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The Fantastic Family of Functional Films
As you may have surmised, I've seen the Phantom Menace recently. Not in the mythical third dimension mind you, just video. A screening that took over three hours due to my ranting about each scene taking longer then the scenes themselves. Serious, can anyone give me a single motivation for the actions of the Trade Federation? Having re-watched it, I do have to concede that there are two cool bits to it. Darth Maul, who maintains respectability with a clever use of no dialogue, and about nine minutes of screen time, eight of which are fight sequences, and the remainder is posing. The other is Pod Racing. I've gotta say, if you just cut out all of the irrelevant padding, the little kid jokes, all of the moronic NASCAR in space stuff, and edited it down to a third of its run time, you have a really neat video game cinematic.
Besides that, I figured I need to go watch some better movies, cleanse my palette if you will. So I headed over to the Internet Movie Database, and looked up their list of 250 Best Movies of All Time. My plan was simply to go through the list, make note of every film I haven't seen yet, and go watch them. Unfortunately... it turns out I've actually already watched them all. Aside for a couple of older films I haven't seen simply because they're out of publication and can't just go watch them, and the Black Swan, which came out a year ago and I haven't gotten around to it yet. So, am I particularly cultured? Or do I just have no life and watch way too many movies? Considering how many of the WORST films ever made I've seen, it's definitely the latter.
So, as someone who watches, by far way, way too many movies, I have a complaint with the list. Rather I have many complaints with what ranked what. The Lion King was a good movie, I really liked it, sometimes I sing "be prepared" to myself, but was it a better movie then Brazil, which didn't make the list? Not a chance. Forget about the ridiculously high position for movies like The Shawshank Redemption and Avatar. I'll concede that Avatar is technically and visually interesting, replace the entire scrip, and it may be a decent film. So, right now, off the top of my head, and in no particular order, (the sequence I thought of them in, I'd have to go watch them all again to be more exact) what I, personally, would consider to be the 100 best movies ever made. Make them whatever list order you feel comfortable with.
Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Memento, Dr. Strangelove: Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back, Lawrence of Arabia, Blade Runner, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Pulp Fiction, Taxi Driver, Seven Samurai, Scarface, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Life is Beautiful, Schindlers List, Fight Club, Vertigo, The Dark Knight, The Godfather, The, Godfather Part 2, The Silence of the Lambs, Edward Scissorhands, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Alien, Aliens, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc, Am�©lie, The Wizard of Oz, Modern Times, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Back to the Future, Trainspotting, Requiem for a Dream, The Great Dictator, 8 1/2, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Maltese Falcon, The Great Escape, The Big Labowski, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Fargo, Strangers on a Train, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Gone With the Wind, The Life of Brian, 12 Monkeys, Good Will Hunting, The Princess Bride, Rocky, A Beautiful Mind, The Nightmare Before Christmas, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Star Wars VI: The Return of the Jedi, Psycho, American History X, Spirited Away, Vertigo, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Singing in the Rain, Metropolis, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The King's Speech, Groundhog Day, Ben-hur, Gandhi, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, The African Queen, The Seventh Seal, The Boat, Ghost in the Shell, Donnie Darko, Star Wars, King Kong, North By Northwest, Matrix, The Shining, The Crow, The Dark Crystal, Nosferatu, The Best Years of Our Lives, Annie Hall, The Searchers, The Lady Eve, Rear Window, All About Eve, Brazil, On the Waterfront, The Sting, Unforgiven, Some Like it Hot, Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown, Duck Soup, The Fall, Hero.
So, if you want something to do, forget about the latest 3D nonsense craze of rehashed 80's toy commercials, go watch Chinatown!
posted by davethecat @ 21 Feb 2012 02:05 pm -
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