Thursday, June 21, 2007

I love putting in my two cents regarding cinema... all these movies are fine.
1. ``Citizen Kane,'' 1941. saw it... I like the little models connecting with the grand interiors.
2. ``The Godfather,'' 1972. saw it... good idea to edit the baptism with the executions. memorable toll booth. Great patchwork filmmaking of a nasty script! See what happens when you put Mr. Pacino in a suit.
3. ``Casablanca,'' 1942. saw it. Great ensemble under Warners contract.
4. ``Raging Bull,'' 1980. saw it. Knew nothing on the subject before seeing it. Everything I know of the subject is in the film. I like the scene with Ms. Moriority at the Chelsea pool.
5. ``Singin' in the Rain,'' 1952. saw it. That's what happens when one of the MGM execs is a songwriter. inconceivably cute moments with two vaudeville guys and a girl.
6. ``Gone With the Wind,'' 1939. saw it. I like the scene in the bedroom before the son falls off a horse.
7. ``Lawrence of Arabia,'' 1962. saw it. I have no recollection or connection with this film. There's a BMW motorcycle in it that is clearly a fine machine. I have yet to appreciate translations by T.E. Lawrence.
8. ``Schindler's List,'' 1993. saw it. Schindler bookends a movie about Ralf Feinnes.
9. ``Vertigo,'' 1958. saw it. great use of two actors. part of a great three-style madness trilogy. Noticably great score.
10. ``The Wizard of Oz,'' 1939. saw it. by the time the monkeys were flying I was out of my mind.
11. ``City Lights,'' 1931. saw it. We all need the redemptive power of finding someone to love.
12. ``The Searchers,'' 1956. saw it. memorable landscapes.
13. ``Star Wars,'' 1977. saw it. Carrie Fisher makes this movie a worthy follow-up to The Hidden Fortress.
14. ``Psycho,'' 1960. saw it. Bizarre B movie look from a man with the command of technicolor hollywood excellence. Great transferral of protagonists.
15. ``2001: A Space Odyssey,'' 1968. saw it. Great use of music. Favorite scene is the jog and the happy birthday dave...
16. ``Sunset Blvd.'', 1950. saw it. Something about a monkey in this one, too. Too many "in" jokes. Great use of Hollywood.
17. ``The Graduate,'' 1967. saw it. good follow-up to the work of Billy Wilder. surprise superstar appearance by Mr. Hoffman. transcendent Simon and Garfunkle. I like the scene when he visits her university.
18. ``The General,'' 1927. saw it. Love locomotives and love the male/female collaboration between the two leads.
19. ``On the Waterfront,'' 1954. saw it. minimal recollection. Is it Copeland or Bernstein?
20. ``It's a Wonderful Life,'' 1946. saw it. Good lesson in mortgages.
21. ``Chinatown,'' 1974. saw it. love the scene with the boy on a donkey. miraculous ensemble including writer and director. Great use of title. again she gets dunaway... sorry...
22. ``Some Like It Hot,'' 1959. saw it. great use of old florida. increasingly loony guy film. Ms. Monroe gets through it because Wilder is too busy with other things.
23. ``The Grapes of Wrath,'' 1940. saw it. Spectacular presentation of problems.
24. ``E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,'' 1982. saw it. only remember feeling like a tool.
25. ``To Kill a Mockingbird,'' 1962. read the book. Gregory Peck is vaguely unsatisfactory... sorry.
26. ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'' 1939. saw it. Confused which one it is. One of them has a great ending atop a building.
27. ``High Noon,'' 1952. saw it. great countdown film.
28. ``All About Eve,'' 1950. saw it. don't remember if Kirk Douglas is in it... he's not. That's the Bad and the Beautiful.
29. ``Double Indemnity,'' 1944. saw it. Another guy film, probably Wilder's best. Great threesome.
30. ``Apocalypse Now,'' 1979. saw it. It was a lot of work.
31. ``The Maltese Falcon,'' 1941. saw it. This movie is the work of pure talent of all involved.
32. ``The Godfather Part II,'' 1974. saw it. Great introduction to Vegas and to Lee Strasbourg.
33. ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,'' 1975. saw it. Dynamic directing. Great blue tinged bathroom ending.
34. ``Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,'' 1937. saw it. What is she, the four seasons? (Yes.)
35. ``Annie Hall,'' 1977. saw it. A fluid assembly of scenes.
36. ``The Bridge on the River Kwai,'' 1957. saw it. Interesting activity and unique alec guiness.
37. ``The Best Years of Our Lives,'' 1946. saw it. remarkable time capsule... memorable 5 and dime...Hoagy plays Lazy River.
38. ``The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,'' 1948. Sad and beautiful. vaguely annoying.
39. ``Dr. Strangelove,'' 1964. saw it. introduces an awareness of water flouridation. great countdown. great improv when all else fails. I think the use of music was both nasty and beautiful.
40. ``The Sound of Music,'' 1965. saw it. It's hard for me to get over that cut when Ms. Andrews begins singing. Richard Rodgers at the height of his genius.
41. ``King Kong,'' 1933. saw it. great self-examination of exploitation using stop action photography.
42. ``Bonnie and Clyde,'' 1967. saw it. I love those clouds moving over the field. superstar ensemble acting.
43. ``Midnight Cowboy,'' 1969. saw it. Good time capsule of 60's New York.
44. ``The Philadelphia Story,'' 1940. saw it. posing for magazine editors?
45. ``Shane,'' 1953. saw it. pretty landscapes.
46. ``It Happened One Night,'' 1934. saw it. romantic...
47. ``A Streetcar Named Desire,'' 1951. saw it. confused about original script. great sequel to gone with the wind.
48. ``Rear Window,'' 1954. highly professional filmmaking.
49. ``Intolerance,'' 1916. saw it. Good countdown at the end.
50. ``The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,'' 2001. saw it somewhat. I failed again to connect with this world.
51. ``West Side Story,'' 1961. saw it. great on-site filmmaking. Already off the chart materials given a cinematic dimension. Best wide-screen cinematic combination of everything great going for this piece...The low-ceiling indoor parking garage performance of "cool."
52. ``Taxi Driver,'' 1976. saw it. the best self-angrandizing I've ever seen (raging bull is second best). Beautiful score.
53. ``The Deer Hunter,'' 1978. saw it. it all comes down to russian roulette. The director made christopher walken magic. Why is Walkin magic? Something to do with photography.
54. ``M-A-S-H,'' 1970. saw it. great episode assembly. it does feel like I was there.
55. ``North by Northwest,'' 1959. Technicolor prequel to Psycho. two sides of the same coin. more beautiful music.
56. ``Jaws,'' 1975. saw it. somehow sexually charged. did not see the entire film.
57. ``Rocky,'' 1976. saw it. that's good simple script to film-making.
58. ``The Gold Rush,'' 1925. saw it. A very successful artist adding the Klondike to his world. It's a great movie.
59. ``Nashville,'' 1975. saw it. Nasty. Thanks for letting them do their songs.
60. ``Duck Soup,'' 1933. saw it. a great big world.
61. ``Sullivan's Travels,'' 1941. saw it. serious fun.
62. ``American Graffiti,'' 1973. saw it. uh... good cast. good assembly of materials.
63. ``Cabaret,'' 1972. saw it. Bob Fosse was highly dedicated and talented. The music and cinema are seemlessly woven.
64. ``Network,'' 1976. saw it. a sequel to The Hospital, which is a great script.
65. ``The African Queen,'' 1951. saw it. Likeable. sometimes disoriented by the use of interior tub-sets and realism.
66. ``Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' 1981. saw it. again there's a scene with a monkey at an outdoor cafe. I like that scene.
67. ``Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'', 1966. saw it. They do well together.
68. ``Unforgiven,'' 1992. somewhat saw it. I don't have the pre-quel awareness to appreciate what this does to the western.
69. ``Tootsie,'' 1982. saw it. Another great star turn.
70. ``A Clockwork Orange,'' 1971. saw it. Great Walter Carlos opportunity. Malcolm already knew this role. Well structured book well adapted although with disproportionate star power.
71. ``Saving Private Ryan,'' 1998. saw it. I don't know. Very helpful vision. Another great product of an ongoingly cinematic director.
72. ``The Shawshank Redemption,'' 1994. No. Is it about Capital Punishment in prison?
73. ``Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,'' 1969. saw it. Good chemistry. Filmmaking is highly respectful of the stars.
74. ``The Silence of the Lambs,'' 1991. saw it. Good peripheral matters coalescing in a weird variation on the mink stole.
75. ``In the Heat of the Night,'' 1967. I don't know. Sydney Potier is in it...?
76. ``Forrest Gump,'' 1994. saw it. Great follow-up to Zelig. I am very confused by the watchability of this film.
77. ``All the President's Men,'' 1976. saw it. great adaptation well cast.
78. ``Modern Times,'' 1936. saw it. Ms. Goddard is in this one.
79. ``The Wild Bunch,'' 1969. saw it. vaguely followed it. The stills look great.
80. ``The Apartment, 1960. saw it. Another Wilder commentary, helped by likeable twosome.
81. ``Spartacus,'' 1960. saw it. what an appocalypse. stirringly annoying.
82. ``Sunrise,'' 1927. saw it. Consistently great visualizations by Murnau applied to this country.
83. ``Titanic,'' 1997. saw it. Liked the spinning top on the ship's wood floor.
84. ``Easy Rider,'' 1969. saw it. It's a hodgepodge of star turns.
85. ``A Night at the Opera,'' 1935. saw it. A smooth balance of brothers.
86. ``Platoon,'' 1986. saw it. Something crucifying was memorable.
87. ``12 Angry Men,'' 1957. saw it. worthwhile statement-- you can change the world.
88. ``Bringing Up Baby,'' 1938. saw it. love carries them through.
89. ``The Sixth Sense,'' 1999. saw it. Small budget, big impact... I think...
90. ``Swing Time,'' 1936. saw it. Is this a Kern score? I know Follow the Fleet and Shall We Dance better. I love Roberta.
91. ``Sophie's Choice,'' 1982. great Brooklyn Bridge scene.
92. ``Goodfellas,'' 1990. Martin Scorsese continues to improve his filmmaking style.
93. ``The French Connection,'' 1971. I don't think I've ever really seen this film. I thought it was a mystical lead-in to The Exorcist. Maybe it's not.
94. ``Pulp Fiction,'' 1994. Groundbreaking assembly of episodes.
95. ``The Last Picture Show,'' 1971. He realistically adjusted his pants when he got out of the car. I should remember more from this film.
96. ``Do the Right Thing,'' 1989. pleasantly incenidiary.
97. ``Blade Runner,'' 1982. City claustrophia.
98. ``Yankee Doodle Dandy,'' 1942. Good ensemble work. Again, all forces behind the glory of a great songwriter.
99. ``Toy Story,'' 1995. I don't know. Is this the weird one with the Tom Hanks voice.
100. ``Ben-Hur,'' 1959. Something about leprosy.
What is really curious is my need to engage in this exercise to get this list out of my system, as though I can move onto other matters thereafter. Anyway, it is great to have common ground.