Zotis' Top 150 Favorite Films

There's going to be a fair amount of animation in here, probably a 3:1 ratio in favor of anime over Western animation.

Nevermind.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I'm not big into anime, so I've never heard of The Curse of Umezu Kazuo. Most of the anime I've seen is either fantasy or sci-fi. A horror anime sounds a little more up my alley.

I'd love to hear what the others are. Will they be making this list?

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I had trouble finding the IMDb page for that last one; pretty obscure movie but that's cool.

It is obscure, most anime buffs have never heard of it.

Enemy Mine (1984) Action, Adventure, Drama
Directed by Wolfgang Peterson
Starring Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr.

I watched this movie quite a few times growing up. It was also one of my first introductions to Dennis Quaid. I've always enjoyed re-watching it every few years or so, but it has gradually become a bit stale for me. After watching it again to see how I currently feel about the movie I think it's about time to bump it off my top list. I enjoyed it as a kid, but now that my understanding of film has broadened I'm noticing a few drawbacks. I still like this movie, but it's no longer a personal favorite. It's officially demoted to "just another movie I like."

After the opening credits some voice-over explaining the setting, and it's about the only voice-over in the film that actually works. Other times the voice over is redundant and pointless, explaining how he feels when it's already written all over his face, or stating something that's happening as the camera pans revealing it anyway. When I was a kid my favorite parts were the beginning and the end, because I enjoyed the space battle aspect much more than the stranded survivors aspect that makes up the bulk of the movie. I still feel that way, but the space battle is so short and the special effects are not very well done. When the space ship crashes and slides along the ground it's glaringly obvious that it's fake in an almost self-parody sort of way. The alien's mask is a bit obvious around the mouth and eyes. Some of the set designs are not great either.


I think everything I've just mentioned is forgivable and doesn't take away too much from the film. They are flaws that hinder the movie from reaching it's potential, but it didn't really have the potential to be a great film anyway, at least not without a better screenplay, and a better director. Wolfgang Peterson is a pretty average director in my opinion. The acting was probably the strongest point with both Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr. performing well. I think better directing could have produced a lot more out of both of them though.

Overall I do still enjoy this movie, but I've noticed it's flaws a lot more this time around than in previous viewings.

5 films in 2 weeks...

We may be seeing the second Cobpyth.

I've been waiting so long to use that smiley!

If you liked this try Hell in the Pacific with Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune by John Boorman (1968). Exact same theme, but set in the context of WWII.

But beware, there are two different endings to HITP, and both received wide release. I've seen both EM and HITP and I prefer Boorman's version better, but both are good. And the original ending to HITP is better, IMO.

P.S. Toshiro Mifune also took on foreign assignments, but few did him justice. It was only John Boorman's Hell in the Pacific that captured something of his range, humour and power. - British Film Institute

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Enemy Mine was a very popular movie in the 80's when I worked at a couple video stores. Even though I watched a lot of movies then, I was never interested in it, but a lot of people loved it.

I've seen the beginning of Hell in the Pacific. I think it's probably a better movie overall, but I found it a bit boring so I ended up turning it off part way through.

As cricket said, this was a big fav in the 80's. All my friends loved this but, like cricket, it never did anything for me and I've never been much of a fan of Dennis Quaid, either.

Underworld (2003) Action, Thriller
Directed by Len Wiseman
Starring Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman
With notable supporting roles by Micheal Sheen, Bill Nighy, and Sophia Myles.

Another one that will be getting demoted. I used to love this movie so much. It was the first movie I ever went by myself to see in theaters, and I went to see it again the next day because I enjoyed it so much. My favorite scene is the very first scene, the subway shootout. It was so cool. I felt like I'd been waiting years to see it. Even at that early stage I didn't like the end of the movie. Now I just don't even really get much enjoyment out of anything except that first scene. Also, I noticed something that I didn't notice before. These guys must have been big fans of the Matrix. There's generally a very similar vibe. The subway shootout is actually painfully ripping off the lobby shootout between Neo and Trinity, and the building security where the pillars get riddled with bullets and there's cool slow motion. But there was one rip off even more blatant than that. At a shift between two scenes one shot with a room number on a computer screen fades to a shot of the room number on the door, and even the music is identical to the borrowed clip from The Matrix. I also noticed a lot of implausibilities and some mediocre acting. I think the best acting in the entire film came from Sophie Myles, but it's more the directing than the actors that are to blame. Scott Speedman does well, but there's a scene where he's seriously injured and acts like he's barely scratched. I get the vampires and werewolves not being phased, but he's just a normal human. In the subway shootout a bystander gets clipped in the shoulder and starts convulsing on the floor. That makes sense. Why can some random extra act realistically injured, but not the leads? There's another scene where Kate's character unloads on werewolves as they approach her, and then after her magazines should be about half empty she starts shooting a hole in the floor to drop through without reloading. I mean she shoots like two and half magazines worth of bullets from each gun without reloading, and yes I am taking into consideration the fact that they were extended mags. They were also fully automatic handguns which can unload their extended mags in about a second flat. At least according to videos of shooting ranges I've seen of fully automatic handguns. Then again I don't really know that much about guns and I didn't look up the model specs or anything, so I could be completely wrong about this one. Anyway this was Len Wiseman's debut full feature length film as a director. He had already worked on other movies in various capacities. I'd say he did a decent job for his fist movie. Unfortunately he didn't improve or expand his horizons. He just kept making crappy Underworld movies for about eight more years, and they just got progressively worse as the series dragged on.

Now in my eyes this movie has become little more than just another movie I like. I haven't watched it in years, and today I only got through a half hour before I decided to give it a rest. I would say it's a half decent entertaining movie, but nothing special. It's certainly far better than any of the other movies in the series. It's noteworthy for having a different spin on vampires and werewolves, for being very influential in the careers of the people who worked on it (actors and film makers), and for being a staple in the vampire/werewolf genre, but quality-wise it's a pretty average movie. I only named a handful of flaws off the top of my head. It's a very flawed movie.

Flawed? Oh hell yeah. Fun? Hell yes.

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Fear and Loathing in MoFo... The Gunslinger 45's Top 50 Favorite Films

In the 10 Ring: Gunslinger45's reviews

I used to enjoy it immensly. The sexy latex, the cool gunfights, vampires... Back in 2003 I used to roleplay a lot on various web sites and I remember making a butt load of Underworld inspired games. Kate Beckinsale was my first celebrity crush. Well I still get some enjoyment out of it, but it sure did loose a lot of charm since the last time I watched it.

I also noticed the music was really weird. There is a lot of random noise and then like one second of a song with a few lyrics and back to noise, and this will be in the middle of action scenes and stuff. It is a bit weird. It kind of works for the atmosphere, but it's just weird that they have a cd with all the music of these metal bands, but the percentage of each song that actually appears in the movie is very small. Or maybe it's normal, I don't know.

In nature I agree that it is a fun movie. But it feels like I've just out grown it.

It's funny to me that you've made fun of people for including movies likes Scream and Jurassic Park among their favorites, yet you've already included Krull, Enemy Mine and Underworld. I can't judge, since I haven't seen any of those three movies, nor would I judge you even if I had seen them, since there's nothing wrong with including such movies as your favorites, but it seems like one of those he-that-is-without-sin-cast-the-first-stone kinda deals.

I think you focus on odd aspects of these movies to criticize. I mean, complaining about implausibilities in a movie about werewolves and vampires? Come on, man. The reason you used to enjoy Underworld so much more when you were younger is because you just sat back and enjoyed the ride without analyzing every moment and special effect to see if it's "plausible" or "realistic" or not. Stop counting how many bullets have been fired and just surrender yourself to the movie and let yourself have fun.

I hope you don't take offense, because I don't many any. It's just my opinion. I'm still enjoying the list. I doubt I'd like Enemy Mine, but I'd like to watch it at some point. I've never seen Underworld or any of its sequels, but it looks like an entertaining movie.

Don't worry Spaulding, I didn't get any offending vibes. Those are good points you're making. Allow me to explain my reasoning and the way I feel about movies in general.

The reason I was able to enjoy Underworld more when I was younger was because I was ignorant. I simply wasn't aware that the acting wasn't that great and so much of what was going on was implausible. But I have grown and improved as a person and now I understand more about film, that's why I can't enjoy it like I used to. And I'm glad. I want to progress and move on. I enjoyed A Woman Under the Influence more now than I ever used to enjoy Underworld. But if I had watched A Woman Under the Influence ten years ago it probably would have bored me because I wouldn't have been able to understand why it was such a good movie.

Also, just to clear something up, I never meant to make fun of Nostromo for liking Scream, or Gunslinger for liking Jurassic Park. I was only focused on expressing my opinions in a witty way without realising how it was going to make them feel. I still consider Underworld (the worst of the three you mentioned) to be miles better than Jurassic Park and Scream because it was more creative and the film makers put more effort into it. Underworld 2 and all of the other Underworld movies fall into the same bag as Jurassic Park and Scream. I think they are more about making money than anything else, and they are simply lacking creativity and inspiration. Even if a movie has flaws, I can forgive a lot more if I see they are trying to do their best. But when I see someone like Spielberg who has the ability to make a terrific movie like Schindler's List come out with something as bad as Jurassic Park, it's glaringly obvious that he was not doing his best.

Plausibility is something I always look for in every movie no matter what. Compare Alien with Aliens. Both movies have the exact same fictional setting, but look at the differences in plausibility. In Aliens, Ripley's arm should have snapped and she should have been sucked out into the vacuum of space and died. The marines had 0 personality. A little girl could not survive alone when the aliens are always crawling underneath the floors and above the ceilings. Alien on the other hand had way more realistic interaction between it's characters. And there were no glaringly impossible circumstances. A fantasy setting is no excuse for throwing realism out the window. Only artistic license warrants less realism in any situation.

At least those are my thoughts. I hope that has helped you understand me more.

P.S. I spent about three hours on this post... XP

no hard feelings Zot, yet from a pure discussion standpoint I don't see much consistency with the logic as it compares to the plausibility of Krull or Underworld vs Scream or Jurassic Park. Not that it's a big deal, it's not, though I do think it possibly would've been perhaps more wise to consider previous comments on both Scream and Jurassic Park. Why is Jurassic Park Speilberg not doing his best? Maybe you're saying Jurassic Park got too popular for its own good, or something

Anyways, agree with what you said about Alien and Aliens. I like Alien better too for the reasons you mentioned

Content is a factor too, but I try not to let it have too much sway over me.

Underworld is great, gory stuff, the second is good too. Haven't seen the third.