Haven't seen Hot Fuzz. Need to get to it someday.
City Lights was #2 on my ballot. Here's what I wrote on it some time ago:
While I liked Chaplin's films just fine in the past, I struggled to see why so many of his films ended up on GOAT lists as I often found them to be nothing more than well-crafted gags and sentiment (which isn't a bad thing mind you; I just felt like I was missing something more). However, I think this film helped me to understand him much better as a director. The eccentric millionaire is Chaplin's most interesting character yet. In this city where the poor struggle to make the necessary money to get by while the greedy rich don't care about their struggles, the tramp is only able to befriend one of the wealthy people in the city when the man is drunk, exposing his friendly and tender side and, with his suicide attempts, the knowledge that, deep down, his money hasn't gotten him happiness after all and he's even more vulnerable then the poor characters in the film. Brilliant. It isn't just his character that reinforces this though. Most of the gags reinforce both the Tramp's inability to get by in the city and his difficulty in living amongst the rich, like the terrific opening scene, his various mishaps when the millionaire takes him to a restaurant and invites him to a party at his mansion, his attempts at earning money by getting a job as a street sweeper or fighting in a boxing match (excellent scene by the way), or the conflict with the two burglars at the millionaire's house which suggests that some poor people had to resort to thievery to make money out of desperation. Regarding Chaplin, I've also watched A Dog's Life, The Kid, and The Gold Rush. Since I have a pretty good handle on this film, I'll eventually revisit those three films to see if I warm up to them some more.
City Lights was #2 on my ballot. Here's what I wrote on it some time ago:
While I liked Chaplin's films just fine in the past, I struggled to see why so many of his films ended up on GOAT lists as I often found them to be nothing more than well-crafted gags and sentiment (which isn't a bad thing mind you; I just felt like I was missing something more). However, I think this film helped me to understand him much better as a director. The eccentric millionaire is Chaplin's most interesting character yet. In this city where the poor struggle to make the necessary money to get by while the greedy rich don't care about their struggles, the tramp is only able to befriend one of the wealthy people in the city when the man is drunk, exposing his friendly and tender side and, with his suicide attempts, the knowledge that, deep down, his money hasn't gotten him happiness after all and he's even more vulnerable then the poor characters in the film. Brilliant. It isn't just his character that reinforces this though. Most of the gags reinforce both the Tramp's inability to get by in the city and his difficulty in living amongst the rich, like the terrific opening scene, his various mishaps when the millionaire takes him to a restaurant and invites him to a party at his mansion, his attempts at earning money by getting a job as a street sweeper or fighting in a boxing match (excellent scene by the way), or the conflict with the two burglars at the millionaire's house which suggests that some poor people had to resort to thievery to make money out of desperation. Regarding Chaplin, I've also watched A Dog's Life, The Kid, and The Gold Rush. Since I have a pretty good handle on this film, I'll eventually revisit those three films to see if I warm up to them some more.