Macresarf1's TEN BEST MOVIES EVER Makes a Tall Order!
Aug 04 '00 (Updated Jul 16 '07)
The Bottom Line My list of the TEN BEST MOVIES EVER, pretentious as that title may sound, has something for just about everyone.
To make a list of THE BEST FILMS EVER generates a couple of small problems for me. First, I've done a number of these lists now, and it would be strange if some pictures from BEST EPICS EVER or BEST SCI-FI FILMS EVER, etc, did not appear here. On the other hand, I usually like to bring a different title or two to a list. And then, I have a similar list submitted somewhere else. Fortunately, that list has about five films from my lists here and five new ones. And so, at least I am consistent.
Check out the other lists for a few out of the way movies, and I hope you enjoy the new mix on this list.
THE BEST FILMS EVER: Here they are.
10. LE PLASIR (1951): Max Ophuls (LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, 1948), the superb Viennese director who filmed in half a dozen countries including America, had three themes: Women, Love, Time. Like many great artists, like Dostoyevsky, whether Ophuls was working in Austria, Germany, Italy, France or the U. S., he tended to create variations on those themes. LE PLASIR, shot in France, with Jean Gabin, Danielle Darrieux, Simone Simon, Claude Dauphin, Gaby Morlay, Pierre Brasseur, Pauline Dubost, and Madeleine Renaud, adapts three 19th Century stories by Guy Du Maupassant about Time and Love and their relationship to women. The first "Le Masque" is very timely, about an old man, who wears prosthetics in order to attract young women. The second, the longest, "Le Maison Tellier," shows the dismay caused in a French town when the local Madam takes her girls for a yearly visit to her country birthplace. The last, "La Modele" traces a romance between an artist and his model from hot passion, to marriage, to the aftermath of her unsuccessful suicide attempt. Altogether rueful and profound, all together!
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9. COME AND SEE (1985): Elem Klimov (RASPUTIN, 1985) has only made a few movies. He has had trouble with both the Soviets and the rulers of the New Russia. This picture may be the best war film ever made. We follow a young boy as he joins the Partisans in the Ukraine to harass the Nazi invasion in 1943. In the course of the movie, the boy becomes an old man. Matter of fact, understated, it builds quietly to the most terrible sequence about war I've ever seen. Copied (poorly) by the makers of THE PATRIOT.
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-2AAD-39ABA77C-3A2DB0A4-prod3
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8. MY MOTHER'S COURAGE (1998): Michael Verhoeven (NASTY GIRL, 1990) is another director who has trouble financing and distributing his films. This one may be the best theatrical film about The Holocaust: Magnificently framed and shot in an envelope, showing the new Germany, the new German Film Industry, and then what was done in Hungary in 1944. It is told through the eyes of a Jewish Widow, who goes to visit relatives by train, and is picked up the SS and selected for medical experiments. Compassionate, suspenseful, again understated, with a touch of humor, it is a rare Holocaust film with a happy, if ironic ending.
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7. THE WILD BUNCH (1969): This story of over-the-hill bandits is unrivaled for character, action, scenery and verisimilitude. In 1913, indefatigably trailed by the laconic Robert Ryan, weary William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, and Edmond O'Brien lead their gang South of the Border after a botched bank robbery and a train heist, until they take on a Mexican Revolutionary Army and its German Advisors. This film is Sam Peckinpaugh's masterpiece, and one of the few of the truly great Westerns.
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-1C3E-8E50B88-386D234B-prod1
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6. CHINATOWN (1974): Roman Polanski (ROSEMARY'S BABY, 1968), yet another troubled director, here worked through his grief at the loss of his young wife and baby at the hands of The Charlie Manson Gang. It is constantly surprising, suspenseful and shocking, in the true sense of the word. Many people have to see it several times to understand its true horror. Polanski's direction, Robert Towne's screenplay, John Alonzo's photography, Jerry Goldsmith's musical score and the performances of Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway are at the level of benchmarks. It redefined the possibilities of Film Noir in color.
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-172E-12DE7EC9-38F8EF67-prod3
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5. GREED (1925): Erich Von Stroheim shot this Frank Norris novel, McTeague, page by page, on location in San Francisco, the locale of the story. Reduced from nine hours to five to three, finally to the 90 minute travesty available for many years. The present 120 -140 minute versions are the best we are likely to get now, although a new version using stills recently aired on TV. It is the story basically of two emotionally crippled people: John McTeague (Gibson Gowland) and Tina Sieppe (Zazu Pitts). Thrown into American Society ill-prepared, their resentments combine with those of their friend Marcus (Jean Hersholt) to cause murder, theft and a monumental confrontation, shot on location in Death Valley, between McTeague and Marcus. You can find in it the inspiration for several later classic films, including CITIZEN KANE and TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. [UPDATE: Reconstruction Producer Rick Schmidlin, using rediscovered stills from the original footage, has created an over four hour version for Turner TV, restoring the subplots. Watch for a rebroadcast.]
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-6DD1-2AA7144B-39982150-prod5
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4. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968): In close running with DR STRANGLOVE as Stanley Kubrick's most important work, this film wins out, in my view, because, hopefully, it is more prophetic than the other. It is the most profound Sc-Fi film ever made, and its implications become more astounding on every viewing. This film is a pretty good Rorschach Test for the intelligence of viewers. Those who say, I was bored by this film, need grease on their mental wheels. With Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, and, of course, HAL 9000. [UPDATE: Regretably, the Foreign Policy of the Bush Administration is turning us inexorably back toward Dr. Strangelove and his colleagues. I may have to replace 2001 with Kubrick's other masterpiece.]
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3. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952): How refreshing to be able to recommend a Musical, a Comedy, and a Film History of Hollywood in the Number Three Spot! No one has ever topped this film in the Musical, or Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's direction, Comden and Green's screenplay, the music of Arthur Freed and Herb Ignacio Brown, the dancing of Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Cyd Charisse, the comedic acting of Jean Hagen, Debbie Reynolds, Douglas Fowley and Millard Mitchell. A rare film one can laugh with and marvel over, again and again.
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-2BF8-C74628-3887549F-bd1
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2. CITIZEN KANE (1941): Far too much has been written about this film, including stuff by me. It is the perfect American Film. Producer/Co-Writer/ Director/Star Orson Welles told his cast, the rags to riches to senility story of Charlie Kane involved the kind of man we are led to admire in America: The Rich, The Powerful, The Extravagant Men who rule our lives from afar. We still admire such men. The film brought together techniques from a score of other movies, parts of a dozen more, and introduced players, artists and musical concepts that revolutionized Hollywood in a unique fashion. It continues to influence Motion Pictures, and our perception of National Life. The screenplay for the film was originally entitled American.
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-4874-81FD18C-38741497-bd4
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1. THE RED SHOES (1948): If CITIZEN KANE is the Perfect Film, THE RED SHOES is the Perfect Art Film. No more beautiful, colorful, entertaining, dramatic, tragic or original film has ever been made. Michael Powell and Emerich Pressberger, Leaders of The Company of Archers, wrote and directed this allegory, based on the folk tale by Hans Christian Andersen, about a young dancer who becomes the star of a great new Ballet and is destroyed by it. With Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Leonide Massine and Robert Helpmann. The original music in the film is by Brian Easdale, and Massine did the choreography for "The Ballet of the Red Shoes." It was a great influence on the Hollywood Musical, Ballet in America, and perhaps Musical Theater in general.
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-6FFA-8A3D9A5-389B6CC3-prod1
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If you have not seen some of these Motion Pictures, I suggest you take them one at a time, savor them, let them sink in. If you have seen some of them, and were not so impressed as I am, try them again. See if they grow on you, as they have grown on me. If you have seen them, and love them as much as I do, I need write nothing more.
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If you wish to explore all of Macresarf1's reviews, indexed by title and category, many with URL's, go to the following hyperlink --
http://www.epinions.com/content_2514526340
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macresarf1
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Location: San Francisco, Ca.
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12/1/09: Afghanistan, again: Between the Republican Devils and the Deep Blue Dog Obama.
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