Well, how about the fact that pretty much all of the information you need to even begin to understand what's going on in the movie isn't even in it! Take the time vortex at the end of the movie that sucks the jet engine back to the beginning... Donnie created it. Can't tell that from watching the movie, it just looks like he's sitting there watching it.

How did he create it? The same way he embedded the axe in the solid bronze statue. He has super powers. You see, when Frank woke him out of bed and he didn't get smashed by the jet engine the universe splits off into the universe you see during most of the movie, and is going to collide with the real universe and when that happens they'll both be destroyed. So Donnie is granted super powers that he must use to undo the split so that the collision doesn't happen.

The movie's a lot neater now, isn't it?

I actually own Donnie Darko, have seen it probably 8 times (if I had to estimate), and I can only barely conceptualize what you are talking about.  In fact I don't think that I understand it at all.  Yet I still enjoy this movie.  I think the overwhelming conclusion I am coming to is that I'm an idiot.

My favorite movies of the 20th century:

- Pulp Fiction (and favorite all-time movie as well), I've seen it probably 30-40 times.
- Goodfellas (I like this better than Godfather, always have always will I think)
- Fight Club (I watched this again recently and found it less impressive than I did when I was a teenager, not sure how I will feel about it when I'm older)
- Big Lebowski/Fargo (Big Lebowski is better but Fargo is unforgettable)
- Go (this is like Pulp Fiction light, but I've always really loved this movie)
- Trainspotting (fantastic and disturbing)
- Bladerunner (I've only seen this twice but found it profoundly interesting and better than most science fiction)
- Amores Perros (favorite Spanish film)
- Matrix (too obvious)

Libertine, you're not an idiot. It's not explained in the movie.

I spent a whole day learning all this stuff from the Internet by accident, that's the only reason I know it.

I actually own Donnie Darko...

Ah!  I own these movies from the 20th century (disclaimer - these may not be the best of the 20th Century):

Code: [Select]

Princess Bride
Trainspotting
The Fifth Element
American Beauty
Fight Club
A Bronx Tale
Scarface
The Goonies
Labyrinth
Once Were Warriors
Whale Rider
Godspell
Rules of Attraction
Dark City
Snatch
El Dia De La Bestia
Tron
Pi
Boondock Saints
These are some movies from the 30s/40s that I like:

Code: [Select]

Tom Brown's School Days
A Letter of Introduction

I think C should participate in this thread and tell us about her favorites movies!

I think C should participate more in general. I've asked her like four times if she went to law school in Jersey. Deafening silence.

Libertine: did you ever see The Acid House? If you liked Trainspotting, it's worth a check-out.

Eitje: Same goes for you if you liked Trainspotting. Good call with Dark City, by the way. Similar to City of Lost Children to a degree. Does it not disturb you that there are bizarre parallels between Dark City and Requiem for a Dream? And on an even further Aronofsky note, have you seen the Fountain? I quite enjoyed it on an aesthetic level if nothing else.

Finally, speaking of aesthetic films, it doesn't get much more beautiful that Zhang Yimou (especialy the non-20th C "Hero"), but I also really like the washed out look in some of Gus van Sant's early films and especially Schroeder's "More." Damn what a beautiful film. I'm not talking about content here, just visual appeal.

City of Lost Children

Agreed!

Also, I'm adding "My Fair Lady".

I put you onto the Whale Rider, right? Nice buying

I put you onto the Whale Rider, right? Nice buying

That is correct!!
I left it in the list, even though it's from 2002. 

I left it in the list, even though it's from 2002. 

Oh well. We've been cheating for a while now...

Sin City

This is on page 1. I also shouldn't have mentioned The Fountain either technically. Like I said earlier this thread has no focus. It's just a bunch of good movies.

EDIT: Shout out for Michel Gondry while I'm at it.

From childhood.

Goonies <-- already mentioned.
Stand by me <-- this one usualy gets atleast one person heaping shit on it
Neverending Story
Taps
Better off dead

fyi born '76

nobody has mentioned any anime.

akira ?

and now look at the thread.

madmax ( the road warrior ) is one of ...wait for it...

the usual suspects.

Two days later and we finally start naming some 20th century films!

Danzig you are obviously deranged if you believe that there is no argument to be had over what the 'best' film is, and subscribing to the IMDB consensus is kind of sad.

Have you really looked at this thing? Do you agree that the Shawshank Redemption is the best movie ever made? Movies like Fight Club or the Lord of the Rings are in the top 25 of all time? I'd argue that modern movies are over-represented in this list and probably the only film since 1991 that should be in that top 25 is Pulp Fiction (and that more as a symbolic nod to the general shift in modern filmmaking that it represents than as a accolade for that particular film itself).

And anyways, arguing about the kinds of movies that you find on those lists is boring. If you really want to show off you have to name movies that nobody else has seen!

Like this one.

fuck it then.

Metropolis gets my real vote 'cause it opened up trhe world of sci-fi to me in dec '83, which lead to books in jan '84.
it gets a ranking of 79 on IMDb.

Normally I wouldn't ask, but you brought up Akira, so are we talking Fritz Lang or Osamu Tezuka? Both are actually excellent.

The only other list with any real weight is the AFI 100 list, which was published once in 1998 and once in 2007.

Both lists are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years..._100_Movies_(10th_Anniversary_Edition)

So you can either agree with the "critics views" (AFI list) or the "popular internet views" (IMDB list).

Most people probably find some combination of the two or (whatever most closely resembles their own views) to be the more appropriate list.

AFI thinks Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever, IMDB thinks Shawshank Redemption is the greatest movie ever, I think both of those movies are FOR SHIT and would rather not watch movies the rest of my life than be subjected to either of those again.

I agree with some of what Danzig was saying, that movies really do lose cultural relevance very quickly, probably more quickly than any other art form.  Very few stand the test of time well, especially any that rely heavily on any kind of special effects or cultural settings that are no longer applicable, but the ones that do are particularly enjoyable.

The IMDB list is more modern-biased because most people don't watch 70 year old movies.  The AFI list is more classic-biased because it assumes that what is considered "good" does not change over time.  I don't think either are entirely accurate.

Yeah but one is certainly more appropriate than the other for a thread called "greatest movies of the 20th Century"

Normally I wouldn't ask, but you brought up Akira, so are we talking Fritz Lang or Osamu Tezuka? Both are actually excellent.

I see your point. I was typing about Lang. I can't remember Tezuka's, I'm not sure I have seen it.

AFI thinks Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever, IMDB thinks Shawshank Redemption is the greatest movie ever, I think both of those movies are FOR SHIT and would rather not watch movies the rest of my life than be subjected to either of those again.

I liked both of those movies. Citizen Kane I've watched about 5-6 times. Shawshank I wouldn't bother with again, but it's still a good movie.

I liked Roman Holiday a lot

I don't really agree that films lose their cultural relevancy faster than other forms of media.

Cap what do you mean by cultural settings that are no longer applicable? Period films? They still crank those out.
Are you more talking about the prevailing cultural mood at the time the film was made? Like for instance in plenty of older SciFi films there is a strong influence of the Cold War; are you saying that now that the Cold War has passed the relevance of films produced during that period is diminished? You could make a case for that, I guess, but then how would that process be any different for books or music than it is for film, as has been suggested in this thread?

I don't disagree that fewer and fewer people will watch films made before 1970 as time goes on, but I think that has more to do with a lack of familiarity with the current audience. Frankly I also think that the access to these films is nowhere near as easy as it should be, the studios should be opening their vaults online to get people to watch older films - I bet they could make a tidy profit with that.

If someone is going to argue that newer films are better because they have better special effects, I don't know what to say.

Like for instance in plenty of older SciFi films there is a strong influence of the Cold War; are you saying that now that the Cold War has passed the relevance of films produced during that period is diminished? You could make a case for that, I guess, but then how would that process be any different for books or music than it is for film, as has been suggested in this thread?

I don't disagree that fewer and fewer people will watch films made before 1970 as time goes on, but I think that has more to do with a lack of familiarity with the current audience. Frankly I also think that the access to these films is nowhere near as easy as it should be, the studios should be opening their vaults online to get people to watch older films - I bet they could make a tidy profit with that.

It's different from books and music, because in books and music the reader or listener is invited to imagine the settings visually as they see fit.  Problems of errata, cultural confusion, settings, don't exist so long as the person consuming the art is creative enough to fill in their own blanks.  With film, the entirety of text, sound, and picture are there for you and you can interpret them but you cannot bend them to your own imagination in any way.  They are inflexible in that way, so as certain things (like the Cold War) become less culturally relevant, as they no doubt will be as time passes, fewer and fewer people will be able to connect with the narrative in a meaningful way.

Your other point is probably more to the case and a better general argument, is that lack of access to older film is a more serious constraint on the audience.

I think both of these things present solid reason why, for example on the IMDB list that is entirely composed of modern people's opinions, the list is overwhelming biased towards films made in the last 20 years.  Because both the cultural relevance of many films made prior to the last 20 years is lost on the majority of the film watching audience and because even if these people want to see older films they are constrained by availability.

I wonder when debbie does dallas will make an appearance.

Last 10 years people have had the net and they were probably 20-30 when they started so put in films from the 10 years before that. I wouldn't read much into that.

Well, how about the fact that pretty much all of the information you need to even begin to understand what's going on in the movie isn't even in it! Take the time vortex at the end of the movie that sucks the jet engine back to the beginning... Donnie created it. Can't tell that from watching the movie, it just looks like he's sitting there watching it.

How did he create it? The same way he embedded the axe in the solid bronze statue. He has super powers. You see, when Frank woke him out of bed and he didn't get smashed by the jet engine the universe splits off into the universe you see during most of the movie, and is going to collide with the real universe and when that happens they'll both be destroyed. So Donnie is granted super powers that he must use to undo the split so that the collision doesn't happen.

The movie's a lot neater now, isn't it?

I actually own Donnie Darko, have seen it probably 8 times (if I had to estimate), and I can only barely conceptualize what you are talking about.  In fact I don't think that I understand it at all.  Yet I still enjoy this movie.  I think the overwhelming conclusion I am coming to is that I'm an idiot.

You don't have to understand a movie to like it.  Mulholland Drive made no sense and I think it was of the most horrible pretentious abominations on celluloid, along with Magnolia.

If you really want to show off you have to name movies that nobody else has seen!

Like this one.

I did: Martin. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077914/  Spectacular movie.  When did I say that everyone agrees on what the best movie is? Most, not all, agree on what some of the best, not the best, movies are.  And some people disagree.  So no, I don't think Shawshank Redemption is the best, or one of the best, although it was a very awesome movie I would rate highly.  And like I asked, just goddamn ONE of you tell me fight club wasn't a completely awesome movie.  And if you say otherwise than you are a liar or part of the AFI who masturbates all over the talkies because it's most likely run by 80 years olds.  12 Angry Men was one of the few older movies that really kept me interested and I don't think the relevance of it will ever go away.

What is the method of polling for these two mentioned lists ?
I admit I havent done any looking... I'm guessing IMDb is online and AFI is either a mix or offline ?

IMDB:  Anyone with an internet connection and an IMDB account (free) is allowed to vote any movie on a scale of 1 to 10.  People tend to go and rate movies they love highly and then vote more when they see more movies, the second part has created the modern bias of the IMDB list.  The list is thus a composite aggregate of everyone who voted on a movie and each movie's position on the list is just how its average fared, not comparative relatively.  People didn't vote Shawshank Redemption the #1 movie of all time, Shawshank Redemption just had the best aggregate of votes compared to all other movies which people have rated.

AFI:  Only members of the AFI have any say in the matter, the public has none, and their list has to be agreed upon in some way in which each movie on the list is relative to the movies around it, where the #1 movie is better than #2 is better than #3 etc.  The AFI DID decide that Citizen Kane was the #1 movie of all time, and that #2 was #2 etc.

What is the method of polling for these two mentioned lists ?
I admit I havent done any looking... I'm guessing IMDb is online and AFI is either a mix or offline ?

IMDB:  Anyone with an internet connection and an IMDB account (free) is allowed to vote any movie on a scale of 1 to 10.  People tend to go and rate movies they love highly and then vote more when they see more movies, the second part has created the modern bias of the IMDB list.  The list is thus a composite aggregate of everyone who voted on a movie and each movie's position on the list is just how its average fared, not comparative relatively.  People didn't vote Shawshank Redemption the #1 movie of all time, Shawshank Redemption just had the best aggregate of votes compared to all other movies which people have rated.

AFI:  Only members of the AFI have any say in the matter, the public has none, and their list has to be agreed upon in some way in which each movie on the list is relative to the movies around it, where the #1 movie is better than #2 is better than #3 etc.  The AFI DID decide that Citizen Kane was the #1 movie of all time, and that #2 was #2 etc.

Personally I think that the best way to get a good idea of if a movie is truly good isn't just IMDB, but to weigh the rating of that, the general public, to the rating at Rotten Tomatoes where film critics give reviews.  There are movies I've loved that imdb hates and vice versa, or movies I've loved that Rotten Tomatoes has hated and vice versa.  But the chances of a movie that is highly rated on both to not be a really good movie is slim.

The Maltese Falcon.

Bogart was da man!

If you really want to show off you have to name movies that nobody else has seen!

Like this one.

I did: Martin. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077914/ 

I would have bet money you were talking about this one. Good thing I'm not a gambler.

No, we are talking about movies.  But Martin was a legendary, groundbreaking tv show.