JCC Amph The JCC's Top 100 Films of All Time Part II: Street Fighter Boogaloo (Now Complete)

High school? Way too educated for a sailor's life. And now, probably far to old to become an officer.

Perhaps ship's surgeon?

 

well I live not far from the coast of Maine, so I doubt I would have to be as smart as a ship's surgeon lol

 

With even a high school education, you are probably better educated then many ships surgeons of the era. They will give you an anatomy book as you come aboard.

 

I was alluding to 20 years ago, not 200 years ago

 

It is. I worked on a show set in the Navy, and while we were able to shoot some stuff on real Navy Ships, we basically never shot in water. That was our writing rule, nothing set in actual water outside b roll for the second unit and stunt team.

Shooting in water is a MASSIVE undertaking.

 

Hey guys, apologies for the lack of an update today. I had some computer problems, and while I managed to get them resolved, it was late enough that I figured I might as well post 90-86 tomorrow.

 

... so you're saying you 86'd the update tonight?

 

it's more likely the fault of the theatre you saw it in . I saw the latest Avatar in 2 different screens and the sound was very different - a real lack of base in one.

 

That can be true. But I was working there. And we calibrated the system several times, changed out the amp, replaced static filters, even got replacement digital discs from the distributor... all kinds of stuff trying to improve it. We even moved the print to a different screen. Eventually, when the film was doing so poorly it was splitting time with another film, and that one sounded fine, we just concluded it was the film and set a timer and stood at the dial.

That was a bad winter. We held onto that film much longer then it had any business being there. Owner was sure after Christmas, adults would want to see it or it would get an oscar bounce. It did not.

 

oh, I didn't realise you worked there. So do the cinemas get a guide from the movie company on how to set up the sound? There seems to be such a difference in quality. When we saw Bladerunner 2049 the sound was horrendously loud, just vibrating all the time, I went out and asked an usher if they could adjust it but nothing happened.

 

I was trying to think of movies where I felt like the filmmakers tried to stay faithful to the historical morality or philosophy, rather than, as Havac talked about, giving the characters more modern ideas and philosophies in order to make them more palatable to mainstream audiences. I think The Northman is a good example; I think Eggers was interested in depicting the way that particular culture at that particular time didn't just engage in violence, but kind of built their entire society around violence and how that would result in even the "heroes" being real monsters from a modern perspective. And exactly what you say is what happened with The Northman; people said they couldn't sympathize with the main character.

I mean, I loved The Northman, but I know some would say it was a bad movie because it didn't have that audience surrogate character. I think the Anya Taylor-Joy character is a bit less problematic from that perspective. Either way, I think it's a great movie, but others really disliked it. Probably could have been a more popular movie if the main character had been softened in some way; probably wouldn't have been as good in my opinion though.

 

Even our perceptions of people in the past having different morals or philosophies is something of a fiction as we are back-projecting modern mental interiority. This all seems like a pointless effort to try and justify complaining about historical inaccuracies but the ever-present truth, that it’s just a movie starring actors and written by screenwriters and it’s necessarily made up, is inescapable. The art is the superior concern. It’s only a problem when historical details that would’ve made for a better movie are tossed out (see eg every music biopic).

 

Did Mad Men count as depicting era-specific attitudes? Not a movie but just curious on your thoughts.

 

Playing catch-up here, don't mind me, I was away for a few days.

@Adam of Nuchtern Thank you so much for all the work you're putting in this! I never realised that the list would be so ginormous and it must have taken you an insane amount of time to compile.

There are so many excellent movies that didn't make it to the top 100, and a lot of movies I haven't seen either. That's my watchlist for the next several years right there!

Of numbers 100-91, I've seen and liked Duck Soup, Airplane!, Witness, Mary Poppins, Full Metal Jacket and The Thin Man, and of course Bicycle Thieves, which may be the only movie I mentioned that's making it to the final list I'm not entirely sure about what I'm about to say (and more knowledgeable people like @solojones can correct me) but I expect that Italian neorealism is probably more popular and influential in Europe than in North America anyway.

I'm not a fan of Tarantino in general, but Django Unchained is one of his movies that I appreciated.

However:

You're not alone! I just can't get excited about the sort of worldbuilding that takes three ounces of Alice in Wonderland, sprinkles it with a bit of Plato's cave and tops it with a zest of taoism. It feels really superficial to me.

And to weigh in about Kingdom of Heaven and historical movies: this one really annoys me. On the one hand, I can see how it's grand cinema, and it's absolutely fair to adjust historical realities to make for a good story. It also makes a valiant attempt at portraying 12th-century Arabs as the advanced civilisation of the time, which is not only historically accurate but also the right thing to do when you're influencing public perceptions in 2005. On the other hand, and precisely because of the general portrayal of Arabs, I just don't get why Ridley Scott needed to pack in there so much orientalist crap. Eva Green's character is just... ugh, and why does everywhere have to be a desert? As if Arabs don't live around half of the Mediterranean, with, you know, citrus trees and olive groves. Oh, and of course they would need help from a Frenchman to establish an irrigation system So I guess my gripe with the movie is that it starts out with good intentions, but ends up perpetuating so many clichés that Edward Said is turning around in his grave every time someone starts watching it.

Same here!

Can't wait to see the rest of the list! Thanks again, @Adam of Nuchtern

 

Honestly, if it were Victor Hugo I'd buy it -- apparently that's 25% of the actual novel of Les Miserables...

 

Correct, it’s 25% compelling melodrama, 25% social commentary, 25% irrigation systems, and 25% long passages of untranslatable slang.

 

Why does the protagonist need to be a hero. Why does the protagonist have to be an example of virtue and being the better person?

Seems we get a lot of complaints from people - not just on here - about characters who are led than perfect or wrong.

Can’t we also learn and understand by seeing the foley of a character? Learn from the mistakes? And does learning need to be part of a story? Can’t the ride and the the entertainment be enough?

 

They don't have to -- there are plenty of example of stories where everyone involved is a terrible person -- but the writing has to do a lot of heavy lifting to make people actually care about terrible people.

And, largely, most writers aren't up for that.

 

People have been arguing about whether or not protagonists need to be moral/learn a lesson/whatever since before movies existed. It’s just one of those eternal bugbears in fiction. And while you can argue “it’s just for entertainment” (and that’s my perspective) people can pretty easily argue that portrayal is tacit endorsement. It will never end.

 

What sucks about historical fictionalizations is when they make people go "I know about that, because I've seen the movie".

The problem is bigger then it seems. How many people think Columbus was just a good guy among bad people because of 1492 Conquest Of Paradise? How many people think Live Aid single-handedly revitalized Queen's career after seeing Bohemian Rhapsody? Cases in which historical facts were deliberately twisted to write a feelgood story. When actual events get pretzeled into three template-based acts. I wouldn't mind if that type of film would lose its general appeal.

But

I love seeing big-budget depictions of times gone by. So it's tough: how can you get the budgets to really bring the past to life, without twisting your story to fit a Hollywood template?

Of course there's also historical fiction that just bypasses the big budgets, has a smaller scope, and focuses on human drama. The kind I personally prefer. But strangely they all take place in World War Two...

 

Not terribly many.

 

Okay. How many people you think believe the John F. Kennedy murder was definitely a conspiracy because of the movie JFK?

 

No, I understand your point, I was just like “Really, Watto, 1492?” I was always under the impression that that was an infamous flop.

 

Watto, the alternative of knowing what they see in the fictionalized historical movie, is to know nothing at all.
It's not like they'd already know the real facts otherwise, but with the movie they do a step backward.

 

That's good to hear.

Now to get rid of Columbus Day