One Mutha of a Film Festival, Day 2

As mentioned in an earlier post (See "One Mutha of a Film Festival") I have been thinking about which movies I might pick to show if given the chance. Night one was a kind of can't live without 'em group. Day 2 is devoted to MEN. It features five movies in which male characters are putting their own special stamp on what it is to be a man, and being all sorts of hot while doing it.

Tha Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
I'm not a very big John Wayne fan (although The Quiet Man could also make it on this list), but he is great in this story about how men sort out their use of violence as a means of power. Did you know he had such a pinko plot in him? Yeah, all this and Jimmy Stewart too.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Who knew cowboys and outlaws had such an effect on me? Ah Well, there is something about how they squint into the wind. Any who: I would watch this movie with the sound off, simply to oggle Redford and Newman as the true eye-candy they could be. That is, if they weren't such damned good actors. The story has a great blend of light-handed comedy, amazing landscape, and a great chase (even if it does last the whole movie). A welcomed chance to root for the underdogs and pull for the banditos.

Citizen Kane
A classic of course, and something to love and admire for many reasons -- but I inlcude it here because it holds an haunting theme concerning the lengths a man might go to convince himself he has grabbed destiny by the balls. And Orson Wells is a heart-stopper. Although not really attractive in a conventional sense, lets just say I can see how he got a fox like Eartha Kitt.

The Graduate
Having a crush on Dustin Hoffman at 12 (when I first saw this movie) seemed to have left a mighty impression, and set a course towards all the anti-hero men I would be attracted to in this lifetime. There is legitimate heat between Hoffman and Bancroft as well, which makes everything cook along, inside and out. The "grown-ups" are all mean or dumb in this one and somehow, Hoffman's discomfort with the world around him manages to transcend its sixties context. What could end up dated at this point, still speaks to the larger questions every boy has to ask in order to figure out the kind of man he wants to be.

West Side Story
Handsome, misunderstood hoodlums. What's not to love? Along side the musical score, (which is, of course, flawless), and a plot that can still make me cry, there is the incredibly beautiful, incredibly sexy Jerome Robbins' choreography. Because, what is more killer than tough young men? Tough young men who can dance.