100 Movies You Should See!

[Victor Pross]

A pretty good list Victor, but I concur with those who point out that you'll need to bump a few in order to include Lord of the Ring and The Day the Earth Stood Still, with a John-Galt type character played by Michael Rennie.

Ok, Ed, I would be willing to do it for The Day the Earth Stood Still---but I *did not* get caught up in the Ring movies. Sorry. :turned:

[Ed Hudgins]

Victor -- Klaatu barada nikto.

[cjsmall]

I *did not* get caught up in the Ring movies. Sorry.

Interesting Victor. I also didn't find them all that interesting. However, I have never been much interested in fantasy. In fact, the only fantasy book I remember enjoying was by Larry Niven called The Magic Goes Away where he starts with the idea that mana (the source of magic) is a limited natural resource and then proceeds to tell a fantasy story built entirely around the logical premises that result from this starting assumption.

--

Jeff

[Victor Pross]

I *did not* get caught up in the Ring movies. Sorry.

Interesting Victor. I also didn't find them all that interesting. However, I have never been much interested in fantasy. In fact, the only fantasy book I remember enjoying was by Larry Niven called The Magic Goes Away where he starts with the idea that mana (the source of magic) is a limited natural resource and then proceeds to tell a fantasy story built entirely around the logical premises that result from this starting assumption.

--

Jeff

Jeff,

Do you know that when I was watching the Ring movies…I kept on thinking: ‘Damn, I could be watching Planet of the Apes for the 57th time.' (“Damn them all to hell!”) :hairy:

-Victor

[Wrighty]

Any takers for Blow-Up - Antonioni's 1966 masterpiece?

[Ed Hudgins]

In Lord of the Ring: Return of the King, one of the great scenes is near the end, when Aragon has led the troops to the gates of Mordor. They face overwhelming odds; the troops from Gondor and Rohan are fightened. Aragon's dramatic words to the troops as he rides up and down their lines could be said today as we face our savage enemies:

"Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brother! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of Men comes crashing down. But it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

I think part of the appeal the Ring is that it was not laughing at itself as many movies do. Peter Jackon played it straight, not apologizing to the audience, saying, in effect, "Yes, I know this is a silly story." He treats it as serious mythology.

[Robert Jones]

Jeff S. I have a small problem with Citizen Kane. I don't deny it's a great movie but we have been almost hit on the head about its greatness. As you may know the script was co-written by Wells and Mankiweicz. I have come to the conclusion that the great lines are Mankiweicz and the artsy parts are Wells. Of great lines I think of the line said by Boss Gettys to Kane "You're going to need a lot of lessons." I have problems with It's a Wonderful Life too.

Chris: Although Citizen Kane is not to me the greatest film ever made, it IS great.

However, and I although I can't say for sure what you're basing the above on, I would like to disabuse readers of the notion that the screenplay to "Citizen Kane" was mostly the work of Herman Manckiewicz. Both writers had excellent lines to contribute, but the urban legend that Kane was almost all Manck with a dash of Welles thrown in was a rumor started by film critic Pauline Kael, who had it in for Welles.

Welles has written some blistering lines, in many movies, to include "The Lady from Shanghai," "The Magnificent Ambersons," "The Stranger," "Mr. Arkadin," and "Touch of Evil."

Orson Welles suffered from, among other of his appetites, being ahead of his time, and taking his time in the editing room, which drove producers mad, and was the main reason he was labelled as an "irresponsible" director.

[Robert Jones]

Any takers for Blow-Up - Antonioni's 1966 masterpiece?

It is one I still have on my "must see" list.

[Robert Jones]

A pretty good list Victor, but I concur with those who point out that you'll need to bump a few in order to include Lord of the Ring and The Day the Earth Stood Still, with a John-Galt type character played by Michael Rennie.

Ok, Ed, I would be willing to do it for The Day the Earth Stood Still---but I *did not* get caught up in the Ring movies. Sorry. :turned:

Ditto. It was like watching the grass grow. I kept yelling at the television screen "learn to PROJECT, damnit!"

[Chris Grieb]

Robert; I loved all the Lord of the Rings movies. I'll have to look at some of Well's other work as you suggest.

[Ed Hudgins]

Unless I missed it in the list, you'd also want to add one of the great freedom-vs-slavery dramas: Sparatus . It has an all-star cast headed up by Kirk Douglas and was directed by Stanley Kubrick. The script was by Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted Hollywood writter, who does a fine job of telling the dramatic story of a slave revolt against Rome. It also has great battle scenes.

I like the contrasting speeches of Roman Consul Crassus (Laurence Olivier) to his troops and Spartacus to his on the eve of the great battle.

[John Dailey]

~ The only prob I had with CONTACT (book and movie) was its benevolent and sympathetic portrayal of the evangelist as forthright, honest, sincere and respectful of opposing beliefs. Haven't seen too many of them around in my lifetime...other than Rev Ike.

~ However, that it even was made into a movie (without changing Foster's character one iota) is a jaw-dropper. Yes, worth seeing...and maybe still, worth reading.

LLAP

J:D

[Robert Jones]

Unless I missed it in the list, you'd also want to add one of the great freedom-vs-slavery dramas: Sparatus . It has an all-star cast headed up by Kirk Douglas and was directed by Stanley Kubrick. The script was by Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted Hollywood writter, who does a fine job of telling the dramatic story of a slave revolt against Rome. It also has great battle scenes.

I like the contrasting speeches of Roman Consul Crassus (Laurence Olivier) to his troops and Spartacus to his on the eve of the great battle.

Trumbo wasn't just a blacklisted Hollywood writer, he was a blacklisted fire-breathing, card-carrying, Mother Russia lovin', dyed in the wool communist Hollywood writer.

Despite that fact, man he could write a great yarn! While I liked "Spartacus" a lot, I loved his screenplay for "Papillon," which I consider Steve McQueen's best role and performance, a great escape that tops even "The Great Escape," and a paean to the indomitable human spirit that refuses to go through life in chains.

[Chris Grieb]

Dalton Trumbo was the best writer of the Hollywood Ten. In the book Red Star Over Hollywood Ronald Radosh says that Trumbo moved away from Communism. Trumbo was the last or next to last member of the Hollywood Ten to die.

[Victor Pross]

I saw Tim Burton’s ED WOOD, a bio pic of the worse director of all time, Edward D. Wood Jr. I love this movie. It didn’t do well at the box office. Has anybody else seen this movie? What did you think?

[Chris Grieb]

Victor; I have seen parts of Ed Wood. Ed Wood's movies are really bad. I believe the movie ends with Wood running into Orson Wells at a bar. Wells on his worst day was not as bad as Wood on his best.

Edited April 3, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Ed Hudgins]

Victor -- Ed Wood by Tim Burton is a fun and funny movie that does give a flavor of the relationship between Bela Lugosi and Wood. Lugosi's career slipped in the '40s. He appeared in some really bad films but always gave it his best. (He was actually quite funny in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, 1948, playing Dracula -- the only other time he played the character by that name after the original 1931 film that made him famous.) The characters and acting in Ed Wood are good. Johnny Depp gives a great performance, as he always does. (He's so versatile; see him in Donnie Brasco for another fine job in a very different role.) Martin Landau won an Oscar for best supporting actor, playing Lugosi.

Plan Nine, which was called by some critic the worst movie ever made, is one of those movies that actually is so bad that you don't take it seriously and so it becomes fun to watch.

[cjsmall]

I believe the movie ends with Wood running into Orson Wells at a bar. Wells on his worst day was not as bad as Wood on his best.

Chris:

There is a fictional scene (not at the end) where Ed does run into Orson and they both sit commiserating about how the Hollywood system stinks and how hard it is to get their visions made. It is a fantastically funny scene since the arguably best and worst film directors are both complaining about the same thing! I though it was one of the best things about a generally good movie. I recommend it.

--

Jeff

[Chris Grieb]

Jeff; I will look for Ed Wood. I must admit with Johnny Depp I remember 21 Jump Street so I sometimes find it a little hard to take him seriously but I have seen great performances by him.

[Richard Uhler]

...

Plan Nine, which was called by some critic the worst movie ever made, is one of those movies that actually is so bad that you don't take it seriously and so it becomes fun to watch.

Although Plan Nine is perhaps the most poorly-executed "professional" film I've yet seen, I don't consider the "worst" because it never fails to entertain me - it gets a laugh out of me every time.

Now They Saved Hitler's Brain...THAT is a badly executed film (actually two spliced together) that as I recall bored the daylights out of me (as a teen, anyway - I saw it once 30-some years ago).

I think the most boring span of time I ever spent in a theater, though, was in the Cleveland Cinematheque ca. 1988 watching " Mozart - Aufzeichnungen einer Jugend," a German art-house film that depicted an entire morning in the life of the child Wolfgang Mozart in more-or-less real time. This meant minutes-long shots of people sitting, riding in carriages without speaking, scribbling on paper without speaking, rowing boats without speaking, walking around, washing their hands, getting dressed...AAAGH! After the first two hours of this I left; I'm not sure if anything happened during the second two hours but I couldn't bear to stick around to find out.

I really liked the Johnny Depp Ed Wood film as well, BTW.

Edited April 4, 2007 by Richard Uhler

[Victor Pross]

Victor -- Ed Wood by Tim Burton is a fun and funny movie that does give a flavor of the relationship between Bela Lugosi and Wood. Lugosi's career slipped in the '40s. He appeared in some really bad films but always gave it his best. (He was actually quite funny in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, 1948, playing Dracula -- the only other time he played the character by that name after the original 1931 film that made him famous.) The characters and acting in Ed Wood are good. Johnny Depp gives a great performance, as he always does. (He's so versatile; see him in Donnie Brasco for another fine job in a very different role.) Martin Landau won an Oscar for best supporting actor, playing Lugosi.

Plan Nine, which was called by some critic the worst movie ever made, is one of those movies that actually is so bad that you don't take it seriously and so it becomes fun to watch.

Ed---hey, you know your Lugosi. Wow. Yes, the Bela Lugosi story is rather sad. Long before he claimed fame as a Hollywood horror movie star, making his mark as Count Dracula, Lugosi was a star of the Hungarian theatre, Broadway, and the cinema. He was a distinguished and proud man, a cultured man. Here is a man who played Jesus Christ, the prince of peace, long ago before he played Dracula, the prince of Darkness. And, at a very young age, he played Romeo! That Lugosi is known only as a hammy “boogie man” rings at pathos. Unlike Boris Karloff, who was grateful to simply be employed—horror movies or something other—Lugosi tried to get out of them. That this proud man should descend to the bottom of the barrel by appearing in Ed Wood movies is truly sad.

He had become a lone, forgotten, rather pathetic person in his last years whose skills had been misunderstood from the outset. All this is marvelously played out by Martin Landau in the Ed Wood flick.

As his legacy stands, his best films (to my view) are the following:

1, Dracula.

2, Murders in the Rue Morgue

3, Island of lost souls

4, The Black Cat

5, The Raven

6, Son of Frankenstein (outstanding performance by Lugosi here)

7, The invisible Ray

Edited April 4, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Ed Hudgins]

Victor -- Good list of Lugosi's best! His Igor in Son of Frankenstein, a role he reprised in Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), was excellent. Interesting aside about him playing the monster, into whose head Igor's brain had been placed in Ghost, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943): He was supposed to be blind, as per the end of Ghost, and it was filmed that way. But in editing the references to him being blind were cut out. Thus we see the monster staggering around, sometimes looking addle-brained, when an important plot point had been taken out. So when he finally played the role he rejected for the original film, which made Karloff famous, his performance was judged more harshly than it might have been.

He also gave a good performance in Return of the Vampire (1944) which was a sequel to Dracula in all but name. Because Universal owned the rights to that name and he made it with another studio, they had to name the vampire something else.

He also has a bit part in one of Ayn Rand's favorite movies: Ninotchka.

[Greybird]

[bela Lugosi] also has a bit part in one of Ayn Rand's favorite movies: Ninotchka.

I knew about Lugosi (a crucial short bit near the end) being in what's one of my own all-time favorites. Under several categories: Billy Wilder's sparkling writing, Ernst Lubitsch's actor-caressing and precise direction, Garbo's delightful (and first in her career) laughing, even Melvyn Douglas being both a comic and a romantic foil.

Yet I didn't know it was one of Rand's! Do you have any reference or anecdote about her saying so? And any notes as to why?

If anything, I might have expected her to see the glimpse of Moscow life as not as grim as it "should" be ... with her not seeing how Lubitsch pared the visual elements down to essentials, that being one of his strengths. But Rand would hardly have been alone in missing this. Many elements of Lubitsch's understatement are missed, even as audiences — then and now — simply roll with it and enjoy it.

[Barbara Branden]

Steve, Ed is quite right that Ninotchka was one of Rand's favorite movies. The combination of her favorite actress, one of her favorite directors, and an anti-communist message outweighed any uneasiness she nmay have felt over the portrayal of Soviet Russia. I don't believe she wrote about Ninotchka, but she often mentioned it. I first saw it because of her recommendation, and it is indeed a total delight.

She didn't say this, but I suspect that part of her affection for the movie came from the fact that Ninotchka was seduced by the glamor and gayety of the America of that period, so different from the unremitting solemnity of Russia, just as the young Ayn had been.

Barbara

[Robert Jones]

Steve, Ed is quite right that Ninotchka was one of Rand's favorite movies. The combination of her favorite actress, one of her favorite directors, and an anti-communist message outweighed any uneasiness she nmay have felt over the portrayal of Soviet Russia. I don't believe she wrote about Ninotchka, but she often mentioned it. I first saw it because of her recommendation, and it is indeed a total delight.

She didn't say this, but I suspect that part of her affection for the movie came from the fact that Ninotchka was seduced by the glamor and gayety of the America of that period, so different from the unremitting solemnity of Russia, just as the young Ayn had been.

Barbara

Barbara, Steve, Ed:

Another great movie is Billy Wilder's 1961 movie "One, Two, Three," a farce about the Berlin Wall, starring Jimmy Cagney.