Deliverance

Realizing now that a few of my absolute favorite movies aren't mentioned here, so just quickly filling in some blanks. "Deliverance" is a big one.

Come on, you've never heard of "Deliverance"? Google it. I shouldn't have to write a review for this one. One of the greats. Four old friends take a canoe trip down a remote Georgia river before it's dammed up and the route disappears completely, and things go horribly wrong. Great performances and one classic scene after another. This is a supposed adventure film that's actually a drama in disguise, but decades of subsequent out-and-out horror films featuring mutants and cannibals and psychotic slashers have still never yet managed to catch up with this film's occasionally—though not always—quiet, unnerving depictions of unfriendly locals.

If you haven't noticed, this site's "404" error pages, when you try to access a nonexistent page, say "You done took the wrong river", a line of dialogue from this movie. That should say it all.

There are a lot of behind-the-scenes tales of extreme situations during filming, including the actors being seriously injured while performing their own gutsy stunts on the whitewater rapids, filmed scenes of sexual violence turning so uncomfortable that the cameramen turned away, and actor Ronny Cox actually climbing a cliff himself for a crucial scene, and if you ask me, it all shows in the final production. (A favorite bit of trivia for fans, by the way, is that an older generation of actors including James Stewart, Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda, and Charlton Heston were considered for the lead roles eventually played by Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox. I would have loved to have seen that movie, too—but it would have been a much different picture. Perhaps someday AI will be so advanced that I can ask it to generate that version.)

James Dickey's novel was a great read, too.