Great Films

Quote: Mosca

Devil in a Blue Dress is severely underrated. Absolutely one of Denzel's best, and great source material from Walter Mosley. Unforgiven is deliciously challenging: the good guys are bad guys, and the bad guys are good guys. Little Bill is just trying to keep law and order in a frontier town.



More:

No Country For Old Men
Moon
Bladerunner
Little Big Man
Ruthless People
Chinatown
Lawrence of Arabia
Smile
Soap Dish
Serial
Night of the Comet
The Last Emperor
Blood Simple
A Simple Plan
The King of Comedy
My Favorite Year
Fargo
The Grifters
The Fisher King
12 Monkeys
Diggstown

Some quirky, some obvious, some blockbusters, some unknowns. What can I say, I like movies. I studied to be a screenwriter. Majored in English Writing with a minor in film studies.

Chinatown and The Grfters. The two you mention that I didn't mention that are very good movies.

imdb.com lists several movies named 'Serial' ... which one here?

Has anyone else seen Starting Out In The Evening and thinks it is a great picture?

Paper Moon. A very good picture. And the acting of Diane Lane in Unfaithful is just incredible. In A Walk On The Moon she was also very good. I think she's one of the best actresses of all time. Tommy Lee Jones' best picture was No Country For Old Men. And Josh Brolin was great too. Arguably the most exciting two minutes of film ever is the scene where the pit bull is chasing Josh Brolin. Notes On A Scandal. Just superb. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Avatar. I thought the latest True Grit was better, overall, than the 1969 version. But the 1969 version by far had a better ending. The Morning After was a great picture. So was Against All Odds. Spartacus. Arguably one of the best pictures ever. The Last Of The Mohicans was a very good film. The Seventh Dawn, wonderful.

Quote: odiousgambit

imdb.com lists several movies named 'Serial' ... which one here?

The one with Martin Mull. Keep in mind, I'm not listing the greatest movies of all time, just movies I really like. The three I listed in a row, Smile, Soap Dish, and Serial all lampoon a similar lifestyle. The best of the three might be Smile!, a forgotten classic. Bruce Dern and Barbara Feldon in a comedy about beauty pageants: how can you go wrong! Smile!

I sometimes think of movies that were "almost" good movies but something went wrong

"Total Recall" with Arnold Schwarzenegger; at times this movie really had me involved. But it's as if the director had contempt for the movie, thought it was silly overall, and sabotaged it with silly scenes.

"the ghost and the darkness" with Michael Douglas. First time I saw this movie I was quite enthused; then I watched it again and realized something was missing, not sure what.

Wonderful Life is pure Americana. Guy marries
HS sweetheart. Can't go to war, stays home and
runs all the war effort drives. Brother comes home
a hero. Runs the local loan company that gives
poor people shot at the American dream. Has
a perfect family, a perfect life, until it almost falls
apart. Gets redeemed at the end as to what his
worth is in his town. Has nothing to do with Xmas,
just happens at that time of year.

Quote: boymimbo

Where is "Hunt for Red October" on this list!

Seriously, though, Sixth Sense and Field of Dreams?

Hunt For Red October was a very good film, but I don't think one of the greatest. And yes, seriously.

Sometimes what makes a movie great varies.
I recall Proof of Life, a short simple film about American engineers in Central America, kidnapping, corporate greed and incompetence. Features a somewhat young perky wife and a globe trotting military expert on Kidnap and Ransom. Sure it nice to have a young beautiful actress on the screen but mainly what I liked about it was the theme of capable, competent experts who know what they are dealing with. I get tired of these movies where the good guys fire away all day and never reload, never miss their targets, never get unlucky. Its refreshing to have things a bit more realistic.

No Country for Old Men: wonderful. The female really made that story come alive. A bit boring in the middle but a good storyline. Good solid acting. Again. Realism rather than escapism. No vampires No zombies.

The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps were each rather implausible in certain areas but at least you had normal people reacting normally. After all, nobody much cares about the McGuffin.

Field of Dreams was called Field of Corn by
some because it was so corny. 'Build it and
he will come' was the butt of jokes the
year it came out. It was poplar at the time,
I thought it was silly. Tried watching it last
year and it's really silly now. Baseball players,
really? Who cares. War heroes I could see,
famous authors or people from history. Anybody
but baseball players.

This review from somebody at IMDB sums it
up for me:

"Simply said... THE worst movie I ever tried to watch. I had to have friends tie me to a chair to get through the entire thing, and needed therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder afterward. Still have nightmares of the inane dialog and unbelievably ridiculous story line. There are so many other good baseball movies, and there are so many other good "ghost" movies... that there is no good reason that this movie should exist. I am in absolute shock at the number of 9s and 10s the contributors here have given this piece of trash. I can only attribute it to the incredible failure of our nation's educational system."

It was the premise and the dialog that got to me.
Lines like: "Who's wants to spit on the constitution?",
"You want to step outside, you Nazi cow.", "You're guests
in my cornfield.", "Tell me is there enough magic in
a starlit night to make my wish come true?"

C'mon..