Best/most important 5 movies ever

[DoryGray]

Tada, I thought the same about Angelina's lips, until I saw a picture of her as a little girl. She was born w/ them!

[tada]

WOW!!! couldn't be from Jon Voight.

Other people want to make friends- I just want to make money.
James Cramer

[mdd7000]

The Matrix - for the technological advances

[Chuysmom]

Jolie's mother was a beautiful woman as well...yes, they are her lips. Probably one of the few in Hollywood who doesn't visit the doctor to look like a blowfish. LOL

Carrie


"The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it." Galadriel - LOTR

[kimo wires]

shawshank redemption

three kings

big fish

blackhawk down

wizard of oz

[tada]

I think I can understand Strangelove ushering in the age of mutually assured destruction in post WWII era. Though not so much nihilism pose from Matrix and Fight Club in the post Cold War time. which came first and who crib who? what about the influence to spark warped minds like the Columbine murders?

Other people want to make friends- I just want to make money.
James Cramer

[missydog1]

I sure have enjoyed this topic, just caught up on it.
Seems pretty relevant to me, a Punaweb person asking for guidance, to me is much more interesting than political debate. And then add movies, makes it a winner! I love hearing about these films, some of which are way on my list, and others going on my "to watch" list.

Jay said, I'm surprised that "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" isn't front and central on that list though. . .
Yep, good point! My list started with classic film genre and went sort of chronologically and then threw in some groundbreaking films of the late 60's that weren't genre films, and that's why it came at the end!

Having taken a couple of film classes, I've found that a good serious film class doesn't show the biggest crowd-pleasers, but will cull out some films the students have probably never seen, and will show how they influenced the art of cinema at that time, and how they reflected the Zeitgeist of the times. The American Cinema class that I took spent a good amount of time addressing the rise of the studio system, issues of censorship, various codes and laws that have been passed, and of course McCarthyism. In making a great list for a class, I think one strives not so much to get the "best" films, but the films that lend themselves to illustrating a number of the issues being covered in the class.

For example, "Some Like it Hot" arguably belongs on the list for several reasons. Oscar nominated for actor, director, best film, screenplay, Billy Wilder film, Monroe film, Curtis and Lemmon, considered one of the funniest movies ever made. But its real genius is calling attention to issues of sexual identity in America through the mob chase plot that forces the protagonists to impersonate women. It takes on the idea that gender is fluid way before its time. How many of the plot devices in this movie have become familiar plot lines now? So much, but part of teaching history is to pick the films that did it first. And the way they did it before it was socially acceptable to talk about gay/straight, cross-dressing, gender-bending, yet those issues needed to be addressed precisely because so much was in the closet.

The most interesting discussion films, in my experience, deal with themes in society that make people uncomfortable and kept on the periphery of polite society but are brought into the collective consciousness through the film.

I was a course reader for a wonderful course at Berkeley that covered film and literature of the 1950's Popular Culture. The films that I can remember covering were:
Out of the Past, Best Years of Our Lives, Rebel Without a Cause, Rear Window, Singing in the Rain, The Searchers, Some Like it Hot, Forbidden Planet, Kiss Me Deadly, It's a Wonderful Life. Every one was great.

You could argue that Out of the Past is one of the finest film noir movies ever made.

Best Years of Our Lives did in 1946 what Coming Home, Deer Hunter, and Born on the 4th of July did decades later. As far as I know it was the first film to deal with the difficulty that war heroes had in returning to civilian life and to show a war hero who became anti-war. Won 7 Oscars. I had never seen it before I took the class.

Rebel Without a Cause - perfect movie to show teenagers in Hawai'i, on several levels, yet they've likely never seen it.

The Searchers - a classic, John Wayne, John Ford movie, the anti-heroic Western, another excellent movie for translating to Hawai'i issues due to Wayne's inability to accept his niece once she's been assimilated, plus his problematic relationship to his part-Indian nephew. Rated the Best Western of all time by the AFI, and consistently rated a top film with directors.

Kiss Me Deadly - encapsulates the fear of nuclear annihilation in a post-modern world. I would bet that Spielberg borrowed big time from this film with Raiders. If you know this movie, do you agree?

Singin' in the Rain - is not just a musical, but a film about how the coming of sound changed the movie industry. And of course it's a great fable on the consequences of trying to pretend you're something you're not. And it's a commentary on the Hollywood star system and the way the studios orchestrated the lives of stars who were under contract.

Rear Window is a perfect movie for a film class (OK, all Hitchcock classics are great), because the theme front and center is the pleasure and danger of voyeurism, and as spectators of
film we all become Peeping Toms. The idea of the spectator and the voyeur is so important to film theory, that it should be introduced in a film class, and this is an ideal movie for making the concept clear. Not only is it about voyeurism, but it talks about things like perspective, POV. The inability to know what is true when all you see is a fragmented picture. The problem of making assumptions about people's characters and actions, and how much we make up their story by filling in with our imagination and conclusions.

Then you have the relationship issues between Stewart and Kelly projected onto the various neighbor couples. You have the question of whether a woman can be empowered without emasculating the man. You can point out the basics of symbolism, how a broken leg being compensated for with a huge telephoto lens tells the story ... there's a lot to talk about.

I'll stop now ...
not sure we haven't made the job of choosing which films any easier.

[d96778]

84 Charing Cross Road. Nobody I've ever talked to has heard of this film, but it's one of my favorites, and with Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, and Judi Dench, it's beautifully cast and a wonderful quiet and low key film to watch.

Favorite Romance: Random Harvest. Greer Garson & Ronald Colman. Best WWII era love story ever.

[Anna]

You might consider adding "War Games" with Matthew Broderick in the mix depicting the power of computers.

Aloha, Anna
http://sudnlyaware.wordpress.com

[mr. bill]

The Man Who Would Be King
Nothing high tech. Classic story by Rudyard Kipling. Classic acting, Shawn Connery and Michael Caine.

Give me liberty and give me BAIT