100 Movies

Here’s my list of the 52 movies on Entertainment Weekly’s 100 Greatest Movies Of The Last 25 Years that I have not seen:

Blue Velvet
Hannah And Her Sisters
Moulin Rouge
Crumb
Edward Scissorhands
Schindler’s List
Rushmore
A Room With A View
Hoop Dreams
Wings Of Desire
When Harry Met Sally…
Brokeback Mountain
Fargo
Dazed And Confused
The Player
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Piano
There Will Be Blood
Fatal Attraction
Risky Business
The Lives Of Others
L.A. Confidential
Beverly Hills Cop
sex, lies and videotape
No Country For Old Men
Dirty Dancing
Natural Born Killers
Donnie Brasco
Witness
All About My Mother
Broadcast News
Unforgiven
Thelma & Louise
Drugstore Cowboy
Out of Africa
Sid and Nancy
Waiting For Guffman
Moonstruck
Lost In Translation
Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Swingers
Breaking The Waves
Menace II Society
Ed Wood
Full Metal Jacket
In The Mood For Love
Far From Heaven
Glory
The Talented Mr. Ripley
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

7/9/08 – No Country For Old Men (1, 51 Remaining)
I watched this year’s Best Picture award-winner. I really enjoyed it, but I’m not sure why I did. The plot was fairly simple: bad guy chases kind-of-good guy while sheriff chases bad guy. But what made this movie interesting was that what should happen never happens, and only one person ends up in the same position he or she was in when the movie started (I know that’s vague, but I HATE it when people ruin movies for me). Anyway, I definitely recommend it — it solidifies the fact that, when cast well, Tommy Lee Jones is one of the most believable actors around (see: Space Cowboys). Not sure it should have been on the list, though.
Movie that I would put on the list instead — The Shawshank Redemption

7/11/08 – Schindler’s List (2, 50 Remaining)
Wow.
What a horrible picture of the lowest point in the history of man. I just can’t wrap my mind around the hatred of those people. Human life meant nothing to them. The pin on Schindler’s coat was worth two people. I can’t fathom that. I’m glad I saw it, but I won’t say that you should see it because that’s one of the most excruciating things that I have ever seen. People warned me about it, saying it’s not something I would be able to brush off, but I didn’t know how tough it was going to be. Definitely not for everybody; maybe not for anybody — maybe that’s what makes it so important.

7/23/08 – Fargo (3, 49 Remaining)
When I was an upcoming freshman at Asbury, I got my random roommate assignment in the mail. It read John Black, Minnesota. I was devastated. I didn’t know John Black; he could have been the ideal roommate, but he was from Minnesota. I was going to want to poke myself in the eye every time he said “O ya, now — reahl good thare.” That’s how I felt throughout Fargo; it could have been a movie just about accents. Anyway, it was a pretty good flick — it was very similar to No Country For Old Men. I know experts will tell me that the Coen brothers are innovative and brilliant storytellers, but I’m not sold that either of those movies should be on the top-100 list. I guess that’s why nobody comes to me about doing that sort of thing. (By the way, John Black was a fantastic roommate — one of the best I’ve ever had. Turns out he wasn’t from Minnesota; he was from Seoul, South Korea. Not sure how Asbury screwed that one up.
Movie that I would put on the list instead — Braveheart

7/24/08 – The 40-Year-Old Virgin (4, 48 Remaining)
OK, I’m starting to lose faith in this movie list thing. I understand that you have to have some comedies on there, but The 40-Year-Old Virgin? Not only is that not one of the top 100 movies of the last 25 years, that is not one of the top comedies. I’ll give you that it had a couple of memorable scenes (the sex education class comes to mind), but you can’t tell me that it’s better than Dumb & Dumber, Groundhog Day or even There’s Something About Mary — none of which are on the list. So far, I’ve disagreed with three of the first four movies I’ve watched in this excursion. Come on, Entertainment Weekly — let’s see some hustle out there!
Movie that I would put on the list instead — Dumb & Dumber

7/27/08 – The Talented Mr. Ripley (5, 47 Remaining)
Finally, a movie I can agree with. The acting was incredible all the way around — I was more than a little creeped out by Matt Damon’s character. It was the perfect role for Jude Law, an uppity rich boy with a temper, and I will see anything Philip Seymour Hoffman is in. The movie came out in 1999, so the stolen identity fear was not as much a part of the news as it is today, but it shows just how innate that fear is in all of us. It also gives a little more of an insight into the mind of a killer and gives us his point of view rather than the view of the people trying to catch him. Very well done — there was not much action, but the twists and turns were implied, and Matt Damon’s changes in mood were terrifying. Way to get back on the horse, Entertainment Weekly.

8/3/08 – Waiting For Guffman (6, 46 Remaining)
I’m a big Christopher Guest fan, and I was shocked to learn that Waiting For Guffman, the one movie of his I hadn’t seen, was the movie that made the list, and not This Is Spinal Tap, or even A Mighty Wind. Spinal Tap broke the mold as far as mockumentaries go, with the cleverly well-written music and countless quotable lines (“these go to 11″). That being said, Guffman is different in that the humor is so subtle, the actual gags took me by surprise and became even funnier. As it is with all of Guest’s movies, you have to watch it four or five times to catch everything, and the familiarity with the characters at that point enhances the experience. I loved Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind, but Guffman is just as brilliant, and I can’t disagree with making it the Guest representative on the list.

8/4/08 – Swingers (7, 45 Remaining)
There are two kinds of cool people — the kind that is cool because they wear the hottest clothes and drive nice cars and know they are cool, and the kind that others just tend to gravitate toward for no reason other than they are just cool. Vince Vaughn is definitely cool in Swingers, but I really can’t decide which cool he is. He can be loud and obnoxious at times, but he is also a loyal friend and a smooth talker. The movie itself is the same way — it goes from a hip, laid-back feel to over-the-top, complete with the characters walking in slow motion. The movie was funny on several levels, from the video game trash talking that I have done with my friends a thousand times to the hilariously awkward scene where Jon Favreau calls a girl’s answering machine six times in a row. Great flick, one I’ll most likely own in the near future.

8/25/08 – Lost In Translation (8, 44 Remaining)
A love-it-or-hate-it movie. I really enjoyed Lost In Translation, and I think it can be traced to the fact that I feel I could watch Bill Murray eat corn on the cob and find it hopelessly funny. There are almost no laugh-out-loud moments in this movie, yet I found myself chuckling almost from beginning to end. The best bits come from Murray’s reactions to the eccentric Japanese personalities.

The Beautiful Scarlett Johanssen: Why do they switch the l’s and r’s here?
Bill Murray (in perfect deadpan): For yuks. You know, just to mix it up. They have to amuse themselves, because we’re not makin’ ‘em laugh.

But really, the movie is just about two people who connect for no reason except that they have to. They are alone in a foreign place and need that companionship. He sees in her the youth he misses after 25 years of marriage and two kids, and she sees in him the youth she never had after a young marriage to a husband whose work involves endless travel — a perfect irony. This will be one I can watch more than once and get a different experience each time.

11/28/08 – Hoop Dreams (9, 43 Remaining)
As a journalist, documentaries are an interesting breed, a hybrid between journalism and entertainment. Hoop Dreams followed two boys from the same neighborhood and their two very different paths as young basketball phenoms. The most peculiar aspect of the three-plus-hour documentary was how characters could change from protagonist to antagonist based on their interactions with the two boys, who were the only two clear “good guys” in the whole movie. In journalism, there are no good guys or bad guys — only sources. Not so with the documentary story-telling style — the director can edit however he or she wants, and each quote can change the way you see someone.

It’s also fascinating to see how widely accepted recruiting was in high schools in the late ’80s and to watch an independent scout scope out the local playgrounds for new talent to lure into the private schools. I really enjoyed this movie — you get a really unique viewpoint into the stresses of becoming a high-profile athlete and being tagged as a prodigy from such a young age. Highly recommended.

1/15/09 – Fatal Attraction (10, 42 Remaining)
OK, I won’t cheat, I PROMISE.

As far as stalker movies go, this is the best one I’ve seen since “Play Misty For Me,” and it’s probably a little bit better. This one was so strong because of how amazing Michael Douglas and Glenn Close were — Close’s character turned into a terrifying image of everything that scares men about commitment. The ending was a little hokey, but I can look past it because of how intense the buildup was. The best part about the screenplay is that Douglas’ character does all the right things that you would expect from a man in his situation — the things that you think in most thrillers would lead to a simple resolution. But alas, he just can’t shake his mistake, which becomes scarier every scene. Loved it.

1/22/09 – Blue Velvet (11, 41 Remaining)
Ummm…didn’t like it.

This came as the highest- recommended film on the list, and I didn’t enjoy it at all. The metaphors are campy (we are told that a robin represents love, and at the end a robin eats a bug), and the sadomasochism that is supposed to give the movie its raw emotion just comes as an uncomfortable subplot and doesn’t bring anything to the table. except to show how bad Dennis Hopper’s character is. The film takes the old cliche theme that everything in suburbia is not as perfect as it seems, and it doesn’t make it its own. When I say I didn’t like it, I mean I really didn’t like it.
Movie that I would put on the list instead — American Beauty

4/30/09 – South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (12, 40 remaining)

Wow, that was terrible. I don’t know what I expected from South Park, but I figured it would at least be a decent satire. I was wrong.
Movie that I would put on the list instead — If they wanted crude but groundbreaking, should have gone with Clerks.

5/9/09 – L.A. Confidential (13, 39 Remaining)

I’m a quarter of the way through. L.A. Confidential definitely belongs on the list, if for no reason other than it’s Kevin Spacey at his sly, cocky finest and Russell Crowe at his gaping-mouthed best. It gives you three types of good guys — the do-the-right-thing-no-matter-what cop, the brawn who wants to be known for his brains, the loveable celebrity — and lets you choose which one you want to root for. I found that I was most engaged with Crowe’s character, with Pearce’s a close second. And Spacey is awesome all the time. I can’t believe I had never seen this movie — why didn’t you all tell me?

6/6/09 – Natural Born Killers (14, 38 Remaining)

Natural Born Killers was the flick blamed for a string of copycat murders by fans who had watched it hundreds of times. I don’t think that movies have quite the influence that some think they do, but nevertheless, it’s hard to defend one like this. A strong indictment of the media glorifying serial killers (technically mass murderers), Natural Born Killers does just that. I think Oliver Stone forgets that he is actually a form of media, even though film is not in the same category as journalism. This movie makes the bad guys good and the good guys (kind of) bad, and that is a message that I think causes so many problems for kids, and even some adults, that have a hard time separating the real from the screen. I felt sort of dirty after watching this.
Movie that I would have put on the list instead — Elephant

10/1/09 – Donnie Brasco (15, 37 Remaining)

I liked this movie; I really did. But I just didn’t see it bringing anything new to the mafia movie genre. Yes, Johnny Depp and Al Pacino were fantastic, and yes Mark Madsen did exactly what you expected him to do, but I just wasn’t so into it. You never really cared about Donnie, and it was a fairly predictable plot. I don’t know, somebody has to reinvent this genre in a way that doesn’t just take “The Godfather” as a starting point and go from there.
Movie that I would have put on the list instead — Casino maybe, as far as mafia movies go I liked it better

11/21/o9 – Broadcast News (16,36 Remaining)

Several things about this movie: That is a great picture of journalism as a career — much more accurate than most other films featuring a reporter. Holly Hunter was lovely, and I just wanted to have dinner with her and listen to her cute accent. I cannot figure out how they made William Hurt’s character so likable. He had nothing going for him other than some charm and an aw-shucks approach to anybody stronger than he was. I loved this movie and will most likely make it a part of my collection in the near future.