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But Smitty, this thread is full of reasons not to wear pants!
Well, yes, Ray. If you fall asleep during anything, you will have a hard time following the thread.
And I like mumblecore movies well enough, but I hate the "focus in on a character's face during emotional scene" technique that every mumblecore director loves. Yes, we get it, John C. Reilly is depressed even though he's making jokes at a party; you don't need a close up of his frown to prove this.
I saw a preview for The Extra Man with Paul Dano and Kevin Klein; that looks pretty funny.
Since I had some time on my hands, I took the AFI top-100, and ranked all the films I've seen in their entirety.
Here's my take:
Great
Casablanca
The Godfather
Lawrence of Arabia
The Wizard of Oz
Sunset Blvd.
Patton
The Searchers
Dr. Strangelove
Very Good
It's a Wonderful Life
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
All About Eve
The African Queen
Chinatown
The Maltese Falcon
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Double Indemnity
Taxi Driver
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Stagecoach
The French Connection
Ben-Hur
Rocky
The Wild Bunch
Goodfellas
Unforgiven
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Solid
Psycho
Gone with the Wind
Bonnie and Clyde
The Godfather Part II (Flashback/DeNiro scenes were great, modern scenes were execrable)
Doctor Zhivago
Rear Window
King Kong
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Sound of Music
The Third Man
Fantasia
Vertigo
The Silence of the Lambs
The Manchurian Candidate
Fargo
Mutiny on the Bounty
Frankenstein
My Fair Lady
Pulp Fiction
Meh
Citizen Kane
The Graduate
Singin' in the Rain
Some Like It Hot
The Grapes of Wrath
Raging Bull
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Annie Hall
High Noon
To Kill a Mockingbird
West Side Story
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Philadelphia Story
Amadeus
Forrest Gump
Wuthering Heights
The Deer Hunter
Easy Rider
Bringing Up Baby
From Here to Eternity
American Graffiti
Wish I had the two(three, four) hours of my life back
2001: A Space Odyssey
Apocalypse Now (except the Duvall scene, which was wonderful)
Jaws
MASH
Tootsie
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Shane
Dances with Wolves
Platoon
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Agree on Tootsie and Shane, didn't see Guess Who, but otherwise, you are simply WRONG
The Brando one right? I saw it 3 weeks ago... , very medicocre IMHO --and Brando was unspeakably bad- and that was when he was allegedly in his prime???? blech, he had a better performance as Dr Moreau
The Brando one right? I saw it 3 weeks ago... , very medicocre IMHO --and Brando was unspeakably bad- and that was when he was allegedly in his prime???? blech, he had a better performance as Dr Moreau
No. Gable and Laughton.
I get the sense I enjoy most movies much more than you do, snapper; that being said, I completely, totally, 100%, with-every-fiber-in-my-being agree with you here. I absolutely despised both 2001 and Apocalypse Now.
2001 is an idea that no one bothered to explain (you really need to read Clarke's accompanying novelization, which he wrote after the screenplay) to remotely understand what's happening on screen.
Apocalypse Now was the most tedious thing I've ever sat through. I guess some will argue that's the point, but I at least want to be entertained when I watch a movie. Also, does anyone else remember teachers telling you to "show, not tell," details in your writing? Well, Apocalypse Now failed that second-grade level task; I swear, Sheen's character is constantly saying, "I felt exhausted" or "I was depressed", instead that being conveyed to viewers by the acting and direction.
I'm going by enjoyment. Still the only movie I've ever seen more than once in the theatre.
Funny, that's when I think it stopped being interesting. And I'm an early boomer who came of age with Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. B&C was a watershed event in my movie fandom. I couldn't get enough of it. Now, I can't stand to watch it. Of course, at that time, I hadn't watched all those movies from the '30's and '40's yet. Every artform and every genre within at art form has it's trajectory. It starts, it rises, it peaks, it begins it's downward slide, and it collapses.
And no, I'm not really serious.
But the ambiguity makes the film, dammit!
Interesting. Liked "Catch Me If You Can" quite a bit, and Raiders as I said.
The other two, not at all. Jaws might sneak up to Meh, if I just focus on the Indianapolis speech, and "you're going to need a bigger boat".
Horrible, pointless movie. And I generally like Kubrick, A LOT. Dr. Strangelove, Spartacus and Full Metal Jacket are brilliant.
I liked it when it was called Star Wars. It got docked a few points in my book when people started calling it by a whole 'nother name (though I would have given it bonus points if Lucas went with something more honest, like Star Wars 4: Register of the Trademark.)
A good movie, not an all time great one imho, I think the problem is that looking back on it- it was just such a fluke- like a .225/.258/.295 hitter having a .350/.450/.650 year- Stallone has never ever approached Rocky since either as an actor or a writer- the gap bewteen Rocky and it's sequels and anything else Stallone has done is vast, I'd guess the next best Stallone project was Copland...
FWIW I saw this many many years ago, and specifically remembered the ending- it was the clearest thing I remembered, and then I saw it 2 years ago... generally same picture/characters that I remembered- completely different ending - how does that happen?
The film ends with Newman and Redford, wounded and almost ammo-less running outside the surrounded shack they've taken shelter in- and you hear gunfire just as the film ends but you don't actually see them get gunned down. What I remembered was the duo retreating to a small ravine, where, surrounded by Bolivian troops, they get mowed down from every side- very last shot is one of the dead bodies- in a the fetal position- getting kicked by a Bolivian officer. I CLEARLY REMEMBER that scene- but it was not in the movie, nor was it (as far as I can tell) ever shot for/ an alternative ending for that movie. I must have conflated two films- but I don't know how, I KNOW who the eff Newman and Redford are for crissakes... But if anyone knows the film whose ending my memory tacked onto Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid- I'd appreciate it,
It can be a long slog no doubt, and I can see not being a big fan, but pointless it isn't.
I like it fine. I gave good ratings to Wizard of Oz, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Snow White, Fantasia, Sound of Music, and My Fair Lady. "Solid" is a very good rating in this case. Meh is still very watchable, just not an "all-time great" to me.
Ok, haven't seen that one.
Much better.
And Bringing Up Baby is better than both of them together, plus Godfather II and Apocalypse Enow.
Yes and yes.
At other times an awkward love story between Tomei and Hill.
Why is it irrational to like a movie that's considered one of the best ever made?
Laughton was a fantastic actor. Real old-time British stage actor. Witness for the Prosecution is probably my favorite. See it.
I guess it's more that I can't really explain it. I'm sure it can be dissected, and someone can point out all the things that make it a great movie, but it's really just that I like it. I'm really analytic so that's pretty unusual for me. Guess it's kind of like the girl that doesn't have any standout features but you still just can't help but want to look at. Though presumably Jimmy Stewart is a standout feature, so guess that analogy doesn't quite work.
Strangelove= overrated (still a very good film)- a series of very good scenes that fail to coalesce into a whole imho.
Spartacus= good movie- not great- I AM SPARTACUS!!! sheesh
Full Metal Jacket was to me a breathtaking misfire THIS close to being an absolute great and something is missing/went wrong... I couldn't help but think of this film when Gunney Ermey shows up in a Geico ad (about hiring Marine Drill Sgts as therapists)- recruit has gone psycho, loaded gun in the barracks, men call in sergeant, starts trying to talk the guy down, but doesn't know how, starts to panic himself, "What's the matter with you didn't your mommy hug you enough!?"... ummn not exactly the way to talk in suicide/hostage situations...
As people have pointed out, though, the ratings are dependent on people rating the film at all, and those who love a movie are likelier to rate that movie. In other words, if a million people see Inception this weekend and the half-million who love it to death run out and rate it 10 at IMDb, it quickly becomes one of the all-time greats. (It's currently #3, actually.) That's a lot different than asking lots of people who've seen lots of movies to rate every one they've seen.
Yes. Solid movie.
2001 is pointless? I think maybe you missed something.
It can be a long slog no doubt, and I can see not being a big fan, but pointless it isn't.
I wanted to call in a napalm strike on those freaking apes. I have no use for metaphysical musings in my cinema.
And Apocalypse Now put me to sleep when I watched it, not sure if I will every try to re-watch it.
It's a fantastic thriller. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Try two Carole Lombard films: Nothing Sacred, and To Be or Not to Be (the original with Jack Benny).
Two of my personal top ten. I like Chinatown a little bit more, but both are outstanding.
Only tangentially related: I couldn't make it through the book L.A. Confidential. I got halfway through and got bored. The only reason I made it that far was because I was stuck in an airport. The movie is much more concise and direct.
heathen
actually I thought the ape sequence went on a bit too long....
There was some great imagery in that film-- such as when the suffocating astronaut is floating off, arms wildly flailing- but no sound
plus HAL's completely deadpan voice- very creepy after awhile
If you talk to former Marines and soldiers, FMJ is the most realistic movie ever made about Vietnam. They laugh at Platoon
That WAS boot camp. R Lee Ermey was a DI during that era. He had no script; he just did what he would have done back in the day.
Edit: and of course the DI wouldn't go all hostage negotiator and empathize with the recruit. That's against every fibre of his being. A guy like that wouldn't know how to do anything else but yell.
And the randomness of combat in the second half is spot on as well.
The Thin Man films are pretty fun, too.
All the masterful pyrotechnics aside (the genius of having all those little silent shorts within the big all-encompassing talkie, etc.) it's just a great story with very human people who touch you without a whole lot of special pleading that movies, especially soaps, often fall prey to. It's just about perfect. The post-mortem can wait on pefection until we've luxuriated in it sufficiently. I find Vertigo like that, too. It just emotionally sucks you into it.
The movie was spectacular. How Russell Crowe didn't win an Oscar for that movie, I'll never understand. Crowe's run of films from L.A. Confidential, The Insider, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, to Master and Commander is really tremendous. If his last few outings are any indication, he's peaked and done now. He was just awful in State of Play and Body of Lies. )I haven't seen Robin Hood, but people who have warned me off.)
I won't disagree with these two points; but the movie as a whole was extremely disappointing to me (and not in relation to expectations, just absolutely disappointing). At some point, it has to get tied together by some sort of coherent arc, and it doesn't.
------
I feel that a similar factor keeps Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind from being a movie I consider great. It's incredibly moving at times, but I get the impression it would have been even better as a series of short films, rather than a feature-length movie.
I share this perspective. No list is going to be perfect, but IMDB's has the fewest flaws.
Maybe he meant Once Upon a Time in America, which at 3 hours 45 minutes is one of the greatest films I've ever seen.
It should be required viewing as part of our civic education and come packaged with Aristotle's Ethics.
Guh. I'm not sure how to respond to this. Just Peter Sellers alone... I recognize you still think it was good but yeesh. For when it was released and what it was it might be my #1 movie. Of course, that's what happens when you get to things like subjective rankings of films.
Whoever said that Singing in the Rain is an all-time-great, cosigned. Same with Bringing Up Baby, which I couldn't believe seemed so fresh 70 years after it'd been made when I saw it. Made me want to go to Hollywood and defenestrate the hacks who write modern day rom-coms.
I thought Inception was fantastic. Christopher Nolan has yet to make a bad movie.
Of course.
edit: And as long as we're talking about random crap, is there some kind of law that if a radio station plays Run Around by Blues Traveler the next song in the queue MUST be Two Princes by The Spin Doctors?
I think a movie certainly can be longer than two hours, but I think it has to justify it.
I would say, as a rule of thumb, comedies and action films should be 90 minutes, dramas two hours, and a high quality epic can go 120 to 150 minutes. Over 2.5 is too much.
And, lastly, every great filmmaker or writer needs a great editor.
Thirded.
I would say, as a rule of thumb, comedies and action films should be 90 minutes, dramas two hours, and a high quality epic can go 120 to 150 minutes. Over 2.5 is too much.
Yeah, of course some movies, I feel, could've trimmed 30 minutes (or 2 hours) off. I've seen some movies that were over 2.5 hours and I couldn't believe how quick it went by. Heat, for example.
I guess it's no surprise, then, that I disliked both of them.
I have no idea who would argue that was the point. Certainly not me, and I'm about the biggest fan of Apocalypse Now you'll find - it's my favorite movie. And Apocalypse Now shows plenty - it's why the movie is great. I'm not sure how somebody can watch a scene like the "Ride of the Valkyries" attack, or the chaotic encounter at the Do Lung bridge, and think Apocalypse Now is too expository, and what narration is there is among the best voice-over narration there is, along with Ray Liotta's in GoodFellas. "Show don't tell" is hardly a hardline mantra, and plenty of great films tell plenty. How do you feel about Network?
I've actually never seen Network.
Maybe the show-don't-tell point was me getting worked up about some minor things. I still really disliked Apocalypse Now.
I don't see why an "epic" needs to run 150 minutes, and half the time a film gets labeled an "epic" solely because it is so long.
"Ripped off" if a movie goes under 2 hours? I don't comprehend that. I'd rather the movie end at 2 hours than sit there for 2.5 because the director couldn't trim the fat.
We can add "Heat" to my list of boring movies.
FWIW I've known two ex-DIs reasonably well- yelling aside they are human beings- and they excel at effing with people's heads- even without yelling- I wouldn't be surprised if in real life some DIs made real good suicide/hostage negotiators, of course in FMJ, the gunny was being confronted with the situation from out of no where (from his POV- his bunkmates should have seen it coming)
I'm not saying that FMJ was or was not realistic, just something about it as a film didn't quite click the right way (perhaps maybe that sequence involving the prostitute objecting to the length of some soldier's johnson should have been cut, I dunno...).
[quotealong with Ray Liotta's in GoodFellas]
how does such a bad actor with such bad taste in material get that role and do it so well? Scorsese magic?
It's never a surprise when you dislike something, RDP. That's part of your unique persona.
The biggest surprise is that of your 12 posts in this thread, in one of them you actually say something is good (DiCaprio's acting in Catch Me If You Can and The Departed).
Thank you Alex, you saved me the trouble.
It's dated.
Some parts still work...
There's a scene where one of the newsmen goes nuts and becomes more popular- that scene doesn't/ no longer works, but there's a great follow up scene where an advertiser is trying to "reason" with him- and it becomes clear that this businessman is just as insane- just in a different way...
The "revolutionary" who is negotiating intellectual property rights, "hands off my residuals you pig"...
As far as I'm concerned the man is given amnesty for all future roles because of his awesomeness in Something Wild.
The formatting didn't work but I presume you're talking about Liotta. I fully agree. He's (a) a bad actor, yet he (b) got the role, and (c) pulled it off. (I guess Field of Dreams is what got him noticed for the part?)
Liotta's acting is generally so bad that it jolts you out of movieland to realize just how bad it is. Kind of like Travolta when he's playing a villain. Or Nicolas Cage when he's playing, well, anything. DeVito, too.
Well, maybe not lions, as they're social group hunters, but tigers/leopards/jaguars/mountain lions? Sure, I'm on board. There are apparently a few lunatics out there who keep caracals as pets....
but Travolta, Cage and DeVito CAN be entertaining while they're doing it (it being ruining the element of suspension of disbelief)
To my mind what is so shocking about Pulp Fiction was how good Travolta was, and then shockingly he was ok in Phenomenon (even though badly miscast), then he completely ruined Broken Arrow...and his old career path reasserted itself
Travolta and Cage are awesome camp actors. They just throw themselves into the ridiculousness of everything. Which is why Face/Off, with Travolta and Cage not only going up against each other, but playing each other's characters, is so fun. Watching Travolta ham it up was the only worthwhile part of seeing the new Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.
There are weirdos who keep ####### tigers as pets. I'll never understand why, if you're past the age of 14, a cat or a dog isn't a good enough pet for people.
First, some humor:
Note here that he was in acting classes while doing Goodfellas:
And to bring this back around to baseball:
You're skipping Get Shorty which is my favorite Travolta movie.
Well, not exactly. FMJ is adapted from Gustav Hasford's "The Short Timers", a fictionalized account of his own experiences as a Marine Combat Correspondent during Vietnam. While Ermey certainly brought his own unique flavor to his portrayal of the DI, much of the dialogue remains exactly as written by Hasford and the boot camp section in general of the movie hews very close to the book.
The Hue City section, by contrast, is actually a combination of the other 2 sections of "The Short Timers". In the book, there are 2 encounters with snipers, one in Hue City and the other in the jungle, some time later. Cowboy is not shot in the former, but rather the latter, which places the Joker in a terrible moral position of weighing his duty to his friend with the safety of the patrol.
If you enjoyed the movie, I highly recommend reading the book, the tone and most of the dialogue is taken directly from Hasford's writing.
didn't see
I'm fine with it as long as they can work in a car crash and some exploding helicopters at the same time.
There are exceptions, of course.
Both of them have made huge heaps of Godawful movies, and they have been pretty bad in some of them, I have to say. By contrast, as people were saying, some stars (Day Lewis, DiCaprio) seem unerring in choosing at least interesting material. Whereas Travolta would probably happily do Look Who's Talking Four and Cage is probably reading scripts for National Treasure Three: With Geraldo in Al Capone's Vaults.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Apocalypse Now (except the Duvall scene, which was wonderful)
Jaws
MASH
Tootsie
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Shane
Dances with Wolves
Platoon
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
I agree that most of those are bad enough, but you're telling me you actually watched Dances With Wolves? That's one of those movies (like The English Patient) where the positive reviews scared me away even more than the negative ones.
Taking the rest of them. Isn't subjectivity wonderful?
Sublime:
All About Eve (The greatest American drama film, bar none)
Raging Bull (easily the best sports film of any kind)
Goodfellas (the best of the modern mob movies; somehow missed it until somebody here thankfully steered me to it a few years ago)
Great:
Casablanca
It's a Wonderful Life {The embodiment of "Good Schmaltz")
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Double Indemnity
The Philadelphia Story
Bringing Up Baby
Very Good
From Here to Eternity
The Wizard of Oz
Sunset Blvd.
Patton
Dr. Strangelove
The Maltese Falcon
Solid
Psycho
Gone with the Wind
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
Rear Window
King Kong
The Third Man
Vertigo
The Manchurian Candidate
Frankenstein
My Fair Lady
Pulp Fiction
Singin' in the Rain
Some Like It Hot
Annie Hall
Chinatown
Rocky
Singin' in the Rain
Meh
Lawrence of Arabia
Stagecoach
The French Connection
Rocky
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Citizen Kane
The Grapes of Wrath
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
High Noon
To Kill a Mockingbird
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Wuthering Heights
The Deer Hunter
American Graffiti
Shane
Stagecoach
The African Queen (My least favorite Bogart and my least favorite Hepburn)
Wish I had the two(three, four) hours of my life back - and how. BS in every variety
2001: A Space Odyssey
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Bonnie and Clyde
The Sound of Music (dragged to it by a college GF; that was it for both of them)
The Graduate (The worst of the "Generational Pandering" movies) (tied with Easy Rider)
West Side Story
Easy Rider (The worst of the "Generational Pandering" movies) (tied with The Graduate)
Never saw the rest of them. I doubt if I missed too much.
A much better list of "Sublimes" would include, among many others:
The Killers
A Star Is Born (another "Good Schmaltz" high spot)
The Producers
The Lady Eve
42nd Street
Out of the Past
Sudden Fear
Gilda
Nightmare Alley
Freaks
Born to Kill
The Asphalt Jungle ("Yipes!")
Thieves' Highway
The Match King
A Bronx Tale
Heroes For Sale
The Unholy Three (both versions)
The Great McGinty
Baby Face
Glengarry Glen Ross
Haven't seen Wolves but The English Patient was like watching paint dry.
Date
Airplane!, The Band Wagon, Cabaret, Charley Varrick, Ed Wood, Gates of Heaven, Love and Death, Monkey Business, My Darling Clementine, Paths of Glory, Shadow of a Doubt.
If there's a connecting thread (including a few I mentioned above: The Conversation, Groundhog Day, Nothing Sacred, Night of the Hunter), it's energy. None of these films (to me) has a dull moment, and they continually keep you off balance and entertained.
I do actually like long, slow-moving films like The Deer Hunter (or to go overseas, Fitzcarraldo), but I think the best films of all have brisk paces and don't let you stop to ask questions. Longish as it was, this was a virtue, I thought, of Inception.
-----
I don't think it's a bad movie, but I do think it's overrated. I think it aged very poorly compared to many of the other movies being discussed here.
I like a lot of Alec Baldwin's work; his performance in that movie was of course among his best. Although not as good as this performance of his:
West Side Story
Dead to me, Andy. DEAD!
Sublime, perfect films, from top of head:
West Side Story
Muppet Movie
Brazil
City of Lost Children
Tous le Matins du Monde
Once Upon a Time in America
Psycho
The Emperor and the Assassin
Haven't seen Wolves but The English Patient was like watching paint dry.
Yet another reason I'm mad about Elaine Marie Benes. That was the single scene in the entire run of Seinfeld that I identified with the most. Elaine spoke for all of us.
----------------------
but you're telling me you actually watched Dances With Wolves?
Date
Okay, you get a pass. See my comment after The Sound of Music.
From Here to Eternity
WFT? I would root for the Yankees before I watched this again.
But what about a replay of the Jeffrey Maier game? How would it match up against that, with the Jeter "home run" showed over and over in YES-mo?
I've seen FHTE three times, and I liked the acting much more than the plot, but the Lancaster, Sinatra and Borgnine characters are so vivid, that they make me feel I might even watch it again a few years down the road. It doesn't make my Top 100, though.
Seven
Fight Club
Pulp Fiction
Fargo
City of God
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