The Tatty 100

The link for Ladykillers actually calls you a loser..haha.

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

The image for Touch of Evil isn't working on my screen either. Just a white box with a red X.

hmmmm that's weird as everything shows up fine here - on both PCs, caches cleared and in different browsers. I've swapped them anyway so fingers crossed.

Maybe my interwebbie is better than the Colonial version.

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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

Nice. Now get other bastard 5 posted.

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thats better

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Okay Im gonna be serious now.....sssh dont tell.

You have a wonderful taste in movies Tats, from classics to modern your favorites are truly the Turkey on the Thanksgiving table. I see you enjoy all genres and that speaks volumes because a great movie can be about anything. I have enjoyed your list like a child enjoys a ten foot roll of a blueberry fruit rollup. My lips are blue and my sugar high has made me amazingly dizzy. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to the finale.

There's another reason for that (apart from the obvious) in that I've been kept awake at night trying to sort out the order of my top three.

So I've watched them again...and one's quite long.

MoFo needs, I think, to be aware that this perambulation is coming from someone who's never thought about what is his 'favourite' film. Any lists I've made in the past have been written in no particular order.

I'll finish the bloody thing tonight if it kills me.

7th - thanks. That brought a big smile to my face.

I'm really bad at waiting for things, but ok, i'll let you off since your list has given me a wedge of new films to look out for.

Oh Tatty, you little you, keep us here with our tonges hanging out

I'm intrigued....

I think I might see some kind of pattern here.... Or at least a returning theme...

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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.

I'm intrigued as to what you think it is. I've worked out something myself while compiling this and I'd love to see if our theories tally.

I'll try to sum things up at the end...

5. Once Upon A Time In The West (1968, Sergio Leone)



The Western as opera - something Leone had spent four years and three films perfecting before he came up with Once Upon In The West. And with it he finally mastered the concept.

It’s an epic homage really, twisting and playing with themes, images and conventions, not least with the inspired casting of Henry Fonda (who had memorably played many American heroes ranging from Abe Lincoln to Wyatt Earp) as Frank, one of the coldest villains in cinema.

Bernardo Bertolucci, who co-scripted along with the director and a young Dario Argento, was once asked by Sergio why he (Leone) was the most interesting director in Italy.

“Because you shoot the arses of the horses...” replied Bernardo, who went on to explain how horses in Westerns were often only shot in profile and it, like the whole genre, had started to become rather banal.

Once Upon A Time In The West - a horse’s arse of a film, but a savage and beautiful horse’s arse…

4. The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)



Post War Vienna must have been an uneasy place, carved up and policed by The Allies to such an extent that racketeering was a major business.

The Third Man captures this feeling brilliantly with Vienna as a city with very little hope and its citizens escaping from being ground down by one regime, only to stare fresh hardship in the face under the guise of ‘Liberation’. Quite apt in these times…

Then, of course, there is Harry Lime. The enigmatic anti-hero with the quintessential movie entrance who bestrides The Third Man and imbues every scene with his personality and presence even though rarely on screen. The lovable rogue who isn’t really so lovable after all.

The Third Man is laden with a quite delicious atmosphere which makes me return to it time after time after time…

…and I’ve managed to write all this without once mentioning the word ‘zither’.

Oh. Bugger.

3. The Searchers (1956, John Ford)



Talking of anti-heroes…

Ethan Edwards takes some beating as the brooding, lonely, racist ex-soldier, home from the war and finding his brother and family murdered and his niece kidnapped by a race of people he hates.

In many ways The Searchers is less of a quest for revenge and more an odyssey of redemption. Ford and John Wayne combined to visualise a film with many genre conventions but an underlying message that people like Ethan Edwards can change on a moral level.

And if Ethan can change then so can we all…

2. The Godfather & The Godfather Part II (1972 & 1974, Francis Coppola)



If you’ll forgive me I’d like to place these two films neck and neck as I really can’t split them.

The Godfather and it’s sequel are family films. More ‘about a family’ than ‘for a family’ it’s true, and they’re the most complete depiction of a way of life that I’ve experienced on screen. It’s legacy was so great that FBI officers noticed real Mafia hoods kissing each other’s rings (stop sniggering at the back!), hugging in public and referring to one another as ‘Godfather’ after the film’s release. They weren’t anywhere near as theatrical beforehand…

The Machiavellian Michael Corleone could be seen as a Richard III (another sequel) for the 20th century and Pacino’s transformation from idealistic young war hero to brooding Don would be captivating even without the fully fleshed-out supporting characters and meticulous attention to detail that the films contain.

The first time I saw these two films was on TV with the re-edited, chronological near miniseries which begins with young Vito and tells the story in a much more linear fashion. I was immediately intrigued as to how Coppola originally intended his masterpieces to be seen…

And so we come to the end and I'm going to reprint my review of this film from my other thread, not through and sense of time saving but I tried and failed to express my ideas as well as I'd done previously.

Some might think it's a strange choice and I'm not trying to be in any way controversial, artsy or pseudo intellectual. It's just that if I were transported to a desert island armed only with power supply, DVD player and big telly then this is the film I'd smuggle in my Y-fronts...

1. Sonatine (1993, Takeshi Kitano)



In the last 10 years this insignificant little reviewer has watched many hundreds of films, thousands even. There’s one that he keeps coming back to, Sonatine, and hopefully he’ll explain why in the paragraphs that follow.

Sonatine was Kitano’s fourth feature as a director, coming after Violent Cop, Boiling Point and A Scene At The Sea. It was the movie where I first took notice of his talents, tucked away late on BBC2 during 1995. I was told that it was “kinda like Reservoir Dogs” and “violent”. Whoopee.

What unfolded that night was a nihilistic odyssey into one man’s reason for being -

Murakawa (Kitano) is a Yakuza, in charge of a Tokyo crew sent to Okinawa to aid a fellow syndicate of a little ‘problem’ with a rival crew. It soon becomes clear that him and his men have been the victims of a set-up and they hide out in a remote beach house, waiting for the all clear…



Sonatine works on a few levels, whether as a straightforward gangster story or a character study of violent men. It’s clear pretty early on that Murakawa is tiring of his life, not his chosen profession but of living itself. An early example is the shootout in the bar - while those around him duck for cover Murakawa stands still and carries on shooting. Wearily. Until nobody meaningful is standing.

Whilst in hiding, something strange seems to happen to this group of hardmen. They indulge in childlike games, build traps in the sand and play jovial rounds of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’. Jovial, that is, until Murakawa walks over and introduces a handgun into proceedings. The gun is empty as he raises it to his temple but Murakawa’s unknowing henchmen get the message. The boss doesn’t care about dying.



In fact it seems that these few short days on the beach (which include a romance) seem to hammer home to Murakawa what his life could have been like had he chosen a different path..

Miyuki: You're tough. I love tough guys.
Murakawa: I wouldn't carry a gun if I were tough.
Miyuki: You can shoot without a second thought.
Murakawa: I shoot fast because I get scared fast.
Miyuki: But you're not afraid of dying, are you?
Murakawa: When you're scared all the time, you reach a point when you wish you were dead.



There’s an elegiac tone to Sonatine, from the sparse dialogue to the haunting, minimalist score. Economy of movement is something of a Kitano trait, everything is balanced. Shots are framed exquisitely and the action takes place within, characters either joining or departing. Beat (the name Kitano gives to himself as an actor, a reminder of his stand-up comedy days on Japanese TV) himself has made a name playing taciturn, violent men, and he’s never been better. His granite-like features and world-weary gait suit the character, even down to the final, bloody resolution…

Now, why do I keep coming back to Sonatine? It’s style, it’s wistfulness, it’s lack of Hollywood convention, the whole package. Along with hana-bi, this is Takeshi Kitano’s masterpiece as a director and I’d place it top of the tree if only because Sonatine is the film that introduced me to the work of this remarkable man.



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Well then, thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread for putting up with me for so long. This bleedin' list has taken up nearly two months of my life but I have to say that I'm reasonably satisfied. Especially in keeping spectacularly weak puns in check.

Most of the time, anyway.

Great List...Finally complete.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Well No.1 was a shock I still haven't seen it so i am going to put it on Fetch movie list. I must see it if it is your No.1 film it is a great 100 list, i have enjoyed reading and waaaaaaaaiting for No.1 But now it is over and i am thanks again

HA, so i DID know what number 1 was all along. Bonus points for me

Nice one though, i'll have to go through and make a comprehensive list of all i need to see soon....

Despite your lapsing into self-referential third person, this is the best list I've read, bar none. Congrats on completing what I know was a very long and involved process, and on creating something well worth reading, whether your readers agree or disagree. This is a smart introduction to some fine films, sweets. Impressive!

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

You Sir, are a true Mofo legend, thanks for the many great reviews and recommendations over the last year, I sympathise with your struggle to pick your all time favourite, I just can't go there, otherwise I'll be stuck in the corner mumbling to myself for the rest of eternity!

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