Check your flossing

Making movie lists isn’t as easy as it looks. Even after watching thousands of movies, I still find myself at a loss when trying to put a simple list of eight together.

Thus my initial inclination was to cut Mental Floss some slack when the latest issue sported a cover story on “The 25 Most Powerful Movies of the Last 25 Years” (which sadly as of this writing is not available online). I particularly appreciated the effort authors Carina Chocano and Mangesh Hattikudur put into staying consistent with the magazine’s general trivia orientation. Rather than focus on movies of earth-shattering importance, they tended to pick pictures with interesting background stories of one kind or another.

For example, the tale of how Lara Croft Tomb Raider managed to turn a profit before it was ever released was far more fascinating than the movie itself. Similarly, I enjoyed the official Kazakhstani reaction to Borat and the Taliban’s reaction to Titanic.

On the other hand, a handful of the entries were somewhat problematic, movies that for one reason or another seemed not to merit the accolades they received. I’d reclassify them as follows:

The Truman Show – The movie that helped popularize an otherwise obscure neurosis
In a world that doesn’t always make a lot of sense, it’s easy to vaguely suspect that the whole mess is a big, elaborate joke of some kind. The Truman Show caters to the adolescent fantasy that everything around us has been set up for our benefit, that everyone we know is actually a robot or an actor. Most of us grow out of this peculiar delusion. Some folks get stuck with it on a more long-term basis. However, matters aren’t helped when mental health professionals name the illness after a Hollywood movie. That just helps sell it to psychiatric hypochondriacs.

The Silence of the Lambs – The movie that was nice to bugs but hateful to the rest of the universe
I liked the trivia about how carefully the moths were handled off screen. However, treating moths with care doesn’t do much to make up for the movie’s brutal on-screen treatment of women, cops, a dog, and so on.

Sideways – The movie that … aw jeez yuppies, get over yourselves
An indie comedy about annoying wine nerds? How did I manage to avoid seeing this one? The fact that one character’s foolish whining led to a drop in sales for a perfectly serviceable grape merely makes the movie more disgraceful than it already was.

Sex, Lies and Videotape – The movie that assured independent producers that it was okay to be boring
The only reason this didn’t make the Eight movies to put you out of the mood for sex list is that when I was putting that list together I forgot this movie even existed. I saw it when it first came out. Or was it when it was first released on video? It’s been so long I don’t remember. In any event, it would have been right at home with the eight non-sexy sex movies that did make the list.

Brazil – The movie that didn’t do what Mental Floss said it did
I like Terry Gilliam’s work in general and this movie in particular. But the Mental Floss article gives it credit for starting the steampunk movement. Uh, no. If nothing else, 1984 – which came out a year earlier – featured a much more realistic depiction of alternate-reality technology. And of course more purely steampunk visuals go at least as far back as the drawings of Albert Robida, which predate Brazil by a century or so.

The Blair Witch Project – The movie that murdered the helpless tripod
For some reason some critics who don’t regularly follow horror movies seem to think that this picture is a seminal moment in the genre’s development. But in truth it spawned few successful imitators. Even its own sequel is a more traditional production. It’s notable as a great example of making a movie on the cheap and then turning a tremendous profit via viral marketing. But beyond that all it really contributes is an unfortunate plug for the notion that shaky camerawork is a legitimate art form. Burp.

The Big Lebowski – The movie that gave hope to useless white men everywhere
The Floss article observes that this one started a spurious religion on par with the Church of the Subgenius and the Flying Spaghetti Monster thing. On a less formal level, it assured over-privileged, indolent white guys that they were somehow heroic. The next time you visit Lawrence, Kansas – or a similar neo-hippie-infested college town – feast your eyes on why this is a bad idea.

Pulp Fiction – The movie that managed to hypnotize the world into thinking Quentin Tarantino had talent
Actually, I have no quarrel with the authors’ analysis of this entry. They say Pulp Fiction “reinvigorated the independent film movement, spawned hundreds of Tarantino wannabes, jump-started John Travolta’s comatose career, and brought surf music back to the radio.” If you could add “kidnapped the Lindbergh baby” and “sold missiles to Iran” to that list you’d have a complete set.