So Far...

The Current Top 5 Movies (according to my rating scale):

1. Yankee Doodle Dandy
2. Toy Story
3. Ben Hur
3. Goodfellas
4. Pulp Fiction


Yankee Doodle is still holding strong at the top spot with 45/50 points, with Toy Story coming in at a close second (44/50).  I am becoming wary of the fact I may hold a bias towards movies I have seen in the past, mainly because 3 of the movies on the list above are movies I already knew I loved....  will have to determine the accuracy of my rating scale at a later date, I suppose.  Nevertheless, would definitely recommend any of these top five!!  Happy movie viewing :)

#11379

I have heard about the movie Sophie's Choice (1982) many times over the years and how depressing it is, but not once did anyone mention it was about a Holocaust survivor, and not once was I tempted to actually watch it...  but I'm glad I did.  A movie about a woman that survived the Holocaust cannot evade the inevitable sadness that comes along with that topic, but the writers of Sophie's Choice actually accomplished this by basing the majority of the plot on her life after the war and her search for happiness.  I went into this film thinking I would be sobbing for 2 hours straight but for most of the story I actually felt enlightened and truly touched by Meryl Streep's portrayal of the life of a survivor.

I was also unaware that Kevin Kline played the leading male opposite Streep in this film, and may I say that his character is truly a whack-a-doo...  quite possibly the most two-faced character in movie history other than......  well, Two Face, or maybe Charlie/Hank from Me, Myself, & Irene.  Not to mention the three's-a-crowd dynamic of Streep, Kline, and their new younger downstairs-neighbor friend, Stingo, was repeatedly awkward throughout the entire movie.  Can you say 24/7 third wheel?

Although there are awkward parts of the movie, if the story told by Streep is all you focus on I have no doubt you'll come away with a warmed heart instead of a bout of depression.  Her strength more than anything is what should truly shine through by the end of her tale.

Rating:
Visual - 7
Acting - 9
Script/Plot - 5
Attention - 8
Emotion - 9

Total = 38/50

F**k You! You Mother F***er You Son of a B****...... uh, you get the idea.....

Let me just say:  Goodfellas.  Kick.  Ass!!!!!  I have seen this film many, many times and it never ceases to disappoint.  The unbeatable combination of Liotta, DeNiro, and Pesci is pure movie gold.  They are without a doubt the most believable mobsters to ever grace the silver screen.  They are gritty and frightening and refuse to take anyone's BS.  Needless to say these are men that no one would want to get in the way of, especially crazy wild card Tommy DeVito who will 'whack' anyone who crosses him without hesitation.

Scorcese did a fantastic job of juxtaposing the glamorous side of the gangster life with the horrendous.  One minute Liotta and his wife are getting star treatment at the local Copacabana show, the next Liotta, Pesci, and DeNiro are inserting a shovel into a man's face.  That's normal........   right?  Not so much for the average citizen but for a New York gangster?  Anything is possible, no matter how gruesome or highly illegal.

Also, has anyone ever noticed how awfully fake and obnoxious Ray Liotta's laugh is????  You will now.......

Rating:
Visual - 7
Acting - 9
Script/Plot - 9
Attention - 9
Emotional Response - 5

Total =  39/50

Le Drug Smuggle Fail

French TV stars and NYC mobsters involved in a big drug smuggle via luxury car???  Eh.

I think I look for something a little too specific when it comes to movies made in the 70s and 80s, mainly because in comparison to what my generation is used to seeing at the movies, mob flicks like the French Connection come off a tad corny.  I was told before viewing this film that it contained THE best car chase scene of ALL TIME.  uh.........  not so much.  It was exciting, it was suspenseful, but THE BEST OF ALL TIME?  not so much.  I already know that the chariot scene from Ben Hur FAR outweighs this even though that isn't technically a chase scene.....  just a small technicality.

As much as I enjoyed watching Gene Hackman and the guy from Jaws being the worst policemen to ever exist, this movie was only mildly entertaining as a whole.

Rating:
Visual - 4
Acting - 7
Script/Plot - 5
Attention - 5
Emotional Response - 5

Total = 26/50

"Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon"

What can be said about Pulp Fiction that hasn't already been said?

It goes without saying that Pulp Fiction is one of the most unique movies ever made.  This can be credited to the unbelievably twisted mind of Tarantino, which I find endlessly entertaining, and the fact that he follows a non-linear plot structure.  The way the movie unfolds out of chronological order but preserves the connection between the characters and the scenes is the true key to enjoying this film.  It also helps if you aren't greatly perturbed by violence and gore...  just a tad.

To say the least, Pulp Fiction is not for the light of heart.  Tarantino consistently means business in his films and the violent scenes he writes are no joke.  At the other end of the spectrum if you can suspend every moral fiber in your body while watching you can attempt at seeing these scenes from the angle that Tarantino intends........   usually just pure unrest of the soul, but that's besides the point.

The bottom line, he's a weird brand of genius, but viewer discretion is advised :)

Rating:
Visual - 8
Acting - 9
Script/Plot - 10
Attention - 7
Emotion - 5

Total = 39/50

As the World Turns in Anarene, Texas

The only enjoyable thing in The Last Picture Show is watching 22-year-old Jeff Bridges and noticing how he hasn't changed.  Other than that, the entire movie is filled with teenage angst and manipulation, not to mention everyone is sleeping with everyone.  The football coach's wife is sleeping with one of his athletes, mother and daughter have affairs with the same person, and apparently this "coming-of-age" story involves the teenage girl exploring the trials of "love" by losing her virginity to the most accessible person in order to find a worthy husband(?), her only goal in life.....  To say the least she really could have used a beating over the head with The Feminine Mystique.

Basically, this movie lost me pretty much from the beginning.  The only thing that made sense was the use of black and white film and choice of a drab location to match the tone of the story: boring.  If it hadn't been for this challenge I probably would have turned the movie off.  Instead of trying to portray small-town Texas in the 50's, the movie seems as though it was actually filmed in the early 50's (not 1971) due to its extreme lack of inventiveness and color, on many levels.

Definitely would not recommend this movie unless you are a serious movie buff.  One positive review I read about this film stated that the 'choppy, awkward transitions and stream of consciousness-like scripting' was supposed to reflect reality, but if this is what reality was actually like in small-town Texas during the 1950s, I would have contemplated the closest thing to suicide.

My Rating:

Visual - 4
Acting - 4
Script/Story - 4
Attention - 1
Emotion - 1

Total = 14/50  (bottom of the bottom)

Pick from #95-100

Based on my ratings, Yankee Doodle Dandy definitely takes the cake!!  I had "You're a Grand Ole Flag" stuck in my head for a damn week after I watched it.

My top two recommendations are definitely Yankee Doodle Dandy and Ben Hur -- two must-sees if you're a movie fan!!

...but also, who doesn't love Toy Story?  That's a given.

Muh-muh-muh-mooooookie!!

Do The Right Thing, written and directed by Spike Lee, is a portrayal of racial tensions in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in the 1980s.  The interaction of the many different people in this film was the epicenter of the story.  Between the black, the white, the Puerto Rican, the Asian, the Italian-Americans it seems at the beginning of the film that these people are able to share their neighborhood in a modified peace, but at the end of the film it is unvelied that every person was living just on the edge of tolerance, and that even the slightest misunderstanding or difference in opinion is enough to set catastrophic events into motion that affect the entire neighborhood.

I hope that our urban neighborhoods have come a long way since then, and that people are able to live more peacefully amongst one another, but what Spike Lee showed is that you never know how much rage is bubbling just beneath the surface in another person or group of people.  Coming from the background that I do, I hate to admit I'm more than blind to these issues, you could even call it naive..  and if you know me you know I would usually never admit to this.  Spike shed light on this issue in a way that I wouldn't have expected.  The ending scene showed the anger of the black community in a savage manner, one that definitely surprised me, and frankly distracted me from the bigger picture and message of the story.  After reflecting on this film for about a week I was able to come away with a better impression of this tension and what it means for all of us.

My Rating:

Visual - 5
Acting - 4
Script/Plot - 6
Attention - 6
Emotion - 9

Total = 30/50

Forever in Peace May You Wave

FANTASTIC FANTASTIC FANTASTIC

That is all that can be said!  Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) truly has the stuff that great films are made of: song, dance, joy, lovable characters and actors, while preserving a piece of the American spirit that many of my generation never knew existed.  This film is the story of broadway-musical guru George M. Cohan.  He grew up traveling the country with his family who performed vaudeville and various musical acts together, and he went on to produce some of the most well-known patriotic songs in our country's history, i.e. "You're a Grand Old Flag" as well as songs that fed the flames of American patriotism during World War I, "Over There".

I have never been drawn to films made before my own lifetime mainly because I don't find them as complex or interesting as the movies made today.  Whether that be due to technological effects or acting technique, I am not sure...  I don't use this as a general rule of thumb, I just know my own taste in film.  Yankee Doodle Dandy does not possess any of the negative qualities I often find with classic film: the acting was not overdramatic, the plot kept me interested throughout the entire 2 hours, and the lack of visual effects or color did not deter me at all.  The actors' glamour and charisma was undeniable, the tap dancing was heart-stopping, and the story swept me away into a different world.  Many shy away from anything associated with "Broadway", but in the case of this movie that would be a HUGE mistake.  The end of the film left me feeling uplifted with an utmost sense of pride, something that no movie-fan will be able to dismiss.

Historical significance + attention grabbing plot + lovable characters + out-of-this-world song and dance abilities????  Definitely equals one of the top movies of all time.

"You're a grand old flag,

you're a high flying flag,

and forever in peace may you wave.

You're the emblem of

the land I love,

the home of the free and the brave.

Every heart beats true

'neath the red white and blue,

where there's never a boast or a brag.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

keep your eye on the grand old flag."

My Rating:

Visual - 8

Acting - 9

Script/Plot - 10

Attention - 8

Emotion - 10

Total = 45/50

I have just one question, Blade Runner.... WTF?

"It's too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?"

Watching the movie Blade Runner (1982) for the first time in 2011 brings up many interesting questions:

1. Why was everyone in the 80s obsessed with the idea of flying cars existing by 2020?
2. Why was Darryl Hannah dressed like a futuristic panda bear getting ready to dance in the Thriller video?
3.  Why is the albino from the Da Vinci Code pushing his fingers into people's eyes?!
4.  Why all the synthesized weird music?  I mean really it just turns any hope of serious movie-making into pure corn......

The list could go on and on and on.  To sum up, Blade Runner wasn't all bad.  I can definitely see why it would have been considered one of the best of all time in the 1980s, and the significance it must have had in that decade, but the problem is simple:  it just doesn't translate well to this decade.  The movie being set in Los Angeles 2019 really doesn't help since we're only 8 years away from that and a) we are still a great time away from the flying car thing, and b) the technology used in the movie that was supposed to be futuristic/mind-blowing/ahead of its time.....  is just laughable.  For instance, instead of imagining portable phones they imagined pay phones where you can videophone with the other person.  An interesting idea, but if you're going to go futuristic you've got to really stretch the imagination, not still be placing quarters into a machine at a dingy bar.

If this movie were to be remade I have no doubt the outcome would be incredible.  The plot was inventive, and albeit quite dull during the beginning, it had quirky characters and some exciting scenes towards the end that would hold any sci-fi movie fanatic's attention..  But if Ridley Scott and the writers of Blade Runner honestly expected this movie's popularity to extend into future generations, why oh why would they have Harrison Ford in an awful romantic scene with a robot incapable of emoting?  Han  Solo and Chewbacca had better love scenes, honestly.

My Rating:

Visual - 8
Acting - 3
Script/Plot - 6
Attention - 4
Emotion - 2

Total = 23/50

(for a more in depth explanation of my rating system refer to my earlier posting)

Twenty-Two Going On Eight...

Toy Story, although an animated film, is a cinematic masterpiece in its own right.  I may have a slight bias towards this film since I was 8 years old when I first saw it, and watching it as an adult produces a tsunami of nostalgia, but watching this movie at 22 years old offers interesting emotions mainly because I am only three years out of my teens.  Three years is a MINISCULE amount of time, and although I strive in my everyday life to pretend like I am a fully functional adult, I am not always successful.  Not enough time has passed since my childhood to allow me to forget the emotions that accompanied inventing fantastical story-worlds starring my favorite toys or the confusion that bore down upon my pre-pubescence, or the dreaded high school years where I was pretty much predestined to hate everyone and everything unconditionally.  Ah, what lovely times....

Early childhood was magical, a time before sentient awareness of an at times harsh reality set in, a time when we were carefree and able to invent and create the unimaginable and impossible.  I had many toys growing up, but one I remember best was a big white teddy bear my mother had given me: Beary, or at times, Elizabeth (for more proper occasions, i.e. tea, weddings, etc.)  Just a simple bear lived out all my greatest childhood fantasies and protected me from the monsters in the closet at night, because at that age the monsters in my room were as real as the monsters that lived outside in the real world, or maybe it was just my excuse to not clean my closet, who knows??  To this day I am saddened by the thought of all my abandoned stuffed animals sitting in my old room, 3000 miles away, along with my childhood.

Toy Story is an adventure for children because of the fun, animated characters and their witty repartee, and is an adventure for adults with the ability to remember what it was like to have an imagination, or as some may put it, the ability to "suspend disbelief", something I hold near and dear to my heart as a child-slash-adult.  To this day the movie still holds my attention, makes me laugh out loud, and allows me to cry without shame, because being able remember what it was like to be a child is not a bad thing at all.

"You've got a friend in me."


My Rating:
V - 9
A - 8
S - 9
A - 8
E - 10

Total = 44/50

Togas, Lepers, and Jesus, Oh My!

Ben Hur was filled with everything a great movie should be: thoughtful writing offering simple yet meaningul pearls of wisdom, a dynamic portrayal of the many dimensions of family and friendship, a heart-pounding, high-speed race, and a lead character's dedicated search for vengeance.  Another plus is that for 1959 the acting wasn't over-inundated with "cheese".  I became invested in the character's stories because they seemed realistic instead of overdramatic, one of my main complaints about classic films.

The love-hate relationship between the film's two lead characters, Judah and Messala, was portrayed in a way that most people would appreciate: two friends that grew up together but end up in a vicious personal battle due to differing political views they acquired during their long time apart... Apparently its common for old friends to grow apart regardless of time period or reason.  These days we handle our differences a tad bit more gracefully (i.e. not sending an old friend off to be condemned to slavery and throwing their families members in a dungeon where they contract leprosy), but nevertheless people continue to grow apart every day.

It is also no secret to anyone that knows me well that I am an atheist, and some wondered what my reaction to the religious references in this film would be.  I have to admit, the portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth, his preachings, as well as the Crucifixion, were handled with spectacular taste and added an element to the story that set it apart from just a typical story set during the reign of the Roman Empire.  Although the man playing Jesus was only shown vaguely and awkwardly from behind, identificable only by his robes and long wavy brown hair, the distraction of the rest of the movie makes it easy to get over that small detail.

Overall, Ben Hur offered what most typical movie-goers would find appealing.. It being three and a half hours long would definitely deter anyone with a short attention span (which I am definitely a victim of), but if rented on DVD you always have the option of pausing for a lunch, bathroom, exercise, or my special favorite, cocktail break ;)  The high-speed race in this film is also one of the best I've seen despite obvious cruelty towards the horses used :( sad puppy...  I definitely recommend this film to anyone willing to dedicate the time, and have a feeling I would have ranked it much higher than #100... why it fell 28 spots when AFI revamped the 1998 list I'll have to find out for myself.

Personal Rating:

Visual: 8

Acting: 6

Script/Plot: 9

Attention: 8

Emotional Response: 9

Total - 40/50

My Very Own Rating System

My attempt at viewing all 100 films starts tonight, and I decided to come up with my own little rating system so that by the end I can create another Top 100 list.

My categories (scored from 1 to 10):

Visual/Stylistic Appeal
Acting Performances
Script/Plot Quality
Ability to Hold My Attention
Emotional Response to the Film

These are what I consider to be some of the most important components of film when the average movie-goer decides the level of entertainment a movie had to offer, and I hope that these categories will help me to decide which movies I truly believe belong on the Top 100 list.

Example:  A Love Song for Bobby Long
V: 9
A: 7
S: 7
A: 10
E: 9
Total:  41/50

Cure-All? Let's See.

I moved from New York City to Milford, CT about 8 months ago, and let's just say that, in comparison, Milford isn't the most "happening" of places.  Being used to the so-called "hustle and bustle" of the city, small-town Milford just doesn't give me that old zsa zsa zsu, doesn't have that pizzazz, that spark.  I've started doing new things, some good, some bad.  Good: subscribed to an online yoga class, attempted to continue reading the stack of novels i've collected over time, etc.   Bad: spending a lot of my time sitting in front of the television watching more reality TV than any one person ever should.  Good/Bad: lots of baking.

Today on my day off I was stumbling upon many things, dear god help me, when I came across AFI's Top 100 Movies of all time.  Looking through it I realized how very few of the movies I had actually seen and decided to challenge myself to watch them in order from 100-1, and then had a "Julie and Julia"-type urge to document this challenge online.  Whether or not anyone other than me actually reads this, I feel a very visceral need to do SOMETHING with my time instead of wallow in my grievance of my life in NYC.

A little inside info on my current movie knowledge:  My favorite movies of all time (two-way tie) are Amelie and A Love Song for Bobby Long.  I have never seen some of the most classic movies ever made, and usually get the mouth-gaping, wide eyed response from people upon admitting I've never sat down to experience such films as Shawshank Redemption, Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, the Goonies (?), Back to the Future, Rocky, Good Will Hunting, etc.  I have, since getting this exact response one too many times, seen Shawshank, and now I know why people were so appalled.

My goal:  AFI's Top 100 Movies (2007 list), One per Week
First on the List:  Ben Hur