The 50 Greatest Movies of All Time, pt. 1

Jessica and I recently decided to, over the next year or so, make our way through the AFI Top 100 Movies list. While looking at the list, though, two things struck me. First, I've already seen about half of them. Second, I would only put about ten of their choices on my list of the greatest movies of the last 100 years. So what better way to inaugurate The Front Burner, v.2, than with my own list of the 50 greatest movies of all time?

Before we start, though, I should point out straight away that I'm neither a film critic, nor a film student, nor a filmmaker; I'm not trying to assess these movies on any standard other than my own subjective assessment of their rank-ordered greatness. So there are lots of films that, while I love them and certainly agree that they are technically brilliant (Blade Runner) or culturally significant (It's A Wonderful Life) or genre defining (pretty much anything by Alfred Hitchcock) or paradigm shifting (Citizen Kane), just didn't make the cut. Also, I decided to do a Top 50 rather than a Top 100, mostly because, after going through my DVD collection and a bunch of critics' and bloggers' lists, I could only come up with about 60 movies that I would consider "great" enough to merit inclusion. So why pad the list just to get to an even hundred? Plus, with fewer movies to write about, I'll have more time to talk a little bit about each, and why I love them so much.

It should, of course, go without saying that I fully endorse every movie on this list and would recommend all of them without hesitation to everyone reading. Argue or agree with the ones you've seen, and make a beeline to your Netflix queue on the rest. I welcome your comments and recommendations on films I might have missed along the way!

I'll be posting five movies per day, in ascending order, beginning tomorrow. Today, I thought I'd look at a few of the near-misses; six movies that for one reason or another just didn't quite make the cut.

The Near-Misses
(in no particular order)

* Gremlins - You could put this anywhere on your list and I wouldn't argue: it's a Christmas movie that isn't about Christmas; a horror movie for kids; a comedy about violence. It pretty much hits everything that I like in a movie - anarchy, laughs, scares, sentimentality, Phoebe Cates. The effects still look cool (and believable!) and the Mogwai are adorable without being adorable, if you know what I mean. Dropping this was, therefore, a real heartbreaker but, put up against the other movies in the Top 50, I couldn't find anything that in a head to head match, I didn't like just a tiny little bit better. So let's call this our honorary mention and put it at number fifty-one.
The Moral of the Story: High maintenance pets + low responsibility kids = chaos.

* A Christmas Story and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - "The Old Man" and Clark Griswold are my two favorite movie dads. A Christmas Story is every bit as much of a sentimental classic as any other holiday movie; for my money, it's the best Christmas movie of all-time. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is sweet in its own way, and is still as hilarious as it was when it was released twenty years ago. Plus, Randy Quaid steals every scene of every movie he's in, so the second half of this movie, after Cousin Eddie arrives, is pure comedy gold. I watch both of these movies multiple times every Christmas. Ironically, that's the only reason they didn't make the Top 50 - because I only watch them at Christmastime. The greatest movies of all time, it seems to me, should probably have year-round appeal.
The Moral of the Story: (ACS) You can always count on your family to make the holidays magical. (NLCV) You can always count on your family to make the holidays stressful.

* Requiem for a Dream - The first time I saw this movie, I felt sick to my stomach at the end. Subsequent viewings have been less visceral, but no less disturbing. Every piece falls into place perfectly here - beautiful direction (Darren Aronofsky is easily my favorite modern director), great acting (who knew that a Wayans brother could do anything other than comedy? Nice casting, that.), and superb rapid-cut editing and sound design, especially during the final act. There's really nothing wrong with this movie, other than the fact that it is so relentlessly intense that I rarely find myself in the headspace to want to watch it. Artistically, that's probably strong evidence for its inclusion rather than its exclusion, but like the Christmas movies, I kind of felt like the Top 50 should be ones that I could watch any day, any time.
The Moral of the Story: Drugs are bad, mmmkay?

* Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - I'm a little sad that Johnny Depp didn't land anywhere on my list because he's probably the best actor out there nowadays and his sense of quality control is usually pretty solid (see also: Blow, Donnie Brasco, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Dead Man). And since we're paying tribute to actors, let's not forget the ever-excellent Benicio Del Toro - who does show up in the Top 50 - barely recognizable here as Dr. Gonzo. Pretty much every piece of dialogue in this movie is a quotable, portable manifesto for social deviants (ie., "As your attorney, I advise you to rent a very fast car with no top. And you'll need the cocaine. Tape recorder for special music. Acapulco shirts."), but this is definitely an exercise in pulling the wheat (the movie) from the chaff (the book) - Hunter S. Thompson's writing is an acquired taste, and although I love the movie, I'm not really too big on much of the narration. A worthy film, no doubt, but not quite up to the standards of the big list.
The Moral of the Story: Drugs are good, mmmkay?

* Ghostbusters - This is an ensemble film but make no mistake about it, Ghostbusters is Bill Murray's show. I like pretty much all of his movies, although I have to admit, I prefer his early populist comedy era (this, Stripes, Meatballs, etc.) to his current "serious actor" incarnation (Broken Flowers, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Lost in Translation, etc.). There's a lot more to this movie than just Dr. Peter Venkman, though: great performances from the entire cast (especially Rick Moranis as Louis Tully/Vinz Clortho, The Keymaster), a clever and relatively plausible story, a sweet car and headquarters, and perhaps the coolest theme song in movie history. Unfortunately, we watched this movie after its recent Blu-Ray release and while all the aforementioned elements stood the test of time, the special effects most definitely did not. Even judged against the standards of the then-existing technology, Gozer and the proton packs look fairly low budget and, frankly, cheesy. True, that didn't make the movie any less enjoyable, but it did make it a little less cool.
The Moral of the Story: If that swanky NYC apartment seems too good to be true, it probably is.

So there you have it, the six that just missed the cut. Coming tomorrow, we'll start the actual list with #46-50. [[justin]]