Seeing as how Jens publicly challenged me to make a ‘hitlist’, what other choices did I have? What follows here is first a selection of movies across the scale, so as to define – for you – what my conditions for a good movie are. Pay attention now!
The scale runs from 1 to 10, 1 being worst. The 10 digit scale was chosen primarily because it is similar to IMDB’s rating scale. Though I have allowed myself the luxury of also giving .5 grades when I feel like it. That’s one of the benefits I get from being the future emperor of Earth. Also, I have for the most part tried to select movies that I believe there’s a high probability you have seen. Otherwise, what would the point be? Also, the score is not merely a cold representation of the ‘value’ of the movie, but a reflection on my relationship to it (read: the nostalgia factor). Thus Rocky IV manages to slide into a 6 instead of the 4 that it truly deserves.
1) Dr. T. and the Women (2000), Bean (1997), RoboCop 3 (1993), Batman & Robin (1997), Queen of the Damned (2002), Deep Impact (1998).
2) 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), Congo (1995), Streetfighter (1994), Wing Commander (1990), Dracula 2000 (2000), Adam Sandler, Species II, The Blair Witch Project (1999).
3) eXistenZ (1999), Spider (2003), Scary Movie 2 (2001), Howard the Duck (1986), Maximum Overdrive (1986), They Live (1988).
4) Pearl Harbor (2001), Judge Dredd (1995), RoboCop 2 (1990), Mission to Mars (2000), Jurassic Park III (2001), TombRaider (2001).
5) Hook (1991), The Messenger (1999), Alien Resurrection (1997), Charlie’s Angels (2000), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001).
6) Speed (1994), Kill Bill vol. 2 (2004), Independence Day (1996), Armageddon (1998), Rocky IV (1985), Blade (1998), Die Hard 2, Labyrinth (1986).
7) Amadeus (1984), 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), American Pie (1999), Below (2002), The Dark Crystal (1982), The Last Boy Scout (1991).
8) Gladiator (2000), <a href=“http://imdb.com/title/tt0114814/>The Usual Suspects (1995), The Pianist (2002), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Braveheart (1995), Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), Léon (1994), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice.
9) Fifth Element (1997), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Kill Bill vol. 1 (2003), Silence of the Lambs (1991), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Matrix (1999), Heat (1995).
10) Blade Runner (1982), Fight Club (1999), The Abyss (1989), Lord of the Rings (2000 – 2003), T2: Judgement Day (1991), The Shining (1980), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Solaris (2002), Alien (1979), E.T. (1982), Star Wars: A New Hope (1977).
Phew…
You give Deep Impact a 2?? Wow, Deep Impact stands alongside Batman IV: Batman and Robin as some of the worst movies I have ever seen.
Armageddon is a piece of shit, but manages to be so much better than Deep Impact.
Aigh! That’s definitely a mistake :)
Seeing that you rated Matrix a 9 (which I agree with), how would you rate Matrix 2 and 3?
I’d give Reloaded a 3, and Revolutions a 1 – zero if available.
Well now. That’s a very good question. Off the top of my head, I think Reloaded would probably clock in at about 7 and Revolutions at an 8.
I have to say (Dianne, I’m surprised) that I don’t see why Deep Impact gets such a bum wrap (other than the fact people think it sucks). It was fluff, but I thought it was good fluff. I liked Morgan Freeman, I liked Elijah Wood’s family and I liked the fact that it focused on the human side of catastrophe (had to think about that one) as opposed to the flashy science fiction side that Armageddon exposed (and still sucked doing so). I even liked the cheesy-as father-daughter angle. If my memory serves me, I think my eyes were slightly watery during their particular death scene… it just worked for me.
That and the wave effects at the end looked DAMN cool.
How will people actually react to a very real and immediate threat to the destruction of our race? There is no doubt that there is a really interesting story in there … if someone can pull it off? I think Deep Impact did that many times over. Not only are my eyes watery when I see the father-and-daughter-die-in-each-other’s-arms scene; I cry uncontrollable all through the movie. What people like of movies, music, clothes, and so on, I mostly accept in less than 0.1 second. But still after all these years I get a bit stinged by people thrashing Deep Impact, and I can’t help myself from feeling that you guys just from the start of the movie simply refuse to connect with the characters.
It’s probably me that’s wrong, so come on, tell me what it is that I miss???
Woh! You pulled it off…. although I did specifically (via MSN) request EVERY movie you have EVER seen. But ok, this is a good start. It’s a really interesting set of movies you have chosen. How did you select them? And how did you deselect other movies?
However, you did dodge the challenge a wee bit. All the 10s can’t be equally good, can they? So even in the individual scores, you are gonna have to rank them. Sorry dude, I didn’t make the rules (or did I?).
And btw. Do you really think Deep Impact is worse than 40 days and 40 nights?
I’m just noticing a Kubrick/Spielberg struggle for the top – who’s the top guy?
Actually, I have a few requests to be added to the list: – Eyes Wide Shut – Clockwork Orange
Mike and Anders. How do I begin. Deep Impact is a bad movie. Bad bad bad movie. Emotionally it is the equivalent of a Danielle Steel movie, full of fake tears, sub-par acting and relationships that are purely there to squeeze you for every tear you’re worth.
Only where movies such as Solaris and E.T. will have me in their iron-grip-of-‘WEEP O YE OF LITTLE FAITH’ from start to finish, Deep Impact stumbles two minutes in, and it just keeps tumbling down that mountainside, cutting itself on every protrusion aaall the way down.
And don’t get me started on Tea Leoni. She can not act! CAN NOT! ACT! I like the first Bad Boys, but she does a good job of ruining every scene she appears in. And oohhh, don’t get me started on Jurassic Park III either! The movie – while crappy – could have been mediocre if it wasn’t for her presence.
And before you spring “But Morgan Freeman and Robert Duvall are great actors!” on me, let me remind you that Morgan Freeman also appeared in both Dreamcatcher and Chain Reaction, and Duvall was in The Apostle. So their being in the movie doesn’t manage to save a script that is so blatantly opportunistic in every single way possible.
And Mike, I’m sorry, but the wave at the end looks like shit. I was unlucky enough to re-watch DI a little while back, and the only thing I was looking forward to throughout this catastrophe of a movie was the point where the Earth was destroyed and we were rid of their undying misery. Well I was sorely disappointed!
Phew.
Anyway. Bad movie. Bad bad movie.
Do I really think 40 Days and 40 Nights is better than Deep Impact? Well, consider a rating of 1 equal to the kind of movie that could overturn countries and throw civilization into anarchy. Now 40 days is a real-fucking-bad movie, but ultimately it’s just yet another teen movie. (Though it is BAD!)
Picking the movies was actually kinda hard. I luckily have a tendency to forget the bad ones and remember the good ones, so filling in everything below 7 took some time. Luckily IMDB has a great search function, so I just dug through a couple of hundred movies and picked the ones I thought would show a general outline of what my tastes are. I made sure to handpick a few that I knew certain of my key readers know and like (Heat in particular) so as to please them ;)
As for the struggle for the top spot, it’s actually Cameron vs. Spielberg vs. Kubrick vs. Scott vs. Fincher. And it’s a hard pick!
I haven’t seen all of Kubrick’s movies, among those Eyes Wide Shut, so he’s not as great a contender as he might be. But The Shining and 2001 are landmark movies that’re just unbeatable. A Clockwork Orange is… Well… It’s a special movie, that’s for sure. And it has its merits, but ultimatly I’ll clock it in at 6.5 – 7.
Cameron is immortal. Probably the greatest action/sci-fi director of all time. Unbeatable in his field. Yes yes, he made True Lies and Titantic. But True Lies is still a better action movie than 95% of the crud out there today. Aliens, Abyss, Terminator and T2. He’s indestructible.
Spielberg. Well he’s a world power! Even when he has a bad day and creates something like A.I. it’s a good movie. Yeah, long discussion and all, I happen to like it for its mixture of Spielbergian sensitivities and Kubrickian transcendental themes. Long discussion. I personally like his first period best. Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders and E.T.
Ridley Scott did Alien, Legend and Blade Runner. If any movie had to come out on top it might just end up being Blade Runner. He had a stretch of pretty forgettable movies however, and now-a-days he’s making entertaining, fantastic entertainment. I do wish however that he would return to his roots…
Fincher. Has made some of the coolest, most disturbing, technically most mindbending movies of modern times. If only he would do it FASTER!
Too much text. Must stop writing.
I was just thrilled to see Howard the Duck in there! Ive forgotten ALL about that since I saw it when I was about 10. That was a really strange movie wasn’t it? All I remember is a Duck, a truck and A LOT of monsters! And that WAS pretty much the plot I as far as I have heard. :) Tim Robbins is in it though… and even more surprising… John Barry scored it
C’mon – They Live is an utter masterpiece, and Howard the Duck – pure cheese! Wonderful films the both of them…
Rask, you might have a point. I saw the movie many, many years ago now, and never again (since it was filed under the “shit” department, never to be retrieved). I will “acquire” the movie somehow and rewatch and then tell you my new oppinion.
Deep Impact is just like a Soap-series episode. It’s disgusting. Armageddon is like a thrill-ride. It’s cool, but shallow. I’d rather sit in a thrill-ride, than watch a episode of As The World Turns.
You have a nice list. But where is Donnie Darko? Where is The Godfather? Se7en? The Usual Suspects? Twelve Monkeys? The Thin Red Line? The Big Lebowski? Fargo? O Brother Where Art Thou? Groundhog Day? Pulp Fiction? Resevoir Dogs?
Just to name a few ;-)
Well, thanks for clearing up the Deep Impact question so thoroughly :)
While I hear what you’re saying (I disagree, but I still hear it) I must say that I still liked it (for reasons stated earlier). It has been a few years since I saw it so the wave effects might look dated now, but they were damn cool to me back then.
I didn’t think Tea Leoni was bad and the relationships seemed like fluff (as I said before) but well executed fluff. And if you’re going to talk of phony, corny ass relationships in tragedy movies, I noticed that Armageddon was a #6 on your list?!? The main characters in that movie (Bruce, Ben and Liv) all make me want to vomit with their dialogue and touching moments. I’d call that movie okay fluff too (perhaps when I said it sucked I was being too harsh) but I thought it was a lot more cheesy than DI.
Howard the Duck sort of cemented the fact that George Lucas isn’t any kind of ‘God’ ;)
They Live is horrible. Hoooorrible. Just horrible. I can see why some people might like it for the cheese, but I really can’t stand Carpenter. Except for The Thing, which is a horror masterpiece!
Mike, Reinier is right, Armageddon is just a thrill-ride. Pure fluff. The difference between Deep Impact and Armageddon is the fact that Armageddon knows that it’s fluff and Deep Impact has no idea that it sucks. And that’s when it flips over and becomes pretentious. Armageddon is just pure popcorn. Patriotic, slightly overtly-long, effects-laden popcorn, but still…
Reinier, I purposfully didn’t include all the movies in the world on the list :) But I might see if I can’t find time to add those to the list.
Cool list michael, excelent entertainment for us all, and all though we have our differences, it’s mostly the films between 3 and 8 we may disagree on. And thanks for once again placing Deep Impact where it belongs, one of the films I wish the world could UNmake. So let’s never talk of it again, maybe one day we will all forget that it excists.
Wish to see Prince of Egypt on your list tho
Sorry for my slow reaction on your Matrix rating. I see we disagree on the rating of 2 and 3, which just goes to show you how different taste is.
Personally I enjoyed Reloaded more than Revolutions.. I remember revolutions as just one gray blur of an attack on zion, and a waaay too long and pointless fight scene at the end. Reloaded, on the other hand, was pretty varied and had some great action scenes. Granted, meaningless action was all it had, but atleast it delivered on that part.
With that said, I pretty much agree with the rest of your list, ‘cept i’d put “Empire” as best Star Wars movie rather than New Hope.
Good read.
Michael Michael… your Matrix 2 and 3 rating disqualifies you from making any rated movie lists! ;) tz tz tz. then again, rating is about taste and judging from your list we have similar taste, although some of your ratings are rather unusual. Tomb Raider… should get Zero, yet it gets a 4 on your scale. Hm, I wonder why. Maybe because of “Boobs²”?
Matrix 1: 9
Matrix 2: 1
Matrix 3: 4
… and Soderbergh has yet to come up with a movie that can be rated higher than 6 (Erin B.) but then again that might just be me not liking any Soderbergh movies by default.
Movies I missed in this list:
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
The Crow
Dead Man (Jarmush)
One flew over the Coo-Coo Nest
and maybe more recent ones:
Lost in Translation
Mr. Ibrahim and the flowers of the Koran
etc etc. I bet you have seen these, too! ;)
Hmm, I guess I really have to get my blog online soon.
Well I am glad you remembered “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”, but aren’t you forgeting R. Lee Ermey’s role in “Full Metal Jacket”, which is another Kubrick great.
I also wonder where on your list you would place the “Blues Brothers”, “Blazing Saddles”, or “The Longest Day”. And finally “Clerks” which made independant film making fashionable again…. even in black and white.
Good post M.
Sorry Ihad….
You remembered “Dr. Strangelove”.
Deep Impact was over for me when Tea learned the name of a government program and was immediately ushered into a meeting with the president. WHAT? Which fantasy world is DI set in? Oh yeah, the one where America would elect a black president. =-(
(Although Oprah has a shot.)
Ooh, you really have to see the original Solaris. It’s Russian, and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (he’s kinda like the Russian Kubrick). I thought it was way better than the remake, but you’ll have to decide for yourself. You can read about it at the Criterion Collection’s website.
I am very surprised to see, that you dont have The Shawshank Redemption on your list. Shawshank Redemption is one of the best movies ever made, and I think you should watch it.
Now you’ve done it… I have to see Deep Impact, since I can’t remember it… going to be a gruesome 1½ hours, as the most seem to think anyway…
M don’t you watch any Anime?
Ghost in the Shell (and Ghost in the shell 2: Innocence) is recommended if you liked Matrix…
hope that I can post links, no “disclaimer” ;-P