If you’re in the northeastern United States, chances are it looks like the fantasy sequence from that new Gregg Araki film. Thus, it is the perfect time to queue up some films, make some hot cocoa and popcorn, and comment “You’re the worst” on every social media post from someone who feels the need to brag that they’re experiencing warmer weather. (You know who you are.) So, Jake Pitre and I took it upon ourselves to pick three films for your blizzard times. Without further ado, here are some snow storm worthy movies.
Kyle’s Picks
Blizzards and snow storms are great for cuddling with your significant others or friends and popping in a cute movie. When you don’t have either of those, they’re great for honing your bitterness, cynicism, and feeling dead inside, or repressing what little life is left in you with some fast talking screwball comedy that idealizes a romantic life you’ll never get to experience because you’re too busy binging Mad Men and eating subpar chocolate cake. Therefore, it would behoove you to perpetuate your bitter attitude and watch the following films in your dorm or apartment by yourself, since the person you paid $45 to cuddle with you for an hour canceled last minute.
Bringing Up Baby (1938) | Directed by Howard Hawks
Screwball comedies are about sex without the sex, and few were so daring as Hawks’s rapid fire masterpiece about a paleontologist (Cary Grant) whose life is turned upside down by an absentminded socialite (Katherine Hepburn). Why so daring? Hawks always had an interested in the codes of masculinity, and it’s curious to have one of the best line readings in cinematic history (Grant jumps up in a pink, fluffy bathrobe and exclaims, “I just went gay all of a sudden!”) juxtaposed against a more rigid idea of marriage and gender roles (hats off to the line, “Well, we tried to put it in the tail, but it didn’t fit.”) Manic doesn’t necessarily translate as “hot”, but the bouncy chemistry between Grant and Hepburn is always warm; even warm enough to heat up the space where your heart should be.
Annie Hall (1977) | Directed by Woody Allen
Is it really a romantic film? you might ask, and it’s a fair question. Surely Allen’s most well-known film can be read as an auto-critique of how he, or any of us, act in relationships, but as Plato once said, It’s better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all. It works as a nice balance to an idealized manic screwball dynamic, kind of a vaguely comedic version of Gone Girl; an effort to dispel any desire to be in a relationship ever. But, as soon as Diane Keaton croons “Seems Like Old Times”, you realize, Maybe there is something about romance. And then you stuff your face with more pasta.
Pushing Daisies (2007-2008) | Created by Bryan Fuller
Whimsical, heartbreaking, funny, fast talking, musical, and heartwarming, Bryan Fuller’s short lived show isn’t technically a film, but it’s so short lived, lasting only two seasons, it might as well be one. It’s like Wes Anderson meets Tim Burton meets Howard Hawks meets Lars von Trier meets Jean-Pierre Jeunet, all blended together and served up by Fuller. Meet Ned, the Piemaker who can bring people back to life, and his band of outsiders who solve murders in the quaint town of Coeur d’Coeurs. Part of it comes across merely as a colorfully droll fantasy procedural, but the greatness of Pushing Daisies is its playfulness with screwball tropes, deconstructing conventions like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and those twee romances. There’s genuine fervor and compassion in the central romance between Ned (Lee Pace) and his childhood sweetheart Chuck (Anna Friel), and the show floats on their charm.
Jake’s Picks
I always loved snow days when I was a kid. Sure, you didn’t have to go to school, but that also meant you could watch whatever you wanted. You didn’t have to move all day. The best thing to watch on a day like that is something you’ve been meaning to watch for a while. Something you know you love, so that among the whiteness you can disappear, for a time. Don’t you like to disappear?
Singin’ in the Rain (1952) | Directed by Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen
When I’m snowed in, I want a movie with some comfort (and there’s been plenty of lists online already groan-inducingly listing films like The Shining and The Day After Tomorrow). Something with substance, but easy to watch and get lost in. This may seem like a similarly weather-inspired choice, but Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s Singin’ in the Rain is one of those movies that is just comfortable because it is so dependably enjoyable each and every time, never losing any of its initial magic. You get enveloped in the remarkable choreography, you get your pants charmed off with the wit and humour, you can’t help but smile for the full 100 minutes. How do you adapt to change? I don’t know, but luckily this movie will never change. Breezy but biting in its own way, there’s no better musical and no better way to spend a day stuck inside.
Coraline (2009) | Directed by Henry Selick
Animated films are always a reliable way to cheer yourself up, perfectly fitting into the genre of ‘comfort food’. I appreciate Henry Selick’s Coraline in particular, though, because it has a genuinely scary edge to it that separates it from the rest. With its candy-coloured compositions and dry affectations, it reminds me of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (another option to watch while snowed in), though less cynical and more frightening. It is about the reality we have and the one we yearn to have, showing us the magical consequences of what happens when you aren’t careful what you wish for. More than that, though, it is a vibrant expression of exciting artistry and a fantastic platform for a spunky heroine full of some welcome attitude.
John Wick (2014) | Directed by Chad Stahelski & David Leitch
What’s better when you’re stuck inside on a cold day than an unbelievably fun action movie? In Chad Stahelski and David Leitch’s debut film, Keanu Reeves plays John Wick, the perfect character for him: he kills people with balletic precision, walks around full of angst and doesn’t say much, but when he does, he makes it count. Stahelski and Leitch trust the audience to make connections, rare in an action film, and it’s all choreographed so elegantly (one could write an ill-advised thinkpiece arguing whether John Wick or Singin’ in the Rain has superior choreography). It knows exactly what it wants to be and hits every note with slick execution, and there is certainly some comfort to be found in that.