"Alfie" (1966)

The 1960's were the apex of British cool... The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. Twiggy. Carnaby Street. James Bond. 'The Avengers'. And in his career defining role that would catapult him to worldwide fame, there was Michael Caine as Alfie. The personification of the hip, cheeky, devil-may-care attitude every young man of the day aspired to. Alfie is a working class young man with style to spare who's the bad boy ladies man, flitting from one broken heart to the next with nary a regret. Life is too short for him to be weighed down with something so downer as responsibility. And he gets away with it scott free. Why? Because he's so charmingly lovable. A cad, a bounder, but Caine infuses him with so much likability you forgive it. But a good thing doesn't last forever and things take a dramatic turn when Alfie confronts some of the harsh consequences of the life he's been leading. The movie's famous stylistic schtick is Caine breaking the fourth wall to talk the audience, his stream of conscience philosophies sometimes happen in scenes with other characters but they don't notice it. Probably a holdover from the stage play from which it was adapted, in the hands of a lesser actor it might grate, here it sings. There's also a zoftig Shelley Winters in three short scenes, despite her second billing, as a man hungry cougar who teaches Alfie a cold lesson in love. And let's not forget the title song over the end credits, one of the premier masterpieces of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David songbook (it's the composer's personal favorite) sung by that other 60's pop icon Cher!

"Catch-22" (1970)

Is it possible to make a great film from Joseph Heller's celebrated novel about the evils and hypocrisies of war? The short answer is probably 'no'. The very form of the novel, an elliptical non-sequential series of episodes barely masquerading as plot would be the first hurdle. Then there's the frustrating, nonsensical bureaucratic-ease that pervades much of the dialog. And don't let's forget that most of the characters are charlatans, blowhards, cowards, criminals, or just plain idiots. It's a wonder then that director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry managed to pull together a noble effort, a somewhat more coherent movie out of this knotty source material. The (anti)hero is Yossarian (Alan Arkin), a WWII fighter pilot stationed on an island off the coast of Italy. All he wants is to fly his last bombing mission so he can get the hell out of the war and back home. But like Lucy with the football, his superiors keep snatching away his goal, forcing him to keep flying. The soul sapping futility is the point of the piece, and if it weren't for the all-star fine cast most of the satiric humor wouldn't work, but with pros like Richard Benjamin, Martin Balsam, Jack Gilford, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, Bob Balaban, Paula Prentiss, and Orson Welles, they pull it off. At least most of the time. It also doesn't hurt that Nichols was given a hefty budget to make the wide-screen production truly handsome. There's one flying sequence with a a full squadron of real   B-52's taking off that is draw dropping, something we'll never see the likes of again sans CGI effects.

"Gosford Park" (2001)

Director Robert Altman and screenwriter Julian Fellowes take all the tropes of a classic 1930's whodunit mystery and turn them inside out. A weekend at a huge estate in the British countryside. An assortment of monied guests and house staff. A murder in the library. A trench coated detective. Red herrings. Witty dialog. Tuxedos and evening gowns. It's all here...but it's all beside the point. This is really an exploration of class distinctions and what happens when they mix and inevitably clash. It's all handled with Altman's dextrous ability to juggle an extremely large (and talented) cast. The fluid camera work and overlapping dialog are a wonder to behold. And what an all star cast it is! Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas, Helen Mirren, Charles Dance, Jeremy Northam, Clive Owen, Bob Balaban, Ryan Phillippe, Stephen Fry, Eileen Atkins, Emily Watson, Alan Bates, Derek Jacobi, Richard E. Grant, and James Wilby...it's the telephone book of  Who's Who English actors, and there's not a bum performance in the bunch. Emily Watson and Helen Mirren deserve special shout-outs as world-weary downstairs staffers. Their characters know the lot in life they've been dealt and you can feel the weight of it in their eyes alone. Fellowes has a real ear for the various strata of dialog. This was essentially a dry run for his enormously successful TV series "Downton Abby" ten years later. In fact, the initial plans were for that show to be a spinoff of "Gosford", later scrapped. But it's the same "Upstairs/Downstair" set-up, even using the scene-stealing Maggie Smith in much the same capacity as a wickedly droll dowager casting off tart quips and asides like poison pellets to throw everyone off their game. And just when you think the mystery doesn't really matter, the plot surprises you with an honest-to-God surprising (and poignant) solution to the crime that you won't see coming.