Howard Who?

I decided to throw out a random list of 10 movies within movies, a genre that holds some pretty awesome titles…and some crappy ones too.

1. Sunset Blvd.

Well, while not technically a movie within a movie, it has elements. For one thing, you have an elderly veteran screen actress playing an elderly veteran screen actress (Gloria Swanson), Cecile B. DeMille playing himself, and even Buster Keaton showing up as a washed up silent film actor, which he was at the time.

2. New Nightmare

Underrated horror film from Wes Craven, New Nightmare goes pretty extreme, having many actors essentially playing themselves (including Freddy’s Robert Englund) as if the  Nightmare on Elm Street legend were real. And it includes lots of a standard ”movie in movie” moment: the script being read describing the film as we watch it.

3.  Adaptation

A masterpiece of the “movie in movie” genre. The movie not only chronicles its own creative struggles, but also changes tone as the characters on screen change their tone towards the writing of the film.

4. Singin’ in the Rain

Again, not technically of the genre, but if you remember, there was an extended dance number that works as an inserted movie. Basically they say, what if we did this extended dance number? And then they did it as if we were suddenly watching the movie through someone’s imagination. Cheesy transition, but gotta love it.

5. Mulholland Drive

A dense thriller that I would argue is mim. The first half of the movie reinterprets the events of the second half. I’ll only say so much and let you piece together the rest.

6. Perfect Blue

Satoshi Kon’s anime masterpiece is also brilliant mim. The story is about a former pop star who becomes an actress starring in a movie about a former pop star who becomes an actress. You never know what is reality is this mind-twister.

7. Tango 

Another mim masterpiece. This involves a film director making a movie about dance that suddenly breaks out into expressive dance that you’re not sure is a depiction of a rehearsal or a part of the movie we’re watching. And it begins with reading the script like New Nightmare. The ending shows a film camera shooting at a mirror: we’re watching the film filming itself!

8. Day For Night

French Nouvelle Vague director Francois Truffaut plays a French Nouvelle Vague director.

9. 8 1/2

Federico Fellini’s masterpiece is about a film director who is struggling to make his next film yet has amazing fantasies about what the film should be like.

10. The Player

Perhaps the cream of the crop…

Anyone else out there think of any good ones? (Last Action Hero excepted)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Movies, Lists, Howard Who?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.