BCB's Top 101 Films Poll (2017 edition) - FULL RESULTS ARE UP!!

[copehead]

I'm a fan of Tolkien-esque fantasy and love plenty of RPGs in the mold (My all-time two favorite games are Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate II, while you can also read my review of Pillars of Eternity here), but Jackson's films didn't do much for me. There are individual scenes in the first two films that I enjoy, as well as some of the feel for them, but the third I feel gets bogged down by an excess of pretty sloppy spectacle and melodrama, all the way up to the dozen finales that occupy the last 40 minutes or so of the film.

I suppose you could say that Jackson was too faithful to the books because they are pretty much filled with melodrama and have the multiple endings.
Even then the Shire ending for Saruman was canned, imagine how long it could have gone on.

I think Jackson captured the feel and look of Tolkein's books superbly but then he was a big fan himself.

That doesn't mean to say that I didn't get fed up with Frodo's constant whinging and want to punch him in the face by the end. Sam Gamgee is better man than me, I'd have pushed him into Mount Doom with Gollum.

The spectacle is everything to me, the Riders Rohan sweeping down the hill, Gandalf sweeping down the hill at Helm's deep, people sweeping down hills all over. But I also thing he grasped the nuances of the books very well the costumes in particular we immaculate.

Although I must say I didn't like the way Elves marched around in lock step like nazi storm troopers in black armor.

But the battle of Minas Tirith is one of the great cinematic spectacles of all time it makes you want to stand on your chair and cheer for that alone it deserves a place in my view, and it is a film I know I will watch again and again over the years just to enjoy being back in Middle earth.

[algroth]

I'm a fan of Tolkien-esque fantasy and love plenty of RPGs in the mold (My all-time two favorite games are Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate II, while you can also read my review of Pillars of Eternity here), but Jackson's films didn't do much for me. There are individual scenes in the first two films that I enjoy, as well as some of the feel for them, but the third I feel gets bogged down by an excess of pretty sloppy spectacle and melodrama, all the way up to the dozen finales that occupy the last 40 minutes or so of the film.

I suppose you could say that Jackson was too faithful to the books because they are pretty much filled with melodrama and have the multiple endings.
Even then the Shire ending for Saruman was canned, imagine how long it could have gone on.

I think Jackson captured the feel and look of Tolkein's books superbly but then he was a big fan himself.

Y'see, I would argue the exact opposite. To me the melodrama in Tolkien's books was pretty secondary to the construction of a breathtaking world that far exceeded the personal worries of each of its characters - Jackson decided instead to focus on this, and on the ensuing action, while approaching Middle Earth with the sensibility with which one would shoot a Kiwi travelogue. Moreover, any flaws in the original source need not translate over to an adaptation, so the point is moot all the same. I cannot agree at all with your remark about the costumes either: to me they looked rubbery, flimsy and not unlike what you'd expect from LARPers and cosplayers. I just didn't find it engaging, sorry.

[The Write Profile]

I'm glad some others remembered to vote for North By Northwest. I think it's one of those films that gets better with every year. It's certainly the tightest and most unashamedly pleasurable of all Hitchcock's films, not least because it's got Cary Grant at his debonair best, and the amazing James Mason at his most supercilious. So many of its sequences have become iconic, but not a lot could top that final train trip as a closer.

As for Lord of the Rings, I think the first film was an incredible achievement. It's easy to forget (especially if you're a NZer) that it was viewed as a massive gamble to hand it over to a director who had hitherto specialised in splatter comedies (Bad Taste, Braindead) or antipodean Gothic (Heavenly Creatures) a fraction of LOTR's budget. Instead, he created a vision of Middle Earth so persuasive that it's still bringing in tourist dollars to NZ today. Admittedly, I have issues with the subsequent two films and the Hobbit trilogy- put simply, Jackson seems to have forgotten entirely how to self-edit a picture and just throws everything at the screen in a bid that some of it will stick. But I can't deny him the first film. It also helped that the standard of acting- especially from Ian Mackellen and Viggo Mortensen- was far better than this sort of genre exercise usually got, or deserved.

[Goat Boy]

Are people not over LOTR yet?

They were good movies, especially for that epic fantasy type thing but quite flawed and they just went on and on and on and on.

I honestly have no desire to rewatch any of them these days

[naughty boy]

I'm glad some others remembered to vote for North By Northwest. I think it's one of those films that gets better with every year. It's certainly the tightest and most unashamedly pleasurable of all Hitchcock's films, not least because it's got Cary Grant at his debonair best, and the amazing James Mason at his most supercilious. So many of its sequences have become iconic, but not a lot could top that final train trip as a closer.

I love every moment.

I think you're dead right to call it the most enjoyable of all Hitch's films. You're not really left scratching your head, as you are in Vertigo, or scared, as you are in Psycho. It's a joyride, the very best kind of Hollywood entertainment.

Much of what makes it for me is the tongue-in-cheek style that straddles the line between amusing and thrilling. Cary Grant's befuddled reaction in the face of James Mason's insistence ('I'm NOT Kaplan!'), the scene in the lift where they all crack up, Grant's drunk phone call to his mother, even the iconic crop-dusting scene.

And then you've got Bernard Herrmann's score, Saul Bass' fantastic opening credits sequence (with Hitch's very brief appearance by the closing bus door!), and of course Cary Grant's pitch-perfect performance. He really was one of a kind. I think if he had been 20 years younger he would have made the perfect Bond.

[never/ever]

As for Lord of the Rings, I think the first film was an incredible achievement. It's easy to forget (especially if you're a NZer) that it was viewed as a massive gamble to hand it over to a director who had hitherto specialised in splatter comedies (Bad Taste, Braindead) or antipodean Gothic (Heavenly Creatures) a fraction of LOTR's budget. Instead, he created a vision of Middle Earth so persuasive that it's still bringing in tourist dollars to NZ today. Admittedly, I have issues with the subsequent two films and the Hobbit trilogy- put simply, Jackson seems to have forgotten entirely how to self-edit a picture and just throws everything at the screen in a bid that some of it will stick. But I can't deny him the first film. It also helped that the standard of acting- especially from Ian Mackellen and Viggo Mortensen- was far better than this sort of genre exercise usually got, or deserved.

I have spent a lot of time discussing the trilogy with other fans. Relaying such a dense tale that is filled with lots of explanatory mythology and subplots which interweave in the main story consistently was always going to be the stuff of fierce editing. With the Tolkien-heirs breathing down his neck, Jackson needed to cram a lot of different details into the picture and from my view, he has done largely an amazing job. Visualising the scenery may have been easy as the book itself is rich in detail, knowing what to edit out was another. The first movie suffers the least amount of information overkill because there was simply no need for it- the encounters that follow in the second and third movie warrant more detailed scenes which may clutter up the main storyline and leave the non-initiated the overall feeling of being overly loaded with non-essential information. But the concluding movie warrants my points for the battle-scenes and the great way Andy Serkis sets up his mental battle with Frodo... it certainly made my initial distrust towards this project disappear.

And very happy Grave Of The Fireflies made the grade! Such an enthralling and sad story in a genre that rarely emotes with such deliberate power.

[naughty boy]

Are people not over LOTR yet?

They were good movies, especially for that epic fantasy type thing but quite flawed and they just went on and on and on and on.

I honestly have no desire to rewatch any of them these days

It's stuff for proggy woggy dickheads who have no personalities.

[never/ever]

Are people not over LOTR yet?

They were good movies, especially for that epic fantasy type thing but quite flawed and they just went on and on and on and on.

I honestly have no desire to rewatch any of them these days

It's stuff for proggy woggy dickheads who have no personalities.

Always better than a bored little cunt that has got no intrinsic value to this site whatsoever.

[naughty boy]

[Goat Boy]

YOU GUYS

[never/ever]

Well, is was Coan who complained that Friday nights used to be so much fun around here...

[naughty boy]

:D
Well, is was Coan who complained that Friday nights used to be so much fun around here...

Prog Synch Listen: The Allman Brothers DOUBLE HEADER, TODAY Friday 2nd June @ 9pm

[never/ever]

So your point is that if you don't like something being organised of which you don't want to be part of, the rest of us are not allowed to enjoy it?

I'd be happy to join in on Saturday morning to see what any of you want to throw up here on your Friday nights.....bring it on!

And sorry algoth for hijacking the thread.

[Goat Boy]

Don't worry chaps, I'm planning a Big Big Train double header sync listen soon.

Be there or be square!





.

[naughty boy]

YES!

[never/ever]

YES!

Scheduled for a PSL on June 23 I believe...

[Goat Boy]

Apparently they are planning an EP with 5 GREAT NEW TRACKS based around the life of the SUFFRAGETTES.

Sounds robust! Not arf!


Rock on fellas, yes, rock on....

[kath]

Prog Synch Listen: The Allman Brothers DOUBLE HEADER, TODAY Friday 2nd June @ 9pm

thanks for the promo.

yeah, we have honorary synch listens for musicians who've died. we've done them for bowie, cohen, lemmy... the list has been very long these last few years, alas.

everyone's welcome.

as for the lord of the rings films, i think they're fantastic. hence my vote. mwhaha.

p.s. as ever, algroth, a great job. the posters fucquin rule.

[algroth]

And very happy Grave Of The Fireflies made the grade! Such an enthralling and sad story in a genre that rarely emotes with such deliberate power.

I think film as a whole rarely emotes with such power, hence my vote! But there is a lot of great anime in its vein too, even if separating the wheat from the chaff can be an arduous business. I highly recommend the rest of Takahata's works, particularly Only Yesterday and The Tale of Princess Kaguya, as well as Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress as a few more great examples.

[Penk!]

I voted for loads of black and white foreign artsy bollocks but I voted for a LOTR film too because a lot of people who just like black and white foreign artsy bollocks don't seem to realise that sometimes it's good to just sit back in a comfy chair, stop thinking about IMPORTANT THINGS, and sink into a world where you can go on a journey and enjoy awesome shit happening onscreen.