comfort movies

The classic Leone westerns

she wore a yellow ribbon
defending your life
wonder boys
f for fake
tank girl
vivre sa vie (all those long takes)
california split
the wrath of khan
dr strangelove or how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

what a beautiful curve that list almost had. a lesson against parenthesis.

oh i see everyone including me already said wonder boys.

I've had so many over the years--I tend to comfort-watch them right off the list every couple of years. Right now, Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, Nixon, Fargo.

― clemenza, Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Basically the same three years later; would now add All the President's Men and Advise and Consent.

the third man
the 39 steps (or most pre-hollywood hitchcock for that matter)

wow, did not know about this: Crabbin was a single character in the novella. The screenplay's original draft replaced him with two characters, played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne.

Raiders Of the Lost Ark
The Quiet Man
The Empire Strikes Back
Do The Right Thing

90s jackie chan films

god yeah. i must have seen the HK import VHS of Drunken Master II about twenty times.

loads of HK stuff for me, tbh:

The Mission
Full Contact
God of Cookery
The Killer
Hard Boiled

also:

Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Right Stuff
Die Hard
Rushmore
Black Narcissus
Repo Man
Alien
Aliens
Blade Runner

may as well add Mad Max: Fury Road to this list at this point

All the President's Men

― clemenza, Tuesday, 1 March 2016 00:45 (20 hours ago)

Just logged in to post the very same!

For me at least I think the comforting effect is mainly down to a combination of the truth-triumphs-over-power narrative with the 'procedural' aspects of watching people adsorbed in a skilled task.

And now I want to go and watch it, of course.

swingers
the wedding singer
the Daniel Craig Bond movies
barcelona

Tootsie
The Lady Eve
JFK
Touch of Evil
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Add Double Indemnity to my list--I watch that a couple of times a year.

Two 80s movies that are soothing to me (I think its mostly due to the awful/amazing very-80s look of the films) - Working Girl and Wallstreet.

Key largo

^^^ Key Largo, Double Indemnity for sure. Pretty much anything they used to show in the afternoon on the TV when I was sleeping on my mother's sofa, any noir stuff or screwball. Any of the Falcon films, any of the Thin Man films. These aren't the films I have seen most in my life, just the ones I can watch when I cannot function to any extent beyond the remote control and the bottle.

The Lost Weekend. Anything I know beat-for-beat really. Also any of the Scottish Ken Loach ones, cos they were no doubt cue'd up at my mothers. Gregory's Girl and Local Hero too. These days in my house I just watch absolute trash that I've never seen before for comfort, or less comfort than something in front of my eyes

Just finished re-watching Sorcerer, which I think I've seen a dozen times since buying the Blu-Ray last year.

Sorcerer I could see working this way, just for the pacing and the framing. I suppose I don't have any Comfort Films (as opposed to comfort music), or Comfort Books, I just turn to whatever can occupy my mind without a lot of thought

I remember watching Donnie Darko every day for a week, but that was not comfort, that was mental illness. I mean, I was fighting demons in the street with sticks that whole period. But yeah, as I understand this concept I'd go for fast-talking black and white stuff, that'd be closest to a warm place for me.

The late 80s setting and overall vibe of Donnie Darko made it a big one for me in the couple of years after its release. No one else was really tapping into that at the time, and the lack of smirkiness re: the setting (see, The Wedding Singer, Wet Hot American Summer for counterexamples) made it ideal for wallowing in comfortable childhood nostalgia.

Chef

Carol.

Watched Rounders again last night for something close to the tenth time. This can be added to my list. Found an old David Edelstein review--good paragraph on Malkovich.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/1998/09/place_your_bets.html

fast times / dazed + confused

Shaolin vs. Lama these days.

I guess stuff that I've come to think of as "Thanksgiving movies" counts. The big epic movie series (LOTR, Harry Potter, Star Wars) that I don't have a huge amount of investment in but that are pleasant to have playing in the background while other shit is going on.

Enter the Dragon

it showed up on tv the other day, makes me feel like a little kid whenever I see it

vivid memories of it being on Sat night tv, staying up late while my parents & their friends played cards in the kitchen

oh totally

I second 90s Jackie Chan films. That stuff is pure joy.

Nothing makes me happy faster than Buster Keaton.

not much Merchant Ivory (or that ilk) in this thread. the trailer for a 25th anniversary revival of Howards End reminded me of its
comfort factor.

Bowfinger

Mistress America

My Bodyguard

My Bodyguard was the secret gay love story of my late teens.

Yeah Mistress America is a great one. Baumbach in general too I guess.

xpost

I vastly prefer it to most non-secret gay love stories.

Coming To America

First Blood. Mainly because ITV show it once a week and I've thus become quite attached to it.

Raising Arizona

was stressed out yesterday so I put on The Shining. Sounds counter-intuitive but it worked

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Quick Change, in between Groundhog Day rewatches

Michael Clayton

That Thing You Do

Flying out for thanksgiving tomorrow AM, guess what I just put on

Your deadline was 20 minutes ago

Raiders of the Lost Ark

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, November 20, 2017 7:47 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes! i bought a VHS of it this year and watched it and loved every minute of it. it really is an incredible movie. the whole plot is amazing, the actors are amazing, the soundtrack is so iconic and dynamic (yay Indy theme but also the spooky ark temple theme). it has dumb yet clever screwball humor like Marion accidentally smacking Indy with the mirror as he looks over his previous injuries. that shot of the ark of the covenant burning a hole through the swastika deep in a nazi submarine base. holy shit. literally, holy shit. this movie is the near perfect action film with the ultimately villains. the movie ends with God literally blowing up nazis melting faces and shooting lightning to gloriously smite the third reich. this is a very comforting victory.

ending ofc the x-files style huge warehouse that was a giant matte painting that stayed up on the screen a long, long time and it never broke immersion cos everyone at that time was working at the peak of creativity and technical proficiency. <3 this movie forever. even though it may have contributed to me being afraid of snakes (again the OT implications) the snake pit, the snakes slithering through skeletons and out of mouths, the dark, dark fantasy of it all. it is a light cartoony family movie yet somehow it has this crazy heavy edge to it. the pacing, cinematography, stuntwork, set design, etc. everything is perfectly in harmony with every other element. it is a finely tuned film.

Empire Strikes Back

this movie always reminds me of a certain day, i was a little kid, my mom was cooking soup and me and my brorther were in the kitchen waiting for lunch and the tv had Empire on and it was just the foggy kind of magical and warm and silly experience of hanging out with Yoda and R2-D2 playing around in the swamp. it is weird, kind of hard to explain the feeling, but it was sort of comforting and familiar, like R2 and Yoda were just hanging out while mom makes lunch and we draw monsters. it was very warm and comforting to be in that moment, it is a memory i will treasure forever.

later on i learned about the puppetry involved and Hamill's commitment to working on a set for weeks as the only actor working with two puppets and a bunch of real lizards, snakes, swamp animals, etc., Frank Oz was working on the floor underneath him, delivering line and acting Yoda, and the two communicated via earpiece. it must have been a strange, disorienting experience (love Hamill's story about one day acting out a Luke-Yoda scene and picking up the Rolling Stones on the radio), and i think there is some really strong acting both from Luke and Yoda in these scenes. learning about how this stuff was made doesn't really detract from the magic, it makes it even more magical imo.