Fair enough. Roger can be a dork, but since you seem to be someone who enjoys complex, artsy films and Charlie Kaufman, I think you'd probably like it. But by all means, no rush.
Haven't been around here too often, but this is too tempting not to partake, even if I sort of fudged the list:
1) Sunset Boulevard - Wilder (1950)
2) Chinatown - Polanski (1974)
3) Citizen Kane - Welles (1941)
4) Pulp Fiction - Tarantino (1994)
5) City Lights - Chaplin (1931)
6) Taxi Driver - Scorsese (1976)
7) Once Upon a Time in the West - Leone (1968)
8) Persona - Bergman (1966)
9) North by Northwest - Hitchcock (1959)
10) Brazil - Gilliam (1985)
I thought Tree of Life was a great film, albeit one bogged down by a few complete WTF moments. The dinosaurs struck me as incredibly silly; some of the narration falls flat (I felt that even more strongly about The New World); and what is Sean Penn doing in that movie, exactly? Still, for the most part it was a gorgeous and thought-provoking film. I love movies that deal with childhood but don't romanticize it, that deal with strict fathers but don't demonize them. Phenomenal acting throughout.
And I should check out Hush... Hush Sweet Charlotte. It sounds wonderfully nutty.
AfterHours - I'm sorry to have ignored you for so long. At the time, I was hoping that I'd get around to updating my "Damn" review list soon enough to satisfy your question, but I've been slacking off on that one and I'm afraid I just don't think I'll feel motivated to keep updating it. Part of that, surely, is knowing I'm starting law school in late August and I'll have precious little free time to review films then.
Anyway, to me What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? played like the insane, campy version of Sunset Boulevard, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. It's grotesquely weird, darkly comical, and intensely creepy, and I enjoyed every pulpy minute of it.
I suppose I have a different philosophy on this. I would much rather see a movie try to achieve greatness and fail than have it pander to the lowest-common-denominator of cinematic entertainment, and then even fail at being remotely entertaining. It's really not that hard to make a dick or fart joke that makes people laugh. I've made plenty in my life. So when a film's sole ambition is to wallow in the scatological and sexual excesses of humankind and all it can do is produce tired groans, I find it insulting that there are filmmakers out there who actually thought I would find this stuff funny. It's more insulting to me than when a film has grand ambitions but the execution doesn't make it there. In other words: artistic brilliance is hard; I don't blame a film for not getting to that point. Amusing dick jokes are easy; it's appalling when a film can't achieve that low standard.
I may be a native Baltimoron, but you're welcome to malign John Waters as much as you like. :-)
Anyway, there's a difference between bad and overrated. Of the films you mention that I've seen, all of them are overrated in my opinion (except WALL-E of course, which is brilliant). I didn't like Death Proof either but it's obvious that it has more talent behind it than Balls of Fury. I think Alphaville is cheesy and drastically over-praised, but a weak Jean-Luc Godard movie is still better than at least 50% of the movies that Hollywood puts out each year. And I agree about that Godawful shooting scene in Crash, but it still has enough interesting moments in it to make it not one of the 20 worst films ever made. The concept is ambitious and the acting is competent, which is more than plenty of films can say. Just because everyone acknowledges that certain films are worthless, does that mean we should just gloss over them when making lists of worsts? Worthless films are the true worst films ever.
Wow, you've been pretty sheltered from bad movies if you think any of the twenty worst movies ever made were created by Jean-Luc Godard, Quentin Tarantino, Kathryn Bigelow, Mike Nichols, or Pixar. Even Titanic and Crash - sure, they're bad for Best Picture winners, but among the worst films ever? If you want to see a legitimately dreadful movie, watch this. I think it's the worst movie I've ever seen.
The key to Oscar prediction is knowing when to predict upsets and when not to. I was way off this year, predicting upsets when I shouldn't have (Documentary, Supporting Actress) and NOT predicting upsets when I should have (Cinematography, Director kind of). I also fell into the trap of thinking that The King's Speech, with its wealth of guild awards and 12 nominations, would win a good number of awards at the Oscars, which led me astray on Costume Design, Art Direction, and Score.
As usual, I had no idea what to pick for Foreign Film or the shorts, but at least I guessed one of the shorts right this year.
I really thought Tom Hooper was far too inexperienced to win Best Director. When it comes to his level of establishment in the entertainment industry, he's one of the biggest novices to ever win this award, about on par with Delbert Mann winning. But I should know by now that the Academy votes for the top awards with their hearts and not their brains. For the past few years, none of the major contenders affected their hearts, so they picked smart films. But The King's Speech moved them, and Tom Hooper needed to be awarded for doing so.
So the very good The King's Speech wins four major awards and no tech; the best film of the year walks away with three well-deserved awards for Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Score; True Grit goes down as one of the biggest Oscar losers of all time; Roger Deakins remains overdue and will hopefully win in a year when he actually deserves it; and I stop following the Oscar season for at least six months. Sound good? Okay.
As for the ceremony itself, I loved that they put the Best Song performances back in and cut a lot of the extraneous bullshit out. No lame montages, no introducing the Best Picture nominees during the show, and no having five random actors ramble on about the five nominated performers. Thank God. Still they managed to run very long, partially because of the super-extended ramblings of Kirk Douglas and Melissa Leo, both of whom were absolutely hilarious and probably the highlights of the night. Douglas was weird as hell and cracked me up, and Melissa Leo's win was heart-warming. Say the f-word, Melissa. You earned it.
The hosts were terribly awkward, although I did love the opening Inception parody. It was like they didn't know how to comport themselves while performing live. Other than that, I really dug Robert Downey Jr. That man should host next year. Seriously.
To be honest, I thought both The Lost Thing and The Gruffalo took thin premises and spent more time on them than was needed. Combine that with The Lost Thing's dry, understated tone and self-conscious quirkiness and I was lulled into a state of nodding off. Sorry! I'm sure I'll like God of Love more. :-)
Ah, you saw Animal Kingdom! Was the film worth seeing overall, or was Jacki the main good thing about it?
I caught the animated shorts, but not the live action. Honestly, The Lost Thing bored me, but I did really enjoy Madagascar. I guess I need to see God of Love though!
2000: Almost Famous
1999: Being John Malkovich
1997: L.A. Confidential
1996: Beautiful Girls
1995: Se7en
1994: Pulp Fiction
1993: Dazed and Confused
1992: Unforgiven
1991: Silence of the Lambs
1990: Miller's Crossing
1989: Do the Right Thing
1988: Bull Durham
1983: The Right Stuff
1982: Diner
1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark
1980: Raging Bull
1979: Being There
1978: Animal House
1977: Star Wars
1976: Network
1975: Jaws
1974: The Godfather Part II
1973: The Exorcist
1972: The Godfather
1971: The Last Picture Show
1969: The Wild Bunch
1968: The Producers
1967: Cool Hand Luke
1964: Dr. Strangelove
1963: The Great Escape
1962: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
1961: The Hustler
1960: Psycho
1959: North by Northwest
1958: Touch of Evil
1957: Bridge on the River Kwai
1956: The Searchers
1955: The Night of the Hunter
1954: Rear Window
1953: From Here to Eternity
1952: Singin' in the Rain
1951: The African Queen
1950: Rashomon
1949: The Third Man
1948: Red River
1946: It's a Wonderful Life
1945: Detour
1944: Double Indemnity
1942: Casablanca
1941: Citizen Kane
1940: His Girl Friday
1939: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
1938: Bringing Up Baby
1936: My Man Godfrey
Fair enough. Roger can be a dork, but since you seem to be someone who enjoys complex, artsy films and Charlie Kaufman, I think you'd probably like it. But by all means, no rush.
Don't listen to Marquee. Synecdoche, New York is great. Roger Ebert agrees. :-)
I've been too busy with law school to watch too many movies, but hey, what the hell: http://www.listology.com/ajdagreat/list/films-seen-2012.
I mean I probably haven't thought deeply enough about what my top 10 films would look like, but I threw a rough approximation together anyway.
Haven't been around here too often, but this is too tempting not to partake, even if I sort of fudged the list:
1) Sunset Boulevard - Wilder (1950)
2) Chinatown - Polanski (1974)
3) Citizen Kane - Welles (1941)
4) Pulp Fiction - Tarantino (1994)
5) City Lights - Chaplin (1931)
6) Taxi Driver - Scorsese (1976)
7) Once Upon a Time in the West - Leone (1968)
8) Persona - Bergman (1966)
9) North by Northwest - Hitchcock (1959)
10) Brazil - Gilliam (1985)
I meant the latter. I haven't actually seen either of those movies, but they are pretty ubiquitously reviled.
I thought Tree of Life was a great film, albeit one bogged down by a few complete WTF moments. The dinosaurs struck me as incredibly silly; some of the narration falls flat (I felt that even more strongly about The New World); and what is Sean Penn doing in that movie, exactly? Still, for the most part it was a gorgeous and thought-provoking film. I love movies that deal with childhood but don't romanticize it, that deal with strict fathers but don't demonize them. Phenomenal acting throughout.
And I should check out Hush... Hush Sweet Charlotte. It sounds wonderfully nutty.
AfterHours - I'm sorry to have ignored you for so long. At the time, I was hoping that I'd get around to updating my "Damn" review list soon enough to satisfy your question, but I've been slacking off on that one and I'm afraid I just don't think I'll feel motivated to keep updating it. Part of that, surely, is knowing I'm starting law school in late August and I'll have precious little free time to review films then.
Anyway, to me What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? played like the insane, campy version of Sunset Boulevard, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. It's grotesquely weird, darkly comical, and intensely creepy, and I enjoyed every pulpy minute of it.
I suppose I have a different philosophy on this. I would much rather see a movie try to achieve greatness and fail than have it pander to the lowest-common-denominator of cinematic entertainment, and then even fail at being remotely entertaining. It's really not that hard to make a dick or fart joke that makes people laugh. I've made plenty in my life. So when a film's sole ambition is to wallow in the scatological and sexual excesses of humankind and all it can do is produce tired groans, I find it insulting that there are filmmakers out there who actually thought I would find this stuff funny. It's more insulting to me than when a film has grand ambitions but the execution doesn't make it there. In other words: artistic brilliance is hard; I don't blame a film for not getting to that point. Amusing dick jokes are easy; it's appalling when a film can't achieve that low standard.
I may be a native Baltimoron, but you're welcome to malign John Waters as much as you like. :-)
Anyway, there's a difference between bad and overrated. Of the films you mention that I've seen, all of them are overrated in my opinion (except WALL-E of course, which is brilliant). I didn't like Death Proof either but it's obvious that it has more talent behind it than Balls of Fury. I think Alphaville is cheesy and drastically over-praised, but a weak Jean-Luc Godard movie is still better than at least 50% of the movies that Hollywood puts out each year. And I agree about that Godawful shooting scene in Crash, but it still has enough interesting moments in it to make it not one of the 20 worst films ever made. The concept is ambitious and the acting is competent, which is more than plenty of films can say. Just because everyone acknowledges that certain films are worthless, does that mean we should just gloss over them when making lists of worsts? Worthless films are the true worst films ever.
Wow, you've been pretty sheltered from bad movies if you think any of the twenty worst movies ever made were created by Jean-Luc Godard, Quentin Tarantino, Kathryn Bigelow, Mike Nichols, or Pixar. Even Titanic and Crash - sure, they're bad for Best Picture winners, but among the worst films ever? If you want to see a legitimately dreadful movie, watch this. I think it's the worst movie I've ever seen.
The key to Oscar prediction is knowing when to predict upsets and when not to. I was way off this year, predicting upsets when I shouldn't have (Documentary, Supporting Actress) and NOT predicting upsets when I should have (Cinematography, Director kind of). I also fell into the trap of thinking that The King's Speech, with its wealth of guild awards and 12 nominations, would win a good number of awards at the Oscars, which led me astray on Costume Design, Art Direction, and Score.
As usual, I had no idea what to pick for Foreign Film or the shorts, but at least I guessed one of the shorts right this year.
I really thought Tom Hooper was far too inexperienced to win Best Director. When it comes to his level of establishment in the entertainment industry, he's one of the biggest novices to ever win this award, about on par with Delbert Mann winning. But I should know by now that the Academy votes for the top awards with their hearts and not their brains. For the past few years, none of the major contenders affected their hearts, so they picked smart films. But The King's Speech moved them, and Tom Hooper needed to be awarded for doing so.
So the very good The King's Speech wins four major awards and no tech; the best film of the year walks away with three well-deserved awards for Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Score; True Grit goes down as one of the biggest Oscar losers of all time; Roger Deakins remains overdue and will hopefully win in a year when he actually deserves it; and I stop following the Oscar season for at least six months. Sound good? Okay.
As for the ceremony itself, I loved that they put the Best Song performances back in and cut a lot of the extraneous bullshit out. No lame montages, no introducing the Best Picture nominees during the show, and no having five random actors ramble on about the five nominated performers. Thank God. Still they managed to run very long, partially because of the super-extended ramblings of Kirk Douglas and Melissa Leo, both of whom were absolutely hilarious and probably the highlights of the night. Douglas was weird as hell and cracked me up, and Melissa Leo's win was heart-warming. Say the f-word, Melissa. You earned it.
The hosts were terribly awkward, although I did love the opening Inception parody. It was like they didn't know how to comport themselves while performing live. Other than that, I really dug Robert Downey Jr. That man should host next year. Seriously.
To be honest, I thought both The Lost Thing and The Gruffalo took thin premises and spent more time on them than was needed. Combine that with The Lost Thing's dry, understated tone and self-conscious quirkiness and I was lulled into a state of nodding off. Sorry! I'm sure I'll like God of Love more. :-)
Ah, you saw Animal Kingdom! Was the film worth seeing overall, or was Jacki the main good thing about it?
I caught the animated shorts, but not the live action. Honestly, The Lost Thing bored me, but I did really enjoy Madagascar. I guess I need to see God of Love though!
Sure, I think I can swing that.
2000: Almost Famous
1999: Being John Malkovich
1997: L.A. Confidential
1996: Beautiful Girls
1995: Se7en
1994: Pulp Fiction
1993: Dazed and Confused
1992: Unforgiven
1991: Silence of the Lambs
1990: Miller's Crossing
1989: Do the Right Thing
1988: Bull Durham
1983: The Right Stuff
1982: Diner
1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark
1980: Raging Bull
1979: Being There
1978: Animal House
1977: Star Wars
1976: Network
1975: Jaws
1974: The Godfather Part II
1973: The Exorcist
1972: The Godfather
1971: The Last Picture Show
1969: The Wild Bunch
1968: The Producers
1967: Cool Hand Luke
1964: Dr. Strangelove
1963: The Great Escape
1962: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
1961: The Hustler
1960: Psycho
1959: North by Northwest
1958: Touch of Evil
1957: Bridge on the River Kwai
1956: The Searchers
1955: The Night of the Hunter
1954: Rear Window
1953: From Here to Eternity
1952: Singin' in the Rain
1951: The African Queen
1950: Rashomon
1949: The Third Man
1948: Red River
1946: It's a Wonderful Life
1945: Detour
1944: Double Indemnity
1942: Casablanca
1941: Citizen Kane
1940: His Girl Friday
1939: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
1938: Bringing Up Baby
1936: My Man Godfrey
Thanks!