What’s your favorite movie?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Baracky!!
Shawshank Redemption
That’s a great film. And Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins? It doesn’t get much better than that!
My thought as well.
Also, “The Usual Suspects”.
The Matrix Trilogy.
9 to 5.
Love Jones.
Casablanca.
Ever After.
Last Holiday.
V for Vendetta.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Contact.
The Manchurian Candidate (original).
The Insider.
Finding Nemo.
Gladiator.
The Negotiator.
A Soldier’s Story.
Malcolm X
When Harry Met Sally.
Bring It On.
Clueless.
And my guilty pleasure: Grease II. (I know, I know. Doesn’t hold a candle to the original)
Wow – great list. On my top:
Lawrence of Arabia
JFK
Quiz Show
Gone with the Wind
Casablanca
The Philadelphia Story
Bringing Up Baby
Robin Hood (the Errol Flynn version. Fantastic.)
The Court Jester (with the incomparable Danny Kaye)
Three Days of the Condor
The Parallax View
North by Northwest
Tootsie
V for Vendetta
Matrix (I only)
Sneakers
While You Were Sleeping
The Fugitive
Hotel Rwanda
The Manchurian Candidate (the original as well – hated the remake)
The Negotiator
Enemy of the State
Charade (Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn!)
The Sound of Music (anti-fascism, romance, music, and the Austrian alps. What could be better!)
Ever After
Never Been Kissed
The Cutting Edge (the original)
Enchanted (Patrick Demspey and a Central Park musical number!)
Beauty and the Beast
Speed
Nothing in Common
Star Wars (the “first” – part IV – it’s still the best of all of them)
Spiderman 2
Pharlap
Contact
Sweet Home Alabama
The Firm
Outbreak
Tucker
And so many more…
I like your list. (Except for The Sound of Music, which no male, whether eight, twenty, or fifty, should be made to suffer through. The answer to fascism is not kitsch. If you like the Alps, I recommend On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, from around the same time.)
LOL. I like Sound of Music for its open romanticism too. No wonder I’m still single, ahaha! 😉
The Big Lebowski
Science of Sleep
I don’t have just one favorite movie but several. Here are a few:
Steel Magnolias
Gone With The Wind
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Trick
Fried Green Tomatoes
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Color Purple
I didn’t even have to see who this was…read the list and immediately thought, “refinish”.
ROTFLMAO!!!! I guess I should also post some
of my other all time favorites:
The Robe
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe
The Wizard of Oz
Cat on A Hot Tin Roof
Little Shop of Horrors
Love! Valour! Compassion!
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
Duck Soup
Star Wars (the original pulease!)
Cars
Casablanca
The Maltese Falcon
Tombstone (Val Kilmer was fabulous!)
Love and Death
Per my Facebook profile:
Star Wars trilogies
Matrix Trilogy
Bourne Trilogy
Boondock Saints
Requiem for a Dream
Fight Club
Vanilla Sky
Equilibrium
Kill Bill Vols. 1 and 2
Pi
Office Space
The Big Lebowski
Thank You For Smoking
An Inconvenient Truth
V for Vendetta
Akira
As you can tell, I’m not that old. 😛
Dead Man.
Directed by Jim Jarmusch.
Music by Neil Young.
Pretty much the best film ever made.
Watch the first scene again after the end of the movie.
The Usual Suspects.
I have problems with these lists, but this one just jumped in front of my eyes and stopped the traffic.
Harold and Maude
The Princess Bride
You can’t beat William Goldman. He talks about how he cried writing this when he got to the point where he killed Wesley!
Favorite would be tough… probably The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Deeply flawed, because Jackson couldn’t stick to the plot if he was bound and gagged, but also very well-realized: actors, costumes, sets, music, photography. I still cry at the beacon-lighting scene. Bias: I saw “Fellowship” 51 times at the local theatre and ended up with the huge standee. It is behind my left shoulder as I type… so there are a lot of guys with swords encouraging me to name this movie. ;^)
close contenders (in no particular order):
The Fifth Element. Incredible editing, probably the tightest I’ve ever seen. Great characters, wonderful sets. The compositing of the mad woman aria from Lammermoor with a major battle was exquisite.
The Lion in Winter. Katherine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole head up a marvelous cast. Strong music and dialogue and sets.
Princess Bride. Perhaps the best fighting sequences ever, and a twisty plot.
Last of the Mohicans. Perfect. Costumes, dialogue, acting, fight scenes, music… everything worked.
Spirited Away. As much as I like Howl’s Moving Castle and Ghost in the Shell, this is my favorite of the animated movies. Lovely story, beautifully drawn.
Others that I liked? Shakespeare in Love, Hamlet (Kenneth Branaugh), Stardust, Serenity, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, Labyrinth, Nightmare Before Christmas, Bladerunner, Lawrence of Arabia, The Man Who Would Be King.
You’ll note that all of these are “escapist”… fantasy or far off in time and place. I am not interested in seeing movies set in modern cities or featuring current events, unless dragged to them. Movies are not real. After years in the entertainment industry, I have a strong sense of what is real and what is fantasy (which is why all the political spinning by talking heads annoys me… if I want tall tales, I’ll go to better writers!).
Recent movies seen?
Forbidden Kingdom. Decent martial arts movie and I enjoyed the traditional Monkey King story woven into a new tale. This is perhaps worth seeing for the costumes alone, but everything else worked, too.
Elizabeth. A waste of time and money. Actors and sets and costumes were all wonderful, but there was NO STORY. Editing sucked eggs.
Eastern Promises. Nicely-layered plot, with subtleties. My threshold of violence got crossed, but the story was worth it.
Golden Compass. Nifty props and costumes and scenery. What could be an epic tale was totally trashed by the lack of proper editing.
“The Magnificent Seven”, a tale of real heroes helping unfortunate victims.
“Dr. Strangelove” the best anti-war movie ever.
“Fallen” with its terrifying account of real evil.
“Geronimo” (Wes Study version) war shaman of the Ciricahuas, creme de la creme of all the Apache tribes.
“The Last Temptation of Christ”, a radical view of Jesus and his followers; emphasizes the humanity of the Messiah.
Because of countless Scots connections.
Further south, Life of Brian
Clintoni Ite Domum
More Americanly, Little Big Man. I have a horse and 4 wives.
I’ve got a handful: This is Spinal Tap, Princess Bride, Shrek (#1), Wings of Desire, Philadelphia, and North by Northwest.
Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (I still feel like I am living a TV series version sometimes..).
ties..
Putney Swope (the most insane, intellectually convoluted, hilarious, ridiculous black-power-sploitation movie ever).
The Big Lebowski
Reds
AllThat Jazz