My Favourite Films: #15-11

If you didn't read the first post in this series (numbers 20-16 on the list, check it out here. Otherwise, we'll get straight back into it:

15 - Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018. Dir/ Christopher McQuarrie)

If you’d told me at the start of last year that the new Mission Impossible film would make it into my top 15 movies ever, there’s not a chance I would have believed you. I didn’t love the previous installment which had the same director as Fallout. The trailer didn’t particularly excite me either. But holy hell is this film good.

I’ve always had a love of the Mission Impossible franchise. The first one I saw was Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which I still think is an incredibly well made and enjoyable film. Particularly, I’ve always loved the set pieces, and I remember being captivated watching the scene with Tom Cruise climbing the Burj Khalifa, which was gripping from start to finish. My biggest issue with Rogue Nation, the sequel to Ghost Protocol, is that there was never really a big satisfying set piece. The underwater sequence comes close but I don’t think it’s nearly as good as some of the other high points from the series. As a result, I was apprehensive going into Fallout.

I now give Rogue Nation a pass, as it clearly let director Daniel McQuarrie find his feet and move onto Fallout, which for me is easily the series’ best entry. Each new scene is brilliant and satisfying in a new way and it never lets up. The halo jump, the bathroom fight, the helicopter chase. It’s all so well done and it never holds back, continuing to push the action and tension to breaking point.

Particularly, this is a brilliant action film. What has kept the franchise so fresh is that each entry allows itself a different style and tone. The entries have moved from heist film, to spy thriller, to action adventure. Now, finally, the series has found the perfect blend of all of these elements, and still leaning into brilliant action. Every punch and blow really lands and often the fighting is surprisingly visceral. Where most films might as well have cardboard cutouts attacking the hero, there’s never a point in this film where it feels like Ethan Hunt has got a clear upper hand on his opponent.

So yeah, and I make no apologies for this, Mission Impossible Fallout is one of my favourite films of all time.

14 - The Intouchables (2011. Dir/ Olivier Nakache & Éric Toledano)

I've only seen The Intouchables once, so I can't claim to know this film incredibly well or to have a long-standing connection with the film since childhood. And yet, despite only having seen the film once, it did have a profound effect on me.

The film is based on a true story follows Phillipe, a wealthy quadriplegic man, and his newly appointed care-giver, Driss, a man surviving on welfare checks. Their relationship is complex, moving from indifference and annoyance to acceptance and amicability. The characters are complex, with individual experiences, desires and outlooks which compliment each other.

As an exploration of disability, the film is very effective. The relationship between the two men is heart-warming to watch, as they don't treat Phillipe's disability as a shortcoming. Phillipe chooses Driss as his carer since Driss doesn't look down on him, and this connection between two human beings, rather than a carer and his burden, shines throughout the film.

It's hard for me to say much more about the film, since I am not nearly as familiar with this as with many others on this list. There is an American remake with Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart, but it's apparently not very good, so I would very much suggest watching the original, even if you don't like subtitled films (I avoided pointing out the film is in French so some of you wouldn't immediately skip this entry).

13 - Life of Brian (1979. Dir/ Terry Jones)

Christmas 2009 at my grandparents house. Flicking through channels on the TV, trying to avoid all the usual Christmas Day crap, when suddenly my dad shouts ‘Life of Brian is on!’. Christ that sounds boring, I probably thought. I’d never heard of Monty Python. When I was a kid my dad had systematically showed me every classic sitcom I could want. Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Reggie Perrin. The list goes on and on. But somehow Monty Python had managed to pass me by.

We switched the channel over and caught most of the film, missing just a few of the opening scenes, but I picked up what was going on. Well, as much as I could anyway. Monty Python was always designed to confuse the audience to an extent. The name of the group itself, based on the name of their TV show ‘Monty Python‘s Flying Circus’ is so surreal and irrelevant to what the show is, that it perfectly sums the group up in a way. I can remember asking ‘But who is Monty Python?’

I always preferred Life of Brian to Holy Grail, though the latter is also an incredibly funny film, and I, at least in some way, enjoy everything the group has ever done (I recently re-watched The Meaning of Life and decided that whilst a lot of that film doesn’t work, I have a new admiration for how the group just let go of any semblance of conventional storytelling and just did whatever they wanted). As a kid, Life of Brian had everything I wanted. Peoples naughty bits (namely tits and knobs), aliens and even a fgenuinely heart-warming final musical piece. But most importantly, the film was unapologetically silly, and very funny.

I imagine the message of the film was somewhat lost on me as a kid (important to note that this film is not anti-religion or anti-Jesus, it simply encourages people to make their minds up for themselves rather than following the crowd). Similarly, having watched this film numerous times since that Christmas, I still manage to find new humour in it each time. Having studied Latin at secondary school, I do now greatly enjoy the graffiti scene (sidenote: Latin is a stupid dead language which is overly complex and I didn’t choose to study it).

12 - Pulp Fiction (1994. Dir/ Quentin Tarantino)

Well I promised in the last post that there would be another Tarantino film coming up and here it is. I imagine most people would have guessed which of his films I considered his best, and whilst people argue about the specific ranking of his films (I was a bit gutted that Inglorious Basterds didn’t make my top 20), Pulp Fiction usually cones out on top. And rightfully so.

This film is great for so many different reasons. In my last post I called Tarantino the ‘king of cool’. Well in Pulp Fiction, that never stops. Every scene is a masterclass in writing, particularly the dialogue, which flows so easily and naturally between hilarious mundanity and moments of building tension. The obvious highlight, in terms of just being the absolute coolest, is Samuel L Jackson as Jules, a character I could just watch forever without getting bored.

Tarantino took so many risks with this film, and it’s hard to find one that doesn’t pay off. Casting John Travolta as one of the film’s leads alone was an incredibly ballsy move at the time. Travolta was struggling to be taken seriously as an actor, trying to break out of his type-cast roles, and this film led to his resurgence. Similarly, the film's unusual structure relies on the audience being able to keep up with when everything is taken place. Whilst all Tarantino films are risky and cool and a pastiche of everything cinema, Pulp Fiction takes the top spot as the best movie on Tarantinio's very impressive CV.

11 - Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016. Dir/ Taika Waititi)

If you aren't already a huge fan of Taika Waititi then you are doing yourself a disservice. Whilst there are ten more films on my list, I don't think there is any other director in my top 20 films with such a focused vision and style, who is in the film industry for all the right reasons. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is probably a good starting point for people who want to delve into his limited portfolio. Slightly more accessible than his earlier work, whilst still having the same brilliantly off-kilter humour.

The film follows Ricky (Julian Dennison), a troubled teen in foster care, and his new foster-carer Hector (Sam Neill), a cantankerous New Zealand farmer, who get trapped in the woods, and subsequently adventure through them together. The film has an incredible amount of heart. It's funny, heart-warming, whilst also being gut-wrenching at times.

Of all of the films on my list, this would probably be the one I would recommend most easily. What I mean is that I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like this film. So if this even remotely sounds like you're type of thing, definitely check it out. If by the end of this you don't want to move to New Zealand and live in the bush, then I don't know what's wrong with you.

P.S. this film works so much better if you just pretend Sam Neill is the same character as in Jurassic Park but older.