The Swedish 100

*shrug*

Anyway, Shallow Grave was rented out so I got Raising Arizona instead. Think it's too late to start watching right now though (about 12:30am local time).

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

01 Brazil
(Terry Gilliam, 1985)

There is no combination of adjectives I could string together that would do any sort of justice to this movie. According to Wikipedia, Brazil is more famous for the story behind the making of the film than with Brazil itself and, if that's the case, it really is a ridiculous shame. I've seen an awful lot of movies in my life and, while none of them were perfect, I'd say this is about as close as you're gonna get. I think the film's greatest strength is probably the all kinds of awesome Tom Stoppard script, which has more ins and outs than a porn flick. Plus, a kickass send off that seems bleak but is actually a very Gilliam happy ending. Brazil is the most imaginative, visually immersive film anyone could hope to see and you will never find a movie that rewards subsequent viewings more than this one. It's a dreamy masterpiece; chock-full of memorable set pieces, colorful characters and effortlessly amusing dialogue. Brazil keeps you on your toes; it's funny as all hell one minute and profoundly sad or deeply disturbing the next. It's got a pitch-perfect cast and Mike Palin and DeNiro are especially great. Their characters aren't exactly fleshed out or anything on the page, but the performances bring them to life. Brazil's also a potent societal satire: A rallying call against preposterous bureaucratic trappings, a wicked, timely attack on the Thatchinator and a biting commentary on where we're heading as a civilization. Most satires are forced to sacrifice fully drawn characters or completely realized plots to be effective. Not Brazil. It just works. Seriously, I just love everything about this thing. I love Brazil.

Thought so. Nice work with Brazil. It truly is a film that defies easy description. I think it's been two years since I last saw it. Time to get reacquainted.

Great list, makes mine feel rubbish

Lots of my fav films on yours plus ones i'm dying to see. Well done on your work, excellent.

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Great job Chef. If you ever are so inclined would you mind sharing some of the story behind the making of your #1? I don't know anything about it and I suppose I could go and Google it but I thought that since it's your number 1 flick maybe you wouldn't mind telling the tale?

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Excellent list, so good to see Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs: Bleu, the entire three colors trilogy will be making an appearance in my top twenty, it's a masterpiece.

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Fookin' hell. I really wish I hadn't seen this list now. Mine just feels so inadequate. I just don't see mine topping this one. Brilliant list, mate. And it's always lovely to see Memento make anybody's list, but...er...how comes out of all the films on that list Memento's the only one that's written in another language???

The movie's backwards so he wrote about it backwards.

Hope you were being sarcastic

I forgot to read the rest of this list for some reason. It's a surprising blend of classics (many of which I've yet to see) and stereotypical hetero college male niche films. Thanks for all the effort, it'll definitely come in handy in my further film edumacation. It's a little frustrating to see someone my age, well I'm assuming you are anyway, who's seen so many more films than me...I feel I've lost so much time in my pre-internet downloading days...

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What?

You know, a bit of horror, pot humor, John Woo, Fight club, Shawn of the dead (if you're a Brit) etc...

Thanks for the renewed interest, folks. I really do appreciate everyone who has checked in here.

Yeah, that's the dynamic I was kind of shooting for. I'm actually a full four years younger than you, but rest assured, there are massive gaps in my own film watching history. My older brother is an even bigger movie geek than I am, so we had a lot of VHS tapes and later DVDs of classics from the 60's and 70's lying around. I try to watch Turner Classic Movies a lot to catch up with flicks from before 1960 and I get like three or four movies every week from Netflix. But, yeah, I still haven't seen a lot of silent flicks, a few essentials from the 30's and 40's, virtually any Asian Cinema from the past 20 years, some French New Wave and a whole heckuva lot in between.

Brazil was a very tough flick for Gilliam to get in the can. He battled with Universal for final cut and pretty much lost. It's one of the more famous fiascos in the history of cinema and simultaneously made Gilliam's name a poison among movie studios and an inspiration for struggling filmmakers. At least three different versions of Brazil exist today and Gilliam has disowned all but one.

Thanks, the more I think of it, though, I actually prefer White to Blue. But, yeah, they're all good.

I'm relatively happy with the way this list turned out. There are five or six flicks I'd replace now, but I'm not in the mood to do this again. If these aren't my 100 favorite films, they're pretty close.

Now I'm just depressed...

Lol, I wasn't. I'm as blind as a bat mate. It's obvious now, though. Lol, i can't believe I missed it and thought it was another language,

Nice one, Swede!

So I was watching Shallow Grave with my mate the other day (I'd convinced him to pick up a VHS copy - he thought it was a comedy, which is sort of true ) and I was reminded of the whole "show it to your roommate" thing you mentioned. That leads me to ask only one question - why would you do it? I can see you found it hilarious, but is there any other real reason?

No, we just didn't like our roommate very much and the original intention was to see if he at least had good taste in movies. We were elitist douche bags, yes. And anyway, not only did our new roommate not like any of the flicks we watched with him, after Shallow Grave, he thought we were gonna kill him. So that was kind of funny.

We wound up killing him after all, so it was very ironic as well.

There aren't too many flicks I'd take off my list - maybe ten at the most. But there are a lot of movies that I feel probably should be on here. I'm not going to pull a Mark and do any serious write-ups for these movies, because there's way too many of them, but I am gonna try to list every film I love that I feel is interchangeable with some of the lesser movies that made the actual list.

So here are some more of my favorites that didn't make the official cut (but probably could/should have)

Stop Making Sense
Something Wild
Married to the Mob
Deep Cover
King of California
Miami Blues
Short Cuts
Schizopolis
The Underneath
The Proposition
Straw Dogs
Midnight Run
Bottle Rocket
Ed Wood
Empire of the Sun
The Hudsucker Proxy
Envy
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Heathers
Macbeth
Rosemary's Baby
Wet Hot American Summer
Fletch
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Clue
The Sweet Hereafter
Prizzi's Honor
Back to the Future
Into the Night
Kicking and Screaming
Straight Time
The Rules of Attraction
They Live
Clay Pigeons
The Mosquito Coast
Vampire's Kiss

And there are a billion more that I'll try to think of

One of the best lists here and one that is encouraging me to re-do mine.

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I like the list of honourable mentions, Chef. Haven't seen that many of them (not so sure about some e.g. what version of Macbeth?) but for the most part I love the ones I have seen (I especially like the inclusion of They Live and Stop Making Sense, two films worthy of my next list)

Polanski's Macbeth. Killer flick.

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