Alicia’s Staff Picks—Cult Classics and Family Films

Can’t decide to what to watch? Just head over to the Staff Picks rack for some personal recommendations from the experts at Hollywood Suite!

Whether you’re in need of a family-friendly caper, or a hard-R-rated thriller, Alicia Fletcher, Hollywood Suite’s Producer of Originals and Curatorial Advancement highlights her choices for bold cult, or soon to be cult classics drawn from the 1940s to the 2010s. Tune in Tuesday, December 27 to catch Alicia’s picks on all four Hollywood Suite channels.

ALICIA’S PICKS

Click on titles below for more info and additional playtimes

Hollywood Suite 70s Movies

Ball of Fire (1941)

Dec 27 at 9pm ET
Available on demand in December

A Jazz-infused retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves with Barbara Stanwyck as Snow White (aka Sugarpuss O’Shea), and seven befuddled professors as the Dwarves. Gary Cooper is dreamy, as per usual and Stanwyck in glorious Edith Head costume designs dazzles. Featuring a fantastic performance from Gene Krupa and his jazz orchestra—this is one of the Golden Era’s greatest screwball comedies.

Johnny Guitar (1954)

Dec 27 at 10:55pm ET

Nicolas Ray’s revisionist psychosexual masterpiece starring Joan Crawford in one of her most iconic roles. The “Beauty and the Beast of Westerns” (with Crawford as the Beast according to François Truffaut), Johnny Guitar toys with gender normativity, twisting it and creating a salacious queered text that only gets better as it ages.

A New Leaf (1971)

Dec 28 at 12:50am ET

Elaine May’s directorial debut is a batty, sharply hilarious, and devilishly delinquent black comedy that, while indebted to the screwball comedies of the 1930s, is distinctly modern. May submitted the film to Paramount at a staggering 180 minutes, leading the studio to edit it themselves—she unsuccessfully sued the studio and ultimately disowned the film. Yet, it garnered her a Writer’s Guild of America nomination, and is today considered a pioneering cult classic. I am now very weary of “carbon on the valves.”

Hollywood Suite 80s Movies

Popeye (1980)

Dec 27 at 9pm ET
Available on demand in December

A baffling yet captivating adaptation of the beloved Depression-era comic strip, Popeye features Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl—in a role that she was born to play—and Robin Williams in his cinematic debut as the surly, squinty-eyed sailor man. Altman’s musical is a fascinating cult masterpiece. Filmed on the remote archipelago of Malta, Popeye was a notorious film production nightmare, with Williams referring to the set as a “stalag.” Yet, decades later, it’s a beloved anti-Disney parable and its abandoned set is a favoured amusement site in Malta. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it?

More on the Hollywood Suite Blog:
Popeye: The WTF Masterstroke in Robert Altman’s Filmography

Vibes (1988)

Dec 27 at 11:00pm ET
Available on demand in December

You’ll watch this and wonder, why didn’t Cyndi Lauper star in more films? She’s effervescent, hilarious and pure jouissance in Vibes. Throw in mid-80s era Goldblum and a chemical reaction occurs. Such a fun, quirky, outrageous take on the adventure film with stunning sequences filmed at Machu Picchu. Plus Peter Falk, basically as Colombo. They should make more comedies about clairvoyants!

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1982)

Dec 28 at 12:45am ET

Filmed in Coquitlam and the Vancouver surroundings, Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains is abrasive, yet absorbing. If you think Lane is unbelievably young in this, wait until you spot a 13-year-old Laura Dern making her big screen debut. She was forbidden by her parents to participate in the film and yet there she is! A film that ultimately spells girl power, its tacked on ending (filmed years after its initial photography) undoes some of the film’s potent messaging, yet nevertheless, Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains is the ultimate riot girl battle cry.

Hollywood Suite 90s Movies

Mousehunt (1997)

Dec 27 at 9pm ET
Available on demand in December

It’s like the silent era’s slapstick was re-imagined. It’s everything: hilarious, expertly choreographed (the mousetrap kitchen scene); excels in its Henson-designed puppetry, and serves as a cautionary tale against gentrification and displacement. Christopher Walken playing a deranged exterminator is, in my honest opinion, one of his most fully-realized roles. A film for fans of architecture, a film for fans of cheese, and a film for fans of German Expressionism—Mousehunt is one of the most uniquely-directed films of the 1990s and launched the career of Gore Verbinski.

Orlando (1993)

Dec 27 at 10:40pm ET
Available on demand in December

Sally Potter, working with Tilda Swinton outfitted by Sandy Powell. Film has never looked or felt this sumptuous. Adapting the “unfilmable” Virginia Woolf novella that takes places across four centuries, Orlando is a feat. I come back to it annually if not more often and it evolves with every subsequent screening. It features an iconic performance from consummate raconteur Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I that rivals Judi Dench’s brief turn as QE a few years later. It’s the film that inspired 2020’s MET gala nearly 30 years after its release and just days prior to the world shutting down.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Dec 28 at 12:20am ET

She’s bold. She wears clothes beautifully. And she knows what she wants. No one has laid smooches as fantastically as Lady Gremlin, aka Greta Gremlin. Sequels often feature a feminized doppelganger of an archvillain, but with Gremlins 2: The New Batch, an icon was born. Who doesn’t love a film that ends with a wedding? And no bride has looked lovelier.

Hollywood Suite 00s Movies

Paddington (2014)

Dec 27 at 9pm ET
Available on demand in December

I don’t know where to begin. I can’t think of another film that I underestimated more. This isn’t just another CGI-laden version of old children’s IP (ie: The Smurfs, Yogi Bear, Marmaduke, Peter Rabbit, etc.)—the launch of the Paddington franchise changed what family films could be. If Roald Dahl were alive today, he’d be proud. Paddington is dark, funny, and heartwarming, while also teaching us about taxidermy. Nicole Kidman remade herself as an archvillain and is all the better for it. I did a lot of research into marmalade because of this film and every time I have it on toast, I smile a bit. The world is a crazy, at times unfriendly place and we need more Paddingtons.

The Illusionist (2010)

Dec 27 at 10:40pm ET
Available on demand in December

2D animation has been, at times, called a dying art, and yet Sylvain Chomet with The Illusionist proved that the artistry behind classical animation is very much alive, just simply underground. This film does animation the way Bruegel did Heaven and Hell—impossibly detailed, and featuring a mixture of lighthearted fantasy with a bitter pill of morose reality. Scotland—both its remote isles and the crown jewel of a city Edinburgh—have never looked so beautiful. If you’re a fan of animation but haven’t seen this, do yourself a favour and rectify that. Also: pair with any Jacques Tati!

The Paperboy (2012)

Dec 28 at 12:05am ET
Available on demand in December

I sometimes wonder if this film was a fever dream and I’m willing to bet that’s what it felt like on set with Lee Daniels and the stacked cast of The Paperboy. The term “camp” is often applied inappropriately, but I think it applies here. At one point Zac Efron has to pee on a very aroused Nicole Kidman because she’s been stung by a jellyfish on the beach—it’s like Lee Daniels watched that one Friends episode where that same situation happens between Monica and Chandler and thought: “I can do this better.” I really hope everyone had as much fun making this film as I have watching it (over and over).