Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 11, 2005 23:56:22 GMT
FCM Top Ten Films
The Conversation Francis Ford Coppola 1974 USA 3 votes The Deer Hunter Michael Cimino 1978 USA 3 votes The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola 1972 USA 5 votes The Godfather Part II Francis Ford Coppola 1974 USA 5 votes Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino 1994 USA 3 votes Raging Bull Martin Scorsese 1980 USA 3 votes Le samouraï The Samurai Jean-Pierre Melville 1967 France 3 votes Schindler's List Steven Spielberg 1993 USA 4 votes Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese 1976 USA 5 votes Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock 1958 USA 3 votes
Your criteria can be entirely different, but please note the criteria you used. Favourites, best, whatever. Feel free to make comments on each choice. This is a list of ten personal favourite films; and all would make a "best" list, if such a thing can exist.
I'd like to get as many members in on this as possible, much like the yearly top ten threads, which have halted momentarily due to a seeming lack of interest.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 12, 2005 0:01:07 GMT
Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes Aguirre, Wrath of God Werner Herzog 1972 West Germany The Conversation Francis Ford Coppola 1974 USA Don't Look Now Nicolas Roeg 1973 UK Eraserhead David Lynch 1976 USA The French Connection William Friedkin 1971 USA Lost In Translation Sofia Coppola 2003 USA/Japan Manhattan Woody Allen 1979 USA Le samouraï The Samurai Jean-Pierre Melville 1967 France Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese 1976 USA Week-end Weekend Jean-Luc Godard 1967 France/Italy
The criteria I used to judge these films was significance in directly influencing me, in my life, or my filmmaking, or art, etc. I've also narrowed it down (sometimes sadly) to one film per director, for variety. I was sad to see À bout de souffle and Le Mépris not make the list, but Week-end had to go on there.
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jrod
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Post by jrod on Dec 12, 2005 4:51:54 GMT
The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola 1972 USA Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock 1958 USA The Third Man Carol Reed 1949 UK Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese 1976 USA Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino 1994 USA Schindler's List Steven Spielberg 1993 USA The Godfather Part II Francis Ford Coppola 1974 USA The Conversation Francis Ford Coppola 1974 USA Once Upon A Time in the West Sergio Leone 1968 Italy/USA Goodfellas Martin Scorsese 1990 USA
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Post by thug on Dec 15, 2005 21:12:29 GMT
Chronologically
Greed Erich von Stroheim 1924 USA Duck Soup Leo McCarey 1933 USA À Bout de Souffle Breathless Jean-Luc Godard 1960 France Deux ou Trois Choses que Je Sais d'Elle Two or Three Things I Know About Her Jean-Luc Godard 1967 France A Woman Under the Influence John Cassavetes 1974 USA Annie Hall Woody Allen 1977 USA Days of Heaven Terrence Malick 1978 USA Mon Oncle d'Amerique My Uncle from America Alain Resnais 1980 France Love Streams John Cassavetes 1984 USA Batman Returns Tim Burton 1992 USA
That is, if I'm not forgetting anything. And of couse, it is subject to change by as soon as tommorow. There's just too many great films. I picked these ten because in addition to loving all ten, and feeling they are some of the truest and best masterpieces in the cinema, that they all show off what the medium is capable of.
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Post by Mike Sullivan on Dec 15, 2005 22:20:53 GMT
Casablanca Michael Curtiz 1942 USA Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock 1958 USA Singin' in the Rain Gene Kelly/Stanley Donen 1952 USA The Maltese Falcon John Huston 1941 USA The Big Red One: The Reconstruction Samuel Fuller 1980 USA Duck Soup Leo McCarey 1933 USA Modern Times Charlie Chaplin 1936 USA Ikiru Akira Kurosawa 1952 Japan Schindler's List Steven Spielberg 1993 USA It's A Wonderful Life Frank Capra 1946 USA
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Post by Vercetti on Dec 16, 2005 22:07:47 GMT
I don't even have a top ten BEST list, but I imagine it would resemble this, but a lot more thought is needed. The ones in bold are solidified in the list at the moment.
Alphabetical Order
8½ 2001: A Space Odyssey Citizen Kane The Godfather Once Upon a Time in America Le Samouraï The Seventh Seal Short Cuts Taxi Driver A Woman Under the Influence
FAVORITES ---------------- Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville;1967) Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese;1976) Collateral (Michael Mann;2004) Memento (Christopher Nolan;2000) Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino;1994) Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese;1973) Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch;1995) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles;1941) Heat (Michael Mann;1995) Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese;1980)
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Dec 19, 2005 17:52:01 GMT
Apocalypse Now (1979/Francis Ford Coppola) Blowup (1966/Michelangelo Antonioni) Goodfellas (1990/Martin Scorsese) The Graduate (1967/Mike Nichols) It's a Wonderful Life (1946/Frank Capra) The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971/Roman Polanski) Persona (1966/Ingmar Bergman) Rashomon (1950/Akira Kurosawa) Stranger Than Paradise (1984/Jim Jarmusch) Vertigo (1958/Alfred Hitchcock)
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jrod
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Post by jrod on Dec 22, 2005 1:54:54 GMT
Suprised that Im the only one who picked a Godfather film....didnt most of you come for the GangsterBB board?
Nice to see Taxi Driver is the favorite film
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Jenson71
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Post by Jenson71 on Dec 22, 2005 3:39:42 GMT
The Deer Hunter La Dolce Vita The Godfather The Godfather Part II Ikiru Lawrence of Arabia Manhattan Nights of Cabiria Raging Bull Tokyo Story
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Post by Michael on Dec 29, 2005 0:45:55 GMT
The Deer Hunter (1978; Michael Cimino) Mean Streets (1973; Martin Scorsese) The Godfather part 2 (1976; Francis Ford Coppola) Raging Bull (1980; Martin Scorsese) Unforgiven (1992; Clint Eastwood) Once Upon a Time in America (1984; Sergio Leone) The Godfather (1972; Francis Ford Coppola) The French Connection (1972; William Friedkin) The Conversation (1974; Francis Ford Coppola) Taxi Driver (1976; Martin Scorsese)
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Pherdy
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Post by Pherdy on Dec 29, 2005 0:56:43 GMT
The Godfather (1972, Coppola) The Godfather Part II (1974, Coppola) Memento (2000, Nolan) The Usual Suspects (1995, Singer) Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain (2001, Jeunet) Schindler's List (1993, Spielberg) Goodfellas (1990, Scorsese) Return of the King (2003, Jackson) Back to the Future (1985, Zemeckis) Gladiator (2000, Scott)
A lot of attention is given to entertainment value (like Back to the Future), most notably in visual aspect (hence Amelie and Gladiator), and this is definitely a favorites list, not a 'best' list.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Dec 29, 2005 1:12:37 GMT
I don't think I'll ever quite understand the difference between a 'favourites' list and a 'best' list for people who aspire (I assume) to lucid viewing.
Favourites are the films you 'like' the most.
Bests, as far as I can figure, involve the adoption of some external value system. I don't see the merit in that.
To me, the best films I've ever seen are my favourites, and my favourite films are the best I've ever seen. I guess that's a hardcore relativist stance, but I'm not comfortable evaluating art based on criteria conceived externally by someone else - a hand-me-down aesthetic.
I'll post my list soon.
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Post by Vercetti on Dec 29, 2005 2:05:24 GMT
Entertainment is too shallow a way for me to rate art, especially since it doesn't take much to entertain me. I've said this many times.
I love watching the movie Eraser, but it's one of the worst movies to come from the 90's, and has no good qualities about it.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Dec 29, 2005 2:24:25 GMT
Then why do you like watching it?
I genuinely don't understand.
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Post by Vercetti on Dec 29, 2005 2:29:15 GMT
Grading films and liking them are separate for me. Lawrence of Arabia is generally boring after a while and hard to sit through, but it's an excellent film by Lean, and one of the best epics ever.
Why do I like watching Eraser? Because I can sit back and indulge in mindless action. It's horrible, but I enjoy watching it. I don't grade films based on entertainment.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Dec 29, 2005 2:38:51 GMT
Yeah, I get that much.
What I don't understand is where/how/why you've discovered/invented/developed the criteria by which you rate Lawrence of Arabia one of the 'best' epics ever.
And, conversely, the criteria by which you rate Eraser as horrible.
I understand that you might have a 'gut' response that can be expressed in terms of "boring/entertaining" with all films. But does your ability and inclination toward actually analysing and evaluating films on an intellectual level not result in more enjoyable, rewarding, educating experiences than any 'mindless action' could?
What is your value system? Where does it come from?
See, I personally don't get bored by films at all, so I find this concept slippery.
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Post by Vercetti on Dec 29, 2005 3:37:18 GMT
Eraser: Horrible plot, horrible acting, horrible direction, and horrible effects.
In one scene Ah-nold falls from a plane, and his parachute opens 10 feet above a junkyard and he lands on a car before the chute fully opens and is able to get up and walk away. Despite the quality of it, I can still enjoy the ride if you will. I just watched some of the 1970's version of King Kong, which had horrible effects, but I enjoyed watching.
I grade films as art on several levels from direction to acting, etc. Lawrence of Arabia was wonderfully direction, had a great cast that acted just as well, and it had some of the greatest cinematography in all of cinema. It's a grand epic, but it doesn't mean I have to love it.
Music for instance. I might not like let's say, Jerry Lee Lewis all that much, but does that mean I disrespect his contribution to music? I still think he's a great musician, but I'm not a fan.
Of course. Memento is one of my favorite films, I I enjoyed reading a lot about it and watching it over and over to completely "get it." It depends on the film.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Dec 29, 2005 4:26:28 GMT
Eraser: Horrible plot, horrible acting, horrible direction, and horrible effects. Lawrence of Arabia was wonderfully direction, had a great cast that acted just as well, and it had some of the greatest cinematography in all of cinema. It's a grand epic, but it doesn't mean I have to love it. And that's exactly where you lose me. How can you at once think something is great and have no affection for it? What makes the cinematography or the acting or the direction great? Is it that you just acknowledge them as being 'objectively' great because there's a commonly accepted standard for such things, or did you have a personal reaction to them that prompted your appraisal? If it's the latter, I don't see how you wouldn't end up loving something that could provoke such thoughts and emotions in you. Yeah, so does Eraser not achieve greatness on its own terms? Its goal being mindless entertainment, thoughtful analysis being the improper approach to it.
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Post by Vercetti on Dec 29, 2005 4:54:33 GMT
That's not how I would rate Eraser. I don't care if is trying to be mindlessly entertaining. Most mindless action flicks are trying to be entertaining.
As for Lawrence of Arabia, it just depends on film-to-film. For instance, it's a beautiful film with a great story, and all else I said, but on a personal level, I'm not particularly attracted to the story. It has nothing to do with the quality of the film, it's just my gut emotion towards the film. If I watched a film and said "Wow, this is long and boring" then I would be unfair to the film's qualities. Some films aren't even made to entertain, such as Last Days, although that's a bad examples since I actually became very entertained by it (it's one of my favorites).
Here's a look at my favorites.
Le Samourai Taxi Driver Collateral Memento Pulp Fiction
Those five films are my top five favorites, why? Because they bring me the most joy. It's hard to put into words, but I distinguish this from grading films. I can respect something while not being a fan of it. Sure sometimes a film's greatness may entertain me, but it depends. For instance, Neil Young's score for Dead Man is great, and I love it. The Tangerine Dream score for Thief is great, but I don't love all of it.
It depends, some pieces of greatness may entertain me, some may not. It's difficult to explain.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 29, 2005 16:26:15 GMT
I must enter this debate. I for one am in the Wetdog camp. As I've noted before, I have a little difficulty understanding the notion between entertainment and best. To me, it is a silly concept which, in trying to be "fair" and open to two separate, mutually exclusive ideas ("entertainment" and "art", which are not at all mutually exclusive, so why separate them) is actually being pretentious, even elitist--in assuming best only by what others say. And let's be honest, if everybody else thought Lawrence of Arabia stunk most foul, you'd be less inclined to defend its direction, or other "artistic" qualities.
I think it was in 2002 where Sight & Sound tried to make a top ten list of films, and they invited filmmakers and film critics from all around the world to send their best in. The defining criteria was left entirely open. Some directors just posted a list from one to ten, some ranked their list (though it made no difference in the final list), some gave favourites, some gave best, some, like Vercetti, gave a list of "best" films to be included, then gave a list of favourites as an additional info for fun.
My list, found in the opening of this topic, is a list of Top Ten films. Neither favourite nor best, they're just my top ten films. Or, I suppose, they're both my favourite and best, since, as Wetdog put it, my favourite films are the ones I keep coming back to the most, the ones that evoke the strongest emotions in me.
Earlier this year I made my first film, I've sort of crossed the boundaries and become more knowing of my own expectations of a film. I watch films, and, I suppose, rate them, now as a film-watcher, or a film-maker. I am not a theorist, with a goal of objective fairness. I no longer want to take my personal response to somebody else's personal work out of the equation.
To hold entertainment and art as opposing attributes is reductive for me; to me, the two interlink inevitably. Art entertains me. Entertainment is art. So, with that in mind, do I find a "mindless" actioner more entertaining than Last Days? Certainly not. I find Van Sant's film a far superior film in every aspect--that is, I'd come back to it more willingly, for my emotionally starved senses to be touched upon. A thirst for machine guns and slow-motion explosions comes and goes, but the masterpieces that you'd find on my favourites list are timeless. Timeless for my needs, that is, and not for society's.
Mick
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