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In Reply to: Top 20 films of all time......... posted by RC on July 06, 2004 at 20:20:21:
To be fair, I realize that your list is probably composed of personal faves, but allow me to toss out other possibilities heedless of the fact that some folks in this crowd will probably behave like one of Spielberg's mechanical sharks from Jaws on autopilot:Beauty and the Beast (d. Cocteau/46)
Sunrise (d. Murnau/28)
Faust (d. Murnau/27)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (d. Dreyer/28)
Metropolis (d. Lang/27)
M (d. Lang/31)
Greed (d. Von Stroheim/24)
Shanghei Express (d. Von Sternberg/32)
The Gold Rush (d. Chaplin/25)
City Lights (d. Chaplin/31)
Modern Times (d. Chaplin/36)
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (a. Keaton/27)
The Cameraman (a. Keaton/28)
Safety Last (a. Lloyd/23)
The Freshman (a. Lloyd/25)
The Kid Brother (a. Lloyd/27)
Fantasia (p. Disney/40)
High Noon (p. Kramer/52)
Casablanca (d. Curtiz/43)
Cyrano de Bergerac (d. Kramer/50)
Lord of The Rings (trilogy/d. Jackson/2000-2003)
The Wild Bunch (d. Peckinpaw/69)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (d. Wise/50)
Dreams (d. Kurosawa/90)
Freaks (d. Browning/30)
The Sixth Sense (d. Shyamalan/98)
Unbreakable (d. Shyamalan/2000)
The Crowd (d. Vidor/28)
A Clockwork Orange (d. Kubrick/70)
AI-Artificial Intelligence (d. Spielberg/2000)
Andromeda Strain (d. Wise/71)
The Abyss (d. Cameron/88)
Blade Runner (d. Scott/81)
The Third Man (d. Reed/49)
Touch of Evil (d. Welles/56)
The Thief of Bagdad (a. Fairbanks/24)Guilty Pleasures & honorable mentions that might crop up among my personal favorites from time to time:
Starship Troopers (d. Verhooven/97)
Jurassic Park & sequels (p. Spielberg 91-97)
The Thing (d. Carpenter/84)
MIB (d. Sonenfeld/97)
Jason and the Argonauts (Harryhausen/63)
King Kong (O'Brian/33)
The Wizard of Oz (d. Flemming/39)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner Bros./38)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (a. Fairbanks/24)
My Best Girl (a. Pickford/28)Of those previously mentioned on your "Best Films" list I would also be inclined toward adding to my own:
Citizen Kane (d. Welles/41) ...Yes!
Das Boot (d. Peterson/82) ...exc. film & mini-series, but which cut?
Dr. Strangelove (d. Kubrick/64) ...important, so yes, but not a fave
The Treasure of Sierra Madre (d. Houston/48) ...exc. film; probably
The Exorcist (d. Friedkin/73) ...groundbreaking, yes, but which cut?Of those I definitely would avoid placing on my list:
Gone With the Wind, ...great guilty pleasure, but empty calories
On the Waterfront, ...great performances, but a "root canal" to watch
Prizzi's Honor, ...well acted, but a forgettable movie
Forrest Gump, ...great performances all around, but a saccharin story
Nosferatu (Herzog), ...you gotta be kidding; the original was better!Of course this is an incomplete list, subjectively gathered and subject to revision from time to time, but it's fairly consistent and reflective of my personal tastes.
AuPh
Follow Ups:
I would place Keaton's "Sherlock, Jr." and "The General" far above the two you listed.
...but both films are excellent. Sherlock Jr. is undoubtably a marvelous piece of filmwork, technically a masterpiece, but I consider it more of a short than a full length feature, which boils down to a judgement call I guess. The Cameraman, while being the first silent feature Keaton made without full creative control, still contained his influence and all the touches of brilliance of his earlier work; it's also one of the funniest features he EVER made.Here's an anecdotal story which I'll try to paraphrase, based on my recollections from a University level Film History class I took long ago:
After Keaton's brother-in-law and co-producer Joseph M. Schenck convinced him to sell out his holdings to MGM for a theoretically better long-term deal (i.e., which Schenck also profited from handsomely), Keaton ended up fighting with studio heads for creative input and final cut on his films. MGM was rapidly becoming one of the most profitable studios of the era, but it achieved this through the ruthless control of all aspects of production, helmed by Louis B. Mayor and his tight-fisted production staff.
Eventually, with the advent of sound Keaton's influence over his films diminished completely and he was given weraker and weaker material, eventually teaming him with Jimmy Durante, then his demotion from star to supporting character and finally being relegated to a screenwriter or script-doctor, but at least on his first feature with MGM (i.e., the first of his last two silent features) he ended up with a compromise that worked.
The studio wanted him to smile in certain scenes which would have destroyed the "stoneface" character he had carefully nurtured with his viewing public. When the studio's director wanted him to smile in one of the key romantic scenes, he balked, and the decision was made to shoot the scene both ways and then in a pre-release screening gauge the audience reaction. Needless to say, with the director still scratching his head after seeing how the audience reacted to Keaton's perfectly timed dead-pan they decided to leave the scene as Keaton wanted it.
Sorry about rambling on about The Cameraman, but it's a fascinating story which I felt was worth sharing.
Cheers,
AuPh
agf
My thoughts were directed to providing more options, albeit admittedly based upon subjective tastes as are all opinions expressed through such lists, irrespective of how informed the viewer/film buff.Personally, I doubt that I could come up with an adequate Top 20 list unless it were narrowed to specific areas (i.e., Top 20 SF, Top 20 Silent Films, Top 20 Westerns, Top 20 Mysteries, Top 20 Dramas, Top 20 Animated, etc.) and even then I might have to hedge somewhat dependent upon reflections at the time (i.e., my mood) or whether the films crossed genres.
AuPh
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