Movies and Film: Some Films Worth Viewing

Some Films Worth Viewing

These films concentrate on the process of trying to make a film.

• Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957). Jayne Mansfield takes on the media industry.
• Nickelodeon (1976). Peter Bogdonavich's comedy-drama about trying to make silent movies in the shadow of D.W. Griffith.
• The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977). Hilarious satire of our expectations of how films—and commercials and television—are made.
• The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981). A great but very loose adaptation of the John Fowles novel. Unlike the novel, this movie is a meditation on making a period (nineteenth-century) film.
• Soapdish (1991). While this film is about television soap operas rather than movies, it's a hilarious vision of how the backstabbing and infighting works for every aspect of the entertainment industry.
• Watermelon Woman (1996). In this absolutely stunning fiction feature, an African American lesbian filmmaker makes a film about a lesbian African American actress.