What are your favorite movies and tell me why they are so special?
- My favorite movie pre-Star Wars-(1944)"To Have and Have Not"- Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are smoking hot and the art of verbal gamesmanship is unrivaled.
The novel was written by Ernest Hemingway the screenplay by William Faulkner
- My favorite war movie- (1944)"Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" the special effects were 40 years ahead of their time.
- My favorite sci-fi movie pre-Star Wars- (1956)"Forbidden Planet" monster from the Id and Robbie the robot.
- My favorite after "The Empire Strikes Back" is (1982)"Blade Runner" that moody Ridley Scot classic.
- My favorite contemporary sci-fi - is (2016)"Arrival" with its' hexipodal aliens and unique story and storyline.
These are a few of my favorite things.
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ryng-ryng
Hello?
My favorite pre-Star Wars movie is The Day the Earth Stood Still. It showed that science fiction can be relevant by making a political statement that definitely needed to be made at the time.
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My favorite was Goldfinger.
Saw it for first time on TV in 1967.
Watched every James Bond movie at the theater once I was old enough.
Then Star Wars. Enough said.
Then The Lord of the Rings trilogy came out.
Watched Fellowship of the Ring 3 times at the theater and then at least 20 times after it came out on DVD before Two Towers hit theaters.
Still watch it once or twice a year.
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
best characters I've seen in a movie, fun, and cause of its music
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My favorite was Goldfinger.
Saw it for first time on TV in 1967.
Watched every James Bond movie at the theater once I was old enough.Then Star Wars. Enough said.
Then The Lord of the Rings trilogy came out.
Watched Fellowship of the Ring 3 times at the theater and then at least 20 times after it came out on DVD before Two Towers hit theaters.
Still watch it once or twice a year.
Forgot to say: Lord of the Rings is also my favorite book. They grandness of the movie is perfect.
This is going to be a long list, with plenty of jumping around in time.
tl;dr- You either read it or you don't.
HOWEVER.
Of the twenty films listed here-
5 are from the 1970s
8 are from the 1980s
9 are some form of horror movie
Seven Samurai (1954). A friggin' masterwork. The performances, the direction, the remarkably simple and straightforward script.
Ran (1985). Samurai King Lear, as directed by Kurosawa. Accept no substitutes.
Yojimbo (1961). Kurosawa samurais up a noir story. And Toshiro Mifune is an absolute badass.
Gojira (1954). A true horror film, and the debut of a pretty well-known giant monster.
Last Night (1998). A Canadian meditation on the end of the world. Quirky in a good way.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)- While not as in-depth as the 1979 miniseries starring Alec Guinnesss, it's still a remarkably apt treatment of one of my favorite spy novels. Even the more "Hollywood" changes don't really get in the way.
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965)- A VERY good treatment of what may be my absolute favorite standalone spy novel.
Halloween (1978)- The progenitor of the way the modern slasher subgenre would play out, it stands out for a relatively low body count and extremely high terror quotient.
The Thing (1982)- An absolute masterpiece of sci-fi horror. I can't think of one foot this film sets wrong.
Alien (1979)- Another absolute masterpiece of sci-fi horror. A shame Ridley Scott couldn't leave his own creation be.
Jaws (1975)- A movie saved by the fact that its special effects often weren't in working order.
The Shining (1980)- Apples and oranges different from the novel it's based on, this one is fun to watch mostly for the strength of the performances.
The Wicker Man (1973)- Folk horror. And it's sort of a musical. And Christopher Lee is awesome.
Das Boot (1981)- While we've had plenty of movies set on, around, or about submarines, this one is in a class of its own. The score, cinematography, and the cast all conspire to make its tension unbearable, and its sequences of relief genuinely relieving. And then there's that ending.
Repo Man (1984)- Forum rules prevent me quoting as much of this movie as I would like to, but it's a stunning piece of work. Hilarious, too.
Lake Mungo (2008)- My second favorite ghost movie of all time. Minimal budget, no real jump scares, hardly anything supernatural going on at all. Or is there?
The Changeling (1980)- My absolute favorite ghost movie of all time. A rubber ball bouncing down a flight of stairs becomes the most terrifying thing you've ever seen.
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior (1981)- While Fury Road is superior in many technical and scripting respects, the sheer bare-bones simplicity and visceral brutality of this flick make it my favorite bit of post-apocalyptic action to date. Many of the characters aren't even named in the credits, making it very spare and lean... while also having surprising depth for an adrenaline-driven actioner.
Moonstruck (1987)- A romcom featuring Cher and Nicholas Cage. And it's great.
The Godfather (1972)- A mob movie that feels more like a look at Florentine Renaissance politics.
And a few others, but this is getting painfully long, even for me.
Damn! If you can list THAT many movies, why don't I?
Well, one reason why perhaps I shouldn't is that some of these movies are widely hated. But what the heck.
Obviously, I have to mention Star Wars. My favorite is Episode IV: A New Hope. But I'm inclined to list the first SIX movies as one entry, treating it all as a single entity.
That's right; I'm including Episode I: The Phantom Menace on my list. Despite that movie's obvious flaws, it did everything a Star Wars movie should do, like showing us new aspects of the Star Wars galaxy, which Episode VII failed to do. As long as I'm inviting nerd rage anyway, I might as well bluntly state that even Episode I beats the heck out of Episodes VII and VIII and Rogue One. (I haven't seen Solo yet, so I can't speak to that.)
Okay, the thread title includes the question "why". Well, Star Wars gave us everything a space opera needs: FTL travel, a variety of habitable worlds, many exotic alien races, advanced technology, and fast-paced action. Such stories existed before, but Star Wars also gave us interesting characters and situations. I love R2-D2 and Ben Kenobi (as he appeared in Episode IV).
Then there are my eight favorite superhero movies, including the 1989 Batman movie, which finally gave us the dark, brooding Batman in the grim setting the character deserved, after all those years of suffering from the silly, campy Adam West image. And Jack Nicholson stole the show. The first 3 X-Men movies did justice to all the most appealing themes of the comic book (like racial prejudice, protecting a world that hates and fears you, teamwork, etc.) and all the most appealing characters of the comic book (like Professor X, Beast, Magneto, Cyclops, and Wolverine). Yeah, X3: The Last Stand is another widely hated movie that I list among my favorites. Then there's the 3 Iron Man movies; RDJ did the perfect Tony Stark, with all the arrogance and everything. And the special effects - not only for the Iron Man suits, but also for those 3-D holographic "touch screens" and stuff - were top notch. And The Incredibles was just what The Fantastic Four SHOULD have been: a family of superheroes. Maybe one day, I'll list Incredibles 2 as well, after I watch it a few more times.
Of course, I have to list my favorite Disney movies, like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which combined the perfect parody of animated cartoons with - of all things - a hard-boiled detective story; hah! Wall-E did what good science fiction should do: it gave us appealing NON-HUMAN characters, and it gave us a sci-fi "What if?" scenario, without preaching some moral theme. (Yeah, I know. In my last post I praised The Day the Earth Stood Still for just the opposite reason. Well, hey, science fiction is capable of many different things.) And I already mentioned Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3 and The Incredibles.
You know, I wasn't planning to write this when I started typing this post, but come to think of it, my favorite animated movie just might be Cool World, despite its complete mess of a plot, just for presenting such a fascinating world.
I hesitate to write this part, but I'm such a fan of high fantasy NOVELS that I feel compelled to mention some movies in that genre. And I can't think of anything better than the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy. I don't think I need to explain to people on these boards why those movies did what a good high fantasy story should do.
Pulp Fiction
The Big Lebowski
What We Do In The Shadows
Mad Max Fury Road
Guardians of the Galaxy
Deadpool 2 extended version
Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl
Fargo
Kong Skull Island
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The Lost Boys
Napoleon Dynamite.
Dredd is available via amazon right now. Cant help but watch that once a year.
It's also on Hulu.
Screw hulu
I love Hulu, it's my favorite streaming service, I've been using it since day one.
The Big Lebowski is my favorite movie. Because, well, you know, it's just like, my opinion, man.