Fantaverse Top 100 Movies of All Time (Thread #10): 10-2
Posted: February 14th, 2011, 2:14 am
Haven't heard from Ron B in a while. Will have to proceed without him for now.
Let's start the home stretch!
MOVIE #10
Shrykespeare
Lucky Number Slevin (2006) – Director: Paul McGuigan; starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu and Stanley Tucci. One of the slickest crime thrillers ever created. Still vastly underrated, Slevin follows the travails of a seemingly innocent bystander (Hartnett) who gets caught up in a blood feud between two rival mob bosses (Freeman and Kingsley). Throw in a vicious hitman (Willis), a winsome neighbor (Liu, truly delightful) and a nosy cop (Tucci), and you have one of the most slam-bang casts this side of Ocean’s Eleven. The dialogue is unusually colorful, like something you’d expect to find in a 1950’s potboiler novel, but that gives the movie a rather eccentric flavor that I wasn’t expecting. Neither was I expecting the ending climax, which tied the whole movie together and made it an instant classic in my eyes. I know I said yesterday that Unbreakable was Willis’s best performance, and I stand by that, but of the five films on my list that feature him, this is the highest. (2nd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVIUEcizkPc
silversurfer
Jaws (1975) - Director: Steven Spielberg; starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. One of the movies which scared the living daylights out of me when I was younger. I can still remember being around six or seven and my mum had returned home on a Saturday evening with out weekly fish and chips for while we watched a rental video. Quickly, we threw the food onto a plate, rammed the video into the player and set ourselves up on the couch (or as usual for me, sit on the floor next to the roaring fire), before that haunting music set in and the now classic opening scene played out. I was stunned, terrified and glued to the screen - the sound of the bhoy ringing almost sounds like a death knell for the young girl who has just been viciously attacked, and you are left unsure of what will follow. Throughout the remainder of the movie I was held remarkably tense by it's fast driven pace, my guts twisting at every moment, all the while the film taps into the most primal of human fears with the minimal revealing of the shark. It's an astonishing movie which has held up so well throughout many dozens of repeat viewings, it's a movie I've continued to seek out over the years and one which you never get tired of. The scares still pack a punch, but I now acknowledge some of the ideas which delve beyond the main plot outline. It's a fantastic test of our own mortality, a brilliant character driven thriller, while the camera work and atmosphere generated show some fantastic ideas for maintaining that tension and uncertainty. It's very rare a movie can remain so thrilling and so unsettling year after year, but Jaws is one of the few that has truly stood the test of time, and I know I'll be sure to be terrified for many years to come. (5th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zkYRD51I34
thegreenarrow
Vertigo (1958) - Director: Alfred Hitchcock; starring James Stewart, Kim Noval and Barbara Del Geddes. (3rd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0bV2gh4E7Y
transformers
Kill Bill Vol.1 (2003) - Director: Quentin Tarantino; starring Uma Thurman,Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox and David Carradine. Both Kill Bill films are great, but I find the first installment to be much better. The storyline is spectacular. You want The Bride to get vengeance on Bill and the rest of her former assassin partners. Uma Thurman gives The Bride a soul and one top of that, she kicks a whole lot of ass. The action sequences are astonishing. The fight between The Bride and the Crazy 88's is one of the most breathtaking action scenes in movie history. As usual, Tarantino's script is razor-sharp. Another masterpiece from my favorite director. (7th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdjuS17DGlA(Crazy 88's scene)
englishozzy
28 Days Later… (2002) - Director: Danny Boyle; starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Noah Huntley and Brendan Gleeson. Boyle delivers a film which really started to show his true potential as a director. After the somewhat disappointment of The Beach (although I didn’t think it was as bad as people perceived), Boyle reacts with this British zombie movie that challenges the Living Dead series. Some brilliant apocalyptic scenes of London and harrowing performances from Murphy and Harris bring about a real dread when watching this movie. Filmed with a rough edge helps in making you feel that this is probably the more likely situation if mankind ever find themselves fighting off a hoard of rage-driven zombies. The characters inability to be able to use weapons as efficiently as other films always seem to suggest reiterates the fact that they are just average humans just trying to survive. (7th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEkJAaGhJhQ
Ron Burgundy
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - Director: Frank Darabont; starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, William Sadler, Clancy Brown and Bob Gunton. Its such an uplifting story, starring Tim Robbins in probably his best performance in his best film, Morgan Freeman in a part where I couldn’t imagine any other man play and a great surrounding cast. The movie just flies by and you can really feel for the characters (good and bad) especially the good feeling at the end. (8th appearance)
Buscemi
Rear Window (1954) - Director: Alfred Hitchcock; starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey and Raymond Burr. Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece. The simple story of a man who spends his time watching his neighbors while recovering from a leg injury would sound boring on paper but thanks to Hitchcock's direction and Stewart's charming performance (yes, Stewart manages to make even a potentially perverted character likeable), the film ends up being one very interesting film. The suspense of Stewart trying to find a killer despite his handicap and limited evidence keeps you wanting more and manages to becomes more engrossing by the minute. Stewart is also complemented by excellent acting from Kelly (as his girlfriend) and Ritter (as his nurse). The film has been imitated, redone and parodied many times (the best being the episode of The Simpsons where Bart breaks his leg and thinks Ned Flanders has killed his wife), but this is still the best version of this premise. (6th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kCcZCMYw38
Chienfantome
Rio Bravo (1959) – Director: Howard Hawks, starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan. It was 5 or 6 years ago. The first and only time (for now) I have seen Rio Bravo. It was a restored copy, on a big screen. It was as splendid as if it was new, technically speaking. And it was love at first sight. The kind of love that doesn’t need repeat viewing for confirmation. It was full. It was everything I wanted it to be. It was everything it was supposed to be, and more. For me it’s the greatest “classical” western, but the truth is, it’s nothing classical. On the contrary. Rio Bravo is a very modern take on the genre. It’s not a western about the great landscapes, about riding your horse in the plain, about cowboys and Indians. It’s nothing like that. It’s four men inside a confined place, attacked by outside men outnumbering them. It’s a tense film, alternating between the action and the laughter, the bitterness and the jubilation. It’s a character study disguised as an action film, disguised as a western. Howard Hawks’ greatest strength as a filmmaker was that he could tackle any genre with greatness, and that resonates perfectly with Rio Bravo. A film which structure is so remarkable it has been remade over and over ever since. And not just by John Carpenter. Walter Brennan is one of the greatest comedic supporting actors, and to those of you who wonder why us Frenchies love Dean Martin, watch his turn in this film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlAF1DPLIAI
numbersix
Taxi Driver (1976) - Director: Martin Scorsese; starring Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, and Harvey Keitel. I don’t really think Scorsese is one of my favourite directors (probably because he’s had more misses than hits in the last 20 years) but he sure as hell must be. And while I love the likes of Goodfellas and Raging Bull, this is his ultimate movie. It’s a movie no one else could make, and I’ve seen plenty of pale imitations. DeNiro is brilliantly deluded as some sort of harbinger of justice. But what’s clever about this film is that his sense of morality doesn’t come from religion, or philosophy, or plain logic. It comes from the media, or at least his twisted perspective on it. Scorsese refers to The Searchers, and when I saw Ford’s western not only did the references in Taxi Driver make sense but it kind of improved on what the earlier film was trying to achieve. I won’t get into the comparisons, but Taxi Driver is a twisted take on what it is to be a hero. DeNiro’s character follows what he thinks is right (so much so that he ruins a relationship in the process), wanting to clean up the city and rescue a girl who has become a prostitute. The irony is that he’s as crazy and bloodthirsty as the pimps and dealers, yet after his actions at the film’s disturbing climax he’s actually regarded as a hero! It’s a fantastic movie, with some amazing visuals that represent the clouded, hellish view on life that Bickle possesses. And I have to mention Bernard Hermann’s brilliant score, which references classic noir but seems somehow off, suiting the film’s theme perfectly. (4th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiNx3GWjTgo
Banks
The Dark Knight (2008) - Director: Christopher Nolan; starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman. There’s a reason that for a long time after its release, The Dark Knight was voted as the greatest movie of all-time on the IMDb Top 250. And almost three years later, it still sits inside the Top 10 of all-time. And that’s because it is the greatest movie from a director who only makes great movies, and because it contains one of the most powerful performances in cinematic history. Mind-blowing from The Joker’s bank heist to Batman taking the fall for the misdeeds of Harvey Dent, it is the best comic book movie ever and it was great to see such genius rewarded by the masses with an amazing haul of $535 million dollars, even if it was generally ignored by the Oscars. (3rd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4tPLDa7c8k
BarcaRulz
Arlington Rd. (1999) - Director: Mark Pellington; starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack. A superb thriller that is criminally underrated. Superb directing, superb acting, and above all; superb script. One of the best endings I have ever seen, and some of the best suspense building techniques I’ve ever encountered. Everyone is at the top of their game, and the end result is a brilliant thriller that both keeps you engrossed and guessing as it plays out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzzT_Iaw0t8
Geezer
Pulp Fiction (1994) - Director: Quentin Tarantino; starring Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman. This has been getting a lot of love lately, and deservedly so. It is Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece. A movie so good, so cool, so worth seeing, that a master of cinema even the likes of Tarantino will probably never be able to top it. It is simply mesmerizing. Every story brings elements to the screen that keep you glued. The dialogue is easily some of the best ever written. A worthy way to kick off my top 10. (8th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDbSbOsoRnY
leestu
The Deer Hunter (1978) – Director Michael Cimino; starring Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage and Meryl Streep. Another one of those powerful movies that I was talking about earlier on that I first watched in my youth and helped me fall in love with watching movies. (2nd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncdlqob1QtM
W
Die Hard (1988) - Director: John McTiernan; starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, and Bonnie Bedelia. "You remember when he had to walk across the broken glass, but he wasn't wearing any shoes?" (Yeah.) "That was awesome." -- The Chris Farley Show In my opinion, the best pure action film of all time. It's also comedic with the banter between Hans and John as well as the side characters, my favorite of which is Carl Winslow (err... Sgt. Al Powell). Hans Gruber is one of the greatest villains of all time and no matter how many Harry Potter films there are, Alan Rickman will always be Hans to me. John McClane is the definition of an action hero and though hundreds have tried to make witty cop-like characters that face seemingly insurmountable odds and save the day, he has never been close to duplicated and probably never will. (9th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxBXm7ZUTM
NSpan
8½ (1963) - Director: Federico Fellini; starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee, Sandra Milo and Claudia Cardinale. Remember what I said earlier about Barton Fink? You know, all that jazz regarding "art about art." Well, this is it: the absolute cinematic pinnacle of capturing the creative process. Many movies released before and after were equally ambitious, but no other ever actually *achieved* such heights as Fellini's eighth (and a half) film. Don't call it pretentious--because this film succeeds in EVERY avenue it pursues. Charlie Kaufman's bullshit pale-imitations of this masterpiece have been heralded as works of genius. Bah! If you want the real deal, check this out. (2nd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtDQOF_pU8A
undeadmonkey
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - Director: Peter Jackson; starring Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen. I loved to read when I was younger, from the moment I learned to read to about 16, it would have been very rare to catch me without a book at least an arms length away. As rare as it is to see young boys read these days, the few that do, most come to love the fantasy genre. I know I did. Having one of your favorite books brought to life was incredible; I almost didn’t want to finish the movie, because I didn’t want it to end. (Sounds a bit corny I know, but hey) Again, I loved the books but I always felt that the scouring of the shire scenes at the end was anticlimactic. Yes, seeing the shire go up against and beat Saruman and Wormtongue would have been cool, but like I said, compared to everything that just happened it’s a bit inconsequential. So when I saw Wormtoungue and Saruman die in the beginning of the RotK, I knew Peter Jackson was going to fix that bit. (I didn’t get to see the films in theaters and saw the extended editions first) So many films try to achieve these great cinematical (is that a word..) moments and yet fall flat, but this film is filled with such moments. Gandalf telling Pippin about death and ‘A far green country with a swift sunrise’, Gollum and Frodo’s scene with Shelob (maybe this is just more me, because I am deathly afraid of spiders). Pippin singing his song while Denethor munches away, intercut with the last riders running to their death. Aragorn saying, ‘my friends, you bow to no one’. Charging the Black Gates. Here at the End of All Things. Into to the West….. My favorite scene though is when the hobbits are back in the shire, back at the bar and they are having a drink. No one around them even knows what they went through. They are saying nothing, because nothing was needed to be said. Up till then I had loved everything I had seen, but at that moment I felt I had seen something special, something apart from the books, which allowed the movie to stand on its own. Interestingly though, while that scene lets us in with these friends fellowship and what they went through, it also made me feel like I missed out. That to me is what makes films great, letting us go on an adventure we could never do in real life. (3rd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7YllAOqpF4
JohnErle
The Exorcist (1973) - Director: William Friedkin; starring Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Linda Blair and Max Von Sydow. Horror is one of the hardest genres to pull off, and this is an undisputed masterpiece tapping into primal terrors. I was raised in a Xian household so devils and demons are one of the few movie monsters that can truly terrify me, despite my logical dismissal of all religious beliefs. (3rd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDGw1MTEe9k
Let's start the home stretch!
MOVIE #10
Shrykespeare
Lucky Number Slevin (2006) – Director: Paul McGuigan; starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu and Stanley Tucci. One of the slickest crime thrillers ever created. Still vastly underrated, Slevin follows the travails of a seemingly innocent bystander (Hartnett) who gets caught up in a blood feud between two rival mob bosses (Freeman and Kingsley). Throw in a vicious hitman (Willis), a winsome neighbor (Liu, truly delightful) and a nosy cop (Tucci), and you have one of the most slam-bang casts this side of Ocean’s Eleven. The dialogue is unusually colorful, like something you’d expect to find in a 1950’s potboiler novel, but that gives the movie a rather eccentric flavor that I wasn’t expecting. Neither was I expecting the ending climax, which tied the whole movie together and made it an instant classic in my eyes. I know I said yesterday that Unbreakable was Willis’s best performance, and I stand by that, but of the five films on my list that feature him, this is the highest. (2nd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVIUEcizkPc
silversurfer
Jaws (1975) - Director: Steven Spielberg; starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. One of the movies which scared the living daylights out of me when I was younger. I can still remember being around six or seven and my mum had returned home on a Saturday evening with out weekly fish and chips for while we watched a rental video. Quickly, we threw the food onto a plate, rammed the video into the player and set ourselves up on the couch (or as usual for me, sit on the floor next to the roaring fire), before that haunting music set in and the now classic opening scene played out. I was stunned, terrified and glued to the screen - the sound of the bhoy ringing almost sounds like a death knell for the young girl who has just been viciously attacked, and you are left unsure of what will follow. Throughout the remainder of the movie I was held remarkably tense by it's fast driven pace, my guts twisting at every moment, all the while the film taps into the most primal of human fears with the minimal revealing of the shark. It's an astonishing movie which has held up so well throughout many dozens of repeat viewings, it's a movie I've continued to seek out over the years and one which you never get tired of. The scares still pack a punch, but I now acknowledge some of the ideas which delve beyond the main plot outline. It's a fantastic test of our own mortality, a brilliant character driven thriller, while the camera work and atmosphere generated show some fantastic ideas for maintaining that tension and uncertainty. It's very rare a movie can remain so thrilling and so unsettling year after year, but Jaws is one of the few that has truly stood the test of time, and I know I'll be sure to be terrified for many years to come. (5th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zkYRD51I34
thegreenarrow
Vertigo (1958) - Director: Alfred Hitchcock; starring James Stewart, Kim Noval and Barbara Del Geddes. (3rd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0bV2gh4E7Y
transformers
Kill Bill Vol.1 (2003) - Director: Quentin Tarantino; starring Uma Thurman,Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox and David Carradine. Both Kill Bill films are great, but I find the first installment to be much better. The storyline is spectacular. You want The Bride to get vengeance on Bill and the rest of her former assassin partners. Uma Thurman gives The Bride a soul and one top of that, she kicks a whole lot of ass. The action sequences are astonishing. The fight between The Bride and the Crazy 88's is one of the most breathtaking action scenes in movie history. As usual, Tarantino's script is razor-sharp. Another masterpiece from my favorite director. (7th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdjuS17DGlA(Crazy 88's scene)
englishozzy
28 Days Later… (2002) - Director: Danny Boyle; starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Noah Huntley and Brendan Gleeson. Boyle delivers a film which really started to show his true potential as a director. After the somewhat disappointment of The Beach (although I didn’t think it was as bad as people perceived), Boyle reacts with this British zombie movie that challenges the Living Dead series. Some brilliant apocalyptic scenes of London and harrowing performances from Murphy and Harris bring about a real dread when watching this movie. Filmed with a rough edge helps in making you feel that this is probably the more likely situation if mankind ever find themselves fighting off a hoard of rage-driven zombies. The characters inability to be able to use weapons as efficiently as other films always seem to suggest reiterates the fact that they are just average humans just trying to survive. (7th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEkJAaGhJhQ
Ron Burgundy
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - Director: Frank Darabont; starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, William Sadler, Clancy Brown and Bob Gunton. Its such an uplifting story, starring Tim Robbins in probably his best performance in his best film, Morgan Freeman in a part where I couldn’t imagine any other man play and a great surrounding cast. The movie just flies by and you can really feel for the characters (good and bad) especially the good feeling at the end. (8th appearance)
Buscemi
Rear Window (1954) - Director: Alfred Hitchcock; starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey and Raymond Burr. Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece. The simple story of a man who spends his time watching his neighbors while recovering from a leg injury would sound boring on paper but thanks to Hitchcock's direction and Stewart's charming performance (yes, Stewart manages to make even a potentially perverted character likeable), the film ends up being one very interesting film. The suspense of Stewart trying to find a killer despite his handicap and limited evidence keeps you wanting more and manages to becomes more engrossing by the minute. Stewart is also complemented by excellent acting from Kelly (as his girlfriend) and Ritter (as his nurse). The film has been imitated, redone and parodied many times (the best being the episode of The Simpsons where Bart breaks his leg and thinks Ned Flanders has killed his wife), but this is still the best version of this premise. (6th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kCcZCMYw38
Chienfantome
Rio Bravo (1959) – Director: Howard Hawks, starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan. It was 5 or 6 years ago. The first and only time (for now) I have seen Rio Bravo. It was a restored copy, on a big screen. It was as splendid as if it was new, technically speaking. And it was love at first sight. The kind of love that doesn’t need repeat viewing for confirmation. It was full. It was everything I wanted it to be. It was everything it was supposed to be, and more. For me it’s the greatest “classical” western, but the truth is, it’s nothing classical. On the contrary. Rio Bravo is a very modern take on the genre. It’s not a western about the great landscapes, about riding your horse in the plain, about cowboys and Indians. It’s nothing like that. It’s four men inside a confined place, attacked by outside men outnumbering them. It’s a tense film, alternating between the action and the laughter, the bitterness and the jubilation. It’s a character study disguised as an action film, disguised as a western. Howard Hawks’ greatest strength as a filmmaker was that he could tackle any genre with greatness, and that resonates perfectly with Rio Bravo. A film which structure is so remarkable it has been remade over and over ever since. And not just by John Carpenter. Walter Brennan is one of the greatest comedic supporting actors, and to those of you who wonder why us Frenchies love Dean Martin, watch his turn in this film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlAF1DPLIAI
numbersix
Taxi Driver (1976) - Director: Martin Scorsese; starring Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, and Harvey Keitel. I don’t really think Scorsese is one of my favourite directors (probably because he’s had more misses than hits in the last 20 years) but he sure as hell must be. And while I love the likes of Goodfellas and Raging Bull, this is his ultimate movie. It’s a movie no one else could make, and I’ve seen plenty of pale imitations. DeNiro is brilliantly deluded as some sort of harbinger of justice. But what’s clever about this film is that his sense of morality doesn’t come from religion, or philosophy, or plain logic. It comes from the media, or at least his twisted perspective on it. Scorsese refers to The Searchers, and when I saw Ford’s western not only did the references in Taxi Driver make sense but it kind of improved on what the earlier film was trying to achieve. I won’t get into the comparisons, but Taxi Driver is a twisted take on what it is to be a hero. DeNiro’s character follows what he thinks is right (so much so that he ruins a relationship in the process), wanting to clean up the city and rescue a girl who has become a prostitute. The irony is that he’s as crazy and bloodthirsty as the pimps and dealers, yet after his actions at the film’s disturbing climax he’s actually regarded as a hero! It’s a fantastic movie, with some amazing visuals that represent the clouded, hellish view on life that Bickle possesses. And I have to mention Bernard Hermann’s brilliant score, which references classic noir but seems somehow off, suiting the film’s theme perfectly. (4th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiNx3GWjTgo
Banks
The Dark Knight (2008) - Director: Christopher Nolan; starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman. There’s a reason that for a long time after its release, The Dark Knight was voted as the greatest movie of all-time on the IMDb Top 250. And almost three years later, it still sits inside the Top 10 of all-time. And that’s because it is the greatest movie from a director who only makes great movies, and because it contains one of the most powerful performances in cinematic history. Mind-blowing from The Joker’s bank heist to Batman taking the fall for the misdeeds of Harvey Dent, it is the best comic book movie ever and it was great to see such genius rewarded by the masses with an amazing haul of $535 million dollars, even if it was generally ignored by the Oscars. (3rd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4tPLDa7c8k
BarcaRulz
Arlington Rd. (1999) - Director: Mark Pellington; starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack. A superb thriller that is criminally underrated. Superb directing, superb acting, and above all; superb script. One of the best endings I have ever seen, and some of the best suspense building techniques I’ve ever encountered. Everyone is at the top of their game, and the end result is a brilliant thriller that both keeps you engrossed and guessing as it plays out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzzT_Iaw0t8
Geezer
Pulp Fiction (1994) - Director: Quentin Tarantino; starring Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman. This has been getting a lot of love lately, and deservedly so. It is Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece. A movie so good, so cool, so worth seeing, that a master of cinema even the likes of Tarantino will probably never be able to top it. It is simply mesmerizing. Every story brings elements to the screen that keep you glued. The dialogue is easily some of the best ever written. A worthy way to kick off my top 10. (8th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDbSbOsoRnY
leestu
The Deer Hunter (1978) – Director Michael Cimino; starring Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage and Meryl Streep. Another one of those powerful movies that I was talking about earlier on that I first watched in my youth and helped me fall in love with watching movies. (2nd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncdlqob1QtM
W
Die Hard (1988) - Director: John McTiernan; starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, and Bonnie Bedelia. "You remember when he had to walk across the broken glass, but he wasn't wearing any shoes?" (Yeah.) "That was awesome." -- The Chris Farley Show In my opinion, the best pure action film of all time. It's also comedic with the banter between Hans and John as well as the side characters, my favorite of which is Carl Winslow (err... Sgt. Al Powell). Hans Gruber is one of the greatest villains of all time and no matter how many Harry Potter films there are, Alan Rickman will always be Hans to me. John McClane is the definition of an action hero and though hundreds have tried to make witty cop-like characters that face seemingly insurmountable odds and save the day, he has never been close to duplicated and probably never will. (9th appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxBXm7ZUTM
NSpan
8½ (1963) - Director: Federico Fellini; starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee, Sandra Milo and Claudia Cardinale. Remember what I said earlier about Barton Fink? You know, all that jazz regarding "art about art." Well, this is it: the absolute cinematic pinnacle of capturing the creative process. Many movies released before and after were equally ambitious, but no other ever actually *achieved* such heights as Fellini's eighth (and a half) film. Don't call it pretentious--because this film succeeds in EVERY avenue it pursues. Charlie Kaufman's bullshit pale-imitations of this masterpiece have been heralded as works of genius. Bah! If you want the real deal, check this out. (2nd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtDQOF_pU8A
undeadmonkey
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - Director: Peter Jackson; starring Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen. I loved to read when I was younger, from the moment I learned to read to about 16, it would have been very rare to catch me without a book at least an arms length away. As rare as it is to see young boys read these days, the few that do, most come to love the fantasy genre. I know I did. Having one of your favorite books brought to life was incredible; I almost didn’t want to finish the movie, because I didn’t want it to end. (Sounds a bit corny I know, but hey) Again, I loved the books but I always felt that the scouring of the shire scenes at the end was anticlimactic. Yes, seeing the shire go up against and beat Saruman and Wormtongue would have been cool, but like I said, compared to everything that just happened it’s a bit inconsequential. So when I saw Wormtoungue and Saruman die in the beginning of the RotK, I knew Peter Jackson was going to fix that bit. (I didn’t get to see the films in theaters and saw the extended editions first) So many films try to achieve these great cinematical (is that a word..) moments and yet fall flat, but this film is filled with such moments. Gandalf telling Pippin about death and ‘A far green country with a swift sunrise’, Gollum and Frodo’s scene with Shelob (maybe this is just more me, because I am deathly afraid of spiders). Pippin singing his song while Denethor munches away, intercut with the last riders running to their death. Aragorn saying, ‘my friends, you bow to no one’. Charging the Black Gates. Here at the End of All Things. Into to the West….. My favorite scene though is when the hobbits are back in the shire, back at the bar and they are having a drink. No one around them even knows what they went through. They are saying nothing, because nothing was needed to be said. Up till then I had loved everything I had seen, but at that moment I felt I had seen something special, something apart from the books, which allowed the movie to stand on its own. Interestingly though, while that scene lets us in with these friends fellowship and what they went through, it also made me feel like I missed out. That to me is what makes films great, letting us go on an adventure we could never do in real life. (3rd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7YllAOqpF4
JohnErle
The Exorcist (1973) - Director: William Friedkin; starring Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Linda Blair and Max Von Sydow. Horror is one of the hardest genres to pull off, and this is an undisputed masterpiece tapping into primal terrors. I was raised in a Xian household so devils and demons are one of the few movie monsters that can truly terrify me, despite my logical dismissal of all religious beliefs. (3rd appearance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDGw1MTEe9k