ELF

[Weak2ndAct]

You know somebody at WB is getting fired.

Well, New Line and WB are owned by Time Warner, so I'm sure they don't mind having 2 of the top 3 movies.  And Revolutions is already pure profit, they made enough for both movies after Reloaded.

[cine]

I'm amused that the two solutions to beating the Matrix are elves and aussie pirates.

[Ernie]

Saw it last night, loved it more than I ever thought I would, hilarious, best scene was the one with the Miles Finch guy (the writer) and the little black idea book, Ferrell rocked, I might edit and elaborate later but it's pretty obvious who else I thought was amazing and what I think of the movie. Finally there's a modern christmas movie to revisit each christmas.

[modage]

Well, New Line and WB are owned by Time Warner, so I'm sure they don't mind having 2 of the top 3 movies.  And Revolutions is already pure profit, they made enough for both movies after Reloaded.

you're not thinking like a studio exec. doesnt matter that revolutions is pure profit, because they always want MORE money.  there is never enough.  and a big drop in money they expected to be coming in suddenly not is probably still getting peoples freaking out.

[Fernando]

At first, Jon Favreau may seem a curious choice to direct a movie like Elf, a Christmas story about a precocious kid who crawls into Santa's sack and grows up at the North Pole. Such wholesome family fare might seem a little out of character for Favreau after the mobsters-in-training comedy Made (his only other big-screen directing credit) and Swingers, the L.A. singles classic he starred in and wrote.

But Favreau's a versatile guy with great comedy instincts, and family entertainment seems to come as naturally to him as, well, entertainment. Give him a chance to talk about the movies that have influenced him, and his choices reflect the way he has developed as a writer, director and actor (he's played significant parts in Rudy, Very Bad Things and Daredevil). Give him a chance to pay tribute to some of those films in the form of a new holiday classic like Elf, and he shows how those different parts of his personality shape his approach to the material. Here, in Favreau's own words, are five films that inspire him.

It's a Wonderful Life
(1946; dir: Frank Capra, starring: Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed)
It's a Wonderful Life is a movie about loneliness and not feeling like part of something, which Swingers and Elf both share. That movie really influenced me because it's a very definitive American story made by an immigrant -- which is an exciting notion, the outsider's view of what America is -- and that movie then defined our view of our own culture. I think having that outsider's perspective is a big part of making movies. It gives you a very focused view, more than if you grow up around something. With Swingers, I wrote about Hollywood a year after I moved there, and I had a very clear perspective of it because I didn't fit in there. It's a Wonderful Life was not considered an exceptional movie when it came out. It didn't do a lot of business, but it really stood the test of time as people watched it year after year, and it has become a cultural reference that we return to. Nowadays, for a movie to really have resonance, it has to be something that doesn't just wash away in the hundreds of films that come out every year. It has to be something that stands up. I've only been involved with a few movies like that, and it's a very rewarding feeling to know that you've affected people's lives, and movies like Swingers and Rudy really have done that.

Cinema Paradiso
(1989; dir: Giuseppe Tornatore, starring: Philippe Noiret, Salvatore Cascio)
Cinema Paradiso was a big movie for me. I really like the relationship between the child and the man. It reminds me a lot of my relationship with my grandfather. It's not overtly loving, and it's sort of born out of conflict, but a tremendous amount of love and influence comes out of that mentorship. That movie really captures the magic of movies and what people get from them. Even though I'm not from Italy, and I don't know that particular environment, I was exposed to movies from a young age by going to the old big vaudeville houses-turned-movie theaters in Queens, New York, before they were torn down (like the RKO Keith's, where I was an usher). In that job, I finally got to hang out in the production booth at the top of the stairs in that old landmark building. There is a certain bug that has to bite you to want to be involved with movies, and Cinema Paradiso really captures that.

The Bad News Bears
(1974, dir: Michael Ritchie, starring: Walter Matthau, Tatum O'Neal)
I would call that a perfect movie. The Bad News Bears is a wonderful story about coming together. It really works on every level, even though it breaks every rule of making a studio movie today: The team loses at the end. The kids are cursing and yelling racial epithets, and yet for some reason, it's not seen as offensive. The main character is a man who's abusive towards children -- he drinks and drives and makes them clean his pool -- and yet you really believe the relationship between them, even though he seems like an extremely insensitive, unlikable character on paper. Instead, it's real and insightful. As a kid, I really related to it, and as an adult, I think it stands the test of time. With every movie I do, I try to have that element of losing the challenge you think the movie is about but winning something larger. In Swingers, that happens when he doesn't end up with the girlfriend you think he wants to end up with, but instead, he gains his own independence. In Elf, there's a similar aspect in a much different movie. He doesn't necessarily accomplish what you think he will, but then something better happens. The same thing with It's a Wonderful Life: You think it's about the money he loses (he never gets that money back), but it's his relationship with the community that ends up saving him.

The Seven Samurai
(1954, dir: Akira Kurosawa, starring: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune)
There's so much to like about it: The use of an ensemble cast, the archetypical characters, the minimalism in the storytelling, the pacing. The movie's over three hours long, and it never feels slow. The cinematography was groundbreaking. I love the camerawork, the use of horses, the use of rain, the coming-of-age story and the Joseph Campbell "Hero with a Thousand Faces" aspect of it. The characters and community are a microcosm for the whole world, for man's relationship with nature and the different stations in life. These samurai are people whose time has passed, dinosaurs who no longer belong to this earth. It's the same thing with The Magnificent Seven [a western remake of the same story], where these gunfighters no longer live in a world that accepts them, and they must face the desperation and the loneliness that comes from that. All the movies I mentioned deal with man feeling alone in the world and seeking love and acceptance as an antithesis to that. When you are in love, whether it's with an individual or by an entire community, you feel a part of something, and it overcomes that loneliness.

Animal House
(1978, dir: John Landis, starring: Tom Hulce, Stephen Furst)
Let me throw in Animal House. It was a broad comedy with topless women and people spitting food on each other, but there was a certain intelligence to it. You really cared about the characters, and you believed the emotional journeys they were going through. You really understood their vulnerabilities because of the circumstances. You really cared about Boone and Katie's relationship when that breaks up after Donald Sutherland is found sleeping with her. You really care about Pinto and Flounder fitting in. You really care about the frat house not being taken away, and you're jumping out of your seats when the Deathmobile shows up. You could tell Animal House was a very personal film that these filmmakers had obviously really related to because it wasn't condescending. And it was a comment on the times as well, but never to the sacrifice of the comedy. I caught it at the beginning of my adolescence, and watching John Belushi in that movie really made me want to start being a performer. He's part of the reason I moved to Chicago. Him, Bill Murray and that whole crop of Second City alumni was a big reason I relocated to Chicago from New York and started studying improv with Del Close. A lot of the lessons that made me a good filmmaker came from my improv training in Chicago.

[Pubrick]

i wonder why mac didn't cover this one.. or zucker, and jordan.

[Pubrick]

oh sure, avoid my question.  

ps. also robert benton.

Mac, thanks for posting these Top 5 Lists.

[Banky]

19.1 million.  Im really happy its doing so well.

[cine]

Did anyone catch what I thought was a Fargo reference in the film?

[Banky]

what is it?

[Pubrick]

the guy in the woodchipper?

[cine]

I think I mentioned it in one of my earlier posts about Elf, maybe not. But the part when one of the kids gets away in the snowball fight. Ferrell hitting the runaway kid in the snow looked like a direct reference/homage to Stormare (or even McDormand) shooting down the runaway person.

[Gamblour.]

I think I mentioned it in one of my earlier posts about Elf, maybe not. But the part when one of the kids gets away in the snowball fight. Ferrell hitting the runaway kid in the snow looked like a direct reference/homage to Stormare (or even McDormand) shooting down the runaway person.

Hmm, don't really see that one. They both feel different. Man, was that Jovie chick hot or what?

[Pubrick]

Man, was that Jovie chick hot or what?

welcome to the club

[Xixax]

Finally caught this one yesterday. Will Ferrell could stare in the camera for 2 minutes completely silent, and just the thought of the guy would make me laugh, so in that aspect it was a treat.

Zooey was great, too. Caan and Steenburgen. Excellent choices.

What I want to know is why nobody as mentioned the hilarious midget children's writer. His character and one scene were golden!

Overall not as funny as I had hoped, but certainly no disappointment.