The Top 5 List Thread

[no country for old wainds]

should go down as one of the largest failures of 'ol Scott.

congrats on being fortunate enough to have avoided/forgotten 95% of ridley scott's career

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Top 5 Ridley Scott movies
1 - Alien

2 - Gladiator
3 - Black Hawk Down
4 - The Martian
5 - Blade Runner

HM - Hannibal, Kingdom of Heaven and Prometheus(yeah, i liked it). Still haven't seen Covenant.

 

[rms]

He's been a Hollywood guy for so long but to go from Alien to Blade runner is such a shame

 

[no country for old wainds]

i always forget he did THE COUNSELOR not too long ago, that was a very unhollywood little cormac mccarthy adaptation.

 

[CiG]

Blade Runner bastardized the source material and attempted a dystopian detective film w/ a vague hint and question of "what is reality?" -- should go down as one of the largest failures of 'ol Scott.

Speaking of vague, what the fuck is this criticism? Thanks for saying nothing to me while reiterating your preference for the other two films.

Also, I didn't even say they were listed in order. Only #1 is ordered and for that year it was Conan the Barbarian.

Top 5 Ridley Scott movies
1 - Alien

2 - Gladiator
3 - Black Hawk Down
4 - The Martian
5 - Blade Runner

Top 5 Ridley Scott films:

1. Alien
2. Blade Runner
3. Gladiator
4. Black Hawk Down
5. Hannibal

I haven't seen The Duellists yet but I have a feeling it will replace something in here when I do.

 

[CiG]

Top 5 films from 1990:

1. La Femme Nikita
2. Goodfellas
3. Tremors
4. Boiling Point (Kitano)
5. Jacob's Ladder

Top 5 films from 1991:

1. Terminator II: Judgement Day
2. Riki-Oh
3. Out for Justice
4. Barton Fink
5. Showdown in Little Tokyo

Top 5 films from 1992:

1. Unforgiven
2. Braindead
3. New Dragon Gate Inn
4. Bad Lieutenant
5. L.627

Top 5 films from 1993:

1. Red Rock West
2. The Sandlot
3. Sonatine
4. Iron Monkey
5. Menace II Society

Top 5 films from 1994:

1. Once Were Warriors
2. Clerks
3. Léon: The Professional
   
4. Legends of the Fall
5. Natural Born Killers

Top 5 films from 1995:

1. Braveheart
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Casino
4. The Usual Suspects
5. Waterworld

Top 5 films from 1996:

1. Fargo
2. Crash
3. The Glimmer Man
4. Black Sheep
5. Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood

Top 5 films from 1997:

1. Hana-bi
2. Jackie Brown
3. Starship Troopers
4. Donnie Brasco
5. Gattaca

Top 5 films from 1998:

1. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
2. BASEketball
3. The Big Lebowski
4. Thin Red Line
5. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Top 5 films from 1999:

1. What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?
2. Office Space
3. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
4. The Matrix
5. Fight Club

 

[CiG]

Top 5 thrash metal albums from 2005:

1. Toxic Holocaust - Hell on Earth
2. Insane - Wait and Pray
3. Barbatos - Fury and Fear, Flesh and Bone
   
4. Municipal Waste - Hazardous Mutation
5. Witchburner - Final Detonation

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Top 5 thrash riffs from 1985:

1. Exodus - Piranha
2. Exodus - Deliver Us to Evil
3. Ulysses Siren - The Reich
4. Destruction - The Ritual
5. Slayer - Necrophiliac

Most difficult list I've ever made tbh. For ease, I excluded the main Killing is My Business riff on the grounds that it's more bluesy and traditional, and the middle break of Artillery's Time Has Come on the grounds that it's the drumming playing off the riff that really makes it an all-time great.

 

[EspaDa]

Top 5 Slayer tracks

1. Seasons in the Abyss
2. Tormentor
3. Angel of Death
4. Black Magic
5. Raining Blood

 

[Einherjar86]

One of the most troubling things about Blade Runner is the rape scene, in my opinion; and I partly think it's a product of '80s star power (i.e. who could possibly resist Harrison Ford's rough and persistent "charm"?). That said, the film makes some intellectual sense if you've read the novel and if you extend the film some philosophical concerns inaugurated by the book. I've always read the scene as implicitly commenting on exclusionary humanism, with "human" standing in roughly for "white male." Deckard doesn't feel remorse over his actions toward androids b/c they're "not human" (which invites a list of objections). Of course, if we really want to psychoanalyze here, it's likely Deckard wouldn't feel remorse anyway, since he's an asshole. The movie suffers from the "Gecko effect"--i.e. that a character is supposed to be someone we don't like, but is presented in a way that elicits our support, as with Oliver Stone's Wall Street (casting Harrison Ford as Deckard is one element of this).

It's really too bad that the film wasn't able to incorporate the serious empathetic reflections featured in the book, but that's one of the inevitable drawbacks of film, so I don't seriously hold that against it. P.K. Dick wasn't the most enlightened person when it came to women, but his novel is far more engaged with what it means to acknowledge others as human than what Blade Runner manages to achieve (in this regard, I'd say that a film like Ex Machina is significantly more developed than Blade Runner).

Aside from that, if we consider lighting, mood, set design, world-realization, and the general vacancy of most (if not all) characters, the film definitely lands somewhere in my top five from Scott. I absolutely love how the film manages to make Deckard look like a hollow, cold, soulless shell while Roy Baty becomes an emotionally conflicted/confused and passionate being. It's an expected reversal for those familiar with the book (not that it happens in the book, but we're better prepared for it), but it's a wonderfully orchestrated shift for those unfamiliar with the original material.

Anyway, I still haven't seen the new one. Been thinking about BR a lot lately.

 

[rms]

The Roy thing is just from.the rain scene, no?

 

[Einherjar86]

And when he meets

Spoiler

/kills

Tyrell.

 

[rms]

It's been awhile and my memory is fading. Maybe I'll watch it before I check out the latest.

 

[Einherjar86]

It's one aspect of how the novel and film portray what we might call inhuman characters as the most human--not only the androids, but also Isidore/Sebastian (in the film, Sebastian suffers from premature aging; in the book, Isidore is a "chickenhead"). It's no accident that two of the most significant androids in the novel are also female (Rachel and Luba Luft); and these two androids also happen to offer the most compelling reflections on their status as nonhuman.

The novel also racially codes the androids, a detail that the film almost entirely elides.

 

[rms]

Even just the animals and Deckard would be interesting and his wife. Just strange he couldn't get the studio to do that / wanted to do that way

 

[CiG]

I partly think it's a product of '80s star power (i.e. who could possibly resist Harrison Ford's rough and persistent "charm"?).

Eh that's a crap interpretation of one of the more interesting and morally ambiguous scenes in the film. Certainly it has the overtones of a rape scene, but I highly doubt that has much if anything to do with the purpose of the scene.

 

[Einherjar86]

Eh that's a crap interpretation of one of the more interesting and morally ambiguous scenes in the film. Certainly it has the overtones of a rape scene, but I highly doubt that has much if anything to do with the purpose of the scene.

I did say "partly," and I presented what I take to be the full intellectual value of the scene.

That said, I think you give Hollywood producers too much credit. I mean, come on, it's Harrison Ford--we need him to kiss somebody! It's the only "love scene" (yuck) in the film, and it's basically sexual assault. I think we can say that the film is both problematic and intellectually productive. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that its problematic qualities increase its intellectual value. We can read the scene as both a commentary on, and as a symptom of, misogyny. It doesn't have to be either/or.

I don't know the story behind the scene, but if Scott was compelled to include a romance scene between a human and an android, perhaps he purposefully presented it as a rape scene in order to underscore the built-in power dynamic between humans and androids.

It's also worth noting that in the novel, the sex between Rachel and Deckard is consensual (insofar as a nonhuman entity can consent to sex--another interesting question).

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Top 5 films from 1991:

1. Terminator II: Judgement Day
2. Riki-Oh
3. Out for Justice
4. Barton Fink
5. Showdown in Little Tokyo

You forgot Silence of the Lambs as #1

Also Empire Strikes Back >>>> Blues Brothers

 

[zerostatic]

Top 5 Halloween Treats:
1)Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins
2)Reese's Peanut Butter Bats
3) Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
4) 3 Musketeers - Muskefears
5) Hershey's Tombstones

 

[CiG]

Also Empire Strikes Back >>>> Blues Brothers

Blues Brothers holds a very special place in my heart and my childhood. I love Star Wars but essentially it's just a cool fantasy-in-space film.

Blues Brothers tapped into black American culture and spread it across the planet, it's infinitely more important to me.

You forgot Silence of the Lambs as #1

Awesome movie but better than Terminator II? Worst. Opinion. Ever.

That said, I think you give Hollywood producers too much credit.

I mean, come on, it's Harrison Ford--we need him to kiss somebody! It's the only "love scene" (yuck) in the film, and it's basically sexual assault. I think we can say that the film is both problematic and intellectually productive. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that its problematic qualities increase its intellectual value. We can read the scene as both a commentary on, and as a symptom of, misogyny. It doesn't have to be either/or.

I don't agree with that last part at all, by which I mean I don't think it's a commentary on or a symptom of misogyny.

But to the first part, I think you're being overly cynical. To achieve a moment of affirming Harrison Ford's manly desirability they didn't need to include a very morally ambiguous "love scene" and as you already stated yourself, that scene perfectly fits in with his character. It's not out of place with anything else he does in the film and it doesn't come across as some hamfisted insertion of a scene to showcase his hunk status.

I don't know the story behind the scene, but if Scott was compelled to include a romance scene between a human and an android, perhaps he purposefully presented it as a rape scene in order to underscore the built-in power dynamic between humans and androids.

It's also worth noting that in the novel, the sex between Rachel and Deckard is consensual (insofar as a nonhuman entity can consent to sex--another interesting question).

I think this is a much more accurate explanation for the scene. I know I'm not some learned neo-aristocrat like yourself () but I always viewed that scene as Deckard, who previously destroyed her sense of her own humanity, attempting to re-humanize her. It's right there in the dialogue when she says she can no longer trust her emotions (I think that's what she says).

What do you think of the angle that Deckard is himself a replicant?