50 Films to see before you die

I would think that such a list would be based off not actual cinematic mastery or broad appeal, but instead upon the cultural value attached to each film and its (supposedly) high-degree of allusionary appeal.

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I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
T.S Eliot, "Preludes"

why is Apocolypse Now number one!?!

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letterboxd

I think you are a bit sad. This is like saying: I hate every movie with a letter in it. WHatever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I'm not sure whether you were trying to be funny or that you genuinely haven't seen very many films made outside Hollywood, especially recent ones.

Opinion-wise I agree with some of yours and disagree with some, but that's not why I'm here.

Of the recent additions to our MoFamily, you express yourself pretty confidently but I need you to do something for me - chuck your job in (or at least go on the sick for a week or two) and broaden your movie foundations. Sorry if that sounds faintly patronising but I'm in my dressing gown...

Things like "Trainspotting (1996)--Never saw it, probably never will" sadden me. If you'd said "Trainspotting - Load of crap, the plastic baby was the best thing in it!" I'd have shaken my head and moved on, but not now. Oh No.

This is a crusade! Free your mind and your arse will follow!

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Sadly the list was not based on any of those things. 50 Films To Be Shown On Our New Movie Channel In The Next Month is nearer the truth.

Over here on the small side of the Atlantic, Film4 is a free, nationally available film channel and their big relaunch (they used to be a subscription service) was preceded by the show in the thread's title.

It's actually a good channel and I'd watch it more if I'd not already seen practically everything they advertise.

Back to the porn then...

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

But the porn's only free for 5 minutes.

Doen't matter. All you need is 2-3.

Which reminds me of the old gag:

I'm getting good at this 'sex' thing - I've got it down to less than a minute now!

Curmudgeonly???!!!!

But gawd, yes, I remember seeing Richard Gere in that Breathless remake--thought Jerry Lee Lewis should have sued the studio for malicious mischief for using his music!

Since I got the wrong hero, I guess that means that list of "great" films doesn't include a single one with Hoffman in it. Strange, huh?
You're right, I don't do kung phooey films--except for the one with the comic, can't even think of his name now, but he's done a couple of westerns and a couple of films where he's teamed with a black detective in California. The way he uses his body is every bit as good as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, or any of the great physical comics of the Silent Screen or for that matter daredevil Douglas Fairbanks. But that other stuff where the kung-fools fly through the air and run on water--I don't mind when they use computer graphics to enhance a story, but it should never be the whole story.

I dunno, maybe that does make a curmudgeon.

Naw, I'm not the type to call Trainspotting a load of crap, cause someone out there, you probably, enjoyed it. Me calling it crap passes judgement on your tastes. Why do that? But if I say Apocalypse Now is a terrible film where the director lost control, I can cite evidence to back up my claim, just as you can cite evidence that it was brilliant.

As for how many films I've seen, I could even guess the number. I'm 64 years old, been watching and remembering films for at least 54 years. Saw a lot of films on TV since the 1950s. Worked a couple of my teen years at a movie theater where I listen to (and saw many scenes of) films day after day after day. Have read extensively about films, actors, directors, I was even in a film once (nothing anyone here ever saw or heard of), have a large collection of film tapes and DVDs. Have always been fond of foreign films--when they were good.

But I'm not going to get into a spitting contest over who has seen the most or the best films. I saw movies and stars in the late 1940s, 1950s, 1960s that a lot of the "kids" in this forum have never heard of. By the same token, you've probably seen a bigger selection of films made in the last 20 years than have I.

On the other hand, I've seen previews of those films on TV, in theaters, clips shown on talk shows, even TV specials to promote coming films. I remember seeing ads about Trainspotting at the time it was in the movies. Don't recall now what it was about, but I do remember making a consious choice not to spend my money at that theater that weekend. Maybe I missed something; on the other hand, it wasn't worth risking the waste of 2 hours of my life to find out.

Besides, how many examples of crap must one see in order to recognize crap when one sees it. Sorry, I just couldn't resist that.

No matter how many times one polishes a turd, a turd it remains.

Trainspotting was just an example I gave because I enjoyed reading your post and noticed a fair few from the list that you hadn't seen (and some that you didn;t want to see). That it happens to be my favourite film from one of my favourite directors is neither here nor there. Honestly.

Y'see, any man who rates The Searchers so highly is my kinda MoFo.

Jackie Chan. You might try some of his earlier films, they're less polished narratively, compared to his Hollywood stuff, but about a billion times more impressive physically. To cite two examples Project A Part 1 has a clocktower stunt that tops Safety Last, and as hard as it is for me to admit, Part 2 has an amazing series of stunts ending in the "window" stunt from Steamboat Bill, Jr., that is every bit as amazing as the sequence that caps the Keaton film.

theres no question that everyone needs to see the goonies....

CLASSIC

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Lord, I sure seem to be raining on lots of folks' parades! Sad? Naw, I'm a right jolly ol' elf!

But you lost me, 7thson, "This is like saying: I hate every movie with a letter in it." I don't understand that comparision, because what I said is I hate movies where somebody says, "There's a monster/killer/ghost/bomb in the house/plane/boat/train/spaceship, so we've all got to stick together." And then the very next person says, "Just a minute--I've got to go downstairs for my cat."

And that's exactly what happened in Alien--couple of expendable cast members go off looking for the cat and get eaten by the space monster. That seems foolish to me because most people wouldn't act like that. Most people would say, "Too bad about that fool cat (or dog or canary), but I'm locking the door!" Fact, I've known folks who wouldn't take a risk like that for their own grey-haired granny.

Still, I'm pretty sure not as many movies use that lazy plot device as have letters in their titles. Don't think anyone got killed by a monster while trying to save a cat in, oh, My Fair Lady, Citzen Kane, or The Seven Year Itch. But a guy did get tossed off the roof while checking on his pigeons in On the Waterfront.

Gott help me out here, Tacitus. I'm not PC friendly. Took me months to figure out LOL and IMO. I haven't worked my way up to MoFo, yet, so I don't know if that's good or bad. I like The Searchers but I'm not blind to its mistakes. There's not a single spot in West Texas that looks anything like Monument Valley where that movie was filmed. And the Confederacy had no specific medals (like the one Nathan gives his youngest niece) for valor or any thing else. At the start of the Civil War, the US Army had only one medal that it awarded to troops and that was the Purple Heart (established by George Washington). During the Civil War, it instituted the Medal of Honor for valor--the first ones were awarded to the group of US soldiers and civilians who tried to steal a southern train and destroy a stretch of railroad early in the war--that's the incident that Buster Keaton depicted in The General and that Disney and Fess Parker recreated in The Great Locomotive Chase or some such title. Anyway, the Confederates never authorized any standardized medals although the Confederate Congress occasionally had some medals "of appreciation" struck for a very few soldiers under special circumstances. None that looked like the one that Nathan gives the kid, however.

Well, like I said, I haven't seen it so I really know nothing about it. I remember at the time that it caused some buzz, but there was something about the ads that told me it likely was not my cuppa tea. I could be wrong, of course. It's happened before. So tell me about it--why's it your favorite?

Of course, Jackie Chan! You'd think I'd remember a name that simple, wouldn't you. But Project A Parts 1 & 2--that's a movie title??? Guess I should try it if it's as good as you say. Only problem is, the usual Bollywood-Chollywood films made in Asia always reminds me of that early Woody Allen film where he took a Japanese-Chinese-whatever film and redid the sound track in What's New, Pussycat?

In this case rufnek, a MoFo is anyone who belongs to this particular movie forum. I'm a MoFo. You're a Mofo. We are ALL Mofos.

o word, no doubt

OK. So is that good or bad?

Thanks for the interpretation.