Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

[Wooley]

But even so you did hate the score that first time which supports my theory that very few of us are completely ready for Suspiria when we first encounter it.


This theory probably doesn't apply to younger folks who have more info at their disposal and can come to it better-researched than I. Like where would I even find a Suspiria trailer to watch back in '92? I just had to rent it completely blind.


Another thing to remember is that I first watched it after having spent the 80s ignoring any and all slashers, so I didn't even have that base line to fall back on. So I was no doubt even less prepared than the average viewer.

Yes, I also saw it completely blind. I read it about it somewhere but only like a paragraph.
Everything about it just hit me like a truck.

[crumbsroom]

Granted, the first time I saw Naked Lunch, I didn't know much about Burrows, didn't know the novel, and didn't appreciate that there was no fantastical story going on, it was all supposed to be just a drug trip, no ambiguity intended on that front at all.
I think I saw Naked Lunch in highschool, shortly after the book, and thought it was a travesty in all of the liberties it took with the text, and how it dared to be mostly a linear story more based on Burrough's real life instead of the nightmarescapes the book is almost completely composed of.



Now I realize I was a pretentious twat who didn't know what he was talking about. It's incorporation of biographical detail is really the only way that book is ever going to work on film. It retains the spirit of the text, while illuminating what the novel is actually about with all of its constant abstractions.


As usual, with most Cronenberg, he is a guy I almost always need a second viewing of every one of his movies to properly appreciate.

[crumbsroom]

Another thing to remember is that I first watched it after having spent the 80s ignoring any and all slashers, so I didn't even have that base line to fall back on. So I was no doubt even less prepared than the average viewer.


I think my personal preparation for it was having seen City of the Living Dead about ten years prior. A movie I didn't understand on first viewing, but just lingered in my like a brain tumor for a decade. Then, watching Suspiria, it kind of activated the understanding something like CotLD wasn't just strongly resonant trash. It was a piece of high level art.



The effect of Suspiria cannot be overstated.

[Rockatansky]

My first experience with Fulci was Zombie, which left me pretty cold. It took me watching The Beyond a few years later to really click with him (I watched City of the Living Dead shortly after), and when I finally rewatched Zombie it went up in my esteem quite a bit.

[Wooley]

My first experience with Fulci was Zombie, which left me pretty cold. It took me watching The Beyond a few years later to really click with him (I watched City of the Living Dead shortly after), and when I finally rewatched Zombie it went up in my esteem quite a bit.

My experience with Zombi was pretty unique.
There is (was) a Haunted House every year during October, which won The Travel Channel's show or The Scariest Haunted House In America. The line could easily run to 45 minutes, so they had entertainment while you were in line, including Pain Tribe, a group of extreme body-piercing folks who would hang from chains by their piercings and and put foot-long needle-like spikes through their cheeks (in one side of the mouth and out of the other) and so forth, but as the line approached the building they would be showing the goriest Horror movies projected the size of a theater movie on the outside wall of the building, before they did a stage show on the roof with crazy costumes and pyrotechnics.
The movie on the wall the first year I went was Zombi, I think they just had like the final 30 minutes on a loop. And I remember thinking, "Right, this is the shit I've somehow missed, that somehow eluded me all my life, and I need to find it." I had no idea what movie it was.
Then I saw Suspiria and got a sense that I might be on the right track and then I read someone talking about Zombi on RT and describing the eyeball scene and I was like, "That's it!!!"
And then I saw Zombi.

[Little Ash]

In the final 30 minutes, Zombie is a bit on a loop naturally.

[Iroquois]

#40. Withnail & I
(Bruce Robinson, 1987)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/658/cache-8275-1546509630/image-w1280.jpg?size=1200x

"We want the finest wines available to humanity. We want them here and we want them now."

The exact kind of idiosyncratic low-budget comedy that seems custom-built for cult status, Withnail & I readily earned a place in my heart with its tale of the titular actors (Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann respectively) trying to get away from their squalid London existence by visiting the country home of Withnail's eccentric uncle (Richard Griffiths) with...less-than-ideal results. The juxtaposition of theatricality and intellect with hedonism and paranoia makes for a heady concoction that manifests so beautifully in the film's flowery yet profane dialogue, to say nothing of the film's occasional unforgettable delve into physical humour. All of it is delivered with aplomb by such accomplished performers, especially Grant as the roommate from hell who will drink lighter fluid out of alcoholic desperation or insult just about everyone he comes across. This is all enjoyable texture that covers a bittersweet tale of a toxic friendship nearing its final days, which does admittedly veer into straight-up gay panic humour (especially when it comes to the subplot involving Griffiths showing up to the cottage with designs on McGann) but wins in the end with an indelible rain-swept soliloquy that underlines the tragic heart at the centre of a tale of stupid city boys with stupid country tastes.

2005 ranking: #30
2013 ranking: #8

[honeykid]

I really liked (I wouldn't say loved) Suspiria from the first watch, but then I was about 11 and, let's face it, a gorgeous looking, weird film which doesn't make sense, populated by barely covered young women and the promise of nudity is exactly what I wanted to see. It's like a grown up's version of Scooby-Doo. Obviously it wasn't anything like as clear and gorgeous as it looks now, as it was on video, but I just ate all that stuff up from very early on and throughout my teens and early 20's.

The Terminator is still great. Showing it's age, but still great. I watched a reaction to it just the other day and it still has the power to both shock and get an audience asking questions. Also, I'm another who'll put it above the sequel, as much fun as that is, partly because of the effects, but mostly because the end doesn't seem/feel as dragged out in the first movie.

Withnail & I I've already addressed in the Comedy countdown. In short, not seen it, don't like the look of it. Almost certainly will never watch it unless I feel like punishing myself.

[SpelingError]

I addressed Withnail & I in the comedy countdown, too, but I'm a pretty big fan of it.

[Iroquois]

#39. Total Recall
(Paul Verhoeven, 1990)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/2302/cache-47658-1546574421/image-w1280.jpg

"You think this is the real Quaid? It is!"

Much has been made of how Verhoeven's other ventures into Hollywood sci-fi action also functions as ruthless satirisation of the same, whether it's RoboCop underlining how increasingly militarised police are effectively made to serve corporate interests or Starship Troopers mocking the fascistic nature of jingoistic military narratives. Compared to those two, Total Recall takes a rather understated approach to deconstructing action cinema itself, especially when it gets none other than the most iconic action star of his generation to play the lead. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Quaid is bored of his everyday life and decides to get a fake memory of being a secret agent implanted in his brain...but then it turns out he really is a secret agent being targeted by killer goons. Or is this all just a dream? Verhoeven keeps it delightfully ambiguous in such a way where even the film's indulgences of R-rated extremity play like subtle indictments of the same, especially as things continue to escalate into the absurd and contrived. At this point, it becomes much easier to believe the interpretation that this is all a dream, but even that doesn't undermine the film's overall exercise in continuing as not just Verhoeven's spiritual successor to not just RoboCop but also screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett's exercise in following up the interplanetary anti-corporate approach they'd crafted in Alien while working off Philip K. Dick's original story. As hard as it is to properly quantify the best Schwarzenegger film, this is a decidedly worthwhile contender.

2005 ranking: #60
2013 ranking: #56

[doubledenim]

Sounds like it must hold up better than The Running Man. I’m often skeptical of re-visiting films for fear of them losing the magic they hold. Good to see this one still holds some of its charm.

My first thought of you ranking this higher than Predator is wondering where my pitchfork and torches are. Then I realize how these movies resonate differently with people and can go back to looking for my phone charger instead.

[Little Ash]

Those Veerhoven hits (and I guess in the rise of fandom for Showgirls, his catastrophic flops as well) have the reputation of having aged really well.

[honeykid]

I think Total Recall has aged really well, much like The Terminator, and certainly a lot better than The Running Man (though I still like that a lot) but then, it's always been better and had more about it than the usual run of the mill 80's action movie.

[Iroquois]

Sounds like it must hold up better than The Running Man. I’m often skeptical of re-visiting films for fear of them losing the magic they hold. Good to see this one still holds some of its charm.

My first thought of you ranking this higher than Predator is wondering where my pitchfork and torches are. Then I realize how these movies resonate differently with people and can go back to looking for my phone charger instead.

I don't doubt it - The Running Man is fun, but it's severely limited by how much of a campy piece of schlock it is. Total Recall is gaudy and grotesque, but it's in service of a fairly cerebral and well-crafted piece of sci-fi. It's very much a different beast to Predator and its elemental simplicity.

[Iroquois]

#38. Videodrome
(David Cronenberg, 1983)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/240/cache-47321-1534735817/image-w1280.jpg

"Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!"

Perhaps one of the most unforgettable images in horror cinema is scuzzy cable executive Max Renn (James Woods) suddenly developing a throbbing vagina-like cavity in the middle of his abdomen, an image rendered decidedly pointed when another character pushes a videotape made of pulsating flesh into said cavity. Cronenberg had already established himself as a master of creating viscerally unsettling imagery by the time he made Videodrome but this is where his nascent obsessions with physiology and culture really crystallised as part of a commentary on the growing extremity of media content and its potential influence on mass audiences. Renn's reality-bending search for the truth behind the eponymous television program that consists of nothing but meaningless sadism brings him into contact with all sorts of kooky characters, whether it's hypersexual radio host Nikki Brand (Deborah Harry) developing her own masochistic fascination with the show or Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley) delivering pre-recorded monologues that take their own sinister turns as he delivers exposition under increasingly implausible and surreal circumstances. Cronenberg has arguably made better and more mature films that still traffic in all manner of flesh-rending grotesquerie, but even now I question whether any of them could ever truly overtake the one that burned itself onto my brain like a still image will burn itself into a television screen if exposed too long.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #64

[SpelingError]

Yeah, Videodrome ranks amongst Cronenberg's best films. What keeps me coming back to it is that it seems to resist any attempts for me to interpret it. I've slowly been piecing it together over the years, but it still always manages to impress me. Not sure I like it more than The Fly, but it's still great.

[crumbsroom]

Videodrome is powerful stuff. It is kind of an ideal of what cinema can and should do more often. It is loaded with confusions and contradictions and impossible to process images, but it never loses sight of the truth that it is telling. As lost as we become in its hall of mirrors, we understand the world it is showing us on screen, and the terror that it is only reflecting back to us something we already implicitly understand about our own lives, and their slow fusion with the media we consume, and the technology we become beholden to. It mattered then, and it obviously matters now, and while I find it at times an almost impossible film to parse every detail to understand absolutely everything that has happened in it, it remains a movie I understand deeply and bring with me to my nightmares every night.


Cronenberg is of course, always great. No matter how much he cloaks his movies in an intellectual frigidity, and makes his audience keep their distance with his images of bodily decay and metamorphisis, they are always brilliant at portraying the humanity that is trapped inside of these things. There is a terrible understanding of the world in his movies, that both empathizes with humanity while simultaneously turning its gaze away from it. They are like being filled with the urge to scream and finding you don't have a mouth.


In short, Videodrome is great. And while it's not my personal favorite, it's very arguably Cronenberg's best.

[Little Ash]

Videodrome is powerful stuff. It is kind of an ideal of what cinema can and should do more often. It is loaded with confusions and contradictions and impossible to process images, but it never loses sight of the truth that it is telling. As lost as we become in its hall of mirrors, we understand the world it is showing us on screen, and the terror that it is only reflecting back to us something we already implicitly understand about our own lives, and their slow fusion with the media we consume, and the technology we become beholden to. It mattered then, and it obviously matters now, and while I find it at times an almost impossible film to parse every detail to understand absolutely everything that has happened in it, it remains a movie I understand deeply and bring with me to my nightmares every night.


Cronenberg is of course, always great. No matter how much he cloaks his movies in an intellectual frigidity, and makes his audience keep their distance with his images of bodily decay and metamorphisis, they are always brilliant at portraying the humanity that is trapped inside of these things. There is a terrible understanding of the world in his movies, that both empathizes with humanity while simultaneously turning its gaze away from it. They are like being filled with the urge to scream and finding you don't have a mouth.


In short, Videodrome is great. And while it's not my personal favorite, it's very arguably Cronenberg's best.

- It really does work on just about anybody.
- Anybody who watches it, Max. But why would anybody watch it? Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it, Max?
- Business reasons.
- Sure. Sure... What about the other reasons?

[Takoma11]

I definitely need to watch Videodrome again. While I loved it when I first watched it, it's been well over 15 years. I think I'd probably get more out of it now.

[Wooley]

#38. Videodrome
(David Cronenberg, 1983)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/240/cache-47321-1534735817/image-w1280.jpg

"Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!"

Perhaps one of the most unforgettable images in horror cinema is scuzzy cable executive Max Renn (James Woods) suddenly developing a throbbing vagina-like cavity in the middle of his abdomen, an image rendered decidedly pointed when another character pushes a videotape made of pulsating flesh into said cavity. Cronenberg had already established himself as a master of creating viscerally unsettling imagery by the time he made Videodrome but this is where his nascent obsessions with physiology and culture really crystallised as part of a commentary on the growing extremity of media content and its potential influence on mass audiences. Renn's reality-bending search for the truth behind the eponymous television program that consists of nothing but meaningless sadism brings him into contact with all sorts of kooky characters, whether it's hypersexual radio host Nikki Brand (Deborah Harry) developing her own masochistic fascination with the show or Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley) delivering pre-recorded monologues that take their own sinister turns as he delivers exposition under increasingly implausible and surreal circumstances. Cronenberg has arguably made better and more mature films that still traffic in all manner of flesh-rending grotesquerie, but even now I question whether any of them could ever truly overtake the one that burned itself onto my brain like a still image will burn itself into a television screen if exposed too long.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #64

This is probably one of my favorite movies of all time, though I would have to make a list to figure out where it would land.
As I've said around here before, I saw this at a way-too-young 13 years old and it really helped to shape how I thought about film, art, and the world. I don't think my mom was thrilled about that but I guess if it bothered her she should have been more vigilant.

Long live The New Flesh.

[Rockatansky]

- It really does work on just about anybody.
- Anybody who watches it, Max. But why would anybody watch it? Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it, Max?
- Business reasons.
- Sure. Sure... What about the other reasons?
I feel attacked.

[Rockatansky]

And yeah, put me down as another fan. Definitely a formative movie for me, opening my eyes to the kind of strange possibilities that were out there. I guess I can relate a little to the main character.


I remember when I was in high school I first caught a glimpse of the movie (a scene where somebody stuck a videotape in James Woods' chest) during some interview program. I was of course intrigued, but my parents also caught this sequence. Not only were they less than thrilled by the scene itself, but they seemed to hold it against me that the scene was even aired on TV, as if I was somehow responsible for not only the decision of the broadcaster but the very creation of the movie itself.

[Little Ash]

I feel attacked.


I think I didn't hit Videodrome until later in life. Debbie Harry in a red wig with, um, certain elements of the movie may have altered the nature of some of my... internet searches in the following months.

[Rockatansky]

Kinky redheaded Debbie Harry definitely broke teenage Rock's brain.


She's in Blondie. Why does she have red hair?!?!?

[Little Ash]

Kinky redheaded Debbie Harry definitely broke teenage Rock's brain.


She's in Blondie. Why does she have red hair?!?!?


The band should have been called "Ruby".

[StuSmallz]

https://i.ibb.co/NCnr8ND/95d60d20-0849-422d-aa41-03b36b0141fa-text.gif (https://imgbb.com/)

[Rockatansky]

I will allow a Family Guy reference just this once. Woods was legit really funny on there.

[StuSmallz]

I will allow a Family Guy reference just this once. Woods was legit really funny on there.Yup, even though it was yet something else they stole from The Simpsons. Oh well; "Ooh, piece a candy..."

[Iroquois]

#37. Jaws
(Steven Spielberg, 1975)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/3439/cache-47449-1546736419/image-w1280.jpg

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

What to write about a film as indelible, iconic, and inevitably discussed-to-death as Jaws? Never mind how it revolutionised cinema for better and for worse, what matters is that it still holds up as a well-realised piece of work that rises above its pulpy roots to tell a simple but effective tale of a resort town being terrorised by a great white shark and police chief Brody (Roy Scheider) who does his best to protect it despite every obstacle in his path. I can certainly understand why it doesn't tend to get characterised as straight horror as it spends so much time unfolding like a conventional drama that's only occasionally interrupted by the arrival of the shark, but it wouldn't be the same without that level of care being dedicated to making such characters and scenes work (regardless of how much that can be credited to - or blamed on - production troubles). Whether it's finding an emotional arc in Brody dealing with his own fear of the water or making a certain cynical commentary through its business-minded mayor (Murray Hamilton) being more of an obstacle to keeping people safe than anything else, Jaws does understand the importance of making sure that when the shark eats people, it has an effect (even just surviving takes a toll if the infamous monologue by Robert Shaw's grizzled seaman Quint is any indication). When Jaws does opt to go for suspense and thrills, it delivers so well as aforementioned troubles encourage a less-is-more approach that is amply paid off during the film's exquisite ocean-bound third act (and even then it still finds room for technically adept scares throughout the rest of the film - that head popping out of the sunken boat works all too well on a big screen).

2005 ranking: #47
2013 ranking: #4

[SpelingError]

My favorite Spielberg film.

[honeykid]

Ah, my absolute favourite film of all time. BTW, spoiler alert should you look at my 100. :D

It seems to be on a bit of a rollercoaster on your countdowns, Iro? What happened in 2013? Why the big gain/drop? Do you have any idea?

It's the only film I've watched multiple reactions to. It's like a shorthand version of the film and I can 'relive' it in that condensed way and get that feeling of having seen it. It's been about 4 or 5 months since I last watched the whole thing, but it still does it for me and it's still the best.

[Iroquois]

Mostly it's other titles making their own unrelated gains (or being new additions altogether) rather than anything particularly wrong with Jaws itself - my process is to take a film, start at the bottom of the list, ask myself "is it better than [the film at the bottom of the list]", then keep going up the list until I reach a point at which I don't think it's better, and then that's where it ranks.

[Wooley]

My favorite Spielberg film.

Easily.

[StuSmallz]

My favorite Spielberg film.I liked it a lot, but I still maintain that it loses something when it's on dry land...


https://i.ibb.co/JqQJdVZ/theyareontome.gif (https://imgbb.com/)

[Iroquois]

#36. Jackie Brown
(Quentin Tarantino, 1997)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/1050/cache-47310-1509626070/image-w1280.jpg?size=1200x

"Here we go. AK-47. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherf*cker in the room, accept no substitutes."

It almost feels like hedging your bets to make your favourite film by a director the one that's actively preoccupied with maturity and ageing - it confers a certain timelessness that'll presumably allow it to endure through the years where less mature works will fall by the wayside, or at least that's the idea. That Tarantino followed up the juvenile pleasures of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction with an adaptation (his only one as of writing) of a story about the eponymous middle-aged stewardess (Pam Grier) who has to supplement her meagre salary by working for black-market arms dealer Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson) is at once very much keeping in touch with his established criminal milieu but vastly different when it comes to actually approaching these characters and how they see themselves existing in this world. Such an unorthodox approach is certainly distinct enough to confound audiences that he's spent much of his subsequent career continuing along a more juvenile streak, but so much of what makes his better post-Jackie films work can be found in an elemental stage here. Of course, a lot of what makes Jackie work on its own terms is down to how it devises another great collection of impeccably-acted characters, chief among them Robert Forster's Max getting drawn into Jackie's complicated life and ultimately trying to help her get out. An epic tale of alliances, double-crosses, and extremely valuable MacGuffins allows Tarantino to build on his earlier features and encourages him to (slightly) temper quirks such as anachronic storytelling and retro soundtracks as he shows that he at least somewhat understands that the story is ultimately more important than his idiosyncrasies.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A

[crumbsroom]

I adore Tarantino's emotionally stunted man-child impulses, but a good argument can be made that Jackie Brown is his best, and then lament what his career would have looked like if he had ever decided to grow up.

[honeykid]

I loved Jackie Brown. I don't know if I would now, but I certainly think it'll be top 3 or 4 considering how I feel about the rest of what I've seen of his. I think one thing which holds JB back a little for me is it was the first time I realised that QT needed an editor to step in and make thing tighter (for want of a better word. Something I now also think about Pulp Fiction, but I hadn't realised it back then) and everything of his I've seen since Reservoir Dogs, which I think is a tight as a drum probably because he literally couldn't afford it to be any thing else.

I certainly agree that it's the most grown up I've seen QT (but remembering I've not seen his last couple) but that's probably because it's someone elses story and as it was a novel, the script was already laid down to an extent. His own flourishes obviously colour it and are littered throughout, but it feels like he added to something rather than constructed it himself and, therefore, it's unlike anything else he's done.

[Takoma11]

Jackie Brown is the only Tarantino film I actually love and where I don't feel the artist's sensibilities infringing on the narrative in a negative way. Something about his dialogue just clangs in my ear in a way that other distinct writing (like, say, the writing in a film such as The Pit and the Pendulum) doesn't.

Having read Rum Punch, the novel on which it's based, I think it's also a pretty solid adaptation. I think that Pam Grier's performance is absolutely fabulous.

[crumbsroom]

QT needed an editor to step in and make thing tighter


The last thing I want with the Tarantino we have (man child) is for his films to be tighter. If anything, give him even more rope. Let all of his movies be four hour, indulgent opuses.



What makes QT great is his boundless enthusiasm. Watching his movies is like listening to a kid tell twenty minute story about a dog they saw on their walk home from school. Yes, they will include a lot of unneccessary details, but if you just hone in on what's important narratively, we lose that unleashed excitement. And that's what Tarantino is at his essence. A kid spilling everything he knows about cinema (which is a lot) out with every stupid and redundant revenge tale he tells.


Do I really want a movie like Django Unchained told soberly and with restraint? Good god, no. I just want a Django Unchained without a horrible Australian accented QT cameo.


Something about his dialogue just clangs in my ear


I personally think waaaaaaay too much is made of QT the 'writer'. I think his dialogue is very important to his style, in that it has his idiosyncratic fingerprints all over it. And he has his characters say some occassionally great, chewy dialogue. But....yes it 'clangs'. It is this weird hybrid between trying to achieve pure naturalism while simultaneously being so deliberately sculpted into a Taratinoesque style, that it doesn't really work as either. It lives in this purgatory where I'm expected to treat these characters as real living things, while also having to hold them at arms length and just see them as cinematic artifacts of QT's making.


Even though he is hardly any intellectual, I believe the best lens to look at a Tarantino film is through a Godardian one. Where everything is cast with a deliberate artificiality where we are constantly reminded what we are watching is 'cinema'. NOT real life. Treating his world with any kind of natural reverence is a mistake since, just like with any kind of brain stunted savant like him, he doesn't really understand people or the world around him. He only understands humans through what he's picked up in movie watching. THAT is what is exciting about Tarantino. A life lived in the shadows. Watching, not people, but characters. Learning, not how to be a socially adapted person, but the infintiely malleable rules of genre.



That's why Jackie Brown is such a revelation. Because it lives in our world and only gives us fragmentary glimpses of Taratino's askew vision. Usually, when he tries to introduce real feeling and pathos it lets the audience down (like the scene with the little girl in OUATIH, which should be the emotional centre of the whole thing, but for me misses the naturalism it needs to truly work). But in Jackie Brown, Pam Grier and Robert Forrester and Robert Deniro and Briget Fonda are living and breathing characters. We kind of know who they are, simply because Tarantino isn't constantly tinkering with them to make them sound 'cooler' or more in keeping with his ethos (which is normally both his genius and his downfall)

[Takoma11]

I personally think waaaaaaay too much is made of QT the 'writer'. I think his dialogue is very important to his style, in that it has his idiosyncratic fingerprints all over it. And he has his characters say some occassionally great, chewy dialogue. But....yes it 'clangs'. It is this weird hybrid between trying to achieve pure naturalism while simultaneously being so deliberately sculpted into a Taratinoesque style, that it doesn't really work as either. It lives in this purgatory where I'm expected to treat these characters as real living things, while also having to hold them at arms length and just see them as cinematic artifacts of QT's making.

Even though he is hardly any intellectual, I believe the best lens to look at a Tarantino film is through a Godardian one. Where everything is cast with a deliberate artificiality where we are constantly reminded what we are watching is 'cinema'. NOT real life.

To me, like I wrote, it doesn't work either way. Even in that mode of accepting artificiality and trying to meet it there, I cannot make it work. It's like astronaut ice cream: I'm not wanting it to be real, I don't need it to be real, but it would be nice if it didn't taste like chalky garbage.

Some actors really make it work and they bring their own enthusiasm to it, and that gives it a lift. But generally speaking it's the kind of artificiality that relentlessly calls attention to itself and never lets me sink into the film. Aside from Jackie Brown, it's like I can't relax and watch his movies. It's the equivalent, for me, of seeming a boom mike constantly dipping into the frame.

[Wooley]

I liked it a lot, but I still maintain that it loses something when it's on dry land...


https://i.ibb.co/JqQJdVZ/theyareontome.gif (https://imgbb.com/)

Huh. I'm the opposite, I think the best scenes in the film are the character scenes, either in the Brodies' kitchen, on the docks, or in the street (Mrs. Kitner remains my favorite scene in the film).

[Wooley]

Even though I have lost any love I had for Tarantino and am with crumbsroom in wishing he had grown up and not had his directorial maturity forever stunted by success, I still try hard to understand why so many people 'round these parts have Jackie Brown has their favorite.
To me it is the bottom of his good films. For all the things that do work in the film for me, there are just as many that don't. Especially DeNiro, but that's really just one thing over and over. There are more. I like the movie enough but it really feels like the script needed a couple more re-writes before they shot or maybe it could have been "saved in the edit". And by saved I just mean elevated from a pretty good movie to a great one.
Anyway, it's certainly better than the likes of Django Unchained, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and The Hateful Eight, or for that matter, even the ridiculous Inglourious Basterds, but I would have to put it behind PF, RD, KB, and I actually enjoy Death Proof more as well, to be honest, though I certainly wouldn't try to call it a better movie.

[Wooley]

The last thing I want with the Tarantino we have (man child) is for his films to be tighter. If anything, give him even more rope. Let all of his movies be four hour, indulgent opuses.


Ugh.
This notion makes me nauseous until I remember that I don't have to watch Tarantino's films if I don't want to.

To me, Tarantino's filmmaking, sometime I think during Kill Bill, though it didn't manifest until DP, but that one was supposed to be just this, and then everything after that was just "Man, an economically relevant number of people sure love to watch me masturbate, gimme two or three years to build up an interesting new stack of my favorite (vintage cinematic) porn and I'll film it!"

[crumbsroom]

Ugh.
"Man, an economically relevant number of people sure love to watch me masturbate, gimme two or three years to build up an interesting new stack of my favorite (vintage cinematic) porn and I'll film it!"


In other words, some people like to watch the thing he likes to do. And that he does extraordinarily well.



Some artists are great refining their talent into a fine point. Like Alfred Hitchcock. Or Stephen Spielberg. Or Billy Wilder. Or even a really artsy farter like Robert Bresson. They have a specific thing they want to communicate. A message, a story, a mood. That is what they want to do. That is what they become good at.

Other artists are better served pushing everything past the edge. And thank Christ for them because indulgence is what allows cinema to take on increasingly weirder and shaggier forms. They are willing to let their wonkiest ideas take the driving wheel at times, trust their instincts, take risks, dare us to hate them. And as egomaniacal as this may seem, there is also tremendous vulnerability in them going to these places. They allow themselves to become ridiculous. Misunderstood. They give us not so great scenes that step on the toes of their best scenes. Are sometimes their own worst enemies.


And to all of that I say good, good and more good. Because for us that love them, this makes artists like this all the more endearing. It pushes everything else out of the way and allows us to just ride the wave of their pure talent. Weeeeeee! Why would we ever need anything else?



Tarantino, PT Anderson, John Cassavetes, Jean Luc Godard. All of them completely at ease becoming pure cinema. Putting everything of themselves there. Not hiding behind perfectly rendered narrative beats or worrying if everything adds up all nice and tidy at the end. It's just about those images they've got on the film, and letting them unspool all over the audiences faces. Believing in themselves completely even in moments where they maybe should have had pause. And bless their hearts for this (in particular, bless QT, as he's done this all in full view of the mainstream, and been tremendously successful at making his extraordinarily weird films become part of the zeitgeist...even people who hate him should be celebrating him for this victory, it's an absolute miracle)

Even though I get why people aren't all going to flock to his movies, its still weird to me that people want him to tone it down. To get back on track. And sometimes I wonder why people become so offended by his success at taking the kind of risks he does (and generally succeeding with them). I think the issue might be (outside of the fact that he's an ******* in real life) seems to be that we can sense the 'better' movie 'we want to see' amongst the clutter of all his thousands of ideas. It's clear he's not just a masturbatory, self obsessed artist, but also a craftsman in hiding. Could be a real crowd pleaser. And for those who love Jackie Brown, that more than any other film is the evidence that he could have made perfectly constructed films as well as anybody. Sober, reflective, melancholic. The kind of movie that resonate on the emotional scale, in a really honest, fairly unaffected way.


Now, would I trade in all of the great movies he made since then (and, yes, all of them are to varying degrees great). Nope. Not a chance. But does it make me pause for a moment and wonder what could have been if he had just dialled it back and showed restraint? Sure. It would have probably been pretty marvellous as well.



But generally, I think restraint mostly sucks and being economical with storytelling is usually a waste of my time. So I definitely don't lose any sleep over it.



Also, DeNiro is great in Jackie Brown. It's one of his last great performances.

[honeykid]

IMO, creative genius often works best with constraints. It pushes them and makes a demand of them to be more inventive. That restraint might be financial, graphic or interferemce 'from above' or something else, but it makes them solve a problem with their creativity. Being totally induldged can work, but for most geniuses for most of the time, it doesn't work as well.

[Iroquois]

It's been noted that Tarantino's films have gotten a little messier with the passing of his long-time editor Sally Menke - Django was the first film to drop after that happened and it definitely feels like a wonky, overlong mess (I might well consider it my least favourite work of his for that very reason). However, it seems more popular than the subsequent films he's done (which I'd argue do more to earn such bloated runtimes) so what do I know.

[Iroquois]

#35. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(Tobe Hooper, 1974)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/1445/cache-8847-1543381242/image-w1280.jpg

"My family's always been in meat."

My unifying theory of horror movies is that the best ones are still worth watching even after the initial shock and terror of seeing them has worn off - watching is rewatching and all that. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is arguably my prime example of such a film because it is so dedicated to creating a relentless horror experience, but at the same time there is something so artistically pure in how it builds upon what sounds like yet another crass exploitation premise. The tale of five youths running afoul of a family of cannibalistic serial killers is inspired by true crime and stages itself less as re-enactment than as documentary, lingering on everything from mundane conversations to unpleasant interior decoration in order to drown a viewer in such backroads horror. That much is certainly accomplished by the film's minimal production value lending everything a tactile guerrilla feel that is most definitely felt in everything from the blistering cinematography to the groaning atonal score, giving the film an atmosphere you could drink whether you want it or not. It's not technically a slasher and is early enough in horror history to avoid conforming too directly to established tropes, making this less a matter of cosmic punishment than a raw emission from an uncaring universe. What it all adds up to ends up being a matter of some conjecture - Vietnam War allegory? Capitalist critique? Kill all hippies? - but that's definitely a sign that a film that looks like it exists only to titillate viewers with blood and guts ultimately elides it in order to go for raw-nerve discomfort and frame it in an impressively abstract light. That's what it is to be a masterpiece.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #99

[Little Ash]

Just wondering, I've always been curious by what people mean when TCM isn't a slasher. Maybe it's because we have a distinctive killer, but I just always think of it as being a slasher. The biggest difference in formula that I can think of is, the killer didn't come stumbling upon them looking for someone to kill, but rather, the youths stumble upon the killer's hideout and now he has to dispose of them.

[Wooley]

In other words, some people like to watch the thing he likes to do. And that he does extraordinarily well.



Some artists are great refining their talent into a fine point. Like Alfred Hitchcock. Or Stephen Spielberg. Or Billy Wilder. Or even a really artsy farter like Robert Bresson. They have a specific thing they want to communicate. A message, a story, a mood. That is what they want to do. That is what they become good at.

Other artists are better served pushing everything past the edge. And thank Christ for them because indulgence is what allows cinema to take on increasingly weirder and shaggier forms. They are willing to let their wonkiest ideas take the driving wheel at times, trust their instincts, take risks, dare us to hate them. And as egomaniacal as this may seem, there is also tremendous vulnerability in them going to these places. They allow themselves to become ridiculous. Misunderstood. They give us not so great scenes that step on the toes of their best scenes. Are sometimes their own worst enemies.


And to all of that I say good, good and more good. Because for us that love them, this makes artists like this all the more endearing. It pushes everything else out of the way and allows us to just ride the wave of their pure talent. Weeeeeee! Why would we ever need anything else?



Tarantino, PT Anderson, John Cassavetes, Jean Luc Godard. All of them completely at ease becoming pure cinema. Putting everything of themselves there. Not hiding behind perfectly rendered narrative beats or worrying if everything adds up all nice and tidy at the end. It's just about those images they've got on the film, and letting them unspool all over the audiences faces. Believing in themselves completely even in moments where they maybe should have had pause. And bless their hearts for this (in particular, bless QT, as he's done this all in full view of the mainstream, and been tremendously successful at making his extraordinarily weird films become part of the zeitgeist...even people who hate him should be celebrating him for this victory, it's an absolute miracle)

Even though I get why people aren't all going to flock to his movies, its still weird to me that people want him to tone it down. To get back on track. And sometimes I wonder why people become so offended by his success at taking the kind of risks he does (and generally succeeding with them). I think the issue might be (outside of the fact that he's an ******* in real life) seems to be that we can sense the 'better' movie 'we want to see' amongst the clutter of all his thousands of ideas. It's clear he's not just a masturbatory, self obsessed artist, but also a craftsman in hiding. Could be a real crowd pleaser. And for those who love Jackie Brown, that more than any other film is the evidence that he could have made perfectly constructed films as well as anybody. Sober, reflective, melancholic. The kind of movie that resonate on the emotional scale, in a really honest, fairly unaffected way.


Now, would I trade in all of the great movies he made since then (and, yes, all of them are to varying degrees great). Nope. Not a chance. But does it make me pause for a moment and wonder what could have been if he had just dialled it back and showed restraint? Sure. It would have probably been pretty marvellous as well.



But generally, I think restraint mostly sucks and being economical with storytelling is usually a waste of my time. So I definitely don't lose any sleep over it.



Also, DeNiro is great in Jackie Brown. It's one of his last great performances.

In short, yes. And some people like to watch clowns spin plates on sticks.
I am not saying he is not good at masturbating for a sympathetic audience, au contraire, he's arguably the best cinematic masturbator I have ever seen, Numero Uno. And, honestly, if he could stop making self-congratulatory faces at the web-cam while he does it, even I might love watching him do it.
Alas, instead I have to settle for watching him nearly make great movies but ruin them with meandering self-indulgence instead. When I think what Inglourious Basterds (sigh, numerous masterful scenes that hinted at a masterpiece) could have been if he hadn't kept shouting, "now I'm gonna put my balls on your face!" over and over again.

[Wooley]

IMO, creative genius often works best with constraints. It pushes them and makes a demand of them to be more inventive. That restraint might be financial, graphic or interferemce 'from above' or something else, but it makes them solve a problem with their creativity. Being totally induldged can work, but for most geniuses for most of the time, it doesn't work as well.

I believe this is why so many "great directors" do their best work early in their careers (looking at you Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese, Tarantino, etc.). When either there isn't enough money to indulge every single notion or there is someone who's been around and is invested in the film and not in the self-expression of the director is there to occasionally nudge it back on track.

[Wooley]

#35. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(Tobe Hooper, 1974)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/1445/cache-8847-1543381242/image-w1280.jpg

"My family's always been in meat."

My unifying theory of horror movies is that the best ones are still worth watching even after the initial shock and terror of seeing them has worn off - watching is rewatching and all that. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is arguably my prime example of such a film because it is so dedicated to creating a relentless horror experience, but at the same time there is something so artistically pure in how it builds upon what sounds like yet another crass exploitation premise. The tale of five youths running afoul of a family of cannibalistic serial killers is inspired by true crime and stages itself less as re-enactment than as documentary, lingering on everything from mundane conversations to unpleasant interior decoration in order to drown a viewer in such backroads horror. That much is certainly accomplished by the film's minimal production value lending everything a tactile guerrilla feel that is most definitely felt in everything from the blistering cinematography to the groaning atonal score, giving the film an atmosphere you could drink whether you want it or not. It's not technically a slasher and is early enough in horror history to avoid conforming too directly to established tropes, making this less a matter of cosmic punishment than a raw emission from an uncaring universe. What it all adds up to ends up being a matter of some conjecture - Vietnam War allegory? Capitalist critique? Kill all hippies? - but that's definitely a sign that a film that looks like it exists only to titillate viewers with blood and guts ultimately elides it in order to go for raw-nerve discomfort and frame it in an impressively abstract light. That's what it is to be a masterpiece.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #99

Ah. The Masterpiece finally lands.

[Wooley]

Just wondering, I've always been curious by what people mean when TCM isn't a slasher. Maybe it's because we have a distinctive killer, but I just always think of it as being a slasher. The biggest difference in formula that I can think of is, the killer didn't come stumbling upon them looking for someone to kill, but rather, the youths stumble upon the killer's hideout and now he has to dispose of them.

Never thought of it as a slasher. Slasher, to me, is not a movie that has a human killer in it, that is so insanely broad it could include thousands of movies going back a hundred years. For many, one could say "I can't define a Slasher but I know it when I see it", and that is fine too, I kinda feel that way a bit, and I don't see it with TCM. But I really subscribe to a more specific point of view on this particular topic.
To me, Slasher is a form, like the sonnet or the Blues. Certainly, hundreds of films fit into this form and we've come to know it so well that "we know it when we see it".
And TCM sure ain't in that form.

[crumbsroom]

In short, yes. And some people like to watch clowns spin plates on sticks.


Spinning plates on sticks, as in giving the general audience exactly what it already knew it was getting? Operating on a regimented tradition. Relying on little than muscle memory and maybe a little flourish and bow to the crowd at the end of it all?


Hmmmm. Doesn't sound like something I would like much either.

[Little Ash]

Never thought of it as a slasher. Slasher, to me, is not a movie that has a human killer in it, that is so insanely broad it could include thousands of movies going back a hundred years. For many, one could say "I can't define a Slasher but I know it when I see it", and that is fine too, I kinda feel that way a bit, and I don't see it with TCM. But I really subscribe to a more specific point of view on this particular topic.
To me, Slasher is a form, like the sonnet or the Blues. Certainly, hundreds of films fit into this form and we've come to know it so well that "we know it when we see it".
And TCM sure ain't in that form.

Weird. For me, it's like, "Yup, this feels like a slasher to me. I don't even know why it doesn't feel like one to other people."

[Wooley]

Weird. For me, it's like, "Yup, this feels like a slasher to me. I don't even know why it doesn't feel like one to other people."

Well, that, as my mother used to say, is what makes the World go 'round.

[Wyldesyde19]

Even though I have lost any love I had for Tarantino and am with crumbsroom in wishing he had grown up and not had his directorial maturity forever stunted by success, I still try hard to understand why so many people 'round these parts have Jackie Brown has their favorite.
To me it is the bottom of his good films. For all the things that do work in the film for me, there are just as many that don't. Especially DeNiro, but that's really just one thing over and over. There are more. I like the movie enough but it really feels like the script needed a couple more re-writes before they shot or maybe it could have been "saved in the edit". And by saved I just mean elevated from a pretty good movie to a great one.
Anyway, it's certainly better than the likes of Django Unchained, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and The Hateful Eight, or for that matter, even the ridiculous Inglourious Basterds, but I would have to put it behind PF, RD, KB, and I actually enjoy Death Proof more as well, to be honest, though I certainly wouldn't try to call it a better movie.
For me, JB is his most restrained work, with his usual penchant for over self indulgence that we would see in in his later films, absent.

Probably would rank his films something like this:
Jackie Brown
Pulp Fiction
Inglorious Basterds (don’t hate!)
Kill Bill vol 1
Kill Bill vol 2
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Hateful Eight
Django
Death Proof

I abstained from adding Reservoir Dogs, as it’s been around 25 years since I’ve seen it and I am long overdue for a rewatch. Time has wiped it mostly clean from my memory banks.

[crumbsroom]

1) Kill Bill
2) Pulp Fiction
3) Jackie Brown

4) Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
5) Django Unchained

6) Hateful 8
7) Death Proof
8) Reservoir Dogs
9) Inglorious Basterds

[Iroquois]

Just wondering, I've always been curious by what people mean when TCM isn't a slasher. Maybe it's because we have a distinctive killer, but I just always think of it as being a slasher. The biggest difference in formula that I can think of is, the killer didn't come stumbling upon them looking for someone to kill, but rather, the youths stumble upon the killer's hideout and now he has to dispose of them.

For me, the key point of distinction is that most of the other iconic slashers tend to operate alone (e.g. Michael, Freddy, Jason) whereas Leatherface is always part of a family unit - not only that, he's frequently characterised as a mentally challenged manchild who follows the whims of his much more lucid (if still criminally insane) relatives while other slashers have more personal motives.

[StuSmallz]

[center]#35. The Texas Chain Saw MassacreAgain, I think it's a very stylishly-directed movie, but there's still only so much Hooper could do to keep it from becoming tiresome when literally half of it is nothing but watching one character screaming, getting chased around, and tortured the whole time, you know?

[StuSmallz]

[center]#36. Jackie Brown[/size]Anyway, to do some catching up here, I also have to say that I'm super-happy to see Jackie Brown in this thread, being that it's my current favorite Tarantino (as you can see here) (https://letterboxd.com/stusmallz/film/jackie-brown/), since it's the least self-indulgent of his movies to date, and has the most of what he's best at (that being character development), and I really wish he had continued more in this direction post-millinieum, instead of regressing and doubling down on embracing some of his worst tendencies since then, even though he has made a couple of good movies post-2000.

[honeykid]

Quick question. How many of those who see TCM as a slasher are from N. America?

I suspect there might be a cultural side to this as there is with other 'horror' films (not that I'm saying TCM isn't a horror) but in the early years of my internet experience I had quite a few discussions about Silence Of The Lambs and whether it's a horror film. It isn't, btw. And in later years, Se7en (which really isn't) and Aliens (which I've said more than enough on over the years and, for the love of God trust me on this one, it isn't) but most of the people I've had these discussions with were from N. America. I don't know if it's to do with the way we consumed movies back then (in N. America you had big chains across the continent, so everything was categorised the same. I don't know about elsewhere but in the UK it was primarily independent video shops), that more N. Americans were online back then, the way they were written about or something else?

It might just be a time thing and as US entertainment and standards have spread, so has their view of what things are. Or it could simply be that sub-genres are even less defined than genres and, therefore, people have different standards/restrictions as to what fits where? I don't know, but I do find it interesting. Unlike TCM, which I don't.

Never has the line "Shut that ****s mouth before I come over there and ****-start her head." been more apt.

[crumbsroom]

If we want to be technically precise (and why would we want to be that in a discussion about an art form), Silence of the Lambs and Seven are thrillers. Aliens is an action movie.



But art is all about cross-pollination, and all three of those movies have picked up seeds from the horror genre. Meaning that, fans of horror can find something of interest in them.



Fighting battles over defending genre boundaries has always been a bit of a waste of time as far as I'm concerned. Labels are for marketers. Sure, they can be a guideline on what we might want to watch on any given night, but the greater overall effect they have is to divide audiences up into subgroups. Makes people dogmatic about what they want to see their genre films do. Which is what allows genres to stagnate. Which opens the door for us who are fans of horror (or comedy or romance or whatever it may be) to just keep our mouths open while they keep shovelling us the same shit over and over again.


No thanks.


Also TCM is effectively a slasher, in that people who enjoy slashers are going to find a lot of what they want in it. But it came long before, so it doesn't really conform to any of those stupid rules. What TCM actually is is an art film, borderline experimental tonally. A mood piece. Which is why Stu is always going to be wrong about his complaint that there is too much running and screaming :cool:

[Captain Terror]

Stu is always going to be wrong about his complaint that there is too much running and screaming :cool:

I don't know, when my friends and I are being chainsaw-massacred, I like to take an occasional breather. Take in the situation, have a granola bar or something. The running and screaming is another option of course, but I prefer to be chainsaw-massacred quietly. Who has the energy to be running from chainsaws all day and night?

[Rockatansky]

It's like jazz. It's the chainsaws you don't hear.

[Little Ash]

If we want to be technically precise (and why would we want to be that in a discussion about an art form), Silence of the Lambs and Seven are thrillers. Aliens is an action movie.

But art is all about cross-pollination, and all three of those movies have picked up seeds from the horror genre. Meaning that, fans of horror can find something of interest in them.


Well, I mean, if by technically precise, we refuse to use slashes when applying our genre tag descriptions. Sounds like someone did a poor job programming a movie site if they did that though.

Also TCM is effectively a slasher, in that people who enjoy slashers are going to find a lot of what they want in it. But it came long before, so it doesn't really conform to any of those stupid rules. What TCM actually is is an art film, borderline experimental tonally. A mood piece. Which is why Stu is always going to be wrong about his complaint that there is too much running and screaming :cool:

Also the entire movie is on land, which is the lesser part of the film compared to the non-existent part of the movie that's out in the ocean.

[Little Ash]

Quick question. How many of those who see TCM as a slasher are from N. America?

Wooly and I are both United Statesers. I think it's more because I associate Leatherface with Jason, Michael, and Freddy (and I always hear those three listed as slashers), and I can't take the term 'slasher' literally in the instrument of death because of Jason* and Freddy.

*: The amount of head crushing, pitchfork stabbing, axe-cleaving, and harpoon firing he does in the early ones...

I suspect there might be a cultural side to this as there is with other 'horror' films (not that I'm saying TCM isn't a horror) but in the early years of my internet experience I had quite a few discussions about Silence Of The Lambs and whether it's a horror film. It isn't, btw. And in later years, Se7en (which really isn't) and Aliens (which I've said more than enough on over the years and, for the love of God trust me on this one, it isn't) but most of the people I've had these discussions with were from N. America. I don't know if it's to do with the way we consumed movies back then (in N. America you had big chains across the continent, so everything was categorised the same. I don't know about elsewhere but in the UK it was primarily independent video shops), that more N. Americans were online back then, the way they were written about or something else?

It might just be a time thing and as US entertainment and standards have spread, so has their view of what things are. Or it could simply be that sub-genres are even less defined than genres and, therefore, people have different standards/restrictions as to what fits where? I don't know, but I do find it interesting. Unlike TCM, which I don't.

Never has the line "Shut that ****s mouth before I come over there and ****-start her head." been more apt.

Puts Honeykid on list of people who I don't trust for genre-classification.
Apparently not nearly as bad as Wooly when it comes to comedy though.

[Iroquois]

#34. Stop Making Sense
(Jonathan Demme, 1984)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/17532/cache-43675-1626285003/image-w1280.jpg

"Hi, I've got a tape I want to play."

I've been fortunate enough to see David Byrne perform live twice, both times involving a considerable cross-section of songs from his time as frontman of iconic art-rock outfit Talking Heads. Both times made for some of the best live music I've ever experienced, but I can't help but wonder how it would've felt to experience the Heads at the peak of their powers. At least we have Stop Making Sense to serve as a vibrant document of the band touring their commercial breakout album Speaking in Tongues. Not content to simply intensify their genre-bending approach to New Wave through an electrifying performance by an expanded nine-piece ensemble, Byrne collaborates with Demme to develop a distinctly cinematic approach to the concert film that begins with the musicians slowly trickling in over the first few numbers and then crafting all manner of elaborate (or even pointedly minimal in the case of "Once in a Lifetime") numbers that are designed to be captured in as visually arresting a manner as possible. The oversized business suit used in "Girlfriend Is Better" rightfully became iconic for emphasising the nervy and absurd nature of the band's lyrics, but Byrne dancing with a floor lamp in "This Must Be The Place" underscores that song's own simple delights so very well. There's not even any slowing down proceedings for interviews or backstage footage, just a pure replication of the concert experience. Story time: I saw this in theatres a couple of years ago and heard some people try to clap after every number - at first nobody else joined in, but it didn't take long before everyone decided to stop making sense and clap for a forty-year-old concert. That's movie (and music) magic right there.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #48

[crumbsroom]

Stop Making Sense is the rare film that is composed of pure joy.

[Wooley]

Wooly and I are both United Statesers. I think it's more because I associate Leatherface with Jason, Michael, and Freddy (and I always hear those three listed as slashers), and I can't take the term 'slasher' literally in the instrument of death because of Jason* and Freddy.

*: The amount of head crushing, pitchfork stabbing, axe-cleaving, and harpoon firing he does in the early ones...



Puts Honeykid on list of people who I don't trust for genre-classification.
Apparently not nearly as bad as Wooly when it comes to comedy though.

I guess, Jason, Michael, and Freddy all came after Leatherface and they are the sole antagonists in their films. What Leatherface is is something else entirely. I think the other three have a lot more in common and are part of the Slasher movement while I think Leatherface and TCM pre-dates it and is something else entirely.

[Wooley]

#34. Stop Making Sense
(Jonathan Demme, 1984)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/17532/cache-43675-1626285003/image-w1280.jpg

"Hi, I've got a tape I want to play."

I've been fortunate enough to see David Byrne perform live twice, both times involving a considerable cross-section of songs from his time as frontman of iconic art-rock outfit Talking Heads. Both times made for some of the best live music I've ever experienced, but I can't help but wonder how it would've felt to experience the Heads at the peak of their powers. At least we have Stop Making Sense to serve as a vibrant document of the band touring their commercial breakout album Speaking in Tongues. Not content to simply intensify their genre-bending approach to New Wave through an electrifying performance by an expanded nine-piece ensemble, Byrne collaborates with Demme to develop a distinctly cinematic approach to the concert film that begins with the musicians slowly trickling in over the first few numbers and then crafting all manner of elaborate (or even pointedly minimal in the case of "Once in a Lifetime") numbers that are designed to be captured in as visually arresting a manner as possible. The oversized business suit used in "Girlfriend Is Better" rightfully became iconic for emphasising the nervy and absurd nature of the band's lyrics, but Byrne dancing with a floor lamp in "This Must Be The Place" underscores that song's own simple delights so very well. There's not even any slowing down proceedings for interviews or backstage footage, just a pure replication of the concert experience. Story time: I saw this in theatres a couple of years ago and heard some people try to clap after every number - at first nobody else joined in, but it didn't take long before everyone decided to stop making sense and clap for a forty-year-old concert. That's movie (and music) magic right there.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #48

I have so much love for this film.

[Little Ash]

I guess, Jason, Michael, and Freddy all came after Leatherface and they are the sole antagonists in their films. What Leatherface is is something else entirely. I think the other three have a lot more in common and are part of the Slasher movement while I think Leatherface and TCM pre-dates it and is something else entirely.

So, I had the questionable experience of hitting TCM 2 as a teenager and didn't hit TCM until I was an adult. And if I were to draw some line between the two, where TCM 2 structure-wise, might feel more akin to the other franchises compared to TCM it's not so much the family, since he is the person wielding the chainsaw, but rather the sense that he's hunting characters, encroaching upon their domain. As opposed to TCM, where half of the kills are people knocking on a door, stepping inside, and then getting offed. Though, there are parallels to that and F13 (especially part 2) where counselors will go investigate off limit areas where Jason basically lives.

Though I guess you're presenting a position of "Zombie Redneck Torture Family" vs "Zombie Redneck Torture Loner" being two completely different species. Well, it at least gives a clarification on the answer as to why you feel it's different (and I did ask for your 'why' earlier) :shrug:
(And re-reading back, Iroquois, also gave a very similar response earlier that I just blurred these two posts together in my head).

[crumbsroom]

If there is any main distinction between slashers and TCM, its that the audience comes to know things personally about Leatherface. We are introduced to his family, see his home life, his moments of reflection after he's killed. While still just as much as a boogeyman as Jason or Michael Myers, he is less just the embodiment of evil, and more a character.


What I always find confusing though about all the resistance TCM gets as being labelled as a slasher, is why does Nightmare on Elm Street get a pass? If we are going to nitpick about Leatherface, Freddy Krueger needs a good hard look as well. Because that is far from pure slasher territory as well.


But, in short, what difference does it make? We know what a slasher is. We know that some movies have deviations from the formula. But there is more than enough connective tissue between TCM or Elm Street and the genre that there shouldn't really be any confusion as to what we are getting when we are putting it on.

[crumbsroom]

It should also be noted that, in Stop Making Sense, Tina Weymouth is the centre of the whole universe. David Byrne is the weird brain trapped in a jar of the band. But she's the heart, the happiness, the groove.

[Takoma11]

"Slasher" is one of those terms where I don't personally have a solid definition (at a push I'd say "a human killer, on their own, working their way through a series of victims"?), and so I don't have strong feelings about how others use it.

Would I think of TCM as a slasher? I don't know. Maybe not. Do I mind it being labeled that way by others? Nah.

Also, I badly need to watch Stop Making Sense again. Don't get me wrong, I loved it the first time I watched it. But it's also a film where I think that I probably would get a lot more out of it now that the novelty of what was happening on screen has passed.

[Little Ash]

Yeah, I think the nomenclature has been popping up a lot more the last few years in the media bubble I've been in. It seems like there's just been a lot of John Carpenter/Halloween love in the past few years, and one part of the equation is, "Halloween was the first slasher," or, "x from Halloween was the first y." And then you get the Black Christmas, "proto-slasher that preceded Halloween by a full year," etc, and I'm always just thinking, "TCM came out years before either. Are we just forgetting this iconic movie exists?"


The only answer I can think of is, "Halloween defined the reference template that became the formula from which all the 80s ones are molded after." But then, I just hear ANoES get lumped in as an 80's slasher and think, "that fits the definition even less than TCM."


I guess it matters for the context of the conversation when discussing a certain subset of films.

[Little Ash]

Stop Making Sense - I've never been that big or interested in concert films. Maybe because I'm not that musical of a person. Maybe it's because they're often done for music that I'm just not that into (probably the latter). This one is pure fun (it also helps that I enjoy the Talking Heads).

[Captain Terror]

I feel like the term "Stalk-and-slash" used to be more prominent at one time, only to eventually be replaced by "slasher". If I had to define what a slasher is, the "stalk" part would be the most important element. Leatherface & family are not stalking anyone, they're just grabbing those that are unlucky enough to happen upon them.

[Rockatansky]

Now is Stop Making Sense a slasher...

[crumbsroom]

Now is Stop Making Sense a slasher...


Well, Bernie Worrell does slash right through the space time continuum with those sharp and tasty keyboard fingers of his.

[Torgo]

Now is Stop Making Sense a slasher...Well, it does have a Psycho Killer. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Come to think of it, I have the soundtrack on vinyl and I've seen the Documentary Now parody, but I still haven't watched it. Better get on that.

[Wyldesyde19]

Yeah, I think the nomenclature has been popping up a lot more the last few years in the media bubble I've been in. It seems like there's just been a lot of John Carpenter/Halloween love in the past few years, and one part of the equation is, "Halloween was the first slasher," or, "x from Halloween was the first y." And then you get the Black Christmas, "proto-slasher that preceded Halloween by a full year," etc, and I'm always just thinking, "TCM came out years before either. Are we just forgetting this iconic movie exists?"


The only answer I can think of is, "Halloween defined the reference template that became the formula from which all the 80s ones are molded after." But then, I just hear ANoES get lumped in as an 80's slasher and think, "that fits the definition even less than TCM."


I guess it matters for the context of the conversation when discussing a certain subset of films.
Black Christmas came out in 1974, predating both. If we’re going to go on proto slashers, although it exists separately from them, look towards the Giallo that influenced the genre.

[crumbsroom]

Black Christmas came out in 1974, predating both. If we’re going to go on proto slashers, although it exists separately from them, look towards the Giallo that influenced the genre.


Yes, the basic template is Bava's Bay of Blood. Almost indisputably.


And the North American film that appropriated the basic structure of the slasher was almost equally indisputably Black Christmas (we can also consider low budget stuff like Andy Milligan's The Ghastly Ones, but no one saw that to bother emulating it in the first place, and it's also much too weird to really be a proper template for anything outside of Milligan's universe)

[Wyldesyde19]

Correction. I was mistaken about the time line of TCM. It was released in 1974, the same year as Black Christmas. I was thinking it was released in 1975 for some reason.

[Little Ash]

Correction. I was mistaken about the time line of TCM. It was released in 1974, the same year as Black Christmas. I was thinking it was released in 1975 for some reason.


I keep thinking TCM is 73, BM '77, and Halloween '79. So all (three) of the dates in my mind are slightly wrong.

[Wooley]

So, I had the questionable experience of hitting TCM 2 as a teenager and didn't hit TCM until I was an adult. And if I were to draw some line between the two, where TCM 2 structure-wise, might feel more akin to the other franchises compared to TCM it's not so much the family, since he is the person wielding the chainsaw, but rather the sense that he's hunting characters, encroaching upon their domain. As opposed to TCM, where half of the kills are people knocking on a door, stepping inside, and then getting offed. Though, there are parallels to that and F13 (especially part 2) where counselors will go investigate off limit areas where Jason basically lives.

Though I guess you're presenting a position of "Zombie Redneck Torture Family" vs "Zombie Redneck Torture Loner" being two completely different species. Well, it at least gives a clarification on the answer as to why you feel it's different (and I did ask for your 'why' earlier) :shrug:
(And re-reading back, Iroquois, also gave a very similar response earlier that I just blurred these two posts together in my head).

I just think they're very different types of films. Narrative, feel, I mean, TCM is a freaking art-film that just happens to be ultra-violent. Doesn't share much with even my favorite Slashers which, again, have a form of their own.
I also don't consider TCM2 to exist really in the same universe as TCM. It's, intentionally, a very meta movie, like, "What if TCM existed in another universe?"

[Wooley]

What I always find confusing though about all the resistance TCM gets as being labelled as a slasher, is why does Nightmare on Elm Street get a pass? If we are going to nitpick about Leatherface, Freddy Krueger needs a good hard look as well. Because that is far from pure slasher territory as well.


I completely agree. I just didn't feel like opening a whole second discussion. But, while I feel Freddy is much closer to a Slasher than Leatherface/TCM, and he probably devolves into the Slasher genre in a way later, I personally would not call ANoES a Slasher.
And I guess I care because it gives us something to talk about.

[Wooley]

It should also be noted that, in Stop Making Sense, Tina Weymouth is the centre of the whole universe. David Byrne is the weird brain trapped in a jar of the band. But she's the heart, the happiness, the groove.

I agree.
It gives one joy to watch her.

[Wooley]

Of course, if we're going to get really broad with our definitions, let's just call M a Slasher and be done with which was the first.

[pahaK]

Of course, if we're going to get really broad with our definitions, let's just call M a Slasher and be done with which was the first.

Maybe Os Crimes de Diogo Alves could be the first, then? I haven't seen it (or either of them as there seem to be two shorts of the same name done in 1909 and 1911) but it's at least claimed to be the first film about a serial killer.

[Iroquois]

If there is any main distinction between slashers and TCM, its that the audience comes to know things personally about Leatherface. We are introduced to his family, see his home life, his moments of reflection after he's killed. While still just as much as a boogeyman as Jason or Michael Myers, he is less just the embodiment of evil, and more a character.


What I always find confusing though about all the resistance TCM gets as being labelled as a slasher, is why does Nightmare on Elm Street get a pass? If we are going to nitpick about Leatherface, Freddy Krueger needs a good hard look as well. Because that is far from pure slasher territory as well.


But, in short, what difference does it make? We know what a slasher is. We know that some movies have deviations from the formula. But there is more than enough connective tissue between TCM or Elm Street and the genre that there shouldn't really be any confusion as to what we are getting when we are putting it on.

Yeah, I think the nomenclature has been popping up a lot more the last few years in the media bubble I've been in. It seems like there's just been a lot of John Carpenter/Halloween love in the past few years, and one part of the equation is, "Halloween was the first slasher," or, "x from Halloween was the first y." And then you get the Black Christmas, "proto-slasher that preceded Halloween by a full year," etc, and I'm always just thinking, "TCM came out years before either. Are we just forgetting this iconic movie exists?"


The only answer I can think of is, "Halloween defined the reference template that became the formula from which all the 80s ones are molded after." But then, I just hear ANoES get lumped in as an 80's slasher and think, "that fits the definition even less than TCM."


I guess it matters for the context of the conversation when discussing a certain subset of films.

I completely agree. I just didn't feel like opening a whole second discussion. But, while I feel Freddy is much closer to a Slasher than Leatherface/TCM, and he probably devolves into the Slasher genre in a way later, I personally would not call ANoES a Slasher.
And I guess I care because it gives us something to talk about.

Gotta admit I've never heard the argument that A Nightmare On Elm Street doesn't count as a slasher. I'm guessing it has to do with the fact that Freddy is explicitly defined as supernatural from the jump (as opposed to the others having supernatural status conferred upon them in sequels).

[Iroquois]

#33. Slacker
(Richard Linklater, 1990)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/408/cache-8131-1481540014/image-w1280.jpg

"I may live badly, but at least I don't have to work to do it."

Fun fact: Slacker was the very first film that I ever reviewed on this site. Regardless of where it may rank on this countdown or others, I consider it a cornerstone of my own personal canon. Linklater establishes his career-long fondness for compressed timeframes with a film that traverses the city of Austin, Texas in the space of 24 hours - it does so by hopping from character to character and giving them all a moment in the spotlight. The focus is on the city's more eccentric individuals, often dedicating entire scenes to various misfits rambling about their passions to a captive audience (Linklater himself sets the tone by playing a taxi fare who monologues about dreams and alternate realities to a mutely disinterested driver). The subjects are almost as varied as the character, touching on everything from conspiracy theories to politics to art - or sometimes it's just a character doing a funny bit (look no further than Butthole Surfers drummer Teresa Taylor trying to sell what she claims is a pap smear that belongs to Madonna or Charles Gunning as a jaded hitchhiker who conducts a foul-mouthed and cynical video interview). That the film looks as good as it does on a comparatively low budget (much of it consists of languid long takes that glide slowly down the streets and through the sharehouses of Austin, though it somehow finds room to experiment with different film and video formats) is a readily observable sign of the promise that Linklater has made good on in the subsequent decades - he's gotten more accessible and he's gotten more obtuse, but for me he's never gotten better.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #71

[Rockatansky]

I probably owe Slacker a rewatch at some point, but outside a handful of moments (like the Madonna pap smear scene you cite), I found it largely insufferable.

[doubledenim]

My memory being what it is, I kinda thought I had seen this. The MPS is the only uncorrupted file available my desktop can access.

[Little Ash]

Gotta admit I've never heard the argument that A Nightmare On Elm Street doesn't count as a slasher. I'm guessing it has to do with the fact that Freddy is explicitly defined as supernatural from the jump (as opposed to the others having supernatural status conferred upon them in sequels).


Wooley's the first I've heard of being more restrictive on the term excluding Freddy, but I also don't go around asking people if they consider "X" a slasher (TCM seems to show up with that question a lot).


Using Captain Terror's terms, Freddy does stalk, but since he quips, it's something more of a cat playing with its food (in terms of contrast with the stereotypical version).


But mostly the supernatural part, not so much that he is supernatural or undead, but rather, the means by which he kills people is supernatural, and the terrain through which he stalks them. Also the iconic glove, sure it does some slashing, but it feels more like an instrument of fear, terror, and torture (maybe more of a 'slicer') than an instrument of killing (I'd have to think back through his kills though).


i.e. Child's Play (at least the first one), feels more of a slasher than Nightmare, and that's also another supernatural killer.

[Little Ash]

I think it came up in the comedy countdown, Linklater is mostly a blindspot for me, for reasons that aren't really clear.

[honeykid]

Yes, the basic template is Bava's Bay of Blood. Almost indisputably.


And the North American film that appropriated the basic structure of the slasher was almost equally indisputably Black Christmas (we can also consider low budget stuff like Andy Milligan's The Ghastly Ones, but no one saw that to bother emulating it in the first place, and it's also much too weird to really be a proper template for anything outside of Milligan's universe)

I agree, but if I may put a slight question mark afterwards, I present another possibility.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064724/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_17

Feels very much like a first draft of Dressed To Kill and obviously very influened by giallo.

EDIT: Off to bed but just seen that there was another page and Slacker is on it. Love that film. On my own 100 and a film I got onto my film studies course after recommending it to my tutor and having it as the example for independent cinema on our course. Not everyone thanked me for that. :D But I didn't care. It's impact on me was immediate.

[crumbsroom]

I agree, but if I may put a slight question mark afterwards, I present another possibility.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064724/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_17

Feels very much like a first draft of Dressed To Kill and obviously very influened by giallo.


I'm actually not even remotely familiar with that one. hmm

[Iroquois]

I think it came up in the comedy countdown, Linklater is mostly a blindspot for me, for reasons that aren't really clear.

Much like his films, there's nothing particularly obtrusive about him as an auteur - he's just a chill guy who makes chill movies, and that's a big part of the appeal.

[Iroquois]

#32. RoboCop
(Paul Verhoeven, 1987)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/542/cache-26966-1610703658/image-w1280.jpg

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

Trust Paul Verhoeven to take what sounds like one of the most banal action movie premises of the 1980s - ordinary police officer (Peter Weller) is left for dead by a gang of crooks only to be resurrected as a high-powered cyborg - and turn it into a surprisingly substantial work that really digs into what the eponymous character represents about the state of modern America. Though it's not above creating the kind of insanely lawless society that seems right out of a Cannon film (with the gruesome violence to match), Verhoeven readily establishes that his concern is with questioning what creates such a society; Kurtwood Smith's ruthless criminal mastermind is bad enough in his own right, but RoboCop's true origins lie within the machinations of a corporation looking to have their own control over law enforcement regardless of (or is that because of) the sheer corruption and amorality within its ranks. Grounding it all is another cyberpunk narrative of mechanised self-actualisation as RoboCop's dormant memories gradually resurface and complicate his new existence, lent proper pathos by Weller finding the emotion behind the monotone and having a good foil in the form of Nancy Allen's no-nonsense colleague. It's a heady combination that makes it one of the better entries into a decade of action cinema that rarely seems concerned with doing anything as remotely cerebral as this.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #73

[SpelingError]

RoboCop is excellent. I've always preferred it over both Terminator films.

[honeykid]

Robocop is (and I really mean still is) magnificent. A truly great piece of 80's action cinema elevated by everything which Iro said to become so much more. One of the best films of the decade.

I haven't seen the sequel in a couple of decades, but I remember liking that too, but in a very different way. The sequel is the enjoyable bubblegum action blood and guts film you'd expect the original to be, but isn't.

[doubledenim]

Saw the trailer for the new game and my first thought was when this was gonna pop up on your list.

The sfx used on the suit and accompanying sound effects were a devastating combination. One of my favorites from a time that movies like this were used to peddle toys to tots.

[Wooley]

Wooley's the first I've heard of being more restrictive on the term excluding Freddy, but I also don't go around asking people if they consider "X" a slasher (TCM seems to show up with that question a lot).


Using Captain Terror's terms, Freddy does stalk, but since he quips, it's something more of a cat playing with its food (in terms of contrast with the stereotypical version).


But mostly the supernatural part, not so much that he is supernatural or undead, but rather, the means by which he kills people is supernatural, and the terrain through which he stalks them. Also the iconic glove, sure it does some slashing, but it feels more like an instrument of fear, terror, and torture (maybe more of a 'slicer') than an instrument of killing (I'd have to think back through his kills though).


i.e. Child's Play (at least the first one), feels more of a slasher than Nightmare, and that's also another supernatural killer.

When it came out in '84, and when I say this I am only talking about the first film, the only one in the series that really counts as far as I'm concerned, I don't think anybody thought it was a slasher. It was much closer to something fantastical like Frankenstein or whatever but totally new totally original (whether it was or not that's how it felt). None of us really new what the f*ck to make of it. I mean, if everything that has stalk and stab in it is a slasher then movies like The Jagged Edge and maybe even Eye Of The Needle are slashers, maybe even Zodiac, Se7en is certainly a slasher, etc. I mean, really, if OG Freddy (not wise-cracking stupid-ass Dream Warriors-and-on Freddy) is a slasher, then The Wolfman is a slasher, in my opinion. They are both monsters that stalk and kill. Man, now that I think about it, is every film in which someone kills more than one person a slasher?
So I guess, because the aNoES imprint on me is the OG, which I saw over 20 times before it's first sequel even came out (I think it may have even been 30 but I'm trying not to hyperbolize) and I don't really watch the other ones hardly ever or if I do it's with a completely different mindset, aNoES lives in a special world, along with TCM, honestly, of "Something different just happened" horror movies.
Which, interestingly, includes Halloween.
Which is technically a slasher, but...

[crumbsroom]

RoboCop is excellent. I've always preferred it over both Terminator films.


This is the sensible opinion.


Robocop is hard to beat for whatever one considers it to be. Satire, action film, sci-fi, vague hints of horror. The only film that is even comparable to its kind of purpose and feel is They Live, and even though I really like They Live, that isn't even in the same universe as Robocop.

[Iroquois]

#31. In the Mood for Love
(Wong Kar-wai, 2000)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/198/cache-8022-1581326941/image-w1280.jpg

"I didn't think you'd fall in love with me."
"I didn't either. I was only curious to know how it started. Now I know. Feelings can creep up just like that. I thought I was in control."

Wong had built his prior romances around bombastic tales of crime and craziness - the quirky cops of Chungking Express, the cool assassins of Fallen Angels, even the toxic relationship at the heart of Happy Together. With the turn of the millennium, he winds the clock back to the 1960s and makes what seems like a much more conventional melodrama about a man (Tony Leung) and woman (Maggie Cheung) who live in neighbouring apartments and eventually realise that their spouses are carrying out an affair with one another. What begins as a friendship between two lonely people in a bustling metropolis inevitably carries an air of romantic tension, something that Wong conducts with all manner of graceful choices that initially temper his more passionate flourishes but eventually allows them to bleed through as the central relationship intensifies in ways that neither party is totally prepared for. This much is certainly bolstered by a soundtrack that waltzes and tangoes its way around the central couple, both of whom give such well-realised performances of interiority that give away so much while still maintaining such a calm surface. The result is one of the finest romances in cinema history, one that bridges the gap between classic melodramas and the more subdued approach of modern times - the intertitles may refer to the 1962 Hong Kong seen in the film as being a thing of the past, but that only underscores how timeless In the Mood for Love ends up being.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A

[Iroquois]

#30. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
(Sergio Leone, 1966)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/163/cache-90886-1565833888/image-w1920.jpg

"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."

It makes sense that Leone would follow this with the death-of-the-West revisionism of Once Upon a Time in the West - he'd already made such a perfect example of a conventional Western that the only possible follow-up was mythic deconstruction. The "Dollars" trilogy had already introduced a larger-than-life protagonist in the form of Clint Eastwood's gunslinger wandering from town to town getting into mercenary adventures - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly increases the scale by giving him two similarly outsized foils. While "Angel Eyes" (Lee Van Cleef) is an assassin ruthless enough to make Eastwood's "Blondie" and his amoral greed seem good in comparison, the real star of the show ends up being Tuco (Eli Wallach), the hardscrabble bandit whose turbulent partnership with Blondie fuels so much of this film's sprawling narrative - and that's without getting to the literal buried treasure that all three of them are trying to find at any cost. All three of them have great presence and chemistry apart and together, but Leone still manages to shoot them as solitary figures against a tumultuous Civil War backdrop - sequences involving prisoner-of-war camps and bridge-occupying battles practically make this into an out-and-out war film that just so happens to centre around a trio of cowboys. Of course, the film is more than able to bring the noise when it comes to everything from horseback pursuits to shoot-outs (often owing a lot of its excitement to the fast and loose approach the film takes to the safety of its actors). All this and I haven't even mentioned the score, but given how that hits you within seconds of starting the film, it practically goes without saying.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #20

[Little Ash]

The thing that caught my eye on the In the Mood for Love reviews was the (lack of) past rankings.


I'm curious about that. Late in life encounter, or did it age really well on a recent revisit.


I hit the "exploring film" age in roughly the mid-to-late 90s, which was peak-WKW, so it's always a bit jarring/a reminder of different lived experiences when people slightly different than me in age didn't hit his films pretty much at the best time of your life to be encountering his movies.

[Little Ash]

And while I'm not necessarily in the minority that prefers Once Upon a Time in the West to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but for some reason I ended up liking For a Few Dollar More the most out of the dollars trilogy. My only conclusion is that maybe I'm not drawn to Clint Eastwood.

[Iroquois]

The thing that caught my eye on the In the Mood for Love reviews was the (lack of) past rankings.


I'm curious about that. Late in life encounter, or did it age really well on a recent revisit.


I hit the "exploring film" age in roughly the mid-to-late 90s, which was peak-WKW, so it's always a bit jarring/a reminder of different lived experiences when people slightly different than me in age didn't hit his films pretty much at the best time of your life to be encountering his movies.

Couldn't say, I don't remember when exactly I first watched it. Maybe a decade or so ago when I was going through the other Wong films (I definitely remember being familiar with his work before going to a festival screening of The Grandmaster in 2013).

[Takoma11]

And while I'm not necessarily in the minority that prefers Once Upon a Time in the West to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but for some reason I ended up liking For a Few Dollar More the most out of the dollars trilogy. My only conclusion is that maybe I'm not drawn to Clint Eastwood.

For a Few Dollars More is also my favorite of the trilogy. I find the story more powerful and memorable.

Every dang time I watch The Good the Bad and the Ugly I get this wave of boredom around the time they cross paths with the Civil War soldiers. The first time I chalked it up to me maybe being literally tired, but on many rewatches that stretch is always a big lag point for me.

[SpelingError]

For a Few Dollars More is actually my least favorite of the trilogy, though I still think it's pretty good. I might like it more with a rewatch though.

[StuSmallz]

Every dang time I watch The Good the Bad and the Ugly I get this wave of boredom around the time they cross paths with the Civil War soldiers. The first time I chalked it up to me maybe being literally tired, but on many rewatches that stretch is always a big lag point for me.lolwat

[Rockatansky]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the movie that first got me interested in movies, where I really took notice of the style and direction. Funnily enough, the first time I watched it, it was cropped to fullscreen and the entire Civil War scene had been taken out. :D

[Takoma11]

lolwat

I mean, I personally know two other people who had the same reaction.

It's a momentum killer and I find it boring.

Great movie, one stretch of it that I find completely unengaging.

EDIT: I've aired this unpopular opinion before and had it explained to me (with varying degrees of condescension) why I'm wrong. I have rewatched the film with an attempted favorable lens on that sequence. It still does nothing for me.

[Rockatansky]

I mean, I personally know two other people who had the same reaction.

It's a momentum killer and I find it boring.

Great movie, one stretch of it that I find completely unengaging.

EDIT: I've aired this unpopular opinion before and had it explained to me (with varying degrees of condescension) why I'm wrong. I have rewatched the film with an attempted favorable lens on that sequence. It still does nothing for me.
The problem is that these people tried to use complex methods like argumentation, instead of just yelling at you to watch it again, like I'm about to do right now.


Watch it again! Watch it again until you love the movie without any reservations!

[Wooley]

I mean, I personally know two other people who had the same reaction.



And now you know three.

[Rockatansky]

The problem is that these people tried to use complex methods like argumentation, instead of just yelling at you to watch it again, like I'm about to do right now.


Watch it again! Watch it again until you love the movie without any reservations!
https://i.imgur.com/QgSlQ62.gif

[Little Ash]

I only watched TGTB&TU once, so I can't remember the exact details of which parts worked better for me than others. I just remember thinking it felt less than For a Few Dollars More (and I liked both more than A Fist Full of Dollars, but I'm also not the biggest Yojimbo fan either), and my main recollection was, I found protagonist LVC more compelling than antagonist LVC and protagonist Eastwood (and third person, T) combined.


I also remember being a big fan of the use of the music box. A common, cheap soundtrack trick, but it can still be effective.


Given that I care for the first one the least, it makes me wonder if I just don't feel the magnetic pull of Eastwood that other people do.

[SpelingError]

It's certainly fair to think GBU loses momentum at the bridge sequence (assuming that's what you guys are referring to). I remember having that issue when I first watched the film several years ago. With later viewings though, I've warmed up to that sequence and I now find it to be powerful at showing the futility of war. It's a great culmination to the Civil War backdrop and, if that sequence was removed, I definitely couldn't imagine that sub-plot having the same impact. I also like how the film feels simultaneously epic and intimate at the same time, which is all the more reason why I like that sequence.

[SpelingError]

Also, I often feel alone when I say I love A Fistful of Dollars.

[crumbsroom]

I mean, I personally know two other people who had the same reaction.

It's a momentum killer and I find it boring.

Great movie, one stretch of it that I find completely unengaging.

EDIT: I've aired this unpopular opinion before and had it explained to me (with varying degrees of condescension) why I'm wrong. I have rewatched the film with an attempted favorable lens on that sequence. It still does nothing for me.


While I can't specify what parts of The Good The Bad and The Ugly I check out of (it's been a long time since I've seen it), there is definitely a stretch where this happens to me as well.


Overall, I still think it is just about as essential as a movie gets. But, at the same time, I've never loved it start to finish.


Also, I much prefer A Few Dollars More and even A Fistful of Dynamite, to Fistful of Dollars.

[ThatDarnMKS]

The problem is that these people tried to use complex methods like argumentation, instead of just yelling at you to watch it again, like I'm about to do right now.


Watch it again! Watch it again until you love the movie without any reservations!
This is known as the MKS Method and I’m so dang proud of you. *wipes a solitary tear away*

[Iroquois]

It's certainly fair to think GBU loses momentum at the bridge sequence (assuming that's what you guys are referring to). I remember having that issue when I first watched the film several years ago. With later viewings though, I've warmed up to that sequence and I now find it to be powerful at showing the futility of war. It's a great culmination to the Civil War backdrop and, if that sequence was removed, I definitely couldn't imagine that sub-plot having the same impact. I also like how the film feels simultaneously epic and intimate at the same time, which is all the more reason why I like that sequence.

I think a more likely culprit is the prison camp sequence, which mainly exists to re-introduce Angel Eyes to the film but which make its length felt by largely centring on him torturing Tuco for information. It arguably makes for another war-is-hell moment in that the officials force the prisoners to play in an orchestra to muffle the sounds of prisoners being tortured and they are very much aware of what's going on, but I will agree that it's probably the worst sequence in the film in terms of pacing and whatnot.

[Iroquois]

#29. The Warriors
(Walter Hill, 1979)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/18075/cache-47557-1546851614/image-w1920.jpg

"Warriors...come out to play-ay..."

This film has what may well be one of the worst director's cuts of all-time, but its tacked-on comic-book prologue rightly acknowledges the connection between epic tales of bravery from ancient history and the dangerous ordeal faced by the titular street gang as they have to make their way from one side of New York to the other without getting wrecked by any rival gangs or the cops. Conferring mythological importance onto what plays like a low-rent exploitation film is an audacious move, but Hill readily proves himself enough of a genre craftsman to justify that comparison. The colourfully dystopian New York he conjures is packed to the gills with iconic and memorable characters - the Warriors themselves make for a suitably diverse ensemble to follow throughout the film, but the sheer variety of antagonists they encounter (low-level losers the Orphans, tie-dyed sirens the Lizzies, grease-painted batters the Baseball Furies, etc.) does so much to create the impression of a living, breathing world that exists for ages beyond the edges of this one night and the film itself. The same goes for its own sociopolitically contentious narrative - the plot is kicked off by the leader of an all-white gang assassinating a black gang leader, a sarcastic streetwalker falls in with the Warriors against their wishes, and the police themselves are effectively treated as a dangerous gang in their own right. Even something as slight but poignant as the final subway ride of the film shows that there's more going on here than just an excuse to watch muscular dudes in leather vests to beat people up - this is why it's rightfully endured as a cult classic.

2005 ranking: #45
2013 ranking: #30

[Rockatansky]

This is known as the MKS Method and I’m so dang proud of you. *wipes a solitary tear away*
I fear these tactics are not working as well as I'd hoped.



https://imageresizer.static9.net.au/jk_TRHbX8R3C08rchPmh_ZMATZ4=/1274x0/http%3A%2F%2Fprod.static9.net.au%2F_%2Fmedia%2FNetwork%2FImages%2F2017%2F06%2F21%2F14%2F23%2Fdance.g if

[SpelingError]

I think a more likely culprit is the prison camp sequence, which mainly exists to re-introduce Angel Eyes to the film but which make its length felt by largely centring on him torturing Tuco for information. It arguably makes for another war-is-hell moment in that the officials force the prisoners to play in an orchestra to muffle the sounds of prisoners being tortured and they are very much aware of what's going on, but I will agree that it's probably the worst sequence in the film in terms of pacing and whatnot.

The reason I mentioned the bridge sequence is I vaguely recall Takoma and a couple other users who post here expressing criticism towards that sequence on a prior forum we used to post at a couple years back. I don't remember them criticizing the prison camp sequence (unless that sequence is being referenced as well).

Anyways, I don't mind the prison camp sequence as I don't think its goal is so much to re-introduce Angel Eyes, but to create conflict between him and the other two. It's also the driver behind a lot of the conflict in the film.

[Wooley]

Also, I often feel alone when I say I love A Fistful of Dollars.

I just watched it recently for the first time in at least 30 years and I thought it was great.

[Wooley]

#29. The Warriors
(Walter Hill, 1979)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/18075/cache-47557-1546851614/image-w1920.jpg

"Warriors...come out to play-ay..."

This film has what may well be one of the worst director's cuts of all-time, but its tacked-on comic-book prologue rightly acknowledges the connection between epic tales of bravery from ancient history and the dangerous ordeal faced by the titular street gang as they have to make their way from one side of New York to the other without getting wrecked by any rival gangs or the cops. Conferring mythological importance onto what plays like a low-rent exploitation film is an audacious move, but Hill readily proves himself enough of a genre craftsman to justify that comparison. The colourfully dystopian New York he conjures is packed to the gills with iconic and memorable characters - the Warriors themselves make for a suitably diverse ensemble to follow throughout the film, but the sheer variety of antagonists they encounter (low-level losers the Orphans, tie-dyed sirens the Lizzies, grease-painted batters the Baseball Furies, etc.) does so much to create the impression of a living, breathing world that exists for ages beyond the edges of this one night and the film itself. The same goes for its own sociopolitically contentious narrative - the plot is kicked off by the leader of an all-white gang assassinating a black gang leader, a sarcastic streetwalker falls in with the Warriors against their wishes, and the police themselves are effectively treated as a dangerous gang in their own right. Even something as slight but poignant as the final subway ride of the film shows that there's more going on here than just an excuse to watch muscular dudes in leather vests to beat people up - this is why it's rightfully endured as a cult classic.

2005 ranking: #45
2013 ranking: #30

I love The Warriors.
Any flaws it has, and it has them, are meaningless to me.
A tentpole film.

[Takoma11]

I really enjoyed The Warriors when I watched it for the first time last year.

I think I need another viewing to really sink into its rhythms, and I imagine my rating of it will probably go up on another watch.

[MovieFan1988]

#29. The Warriors
(Walter Hill, 1979)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/18075/cache-47557-1546851614/image-w1920.jpg

"Warriors...come out to play-ay..."

This film has what may well be one of the worst director's cuts of all-time, but its tacked-on comic-book prologue rightly acknowledges the connection between epic tales of bravery from ancient history and the dangerous ordeal faced by the titular street gang as they have to make their way from one side of New York to the other without getting wrecked by any rival gangs or the cops. Conferring mythological importance onto what plays like a low-rent exploitation film is an audacious move, but Hill readily proves himself enough of a genre craftsman to justify that comparison. The colourfully dystopian New York he conjures is packed to the gills with iconic and memorable characters - the Warriors themselves make for a suitably diverse ensemble to follow throughout the film, but the sheer variety of antagonists they encounter (low-level losers the Orphans, tie-dyed sirens the Lizzies, grease-painted batters the Baseball Furies, etc.) does so much to create the impression of a living, breathing world that exists for ages beyond the edges of this one night and the film itself. The same goes for its own sociopolitically contentious narrative - the plot is kicked off by the leader of an all-white gang assassinating a black gang leader, a sarcastic streetwalker falls in with the Warriors against their wishes, and the police themselves are effectively treated as a dangerous gang in their own right. Even something as slight but poignant as the final subway ride of the film shows that there's more going on here than just an excuse to watch muscular dudes in leather vests to beat people up - this is why it's rightfully endured as a cult classic.

2005 ranking: #45
2013 ranking: #30

One of my favorite movies of all time, I love this movie

[Rockatansky]

I've only seen The Warriors in the "director's cut" version with the comic book style inserts. I'd like to see the theatrical version, which I understand has just been released as a ruinously expensive Blu-ray.

[Little Ash]

I've only seen The Warriors in the "director's cut" version with the comic book style inserts. I'd like to see the theatrical version, which I understand has just been released as a ruinously expensive Blu-ray.


I've only seen the theatrical version to date. I did buy a copy off of iTunes during the pandemic when the price dropped. I bought a lot of things during the past few years, so I've never gotten around to watching it, but I've checked the beginning and it gets through the beginning (to them boarding the subway), and no comic book panel, so apparently that's the theatrical cut.

[StuSmallz]

It's certainly fair to think GBU loses momentum at the bridge sequence (assuming that's what you guys are referring to). I remember having that issue when I first watched the film several years ago. With later viewings though, I've warmed up to that sequence and I now find it to be powerful at showing the futility of war. It's a great culmination to the Civil War backdrop and, if that sequence was removed, I definitely couldn't imagine that sub-plot having the same impact. I also like how the film feels simultaneously epic and intimate at the same time, which is all the more reason why I like that sequence.Yup, plus my rewatch earlier this year reminded me of just how great Leone's direction of it was overall; I mean, yeah he was great with the big moments, but also with the smaller ones as well, like with the unbearable tension of the "spurs" scene, which I legitimately think Hitchcock himself would marvel at the suspense of:

https://youtu.be/ix3EI6cGfuE

[honeykid]

Ah, The Warriors. Finally we get back to some good films. What am I saying? Great films. I've professed my love for this for many years on this site. I've loved it since childhood and it just never ages or seems silly to me. Maybe that's because I was about 9 when I first saw it, so I just accepted it for what it was as children do? Maybe it's because I've never really grown up and still see it as I did then? Maybe it's because I didn't get the chance to be a child when young and so now am enjoying things I've always loved with a child's love and wonder? I don't know. But it's ****ing great. I still have the UK home release video tape which means it's the oringinal cut and has this song in the film, which isn't on any other, TMK, and is just weird watching without it. Not that I have for years as I'm terrified the tape will mangle or be affected by the mould which can grow on old videotape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK4iHgEnKJo

[Iroquois]

#28. Ran
(Akira Kurosawa, 1985)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/754/cache-47620-1576123203/image-w1920.jpg

"Man is born crying. When he has cried enough, he dies."

Akira Kurosawa was well into his 70s and losing his eyesight when he pieced together what may be one of the greatest late-period films any filmmaker has ever created. A loose adaptation of King Lear wherein an ageing lord (Tatsuya Nakadai) sows discord among his three sons by dividing his dominion amongst them, Ran sees this familial dispute spiral into all-out war between the clans as said lord descends into madness and exile. A stunning epic in every sense of the word, Kurosawa renders intimate chamber drama with the same vivacity as any of the clashes between colour-coded armies (Mieko Harada practically steals the show as the vengeful noblewoman who exacerbates existing tensions between the brothers with her seductive machinations). Underneath the tale of an old warlord reaping what he's sown over a lifetime of conquest, there is still room to find all manner of personal tragedy within the lives of the many characters impacted by his reign. One doesn't have to see the lavishly-detailed storyboards painted by Kurosawa himself to appreciate the visual grandeur on display, wringing a terrible beauty from this tale of feudal chaos.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A

[honeykid]

Ran is brilliant and something which might've made my own 100 had I seen it enough times. As I've said it many times before, and so, I may as well say it again, if the first thing someone says about a film are wtte "the battle scenes are amazing", I get a sinking feeling. If it's already a film I don't think I'll like/enjoy, then it usually puts the kibosh on it. Ran is the exception which proves the rule, because it was the first thing I heard about it but, while they are amazing, there's so much more than that and that's usually where the other films fall down. Obviously being based on King Lear helps greatly in that, but the fact is, the battle scenes are great but then, so's the rest of it.

[SpelingError]

Ran is excellent. Probably a top 5 Kurosawa for me.

[Little Ash]

I do owe Ran a rewatch, but I think after enough exposure over a long enough period of time, it does feel like I'm the odd-man-out in terms of not loving Kurosawa like everyone else does.

And by "everyone else," I do mean it seems like "everyone else on this planet."

[Iroquois]

#27. Sonatine
(Takeshi Kitano, 1993)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/1458/cache-8856-1546693250/image-w1280.jpg

"When you're scared all the time, you reach a point where you wish you were dead."

Knowing Takeshi Kitano primarily as the eponymous host of the wacky game show Takeshi's Castle and the sinister but pathetic villain of Battle Royale still did nothing to prepare me for just how idiosyncratic his directorial filmography would get. Sonatine is ostensibly about a turf war between yakuza clans, but its peculiar cinematic rhythms are clear from the jump and are amply reflected by how the bulk of the film revolves around a squad of gangsters (led by Kitano himself as a world-weary underboss) hiding out in an isolated beach house, finding whatever ways they can to pass the time while trying to figure out their next move. Kitano's established status as a famous Japanese comedian bleeds through into his films, though here it intermingles with the criminal element of his work to create some fairly dark humour - there's a reason the film's most iconic image is of him smiling gleefully through a game of Russian roulette that his character has started out of boredom. Being able to juggle such wildly different tones is always a tall order - deadpan humour abounds as the gangsters fight about nothing or play silly games on the beach while the moments where it does engage with the serious side of the yakuza business are sufficiently discomforting or shocking in their bluntness (to say nothing of the moments where the line between the two gets extremely blurry). The complete lack of fuss to the technical approach certainly aids that sensibility and matches Kitano's largely stony expressions, in which case a melancholy score by the legendary Joe Hisaishi really infuses every possible moment with as much levity or misery as is demanded.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #26

[Iroquois]

#26. Dead Man
(Jim Jarmusch, 1995)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/306/cache-25582-1587722894/image-w1280.jpg

"Stupid f*cking white man."

It's amazing to look at Jarmusch's filmography up until this point and really realise just how much of a break this was from the mundane slice-of-life indies on which he'd first made his name. Sure, Dead Man continues in a similar vein with its eccentric characters deadpanning their way through a somewhat directionless narrative, but Jarmusch's pivot into a genre as distinct yet checkered as the Western is at once a radical shift and a natural growth in his sensibilities. The story of a timid accountant (Johnny Depp) whose ill-fated journey to a new town leads to him being mortally wounded and escorted on a spirit quest by a loquacious Native American (Gary Farmer) allows Jarmusch to deliver another characteristically fragmented tone poem that traipses through the ugliness of the Wild West, occasionally finding beauty in the unlikeliest of places (that deer scene) but still making no shortage of observations about the ways in which the many tentacles of manifest destiny keep threatening to choke the life out of the land. Jarmusch finds a murderer's row of character actors to embody the evil that men do for their own gain - Lance Henriksen's cannibalistic bounty hunter, Robert Mitchum's vengeful factory boss, Alfred Molina's racist missionary - and utilises the legendary Robby Müller to properly capture their craggy features in evocative chiaroscuro. Bringing on Neil Young to do some cacophonous noodling on the soundtrack is the real masterstroke - what could have been annoyingly anachronistic proves the perfect vessel for the wailing that this world is doing. "Do you know my poetry" indeed.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #44

[honeykid]

I've had that film for decades and the poster for even longer... And I still haven't seen it. :D

[Little Ash]

Sonatine - I am not familiar with. In college, whatever movies I was renting, Fireworks kept coming up as a trailer for some reason. I still haven't seen that nor have any idea what it's about, but I know it exists.


Dead Man - Every time I start watching this movie I keep waffling between, "this okay/good movie," and, "this movie is ****ing amazing."

I took this July's B&N criterion sale as a chance to upgrade from whatever generic blu-ray I had of the movie to the Criterion blu-ray. Who knows when I'll get a chance to actually watch that transfer (given the number of blind buys in my collection all wanting to push their way to the front), but I did take a peak at the extras on that one, and they were pretty amazing (recoding actors reading William Blake's poems seems like one of those obvious, yet brilliant, ideas for an extra for this one).

[SpelingError]

I need to rewatch Dead Man. I feel I didn't give it nearly enough credit when I first watched it.

[Rockatansky]

I'm no Kitano expert and haven't seen Sonatine (I think MKS is a fan), but Boiling Point was one of my favourite early pandemic watches. There's a woozy, boozy bar scene that still makes me chuckle.


Also, fun fact: Kitano once "designed" a videogame (apparently by shouting ideas at the designers while on a bender). It's supposed to be borderline unplayable.

[Iroquois]

#25. Princess Mononoke
(Hayao Miyazaki, 1997)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/964/cache-47607-1570446815/image-w1280.jpg

"Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living."

Hard to think of many studios with as high a batting average as Ghibli where their few mediocrities are more than cancelled out by their peaks. For me, it doesn't get much better than Mononoke, one of Miyazaki's many attempts at creating a swansong with which he could properly bow out of the medium he'd redefined over and over. A remarkably nuanced environmentalist fable that sees young Prince Ashitaka (Yôji Matsuda) suffer a curse from a demon's attack and set off on a quest to find out what created the demon, eventually stumbling into the middle of a war between iron-crafting noblewoman Lady Eboshi (Yûko Tanaka) and the creatures that dwell in the forest she wishes to destroy. It's an explosive conflict that involves many distinct and different players on all sides - the eponymous princess (Yuriko Ishida) is a human girl who was raised by wolves and now fights tooth and nail against Eboshi, as perfect an emblem of this film's approach to ideological and ontological grey areas as any - but Miyazaki is able to spin so many plates while keeping the film going that it continues to prove remarkable. It also has as resplendent a display of the Ghibli aesthetic as ever, conjuring all manner of magical creatures and atmospheric locations against which the story can unfold. It is great that so many Ghibli films can be chosen as a favourite without much in the way of counter-argument, and while there are certainly quite a few that I love, it's hard to imagine any of them overtaking Mononoke as my favourite.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A

[crumbsroom]

All of the early Kitano's are as essential as genre filmmaking gets. Then, once one has watched all of those, they should immediately proceed to watch Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, for possibly Kitano's greatest performance.


One of these days I'm going to have to force myself to like Princess Mononoke. So far I haven't been persuasive enough, though.

[Little Ash]

All of the early Kitano's are as essential as genre filmmaking gets. Then, once one has watched all of those, they should immediately proceed to watch Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, for possibly Kitano's greatest performance.


One of these days I'm going to have to force myself to like Princess Mononoke. So far I haven't been persuasive enough, though.


I don't think I've actually seen anything he's directed, but I have seen Merry Christmas, because, well, Oshima.


Wrt Mononoke, it was probably my first Miyazaki*, watching a bootlegged copy in college (because Disney hadn't released it yet), so I'm still positive on it. Though, and temper this statement with the proper suspicion since I haven't seen it since I think, also college, I would choose Kiki's as my favorite Miyazaki.


*: I was about to say Ghibli, but then realized I'm pretty sure I saw Grave of the Fireflies in high school.

[crumbsroom]

I don't think I've actually seen anything he's directed, but I have seen Merry Christmas, because, well, Oshima.


Wrt Mononoke, it was probably my first Miyazaki*, watching a bootlegged copy in college (because Disney hadn't released it yet), so I'm still positive on it. Though, and temper this statement with the proper suspicion since I haven't seen it since I think, also college, I would choose Kiki's as my favorite Miyazaki.


*: I was about to say Ghibli, but then realized I'm pretty sure I saw Grave of the Fireflies in high school.


I would be tempted to say Kitano would have to be on my top 20 most essential directors of all time. Not necessarily for the history of cinema, but for my personal tastes. His approach to violence and humour the crime film (because, I guess that's what they essentially are) are all uniquely his own. Weird, profound, challenging, terrifying, hilarious. And he has one of the most marvellously powerful on screen presences I can think of (he's continued with that aura of being both charmingly sweet and blood-chillingly menacing, depending on the scene, just like he cultivated in Lawrence).


Princess Mononoke is a film that looks incredible. On those merits alone I should love it. But it is also densely plotted, in ways that I don't find terribly engaging, and yet demands to be paid attention to. I found it kept holding my eyes open Ludivico style, forcing me to follow along with every narrative beat and every character motivation, and my brain sometimes resists attempts at such fascism. It just wanted to get lost in those landscapes and I had to keep listening to why so and so was doing such and such and why it all mattered. But I think if I ever rewatch I'll be prepared enough to alert the other half of my brain that it needs to be an active participant too, this time around.







Also, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence is one of the greatest and needs to be on the lips of as many people as possible.

[SpelingError]

I watched Princess Mononoke a week ago and enjoyed it quite a lot.

[Rockatansky]

Mononoke is great and Crumbsroom is on the wrong side of history, but I do think he's correct about how narratively busy it is on top of the meticulous imagery. Of Miyazaki's work, I think Spirited Away handles the density of its visual style a bit better as it grounds it in an easy to follow child's perspective.


It's been a while since I've seen Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, so a rewatch is certainly in order. The only Oshimas I've seen are that and the stupid chimpanzee movie (which I kinda like). I probably should have seen In the Realm of the Senses already, given my viewing habits.

[Little Ash]

Mononoke is great and Crumbsroom is on the wrong side of history, but I do think he's correct about how narratively busy it is on top of the meticulous imagery. Of Miyazaki's work, I think Spirited Away handles the density of its visual style a bit better as it grounds it in an easy to follow child's perspective.


It's been a while since I've seen Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, so a rewatch is certainly in order. The only Oshimas I've seen are that and the stupid chimpanzee movie (which I kinda like). I probably should have seen In the Realm of the Senses already, given my viewing habits.

Huh. I don't recall seeing a chimpanzee one.
But to me there's a division between his "outlaw" years which I think had the high watermark with Death by Hanging and his, slow, get under your skin movies, of which MC Mr L and ItRotS are part of (in that latter category, I've seen those Empire of Passion - hey, it's a kwaidan - and Gohatto, his final film. Which I think the last one is the even more misanthropic, spiteful version of MC Mr L, but assessments may vary.) Both categories agree that society is rotten though. I don't know how I felt about Senses the first time I saw it, since it was my first Oshima and I don't know what I was expecting.

[Little Ash]

My unpopular opinion (at least in the sense that it's not widely held), I greatly prefer Oshima to Kurosawa.

ETA: If I were to hazard a partial reason, I suspect Noh theater might just not be for me (I see that having only seen it show up in scenes in movies, but have never actually attended a play, but the characteristics I'm seeing in it correlate with aspects of what I'm seeing in Kurosawa movies that kind of turn me off).

[Rockatansky]

The chimpanzee one is Max Mon Amour.


https://64.media.tumblr.com/b576b9bef18187d430f29af5eafcc407/12590eb9ba3ab341-d9/s1280x1920/402d560c9dc7cd2fdbdf3e7b50b139d11160496a.jpg


https://64.media.tumblr.com/9a36b70678b1ebc6206cd5b46989dfdb/cb6a00ac527cb8b8-ff/s1280x1920/50aa51d5604cd0ea7cda414f0af55f61ac56b915.pnj


https://64.media.tumblr.com/d5ff2bafa31d878bc3b98ac62293afd5/75f35cd0bfc4e452-98/s1280x1920/86165d2d033244640e95ec5cc9062798264d6600.pnj


https://64.media.tumblr.com/a19736405269d12a7e18411d6a23f46e/1b86c7cca6ae32e1-f1/s1280x1920/e249d295b4c2180d8a7cbbde5e905a1ecc0d966c.pnj

[Little Ash]

Appropriately, "wtf," images. Yeah, if I've heard of that one, I had forgotten it.

[Rockatansky]

I think I wrote a review on my blog years ago, I'll dig it up for my thread.

[crumbsroom]

My unpopular opinion (at least in the sense that it's not widely held), I greatly prefer Oshima to Kurosawa.


Kurosawa is one of those talents who is so God like, I would struggle not to give him my preference. But because Oshima so much more reflects my sensibilities of what I like in the rhythms and textures and the general idea of film, there is something fallacious about me not picking him.


Seven Samurai is a perfect movie. It is my favorite of Kurosawa's. But I wouldn't even consider putting it on my top 100 of all time. Wheras

Oshima would at the very least represent with Lawrence, and would have another handful I'd be forced to at least mull over.



But then I think of specific sequences from Throne of Blood, or Ran, or Samurai and I have to give credit to the fact that I don't even know how a human being did those things.


Basically, it's complicated.

[Little Ash]

I think I wrote a review on my blog years ago, I'll dig it up for my thread.


You know, the existence of this movie is coming back to me (probably because you've referenced it), but for some reason it never registered or stuck in my head (the obvious reasons) that it was an Oshima film.

[Iroquois]

#24. Mulholland Drive
(David Lynch, 2001)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/187/cache-51170-1552467202/image-w1280.jpg

"Silencio...no hay banda."

Lynch is probably the perfect example of a director where I really only need to include one film that perfectly encompasses everything there is to love about their art. Eraserhead was the original statement of intent, Blue Velvet properly codified his sensibilities, and Twin Peaks illustrated how much he could do even when delving into a medium as fundamentally commercialised as television - however, nothing crystallises what it means to be Lynchian quite like Mulholland Drive. Another surreal mystery in a career largely defined by them, the film is ostensibly about up-and-coming actress Betty (Naomi Watts) and her efforts to help amnesiac Rita (Laura Harring) regain her memory, but things are never that simple - especially when Lynch is given as long a leash as he is given here. The jabs at the state of Hollywood filmmaking - especially in the B-plot involving beleaguered director Adam (Justin Theroux) going on his own bizarre odyssey after defying the studio suits' casting demands - aren't exactly subtle, but plot has never really been Lynch's concern so much as using it as a framework upon which he can layer all manner of distinctive tableaux that he can weave together into a greater experience (the infamous diner scene ultimately has very little connection to the film's actual plot but it's such an indelible moment that contributes to the overall air of sinister strangeness permeating the film). At once easier and harder to understand than its difficult reputation might suggest (Inland Empire seems like it exists to make this one look simpler in comparison), it may or may not be his masterwork but it feels like the one I'd rescue from the fire.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #67

[SpelingError]

Mulholland Drive used to be one of my all-time favorites before it was pushed off a while ago. I should revisit it to see if it will bounce back.

[Little Ash]

Mulholland Dr. entered my top 10 about a decade ago and has never looked close to leaving since.

[Little Ash]

#24. Mulholland Drive
(David Lynch, 2001)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/187/cache-51170-1552467202/image-w1280.jpg

"Silencio...no hay banda."

The jabs at the state of Hollywood filmmaking - especially in the B-plot involving beleaguered director Adam (Justin Theroux) going on his own bizarre odyssey after defying the studio suits' casting demands - aren't exactly subtle, but plot has never really been Lynch's concern so much as using it as a framework upon which he can layer all manner of distinctive tableaux that he can weave together into a greater experience (the infamous diner scene ultimately has very little connection to the film's actual plot but it's such an indelible moment that contributes to the overall air of sinister strangeness permeating the film).


Aren't they though?



So much of the earlier part of the movie is an emotional abstraction of the (mostly) real world portrayed towards the end, and in that earlier part, one of the things Adam captures is, "looks at antiquated psych-terms and still has to make a guess," ego eventually caving to the dark impulses of Naomi Watt's id at being emotionally betrayed. Hence so much weight being given to, "This is the girl," decision in the first half reflecting the internal emotional state of Watts' replaying her diner scene from the second half in her mind.

Even the meandering around kind of plays up the sense of depression, of the brain being petty, but also trying to avoid the dark forces pulling at it. i.e. Watts' wasn't betrayed and then immediately went to hire a hitman. There was probably a dark spiral first.

And even after it happens, the earlier diner scene is her emotionally feeling like the decision was made outside of her (by the man by the dumpster).



Anyhow, the Club Silencio/Rebekah del Rio singing is my favorite eye of the duck moment from Lynch, just in a visceral, emotional response.

eye of the duck (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2xNPsIm7_Y)

[crumbsroom]

If I'm being honest, I would put Mulholland Drive in the middle of the David Lynch pack. But that still means it is better than virtually anything else on this planet and other artists should be shamed at how much Mulholland Drive shows them up as total pointless hacks.


Also, I have no idea what my favorite Lynch is. They all come with caveats but they are also (almost) all singularly brilliant.

[Iroquois]

Aren't they though?



So much of the earlier part of the movie is an emotional abstraction of the (mostly) real world portrayed towards the end, and in that earlier part, one of the things Adam captures is, "looks at antiquated psych-terms and still has to make a guess," ego eventually caving to the dark impulses of Naomi Watt's id at being emotionally betrayed. Hence so much weight being given to, "This is the girl," decision in the first half reflecting the internal emotional state of Watts' replaying her diner scene from the second half in her mind.

Even the meandering around kind of plays up the sense of depression, of the brain being petty, but also trying to avoid the dark forces pulling at it. i.e. Watts' wasn't betrayed and then immediately went to hire a hitman. There was probably a dark spiral first.

And even after it happens, the earlier diner scene is her emotionally feeling like the decision was made outside of her (by the man by the dumpster).



I mean in the sense of there being overly literal connections - I was mainly thinking of Patrick Fischler's character, who in the "real" part of the film is just some ordinary patron who glances over at Diane for a split second as if he overheard her plotting with the hitman in the diner so in the "dream" he is subjected to a lethal punishment where he slowly realises that his worst nightmare is coming true and is ultimately scared to death (and the dumpster person can represent him getting a glimpse of the darkness that Diane embodies in the moment that he looks over in her directed). A lot to interpret, really.

[Iroquois]

#23. Evil Dead II
(Sam Raimi, 1987)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/1577/cache-405192-1572076814/image-w1280.jpg

"Groovy."

My earlier goal of trying to limit myself to one entry per franchise has ultimately turned out to be a somewhat arbitrary one, though I do have to acknowledge when - much as Mulholland Drive was the only Lynch film I absolutely needed to include - I know exactly which franchise entry must be included. It's because the Evil Dead trilogy is on average one of the best trilogies out there, with each of its entries carving out distinct identities while still adhering to the same anarchic approach to demonic horror. I picked Evil Dead II because it perfectly bridges the gap between the (relatively) straightforward terror of The Evil Dead and the over-the-top adventure comedy of Army of Darkness, once again seeing series hero Ash (Bruce Campbell) fend off the forces of evil from within the confines of a cabin in the woods. Taking the original's established zero-budget inventiveness and using it at least as much for comedic purposes as horrific ones, Raimi turns out one perversely delightful exercise in nerve-shredding terror that puts Ash into all kinds of slapstick scenarios made possible by the supernatural (perhaps none more infamous than him going to war with his demonically-possessed hand). I've never quite been able to discern what greater thematic or ideological depth there is to any of the malevolent mayhem seen on screen and a large part of me finds it hard to care one way or the other. Evil Dead II is a capital-M Movie that just wants to get in, show you a good time, and get out - for that, it has my loyalty and respect.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #22

[SpelingError]

I've always preferred The Evil Dead, but Evil Dead II is really good as well.

[culliford]

Good pick, Evil Dead 2 is maybe the most fun and rewatchable horror comedy I've seen, which means it's strong candidate for favourite movie of all time. Mulholland Drive is my fave Lynch, although I didn't watch Eraserhead yet.

[StuSmallz]

I've always preferred The Evil Dead, but Evil Dead II is really good as well.Eh, I found the original a bit "uneventful"-feeling compared to Dead By Dawn, if I'm being perfectly honest; it's still pretty good on the whole, mind you, just not as good as its sequel.

[SpelingError]

Eh, I found the original a bit "uneventful"-feeling compared to Dead By Dawn, if I'm being perfectly honest; it's still pretty good on the whole, mind you, just not as good as its sequel.

I think the sequel loses some steam after the first half once the other characters arrive to the cabin since it abandons the twisted slapstick humor which made the first half so great. Don't get me wrong though, the second half is still pretty good. The first half, however, is one of the most unique stretches to any horror film I've ever seen. Great ending though.

The original film remains great from beginning to end, in my opinion. Heck, I'd even consider it as one of my five favorite horror films ever.

[Takoma11]

I'm in the very small minority that prefers Army of Darkness if only because, despite the goofy tone, I find the first two films a bit too sad. (I know, I know!).

I also find it infinitely quotable:

Shop smart, shop . . . S-Mart

Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and things with... molecular structures.

And the bit with Ash trying to fudge the magic words never fails to make me smile.

[Rockatansky]

I'm not gonna argue over which Evil Dead is the best (my vote goes to the original, whose meanness gives it a sense of transgression missing in the others), but will instead recommend Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder from Hell, a Japanese Evil Dead fan film that finds fun riffs on moments from the original. It's on Tubi in a watchable transfer.

[Iroquois]

#22. Seven Samurai
(Akira Kurosawa, 1954)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/165/cache-47740-1531855498/image-w1280.jpg

"This is the nature of war: By protecting others, you save yourselves. If you only think of yourself, you'll only destroy yourself."

Much like Lawrence of Arabia, this is a lengthy epic that I don't revisit all that often but which nevertheless feels like a revelation every time I do make time for it. Its elemental high-concept plot in which a village of farmers hire masterless samurai to protect them against the looming threat of a bandit raid. The film runs well over three hours yet maintains an economical approach to narrative, making sure to texture proceedings largely through developing characters - each of the samurai (and enough of the most important villagers) is granted more than enough texture to compensate for their broad archetypes (to say nothing of the rather one-dimensional villains), all illustrating a different facet of life during wartime within the microcosm of a single farming village attempting to fend off devastation. Seven Samurai is also rightly credited with being a massive influence on the action genre - though it is initially used sparingly and escalated as close to the end as possible, this only has the effect of making its capturing of movement (running into battle, collapsing into slow-motion after losing a fight, taking a dishonourable bullet in a fight largely fought with close-range weaponry) all the more indelible. Kurosawa has more than enough masterpieces that even the three I've added to this list both manage to illustrate his status as one of cinema's true masters while also showing by omission just how much more there is to his work.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #52

[Little Ash]

I'm not gonna argue over which Evil Dead is the best (my vote goes to the original, whose meanness gives it a sense of transgression missing in the others), but will instead recommend Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder from Hell, a Japanese Evil Dead fan film that finds fun riffs on moments from the original. It's on Tubi in a watchable transfer.


Despite owning two different DVDs of this, and then buying the recently released blu-ray, I still haven't watched it. Saving it for something specific in October 2024.


But I see my asking about it has paid off.

[honeykid]

I've still not managed to see Mulholland Drive despite owning it for years. I wonder if maybe it's because it comes out just as the first signs of my love for film start to appear?

Evil Dead 2? I saw it when it came out and thought it was ok. Seen it once or twice since and it got worse with each viewing. I'm not sure if I'd enjoy it or not now.

[Iroquois]

#21. Persona
(Ingmar Bergman, 1966)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/299/cache-51225-1560532142/image-w1280.jpg

"If she won't speak or move because she decides not to, which it must be if she isn't ill, then it shows that she is mentally very strong. I might not be equal to it."

The fragmentation of the self that lies at the heart of Persona is foreshadowed by an extremely abstract opening montage defined largely by that of a child reaching for a face behind a screen before eventually launching into its minimal isolationist narrative about actress Elisabet (Liv Ullmann) recuperating at a remote villa in the aftermath of what can best be described as a severe onset of stage fright and nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson) keeping an eye on her. Bergman has always been a master of doing a lot with very little and much of this film is about as minimal as it gets - in a manner reminiscent of August Strindberg's The Stronger, the film largely consists of two women, one of whom remains silent while the other is effectively made to monologue constantly. At the same time, this allows any number of interpretations to surface, especially as the walls between the two characters (both in terms of their interpersonal relationship and the question of how different they really are) begin to break down and their own deepest secrets and fears start to bubble to the surface. The starkness of the narrative and characters is amply reflected in the technique, with regular cinematographer Sven Nykvist again composing with the strongest of shadows and the slightest of lights that emphasise every flicker of facial expression or crack in each woman's defences (to say nothing of a pointed lack of music). Bergman had many masterpieces that all play to different strengths while still reflecting his sensibilities, but this is likely to remain my favourite for the foreseeable future.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A

[SpelingError]

That's my favorite Bergman film as well.

[Little Ash]

I basically did my Bergman dive back in my mid 20's, and found myself just not that into him comparatively (as in, he's considered one of the iconic arthouse directors), interesting, but just not really hitting things from an angle that was really drawing me in. Persona though, that one stood out. Still a favorite. It's the only Bergman currently in my collection, I think.


I gave The Seventh Seal a rewatch during the lockdown period of the pandemic and found myself appreciating the dark comedy more.
I think maybe with the tempered expectations, it gelled with me better.


I should really give some of those other Bergman classics a revisit at some point. It's not quite two decades now and maybe I'll appreciate them more now. Want to rewatch Hour of the Wolf because of horror, but the god trilogy (winter light, glass darkly, and the silence) are probably the ones I'm most curious about.


At some point I should watch Fanny & Alexander.

[crumbsroom]

I basically did my Bergman dive back in my mid 20's, and found myself just not that into him comparatively (as in, he's considered one of the iconic arthouse directors), interesting, but just not really hitting things from an angle that was really drawing me in. Persona though, that one stood out. Still a favorite. It's the only Bergman currently in my collection, I think.


I gave The Seventh Seal a rewatch during the lockdown period of the pandemic and found myself appreciating the dark comedy more.
I think maybe with the tempered expectations, it gelled with me better.


I should really give some of those other Bergman classics a revisit at some point. It's not quite two decades now and maybe I'll appreciate them more now. Want to rewatch Hour of the Wolf because of horror, but the god trilogy (winter light, glass darkly, and the silence) are probably the ones I'm most curious about.


At some point I should watch Fanny & Alexander.


He's a top 5 director for me, I'd imagine, even though I actually find most of his defining movies as being a bit stodgy (Wild Strawberries, Seventh Seal). Definitely revisit Hour of the Wolf, if you can. And The Silence is one of my very favorite of everything he's done. Fanny and Alexander is also essential.


All three of these feel like Bergman flirting (or in the case of Hour, more than flirting) with the horror genre. And there is nothing more terrifying and debased than letting the completely helpless world view of Bergman loose on horror films.

[Iroquois]

#20. The Shining
(Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/405/cache-47097-1612536788/image-w1280.jpg

"Heeeeeeere's Johnny!"

One of the most vivid crash courses in film-watching for me happened almost twenty years ago when a local TV station aired four different Kubrick films across four weekends - 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, and this. This was my introduction to the work of Stanley Kubrick and each film definitely left a mark on first viewing. Even after The Shining weathered some serious cultural osmosis (it did inspire the best Treehouse of Horror segment, after all), its patiently sinister approach to the story of a haunted hotel and the unlucky family who find themselves snowed in over the off season has resonated in all sorts of ways (often to absurd degrees if the densely-pondered fan theories seen in Room 237 are any indication). As it is, The Shining is able to play to horror on all levels ranging from sudden shocks to creeping dread, though it clearly favours the latter in teasing out just what kind of grotesque and unsettling secrets the Overlook Hotel has in store - even then, it still understands that sometimes all it takes to be scary is letting an actor as infamously aggressive as Nicholson off the chain as one of cinema's all-time resentful bastards (though he ultimately doesn't work without Shelley Duvall as his put-upon partner). I've seen this film on all sorts of formats ranging from blurry CRT screens to damaged Eastmancolor prints that soak the entire film in red, but the end result is still the same indisputable classic.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #55

[ScarletLion]

Three QUALITY films there.

[Iroquois]

#19. Stalker
(Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/115/cache-7985-1527166442/image-w1280.jpg

"A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he's worth something. And if I know for sure that I'm a genius? Why write then? What the hell for? "

There are plenty of reasons to hope that theatres never stop existing, but one very good one is the possibility of seeing such an indisputable classic on a large screen (especially if it's your first time doing so). Tarkovsky's small but powerful filmography cemented his reputation as one of cinema's philosopher kings, especially when it came to his tale of a mysterious zone full of inexplicable phenomena and the people who would attempt to explore it for one reason or another. In following three such distinct characters with their own disparate outlooks on what the Zone represents at both literal and figurative levels, Tarkovsky ultimately breaks down science fiction to its core components and looks at it from a new angle that questions its place in the world as it intersects with everything from faith to desire to practicality. That he made Solaris as a riposte to what he thought was badly-made sci-fi in Kubrick's 2001 is a known fact, but Stalker takes that fascination even further as it explores this strange dystopia - the monochromatic sepia of the "real" world versus the comparatively lush palette inside the Zone itself being as potent a rendition of its otherworldly nature even as it still resembles the same bombed-out and abandoned parts of Mother Russia. The same patient capacity for drawing out movements and dialogues (what he would quite memorably and correctly refer to as "sculpting in time") makes for exactly the kind of mesmerising experience that I endeavour to catch in a theatre whenever possible - even though I still feel like I may never fully understand the extremely dense material and abstract approach to same, I think that, much like the characters' efforts to reach the centre of the Zone, having a clear goal in mind is ultimately beside the point.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A

[SpelingError]

Stalker has been my #1 film for a while.

[Little Ash]

I don't really know what to say about The Shining since I'm a Kubrick-fan, so it's my favorite horror movie. I watch it every October.


There are still a couple Tarkovsky's I haven't seen and it's been too long Mirror. But with some noticeable caveats, Stalker is the Tarkovsky that sticks with me.

[Wooley]

I don't really know what to say about The Shining since I'm a Kubrick-fan, so it's my favorite horror movie. I watch it every October.


It's not a horror movie.

[Little Ash]

It's not a horror movie.


It is admittedly more of a family drama that only flirts with being a horror movie at the end, until it just lampoons the genre.

[Wooley]

It is admittedly more of a family drama that only flirts with being a horror movie at the end, until it just lampoons the genre.

:p ;)

[Wyldesyde19]

It's not a horror movie.
Well, it’s not *just* a horror movie.
It’s a hybrid, Sci Fi-Horror.

[Little Ash]

Well, it’s not *just* a horror movie.
It’s a hybrid, Sci Fi-Horror.


I was going to say, "that's The Thing, which is really more of a thriller and some people may not have it in mind if they're working off of a very specific idea of what's horror. Like they might be thinking of movies where scary things are always jumping out at you like The Ring. The Shining is part historical documentation on the Native American genocide," but then I remembered the one person in Room 237 who thought The Shining was Kubrick confessing he faked the moon landing.

[Wyldesyde19]

I was going to say, "that's The Thing, which is really more of a thriller and some people may not have it in mind if they're working off of a very specific idea of what's horror. Like they might be thinking of movies where scary things are always jumping out at you like The Ring. The Shining is part historical documentation on the Native American genocide," but then I remembered the one person in Room 237 who thought The Shining was Kubrick confessing he faked the moon landing.
Ok, so Sci-Fi/Horror/Thriller. The important thing is, so we don’t annoy anyone else with it labeling of the genre, is it isn’t a comedy and won’t be showing up on this countdown.

Right? Right?!

[Little Ash]

Ok, so Sci-Fi/Horror/Thriller. The important thing is, so we don’t annoy anyone else with it labeling of the genre, is it isn’t a comedy and won’t be showing up on this countdown.

Right? Right?!

Wrong thread, Wooley is just trying to mess with me outside of the comedy countdown thread. A thread that's making me feel like either I'm on the cursed side of a mirror, or... No, that is what it's making me feel like I am. No "or".

[Wyldesyde19]

Wrong thread, Wooley is just trying to mess with me outside of the comedy countdown thread. A thread that's making me feel like either I'm on the cursed side of a mirror, or... No, that is what it's making me feel like I am. No "or".
Oops. My bad.

[xSookieStackhouse]

#20. The Shining
(Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/405/cache-47097-1612536788/image-w1280.jpg

"Heeeeeeere's Johnny!"

One of the most vivid crash courses in film-watching for me happened almost twenty years ago when a local TV station aired four different Kubrick films across four weekends - 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, and this. This was my introduction to the work of Stanley Kubrick and each film definitely left a mark on first viewing. Even after The Shining weathered some serious cultural osmosis (it did inspire the best Treehouse of Horror segment, after all), its patiently sinister approach to the story of a haunted hotel and the unlucky family who find themselves snowed in over the off season has resonated in all sorts of ways (often to absurd degrees if the densely-pondered fan theories seen in Room 237 are any indication). As it is, The Shining is able to play to horror on all levels ranging from sudden shocks to creeping dread, though it clearly favours the latter in teasing out just what kind of grotesque and unsettling secrets the Overlook Hotel has in store - even then, it still understands that sometimes all it takes to be scary is letting an actor as infamously aggressive as Nicholson off the chain as one of cinema's all-time resentful bastards (though he ultimately doesn't work without Shelley Duvall as his put-upon partner). I've seen this film on all sorts of formats ranging from blurry CRT screens to damaged Eastmancolor prints that soak the entire film in red, but the end result is still the same indisputable classic.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #55
one of the good 90s horror movies!

[pahaK]

one of the good 90s horror movies!

One of the few 90s horror movies made in 1980 :D

[Little Ash]

One of the few 90s horror movies made in 1980 :D
And so early in the 80s it was nearly the 70s.

[honeykid]

Iro's appreciation of narcoleptic cinema. ;)

[Wooley]

Wrong thread, Wooley is just trying to mess with me outside of the comedy countdown thread. A thread that's making me feel like either I'm on the cursed side of a mirror, or... No, that is what it's making me feel like I am. No "or".

Just taking the piss, as they say.

[doubledenim]

Guess I’ll crawl back to bed…

[doubledenim]

https://media.giphy.com/media/tN1lvnT4M6nte/giphy.gif

[Iroquois]

#18. The Last Temptation of Christ
(Martin Scorsese, 1988)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/612/cache-90954-1555577297/image-w1280.jpg

"God loves me. I know he loves me. I want him to stop. I can't take the pain. The voices and the pain. I want him to hate me. I fight him. I make crosses so he'll hate me. I want him to find somebody else."

It's one thing to acknowledge how much the atmosphere of the theatre can fundamentally improve the experience of watching a film, but one thing I've really learned to appreciate during the advent of DCP screenings is when an establishment goes to the trouble of showing an actual film print - considering the story behind the infamous final shot of The Last Temptation of Christ, I definitely consider it fortuitous that I was able to see this in 35mm. The film would still be a masterpiece otherwise - Scorsese once again teams with Paul Schrader to adapt Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial reimagining of the story of Jesus (Willem Dafoe), delivering a work that dares to engage with the all-too-human nature of the Messiah rather than churn out another digestibly anodyne Bible story. The casting choices are certainly bold enough to merit attention - Dafoe is able to conjure a range of moods both expected and unexpected when portraying Jesus, but Harvey Keitel proves an interesting choice for portraying a Judas who makes for a surprisingly strong and staunch foil against a mercurial and conflicted saviour. It hits so many of the familiar beats of the story but its own tweaks add interesting complication to the proceedings - rather than serve as blasphemy for its own sake, they add intriguing nuance and texture to a story that has been sanded down over centuries (especially when it comes to building an entire third act around the titular temptation). Peter Gabriel's evocative New Age score remains particularly propulsive throughout the feature, combining with that final shot to mark not just the zenith of this film but maybe even a contender for one of the best moments in Scorsese's entire career.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #76

[Wooley]

#18. The Last Temptation of Christ
(Martin Scorsese, 1988)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/612/cache-90954-1555577297/image-w1280.jpg

"God loves me. I know he loves me. I want him to stop. I can't take the pain. The voices and the pain. I want him to hate me. I fight him. I make crosses so he'll hate me. I want him to find somebody else."

It's one thing to acknowledge how much the atmosphere of the theatre can fundamentally improve the experience of watching a film, but one thing I've really learned to appreciate during the advent of DCP screenings is when an establishment goes to the trouble of showing an actual film print - considering the story behind the infamous final shot of The Last Temptation of Christ, I definitely consider it fortuitous that I was able to see this in 35mm. The film would still be a masterpiece otherwise - Scorsese once again teams with Paul Schrader to adapt Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial reimagining of the story of Jesus (Willem Dafoe), delivering a work that dares to engage with the all-too-human nature of the Messiah rather than churn out another digestibly anodyne Bible story. The casting choices are certainly bold enough to merit attention - Dafoe is able to conjure a range of moods both expected and unexpected when portraying Jesus, but Harvey Keitel proves an interesting choice for portraying a Judas who makes for a surprisingly strong and staunch foil against a mercurial and conflicted saviour. It hits so many of the familiar beats of the story but its own tweaks add interesting complication to the proceedings - rather than serve as blasphemy for its own sake, they add intriguing nuance and texture to a story that has been sanded down over centuries (especially when it comes to building an entire third act around the titular temptation). Peter Gabriel's evocative New Age score remains particularly propulsive throughout the feature, combining with that final shot to mark not just the zenith of this film but maybe even a contender for one of the best moments in Scorsese's entire career.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #76

Ya know, it's funny, I'm an atheist but this movie is really one of the things that made me say, "Ah. Jesus. I like him very much." Or, "Jesus Is Just Alright With Me." Showing the human side of him is the only thing that's ever made the whole story remotely credible to me.

[StuSmallz]

https://youtu.be/JEvy8mROAj0

[crumbsroom]

Ya know, it's funny, I'm an atheist but this movie is really one of the things that made me say, "Ah. Jesus. I like him very much." Or, "Jesus Is Just Alright With Me." Showing the human side of him is the only thing that's ever made the whole story remotely credible to me.


To remove the human element from the story of Jesus seems to completely undo the potency of the whole thing. Which is why the protests against it seemed so fundamentally misguided. It's not like churches aren't already enthusiastic about pushing the human frailty of Jesus when it comes to the physical pain he suffered. But apparently, to move any of that struggle towards any other element of his character is a heresy. We're okay pounding nails into his flesh and having him scream, but don't dare show him wrestling with his relationship with women.


It's a great film.

[Yoda]

Well, yeah. There are vastly different theological implications to different types of frailty.

[crumbsroom]

Well, yeah. There are vastly different theological implications to different types of frailty.


There is all different manner of ways to interpret such things. But for my money, the more you elevate a figure like Jesus above the fray or human struggle, and the more we focus on the othering of him as being too divine to suffer doubt or temptation, the less stock I take in what value we get from him.

[Yoda]

There is all different manner of ways to interpret such things. But for my money, the more you elevate a figure like Jesus above the fray or human struggle, and the more we focus on the othering of him as being too divine to suffer doubt or temptation, the less stock I take in what value we get from him. And of course the opposite issue exists if you go too far the other way. A lot of very smart people have argued about this dichotomy for a very long time.

Regardless, you're seemingly talking about this in terms of what's artistically interesting to you, so it's little surprise that this might conflict with someone who thinks of it more as a matter of fact and fiction, or life and death. That's the thing about truth: you don't ask yourself just what value you get. It's just a fundamentally different posture. And while everyone is entitled to their own posture, it hardly makes sense to criticize one posture from the presuppositions of another.

[crumbsroom]

And of course the opposite issue exists if you go too far the other way. A lot of very smart people have argued about this dichotomy for a very long time.

Regardless, you're seemingly talking about this in terms of what's artistically interesting to you, so it's little surprise that this might conflict with someone who thinks of it more as a matter of fact and fiction, or life and death. That's the thing about truth: you don't ask yourself just what value you get. It's just a fundamentally different posture. And while everyone is entitled to their own posture, it hardly makes sense to criticize one posture from the presuppositions of another.


The genesis of my point had little to do with what is artistically interesting to me. I am also a fan of Gibson's "Passion" for very different reasons than I am of Temptation. Although, it would be fair to say I do find one approach more artistically satisfying than the other.



But, regardless of that, my criticism is towards those who protested the film. I called it misguided and I stand by that. Sure, the way this film presents Christ might be fundamentally at odds with how some prefer him to be rendered. But if we are concerned about getting out the word on all of the humanistic ideals the story of Christ embodies, maybe it is at odds with getting this message out if we allow ourselves to be blinded by our personal interpretation of how the man is portrayed. If some choose to bathe in the blood of Christ's corporeal sacrifice to understand who he was and what he represents, have at it. But don't try and shut down other avenues to get that message out there.



Of course, this overly protective nature of how our religious figures are portrayed has a litany of other bigger issues tied to it but that isn't a conversation for this thread. Right now I'll just keep my criticisms with this particular movie and those who wanted to censor it. And why I think that was bad.

[Omnizoa]

Jesus (Willem Dafoe)
WAT.

[Little Ash]

WAT.


Willem Dafoe plays Jesus in the movie.

[Iroquois]

#17. Heat
(Michael Mann, 1995)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/1715/cache-30745-1611935037/image-w1280.jpg

"All I am is what I'm going after."

Michael Mann's career-long focus on telling stories about highly driven professionals inflicting their own vast interiority on the world around them reaches its apotheosis in the form of Heat, at its simplest a cops-and-robbers joint about a veteran thief (Robert De Niro) and the detective (Al Pacino) hot on his trail. That it weaves together a sizeable ensemble cast to populate its sprawling L.A. crime epic is no small feat, especially in how it attempts to balance even the slightest of arcs (a memorable instance of this being Dennis Haysbert as the ex-con trying his best to go straight) in telling what is ultimately a tragic story about two men on opposite sides of the law who are much more alike than they might like to admit. Or maybe they would, if the fact that they're willing to sit down for coffee with one another halfway through the film is any indication. Outside of the densely-layered drama, Mann is still able to deliver technically astonishing thrills - easy enough to point out that iconic end-of-second-act shoot-out, but even smaller moments such as a late-night stakeout or a hotel assassination are brimming with the kind of craftsmanship that one would expect from Mann, as much an efficient professional as the characters he depicts.

2005 ranking: #79
2013 ranking: #31

[Yoda]

I wasn't disagreeing with the part about protesting, though: just with the insinuation that there was an inconsistency in reacting differently to different types of human frailty. As is the case with most criticism, it can be expressed reasonably or unreasonably. There can be (and are) serious and legitimate theological objections even while a lot of thoughtless people are mindlessly mobilized to yell outside theaters.

On general attitudes about speech and how to respond to the examples of it we don't like, we're probably of very similar minds, however.

[SpelingError]

I saw Heat recently and really enjoyed it. Need to check out more Mann.

[Wooley]

#17. Heat
(Michael Mann, 1995)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/1715/cache-30745-1611935037/image-w1280.jpg

"All I am is what I'm going after."

Michael Mann's career-long focus on telling stories about highly driven professionals inflicting their own vast interiority on the world around them reaches its apotheosis in the form of Heat, at its simplest a cops-and-robbers joint about a veteran thief (Robert De Niro) and the detective (Al Pacino) hot on his trail. That it weaves together a sizeable ensemble cast to populate its sprawling L.A. crime epic is no small feat, especially in how it attempts to balance even the slightest of arcs (a memorable instance of this being Dennis Haysbert as the ex-con trying his best to go straight) in telling what is ultimately a tragic story about two men on opposite sides of the law who are much more alike than they might like to admit. Or maybe they would, if the fact that they're willing to sit down for coffee with one another halfway through the film is any indication. Outside of the densely-layered drama, Mann is still able to deliver technically astonishing thrills - easy enough to point out that iconic end-of-second-act shoot-out, but even smaller moments such as a late-night stakeout or a hotel assassination are brimming with the kind of craftsmanship that one would expect from Mann, as much an efficient professional as the characters he depicts.

2005 ranking: #79
2013 ranking: #31

I will just never get it.

[honeykid]

I'll say the same thing I do whenever Heat comes up. I like to watch it a lot more than I think it's good. I simply enjoy watching and looking at the damn thing.

[doubledenim]

Will Heat 2 make the next list? Stick around and find out!

[Iroquois]

#16. The Godfather Part II
(Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/1270/cache-8726-1543371338/image-w1280.jpg

"My father taught me many things here - he taught me in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."

My experience coming to the Godfather films was a strange one - I borrowed Mario Puzo's source novel from a relative and read it, then ended up seeing this film before the first one. At least the fact that the book featured the adventures of young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) as he rose from orphaned immigrant to underworld power player made this sizeable epic somewhat easier to follow, but it took a while longer to properly parse the narrative and thematic complexities that surround his heir apparent Michael (Al Pacino) as the family plans to expand their business interests by joining a new syndicate with interests in pre-revolution Cuba. All manner of betrayals large and small become obstacles for Michael to overcome, each a greater test of the ruthlessness he's supposedly had to develop in the name of protecting not just the family business but the family itself (a factor that is only tragically compounded by the conflicts he has with his closest loved ones). For the longest time, I had this ranked higher than the original - though it still depends on a familiarity with the original to truly work, it is an understandable sentiment given how it expands the scope and deepens the concept behind its predecessor.

2005 ranking: #49
2013 ranking: #41

[Iroquois]

#15. The Godfather
(Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/488/cache-47680-1543371300/image-w1280.jpg

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."

Out of all the franchises on this list where I've acknowledged that they can't simply be represented by a single feature, this is easily the most obvious one - much like the Before series, it's at a point where the films in question practically demand to be ranked and posted alongside one another (and in both cases they also have lesser but still appreciable third entries, but that's neither here not there). As mentioned, having read the book first might have made it harder to appreciate at first (look at the rankings on previous lists) but I've eventually come around on treating these as the classics they well and truly are. It's not without its languid moments (during the 50th anniversary screenings earlier this year, it was amusing to see how much of the audience members had apparently timed their trips to the snack bar or toilet to coincide with the film's sudden departure from New York to Sicily), but for the most part it's a relentlessly compelling dive into the world of a crime family that really puts the emphasis on family to a fundamentally operatic and tragic degree. Coppola's difficulties in making the film are the stuff of legend, but the end result speaks for itself as a masterclass ensemble is matched by some of the most assured filmmaking ever to come out of the cinematic supernova that was New Hollywood.

2005 ranking: #74
2013 ranking: #47

[John-Connor]

Great development here.. 👍
Going by the stats, 8 to 10 years from now, you will have The Godfather 1 & 2 properly placed at #1 & 2. :p
This really makes me curious to find out what films are next on this list.

https://www.gifs.nl//media/the-godfather-gifs-bjBI7A.gif

[Wooley]

I'll say the same thing I do whenever Heat comes up. I like to watch it a lot more than I think it's good. I simply enjoy watching and looking at the damn thing.

That's actually a really interesting perspective and one that I think I can understand.

[honeykid]

That's actually a really interesting perspective and one that I think I can understand.
Thanks, Wooley. :) Though you might want to check yourself. Agreeing with me is one thing (that's only natural) but understanding? That might mean severe trouble for you. :D

[Wooley]

Thanks, Wooley. :) Though you might want to check yourself. Agreeing with me is one thing (that's only natural) but understanding? That might mean severe trouble for you. :D

I'll be careful.

[Iroquois]

#14. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
(Werner Herzog, 1972)

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"That man is a head taller than me. That may change."

Herzog is one of those filmmakers who is about as fascinating as the films he makes (if not more so), throwing so much of himself into making them that the behind-the-scenes stories become the stuff of legend (especially this film spawning the tale of him pulling a gun on an uncooperative Klaus Kinski). Of course, the work still has to speak for itself - while he has made more than his fair share of classics, this one has always endured for me. On paper a dramatisation of the titular conquistador (Kinski) and his expedition to find the fabled "El Dorado", Herzog makes it a quasi-documentarian journey through the jungles and down the rivers of South America that centres Aguirre as a wild-eyed warrior who carves his way through enemy and ally alike (mostly the latter), issuing increasingly insane demands as the party's resources dwindle and tempers flare. At the same time, there is a certain ineffable beauty to the Amazonian backdrop that is only accentuated by Popol Vuh's atmospheric synthesisers - a fine enough contrast against the brutish and foolish colonisers who seek nothing more than fortune and glory but instead plunge themselves deeper and deeper into a hell of their own making.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #32

[SpelingError]

Yeah, Aguirre is great. Still my favorite Herzog.

[Iroquois]

#13. The Big Lebowski
(Joel Coen, 1998)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/320/cache-47561-1578575376/image-w1280.jpg

"That rug really tied the room together."

Maybe the most boring possible pick not just for a favourite Coen brothers film but also for a token entry on this list, but it's not like it hasn't earned it. I'll certainly admit it's not their best - films like Fargo or No Country or Barton Fink are arguably more evocative of what makes them such brilliant filmmakers, but for now The Big Lebowski maintains its strangehold while so many other of my quote-unquote favourite comedies have fallen by the wayside. The reasons why are not necessarily so self-evident - the mash-up of classic noir tropes with the eccentric populace of early-'90s Los Angeles certainly sounds like a funny combination on paper, though the extremely precise way in which the brothers construct the syntax used by their characters can be a bit of a hard sell, to say nothing of how the central kidnapping mystery eventually turns into an absurd little roundabout full of red herrings and slapstick mishaps. Then again, is that not the kind of stupefying atmosphere that Sam Elliott's mysterious stranger alludes to in his opening narration as he raises this tale of Jeff Bridges' bumbling slacker to a mythical height through gravitas alone (a factor similarly demonstrated through everything from Roger Deakins cinematography to grandiose soundtrack picks)? I definitely wonder if this will go the same way as other comedies and/or Coen movies and I'll replace it with something else, but for now it's hard to go past this kind of burnt-out brilliance.

2005 ranking: #38
2013 ranking: #14

[Takoma11]

I need to rewatch The Big Lebowski. It was somewhat foisted on me by a fan of the film when I was a teenager and I don't think I was in the right mindset for it. I did enjoy some of the humor of it (to this day, years and years later, just thinking about the ashes-spreading sequence makes me laugh out loud).

[doubledenim]

The Dude seems to be the closest to Bridges’ real persona that I know of. That may be part of the secret sauce that helps this endure.

And Tara Reid.

[Iroquois]

#12. Raiders of the Lost Ark
(Steven Spielberg, 1981)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/3397/cache-47585-1546146009/image-w1280.jpg

"You're not the man I knew ten years ago."
"It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

Ain't that the truth. Dropping this from the top 2 to just outside the top 10 somehow feels harsher than if I'd put it all the way down the list or even booted it completely, but it's Indiana Jones. He can weather it. I opted not to include the sequels because, as much as they have their strengths, this really is the one that nails all that matters about the character as cinematic icon. Seeing Harrison Ford's intrepid archaeologist struggle against all manner of obstacles - dungeons riddled with booby-traps, treacherous colleagues, a smugly corrupt rival (Paul Freeman), literal Nazis, even the feisty ex-girlfriend (Karen Allen) he needs to team up with - makes for about as classic an adventure film as you could ask for thanks in no small part to Spielberg really operating at the top of his blockbuster game (to clarify, this is distinct from Jaws being a comparatively small killer animal thriller compared to this film's all-out period-piece pursuit). Every setpiece fires on all cylinders, whether it's something as simple as a Nepalese bar fight or a relentless convoy chase (the temple trespass that opens the film practically goes without saying), but it's all for naught without one very human protagonist at the centre of proceedings whose shortcomings are many and can easily be criticised (you can miss me with the "he didn't need to do anything" take on this film) but without which this wouldn't be the timeless classic that it is.

2005 ranking: #1
2013 ranking: #2

[Wooley]

#12. Raiders of the Lost Ark
(Steven Spielberg, 1981)

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/3397/cache-47585-1546146009/image-w1280.jpg

"You're not the man I knew ten years ago."
"It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

Ain't that the truth. Dropping this from the top 2 to just outside the top 10 somehow feels harsher than if I'd put it all the way down the list or even booted it completely, but it's Indiana Jones. He can weather it. I opted not to include the sequels because, as much as they have their strengths, this really is the one that nails all that matters about the character as cinematic icon. Seeing Harrison Ford's intrepid archaeologist struggle against all manner of obstacles - dungeons riddled with booby-traps, treacherous colleagues, a smugly corrupt rival (Paul Freeman), literal Nazis, even the feisty ex-girlfriend (Karen Allen) he needs to team up with - makes for about as classic an adventure film as you could ask for thanks in no small part to Spielberg really operating at the top of his blockbuster game (to clarify, this is distinct from Jaws being a comparatively small killer animal thriller compared to this film's all-out period-piece pursuit). Every setpiece fires on all cylinders, whether it's something as simple as a Nepalese bar fight or a relentless convoy chase (the temple trespass that opens the film practically goes without saying), but it's all for naught without one very human protagonist at the centre of proceedings whose shortcomings are many and can easily be criticised (you can miss me with the "he didn't need to do anything" take on this film) but without which this wouldn't be the timeless classic that it is.

2005 ranking: #1
2013 ranking: #2

Great movie and I don't wanna sideline that over a social issue, but the thing with Marion being underage during her and Indy's previous relationship was something I had missed completely the first time around (probably because I was young myself). When she says, "I was a child!", I didn't take it literally. Then, as it became a significant talking point about the movie in, I guess the 2000s, it actually troubled me. And I wondered if that was why Debra Winger turned down the part. And then I discovered that Karen Allen actually came up with that part herself as she did background work on her character and Spielberg went along with it even though it significantly alters perception of their relationship and casts a certain shadow over Indy's character.
Turns out to be a lot more complicated of a single line in a movie than most I can think of.

[Iroquois]

I thought that aspect was part of the script from the get-go and Spielberg was the one who wanted Lucas to walk it back so it wasn't meant so literally.

[SpelingError]

I'm not as huge on Raiders of the Lost Ark as much as I used to, but I still enjoy it quite a bit. As for the thing with Marion being underage, several of us discussed that aspect when the film was nominated for a semi-recent Hall of Fame here (I had never thought of that criticism before), and hearing about that did sour my opinion on the film to a degree, I must admit. However, not enough to ruin the film.

[Wooley]

I thought that aspect was part of the script from the get-go and Spielberg was the one who wanted Lucas to walk it back so it wasn't meant so literally.

I dunno, I just re-read that it was Allen's idea.

[crumbsroom]

I've heard about Lucas' creepo ideas regarding Marion in the script writing process, but even still, I find it pretty easy to not take the child comment literally in the context of the film. Regarding the actual film, it's almost completely irrelevant. Artists have all manner of lousy or dumb or bad intentions in the genesis of creation, and we don't have to drag them into how we perceive the actual film itself. If it's a case of not being unable to unsee something pnce we've seen it, I guess I get it, but as someone who already sees the worst in everything, I'm pretty good at not adding to my burden when watching a film. Especially Indiana Jones.



As for what the **** Lucas was thinking in the first place trying to bring that into the backstory of his protaganist, that's more than understandable to want to dissect and find even more reasons to actively dislike him.

[Yoda]

Yeah, count me among those who think it didn't really make it into the film proper. Until I'd read the story sessions it'd never even occurred to me that "child" in that context meant anything other than "impressionable" or "in a quasi-subordinate position."

This might be influenced a bit by how generally mature Karen Allen seems. I might feel differently if they'd cast someone with a different look or different qualities, but Karen Allen's just nine years younger than Harrison Ford in real life, and as an actress she has a confidence and worldliness that belie that initial intent. And casting aside, our introduction to the character, winning a drinking contest in a foreign country, seems designed to show us how savvy and tough she is, though you could argue that she was made this way prematurely by men like Indy. Either way, she doesn't seem like someone you can manipulate by the time we meet her, which makes it easier to disregard.

[Wooley]

I've heard about Lucas' creepo ideas regarding Marion in the script writing process, but even still, I find it pretty easy to not take the child comment literally in the context of the film. Regarding the actual film, it's almost completely irrelevant. Artists have all manner of lousy or dumb or bad intentions in the genesis of creation, and we don't have to drag them into how we perceive the actual film itself. If it's a case of not being unable to unsee something pnce we've seen it, I guess I get it, but as someone who already sees the worst in everything, I'm pretty good at not adding to my burden when watching a film. Especially Indiana Jones.



As for what the **** Lucas was thinking in the first place trying to bring that into the backstory of his protaganist, that's more than understandable to want to dissect and find even more reasons to actively dislike him.

I guess the issue is, did our hero commit statutory rape, was he a pedophile, or did he just take advantage of the maturity and power differential to exploit a teenage girl, could actually be relevant to how we perceive the character and whether or not we can actually ride with him.

[Wooley]

Yeah, count me among those who think it didn't really make it into the film proper. Until I'd read the story sessions it'd never even occurred to me that "child" in that context meant anything other than "impressionable" or "in a quasi-subordinate position."

This might be influenced a bit by how generally mature Karen Allen seems. I might feel differently if they'd cast someone with a different look or different qualities, but Karen Allen's just nine years younger than Harrison Ford in real life, and as an actress she has a confidence and worldliness that belie that initial intent. And casting aside, our introduction to the character, winning a drinking contest in a foreign country, seems designed to show us how savvy and tough she is, though you could argue that she was made this way prematurely by men like Indy. Either way, she doesn't seem like someone you can manipulate by the time we meet her, which makes it easier to disregard.

I don't disagree with you but it seemed like there was an undercurrent of her being this tough, hard-drinking, ass-kicking woman living in Siberia or wherever was because of the damage she felt from her relationship with him.
But that may not be the case. It's not something I meant to dwell on too much but I thought it was interesting reading that Allen claims it was her idea and they changed the script to include it so I shared.
Otherwise, I'm more playing devil's advocate than anything.

[Yoda]

I don't disagree with you but it seemed like there was an undercurrent of her being this tough, hard-drinking, ass-kicking woman living in Siberia or wherever was because of the damage she felt from her relationship with him.
Certainly. I was trying to account for that with "though you could argue that she was made this way prematurely by men like Indy." I'm not sure if I think that or not but it's a reasonable position.

[Rockatansky]

I've heard about Lucas' creepo ideas regarding Marion in the script writing process, but even still, I find it pretty easy to not take the child comment literally in the context of the film. Regarding the actual film, it's almost completely irrelevant. Artists have all manner of lousy or dumb or bad intentions in the genesis of creation, and we don't have to drag them into how we perceive the actual film itself. If it's a case of not being unable to unsee something pnce we've seen it, I guess I get it, but as someone who already sees the worst in everything, I'm pretty good at not adding to my burden when watching a film. Especially Indiana Jones.



As for what the **** Lucas was thinking in the first place trying to bring that into the backstory of his protaganist, that's more than understandable to want to dissect and find even more reasons to actively dislike him.
I think the prequels revealed that Lucas is clearly insane.


But yeah, I don't think the child comment plays literally in the finished film.

[crumbsroom]

I guess the issue is, did our hero commit statutory rape


No.


was he a pedophile


No


or did he just take advantage of the maturity and power differential to exploit a teenage girl


I don't know.



could actually be relevant to how we perceive the character and whether or not we can actually ride with him.


I suppose it very well could. If it was in the movie.


Now maybe that's how George Lucas still prefers to read the movie. And would be totally fine riding with such a character. But her uttering the word 'child' can be taken all manner of ways, and there is hardly enough in the film to warrant thinking he's a pedophile because of it.


While it's fair to think that word is a hold over from Lucas' initial intentions, I can't think of anything else which remains in the film from that. Now if we want to let this extraneous fact color how we interpret this word....fine? But, at least in the strict confines of the film, I think it is close to a pointless exercise to do so.

[crumbsroom]

I think the prequels revealed that Lucas is clearly insane.


But yeah, I don't think the child comment plays literally in the finished film.


It's almost like if we heard Spielberg spitballing some stupid idea about making Indiana Jones an alien, and at some point a character utters the phrase 'yeah, Indiana, you sure are out of this world'. And we start speculating if he's from outerspace, even though literally nothing in the film supports this.

[Little Ash]

I feel like the Indy film that got the most play (on TV) when I was a wee lad was Temple of Doom. Last Crusade hadn't come out yet. So, when I say, "Indiana Jones is part of my childhood, but weirdly not a nostalgic, cherished part of my childhood, and have no great love of it as an adult. At brief moments like this, I wonder how much of it was being in the thin slice of years when the least popular (in retrospect, by fans) Indiana Jones film of the trilogy happened to be the predominant one when I would have been the ideal age for the movies affects this fact.


Actually, probably not very much. But it does have the weird effect that I think I've seen Raiders the least out of any of the three movies.

[SpelingError]

I'd argue that the underage relationship, while not a textual part of the film, still certainly counts as subtext. I get that Spielberg said to ignore what was in the original script where he and Lucas were discussing the idea, but given that the "I was a child" conversation made it into the film, it's hard to watch that scene without thinking of the implications that the transcript give to it. If either the transcript or the conversation in the film didn't exist, this would've resolved my issue. Regardless, I can certainly understand why someone wouldn't be bothered by that aspect, but I think it's certainly fair game to interpret that scene in more than one way.

Besides, even without that, I'd still find Indiana unlikable since the opening scene outright paints him as a colonist. I normally don't mind unlikable characters, but I think Ford is intended to come off as charming and noble in the film, so I think the film is trying to have it two ways with him.

[Rockatansky]

It's almost like if we heard Spielberg spitballing some stupid idea about making Indiana Jones an alien, and at some point a character utters the phrase 'yeah, Indiana, you sure are out of this world'. And we start speculating if he's from outerspace, even though literally nothing in the film supports this.
What if Ford got a creepy reaction shot during the line? What then?

[Rockatansky]

Ok, it's been a few minutes and I'm still laughing about Indiana Jones secretly being an alien. Thanks a lot, Crumb.

[crumbsroom]

I'd argue that the underage relationship, while not a textual part of the film, still certainly counts as subtext. I get that Spielberg said to ignore what was in the original script where he and Lucas were discussing the idea, but given that the "I was a child" conversation made it into the film, it's hard to watch that scene without thinking of the implications that the transcript give to it. If either the transcript or the conversation in the film didn't exist, this would've resolved my issue. Regardless, I can certainly understand why someone wouldn't be bothered by that aspect, but I think it's certainly fair game to interpret that scene in more than one way.

Besides, even without that, I'd still find Indiana unlikable since the opening scene outright paints him as a colonist. I normally don't mind unlikable characters, but I think Ford is intended to come off as charming and noble in the film, so I think the film is trying to have it two ways with him.


I'm not saying I don't get why people have an emotional reaction when they learn what Lucas' initial intent was. And why hearing the word child might raise their eyebrows. We all have elements outside of a film that colours how we interpret what we see.


But if we are talking about what is actually in the film, this one is a stretch. And when some people want to talk about this film for what is actually in it, and someone points out 'well, did you know he's a child molester', it kind of forces fans of the film to explain why this 'fact' doesn't factor into their evaluation. No one wants to be on the side of pedophile action/adventure films.



Now if others can't look past it, fine. They don't have to. And I also don't think it is an irrelevant point if we want to dig into the creative decisions where Indiana Jones was born from. But it is still the kind of comment that takes a discussion hostage. And (while not necessarily in this instance) sometimes very deliberately. And considering how little any of this is actually part of what can be seen on screen (one word, that if removed, completely ends any relevant point), it can't help but make us lose sight of what the film is, or what it's actual intentions are.

[Little Ash]

Ok, it's been a few minutes and I'm still laughing about Indiana Jones secretly being an alien. Thanks a lot, Crumb.


Despite not having the great affection for the franchise some people have, I'm still trying to conveniently forget Crystal Skull exists when talking about them. This, "he was an alien all along," hypothesis would probably be aided by bringing in that film.


So... not feeling all warm and fuzzy over here.

[SpelingError]

I'm not saying I don't get why people have an emotional reaction when they learn what Lucas' initial intent was. And why hearing the word child might raise their eyebrows. We all have elements outside of a film that colours how we interpret what we see.


But if we are talking about what is actually in the film, this one is a stretch. And when some people want to talk about this film for what is actually in it, and someone points out 'well, did you know he's a child molester', it kind of forces fans of the film to explain why this 'fact' doesn't factor into their evaluation. No one wants to be on the side of pedophile action/adventure films.



Now if others can't look past it, fine. They don't have to. And I also don't think it is an irrelevant point if we want to dig into the creative decisions where Indiana Jones was born from. But it is still the kind of comment that takes a discussion hostage. And (while not necessarily in this instance) sometimes very deliberately. And considering how little any of this is actually part of what can be seen on screen (one word, that if removed, completely ends any relevant point), it can't help but make us lose sight of what the film is, or what it's actual intentions are.

I think it's certainly fair to bring the criticism up as long as you word yourself in a non-confrontational way. That's why I wrote "Regardless, I can certainly understand why someone wouldn't be bothered by that aspect, but I think it's certainly fair game to interpret that scene in more than one way." up above to make it clear that I wasn't looking down on anyone in this thread not bothered by the controversy. I'm aware that, since there's no textual evidence in the film, not everyone is going to be bothered by this and that's fine. I don't think anyone here is required to explain/defend themselves.

In fact, I wasn't even the one who first brought up that criticism in this discussion. Someone else did and I was merely providing my own thoughts on the issue.

However, I do see your point as I've encountered all kinds of people who take the exact opposite approach when discussing art with supposed problematic material who hurl all kinds of accusations towards people who don't take issue with whatever supposed problematic material they're discussing, but I generally try to avoid that as best as I can and I hope my posts in this thread didn't come off that way since that wasn't my intention.

[Little Ash]

Speaking pedophiles and pedophilia, I do love Aguirre for it's ability to border on the ethereal of the sublime. I also share at least some of Herzog's apparent interest in what keeps human society together, as opposed to it collapsing (that was a common dramatic thrust of a lot of his fictional work - the notion of removing something and having society collapse also shows up in Nosferatu and Heart of Glass).


Kind of... contextually weird(?) to see the pedophile talk surround the movie that came after a movie on the list that had Klaus Kinski in it - particularly Aguirre where there were indications about the character he played.

[Rockatansky]

Despite not having the great affection for the franchise some people have, I'm still trying to conveniently forget Crystal Skull exists when talking about them. This, "he was an alien all along," hypothesis would probably be aided by bringing in that film.


So... not feeling all warm and fuzzy over here.
I haven’t seen it in ages, but my memory suggests that while it definitely isn’t up to the standard of the previous entries, Spielberg has a sure enough hand in directing the action that it’s far from unwatchable. But that’s my high school aged memory talking.

[SpelingError]

I haven't seen Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in years, but while it had its cheaper moments like that nuclear bomb scene, I remember thinking it was still pretty good.

[Takoma11]

And considering how little any of this is actually part of what can be seen on screen (one word, that if removed, completely ends any relevant point), it can't help but make us lose sight of what the film is, or what it's actual intentions are.

For me, it's the combination of "I was a child" and his callous "You knew what you were doing" (which also aligns with that gross Lucas/Spielberg idea that she, a 12 year old, seduced him).

You'll be shocked, shocked!, to learn that I'm one of the people who can't not think about that transcript when watching the film. And I think that Allen's delivery of the word "child" does a fair bit of heavy lifting in that department.

[harry150]

Thanks for sharing it, appreciated.

[Iroquois]

Besides, even without that, I'd still find Indiana unlikable since the opening scene outright paints him as a colonist. I normally don't mind unlikable characters, but I think Ford is intended to come off as charming and noble in the film, so I think the film is trying to have it two ways with him.

That's why they give him an antagonist like Belloq who is at once his obvious opposite (the clean white clothes versus Indy's dirty brown outfit) but also very similar to him in so many ways, to say nothing of how a major part of his arc is realising that the Ark has genuine power and is more than just another artifact to recover and sell off. It's why the films mostly stick to the idea that he never really succeeds at collecting the artifacts and profiting off them, whether it's whatever he's chasing during the cold opens or the main one that drives the plot (though it is a problem that Last Crusade walks this back by finally allowing him to retrieve the Cross of Coronado after a lifetime of searching).