The Top Ten (Un-ranked) Movies Of All Time

since this week was devoted mostly to talk about screenplays and scripts, i figure top-ten friday should be devoted to motion pictures.

The Top Ten (Un-ranked) Movies Of All Time

Apocalypse Now (1979) – since it was based on conrad’s Heart of Darkness, i already broke my rule for not allowing novel-influenced films onto the list. nevertheless, the opening scene with “The End” playing, and martin sheen losing his shit, set the mood for one of the most intense movies ever created. sheen gave himself a heart attack he was so intense for the duration of filming. brando was nuts, writing it into his contract that his visage must be hindered by shadows or he would not act in the film. then there’s the lesser known performance of sam bottoms as lance johnson. bottoms decided to use lsd, coke and pot while filming to make his character more believable. talk about dedication to your craft. vietnam movies are their own genre as far as cinema is concerned, but none of them capture the pure vigor and fierceness of this flick.

Back to the Future (1985, 89, 90) – i’m counting the entire trilogy (although the third one ranks very low) as one movie. It doesn’t even matter that Christopher Lloyd was mispronouncing “gigawatts” as “jigawatts” like a total buffoon, this movie was seen as an incredible cinematic advancement when i was in elementary school. i don’t remember where i was the first time i saw it, i believe it was in my old house on a sick-day. what i do remember is that evan mcgoff had marty’s futuristic hat from bttf2 (the one that looked like it was all oily and groovy?) and i was really jealous. this movie has been so ingrained in my head that the first time i ever saw interpol live (march 2002) i blurted out, “look at that! they’ve got george mcfly on the bass guitahhhh!” i even emphasized it just like that for some reason. i’m not sure why, and quite frankly, i blame it on 9/11.

Clerks (1994) – the fact that they’re working on a sequel to this movie saddnes me. i’ve already explored a little bit in the past what made this movie so great, but for those who are new here it’s because the focus on dialogue as opposed to action. the film is just a vehicle for a series of incredible exchanges between characters. it’s something anyone growing up could relate to, cause it’s just a couple of guys jawing about movies and how much life sucks. i mean, what else is there in life? i must have been in middle school when i first saw clerks, i remember vaguely seeing a commercial for it on television once, but didn’t witness it in theaters.

Dr. Strangelove (1964) – is one of those movies you stumble over in high school, when everyone goes through their “stanley kubrick was god” phase. it must have been around the time they bundled all his films together in a collection that i watched strangelove for the first time. i remember my first viewing was marred by intoxication, laying on the floor in my room giggling at the use of satire and depth peter sellers had as an actor. at the time i was entrenched in my uber-liberal phase, an era that peaked around the time i made it up to the university of vermont. my anti-government rhetoric was fully exposed while watching the film, and i recall thinking incredibly deep, stoner retorts like, “fucking war, man. can you even see yourselves! you’re all fools!”

El Topo (1970) – at the end of 8th grade, marilyn manson wrote an autobiography that i stole from a friend and never returned. in it, he talked about how when he was out on tour they had this routine for awhile where they’d watch El Topo when they were high, and he described the movie in a way that instantly made me want to see it. i didn’t get around to obtaining a copy until this year, and it was certainly worth the wait. perhaps in homage to mr. manson, i made sure i was out of my mind before pressing play, and i could barely blink i was so enraptured by what i saw, i became glued to the screen.

Fight Club (1999) – in my senior year of high school i did a half-hour powerpoint presentation on the films of david fincher, and during the process of researching his career, movies like Seven and Fight Club—which i already considered to be great movies—were supplemented by the wealth of knowledge i gained about the processes by which they were created. Sure, the book was a hilarious black comedy, but there’s something about the film that the text didn’t capture. for example, fincher took all the filmstock and tweaked the film so that the level of green hues began to overwhelm the viewer. if you look at even the most drab, opaque whites (like in the narrator’s office), they look green. it was a conscious decision that was intended to make audiences feel queasy, mirroring the sentiments that we live in a sickly, disgusting world. it’s the little things like that which increase the impact of the movie.

Rushmore (1998) – despite being a kind-of innocent movie, a lot of the humor in rushmore is very dark, and i think that’s what draws me into it. wes anderson had just finished Bottle Rocket a few years earlier (my second favorite of his films), and, in rushmore, he created a surrealist portrait of a young character’s (max fischer) fall from grace. though it’s littered with clever moments, the general scope of the movie is morbid, and the unintentional funny moments are the film’s best. plus, this movie marked the revival of bill murray, whose character adds to the aberrant nature of the film. for all the acclaim he received for Lost in Translation Rushmore was a better performance.

Seven (1995) – like the other fincher movie on this list, Seven (or Se7en) is has a psychotic character—played adeptly here by kevin spacey, who was fresh off a killer performance in The Usual Suspects—being persued by brad pitt and the guy who drove miss daisy. the blood is darker and richer than any other movie i’ve seen, and—like fight club—fincher played tricks with viewers. each of the sets they constructed for the movie are only as wide as a camera’s periphery, so every scene occurs in a confined space, keeping audiences confined and anxious while watching. the use of focusing on inanimate objects for extended periods of time also raises the level of apprehension and nervousness. great filmmakers understand that—as a director—the audience can be bent to your will, and fincher does it so well.

Taxi Driver (1976) – travis bickle is the quintessential anti-hero, and the whole movie is like a trip to a psych ward where you’re just looking around waiting for one of the patients to lose their grip on reality, freak out and kill everybody. this is a tale that focuses on one man’s complete alienation and it’s set in the greatest, largest urban environment in the world. if that’s not a recipe for disaster…i can’t finish my own thought. so, yeah, bickle is just another lonesome cog in the big city, the dirty, disgusting, when vice poured out into the streets day and night. deniro captures his character flawlessly, and delivers his lines with a fervor that no one else could possibly equal. when he lets fly those depraved, hopeless lines, things like “shit… i’m waiting for the sun to shine,” or “someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets,” it’s harrowing.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day – my youthful fascination with this film was unreal. without even having seen it, i remember for my birthday the year it came out i asked my aunt for the book of the screenplay (which i still own) and the soundtrack. i collected the trading cards. i totally bought into the marketing blitz that came along with the film, so i can’t leave it off my list. obsession aside, it’s actually pretty alright.