My Top Ten Hats In Movies

I’ve been lazy with these Top Ten Lists lately so it’s time to make a bit of an effort again. Here are My Top Ten Hats In Movies.

This is a pretty simple list & not exactly as creative as My Top Ten Carpets & Rugs In Movies but, thanks to discussing this one with my husband, he came up with the most creative answer (in the below Honorable Mentions). Other than that, I don’t think there are many big surprises – I’ve gone with some very well-known & iconic hats. I’ve also included one helmet but have drawn the line at full face masks, etc (so I’m not including things like Darth Vader’s helmet – that would open a huge can of worms).

As ALWAYS, these are my own personal favorites as opposed to what I think are “the best”. I like what I like. 🙂 But it means that some big ones will of course be left out. Feel free to add any more you can think of in the comments!

Here are My Top Ten Hats In Movies:

10. The Babadook in The Babadook

9. TIE: The Wicked Witch Of The West in The Wizard Of Oz & The Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter films

8. Mei Kusakabe in My Neighbor Totoro

7. Pvt J.T. “Joker” Davis in Full Metal Jacket

6. Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Fantasia

5. All those hats in The Prestige…

4. The bras on the heads in Weird Science

3. Wayne Campbell in Wayne’s World 1 & 2

2. Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp in various films

1. Indiana Jones in the Indiana Jones trilogy (& that other one…)

**Honorable Mentions:**

Woody & Jessie in the Toy Story films

Freddy Krueger in the A Nightmare On Elm Street films

The Mad Hatter in Alice In Wonderland

Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange

Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins

Bonnie Parker in Bonnie & Clyde

And, finally…

Bonnie Rayburn’s ass in City Slickers

(Okay – I better include the quote for those who haven’t seen City Slickers. Which everyone should see, by the way!! Love it.) 😉

Bonnie Rayburn: [walking by] Good night! I’m going to bed.
Mitch Robbins: [smiling widely at her] Good night! Sleep tight.
[Bonnie smiles and waves]
Ed Furillo: [to Mitch] That was flirting.
Mitch Robbins: No, that was… politeness. That was “have a pleasant and restful evening.”
Ed Furillo: No, that was “I like your ass. Can I wear it as a hat?”

And, yes, I’ve left A LOT of hats out of my Top Ten. For the record, I did think of these…

Lawrence Of Arabia, Curious George’s man in the yellow hat, Dumbledore, V for Vendetta, Fargo, The Blues Brothers, Gandalf, The Mask, The Joker, Maleficent, Magneto, Audrey Hepburn’s various stylish hats, Elf, The Three Amigos, Dread Pirate Roberts, The Scarecrow & The Tin Man in The Wizard Of Oz, The Smurfs, Clint Eastwood in various Westerns, Fred Astaire in Top Hat, The Cat In The Hat, Oddjob’s bowler hat in James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Santa Claus in various films, Singin’ In The Rain, The Wild Ones, Jack Sparrow, Abraham Lincoln in various films, Robin Hood, Crocodile Dundee, The Seven Dwarfs, Rambo, John Wayne in various Westerns, The Pink Panther, Princess Mononoke, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Logray’s pig hat & Wicket’s balaclava

Now there’s really no other way to end this post than with the Tom Jones You Can Leave Your Hat On clip from The Full Monty: 🙂

My Top Ten Toilet Scenes In Movies

Yep, I’m going there! Sort of. I’m not normally a fan of “toilet humor”. I find the loads of poop scenes that Hollywood squeezes out to be gross & only occasionally funny. This was originally going to be My Top Ten Poop Scenes but I didn’t know how to go about ranking that. Would I rank them by humor or by gross-out factor? I found that, in the end, there just weren’t ten poop scenes that I enjoyed enough to compile into a list. So I decided to wipe that idea & start out fresh.

As a companion piece to my most-viewed post, My Top Ten Shower & Bath Scenes In Movies, this list will contain scenes that all involve a toilet in some way. As in, that thing you sit on (or stand in front of if you’re a guy). Outhouses also count as do public toilet stalls. In some cases, poop may be involved. I guess I should move onto sinks next & then I’ll have the whole bathroom covered! 🙂 (Hmm… that came out sounding a bit like another poop joke).

Anyway! Here are My Top Ten Toilet Scenes In Movies:

Honorable Mention:

– Headhunters

This deserves a mention as, although I’ve been planning this top ten list for a while, I decided it was time to finally post it after reviewing Headhunters with Laura of Filmnerdblog on Monday (our review chat is HERE). Very good Norwegian movie with an extremely disgusting outhouse scene!

10. TIE: Dead Snow & Night Of The Creeps

There are so many horror movies with bathroom scenes! I guess I prefer the ones that are more horror/comedy. These are two of the first scenes I thought of when I decided to do this list and I have to say that the Dead Snow outhouse scene was hilariously gross (mainly for the finger-sucking as he’d JUST wiped himself. NASTY!)

9. TIE: Witness & Lethal Weapon 2

These both deserve to be much higher on the list so I’ll explain why they aren’t. I immediately thought of Lethal Weapon as it’s such a famous scene. In fact, it’s the only scene I remember from any Lethal Weapon movies & I had to Google which one the scene was actually in (number 2! how appropriate). As for Witness, this is the closest I’ve come to “cheating” on one of my lists as, in doing a search for toilet scenes online, I “re-discovered” this one. I didn’t remember this scene at all from when I saw this years ago but after watching it on YouTube I couldn’t leave it off the list. The scene is intense. And, holy shit, the whole movie is based on what happens in that bathroom. Plus… Danny Glover was in the Witness scene too! What?! Okay, I seriously need to re-watch both of these movies.

8. Arachnophobia

The shower scene in this gets all the attention, of course, but I think I was more disturbed by the spider under the lid of the toilet seat while the dad was sitting on it. To this day, I sometimes check under toilet seats for spiders. Seriously. Thanks a lot, Arachnophobia!

7. Full Metal Jacket

Disturbing scene but certainly memorable. (But I still prefer Vincent D’Onofrio as Thor in Adventures In Babysitting) 😉

6. Despicable Me

I adore this movie & certain scenes still crack me up every single time. This is one of them. I love when Gru is explaining his evil plan & turns the page to find the drawing the girls did of him on the toilet. I love those girls. 🙂

5. Monsters, Inc

And… Monsters, Inc! Another movie that I adore as much as Despicable Me. It’s cute when we see them all hiding in the toilet stall as Randall kicks the door open yet doesn’t see them all hiding there.

4. Jurassic Park

Again, this scene was one of the first that I thought of. I’ve realized that most in my list don’t involve actually using the toilets for their intended purpose! They’re clearly a good place to hide. Except from dinosaurs, I guess…

3. The Goonies

I was always confused by this scene. I mean, would it actually be possible for water pressure to cause a toilet to blow up into the air like that? Plus, the guy is clearly sitting on the toilet with underwear on. How do you poop through your underwear??

2. The Godfather

When I thought of toilets in movies, I thought of their different uses. Such as… Hiding things in or behind the tank. I swear there are several scenes like this (one movie has someone hiding money in the tank – is it Pretty Woman?? Not sure). Anyway, the gun hidden behind the toilet tank in The Godfather was the best one I could think of.

1. Trainspotting

Obviously. Ewan McGregor’s toilet swim is famous. Or infamous? Well, it’s super gross but no one who has seen the scene will ever forget it.

Some That Didn’t Make The List (but I did think of them):

– Fast Times At Ridgemont High (since it’s already on my list of My Top Five Movie Scenes Of Self-Pleasure, of course)
– The Big Lebowski
– Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
– Slumdog Millionaire
– Scream 2
– Pulp Fiction
– Saw

Now let’s end this with some scenes actually involving poop that I did find amusing:

– Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (“You sank my battleshit!” I love the Harold & Kumar movies)
– Bad Grandpa (sorry, but the shart up the wall was pretty damn funny)
– American Pie (not the best poop scene EVER but a pretty funny movie overall so I’ll give it some credit)
– The Help (there’s a lot involving actual toilets in this movie but I saved it for the “poop list” as the actual “shit” scene is awesome – loved it!)
– Caddyshack (okay, it’s not actually poop plus I already included it in My Top Ten Swimming Pool Scenes In Movies)

By the way, I don’t believe I ever actually saw all of Ghoulies…

My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2014

Hi everyone! Crap – when did it suddenly become almost-2015?! Shouldn’t we be living on Mars by now or something? This isn’t the future I imagined back in 1984. What a disappointment.

Anyway! Where was I? Well, it looks like I have two days left of 2014 so I guess I better post my Top Ten Lists! Looks like I did this well into January last year but I’ll be busy this January with my Studio Ghibli Month starting next Monday. Woohoo! (Oh man, why did I decide to do that to myself?! I’m sooo not prepared!).

I’ll start with the list I actually enjoy the most: These are My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2014. Tomorrow I’ll post My Top Ten Movies Of 2014 (going by UK cinema release date). Then I may do My Top Books Read In 2014 on New Year’s Day – that’s a pathetic list since I didn’t read much this year. I’ll stop rambling – here’s my list counting down from ten to my number one favorite. As always, these are the ones I enjoyed the most although there are others I watched that are probably more “worthy” and I’d give those higher ratings. I’ve included the links to the ones I’ve reviewed. 🙂

10. Spring Breakers

This probably doesn’t deserve to be on the list, but… You know when you like a movie but you have NO idea WHY?? This is one of those movies for me.

9. TRON: Legacy

I know it has its flaws but I don’t care – I had a lot of fun with this one. Plus: Garrett Hedlund! He’s so pretty… Also: DAFT PUNK SCORE!

8. Phantom Of The Paradise

What’s not to like about Brian De Palma’s totally 1970s Faustian rock opera horror film?? Okay… Most of you went “WTF?” in the comments of my review but I do appreciate when a good discussion gets going on an interesting film like this one (thank you, Man In Black! I’ll get to the rest of your comments soon – I’ve just been taking a blog break over Xmas). 😉

7. The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari

I’m surprised by how little I knew of this classic before watching it this year. Not only was the style of the whole film amazing but I thought the story was also ahead of its time. Every film lover should watch this movie.

6. Kiki’s Delivery Service

This is one of several Studio Ghibli films I watched this year but I never got around to reviewing any of them, which is partly why I’m going to review a bunch of them together in January. I like the simplicity of this one. It’s the most “child-friendly” Ghibli I’ve seen so far and it’s one that really grew on me after watching it a couple of times.

5. Bernie

I like doing these lists at the end of the year because I find that some movies really grow on me & end up much higher on the list than I would have expected. Bernie is one of these movies. I’ve always been a fan of Richard Linklater’s style and I’m not sure why I hadn’t checked this one out until this year. I’m also not sure why it seems to have not received as much attention as some of his other films considering that the story is quite fascinating, especially the ongoing story involving Linklater & the real-life Bernie. I’m still amazed by the whole situation…

4. Full Metal Jacket

As I always say, I’m NOT a fan of war movies. However, I’ve worked my way through most of the war movies in the IMDB Top 250 and ended up loving a lot of them (The Bridge On The River Kwai and The Great Escape being my favorites). I didn’t love Full Metal Jacket as much as those and the first half was far better than the second half but I still really liked the film. I may have to stop saying I’m not a fan of war movies…

3. Daft Punk’s Electroma

I like Daft Punk. And sci-fi. And cool robots. And “artsy fartsy”. I loved Electroma. So sue me. (Btw – thank you to the whole five commenters on the review for this! Lol! More than I expected… 😉 I’ll catch up on replying to comments on this blog soon!)

2. The Return Of The Living Dead

I love zombies. And I especially love the 80s. I have no idea why I never saw this one before now but it’s certainly one that’s a new favorite I’ll re-visit every now & then.

1. Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind

Obviously, I’m a fan of Studio Ghibli films as I’m dedicating a whole month to them. But there are maybe four or five Ghibli films I LOVE (so far) while the rest I just “really like” so I still wouldn’t call myself the biggest Ghibli fan compared to other people out there. However, Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind really blew me away. (Ha! “Blew” me away… Blow away? Wind? Get it? Okay, it really wasn’t that funny). This was like some weird sort of mash up of the later, more well known Ghibli stuff and 1981’s Heavy Metal. It’s post-apocalyptic and fairly violent for a Ghibli and very much not for young kids. I LOVED IT. It’s so very “me” and I can’t wait to review it for Studio Ghibli Month.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Like I said, the above are the ones I enjoyed the most but I watched a lot of other very good films that really deserve a mention as well:

City Of God
Marnie
Blue Is The Warmest Color
Night Of The Creeps
Rashômon
Howl’s Moving Castle

You can see my full list of movies watched in 2014 HERE. Sad, I know… 🙂

Magic Mike (2012) Review

You may be aware that The IPC was taken over this week by these lovely ladies: Zoe, Smash, and Cara (or should I say Miguel?? I don’t want to piss him off!). 😉

Anyway, Eric stupidly kindly agreed to let me take over today. The fool! So I posted about a shitty movie full of half naked men. You can read my review of Magic Mike HERE.

Full Metal Jacket (1987) IMDB Top 250 Review

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Starring:
Matthew Modine
Adam Baldwin
Vincent D’Onofrio
Lee Ermey
Dorian Harewood
Arliss Howard
Kevyn Major Howard
Ed O’Ross

Running time: 116 minutes

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
Full Metal Jacket is based on Gustav Hasford’s 1979 novel The Short-Timers. The story follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their training and the experiences of two of the platoon’s Marines in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The film’s title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by infantry riflemen.

My Opinion:

Yes – it’s me! I’m finally doing my own IMDB Top 250 review since asking guest reviewers to help me out with the movies I’d already seen. Thanks again for all your contributions – it’s been far too easy for me to be lazy and just post your reviews but I realized that I’m now way behind on my goal of watching the rest of the 250 as this is only the second movie I’ve watched for this so far this year (the last being City Of God in January, which I reviewed for Cara over at Silver Screen Serenade HERE).

So… Here I am having watched another damn war movie for this project. All along I’ve said that what I’m looking forward to the least is watching all the war movies & Westerns in the Top 250. So I decided to get a bunch of them out of the way and, I’ll be damned – they’ve all been pretty freaking fantastic! Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid was fun, Once Upon A Time In The West was beautiful & had a kick ass score, The Great Escape was OH MY GOD SO GOOD, and The Bridge On The River Kwai was the best of all & ended up being one of my absolute favorite films I watched in 2013. I like a lot of Kubrick films (The Shining being a personal favorite) so I decided it was about time I see if Full Metal Jacket was as good as the other war movies & Westerns I’d been dreading watching. Well… No, unfortunately. I don’t think it quite lives up to the rest (although I did enjoy it more than the Westerns I’ve watched so far).

First of all, I did enjoy the first part of this film where they’re in training before they go to Vietnam. R Lee Ermey was brilliant as the Sergeant shouting the absolute best insults at everyone. Man I wish I could go around insulting people like that! Especially in the workplace – how cool would it be to talk to your co-workers like that?? “Five-foot-nine, I didn’t know they stacked shit that high!” (And that’s by far the least offensive quote of his that I can safely put in this review). Vincent D’Onofrio was good in this, although it was very obvious where that storyline was headed. I really only knew him from Men In Black & as “Thor” before watching this so it was interesting seeing him here (yes – Thor. If anyone gets what I’m on about, you’re my new best friend). I’ve actually not seen Matthew Modine in that much & I really liked his “Private Joker” character in this. He gives a solid performance, as does everyone, but I wouldn’t say any of the acting really stood out in this movie in the way we got some brilliant performances in other war movies such as The Deer Hunter, The Bridge On The River Kwai, and Platoon. I suppose a lot of that was due to the directing & the way Kubrick approached the topic of war, which I’ll try to go into now.

War movies (the ones I’ve seen, anyway) always try to show you the horrors of war & how terrifying and harrowing it is. Full Metal Jacket does a slightly better job of this in the beginning before they even head off to war but, overall, it takes a much “colder” approach to it all. This is very much Kubrick’s style, though, and I do think it’s a good film & another worthy classic from him (you can see the list I did of My Top Stanley Kubrick Movies HERE – I’d probably add Full Metal Jacket in at five but it’s close with number four). But it meant I felt very detached from these characters so it didn’t feel like it was as effective as a “war movie” as those I mentioned above. I guess it depends on what you want out of a movie – I know this is widely loved but I’d take The Deer Hunter over this, a movie in which you felt for the characters and how they were so obviously deeply affected by their war experiences.

Full Metal Jacket is very much like A Clockwork Orange – humans are what they are and no excuses are made for those who engage in violent activity, some of whom thoroughly enjoy it and feel no remorse for their actions. At least with Full Metal Jacket we get to see a little bit of a differing opinion from the likes of Modine’s Private Joker, who wears a peace symbol (whether this is truly a belief of his or if it’s just another way for him to live up to his nickname). We never REALLY know for sure and, by the end of the film, you’re kind of just left with a “Yeah, war sucks and some people are animals. So what?” kind of feeling. This movie is a little too “cool” in that you have things like the “Me so horny” hooker bit and all the Sergeant’s thoroughly inappropriate insults, making this a movie I often heard quoted by the teenage boys I went to high school with. It’s not like I ever heard them quote anything from The Deer Hunter. I’m not saying that Full Metal Jacket exactly glorifies war. It’s just that, in typical Kubrick style, it doesn’t necessarily say it’s a bad thing either. It just is what it is.

Summary:

Full Metal Jacket is a definite Kubrick Classic but the cold approach to the topic meant I didn’t warm to any of the characters and the movie therefore didn’t pack the same emotional punch that you get from other war classics in the IMDB Top 250. The pre-Vietnam scenes are the strongest with very good but ultimately somewhat forgettable performances from Matthew Modine & Vincent D’Onofrio. It’s a very quotable film with some iconic scenes – I did like it but it’s perhaps a little too much “fun” at times, much like a Tarantino film or something like Scarface. It doesn’t exactly discourage violence but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it glorifies war (it’s not as borderline “irresponsible” as you could argue A Clockwork Orange is). This was definitely worth the watch but, if you want a more serious take on the horrors of war, I’d probably recommend a different war movie.

My Rating: 8/10