Dark City, 1998
Shining, 1980
Guerre du feu, La (1981) aka Quest for fire
Such a Long Journey (1998)
C’era una volta il West (1968) aka Once upon a time in the west
Aliens (1986)
Spaceballs (1987)
The Naked Gun (all existing and future ones)
The 13th Warrior (1999)
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
The Gift (2000)
Flatliners (1990)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
The African Queen (1951)
Grey Owl (1999)
Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
And many already posted. And more, not available in North America.
I don’t think I ever could come down to my all time favorite top ten movies because there’s just too many of them…maybe a top 50 but that’s too many to list right now… so… I’m going to do something different, and actually a lot easier. I’ll list my top ten favorite directors…
I do not feel I can make a top ten list right now but I liked, in no discernable order:
Simple Men, Flirt and Amature by Hal Hartley (and I await his masterpiece)
The Loved One
Dr Strangelove
Total Recall (Ok, Arnold played the lead but it was still an excellent premise with a more than adequete follow-through even if it did have Arnie in it… come to think of it, who better to play a person who does not know who he is?).
Being there
Star Wars (the respectable first three)
Star Wars (the prequels, but only if you are on enough of the right drugs to see a better than they actually made; same goes for The Matrix trilogy)
Eternal Sunshine
I’ll refine this list in a couple of days as this thread has reminded me that there are some movies that I’ve been meaning to watch.
I’m shocked and appalled that you’d pick Darabont (who has made a number of overly long, boring movies that make no effort to use the medium effectively) over Hitchcock and that you’d take McTeirnan over Fritz Lang.
So you like Scorcese then? I maintain that Mean Streets is the best Gangster movie in US movie history. I’m glad Scarface hasn’t shown up too much on this thread, a more overrated movie you will not find.
Stanley maintained it was his best. However I’ve not read the novel from which is was adapted, as I have with A Clockwork Orange, The Short Timers (Full Metal Jacket), 2001: etc.
The motif of the Christmas lights contributes to this, though from my watching I noticed that pink Christmas lights preceded any scene of nudity or sexual conflict. Perhaps this was intentional, perhaps not.
Cruise turns up at night to get the costume and the Father unlocks the store and finds his daughter in there with 2 men (very, very pretty actress, possibly the most beautiful in a film populated by beautiful women - more fantasy/dream connotations) and blows his lid. The following day when Cruise returns the costume (sans the mask) everything is sorted out and the Father is now whoring his daughter out to the men, he even offers her to Cruise.
Cruise isn’t looking for sex for the sake of sex, he’s looking for it as a weapon, a secret he can hold from his wife like the one she reveals to him about the handsome soldier in the stoned scene in the bedroom.
Why is this important? Because the whole movie is about how sex need not be an intimate act, how it has increasingly become a public act, a tool in a discourse or battle. This is a theme I’m exploring in one of my own novels (which may yet end up as a screenplay) and a very timely one for the late 90s. Incidentally the original book was set in 1920s Vienna, and so was very different.
I think he was clever in advertising the film as a piece of erotica (the trailers showing Kidman’s naked rump and shots from the orgy in the house) when it is actually about the awkward, embarassing, risky business of sex rather than just being a piece designed for comfortable voyeurism. For those who just wanna see titty there’s plenty of it, but anyone who actually follows the story will be more likely to end the movie in confused tears than with an erection.
No, it isn’t. 2 minutes of dialogue butchering the opening page of Descartes’ Meditations doesn’t qualify as philosophical content when the same theme had been dealt with far more effectively a decade before in Total Recall. You might also want to watch Pi, which is the best British sci-fi movie ever made, and has more philosophical content in it’s opening scene than in the whole of the Matrix trilogy.
The questions are never answered, and aren’t even brought forth to inspire questionning. They are brought forth to allow for the narrative conceit of two worlds that is necessary to justify the SFX sequences which are the primary concern of the movie. They don’t really ask ‘what is reality?’ they ask it so they have an excuse to piss about with lots of cameras at different angles.
Visually and technologically the movie is extremely innovative. Thematically it is shallow, ignorant and unoriginal. If you’d watched as many movies as I have you’d realise just how much philosophical content can be put into a movie and you’d also realise that there’s as much philosophy in the Matrix as in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
I admit that “The Majestic” was a bit drawn out, but Darabont’s particular use of time allows the viewer to soak in more character development and plot as used in “The Green Mile” and “The Shawshank Redemption” (that movie being the reason I put him on the list). He’s also working on “Farenheit 451” right now…
I’m not an overt fan of Hitchcock. Mainly because I’m just not really into his kind of filmwork, and I have my reasons why I chose McTiernan. Which reminds me, how many Lang films have you seen???
I really expected someone to give an uproar about Milius being on the list…
However I would still urge you to check out the matrix 2 again… skip all the fighting scenes and see what remains, if you still contend it’s ignorant and unoriginal I guess I’ll have to live with that… but I just… can’t agree with that critique. Also… have you seen the animatrix? it’s a great enforcer to the main storyline, also jammed full with philosophical ideas… (self realization for humans/robots, human nature, desire, etc). I haven’t seen as many movies as you (I’ve heard Pi is amazing though) but I suspect you might not have caught all there is to catch the first time through… I’ve seen the movie countless times and i still find things… the W bros attention to detail is incredible. Sure this may be their 1 trick pony… but I think this pony does it’s tricks extremely well (except for the 3rd movie).
Also… how do you guys feel about David Lynch? i think muholland drive is… a mindboggling genuis film.
Interesting idea. This is a LOT easier than trying to think of ten movies. My argument is with James Cameron mostly. Now don’t get me totally wrong, I think he’s a good director but I definitely wouldn’t put him in the top ten. He likes to add too much of his own fluff into the movies for me to get him up there too high (doesn’t help that I disagree with most of his fluff). And I agree that I would put Hitchcock in there, but I like his style.
Old Gobbo wrote:
David Lynch is a good director but I think his film style is too wacky to fit for most people. Mulholland Drive was good, and for tv, Twin Peaks was good (at least I thought), but both can be definitely hard to follow or make sense of, even for those who try. There’s just a different way you have to go into a Lynch movie to really get anything out of it.
As for my attempt at a top ten, here goes, but this is subject to change weekly.
Alien (yeah I’m weird)
The Princess Bride
Hero
American Beauty
Psycho
Gladiator
Full Metal Jacket
Office Space
Seven Samurai
Sin City
Odd to most (if not all) of you I’m sure. But there you go.
I’ve no objection to Milius, though Red Dawn is dreadful. I was never a fan of the Shawshank Redemption because it was predictable and took an age getting there. Not that I’ve any problem with slow story telling per se, I just found the Green Mile and S R to be a bit aimless and tedious.
How many Lang films have I seen? Half a dozen, most of which were after he went to work in America. I’d rank him above Mctiernan, but I’m not going to enter into a big argument right now.
It’s really interesting you mentioned Cameron, because one of the reasons I put him on the list is what he did with the Alien saga. Don’t get me wrong, Ridley Scott is a maker of masterpieces, and Alien sure stacks up there - which is why I said it was interesting you brought this up. However, Cameron took the idea Scott initiated and went further, more in-depth, and made a movie that made you proud to say: “sequels are better.” Of course, I don’t like all Cameron films, but the ones of his that I have watched displayed a creative and fun approach to movie-making. Like you said, he likes to add his own fluff into the movies. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes not, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be shut out from getting noticed.
I actually thought Milius should be higher on that list, but there were others who actually directed more movies than he. Yes, Red Dawn is sad…
Darabont seems to never get the recognition he deserves, in my opinion.
I too will not sit here and argue either… mainly because it’s generally pointless being Lang and McTiernan are two different kinds of directors.
Ugh! Another mention of “American Beauty.” Why? Why is this a top ten film for you?
Also, I think that “House of Flying Daggers” was a better all around film than “Hero” and that neither flick belongs amid the top 40 greatest of all time. But my specific problem with “Hero” is that despite its flawless cinematography and masterful choreography there was so little emotional appeal to Nameless…
A Lion in Winter*****
Henry the V*****
Lawrence of Arabia*****
Casablanca
The Great Excape
Heat
The Hunt for Red October
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Caddy Shack
Jaws I
With many honorable mentions
Goodfellas
Most Star Wars
Wizard of Oz
Boudicea
To Catch a Thief
Gladiator
Yes, I am remembering all my favorites, and big-time RIGHT regarding Devil’s Advocate. Great flick. It has been many years since w have gone to the movies as too many individuals believe they have been written into the script. Currently, I am in new digs and do not have a tube or DVD. If I like my new position, my other half will come out and bring the housefull furniture etc. Actually, I do not miss the television except for Sunday Morning.
