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In Reply to: RE: The 100 Greatest American Movies... posted by kootenay on May 16, 2021 at 11:15:24
top 10-20 films of all time. Why limit it to just American Films - just list your favorites.
Some lists like this are films that revolutionized filmmaking - Star Wars is listed for example although most people including myself felt that Empire Strikes Back was the better actual film. Star Wars was first - it set the technical standard so it makes sense that it is listed.
Maybe a list of films that people like to watch over and over again. I put a lot of merit on this. A film may be a technical marvel and even a critical marvel but if you never want to watch it again (pretty much every movie they rank in the top 8 for me) then they probably don't make my list. Citizen Kane, I can respect it but like it? Not really.
Follow Ups:
My favorite all-time movie. Have a Blu-Ray copy, could watch it any time. Frances McDormand won the Oscar, but the rest of the cast is just as good.
The plot, with things going wrong because weak, greedy humans are involved, well, I just love it.
After that, in no particular order: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Aliens, It: The Terror from Beyond Space, Key Largo, Poltergeist, The Caine Mutiny, Blazing Saddles, Animal House, The Wild Bunch, 13 Ghosts, The Haunting, Paths of Glory, The Seventh Victim, The Asphalt Jungle, White Heat, The Manchurian Candidate, The Searchers, The Tin Drum, Hope and Glory, Excalibur, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Starship Troopers, Godfathers I and II, The Thing from Another World, A Face in the Crowd, Sweet Smell of Success, In Cold Blood, Dirty Harry, Miller's Crossing, just about anything with Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, or Joan Crawford, film noir like Gun Crazy and Criss Cross . Double-crossing dames, tough guys in snap-brim hats...I root for Cagney in White Heat .
Some of the movies on my list have been remade. The remakes totally suck. Well, except for John Carpenter's The Thing . Pretty good, and more faithful to the short story the movies were based on ("Who Goes There?"), but it lacks the snappy, rapid-fire dialogue of Howard Hawks' original.
And I love movies, so I probably left a few out.
The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?
Edits: 05/17/21
But if Hitchcock did it there would have been some sort of big reveal in the second hour.
I think a part of this is how old you are and perhaps which films have a personal impact on you and which order you see them.I was born in 74 and as a kid living in Wales - Doctor Who was the big show and one of the episodic serials was called the "Seeds of Doom" which is basically "The Thing" - outer space plants land in Antarctica and the Doctor is sent to investigate and one of the plants opens and attaches to one of the researchers. Who then becomes a monster. A nutty botanist sends his men to bring it back to England (oh no to civilization) where the plant takes over bodies and can control all other plants.
I then saw the Carpenter version in my teens and at that time was one of the greatest special effects wonders and so all my mates loved it. Then going back to the original version it just doesn't hold up for me. It had too many characters and a guy in a monster suit.
I enjoyed Fargo - although you will hate this - I preferred the TV Series season 1 - which is the same story as the movie but longer and more in depth. I find most of these TV series to be generally better than films because there isn't enough time in a film to do real justice to the subject matter IMO.
Film in the 1960s through the 1990s tended to be MUCH better than TV but I feel there is a role reversal.
With Star Trek movies - I liked II and IV and I am a Star Trek fan but I think those are the only two that I can rewatch. I liked the sci-fi aspect of IV and it tickled me that Humans were not the beings that an alien would seek out as intelligent life. That was a nice shot to the human ego. Lucky the Whales didn't hold a grudge eh?
I also liked Blazing Saddles although I ranked it third for Mel Brooks behind Young Frankenstein and The Producers (1967 not the remake). I might also include Airplane! as possibly the stupidest funny movies I have seen. And probably the only Airplane/airport movie that is remembered from the era.
I think these lists are tough because dramatic films often get more credit and I suppose it makes sense as humor seems not to be shared among people as well. Some people do not get sarcasm or wit. And many folks do not get satire (The Simpsons) or dark comedy (Pulp Fiction and Fargo)
Some people can't take swearing or violence. I remember watching Pulp Fiction in the theatre and Vincent's gun accidentally goes off and blows the head off of the guy in the back seat - the audience roared with laughter. I thought wow here is a horrible scene set-up so well that the director has the audience laughing at something horrendous. And I still get a chortle out of Pulp Fiction and Siskel and Ebert dedicated an entire show to the film - incidentally, I am pretty sure they both picked Fargo as the best film of the year. If only the Academy would not always choose the safe banal choice. I liked the Englsh Patient (I am one of the few) but Fargo or Secrets and Lies should have won.
Edits: 05/17/21
We all have different tastes I guess. I watched Pulp Fiction in the theater and could appreciate that it was very well done. But it's not one I'd revisit. I've tried watching a couple of Tarantino's other films on DVD, but I don't think I've made it to the end of any others. I don't like most mob movies, which may have something to do with it.
But the Coen brothers are movie geniuses IMHO.
Not to my tastes either. Seems to be straining to generate the same snappy pop-culture laden dialogue from Pulp Fiction . I couldn't watch The Hateful Eight . The dialogue was just bad.
Jackie Brown works because it's based on a great Elmore Leonard novel.
The Coen brothers have yet to make a bad movie.
The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?
Jackie Brown was terrific - I agree - I saw it recently and liked it better than when it came out.
The Hateful Eight borrows from The Thing. Indeed, toward the end of the film it even uses music from The Thing (1982) in a scene with Kurt Russel. didn't much like it the first time - liked it the second time. I am willing to give his movies more than one run-through.
I liked Inglorious Bastards, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, both Kill Bill films, Django Unchained, and even Death Proof.
...just saw it all the way through a few weeks ago and man, what a movie.
Tarantino's Jackie Brown is seriously under-rated IMO.
Airplane! is one of my favorites, enough that I ordered Zero Hour from Netflix. Had to see it for myself.
Mel Brooks...hit or miss. I like Blazing Saddles the best probably because Richard Pryor wrote a large part of the screenplay. Young Frankenstein , Brooks produced that movie but Gene Wilder directed it. But I'm not so hot on The Producers and you can burn every copy of Spaceballs, History of the World Part II, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights for all I care. High Anxiety benefits from Cloris Leachman and Harvey Korman.
The movie Young Frankenstein is satirizing is Son of Frankenstein , by the way and it's a don't miss just for the sets alone. The main fireplace in Frankenstein's castle looks like Henry VIII's kitchen at Hampton Court.
IMO, Hollywood is spent. Movies are almost entirely the same stories told over and over again. Give the audience what it knows and is comfortable with. All you need to see is the trailer.
And they're all far too long. There's no reason for a 2 hour, 30 minute run time when the story that could be told in a little over an hour.
The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?
Edits: 05/17/21
nt
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Great place to raise a kid. Wonder what newspaper they read over breakfast--the Voelkischer Beobachter ?
The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?
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