makes one a Chewer? It isn’t just reading CHUD.com regularly, although
that’s a great start. It definitely isn’t being an expert at
mastication. Being a Chewer requires a certain sensibility that’s
outside of the mainstream. Sure, a Chewer can hold his or her own in a Star Wars
OT vs PT argument with a standard movie geek, and sure, a Chewer can go
with the rest of the film snobs to an Ozu revival, but a Chewer also
gets really, really excited about the DVD release of The Manitou.
Over
the next few weeks we’re going to be bringing you The CHUD.com
Essential Films Collection – the films that would be in our dream
Chewer DVD Box Set. These are 50 movies that we think every Chewer
should see and love. This is by no means the definitive list of movies
that make one a Chewer, but it’s a good start. It’s also in no order –
the first films that we list are just as essential as the last ones.
And it’s a list that will leave off the obvious as much as possible –
you don’t need us to tell you to see Lawrence of Arabia or Seven
Samurai.
So fire up your Netflix or your Amazon accounts –
every day we’ll be bringing you two movies that are worth seeing, and
probably worth owning as well. Chew on, Chewers.
The Movie: Curly haired Harry Hamlin (call him Perseus, please) is one of Zeus’s many illegitimate children, and a warrior who is manipulated by the gods into marrying Princess Andromeda. But a slip of the tongue at their wedding angers the goddess Thetis, who demands tribute. Andromeda and her city be sacrificed to the last Titan – the Kraken.
Why it’s Essential: Who cares that it deviates wildly from the original Greek myths? For all its inaccuracies and outright cheese, Clash of the Titans is a hugely fun walk among the gods of Olympus. It captures the wonder of those classic stories and the backstabbing humanity of the deities they depict. And even though there’s only one actual Titan in the film, it’s the freakin’ Kraken. When this was released, it had been almost twenty years since Ray Harryhausen’s last great effects spectacle (Jason and the Argonauts — there were other, lesser films in the meantime) and in what would be his last film, the stop motion master went all out with creature designs and effects. The stagnant Wells of the Moon, the River Styx and Medusa’s home the Isle of the Dead all become fantastic setpieces under the animator’s steady hand, and there would never be another hand-crafted spectacle like this one.
The Movie: Mexican crime lord El Jefe offers one million dollars for the head of Alfredo Garcia, the man who impregnated his daughter. Dissolute ex-pat piano player Bennie knows his ex, Elita, knows Garcia, and he enlists her to help him find the man. It turns out that Garcia’s already dead, so Benny takes the rotting head on a road trip back to El Jefe, slowly going nuts and befriending the hunk of spoiled meat.
Why it’s Essential:Sam Peckinpah is one of the great American filmmakers, and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. But most of Peckinpah’s films were altered or mutilated on release – except for this one. Greeted by horrifying reviews, Alfredo Garcia was the only Peckinpah movie released in the form the director intended. And it’s a goddamn masterpiece of drunken madness. It’s like the entire blueprint of over the top violent American filmmaking is found in this movie, but Alfredo Garcia has a secret weapon beyond the bloody squibs and nihilistic worldview: Warren Oates. The veteran character actor and long time member of the Peckinpah Reparatory has the greatest role of his lifetime here, perfectly essaying the hung over emptiness in Bennie. Rumor has it that he based the character on Peckinpah himself.