Love, Hate, Cinema (1/3)
This is a list of movies that I’ve watched in the first four months of 2010, because I like movies and I like lists. 1/3 of the year is already gone. Whaaaaaat?
Anyways, I tried grouping these films into the conventional 4-star system, but that didn’t work because most of the movies I decided to watch were just amazing. So instead, I split them into 4 tiers of ‘wow’. Here it is:
WOWOMFGKSFD:
- 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968, Stanley Kubrick
- À bout de souffle (Breathless), 1960, Jean-Luc Godard
- A Serious Man, 2009, Joel and Ethan Coen
- Adaptation., 2002, Spike Jonze
- Baraka, 1992, Ron Fricke
- Citizen Kane, 1941, Orson Welles
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964, Stanley Kubrick
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004, Michel Gondry
- Goodfellas, 1990, Martin Scorsese
- Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows), 1959, François Truffaut
- Mulholland Dr., 2001, David Lynch
- Rushmore, 1998, Wes Anderson
- Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai), 1954, Akira Kurosawa
- Sherlock Jr., 1924, Buster Keaton
- Toy Story, 1995, John Lasseter
Wow!
- Alice in Wonderland, 1903, Cecil M. Hepworth
- Annie Hall, 1977, Woody Allen
- Barton Fink, 1991, Joel and Ethan Coen
- Brick, 2005, Rian Johnson
- Casablanca, 1942, Michael Curtiz
- La Dolce Vita, 1960, Federico Fellini
- Lawrence of Arabia, 1962, David Lean
- Magnolia, 1999, Paul Thomas Anderson
- Miller’s Crossing, 1990, Joel and Ethan Coen
- North by Northwest, 1959, Alfred Hitchcock
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 2000, Joel and Ethan Coen
- Requiem for a Dream, 2000, Darren Aronofsky
- Some Like It Hot, 1959, Billy Wilder
- The Birds, 1963, Alfred Hitchcock
- The Deer Hunter, 1978, Michael Cimino
- The Hurt Locker, 2008, Kathryn Bigelow
- The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988, Martin Scorsese
- The Maltese Falcon, 1941, John Houston
- The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001, Wes Anderson
- The Shining, 1980, Stanley Kubrick
- WALL-E, 2008, Andrew Stanton
- Y tu mamá también 2001, Alfonso Cuarón
wow
- A Clockwork Orange, 1971, Stanley Kubrick
- Avatar, 2009, James Cameron
- Casino, 1995, Martin Scorsese
- El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth), 2006, Guillermo del Toro
- Gone with the Wind, 1939, Victor Fleming
- Good Will Hunting, 1997, Gus Van Sant
- How to Train Your Dragon, 2010, Dean DeBlois
- I’m Here, 2010, Spike Jonze
- Reservoir Dogs, 1992, Quentin Tarantino
- The Hudsucker Proxy, 1994, Joel and Ethan Coen
- The Shawshank Redemption, 1994, Frank Darabont
- True Grit, 1969, Henry Hathaway
- Up in the Air, 2009, Jason Reitman
…wow
- Alice in Wonderland, 2010, Tim Burton
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid, 2010, Thor Freudenthal
- Liquor Store Cactus, 2009, Eugene Kim
- Nine, 2009, Rob Marshall
- Shutter Island, 2010, Martin Scorsese
‘WOWOMFGKSFD’ - These are films that have changed me. Changed the way I think, changed the way I see things and by extension, changed the way I live. Some are utterly profound and some incredibly simple. But all of the movies in this category transcend being just ‘movies’ for me.
‘Wow!’ - Great, great, great films. I would rather watch anything from this category than most of the stuff that comes out these days. Although these movies influence me, they lack the personal connection or conviction. But otherwise, extremely well made and completely enjoyable.
‘wow’ - Very entertaining, raises a few questions, challenges some boundaries. These movies are great, but they barely scratch past the superficial; in some cases they stay at the surface. You only find as deep as you dig. Some of these have qualities that push them into the top 2 tiers, but also have qualities that bumped them down into the third tier. Solid movies, but not too much else.
‘…wow’ - Films in this category aren’t necessarily bad, but they seriously underachieve. After finishing the movies in this group, I felt very, very disappointed. Or in the case of the best film of the bunch, Shutter Island, I felt cheated out of what potentially could have been so amazing.
This is a personal list and it’s okay if you don’t like it. Agree/Disagree/Complain/Ask here
