Five Favorite Films with Jon Cryer
The Two and a Half Men star talks about his latest film projects.
Two time Emmy winner Jon Cryer is one of the funniest men on TV, with Two and a Half Men still enjoying success in its tenth season. But we've also enjoyed his quite memorable film work for years. No child of the 1980s can forget his "Duckie Dance" in Pretty in Pink, Hot Shots! still makes us laugh, and some of us fondly recall him as a punk rocker in the Penelope Spheeris film Dudes. Now, after a DVD release of his stage performance in Stephen Sondheim's Company and the upcoming Sundance debut of Ass Backwards with Casey Wilson, June Raphael, Alicia Silverstone and Vincent D'Onofrio, this terrific talent was gracious enough to take some time out and discuss his Five Favorite Films.
Jon, like all of us, had difficulty pinpointing just five. During the discussion, he thought to switch in one of his runners up: Toy Story, The Iron Giant, Brazil, The Terminator, Broadway Danny Rose, Annie Hall and the original Rollerball: "Come on," he says, "the original Rollerball holds up f---king great and it's such a shame that the remake was so terrible, and it's weird that nobody watches the original Rollerball anymore. I don't see it playing and it holds up great." Instead, here are the Five that he ultimately settled on:
Goodfellas
(Martin Scorsese, 1990; 97% Tomatometer)
It is one of the most effective and, in my mind, realistic gangster movies ever made in that it shows you what the allure of that criminal life is, but it also shows how petty and dangerous and stupid it is. But all the time you're dragged along. It has this incredible compelling force that drags you along whether you want to go or not. And, I think, a beautiful and brutal use of comedy along with absolute horror and fear and moments of sort of operatic beauty, like when they open up the back of the truck with the Eric Clapton song, and the camera goes in to find one of the dead gang members. That mixed with these incredible moments of subtlety like when Ray Liotta realizes that Robert De Niro may well be setting him up. It's just this tiny little moment. It's great because it's incredibly small, mixed with these incredibly big things. And they shoot Michael Imperioli in the foot. You know, come on, that's wonderful.
All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979; 87% Tomatometer)
A great, great movie that was unjustly robbed of a lot of the recognition it would have gotten, but it came out in the year of amazing other movies, you know, like Apocalypse Now and a lot of other great stuff. To this date it is the most accurate portrayal of theater folk and what it's like to produce and be part of theater. As a theater geek all my life, I was hoping that Smash would be like that, and boy it's not. All That Jazz nailed it, just in terms of the reality of it. But again, it would go off into those fantasies that still totally worked, and worked as incredible dance numbers, but you know, were clearly fantasy numbers inside one of the most realistic portrayals of that subculture that had never been put on screen. It's f---ing perfect. It's just f---ing perfect. It's great because it's funny, it's cynical about the theater but also clearly loves the subject matter. You know, I grew up backstage -- my parents were actors -- and it just captures that world absolutely incredibly accurately. Plus, it's just a really ballsy, artistic movie from Bob Fosse in that it incorporates a lot of strange stuff, but all of it works.
Aliens (James Cameron, 1986; 98% Tomatometer)
Not Alien, which is great, but doesn't quite hold up, partially because there is a couple of special effects issues. The chest-burster, as originally conceived, just doesn't work anymore. But Aliens is, in my mind, the perfectly constructed thriller. People forget that it starts off real slow. I mean, there's like 40 minutes of quiet. And then all of a sudden you can't leave your seat. It's beautifully constructed in terms of, every time you think that they're gonna get some respite, they get a moment to get their stuff together and maybe get out of this, things get worse and yet they somehow keep going. It was one of the most pure moviegoing experiences I've ever had. I loved every minute of it and it made me feel lucky to be an audience member. You can't get around an experience like that.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(Steven Spielberg, 1977; 95% Tomatometer)
A beautifully done movie that now, unfortunately, tragically, as a parent you watch and has a very troubling ending. But I have to say as a kid when I saw it and I was unburdened with having my own children, it was absolutely transporting and, again, an incredibly subtle piece of work. Richard Dreyfuss and Teri Garr's relationship falling apart, and Melinda Dillon's journey... It's full of wonderful, subtle acting in a movie that a lot of people thought was about spectacle, and it's so not. And you can see the enormous influence that that movie had on all the big sci-fi movies after it. Nobody has quite duplicated the amazing sound design on it. People have tried -- I mean that movie Twister, there were moments in it I looked around and was going "They're totally doing Close Encounters." People can try it, and try to mix that reality with the more spectacular stuff, but people have a very hard time achieving it. It's really a very simple story. He believes something that his wife doesn't believe. But it's done so kitchen-sink and perfect and so influenced by the films of the '70s with the overlapping dialogue and a very vérité sort of style to it. Also, when Spielberg wants to put on a show, he really can.
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979; 99% Tomatometer)
Apocalypse Now is sort of a fever dream of a movie. When you watch the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, you suddenly understand what everybody went through while they were making that thing, and what a huge, unruly beast they got involved with, not even knowing what the movie was going to be. Everybody just decided to be a part of it even though it was just this evolving daily disaster. That being said, it is an amazing tribute to the film, that the beautiful cohesive piece that it is, is what emerged from that craziness. So many scenes that are just so memorable, the amazing lines, and how it just totally transformed war movies because it would have those incredibly realistic moments but also, you know, the huge "Ride of the Valkyries" helicopter attack. And it's amazing that it worked at all, you know, besides the fact that it actually managed to work beautifully.
Did the film become more powerful to you after you saw the documentary?
Yes. And I've never seen the re-cut version that's floating around that is an even longer version, which I don't particularly need to see. But yes, it definitely seems... I loved the movie before that, and always thought it was an amazing piece of work, just in terms that it captured war in this incredibly realistic way, but also in this incredibly metaphorical way that was great. But yes, definitely seeing the documentary increased my fascination with it. To know that Martin Sheen was going through horrible health problems through all of it, to know that they didn't know where the ending was going, to understand that Brando was just such a nutbag during the course of it that they had to feed him his lines with an earwig. And yet, you can watch those scenes and, even though you know they're feeding it to him for each sentence because the man cannot be bothered to remember a sentence of his lines, it still works and it's so surreal. It's just an amazing piece of work.
Next, Cryer talks about Company and Ass Backwards.
Janson Jinnistan
Can't argue with that list. Out of all of them, "All That Jazz" is the one more people need to check out. Amazing movie. (Would it help you fanboy punks if I told you there's a nude dance by Sandahl Bergman?)
But I disagree about "Alien". I still prefer it (and think the chest-burst is just fine), but its sequel is still a classic in its own right.
No Charlie Sheen though. Not a Ferris Bueller fan, Duckie?
Jan 22 - 04:26 PM
Big Brother
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Jan 22 - 06:05 PM
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Jan 28 - 10:46 AM
Andreas Babs
Yeah Alien will remain the better movie for me 100%. It's one of my all time favorites. I don't know how he thinks it doesn't hold up. If anything, I'm stunned as to how well it holds up.
But it's his list, and I can see why people would prefer Aliens (since both movies are so different in their own right).
Otherwise it's a great list!
Jan 23 - 07:31 AM
John Dooms
They're different films. Aliens is a wonderful extension of the original. When it came out I remember thinking "You mean there's going to be more than ONE of those things?" The idea alone scared the hell out of me.
Jan 23 - 03:27 PM