ILLINIWrestlingBlog Posted September 20 Posted September 20 Below is my top ten list. What do you have in yours? These should be movies that you have or would watch multiple times, and not movies you’d bring up at a dinner party to impress the boss. In other words, the movies that you actually like the best. 1. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD I became a lawyer because of this movie. It was based on the Great American Novel written by Harper Lee, and it is a very rare bird: A movie that lived up to the book. Extraordinary events, and also mundane events that later turn out to be extraordinary events, happen to ordinary people who end up doing extraordinary things while getting judged based on the content of their character. Gregory Peck, man. 2. THE GODFATHER I blame The Godfather and Marvel Comics for turning America into a country that lionizes anti-heroes. There is nothing good about the Mafia, and we shouldn’t be rooting for Michael and Don Corleone by the end of the film, but the movie is so **** good that we do. Curse you, Francis Ford Coppola! Also, the movie insists upon itself. 3. MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL The best comedy ever made. My favorite movie scene from the best comedy ever made involves this genius bit: Roger the Shrubber: “Yes, shrubberies are my trade. I am a shrubber. My name is Roger the Shrubber. I arrange, design, and sell shrubberies.” I was a fan of the tv series as well. There has been nothing better on tv except the Moon landing. The movie is a 92-minute rendition of the Fish-Slapping Dance in armor. 4. THE WIZARD OF OZ That’s right, I like me some fairy tales. And this is the best of the lot. Judy Garland treated this like a stage performance, and what a stage performance! Her perfect voice tears a hole in me. She was only 16 at the time, which doesn’t mean I’m a perv. She was way older than me when I first saw the movie, and anyway, her ID card said she was 18. The Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Munchkins. What’s not to love? As for it only being a dream, that seemed original at the time and not a cinematic rug pull. 5. RAISING ARIZONA Another fairy tale or fable but done up in “modern” America. I always like to make fun of Southern accents, and the Coen Brothers put big words in the mouths of their Southern actors for comedic effect. Nearly every scene is perfect, the cast is perfectly suited for their roles (Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter are deadpan dynamite), and the dialogue is the best in any comedy ever produced besides Holy Grail. 6. WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCLATE FACTORY (1971) Still another fairy tale with munchkins that sing. Gene Wilder was perfect as Willy Wonka, and I don’t want to hear about any remakes because you don’t paint over the Mona Lisa. The world-building was incredible, the songs ingenious and again we have what amounts to a fable with some hard lessons that had to be learned but were learned in a most delightful way. 7. STAR WARS (1977) An interstellar fairy tale. When I saw this in the theater back in 1977, I was blown away. Original characters doing original things. Yes, I know, it was a space western, but, hey, they were in space! Excellent world-building, and then George Lucas made the same movie six times in a row. Ugh! 8. THE MATRIX Again, blown away in the movie theater. Original ideas and original characters in a spectacular movie with big ideas that somehow survived Keanu Reeves’ acting chops, which entail the following: (1) Look at the person talking to you; (2) Then, look down at your feet. Watch for it! It happens all the time in that movie. 9. THE EXORCIST I saw this movie as a little kid on tv while my parents were asleep. It scared the jammies offa me. By far the best horror movie ever made. No other horror movie is in my top one hundred, although Silence of the Lambs might be close. Is it really that good of a movie? I can’t say because my personal viewing experience was so visceral. I’ll hazard to say it is, though, as I’ve read the book, and it too scared the jammies offa me. Completely outrageous at times, and then, in turn, incredibly subtle. 10. INTERSTELLAR Another fairy tale/fable that has a message built compactly inside a fantastic movie. In my opinion, the scene with the tidal wave on the possibly habitable planet is one of the best in an action movie. I absolutely hate cutesy robot sidekicks, but this movie and the original Star Wars made the list despite me holding this grudge. Maybe because the bots were earnest? This may be a recency bias pick, as Goodfellas may return one day to this slot. Honorable Mention: Goodfellas (next on the list), Vision Quest (next after that with the rest in random order), Tenet, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Pulp Fiction, The Godfather, Part II, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (animated), Raiders of the Lost Ark, Casino, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Roots, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and It’s a Wonderful Life. 1
Scouts Honor Posted September 20 Posted September 20 may have to see raising arizona. i like your list. 1
Scouts Honor Posted September 20 Posted September 20 casablanca schindlers list saving private ryan dances with wolves the deer hunter butch and sundance 2
wrestlingguy Posted September 20 Posted September 20 (edited) Silver Linings Playbook Gran Tarino The Pursuit of Happiness Rudy The Big Short Moneyball Edited September 20 by wrestlingguy 1
Wrestleknownothing Posted September 20 Posted September 20 42 minutes ago, wrestlingguy said: Silver Linings Playbook Gran Tarino The Pursuit of Happiness Rudy The Big Short Moneyball Years ago I met Chris Gardner at his office, Gradner Rich Securities. I was pitching him on outsourcing his more complicated trades to my firm. It was a weird meeting. It felt like he was pitching me, not the other way around. He seemed like such a promoter. At the end of the meeting he tells me they are going to make a movie about his life and Will Smith was going to play him. I smiled and nodded and thought this guy was so full of shit. A few weeks later my wife is watching 20/20 and they have a story about Will Smith portraying Chris Gardner. Son of a bitch, who is full of shit now? 1 Drowning in data, but thirsting for knowledge
VakAttack Posted September 20 Posted September 20 I'd have to sit on my thoughts for a minute to give a full-fledged list, but my favorite movie of all-time, still, is the Princess Bride. Combination of genuine comedy, fantasy, action, romance. A perfect movie. 2
wrestlingguy Posted September 20 Posted September 20 30 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said: Years ago I met Chris Gardner at his office, Gradner Rich Securities. I was pitching him on outsourcing his more complicated trades to my firm. It was a weird meeting. It felt like he was pitching me, not the other way around. He seemed like such a promoter. At the end of the meeting he tells me they are going to make a movie about his life and Will Smith was going to play him. I smiled and nodded and thought this guy was so full of shit. A few weeks later my wife is watching 20/20 and they have a story about Will Smith portraying Chris Gardner. Son of a bitch, who is full of shit now? That's insane!! I would love to meet him. Have you seen him since? 1
Wrestleknownothing Posted September 20 Posted September 20 5 minutes ago, wrestlingguy said: That's insane!! I would love to meet him. Have you seen him since? A couple of times, but not in a long time. After the movie he hired a friend of mine to run the brokerage business for him. He was making more money doing motivational speaking than he ever did with the brokerage. After he sold his stake in the brokerage I lost touch with him. 1 Drowning in data, but thirsting for knowledge
Wrestleknownothing Posted September 20 Posted September 20 I stumbled across a Bill Simmons podcast called The Rewatchables. The idea is that they talk about movies that they love to rewatch. These are the kinds of movies that if you are flipping channels you will stop to watch that one great scene coming up (think the courtroom scene in A Few Good Men - aka "You can't handle the truth"). They tend to explore the movie through categories they have developed over the course of doing 350 of these. The categories are things like most rewatchable scene, biggest over acting, what aged the best/worst?, was this guy really any good at his job?, if you only had one Oscar to give who gets it?, and who won the movie? Highly entertaining stuff. As a result, I now tend to view movies through that prism. So my most rewatchable in no particular order: The Godfather The Godfather Part 2 A Few Good Men Twelve Angry Men (the original) Man on Fire Bridesmaids In The Heat of The Night Lilies of the Valley The Quiet Man The Departed Good Will Hunting Step Brothers Old School No Country for Old Men The Big Lebowski There Will Be Blood Kingpin What About Bob Shawshank Redemption Apollo 13 The Hudsusker Proxy O' Brother Where Art Thou Cast Away Groundhog Day Stand By Me Caddyshack Pump Up the Volume The 40-Year old Virgin The Bourne Identity Coming to America Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade Hoosiers The Fugitive Goodfellas Casino Miracle Stranger Than Fiction Austin Powers" International Man of Mystery Unforgiven Saving Private Ryan Glengarry Glen Ross Plains, Trains, and Automobiles Iron Man Casino Royale My Cousin Vinny Searching for Bobby Fischer .....and probably more. 2 Drowning in data, but thirsting for knowledge
VakAttack Posted September 20 Posted September 20 5 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said: I stumbled across a Bill Simmons podcast called The Rewatchables. The idea is that they talk about movies that they love to rewatch. These are the kinds of movies that if you are flipping channels you will stop to watch that one great scene coming up (think the courtroom scene in A Few Good Men - aka "You can't handle the truth"). They tend to explore the movie through categories they have developed over the course of doing 350 of these. The categories are things like most rewatchable scene, biggest over acting, what aged the best/worst?, was this guy really any good at his job?, if you only had one Oscar to give who gets it?, and who won the movie? Highly entertaining stuff. As a result, I now tend to view movies through that prism. So my most rewatchable in no particular order: The Godfather The Godfather Part 2 A Few Good Men Twelve Angry Men (the original) Man on Fire Bridesmaids In The Heat of The Night Lilies of the Valley The Quiet Man The Departed Good Will Hunting Step Brothers Old School No Country for Old Men The Big Lebowski There Will Be Blood Kingpin What About Bob Shawshank Redemption Apollo 13 The Hudsusker Proxy O' Brother Where Art Thou Cast Away Groundhog Day Stand By Me Caddyshack Pump Up the Volume The 40-Year old Virgin The Bourne Identity Coming to America Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade Hoosiers The Fugitive Goodfellas Casino Miracle Stranger Than Fiction Austin Powers" International Man of Mystery Unforgiven Saving Private Ryan Glengarry Glen Ross Plains, Trains, and Automobiles Iron Man Casino Royale My Cousin Vinny Searching for Bobby Fischer .....and probably more. Great podcast! 1
jross Posted September 20 Posted September 20 Matrix, Avatar, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Ring, The Game... created some core visuals that were mind blowing. Geez... just making a list of movies that I recall watching multiple times Gladiator Groundhog's Day Perfect Bride Goonies Rocky Mad Max Jaws Last of the Mohicans Top Gun Terminator Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Office Space Back to the Future Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark Ghostbusters Beetlejuice Karate Kid Jumanji Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Crocodile Dundee Jurassic Park Monty Python's Holy Grail Lampoon's Vacations Caddyshack Austin Powers Wayne's World The Sandlot Major League A League of their Own Elf A Christmas Story Home Alone Fight Club The Shawshank Redemption Braveheart Die Hard Stand By Me Ferris Bueller's Day Off A Knight's Tale Wizard of Oz Original Wonka Aladdin The Lion King Finding Nemo Wall-E Toy Story Frozen Dumb and Dumber 12 Angry Men Usual Suspects Space Jam Addams's Family Notebook 1
ILLINIWrestlingBlog Posted September 21 Author Posted September 21 Thanks, folks! I enjoyed reading all of your choices and comments! Y'all have reminded me that Caddyshack, Talladega Nights and Austin Powers should be on my Honorable Mention list. Maybe Caddyshack is top-ten worthy? Also, I need to very seriously reconsider The Deer Hunter. At the old ILLINOISMatmen.com, we used to have a thread about movies. Only movies. Top ten lists, reviews, re-reviews, trivia. Good times. I hope we can do that here. Cheers!
billyhoyle Posted September 21 Posted September 21 (edited) I don't know if I can pick a favorite, but three obviously great ones to me are Godfather I, Godfather II, and Schindler's List. If I had to pick a single favorite movie though it would be Once Upon a Time in America. It is a movie you can listen to without watching and enjoy. And OP, I agree that Tenet is a great movie. That is a rare opinion, but I agree that it and Interstellar are Nolan's two best films. Edited September 21 by billyhoyle 1
Lipdrag Posted September 21 Posted September 21 8 hours ago, VakAttack said: Rewatchables. Sixth Sense. The first movie I wanted to rewatch immediately after seeing it to revel in how geniously the moviemakers had duped me. I liked it much more the second time through catching all of the hints I missed the first time. 1
ILLINIWrestlingBlog Posted September 22 Author Posted September 22 MOST UNDERRATED AND OVERRATED MOVIES OF ALL TIME CASINO ROYALE (1967) This movie is madcap. It's parody. It is so stupid in places, it is genius. It is so genius in places, it is stupid. It has a 26% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 34% on their Popcorn meter. Sure, it's not Gone with the Wind, but it deserves much better than that. The theme song and score from Burt Bacharach and Herb Albert make it a must-watch movie. The climax of the movie was stolen by Mel Brooks seven years later for his Blazing Saddles. The cast includes Orson Welles, David Niven, William Holden, Peter Sellers, Charles Boyer, John Huston, George Raft, Jacqueline Bisset and Ursula Andress. It introduced Fembots to the world. I blame Weed, LSD and James Bond for its reception by audiences. The director and cast were probably already smoking Weed and taking LSD, and the audiences and critics hadn't been turned on yet. As for James Bond, that franchise was already into its third installment, and the British were pissed that a movie would make fun of it. Don't you dare **** with the Queen, the Royal Navy, the Beatles or James Bond. DR. STRANGELOVE Or: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964) How you view a movie is very subjective. But the nearly unanimous view from critics is that this movie is wunderbar. It has a 98% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, while the Popcorn meter is at 94%. Dr. Strangelove makes a lot of top 100 movies of all time lists. I don't get that. I hated it. I know, I know, don't ever say anything bad about boy genius Stanley Kubrick. Interestingly, both Dr. Strangelove and Casino Royale starred Peter Sellers, and he was much wackier in the former. I'm not pro nuclear holocaust, I just didn't like the movie. Okay?
ILLINIWrestlingBlog Posted September 22 Author Posted September 22 On another topic, would you go see this movie?
ILLINIWrestlingBlog Posted September 25 Author Posted September 25 Did you ever watch Constantine for free during the afternoon on September 25, 2024 and make popcorn, and when you got to the bottom of the bowl of popcorn, you saw the stragglers, the strays, the unpopped, and you thought: "Should I try to pop these leftover kernels," and you did, even though the stragglers had been caught between two worlds, the world of the eaten and the world of the not eaten but not yet thrown away, and what happened when you popped them is that they popped just fine though they looked a little twisted, smaller, darker, different, bereft of any popcorn soul, if there is such a thing, but you ate them anyway because you'll eat just about anything that isn't a vegetable, and while you consider the hypocrisy of that last thought, you wonder if anybody has an opinion on the movie Constantine, which can be watched for free here: I will say this: Keanu Reeves acting chops were better in this movie. Constantine now goes into the category of movies that I have seen twice.
ILLINIWrestlingBlog Posted September 25 Author Posted September 25 1 hour ago, mspart said: His acting chops have nowhere to go but up!! mspart LOL! And yet, I still like to watch him. Has he just gotten lucky with good parts in iconic movies? I don't know. But he is interesting to watch.
Lipdrag Posted September 26 Posted September 26 16 hours ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said: Did you ever watch Constantine for free during the afternoon on September 25, 2024 and make popcorn, and when you got to the bottom of the bowl of popcorn, you saw the stragglers, the strays, the unpopped, and you thought: "Should I try to pop these leftover kernels," and you did, even though the stragglers had been caught between two worlds, the world of the eaten and the world of the not eaten but not yet thrown away, and what happened when you popped them is that they popped just fine though they looked a little twisted, smaller, darker, different, bereft of any popcorn soul, if there is such a thing, but you ate them anyway because you'll eat just about anything that isn't a vegetable, and while you consider the hypocrisy of that last thought, you wonder if anybody has an opinion on the movie Constantine, which can be watched for free here: Yes. 1
ILLINIWrestlingBlog Posted September 26 Author Posted September 26 THE EMPTY MAN (2020) This is a horror movie that I originally gave two stars out of four. A weak recommend with caveats. It was released during Covid to almost no fanfare, and I don't even know why I watched it in the first place. One Candyman is fine, two's a crowd. In the end, there were three reasons I gave it only two stars: 1. The first 20 minutes constitute a mini-movie that is absolutely perfect. Horrifyingly perfect. 2. It is long. Bloated. Over two hours. 3. There's a special mechanical way the cult in the movie goes about summoning their demon, and it is laughable. But the movie stuck with me. I ended up giving it a much stronger recommendation. I changed my mind! Yes, there were flaws. But the underlying story was strong, and the scares and tension were real. What follows is my thought process in changing my mind. Maybe I shouldn't punish a movie for starting well? Even exceedingly well. It's not like a 1600m race in which the runner goes out at :45 for the first lap, collapses and finishes last. I needed to review the movie in toto. It should get credit for the great start. I think it is still a fair criticism that the movie is overly long. That critique is emphasized by how well it starts. I wanted to see that first-twenty-minute quality during the length of the movie. My third original criticism involves SPOILERS. Folks in the movie get trapped by, and later communicate with, their demon/alien/supernatural being by blowing into an empty soda bottle. In one scene, you see what amounts to a soda bottle band holding a rally by blowing into their pop bottles in unison. I laughed out loud at that. It reminded me of how guys in our fraternity, back in the day, would sit around and watch teenage slasher movies and come up with one-liners about the murders. For example, there was a movie in which the murderer snuck up behind a guy who was crouched next to his motorcycle, working on it. The murderer took the end of the victim's scarf and threw it into the running back wheel causing him to strangle. I said, "He was adjusting the choke." I won that movie. But years later, I decided to give The Empty Man the benefit of the doubt. Cults do weird things. They might bang on drums, chant or dance around in naked and erotic ways. They might sacrifice animals or even people. So, was blowing into a pop bottle that strange? Yes. Yes it is. But I still gave it the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, here's a movie reviewer with 2.03 million subs who came to the same conclusion:
mspart Posted September 26 Posted September 26 20 hours ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said: LOL! And yet, I still like to watch him. Has he just gotten lucky with good parts in iconic movies? I don't know. But he is interesting to watch. He is as wooden as a log. mspart 1
BuckyBadger Posted September 27 Posted September 27 Somehow, I never watched Jaws….until this week. Man, what a great movie. 1
Husker_Du Posted September 27 Posted September 27 interstellar rocked. as did Contact. anyone see the new Reagan movie. started out a tad wonky but i thought it was very good. 1 TBD
Sam Herring Bishop McCort, Pennsylvania Class of 2026 Committed to Penn State Projected Weight: 141, 149
Luke Murray Peninsula Catholic, Virginia Class of 2025 Committed to Gardner-Webb Projected Weight: 157, 165
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