| Author | Message | ||
     Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.237.189 |
From this week's Entertainment Weekly. These are not new movies, just old faves of his that he keeps returning to, so he lists them as "20 that never disappoint." In reverse order, they are: 20: WHITE HEAT 19. MR. PEABODY AND THE MERMAID 18. POINT BLANK 17. TITANIC 16. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER 15. CURSE OF THE DEMON 14. 1941 13. CUJO 12. THE CAINE MUTINY 11. THE THING (1982) 10. DR. STRANGELOVE 9. BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFRED GARCIA 8. KISS OF DEATH 7. DIE HARD 6. THE BLUES BROTHERS 5. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 4. THE WILD BUNCH 3. SLING BLADE 2. & 1. WAGES OF FEAR and its remake SORCERER | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.8.182 |
Hmm. He's got the wrong version of THE THING FROM ANOTHER PLANET there, if you ask me. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.182.250 |
...and there's certainly no place for TITANIC in any list, unless it's one of "Three Reasons Why James Cameron Should Be Put To Death". | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Interesting list that says a lot about the man. The ones wouldn't get anywhere near a list of mine are; 'Titanic', 'Saturday Night Fever', '1941', 'Cujo', 'Die Hard', 'The Blair Witch Project' and the completely misjudged remake of 'The Wages Of Fear'. Where 'Mr Peabody And The Mermaid' belongs is beyond me - never heard of it! Couldn't agree more though with the rest of them - every one a masterpiece imo, a few unrecognised. Best film there is 'The Wild Bunch' hands down. Aren't lists fun...  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.224.204 |
"Hands down" I'm not sure about, Stephen - you're missing CURSE OF THE DEMON, which made the list - and KISS OF DEATH too. And POINT BLANK, a great, crazy ass insane movie if ever there was one. And THE THING, another. Though WILD BUNCH is of a higher class, I suppose, a higher level... edging upon great literature, compared to great genre literature... which the others I've listed, are.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Taste is subjective, and SK's list just proves that. Nice to see the brilliant SLING BLADE IN THERE. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.224.84 |
I've always been fond of THE CAINE MUTINY. Herman Wouk's novel is a good read, too, especially the storm part and the court proceedings aftermath. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
Yeah, the generally unrecognised ones I meant were 'The Caine Mutiny', 'Sling Blade' and 'Alfredo Garcia' which I saw recently on the big screen and made me fall in love with Peckinpah's work all over again. Three films marked by three great male performances: Bogart, Oates & Billy Bob - a lot of macho barnstorming on that list. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
Meant to include Carpenter's remake of 'The Thing' as well - for me one of the rare remakes that at least equals the original. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Pesonally, I'm delighted he listed Titanic, perhaps the last (or at any rate latest) great Hollywood melodrama and quite as worthy of a Freudian reading as, say, Written on the Wind. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.207.159 |
It's a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, too. I always thought of Titanic as a musical without songs. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.3.164 |
... worthy of a Freudian reading... Ramsey, sometimes a gigantically tall, upended ocean liner is just a gigantically tall, upended ocean liner.  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.156.233.236 |
It's great when great people like the things you do - especially when those things are often considered dumb. Yes...! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.156.233.236 |
And 1941 IS great. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
I've seen 19 of the 20 films. Agree most strongly with 'The Wild Bunch', the original 'The Wages Of Fear', 'Dr Strangelove', 'White Heat' and of course 'Night Of The Demon' (as mentioned elsewhere) which are all very high on my own All Time List. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
I've always liked Titanic. I regret now suggesting here on this board a few years ago (when I knew even less about films than I do now) that it's in the same league as, say, North By Northwest. But I still stand by it as a broad-strokes masterwork: big, dumb, moving; with some lovely touches throughout. Proto's description above is oddly accurate. I've always thought of the film as a kind of animated comic-book - a top-notch comic-book, tho. In short, if you'll forgive the pun, of its type, it's of the first water. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I agree. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
I've just printed out this thread and hung it on my wall. Zed agreeing with me about a film. Amazing. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Green Mile is the same, incidentally. Big, dumb, moving; with some lovely touches throughout. Same with Shawshank. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I think your undervaluing The Green Mile, and particularly Shawshank - there's nothing dumb about that film. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
you're | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
I don't. They're broad stories with broad characterisation. I don't mean dumb as in "Maximum Overdrive". | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Pedant.  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
That was directed at Weber... I don't think they're dumb at all, mate. Shawshank is a particularly fine film, and IMHO the characterisation is less broad than you claim. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
I love Green Mile and Shawshank. But I maintain that they're very broad in terms of theme and character. Okay, let's forget the word dumb. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
That's better. I'd knew you'd come around to my way of thinking. They always do...usually right before I make the first incision. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
I remember one reviewer saying this about Green Mile (novel): "It's children's fiction, but even so I cried." I think that's a good review of the tale. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
And Proto's right: musicals are similar. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I disagree - it's more sophisticated than that. Yes, it's common-denominator stuff (it has to be; it's a Hollywood film), but of it's type it's insighful and elegant. That reviewer actually strikes me as pretty snobbish. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Shawshank and The Green mile are much more subtle than Titanic. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Oh, fuck off.  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.140 |
THE GREEN MILE - forgettable THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION - I think this movie has become a cliche in Hollywood of the "film you like" - i.e., when people in meetings (producers, directors, etc.) ask you what films you like and admire, this one seems to be the one most often mentioned - at least, it pops up constantly under people's faves out here There's something a tad unseemly about King listing his own CUJO up there, btw.... | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.210.209.169 |
If only he'd had the guts to admit Kubrik's film of his novel warranted an inclusion over Cujo... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.2.125 |
If only he'd had the guts to admit Kubrik's film of his novel warranted an inclusion over Cujo... Not to mention THE DEAD ZONE CARRIE SALEM'S LOT MISERY CREEPSHOW STAND BY ME CAT'S EYE DOLORES CLAIBORNE APT PUPIL THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION even 1408 but NOT THE MIST!!!!!!!!! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
I just assumed his inclusion of 'Cujo' (not dreadful but very routine) was tongue-in-cheek. He can't really think it's the best adaptation of one of his works. It goes without saying that's 'The Shining'. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.244 |
Well, I've not seen CUJO since it came out, so this list spurred me to re-see and reassess it.... I must say, it's a small film - i.e., not much seems to have happened, when all's said and done (I've never read King's novel) - but it does masterfully handle its theme of "monsters.” "What is your monster?" the film asks, and then tells you that whatever it is - it will come and get you someday, so will you be strong enough to fight it off, and survive it? The film opens (after Cujo's origin) with Tad afraid of the monster in his closet, fearing it's going to come out of the dark and get him; his parents Donna and Vic comfort him, and tell him (and the audience) that of course, monsters are fantasies, fairy-tales, fictional.... Tad's "monster" will come later, explicitly, with Cujo himself: the lovable dog that inexplicably attacks, and tries to get in purely to kill and eat Tad. Monsters do exist. Things in this world sometimes do want to kill you. For Vic, it’s when he sees his wife Donna with his friend, and then later learns they are having an affair, that he comes face to face with his monster: betrayal by a loved-one. Like Tad, he runs, to his business meeting far away - he's too frightened of this monster to even face it, for now.… Donna, however, is the main protagonist here - it's her movie, not Tad's or Vic's. And the problem is, Donna is dead inside: watching through the whole set-up of the film - she's lethargic, she's weary, she's barely alive. She goes through the motions of her life; when she breaks up with her lover, she gives him solid rational reasons why she should do it - but she feels none of those things, clearly. She is a walking corpse; why she died inside, is a mystery left unexplained; but she is the one, that ultimately causes the others’ monsters to come out of their closets. But what is her monster? It only comes very late in the film: it's the prospect of her child, Tad, actually dying. Even early on in the siege, she's barely come back to awareness - she never questions where the farm family is, or why this is happening to her/them - she's just reacting, as if in some way this is just another of life's little problems. But the monster is looming, and so when death comes into the Pinto, mundanely staring her in the face when her child won't wake up - her own most fearsome monster, creaking open the closet door, to come now for her - that's when she the first time comes to life, and is proactive - it's the real, blessed relief of the film's oppressive tension. Clear, compact, tense. Much better than I remembered it being, if still not the very best King film out there…. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.185.186 |
I cried my eyes out at Green Mile. More so than at Shawshank. Is that a sign of quality, or what? Always bothers me, that. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Cujo is a punchy film. Very bleak. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.188.83 |
TITANIC is one of those guilty pleasure films. It's good at what it does but blimey is it overblown in places. The recounting of one of the greatest seafaring tragedies ever known isn't enough for Cameron, he's got to have a pair of panto villains chasing after Kate and Leo. I remember seeing it at the pictures. During Kate and Leo's big emotional finale my mate's shoulders started shaking and he was sniffling away like crazy. I got all embarrassed, pretending not to notice so he would have a chance to get his emotions under control and restore his manly demeanour. But then I realised he was actually stifling howls of laughter. I keep missing A NIGHT TO REMEMBER which looks fantastic. One bit I did see was a scene where Kenneth More is helping people into the lifeboats and a woman is refusing to leave her husband behind. Smiling, the husband calmly tells her to get their kids into the lifeboat, reassuring her that he will be along later. As he finishes speaking he glances at Kenneth More and a silent understanding passes between them; they both know he's sacrificing himself to save his family. Ten times more powerful than anything in TITANIC. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I agree totally Stu. That's what ruined 'Titanic' for me too, the completely OTT love story and gun-toting villainous cad character chasing our hero around the ship while the bloody thing was sinking. If ever there was a case of trying to have your cake and eat it - that was it! Ridiculous really! I hated the film so much (and had to go see it three times with different dates!!) that it wasn't until 'The Departed' cleansed him could I even bear to look at Leonardo Di Caprio again. Must say I'm looking forward to 'Shutter Island' as well now... 'A Night To Remember' is a marvellous movie and ten, nay a hundred times more powerful for the very understatedness of its handling of the tragedy. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
You're making it sound like Independence Day. Now that's an hilarious film. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Don't even get me started about 'Independence Day'... I much preferred 'Mars Attacks' - more convincing lol. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.187.98 |
I have a soft spot for INDEPENDENCE DAY. It's quite good fun in a daft sort of way. Mind you, it helps that when I watch it on TV I always switch channels during Bill Pullman's speech and any scene featuring Randy Quaid. It's similar to the way that I'll ignore the first 100 or so minutes of THE PHANTOM MENACE then switch over in time to catch the three-way lightsabre duel. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I suppose it's all about expectations... I went to see 'Independence Day' expecting a deadly serious, scary and exciting depiction of alien invasion with state-of-the-art special effects and instead got a load of lowest common denominator juvenile nonsense. I went to see 'Mars Attacks' about the same time expecting a black comedy spoof of 50s alien invasion movies and loved every single second of it... Tim Burton's most underrated and purely entertaining movie if you ask me. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.245.202 |
It's similar to the way that I'll ignore the first 100 or so minutes of THE PHANTOM MENACE then switch over in time to catch the three-way lightsabre duel. This selective watching is fine by me - so why did I get flack for saying that TRANSFORMERS is a pretty good film for its first half, up until the Transformers actually start talking?... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
"Cujo is a punchy film. Very bleak." Not as bleak as the book which is probably the bleakest thing King wrote after Pet Semetary. The most striking acheivement of the book though is the level of sympathy we maintain for the dog throughout. It's the equivalent of the sympathy he gives us for Jack Torrance in the Shining. We get the whole he/it's trying to kill this family but it's not his fault all the way, which tinges the horror with a much nastier edge somehow. I miss that kind of thing from his later books where good and bad are so much more clear cut. I'd read Pet Semetary a few months before Cujo and remembered the reference to Cujo where one of the characters gives the final death toll of the novel - but even though I kind of expected it - with the final death in the book I was devastated. It's one of the few books that makes me cry at the end and IMHO one of King's greatest. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
>>>We get the whole he/it's trying to kill this family but it's not his fault all the way, which tinges the horror with a much nastier edge somehow. "Free will was never an option" - I remember that line from Cujo. With human beings, of course, it's never quite so straighforward. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Also, with Jack Torrance, I'm not sure King was saying it's not his fault. I felt he was saying, "Look, this is the emotional and experiential context in which this man has been forced to live and these are the choices he makes to negotiate them. Is he evil? Did he need a supernatural nudge? You decide, constant reader." | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
But I had a whole barrel of sympathy for him all the way through - up until the point he died and then became a zombie chasing the rest of the family round the hotel. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
That sympathy for the "villains" is entirely missing from all film versions of King's work. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"The recounting of one of the greatest seafaring tragedies ever known isn't enough for Cameron, he's got to have a pair of panto villains chasing after Kate and Leo..." I see what you mean, but I think people used to object to Scott Fitzgerald and Frank Borzage focusing Three Comrades on a romantic triangle when they could just have made a film about the Third Reich. For me the crucial point about Titanic is that it's her memory, not a recreation. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.176.140 |
Fair enough. Although several scenes are a recreation as Rose wasn't around to view them firsthand. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
Film magazines seem to survive parasitically on films now, draining them of excitement by the time they stagger to their release dates. The trailer for LA GRANDE ILLUSION is just the director at his desk talking for several minutes to camera about his intentions. How thrilling it would be today if someone like Scorcese did that instead of a standard trailer. That kind of thing is all cinema needs to do to keep audiences. I really think we're on the cusp of the death of cinema as we know it. The same damage the premature arrival of sound caused to the evolution of cinematic grammar is in danger of being wreaked by new formats in the next few years. Boycott 3D. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
(Oops. I put that in the wrong thread. Should be in the Inglorious Basterds one.) | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.91 |
To go right back to Craig's comments on how a lot of people film-check 'The Shawshank Redemption' as a favourite, a kind of in-film cool thing to acknowledge, reminded me of a friend of mine who has just started his first year as a PE instructor at a London secondary school. He described how on the first day the headmistress had a 'friendly staff induction' which generally consisted of a half-hearted meeting, followed by a small questionaire on favourite books, music and films. My friend said he was listening to everybody discussing books from Nabakov to Gibrain, from movies such as Casablanca to Shawshank, from Miles Davies to The Pixies, and suddenly realised his choices made him look (in his own words), like a bit of an uneducated twat. I asked him what he'd chosen and he said: 'For a book, I don't read much apart from the papers, a biography by Tony Adams, for a film, I put down Home Alone and its sequel, and for music Queens Greatest Hits.' I asked him if he'd ever watched an episode of 'I'm Alan Partridge'? He said no, but knew what I meant. It put a smile on my face to think of my friend womdering if he should change his answers to appear one with the culture crowd. I guess you had to be there, right? | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.91 |
For those of you who went to university here in Blighty, did any of you ever notice with the terribly hip kids that they all had the same three movie posters? Scarface, Betty Blue and Taxi Driver. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Yeah, I hate well-read people who have been ecposed to culture, too. The cunts. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
eXposed | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.244.170 |
Then again, Frank, the Nazis played Beethoven and Mozart in the death camps. Culture, schmulture. All the reading in the world, the music listening, the art looking, the film watching, can't make you in and of themselves a better person, when all's said and done.... (as opposed to: feeding the hungry, standing up for the downtrodden, caring for the sick, etc., which DO make you in and of themselves a better person) (for the record, full disclosure: I'm rarely a better person....)  | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
"For those of you who went to university here in Blighty, did any of you ever notice with the terribly hip kids that they all had the same three movie posters? Scarface, Betty Blue and Taxi Driver." And the fit bird from Transvision vamp with her baps out... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Nah, it was posters of Penguin book covers by Camus and Steinbeck as well as an ironic poster of someone like Captain Kirk or Richard Whiteley. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.103 |
Prof - Camus? Steinbeck? Ain't they kinds of cheeses? |