CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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My Top Twenty-Five Movies of all Time Part 2

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

this entry brought to you by postal service, "clark gable"


The 25th through the 15th best movies are located here, in yesterday's entry.

#15 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade A lot of people name Raiders as their favorite Indiana Jones movie, and I can't blame them. It's got awesome villains (the Asian dude with the burned hand is scary as shit), the series' best love interest, and that fight scene with the Nazi next to the propeller airplane. But Last Crusade, in a stroke of casting genius, has Sean Connery playing Indie's jovial, almost goofy dad, which totally makes it worth it. That, and of course the tests at the climax.

#14 Who Framed Roger Rabbit? There's a scene that was shown prominently in the trailer that summed up the movie pretty nicely: Roger Rabbit is a movie about greed, sex, and murder. And it stars cartoon characters. It stars, like, every cartoon character. What's perhaps most amazing about it, however, is that if you go and watch any merging of traditional cell animation and live-action footage that has come out since then (Space Jam, for example), and for some reason, it still doesn't look as good as Roger Rabbit.

#13 Beetlejuice When I was in the third grade, my mom and I scored tickets to the sneak preview of Beetlejuice, and I asked my third-grade crush, Dominique, to come with us. I remember she dressed prettier than I'd ever seen her. That night, we saw the most terrifying, hilarious movie we'd seen up to that point, filled with grotesque, yet cartoonish horror. She screamed throughout the whole thing, clung to me like static-cling. Beetlejuice then went on to be my most-watched movie, topping off somewhere in the low 30s. Sidenote: Beetlejuice has one of the most memorable original scores in all of cinema.

#12 Ghostbusters Remember the first time you saw this movie, and Gozer asks the Ghostbusters to choose their demise? And Ray accidentally thinks of something, and you don't know what it is, only that it is huge and terrible and destructive? And you're kinda scared because you have no clue as to what will destroy New York? And it turns out to be the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, which is hilarious, but no less terrible and destructive? Yeah, Ghostbusters rules.

#11 The Ice Storm Ang Lee's subtle, sublime masterpiece on the inner workings of two suburbanite families in the mid 1970's. The parents are going through mid-life crises, the kids are bored, confused, experimenting. Although it takes place during a very specific time in the past, it is the most effective, moving, and non-judgmental movie about screwed up suburban life that I've ever seen. The Ice Storm was up for best picture and Kevin Kline was up for best actor that year, and they lost to American Beauty and Kevin Spacey for his role in it. Problem was American Beauty was pure Hollywood fluff disguised as something controversial. The Ice Storm tells a similar story, only it does it without the pomp and horrible sappiness.

#10 Memento By giving the main character short-term memory loss and telling the story backwards (and sideways), you see the movie basically through main character Leonard's eyes, because at the beginning of every scene, you don't know any more than he does. This incredibly innovative and effective storytelling technique completely messes with what you think you know about what's going on and, along the way, provokes a lot of thought on how we think we remember things. My vote for the best movie since 2000.

#9 The Godfathers 1 & 2 I think, looking at these movies some 30 years after they were released, what amazes me the most is what an enormous cast of characters it has, yet Ford Coppola managed to get memorable, distinct characters out of each and every one of them. Even incidental people or people who die soon after being introduced are memorable. These are the kind of movies that was made as much in the Hollywood world as anything else, but you cease to feel like you're watching a movie. It's difficult to imagine that all these actors had lives outside what you see. It's even more difficult to imagine that there was probably some goofing around on the set during downtime. All this is inconceivable, because what you're seeing feels complete.

#8Batman It's got the best Bat suit: all black with yellow insignia. It's got the best Bruce Wayne: Michael Keaton's Wayne appeared to always have a lot on his mind, constantly lost in thought. It's got the best villain, in fact, the Batman villain: The Joker, played with psychotic aplomb by Jack Nicholson. And it's directed by Tim Burton, the one director who showed up more than any other on this list. 'Nuff said.

#7 Terminator 2 At the time, all anyone talked about were the whiz-bang special effects (which, miraculously, still hold up more than 10 years later), but what has made us remember is how deep and well thought-out the characters were. Yes, the future world where robots are at war with man and send back a killing machine to terminate the man who would lead the humans to victory is awesome and thought-provoking (so much so that the Matrix movies seem to be sequels to Terminator), but dystopian futures of war were more the point of the first film. Terminator 2 is much more about the dysfunctional family element (which Aliens also covered but to a lesser degree), the relationship between a mother and her son, and her son and a machine, the only father-figure he has ever had. From its technical stand points, it's an awesome movie. But thematically, it's one of the deepest action movies ever.

#6 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest It's interesting to me the different interpretations people have with this film. I've known people who have excused Murphy's actions for attacking Nurse Ratchet, because she deserved it, which she definitely did. And some people don't think Murphy was crazy, just a con-artist. I think Murphy was definitely crazy, just not the kind of crazy to belong in that particular mental ward. And the point of the story is, who's crazier, this sociopath, or this power-hungry nurse?
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with love from CRS @ 5:32 PM 

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