As the regular readers (we have regular readers?) may know, I’ve signed up to co-blog over here at Mindless Diversions. I really should have a nice, pithy, smart, tight post ready to go for my O.P., but I’ve already done a guest post and I’m getting ready to go on vacation and I suck, so you get this mind drivel as my official introduction.
Like Jaybird, I’m something of a nerd. I grew up in a family where my father played games of Diplomacy with his friends and my younger sister and I were recruited as spies before we were old enough to play. This gives you something of an idea of the family background, and also provides some enlightenment as to why my brain approaches games the way it does; I was trained sneaky before I ever really started to play anything.
I’ve always played board games, beginning with Chutes and Ladders and advancing quickly in the formative years to games like Panzerblitz and Luftwaffe and Advanced Civilization. I started playing D&D in third grade, Hearts in the fifth, and poker for money before I was in my teens. Out of my many nomadic moves, I’ve managed to discard or cast off almost all of the personal possessions of my youth, but I still have every RPG rulebook I’ve ever bought, my collection of Dragon magazines, all my board games, several old video game consoles, and the comic books I collected religiously between 4th grade and high school.
Side note to parents: if you really want to make sure your kids don’t take up drugs, get them into comic books. They won’t have any spare change to blow on anything consumable.
I’m afflicted with Movie Tourettes, and I generally watch a movie one time and never again, or I watch it dozens of times and embed it in my brain. I’m not a film nut the way real film nuts are film nuts, but I have lots of uneducated opinions about good cinema. You’ll probably see some of that here.
I read a lot. You’ll probably see some of that here, too.
I’ll be trying to post here a couple of times a week, probably Thursdays and Fridays. Friday will probably be dedicated to movies. To that end, I’m shamelessly stealing this post from my other blog and reposting it here (even though my opinions on the below have changed a bit), because it’s a good one to spark discussion.
And hey, it’s Friday, so movie posts are a good way to go…
Pick a movie you would call a favorite from every year that you’ve been alive.
My list:
1971, A Clockwork Orange (imdb) (wikipedia). Tough choice, since The French Connection is also one of my favorite movies, but A Clockwork Orange is much more notable for its social commentary and pure psychological impact. This movie is disturbing. It’s also one of the best adaptations of a novel in the history of film.
1972, Deliverance (imdb) (wikipedia). Also in the top ten adaptations of a novel.
1973, Enter The Dragon (imdb) (wikipedia). Man, this is a hard year. The Sting. Westworld. Papillon. Day of the Jackal. The Exorcist. Serpico. Bruce Lee wins out, though. This movie is notable as the first real raw action movie produced in Hollywood and the first worldwide martial arts blockbuster. Although the Hollywood martial arts genre has produced far more dogs than gems, they all owe part of their existence to this movie.
1974, The Towering Inferno (imdb) (wikipedia). Notable mentions: Chinatown, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Towering Inferno is the first movie I remember seeing where not one but several major characters get killed. It was my first (and still by far most favorite) disaster movie.
1975, Jaws (imdb) (wikipedia). Harder than ’73 by far. The Man Who Would Be King. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. The Rocky Horror Picture Show *and* Death Race 2000, two of the best cult classics. Jaws wins, however, for two reasons. First, in 1975, nobody went to the beach. Second, it has one of my favorite scenes (the drunk trio on the boat) and top acting moments (Dreyfuss’s demeanor change during the single line: “You were on the Indianapolis?”) ever.
1976, The Outlaw Josey Wales (imdb) (wikipedia). I don’t remember when I saw this, but it must have been prior to 1980, which means it had to have been a VHS rental, and it had to have been at Greg or Marc’s house. I was young enough that it was startling to see (a) the calvary as the bad guys (b) a southern Civil War veteran as the hero and (c) Native Americans as different types of people instead of stereotypes. Clint Eastwood’s best-acted movie. Honorable mention list: All The President’s Men, Marathon Man, Network, Murder By Death (yes, Murder By Death!), and of course Megan’s pick of Silver Streak.
1977, The Hobbit (imdb) (wikipedia). Yes, I know. It’s a made-for-TV movie. It’s a poor adaptation of the book. 1977 has STAR WARS in it, for crying out loud, Pat! If you’re not going the easy geek route of picking Star Wars or Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the nerd route of Kentucky Fried Movie, or the “deeply artistic” route of Eraserhead, how can you pick The Hobbit?!?!?! Because I saw this on TV in November of 1977, when I was in first grade, and before Christmas was over I had read the book twice, lost permanent cred to Megan who used her two years on me to map the runes on the cover of Liz Waldo’s copy of the book to the alphabet while I was still reading the book, and forever turned into a voracious consumer of literary fiction. Personal history pick.
1978, Superman (imdb) (wikipedia). Man, ’78 has a ton of good candidates: The Big Sleep, The Deer Hunter, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Halloween, Watership Down. Superman, however, is still watchable thirty years later as a super hero movie, an amazing feat of special effects (far more difficult than space ships and ray guns). It also has quite possibly the single most heroic chunk of musical score ever written, in the opening theme.
1979, Breaking Away (imdb) (wikipedia). Honorable mentions: Mad Max, Alien, Apocalypse Now, The Jerk. Hard to pick anything over Alien, but Breaking Away is one of my top five sports movies of all time, and it’s about cycling.
1980, The Empire Strikes Back (imdb) (wikipedia). Walking out of the theater, I was as angry as I have ever been or probably ever will be over a movie (albeit for far less mature reasons I may have had later in life). I had waited for over 30% of my entire existing life span for this movie to come out. I would have to wait another three years (an eternity for a nine-year-old) for closure. It took me about 6 years to get over that singular anger and appreciate this movie fully on its merits, which outweigh all of the others in the series.
1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark (imdb) (wikipedia). Period.
1982, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (imdb) (wikipedia). If it weren’t for this movie, this is the hardest year so far. In addition to some legitimately good movies that I love… Tron, The Thing, Gandhi, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Blade Runner, E.T., The Dark Crystal… it’s got a few of my favorite shameful bad movie loves: The Beastmaster, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Conan the Barbarian, The Pirate Movie (yeah I had an 11-year old’s crush on Kristy McNichol). But this is not only legitimately the best Star Trek movie, it is still the only science fiction movie that actually has a truly suspenseful spaceship battle. Star Wars was visually hyper-exciting, but watching the Das Boot-ish battle between The Enterprise and The Reliant with the graphic depiction of casualties is more gripping a depiction of war than has ever been shown in any science fiction flick.
1983, War Games (imdb) (wikipedia). To the younger readers of the blog… yes, in the 1980s many of us in our near-teens thought nuclear war was likely.
1984, The Terminator (imdb) (wikipedia). Megan deserves Buckaroo to herself, and Kitty (if she does this) deserves Spinal Tap. There’s a bunch of other honorable mentions (this is a comedy rich year), but The Terminator represents James Cameron’s best work, and my favorite in the sci-fi/thriller crossover genre.
1985, Better Off Dead (imdb) (wikipedia). This deserves a geek-love movie death match between this movie and Real Genius. However, as much as we geeks would like to think that we’re all as brilliant as Mitch and Chris, most of us are just goofy like Lane. Honorable mention list is huge – The Breakfast Club, Back to the Future, Day of the Dead, Commando (so sue me, I like Commando), D.A.R.Y.L., Silverado, Goonies, Ladyhawke (yes, the movie with the worst soundtrack ever), Re-Animator, Witness.
1986, Big Trouble In Little China (imdb) (wikipedia). Agonizing. Aliens. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Highlander. Running Scared. But how can I choose Ferris over Jack Burton? When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like that: “Have ya paid your dues, Jack?” “Yessir, the check is in the mail.”
1987, Raising Arizona (imdb) (wikipedia). God, another horribly difficult year. The under-rated Amazon Women on the Moon. Lethal Weapon. The Princess Bride. ROBOCOP. Loved those, but Raising Arizona made me cry laughing so many times even after my first viewing it wins out.
1988, Die Hard (imdb) (wikipedia). Two teenage buddies have a long debate over whether to see the latest Dirty Harry movie (The Dead Pool) or this one as a Friday night action flick. Guns N’ Roses fan wins out with the, “C’mon… the MOONLIGHTING guy?” argument. We watch The Dead Pool at the Century Theaters in San Jose, I’m hugely unimpressed. Greg hightails it for home to beat the 10:30 deadline. I walk across the street to the now demolished Town And Country Theater, call home and say I’m catching the 10:25 show of Die Hard and won’t be home until almost 1 am, just to prove to myself that I was right. I spend the next three weeks watching this movie 7 times *in the theater*.
1989, The Killer (imdb) (wikipedia). An odd duck on the list, as it didn’t see release in the U.S. until 1990, but I caught it in the on-campus theater in college as a foreign import in late 1989. Graphic, stylized violence. Together with Hard Boiled the two best examples of a pre-Hollywoodized director’s fantastic work that cannot be even closely matched in his post-Hollywood era. Honorable mentions: Glory, Let It Ride, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
1990, Cyrano de Bergerac (imdb) (wikipedia). Absolutely stellar performance by Gérard Depardieu. A perfect telling of one of my favorite swashbuckling stories.
1991, La Femme Nikita (imdb) (wikipedia). A reversed odd duck from The Killer, originally released in 1990 but not imported into the U.S. until 1991. Wow, three subtitled films in a row.
1992, A River Runs Through It (imdb) (wikipedia). Close winner over Hard Boiled and Reservoir Dogs. Although I think Reservoir Dogs is a better movie, and was tempted to pick Hard Boiled for “four foreign films in a row” (not to mention the fact that I like Hard Boiled better than The Killer, and think it was probably the best movie of 1992)… I’m slating really hard towards action flicks on this list. A River Runs Through It is one of the best “brother/son/father” movies ever made; every time I see it it makes me think of both Tom and Dad. Not because of any correlation between Tom and Paul or Dad and the Reverend McLean, but because of the dynamics of the characters.
1993, The Nightmare Before Christmas (imdb) (wikipedia). Honorable mentions: Tombstone, Gettysburg, Rudy, and Megan’s pick. Unreflected on this list is the fact that I shamelessly love musicals, and this is not only the second best thing done by Tim Burton’s oddly warped mind, it’s a fantastic set of songs and a brilliantly animated film. [edited] – Boy, did I miss on this one. 1993 was the release year of Army of Darkness (imdb) (wikipedia). Ash beats Jack Skellington.
1994, Pulp Fiction (imdb) (wikipedia). Honorable mentions: The Shawshank Redemption, Bullets Over Broadway. I love Sam Jackson in this movie, and here’s one of many reasons why (pardon for the language for the sensitive reader): “Now I’m thinkin’: it could mean you’re the evil man. And I’m the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. I’d like that. But that shit ain’t the truth. The truth is… you’re the weak. And I’m the tyranny of evil men. But I’m tryin’, Ringo.”
1995, Twelve Monkeys (imdb) (wikipedia). Interesting treatment of time travel and psychosis, Gilliam’s best movie. Lots of other good candidates this year: The Usual Suspects, The Brothers McMullen, Braveheart, Heat, Othello, and Toy Story. La Cité Des Enfants Perdus (The City of Lost Children) has been hugely recommended, but I haven’t seen it.
1996, Tin Cup (imdb) (wikipedia). My God there were a ton of horrible movies in 1996, even some of the “fun watch” movies like Mission: Impossible and Twister were a huge letdown from what they could have been. If you don’t like this movie, you’ve never tortured yourself with golf. I liked Fargo, but not as much as everyone else who likes Coen movies liked Fargo. Swingers gets an honorable mention.
1997, Breakdown (imdb) (wikipedia). Literally 1,000 times better than I was expecting it to be when I saw it. When the runners up are the interesting but too slow Gattaca and the highly entertaining but very silly The Fifth Element, it’s no surprise that “astonishingly better than I was expecting it to be” is the differentiator for 1997 (note – it is a very enjoyable film, don’t get me wrong). No wonder “Titanic” won the Oscar.
1998, Ronin (imdb) (wikipedia). Meg picked The Big Lebowski, Tom will pick Saving Private Ryan, and the only other serious contenders are the very little known movie Fallen (which I really liked), and the excellent gambling movie Rounders. However, Ronin has one of the top three best car chase scenes of any movie, and it’s a damn fine spy flick. From what my wife has told me, my likely actual pick for this year would be Dark City, but through a quirk of fate I haven’t seen it. I should rent Dark City and The City of Lost Children. The City of Lost Dark Children? The Dark City of Children?
1999, Being John Malkovich (imdb) (wikipedia). Totally absurd movie, I loved it. Kitty deserves Ghost Dog to herself. Honorable mentions to: Fight Club, Dogma, The Iron Giant, The Matrix, Mystery Men, and Three Kings. [edited] – blew this one too. God, can’t anyone make a readable list of movies that came out in a year? IMDB… I’m looking at you here… take the dang TV episodes off the list. Clear winner is actually The Limey (imdb) (wikipedia). Soderbergh does a number of crazy things with this film, not all of which work the way he intended, but it’s certainly original and worth watching just for alternative methods of editing and direction. Plus Terence Stamp is *excellent*.
2000, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (imdb) (wikipedia). There’s an awful lot of Chow Yun Fat here. Honorable mentions: Memento, Unbreakable, Chicken Run, High Fidelity, and O Brother Where Art Thou?
2001, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (imdb) (wikipedia). Runners up: A Beautiful Mind, Monsters, Inc., Amélie. Oh, like I wasn’t going to pick this. Weak year, though.
2002, 28 Days Later (imdb) (wikipedia). Holy crap… FAST ZOMBIES. I love zombie movies, and this is the first truly original zombie movie in decades. Runners up: The Bourne Identity, Adaptation, About Schmidt, Bend it Like Beckham, Catch Me If You Can, and the guilty pleasure Reign of Fire… which (while having plot holes big enough to drive a battleship through) is the first and only film to put a convincing dragon on screen.
2003, Big Fish (imdb) (wikipedia). If I did this before Megan, I would demand she give this one to me solo. Tim Burton’s best movie. The ending scene makes me tear up embarrassingly. Other possibles: 21 Grams, A Mighty Wind, Mystic River, The Triplets of Belleville, Fog of War.
2004, Hotel Rwanda (imdb) (wikipedia). Watch it. Honorable mentions: The Aviator, Napoleon Dynamite, The Incredibles, Ray, Shaun of the Dead, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Sideways. Paul Giamatti deserved the Oscar, wasn’t nominated. Don Cheadle should have beat out Jamie Foxx among the people actually nominated (no offense Jamie, you did Oscar worthy work).
2005, Capote (imdb) (wikipedia). First, it is a very interesting story. Second, Philip Seymour Hoffman *is* Truman Capote. Honorable mention: Cinderella Man, Grizzly Man, Syriana, Sin City, and Serenity. I really didn’t like Crash – the characters either made no sense to me, or were completely unsympathetic. Yay, someone made a movie about a bunch of racists. This was interesting… why? All in all a mediocre year.
2006, Pan’s Labyrinth (imdb) (wikipedia). Visually, completely amazing. Fantastic story. Not for children, it is brutal and terrifying in parts. Runner’s up: Children of Men, Letters from Iwo Jima, Casino Royale, Little Miss Sunshine, and Curious George. Yes, Curious George.
2007, Ratatouille (imdb) (wikipedia). “Then tell me, Ambrister, how can it be POPULAR?” – Peter O’Toole’s voice has lost none of its power. Fun movie in an otherwise unremarkable year. I have not seen 300 oddly enough, I expect that would be my pick for the year otherwise. Hot Fuzz was also hilarious.
2008, Iron Man (imdb) (wikipedia). WALL-E is also quite good.
*claps hands in childlike glee*
AWESOME!!!!
Very cool…
On the subject of movies in general and 12 Monkeys specifically:
*spolers* At the end of 12 Monkeys the monster with his suitecase of plague sits down on the plane and next to him is one of the women who appeared in the future as one of the scientists. She introduces herself and says she’s in insurance. I’ve pondered mightily what her meaning was. Was she just a coincidence? Was she somehow a baddie in the know about the whole thing? Was her presence here an indicator that the future scientists had received Bruce Willis’ message and were going to succeed in their endevors to save the future world?
Personally I lean towards the latter. I found the ending of this movie sorrowful but that woman’s presence gave me some solace. Anyone else have an opinion?
The scientists weren’t even scientists.
I always interpreted the ending the same way.
I think the scientists weren’t really interested in saving the world. They had power in the future dystopia. They just wanted to understand the plague better to further secure their own control.
That, what E.D. said.
More specifically, she was insurance to make sure he released his disease without any other possible things “going wrong” to preserve her/their future.
Exactly. It made the whole thing that much more awful. And wonderful! I loved that movie, still do.
I had always assumed it meant she was from the future and was there to make sure that the near apocalypse would happen as scheduled.
Ah yes, well that’s depressing.
Welcome aboard, Patrick! But … am I missing something? Were you not alive the last couple of years?
I’ve been in suspended animation (hey, it’s a copied post)!
Good Lord- you’re three years older than I am. Haha! Anyway, I look forward to more posts. Welcome aboard, Gramps!
You respect your elders, y’all. I’m a year older than Patrick.
You are all babes in the woods.
Wait, what year did the Breakfast Club come out?
1985. The Breakfast Club was mildly amusing. It’s my least favorite of all the popular John Hughes movies, and IMO the weakest, actually.
Just realizing when it came out made me feel old.
On his last birthday, it occurred to me that my eldest is now older than I was when Star Wars came out.
Now *that* makes you feel old.
Second on my list, by year, would be The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
I think I win.
That was in re: feeling old, btw
I have two kids. They’re both worth +5 years in age, by my reckoning.
So I’ve still got you in “feeling old” if not “being old” unless you’ve got one or more sprogs 🙂
Clockwork O was a great movie but the nature of its commentary on society is a bit twisted by the “missing” last chapter of the book that wasn’t published here or part of the movie. In retrospect the most prescient commentary is that people in the US enjoy dystopia and bleakness more then redemption.
I never thought the book made any sense with the last chapter.
Not because I’m a big fan of dystopia. Just because I never found that transformation to be particularly redemptive (or plausible).
A hearty handshake, Pat, and a big congratulations to you! You’re going to do great-a perfect fit for you, I’d say.
Now dammit, you stole all my movies from me!!! Seriously though, a very, very good choice of flix–love most of ones you have chosen. Sorry though, Papillon would have nudged out Empire. Hmm, Scanners somehow beats Raiders. I know, I’m probably the lone voice for this choice, but this movie scared the hell out of me–same with Rosemary’s Baby–sheer terror. Rosemary’s Baby is my choice of scariest movie ever made.
In any case, a great, great choice of movies on your part. Bravo, and good luck!
p.s. Is it just me or does the sentiment, “they sure don’t make movies like they used to” ring true–I mean, not even close. Same with 60s music–ok, 60s AND 70s. From 1990 on, I can’t think of a single tune, song, whatever that would be a must on that proverbial desert island.
And I still think A Salty Dog by Procol Harum is the greatest rock song ever written. Cheers, and all the best, my friend! (Hey, what a great start for your new career/blog)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUcAEdkWxXM
What I meant was 60s and 70s was the greatest rock n’ roll ever written. It can’t be repeated because that’s just not the way evolution happens in music.
“He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy; but he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity’s sun rise. …”
Good list and I agree with most of it though I am a little suprised you left “Grosse Point Blank” out of 97’s list.
Grosse Point Blank was… yeah.
It was good if you took the emotional gravitas of 80s teen movies seriously. By the time Grosse Point Blank came out, I had realized that much of my teenage angst was bullshit. That made nostalgia for the old days not so relevant for me, and GPB is at its core a movie about remembering high school.
This is also why Dazed and Confused didn’t make the list.
Admittedly, I’m not everybody.
My wife loves GPB. But that’s probably because it has Cusacks.
I love John Cusack, that’s a major reason Better Off Dead won ’85. I thought he was awesome in Bullets over Broadway and Being John Malkovich and just about every other thing he’s done.
Hm; I think his worst movie is probably GPB, actually. Maybe that’s another reason why it didn’t make the list. Not that he’s bad in it, just that it’s a subpar JC movie.
Chuck Klosterman has a great essay that’s thesis is essentially all women are in love with John Cusack. I have found this to be weirdly true.
Wait, juxtaposing that comment with my previous one makes it seem like you’re implying I’m a woman.
“I prefer to be called ‘Rita’…”
I thought GPB was a very funny movie about a man who did not want to join a union.
Hey, thanks for all the welcomes, everybody!
No mention of Godfather I or II?
I don’t know why I picked Deliverance and didn’t even make mention of The Godfather. Probably intentionally to stir controversy.
Awesome list!
The movie that struck me most on the list was Towering Inferno, which I can remember seeing in the theatre. When I saw it here I laughed. My initial thought was: “Wow, in what other context does Towering Inferno make it on to any best of list?” And then of course I thought of several:
Best movies to star both McQueen and Newman
Best 70s Ensemble Vehicles You Always Swear Elliot Gould Was In Really But He Wasn’t
Best OJ Simpson Death Scenes
Best John Williams Scores that Know One Knows The Tune To
Best Movie Concepts That Could Be Pitched “It’s Die Hard Without The Terrorists…”
Best Movies Filmed In Sense-O-Round
Best Robert Wagner Roles In Between “It Takes a Thief” and “Heart to Heart”
Best Movies to Feature Deaths By Both Burning and Drowning
There are probably others.
You have to be a fan of disaster movies to really get Inferno.
Fans of disaster movies weren’t angry that they plunked down $10 to see Dante’s Peak, or Meteor, or Earthquake, or even Firestorm.
It’s a particular disease. It comes straight out of the 50s monster movies, I think. I love all of those, too.
Welcome Patrick! Great first post and looking forward to even more geekery around here.
I just wanted to give a shout-out to Big Fish. It ties into Jaybird’s post about TV shows that “get you.” It’s a movie that understands the precarious line I walk in my mind between my life as it actually existed and my life as I perceive and imagine it. In a Ratheresque sense, sometimes it’s the latter that is more fundamentally true.
I thought Big Fish was nothing short of brilliant, and it touched me in a way no other movie ever has – though that had more to do with me jan the movie. I saw it in the theatre on New Years Eve with my wife. My father had just passed away from lymphoma in October and I was still having a hard time processing it. I don’t know to what extent the father character was just like my dad and to what extent I just needed to see him as being so, but I after the movie i went home and collapsed.
I loved that movie, and feel a sense of gratitude toward it. But I have never been able to bring myself to watch it a second time.
You put Tron among the “legitimately good movies” list yet place Conan the Barbarian among the “shameful bad movie loves” list? Surely you jest, good sir.
That said, I agree with a lot on your list, especially Wrath of Khan & Jaws. I would’ve gone for Close Encounters over Star Wars, actually. I may have to steal your idea.
Tron was actually new.
Conan the Barbarian was in 82, along with The Beastmaster, and The Sword and The Sorcerer, and Excalibur was in 81.
So, while I can forgive Tron’s occasionally cheesy dialogue under the umbrella of “Wow, nobody thought of this story before”, Conan doesn’t quite cut that mustard.
But I still enjoy Ahnold as Conan, I admit.
I really liked this post. I tend to favor noir and its many modern incarnations, so no mention of THX1138, Blade Runner, Dark City, Unforgiven, or No Country for Old Men makes me cry a little inside. Others I may have included or given more prominent seats at the table include: Airplane!, The Apostle, Baraka, I Claudius, Blood Simple, Dark City, all Arnold films (not “movies” since Arnold is an auteur) and Werner Herzog docs, and I may have elevated Robocop to movie of the century. Love it.
Hey, Blade Runner, Dark City both got mention. Unforgiven I didn’t pick because it’s my wife’s favorite movie ever. Airplane! Huh, not sure. I built the list off of IMDB’s yearly list of movies, and it’s filled with cruft, so I might have missed it.
Oops, my mistake on Blade Runner and Dark City. I have found the passages in question, and have to give you props for giving props to such ill films. Have you seen Airplane!?
Also, speaking of Diplomacy, we gotta get the French!
Airplane! was great, but I actually liked Top Secret better (“How do we know he’s *not* Mel Torme?”). For me, though, 1980 will *always* be about The Empire Strikes Back.
If you weren’t 6-about-to-be-7 for Star Wars and then 9-about-to-be-10 for Empire, you can’t fully appreciate how the relative time spans make that jump significant.
Re: diplo
Missed the last round, which actually had some interesting consequences.
Unfortunately, I’m on vacation and not really fully engaged with the computer. But I’ll try not to just bow out. The game is actually a very interesting one…
Reading through your list, I see that I could easily make a “movies that screwed me up for the rest of my life” list.
The Exorcist, Watership Down, Marathon Man, Poltergeist, Dark Crystal, The Secret of Nimh, Re-Animator, Robocop, Rudy…
Perhaps we’d best leave well enough alone. It’s possible, though.
> I could easily make a “movies that screwed me
> up for the rest of my life”
I love this idea. Watership Down and the Exorcist are on quite a few peoples’ lists, I’d imagine. The fact that you put Rudy on there is really, really interesting.
I think it’s because I just really, really hated Rudy.
On the main page, this comment came through as Jaybird says: “I think it’s because I just really, really hated Ru-” So, you know, I had to make sure it wasn’t me!
I’ve just subscribed to yall’s RSS, which is the third time I’ve ever done that (First was Order of the Stick, 2nd was Slow Tuesday Night). I can’t believe there is someone in the world with as similar taste in movies as I. Not identical, and certainly more thought out than mine, so I gotta keep listening!
I’ve got some comments on your list, but we need to go eat.
I was born in ’75. The first adult book I read was Jaws at age six, not having been allowed to see the movie. My mother later told me she was terrified of the water and wanted me to have a healthy fear of it, too. The trick worked. But, it made the movie much less scary to me when I was allowed to watch it.
The first movie I remember really affecting me, rather than me just watching it and enjoying it, was Poltergeist. That didn’t even make your mentions, but that year produced a phenomenal number of long shelf-life movies: I also loved Beastmaster and Conan. For favorite of the year now, as an adult, though, I’d have to set Blade Runner slightly above Khan, though I agree with your analysis placing it very highly.
I was telling Jason not a week ago how Empire Strikes Back was the first movie I remember seeing in the theater, and how angry it made me. So, one doesn’t have to be exactly your age to have felt cheated by Empire at the time, and then thought it was maybe the best of the series later on (I say “maybe” because I hadn’t ever considered that possibility until reading your post, so I’ve gotta think about it).
1984’s Buckaroo Banzai would have to be my pick for personal fave, but I can’t deny the long-reaching impact of Terminator.
1985’s Better Off Dead seems not so much the best of a lot of good movies as one that stands out among a crowd of good coming-of-age films.
Depardieu’s Cyrano was the role God created him for. We watched it in French class.
Twelve Monkeys and The City of Lost Children are easily in my all-time top ten. I don’t know if I can choose between them, but then, the fact that I missed the insurance-scientist that you all discuss in the comments means I should probably give it another viewing. But, you have to see City of Lost Children if you loved Pan’s Labyrinth.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is also in my top ten, and probably the only kung fu movie to make it there.
So, with our other alignments, I would predict you would not choose 300 over Ratatouille.
I really need to work up my actual list of favorites from my years of life. I’m sorry I missed this meme!
I’m glad you corrected your 1993 gaffe.
Sorry, editing error with the last line there about 1993. Doesn’t make sense, me sticking it on the end like that.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension is in my top 20 movies, actually. For a long time my avatar was Jeff Goldblum as New Jersey. You want to see bad movie tourette’s, get me and two of my siblings together and throw a line from BB out and we’ll pick it up and do the rest of the movie.
But my sister was going to pick it for that year, as she actually wrote off to become an official Blue Blaze Irregular. Sometimes filling out memes is different from constructing lists in a vacuum.
Side note: I’ll take being put in the same category as Order of the Stick any day. That made my week, and I’m in the middle of an awesome vacation.
I absolutely hated 28 Days Later the first time i saw it but after watching it without somebody telling me it’s a zombie movie (they arent zombies they’re cannibals with extreme skitzophrenia) it was actually alright not good but alright
Ratatouille is the greatest family movie ever written, i loved it.