Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

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#20. The Shining
(Stanley Kubrick, 1980)



"Heeeeeeere's Johnny!"

One of the most vivid crash courses in film-watching for me happened almost twenty years ago when a local TV station aired four different Kubrick films across four weekends - 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, and this. This was my introduction to the work of Stanley Kubrick and each film definitely left a mark on first viewing. Even after The Shining weathered some serious cultural osmosis (it did inspire the best Treehouse of Horror segment, after all), its patiently sinister approach to the story of a haunted hotel and the unlucky family who find themselves snowed in over the off season has resonated in all sorts of ways (often to absurd degrees if the densely-pondered fan theories seen in Room 237 are any indication). As it is, The Shining is able to play to horror on all levels ranging from sudden shocks to creeping dread, though it clearly favours the latter in teasing out just what kind of grotesque and unsettling secrets the Overlook Hotel has in store - even then, it still understands that sometimes all it takes to be scary is letting an actor as infamously aggressive as Nicholson off the chain as one of cinema's all-time resentful bastards (though he ultimately doesn't work without Shelley Duvall as his put-upon partner). I've seen this film on all sorts of formats ranging from blurry CRT screens to damaged Eastmancolor prints that soak the entire film in red, but the end result is still the same indisputable classic.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #55
one of the good 90s horror movies!



Victim of The Night
Wrong thread, Wooley is just trying to mess with me outside of the comedy countdown thread. A thread that's making me feel like either I'm on the cursed side of a mirror, or... No, that is what it's making me feel like I am. No "or".
Just taking the piss, as they say.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
Guess I’ll crawl back to bed…



Welcome to the human race...
#18. The Last Temptation of Christ
(Martin Scorsese, 1988)



"God loves me. I know he loves me. I want him to stop. I can't take the pain. The voices and the pain. I want him to hate me. I fight him. I make crosses so he'll hate me. I want him to find somebody else."

It's one thing to acknowledge how much the atmosphere of the theatre can fundamentally improve the experience of watching a film, but one thing I've really learned to appreciate during the advent of DCP screenings is when an establishment goes to the trouble of showing an actual film print - considering the story behind the infamous final shot of The Last Temptation of Christ, I definitely consider it fortuitous that I was able to see this in 35mm. The film would still be a masterpiece otherwise - Scorsese once again teams with Paul Schrader to adapt Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial reimagining of the story of Jesus (Willem Dafoe), delivering a work that dares to engage with the all-too-human nature of the Messiah rather than churn out another digestibly anodyne Bible story. The casting choices are certainly bold enough to merit attention - Dafoe is able to conjure a range of moods both expected and unexpected when portraying Jesus, but Harvey Keitel proves an interesting choice for portraying a Judas who makes for a surprisingly strong and staunch foil against a mercurial and conflicted saviour. It hits so many of the familiar beats of the story but its own tweaks add interesting complication to the proceedings - rather than serve as blasphemy for its own sake, they add intriguing nuance and texture to a story that has been sanded down over centuries (especially when it comes to building an entire third act around the titular temptation). Peter Gabriel's evocative New Age score remains particularly propulsive throughout the feature, combining with that final shot to mark not just the zenith of this film but maybe even a contender for one of the best moments in Scorsese's entire career.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #76
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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



Victim of The Night
#18. The Last Temptation of Christ
(Martin Scorsese, 1988)



"God loves me. I know he loves me. I want him to stop. I can't take the pain. The voices and the pain. I want him to hate me. I fight him. I make crosses so he'll hate me. I want him to find somebody else."

It's one thing to acknowledge how much the atmosphere of the theatre can fundamentally improve the experience of watching a film, but one thing I've really learned to appreciate during the advent of DCP screenings is when an establishment goes to the trouble of showing an actual film print - considering the story behind the infamous final shot of The Last Temptation of Christ, I definitely consider it fortuitous that I was able to see this in 35mm. The film would still be a masterpiece otherwise - Scorsese once again teams with Paul Schrader to adapt Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial reimagining of the story of Jesus (Willem Dafoe), delivering a work that dares to engage with the all-too-human nature of the Messiah rather than churn out another digestibly anodyne Bible story. The casting choices are certainly bold enough to merit attention - Dafoe is able to conjure a range of moods both expected and unexpected when portraying Jesus, but Harvey Keitel proves an interesting choice for portraying a Judas who makes for a surprisingly strong and staunch foil against a mercurial and conflicted saviour. It hits so many of the familiar beats of the story but its own tweaks add interesting complication to the proceedings - rather than serve as blasphemy for its own sake, they add intriguing nuance and texture to a story that has been sanded down over centuries (especially when it comes to building an entire third act around the titular temptation). Peter Gabriel's evocative New Age score remains particularly propulsive throughout the feature, combining with that final shot to mark not just the zenith of this film but maybe even a contender for one of the best moments in Scorsese's entire career.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #76
Ya know, it's funny, I'm an atheist but this movie is really one of the things that made me say, "Ah. Jesus. I like him very much." Or, "Jesus Is Just Alright With Me." Showing the human side of him is the only thing that's ever made the whole story remotely credible to me.



Ya know, it's funny, I'm an atheist but this movie is really one of the things that made me say, "Ah. Jesus. I like him very much." Or, "Jesus Is Just Alright With Me." Showing the human side of him is the only thing that's ever made the whole story remotely credible to me.

To remove the human element from the story of Jesus seems to completely undo the potency of the whole thing. Which is why the protests against it seemed so fundamentally misguided. It's not like churches aren't already enthusiastic about pushing the human frailty of Jesus when it comes to the physical pain he suffered. But apparently, to move any of that struggle towards any other element of his character is a heresy. We're okay pounding nails into his flesh and having him scream, but don't dare show him wrestling with his relationship with women.


It's a great film.



Well, yeah. There are vastly different theological implications to different types of frailty.

There is all different manner of ways to interpret such things. But for my money, the more you elevate a figure like Jesus above the fray or human struggle, and the more we focus on the othering of him as being too divine to suffer doubt or temptation, the less stock I take in what value we get from him.



There is all different manner of ways to interpret such things. But for my money, the more you elevate a figure like Jesus above the fray or human struggle, and the more we focus on the othering of him as being too divine to suffer doubt or temptation, the less stock I take in what value we get from him.
And of course the opposite issue exists if you go too far the other way. A lot of very smart people have argued about this dichotomy for a very long time.

Regardless, you're seemingly talking about this in terms of what's artistically interesting to you, so it's little surprise that this might conflict with someone who thinks of it more as a matter of fact and fiction, or life and death. That's the thing about truth: you don't ask yourself just what value you get. It's just a fundamentally different posture. And while everyone is entitled to their own posture, it hardly makes sense to criticize one posture from the presuppositions of another.



And of course the opposite issue exists if you go too far the other way. A lot of very smart people have argued about this dichotomy for a very long time.

Regardless, you're seemingly talking about this in terms of what's artistically interesting to you, so it's little surprise that this might conflict with someone who thinks of it more as a matter of fact and fiction, or life and death. That's the thing about truth: you don't ask yourself just what value you get. It's just a fundamentally different posture. And while everyone is entitled to their own posture, it hardly makes sense to criticize one posture from the presuppositions of another.

The genesis of my point had little to do with what is artistically interesting to me. I am also a fan of Gibson's "Passion" for very different reasons than I am of Temptation. Although, it would be fair to say I do find one approach more artistically satisfying than the other.



But, regardless of that, my criticism is towards those who protested the film. I called it misguided and I stand by that. Sure, the way this film presents Christ might be fundamentally at odds with how some prefer him to be rendered. But if we are concerned about getting out the word on all of the humanistic ideals the story of Christ embodies, maybe it is at odds with getting this message out if we allow ourselves to be blinded by our personal interpretation of how the man is portrayed. If some choose to bathe in the blood of Christ's corporeal sacrifice to understand who he was and what he represents, have at it. But don't try and shut down other avenues to get that message out there.



Of course, this overly protective nature of how our religious figures are portrayed has a litany of other bigger issues tied to it but that isn't a conversation for this thread. Right now I'll just keep my criticisms with this particular movie and those who wanted to censor it. And why I think that was bad.



Jesus (Willem Dafoe)
WAT.
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"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel



Welcome to the human race...
#17. Heat
(Michael Mann, 1995)



"All I am is what I'm going after."

Michael Mann's career-long focus on telling stories about highly driven professionals inflicting their own vast interiority on the world around them reaches its apotheosis in the form of Heat, at its simplest a cops-and-robbers joint about a veteran thief (Robert De Niro) and the detective (Al Pacino) hot on his trail. That it weaves together a sizeable ensemble cast to populate its sprawling L.A. crime epic is no small feat, especially in how it attempts to balance even the slightest of arcs (a memorable instance of this being Dennis Haysbert as the ex-con trying his best to go straight) in telling what is ultimately a tragic story about two men on opposite sides of the law who are much more alike than they might like to admit. Or maybe they would, if the fact that they're willing to sit down for coffee with one another halfway through the film is any indication. Outside of the densely-layered drama, Mann is still able to deliver technically astonishing thrills - easy enough to point out that iconic end-of-second-act shoot-out, but even smaller moments such as a late-night stakeout or a hotel assassination are brimming with the kind of craftsmanship that one would expect from Mann, as much an efficient professional as the characters he depicts.

2005 ranking: #79
2013 ranking: #31



I wasn't disagreeing with the part about protesting, though: just with the insinuation that there was an inconsistency in reacting differently to different types of human frailty. As is the case with most criticism, it can be expressed reasonably or unreasonably. There can be (and are) serious and legitimate theological objections even while a lot of thoughtless people are mindlessly mobilized to yell outside theaters.

On general attitudes about speech and how to respond to the examples of it we don't like, we're probably of very similar minds, however.