ahwell's Top 100 Movies - 2020

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I must have made it to the 30 minute mark If an American teacher did anything like the teacher in Whiplash did, it be: dismissal followed by a huge law suit.
I had a band teacher like that, in middle school. She didn’t throw a CHAIR, but she has been known to hurl beanie babies. Also, during the marching band unit, she would rehearse for hours in 90 degree weather, and wouldn’t stop even when kids threw up or passed out... needless to say, I quit band that year



I had a band teacher like that, in middle school. She didn’t throw a CHAIR, but she has been known to hurl beanie babies. Also, during the marching band unit, she would rehearse for hours in 90 degree weather, and wouldn’t stop even when kids threw up or passed out... needless to say, I quit band that year
Exactly.

I think there’s LOADS of insane people out there teaching kids. And not all are just automatically discovered in their behavior and thrown in front of a judge. Not even in America where they love law suits...

Go finish Whiplash, CR.



I must have made it to the 30 minute mark If an American teacher did anything like the teacher in Whiplash did, it be: dismissal followed by a huge law suit.
I know what you mean. IMO the film is worth watching if only for the acting. As a former percussionist/drummer I was impressed with Miles Teller's drumming and sync playing. However both his and Simmons' parts were over the top, and not real believable.

I've seen some pretty nasty things happen in recording sessions, and I've seen guys fight each other at a rehearsal, but nothing similar to what was portrayed in the film. "Fletcher" was a pr**k. Put me in mind of the gunnery sergeant in "Officer and a Gentleman" who breaks down Richard Gere.





43. The Tree of Life (2011)

To me this is one of the best movies I've ever seen, and my fourth favorite of the 2010s. I haven't seen anything else by Malick but I'm really looking forward to his stuff now (especially A Hidden Life). Brad Pitt gives his best performance in my opinion, and the rest of the acting is great too. The cinematography and visuals are absolutely eye popping, I mean, some of the best I've ever seen. This movie could have been a pretentious mess, and in many ways it can verge on pretentious, but Malick holds it all together with believable characters, moments of both life and death, and an overall feeling of pure wonder at existence. Just incredible.
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You already know what I think of Tree of Life.

I don't really have an opinion of Malick though. The only other film of his I've seen is The New World. It's been quite some time since I watched that one but I remember it being very good.





43. The Tree of Life (2011)

To me this is one of the best movies I've ever seen, and my fourth favorite of the 2010s. I haven't seen anything else by Malick but I'm really looking forward to his stuff now (especially A Hidden Life). Brad Pitt gives his best performance in my opinion, and the rest of the acting is great too. The cinematography and visuals are absolutely eye popping, I mean, some of the best I've ever seen. This movie could have been a pretentious mess, and in many ways it can verge on pretentious, but Malick holds it all together with believable characters, moments of both life and death, and an overall feeling of pure wonder at existence. Just incredible.
I saw this film in theaters back when I was just getting into the deeper, more "experimental" cinemas. I found I didn't care for it as much then as I do now. Upon further glances, I considered it a masterpiece. (Wrote a review Here.) While it may not be for those who don't like it's indirectness, (and perhaps as Vicky pointed out), if you really have an aversion to "faith-based" cinema. (Although again I find that considering the dreck that is out their for "faith" cinema, this is perhaps one of the better pills to swallow if you are so averse.)

What I like about the film is its a puzzle, and each time I go back for a further viewings I discover new pieces which creates a bigger image of it than I had before.

Few films do that for me, and this is the precise reason I enjoy experimental, art house, and avant-garde cinemas.

Glad you enjoyed it! Take care friend!
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City of God is good, haven't seen it for such a long time though. Alien I like for the first part but then it goes all slasher/stalker horror-ish and I lose interest. Not a fan of Shawshank, Clockwork Orange or Tree of Life, sorry. Whiplash I really ought to watch but the trailer was so annoying I never saw it when it came out and haven't got round to it since.





42. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Just the perfect action movie for me, all around so fun and entertaining, with a brilliant score and fantastic script!



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Great choice and an all-time favorite of mine. Unlike some, I enjoyed every last one of them and even have fond memories of seeing Kingdom of the Crystal Skull theatrically.
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42. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Just the perfect action movie for me, all around so fun and entertaining, with a brilliant score and fantastic script!

I loved Raiders of the Lost Ark the first time I saw it in the theater. I was with with my mom, and she told me that it reminded her of the old movie serials from when she was a kid. At the time, I didn't really know what she meant, but now that I know what the movie serials were, I completely agree with her. Raiders of the Lost Ark is just one amazing short adventure after another, strung along into an incredibly fun movie.
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41. Mary and Max (2009)

Where do I start? Just, where? There is nothing like this movie, and I think only Adam Elliot can make something like it again. Even for an adult animated film, this is so far removed from anything else I've ever seen. The stop-motion has a totally unique feel to it, and while Wes Anderson and Tim Burton and Henry Selznick may be more famous for their stop motion, you can just feel the love Elliot has for his characters in Mary and Max. They are lovingly crafted, often with exaggerated facial and body features. Elliot isn't going for realism here, he's going for a totally different and wacky world where he can mold his own character shapes.

Mary and Max are both, at heart, good people. They make mistakes like we do, and they struggle with their lives, and in the end, they come to terms with what they want their life to be. I can ****ing RELATE.

The film opens innocently, with a calm narration of Mary's sad little day. But right from the start, we get a sense of the loneliness that will constantly gnaw at the characters - and us - throughout. We also get hints at the dark humor that is to become prominent throughout (notice the "Horny" mood in the mood rings chart). The little details are so adorable, like Ethel the rooster, and Mary's obsession with sweetened condensed milk. This helps the characters feel so real. Adam Elliot doesn't generalize them into a personality that we should infer, he gives us small specific twerks and details about them that makes them pop out on the screen as real living beings rather than just lumps of clay.

This movie could have been tedious with its constant narration, slow pace, black and white, and overall "aimless" plot. But instead, everything is balanced to perfection, and we jump back between Mary and Max with ease and interest. The letters they write are accompanied with often hilarious - and often depressing - animation that is sure to keep the viewer engaged.

And notice the color use! It is mostly a blend of blacks, grays, and whites, and when there is color it totally pops out of the screen. It's something special and kind of reminds me of Persepolis from two years earlier, although even that movie I didn't think used its black and white to the effect that Mary and Max does.

The soundtrack is fantastic. The use of Prokofiev and Handel - both for comic effect - are well timed, and the Leroy Anderson Typewriter song is awesome! It's a cooky soundtrack for a cooky film, and it's really one of my favorites.

But at it's heart, all the fluff and technical stuff aside, Mary and Max is both heartwarming and saddening, a look at how loneliness and loss can destroy the soul, but also how a friendship can save it. I tear up every time I watch that ending, it's so poignant, powerful, so real and relevant to how we live. No one should go through life alone.



I would have been disappointed if Miss Vicky weren’t first comment.

Anyways, it’s a great film though. I’m a sucker for stop-motion and when it’s done differently style and story wise it’s even better.





40. The 400 Blows (1959)

I had not seen a Truffaut film before this, but I knew he had partially ushered in the French New Age and was an incredibly influential director. I can see why The 400 Blows is so praised and famous, because it totally blew me away. The camera work was beautiful, great acting, well developed characters, a really enigmatic message.

I'll start with rewatchability again. I'm not sure how re-watchable this film is, a couple days after seeing it. But I still think I would like to watch it again in the future, at least several times, because I knew I had missed some things while watching it. The movie I think relies itself a lot on facial expression, emotion on the face (such as the great last shot, zooming in on Antoine's confused face). And that makes it very hard to actually look at all those faces, and how they change and react (like the parents and the teacher) when you are reading subtitles. Perhaps next time I watch it I will focus not so much on the plot and characters as the intimate cinematography and acting.

The script was overall very good, and very relatable to real life. There are short, "realistic," conversations that reflect what an actual parent-child conversation might be like, and I think this propels the script. Some of the dialogue, too, is delightful and creative, but we see much of the good screenplay going not to Antoine but to the parents, and the teacher. The adults are often mocked as the "all-knowing," "all-talking" god figures, while being show to be hypocrites, and that propels the themes in the film.

I've never seen another movie like this; it's original. Movies about a youth's struggle - and often failure - to stay out of trouble are very rare and often hit-and-miss due to a perhaps "softening" of the plot that Hollywood is so famous for. Truffaut does not ever soften the plot, letting us know that there will be no plot twists in the story - or at least nothing big - and that for Antoine his final outcome almost seems like fate, destined to happen whether he tried to stop it or not.

The film is also very realistic, conveying deep emotional relationships - between Antoine and his parents. They often fight about grades, chores, and other moral things (like lying and stealing). Truffaut masterfully portrays the hypocrisy of his parents moral law by showing his mother turning around and cheating on her husband. When Antoine sees this, the mother (Claire) then begins to be very nice to him and "love" him. By the end, this love has faded and Claire no longer feels that this truth needs to covered up. The school scenes are also very realistic and often very entertaining.

The structure is like a gradual descent, but not necessarily very linear. We see Antoine in the beginning as unlucky more than anything, who stays out of trouble and has a decent parent relationship. His friend is the one who eventually begins to turn him away from "good" and begin lying, cheating, and essentially creating a new identity. Antoine's new identity is what the structure of the film mirrors, and at the end, his identity can be clearly seen as completely lost, swamped, "robbed" almost.

The acting is pretty good, in fact Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel is absolutely fantastic. Some of the other boy actors are a bit unconvincing, but that's hardly a complaint, as for their age they're spectacular. The parents are pretty good, and the teachers are marginal (a bit forced it feels like). Also, keep in mind, all of the acting I'm judging is from facial expressions and actions, because the words they say I don't understand and must read subtitles. Voice inflection and sentence structure can play a huge role in how good an actor is overall.

Now pacing can sometimes be fleshed in with structure, but I think they are two separate things. Traffaut often takes his time with pacing- for me, the flow, and sometimes I think that doesn't benefit the movie too well. Looking at Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, he deliberately adds slow pacing and continues that slow pacing until the end- this way his overall pace is adapted to and can be enjoyed by an engaged viewer. Traffaut's pacing in this film I think jumps between slow- and often too long or pointless- cuts, to quick, snappy scenes. This leaves the overall flow, I think, a bit shaky and that was one of my only criticisms of the film.

Camera work, from the opening Eiffel Tower shot, is beautiful, and really well done. I am no cinematography expert, but the camera it seems like follows not the plot but the emotions of a particular scene, and I think often that can detract from a good performance. But Traffaut makes it really convincing and engaging. One of the last scenes just shows Antoine running away from his camp. Every footstep was dubbed again because he wanted the camera to be continually following the boy... yes, it's following our protagonist, but if Traffaut wanted to follow the plot he would focus on a chase scene from one of the guards who is after the boy. Instead, we are given just the breathing and the footsteps, or perhaps of Antoine's "emotions," which is simply that he needs to run.

One of my only other complaints is once again the music, which I thought was slightly unsatisfying. I actually think much of the music could have been- and should have been- cut out, for a better "realism" effect. The music, mostly repeating one "cheerful" theme, is supposed to follow Antoine's descent into crime apparently. Instead, it comes across meandering interludes that add nothing to the plot or emotions of the story.

The 400 Blows was very well done, everything but a couple tweaks make it a brilliant film with a powerfully conveyed message about a boy's loss of direction in life, and the possible consequences.



I haven't seen *insert movie*, but I suspect I wouldn't like it if I ever did watch it.
You can put in basically ANY other movie that Miss Vicky haven’t seen AND IT STILL WORKS!