Thursday, December 19, 2002

THE LIST I'm into lists, in a major way.  I just really enjoy seeing things ranked--Best of this, Worst Ten that, Strangest Thing, Most Unusual Whatsit.  I have a ton of books of lists, including the Books of Lists 1-3 and even The 90s Edition.  I also own The 100 Most Influential People in History, the Greatest 1000 Albums Ever, The Top 500 Poems, etc.  You get the picture.  So I'll be using this space to include some of my favorite personal lists.  Today: TOP TEN MOVIES TO TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND These aren't, I think, the greatest ten movies ever made.  They certainly aren't the ten most important or the ten most influential.  They're not even, necessarily, the ten movies that have had the greatest impact on me.  But if you can only watch ten movies for the rest of your life, you have to love those ten movies.  I can watch these repeatedly and still love them. 1.  The Lord of the Rings--Fellowship of the Ring:  See yesterday's entry on the site.  The greatest movie experience of my life. 2.  The Godfather:This is, in my opinion, the finest movie ever made.  I will defend to the end that Al Pacino's performance is the essential acting performance in the history of cinema.  His evolution from naive young man to the godfather is staggering. 3.  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:  Boundless visceral pleasure punctuated by a stellar storyline and top-shelf acting.  I could watch the fight scenes for hours. 4.  Pulp Fiction:  Flat out, the best film of the 90s.  The fact that Forrest Gump won Best Picture instead is a laughable sham.  Just watched this recently and was stunned, again, by the dialogue.  Incredible acting.  Funny and shocking.  Still.  5.  The Princess Bride:  If you don't love the Princess Bride, you don't love yourself.  One of the few movies to compete with the extraordinary book by William Goldman, though in the end the movie does fall short.  Nevertheless, Andre the Giant is in this. 6.  Swingers:  This Jon Favreau film has so many fantastic lines, I don't even know where to start.  Money. 7.  Shawshank Redemption:  I can't put my finger on why this film does it for me.  Everyone likes it, but I LOVE it.  8.  The Breakfast Club:  This is one of the only--perhaps the only--film that I can remember loving when I was a teenager that has actually held up to later scrutiny.  It captures teen angst accurately and humorously, it's got it all, including Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall.  9.  The Matrix:  The "one kiss brings me back to life" scene at the end almost--but not quite--undoes the whole thing.  But the action--Mein Gott!  And I'm not sure I've ever seen a film that better incorporates music. 10.  The Manchurian Candidate:  This is just a fantastic, high quality film.  It's a chilling story with a really shocking twist, an intricate plot, and serves as a snapshot of the political mood of the time.  Angela Lansbury is beyond brilliant--she's actually better here than in Murder, She Wrote.  I know, I know.  Hard to believe. 11:02:17 PM    Let's hear it. []