The 100 favorite movies of Lines Palsy

A very respectable list. Kudos.

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Thanks. Same to christine, Powdered Water, nebbit and whoever else may have given encouragement so far that I haven't replied to (mainly I just don't know what to say, it's appreciated though).

42. Shanghai Knights (2003)
I feel like a jerk making this the only Jackie Chan movie on this list. It's a far cry from his best stunt-work and fights which you can find in dozens of earlier films. When I tried to think about great Jackie Chan movies though, I found that I wasn't thinking of wholes so much as discreet scenes. Except for this one. It's a collection of an amazing variety of iconic pop-culture references, some clever choreography, hilarious dialog and a strong sense of visual humor.


41. One Week (1920)
This used to be below The Playhouse on my list of best Buster Keaton short films. I think this didn't move up the list so much as I've just worn out The Playhouse a little over the course of perhaps as many as a hundred viewings. This one is a little fresher in my minds-eye because I've only watched it a dozen times.


40. Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
Delicious looking. I love this one's portrayal the complexities of domestic life: food, marriage, family bonds, and change, giving each one a definitive and subtle cinematic rendering.


39. 2001 (1968)
The idea of an ambiguously sinister, all-seeing mind of synthetic logic has since seeped into the collective imagination but it's never been as pure and ruthless and sympathetic as here.


38. Time of the Gypsies (1988)
Emir Kusturica's tragicomic psychic-reluctant-gangster-gypsie epic.


37. The Prestige (2006)
I love the convoluted narrative structure (the interlocking diaries), ugly science-fictional 19th c. London, gratuitous array of doppelgängers, and dastardly-competitive magicians (both real and of the stage). I also find it to be Nolan's funniest film. The Edison-Tesla war is a great quasi-historical touch.




36. The Sun's Burial (1960)
The newest addition to the list, a movie I saw only a couple weeks before making this list. Few films can turn this subject into a consistently compelling story. It's about a collection of youths, a few tough ones driven by some restless, selfish energy, and the story is locked into the local concerns and intersections of its characters. If there's no violence to tie the camera down it just starts to drift away like one of the aimless followers in the gang. In this film Oshima seems to have reversed the central pair of his similar film of the same year, Cruel Story of Youth: the abusive thug and his self-destructive naif of a moll of that earlier film are here turned inside-out into an ambitious, merciless teen girl and her doleful, pretty boy-toy. I'm not sure how to make substance out of why this one works and that one doesn't. In all the ways that I found the disaffected youths of the first film's subjects, well, disaffecting... as perverse as it is to say the melancholy and nihilism in The Sun's Burial made me happy, that's the overall effect this film had on me. I think that even though the film takes a critical stance on its characters, and even though pretty much everything turns out badly, it remains humane to it's characters. The overexposed supernal-by-day/neon-by-night visual presentation of the film's grimy world plays well with its plaintive score.

Okay, back in a bit.

Wow great stuff, I am enjoying this I can't believe you are short of words

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still enjoying your list very much. Couple of films on there that intrigue me - one I'd heard of Woman of the Dunes and that last one there that I'd not, The Sun's Burial.
You have an eclectic taste and I really like you for that!
x

I agree.

Yeah, everything I have to say has, in one way or another, been said. Your list is great because it's so personal and unique (as these lists should be). I haven't seen half of your picks and of the ones I have seen, only about six or so would come anywhere close to my 100 favorite films. But, as a rule, anyone who likes Repo Man is alright in my book.

I am waiting on bated breath for the Top 35.

My breath is still bated.

Damn, I was hoping to procrastinate some more. OK, I will make a new post by the end of the weekend. It really does make me happy that people/person want to read this, so I'll try to curtail the bitching about how hard I have it too.

Well if its peer pressure you need then why didn't ya say so?

Not to go all Stranger in a Strange Land on you, I know waiting is but:

Let's get this show on the road!
Let's get this party started!
Let's get up on the down slope!
Let's go in through the out door!
Let's do it!
Let's get it on!
Let's get ready to rumble!
Let's Jam this post; WITH TWO HANDS BABY!

Sorry got a little carried away there. That happens when I don't take my medicine...

Anywho... waiting... hehe...

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Wait, Lines- where's the rest?!

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36. The Wrong Trousers (1993)

The cleverest and most Hitchcockian of the Wallace and Gromit films. The scene built around Wallace trapped in a pair of mechanical pants and robbing a museum in his sleep is an all-time favorite.


35. Akira (1988)

I haven't watched this in quite a while but I feel like I still remember it well. This one is my favorite "style over substance" movie. Katsuhiro Otomo drew the comic and then directed the movie, and it really shows, he re-invented his ingenious comic technique into something uniquely cinematic.


34. Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Billy Wilder's best film and also the best movie about Hollywood.


33. Brewster McCloud (1970)

A somewhat obscure follow-up to MASH and (needless to say) one of my favorites. It's ironic view of a modern-day Icarus living in a fallout shelter in the Houston Astrodome marks it as a true oddity and deserves to be a cult classic. Plus it has Shelley Duvall's break-through performance as Raggedy Anne. I found the weirdly-detached sexual insecurity of the thing (centered around Duvall's character) amazingly appealing, perhaps because it's one of those rare films that I happened to discover at the exact right time in my life to feel its full force.


32. High and Low (1963)

A gritty and powerful thriller from Kurosawa in glorious "Tohoscope".


31. The Claim (2000)

Fantastic imagery and a lovely Michael Nyman soundtrack.


30. Alien (1979)

Wonderfully managed suspense, a gripping plot, and ingenious production design.


29. 2046 (2004)

2046 is a movie that has grown on me so much with repeat viewings. I think it encompasses Wong's entire career. It's my favorite movie about sex and relationships. I wonder if he'll ever be able to top this film, because it exhausts so many ideas.

I'm glad you started back up again.

I've never heard of The Claim, (just added to my rental queue along with Brewster McCloud) but 2046 and Sunset Boulevard are the balls.

For some reason I thought Akira would be higher up, but no matter. Like the list so far.

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I've had The Claim sitting on the shelf here for about 6 or 7 years and never watched it, I think I'm going to put it a little closer to the top of the pile now.

28. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

To my mind this is the best wartime propaganda film ever made, because it's the only one that depicts a country in a way that it would be worth defending by war. Yeah, Leni Riefenstahl was an amazing film-maker, but her aesthetic approach doesn't make me want to join the Hitler youth and I've never really bought that it was films like that that made normal Germans become Nazis. Seems too easy.

This on the other hand, along with The Archers' slightly later A Canterbury Tale, is an amazing war-time film. I took a media arts class in high school and the teacher showed Mrs. Miniver, an okay but somewhat hokey old British film. When I'm feeling generous to that teacher I think that the only reason he showed that film was because he never heard of Colonel Blimp or Canterbury.


27. The Singing Detective (1986)

So I snuck another tv show on here. A deeply personal memoir, a detective mystery musical, a withering black comedy, and a multi-tiered story about storytelling. This six-episode miniseries integrates all of these elements brilliantly.


26. The Adventures of Horus, Prince of the Sun (1968)

Over 10 years before Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata worked for Toei Animation Studio and Takahata somehow managed to get this dark allegorical fantasy film made. (It's worth noting that a major theme of the movie was social unity and responsibility, and that many of the people involved were also involved in trying to unionize animation studios at the time, though you can enjoy the film without knowing or caring about those things). The opening sequence of Horus battling off a pack of wolves with a tiny axe tied to a length of rope is one of my favorite action scenes of all time. He also fights a giant monster fish, thaws the heart of an ice maiden and just generally kicks butts.


25. The Pledge (2001)

This is a really disturbing film and a great solipsistic thriller. Penn's directing and Nicholson's acting - both honed to the point of obsession (the major theme of the film) - are truly amazing.


24. Mr. Arkadin (1955)

It is about an unscrupulously clever rich man (played by Welles) who may or may not have amnesia and hires an ineptly unscrupulous poor man to dig into his past. Wheels within wheels, with some incredible cheesyness as well as incredible awesomeness.


23. Sunshine (2007)

For me this one reaches a narrow peak where meditation on space and light meets ensemble drama meets space thriller.


22. Arizona Dream (1993)

This is such a romantic film. I heard the soundtrack a couple years ago and had to track down the movie, and I've watched it many times now.


21. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Q: Is it... atomic?
A: Yes, very atomic.


20. No Such Thing (2001)

Hal Hartley's best film so far. It seems emotionally flat and overly artificial but it's the opposite. It's also hilarious.

Tubular.

Arizona Dream and Kiss Me Deadly back-to-back is just great.

Just noticed that I have two #36's somehow, even though I'm sure I counted my movie list at least twice. Oh well, since I can't drop any of the next 19 films guess that makes this linespalsy 101.

What school is offering linespalsy 101 in their curriculum?

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