BCB's Top 101 Films Poll - FULL RESULTS

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algroth
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BCB's Top 101 Films Poll - FULL RESULTS

Postby algroth » 08 Jun 2011, 03:19

It's been three years since the last film-related poll, so it's about time we opened a new one. Essentially, the voting system is almost exactly like the ones employed by TopCatG and Pênk used for their respective music polls, but expanded. You will need to send a PM including FIFTY (50) films, with up to 250 points distributed as you wish among them. If the film is not in the English language, then please write both the original title and its English translation. Include year and director for each film, that way I don't get the films mixed up. Submissions will be allowed until July 18th.

At long last, THE RESULTS (WARNING - for the most part I've tried the best I could to find the original trailers, or at least clips which were representative enough of the film in order to complement the list as samples, but it is necessary to point out that some of these, despite being the official trailers of the time, contain spoilers):

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Trois couleurs: Rouge [Three Colours: Red] (1994)
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Synopsis: The final section of the late Krzysztof Kieslowski's acclaimed Three Colors trilogy (preceded by Blue and White) is the least likely of the three to stand alone, and indeed benefits from a little familiarity with the first two parts. Nevertheless, it's a strong, unique piece that reflects upon the ubiquity of images in the modern world and the parallel subjugation of meaningful communication. Irene Jacob plays a fashion model whose lovely face is hugely enlarged on a red banner no one in Geneva can possibly miss seeing. Striking up a relationship with an embittered former judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who secretly scans his neighbors' conversations through electronic surveillance, Jacob's character becomes an aural witness to the secret lives of those we think we know. Kieslowski cleverly wraps up the trilogy with a device that brings together the principals of all three films. --Tom Keogh (amazon.com)



Votes: 3
Points: 20
Voters: the masked man (5), TopCat G (10), Sgt Pepper (5)


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Barry Lyndon (1975)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Synopsis: A gentlemanly rogue travels the battlefields and parlors of 18th century Europe determined to make for himself the life of a nobleman through seduction, gambling and dueling in this methodical film showing the rhythm and life of the period. --Keith Loh (IMDb.com)



Votes: 3
Points: 20
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (8), Davey Avon FatBoy (2), PENK (10)


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La passion de Jeanne d'Arc [The Passion of Joan of Arc] (1928)
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer

Synopsis: A chronicle of the trial of Jeanne d'Arc on charges of heresy, and the efforts of her ecclesiastical jurists to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions. --IMDb.com



Votes: 3
Points: 21
Voters: Algroth (10), Ghost of Harry Smith (6), toomanyhatz (5)


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The Long Goodbye (1973)
Directed by Robert Altman

Synopsis: Elliott Gould gives one of his best performances (Esquire) as a quirky, mischievous PhilipMarlowe in Robert Altman's fascinating and original (Newsweek) send-up of Raymond Chandler's classic detective story. Co-starring Nina Van Pallandt and Sterling Hayden and written by Leigh Brackett (The Big Sleep) The Long Goodbye is a gloriously inspired tribute to Hollywood (The Hollywood Reporter) with an ending that's as controversial as it is provocative (Los Angeles Times)! Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe (Gould) faces the most bizarre case of his life, when a friend's apparent suicide turns into a double murder involving a sexy blonde, a disturbed gangster and a suitcase full of drug money. But as Marlowe stumbles toward the truth, hesoon finds himself lost in a maze of sex and deceitonly to discover that in L.A., if love is dangerous friendship is murder. --DVD description



Votes: 3
Points: 22
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), Owen (7), Brer Baron (10)


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Harold and Maude (1971)
Directed by Hal Ashby

Synopsis: Black comedies don't come much blacker than this cult favorite from 1972, and they don't come much funnier, either. It seemed that director Hal Ashby was the perfect choice to mine a mother lode of eccentricity from the original script by Colin Higgins, about the unlikely romance between a death-obsessed 19-year-old named Harold (Bud Cort) and a life-loving 79-year-old widow named Maude (Ruth Gordon). They meet at a funeral, and Maude finds something oddly appealing about Harold, urging him to "reach out" and grab life by the lapels as opposed to dwelling morbidly on mortality. Harold grows fond of the old gal--she's a lot more fun than the girls his mother desperately matches him up with--and together they make Harold & Maude one of the sweetest and most unconventional love stories ever made. Much of the earlier humor arises from Harold's outrageous suicide fantasies, played out as a kind of twisted parlor game to mortify his mother, who's grown immune to her strange son's antics. Gradually, however, the film's clever humor shifts to a brighter outlook and finally arrives at a point where Harold is truly happy to be alive. Featuring soundtrack songs by Cat Stevens, this comedy certainly won't appeal to all tastes (it was a box-office flop when first released), but if you're on its quirky wavelength, it might just strike you as one of the funniest movies you've ever seen. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 3
Points: 35
Voters: martha (25), Goat Boy (5), kath (5)


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The Searchers (1956)
Directed by John Ford

Synopsis: A favorite film of some of the world's greatest filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, John Ford's The Searchers has earned its place in the legacy of great American films for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most notably, it's the definitive role for John Wayne as an icon of the classic Western--the hero (or antihero) who must stand alone according to the unwritten code of the West. The story takes place in Texas in 1868; Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a Confederate veteran who visits his brother and sister-in-law at their ranch and is horrified when they are killed by marauding Comanches. Ethan's search for a surviving niece (played by young Natalie Wood) becomes an all-consuming obsession. With the help of a family friend (Jeffrey Hunter) who is himself part Cherokee, Ethan hits the trail on a five-year quest for revenge. At the peak of his masterful talent, director Ford crafts this classic tale as an embittered examination of racism and blind hatred, provoking Wayne to give one of the best performances of his career. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 11
Voters: GoogaMooga (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (2), Rocky Bronzino (3), Brer Baron (1)


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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Directed by George Roy Hill

Synopsis: Paul Newman and Robert Redford set the standard for the "buddy film" with this box office smash set in the Old West. The Sundance Kid (Redford) is the frontier's fastest gun. His sidekick, Butch Cassidy (Newman), is always dreaming up new ways to get rich fast. If only they could blow open a baggage car without also blowing up the money-filled safe inside... Or remember that Sundance can't swim before they escape a posse by leaping off a cliff into rushing rapids... Times are changing in the west and life is getting tougher. So Butch and Sundance pack their guns, don new duds, and, with Sundance's girlfriend (Katharine Ross), head down to Bolivia. Never mind that they don't speak Spanish - they'll manage somehow. A winner of four Academy Awards (including best screenplay and best song), here is a thoroughly enjoyable blend of fact and fancy done with true affection for a bygone era and featuring the two flashiest, friendliest funniest outlaws who ever called out "hands up!" --DVD description



Votes: 4
Points: 12
Voters: martha (2), Thesiger (2), Fangedango! (5), PENK (3)


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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Directed by Michel Gondry

Synopsis: Screenwriters rarely develop a distinctive voice that can be recognized from movie to movie, but the ornate imagination of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has made him a unique and much-needed cinematic presence. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a guy decides to have the memories of his ex-girlfriend erased after she's had him erased from her own memory--but midway through the procedure, he changes his mind and struggles to hang on to their experiences together. In other hands, the premise of memory-erasing would become a trashy science-fiction thriller; Kaufman, along with director Michel Gondry, spins this idea into a funny, sad, structurally complex, and simply enthralling love story that juggles morality, identity, and heartbreak with confident skill.--Bret Fetzer (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 14
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (4), geoffcowgill (5), rock the kaspar (2), Rocky Bronzino (3)


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The Hustler (1961)
Directed by Robert Rossen

Synopsis: Paul Newman shines as cocky poolroom hustler "Fast" Eddie Felson in Robert Rossen's atmospheric adaptation of the Walter Tevis novel. Newman's Felson is a swaggering pool shark punk who takes on the king of the poolroom, Minnesota Fats (a cool, assured Jackie Gleason in his most understated performance). After losing big and crashing into a void of self-pity, Eddie meets down-and-out Sarah (Piper Laurie in a delicate performance), an alcoholic blue blood who's dropped into Eddie's world of dingy bars and seedy poolrooms. Eddie regains his confidence and attracts the attention of a shifty, calculating promoter, Bert Gordon (George C. Scott at his most heartless), who offers to bring Eddie into the big money--but at what cost? Rossen brings his film to life with the easy pace of a pool game, giving his actors room to explore their characters and develop into a razor-sharp ensemble. Eugen Schüfftan earned an Academy Award for his shadowing black-and-white cinematography, as did art directors Harry Horner and Gene Callahan for their deceivingly simple set designs. Even in the daylight this film seems to be smothered by night, lit by the dim glow of a bar lamp or the overhead glare of a pool-table light, an appropriate environment for this tale of one man's struggle with his soul and his self-esteem. --Sean Axmaker (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 14
Voters: mentalist (slight return) (5), rock the kaspar (2), The RightGraduate Profile (3), whodathunkit (4)


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The Usual Suspects (1995)
Directed by Bryan Singer

Synopsis: Following a truck hijack in New York, five conmen are arrested and brought together for questioning. As none of them is guilty, they plan a revenge operation against the police. The operation goes well, but then the influence of a legendary mastermind criminal called Keyser Söze is felt. It becomes clear that each one of them has wronged Söze at some point and must pay back now. The payback job leaves 27 men dead in a boat explosion, but the real question arises now: Who actually is Keyser Söze? --Soumitra (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 15
Voters: Polishgirl (5), BlueMeanie (6), the masked man (2), rock the kaspar (2)


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Trainspotting (1996)
Directed by Danny Boyle

Synopsis: A wild, freeform, Rabelaisian trip through the darkest recesses of Edinburgh low-life, focusing on Mark Renton and his attempt to give up his heroin habit, and how the latter affects his relationship with family and friends: Sean Connery wannabe Sick Boy, dimbulb Spud, psycho Begbie, 14-year-old girlfriend Diane, and clean-cut athlete Tommy, who's never touched drugs but can't help being curious about them... --Michael Brooke (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 15
Voters: martha (2), BlueMeanie (3), the masked man (4), The RightGraduate Profile (6)


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Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes [Aguirre, The Wrath of God] (1972)
Directed by Werner Herzog

Synopsis: Quite simply a great movie, one whose implacable portrait of ruthless greed and insane ambition becomes more pertinent every year. The astonishing Klaus Kinski plays Don Lope de Aguirre, a brutal conquistador who leads his soldiers into the Amazon jungle in an obsessive quest for gold. The story is of the expedition's relentless degeneration into brutality and despair, but the movie is much more than its plot. Director Werner Herzog strove, whenever possible, to replicate the historical circumstances of the conquistadors, and the sheer human effort of traveling through the dense mountains and valleys of Brazil in armor creates a palpable sense of struggle and derangement. This sense of reality, combined with Kinski's intensely furious performance, makes Aguirre, the Wrath of God a riveting film. Its unique emotional power is matched only by other Herzog-Kinski collaborations like Fitzcarraldo and Woyzek. --Bret Fetzer (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 15
Voters: Algroth (2), Snarfyguy (5), Goat Boy (5), The RightGraduate Profile (3)


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If.... (1968)
Directed by Lindsay Anderson

Synopsis: In an indictment of the British Boys School, we follow Mick and his mostly younger friends through a series of indignities and occasionally abuse as any fond feelings toward these schools are destroyed. --John Vogel (IMDb.com)

If…., directed by Lindsay Anderson (This Sporting Life), is a daringly chaotic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell made a hell of an impression as the insouciant Mick Travis, who, along with his school chums, trumps authority at every turn, finally emerging as a violent savior against the vicious games of one-upmanship played by both students and masters. Mixing color and black and white as audaciously as it mixes fantasy and reality, [/i]If….[/i] remains one of cinema’s most unforgettable rebel yells. --Criterion Collection



Votes: 4
Points: 15
Voters: Algroth (1), Thesiger (8), TopCat G (3), The RightGraduate Profile (3)


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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Directed by Peter Jackson

Synopsis: Gondor is overrun by the orcs of Mordor, and Gandalf rides to Minas Tirith to aid the humans in the war that is ahead. Aragorn must realize his true identity and purpose as the King of Men, and journey with Gimli and Legolas to summon the Army of the Dead so that the battle against evil can be won. Meanwhile, paranoia and suspicion rises between Frodo, Sam and Gollum as they continue their increasingly dark and dangerous travel to Mount Doom, the one place where The Ring can be destroyed once and for all. --Qrrbirbel (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 16
Voters: Polishgirl (5), martha (1), kath (5), Fangedango! (5)


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The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Directed by Frank Darabont

Synopsis: When this popular prison drama was released in 1994, some critics complained that the movie was too long (142 minutes) to sustain its story. Those complaints miss the point, because the passage of time is crucial to this story about patience, the squeaky wheels of justice, and the growth of a life-long friendship. Only when the film reaches its final, emotionally satisfying scene do you fully understand why writer-director Frank Darabont (adapting a novella by Stephen King) allows the story to unfold at its necessary pace, and the effect is dramatically rewarding. Tim Robbins plays a banker named Andy who's sent to Shawshank Prison on a murder charge, but as he gets to know a life-term prisoner named Red (Morgan Freeman), we realize there's reason to believe the banker's crime was justifiable. We also realize that Andy's calm, quiet exterior hides a great reserve of patience and fortitude, and Red comes to admire this mild-mannered man who first struck him as weak and unfit for prison life. So it is that The Shawshank Redemption builds considerable impact as a prison drama that defies the conventions of the genre (violence, brutality, riots) to illustrate its theme of faith, friendship, and survival. Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Actor, and Screenplay, it's a remarkable film that signaled the arrival of a promising new filmmaker - a film that many movie lovers count among their all-time favorites. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 16
Voters: beenieman (5), rock the kaspar (3), Fangedango! (5), Rocky Bronzino (3)


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The Deer Hunter (1978)
Directed by Michael Cimino

Synopsis: Michael, Steven and Nick are young factory workers from Pennsylvania who enlist into the Army to fight in Vietnam. Before they go, Steven marries the pregnant Angela and their wedding-party is also the men's farewell party. After some time and many horrors the three friends fall in the hands of the Vietcong and are brought to a prison camp in which they are forced to play Russian roulette against each other. Michael makes it possible for them to escape, but they soon get separated again. --Leon Walters (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 17
Voters: beenieman (2), Davey Avon FatBoy (4), whodathunkit (8), PENK (3)


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Il conformista [The Conformist] (1970)
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Synopsis: With The Conformist, Bernardo Bertolucci delivered one of his signature masterworks and joined the ranks of world-class directors. Based on the acclaimed novel by Alberto Moravia (who greatly admired Bertolucci's adaptation), this milestone of cinematic style concerns one of Bertolucci's dominant themes--the duality of sexual and political conflict--in telling the story of Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a 30-year-old Italian haunted by the memory of a sexually traumatic childhood experience. As an adult with repressed homosexual desires, Marcello wants nothing more than to conform to the upper-crust expectations of Italian society, so he marries the dim-witted, petit-bourgeois Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), and willfully joins the Italian Fascist movement, traveling from Rome to Paris with an assignment to assassinate his former academic mentor, Prof. Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). As he grows attracted to Quadri's bisexual wife Anna (Dominique Sanda), who is in turn attracted to Giulia, Marcello's path of duplicity parallels that of Mussolini's inevitable downfall. He's on an irreversible course of self-destruction, on which his troubled past and morally corrupted present will collide in a soul-crushing heap of personal contradictions. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 18
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), Goat Boy (5), The RightGraduate Profile (3), Sgt Pepper (5)


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A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Synopsis: Briefed by the Ministry of Information to make a film that would foster Anglo-American relations in the post-war period, innovative filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger came up with A Matter of Life and Death, an extravagant and extraordinary fantasy in which David Niven stars as a downed pilot who must justify his continuing existence to a heavenly panel because he has made the mistake of falling in love with an American girl (Kim Hunter) when he really should have been dead. National stereotypes are lampooned as the angelic judges squabble over his fate. In a neat reversal of expectations, the Heaven sequences are black and white, while Earth is seen in Technicolor. Daring cinematography mixes monochrome and color, incorporates time-lapse images, and even toys with background "time freezes" 50 years before The Matrix. Roger Livesey and Raymond Massey lead the fine supporting cast. This is one of the undoubted jewels of British cinema. --Mark Walker (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 18
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (8), TopCat G (3), geoffcowgill (2), Sgt Pepper (5)


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Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Directed by Robert Hamer

Synopsis: Set in Victorian England, Robert Hamer's 1949 masterpiece Kind Hearts and Coronets remains the most gracefully mordant of the Ealing comedies. Dennis Price plays Louis D'Ascoyne, the would-be Duke of Chalfont whose mother was spurned by her noble family for marrying an Italian singer for love. Louis resolves to avenge his mother by murdering the relatives ahead of him in line for the dukedom, all of whom are played by Alec Guinness. Guinness's virtuoso performances have been justly celebrated, ranging from a youthful D'Ascoyne with a priggish wife to a brace of doomed uncles and one aunt. Miles Malleson is a splendid doggerel-spouting hangman, while Valerie Hobson and Joan Greenwood take advantage of unusually strong female roles. But the great joy of Kind Hearts and Coronets is the way in which its appallingly black subject matter (considered beyond the pale by many critics at the time) is conveyed in such elegantly ironic turns of phrase by Price's narrator/antihero. Serial murder has never been conducted with such exquisite manners and discreet charm. --David Stubbs (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 19
Voters: All mimsy (5), whodathunkit (5), Owen (4), Sgt Pepper (5)


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Memento (2000)
Directed by Christopher Nolan

Synopsis: Leonard is an insurance investigator whose memory has been damaged following a head injury he sustained after intervening on his wife's murder. His quality of life has been severely hampered after this event, and he can now only live a comprehendable life by tattooing notes on himself and taking pictures of things with a Polaroid camera. The movie is told in forward flashes of events that are to come that compensate for his unreliable memory, during which he has liaisons with various complex characters. Leonard badly wants revenge for his wife's murder, but, as numerous characters explain, there may be little point if he won't remember it in order to provide closure for him. The movie veers between these future occurrences and a telephone conversation Leonard is having in his motel room in which he compares his current state to that of a client whose claim he once dealt with. --T. Graham (Imdb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 19
Voters: Polishgirl (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (6), the masked man (5), Rocky Bronzino (3)


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Persona (1966)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Synopsis: With some of the most iconic imagery ever committed to film, this exceptionally beautiful specimenof movie-making (The New Yorker) is recognized as a modern masterpiece and a landmark in late twentieth-century art (Time Out London). Actress Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann) has stopped speaking and withdrawn completely. Under doctor's orders, she's taken to a remote seaside cottage by a nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson). Alma chats to fill the silence and gradually begins to lay bare her entire identity until she discovers it is being coolly sucked away from her. As the women battle for control and sanity, the question becomes not which of them is patient and which is caregiver, but are they two separate women at all? --DVD description



Votes: 4
Points: 19
Voters: Algroth (4), Goat Boy (5), the masked man (6), Brer Baron (4)


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The Conversation (1974)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Synopsis: Francis Ford Coppola’s provoking mystery-thriller stars Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, an expert surveillance man. A routine wiretapping job turns into a nightmare when Harry hears something disturbing in his recording of a young couple in a park. His investigation of the tape and how it might be used sends Harry spiraling into a web of secrecy, murder and paranoia. Set against the backdrop of San Francisco, THE CONVERSATION is a harrowing psychological thriller that costars Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest and Harrison Ford and symbolizes the uneasy line where technology and privacy cross. --Amazon.com



Votes: 4
Points: 20
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (8), the masked man (4), The RightGraduate Profile (3)


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The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Directed by John Ford

Synopsis: Ranking No. 21 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films, this 1940 classic is a bit dated in its noble sentimentality, but it remains a luminous example of Hollywood classicism from the peerless director of mythic Americana, John Ford. Adapted by Nunnally Johnson from John Steinbeck's classic novel, the film tells a simple story about Oklahoma farmers leaving the depression-era dustbowl for the promised land of California, but it's the story's emotional resonance and theme of human perseverance that makes the movie so richly and timelessly rewarding. It's all about the humble Joad family's cross-country trek to escape the economic devastation of their ruined farmland, beginning when Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) returns from a four-year prison term to discover that his family home is empty. He's reunited with his family just as they're setting out for the westbound journey, and thus begins an odyssey of saddening losses and strengthening hopes. As Ma Joad, Oscar-winner Jane Darwell is the embodiment of one of America's greatest social tragedies and the "Okie" spirit of pressing forward against all odds (as she says, "because we're the people"). A documentary-styled production for which Ford and cinematographer Gregg Toland demanded painstaking authenticity, The Grapes of Wrath is much more than a classy, old-fashioned history lesson. With dialogue and scenes that rank among the most moving and memorable ever filmed, it's a classic among classics--simply put, one of the finest films ever made. --Jeff Shannon (amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 20
Voters: mentalist (slight return) (5), geoffcowgill (6), All mimsy (5), Davey Avon FatBoy (4)


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Raging Bull (1980)
Directed by Martin Scorsese

Synopsis: Martin Scorsese's brutal black-and-white biography of self-destructive boxer Jake LaMotta was chosen as the best film of the 1980s in a major critics' poll at the end of the decade, and it's a knockout piece of filmmaking. Robert De Niro plays LaMotta (famously putting on 50 pounds for the later scenes), a man tormented by demons he doesn't understand and prone to uncontrollably violent temper tantrums and fits of irrational jealousy. He marries a striking young blond (Cathy Moriarty), his sexual ideal, and then terrorizes her with never-ending accusations of infidelity. Jake is as frightening as he is pathetic, unable to control or comprehend the baser instincts that periodically, and without warning, turn him into the rampaging beast of the title. But as Roman Catholic Scorsese sees it, he works off his sins in the boxing ring, where his greatest athletic talent is his ability to withstand punishment. The fight scenes are astounding; they're like barbaric ritual dance numbers. Images smash into one another--a flashbulb, a spray of sweat, a fist, a geyser of blood--until you feel dazed from the pummeling. Nominated for a handful of Academy Awards (including best picture and director), Raging Bull won only two, for De Niro and for editor Thelma Schoonmacher. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 20
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (2), geoffcowgill (8), whodathunkit (5), Fangedango! (5)


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Metropolis (1927)
Directed by Fritz Lang

Synopsis: Sometime in the future, the city of Metropolis is home to a Utopian society where its wealthy residents live a carefree life. One of those is Freder Fredersen. One day, he spots a beautiful woman with a group of children, she and the children who quickly disappear. Trying to follow her, he, oblivious to such, is horrified to find an underground world of workers, apparently who run the machinery which keeps the above ground Utopian world functioning. One of the few people above ground who knows about the world below is Freder's father, Joh Fredersen, who is the founder and master of Metropolis. Freder learns that the woman is Maria, who espouses the need to join the "hands" - the workers - to the "head" - those in power above - by a mediator or the "heart". Freder wants to help the plight of the workers in the want for a better life. But when Joh learns of what Maria is espousing and that Freder is joining their cause, Joh, with the assistance of an old colleague and now nemesis named Rotwang, an inventor, works toward quashing a supposed uprising, with Maria as the center of their plan. However, Joh is unaware that Rotwang has his own agenda. But if any of these plans includes the shut down of the machines, total anarchy could break loose both above ground and below. --Huggo (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 20
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), meetthesonics (5), kath (5), PENK (5)


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City Lights (1931)
Directed by Charles Chaplin

Synopsis: A little tramp living in the big city has a profound effect on two people he meets. The first is a wealthy man, who the tramp saves from killing himself during the wealthy man's drunken stupor. However, the relationship between the wealthy man and the tramp continually changes depending on the drunken or sober state of the wealthy man. The second is a poor blind flower girl, who lives with her destitute grandmother. The kindness of the tramp toward her makes her fall in love with him, as he is with her. By circumstance, she believes that he is a wealthy man. When he learns that an expensive operation can restore her eyesight, the tramp does whatever he can to earn the money to pay for the operation, even if the result is that she will find out that he is not the wealthy man she believes and which by association may make her change her blind opinion of him. --Huggo (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 20
Voters: meetthesonics (5), GoogaMooga (5), The RightGraduate Profile (3), toomanyhatz (7)
Last edited by algroth on 31 Aug 2011, 04:46, edited 28 times in total.

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algroth
Posts: 5714
Joined: 04 Apr 2010, 03:12

Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby algroth » 08 Jun 2011, 03:20

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The Wild Bunch (1969)
Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Synopsis: Here's how director Sam Peckinpah described his motivation behind The Wild Bunch at the time of the film's 1969 release: "I was trying to tell a simple story about bad men in changing times. The Wild Bunch is simply what happens when killers go to Mexico. The strange thing is you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line." All of these statements are true, but they don't begin to cover the impact that Peckinpah's film had on the evolution of American movies. Now the film is most widely recognized as a milestone event in the escalation of screen violence, but that's a label of limited perspective. Of course, Peckinpah's bloody climactic gunfight became a masterfully directed, photographed, and edited ballet of graphic violence that transcended the conventional Western and moved into a slow-motion realm of pure cinematic intensity. But the film--surely one of the greatest Westerns ever made--is also a richly thematic tale of, as Peckinpah said, "bad men in changing times." The year is 1913 and the fading band of thieves known as the Wild Bunch (led by William Holden as Pike) decide to pull one last job before retirement. But an ambush foils their plans, and Peckinpah's film becomes an epic yet intimate tale of betrayed loyalties, tenacious rivalry, and the bunch's dogged determination to maintain their fading code of honor among thieves. The Wild Bunch is a masterpiece that should not be defined strictly in terms of its violence, but as a story of mythic proportion, brimming with rich characters and dialogue and the bittersweet irony of outlaw traditions on the wane. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 21
Voters: meetthesonics (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), Jeff K (5), Davey Avon FatBoy (6)


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The Big Sleep (1946)
Directed by Howard Hawks

Synopsis: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made screen history together more than once, but they were never more popular than in this 1946 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel, directed by Howard Hawks (To Have and Have Not). Bogart plays private eye Philip Marlowe, who is hired by a wealthy socialite (Bacall) to look into troubles stirred up by her wild, young sister (Martha Vickers). Legendarily complicated (so much so that even Chandler had trouble following the plot), the film is nonetheless hugely entertaining and atmospheric, an electrifying plunge into the exotica of detective fiction. William Faulkner wrote the screenplay. --Tom Keogh (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 21
Voters: TopCat G (3), All mimsy (8), Owen (5), Sgt Pepper (5)


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The Graduate (1967)
Directed by Mike Nichols

Synopsis: Ben has recently graduated college, with his parents now expecting great things from him. At his "Homecoming" party, Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father's business partner, has Ben drive her home, which leads to an affair between the two. The affair eventually ends, but comes back to haunt him when he finds himself falling for Elaine, Mrs. Robinson's daughter. --Zac Abrams (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 22
Voters: meetthesonics (5), martha (5), Thesiger (6), Davey Avon FatBoy (6)


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The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Directed by George Cukor

Synopsis: Re-creating the role she originated in Philip Barry's wickedly witty Broadway play, Katharine Hepburn stars as the spoiled and snobby socialite Tracy Lord in this sparkling 1940 screen adaptation of The Philadelphia Story, one of the great romantic comedies from the golden age of MGM studios. Applying her impossibly high ideals to everyone but herself, Tracy is about to marry a stuffy executive when her congenial ex-husband (Cary Grant), arrives to protect his former father-in-law from a potentially scandalous tabloid exposé. In an Oscar-winning role, James Stewart is the scandal reporter who falls for Tracy as her wedding day arrives, throwing her into a dizzying state of premarital jitters. Who will join Tracy at the altar? Snappy dialogue flows like sparkling wine under the sophisticated direction of George Cukor in this film that turned the tide of Hepburn's career from "box-office poison" to glamorous Hollywood star. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 22
Voters: meetthesonics (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (2), All mimsy (9), whodathunkit (6)


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All About Eve (1950)
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Synopsis: Aspiring actress Eve Harrington maneuvers her way into the lives of Broadway star Margo Channing, playwright Lloyd Richards and director Bill Sampson. This classic story of ambition and betrayal has become part of American folklore. Bette Davis claims to have based her character on the persona of film actress Talullah Bankhead. Davis' line "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night" is legendary, but, in fact, all of the film's dialog sparkles with equal brilliance. --Jeanne Baker (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 22
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), kath (5), All mimsy (8), Owen (4)


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Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Directed by Howard Hawks

Synopsis: "The love impulse in man," says a psychiatrist in Bringing Up Baby, "frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict." That's for sure. For a primer on the rules and regulations of the classic screwball comedy, which throws love and conflict into close proximity, look no further. A straight-laced paleontologist (Cary Grant) loses a dinosaur bone to a dog belonging to free-spirited heiress Katharine Hepburn. In trying to retrieve said bone, Grant is drawn into the vortex surrounding the delicious Hepburn, which becomes a flirtatious pas de deux that will transform both of them. Director Howard Hawks plays the complications as a breathless escalation of their "love impulse," yet the movie is nonetheless romantic for all its speed. (Hawks's His Girl Friday, also with Grant, goes even faster.) Grant and Hepburn are a match made in movie heaven, in sync with each other throughout. Not a great box-office success when first released, Bringing Up Baby has since taken its place as a high-water mark of the screwball form, and it was used as a model for Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc? --Robert Horton (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 23
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (5), kath (5), geoffcowgill (8), Owen (5)


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Fargo (1996)
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

Synopsis: Leave it to the wildly inventive Coen brothers (Joel directs, Ethan produces, they both write) to concoct a fiendishly clever kidnap caper that's simultaneously a comedy of errors, a Midwestern satire, a taut suspense thriller, and a violent tale of criminal misfortune. It all begins when a hapless car salesman (played to perfection by William H. Macy) ineptly orchestrates the kidnapping of his own wife. The plan goes horribly awry in the hands of bumbling bad guys Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare (one of them being described by a local girl as "kinda funny lookin'" and "not circumcised"), and the pregnant sheriff of Brainerd, Minnesota, (played exquisitely by Frances McDormand in an Oscar-winning role) is suddenly faced with a case of multiple murders. Her investigation is laced with offbeat observations about life in the rural hinterland of Minnesota and North Dakota, and Fargo embraces its local yokels with affectionate humor. At times shocking and hilarious, Fargo is utterly unique and distinctly American, bearing the unmistakable stamp of its inspired creators. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 23
Voters: All mimsy (3), The RightGraduate Profile (10), whodathunkit (5), Rocky Bronzino (5)


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L'année dernière à Marienbad [Last Year in Marienbad] (1961)
Directed by Alain Resnais

Synopsis: One of the most ferociously iconoclastic and experimental films of the French New Wave, Alain Resnais's 1961 feature, winner of the grand prize at that year's Venice Film Festival, is based on a script by Alain Robbe-Grillet. At its center is what seems to be a simple but unanswerable puzzle: Did its protagonist (Giorgio Albertazzi) have an affair the year before with a woman (Delphine Seyrig) he just met (or possibly re-met) at his hotel? The inquiry becomes an unsettling experiment in flattening the dimensions of past, present, and future so that any difference between them becomes meaningless, while Resnais's coldly formal but oddly dreamlike geometric compositions make space itself seem a function of subjective memory. Add to that Resnais's trademark tracking shots--long, smooth, a visual correlative of a wordless feeling--and this is a film that truly gets under the skin in almost inexplicable ways. One of the most influential works of its time. --Tom Keogh (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 24
Voters: Algroth (6), Goat Boy (5), the masked man (8), PENK (5)


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Bande à part [Band of Outsiders] (1964)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Synopsis: Described by its maker, Jean-Luc Godard, as "Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka," this 1964 film noir stars Anna Karina as a naive woman who takes up with couple of would-be bad guys (Claude Brasseur, Sami Frey) in a disastrous effort to rob her aunt of a fortune. Along the way, the motley group joins the Godardian (and Hollywood gangster) tradition of characters who walk a line between reality and invention, in this case distracting themselves by running around the Louvre, taking a stab at learning English, stumbling through some dance steps, and reenacting the death of Billy the Kid. A uniquely spontaneous work in Godard's canon, Band of Outsiders also continues the Brechtian strain in the director's merged relationship with Karina, his then-wife and artistic muse. Yet it is also more buoyantly unpredictable in its sense of romantic doom than any of the director's movies since his seminal debut, Breathless (also a gangster film, not coincidentally). --Tom Keogh



Votes: 4
Points: 25
Voters: meetthesonics (5), Jeff K (5), The RightGraduate Profile (10), Owen (5)


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Ikiru [To Live] (1952)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Synopsis: Blessed with timeless humanity, grace, and heartbreaking compassion, Ikiru is one of the most moving dramas in the history of film. Legendary director Akira Kurosawa is best remembered for his samurai epics, but this contemporary masterpiece ranks among his greatest achievements, matched in every respect by the finest performance of Takashi Shimura's celebrated career. Shimura, who nobly led the Seven Samurai two years later, is sublimely perfect as a melancholy civil servant who, upon learning that he has terminal cancer, realizes he has nothing to show for his dreary, unsatisfying life. He seeks solace in nightlife and family, to no avail, until a simple inspiration leads him to a final, enduring act of public generosity. Expressing his own thoughts about death and the universal desire for a meaningful existence, Kurosawa infuses this drama with social conscience and deep, personal conviction, arriving at a conclusion that is emotionally overwhelming and simply unforgettable. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 26
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), Goat Boy (5), geoffcowgill (8), Davey Avon FatBoy (8)


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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Synopsis: When Stanley Kubrick recruited Arthur C. Clarke to collaborate on "the proverbial intelligent science fiction film," it's a safe bet neither the maverick auteur nor the great science fiction writer knew they would virtually redefine the parameters of the cinema experience. A daring experiment in unconventional narrative inspired by Clarke's short story "The Sentinel," 2001 is a visual tone poem (barely 40 minutes of dialogue in a 139-minute film) that charts a phenomenal history of human evolution. From the dawn-of-man discovery of crude but deadly tools in the film's opening sequence to the journey of the spaceship Discovery and metaphysical birth of the "star child" at film's end, Kubrick's vision is meticulous and precise. In keeping with the director's underlying theme of dehumanization by technology, the notorious, seemingly omniscient computer HAL 9000 has more warmth and personality than the human astronauts it supposedly is serving. (The director also leaves the meaning of the black, rectangular alien monoliths open for discussion.) This theme, in part, is what makes 2001 a film like no other, though dated now that its postmillennial space exploration has proven optimistic compared to reality. Still, the film is timelessly provocative in its pioneering exploration of inner- and outer-space consciousness. With spectacular, painstakingly authentic special effects that have stood the test of time, Kubrick's film is nothing less than a cinematic milestone--puzzling, provocative, and perfect. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 28
Voters: Algroth (14), Snarfyguy (5), rock the kaspar (4), Davey Avon FatBoy (5)


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In a Lonely Place (1950)
Directed by Nicholas Ray

Synopsis: Screenwriter Dixon Steele, faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy bestseller, has hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humor tell against him. Fortunately, lovely neighbor Laurel Gray gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed, and their friendship ripens into love. Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them? --Rob Crawford (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 30
Voters: mentalist (slight return) (5), Davey avon FatBoy (8), Owen (7), Brer Baron (10)


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Psycho (1960)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Synopsis: For all the slasher pictures that have ripped off Psycho (and particularly its classic set piece, the "shower scene"), nothing has ever matched the impact of the real thing. More than just a first-rate shocker full of thrills and suspense, Psycho is also an engrossing character study in which director Alfred Hitchcock skillfully seduces you into identifying with the main characters--then pulls the rug (or the bathmat) out from under you. Anthony Perkins is unforgettable as Norman Bates, the mama's boy proprietor of the Bates Motel; and so is Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, who makes an impulsive decision and becomes a fugitive from the law, hiding out at Norman's roadside inn for one fateful night. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 33
Voters: BlueMeanie (10), TopCat G (10), Davey Avon FatBoy (5), whodathunkit (8)


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Touch of Evil (1958)
Directed by Orson Welles

Synopsis: Considered by many to be the greatest B movie ever made, the original-release version of Orson Welles's film noir masterpiece Touch of Evil was, ironically, never intended as a B movie at all--it merely suffered that fate after it was taken away from writer-director Welles, then reedited and released in 1958 as the second half of a double feature. Time and critical acclaim would eventually elevate the film to classic status (and Welles's original vision was meticulously followed for the film's 1998 restoration), but for four decades this original version stood as a testament to Welles's directorial genius. From its astonishing, miraculously choreographed opening shot (lasting over three minutes) to Marlene Dietrich's classic final line of dialogue, this sordid tale of murder and police corruption is like a valentine for the cinematic medium, with Welles as its love-struck suitor. As the corpulent cop who may be involved in a border-town murder, Welles faces opposition from a narcotics officer (Charlton Heston) whose wife (Janet Leigh) is abducted and held as the pawn in a struggle between Heston's quest for truth and Welles's control of carefully hidden secrets. The twisting plot is wildly entertaining (even though it's harder to follow in this original version), but even greater pleasure is found in the pulpy dialogue and the sheer exuberance of the dazzling directorial style. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 36
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), meetthesonics (5), GoogaMooga (5), toomanyhatz (21)


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A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Synopsis: In a futuristic Britain, a gang of teenagers go on the rampage every night, beating and raping helpless victims. After one of the boys quells an uprising in the gang, they knock him out and leave him for the police to find. He agrees to try "aversion therapy" to shorten his jail sentence. When he is eventually let out, he hates violence, but the rest of his gang members are still after him. --Colin Tinto (IMDb.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 38
Voters: Thesiger (8), kath (5), rock the kaspar (20), Jeff K (5)


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Der Himmel über Berlin [Wings of Desire] (1987)
Directed by Wim Wenders

Synopsis: "There are angels over the streets of Berlin," quotes the movie poster, but these are like no angels you've ever seen. Bundled in dark overcoats, they watch over the city with ears open to the heartbeat of the human soul, listening to the internal musings and yearnings of earthbound humans like existential detectives. In these delicate, astounding scenes we float through the thoughts of dozens Berlin citizens, from the weary and worn to the hopeful and young, as the angels record the magic moments for some heavenly record. But when Damiel (the empathic and sensitive Bruno Ganz) falls in love with an angel of another sort, the lonely trapeze artist Marion (willowy, sad-eyed Solveig Dommartin), he gives up the contemplation and observation of life to experience it himself.

Wim Wenders's most purely romantic film is like poetry on celluloid, a celebration of the transient and fragile moments of being human: the warmth of a cup of coffee on a cold day, the embrace of a friend, the touch of a lover, the rapture of love. Opening with an angel's-eye view of Berlin in silvery black and white (delicately captured by the great cinematographer Henri Alekan, who photographed Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast 40 years earlier), it transforms into a gauzy color world when Damiel "crosses over" by sheer will. Peter Falk plays himself as a fallen angel with a special sensitivity for celestial visitors ("I can't see you, but I know you're there," he proclaims), and Otto Sander, whose smiling eyes brighten a face etched by eons of waiting and watching, is Damiel's partner. Wenders made a sequel in 1993, Faraway, So Close, and Hollywood remade the film as City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. --Sean Axmaker (Amazon.com)



Votes: 4
Points: 42
Voters: martha (25), Jeff K (5), The RightGraduate Profile (10), toomanyhatz (2)


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Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Directed by David Lean

Synopsis: There's no getting around a simple, basic truth: watching Lawrence of Arabia in any home-video format represents a compromise. There's no better way to appreciate this epic biographical adventure than to see it projected in 70 millimeter onto a huge theater screen. That caveat aside, David Lean's masterful "desert classic" is still enjoyable on the small screen, especially if viewed in widescreen format. (If your only option is to view a "pan & scan" version, it's best not to bother; this is a film for which the widescreen format is utterly mandatory.) Peter O'Toole gives a star-making performance as T.E. Lawrence, the eccentric British officer who united the desert tribes of Arabia against the Turks during World War I. Lean orchestrates sweeping battle sequences and breathtaking action, but the film is really about the adventures and trials that transform Lawrence into a legendary man of the desert. Lean traces this transformation on a vast canvas of awesome physicality; no other movie has captured the expanse of the desert with such scope and grandeur. Equally important is the psychology of Lawrence, who remains an enigma even as we grasp his identification with the desert. Perhaps the greatest triumph of this landmark film is that Lean has conveyed the romance, danger, and allure of the desert with such physical and emotional power. It's a film about a man who leads one life but is irresistibly drawn to another, where his greatness and mystery are allowed to flourish in equal measure. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 18
Voters: geoffcowgill (4), rockt he kaspar (2), All mimsy (4), Fangedango! (5), toomanyhatz (3)


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Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Directed by Rob Rafelson

Synopsis: This subtle, existential character study of an emotionally distant outcast (Nicholson) forced to confront his past failures remains an intimate cornerstone of American '70s cinema. Written and directed with remarkable restraint by Bob Rafelson, the film is the result of a short-lived partnership between the filmmaker and Nicholson--the first was the zany formalist exercise, Head, while the equally impressive King of Marvin Gardens followed Five Easy Pieces. Quiet and full of long, controlled takes, this film draws its strength from the acutely detailed, nonjudgmental observations of its complex protagonist, Robert Dupea--an extremely crass and frustrated oil worker, and failed child pianist hiding from his past in Texas. Dupea spends his life drinking beer and sleeping with (and cheating on) his annoying but adoring Tammy Wynette-wannabe girlfriend, but when he learns that his father is dying in Washington State, he leaves. After the film transforms into a spirited road movie, and arrives at the eccentric upper-class Dupea family mansion, it becomes apparent that leaving is what Dupea does best--from his problems, fears, and those who love him. Nicholson gives a difficult yet masterful performance in an unlikable role, one that's full of ambiguity and requires violent shifts in acting style. Several sequences--such as his stopping traffic to play piano, or his famous verbal duels with a cranky waitress over a chicken-salad sandwich--are Nicholson landmarks. Yet, it's the quieter moments, when Dupea tries miserably to communicate and reconcile with his dying father, where the actor shows his real talent--and by extension, shows us the wounded little boy that lurks in the shell of the man Dupea has become. --Dave McCoy (Amazon.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 18
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (2), Jeff K (5), Davey Avon FatBoy (2), toomanyhatz (5), Brer Baron (4)


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Rio Bravo (1959)
Directed by Howard Hawks

Synopsis: The sheriff of a small town in southwest Texas must keep custody of a murderer whose brother, a powerful rancher, is trying to help him escape. After a friend is killed trying to muster support for him, he and his deputies - a disgraced drunk and a cantankerous old cripple - must find a way to hold out against the rancher's hired guns until the marshal arrives. In the meantime, matters are complicated by the presence of a young gunslinger - and a mysterious beauty who just came in on the last stagecoach. --scgary66 (IMDb.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 19
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (2), mentalist (slight return) (5), Owen (5), Rocky Bronzino (3), Brer Baron (4)


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Céline et Julie vont en bateau [Céline and Julie Go Boating] (1974)
Directed by Jacques Rivette

Synopsis: A story about story-telling, Jacques Rivette's self-referential classic centers on the fanciful world of two women literally lost in the stories they tell each other. Celine (Juliet Berto) and Julie (Dominique Labourier) go from sharing a story about a haunted house to being part of a story about a haunted house -- or is it a real haunted house that has been called up by the story? The film blurs the line between the telling of the story and the story itself, as Celine and Julie, like Alice in Wonderland, become part of a surreal, drug-induced parallel universe; also like Alice, they ultimately become the heroines of the story that first imprisoned them. Rivette celebrates the magic of stories, and more broadly of imagination, adventure, and friendship, as essential elements of life; the themes are familiar from his other movies, but the tone is more playful. This enigmatic and fanciful film is not for all tastes, but, for its many devotees, it is one of the most distinctive and imaginative movies ever made. --DVD Description



Votes: 5
Points: 21
Voters: Algroth (2), Ghost of Harry Smith (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), the masked man (5), geoffcowgill (4)


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L.A. Confidential (1997)
Directed by Curtis Hanson

Synopsis: 1950's Los Angeles is the seedy backdrop for this intricate noir-ish tale of police corruption and Hollywood sleaze. Three very different cops are all after the truth, each in their own style: Ed Exley, the golden boy of the police force, willing to do almost anything to get ahead, except sell out; Bud White, ready to break the rules to seek justice, but barely able to keep his raging violence under control; and Jack Vincennes, always looking for celebrity and a quick buck until his conscience drives him to join Exley and White down the one-way path to find the truth behind the dark world of L.A. crime.--Greg Bole (IMDb.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 22
Voters: meetthesonics (5), Polishgirl (5), kath (5), rock the kaspar (4), Rocky Bronzino (3)


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C'era una volta il West [Once Upon A Time in the West] (1968)
Directed by Sergio Leone

Synopsis: Story of a young woman, Mrs. McBain, who moves from New Orleans to frontier Utah, on the very edge of the American West. She arrives to find her new husband and family slaughtered, but by who? The prime suspect, coffee-lover Cheyenne, befriends her and offers to go after the real killer, assassin gang leader Frank, in her honor. He is accompanied by Harmonica on his quest to get even. Get-rich-quick subplots and intricate character histories intertwine with such artistic flair that this could in fact be the movie-to-end-all-movies. --DrGoodBeat (IMDb.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 23
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (2), Goat Boy (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), Davey Avon FatBoy (6), Sgt Pepper (5)


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Goodfellas (1990)
Directed by Martin Scorsese

Synopsis: Henry Hill is a small time gangster, who takes part in a robbery with Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito, two other gangsters who have set their sights a bit higher. His two partners kill off everyone else involved in the robbery, and slowly start to climb up through the hierarchy of the Mob. Henry, however, is badly affected by his partners success, but will he stoop low enough to bring about the downfall of Jimmy and Tommy? --Colin Tinto (IMDb.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 23
Voters: Goat Boy (5), TopCat G (3), rock the kaspar (4), whodathunkit (8), Rocky Bronzino (3)


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No Country for Old Men (2007)
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

Synopsis: The Coen brothers make their finest thriller since Fargo with a restrained adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel. Not that there aren't moments of intense violence, but No Country for Old Men is their quietest, most existential film yet. In this modern-day Western, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Vietnam vet who could use a break. One morning while hunting antelope, he spies several trucks surrounded by dead bodies (both human and canine). In examining the site, he finds a case filled with $2 million. Moss takes it with him, tells his wife (Kelly Macdonald) he's going away for awhile, and hits the road until he can determine his next move. On the way from El Paso to Mexico, he discovers he's being followed by ex-special ops agent Chigurh (an eerily calm Javier Bardem). Chigurh's weapon of choice is a cattle gun, and he uses it on everyone who gets in his way--or loses a coin toss (as far as he's concerned, bad luck is grounds for death). Just as Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a World War II vet, is on Moss's trail, Chigurh's former colleague, Wells (Woody Harrelson), is on his. For most of the movie, Moss remains one step ahead of his nemesis. Both men are clever and resourceful--except Moss has a conscience, Chigurh does not (he is, as McCarthy puts it, "a prophet of destruction"). At times, the film plays like an old horror movie, with Chigurh as its lumbering Frankenstein monster. Like the taciturn terminator, No Country for Old Men doesn't move quickly, but the tension never dissipates. This minimalist masterwork represents Joel and Ethan Coen and their entire cast, particularly Brolin and Jones, at the peak of their powers. --Kathleen C. Fennessy (Amazon.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 23
Voters: Polishgirl (5), martha (10), Goat Boy (5), beenieman (2), Brer Baron (1)


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North by Northwest (1959)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Synopsis: New York advertising executive Roger Thornhill is kidnapped by a gang of spies led by Philip Vandamm, who believe Thornhill is CIA agent George Kaplan. Thornhill escapes, but must find Kaplan in order to clear himself of a murder it is believed he committed. Following Kaplan to Chicago as a fugitive from justice, Thornhill is helped by beautiful Eve Kendall. In Chicago, she delivers a message to Kaplan that almost costs Thornhill his life when he is chased across a cornfield by a crop-dusting plane. --filmfactsman (IMDb.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 24
Voters: GoogaMooga (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), BlueMeanie (4), All mimsy (5), Owen (5)


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Le Samouraï [The Godson] (1967)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

Synopsis: Alain Delon is the coolest killer to hit the screen, a film noir loner for the modern era, in Jean-Pierre Melville's austere 1967 French crime classic. Delon's impassive hit man, Jef Costello, is the ultimate professional in an alienated world of glass and metal. On his latest contract, however, he lets a witness live--a charming jazz pianist, Valerie (Cathy Rosier), who neglects to identify him in the police lineup. When Costello survives an assassination attempt by his employers, he carefully plots his next moves as cops and criminals close in and he prepares for one last job. Melville meticulously details every move by Costello and the police in fascinating wordless sequences, from Costello's preparations for his first hit to the cops' exhaustive efforts to tail Jef as he lines up his last; and his measured pace creates an otherworldly ambiance, an uneasy calm on the verge of shattering. Costello remains a cipher, a zen killer whose façade begins to crack as the world seems to be collapsing in on him, exposing the wound-up psyche hidden behind his blank face. Melville rethinks film noir in modern terms, as an existential crime drama in soft, somber color and sleek images (courtesy of cinematographer extraordinaire Henri Decaë). Le Samouraï inspired two pseudo-remakes, Walter Hill's Driver and John Woo's Killer, but neither film comes close to the compelling austerity and meticulous detail of Melville's cult masterpiece. --Sean Axmaker (Amazon.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 24
Voters: Goat Boy (5), TopCat G (3), rock the kaspar (3), The RightGraduate Profile (3), Brer Baron (10)
Last edited by algroth on 07 Aug 2011, 04:58, edited 9 times in total.

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algroth
Posts: 5714
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby algroth » 08 Jun 2011, 03:20

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Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Directed by Alexander McKendrick

Synopsis: A classic of the late 1950s, this film looks at the string-pulling behind-the-scenes action between desperate press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) and the ultimate power broker in that long-ago show-biz Manhattan: gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Written by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets (who based the Hunsecker character on the similarly brutal and power-mad Walter Winchell), the film follows Falco's attempts to promote a client through Hunsecker's column--until he is forced to make a deal with the devil and help Hunsecker ruin a jazz musician who has the nerve to date Hunsecker's sister. Director Alexander MacKendrick and cinematographer James Wong Howe, shooting on location mostly at night, capture this New York demimonde in silky black and white, in which neon and shadows share a scarily symbiotic relationship--a near-match for the poisonous give-and-take between the edgy Curtis and the dismissive Lancaster. --Marshall Fine (Amazon.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 26
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), GoogaMooga (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (4), the masked man (8), Owen (4)


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Alien (1979)
Directed by Ridley Scott

Synopsis: A landmark of science fiction and horror, Alien arrived in 1979 between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back as a stylishly malevolent alternative to George Lucas's space fantasy. Partially inspired by 1958's It! The Terror from Beyond Space, this instant classic set a tone of its own, offering richly detailed sets, ominous atmosphere, relentless suspense, and a flawless ensemble cast as the crew of the space freighter Nostromo, who fall prey to a vicious creature (designed by Swiss artist H.R. Giger) that had gestated inside one of the ill-fated crew members. In a star-making role, Sigourney Weaver excels as sole survivor Ripley, becoming the screen's most popular heroine in a lucrative movie franchise. To measure the film's success, one need only recall the many images that have been burned into our collective psyche, including the "facehugger," the "chestburster," and Ripley's climactic encounter with the full-grown monster. Impeccably directed by Ridley Scott, Alien is one of the cinema's most unforgettable nightmares. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 27
Voters: Goat Boy (5), BlueMeanie (2), kath (5), rock the kaspar (10), Sgt Pepper (5)


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Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen

Synopsis: Decades before the Hollywood film industry became famous for megabudget disaster and science fiction spectaculars, the studios of Southern California (and particularly Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) were renowned for a uniquely American (and nearly extinct) kind of picture known as The Musical. Indeed, when the prestigious British film magazine Sight & Sound conducts its international critics poll in the second year of every decade, this 1952 MGM picture is the American musical that consistently ranks among the 10 best movies ever made. It's not only a great song-and-dance piece starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and a sprightly Debbie Reynolds; it's also an affectionately funny insider spoof about the film industry's uneasy transition from silent pictures to "talkies." Kelly plays debonair star Don Lockwood, whose leading lady Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) has a screechy voice hilariously ill-suited to the new technology (and her glamorous screen image). Among the musical highlights: O'Connor's knockout "Make 'Em Laugh"; the big "Broadway Melody" production number; and, best of all, that charming little title ditty in which Kelly makes movie magic on a drenched set with nothing but a few puddles, a lamppost, and an umbrella. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)

Synopsis:

Votes: 5
Points: 27
Voters: Ghost of Hary Smith (6), mentalist (slight return) (5), geoffcowgill (6), All mimsy (5), toomanyhatz (5)


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McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
Directed by Robert Altman

Synopsis: Iconoclastic director Robert Altman (Nashville, M.A.S.H., The Player) deconstructs and demythologizes Hollywood's typically romantic vision of the Old West in this haunting, breathtaking masterpiece. A stranger, McCabe (Warren Beatty's best performance), the film's nonheroic protagonist, rides into a dead northwest mountain town (to the mournful sounds of Leonard Cohen), possessing ambitious entrepreneurial dreams of expansion. As the town grows, Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie's finest role, as well), a tough madam, arrives and convinces McCabe to join her in a partnership. Neither are typical Western archetypes: McCabe's an insecure braggart, bumbling lover, and horrible businessman, while Mrs. Miller, hardly a whore with a heart of gold, favors her opium pipe to her partner's romantic advances. Altman, meanwhile, buries these central characters within the town's complex, richly detailed tapestry of characters, preferring to eavesdrop on their overlapping conversations and study the bleak, harsh conditions of their lifestyles. At its core, the film addresses the sacrifices of individualism needed in order to build a community, an American concept that the independent Altman views with skeptical irony. --Dave McCoy (Amazon.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 27
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (8), Jeff K (5), The RightGraduate Profile (10), Davey Avon FatBoy (2), Brer Baron (2)


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12 Angry Men (1957)
Directed by Sidney Lumet

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet's directorial debut remains a tense, atmospheric (though slightly manipulative and stagy) courtroom thriller, in which the viewer never sees a trial and the only action is verbal. As he does in his later corruption commentaries such as Serpico or Q & A, Lumet focuses on the lonely one-man battles of a protagonist whose ethics alienate him from the rest of jaded society. As the film opens, the seemingly open-and-shut trial of a young Puerto Rican accused of murdering his father with a knife has just concluded and the 12-man jury retires to their microscopic, sweltering quarters to decide the verdict. When the votes are counted, 11 men rule guilty, while one--played by Henry Fonda, again typecast as another liberal, truth-seeking hero--doubts the obvious. Stressing the idea of "reasonable doubt," Fonda slowly chips away at the jury, who represent a microcosm of white, male society--exposing the prejudices and preconceptions that directly influence the other jurors' snap judgments. The tight script by Reginald Rose (based on his own teleplay) presents each juror vividly using detailed soliloquies, all which are expertly performed by the film's flawless cast. Still, it's Lumet's claustrophobic direction--all sweaty close-ups and cramped compositions within a one-room setting--that really transforms this contrived story into an explosive and compelling nail-biter. --Dave McCoy (Amazon.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 33
Voters: martha (5), BlueMeanie (6), rock the kaspar (10), whodathunkit (8), Owen (4)


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The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Directed by Charles Laughton

Synopsis: In the entire history of American movies, The Night of the Hunter stands out as the rarest and most exotic of specimens. It is, to say the least, a masterpiece--and not just because it was the only movie directed by flamboyant actor Charles Laughton or the only produced solo screenplay by the legendary critic James Agee (who also cowrote The African Queen). The truth is, nobody has ever made anything approaching its phantasmagoric, overheated style in which German expressionism, religious hysteria, fairy-tale fantasy (of the Grimm-est variety), and stalker movie are brought together in a furious boil. Like a nightmarish premonition of stalker movies to come, Night of the Hunter tells the suspenseful tale of a demented preacher (Robert Mitchum, in a performance that prefigures his memorable villain in Cape Fear), who torments a boy and his little sister--even marries their mixed-up mother (Shelley Winters)--because he's certain the kids know where their late bank-robber father hid a stash of stolen money. So dramatic, primal, and unforgettable are its images--the preacher's shadow looming over the children in their bedroom, the magical boat ride down a river whose banks teem with fantastic wildlife, those tattoos of LOVE and HATE on the unholy man's knuckles, the golden locks of a drowned woman waving in the current along with the indigenous plant life in her watery grave--that they're still haunting audiences (and filmmakers) today. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 5
Points: 44
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (8), TopCat G (20), Jeff K (5), Davey Avon FatBoy (8), PENK (3)


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Pulp Fiction (1994)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Synopsis: Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega are two hitmen who are out to retrieve a suitcase stolen from their employer, mob boss Marsellus Wallace. Wallace has also asked Vincent to take his wife Mia out a few days later when Wallace himself will be out of town. Butch Coolidge is an aging boxer who is paid by Wallace to lose his next fight. The lives of these seemingly unrelated people are woven together comprising of a series of funny, bizarre and uncalled-for incidents. --Soumitra (IMDb.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 21
Voters: martha (1), BlueMeanie (4), beenieman (6), geoffcowgill (2), Fangedango! (5), Rocky Bronzino (3)


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Life of Brian (1979)
Directed by Terry Jones

Synopsis: "Blessed are the cheesemakers," a wise man once said. Or maybe not. But the point is Monty Python's Life of Brian is a religious satire that does not target specific religions or religious leaders (like, say, Jesus of Nazareth). Instead, it pokes fun at the mindless and fanatical among their followers--it's an attack on religious zealotry and hypocrisy--things that that fellow from Nazareth didn't particularly care for either. Nevertheless, at the time of its release in 1979, those who hadn't seen it considered it to be quite "controversial." Life of Brian, you see, is about a chap named Brian (Graham Chapman) born December 25 in a hovel not far from a soon-to-be-famous Bethlehem manger. Brian is mistaken for the messiah and therefore manipulated, abused, and exploited by various religious and political factions. And it's really, really funny. Particularly memorable bits include the brassy Shirley Bassey/James Bond-like title song; the bitter rivalry between the anti-Roman resistance groups, the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea; Michael Palin's turn as a lisping, risible Pontius Pilate; Brian urging a throng of false-idol worshippers to think for themselves--to which they reply en masse "Yes, we must think for ourselves!"; the fact that everything Brian does, including losing his sandal in an attempt to flee these wackos, is interpreted as "a sign." Life of Brian is not only one of Monty Python's funniest achievements, it's also the group's sharpest and smartest sustained satire. Blessed are the Pythons. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 25
Voters: BlueMeanie (2), Thesiger (8), rock the kaspar (3), whodathunkit (2), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5)


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Annie Hall (1977)
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis: Annie Hall is one of the truest, most bittersweet romances on film. In it, Allen plays a thinly disguised version of himself: Alvy Singer, a successful--if neurotic--television comedian living in Manhattan. Annie (the wholesomely luminous Dianne Keaton) is a Midwestern transplant who dabbles in photography and sings in small clubs. When the two meet, the sparks are immediate--if repressed. Alone in her apartment for the first time, Alvy and Annie navigate a minefield of self-conscious "is-this-person-someone-I'd-want-to-get-involved-with?" conversation. As they speak, subtitles flash their unspoken thoughts: the likes of "I'm not smart enough for him" and "I sound like a jerk." Despite all their caution, they connect, and we're swept up in the flush of their new romance. Allen's antic sensibility shines here in a series of flashbacks to Alvy's childhood, growing up, quite literally, under a rumbling roller coaster. His boisterous Jewish family's dinner table shares a split screen with the WASP-y Hall's tight-lipped holiday table, one Alvy has joined for the first time. His position as outsider is uncontestable he looks down the table and sizes up Annie's "Grammy Hall" as "a classic Jew-hater."

The relationship arcs, as does Annie's growing desire for independence. It quickly becomes clear that the two are on separate tracks, as what was once endearing becomes annoying. Annie Hall embraces Allen's central themes--his love affair with New York (and hatred of Los Angeles), how impossible relationships are, and his fear of death. But their balance is just right, the chemistry between Allen's worry-wart Alvy and Keaton's gangly, loopy Annie is one of the screen's best pairings. It couldn't be more engaging. --Susan Benson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 25
Voters: Thesiger (4), Davey Avon FatBoy (4), Owen (7), Sgt Pepper (5), PENK (3), Brer Baron (2)


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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Directed by Milos Forman

Synopsis: One of the key movies of the 1970s, when exciting, groundbreaking, personal films were still being made in Hollywood, Milos Forman's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest emphasized the humanistic story at the heart of Ken Kesey's more hallucinogenic novel. Jack Nicholson was born to play the part of Randle Patrick McMurphy, the rebellious inmate of a psychiatric hospital who fights back against the authorities' cold attitudes of institutional superiority, as personified by Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). It's the classic antiestablishment tale of one man asserting his individuality in the face of a repressive, conformist system--and it works on every level. Forman populates his film with memorably eccentric faces, and gets such freshly detailed and spontaneous work from his ensemble that the picture sometimes feels like a documentary. Unlike a lot of films pitched at the "youth culture" of the 1970s, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest really hasn't dated a bit, because the qualities of human nature that Forman captures--playfulness, courage, inspiration, pride, stubbornness--are universal and timeless. The film swept the Academy Awards for 1976, winning in all the major categories (picture, director, actor, actress, screenplay) for the first time since Frank Capra's It Happened One Night in 1931. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 26
Voters: meetthesonics (5), Goat Boy (5), kath (5), TopCat G (3), Rocky Bronzino (5), PENK (3)


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Withnail & I (1987)
Directed by Bruce Robinson

Synopsis: A corrosively funny, semiautobiographical account by writer-director Bruce Robinson (How to Get Ahead in Advertising) about a couple of destitute roommates, young actors living in drunken squalor in 1969, the twilight days of swingin' London. Withnail (the astounding Richard E. Grant in a definitive performance) is a kind of depraved, modern-day Oscar Wilde, but without the money or the manners. The "I" of the title is the younger and more impressionable Marwood (Paul McGann), who stands somewhat in awe of his scandalous, demented, hysterical pal. While on a miserable holiday in the bitterly cold and damp countryside, they stay with wealthy, corpulent "Uncle Monty" (Richard Griffiths), who takes quite a liking to young Marwood, much to his consternation. Though not well known in the United States, Withnail & I has a major cult following in England. It's uproariously funny in a peculiarly British way, and the acting is absolutely scintillating. (Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert said Griffiths' was the best performance by an actor in a British film since Denholm Elliott in A Room with a View). This one's a real treat for the caustic at heart. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)

Votes: 6
Points: 26
Voters: Polishgirl (5), Goat Boy (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), TopCat G (3), The RightGraduate Profile (3), Sgt Pepper (5)


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Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Directed by David Lynch

Synopsis: Pandora couldn't resist opening the forbidden box containing all the delusions of mankind, and let's just say David Lynch, in Mulholland Drive, indulges a similar impulse. Employing a familiar film noir atmosphere to unravel, as he coyly puts it, "a love story in the city of dreams," Lynch establishes a foreboding but playful narrative in the film's first half before subsuming all of Los Angeles and its corrupt ambitions into his voyeuristic universe of desire. Identities exchange, amnesia proliferates, and nightmare visions are induced, but not before we've become enthralled by the film's two main characters: the dazed and sullen femme fatale, Rita (Laura Elena Harring), and the pert blonde just-arrived from Ontario (played exquisitely by Naomi Watts) who decides to help Rita regain her memory. Triggered by a rapturous Spanish-language version of Roy Orbison's "Crying," Lynch's best film since Blue Velvet splits glowingly into two equally compelling parts. --Fionn Meade (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 27
Voters: Goat Boy (5), the masked man (8), Jeff K (5), The RightGraduate Profile (3), Rocky Bronzino (5), Brer Baron (1)


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Stalker (1979)
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

Synopsis: Challenging, provocative, and ultimately rewarding, Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker is a mind-bending experience that defies explanation. Like Tarkovsky's earlier and similarly enigmatic science fiction classic Solaris, this long, slow, meditative masterpiece demands patience and total attention; anyone accustomed to faster pacing is likely to abandon the nearly three-hour film before its first hour is over. On the other hand, those who approach Tarkovsky's work in a properly receptive (and wide awake) frame of mind are likely to appreciate the film's seductive depth of theme and hypnotic imagery. Set in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic future (although the time-frame is never specified), the eerie and unsettling story focuses on the title character, Stalker (Aleksandr Kajdanovsky), who leads characters known only as the Writer (Anatoli Solonitsyn) and the Scientist (or Professor, played by Nikolai Grinko) into a mysterious region called The Zone. Tarkovsky films their journey as a long odyssey, or religious pilgrimage, and center of The Zone--said to be under an alien influence--is where each of these men hopes to find a kind of personal transcendence. Despite obvious parallels to The Wizard of Oz, Tarkovsky's film is devoid of special effects or any fantastical elements typically associated with science fiction or fantasy. Instead, Stalker makes astonishing use of sound and bleak-but-beautiful imagery to envelope the viewer into the eerie atmosphere of The Zone and the dank, colorless landscape that surrounds it. And while the film's glacial pacing may be off-putting to some viewers, there's no denying that Stalker has a mesmerizing power of its own, including a thought-provoking and highly debatable ending that propels the film to a higher level of meaning and significance. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 27
Voters: Algroth (2), Snarfyguy (5), Goat Boy (5), the masked man (5), Jeff K (5), PENK (5)


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The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Directed by John Huston

Synopsis: Still the tightest, sharpest, and most cynical of Hollywood's official deathless classics, bracingly tough even by post-Tarantino standards. Humphrey Bogart is Dashiell Hammett's definitive private eye, Sam Spade, struggling to keep his hard-boiled cool as the double-crosses pile up around his ankles. The plot, which dances all around the stolen Middle Eastern statuette of the title, is too baroque to try to follow, and it doesn't make a bit of difference. The dialogue, much of it lifted straight from Hammett, is delivered with whip-crack speed and sneering ferocity, as Bogie faces off against Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, fends off the duplicitous advances of Mary Astor, and roughs up a cringing "gunsel" played by Elisha Cook Jr. It's an action movie of sorts, at least by implication: the characters always seem keyed up, right on the verge of erupting into violence. This is a turning-point picture in several respects: John Huston (The African Queen) made his directorial debut here in 1941, and Bogart, who had mostly played bad guys, was a last-minute substitution for George Raft, who must have been kicking himself for years afterward. This is the role that made Bogart a star and established his trend-setting (and still influential) antihero persona. --David Chute (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 28
Voters: rock the kaspar (3), All mimsy (7), Owen (5), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5), Rocky Bronzino (3)


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On the Waterfront (1954)
Directed by Elia Kazan

Synopsis: Marlon Brando's famous "I coulda been a contenda" speech is such a warhorse by now that a lot of people probably feel they've seen this picture already, even if they haven't. And many of those who have seen it may have forgotten how flat-out thrilling it is. For all its great dramatic and cinematic qualities, and its fiery social criticism, Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront is also one of the most gripping melodramas of political corruption and individual heroism ever made in the United States, a five-star gut-grabber. Shot on location around the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey, in the mid-1950s, it tells the fact-based story of a longshoreman (Brando's Terry Malloy) who is blackballed and savagely beaten for informing against the mobsters who have taken over his union and sold it out to the bosses. (Karl Malden has a more conventional stalwart-hero role, as an idealistic priest who nurtures Terry's pangs of conscience.) Lee J. Cobb, who created the role of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman under Kazan's direction on Broadway, makes a formidable foe as a greedy union leader. --David Chute (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 29
Voters: meetthesonics (5), TopCat G (3), geoffcowgill (6), Jeff K (5), whodathunkit (5), Fangedango! (5)


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It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Directed by Frank Capra

Synopsis:



Votes: 6
Points: 31
Voters: meetthesonics (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (2), kath (5), Davey Avon FatBoy (5), Owen (5), toomanyhatz (9)


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Some Like It Hot (1959)
Directed by Billy Wilder

Synopsis: Maybe "nobody's perfect," as one character in this masterpiece suggests. But some movies are perfect, and Some Like It Hot is one of them. In Chicago, during the Prohibition era, two skirt-chasing musicians, Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon), inadvertently witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. In order to escape the wrath of gangland chief Spats Colombo (George Raft), the boys, in drag, join an all-woman band headed for Florida. They vie for the attention of the lead singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), a much-disappointed songbird who warbles "I'm Through with Love" but remains vulnerable to yet another unreliable saxophone player. (When Curtis courts her without his dress, he adopts the voice of Cary Grant--a spot-on impersonation.) The script by director Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is beautifully measured; everything works, like a flawless clock. Aspiring screenwriters would be well advised to throw away the how-to books and simply study this film. The bulk of the slapstick is handled by an unhinged Lemmon and the razor-sharp Joe E. Brown, who plays a horny retiree smitten by Jerry's feminine charms. For all the gags, the film is also wonderfully romantic, as Wilder indulges in just the right amounts of moonlight and the lilting melody of "Park Avenue Fantasy." Some Like It Hot is so delightfully fizzy, it's hard to believe the shooting of the film was a headache, with an unhappy Monroe on her worst behavior. The results, however, are sublime. --Robert Horton (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 31
Voters: meetthesonics (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (5), The RightGraduate Profile (3), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5), toomanyhatz (8)


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À bout de souffle [Breathless] (1960)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Synopsis: The movie that heralded the French New Wave movement, this lean and exciting 1959 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard (A Woman Is a Woman, Weekend) broke new ground not only in its unorthodox use of editing and hand-held photography, but in its unflinching and nonjudgmental portrayal of amoral youth. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg play two young lovers on the run from the law after Belmondo kills a cop and steals a car. Soon they are on an odyssey through the streets of Paris searching for some money he is owed so that he and his American girlfriend can escape to Italy. As a chase picture it features some startling photography on the streets of Paris, but as a romance it defies expectations, existing as part tragedy and part Bonnie and Clyde crime movie. The result is a wholly original film experience. Inspiring not only a remake starring Richard Gere but numerous films and television series, Breathless is an essential part of motion picture history. --Robert Lane (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 31
Voters: mentalist (slight return) (5), TopCat G (10), Owen (4) Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5), Brer Baron (2)


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M (1931)
Directed by Fritz Lang

Synopsis: Peter Lorre made film history with his startling performance as a psychotic murderer of children. Too elusive for the Berlin police, the killer is sought and marked by underworld criminals who are feeling the official fallout for his crimes. This riveting, 1931 German drama by Fritz Lang--an early talkie--unfolds against a breathtakingly expressionistic backdrop of shadows and clutter, an atmosphere of predestination that seems to be closing in on Lorre's terrified villain. M is an important piece of cinema's past along with a number of Lang's early German works, including Metropolis and Spies (Lang eventually brought his influence directly to the American cinema in such films as Fury, They Clash by Night, and The Big Heat). M shouldn't be missed. --Tom Keogh (Amazon.com)

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Votes: 6
Points: 32
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), the masked man (5), TopCat G (3), geoffcowgill (4), Brer Baron (10)


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El espíritu de la colmena [The Spirit of the Beehive] (1973)
Directed by Víctor Erice

Synopsis: Victor Erice's hauntingly beautiful The Spirit of the Beehive features one of the most unforgettable child performances in the history of cinema. Hailed as the greatest Spanish film of the 1970s, Erice's visually elegant "poem of awakening" takes place in a small Castilian village in the early 1940s, as echoes of the Spanish Civil War can still be heard throughout the countryside. It is here, in this richly rural atmosphere, that six-year-old Ana (played by six-year-old Ana Torrent) is introduced to alternate world of myth and imagination when she attends a town-hall showing of James Whale's Frankenstein, an experience that forever alters young Ana's perception of the world around her... and her ability to mold reality to her own imaginative purposes. Is she using her imagination to escape what is essentially a bleak reality, or is she protecting herself with an inner world of innocence, to counter the darker worldview of her slightly older sister Isabel? While her emotionally distant parents go about their mundane daily affairs, Ana's world becomes the film's mesmerizing focus, and The Spirit of the Beehive unfolds as an enigmatic yet totally captivating study of childhood unfettered by the strictures of reason. In Erice's capable hands, young Ana Torrent really isn't performing at all; her presence on screen is so natural, and so deeply expressive, that you almost feel as if she's living in the story being told--a story that retains its mystery and beauty in equal measure, full of visual symbolism and metaphor (including the title, which yields multiple meanings), yet never self-consciously "arty" or artificial. Simply put, this is one of the timeless masterpieces of cinema, produced at a time when Franco's repressive dictatorship was finally giving way to greater freedoms of expression. No survey of international cinema is complete without at least one viewing of this uniquely moving film. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 39
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (5), Goat Boy (5), the masked man (8), The RightGraduate Profile (6), PENK (10)


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The Big Lebowski (1998)
Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen

Synopsis: After the tight plotting and quirky intensity of Fargo, this casually amusing follow-up from the prolifically inventive Coen (Ethan and Joel) brothers seems like a bit of a lark, and the result was a box-office disappointment. The good news is, The Big Lebowski is every bit a Coen movie, and its lazy plot is part of its laidback charm. After all, how many movies can claim as their hero a pot-bellied, pot-smoking loser named Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) who spends most of his time bowling and getting stoned? And where else could you find a hairnetted Latino bowler named Jesus (John Turturro) who sports dazzling purple footgear, or an erotic artist (Julianne Moore) whose creativity consists of covering her naked body in paint, flying through the air in a leather harness, and splatting herself against a giant canvas? Who else but the Coens would think of showing you a camera view from inside the holes of a bowling ball, or an elaborate Busby Berkely-styled musical dream sequence involving a Viking goddess and giant bowling pins? The plot--which finds Lebowski involved in a kidnapping scheme after he's mistaken for a rich guy with the same name--is almost beside the point. What counts here is a steady cascade of hilarious dialogue, great work from Coen regulars John Goodman and Steve Buscemi, and the kind of cinematic ingenuity that puts the Coens in a class all their own. Be sure to watch with snacks in hand, because The Big Lebowski might give you a giddy case of the munchies. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 40
Voters: mentalist (slight return) (5), beenieman (8), the masked man (2), The RightGraduate Profile (10), Sgt Pepper (5), Rocky Bronzino (10)


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Performance (1970)
Directed by Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell

Synopsis: "I like that. Turn it up!" Performance is the Altamont of '60s cinema; psychedelic and hallucinatory, decadent and depraved, polymorphous-perverse. And you can dance to it! Melding the sex, drugs, and rock & roll ethos of swinging '60s London with the gangster film, Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell's genre-bending cult classic is so mind blowing that star James Fox did not act in a film again for nearly a decade. Fox stars as Chas, an "out of date" enforcer for crime kingpin Harry Flowers. Chas is a "nutcase," who likes "a little cavort," but when he kills someone he wasn't supposed to, he is forced to go on the lam. He takes refuge in a basement room belonging to Turner (Mick Jagger), a former rock star who has "lost his demon" and now lives as a recluse in his dilapidated house with his secretary/lover, Pherber (Anita Pallenberg, who was Rolling Stones bandmate Keith Richards' girlfriend at the time), and an androgynous French girl (Michele Breton). They enjoy a little cavorting themselves. In these drug-strewn surroundings, worlds collide and identities merge. "I know who I am," Chas tells Harry early on. He (and viewers) will become less sure as Performance unfolds. Completed in 1968 but shelved for two years, Performance was originally rated X and has been redesignated R. But it's still strong, potent stuff. With its elliptical editing, mirror images, and echoed dialogue that bridges the two worlds, Performance may not become clearer with repeat viewings, but there are fresh discoveries to be made each time. The killer soundtrack features Randy Newman, Ry Cooder, rap revolutionaries the Last Poets, and Jagger's own astounding "Memo from Turner." "I know a thing of two about performing, my boy," Turner tells Chas at one point. "The only performance that makes it... that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness." Performance makes it all the way. As Roeg is quoted in a featurette produced for this DVD, "After all this time, its mystery is part of its magic and attraction." --Donald Liebenson (Amazon.com)

Votes: 6
Points: 47
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), Goat Boy (5), the masked man (8), TopCat G (20), Jeff K (5), whodathunkit (4)


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Blade Runner (1982)
Directed by Ridley Scott

Synopsis: In a cyberpunk vision of the future, man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones used to serve in the colonies outside Earth but with fixed lifespans. In Los Angeles, 2019, Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop who specialises in terminating replicants. Originally in retirement, he is forced to re-enter the force when six replicants escape from an offworld colony to Earth. --Graeme Roy (IMDb.com)



Votes: 6
Points: 48
Voters: martha (5), Goat Boy (5), kath (5), rock the kaspar (20), The RightGraduate Profile (3), PENK (10)
Last edited by algroth on 17 Aug 2011, 19:59, edited 5 times in total.

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algroth
Posts: 5714
Joined: 04 Apr 2010, 03:12

Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby algroth » 08 Jun 2011, 03:21

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Duck Soup (1933)
Directed by Leo McCarey

Synopsis: For those who love the Marx Brothers (Animal Crackers, A Night at the Opera), that this movie is side-slappingly funny is a given. For those new to the Marx Brothers, this is the perfect introduction to Groucho, Chico, and Harpo (and even Zeppo), three of the funniest men to ever grace the screen. Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) is the dictator of the small nation Freedonia. The country is a disaster, in financial disrepair, and the wealthy Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) is its benefactor and the object of Firefly's shrewd affection. When the leader of the neighboring Sylvania decides he's in love with Mrs. Teasdale, Firefly declares war. The movie, from 1933, is tremendously satirical, a play on politics and war. (As Firefly says to a hapless young solider, "You're a brave man. Go and break through the lines. And remember, while you're out there risking your life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in be in here thinking what a sucker you are.") Full of witty lines, great sight gags, and even some snazzy song numbers ("Freedonia's Going to War" is the hilarious declaration of battle), this is surely one of the best--if not the best--the Marx Brothers have to offer. --Jenny Brown (Amazon.com)



Votes: 7
Points: 32
Voters: martha (5), kath (5), geoffcowgill (6), The RightGraduate Profile (3), whodathunkit (4), Owen (4), Sgt Pepper (5)


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Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. [The Good, the Bad and the Ugly] (1966)
Directed by Sergio Leone

Synopsis: If you think of A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More as the tasty appetizers in Sergio Leone's celebrated "Dollars" trilogy of Italian "Spaghetti" Westerns, then The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a lavish full-course feast. Readily identified by the popular themes of its innovative score by Ennio Morricone (one of the bestselling soundtracks of all time), this cinematic milestone eclipsed its influential predecessors with a $1.2 million budget (considered extravagant in the mid-1960s), greater production values to accommodate Leone's epic vision of greed and betrayal, and a three-hour running time for its wide-ranging plot about the titular trio of mercenaries ("Good" Blondie played by rising star Clint Eastwood, "Bad" Angel Eyes played by Lee Van Cleef, and "Ugly" Tuco played by Eli Wallach) in a ruthless Civil War-era quest for $200,000 worth of buried Confederate gold. Virtually all of Leone's stylistic attributes can be found here in full fruition, from the constant inclusion of Roman Catholic iconography to a climactic circular shoot-out, along with Leone's trademark use of surreal landscapes, brilliant widescreen compositions and extreme close-ups of actors so intimate that they burn into the viewer's memory. And while some Leone fans may favor the more scaled-down action of For a Few Dollars More or the masterful grandiosity of Once Upon a Time in the West, it was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that cemented Leone's reputation as a world-class director with a singular vision. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 7
Points: 32
Voters: martha (5), Goat Boy (5), kath (5), The RightGraduate Profile (3), Davey Avon FatBoy (4), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5)


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Out of the Past (1947)
Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Synopsis: "Build my gallows high, baby"--just one of the quintessentially noir sentiments expressed by Robert Mitchum in this classic of the genre. Mitchum, in absolute prime, sleepy-eyed form, relates a complicated flashback about getting hired by gangster Kirk Douglas to find femme fatale Jane Greer. The chain of film noir elements--love, money, lies--drags Mitchum into the lower depths. Director Jacques Tourneur gets the edgy negotiations between men and women as exactly right as he gets the inky shadows of the noir landscape (even the sunlit exteriors are fraught with doubt). This is Mitchum in excelsis, with his usual laid-back cool laced with great dialogue and tragic foreshadowing. As for his co-star, James Agee immortally opined that Jane Greer "can best be described, in an ancient idiom, as a hot number." Remade in 1984, unhappily, as Against All Odds (with Greer in a supporting role). --Robert Horton (Amazon.com)

Votes: 7
Points: 32
Voters: meetthesonics (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (4), TopCat G (3), Davey Avon FatBoy (6), Owen (7), Sgt Pepper (5), Brer Baron (2)


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Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Directed by Billy Wilder

Synopsis: Billy Wilder's noir-comic classic about death and decay in Hollywood remains as pungent as ever in its power to provoke shock, laughter, and gasps of astonishment. Joe Gillis (William Holden), a broke and cynical young screenwriter, is attempting to ditch a pair of repo men late one afternoon when he pulls off L.A.'s storied Sunset Boulevard and into the driveway of a seedy mansion belonging to Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a forgotten silent movie luminary whose brilliant acting career withered with the coming of talkies. The demented old movie queen lives in the past, assisted by her devoted (but intimidating) butler, Max (played by Erich von Stroheim, the legendary director of Greed and Swanson's own lost epic, Queen Kelly). Norma dreams of making a comeback in a remake of Salome to be directed by her old colleague Cecil B. DeMille (as himself), and Joe becomes her literary and romantic gigolo. Sunset Blvd. is one of those great movies that has become a part of popular culture (the line "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up," has entered the language)--but it's no relic. Wow, does it ever hold up. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 7
Points: 33
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (5), the masked man (6), The RightGraduate Profile (3), Owen (4), Sgt Pepper (5), toomanyhatz (2), Brer Baron (8)


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Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones

Synopsis: Could this be the funniest movie ever made? By any rational measure of comedy, this medieval romp from the Monty Python troupe certainly belongs on the short list of candidates. According to Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide, it's "recommended for fans only," but we say hogwash to that--you could be a complete newcomer to the Python phenomenon and still find this send-up of the Arthurian legend to be wet-your-pants hilarious. It's basically a series of sketches woven together as King Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail, with Graham Chapman as the King, Terry Gilliam as his simpleton sidekick Patsy, and the rest of the Python gang filling out a variety of outrageous roles. The comedy highlights are too numerous to mention, but once you've seen Arthur's outrageously bloody encounter with the ominous Black Knight (John Cleese), you'll know that nothing's sacred in the Python school of comedy. From holy hand grenades to killer bunnies to the absurdity of the three-headed knights who say "Ni--!," this is the kind of movie that will strike you as fantastically funny or just plain silly, but why stop there? It's all over the map, and the pace lags a bit here and there, but for every throwaway gag the Pythons have invented, there's a bit of subtle business or grand-scale insanity that's utterly inspired. The sum of this madness is a movie that's beloved by anyone with a pulse and an irreverent sense of humor. If this movie doesn't make you laugh, you're almost certainly dead. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 7
Points: 34
Voters: martha (1), Goat Boy (5), kath (5), rock the kaspar (3), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5), Rocky Bronzino (10)


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Cidade de Deus [City of God] (2002)
Directed by Fernando Meirelles

Synopsis: Like cinematic dynamite, City of God lights a fuse under its squalid Brazilian ghetto, and we're a captive audience to its violent explosion. The titular favela is home to a seething army of impoverished children who grow, over the film's ambitious 20-year timeframe, into cutthroat killers, drug lords, and feral survivors. In the vortex of this maelstrom is L'il Z (Leandro Firmino da Hora--like most of the cast, a nonprofessional actor), self-appointed king of the dealers, determined to eliminate all competition at the expense of his corrupted soul. With enough visual vitality and provocative substance to spark heated debate (and box-office gold) in Brazil, codirectors Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund tackle their subject head on, creating a portrait of youthful anarchy so appalling--and so authentically immediate--that City of God prompted reforms in socioeconomic policy. It's a bracing feat of stylistic audacity, borrowing from a dozen other films to form its own unique identity. You'll flinch, but you can't look away. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 7
Points: 38
Voters: Thesiger (5), TopCat G (3), rock the kaspar (4), The RightGraduate Profile (6), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5), Rocky Bronzino (10)


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Chinatown (1974)
Directed by Roman Polanski

Synopsis: Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency--and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J.J. Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mold, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole center of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted color cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose. One of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time. --Anne Hurley (Amazon.com)



Votes: 7
Points: 39
Voters: Ghost of Hary Smith (6), Goat Boy (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), geoffcowgill (8), rock the kaspar (3), Owen (7), Sgt Pepper (5)


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Das Leben der Anderen [The Lives of Others] (2006)
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Synopsis: Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, this is a first-rate thriller that, like Bertolucci's The Conformist and Coppola's The Conversation, opts for character development over car chases. The place is East Berlin, the year is 1984, and it all begins with a simple surveillance assignment: Capt. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe in a restrained, yet deeply felt performance), a Stasi officer and a specialist in this kind of thing, has been assigned to keep an eye on Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch, Black Book), a respected playwright, and his actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck, Mostly Martha). Though Dreyman is known to associate with the occasional dissident, like blacklisted director Albert Jerska (Volkmar Kleinert), his record is spotless. Everything changes when Wiesler discovers that Minister Hempf (Thomas Thieme) has an ulterior motive in spying on this seemingly upright citizen. In other words, it's personal, and Wiesler's sympathies shift from the government to its people--or at least to this one particular person. That would be risky enough, but then Wiesler uses his privileged position to affect a change in Dreyman's life. The God-like move he makes may be minor and untraceable, but it will have major consequences for all concerned, including Wiesler himself. Writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck starts with a simple premise that becomes more complicated and emotionally involving as his assured debut unfolds. Though three epilogues is, arguably, two too many, The Lives of Others is always elegant, never confusing. It's class with feeling. --Kathleen C. Fennessy (Amazon.com)



Votes: 7
Points: 46
Voters: Polishgirl (5), Thesiger (4), TopCat G (3), rock the kaspar (10), The RightGraduate Profile (6), whodathunkit (8), Rocky Bronzino (10)


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Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Directed by Sidney Lumet

Synopsis: A gripping true crime yarn, a juicy slice of overheated New York atmosphere, and a splendid showcase for its young actors, Dog Day Afternoon is a minor classic of the 1970s. The opening montage of New York street life (set to Elton John's lazy "Amoreena") establishes the oppressive mood of a scorching afternoon in the city with such immediacy that you can almost smell the garbage baking in the sun and the water from the hydrants evaporating from the sizzling pavement. Al Pacino plays Sonny, who, along with his rather slow-witted accomplice Sal (John Cazale, familiar as Pacino's Godfather brother Fredo), holds hostages after a botched a bank robbery. Sonny finds himself transformed into a rebel celebrity when his standoff with police (including lead negotiator Charles Durning) is covered live on local television. The movie doesn't appear to be about anything in particular, but it really conveys the feel of wild and unpredictable events unfolding before your eyes, and the whole picture is so convincing and involving that you're glued to the screen. An Oscar winner for original screenplay, Dog Day Afternoon was also nominated for best picture, actor, supporting actor (Chris Sarandon, as a surprise figure from Sonny's past), editing, and director (Sidney Lumet of Serpico, Prince of the City, The Verdict, and Running on Empty). --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 8
Points: 27
Voters: martha (1), geoffcowgill (4), rock the kaspar (2), Jeff K (5), Davey Avon FatBoy (2), whodathunkit (5), Sgt Pepper (5), toomanyhatz (3)


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Groundhog Day (1993)
Directed by Harold Ramis

Synopsis: Bill Murray does warmth in his most consistently effective post-Stripes comedy, a romantic fantasy about a wacky weatherman forced to relive one strange day over and over again, until he gets it right. Snowed in during a road-trip expedition to watch the famous groundhog encounter his shadow, Murray falls into a time warp that is never explained but pays off so richly that it doesn't need to be. The elaborate loop-the-loop plot structure cooked up by screenwriter Danny Rubin is crystal-clear every step of the way, but it's Murray's world-class reactive timing that makes the jokes explode, and we end up looking forward to each new variation. He squeezes all the available juice out of every scene. Without forcing the issue, he makes us understand why this fly-away personality responds so intensely to the radiant sanity of the TV producer played by Andie MacDowell. The blissfully clueless Chris Elliott (Cabin Boy) is Murray's nudnik cameraman. --David Chute (Amazon.com)



Votes: 8
Points: 39
Voters: martha (2), Jeff K (5), All mimsy (4), The RightGraduate Profile (10), Owen (5), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5), Rocky Bronzino (3)


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Blue Velvet (1986)
Directed by David Lynch

Synopsis: David Lynch peeks behind the picket fences of small-town America to reveal a corrupt shadow world of malevolence, sadism, and madness. From the opening shots Lynch turns the Technicolor picture postcard images of middle class homes and tree-lined lanes into a dreamy vision on the edge of nightmare. After his father collapses in a preternaturally eerie sequence, college boy Kyle MacLachlan returns home and stumbles across a severed human ear in a vacant lot. With the help of sweetly innocent high school girl (Laura Dern), he turns junior detective and uncovers a frightening yet darkly compelling world of voyeurism and sex. Drawn deeper into the brutal world of drug dealer and blackmailer Frank, played with raving mania by an obscenity-shouting Dennis Hopper in a career-reviving performance, he loses his innocence and his moral bearings when confronted with pure, unexplainable evil. Isabella Rossellini is terrifyingly desperate as Hopper's sexual slave who becomes MacLachlan's illicit lover, and Dean Stockwell purrs through his role as Hopper's oh-so-suave buddy. Lynch strips his surreally mundane sets to a ghostly austerity, which composer Angelo Badalamenti encourages with the smooth, spooky strains of a lush score. Blue Velvet is a disturbing film that delves into the darkest reaches of psycho-sexual brutality and simply isn't for everyone. But for a viewer who wants to see the cinematic world rocked off its foundations, David Lynch delivers a nightmarish masterpiece. --Sean Axmaker (Amazon.com)



Votes: 8
Points: 43
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (4), Goat Boy (5), beenieman (5), TopCat G (3), geoffcowgill (5), The RightGraduate Profile (10), whodathunkit (6)


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Les quatre cents coups [The 400 Blows] (1959)
Directed by François Truffaut

Synopsis: The knowing yet innocent face of Jean-Pierre Leaud, the 14-year-old star of The 400 Blows, is the heartbreaking core of Francois Truffaut's most intimate film. As Antoine Doinel, Leaud begins his career as director Truffaut's alter-ego, a young boy neglected by his mother and stepfather who, to cover his absence at school, tells a lie that leads him to run away from home and end up in reform school. There's nothing remarkable or surprising about the plot; the power of this film comes from how completely it draws you into Antoine's life. Antoine is a vivid, natural presence, one of the most compelling collaborations between a writer/director and an actor. The movie seems to capture him as he lives. Antoine endures his parent's indifference, humiliations at school, deprivation and juvenile delinquency--yet the movie never feels pitying or condescending, as if it were trying to rub your nose in Antoine's suffering. On the contrary: His resilience is what grabs you, his refusal to be broken down as he struggles towards a more adult understanding of the world. Truffaut and Leaud made many excellent films together (Day for Night, Two English Girls), including further chapters in Antoine's life (Bed and Board, Stolen Kisses), but none were quite as simple, rich, and devastatingly potent as The 400 Blows. (The title, incidentally, refers not to abuse or anything sexual, but is a French idiom for a wild and unruly youth or "raising hell.") --Bret Fetzer (Amazon.com)



Votes: 8
Points: 46
Voters: GoogaMooga (5), martha (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), geoffcowgill (6), Jeff K (5), Owen (7), PENK (3), Brer Baron (10)


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Taxi Driver (1976)
Directed by Martin Scorsese

Synopsis: Taxi Driver is the definitive cinematic portrait of loneliness and alienation manifested as violence. It is as if director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader had tapped into precisely the same source of psychological inspiration ("I just knew I had to make this film," Scorsese would later say), combined with a perfectly timed post-Watergate expression of personal, political, and societal anxiety. Robert De Niro, as the tortured, ex-Marine cab driver Travis Bickle, made movie history with his chilling performance as one of the most memorably intense and vividly realized characters ever committed to film. Bickle is a self-appointed vigilante who views his urban beat as an intolerable cesspool of blighted humanity. He plays guardian angel for a young prostitute (Jodie Foster), but not without violently devastating consequences. This masterpiece, which is not for all tastes, is sure to horrify some viewers, but few could deny the film's lasting power and importance. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 8
Points: 49
Voters: Goat Boy (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), TopCat G (3), Jeff K (5), The RightGraduate Profile (10), Davey Avon FatBoy (5), whodathunkit (8), Brer Baron (8)


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Badlands (1973)
Directed by Terrence Malick

Synopsis: Still one of American cinema's most powerful, daring filmmaking debuts, Terrence Malick's Badlands is a quirky, visionary psychological and social enigma masquerading as a simple lovers-on-the-lam flick. Inspired by the 1958 murders in the cold, stark badlands of South Dakota by Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, the film's plot, on the surface, is similar to that of other killing-couple films, like Bonnie and Clyde and Gun Crazy. Martin Sheen, in an understated, sophisticated performance, plays the strange James Dean-like social outcast who falls in love with the naïve Sissy Spacek--and then kills her father when he comes between them. The two flee like animals to the wilderness, until the police arrive and the killing spree begins. What sets the film apart from others of its genre is Malick's complicated approach. Gorgeous, impenetrable images contrast sharply with Spacek's nostalgically artless narration, serving as ironic counterpoints, blurring concrete meaning, and stressing that nothing this horrific is simple. Malick observes, rather than analyzes, the couple in a manner as detached and apathetic as the couple's shocking actions. No judgment or definitive motivations are offered, though Malick's empathy often leans toward his senseless protagonists, rather than the star-struck society that makes killers famous. Compared with the interchangeable uniform cops who hunt them and the film's other nameless characters stuck in suburban banality, the couple are presented like tarnished, warped and frustrated results of squelched individuality. Badlands, on one level, views America's suffocating homogeneity and, conversely, its continued obsession with celebrities (individuals considered different but adored) as hypocritical. Ambiguous and bold, the movie hints that society may be as guilty as the killers. --Dave McCoy (Amazon.com)



Votes: 8
Points: 50
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (6), Goat Boy (5), Thesiger (5), TopCat G (3), Davey Avon FatBoy (8), PENK (10), Brer Baron (8)


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Vertigo (1958)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Synopsis: Although it wasn't a box-office success when originally released in 1958, Vertigo has since taken its deserved place as Alfred Hitchcock's greatest, most spellbinding, most deeply personal achievement. In fact, it consistently ranks among the top 10 movies ever made in the once-a-decade Sight & Sound international critics poll, placing at number 4 in the 1992 survey. (Universal Pictures' spectacularly gorgeous 1996 restoration and rerelease of this 1958 Paramount production was a tremendous success with the public, too.) James Stewart plays a retired police detective who is hired by an old friend to follow his wife (a superb Kim Novak, in what becomes a double role), whom he suspects of being possessed by the spirit of a dead madwoman. The detective and the disturbed woman fall ("fall" is indeed the operative word) in love and...well, to give away any more of the story would be criminal. Shot around San Francisco (the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of the Legion of Honor are significant locations) and elsewhere in Northern California (the redwoods, Mission San Juan Batista) in rapturous Technicolor, Vertigo is as lovely as it is haunting. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 8
Points: 69
Voters: martha (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (6), the masked man (8), TopCat G (20), The RightGraduate Profile (6), Sgt Pepper (5), toomanyhatz (15), Brer Baron (4)


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Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Synopsis: Arguably the greatest black comedy ever made, Stanley Kubrick's cold war classic is the ultimate satire of the nuclear age. Dr. Strangelove is a perfect spoof of political and military insanity, beginning when General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), a maniacal warrior obsessed with "the purity of precious bodily fluids," mounts his singular campaign against Communism by ordering a squadron of B-52 bombers to attack the Soviet Union. The Soviets counter the threat with a so-called "Doomsday Device," and the world hangs in the balance while the U.S. president (Peter Sellers) engages in hilarious hot-line negotiations with his Soviet counterpart. Sellers also plays a British military attaché and the mad bomb-maker Dr. Strangelove; George C. Scott is outrageously frantic as General Buck Turgidson, whose presidential advice consists mainly of panic and statistics about "acceptable losses." With dialogue ("You can't fight here! This is the war room!") and images (Slim Pickens's character riding the bomb to oblivion) that have become a part of our cultural vocabulary, Kubrick's film regularly appears on critics' lists of the all-time best. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 9
Points: 46
Voters: meetthesonics (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (2), the masked man (5), kath (5), geoffcowgill (8), The RightGraduate Profile (3), whodathunkit (8), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5)


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Brazil (1985)
Directed by Terry Gilliam

Synopsis: If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labeled as a miscreant. The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. --Jim Emerson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 9
Points: 57
Voters: Algroth (11), Snarfyguy (5), Martha (5), Ghost of Harry Smith (6), the masked man (6), kath (5), geoffcowgill (8), Jeff K (5), whodathunkit (6)


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This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Directed by Rob Reiner

Synopsis: In 1982 legendary British heavy metal band Spinal Tap attempt an American comeback tour accompanied by a fan who is also a film-maker. The resulting documentary, interspersed with powerful performances of Tap's pivotal music and profound lyrics, candidly follows a rock group heading towards crisis, culminating in the infamous affair of the eighteen-inch-high Stonehenge stage prop. --Jeremy Perkins (IMDb.com)



Votes: 10
Points: 40
Voters: Polishgirl (5), Goat Boy (5), the masked man (5), rock the kaspar (4), The RightGraduate Profile (3), whodathunkit (2), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5), Rocky Bronzino (3), toomanyhatz (3)


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Don't Look Now (1973)
Directed by Nicolas Roeg

Synopsis: Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now once seemed radically new with its kaleidoscopic imagery, dreamlike editing, and willingness to let mystery be mysterious on several levels of reality/illusion--plus art-house darling Julie Christie in a long, nude love scene! Nowadays, this 1974 adaptation of a Daphne du Maurier ghost story looks almost classical. Following the drowning of their child in England, Laura (Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) have come to dank, eternally dying Venice, where he is supervising the restoration of a moldering church and she is either slipping into or climbing out of madness with the help of a pair of creepy spinster sisters, one of whom can "see" even though blind. John may share this psychic power, though he resists accepting it as the canals fill with murder victims, surface realities turn shimmery as water, and a red-coated figure--the daughter's ghost?--keeps flickering in the corner of our vision. Though surreal and perplexing, the film does eventually add up, and the ending remains a real throat-grabber. --Richard T. Jameson (Amazon.com)



Votes: 10
Points: 49
Voters: Ghost of Harry Smith (4), Goat Boy (5), BlueMeanie (3), Thesiger (8), the masked man (8), TopCat G (3), The RightGraduate Profile (3), Davey Avon FatBoy (8), whodathunkit (5), toomanyhatz (2)


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Apocalypse Now (1979)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Synopsis: In the tradition of such obsessively driven directors as Erich von Stroheim and Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola approached the production of Apocalypse Now as if it were his own epic mission into the heart of darkness. On location in the storm-ravaged Philippines, he quite literally went mad as the project threatened to devour him in a vortex of creative despair, but from this insanity came one of the greatest films ever made. It began as a John Milius screenplay, transposing Joseph Conrad's classic story "Heart of Darkness" into the horrors of the Vietnam War, following a battle-weary Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on a secret upriver mission to find and execute the renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has reverted to a state of murderous and mystical insanity. The journey is fraught with danger involving wartime action on epic and intimate scales. One measure of the film's awesome visceral impact is the number of sequences, images, and lines of dialogue that have literally burned themselves into our cinematic consciousness, from the Wagnerian strike of helicopter gunships on a Vietnamese village to the brutal murder of stowaways on a peasant sampan and the unflinching fearlessness of the surfing warrior Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who speaks lovingly of "the smell of napalm in the morning." Like Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, this film is the product of genius cast into a pit of hell and emerging, phoenix-like, in triumph. Coppola's obsession (effectively detailed in the riveting documentary Hearts of Darkness, directed by Coppola's wife, Eleanor) informs every scene and every frame, and the result is a film for the ages. --Jeff Shannon (Amazon.com)



Votes: 10
Points: 51
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), martha (1), Goat Boy (5), Thesiger (2), beenieman (5), TopCat G (10), rock the kaspar (10), Sgt Pepper (5), Fangedango! (5), PENK (3)


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Rear Window (1954)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Synopsis: Professional photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race. Confined to his New York apartment, he spends his time looking out of the rear window observing the neighbors. He begins to suspect that a man across the courtyard may have murdered his wife. Jeff enlists the help of his high society fashion-consultant girlfriend Lisa Freemont and his visiting nurse Stella to investigate. --Col Needham (IMDb.com)



Votes: 10
Points: 58
Voters: meetthesonics (5), Polishgirl (5), BlueMeanie (6), kath (5), geoffcowgill (8), All mimsy (5), The RightGraduate Profile (6), Owen (7), Sgt Pepper (5), toomanyhatz (6)


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The Godfather, Part II (1974)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Synopsis: Francis Ford Coppola took some of the deep background from the life of Mafia chief Vito Corleone--the patriarch of Mario Puzo's bestselling novel The Godfather--and built around it a stunning sequel to his Oscar-winning, 1972 hit film. Robert De Niro plays Vito as a young Sicilian immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York City's Little Italy. Coppola weaves in and out of the story of Vito's transformation into a powerful crime figure, contrasting that evolution against efforts by son Michael Corleone to spread the family's business into pre-Castro Cuba. As memorable as the first film is, The Godfather II is an amazingly intricate, symmetrical tragedy that touches upon several chapters of 20th-century history and makes a strong case that our destinies are written long before we're born. This was De Niro's first introduction to a lot of filmgoers, and he makes an enormous impression. But even with him and a number of truly brilliant actors (including maestro Lee Strasberg), this is ultimately Pacino's film and a masterful performance. --Tom Keogh (Amazon.com)



Votes: 11
Points: 53
Voters: GoogaMooga (5), martha (1), Ghost of Harry Smith (4), Goat Boy (5), Thesiger (2), rock the kaspar (4), Davey Avon FatBoy (5), whodathunkit (8), Owen (4), Sgt Pepper (5), Rocky Bronzino (10)


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Citizen Kane (1941)
Directed by Orson Welles

Synopsis: Arguably the greatest of American films, Orson Welles's 1941 masterpiece, made when he was only 26, still unfurls like a dream and carries the viewer along the mysterious currents of time and memory to reach a mature (if ambiguous) conclusion: people are the sum of their contradictions, and can't be known easily. Welles plays newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. The result is that every well-meaning or tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event. Written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, and photographed by Gregg Toland, the film is the sum of Welles's awesome ambitions as an artist in Hollywood. He pushes the limits of then-available technology to create a true magic show, a visual and aural feast that almost seems to be rising up from a viewer's subconsciousness. As Kane, Welles even ushers in the influence of Bertolt Brecht on film acting. This is truly a one-of-a-kind work, and in many ways is still the most modern of modern films from the 20th century. --Tom Keogh (Amazon.com)



Votes: 11
Points: 56
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), Thesiger (6), the masked man (6), geoffcowgill (6), All mimsy (5), The RightGraduate Profile (3), Davey Avon FatBoy (5), whodathunkit (6), Owen (4), Fangedango! (5)


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The Third Man (1949)
Directed by Carol Reed

Synopsis: The fractured Europe post-World War II is perfectly capturedin Carol Reed's masterpiece thriller, set in a Vienna still shell-shocked from battle. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) is an alcoholic pulp writer come to visit his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). But when Cotton first arrives in Vienna, Lime's funeral is under way. From Lime's girlfriend and an occupying British officer, Martins learns of allegations of Lime's involvement in racketeering, which Martins vows to clear from his friend's reputation. As he is drawn deeper into postwar intrigue, Martins finds layer under layer of deception, which he desperately tries to sort out. Welles's long-delayed entrance in the film has become one of the hallmarks of modern cinematography, and it is just one of dozens of cockeyed camera angles that seem to mirror the off-kilter postwar society. Cotten and Welles give career-making performances, and the Anton Karas zither theme will haunt you. --Anne Hurley (Amazon.com)



Votes: 11
Points: 67
Voters: Snarfyguy (5), BlueMeanie (10), TopCat G (10), geoffcowgill (5), rock the kaspar (4), All mimsy (2), The RightGraduate Profile (10), Davey Avon FatBoy (5), Owen (7), Sgt Pepper (5), toomanyhatz (4)


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Casablanca (1942)
Directed by Michael Curtiz

Synopsis: A truly perfect movie, the 1942 Casablanca still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband. Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt are among what may be the best supporting cast in the history of Hollywood films. This is certainly among the most spirited and ennobling movies ever made. --Tom Keogh (Amazon.com)



Votes: 12
Points: 71
Voters: meetthesonics (5), martha (1), Ghost of Harry Smith (2), mentalist (slight return) (5), kath (5), geoffcowgill (5), rock the kaspar (20), All mimsy (7), Davey Avon FatBoy (5), whodathunkit (4), Owen (7), Sgt Pepper (5)


1 (STAND UP, CHAMP)

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The Godfather (1972)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Synopsis: Generally acknowledged as a bona fide classic, this Francis Ford Coppola film is one of those rare experiences that feels perfectly right from beginning to end--almost as if everyone involved had been born to participate in it. Based on Mario Puzo's bestselling novel about a Mafia dynasty, Coppola's Godfather extracted and enhanced the most universal themes of immigrant experience in America: the plotting-out of hopes and dreams for one's successors, the raising of children to carry on the good work, etc. In the midst of generational strife during the Vietnam years, the film somehow struck a chord with a nation fascinated by the metamorphosis of a rebellious son (Al Pacino) into the keeper of his father's dream. Marlon Brando played against Puzo's own conception of patriarch Vito Corleone, and time has certainly proven the actor correct. The rest of the cast, particularly James Caan, John Cazale, and Robert Duvall as the rest of Vito's male brood--all coping with how to take the mantle of responsibility from their father--is seamless and wonderful. --Tom Keogh (Amazon.com)



Votes: 16
Points: 100
Voters: meetthesonics (5), GoogaMooga (5), Goat boy (5), mentalist (slight return) (5), Thesiger (2), TopCat G (3), geoffcowgill (8), rock the kaspar (20), Jeff K (5), Davey Avon FatBoy (5), whodathunkit (8), Owen (5), Sgt Pepper (5), Rocky Bronzino (10), PENK (5), Brer Baron (4)
Last edited by algroth on 31 Aug 2011, 04:45, edited 6 times in total.

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Snarfyguy
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby Snarfyguy » 08 Jun 2011, 04:22

So wait, is it 50 or 100? Or is it that the number of titles we submit has nothing to do with the number of titles you're proposing to list?

Am confused.
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algroth
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby algroth » 08 Jun 2011, 04:29

Snarfyguy wrote:So wait, is it 50 or 100? Or is it that the number of titles we submit has nothing to do with the number of titles you're proposing to list?

Am confused.


You submit 50, but I will post up the 100 most voted for.

The Modernist

Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby The Modernist » 08 Jun 2011, 06:59

I did the first film poll and since then Penk has done one ( or maybe two) so I have some idea of the likely numbers voting.
Your biggest problem will be getting enough people to vote to make it meaningful, I would make a post in NDL too and try to encourage a few more to join in. Good luck with it.

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WG Kaspar
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby WG Kaspar » 08 Jun 2011, 14:13

I will be voting but maybe 50 submissions are a few too many?
I run out of talent

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kath
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby kath » 08 Jun 2011, 18:43

rock the kaspar wrote:I will be voting but maybe 50 submissions are a few too many?


you MUST be insane.

but that's neither here nor there.

more to the point:

... are you insane???

i'm gonna have problems narrowing down to 50 entries. i gave myself a frontal lobe hernia trying to come up with a top ten films of the 70s list for that other thread before i had to quit.

conclusion: no more ether and hallucinogens for you.

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algroth
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby algroth » 09 Jun 2011, 04:22

rock the kaspar wrote:I will be voting but maybe 50 submissions are a few too many?


I was worried it would be, but many people were enthusiastic with the idea of expanding the number of possible slots. I've done similar polls in other forums and usually people seemed eager to get as much space as they could to add their favorites. Either way, I think it could lead to much more interesting and accurate results, giving a chance for each member to showcase better their taste in films and leaving a lot of space in which to add more obscure and personal titles.

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algroth
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby algroth » 09 Jun 2011, 04:24

TopCat G wrote:Your biggest problem will be getting enough people to vote to make it meaningful, I would make a post in NDL too and try to encourage a few more to join in. Good luck with it.


Will do, thanks for the tip!

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algroth
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby algroth » 09 Jun 2011, 07:17

martha wrote:I'll do my best to press gang folks. Let's make it a global announcement so it's visible from all the forum.


Thanks!

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WG Kaspar
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby WG Kaspar » 09 Jun 2011, 08:18

Just an idea, but would anyone object if I put this on the MOJO boards and see if we can get more numbers for this thing?
I run out of talent

Bungo the Mungo

Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby Bungo the Mungo » 09 Jun 2011, 10:28

rock the kaspar wrote:I will be voting but maybe 50 submissions are a few too many?


I think so.

I'd go for 20. Easier for people to put together, therefore potentially more submissions. And it means that people will only be putting forward their very favourite films.

Also it's consistent with the album polls.

50 is just too many.

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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby Goat Boy » 09 Jun 2011, 10:40

50's not enough!

I'm in though.
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Samoan
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby Samoan » 09 Jun 2011, 10:42

I'll give it a shot but it'll be challenging.
Nonsense to the aggressiveness, I've seen more aggression on the my little pony message board......I mean I was told.

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Rorschach
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby Rorschach » 09 Jun 2011, 13:56

I'd be interested but I think 50's too many for me.
Bugger off.

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BARON CORNY DOG
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby BARON CORNY DOG » 09 Jun 2011, 14:21

I'll be able to come up with 50, I guess. But I won't be bothered to work out the point spreads.

Still, I hope we have some time for this. There are so many movies and it's not like music where you're listening all the time, so if you watch a lot of movies, it's hard to gather them all in your mind to have a coherent go at it. I could come up with a top 10 or even 20 pretty easily, but after that, the rankings will be fairly arbitrary. I mean, I could come up with 50 I love, no problem, but there won't be much separating, say, 15-50.
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby straw mimsy » 09 Jun 2011, 16:17

I'm so in, I'm almost through to the otherside.

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algroth
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Re: BCB's Top 100 Films Poll.

Postby algroth » 09 Jun 2011, 16:18

Brer Baron wrote:I'll be able to come up with 50, I guess. But I won't be bothered to work out the point spreads.

Still, I hope we have some time for this. There are so many movies and it's not like music where you're listening all the time, so if you watch a lot of movies, it's hard to gather them all in your mind to have a coherent go at it. I could come up with a top 10 or even 20 pretty easily, but after that, the rankings will be fairly arbitrary. I mean, I could come up with 50 I love, no problem, but there won't be much separating, say, 15-50.


Yeah, I figured that would be the case, which is why I am not depending on rankings, but rather a personal distribution of points. You can always give five points to each, and there they'd be ranked equatively.


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