Top 50 Films of All Time

So thanks to a list created by a friend (over here) whose tastes and judgments I completely trust, I decided to give this Top 50 list a try. It was harder than I thought once I got past the 25 mark. I always have a good idea what my top 5 movies are at any given time, but beyond that it gets hazy. Like the aforementioned friend, I tried to only incorporate movies that moved me personally. Movies that moved the industry forward in some way or another. Just important films. Though there are a few on here that could be argued against on there merits in the latter area, all of these have a special connection or place with me. Some newer, some older, but all resonate with me on such a deep level.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2. The Incredibles

3. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

4. Garden State

5. Kill Bill Vol. 2

6. Shaun of the Dead

7. American Beauty

8. Kill Bill Vol. 1

9. The Fountain

10. Love Actually

11. 500 Days of Summer

12. The Dark Knight

13. Synechdoche, New York

14. Battle Royale

15. Fight Club

16. Fantastic Mr. Fox

17. Pulp Fiction

18. Stranger Than Fiction

19. Inception

20. I Heart Huckabees

21. Amelie

22. Knocked Up

23. The Brothers Bloom

24. Rushmore

25. The Departed

26. Inglourious Basterds

27. Spider-Man 2

28. Road to Perdition

29. Children of Men

30. Pan's Labyrinth

31. Serenity

32. The Matrix

33. V For Vendetta

34. Oldboy

35. When Harry Met Sally

36. Punch Drunk Love

37. Memento

38. Chasing Amy

39. Snatch

40. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

41. Leon The Professional

42. The Prestige

43. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

44. Casino Royale

45. Closer

46. Stardust

47. Being John Malkovich

48. Magnolia

49. Lost in Translation

50. Army of Darkness 

So do you agree, disagree? Any egregious oversights, anything I left out that deserves to be up here (and yes, I know I left off the Lord of the Rings films, it was intentional).

Day 050 || Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, 2009

Dir. Paul Weitz

"Vampires don't need cellphones!"

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (from this point on known as Vampire's Assistant) is an odd film to peg down. It's a coming-of-age tale with vampires aimed at the Harry Potter demographic, all while seemingly hoping to reach an older, and wider audience. It doesn't quite succeed in those lofty ambitions, and though I favored it to the Harry Potter films (the only exception being Prisoner of Azkaban), it's a little shaky and on the whole a jumbled mess. However, it's an entirely engaging and watchable mess, that makes it very forgivable.

Vampire's Assistant tells the tale of two friends who happen across the Cirque du Freak, a travelling carnival of self-proclaimed freaks, including a man with two stomachs, a werewolf type of creature, and the staple bearded lady. But surprisingly traveling with them is Crepsley (John C. Reilly) an ancient vampire, who believes in keeping his victims alive instead of savagely feasting upon them...this is in direct opposition of a rival clan of vampires, the "vamponese" which sounds like an oriental off-chute of vampires, but is really just a fat guy (ironically named Mr. Tiny) and Ray Stevenson in homeless garb.

The story is pretty rudimentary. No surprises or real curveballs thrown, it hits all the necessary and obvious points and does so at such a fast speed that it feels like a lot of the film was trimmed down. The film would have better fitted with more story and character bits because it all feels a little thin and hollow.

That said, the visuals, varied characters, and some really great performances help to make this light and harmless film, at the very least fun and worth watching. It's not a great film, and it might even be a stretch to call it a good film...but I enjoyed it through out, and look forward to, and am keeping my fingers crossed for a sequel that can improve on all of the shortcomings. That shouldn't be too hard to do.

And this is easily more welcomed than Twilight.

3 out of 5

Day 049 || Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, 2006

Dir. Tom Tykwer

"I will look deep into your eyes...and drop by drop I will trickle my disgust into them like burning acid until, you finally perish."

Perfume is the story of a young man, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with an odd power, a power no man on earth could match...the power of the finest sense of smell known to man. After an accident he seeks out a way to keep and preserve smells of not just roses and the typical fragrances we're accustomed to...no, Jean-Baptiste is looking for a way to preserve human smells. Through any means.

Let's start with the good, because that will be an altogether smaller list. Tom Tykwer, a director I'm completely unfamiliar with, has a wonderfully scenic eye that he brings to the film. For as much as the film falters on so many levels, it's always breathtakingly beautiful, complete with panoramic views of older, foreign cities (much credit goes out to the production design here, as well), to wide open fields that are vast and colorfully painted. As well many scenes incorporate heavy use of flowers which add even more color and beauty to an already masterfully shot film. The narrator, played by John Hurt, is also one of the best things about this film. Along the likes of Stephen Fry, his voice is a perfect fit for narration, and it fits the whimsy this film tries so desperately to convey.

But that's where I start taking serious fault with the film. It tries to have a whimsical tone, but at the same time demands to be taken seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it makes it had to determine whether this is a comedy, drama, horror, or biopic. Sometimes a mixture of tones can work wonders for a film, but here it just heightens the faults with the script and the story. Imagine trying to mix A Series of Unfortunate Events with Zodiac...two films so completely different, that it's hard to see similarities, yet this film does just that, and does it really poorly.

Jean-Baptiste is our central focus, and he is very much an anti-hero, which some people will automatically not like. I'm a huge fan of the anti-hero and have no problem accepting this kind of role, however, the film tries in vain to get you to feel sympathy and care for this character, without earning any sympathy for him at all. He's played mute for most of the film, due to the character's lesser intelligence (I imagine, anyways), but instead of having that come off as a quirk or something we could look past, it ends up being a serious flaw in how the character's written. He isn't charismatic, and there's nothing endearing about him. I would be very surprised if anyone truly cared about Jean-Baptiste, even Tykwer himself, because it seems even the people behind the camera felt nothing about this character.

So on top of an uninteresting and non-sympathetic lead, we have a series of side characters introduced and thrown away as if they were nothing. It's clear the director didn't care about any of these characters because everyone Jean-Baptiste meets in the film, dies in a horribly random and meaningless way after he leaves them. Instead of evoking emotions from the audience, all this really does is cheapen every other character in the film, and tells us that we should only be interested in Jean-Baptiste's story and plight...but as I've mentioned he's an impossible character to get behind, let alone be interesting enough to be the lead.

And finally there's this ludicrousness that emanates the film from the beginning to the end. Jean-Baptiste is portrayed almost as a superhero with his sense of smell as heightened as it is. Again, this goes back to my complaints with the tone of the film, because it's really hard to take seriously. From the offset the audience is treated to an embarrassing shot of an infant Jean-Baptiste sniffing a kid's finger...now, that doesn't sound too ridiculous as I've typed it, but believe me, the shot is so weird and random that it took me completely out of the film. And then from that moment onwards, I struggled to get back into the film. But let's forget all those smaller scenes that may have bugged me, and they did, but it's one of the last scenes of the film, that portrays Jean-Baptiste on his way to getting hanged for his crimes...which then devolves into one of the biggest and oldest orgies caught on film...and sparked because of his heavenly perfume he created. Now, I know that was a long, most-likely run-on sentence, but read it again, because that actually happened. It leads to an overly long, and eye-rollingly bad scene that I can easily say is one of the most embarrassing things I've seen in a film. If I was Tykwer, I'd be personally ashamed that I put that on film, not because of the immorality of an orgy or anything, but just how basely stupid an idea it is. Jean-Baptiste walks away completely clean and free of the charges, because of this perfume he concocted. It's an inane and horrible way to end the film, and any kind of credibility it was trying to earn was absolutely lost at the end for myself.

This reviewer has written more than this film deserved, but believe me when I say it's not only an embarrassingly dumb, and poorly executed story, but it's easily one of the most far-fetched pieces of cinema I've seen...and that's saying quite a bit. If you want to see a good film about heightened sense, watch Ratatouille. If you want to see a film about an anti-hero done very well, watch American Psycho. But above all, please, please, please don't watch Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

1 out of 5

Day 048 || The Hudsucker Proxy

The Hudsucker Proxy, 1994

Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen

"When you're dead, you stat dead. Don't believe me, ask Waring Hudsucker."

The Hudsucker Proxy is easily one of the worst titles for an otherwise genuinely great tribute to the classic comedies of the 1950's. This dark comedy tells the story of a young man, Norville (Tim Robbins) fresh out of college, voted most likely to succeed, who is struggling to find any sort of work at all. By luck or chance he winds up in the mail room of a huge corporation, Hudsucker Industries. When the owner and president of the company leaps out of the forty-fourth story window, the company board (led by a villainous Paul Newman) decides to hire an idiot, a moron, a proxy, to take over to drive the stock down and then swoop in and buy it all up for themselves. The fool just so happens to be young Norville, who might not be as base as he appears to be.

The story is pretty basic, and nothing here will really throw you for a loop. It's a simple comedy formula, and from the get-go we know how it's going to end...but all of that is easily forgiven as the journey to get there is so unique, fun, and completely engaging that it doesn't matter if the story is as mundane as it truthfully is. The film takes place in the era that it pays homage to, and it's easy to tell with sets built to recreate the 50's work environment. The production design in The Hudsucker Proxy is absolutely gorgeous and viscerally awe-inspiring. And it's all complimented by the Coen Brothers wonderful and brilliant use of camera work. The Hudsucker Proxy is one of the most visually arresting and engaging films I've seen in awhile and is a true testament to the brilliance of the team behind the film.

The film's over-the-top visuals, which I say as a sincere compliment, is a great surrounding for the characters who are all just as over-the-top, to try and fit in with the 50's vibe of the film. Some pull it off really well, Robbins, Newman, and a small, but great role played by Bruce Campbell, but some unfortunately don't cut the proverbial mustard. I'm looking straight at you, Jennifer Jason Leigh. Her character, Amy Archer, a love interest and foil for Norville, is not only so cliche that it's painful, but her execution is a little too wacky and zany to truly enjoy or get behind her character. Leigh's acting is not only terribly egregious, but is so distracting that it took me out of the film more than once.

The Hudsucker Proxy is an almost perfectly executed film, and had Jennifer Jason Leigh toned down the "50s talk", or was simply recast, I would have given it not only my highest recommendations but the highest rating. But her presence is so distractingly awful that I couldn't in all honesty give it a full recommendation. Fans of the Coen Brothers or films from the 1950's, such as It's A Wonderful Life (which this film borrows heavily from) will really appreciate The Hudsucker Proxy, silly name aside. Everyone else should watch it, if not for one of the most hilarious and brilliant payoffs in damn near any film I've seen, involving Norville's circle and what happens when it's released into the public. That one scene is proof of the genius of the Coen Brothers. The rest of the film isn't too bad either.

4 out of 5

Day 047 || Halo Legends

Halo Legends, 2010

Dir. Various

I debated with myself for a little bit whether or not Halo Legends could actually qualify as an actual movie due to many factors, but decided that regardless of the compartmentalized story segments (seen in several other films, such as Love Actually, Crash, Twilight Zone the Movie, or several others), or the fact that is was direct to video (which should never dictate or validate a film), that it should be taken as a film in such respects. Even if it isn't a very good one. And it definitely isn't.

Halo Legends, for the uninitiated, is a segment of short animated stories pinned together under the theme borrowed from a video game series, Halo, which has become a big part of gaming history. Whether you love or hate the games is regardless, if you're involved with videogame culture in the slightest, you know of the Halo series. So that in mind, a bunch of Japanese animators got together and came up with various takes on the Halo universe, much akin to the Animatrix, and how it explored several different aspects of the universe behind the Matrix films. In fact, if you've seen the Animatrix, you know what to expect here.

I was disappointed in regards to the quality here. Nothing ever reaches the sheer visual or animated quality of the Animatrix, and everything here just feels a tad bit cheaper than what was accomplished in the Animatrix. That might be in part due to budgetary differences, of which I have no knowledge of...anyways, the animation isn't the only important part of the package. The important thing is if the stories work together to create a better understanding of the world that fans love, and in some ways it does, and in some ways it doesn't. There are no new revelations, or anything new learned here, very much unlike the Animatrix. Whereas the Animatrix explored very vast, different, and creative areas in the world it payed homage to, everything here has been seen and done before in the games, with the exception of a couple of the stories on display, and they all slowly start to feeling boring and repetitive.

The first two shorts tell the history of the Halo universe, but if you've played the games, none of this is new or surprising, and it by the time the second story was being told I started to completely lose interest. This might not be a problem for those unfamiliar with the universe, but when paying homage to a series and making a project for the fans, it's an odd choice that doesn't payoff the way it should have. The rest of the stories are all variations on typical and cliched moments one would expect to find in a war story with the exception of two that really stand out.

One is called "Odd Man Out", and tells the story of a 'Thirteen-thirty-seven', or '1337', a soldier who is far from his titular description. He's a clutz and never really seems like he has complete control of the situations he gets himself into but always manages to pull through, much like one of my favorite comic characters, Deadpool. It's funny and done in a very over-the-top style that it makes it a breath of fresh amidst the drab and boring war stories found in the collection. Another story that stands out is Ghost, which again, for the most part is a typical war story, but it's done so well that I can easily forgive some of the more trite moments that comprises it.

I could go on and break down each single segment, in total I believe there are eight, but of those eight I really enjoyed two, I thought two were decent, and found the other four completely lacking in creativity, fun, or much value in all honesty. As a collection it falls flat on its face, and I'm sure those who aren't into the Halo universe will absolutely not get any satisfaction from this. Fans of the universe, might not even embrace this. It could have been so much more interesting and diverse, but instead it comes off as largely filler material with some brilliant bits hidden beneath all the thin and boring storytelling.

2 out of 5

Day 046 || The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker, 2009

Dir. Kathryn Bigelow

"And then you forget the few things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things."

The Hurt Locker is a movie most, if not everyone's, heard of by now. It's getting a lot of hype for being the defining war movie of our generation, and easily the most accurate and successful look at the current conflict in Iraq, or war, if you want to call it that. Those wouldn't be inaccurate statements, but to say it's the film of the year, or perfect would be stretching things.

Kathryn Bigelow, whose work I'm mostly unfamiliar with, has a great visual eye and style, that keeps what could have been a very drab and bleak looking film, viscerally engaging, with the use of camera cuts, pans, and color palettes implemented during key scenes. It's a very competently shot film, complimented by an even stronger cast. Jeremy Renner plays team leader, Will James, who is known as a wild man. He's seemingly careless and reckless in his duties as bomb tech, someone who disarms IEDs on a day-to-day basis. Renner plays the character superbly, not allowing James to become a cliche, which could have easily been the case. If it wasn't for his wonderful performance and the cinematography I'm not quite sure if this film would have received the attention and kudos it did.

Some of the other characters fall into the typical archetypes you would expect, and even the aforementioned James has a few archetypal moments that really feel like the film is just running through all the same old notes we've seen before, but it's never eye-rollingly bad and it never, not once, takes you out of the film. The film works best during the nail-bitingly tense bomb disarming scenes, where you really never know what will happen, and you genuinely fear for the characters. It's when the film shifts focus from these scenes that it becomes a tad unstable, giving way to either brilliance (a scene featuring James pre-military, home-life and a heart to heart with his newborn son), or embarrassment (a macho scene where the squad drinks and fights out their feelings).

On the whole though, The Hurt Locker does so much right, that it's really easy to forgive the few shortcomings which do exist, don't let the hype fool you. Is it film of the year material? Not in this reviewer's opinion, but it's a great film, and one that's easy to recommend to most everyone.

4 out of 5

Day 045 || Law Abiding Citizen

Law Abiding Citizen, 2009

Dir. F. Gary Gray

"I'm gonna bring the whole diseased, corrupt temple down on your head. It's gonna get biblical."

Law Abiding Citizen is a film with an interesting and deeply philosophical take on a question that calls into accountability our judicial system. But any depth to this film is so heavily buried underneath explosions and typical action film cliches, that it winds up being entertaining, but ultimately shallow and disappointing.

That's not to say it's a bad movie. It's just an average film, done very competently and masterfully. This absolute worst thing is that you can tell there's a better movie here, and that there's a lot of really good material that could've been mined for more intellectual fare. Instead, any questions about the basic morality in effect is completely lost for most of the film, up until the final act where the film tells you who exactly was in the right. A better script would've made the good guy and the bad guy near indecipherable, and paint the entire film in a moral gray zone. What better a way to have us question morality, then to not pick a side and show both equally and fully. Imagine the kind of debates and perspective conversations a film like that could have crafted after viewings. Instead the only conversations being had after this film would include the likes of "Hey, did you see that one scene where the car exploded," or, "Wasn't Jamie Foxx nominated for Ray?".

I'm being harsh on the film, because it should have and could have been a more cerebral and intelligent film, but instead we get a competent, albeit completely throwaway, action film...one that wastes the talents of both its leads, Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx. There are a lot of great ideas underneath the surface, but in order to get to any of them, you would have to dig, really hard. It is an entirely serviceable and entertaining film, but one that this critic is in no rush to go back to for a second viewing.

3 out of 5

Day 044 || Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite, 2009

Dir. Scott Sanders

"Who the hell is interrupting my kung fu?!"

Black Dynamite is a clever and often downright hilarious tribute to 70's blaxploitation films that conforms completely to the genre by meticulously pinning down all the faults and highpoints of that era. But Black Dynamite does this knowingly and purposefully and it's a better film for it.

I've compared several other films to the grindhouse style of cinema before, but none of them really come as close to perfection as Black Dynamite. The only contenders to the thrown would be Tarantino's and Rodriguez' Grindhouse double feature, also filled with all the flaws and charms.

Black Dynamite is the story of Black Dynamite (that's his name, honest), who is an ex-CIA hitman, who just got back from Vietnam only to find that the ghetto is being overrun by a problem involving little orphans on smack, and a grim premise involving a spiked malt liquor being released to take the black man down. In fact, you could say Black Dynamite closely resembles Undercover Brother, but it takes the parody of the blaxploitation film even further by using washed out film effects and a grainy and dirty cinematic look that mirrors that era of film perfectly.

It's also helped by a stellar lead performance by Michael Jai White who has the strong, black, powerful lead down to a tee, and does it all so deadpan that it grounds the film and keeps it hilarious at the same time. The rest of the cast is charismatic and they all have their moments, but without Michael Jai White this film wouldn't work nearly as well as it does now.

My only problem is a third act twist that asks entirely too much from the audience in terms of believability, and seems like the director and writers (script was also penned by Michael Jai White) were winking a little too hard at the audience. And for such a grounded feeling film, the twist is so tonally different and is similar to the twist in Undercover Brother, where The Man was going to try to brainwash black people with fried chicken. Whereas that worked in Undercover Brother sense that film in over-the-top entirely throughout, it seems out of place here for some reason.

Overall Black Dynamite is great fun, and I've seen it made some top lists of 2009, and rightfully so. It's worth the viewing for fans of cinema both good and bad, especially if you could remember watching some of these types of exploitation flicks in your youth. It's hilarious and clever, even if sometimes the jokes run a tad too long. Altogether it's a film I highly recommend.

4 out of 5

Day 043 || Tokyo Gore Police

Tokyo Zankoku Keisatsu (Tokyo Gore Police), 2008

Dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura

Tokyo Gore Police doesn't mislead with it's title. If you know the title, you know exactly what to expect. It's a Japanese grindhouse flick, that delivers bucket fulls of blood and gore (the fountains of blood put Kill Bill Vol. 1 to shame)...and it features police, naturally. It's an odd, quirky, and confusing film that is very reminiscent of David Cronenberg's work from the 1980's. Tokyo Gore Police could easily be the foreign cousin of Naked Lunch or Videodrome.

There's a style that permeates throughout this film that makes it fun, engaging, and dare I say, charming. The shots and cinematography make the best out of the limited and small budget, and some of the effects are pretty fantastic. Sure, some are really, really bad, (mostly any of the CG bits, and a sequence involving a hand-gun, that's a gun that shoots hands, obviously), but for the most part the effects work and deliver in spades. Horror aficionados or fans of make-up effects with have a field day here, as the creature effects can be very, very convincing and shocking at times. I dare anyone who watches this film to forget the bizarre and haunting setpiece in the middle of this film, involving mutant prostitutes, specifically the human chair. It's creepy and subversive, and if Tokyo Gore Police's aim is to shock and awe, it succeeds on all fronts.

The story is a hogwash, and at times is downright laughable...but you kind of realize that going into it. Who wants to see a film called Tokyo Gore Police that takes itself super-seriously? I know I sure don't. That all said, there is something deeper here than most other films of this nature, as it seems to legitimately try to make a standpoint on violence (whether it's self-violence or violent video games). That standpoint, however, isn't quite as clear as it could be, and as it stands it feels more like an afterthought then anything substantial.

Whether or not the story or acting is up to snuff, and it is serviceable at best, doesn't really matter. Tokyo Gore Police aims to disturb the viewer, while entertaining them at the same time, and I can easily say that I was disturbed and entertained throughout the entire film. For anyone who saw the title, and said to themselves "That sounds stupid...but could be interesting", then I highly recommend the film. Tokyo Gore Police has it's fair share of flaws, but it is definitely worth watching, and when they promised a sequel after the credits, I was ready for round two. Definitely recommend for those who aren't squeamish.

3 out of 5

Day 042 || In The Mouth of Madness

In The Mouth of Madness, 1994

Dir. John Carpenter

"Even if everything else I've said is completely Looney Tunes, this book will drive people mad."

In The Mouth of Madness was one of several films I've caught a small glimpse of back in my youth from flipping through cable channels, aimlessly trying to find something to hold my interest. The brief bit I saw featured a disturbing scene involving a possessed woman crawling out of a car with her head completed twisted around. It was reminiscent of the scene in The Exorcist when Linda Blair's character comes down the stairs doing an inverted crab walk. For some reason just the thought of both of those scenes have stuck with me, for some odd reason or another. It's not exactly haunting, but it's something that doesn't even leave your head.

This film is about ideas like that. It's about the imagination of humanity and how something so shocking and revolting, something so evil is more likely to stay with us, than something good. How more people buy into fantasy or horror, than reality. It's about the very essence of reality, albeit hidden in a John Carpenter effects-heavy horror film.

To say In The Mouth of Madness is a typical horror film, or that it's depicts a cliched battle between good and evil, would be borderline ignorant. It's a deep and interesting film, that often times loses its focus, but does so much right that all of the smaller flaws are easy to forgive.

Sam Neill plays the lead character, a no nonsense detective who is hired to track down a missing novelist, Sutter Cane, who is in the same genre as Stephen King or Dean Koontz, but outsells and reaches a broader audience than both. All the clues John Trent (Sam Neill) finds lead him to a town that's not on any map and no one has ever heard of. It seems But Trent soon finds himself questioning reality and his own existence when he  finds the town and it's strange inhabitants. Something is rotten in Denmark indeed.

For the most part the film succeeds in creating a very paranoid, atmospheric thriller, and some scenes border on disturbing. There's quite a few that I'm sure will linger with me for a long time, including the scene I described at the beginning of the film. Some of these involve some great practical creature effects, and some are as simple as a group of children who seem to be possessed talking about "mother's day". It's the atmosphere that keeps the film afloat, along with a very likeable Sam Neill, who plays the character with just the right amount of attitude, wonder, and disbelief that keeps him grounded and relatable. Even amidst all the bizarre and larger than life events happening in the world that he inhabits.

The film manages to get lost quite frequently when it tries to reach for something deeper, and ultimately ends on a confusing and slightly disappointing note. I think it would have been more effective had they really nailed down some of the psychological and philosophical points that were trying to be conveyed earlier in the picture. As it's a film  from the early 90's, there are also some questionable make-up effects, a boy on a bike aging, for instance, and some of the acting really hams it up. All that said, In The Mouth of Madness is still an enjoyable and haunting film, that I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of horror genre or John Carpenter.

4 out of 5