What are your most-watched movies?


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I'd have to lump in any Mel Brooks film. That man is comedic genius!

~ Shane

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I'd have to lump in any Mel Brooks film. That man is comedic genius!

~ Shane

Well, I did include three movies by Brooks on my list. I should have included "High Anxiety" as well, but my list was already too long.

"Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup." -- Nurse Diesel.

Ghs

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I'd have to lump in any Mel Brooks film. That man is comedic genius!

~ Shane

Well, I did include three movies by Brooks on my list. I should have included "High Anxiety" as well, but my list was already too long.

"Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup." -- Nurse Diesel.

Ghs

Your three listings prompted my reply ;) If I had to pick just one, it'd have to be Spaceballs. "I see your schwartz is as big as mine." F'in hilarious.

History of the World I & II were right behind.

~ Shane

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Unless I missed something, no one has yet mentioned "L.A. Confidential."

How is that possible?

There’s just too many to type out, it’s just impossible. For example, no one’s mentioned Network, and let me illustrate how I feel about that omission:

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I'm Mad as Hell that whenever people do list their favorite books or movies on Oist boards, they have time enough to type very long "laundry lists", but seldom have time enough to really explain their (at least a few) choices.

Open the windows:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!

There. I feel soooo much better now. :)

Edited by Philip Coates
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Unless I missed something, no one has yet mentioned "L.A. Confidential."

How is that possible?

There’s just too many to type out, it’s just impossible. For example, no one’s mentioned Network, and let me illustrate how I feel about that omission....

We now know where the idea for the Glenn Beck television show came from. :lol:

Ghs

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My list would include the following: (List one contains the movies I've watched most often.)

List One:

Brief Encounter

Wuthering Heights

The Hurricane

That Hamilton Woman

The Way We Were

Casablanca

Terms of the Day

Doctor Zhivago

Rocky

Camille

Judgment at Nuremberg

Of Human Bondage

Yentl

Carrington

List Two:

Victor, Victoria

Sophie's Choice

Same Time Next Year

The Great Escape

A Streetcar Named Desire

Notorious

North by Northwest

Citizen Kane

Gaslight

Tootsie

The Great Waltz

Cries and Whispez

Les Miserables

The Count of Monte Cristo (with Gerard Depardieu)

Cyrano de Bergerac (with Jose Ferrer)

The Fountainhead

We the Living

Schindler's List

The Magnificent Ambersons

Fiddler on the Roof

My Fair Lady

Ninotchka

Sleepless in Seattle

The Great Escape

Gone With the Wind

The Man who Came to Dinner

Dead Poets' Society

Hunchback of Notre Dame

Some Like it Hot

Exodus

Amadeus

Inherit the Wind

The Razor's Edge

Laura

Love Letters

The Fountainhead

We the Living

The Sting

List Three

All the movies I've seen a number of times but have temporarily forgotten

A a I compiled these lists, I realized that my strong response to many of the movies is significantly subjective. I that true for others besides myself?

Barbara

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Terms of the Day

I've never heard of this, and it's not on imdb.com

Maybe you meant Remains of the Day and/or Terms of Endearment?

I've never seen Carrington or Brief Encounter, I've added them to the queue.

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A a I compiled these lists, I realized that my strong response to many of the movies is significantly subjective. I that true for others besides myself?

I looked back at my own list and tried to see what they all had in common. They were all grandly heroic in some sense or other; none were comedies; all moved and inspired me on some deep personal level; many had scores written by master composers that I listen to apart from the films.

Judith

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Goldfinger, Dr. No , From Russia With Love and Thunderball would be near the top of my list. The other films that featured Sean Connery as James Bond would also rank somewhere, but not quite as high. The only actor who comes even close to Connery as Bond is Daniel Craig, but I don't seem to be quite as enthralled now as I was by Connery. His films did something for me emotionally that was comparable to reading Ayn Rand. I also absolutely loved the early Dirty Harry films with Clint Eastwood.

Another movie I have always loved is South Pacific, with Rozzano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor. I cannot count how many times I have watched that wonderful film.

More recently, Moulin Rouge and The Dark Knight both kept me coming back, again and again. I thought the musical scenes featuring Nicole Kidman and Ewan MacGregor were as romantic and beautiful as anything in the hostory of film. By the way, if you haven't seen The Dark Knight in IMAX, you haven't really seen it. The first time I saw it I wondered what all the fuss was about. Then I saw it in IMAX. Over and over and over again. It was thrilling beyond all belief.

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Terms of the Day

I've never heard of this, and it's not on imdb.com

Maybe you meant Remains of the Day and/or Terms of Endearment?

I've never seen Carrington or Brief Encounter, I've added them to the queue.

Oops! I meant Remains of the Day. Thanks.

I can't promise you'll like Carrington, but I can almost guarantee you'll love Brief Encounter. Please do let me know,

Barbara

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I have to add - any Fred Astaire movie. Astaire's lighthearted twinkle and easy mannerism speaks of someone ever so comfortable in his own skin and in this world. Not many actors are able to portray that. I think Fred A. really was incapable of feeling down for any period of time. And the man could dance like a dream.

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A a I compiled these lists, I realized that my strong response to many of the movies is significantly subjective. I that true for others besides myself?

I looked back at my own list and tried to see what they all had in common. They were all grandly heroic in some sense or other; none were comedies; all moved and inspired me on some deep personal level; many had scores written by master composers that I listen to apart from the films.

Judith

Judith, this isn't the first time I've been aware that we have a lot in common.

I'm glad you mentioned Now Voyager. I forgot to include it on my list, and I've probably seen it 12-15 times. I also forgot what is now a dated but wonderful movie: The Seventh Veil.

Barbara

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I'm Mad as Hell that ... but seldom have time enough to really explain... Open the windows:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!

I understand the reference, but never saw the movie. Allow me to explain my choices.

Casablanca -- It's the writing, the plot and theme and the many great lines. I bought the script, in fact, and placed an Educational Exhibit at a numismatic convention with coins, paper and stamps from Morocco or Vichy narrowly within the time line, from when Ilsa and Rick met in Paris until Rick and Louis walk off. Spring 1940 to December 1941. The shooting, the acting, nothing is lacking and of course as romantic fiction it is all about choices, the values that lead to them, and the consequences of those choices. Take one scene: The Germans are sitting at the piano singing Die Wacht am Rhein, and Laszlo wants the band to strike up the Marseilles. The band leader looks to Rick. Rick pays him, not Laszlo. And Rick -- not Laszlo -- pays for the outburst when then close his bar and the next day bust it up looking for the letters of transit. Laszlo, the political idealist, avoids a lot of consequences, in fact, and gets to walz away with the girl, while Rick the businessman profits and loses by his choices. ("He sold guns to the Ethiopians and the Loyalists." I made a good profit both times. "The winning side would have paid you more." Well, I'm a poor businessman.) I could do that for every scene in the movie.

Sleeper -- Woody Allen captures the whimsy of predicament. He values simple honesty.

Luna: "Would you like to perform sex with me?"

Miles: I'm not up to a performance; a rehearsal, a practice session, maybe.

(He's toying with a clarinet through this.)

Luna: "You're always doing that, saying those things."

Miles: It's a defense mechanism.

The scene where Miles and the farmer slip on a banana peel big enough to wrap a canoe is priceless... Being dragged through the water behind a motorboat to film the "hydrovac suit" sequence is the hard work of acting... When we saw the movie the first time and the VW Bug started right up, the audience cheered and applauded. Isaac Asimov was the technical director and it showed in the details of the set designs.

I won't go into the others, The Right Stuff and The Watchmen, but suffice it to say that I expect that everyone here responds to movies that bring out the best within on their own terms in relationship to who they think they are and like being or want to be. No movie selected was pointless, existential, film noire or mindless. Not that those listed by all would be my choices, but I am not you or she or he. Still, within the context of who we are, we all seem to share the same Objectivist aesthetics, though we find expression in that via different instances.

Allow me also, to yea-say Bladerunner and to add Outland and its original, High Noon. As for Bladerunner, I own it and have seen it a few times and read "Electric Sheep," and the ambiguity of Deckard's status had to be pointed out. So, I guess I have my limits. Again, it is all about about choices and the values that define them.

Edited by Michael E. Marotta
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Subject: persuasion, explanation, detail?...if you have time... :rolleyes:

Some fascinating choices here!

Unfortunately, though, I'm not finding "laundry lists" to be all that helpful. Many of us haven't seen the movies that are the bulk of most lists and can't assess them other than as just names of something somebody who posts a lot liked at one time or another. I realize it's more work and couldn't be done for -every choice, but does anyone want to take, say, their top three or their three best remembered favorites and try to explain -why- they loved them?

Phil. even from a laundry list, don't you think one learns a lot about the person? When I visit someone's home for the first time, I'm highly frustrated if I can't look at their library; that's how I learn about them -- even if I'm not familiar with many of the books -- to a depth that hours of conversation can rarely equal. (Of course, this assumes they don't have a weird profession or hobby such that their books deal predominantly with the intestines of the ostrich. . . . although I suppose that, too. would tell me something.) Movies are in the same category as books. When I look at my own list of movies, I feel they are almost embarrassingly self-revelatory.

Barbara

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> Phil, even from a laundry list, don't you think one learns a lot about the person?

Barbara, I do think the movie lists tell me something. But one can like movies for a range of reasons. Someone can like Patton or Star Wars for the action scenes, or Casablanca because they think Ingrid Bergman is beautiful. (Also, that wasn't my real purpose. I was hoping more for insight into the movies themselves more than to learn about the posters on the list.)

> When I visit someone's home for the first time, I'm highly frustrated if I can't look at their library;

I think books, especially the larger selection in a substantial book library than in a list of favorite movies tell you more. And once you see a lot of movies or books that indicate a pattern, you can infer a likely theme.

> that's how I learn about them -- even if I'm not familiar with many of the books -- to a depth that hours of conversation can rarely equal.

Damn! I'm going to have to stop showing people my book collections! (Fortunately some of them are locked away in storage away from snoopy eyes... :unsure::rolleyes: )

> (Of course, this assumes they don't have a weird profession or hobby such that their books deal predominantly with the intestines of the ostrich.

You could probably tell less from this than if they dealt with the intestines of the squid. I'm sure you would agree.

> When I look at my own list of movies, I feel they are almost embarrassingly self-revelatory.

I'll tell you what, I'll go back and look at your lists and see if I can infer anything. Then of course, even though it's against my religion, I'm probably going to have to post my list ...without explanation of course...and see if you can tell anything about me!!

Edited by Philip Coates
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> Phil, even from a laundry list, don't you think one learns a lot about the person?

Barbara, I do think the movie lists tell me something. But one can like movies for a range of reasons. Someone can like Patton or Star Wars for the action scenes, or Casablanca because they think Ingrid Bergman is beautiful. (Also, that wasn't my real purpose. I was hoping more for insight into the movies themselves more than to learn about the posters on the list.)

> When I visit someone's home for the first time, I'm highly frustrated if I can't look at their library;

I think books, especially the larger selection in a substantial book library than in a list of favorite movies tell you more. And once you see a lot of movies or books that indicate a pattern, you can infer a likely theme.

> that's how I learn about them -- even if I'm not familiar with many of the books -- to a depth that hours of conversation can rarely equal.

Damn! I'm going to have to stop showing people my book collections! (Fortunately some of them are locked away in storage away from snoopy eyes... :unsure::rolleyes: )

> (Of course, this assumes they don't have a weird profession or hobby such that their books deal predominantly with the intestines of the ostrich.

You could probably tell less from this than if they dealt with the intestines of the squid. I'm sure you would agree.

> When I look at my own list of movies, I feel they are almost embarrassingly self-revelatory.

I'll tell you what, I'll go back and look at your lists and see if I can infer anything. Then of course, even though it's against my religion, I'm probably going to have to post my list ...without explanation of course...and see if you can tell anything about me!!

We are all open books, even in the dark... <_<

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So many good film's mentioned, and many are among my favorites.

I enjoy Woody Allen and Coen Bros films ...

Vicki Cristina Barcelona

Whatever Works

Match Point

Husbands and Wives

A Serious Man

Raising Arizona

Burn After Reading

Something's Gotta Give

Matchstick Men

You've Got Mail

I've also found myself drawn to films that realistically portray the human experience ...

Brokeback Mountain

Revolutionary Road

The Reader

Frozen River

The Visitor

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A few recent fun additions to my most-watched list: Superbad; Team America; Galaxy Quest.

and a couple that I'd rate as "guilty pleasures": The Da Vinci Code; National Treasure.

J

Actors are usually unimportant, but I felt that Tom Hanks was wrong for the Da Vinci movies. Moreover -- and consider this for Atlas Shrugged -- the movies rely on the books. I never read them, but they are in the popular culture now, widely debated, so the spoken flourishes of allusion carry far more meaning than they could without that context. The movies are OK, but not compelling to me -- nor do they need to be; nor does that deny you your entaintainment -- and anyway, I think I'd side with the Illuminati on this one.

For a shallow effort, Galaxy Quest was quite moving, a harsh look at middle age. It all worked out happily ever after and all, but it asked a deeper question, at least for me.

National Treasure had its weak points. The oil in the channels was still flammable, for instance. Adventures often have problems like that. Allowing for that, National Treasure was far above Indiana Jones for political correctness, and I mean that in the Objectivist sense. We put up with a lot to get a little bootleg. As a collector of artifacts myself, in terms of politics, Rene Belloq, for instance, would be our guy, the profiteer rescuing artifacts for private collectors, while Indiana Jones has a "higher" motive. Bah, humbug. National Treasure had some of that same problem with the profiteer being a ruthless cutthroat while Gates and Company have "higher" motives. The Gates family, at least, has a personal stake in this, a clear and compelling motive to find the treasure, seeing themselves as responsible agents.

Also, the clues in National Treasure are open to the audience, whereas in Indiana Jones, clues appear as needed. National Treasure centered on physical objects that do (or could) exist. Professor Jones chides Dean Brody, "I'm talking science and you're talking about the bogey man." But that's what we get, with a capital B. In another adventure, Jones recovers the Holy Grail. The Temple of Doom was almost secular in that the heroine, Wilhelmina Scott, is not impressed by the sideshow magic of the holy man, but the mystery returns soon enough.

One day, leaving class with a professor, I was surprised to discover that National Treasure was her "favorite" movie. "Isn't that rather patriotic for a liberal?" I asked. She just glared back. At a numismatic convention, I found a paper shilling note from Pennsylvania 1776 and later gave it to her, telling her that I never again would question the patriotism of a liberal. Riding in a patrol car one night, my partner said that he liked the movie, too, and I told him about the scene that choked me up -- "The last time this was here, it was being signed." -- and when I looked over at him, he was swallowing a sob.

Just to say, National Treasure is nothing to feel guilty about.

Edited by Michael E. Marotta
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A few recent fun additions to my most-watched list:

Superbad

Team America

Galaxy Quest

and a couple that I'd rate as "guilty pleasures":

The Da Vinci Code

National Treasure

J

Superbad is hilarious! Haven't seen Team America yet and my coworkers still heckle me to watch it.

As to your guilty pleasures, I defenitely enjoyed those a lot. Of course, Dan Brown's novel puts so much more to it, but I thought the screen adaptation was very good. Did you like Angels and Demons? I thought that to be the better story in book form.

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Since Johnathan brought up guilty pleasures :)

Grandma's Boy - This movie is just absolute hilarity from the get-go. In the opening scenes, you're hit pretty hardcore with an incident involving a guy crashing the night at his best friend's house (who still lives with his parents, calling them roomies, wearing full-bodied pajamas, has a bedroom fit for a 6-yr old, hoping for rims for his car bed from his sister), wakes up in the middle of the night to relieve some sexual tension by sweet-talking barbie in the bathroom, only to have his friend's mother walk in on him at the moment of climax and her screaming bloody murder...haha! The movie only gets better with some very funny, memorable scenes.

American Pie series - I love these. Honest moments and people coping with an entrance into the real world. It reminds me of some of my friends.

Tencious D and the Pick of Destiny - My favorite Jack Black movie (his better movie being School of Rock) but I found myself pulled into the ride. I first rented this movie when I was stationed in Korea a few years back. I kept it for a month and watched it every night, sometimes keeping it on after falling asleep. The music was fantastic, and the cameos with Ronnie James Dio, Meatloaf, Ben Stiller (amazing portrayal of a roadie turned music store manager), and Timothy Robbins (by far the best acting in the film as well as on of the antagonists).

40-year Old Virgin - Rude, crude, and honest. Funny as hell! A classic turning of life as a deeply entrenched bachelor set in his ways and finding true love, and the trials that come with it.

~ Shane

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Superbad is hilarious!

Yeah. Jonah Hill cracks me up. I'm hoping that Get Him to the Greek is good.

Haven't seen Team America yet and my coworkers still heckle me to watch it.

It's a damn funny movie. I think you'll like it.

Tencious D and the Pick of Destiny

Now that's one that I haven't seen, but should. I think I've seen almost everything else that Jack Black has done, and with a cameo by Ronnie James Dio, I don't know why I've never rented it.

J

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Tencious D and the Pick of Destiny

Now that's one that I haven't seen, but should. I think I've seen almost everything else that Jack Black has done, and with a cameo by Ronnie James Dio, I don't know why I've never rented it.

J

Dio's pipes are unbelievable! I watched one of those behind-the-scenes additions on the DVD. In there, Jack mentions that Dio had to have custom made microphones because he'd blow out the conventional ones. That must have been an amazing experience for the cast and crew. This was one of those flicks where the cameos work and add a lot of depth to the movie.

~ Shane

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Haven't seen Team America yet and my coworkers still heckle me to watch it.

It's a damn funny movie. I think you'll like it.

The only time I’ve had neighbors complain about noise was when I had friends over to watch Team America. It wasn’t that I played the movie loud, it was my guests, everyone was howling with laughter.

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