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Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

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    #26
    Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

    Bored of Education wrote:
    That is an appalling appalling list.

    Yeah, I mean I'm all for not being snobbish about popular cinema, but that's fucking ridiculous. This would be the top 500 if the world consisted of English-speaking men born since 1960 with no curiosity about the word.
    Yes, I am determinately low-brow in my appreciation of films but they even get the populist stuff wrong. Even the most low-brow of film watchers would be expecting films like Some Like It Hot or To Kill A Mockingbird to be higher.

    I didn't carry on long enough to try and find "Sweet Smell Of Success", "Touch Of Evil" or "Gilda" on there and I looked up to 100. Ridiculous.

    If you are going to demote sacred cows like Citizen Kane then you have to justify why 2001 and Clockwork Orange are higher

    Comment


      #27
      Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

      I can understand demoting Citizen Kane. I don't think it's aged as well as Touch of Evil, let alone 2001 or Clockwork Orange. It's a bit like Birth of a Nation, in that a) it was very much of its time, and b) it helped establish cinematic idiom in a way that is hard to grok now because it's simply the common language of film. It's harder to appreciate CK without the Hearst backstory (not to mention the somewhat analagous Howard Hughes backstory) being very familiar.

      So it's a very important film, but not one I'd rank all that high in my own personal list. Whereas 2001 would almost certainly be in my top 10 or 20.

      Comment


        #28
        Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

        I would disagree with that, aside from the obvious subjective nature of these things.

        I knew very little of the Hearst story when I finally saw CK but enjoyed it for itself.

        Rather more telling is that I didn't initially see CK for years during which time it was on top of all the polls. I almost had an aversion to it until I actually saw it but still really enjoyed it despite that.

        Unlike Clockwork Orange which just wasn't anywhere near as good as it was hyped.

        Again, it is subjective but 2001 genuinely hasn't aged well and is really clunky if it was, indeed, any good at the time

        I think some of this has to do with in what order you see films. If we had seen The Godfather after Goodfellas, would the latter still be better. I think so but you never know.

        I was really pleased that my son liked the original Star Wars trilogy even after seeing the latter three first.

        Similarly, after Star Wars, Silent Running, Planet Of the Apes and Rising Damp, 2001 is a disappointment

        Comment


          #29
          Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

          Rising Damp?

          Can't agree on 2001, obviously. And I'm pretty sure I saw it after Star Wars. It's a totally different film. Though I did see the film after reading the book, which may affect my judgement.

          Comment


            #30
            Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

            The They Shoot Pictures Don't They? list noted above is genuinely good.

            Comment


              #31
              Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

              G.Man wrote:
              Empire is to movies what Q is to music. It's really a magazine for people who only think they like movies. It would be remarkable if Empire created a list that is actually good and unpredictable.

              I watched Gone with the wind for the third time, two and a half times forcing myself through it just to try and get what's so great about it, and I don't.
              What a piece of shite.
              I rather dislike the movie myself, PPV, but I think it would be wrong to reduce it to "a piece of shite". Within the context of its time, it is a remarkable slice of cinema, and some of the performances are really very good. The set design is quite stunning, and the film has quite brilliant setpieces (Scarlett O'Hara in the field lazaret, for example).

              But, briefly put, it is also a terribly self-indulgent movie which never ends, and an unwelcome apologia for the racism of the South.
              The only thing I can agree with is the racist comment, G.

              The negro lingo, oh how special....

              The acting, what acting?
              Scarlet bitch is overacting throughout the film.
              Clark is like a childmolestor before the times when it was illegal.

              There's not much acting, mostly one giant set after the other, and the sets look daft, not because it was olden times, but because they look daft, as much as the shit in SW ep I-III looked daft.

              Comment


                #32
                Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                Seriously

                Am I the only one who thinks that
                Casablanca
                Gone with the wind

                are two shit films?

                Comment


                  #33
                  Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                  I suspect that you are. You might not be the only one who is not a massive fan of Casablanca, but to describe it as a "shit" film is to severe all relationship with reason.

                  Remind me in which scene Rhett Butler molests a child.

                  Comment


                    #34
                    Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                    You're batshit crazy if you think Casablanca is shit.

                    We had a thread on Gone with the Wind recently. I don't think anyone stood up for it - it's been my biggest disappointment of the "classics". Saying that, the scene with dead and wounded soldiers strewn across the battlefield for miles is genuinely great.

                    Comment


                      #35
                      Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                      imp wrote:
                      Which word? Grease? I know, I can't believe they only have it at no. 333.
                      I meant world. But word too.

                      Comment


                        #36
                        Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                        PPV's talked about Casablanca before. I'm not sure what he's missing. There's corniness aplenty in it--especially in the ending, which I won't give away just in case--but it's shot through with such brittle, cynical dialogue that for me it never cloys.

                        Our side made a few bloody good propaganda films during the Second World War: Casablanca, Blimp, A Matter of Life And Death. In the nature of things, I'm less familiar with what Goebbels was sponsoring at the time. It can't all have been unsubtle dross like Der Ewige Jude, can it? In fact, I know it wasn't; German cinema audiences stayed away from that stuff in droves, and the Nazis had to adapt. But I don't know any of the post-adaptation stuff.

                        Comment


                          #37
                          Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                          Wait, Blimp's a proaganda film? It was banned from export until after the war and Churchill tried to have production halted.

                          Comment


                            #38
                            Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                            The exquisite 1943 adaptation of Munchausen, in glorious AGFA colour, was produced at Goebbels instruction. Its entirely apolitical, so I suppose the idea was to show that the war was going so swimmingly that Germany still could produce lavish movies (there was, of course, a long tradition of escapist fare being produced by the UFA; Jud Suess was an exception rather than a rule).

                            I seem to remember reading that the film was not seen by many people after its release because most cinemas weren't functioning any longer.

                            Comment


                              #39
                              Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                              G.Man wrote:
                              I suspect that you are. You might not be the only one who is not a massive fan of Casablanca, but to describe it as a "shit" film is to severe all relationship with reason.

                              Remind me in which scene Rhett Butler molests a child.
                              OK, maybe shit is a bit strong, but with the hype Casablanca and Gone with the wond always received, they were great disapointments.
                              It's lazy to place them in a top ten list. I mean, the amount of films which have been made since 1939/1942, and far better actors than Bogart or Gable to ever been cast.

                              Comment


                                #40
                                Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                Maybe it's time to have a movie list knock-out again?

                                Comment


                                  #41
                                  Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                  It's lazy to place them in a top ten list.
                                  It's not when it belongs there. And Casablanca does. It's like saying that the AC Milan side of the early '90s merits no recognition as one of the great football sides because they were a bit shite and Donadoni wasn't really all that good and it's a bit of a cliché to say they were great.

                                  As for Bogart's acting, I find it much more watchable than the tortured mannerisms of yer method actors like Marlon Brando. Bogart made acting look easy; don't confuse that with shortcomings in talent.

                                  Comment


                                    #42
                                    Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                    Ginger Yellow wrote:
                                    Wait, Blimp's a proaganda film? It was banned from export until after the war and Churchill tried to have production halted.
                                    Nonetheless, I think it was intended as a way of showing how the country and its armed forces were moving forward, away from the mistakes of the past. Churchill, as you say, didn't buy it at all, and felt that it completely backfired.

                                    Comment


                                      #43
                                      Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                      G.Man wrote:
                                      It's lazy to place them in a top ten list.
                                      It's not when it belongs there. And Casablanca does. It's like saying that the AC Milan side of the early '90s merits no recognition as one of the great football sides because they were a bit shite and Donadoni wasn't really all that good and it's a bit of a cliché to say they were great.
                                      No it's not. Football and film are not the same.

                                      Comment


                                        #44
                                        Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                        Consider my analogy thoroughly annihilated.

                                        Comment


                                          #45
                                          Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                          Football and film are not the same.
                                          The 2005 Champions League Final was a bit like the last half hour of the Return of the Jedi , where Luke, Han and a bunch of Ewoks manage to defeat the Empire.

                                          Comment


                                            #46
                                            Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                            G.Man wrote:
                                            Consider my analogy thoroughly annihilated.
                                            Well, Donadoni was great.
                                            Do you really think that I'd ever claim because we destroyed the Barcelona dream team of the 90's in the 1994 CL final, it means that side could have won against the Barcelona which trashed Real Madrid a few weeks ago? I don't think we'd have scored a goal.

                                            And as great as Jesse Owens was back then, he wouldn't even be in a final today.

                                            You're comparing sports, which is measurable, with art, which is not.

                                            To begin with, making top lists when it comes to film is a bit silly, if they're not personal. I will always respect the "G-Man top XX", or the "Roging top XX", but the Rolling Stone Magazine top XX or the Empire top XX always come up with the same lazy top, a rearview mirror stern look and cowardly stance.

                                            Comment


                                              #47
                                              Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                              Tell you what.
                                              Why don't we make our own top 50 films list of all time and compare, just for the fun of it.
                                              Let's make it simple.
                                              At first, if you want, simply throw out whatever posts, without saying where in the top 50 you think they'll be.

                                              Comment


                                                #48
                                                Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                                Here we go, a start...

                                                North by northwest
                                                Rear window
                                                Rio Bravo
                                                On the waterfront
                                                Barry Lyndon
                                                Reservior dogs
                                                Die Hard
                                                Cinema Paradiso
                                                Dom za vjesanje (time of the gypsies)
                                                Otac na sluzbenom putu (when fater was away on business)

                                                Comment


                                                  #49
                                                  Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                                  Seven samurai
                                                  Silence of the lambs
                                                  Deer hunter
                                                  Life of Brian
                                                  Amadeus
                                                  The Sting
                                                  The Thing ( the one with Kurt Russell from 1980-something)
                                                  The Exorcist
                                                  Color Purple
                                                  Rocky

                                                  Comment


                                                    #50
                                                    Empire Magazine's updated all-time top 500

                                                    For the record, I wasn't comparing art to sport. I was comparing logic with logic.

                                                    I'm surprised to learn that you don't consider the Milan side of the early '90s great.

                                                    And I find your notion that Jesse Owens would today struggle to keep up odd. With the benefit of all the advantages modern athletes enjoy, he might outrun the lot of them. Who knows?

                                                    Comment

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