Top 10 all-time favourite movies

[Einherjar86]

Lol. That is all.

I don't know what this response means, but here's all I'll say:

I can be persuaded to alter several aspects of that comment, mainly because I enjoy the Star Wars movies way more than I "enjoy" Aerosmith albums (at this point, I can't imagine listening to an Aerosmith album ever again--but who knows).

The only aspect that I won't change is that Pink Floyd is better than Aerosmith. They're light years better. Not even comparable, really. I shouldn't have even mentioned them in the same post.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Since this I have only seen Crash and that was really really fucking good.

Might make some effort to see something else off this.

Looking at my list now, I'd have to take one out and add Bad Timing (1980) to the list. Gun to my head, Flesh and Bone would probably be the one to go, but its still brilliant and needs to be re-discovered. And the more I think about it, Venus in Furs (1969) is slowing clawing its way to becoming my favorite Jess Franco film so it may very well take the place of Eugenie some day.

Raw Deal is indeed an underrated flick. I remember I was actually quite giddy when I first found it because at the time I was equally obsessed with mafia and Arnold movies and here I was getting both in one package. No idea why its still so under the radar, though it being sandwiched in between to huge films like Commando and Predator might have something to do with it.

For shits and giggles and because no country contributed another list, 11-20 might look something like:

Eden and After (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1970)
Frustration (José Bénazéraf, 1971)
The Brutal Hopelessness of Love (Takashi Ishii, 2007)
White of the Eye (Donald Cammell, 1987)
The 4th Man (Paul Verheoven, 1983)
See You In Hell, My Darling (Nikos Nikolaidis, 1999)
Party Doll a Go-Go! Part 2 (Stephen Sayadian, 1991)
The Exquisite Cadaver (Vicente Aranda, 1969)
Serial Mom (John Waters, 1994)
Dog Walker (John Leslie, 1994)

 

[no country for old wainds]

Especially the Johnnie To films.

have you seen any of his stuff? i love those romances but he's actually best known for his action movies like Election, Exiled, The Mission etc. there's something that asian genre movies often do, and to does in particular, that i think hollywood has pretty much lost. it's to do with clarity. take a shootout as an example: in hollywood you'll get a lot of muddy close-ups, quick cuts, shakycam, various shorthand techniques that symbolise intensity. but in these movies, the geography of the situation will be clearly mapped out so you know where everyone is, where the threats are coming from. environments are actually utilised properly, characters will improvise depending on what's around them, when there's violence it feels like genuine violence, and it's all choreographed in a way that reveals things about the characters, builds tension, makes you feel invested.

so often these days with new movies i'll just zone out during an action sequence because it doesn't feel specific to the movie i'm watching or like it's actually been thought through from the perspective of the characters. i'm guessing it's due to asia's background in martial arts movies and the way they took influence from old classic movies from the west too; regardless, they don't seem to have been contaminated by the same crude modern trends yet, and it's super refreshing to me. it's how action is supposed to be, in my book, and how a lot more hollywood action movies used to be in decades previous. it feels a lot more elegantly constructed, and yet more genuinely brutal too, because it's more real. and i think a big part of why i like the DGBMH films so much is that he transposes that exact same kind of sensibility onto a romcom, and while there's no shootouts the set pieces work by the same principle.

 

[no country for old wainds]

Looking at my list now, I'd have to take one out and add Bad Timing (1980) to the list. Gun to my head, Flesh and Bone would probably be the one to go, but its still brilliant and needs to be re-discovered. And the more I think about it, Venus in Furs (1969) is slowing clawing its way to becoming my favorite Jess Franco film so it may very well take the place of Eugenie some day.

Raw Deal is indeed an underrated flick. I remember I was actually quite giddy when I first found it because at the time I was equally obsessed with mafia and Arnold movies and here I was getting both in one package. No idea why its still so under the radar, though it being sandwiched in between to huge films like Commando and Predator might have something to do with it.

For shits and giggles and because no country contributed another list, 11-20 might look something like:

Eden and After (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1970)
Frustration (José Bénazéraf, 1971)
The Brutal Hopelessness of Love (Takashi Ishii, 2007)
White of the Eye (Donald Cammell, 1987)
The 4th Man (Paul Verheoven, 1983)
See You In Hell, My Darling (Nikos Nikolaidis, 1999)
Party Doll a Go-Go! Part 2 (Stephen Sayadian, 1991)
The Exquisite Cadaver (Vicente Aranda, 1969)
Serial Mom (John Waters, 1994)
Dog Walker (John Leslie, 1994)

honestly you should just throw out a top 100, i'd wishlist all of it that i haven't seen (which would probably be like 90+% haha).

my current arbitrary project is going through the movies of 1990 (the year, not the decade), so if you have any recs from that year do tell. i'm already aware of your love for Singapore Sling

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Greatest western of all time?

I don't think so. But it's certainly in my top 15. Bronson, Eastwood, and John Wayne are the best western actors.

 

[CiG]

have you seen any of his stuff?

I've seen Election which I loved and The Big Heat which was awesome in that way only 80's Asian action cinema is awesome, but he co-directed that.

I consider myself basically a fanatic for Asian cinema, rarely do I see much that I don't like y'know? But Johnnie To is one of those legends that I just seem to have really failed to pay my respects to. It could be that his stuff is especially hard to come across here.

I don't think so. But it's certainly in my top 15. Bronson, Eastwood, and John Wayne are the best western actors.

Now I want to see your top 15 westerns. My personal all-time favourite western these days is Unforgiven.

 

[CiG]

@no country for old wainds What do you think about Exiled, Vengeance and Life Without Principle?

 

[no country for old wainds]

yeah, i think The Big Heat was more tsui hark's baby than to's. it doesn't really have that elegance i was talking about, it's more primitive, elemental and nasty, which is also awesome but in a different way. obviously a big lang influence there too.

i haven't seen Exiled yet but it's one of his most revered. Life Without Principle is a quintessential to movie in construction but it's basically his satire of capitalism, not an action movie. it might not quite be among his best as it's hard to really energise that kind of material and it gets a bit sprawling, but it's kind of awesome that he makes a movie about a bunch of bankers and whatnot feel so fucking epic, and it rarely feels like he's sermonising. i really liked it actually, just not sure how strongly to recommend it. Vengeance is more typical j.to territory, a super entertaining if slightly too sentimental revenge/action movie that's probably kinda minor overall but takes enough weird turns to make it stand out. both those movies are also really funny at times.

 

[CiG]

Given that, I'm really glad I quite literally just went and purchased this for $13.

Eugenie... the Story of Her Journey into Perversion (Jess Franco, 1969)

I went through this thread and noted a lot of listed films so I can slowly start seeing them and I saw this and decided to buy this just now. Seemed like a pretty great deal and I love to get collections so I don't have a million individual DVDs lying around.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

It's been very hard for me to sit through movies in recent years, so my list could easily change with a good binge, but anyway:

1. The Empire Strikes Back
   
2. Waking Life
   
3. The Fellowship of the Ring
   
4. The Silence of the Lambs
5. Heavy Metal
6. The Terminator
7. The Matrix
8. The Shining
9. A Clockwork Orange
   
10. Apocalypse Now

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

I don't think so. But it's certainly in my top 15. Bronson, Eastwood, and John Wayne are the best western actors.

It was a question. But yes, Once Upon a Time in the West is imho the best western, by far.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

I went through this thread and noted a lot of listed films so I can slowly start seeing them and I saw this and decided to buy this just now. Seemed like a pretty great deal and I love to get collections so I don't have a million individual DVDs lying around.

View attachment 11074

Money well spent! All great films, though if you decide to go even further into the Franco zone, having tons of DVD's is inevitable. Probably the most prolific filmmaker of all time.

honestly you should just throw out a top 100, i'd wishlist all of it that i haven't seen (which would probably be like 90+% haha).

It'd certainly take me long enough. Whenever I do these lists I have a problem where I'll know exactly what I want to mention but when I sit down to actually put finger to keyboard its instant Alzheimer's.

 

[CiG]

Money well spent! All great films, though if you decide to go even further into the Franco zone, having tons of DVD's is inevitable. Probably the most prolific filmmaker of all time.

Holy shit, I went at browsed his filmography... Does he have ADHD!?

Sorry to keep pestering you guys for opinions on films (you fuckers have seen so much) but I was wondering if you could extemporize a bit about Serial Mom? I see it around all the time for like $10 and I just noticed that you think quite highly of it.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Serial Mom is Waters' brilliantly barbed satire at its most poignant, giving the façade of suburbia a proper skewering while at the same time never coming across as pretentious or holier than thou. In a way its almost celebratory of the things its satirizing as Waters himself is a huge true crime buff. Its a film very much of its time as it came out right as Court TV was becoming all the rage and there was no shortage of true crime stories capturing the American publics attention. What's especially incredible is how it sort of inadvertently predicted the OJ Simpson media frenzy. There's even a scene that is freakily identical to OJ's infamous Bronco chase that was shot a year before all of that even went down, the irony of which was not lost on Waters as he so hilariously muses about on the DVD special features. Its also probably Kathleen Turner's greatest performance, right up there with Crimes of Passion. So over the top but in such a controlled manner if that makes any sense. Oh and L7 are in it too under the amazing alias "Camel Lips".



"Is this the cocksucker residence?"

 

[CiG]

Sold. Cheers.

 

[Burkhard]

In no specific order:

Kopps
The Devil's Brother
Wall-E
Clockwise
Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis
Intouchables
Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann
Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot
Wallace & Gromit: The curse of the Were-Rabbit
Pappa ante Portas

 

[-CC-]

Kopps was hilarious! Never thought I'd see it mentioned here lol. Have you seen his earlier film Jalla Jalla? I think it's even funnier. Also, are you Swedish?

 

[no country for old wainds]

were-rabbit over the wrong trousers? hmm

i think you win for most random list. i would expect no less from you haha

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Holy shit, I went at browsed his filmography... Does he have ADHD!?

I keep meaning to respond to this but wanted to wait until I was clearheaded. Yeah, just looking at his filmography can be exhausting. Its a labyrinth of reoccurring scenarios, actors, locations and musical cues. The big thing with Franco that anyone that dives into his work eventually finds out is that when you work at the pace he did, completing multiple features in a year (in 1973 he did 12 and trumped that in 1983 with 14), its inevitable that your going to have some slip-up's and even Franco himself would admit it (he was his own harshest critic). Its always interesting talking Franco because he's even divisive amongst his own fanbase. Its not unusual to be talking with fellow Franco fanatics and have 10 people hold up one film as a masterpiece and another 10 call the same film unwatchable. Funnily enough, even some of the technical flaws in his films can end up working in the films favor somewhat, adding to the already alien atmosphere inherent in most of his work.

The final word was written on Franco in the form of the great book Murderous Passions by Stephen Thrower who wrote the book on Fulci Beyond Terror and the great Nightmare USA. The second volume is in the pipeline and is sure to be as essential as the first.

 

[Burkhard]

Kopps was hilarious! Never thought I'd see it mentioned here lol. Have you seen his earlier film Jalla Jalla? I think it's even funnier.

I haven't seen it yet. Hopefully, they'll show it on TV again, one day.

Also, are you Swedish?

Because I mentioned two Swedish movies in my list? No, I'm German. I usually watch movies in an arthouse/indepent cinema, though several of the movies I mentioned were also huge commercial successes in Germany. There are several Scandinavian movies I found quite enjoyable. E.g. I could have included the Norwegian production "Elling" and I remember that I also enjoyed the Danish movie "Adams æbler" a lot. Another Swedish movie I liked, though not as much as "Kopps", was "Miffo". Last year I watched "Her er Harold" (it was OK, btw, the German title was "Kill Billy") and "Welcome to Norway!" (which I enjoyed a lot).

were-rabbit over the wrong trousers? hmm

i think you win for most random list. i would expect no less from you haha

Thinking about it, there are several other movies I should have included, because I enjoyed them as much as the ones mentioned in my top 10, e.g. the German production "Toni Erdmann" (my favourite movie of 2016, closely followed by the French movie "La vache"), "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulin" and at least one of Woody Allen's comedies (though it might get really difficult to decide which one, but - among others - "Love and Death", "Mighty Aphrodite" and "Deconstruction Harry" come to my mind).