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Post by Tosh on May 28, 2007 13:35:27 GMT -5
41= Lolita (1997) - a richly layered, expressive and exquisite cinematic work. Visually breathtaking, Adrian Lyne's unhurried storytelling is the epitome of poetic, romantic tragedy. Lolita is not about a dirty old man preying on a young, underage girl. It's the story of a middle aged man, smitten, not only by the beauty and vibrancy of youth, but by a long lost young love from which he has never recovered. His joy is always haunted by the voice of conscience. It's also the story of a nymphette – a young, sensuous girl on the threshold of womanhood, who is at first unaware of her sexual allure and of the provocation she emits. In her bereavement of innocence lost, she realises the power sex offers her, making full use of every asset she has, intentionally and manipulatively. There is profound tragedy in both of these personal tales. Jeremy Irons, is dazzling as Humbert. His gut-wrenching performance is so complex, detailed and overtly vulnerable; the folly of succumbing to temptation and mental anguish he endures throughout is effecting to the extreme. Dominique Swain is extraordinary as the young temptress – here is a mature performance, elaborate in its implications, strident by its honesty. Lyne's direction explores every angle in an almost claustrophobic way, engulfing us in every heartbeat, every breath of anticipation. The beauty of youth is captured; the vibrancy, the unpredictability, the irrationality. With its wistful undercurrent of melancholy, Lolita is an unforgettable rollercoaster ride on the highway of emotions, an insightful glimpse into a tortured soul." Forget the preconceptions that this film brings with it, the political and moral arguments put forward: the bottom line is, Lolita is an extremely good film, and that should be one's concern. Of course it in no way puts a positive spin on paedophilia, and anyone who thinks so, has no real understanding of the book or the characters. The fact is, Lolita is a stunningly realised drama, a beautifully evocative tragedy about a seriously flawed intellectual and his relationship with a young girl. Humbert is a man who we may well despise, but who is also a character to be pitied.
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Post by Tosh on May 28, 2007 13:47:34 GMT -5
40= The Dreamlife Of Angels (1999) - In an American indie movie, the two girls would be cute slackers; in Dreamlife, they're imbued with the inchoate sadness of feminine existential loneliness. Shot with a handheld camera and lots of natural light, the film has a sensuous, radiant surface that does justice to its title. The Dreamlife of Angels is both an unusually well-observed piece of realism and a subjective vision that's filtered through the fantasies, desires, and adrenaline rushes of two young women. Godard, who has shot most of Claire Denis's films, is a perfect cinematographer for Zonca. The fluidity of her framing and her ability to capture urban landscapes meld with his understanding that people, no matter how alienated they are, never exist in isolation. Isa and Marie define themselves and live out their dreams through interaction with others and with their environment. Is this exceptional French drama simply about the nature and evolution of friendship? Is it a moving examination of European poverty? Is it a feminist treatise on male-female relationships? Or is it something more . . . The meaning of the title remains elusive. I think Zonca intends it as a poetic phrase for the atmosphere we create around others, even those we don't know, by what we do, by how we choose to carry ourselves through life. "The Dreamlife of Angels" heralds a humanist cinema that neither shortchanges our minds nor cheapens what's in our hearts.
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Post by Tosh on May 28, 2007 15:32:02 GMT -5
39= Amelie (2001) - Some movies are so inexplicably funny and touching and sad all at once that you want to cry out of sheer joy: This is what The Movies are supposed to be all about, magical, transporting confections of dreams and hopes and kindness and true love -- all the really important things in life. Sculpted from a friendless sheltered childhood, adult Amelia eventually stumbles across two missions: 1) falling in love with a stranger as harmlessly eccentric as herself, 2) playing a sort of secret angel to the plethora of colorfully dysfunctional characters in her daily life. The former being so terribly frightening to her, she tends to both in a behind the scenes, strategic, yet playful manner. It's been a long time that something truly magical, not phony or manufactured, has graced the silver screen. So Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie (a.k.a. Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain) comes as a most welcome new gem. It deserves to be cherished, hugged and celebrated. Kindness is sometimes viewed as one of those effete virtues lacking in charisma or clout. Yet it encompasses such meaningful activities as small expressions of love, words of encouragement, various kinds of etiquette, and a general largess. Amélie is a buoyant French film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. This creatively energized film presents an unforgettable portrait of a woman who demonstrates a remarkable talent for the spiritual practice of kindness. Jeunet's direction makes exquisite use of Paris as a delectable playground for Amélie's missions of mercy. The screenplay he co-wrote with Guillaume Laurant has sparkle, fizz, and incredible ingenuity. From the magical opening to the enchanting closing scenes, Amélie is something special — a foolproof way to lift your spirits!
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Post by Tosh on May 28, 2007 16:03:44 GMT -5
38= Last Exit To Brooklyn (1989) - Tragedies are about people who seek love in unhappy times. "Last Exit to Brooklyn" makes a point of taking place in the early 1950s, when all of the escape routes had been cut off for its major characters. The union official cannot admit to being left wing (remember the communist witch hunts in America due to McCarthyism). The strike leader cannot reveal he is homosexual. The father cannot express his love for his child, the prostitute cannot accept her love for the sailor, and the drag queen is not able to love himself. There isn't even any music to release these characters - rock 'n' roll is still in the future, and the pop ballads of the era mock the passions of everyday life. The characters drink and some of them do drugs, but they don't get high - they simply find the occasional release of oblivion. The movie takes place in one of the gloomiest and most depressing urban settings I've seen in a movie. These streets aren't mean, they're unforgiving. Vast blank warehouse walls loom over the barren pavements, and vacant lots are filled with abandoned cars where mockeries of love take place. When Hubert Selby Jr. wrote the book that inspired this movie 25 years ago, it was attacked in some quarters as pornographic, but it failed the essential test: It didn't arouse prurient interest, only sadness and despair. From the fragments of an experimental novel, Edel has forged a remarkably coherent whole, cross-cutting from one story to another while retaining a precise delineation of character, picking out slender, golden threads of compassion and love from a bleak tapestry of pain. Not a comfortable film, but humane and savagely beautiful.
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Post by Tosh on May 29, 2007 13:41:58 GMT -5
37= Angel Heart (1987) - This is a movie dominated by an unrelenting mood of doom. The opening Harlem locations carry with them a powerful aura of decay and faded grandeur. Director Alan Parker on purpose sucks the colour from every shot, creating a bleak but utterly absorbing backdrop against which Mickey Rourke's destiny is played. His investigations take him down to the haunting New Orleans where the stench of death is always right behind him. It is here where the film's most controversial scenes are played out and the shocks gather pace, but Parker is careful not to resort to easy tactics. The movie maintains intrigue at every turn and Rourke is spellbinding while Robert De Niro, Charlotte Rampling, and Lisa Bonet are all excellent. After everything is all over, the dust has settled and the blood has dried, it is possible to unsort the plot of "Angel Heart" and see that it's really fairly simple. But it doesn't feel that way at the time. It has the unsettled logic of a nightmare, in which nothing fits and everything seems inevitable and there are a lot of arrows in the air and they are all flying straight at you. The movie's final revelations make a weird sense, once we figure them out. This is one of those movies where you leave the theater and re-run the plot in your head, re-intrepreting the early scenes in terms of the final shocking revelations. "Angel Heart" is a thriller and a horror movie, but most of all it's an exuberant exercise in style, in which Parker and his actors have fun taking it to the limit.
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Post by Tosh on May 29, 2007 14:00:30 GMT -5
36= V For Vendetta (2006) - The idea of a terrorist-as-hero is bound to stir controversy and debate. For, as we have learned all too well, one man’s terrorist is another's freedom fighter.The movie is based on a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd, which, when begun in the early 1980s, was created as a reaction to the conservative policies of the government of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The sentiments expressed by V, however, seem relevant to many of the issues confronting the world today. The quest of V, whose face we never see, is to free the people from the corruption, cruelty and lies of a government that keeps them in check through fear and intimidation. V, in the spirit of rebellion, vows to carry out the foiled plot of Guy Fawkes. His agenda also includes revenge upon those who imprisoned and tortured him. The disturbing aspect of the movie, which also is its genius, is that we sympathize with V and want him to succeed. After all, this is a government that came to power by creating a crisis in which thousands of people were killed and innocent people were arrested and executed for the crime. The repressive government deals with those who it considers different — foreigners, Muslims and homosexuals — by dragging them from their homes in the dead of night to places where they are never heard from again. It's intelligent, literate, even talky, focused on character over mere exploding buildings and crammed with allusions to Faust, The Count of Monte Cristo, Tchaikovsky's 1812 and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Some will tell you the Beethoven is a nod to the Latin numeral five, or "V," rendered in Morse code during the piece's opening theme. Well, why not? This is an erudite terrorist we're talking about, a truly educated man. And maybe that's the most heroic thing of all.
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Post by Tosh on May 30, 2007 17:02:56 GMT -5
35= American Beauty (1999) - American Beauty is the first feature film directed by Sam Mendes, who has an extensive background in theater, but displays a sureness that many veteran filmmakers are unable to match. At times evoking elements of Todd Solondz' controversial "Happiness" and Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm", American Beauty weds compelling drama with black comedy. The movie is character-driven, but the three protagonists are so expertly developed that we are drawn to them for the entire two hour running time. Spacey, Bening, and Birch all give the kinds of top-notch performances that deserve (but do not always get) consideration at Oscar time. Spacey's Lester may be American Beauty's narrator, but, through a low-key portrayal that conveys all the angst and confusion of a particularly bad teenage experience, Birch makes Jane the film's emotional focal point. American Beauty succeeds on many levels. It gives us a facade, and then carefully peels it back for us. The characters' lives resonate with us so that we can fill in the blanks ourselves. This movie is darkly funny so that we can laugh along at the rancid underbelly of America lest we succumb. This is a rare movie that assumes we have the intelligence to follow it and as such, it doesn't cheat the audience, American Beauty is emotionally satisfying. There's a sense of poignancy at the end, but also the feeling that we have been on an incredible trip through the lives and souls of three perfectly-realized characters. Mendes can stake a claim alongside the likes of Kubrick and Egoyan as one whose cinematic vision both challenges and entertains.
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Post by Tosh on Jun 2, 2007 3:36:38 GMT -5
34= Some Kind Of Wonderful (1987) - This movie manages to leave its mark on everyone who watches and desires to be taken back to a time where having some kind of wonderful meant everything. Writer and producer John Hughes once again proves that he understands the vulnerability, pressures, disappointments, and risk-taking adventures of youth as this movie is filled with human touches. It empathetically underscores how feelings of self-worth are the essence of an adolescent’s sense of identity. It's kinda weird how this is total nostalgia for me but I guess John Hughes portraits of teenage self-pity have gathered a second wind as their original audiences approach mid-life. What makes me put this film so high? While most other writers and directors reduce their portraits of boys and girls to sex fantasies and the happiness of pursuit (sic), Hughes films like this "Pretty In Pink", "Sixteen Candles" and "The Breakfast Club" focus on the reality: how, on those rare occasions when they come out right, words get in the way ... how fledgling emotions confuse kids ... how significant all those insignificant little details can be. There's no sex in these Hughes films, just aching affairs of the heart.
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Post by Tosh on Jun 2, 2007 3:48:21 GMT -5
33= Pulp Fiction (1994) - Quentin Tarantino's hyperkinetic "Pulp Fiction" is one of the most audacious, confounding, and ultimately exciting pieces of cinema ever. As wholly original, as it is a copy of hundreds of films before it, it dares you to step out of the mundane and enter a colourful, exhilarating world that could only be Los Angeles. As a modern tribute to the trashy excesses of an era gone by, it blazes a brave new trail through contemporary cinema, refusing to play by any rules, and succeeding on every level against all the odds. "Pulp Fiction" is defiant in the way it manipulates all conventional plot structures by twisting time to satisfy its own devices. Part of the genius of this film is the way Tarantino manipulates the plot structure to make the impossible possible. It's an odd miracle how he could distort time so blatantly, yet finish with a product that is not only accessible, but flows more smoothly than it would have if he had told it in linear fashion. I have no idea how he knew this would work, but it does brilliantly. Despite all the outrageousness, Tarantino keeps a remarkably firm grasp on this material, even though it is always threatening to spin completely out of control and turn into one of the biggest messes in film history. "Pulp Fiction" is so remarkable because it walks to the very edge of chaos, but never pushes itself over. It isn't afraid to mix the past and the present, the vulgar and the religious, the logical and the supernatural, or the comic and the violent. It allows for maximum effect without every destroying itself. Brilliantly written and unfathomably cool, this would make a good case for most quotable crime movie of all time.
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Post by Tosh on Jun 2, 2007 5:27:44 GMT -5
32= Lord Of The Rings Trilogy (2001 - 2003) {Extended Versions Only} - An 11 hour epic journey over three films this trilogy, as a model for how to bring substance, authenticity and insight to the biggest of adventure yarns, will not soon, if ever, find its equal. This trilogy keeps us gasping from start to end! It's so impeccably and artfully done that we can hardly breathe, immobilised by emotion, suspense, the sheer spectacle, the intimate drama. Each character is pushed to the brink (some of them beyond it) by a script that never takes the obvious road; sticking closely to Tolkien's story helps, but there's an artistry in the writing that makes this more cinematic than literary. It stands as a profound testament to the extraordinary power of moving images and sound. Peter Jackson's achievement is so stunning that all the awards this trilogy has received are completely justified. As the tagline proclaims, "the journey ends". But you'll want to take it again and again. And if your eyes leak along the way... well, as Gandalf says, "Not all tears are an evil." I never liked the Tolkien books, thought they were for prog rock hippies with dwarf fetishes but this has shown me that Tolkien's vision was inspired. The resounding climax to a landmark in cinema history was genuinely moving and it has to be said that taken individually these films don't provide the emotional payoff, it's only collectively that the story and characters resonate so deeply. But the King has now returned, the story is over and the ships are leaving Middle-earth. Ladies and gentlemen, Elvish has left the building.
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Post by Tosh on Jun 2, 2007 5:39:31 GMT -5
31= Life Of Brian (1979) - Simply the funniest film ever made! A beautiful film, a perfect comedy, and a gentle triumph of silliness over pomposity, self-importance, and intolerance. The film viscously pokes fun at different approaches to religion and was unfairly criticized for being an anti-christian film. However, the Pythons never attack Jesus or his teachings. Their targets are those religious zealots who take simple messages of peace and love and use them as crutches or as cries for war and persecution. It’s difficult for me to see any blasphemy in Life of Brian. It spoofs human nature more than anything, notably the gullibility of people who behave as sheep and follow others blindly. The Pythons expect to challenge and their special brand of humour is often lost on the film going masses looking for more "American Pie". It's another utterly quotable film and timeless; Given "Brian's" combination of secular humanist whimsy and surprising theological wisdom, it's hard to believe that it was such a controversial film when it first came out. (It was banned in Norway, Ireland and parts of England for blasphemy; in America, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant leaders all denounced it.) Of course, given the current heightened tenor of religious rhetoric and paranoia, it may well wind up pushing brand-new buttons today. To quote Michael Palin quoting Jesus, "There's just no pleasing some people."
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Post by Tosh on Jun 2, 2007 6:20:42 GMT -5
30= Pi (1998) - "9:13, Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did."Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky, "Pi" engulfs the audience in Max's world. Every line of dialogue, indeed every small action, is packed with meaning in this taxingly potent film. Aronofsky's inspired storytelling is ingenious in its infinitely complex concepts that are somehow still accessible and fascinating. This isn't a movie about a cute guy who does math, like "Good Will Hunting." This is a movie about nothing but math, and yet it's so mesmerizing that it welds you to your seat, eyes locked on the screen. "11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature. "The grainy, overexposed, black and white look of "Pi," coerces the audience into a paranoid, surrealistic perspective. It's the same perspective Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) has of the whole world. Max is a tortured genius, a mathematical prodigy obsessed with his quest for a formula he is convinced is at the center of existence itself. Everything can be understood through mathematics, he reasons, and he wants to understand everything. "10:15, personal note: It's fair to say I'm stepping out on a limb, but I am on the edge and that's where it happens."Aronofsky's command over the viewer in "Pi" is uncomfortable but irresistibly seductive. He overtly manipulates every impression that comes off the screen. The mood is driven by diligently composed photography and an unrelenting techno soundtrack, used not to make the movie hip but to take you inside Max's pounding head. Even the fact it's in washed-out black and white is significant, symbolizing not only the pure nature of mathematics, but driving home the fact that there are no shades of gray in this science. A formula is either proven or disproven, a solution correct or incorrect. "Pi" is pure, concentrated and unadorned. A Kafka-esque, cerebral, minimalist thriller. "I'm trying to understand our world. I don't deal with petty materialists like you."
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Post by Tosh on Jun 2, 2007 9:53:43 GMT -5
29= Withnail And I (1988) - Endlessly quotable, touching, and funny, this is a British cult classic about friendship, and alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Prepare to enter the arena of the unwell. Withnail (Richard Grant) and 'I' (Paul McGann) are two resting actors, scraping a living at the fag-end of the 60s, holed up in a rat-infested London flat that looks like it last saw a duster sometime in 1749. Bruce Robinson's debut as writer-director is a must-have for every student household, but don't let that put you off. The semi-autobiographical script is more than just an ode to getting wrecked. Robinson based the film on his own experiences as a young actor living with elegant wastrel Vivian MacKerrell - a talented eccentric who eventually managed to drink and smoke himself to death. The film raises smirks to belly laughs every other minute, but the chuckles give way to surprising pathos in the Shakespeare-quoting closing scene. Grant delivers the performance of his life as the doomed thespian, whether it be demanding the "finest wines available to humanity", downing lighter fluid, or feeling like a pig shat in his head. A charming rites of passage film which has been seriously improved via a recent digital and audio remastering (find the "20th anniversary" tin box DVD version to truly marvel at the films genius.) "Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day".
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Post by Tosh on Jun 2, 2007 10:03:16 GMT -5
28= JFK (1991) - Oliver Stone's controversial film JFK has drawn the ire of both political conservatives and members of the liberal media establishment. What these critics of the film have in common is an acceptance of the 1964 report of the Warren Commission which was created to put an end to public speculations about the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In one of the ironies of history, the Warren Commission's report actually gave new encouragement to conspiracy buffs. In 1966, Esquire published "A Primer of Assassination Theories" listing 30 versions of the murder, almost all of them at odds with the official government version. Oliver Stone's version is based on Jim Garrison's On the Trail of Assassins and Jim Marrs's Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. Opening with a kinescope of Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address warning about the dangerous growth in power of the military-industrial complex, JFK goes on to hypothesize that John F. Kennedy was the victim of a cabal consisting of military generals, arms manufacturers, CIA-hired assassins, the FBI, the Secret Service, and other right-wing crazies who were all appalled at the President's intention to pull out of Vietnam. Oliver Stone makes superb use of the interplay between dramatic scenes, newsreel clips, television footage, and overlapping dialogue. The film editors deserve Oscars for their work. There are so many characters in JFK that it is hard to keep track of all the players. Stone has drawn some exceptionally fine performances from Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Kevin Bacon, and Donald Sutherland. Oliver Stone's JFK does not provide all the answers to why Kennedy was assassinated or how it really happened. However, it does help us put into place a few more pieces in this puzzle. The big picture will not be known until 2029 when the files of the House Secret Committee on Assassination are opened. As a political thriller and as a partial puzzle solver, JFK is riveting.
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Post by Tosh on Jun 2, 2007 15:38:22 GMT -5
27= Apocalypse Now (1979) - From the opening artistry of optical overlaps to the closing shot of a boat moving off in the distance down a river, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro keeps our eyes filled with fluid images of life, death, and destruction. The film contains one unforgettable scene and a trio of fine performances by Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, and Frederic Forrest. And the wraparound electronic rock soundtrack is especially effective. The story's theme of good and evil, lying and deceit, violence and survivor ethics not only illuminates the rigours of the Vietnam War, they provoke us to think about these tensions within our own lives. Francis Ford Coppola has created space in this film for the viewer to make connections, exercise values, and feel things deeply. Could we exercise restraint in the face of visible and invisible enemies? Would we know where the horror would lead us? What we see on the screen is a mirror of the madness of the Vietnam War and a disturbing reflection of our own heart of darkness. It is part satiric exaggeration, part psychological exploration, and part surrealistic horror story. On any level, it's worth watching. A great cinematic experience.
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