What Is Your Favorite Film of All Time and Why?

[AnotherRican]

Hey, I'll throw in mine:


Greatest Movie(s) of all time: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Next one coming out during Winter of 2002).
Tolkein was an amazing genius!

I loved Gladiator and Braveheart because they honor masculinity in a correct way. Courage, honor, integrity, heroic acts, standing up for principles, loving others, getting the girl (though she was killed), protecting your family, and goodness prevailing over evil (like Communism... ).

Others:

Matrix: unbelievable spiritual parallels!

Fight Club: Lots of true points which apply to our crazy world. Great acting by Brad Pitt and Ed Norton.

12 Monkies: With Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt. Mind games and twisted, confusing plot that plays with your mind. Sobering events involving biological warefare!

Prince of Tides: Psychodrama that cuts to the heart. Reveals how men hurt inside and possible healing.

Memento: Awesome cinematic technique that plays with your mind and constantly is throwing you off with surprises.

Chariots of Fire: Amazing true life story of famous Track Olympian who ran "for God!"

Hard Day's Night: The Beatles. Classic cinematographic effects before anyone was doing them. DVD version is fantastic! The "Let It Be" Concert is comming out soon to theaters once they strip the originals of studio effects in order to make it be as raw as the original roof-top concert was.

Dad with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson. Amazing portrayal of three generations of dysfunctional men and their "father" issues and resolution.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: Even though this film has a slight underlying disdain for men (feminist), I would rate it very good. It is based on the book. It deals with multi-generational "sins" being passed on to your descendants. It takes place with a group of Louisianna "delta" women who make a pact. Good acting and plot.

Dead Poets' Society: With Robin Williams. Amazing soul-searching and inspiring story of a New England Prep school group of students.

The Emperor's Club Hurray for integrity and other family values! Similar to Dead Poets' Society.

Vanilla Sky: Tom Cruise, the other Cruz, and Cameron Diaz. Full of turns and twists. Many surprises. Similar to 12 Monkeys. Very good acting. Paul McCartney has a great song at end.

American Beauty: Very good portrayal of the vanity of life as we typically live it. Great acting by Annette Bening and Kevin Spacey (plus the Toby McGuire). Lots of issues and statements portrayed.

American History X: Amazing story about a skin-head (Edward Norton) who hates and killed an African-American. In prison an African American befriends him and turns his world upside down. He goes back to his Supremacist roots and then see what happens...




[Edited by AnotherRican on 18th February 2003 at 16:38]

[Stanley]

Azucar Amargo was a pretty good movie. One can see Havana in all its splendor as well as the prostitutas and real companeros.

IN the end one can see Fidel giving one of his four hour speeches.

[inca]

I won't write in order of preference cos this is imposible:
1)Original Planet of the Apes cos the idea of evolution in reverse or involution and the surprise at the end of the movie the astronauts just traveled in time but not in space.Charlton Heston was excellent.
2)Planet of the Apes (Tim Burton)cos the performance of Tim Roth as the chimp-general, the aged father Charlton Heston, the effort to imitate walking and gestures, jumps and monkey, orangotango and gorilla's behavior and a new twisting of the end mixing previous sagas of the sequels of the original. Smart way not to repeat the already known epilogue and yet surprise the audience!
3)2001 Space Odysee cos you can interpret in different ways how evolution was "pushed" by unknown monolith. By the time we didn't even go to the Moon and yet the depiction of the space and shifts was very scientific and the milions of years of evolution gap between dawn of civilization in Africa to the future was in a second flat in the scene when a bone thrown in the air transforms into a huge structure "floating" in the air, something not ever repeated in such magnificent way.
4)Potemkyn, the black & white Russian film with the original idea of the baby chart climbing down the ladder (repeated in the excellent THE UNTOUCHABLES though in slow motion). You can check the difficult scene was filmed with hundreds of people climbing down the ladder and a CRIPPLED guy in front of them all, the scenes of the rotten meat the sailors had to eat and the mechanism of the ship, outstanding film by the time.
5)SIBERIA, excellent performance of Russian actors and British actress and landscapes.
6)DREAMS by Akiro Kurasawa with Lucas technology Light & Magic. Poetry in images without bla-bla-bla like European films.
7)BEN HUR somehow imitated by Riddley Scott in Gladiator, but Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd acting was excellent too, and the horse race was the most excellent action to me, better than the usual race cars (done better in old films like in Steve Mc Queen BULLIT in Gene Hackman's FRENCH CONNECTION
8)MATRIX the idea better explained than 13TH FLOOR with the best action scenes and original 360 degrees BULLET-TIME scenes plus high tech kung fu, the myth mixing Budhism-Christianism-Nanotechnology-Kantism-Descartes, superb!
9)The 10 Commandments, good historical discussion and magnificent Egyptian details not even modern MUMMY could achieve without talking about RED SEA and plagues scenes in a time when no computers were available.

[inca]

10)Mel Gibson's BRAVEHART, interesting story and wonderful epic battles prior to the visual technique copied by Scott in Gladiator and Spielberg in Ryan's Soldier, magnificent landscape, music, photograph, costumes and plot.
11)Gone with the Wind, well that's a classic.
12) PI astonishing plot in a rare technique used in black and white movie about theo-mathic reality present in our life as observed by someone who saw the Sun directly when was a child.
13)Well there's another film (part of 3 films) which has no dialogue at all, just scenes showed in fast motion , it's an HOPI name looking like Russian name KOLNATSKAYA or something like this, you see how ridiculous is life and we stare ourselves like ants in a pre-recorded destiny.I cry. The music increases that sense of ridiculous short life we have without saying a single word. But you need PATIENCE to have this revelation and not get bored. It's a rare experience of life, not just a cinematic experience. You gotta take a look.
14)The horror films I enjoy was the 2nd Nightmare in Elm Street; the Second HELLRAISER, Jaws (though it's not horror film) and 2nd PSYCHO with Anthony Perkins. ALIEN, the 8th passanger.
15)The original Japanese THE CALLING kept my attention all the time.

[inca]

OOPS! I forgor many;
THE NAME OF THE ROSE, just looking the Middle Ages scenary and the odd FACES scared the s...out of me!
JESUS OF NAZARETH as done by Renascense point of view done by Italian Zefirelli. Beatifully done an excelent acting by English Robert Powell, Lawrence Olivier, James Mason Mexican Antony Quinn,American Rod Steiger (Pilatos).

[Yujike]

Me gusto "Un perro andaluz, una maestria de surrealismo escrita por Salvador Dali y dirigida por Luis Bunuel, especialmente la escena donde arrastran a los dos mulas muertas encima de un piano. Asi que soy como tu esposo, me gustan las peliculas que me hagan pensar, odio esas de karate, de James Bond y la mierda de comedias, canciones y bailes. Tambien me gusto mucho "Teorema", las de Stanley Kubrick y Alfred Hithcock. Mas modernamente las del argentino Luis Puenzo, como La HIstoria Oficial , tambien Tango.

[Suki]

Originally posted by Yujike
Me gusto "Un perro andaluz, una maestria de surrealismo escrita por Salvador Dali y dirigida por Luis Bunuel, especialmente la escena donde arrastran a los dos mulas muertas encima de un piano. Asi que soy como tu esposo, me gustan las peliculas que me hagan pensar, odio esas de karate, de James Bond y la mierda de comedias, canciones y bailes. Tambien me gusto mucho "Teorema", las de Stanley Kubrick y Alfred Hithcock. Mas modernamente las del argentino Luis Puenzo, como La HIstoria Oficial , tambien Tango.

Yujike,
He leido varios posteos tuyos---me pareces una persona estupenda. Y muy inteligente. No me sorprende que las peliculas que dices que te encantan sean teatrales y con simbolismos. Son las que mas agradan a mi marido. Y me pareces un ser artistico tambien.

La Historia Oficial es una tremenda pelicula. Y a mi me encanto "Tango" tanto que la compre. Las peliculas de Luis Bunuel son unas de las favoritas de mi marido. Mi esposo detesta comedias de los Estados Unidos, baile y musicales, James Bond y peliculas karatecas. Pero si es super-fanatico de las de el Samurai Zatoichi "el samurai ciego". Por Kurasawa. Me encantaria si pudieramos hablar de cine mas a fondo.

Mucho respeto,
Suki