Ten Best? Nope. Ten Favorite? Yep.Jul 08 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Here's my list. Don't like it? Make your own!
It's tough to judge which ten movies were the best I've ever seen. I've seen hundreds of films in my life -- it would be impossible for me to produce a list of the ten best. Besides, I don't believe I'm anywhere near qualified to be an objective judge of film quality. Plus, I'm only 31 years old. Thus, notable exclusions include: Citizen Kane, most Hitchcock movies, Gone With The Wind, and others. I know for a fact that these are academic choices for the greatest films of all time. The Golden Age, and all of that. Believe me, leaving them off the list is no sign of disrespect. Just ignorance. (There are a couple of "older" movies in my list, so it isn't about age.) However... I can try to piece together a list of ten movies that made the biggest impact on me. There is no strict criteria, no real rhyme or reason. Some of these movies might be considered utter garbage -- I'm fully aware of that. But this looked like a fun exercise to participate in. Maybe I'll think of some movie I might have forgotten about and stop by Blockbuster tonight. Now, in absolutely no order whatsoever: 1) Pulp Fiction How cool was this movie? Tarantino's frenetic pacing, crisp dialogue, and unique (though not original) structure might have been the best movie of the 90's. So much was going on in the film, it begs to watched again to fully appreciate the experience. 2) Taxi Driver Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle -- as haunting a performance as you'll ever see. It's tough to take your eyes off the screen as he spirals downward to the explosive climax. 3) The Star Wars Saga Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, it's cheating to lump together 5 movies. Hey, it's MY list. Now -- I'm by no means your traditional Star Wars fanatic, but it's impossible to ignore how important these movies are. Just about every American male under 40 has some indelible Star Wars-related memory. Bet you wished you kept the toys, huh? 4) The Indiana Jones movies Since I set the precedent with Star Wars, I might as well follow up with another series of movies. This might actually be an even better overall package than the Star Wars movies. Definitely the most fun to watch of every other movie in this list. 5) Casablanca See, I'm not a complete cultural waste of space. This really was an excellent movie. Bogey, Bergman, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre -- awesome cast. Classic scenes throughout the whole film, and maybe the most famous ending in motion picture history. 6) Fast Times at Ridgemont High From Humphrey Bogart bidding farewell to Ingrid Bergman on the air strip, to Judge Reinhold "taking matters into his own hands" while watching Pheobe Cates get out of the pool. (I told you this was a personal list.) A classic movie that set the tone for teenagers in the 80's. 7) Die Hard No, I'm not including the two sequels. In high school, I held off on watching this movie simply because of the Bruce Willis - Moonlighting ("Let's have two people talk real fast at the same time and dupe the world into thinking it's witty!") connection. When I finally did see it -- wow. The building, the "army of one" thing, the coolest group of villians ever... very cool for a testosterone-filled 18-year old kid, and still cool through the years. 8) Psycho Hitchcock's freakiest movie. Norman Bates was a twisted lil' man, wasn't he? Minimal gore, maximum creepiness. The sequels to this were absolute garbage though. Wow, this is tougher than I thought. 9) Rocky I-IV No, Rocky V never happened. There was no Rocky V. I have no idea what you're talking about. Tommy Morrison? Who? Listen -- there was no Rocky V. You shut up now. But Rocky I-IV was just about as good as it got for Guy Flicks. Grown men coming out of the theater throwing air jabs at their buddies. You scream out "Adriaaaaaan!" and everyone knows where that came from. Remember when the Russian crowd got behind Balboa during his fight with Drago? Or how crappy it was when Mickey died? I mean, this was just good stuff. 10) Swingers "Vegas, baby." A movie about 20-something single guys on the prowl for chicks that nails it dead-on. Vince Vaughn hit his peak here, and Jon Favreau gets "Sensitive Guy" down perfectly. Sega hockey tournaments and late night coffee shop conversations, the difference between rated R and PG13 hookup styles -- it's all there. Okay, that's it. I left off even more stuff than I thought I would (Goodfellas, The Godfathers, A Fish Called Wanda, Poltergeist, E.T. and more.) Ask me next year, this list is probably different.  |
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