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JMAN
02-10-2002, 03:25 PM
We got to talking about movies on some of the other topics so I figured I would pose a question. What are your top five favorite movies? Here are mine.

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. The Fugitive
3. October Sky
4. Sling Blade
5. The Matrix

Chief
02-10-2002, 03:39 PM
man, whenever i have this discussion, i have to break them down into categories, then sub categories, then sub sub categories. ahhhhhhhhhhhh.. thanks for stiring up my thought process. shawshank is in there, but then i have to bust out with the comedy, and then specific kind of comedy. i mean, you really cant put Monty Python's The Holy Grail with Stripes, or Animal House. Those are 2 totally different types of comedy...... :) ;)

Brian

P.S. Its only a flesh wound......

SaintHax
02-10-2002, 03:45 PM
Goonies 8)

syxxpm
02-10-2002, 03:58 PM
in no particular order
1. ferris buellers day off
2.high fidelity
3. dracula-any variation
4.jaws 3- made me rethink going to seaworld
5.the crow trilogy(one BIG movie)

Hero1
02-10-2002, 08:25 PM
ive said itr 1nce and i'll say it again..if you know anything abt hollywood..then u must see "The Player" (1992) ..the brilliance of the player..is that it has a basic story, that any1 can watch and enjoy..then it also has so many in jokes and digs at hollywood..that has allowed me to watch it over and over and over again..plus u get to see the greatest director ever..robert altman..do his stuff..the opening scene..which is 1 long 6 minute + shot..no cuts..is worth hiring it out right their..while ppl are talkin abt how its all cut cut cut and some of the greatest long shots in cinema..its fuckin brilliant!

heres sum reviews...



In "The Player," Robert Altman's masterly, deadly funny murder-mystery/satire of Hollywood's power elite, Tim Robbins plays Griffin Mill, a studio executive so callow he seems stuck in some early stage of fetal development. Mill is a boy wonder, one of the handful of major players who can "green-light" a picture, but he's so unformed that the flesh on his face hasn't decided yet where it intends to settle, and peering out over his dimpled cheeks are a set of baby blues so unsullied by experience that they appear nearly transparent.


Though Mill is on top of the heap, his eyelids quiver with impending panic. Rumors are flying around town that an executive from Fox named Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) is about to take over his job. And to make matters worse, some frustrated writer whose story pitch he brushed off has been sending him postcards saying things like "Your Hollywood is dead," and threatening to kill him.


What's ironic about this abuse is that, at least on the sliding moral scale Altman has set up, Mill is one of the good guys. He's known as the writer's executive; every day his office is crammed with writers pitching their ideas for "The Graduate II" or a political thriller for Bruce Willis described as " 'Ghost' meets 'The Manchurian Candidate' " or a Goldie Hawn vehicle that's kind of like "The Gods Must Be Crazy," only this time "the Coke bottle is a television actress."


Working from Michael Tolkin's adaptation of his novel, Altman is playfully dead-on in his critique of Hollywood fatuity in all its trendy forms -- the cars and car faxes, the obsession with bottled water, the facile insider-speak. This is the real "L.A. Story," Hollywood seen from the inside by a director who's seen it all, who knows every twist and dip in the roller coaster.


At times, the view is so convincing that the film almost seems like a documentary. At premieres and lunch spots and parties, real-life stars flit by the camera, giving very lifelike impressions of themselves as "Hollywood stars," and it's an aspect of Altman's impudence that he uses the likes of Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Nick Nolte, Jack Lemmon, Andie MacDowell and Lily Tomlin as backdrop figures in his Tinsel Town portrait. Who else but Altman would dream of using Cher for texture?


If nothing seems quite real, it's because Altman's searching, constantly restless camera keeps peeling back layer after layer of artifice. The movie is all reflections, glass, water, mirrors, screens; everything is "framed," self-referential, even the dialogue. When Mill finally tracks down the writer he thinks has been tormenting him, it's at a screening of "The Bicycle Thief." And, afterward, in the karaoke bar where he and David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio) have a drink, the patrons sing while images of dreamy couples wander the beach on the monitor behind them. We're as far inside this dizzying Looking Glass world as Alice was.


For that matter, the story conference the next day is as outrageously absurd as the Mad Hatter's tea party. Levy has come on board at the studio, and his first suggestion is that the executives come up with the ideas for their movies themselves, eliminating the writers. It's easy, he says. Just pick out any story in the paper and you've got a movie -- not knowing, of course, that one of the articles is about Kahane's death. The joke about eliminating the writer is, in fact, the whole point, especially when Mill adds that if they can also figure out a way to eliminate the directors and actors, then they might really have something. Secretly, the executives despise the artists who make the movies because their so-called creativity is the one chance element in their calculations. Without the artists' meddling they might be able to hammer together a movie out of spare parts of past successes and sell it straight to the public. At best, the artists are a necessary evil.


Of course, the artist wants to kill the executive too. An executive like Mill holds the artist's life in his hands, and perhaps no one in Hollywood knows that better than Altman. For the execs, a filmmaker like Altman is the ultimate wild card. Because he doesn't follow the formulas, he can't be trusted to follow orders. It's his picture, not theirs. But it's Altman's insistence on making a movie his way, out of his own gut, that makes "The Player" such a miracle.


The film, which begins with a single, gorgeously sustained eight-minute camera move, is blissfully out of touch with contemporary trends in moviemaking. Though it's loaded with references to other films, its only real precursors are to be found in Altman's own previous work -- "Nashville," "The Long Goodbye" and "Tanner '88."


From start to finish, the film is surprising, both in style and narrative. The ensemble cast is loaded with big names in small roles. Dean Stockwell and the marvelous English actor Richard E. Grant show up as uncompromising screenwriters whose dynamite movie idea becomes a story within the story of the film; Fred Ward plays the studio's head of security, whose job it is to keep Mill's involvement in Kahane's death quiet; and, as the detectives assigned to investigate the murder, Whoopi Goldberg and country singer Lyle Lovett make a sublimely unlikely pair of buddy cops. Even director Sydney Pollack turns up, as Mill's smoothie show biz attorney.


With the consummate ease of a veteran showman, Altman keeps an awesome number of balls in the air. The picture works on every level -- as a comedy, a mystery, a romance (after Kahane's death, Mill becomes involved with his girlfriend, played by Greta Scacchi), even as a mordant essay on the revolving-door anxiety of the studio brass.


What's remarkable is how little rancor shows up in Altman's critique. Watching this fabulously enjoyable film, you get the sense that, behind every frame, the director is smiling from ear to ear. Altman loves practical jokes, and "The Player" is his craftiest prank, his jolly last laugh.


Come next year, when I am trying to devise a list of the best films of the 90's, Robert Altman's "The Player" will be near the top of my list. This film skillfully creates a central plot around Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) (who hears about 125 movie pitches per day), a studio executive who is being threatened by a writer whose script or idea he likely brushed off. But what is even more brilliant about "The Player" is everything going on peripherally to the main plot; all the references to studio techniques of film-making, foreign film movements, homages and Old Hollywood vs. New Hollywood. The film is multi-layered, yet everything that we view falls neatly into the formula which Hollywood film-making survives by. What we see in the duration of "The Player" would potentially make a perfect pitch for a movie. This may sound confusing, but watch the entire film, and you will immediately know what I mean.

The film begins with a stunning homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope", an approximately eight minute long take where the camera moves freely around a studio encountering many people in the midst of their everyday routines. For example, we come across a couple discussing how Hollywood film is now much like MTV "cut, cut, cut". One of the characters even uses the example of "Rope" to illustrate his point. "Rope" is approximately a ninety minute film that appears to have been shot all in one take. Of course, it wasn't done in one take, as reels of film at that time were only ten minutes long. If one watches the film very closely, it can be determined where the cuts are made.

In the duration of the same take, we encounter Griffin Mill conducting business in his office. People walk into his office pitching movie ideas. It is here that we begin to learn about populist Hollywood film-making. Ideas, not stories or scripts are pitched to executives "in 25 words or less". Almost always, the ideas thrown out are based on previous films (e.g. "someone always gets killed at the end of a political thriller") and even combinations of previous films (e.g. "It's Pretty Woman meets Out of Africa"). When we see the usual films that are released into theaters each week, it is not difficult to believe that this is the way in which they are conceived. The usual Hollywood formula entails sex, violence, familiarity and most important of all "happy endings, a movie always has to have a happy ending".

"The Player" is filled with loads of Hollywood stars, most of them playing themselves. Jeff Goldblum, Malcolm McDowell, John Cusack, Angelica Huston, and Burt Reynolds to name a few. Many of them are encountered at restaurants during lunch and at night time Hollywood gatherings, where the topic of conversation is always movies. Near the beginning of the film, Griffin suggests that he and his lunch guests talk about something else. "We're all educated adults". Of course no one says anything. Their lives are so indoctrinated by Hollywood, they do not know what else to talk about.

Right from the beginning Griffin receives numerous postcards threatening his life. He begins to suspect a certain writer and goes to his house one night to confront him. The man turns out not to be home, but there is an incredible scene where Griffin talks with the man's girlfriend on the phone while voyeuristically watching her through the window. This is an extraordinary symbolization of the voyeuristic essence that goes along with watching a film, or the notion of scopophilia to be precise. The idea behind the concept of scopophilia is that the cinema constructs the spectator as a subject; the beholder of the gaze, who has an intense desire to look. The cinema places viewers in a voyeuristic position in that the viewer watches the film unseen in a dark room. While Griffin is watching the girl as he speaks with her, it is night time and he remains unseen to her. This scenario metaphorically represents the theater and the film.

In the duration of Griffin's conversation on the phone, he finds out that the man he is looking for is watching "The Bicycle Thief" in an art-house theater in Pasadena. This film in itself represents the first contrast to Hollywood that we see in "The Player". Vittorio DeSica's "The Bicycle Thief" was part of a movement that lasted from 1942 to 1952 called ‘Italian Neo-Realism", whose other main exponents were Rossellini and Visconti. Rossellini called neo-realism both a moral and an aesthetic cinema. Neo-realism, to a great extent owes much of its existence to film-makers' displeasure at the restrictions placed on freedom of expression. This film movement is quite different from the modern Hollywood formula of film-making. When Griffin first meets the man he suspects is sending the postcards, he suggests that perhaps they could do a remake of "The Bicycle Thief". The man responds with "yeah sure, you'd probably want to give it a happy ending".

Also interesting in "The Player" is one of the studio executives suggestions to newspapers as a source for script ideas. This serves to contrast Old Hollywood versus New Hollywood. In the older days of studio film, Warner Brothers (one of the studio's of middle-class America) would produce films with ideas seemingly drawn from real life or from the headlines of major newspapers. This gives us the sense that often Hollywood is stuck for original ideas, so ideas from the past re-circulate themselves.

I have touched on only a few of the many interesting references that run peripherally to the main plot of "The Player". The great thing is that even if you do not catch all the film references that I have been discussing, it is still enjoyable. When I first saw the film, I was really young and did not know much about movies, but yet I enjoyed it thoroughly. Now, it is one of my favorites. I definitely recommend it to anyone who has a keen interest in film.

**** out of ****

fd
02-10-2002, 09:01 PM
two of my favourites are blade runner and the city of lost children

frEk
02-10-2002, 09:58 PM
anything with harrison ford

dreamrib
02-10-2002, 11:59 PM
ok i'll go ahead & put it out...I LOVE the 80s. hehe, the cheesy silly ones...yeah those are my favs, lol.

hmm...Mannequin 1 & 2,Better Off Dead!!!, Babycakes, Some kind of wonderful, Eddie & the Cruisers, ( (yeah I know you guys are already going...have you ever heard of these movies??? lol), Office Space-cult classic, High Fidelty, and many more, hehe but thats a start at least right!!

Its so hard to narrow a topic like that down.

:)
Lisa

JMAN
02-11-2002, 01:25 AM
You all have some good taste in movies. I guess I should have added a comedy category. That being said Here are a few of my favorite comedys.
The Wayans Bros. Don't be a menace in south central. A few more are Caddyshack, Happy Gilmore, Nothing To Lose

Your not alone Dreamrib. I hate to admit it myself but I do like some of the movies and music from the 80's. ;)

Cozmo D
02-11-2002, 02:12 AM
Hey Lisa,
He took my stapler and wont give it back, it's a swingline.
I could set the building on fire.
:lol: :lol: :lol:

ok but...that's the last straw.
EZ
Coz

ps- I said no salt on my marguerita...NO SALT!

Cozmo D
02-11-2002, 02:25 AM
OK, my favorite comedies...this week, and not in any kind of order.

The Producers
Oh Brother Where Art Thou
What Did You Do In The War Daddy?
Office Space
Monty Python And The Holy Grail

EZ
Coz

mattpursel
02-11-2002, 04:02 AM
HMMn..this takes a few minutes to think about

Alien3
Shawshank Redemption
Flight of the Navigator..remember that one?
ET
Return of the JEdi
DIE Hard
Star Wars
Reservoir Dogs
The Black Hole
The Nutty Professor
Dumb and Dumber
Independence Day

mattpursel
02-11-2002, 04:03 AM
oH ADD

Young Frankenstein Directed by Mel Brooks

dreamrib
02-11-2002, 07:20 AM
Lol, I know. I know your out there you 80s movie fans! You might be hard to find but know those off the wall made for tv movies we all loved!

Rofl...f'in A Coz! lol, everyday since I've started working...is the worse day of my life...so everyday that you see me...is on the worst day of my life. how about today..is today the worse day of your life? Yes... wow thas messed up.
Milton could you do me a favor and turn the radio down? why?no. I dont see why I should have to turn my radio down. I told bill if Sandra can listen to her headphones while filing I should be able to listen to my radio while i'm collating...at a reasonable volume between 9& 11

how you can not love that movie?

Louis85
02-11-2002, 10:09 AM
Ok, I can narrow it down to six (seven with the tie) and it goes a little something like this:

1. Cornbread, Earl & Me
2. The Champ
3. Love Jones
4. Jason's Lyric/Boys In the Hood (tie)
5. Finding Forrester
6. Big

This is really a hard list to make, and if I made it everyday it would probably be different. Any movie that is good enough to make me cry (like the first two on the list) has to be a favorite. Plus I am a sucker for movies about kids.

Cozmo D
02-11-2002, 02:06 PM
Absolutely Lisa,
When my wife and I first saw it we had never heard of it, now it has joined an extremely short list of movies that whenever I wander upon them I have to watch it. It has also added the phrase "go ahead" into my vocabulary. :lol:

I think I'll just go ahead and end this post now.
:lol:
Ho it kills me!

EZ
Coz

ChrisLDog
02-11-2002, 06:23 PM
I love how Lumbergh starts every conversation with a lazy "Hey ____. What's happening?"

And Michael "PC load letter??? What the fuck does that mean??"

Ah man, life in the office. I guess I've just "got a case of the Mondays". That movie kills me.

Let's see, top 5 would have to be...

1. The Matrix
2. Dumb and Dumber
3. Office Space
4. Austin Powers - International Man Of Mystery
5. Contact

And some honorable mentions would be (on my personal list)

So I Married an Ax Murderer...
The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring
The Shawshank Redemption
The Abyss

spidey
02-11-2002, 11:15 PM
I'm down with this...here are just a small handful of some of my favorties:

The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Breakfast Club
To Kill A Mockingbird
Blazing Saddles
Moulian Rouge
Young Frankenstein
Dogma
Batman
Back To The Future (all 3- I live where the thrid one was filmed)
The Shining......

And all the Disney animated features (Atlantis kicks ass!!!)

I just saw "Birthday Girl" today.....very nice...and the movie wasn't bad either.

;)

Brandon

dreamrib
02-11-2002, 11:35 PM
Lol...yeah you get addicted to some of the quirky saying. its funny how you might not Know a Bill Lumberg but you can definatly see some people in your office being like that! Hilarious.
I used to be by the window..and watch the squirrells, and they were merry.


if you could go ahead & do that... that would be greatttt

ChrisLDog
02-12-2002, 02:11 PM
:lol: Mm-kay? Thaaanks. :lol:

Cozmo D
02-12-2002, 02:16 PM
"Back up in your ass with the ressurection..."
:lol:
EZ
Coz

dreamrib
02-12-2002, 06:31 PM
I get the feeling you know something about that?? what...what do you mean you get that feeling too??

Samir was great..i've only seen him in one or two other things since then! My fav was Michael Bolton though. His face when she is walking by & in slow motion she waves & says Hi Michael Bolton & he makes that face...best face of the whole movie, even beens Drew & he O face

Chief
02-13-2002, 06:08 PM
K we forgot war movies here. Of course saving private ryan... but my favorite is Bridge Over River Quai, and most of them with John Wayne....


comedy will be next

Brian

Hero1
02-13-2002, 08:48 PM
K we forgot war movies here. Of course saving private ryan... but my favorite is Bridge Over River Quai, and most of them with John Wayne....


comedy will be next

Brian


yeah bridge over river kwai was great ay!! and the same writers adapted the book 2 planet of the apes? or was it the same writer 4 the two books..i cant remember but theres sum connection

Elizabeth
02-13-2002, 11:22 PM
Oh boy....

comedies--
Office Space
Tommy Boy
Black Sheep
Clifford
The Jerk
and... I know it's not a movie, but I'm a HUGE sifl and olly fan.


sweet--
Little Women (90s version)
Jerry Maguire
Pretty in Pink
The Shawshank Redemption
What Dreams May Come


sexy-
Graffiti Bridge, & Under the Cherry Moon
The Saint
most Lou Diamond Phillips movies.... ROWR! (lol)

JMAN
02-14-2002, 01:11 AM
Tommy Boy and Black Sheep are very funny Elizabeth. Its a shame Chris Farly isn't still around. I've always liked his movies. In fact I was watching "Almost Heroes" just the other day. Its a good one. I guess it was his last movie.

Foxy11
05-30-2002, 03:58 PM
The Usual Suspects
The Die Hard Trilogy

DJ Detroit Butcher
05-30-2002, 05:58 PM
dazed & confused
casino
empire records
chocolat
pump up the volume
rocky horror
half baked
blazing saddles
twin peaks: fire walk with me
yellow submarine
the fox & the hound
under the cherry moon
fear & loathing in las vegas
natural born killers: the director's cut
pulp fiction
who framed roger rabbit
spider-man
the song remains the same
maiden heaven
america's sweethearts
reefer madness
light of day
eddie & the cruisers II
the cream will rise
render: spanning time with ani difranco

joyeux

ChrisLDog
05-31-2002, 12:13 PM
Gotta add Moulin Rouge to the list. It was so sad... :cry:

Oh well.

Anyone seen Waking Life? Not my favorite movie, but I liked it a lot. Very thought provoking.

Cozmo D
05-31-2002, 01:44 PM
Man...I just could NOT sit through that Moulin Rouge shit.

Gettin old I guess... :donno:

Deity
05-31-2002, 09:55 PM
Hmm..hard to pick my faves, but here are some of em :thumup:

Friday
Boyz in da Hood
The Green Mile
Liar Liar
Dogma
Chasing Amy
Clerks, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Basically i like all of Kevin Smith's movies EXCEPT Mallrats :cool: )
Meet the Parents
Pulp Fiction
American Pie (DVD Version)
Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

I agree with most everyone's selections of movies, everyone has a great list! I tried to list a few that were not mentioned... :poke:

Hero1
06-01-2002, 12:04 AM
Man...I just could NOT sit through that Moulin Rouge shit.

Gettin old I guess... :donno:

didnt you produce that lady marmalade remix? i thought i saw you dressed up as a whore in the video..or was that christina aguilera?

Cozmo D
06-01-2002, 01:01 AM
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Hokay Tim...You askin for it...heheheh

Chief
06-01-2002, 01:07 PM
:rofl: :rofl:

Chief
06-01-2002, 03:11 PM
hmmmm thinking about more...Princess bride..histarical....Strange Brew....classic......Baseketball.....LOL how to speak sanfransiscan....roflmao...