May 7, 2007

Somebody else likes lists

Trying to list the best movies is such an examination of personal choice that every person on the planet - every movie-gowing person, anyway - would come up with a castly different list of the best movies of last year much less the greatest movies of a decade or a century.

I, for example, have mentioned my thoughts for best films of the 90's before, crutiquing a critic's choices as a spur to discuss my personal top ten.

I'm back again today to look at a couple of much more thorough lists of the best of the 90's as well as my few thoughts here and there.

First, the two lists - part #1 and part #2.

Agreed - outstanding films
  • Thin Red Line
  • Short Cuts
  • The Truman Show
  • Glengarry Glen Ross
  • LA Confidential
  • American Beauty
  • Election
  • Boogie Nights
  • The Player
  • Three Kings
  • The Matrix
  • Pulp Fiction
  • Chasing Amy
  • Fight Club
  • The Usual Suspects
  • Silence of the Lambs
  • Unforgiven
  • The Big Lebowski
  • Schindler's List
  • Goodfellas
Yeah, I guess so - good but a level down
  • Groundhog Day
  • Pi
  • The Fugitive
  • Shakespeare in Love
  • Good Will Hunting
  • The Nighmare Before Christmas
  • Being John Malkovich
  • Heat
  • Seven
  • Sneakers
  • Braveheart
  • Trainspotting
  • Grosse Point Blank (maybe my favorite on the list)
  • Dazed and Confused
  • JFK
  • Miller's Crossing
  • The Hudsucker Proxy
  • Ronin
  • Reservoir Dogs
  • Jurassic Park
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
  • Magnolia
  • Fargo
I guess so, but I don't have to like it - movies I can't stand but that I recognize are probably decently good
  • Eyes Wide Shut
  • Swingers
  • The Piano
  • A Simple Plan
What? - I don't get these choices at all
  • Bound
  • Jackie Brown
  • Terminator 2
  • Barton Fink
  • Wayne's World
Never saw 'em
  • Quick Change
  • Pretty Woman
  • American Movie
  • Rushmore
  • Fallen Angels
  • Howards End
  • Titanic
  • The Talented Mr. Ripley
  • Wild at Heart
  • Babe
  • Everyone Says I Love You
  • Out of Sight
  • Chungking Express
  • Kicking and Screaming
  • Breaking the Waves
  • Cantral Station
  • Funny Games
  • Flirting with Disaster
  • Velvet Goldmine
  • Safe
  • Three Colors: Red
  • In the Company of Men
  • Kundun
  • Saving Private Ryan
  • Ed Wood
  • My Own Private Idaho
  • Delicatessen
  • Bottle Rocket
  • Heavenly Creatures
  • Hard Eight
  • Smoke
  • Happy Together
  • Cemetary Man
  • Fresh Bait
  • Existenz
  • Dark City
  • The Insider
  • Devil in a Blue Dress
  • Raise the Red Lantern
  • Hearts of Darkness
  • Fireworks
  • Husbands and Wives
  • The Double Life of Veronique
  • Zero Effect
  • Baraka
  • The Eel

So I have three questions for you folks out there:
  1. Which films have I overrated? Which did I say were outstanding but that you think deserve to be moved downward?
  2. Which flicks have I overrated?
  3. And which movies have I missed out on that I should put highest on the list?
And if you'd like another list, there's the 100 Greatest Movie Lines...but I'll leave that for you to explore on your own.

3 comments:

joey said...

Truman show I've never really understood the greatness of. Maybe just because when it came out I was still loving the comedic Jim Carrey and the switched urked me.

Resevoir Dogs I would jump up to the top tier, if for nothing else because of the talk that the movie still gets ("Who killed Brown?" Or pink, whichever one it is I forget now...yea yea, ironic I know)

And...wow... Saving Private Ryan, now. I don't care what the excuse is, that's required viewing.

achilles3 said...

I think Groundhog Day was brilliant and deserves a move up and that Chasing Amy was kind of boring.
Truman Show is one of my favorites and I think it is genious.

PHSChemGuy said...

Groundhog Day has the same issue that nearly every other comedy ever has had to suffer: it's a comedy. It's always so hard to recognize a comedy as a GREAT FILM because it doesn't have the same emotional depth and impact that a drama has.

It doesn't play itself seriously, so it's harder for critics and fans to take it quite so seriously.