IMDB Top 250 films

[Frelga]

Ugh, I hated that movie. So did Lem, who wrote Solaris.

[Primula Baggins]

I'm glad to hear he didn't like it. I saw the film decades ago—thought it was on the tedious side, but the story interested me enough that I bought the translation of the novel. I remember being surprised by how vivid and coherent it was.

[Lalaith]

I really liked Shawshank Redemption. I think I'd give it an A. It helps that it was filmed in Ohio at the Mansfield Reformatory, which I have toured and is supremely creepy.

I did just watch Dr. Strange for the first time tonight with Sarah. I liked it very much!

[Sunsilver]

I'm curious what you did not like about Hotel Rwanda.

And why Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is even on the list.

EXCUSE ME?? I thought that was by far the best of the Indiana Jones movies! If movies like POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl, and the Star Wars films are on the list, I certainly don't see why Last Crusade shouldn't be there. In my opinion, it was TONS better than Temple of Doom. I loved the chemistry between Connery and Ford!

Edit: I disliked Temple of Doom so much I couldn't remember the title, and had to look it up. In doing so, I found out there's supposedly another Indiana Jomes movie due to come out in 2020, which prompts me to roll my eyes, and post this:

Oh, and need I say, this was pre "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", too!

[yovargas]

I really liked Shawshank Redemption. I think I'd give it an A. It helps that it was filmed in Ohio at the Mansfield Reformatory, which I have toured and is su

I was really surprised by Shawshank. It's the #1 movie on the imdb list and I had seen it maybe 10 years and and thought it was amazing. But this time it really didn't click for me. A lot of it felt a little bit corny and good chunks of the story felt too far-fetched. There weren't huge plot holes but enough little ones to make the finale hard to buy. So in 10 years it went from amazing to decent for me. A bit of a disappointment.

[Lalaith]

Hmmm. So did the movie not hold up or did you change?

[Inanna]

Shawshank is one of our all time favorites. I've seen it numerous times. The Pianist as well.

As is "lost in translation". Of course, Japan is one of R's favorite countries and he could relate to the entire movie so much! That naturally increased my enjoyment of it too. I liked the movie for itself as well.

[yovargas]

Hmmm. So did the movie not hold up or did you change?

Probably more the latter. It's not the first time that something that seemed inspiring and beautiful in my 20s now feels corny in my late-30s. A particularly glaring one in Shawshank for me is a quote like this:

"Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

That's one of the big grand messages behind the movie and today it makes me roll my eyes. Perhaps I am too cynical but sorry, good things die all the time, every day, and that kind of pat, simplistic philophising doesn't help real people deal with real loss any IMO.

[Sunsilver]

Agree with you there, Yov. Yup, something we learn as we get older.

But doesn't the movie reflect that, with Brooks committing suicide? Not exactly a hopeful thing there...

(BTW, Whitmore was one of my all-time favourite character actors.)

[Lalaith]

Hmmm. So did the movie not hold up or did you change?

Probably more the latter. It's not the first time that something that seemed inspiring and beautiful in my 20s now feels corny in my late-30s. A particularly glaring one in Shawshank for me is a quote like this:

"Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

That's one of the big grand messages behind the movie and today it makes me roll my eyes. Perhaps I am too cynical but sorry, good things die all the time, every day, and that kind of pat, simplistic philophising doesn't help real people deal with real loss any IMO.

This post makes me sad, and I have no good response right now.

[yovargas]

[Dave_LF]

"Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

That's one of the big grand messages behind the movie and today it makes me roll my eyes. Perhaps I am too cynical but sorry, good things die all the time, every day, and that kind of pat, simplistic philophising doesn't help real people deal with real loss any IMO.

I think you are missing the bigger point; or maybe you see it and reject it too. A writer who comes out and says something like "no good thing ever dies" in the middle of a story about murder, rape, false imprisonment, and abuse knows exactly what he is doing. If this creates dissonance by jarring with what you've seen in other parts of the story, and with what you know from real life, well, that's the whole point. Of course good things die all the time--the film itself practically opens with murder. But this is a story about redemption--the word's right there in the title. It's not religious exactly, but it's filled with religious feeling. And the essence of religious feeling is transcendence of death. Friends die; friendship does not. Youth dies, but you can start again. Freedom dies, but you can remain free in your mind--as long as you keep hope alive. You may not agree with this message--there are all sorts of excellent arguments against it--but I don't think it's fair to call it pat and simplistic. I'm reminded of a quote from Vonnegut: "The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not. Military science, on the other hand, treats man as garbage — and his children, and his cities, too. Military science is probably right about the contemptibility of man in the vastness of the universe. Still — I deny that contemptibility, and I beg you to deny it, through the creation of appreciation of art." If this is naive, it's consciously so--Schweitzer's "profound naivete". And that is a subject worthy of consideration, and of art.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well said, Dave.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[yovargas]

Great post.

I shall digest and respond soon....

[Primula Baggins]

Yes, great post, Dave. You have obviously thought about this.

Tolkien certainly did!

[Lalaith]

Hats off to my fellow INFP who nailed it.

[yovargas]

I keep meaning to reply to Dave. I'm not sure if this is a reply to Dave or not. But for some reason - I'm not exactly sure why as it's probably not a great parallel - that "nothing good dies" quote strongly reminded me of something Anthy posted on FB a while back. I very much hope she won't mind me posting a part of it here.

It was in response to one of these plates:

Capture.JPG (30.46 KiB) Viewed 17514 times

And she said, "To me, this looks straight up like the reason this person feels they "won" against breast cancer is because they stood strong, and fought hard. They deserved the "Win", the outcome being directly in proportion to the extent of their personal efforts. Right? Does this imply that (ALL OF) those people who didn't "win" just didn't fight hard enough? Is that about the size of this? Oh those poor non-survivors. If they had *only* stood strong(er)."

Something about both of those has a very similar feel to it. A "if you'd only fought harder, you would have won too" vibe that I do indeed find quite icky. I think Shawshank, in trying to make what is really a fairly straightforward story into something more grandly inspiring, falls into the same trap. Andy "wins" because he "fought" and never let hope die, so if you fight and never let hope die, you'll win too, right?

[Primula Baggins]

Oh, that is sooooooo true. Anthy put it perfectly.

It's such a common thing to say, but it rings so false.

[yovargas]

I have now watched the last film off my list and my little move-watching project is now complete! So this will be my last batch of ratings! Thoughts on this batch.
It was, oddly, extremely foreign-language heavy (only 2 in English) so most of these are fairly obscure. It includes the only Indian movie on my list! Sadly, I didn't much like it....
By sheer coincidence, got 3 Holocaust-related movies nearly back to back and watched them in the chronological order of their events - The Pianist, Downfall, and Judgment at Nuremberg. Totally unintentional but an interesting experience. All 3 got B (also an unintentional coincidence)....
I noticed that I hadn't given out an A rating to any of these in months (Feb to be exact) but the very last movie, Underground, broke that streak by being a huge delight. Here's the ratings!

Title Rating
Underground A-
Amores Perros B
Downfall B
Judgment at Nuremberg B
Three Colors: Red B
Bicycle Thieves B-
Persona B-
The Lion King B-
A Beautiful Mind C+
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India C-
Memories of Murder C-


I hope to have some final overall thoughts and stuff on all this soon.

[Alatar]

Still can’t believe A Beautiful Mind got the Oscar over Fellowship