1994

Leon: The Proffessional (very few films have had such an emotional impact on me)
Shawshank Redemption
Pulp Fiction
Forrest Gump
The Lion King
Dumb and Dumber

I do respect older films, North by Northwest, Psycho and The Great Escape are a few of my favourite older films but I find I enjoy modern film a lot more despite there being a whole lot of crap.

I imagine such statements and emoticons are designed to get a rise out of me. Or perhaps prove your cleverness.

I designed this thread to catalyze a conversation about movies. I'm more than happy to continue such a conversation if you're willing to be courteous and substantive with your arguments. However, it's becoming increasingly obvious that you don't really love movies. How could you when you dismiss, in a flick of your mouse, several decades of cinema? Not just that, but you dismiss years of scholarship on movies, critical consensus, and the opinions of hundreds of thousands of movie fans?

Not once did I dismiss the last 50 years of world cinema. I simply chose the 30s, 40s, and 50s as the golden age of movies. Yet you have spent much time and energy insulting and impugning me, and stereotyping 30 years of artistic endeavor.

I love North by Northwest. It's one of my favorite movies. Those scenes between Grant and Saint on the train are great. Really steamy.

1994 is a great choice too. Might I also suggest Hoop Dreams? It's a documentary from 1994 about two high school students who dream of playing professional basketball. It might be the best documentary I've ever seen.

hunter_alien said: No, simply NO. Its getting tiresome that all movie snobs consider that pre-50's are the golden age of movies. Yes there where plenty of influential movies in those times, but movies evolved ever since. Just because we have a lot of commercial crap these days it does only mean that it is a commercially viable medium. Also UK/US movies tend to be way to prude, and there are probably only around two dozen US movies that I would even consider in my top 100 of all times. Stop being so self-absorbed and widen your movie culture a bit

Agree. Not a lot of American movies in my Top Movies list, let alone movies from 1939 lol.

I'm pretty sure you'll find in the end 60ies beginning 70ies a year with more interessting and revolutionary movies that had a deeper impact in the movie industrie than 1939.
You'll find milestones like easy rider,2001,clockwork orange,the late nouvelle vague,the new british cinema,once upon a time in the west,thomas crown,straydogs,dirty harry,silent running,french connection,harold and maude,last pictureshow,cabaret,the godfather,deliverance,getaway,little big man,catch22,zabriskie point,wild bunch,bullit,rosemaries baby,butch and sundance,the night of the living dead,more,blow up and all those great movies from forgotten monte hellman,like two lane blacktop.



1939 almost only covers Hollywood.

Its simple my dear friend. I actually have my own opinion Also, no matter how seriously you want to take something, never forget, it's the internet we are talking about

Also I am not dismissing anything. Im aware of the impact those movies had, I only believe they are extremley overrated, and their remaining, overblown value often hangs on the remnants of the old critic generation.

Also I adore movies, I adore them as an artistic medium, and as a true expression of human feelings. If you trully love something you will see its issues, and accept them for what they are, and not what the consensus thinks it is. Most movies from the pre-50's are just the stepping stones for something much bigger. Yes, they where needed, they are still adored, but they are minimal compared to what came afther.

In the US cinema alone you have things like: Psycho, 2001:ASO, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Full Metal Jacket, Deer Hunter, Blade Runner, Alien, Star Wars, There will be Blood, 12 Monkeys, Eyes wide shut... you see what Im doing here? So many genres, so many timeframes, so much variety, and mainstream filmmaking, that actually has value.

Human emotion, captured on camera, even in the 50's still lacked its own authenticity. It was still influenced by the classical theatre, and it only became "real" after the 50's. Everything before it is just too alien to be taken seriously... those movies should be taken as reminders and not as examples.

That's a lucid, coherent, insightful take on movies. Why couldn't you have written that in the first place?

There are as many genres and as much variety in the early years of cinema. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, for example, shares little in common with Some Like it Hot. And Battleship Potemkin is not at all like Vertigo. The 30s, 40s, and 50s saw silent movies, Italian neorealism, German expressionism, medieval war epics, comedies, film noir, musicals, westerns, you name it. There was no shortage of variety.

Certainly there was a "realness" to movies from the late 60s and 70s. And if you value those gritty, realistic, politically-aware movies of that period -- Bonnie and Clyde, An Unmarried Woman, A Clockwork Orange -- then I understand your argument. But I would argue there was more artistry, more technical brilliance in the movies that came before. And there was nothing inauthentic about them. The action and drama might be more "staged" but it loses none of its emotional and psychological power. I think movies like Double Indemnity and Brief Encounter are more powerful, more moving, and more devastating than any movie from the 60s or 70s.

Not an Almodovar fan so no, but Adaptation was kooky though not nearly as good as Being John Malkovich.

Adaptation is probably my favourite movie of all time.  Scratch that, it IS my favourite movie of all time.  I love how Kaufman plays with reality & splits himself in to two people to show his conflicted emotional state as an artist, brilliant!

"LemonSlice said:

Adaptation was kooky though not nearly as good as Being John Malkovich."

Ahhhh! Aghhhhh! AGHGHGHGH!!!!! Deep breath,.. ;) They're both good.

Adaptation is great. One of the more creative, cerebral, and difficult movies I've seen.

I remember I went to see the movie with my now ex-girlfriend and her parents at a theater near my hometown. And the theater staff had set up a display with a magnified newspaper article explaining the premise of the movie so that potential moviegoers wouldn't become confused and disoriented.

I had never seen anything like that before.