact on global cinema. George Lucas had initially wanted to revive sci-fi action hero Flash Gordon, but the property wasn't available at the time; instead he and collaborator Gary Kurtz cooked up their own take on the Universal and RKO serials of the '40s and '50s. Shamelessly incorporating elements [the plot, for instance, and the characters] from Akira Kurosawa's samurai adventure Hidden Fortress, and infused throughout with a World War 2 aesthetic - from the battered and rusting utilitarian retro-tech to the crisply starched uniforms and fetishistic battle armour of the baddies - Lucas and Kurtz created a cosmic vision at once comfortably familiar and strikingly unique. While the overarching theme of fresh-faced good triumphing over coolly self-assured evil might just as well have been stamped out on a production line, the execution itself was genuinely fresh and exciting.

The film explores the nuanced inequalities of a robotic slave underclass and the credible mundanity of interaction between alien races, as well as ensuring a place in escapist entertainment history for incredibly cool-sounding lightsabres, Darth Vader's sinister breathing, the Death Star and the delectable Princess Leia's Belgian bun hairstyle. Spot-on casting choices across the board lend some much-needed depth to the template action-adventure characters - who among us doesn't immediately warm to bad boy anti-hero Han Solo, who, straight off the bat, shoots a debt-collecting alien thug in the knackers under the table? - while the rugged visual design, state-of-the-art special effects [that still stand up today] and sound effects flawlessly coalesce into a vision unlike any other cinematic sci-fi on offer at the time.

The only glaring weakness in the Star Wars franchise - somewhat fundamentally - is George Lucas himself, who seems unable to either write or direct anything worthwhile without the tempering influence of other, more competent talents. The Empire Strike Back, generally held to be the most mature of all the Star Wars films, shared four or five directors - none of them Lucas - and the story was heavily influenced by Kurtz. As soon as Lucas took direct control, the schmaltzy feel-good elements were ramped up to 11 and toy sales began to lead the story. There was absolutely no need to revisit the original trilogy equipped only with a mid-life crisis and barely-adequate CGI. Ardman Studios could have knocked a more convincing Jabba together with Plasticine. Don't even get me started on the prequels.

#4 - Withnail and I [1986]

Written and directed by Bruce Robinson, who based the film on his own experience of living among the low-end boho set in London during the late '60s, Withnail and I boasts an entertaining array of picaresque characters, including Richard E. Grant in his breakthrough role as the aggressively forthright Withnail, Richard Griffiths as larger-than-life faded thesp [and "raving homosexual"] Uncle Monty and Ralph Brown as drawling, yellow-eyed drug dealer Danny.

This pre-eminently quotable loser lifestyle bible relates the misadventures of two impoverished, out-of-work actors, who go on holiday "by mistake" to the rain- and windswept Lake District. In between vain attempts to secure work through their agent, they alienate the locals, harass the well-to-do customers of a posh tea rooms, go fishing with a twelve-bore shotgun and find themselves obliquely menaced by a local poacher. As well as offering a uniquely British and hilariously grotty slant on the buddy comedy format, the film also acts as a thoughtful epoch end marker for the Summer of Love and all the political and artistic revolution it initially promised. As Danny laments towards the end of the film, "They're selling hippy wigs in Woolworths, man."

Withnail and I also forms the basis for a famously gruelling drinking game, wherein one has simply to match Withnail drink for drink throughout the film. In the course of 90-odd minutes, the successful participant in this impossibly toxic endeavour would be expected to imbibe nine and a half glasses of red wine, a pint of cider ["ice in the cider"], two and a half shots of gin, six glasses of sherry, thirteen shots of whisky, half a pint of ale and a slug of lighter fluid. The Camberwell Carrot is optional, but to be quite honest after that lot you'd be hard pressed to fulfil even the most basic of motor functions, much less engineer a jumbo bifter.

#3 - Evil Dead II [1987]

Sam Raimi has gone on to direct much slicker Hollywood fare since his days as a guerrilla Michigan film-maker, but much of the trademark stylistic trickery learnt during those early days is still apparent in his current output. Having already been responsible for the notorious '80s video nasty The Evil Dead, Raimi experienced unwelcome studio meddling during the production of follow-up noir comedy Crimewave, which prompted him to return to his self-produced roots.

A sequel-cum-remake of the original feature, Evil Dead II features the same location - creaky old cabin in the woods - and a similar initial setup, but quickly moves into fresh new areas of no-budget cinematic creativity. Stop-motion animation, latex prosthetics and a dizzying array of simple-but-effective camera tricks collide to create a disorientating barrage of intense horror action; in the absence of a prohibitively expensive SteadiCam, Raimi instead improvised the ShakyCam - a plank of wood with a camera fixed to it, supported by a person at each end - to obtain swooping shots through the fog-shrouded forest. The production crew consisted of a hardcore of Raimi's multi-tasking close friends, who were willing to spend months being spattered with fake blood in sub-zero temperatures for no pay. As filming wore on, several cast members were unable to cope with the abysmal working conditions and dropped out - they were replaced on film with back-of-the-head shots of Raimi's wig-wearing brother, Ted.

The first half an hour hinges on a bravura performance by Raimi's high school friend and B movie god Bruce Campbell, during which he is subjected to sustained psychological and physical assault by otherworldly demons. This outrageous one-man performance is two parts Three Stooges slapstick to one part grisly splatter horror and sees Campbell's character, Ash, fending off various attacks by his decapitated girlfriend, taunted and strangled by his own reflection, menaced by animated furniture and literally thrown around a kitchen by his own possessed hand, which he finally amputates with a chainsaw while cackling maniacally and screaming "Who's laughing now?"

Evil Dead II at once lampoons and reveres the clichéd tropes of the genre, restructuring them with manic energy into an influential horror masterpiece, the distinct flashes of which can be seen in the early work of such directors as Peter Jackson and Edgar Wright.

#2 - Duck Soup [1933]

When it comes to naming the best Marx Brothers film, aficionados tend to be split between Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera. Admittedly A Night at the Opera is a more polished production, but the shoehorning in of a straight romantic sub-plot, replete with lengthy Marx-free song-and-dance routines, is a resolute strike in the 'Cons' column. Conversely, Duck Soup is an uninterrupted stream of comic dialogue and quick-fire gags from start to finish, and while there are several musical numbers, they are uniformly ridiculous and exist solely to showcase the zany antics of the Marxes.

The prescient plot - the Nazis came to power that same year - concerns a personal feud between Rufus T. Firefly [Groucho], the new leader of the bankrupt state of Freedonia, and the dastardly Ambassador Trentino of neighbouring Sylvania, which through various convoluted misunderstandings spirals out of control and plunges both countries into conflict. Matters are further exacerbated by the incompetent duplicity of two Sylvanian spies, Chicolini [Chico] and Pinky [Harpo], who make no secret of the fact they are working for the other side and even treat their own court martial as a forum for more buffoonery.

The film features several classic set pieces, including the dialogue-free 'mirror' sequence, where Harpo attempts to match Groucho's every movement in an ultimately vain effort to convince him that he is Groucho's reflection, and the film is punctuated with throwaway visual gags, such as Groucho sporting a different military uniform in every scene during the final reel. Even Harpo's usual tiresome harp interlude is limited to a brief plucking at the strings of an open grand piano, the lid of which is quickly slammed shut on his fingers.

Duck Soup was the Marx Brothers' last film with Paramount Studios and wasn't particularly well received at the time of its release, but in recent years it has been critically reappraised as a mischievous satire on the absurdity of war and on the self-important men, ill-deserving of the power they wield, who determine the fate of their fellow countrymen.

#1 - Dawn of the Dead [1978]

George A. Romero had altered the landscape of horror cinema a decade earlier with his low-budget, high-scare indie feature Night of the Living Dead. In a plot that has since become a staple of the genre, the recently dead inexplicably reanimate with wall-eyed murderous intent; a few desperate, ill-matched survivors barricade themselves in a remote farmhouse and attempt to repel the ghouls. The impact of Romero's film can't be understated: it fully explored the practicalities of survival in such a situation, employing a near-documentary approach to great effect, replete with convincingly realized news reports and 'shit-has-definitely-hit-the-fan' emergency broadcasts. It was also one of the first mainstream American films to feature a black lead, opening up a new level of critical interpretation within the context of America's burgeoning Civil Rights movement.

Dawn of the Dead picks up where the original left off, even starting inside a panicked, claustrophobic TV studio that's transmitting the type of broadcasts received during Night of the Living Dead. Tensions are running high among the station staff and there is much whispered talk of fleeing the city. Traffic news helicopter pilot Stephen and his station staff girlfriend Fran escape, along with two hardened S.W.A.T. cop acquaintances, in the network's chopper, eventually setting down on an out-of-town shopping mall that swarms with the undead. They tentatively assess the situation and soon decide that the mall will offer the reliable security and abundant supplies they desperately need. Barricading the centre against further assault, they dispatch any zombies already inside, then settle down for the duration with their every material desire catered for. Weeks of seclusion take their psychological toll on the small group, however, and as well as the hordes of the undead clawing relentlessly at the reinforced glass doors, they also face danger from roving gangs of human looters eager to plunder the mall's resources.

Much like Night of the Living Dead's subtle Civil Rights message, there is an intelligent subtext embedded within Dawn of the Dead's ostensibly gory exterior. Here, the comment is on the vacuousness of consumerism, as evinced by the zombies thronging in their almost pitiable confusion to that shameless cathedral to Mammon, the visceral carnage incongruously soundtracked by upbeat glockenspiel muzak. As Stephen says, while contemplating why so many zombies seem drawn to the complex, "Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives." It's testament to the film's influence that the shopping mall has subsequently become a recurring feature of zombie apocalypse films and videogames.

Dawn of the Dead is not without its flaws - there are confusing jumps and cuts throughout, making it unclear exactly what's going on at certain points [unless, like me, you've watched it more times than you'd care to work out] and the acting is solid for a '70s horror but was never going to win any awards. Tom Savini's make-up effects, too, are good for the time but extremely dated by today's standards, the grey-blue foundation applied uniformly to hundreds of extras intermittently enlivened by explosions of bright red fake blood, an unnatural palette that lends the film a hyperreal quality [Savini redeemed himself a few years later with his truly gruesome make-up effects for Romero's Day of the Dead]. These are negligible quibbles, however, for those of us who see the appeal of the zombie apocalypse film, and what really marks Dawn of the Dead out as a classic is its deadly serious, pragmatic approach to an unthinkable doomsday scenario: what would you do if civilization collapsed overnight?

In the last few years the zombie has become as ubiquitous as the vampire, thanks to films like 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland and a fairly decent 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, books such as Max 'son-of-Mel' Brooks's The Zombie Survival Guide and follow-up World War Z [not to mention the tongue-through-cheek genre mashup Pride and Prejudice and Zombies], a wealth of comics - most notably Robert Kirkman's sublime ongoing saga The Walking Dead - and more video games than you can shake a brain-and-hair-caked stick at [Resident Evil, House of the Dead, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead]. Clearly there's something in the idea of the reanimated, cannibalistic cadaver that fires the popular imagination... and that's a good thing.

Honourable mentions: Seven Samurai, Mad Max 2, Midnight Run, Aliens, Millennium Actress