Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Movie Madness - Steve's List

Ouch. Making a list of your favorite movies is hard: very hard. No doubt, I made this list too fast, but tried to develop it using a criteria based on this - if I'm flipping through TV channels, and see that one of these is on, I'll stop and watch it. If I notice it's on the schedule for sometime later, I'll change my plans to watch it. Here's my list (I added a couple of new categories, too).

* * * Comedy:

The Court Jester (with Danny Kaye, vastly under-rated)
Duck Soup (The Marx Brothers)
Young Frankenstein (Gene Wilder's tour-de-force)

* * * War: (yeah, all WW II, but that was The time period covered by my favorite war movies)

Patton
Tora, Tora, Tora
Stalag 17

* * * Western:

Silverado
The Magnificent Seven
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

* * * Crime/Mystery:

The Maltese Falcon
The Godfather
Thin Man, The

* * * Historic:

Braveheart
Missiles of October (1974 ABC Made-for-TV Movie: inspired Costner's Thirteen)
Apollo 13

* * * Science Fiction:

Star Wars
Forbidden Planet
Metropolis

* * * Drama/Suspense

Casablanca
Citizen Kane
North By Northwest

* * * Horror: (not my favorite category)

Alien (by Ridley Scott, the first one, and, no, I don't think it belongs in Sci-Fi)
Frankenstein
Psycho

* * * Fantasy:

The Wizard of Oz
The Return of the King (really the whole LOTR series)
Harvey

* * * Full Length Animated:

Fantasia (1940)
The Incredibles
Dumbo (easily the most emotional of the early Disney classics)

* * * Romance: (about LOVE; not limited to relations between men & women)

Gone with the Wind
Shenandoah (I can't think of a better category for it)
Old Yeller (if you don't cry at the end, you're not fully human)

* * * Fun for the whole family: (with a focus on “fun”)

7th Voyage of Sinbad, The (thank you Ray Harryhausen)
Mary Poppins
Raiders of the Lost Ark

* * * Musicals:

Singing in the Rain
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Paint Your Wagon (Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood sing!)

* * * Adventure:

Flight of the Phoenix
King Kong (1939, with Fay Wray)
The Time Machine (George Pal version with Rod Taylor)


Here's just a few(!) of the ones I *really* wanted on the list somewhere, but couldn't find room (ouch!)
[ Presented Alphabetically ]


20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (the Disney version: What a cast!)
2001: A Space Odyssey (still not fully understood after all these years)
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Adventures of Robin Hood, The (Errol Flynn)
African Queen, The
Airplane! (king of the parody)
Animal House
Arsenic and Old Lace (almost a toss up between this one and Harvey)
Battle of the Bulge (#4 in War)
Battleship Potemkin (from USSR! most interesting)
Beauty and the Beast (Disney, my #4 in the Musical category!)
Ben-Hur
Blade Runner
Bridge on the River Kwai
Bringing Up Baby
Caine Mutiny, The
Camelot
Chariots of Fire
Cheyenne Social Club
Damn Yankees (Ray Walston should be in there somewhere!)
Dark Knight, The
Day the Earth Stood Still, The (with Rennie and Neal)
Devil's Advocate, The
E. T. - The Extra Terrestrial (#5 in Family)
Fantasia 2000 (why did we wait 60 years for a sequel?)
Fail Safe (cold war classic, much better than Dr. Strangelove, IMHO)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) (#4 in Horror)
It's a Wonderful Life (how could I leave out Capra's finest?)
Jaws (#5 in Horror)
Laurence of Arabia
Little Ceasar
Little Dictator, The (Chaplin)
Long Grey Line, The
Longest Day, The (#5 in War)
McClintock! (#4 in Western)
Mr. Roberts
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
My Fair Lady
Oklahoma!
Operation Petticoat (one of the funniest war movies ever made)
Philadelphia Story, The
Pink Panther, The
Pinocchio
Pretty Woman (#4 Romance)
Producers, The (1968)
Rear Window
Road to Morocco (Bing & Bob)
Saving Private Ryan
Shawshank Redemption, The
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Some Like It Hot
South Pacific
Spartacus
Sting, The
Treasures of the Sierra Madre, The
Untouchables, The (Costner & Connery)
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (w/Gene Wilder, #4 in Family Fun)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Cagney dances!)


...Egad. Like you said, there are dozens upon dozens more. But If I have to pick ONE as The Best... In consideration of the era in which it was made, the excellence of production (given what was technically available at the time), looking at the unique aspects which makes it unlike other movies, calculating its long-term effect upon the movie industry as a whole, ignoring (somewhat) ticket sales but acknowledging its legendary and iconic status... #1 (for me) has to be (drum roll).... Fantasia

- Steve

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