The Movie Forums Top 100 of All-Time Refresh: Countdown

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A system of cells interlinked
Maybe Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo?
Ah, For me, it would have been The Bad News Bears, or perhaps Benji, which I believe were the only two other films I had been taken to at that point, but hey, my memory is a little hazy of that time.

Later in life, my mother told me she was horrified when she took me to Bad News Bears and it featured an old drunk as the coach and a racist kid on the team.
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West Side Story is a simple Romeo and Juliet tale-- nothing overly remarkable there. But it's the stunning music by Leonard Bernstein, and also the interesting dance numbers by Jerome Robbins that make WSS a memorable production.

I think that people who feel that musicals in general are awkward or pretentious wouldn't consider WSS to be a great film. After all, there's not as much non musical story in it than, say, La La Land. But for those who consider the unique production values of a good musical, WSS is an innovative first class production.
I dunno, I'm pretty understanding of musicals in general, I know what I'm getting going in, but I tried to watch this last night after a long time and I bailed after 15 minutes. Too much finger snapping and stage running. But the score was classic.



Master of My Domain
Could be, or perhaps the population as a whole tilt a bit more into the hardcore cinephiles as opposed to more casual viewers, with a decent portion of the veterans having garnered more exposure to more and better films over the years. The recent injection of Corrie users seem to be more dedicated cinema people than casual viewers, as well.
Interesting. Though I suppose in theory an influx of new members should include those who aren't yet cinephiles, balancing out the sophisticating tastes of veteran MoFos. If only we had some kind of objective cinephile index
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Master of My Domain
I'm in the rare minority that believes A New Hope > Empire Strikes Back, though I should note that this is very, very subjective –– I acknowledge that Empire is more gritty, cinematic, and has an emotionally dynamic story, but to me the classic original is one of very few 'perfect' action films I could watch over and over again (Raiders of the Lost Ark is another example). Maybe nostalgia is a factor, but my appreciation for the film actually grew as I become an adult. Even though it wouldn't make my own Top 25, I wish it was higher on the list.



Wow two of my all time favorites that barely didn’t make my list. Young Frankenstein got taken off at the last minute and A New Hope is not the SW I went with. Ideally all of the OT would be on the top 100 if it were up to me.

Young Frankenstein is my favorite Frankenstein movie.



Wow two of my all time favorites that barely didn’t make my list. Young Frankenstein got taken off at the last minute and A New Hope is not the SW I went with. Ideally all of the OT would be on the top 100 if it were up to me.

Young Frankenstein is my favorite Frankenstein movie.

Frankenstein might be the best book I've ever read, and none of the movies I've seen yet do the book real justice no matter how good a couple of them are.



Master of My Domain
I really hope Showgirls shows up.
Me too, but unironically, because I genuinely like that movie.



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Two great choices, neither of which occurred to me as options strangely enough. Young Frankenstein should have have, though Blazing Saddles would have been my choice for Brooks. If I was picking a Frankenstein movie, it would have been Bride of Frankenstein.

There really ought to be a MoFo top comedy 100 list. I don't think I put one in my top 25 and, on reflection, that seems odd. That year and a half doing Ebert's list so heavily influenced my top 25 I guess.



Star Wars I watched this when it first came out on the big screen and in a grand old theater too. I had to stand in line with my parents for hours just to get into the theater as it was that popular. I seen it twice at the theater and thought it was the greatest movie ever made. I still like it now also like the first three Star Wars films made. I don't care about the franchise though. I'm much more of a Star Trek fan (sans J.J. Abrams). Glad to see Star Wars made the list...Congrats to everyone who voted for it!

Young Frankenstein
, I don't often rewatch films over and over as I prefer to chart fresh ground and find those hidden cinema gems. But I have seen Young Frankenstein a number of times, mostly when it first came out as it played at another grand old theater built in the 1930s and us kids would go and see it for the pricey sum of $1. I've seen this film again after decades for an HoF, and it still held up! Everything is funny to me, except the Putting on the Ritz scene. I learned in the DVD extras that Gene Wilder who wrote the script hated that scene which was the only part of the movie wrote by director Mel Brooks. Wilder called that scene a conceit to the audience. Both men were good friends but grew quit angry over this one scene. Still a great movie!



I'm late to the party, but here are my thoughts on Cabaret, which I saw a couple days ago and posted in another thread:

This isn't a traditional musical as the "breaking out into song" element is replaced by a diegetic soundtrack. While some other musicals have featured this, what set this film apart for me was that the songs all had an either subtle or direct connection with the onscreen events. "Two Ladies", for example, corresponded with Brian and Sally meeting Max (of course though, the genders would have to be reversed). This made Fosse's film feel like a traditional musical without actually being one. Coupled with the occasional dream-like framings of Master of Ceremonies, I was really impressed by the musical numbers. The occasional scenes of the Nazis implied Germany would soon experience immense suffering. Beyond that though, the implications this had for the characters got under my skin. It was clear there wouldn't be a happy ending for any of them, neither for Brian, who may be drafted into the war, Sally, who chose to remain in Germany, nor Fritz and Natalia, the Jewish couple who got married (Fritz put his life at risk by marrying Natalia since that may reveal him as Jewish). With my first viewing, I liked this film a decent bit. When I rewatched it the next day though, it blew me away. I wonder how it would fare with a third viewing.

9/10
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Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
West Side Story was my #6. I don't think it's at all surprising that it made the list, it's a classic, very well made film. I just think there's a lot of anti-musical snobbery going on on here. The Tonight ensemble is the highlight. I can see why some people might find it a bit stagey but I think it's very well shot and rewards multiple viewings.

American Beauty is a film that impressed me a lot when it first came out, I've seen it a couple of times since but not recently. I think the more films I've seen, the more it's slipped in my estimation although I still think it's a very good film, it probably wouldn't be in my top 100 let alone my top 25. In fact, I don't hear a lot of people talk about it anymore so I was more surprised to see this show up than West Side Story.

Star Wars is surprisingly low! A big drop from last time. I think it is a combination of Star Wars fatigue after the recent glut of sequels and prequels and people who do still like Star Wars voting for just one from the franchise, and probably The Empire Strikes Back. I considered it for my list but it just missed the cut.

Young Frankenstein is a movie a lot of people love but I am not one of them. I don't have anything bad to say about it, it just didn't appeal to me.

Seen 22/24

My list 2/25 (Cabaret and West Side Story... but I promise my whole list wasn't made up of musicals. There were 4 but I doubt the other two will make it.)



Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Does anyone ever think of the irony of movies of a decade or genre appearing on the top list being a different order from how they would appear on a list specifying that time period or genre? Say Pulp Fiction was the highest rated 90's movie on this list when it's number 3 on another 90's list. Just as an example.

In a way, but not only are the people voting different, as others have said, the movies you can choose are different too.

Maybe a whole lot of people voted for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie when they only had 90s movies to choose from. But then when given all of the movies from all time to choose from, they dropped Buffy for Citizen Kane and Sunset Boulevard, while all the people who voted for Pulp Fiction in the 90s also voted for it now.

Looks kind of like that's what happened to Star Wars. It could have been everyone's 3rd favourite 70s movie but only their 26th favourite of all time.



Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
My review of West Side Story for the Live Action Musicals Hall of Fame (which it won):


West Side Story




What can I even say about this movie? There are just too many things I love. I fell in love with the soundtrack at the age of nine when I got the cassette for my birthday long before I saw the film. It’s still probably my favourite musical of all time. Cabaret is my favourite film which happens to be a musical, but West Side Story is my favourite musical.

It’s good right from the start with the sweeping shot of New York from above moving in to the way the dance and music give you the syncopated rhythm of the gangs’ interactions. (OK, so they’re not the toughest looking street gangs in cinema history). The grey streets are illuminated with flashes of colour (mainly red, for passion, anger and blood) which looks good but also serves as an appropriate visualisation of the lives of the characters. It’s not dissimilar to the look of a Jaques Demy film, but with a layer of grime instead of a candy coated outside. Watching it this time I noticed the use of colour more.

The songs! I love the songs. If I start listing all my favourite songs it will probably be all of them, but Jet Song, Something’s Coming, America, Tonight (especially the ensemble), Gee Officer Krupke, Maria, Somewhere, Cool… But the music between songs is just as important - the dance fight at the beginning, the dance at the dance, the rumble, the whistling. The dancing and dance-related acrobatics are impressive.


The story is an old one, an updating of Romeo and Juliet. But then the Shakespeare version wasn’t the original either, and sometimes the old stories are the best. It works well, unfolding naturally with nothing shoehorned in, New York apartments working perfectly as a substitute for Juliet’s balcony . There are different emphases here, on the conflict between locals and immigrants, the sometimes well-meaning but mostly hopeless attempts of the older generation to get the youth to play nice (“You was never my age, none of ya!”), the dynamic between Maria, Anita and Bernardo.

The absence of a sensible adult voice in the film is interesting - there’s only Doc, really (“weapons? You couldn’t play basketball?” “Why do you kids live like there’s a war on?”); Maria’s parents are mentioned but notable by their absence. The themes are cleverly encapsulated, sometimes amusingly, in the songs - the different facets of the immigrant experience in the song America, the way delinquents are handled by different systems in Officer Krupke. While the outfits may be dated, a lot of the themes still have a lot of resonance today, and nothing is ever quite clear cut, nobody is without blame ("You all killed him!" - Maria's 'a plague on both your houses' moment.)

While West Side Story has all of the fun of a light musical, it also packs a dramatic punch. Some of my favourite dramatic moments include the supremely insensitive police officer at Doc’s insulting everybody - and in the process reminding the Jets that a lot of their parents were immigrants too. Doc’s comment to Tony that he’s cared enough for the both of them. The two sides getting ready for the rumble. After the fight when the Jets mention Riff’s name and suddenly go quiet. Doc telling Tony that Maria is dead. Tony running through the empty streets calling for Chino to kill him and then when he sees Maria in the red dress.

The acting is mostly good, especially Rita Moreno who is effective in a more comedic role at the start, but is really good towards the end when things become more dramatic. When she fails to deliver the message, it’s heartbreaking not just because of the effect that has on what happens to Tony and Maria, but because it’s all too obvious why, after the way the Jets behave and the effect it has on her (“Don’t you touch me.” delivered with such meaning). Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer are not ideal casting, but they are pretty and charming enough that their sudden romance works.


It sometimes looks a bit stagy, and there are times when the visuals go a bit sixties in their attempts at jazzy special effects which are largely unnecessary, although I do like Tony and Maria’s first meeting when the dancers behind them fade into the background leaving them in the foreground.

All in all, a classic.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Star Wars is my #4 so I'll claim at least one-fourth of its points.



Lucas takes a little bit of Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress and a whole lot of The Wizard of Oz, blends it with Buck Rogers serials, throws in a hip sense of humor, and voila! It's a nice combination of old veterans Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing with the "newcomers" Hamill, Ford and Fisher, plus it gives you James Earl Jones' ominous voice inside the covered-up bod of David Prowse (the weightlifter/bodyguard in A Clockwork Orange). I was there in the theatre on May 25, 1977, to see the opening of Star Wars. It was already a phenomenon. In fact, even though my bro and I bought our tickets 90 minutes in advance, we went to the book store to wait instead of standing in line. That meant that when we returned, there was only one seat available, so I let my younger brother sit while I stood in the back. It didn't matter. My mind was blown, plus we just stayed for a second show afterwards anyway. Then, when we walked out to my car, I had flyers for buying 20th Century stock from a local business. Well. I tossed those, even if I lost a pretty penny right there. I seem to recall the company's stock rising 50% the first week.

What else can you say about the original Star Wars? I want to tell you how terrific this film looked on the bigscreen. You can talk and talk about improvements in the video/DVD/changes by Lucas, etc., but trust me, over 40 years ago, Star Wars was a mind-blowing experience. People in the audience cheered, laughed and gasped, often all at the same time, and there is no way in hell, you'll convince me that moviegoers were less-sophisticated 30 years ago. Hell, back then, the audience at least required a film to have a script and some decent acting! (and yes, why would anybody wanna rag on Star Wars for the acting? If you do, you must live in some flippin' shell. Ha! Don't worry, I'm not dangerous, YET.)

I don't know what else to say about Star Wars which you don't already know. Everyone, except me, realizes that The Empire Strikes Back is far superior because it digs deeper into the mythos and creates "shocks". However, I still don't buy it. The Empire Strikes Back, in my personal Top 100, is a beautiful film and highly worthy of praise, but just like Godfather II, it needs some legs to stand on, and even then, it doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessor. I know that puts me in the minority, but look at it this way; I've been in the minority for a LONG time.

Young Frankenstein is in my personal Top 75.



Laugh riot is not only a loving homage to the Universal Frankenstein series. In fact, Young Frankenstein could easily be considered a direct sequel to the Universal series of Frankenstein movies, and it's as much a horror film as The Bride of Frankenstein. Besides that, Frau Blücher is more horrific than anything in Bride.

My List

4. Star Wars
9. Cabaret
20. Burch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
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I have seen both Star Wars: A New Hope and Young Frankenstein. I dont mind Star Wars movies and I was far younger when I saw Young Frankenstein.