Ten Films I Just Like Hanging Out With

Monday is about movies. And sometimes TV. Today it's 10 films I just like hanging out with - all films I love, but particularly fun to rewatch, have on in the background, introduce to people...

We rewatched Death Proof last week – because I’ve been going through all the Tarantino films again; my opinion of them changes each time I watch them, just when I thought I was done with Pulp Fiction (overseen, etc) it becomes such a favourite all over again. I liked Inglourious Basterds finally too. Had never been able to deal with that film, beyond its brilliant first 25 minutes. But this time it got me. It stuck. Some scenes are still pulverising in their slow-crawl and a few are just too much, too slow, largely irrelevant – but I enjoyed it right through for the first time ever.

And what I realised about Death Proof is that it’s a really fun movie to hang out with…and I say that as someone who has always quite liked the film. Again, it’s got sequences that miss, its indulgence is obvious (as is always the way with QT) but it’s a lot of fun. And taken in that spirit you’ll have a good time with it.

Sometimes I like to think I’m hanging out with films. Re-watching them to reconnect with them, in the same way you might have several drinks with an old buddy when they come to town.

So, here’s my current Top 10 Movies To Have Fun Hanging Out With:

1. Wayne’s World

I just love this silly, wonderful film. I know it inside out. Besides, if you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of “Tide”. Cassandra and her band. Meat Loaf and Alice Cooper. The Shitty Beatles. We Got $5000. Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? Mil-a-wah-kay. A gun rack? I don’t even *a* gun, let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack. What am I gonna do…with a gun rack?

2. Enter The Dragon

Martial arts films are wonderful movies to put on in the background, especially if you have seen them a bunch of times. I’m not even sure how many times I’ve seen Enter The Dragon, but I know I saw it once in a live audience with a band of musicians making a whole new live soundtrack for it; I’d already seen it a bunch of times then. There are others that I like hanging out with – but this one has a superb score, and it’s symbolic as the Bruce Lee film for first timers – a great introduction.

3. The Lost Boys

More on this some other time – but I’ve come to realise, just recently, this is one of my all-time favourite movies. Now, that doesn’t necessarily need to be the case for listing a movie you like hanging out with – but it’s a good starting point. I have the graphic novel, the film on DVD, the soundtrack on vinyl and CD, the novelisation, and the T-shirt. So, yeah, I’m a fan. Rewatching this one always brings memories of the first time watching it, huddled around a TV with my brother and my cousins, watching it as if we were sneaking secrets, getting to see something we shouldn’t. It was only on frequent screenings that you realise this is about as PG as a horror can get. Formative though, and still such fun.

4. This is Spinal Tap

Showing this to people that haven’t seen it before. Watching it after hours in a boardroom with office colleagues. Seeing it on the big screen as part of a festival. Watching it so many times with friends. And then, of course, for the very first time – we were all a bit worried in our student flat how it might go down if we smoked a few cones, since my aunty was staying. A mate said we could be discreet, she’d never notice. Well, instead, she laughed at the tiny pipe, and brought out her own device – bevelled from a bed-leg – and proceeded to remove our heads entirely.

5. A Nightmare on Elm Street

I might prefer the 3^rd film, The Dream Warriors, but the first Elm Street film is the best one to hang out with, the one that is the most fun to re-watch. I’ll put this on and just kick back, do a little work, or sit and soak it all up again. It’s such a perfect horror film of its time. Sets up the franchise. Creates a mood. Has great special effects that still stand up. And introduces the best villain in horror. The funniest. The coolest. The creepiest. Somehow, he just happened to have the most horrific and maniacal of back-stories. Lol.

6. Rumble In The Bronx

It's not my favourite Jackie Chan film, but I think it’s the best to rewatch. If I compiled this list on any other day I might choose Police Story, but I’ve been thinking about showing Oscar this, as a proper intro to Jackie Chan. So I guess this film has been on my mind. Even without seeing it for a few years I still feel like I’m hanging out with it.

7.  Hellbound: Hellraiser II

The Hellraiser films – the first three – had a big impact on me as a 12/13/14-yo. They were weird, horny, creepy films but they just looked fantastic. And played out like some dungeon-filmed music video. I’ve been rewatching them all lately, and trying to make my way through even the straight-to-video volumes that Clive Barker completely denies and disowns (and rightly). But my pick of them all is Hellraiser II. It’s lurid but somehow charmingly so. It feels oddly calming to watch this. It’s like a weird, creepy dream of a film. Almost plotless save for the ‘device’ that frames the whole franchise.

8. They Live

I could probably pick almost any of the John Carpenter films for such a list, but They Live is the one I have the most fun rewatching; the one I enjoy the most to hang out with. That said, I feel like this film becomes more profound with the passing of time, even as it features the best and most absurd on-screen film-fight ever.

9. Jazz on a Summer’s Day

This 1959 concert film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival is pretty much my favourite concert film of all time, and an easy one to hang with…I sometimes just watch clips from it (mostly Anita O’Day’s thrilling brace of songs). But it’s also cool to just watch the crowd in this film, to imagine being there, to enjoy the fashion and style of the time – and the amazing way it’s captured too. So many legends in one film, so many great performances. Thelonious Monk, Mahalia Jackson, Anita, and many more. Even a slightly incongruous Chuck Berry.

10. Planes, Trains and Automobiles

You need a good comedy (or two) on your rewatch/hang-out list. And there are a few here already, but I need to end it with this one – from back in the days when the Oxford comma was taking its well-earned break. I love this movie. It’s one of my favourites ever. And I love the poignancy (however sappy it might actually be) and the joke-ratio. It has a couple of my favourite set-pieces in comedy. And it always feels like a warm film to watch.

So there you go. My first crack at thinking about 10 films I just like hanging out with. Any favourites of yours there? Or what would you include on such a list?