Time Picks Top 100 Films 622
gollum123 writes "Time magazine on Monday published its list of 100 all-time favorite movies ranging from Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" (1931) to Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" (1993) and 2003 computer-animated hit "Finding Nemo." But critics Richard Schickel and Richard Corliss snubbed several classics such as 1939's "Gone with the Wind". Almost half of the films were made outside the United States. Here is the full list."
To kick off obligatory missing films... (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time I see it, I can't help being amazed at how good it is. Simply an incredible film.
"Gone..." gone? Good! (Score:3, Insightful)
I quit reading the book after I was about 2/3 done (one of only 4 novels I've put down since I started reading 20 years ago), and I left the movie lamenting Sherman's lack of thoroughness in Georgia. Bleh. Good riddance.
Weird Selection (Score:5, Insightful)
No "It Happened One Night." No "The Third Man." "Yojimbo" (which is a great film, don't get me wrong), but not "Rashomon." (Yeah, yeah, "Star Wars" instead of "The Empire Strikes Back".) "Aguirre" but not "Fitzcarraldo." No Tarkovsky, I think. I didn't see any Eisenstein (not starting a list like that off with Potemkin is a crime against aesthetics). And to top it all off, the Yahoo! story says "his first criteria was" ARGGH.
Then again, what do you expect from Time? At least they've got "Kind Hearts and Coronets" and "Wings of Desire" in there.
So many more!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yojimbo??? (which is an amazing film, but not Kurasawa's best IMO) What about Throne of Blood? Or Seven Samauri?
Blade Runner instead of Alien? Are you kidding me???
Where's Das Boot?
Or Andrei Rublev?
Or The Leopard?
Or... Feh. --M
Re:Ugh. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, usually when people (or fluff magazines like Time -- that USED TO BE a news magazine, but has gone for for pop news now) make lists like this, the recent films end up crowding out the top. I'm thrilled to see that silents are remembered here and that a silent film like City Lights, one of my favorites, was included.
Re:"Gone..." gone? Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Both were manipulative stories and high-budget chick flics.
Re:Hits and Misses (Score:5, Insightful)
Hits:
Blade Runner
Dr. Strangelove
The Fly (1986)
LOTR
Unforgiven
Schindler's List
Star Wars
Misses (not present):
Men in Black
The Quiet Man (John Wayne)
The Ring
The Passion of the Christ
The Matrix (yeah, but I liked it)
How many of those "too film-arty" movies on the list have you actually seen? Whether you like subtitles or not, there's a world of incredible movies out there beyond "Men In Black" and "The Ring."
Greatest movie of all time (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ugh. (Score:2, Insightful)
Excluding movies from hollywood, less than half of the movies are produced out of the US, why exclude that large fact? Excluding the population of china and india, the majority of the people live the US. Excluding the 3 goals from Liverpool, Milan won.
Your statement has to meaning
No 2001: A Space Oddessy???!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Drunken Master II making the list is even weirder! It's a great film but I wouldn't put it in my top 100...
Ebert's list is pretty good - I'd provide a link but his site seems to be playing up at the moment....
check out www.rogerebert.com and look for the "Great Movies" section.
What a waste of "Time" (Score:2, Insightful)
-American's dying in IRAQ
-Iraqis dying in IRAQ
-N. Korea thinking about testing Nukes
-Avg Home price is about $600k.
-State of Calif is bankrupt
-Stanley Cup finals should have started today
-Gas prices are $2.50/gal
-Tuition/yr costs as much as a luxury car.
-Stem Cell research
They must think it's a slow news week.
And yet Time Magazine decides to dedicate an entire issue to the top 100 Films of all time? I'm sorry but, first Newsweek makes us American's look stupid in the eyes of Muslims, and now Time wastes untold amounts of paper, ink and metal (staples) on this BS..
I feel much better now.
Re:Not a complete list (Score:4, Insightful)
And for the record, Robocop is an attempt at subversive filmmaking in which it could have only have been made under the guise of a bang-bang summer action thriller in order to fool the suits at the studio. Take a second look at it again.
Re:Indian Movies (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch an actual highly-touted Bollywood movie someday, and you might just discover you like them more than you thought you would.
Re:Greatest movie of all time (Score:4, Insightful)
Too many modern movies (Score:5, Insightful)
The list does include a lot of classics but it also includes too many modern movies that are good but not 100 best of all time. Most obvious example is Finding Nemo. Great movie, especially if you have kids, but there is nothign really special about it. In fact I guarantee that it will be mostly forgotten in five years. (If you don't believe me, try to remember the last similar movie that was heralded as being brilliant -- Toy Story, which would look very dated and kind of boring nowadays).
Then there is the Ring trilogy, which although very succesful and good movies was once again nothing exceptional. I bet if this list was made in the late nineties it would include Titanic for the same reason it includes the ring trilogy now.
And then there is Schindler's List. It basicly silly to include Schindler's list and not include some of the original holocaust movies, such as Europa Europa. I guess they want to give the impression that Spielberg was being original with Schindler's List (definately not the case). In general Spielberg has too many movies in the list. He has a knack of making his movies seem more momentous than they really are.
Then there are the choices that seem to be specifically put in to invite controversy. For example Yojimbo is included but seven samurai isn't. Berry Lyndon is included but many of Kubrick's better movies aren't. Purple Rose of Cairo is included but Annie Hall isnt. I can argue why these choices are wrong (and even kind of bizarre) but I have the feeling Time put them in exactly so I can argue about them.
It also seems that Time might be making some unusual choices in order to get cross promotion from th emovie distributors themselves. For example, it is very unlikely that a DVD of Seven Samurai will say "Chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best of all time", but very likely that a DVD of NEMO will say that.
Re:So many more!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Directors, even ones with distinguished careers like Kurosawa are often known by one film. Sometimes this is by chance - it's the film the public simply remembers. But often that film encapsulates the director: his or her style, themes, and other aspects that exemplify that career. Seven Samurai is that film for Kurosawa.
Not to mention that film is Mifune Toshiro at what is his best. He too had a distinguished career, but this his him at his pinnacle at his absoulete best (I have to grudgingly admit even better than in Ingaki's Musashi trilogy).
These guys don't know films from their asses. Star Wars over Empire suggests that. But no Seven Samurai proves it.
Wizard of Oz (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, I'm pretty sure it was a joke (Score:3, Insightful)
>How did Revenge of the Sith get #1?
>George Lucas, are you up to no good?!?
It looks like he didn't RTFA, since he said "get #1", while the list wasn't ordered.
For proper comedic effect, he should have followed it with a line such as, "Where's my tinfoil hat?" or "Next he'll (wink, wink) get an Oscar!"
People with mod points are sometimes careless with them, calling the parent "informative". It's either funny or a troll, but it's not informative in any way.
Re:"Gone..." gone? Good! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think this list of movies were rated by 'stands the test of time', but rather the effects they had on people when they were released. At least that explains why A New Hope made it and Empire Strikes Back didn't.
Re:Presented to you by: (Score:5, Insightful)
Editors are asked to choose the person or thing that had the greatest impact on the news, for good or ill--guidelines that leave them no choice but to select a newsworthy--not necessarily praiseworthy--cover subject.
In my humble opinion, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin meet this criteria quite well for the years they were chosen for.
Re:The real link to the list... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's part of the problem. They try to get attention instead of trying to tell a story.
Also, there's no way Independence Day or Back to the Future deserve to be on a "best movies of all time" list. They were fun to watch, but there wasn't really anything original there.
Re:What a waste of "Time" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Should be called "Top 100 List - According to 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Although widespread popularity is one mark of a significant film, its not the only. Lots of solid classics were complete bombs, and took years to gain an appreciation. I'm willing to bet money without looking at the rankings that Revenge of the Sith gets rated in the top 50 after the first weekend...even though its excrement whose only redeeming feature is that its not Attack of the Clones.
Ebert's list of "Great Movies", which isn't limited by a fixed number, is a good sample of cinema's finest pieces. A top 100 list (or top 10, or top 50) is a mechanism to prompt discussion, nothing more...art cannot be subjected to an evaluative criteria, otherwise every movie would be shot in B&W, be a biography, and end with a burning sled.
Re:Too many modern movies (Score:3, Insightful)
While we're on the subject of Holocaust movies that should be present, I'd like to add "Life is Beautiful". This movie managed to be uplifting and fun while still revealing the horrors of the holocaust(I know that doesn't sound right, but watch it and you'll understand). It is definately a top film of the subject and should also be up there with the top 100 list.
Along the foreign film line, I'm glad to see City of God on the list.
What no Star Trek II? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The real link to the list... (Score:2, Insightful)
Too often people who know little about cinema or regard it as little less than entertainment take that point of view. Here's an "elitist" vantage point on cinema.
Personal preference and the merits of a film can largely be separated. You might watch ID:4 every time it comes on TV and think it's the best movie because it entertains you, but that means little to anyone else. The stultifying contemporary argument is that "it's all subjective" and it should be left at that--a resolution which resolves nothing and is escapist. There is quite the difference between an objectively good film and grading a film on objective criteria. The former no intelligent person would claim; the latter is the bit we're concerned with.
To your stigma against old films, I have to say it's probably because you've seen far too few. You may have seen what you think is a good number, but compared to all the contemporary films you've seen it's a fraction. This isn't your fault necessarily, but obscures your judgment.
Once you begin to get a handle on simple cinema elements like mise-en-scene, composition, editing, lighting, plot, sound, historical importance, and direction, you intuitively begin to distinguish between the 'bad' and the 'good'. A lot of people with such sensibilities conform to film critics' standards, but the bold among us who actually think for ourselves (in effect, doing as opposed to following) can carve out your own lists and justify them. First thing you'll figure out is critics are mostly idiots who are paid to sell a film: nobody wants to read reviews of a critic who will trash everything he has to review (because, seriously, 95% of all films that will come out this year could justifiably be trashed).
The gravitation to old films is primarily an inquiry to where cinema started. As such, some people will find old films unrivaled by modern day films, mainly because modern films' budgets are exponentially higher, technology is better, and the quality has depreciated. The thing few realise is that today we don't necessarily make more films than in the 30s and 40s. There are as many awful, awful films from 1937 as 1997. However, since so many years have passed, hindsight allows clearer vision of the gems of the age, while the bad films are not even known to exist.
But, that's just Hollywood. Given your list, you're one of the countless individuals who doesn't know cinema existed before 1977 (generalising obviously, but it's still quite true). Foreign films escape your list, presumably for the same reason as old films: you (and by 'you' I mean you as one of the general moviegoing public of America) probably only speak English and have a recalcitrance to subtitles. This means you miss a large percentage of great films from other countries, added to the large percentage of old films, which leaves you with a small percentage from which to pool your 'top choices'.
In summary, see more films.
A list to try and please all... (Score:3, Insightful)
This was a brave, but subjective attempt.
I think a better measure would have been the influence each movie had on the following generations of film. Such as how many re-makes was made of it.
For instance, "Star Wars" in my opinion was a remake of "The Hidden Fortress", but Star Wars got a mention and not Hidden Fortress. Sure the list of movies are of the "Best", which sorta makes them immune to critisizm, but a better measure would have been "greatest".
The one is subjective, and the other objective.
I think they wanted to at least touch on all the best directors that film-school fancy-pants students will recognise just so that they can get the support from the largest group possible.
Only one Fellini? Only one Terry Gilliam? ONLY ONE Korosawa!? No Matrix!!!
-sigh-
At least they listed "Lord of the Rings", but not "Harry Potter"? Hmm... I'm sure children's opinion should count as well!
Sorry, but IMDB's top 250 list [imdb.com] is still my authoratative measure of "good". (Even if I disagree personally)
Re:Not a complete list (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Starship Troopers is closer to second place than Spiderman.
Re:Ugh. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hollywood movies are also churned out by the bucketful, but they are not exactly high-art, nor are they meant to be.
Lets exclude them too, and re-title the article Time's Top 100 French Arty Films That No One's Ever Heard Of
Mmmmmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Brazil [imdb.com] (included fortunately)
A Clockwork Orange [imdb.com]
2001: A Space Odyssey (as you mention) [imdb.com]
Solyaris [imdb.com] (too slow for some but certainly a classic)
Or the more esoteric, like
Naked Lunch [imdb.com]
The City of Lost Children [imdb.com]
or
Pi [imdb.com]
I think the catch with sci-fi in cinema is unlike more conventional subject matter aside from dialog and good writing you also need to create an entirely new and believable world and thats not something a lot of people are capable of doing...especially on such a large scale.
You saw the latest Star Wars? Tell me the actors didn't seem like they were talking to a green-screen a lot of the time? For my money Blade Runner is still the #1 most believable (morally, philosophically, visually) world created to date, but Gattaca was also a impressive piece of noir. I believe every one of those films are as good as their terrestrial counter-parts and more ambitious.
Re:Wow, magazine doing movie ratings? (Score:1, Insightful)
So? The Americans might spend the most money, but that's off topic. They haven't made the majority of the world's films.
If we're judging quality, one Ingmar Bergman or Fritz Lang or Federico Fellini or [insert favourite giant here] film could counterbalance a year's worth of Hollywood's total film production. Come on, less than HALF of the films on that list were from another country than the USA, while things like Pulp Fiction and Star Wars somehow got included!
(Yeah, those two films are entertaining but they sure as hell are no masterpieces! We're only allowed to pick 100 films...)
I'm not anti-American or a "leftie Yurpean". It's just the way things are, or at least have been. Today it feels like European film making is stagnating, and the gold/garbage ratio is increasing even in the mainstream Hollywood production. A small detail like awarding the Cannes Palm d'Or to a political pamphlet of rather mediocre/lower-medium artistic quality (compared to other Hollywood productions, even) like Fahrenheit 9-11 shows that something's rotten in European film-making. Or that there are too many American film-makers in the Cannes jury...
Kurosawa vs. Lucas (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe it or not, it was criticized in Japan as being too fast paced and westernized when it came out. Personally I don't find it boring, on the contrary. But I can understand why some people do.
Recently, I rented the original Star Wars (EP 4) for my kids, and I have to say we all really enjoyed it. Having seen it many times before as a young person, I of course knew every scene by heart, and combined with being older, I was much more critically aware of the movie.
Many scenes in the movie are just chock full of wonderful stuff -- not just the obvious things like the Cantina, but, for example Luke's home, , which is a clever mixture of commonplace suburban details and North African exotica. But there are lots of crap too -- really cheesy dialog, uneven acting, and so forth. But the thing is, crap flies by so fast you don't notice it. Even now, when the industry has been transformed by that movie, it's rare that a movie paced at such a breakneck rate. You simply don't notice the flaws -- they're not on the screen long enough to make you care. It's like you're stuffing your brain full of popcorn and you barely taste it before you're gobbling the next handful.
(This by the way is why so many people hate Ep1 and Ep2. There isn't enough material, so the pace is more deliberate, and the aftertaste of synthetic corn is much more noticeable. It's fun to fantasize what Kurosawa could have done with these movies).
Now, getting back to the Seven Samurai, this film in many ways is the exact opposite. Like Star Wars, every scene has details that are simply perfect. Unlike Star Wars, the director strives to get everything perfect. And he gives you time to appreciate it. Great artists don't just paint objects, they also paint spaces. Great musicians don't just play lots of notes, they play rests too. I'll admit though Kurosawa is a bit heavy handed with the Seven Samurai; his later films like Ran have many of the merits of 7S but he isn't as anxious to hold your head down in the toilet bowl of his genius. The pauses are there, just long enough for you to notice, then he moves on. It's almost makes you do a double take -- did I really see that?
You know, by the way, who is a master of this kind of elegant pacing? Hiyao Miyazaki. I'd say Miyazaki is an even better filmmaker than Kurosawa.
Personally, I see no contradiction in being able to enjoy both films, but you have to approach them differently. If somebody has gone through the trouble of serving you foie gras in a pate brisée shell accompanied by a glass of Parcherenc du Vic-Bihl, you don't approach it the same way you do a bowl of popcorn and an ice cold can of Coke. But if you aren't a snob or an anti-snob (which is just as bad), you can enjoy both. IDIC.