His post about years in film is here. People seemed to enjoy coming up with an album for every year of their lives; maybe the same concept will hold for movies. __
This was hard as hell, even though my list is completely standard fare. Additionally, Wikipedia wasn't always as helpful as wanted. Forgot to use IMDB until an embarrassing amount of time had passed.
1992: Unforgiven 1993: Schindler's List 1994: Pulp Fiction 1995: The Usual Suspects 1996: Trainspotting 1997: Waiting for Guffman 1998: The Big Lebowski 1999: Fight Club 2000: Memento 2001: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 2002: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 2003: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl 2004: Bad year ... Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban? 2005: V for Vendetta 2006: The Prestige 2007: 3:10 to Yuma 2008: In Bruges 2009: Inglourious Basterds 2010: A lot of decent movies, no great ones ... The Fighter? 2011: The Cabin in the Woods 2012: Hardest year by far ... The Dark Knight Rises
wow... This was ridiculously hard and took way longer than I expected. I should have just done my favorites from every year since YOU were born. I'm getting old. There are some ties in here, and many amazing ones left out. 1975 - Barry Lindon/Holy Grail
1976 - Taxi Driver
1977 - A New Hope
1978 - Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (so bad it's good)
1979 - Being There/Mad Max/Breaking Away
1980 - Empire Strikes Back
1981 - Clash of the Titans (since thenewgreen already chose Raiders)
1982 - Blade Runner (honorable mentions, but not ties - TRON and Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
1983 - The Outsiders
1984 - Red Dawn (duh)
1985 - Breakfast Club
1986 - Big Trouble in Little China/Jean De Florette & Manon of the Spring (two movies - one long tragic french story)
1987 - The Last Emporer/Full Metal Jacket/Princess Bride
1988 - Die Hard/Cinema Paradiso
1989 - Dead Poets Society
1990 - Joe Versus the Volcano
1991 - Raise the Red Lantern
1992 - Stricly Ballroom/Reservoir Dogs
1993 - Benny & Joon
1994 - The Shawshank Redemption/Eat Drink Man Woman/The Hudsucker Proxy
1995 - Heat
1996 - Trainspotting/Bottle Rocket
1997 - Gattaca/The Fifth Element
1998 - Ronin/Waking Ned Devine
1999 - Magnolia
2000 - The Million Dollar Hotel/Drowning Mona
2001 - Moulin Rouge!
2002 - In America
2003 - Love Actually
2004 - Napolean Dynamite/Layer Cake
2005 - Serenity/Brick
2006 - Children of Men/This is England
2007 - There Will Be Blood (Control was amazing - but not quite a tie)
2008 - The Dark Knight
2009 - Everybody's Fine/The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series
2010 - Inception/Biutiful
2011 - The Intouchables
2012 - Moonrise Kingdom
2013 - ………
I like that you've got Die Hard holding its own with Cinema Paradiso. -I had a teacher play Cinema Paradiso for us in High School. The film had zero bearing on what we were discussing in class but he knew it would have a positive impact on us. -Great teacher! He opened up a love of foreign films for me that had previously not existed. Cinema Paradiso was the first non-english film I ever saw and I absolutely loved it. Still, John McClain was pretty bad ass too. Though Alan Rickman stole the show.
I think it's easy to write Die Hard off as "an action movie". But truly, Willis, Rickman, VelJohnson, and even Gleason do amazing work. I think Die Hard was a reset button for action movies. The plot was more than skin deep with enough suspense and twists to keep you guessing. The writing was clever, intelligent, and full of enough one-liners to keep generations of people chuckling. I love me some Die Hard. Cinema Paradiso... is.... otherworldly. The University I attended had "International Cinema" once or twice a week. I went to the 10am showing of CP and was so moved that I went three more times just to let it wash over me. It's a simple. lovely, and beautiful film. There are a few movies that got me interested in becoming a filmmaker, and Cinema Paradiso is one of the major players there. As an aside, I was super excited back in 2002 when they restored some footage that was initially cut for the 1988 release in the US. I went to the local art house theater in Denver with my wife to see it... and I left a little non-plussed. Not giving anything away here - some of the longing, some of the open ended questions and storylines from the original film are included. So you find out what happens to people, places, and things... and I guess my heart and my head liked filling in those blanks. The re-release took away some of the magic for me. It's still a great film. I still love it. And perhaps it's time I give the re-release another chance...
Alrighty... here goes an hour of my life: EDITED: 1977 Star Wars
1978 The Deer Hunter
1979 Apocalypse Now
1980 Empire Strikes Back
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982 First Blood (Rambo)
1983 Return of the Jedi
1984 Red Dawn
1985 Fletch
1986 Ferris Buelller's Day Off
1987: Raising Arizona
1988 Blood Sport
1989 Batman
1990: Millers Crossing
1991 Barton Fink
1992 Twin Peaks -Fire Walk With Me
1993 Fearless
1994 Immortal Beloved
1995 Billy Madison
1996 Kingpin
1997 Good Will Hunting
1998: The Big Lebowski
1999 American Beauty
2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou
2001 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2003 The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
2004 Mystic River
2005 Batman Begins
2006 Casino Royale
2007 No Country For Old Men
2008 The Wrestler
2009 The Hangover
2010 The Fighter
2011 Midnight in Paris
2012 The Hobbit bgood79 -You're up.
I love that movie, and own it. Found it for $3 on DVD like 10 years ago... can you believe a classic like that was in a bargain bin for $3? The nerve! I made my fiancee watch this the other night. I prefaced it with "This is what Charlie Sheen looked like when he was 12". She wasn't impressed with the movie nearly as much as I am. Great movie. Wolverines forever.1984 Red Dawn
Take a moment and check out this old post: http://hubski.com/pub?id=6843 Some great conversation about the movie Red Dawn. I think when we implemented badges, the first thing I went back and badged was kleinbl00's comment there. Great stuff.
Absolutely. I love the Coen brothers and celebrate their entire catalog.
Do you have any idea how long it took me to do this? I saw 2001 to 2003 as a way to jump the line by about 15 minutes.
Boring? How in the world could you think the movies were boring? Especially given the time they were released. Do you recall seeing the new Star Wars movies? Seeing the Lord of the rings was such a breath of fresh air. Did you read the books?
Also, I'm going to defend SW eps 2 and 3. Ep 1 was so bad that it soured the other two for a lot of people. But if you can look past Hayden Christensen's acting, they are cool stories, plot holes and all. The first time you hear the Dark Side music (they just tease it a little) you get chills. It was awesome.
You can bypass episode 1 entirely if you watch them via THE MACHETE ORDER. I've yet to check it out.
I don't think we could disagree more about movies. I loved LotR and thought every Star Wars prequel was uniformly awful and boring. It's not even Hayden Christensen's acting. He's perfectly fine, really. A bit wooden but he did all he could with the writing he was given. They spend the whole movie telling us what a great guy Anakin is and how he and Obi-Wan are best pals and how much Padme loves him, and meanwhile he is nothing but a selfish, violent, whiny prick to everyone the whole time with nothing redeeming about the character at all, in an ostensibly character-driven plot about him. And they cap it all off with boring CGI video game cutscenes of battles that mean nothing and utterly break all the characterization in favor of flips. It's amazing that Lucas somehow made lightsabers boring.
You're exactly right. He's actually quite a good actor (check out Life as a House for example). And even if you take hime out of the equation - let's see, if you could assemble a dream team of actors from the late 90s, in my book it would include Samuel L. Jackson, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, and Ewan McGregor would be at the top of the list. Leave it to George Lucas to take what could somehow be one of the great ensemble casts and make it into an embarassment for anyone involved. Sure - I'll admit to being entertained at times. But as a whole? Considering the budget, the visual effects, the sound engineering, the costume design, and the star power, and did I mention BLOODY FRIGGIN LIGHTSABERS-- you might think you'd have a film for the ages. but instead we got the phantom menace. So it isn't Hayden, or any other member of the cast to blame. With sub par writing and nonexistant direction - all of that other stuff is just cool stuff crammed together on a screen. It's sad really.It's not even Hayden Christensen's acting. He's perfectly fine, really. A bit wooden but he did all he could with the writing he was given.
1982-Fitzcarraldo (Honorable mentions to Airplane II, The Wall) 1983-Return of the Jedi (HM to The Meaning of Life) 1984-This is Spinal Tap 1985-Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (HM to Ran) 1986-Top Gun (Holy shit what an awesome year. HMs to Aliens, Platoon, Labyrinth, Little Shop of Horror) 1987-Full Metal Jacket 1988-The Naked Gun (HM to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) 1989-Batman (HM to Crimes and Misdemeanors) 1990-Arachnophobia 1991-The Silence of the Lambs (HMs to Barton Fink, Point Break) 1992-Unforgiven 1993-Jurassic Park 1994-Pulp Fiction/Shawshank Redemption (HM to Dumb and Dumber) 1995-Seven (HMs to Desperado, Die Hard with a Vengeance) 1996-Sling Blade/Fargo 1997-Life is Beautiful (HM to Little Dieter Needs to Fly) 1998-The Big Lebowski (HM to The Thin Red Line) 1999-South Park (HM to Office Space) 2000-American Psycho (HM to High Fidelity) 2001-The Royal Tenenbaums 2002-Adaptation (HM to Punch Drunk Love) 2003-Kill Bill 2004-Napoleon Dynamite (Considering Kill Bill Vol II to be part of one film) 2005-Match Point 2006-Pan’s Labyrinth/Stranger than Fiction/Rescue Dawn/Letters From Iwo Jima/The Lives of Others (fantastic year; can’t decide; also odd that 3/6 foreign language movies are in this year) 2007-No Country for Old Men/There Will be Blood (HM to Planet Terror, Hot Rod) 2008-Step Brothers/The Wrestler (HMs to Burn After Reading, Gran Torino) 2009-Inglourious Basterds/Bad Lieutenant 2010-The Other Guys 2011-Midnight in Paris 2012-Cloud Atlas
1990: Back To The Future III (I have not seen a lot of the apparently great movies from 1990)
1991: Terminator 2 (oh my GOD yes)
1992: Toss-up between Reservoir Dogs and My Cousin Vinny (what? Don't look at me like that.)
1993: Groundhog Day
1994: Leon The Professional... is what I would say if Street Fighter hadn't come out that year.
1995: Toy Story
1996: Space Jam even though it's not a very good film.
1997: Princess Mononoke
1998: Following
1999: Star Wars Episode 1 has brought me a lot of amusement but it's mostly been mocking the film, so I'll say The Matrix instead.
2000: Memento
2001: Pretty decent year but I'm going with the majority on this and saying LotR: Fellowship
2002: Star Wars episode II was too bad to even mock for fun. LotR: Two Towers
2003: It'd be Kill Bill if it weren't LotR: Return of the King
2004: The Incredibles
2005: Serenity
2006: Pan's Labyrinth
2007: Sunshine
2008: Am I going to be the one who says The Dark Knight? Is that too obvious? It was good.
2009: Up
2010: BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG (Inception)
2011: The Cabin In The Woods
2012: The Avengers Some years were hard because I liked a lot of them. Some were hard because I didn't see many from it. I chose a lot based on how much pleasure they brought me, either from the film itself or from joking about it with friends or online, not how good the films were.