• Keanu Reeves on Patrick Swayze: “He was a beautiful person, an artist.” [People]
• Peter Bart salutes John Calley for landing an honorary Oscar but highlights the producer’s roller coaster career. [BF Deal Memo]
• Peter Knegt talks to the beautiful Anna Kendrick about butterflies going into the “Up in the Air” shoot. [indieWIRE]
Over at IMDb there is a new feature called “The Power of Film” (lofty title, that), which has listed out the top 15 films of the millennium as voted on by IMDB users, i.e., fans, the public, regular folks.
The IMDb top 250 is an ever-changing mish-mash of high-,middle- and low-brow entertainment that always makes for an amusing cross section of what the public thinks of cinema from one moment to the next. “The Godfather” and “The Shawshank Redemption” trade off the #1 spot consistently, save for the spike of interest in this major new release or that, films that insinuate themselves high early on but inevitably fall down the list as more viewers get a look.
The new feature, unsurprisingly, features Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” at the top, but strewn throughout is a diverse mixture including the “Lord of the Rings” triology, German Oscar-winner “The Lives of Others” and Pixar entries “WALL-E” and “Up.” And speaking of Oscar, MTV’s Terri Schwartz has spun her wheels on the idea that, with a larger slate of Best Picture possibilities, the IMDb list could prove an omen for the potential blend of eclectic and entertainment cinema so many expect the Academy’s line-up to resemble from this year forward.
(Schwartz’s thoughts and IMDb’s list after the jump.)
Bound to raise many a film buff’s hackles, The Guardian carries an entertaining piece today by novelist Tim Lott on the subject of “the worst best films ever made” — in other words, the roundly lauded and canonized classics that routine appear on “all-time greatest” lists but, well, simply aren’t all that.
It’s a wholly subjective issue, of course, and Lott is unashamedly provocative (if overly glib) in tackling it, taking down some seriously big targets along the way. Films in the firing line include “The Searchers” (which he accuses of both racism and “rude mechanicals”), “Les Enfants du Paradis” (“dated, overlong and absurdly wordy”), “On the Waterfront” (“a masterclass in ham acting”) and “Death in Venice” (“a colossal piece of soft-focus masturbation”).
I disagree on most counts, but now and then his venom strikes a chord of with me. I wouldn’t go as far as he does in calling “La Dolce Vita” a “turgid, lazy mess of half-realised conceits,” but I agree that it’s not a film that has aged particularly well; compared to the still-pristine “8½,” its experiments in anti-narrative look idle and incomplete. And I’m glad someone else has the courage to say that subsequent decades of radical reinvention in the field of the movie musical make “Singin’ in the Rain” look like a very ordinary achievement indeed. (I’ll just come out and say it: I can’t stand Gene Kelly.)
Over the years I have been watching and studying the Oscars in earnest, since about 1974 (age 13). It has always been a nice surprise when an unexpected actor, director or film made the cut to the final five. It’s a special kind of high.
I remember reacting with surprise and genuine happiness when Giancarlo Giannini was nominated for Best Actor for his performance in “Seven Beauties,” but even better was the inclusion of Lina Wertmuller, the film’s director (becoming the first woman ever to receive a designation in the directing category — nd for a foreign language film, no less). I loved the film, so this put me over the moon, even though Giannini’s nod likely cost John Wayne his nomination for “The Shootist.”
In 1997 it was Atom Egoyan, nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for “The Sweet Hereafter,” a brilliant study of grief in small town Canada; the L.A. Times named it the best film of the year but up here in Canada, we never expected Oscar attention for Atom and his film.
I was equally thrilled when Martin Scorsese was rewarded with a nomination for his direction of “The Last Temptation of Christ,” a bold, passionate film made from the heart by one of our greatest directors.
Alright, this was painstaking indeed. After The Times of London saw fit to rock out a list of the 20 best movie endings of all time last week, I thought I’d try my own hand at such a collective.
There are some omissions that might surprise some folks (“Bonnie and Clyde,” “The Graduate,” “Carrie”). At the same time, there are films that, on any other day, would easily slip into the list (“A Clockwork Orange,” “Once Upon a Time in the West,” “Reservoir Dogs”).
Rest assured they were taken into account, but they didn’t speak to me on whatever levels must have been necessary to push into the top 20. But I can say these are the denouements that most affected me, be it viscerally or emotionally.
Send in your picks for the top five movie endings of all time and I’ll publish a collective readers’ list in a few weeks. Email me or post your list below in the comments section.
Here’s what I came up with:
20. “The Iron Giant” (Brad Bird, 1999)
“You stay. I go. No following.”
Animation genius Brad Bird made his feature directorial debut with this effort, packing an emotional punch by film’s end with shades of “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” — and an energizing final shot to boot.
19.”Jacob’s Ladder” (Adrian Lyne, 1990)
“He looks kind of peaceful, the guy.”
Capping off one of the most bizarre cinematic visions ever captured (and, ultimately, quite underrated as well), this closing scene is a twist that has been lifted in various other forms ever since. (see next)
18. “The Sixth Sense” (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999)
“I think I’m okay, really. I think it just went in and out.”
Hot prospect M. Night Shyamalan tainted the original power of the twist ending by attempting to make a career of it, but in the final moments of this early effort, his buried talent poked through the surface.
17. “The Shawshank Redemption” (Frank Darabont, 1994)
“Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’. That’s God damn right.”
Less a closing scene than a closing sequence, the entire third act of Frank Darabont’s Stephen King adaptation manhandles the heartstrings and lifts the spirit.
16. “Se7en” (David Fincher, 1995)
“John Doe has the upper hand.”
Andrew Kevin Walker crafted a near masterpiece that culminates as perfectly as it could have, death and despair, ambition and art, plus a Hemingway rebuttal for the ages.
15. “The Conversation” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1973)
“We’ll be listening to you.”
The calmly paranoid conclusion to a mind-bender from a mid-“Godfather” Francis Coppola, this finale put Gene Hackman in a position to give perhaps the greatest performance of his career.
The full list after the jump!
It’s a question that just came to me this evening when talking with some friends. What would you say is the most watched film of all time? How many films would even be on that list of contenders?
Off the top of my head I would have to consider “The Wizard of Oz” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Maybe “Titanic,” given the givens.
We could maybe be so bold as to propose “The Shawshank Redemption” or “The Lord of the Rings” films. And isn’t “Finding Nemo” the best-selling DVD of all time? I guess that means it has to be on the list.
“The Lion King?” “Fantasia?” “Gone with the Wind?” What do we think?
Time is the enemy of all films as it erodes what was once exciting and original. Truly great movies are able to withstand the test of time, but I wonder if enough time has passed to take a look back at the 1990s cinema and make some decisions.
There was a major breakthrough in the decade with filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who did not so much open the door for indies as he did kick it in and stomp on it with his “Pulp Fiction,” a gloriously acted, directed and written masterpiece about criminals in Los Angeles. When Godard spoke of making films with a guy, a girl and a gun, was this what he had in mind?
Though Tarantino has strugled to follow up his legendary 1994 effort with an equally powerful offering, there is little doubt he will, or at least could if he wanted to. (Though he keeps stopping and starting on his latest ambitious project.) After all, he is still growing as a director. And just look at Steven Spielberg, who for my money has grown artistically through the last 15 years more so than any other major filmmaker. It was as though “Schindler’s List” and the release of winning the Oscar set him free.
Anyway, for the record and argument, here are my ten best films of the 1990s:
1. “Pulp Fiction”
2. “Schindler’s List”
3. “Goodfellas”
4. “Unforgiven”
5. “Saving Private Ryan”
6. “The Sweet Hereafter”
7. “Magnolia”
8. “L.A. Confidential”
9. “The Shawshank Redemption”
10. “The Silence of the Lambs”
You?