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

Capricorn One.

 

No, you're 100% right. I'm not arguing against The Northman at all or having a negatively portrayed protagonist. Nor do I think you really have to "care" about a protagonist. There are certainly situations where you're watching something and finding it compelling for other reasons. I've been watching the TV show You lately and I wouldn't say that I want the protagonist to "win." But I'm compelled by him because he's such a complex, well-written and pretty sociopathic. I don't exactly "like" him, but he makes for compelling drama.

Which does it bring it back around to Mad Men and, yeah, I think it's fair to say that one is kind of predicated, much like The Northman, on demonstrating how the mores and moralities where jarringly different in a different time period than they are today.

Prime example: The Trial of the Chicago 7. The closing statement made by the defendants in real life was ******* amazing and, by virtue of being read into the court record, is documented exactly as it was delivered. And Sorkin threw it out to fabricate an entirely different closing statement. Terrible.

 

Terrible, and yet a signature auteur touch insofar as Aaron Sorkin is concerned.

 

I've... Literally never heard of that. Is that a film?

 

Apropos of the origin of this discussion it’s a Ridley Scott historical drama that flopped at the box office, but tellingly not the one anyone voted for.

 

Hey, The Last Duel was really good!

 

It was one of 2 films about Columbus that year. The other one had Marlon Brando & Tom Selleck.

 

And people voted for it.

 

Good. I couldn't quite fit it into a top 20, but it's probably top 30 for me.

 

Re: 1492, I haven't seen that film but I'm familiar with Vangelis' score.

 

90. The Apartment (1960)
Directed by: Billy Wilder
25 Points, 3 Votes
Voter Comments: My Billy Wilder pick. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this. Someone put up a video link a while ago talking about it, and it made me appreciate it even more. It beat out Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, both of which are superb. ~Soitscometothis

I guess Billy Wilder was feeling cynical and dark and decided to give us the best comedy in history. ~JoinTheSchwarz

"The mirror... it's broken."

"Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel."

The best New Year's Eve movie.




89. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Directed by: George Lucas
26 Points, 2 Votes
Voter comments: what being new to the world in the late 90s does to your SW ranking list ~Bacon164

The best thing to come from this was Aaron Freedman's Jewish Currents piece "If You Prick Watto, Does He Not Bleed?" Well, ok, "Duel of the Fates" hasn't lost any of it's effectiveness even after being featured in a million ****ty fan films.





88. The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
Directed by: Wes Craven
26 Points, 2 Votes
Voter comments: It’s Bill Pullman, so that’s an obvious reason, but the story fascinates me. Also the behind the scenes drama of filming in Haiti and the voodoo was fun to learn about. ~Lady_Belligerent

Never seen this one.





87. Parasite (2019)
Directed by: Bong Joon-ho
26 Points, 2 Votes
Voter comments: I mean, it’s just damn close to perfect and the layers and resonances of meaning give the film tremendous emotional weight. I’m still not sure which I find more devastating: the image of a woman checking her phone while sitting on a toilet lid trying to hold back a literal geyser of **** or a man who just can’t stop laughing while the tragedies pile up around him. ~Rogue1-and-a-half

Being disappointed by the Oscars is pretty much a cinephile tradition that's probably as old as the ceremony itself, but there are times they manage to get it right, and giving this film Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay was definitely one of them.





86. National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
Directed by: Harold Ramis
26 Points, 2 Votes
Voter Comments: None submitted

"I think you're all ****ed in the head. We're ten hours from the ****ing fun park and you want to bail out! Well I'll tell you something, this is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun! I'm gonna have fun, and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much ****ing fun we'll need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles! You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of your *******s! Hahaha. I gotta be crazy, I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose! Praise Marty Moose! Holy ****!"

Letting Aaron Sorkin direct his own material has been a disaster for humanity.

 

Surprised to learn The Serpent and the Rainbow isn’t about how Satanist Catholics are corrupting our children using socks.

 

The Apartment:
That's brilliant, of course. I almost voted for it, but I decided to have only one comedy, and I picked Life of Brian, largely for nostalgic reasons. Admittedly, The Apartment has by far the tighter script.
Still, I'm having trouble deciding whether The Apartment is the best Billy Wilder film, or Sunset Blvd.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
BZZZT WOOOSH WOOSSH BZZZT BZZZT

The Serpent and the Rainbow
Good film, but not one I'd put on my list. Still, it has Bill Pullman in it.

Parasite
I haven't watched that one. I know everyone loves this film and it might be good, but there's nothing in its description that appeals to me.

National Lampoon's Vacation
That's fun. Haven't seen it in ages though.

Seen: 4/5, Good: 4/4.

 

More good choices. I've seen all of those except TSATR. Parasite is terrific. Vacation is a classic. TPM is great. The Apartment is also quite good, I've seen that 4 or 5 times.

Seen 11/15 of the movies so far.

 

Ahhh so The Serpent and the Rainbow is the first one on this list I haven't seen. I'm at 14/15.


I am glad Parasite made the list on the strength it seems of Stephen and I both placing it highly on our lists. But I shame all the rest of you for letting it be so low. SHAME.

But seriously it and EEAAO restored my faith in the modern Oscars' ability to occasionally get it right at least.

 

I got that reference!

 

I’d hope so, your comic cover is probably 95% of the reason why I remember that.

 

Only one real masterpiece in this bunch in my opinion and that's Parasite, the second film that I voted for to make the list. It's just a pitch perfect movie and it manages to land emotionally as both a social critique and a dark drama. The performances are great and it just captures the spirit of living in late stage Capitalism as well as any movie I've ever seen. It is powerful in ways both expected and surprising. Brilliant piece of filmmaking.

Then there are the two that I enjoy, but have just never enjoyed as much as a lot of people seem to: The Apartment and National Lampoon's Vacation. I feel like Vacation could stand a trim; it's not all as funny as it thinks it is, though when it is funny, it is very funny. It's Chevy Chase at his best, I would say; he's not a comedian I love, but he is very funny here. The Apartment is, to me, good, not great. Lemmon's performance is great, I don't think Shirley MacLaine is as good as everybody says. One hundred percent my favorite thing in The Apartment is Fred MacMurray being an absolute ****head. My Billy Wilder pick (which didn't make the list) is the other one where MacMurray goes against type in that way, Double Indemnity. It's one of those times when someone you wouldn't necessarily expect to be good playing a bad guy is actually really fantastic.

Then there's The Serpent & the Rainbow, which I haven't seen though I know of its premise and I have seen the scene where Bill Pullman

Spoiler

gets buried alive

which is ******* terrifying.

And then there's TPM. Look, I've said what I have to say about this movie. It's not good. That wasn't an excuse for the fandom to go as toxic as it went; nothing is ever an excuse for a fandom to go that toxic. But it wasn't good. While we all know I haven't seen Rise of Skywalker, TPM is definitely my least favorite of the 8 main episodes I've seen. Easily. The PT as a whole isn't great, but TPM makes Revenge look like Empire, if I can be that inside-baseball about it.

Seen: 13/15. Thumbs Up: 11; Thumbs Down: 2.

 

I haven't seen the Apartment. I'll watch it tonight. Otherwise: not a big fan of Serpent and the Rainbow. I definitely don't have anything new to say about the Phantom Menace.

 

No the best thing about The Apartment is the script!

Rise of Skywalker and AotC are definitely worse movies than TPM, somehow.

 

You better.

 

It's really quite good. That's one I wouldn't have seen if not for film school.