Line's Top 100 Films of All Time

[Flex]

Serious question, do your buddies give you a hard time for watching these types of movies?

 

[Line]

Serious question, do your buddies give you a hard time for watching these types of movies?

Actually it's the opposite; I'm usually very critical of their tastes depending on how much hyperbole they decide to throw around. There will actually be some more familiar titles coming up soon though.

 

[Line]

Howard Hawks, 1940​

In what has been often times heralded as one of the greatest American screenplays off all-time (courtesy of Charles Lederer), Howard Hawks weaves a complicated romantic comedy starring none other than the ever-charming Cary Grant. Grant plays newspaper editor Walter Burns. An overworked, and competitive man, Burns uses his smooth ways to hatch a clumsily-cunning plot in order to keep the former star journalist and Mrs. Burns (Hildy Johnson as played by sassy Rosalind Russell) from marrying, of course, a slow-witted insurance salesman.

What sets this film above other "screwball" comedies of the era is just how far its willing to dive into its own world that there's not only genuine concern for the characters, which is fairly stock in said films, but the screenplay is so breezy and refreshing that the sillier it gets, the more we unconditionally invest ourselves. In actuality, the audience should be sensing that something's amiss when Burns tries a romantically motivated trap Hildy into staying in the city just a bit longer to finish "one last story". Usually Grant as an actor is a charming and even though his plans can come off as somewhat maniacal we hardly think of him as a bad man. That being said, in His Girl Friday, we have an internal conflict about his intentions and whether or not he's indeed trying to save the paper or if these are merely excuses he's telling himself and his surrounders in order to reacquaint his love for Hildy. The juxtaposition of his charm to his psuedo-dasterdliness somehow never comes off as malicious and with each twist and turn in what some might label as a hilarious inconcievable plot we get a taste of what this man, and men in general are willing to do for love.

 

[Line]

Darren Arnonofsky, 2000[/CENTER]

Perhaps this will be labeled as a conventional choice but I assume that those who know me will anticipate that through the remainder of this essay that I find it engaging for reasons outside those typically listed. I have found through my experience with Aronofsky that he is a very subtextual filmmaker and criticisms of his work are an over-emphasis on visuals. Generally, the masses can conceed that said visuals are indeed relevant in terms of the context in which they are juxtaposted to but few dwell on what's below the surface.

Requiem for a Dream is a powerful film. Immediate reactions to it can lead to labels of shocking, depressing, disgusting, and even self-indulgent. However, it is in my opinion that this film paints a much larger picture of the things we yearn for; our addictions, so to speak, are not necessarily those of drugs or vanity but of freedom and dreams. It is natural to overlook such a theme as many enjoy movies that leave an immediate and lasting impression on them; they associate the film with those feelings for the rest of their lives. When any piece of art or beauty leaves such a mark on our minds we become satisfied with our own interpretation and in this instance, most can push the piece aside as a mere anti-drug message. Let us further examine what lies beneath.

The relationship between all of our leads are important ones and each have distinct goals. Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) plays mother to the son of a drug addict Harry (Jared Leto). Sara yearns for the days of yesteryears, likely during the time of her husband's life and the love the family once shared. In her depression she has confided herself mainly to her home or a small circle of other disillusioned elderly women. She is dead inside. Her only connection with the outside world lies in the exaggerated and exuberant world of infomercials and she longs for the attention and superficial love of an brightly lit stage and an audience forced to applaud. Her obsession with weight loss and the addiction which emerges as a byproduct are far less about her wanting to look good on television and much more about taking herself and family back to a time when all was peaceful in her mind. Even if her personal memories are overly idealistic, the ideas are what keeps her going and these ideals breath life inside her before stripping it away.

Harry is defiant by definition but means no ill-intent through his actions. He's young, naive, and in love with life. The latter is often described as an endearing quality and that one must love life and love oneself in order to love others. However, Harry's self-indulgence hampers his connection with his mother and detaches him from his own humanity. Without it being said, the absence of his father likely played an enormous role in his early life, one that lead to a carpe diem theorem that engulfed his entire spirit. Meanwhile his relationship and sins of the flesh presumably lead him to Marion (a gorgeous Jennifer Connelly), a young lamb who has also lost her way. However, unlike the perpetual drifting of Harry's life intentions, Marion has a goal but is too preoccupied in the notion of being young and in love. Like Sara, she becomes obsessed with a different ideal, one to design and create, but in turn ends up slowly destroying herself. The deconstruction of dreams is in direct relation to her extension of Earthly pleasures through Harry.

In whole, the film becomes more about relations and chasing dreams than it does just about drugs and their consequences. While that is clearly a heavy theme, the examination of one's dreams and our willingness to achieve them is a much more philosophical and rewarding one.

 

[Flex]

First one i've heard of.

 

[high_five]

First one i've heard of.

I haven't heard of any of them.

 

[Daniel Andersson]

One thing's for sure...Line is old fashioned

 

[Flex]

I haven't heard of any of them.

Requiem for a Dream is where this theme that we've heard a hundred times has come from.

 

[high_five]

That is a sweet song, i must admit.

 

[Beefcake]

Where do you find the time to watch all these movies Line? and how do you hear about the old ones?

 

[Line]

Where do you find the time to watch all these movies Line? and how do you hear about the old ones?

I've been really interested in film for the past four years and when it gets cold outside I usually only leave to go to the gym, go out to eat, or occasionally go to class. As for the older films, I lurked on the boards at Rotten Tomatoes for awhile and then started posting there one year ago today. I actually was planning on just keeping this film list over there but I figured I'd share it with you guys as well since we talk about movies fairly often.

 

[Rageking]

how long you planning dragging this out

 

[Line]

how long you planning dragging this out

When I finish a banner, I post it.

 

[Rageking]

ah i see
work faster

 

[Line]

James Foley, 1992​

Outside my window it's dark. What would be an inescapable shroud of blankness is being staunched by dimly lit fluorescent lights; they seem much brighter than they should in contrast to the night's sky. Looking out I can see into buildings and their glass fronts resemble wonderous entrapments for the voyeur moreso than a sheltering construct for man. I can peer inside and view strangers if I wish and this will be the only glimpse of their lives that I will see through my umbillical perspective. There is no extension of myself into those surrounding me, or at least it feels that way at this point in time. It's 5:38 am, and I'm writing out of anxiety and obession. Obsession to get the words right, to turn what my world is giving me now into a semblance of a coherent write up. As cars pass by the headlights remind me of the vacant eyes of strangers. I only converse with them in an auditory or physically dodging manner and can only see them for what they. That being said relationship of the salesman within our film to that of their clients does not differ from that of the my mind and my ever adapting surroundings. We observe, we listen, we calculate, and we react.

Glengarry Glen Ross is a story of dimly lit nights and desparation for contact and hope. Ends are trying to be met, quotas filled, and time squandered; I know the feeling. Based on a play by David Mamet (also credited for the screenplay), we see the lives of others through the lense of salesmen and it's not uncommon for that lense to be pointed at oneself either. Within the office our players dial their hours away, making calls to strangers which they can may never put a face to. They're given names, leads, and this is all the have to make a sale. In a way, the salesmen in our picture are more distant strangers to their customers as I am to the cars passing by for at least I have that brief moment of multiple sensory contact. No. They have names and the names are worth shit.

This is what I would like to call an actors' film. A cast with the likes of Pacino, Lemmon, Arkin, Spacey, Baldwin, and Harris all but proves the prior claim as fact. There's a sweeping nervousness though to several of our characters as they are now pitted against each other in a sales contest where first prize is a car, second prize is a set of knives, and third prize is your pink slip. Here we see the business world, not necessarily exclusive to telemarketers or property salesman but of any capitalistic venture in today's society. Is this a time for friendship and loyalty? It depends how badly they want bread on the table and oil to heat the house. We see Lemmon, playing Shelley Levene, Levene the Machine. Shelley is about as old school as they come and realizes that his good-natured and honest approach is not what impacts people anymore. Ringing true in today's world, one must relate to our surrounders and being nice and offering a sympathetic ear doesn't cut it anymore. Sunken to the point where he can't pour himself a cup off coffee without being barked at he fails to realize that what sells is sex and, unfortunately, everyone's buying.

Ricky Roma is Al Pacino or Al Pacino is Ricky Roma. There's no difference really but it's also Pacino at his most charismatic. Roma knows not only how to play the game but how to adapt. He is liked only by those he wishes to be liked by and speaks immutable truths to the others; the ones that don't want to hear it. The scenery surrounding Roma is in stark contrast to that of Levene who is often found in the rain, crammed into a phone booth, or at his desk when he should be home nestled up to his wife. He's the type of character that I'd never see outside on a night like this, especially at a time like this. Looking out my window again, I half expect to see Lemmon's silhouette cast by a neon light of a place basking with promises of which he may never know.

Too often is this film recognized only for the talent and just how quotable it is. But desperation is there. Betrayal is there. Most importanly the willingness to do what a man feels is just in order to survive is there. It's survival of the fittest in a deep character study that, although released in the early 90's, is just as fitting now, if not moreso than ever before. With outsourcing and technology the jobs of men willing to put their brains to the anxietal grindstone for such meager pay is going the way of the buffalo.

I look out my window again and see one or two passerbies. I know nothing of them but I get a better sense of who they are than our salesmen will of 90% of those they call. I see faces and gestures and although we'll never meet there's a certain connection and I can see them as people; there's no motive behind my eyes. I can't imagine making a living like the men in our film do, nor can I blame them for their actions. Perhaps justice and reason can fuck off.

A Footnote: This is what happens when I write in a state of mania. I'm not proof-reading this shit. Watch the film. The end.

 

[Hypocrisy86]

hmm.. how bout Day watch?

 

[Line]

Jacques Tati, 1967[/CENTER]

Putting any type of detailed description regarding this film's plot would be not only have to be painstakingly thought out but also an exercise in futility. In mentally crafting what I was to write about Jacques Tati's Playtime, the same visually-heavy adjectives continuously flew through my head, and it seems as if the film itself is nothing in an exercise of the eyes; I assure you this could not be further from the truth. What we have here is not only an intracately calculated piece of filmmaking at the highest level craftsmanship but ambiguous themes dealing with the deconstruction of post modernism.

Playtime exists within a gloriously constructed town, the set of which is appropriately named "Tativille". While there are some characters that the film follows through with, it is hard in this writer's honest opinion, to label a protagonist. Events of others coexist so blissfully harmonic with that of any of our developed characters that "catching up" rather than "following" them would be a more appropriate term. In a film where the dissection of its narrative is useless, I believe that using the term "harmonic" to express the action we see throughout the film is more than apt as so many individualized moments are all occuring within the same frame; filling it with a beautiful and oddly functioning clutter. The depth of Tati's lense captures far more than that of one's eye and the average viewer will find their own darting about in a feeble attempt to take in all that exists within Tativille.

Despite the grand aesthetic and orchestration of each aspect of the film, one must add the hilarity that ensues throughout from beginning to end. Gags can be found in every inch of the screen and some will go undiscovered for several viewings while others may just become even more amusing. The scope of the humor itself depends solely on the viewer but for a film without many, if any, apparent verbal punchlines it more that succeeds in physical humor, both in terms of its players as well as the sets themselves.

While I don't want to bog-down this essay of such a whimsically comedic film with subtext and meaning, I feel that there is a very apparent message there. In terms of modern design and architecture, the idea is to put functionality over form. While Tativille has a similar aesthetic to that of modernism (glass, metal, emphatically built paths and enterance ways) it is all for show. Many characters become lost or incredibly disoriented by the "modern" design in reality its more of a contemporary construct. The veneer of our sets are constructed out of function only for our director and the characters are sometimes clueless as to how an aspect of a building is intended to look and read. In the later portions of the film we see several design themes backfire on their planners (doors break, architectural idioms collapse, etc...) and yet functionality spawns and endures from these misteps. The theme of falling apart shows us that details are not meant to overtake the idea of a construct itself but should work with it and around its occupants. The buildings within Tativille certainly does not do that for its characters, and conversely works great for our director in his presentation of this cinematic wonder.

 

[Line]

You guys should know this one...

Robert Zemeckis, 1988​

I'll start by being forthright in saying that I know this won't be as popular a choice as some of the other films on my list, particularly those that have yet to make their appearance. However, the scope of this painstakingly made comedy-slash-crime film provides not only laughs that range from childish physical humor to daring inuendos paints one of the broadest comedic landscapes I've come to know; a film a parent wouldn't be embarrassed to watch with their children, and vice-versa (more on this in the next paragraph). The plot itself is incredulous and exists within the whismical world that we all as youths had once dreamed of; one where cartoons not only exist and interact within our own space but have all the characteristics of man, souls included. This leads not only to bestowing feelings of relation and empathy for many of the cartoons presented but also makes the interaction between such cultural icons and their surrounders all the more believable.

Subtext runs rampid throughout the 104 minute film where we gain perspective on the relations of cartoons to not only people but the cultural implications of their actions and communiqué within the toon world. There are themes of interolance as our human lead Eddie Valient (obviously a throwback noir name) has such a dislike of toons as one had previously killed his brother. Also, a mysterious, forboding character named Judge Doom has gone around exstinguishing cartoons, also playing greatly into the thematic issue of prejudice as his scaled-down genocide against them begins reaching scary, unimaginable heights. It should be noted that, because the focus of Doom's executions are toons, he is capable in instinguishing them in the most inhumane possible within the public forum; a man of power reeping praises for the destruction of a race. Meanwhile, Valient has been hired as a private eye to take pictures proving that Roger's wife Jessica (aka the hottest cartoon ever) has been playing pattycake, an obvious euphemism for intercourse, with cartoon mogul Marvin Acme. Despite Roger being a toon, Valient is forced and cohersed into the protecting him who quickly becomes a wanted man...err...toon for the sudden murder of Acme. Without divulging too much more of the plot, I'd like to point out that all the schematics of classic noir are present; red herrings to boot and frame ups to boot.

Throughout the rest of the narrative our plot unfolds in an unrushed manner that exposes the young to genre pictures that they may never otherwise come to see. It opens their eyes to that of detective stories and noir of both the classic and neo variety and encourages their eventual maturation as filmgoers. While there is a clear representation of what is truly evil and good, the line is blurred for a good portion of the film and commentary on a corrupt system of governmental justice challenges the minds of its young viewers and simultaneously recalls past qualms elder fans once had for society.

It would be unfair to the film to not talk about the technical aspects in some manner which took home three academy awards including the under mentioned attribute of the film's visual effects. The physical relation between every human character and their cartoon counterparts is impeccably crafted. Real life settings and wardrobes move and react to the non-existent cartoon figures as smooth and effortlessly as they would with normal actors, all the while the animation remains consistent and believable. While a suspension of belief is certainly required throughout one's viewing, Zemeckis's prowess for blurring the line between what is human and what isn't quickly dispels such consciousness from our viewers who should find the cultural relation between the two to be almost instanteously believable and fantasmic. While the inclusion of such a film on my list may have nostalgic undertones, it remains a very competent and noteworthy classic piece of new and exciting cinematic execution; the kind that American directors are often accused of neglecting.

 

[Daniel Andersson]

Yes, Thats the first one I know
I've seen it aswell

 

[high_five]

Yes, Thats the first one I know
I've seen it aswell

Same here.