Top Ten Tuesday: BASED ON TRUE EVENTS

The only thing more terrifying, interesting, gut-turning, or even heart-warming than watching a film that someone created entirely on their own is to watch one that has been inspired by true events. Whether it be an inspiring story about how one overcame an obstacle, a horrific tale of a serial killer, or the tale of a rock legend, these films grab hold of their audience and take them along on their journey. With THE RITE coming out this week, and it being “based on true events” we figure it’s a great segue into this weeks top ten.

TOP TEN: BASED ON TRUE EVENTS

HONORABLE MENTION: ALIVE

Plane crashes are one of my worst fears. In ALIVE (1993), a Rugby team is stranded in the Andes Mountains after their plane crashes and they are put to the test in order to survive. Freezing temperatures, dying friends, injuries and a lack of food certainly start to take it’s toll on the men and they have to make some very difficult decisions. Now, most people instantly think of that cannibalism that takes place in the film, but that is just a part of the story. The real story is how these men fight against all odds to stay alive.

10. THE UNTOUCHABLES

Now here’s an interesting journey for a “true story” film. THE UNTOUCHABLES began as a memoir by Eliot Ness ( with an assist by Oscar Fraley ) , then was snapped up for a weekly television series by Desi Arnaz in the late 1950′s instead of landing on the big screen. Finally in 1987 Brian De Palma brought the story of Ness and his crew to the movies. And boy was it worth the wait! De Palma turned this tale of 1920′s Chicago into a classic movie western with roadsters replacing horses ( although one big battle had our heroes on horseback ). It’s hard to pick a favorite scene from this rousing adventure.Maybe it’s the big LaSalle Street raid, or the shoot out in Canada, or the big train station showdown ( a tribute to the Odessa Steps sequence from BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN ). A great cast was brought together for this epic. Kevin Costner became a major star as the inexperienced, but determined Treasury agent Elliot Ness. In her film debut Patricia Clarkson is radiant as Eliot’s supportive wife. Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith are great as Eliot’s support crew. Billy Drago oozes menace as Frank Nitti, and Robert DeNiro offers a great take on the ultimate gangster Al Capone. But it’s Sean Connery who steals every scene he’s in as grizzled beat cop James Malone, who becomes Eliot’s mentor. Connery proved without a doubt that he was so much more than 007 and took home a well deserved Oscar. Of course this great cast would not have gotten to shine so brightly without terrific dialogue, and David Mamet’s screenplay may be the real star of this film. Some of the exchanges (like Malone’s explanation of the Chicago way) have become repeated by comedians, impressionists, and newspaper columnists. Also the magnificent score by Ennio Morricone is a stand out. This film may play fast and loose with the facts, but THE UNTOUCHABLES remains a classic Hollywood entertainment.

09. THE FRENCH CONNECTION

THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) is director William Friedken’s contribution to what made the cinema of the 70′s gold, but as a result also created what many call one of the greatest American masterpieces to date. Granted, not everyone agrees on this as a whole, but certain things are arguably unquestionable. One sych claim is that Friedken pulled off the best car chase scene in history, short maybe of that in BULLITT. Gene Hackman at his prime, along with Roy Scheider, works with the above par cast to add realism and depth to this gritty, serious crime drama with a heavy dose of early action influence. If you weren’t aware this film won a Best Picture Oscar, that alone is reason to see this movie.

08. APOLLO 13

Besides being a movie and Oscars geek, you can also add NASA geek to that list. The Saturn V rocket missions to the moon are mankind’s greatest achievement, so it’s no surprise that 1995’s Academy Award nominee APOLLO 13 is # 8 on this week’s Top 10 List. When I first read that director Ron Howard was making the film, the imagined possibilities of “the mission that was a successful failure” came to reality up on the screen. Based on the book, “Lost Moon,” by mission commander Jim Lovell along with Jeffrey Kluger, the film is the true story of the ill-fated mission of Apollo 13 to the moon. Howard takes the audience on an incredible journey of how 3 American astronauts were brought safely back to Earth after their rocket’s oxygen tanks explode, causing Mission Control to abort a third manned moon mission.

With stars Tom Hanks, Gary Sinise, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon and Kathleen Quinlan, the true gem was the casting Ed Harris as Flight Director Gene Kranz. His ferocious delivery of the famous line “Failure Is Not An Option” brings a lump to the throat upon repeat viewings. The attention to all the technical detail is dead on, right down to the incredible, booming launch scene that’s become one of the cinematic greats in film history. The suspense of whether the astronauts would die from CO2 poisoning or not knowing if the Odyssey’s heat shield would save these men was absolutely riveting. Even as I and the audience sat knowing the positive outcome, we nonetheless cheered when the crew of Apollo 13 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture, APOLLO 13 won for Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing. James Horner’s patriotic score should’ve won as well and that it lost to IL POSTINO is a shame. The true crime that awards season was when Ron Howard won the Director’s Guild Award and failed to even garner a Best Director Oscar nomination. Never was the expression “Houston We Have A Problem” more apropos.

07. 127 HOURS

127 HOURS was one of the stand out films from 2010. Aron Ralston was out for some adventure while mountain climbing alone in Utah. Little did he know how big of an adventure this trip would become. Aron ended up trapped in an isolated canyon, pinned in by a boulder. After five days of doing whatever he could to survive, Ralston finds the strength to take extreme measures in order to escape. Wounded and weak, he must now scale a 65 foot wall and walk for over 8 miles until he is finally rescued. This is a terrific story of willpower and perseverance. The human mind is powerful, and can allow you the strength to do whatever it is necessary in order to survive.

06. GOODFELLAS

05. ALMOST FAMOUS

ALMOST FAMOUS (2000) is a fun, honest, unpretentious semi-autobiographical film based on real events. This says a lot, given it’s about rock’n’roll and a young journalist making his early break with Rolling Stone magazine. Directed by, and in some ways experienced by filmmaker Cameron Crowe, this movie takes the viewer into this joy-filled coming of age journey with a star-studded cast of talent including Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Jason Lee, Patrick Fugit, Zooey Deschanel, Anna Paquin, Faruza Balk, Philip Seymour Hoffman and even Kate Hudson… making this the one and only film I openly recommend others see, starring her. That too, says a lot about the quality of this film.

04. BADLANDS

In 1973, Terrence Malick made his directorial debut with BADLANDS, a fictionalized account of the Starkweather-Fugate killing spree of 1958. The character of Kit as played by Martin Sheen is a small-town loser and dreamer, a failed garbage man. He is also a man without a moral compass, who feels he can do what he pleases. Holly, played by Cissy Spacek, is a 15-year-old woman-child, a soul-less, unfeeling creature who falls under Kit’s spell. Once together, it doesn’t take them long to embark on a murderous crime spree across the High Plains. The pacing of the film is slow and languid; the cinematography wondrous. The land in BADLANDS the Plains, is actually physically rich and productive. But the open physical space serves as a metaphor for the barren, direction-less America that spawns this amoral duo that Spacek and Sheen play to perfection. In BADLANDS the viewer is drawn slowly in to the killer’s odd personalities and thoughts. Only to find that in the end, there’s not much there, the people are empty.

03. SCHINDLER’S LIST

How can you really write anything about SCHINDLER’S LIST that remotely captures the power of this film? During the Nazi’s reign over the Jews, a greedy businessman transforms into an unlikely hero by turning his warehouse into a safe place of hiding to escape the horrors of being taken in by their terrorizing Nazi army. Oskar Schindler ended up saving around 1100 people from being taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp and being gassed. He stood up, despite the repercussions to help those in need. Steven Spielberg did an amazing job of capturing the terrifying tale, and telling it with the care, delicacy and power that it deserves.

02. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

Wasn’t it frowned upon to pick up hitchhikers in the 70′s? Five teenagers make that mistake and end up paying dearly for it in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974). What makes this film even more terrifying is that the story is based on notorious serial killer Ed Gein. Gein did where human skin as a means to fill his desire to be a woman, rather than to just hide a skin condition or hideous face. Not only did he wear skin on his face, he also wore a vest of skin, as well as other various skin fashions. The content in the house (in the film) is very similar to what they found in Gein’s house. The film just brings the horrors of Gein to light.

01. MUNICH

MUNICH is Steven Spielberg’s thriller about the Israeli act of reprisal against Palestinian assassins for the murder of 11 participants in Munich’s Olympic Games of 1972. This is not your average revenge film, it’s much more than that. It opens ethical questions and dilemmas on several issues. Even the characters feel remorse for what they do and end up questioning if they are doing the right thing. MUNICH is a powerhouse of a drama, thanks to Tony Kushner and Eric Roth’s thought provoking, intelligent screenplay and Spielberg’s incisive, tightly disciplined direction. The movie doesn’t wander off into side alleys or irrelevancies but stays intimately focused on the characters as they go through the grim business of hunting down suspects, detonating explosives and even engaging in challenging moral discussions from time to time. Spielberg makes every moment count, whether it be showing us the intricate step-by-step process through which these men eliminate their targets or capturing a man’s moment of joy and anguish as he talks on the phone to the little daughter he’s never met.