Comments on: Favourite movies

By: andrew

andrew — Sat, 31 Jan 2004 00:45:02 +0000

Pappion was a pretty good prison movie. After I watched Shawshank, I thought, “that wasn’t so bad for a formulaic piece of Hollywood tripe.” Tim Robbins does the no-emotion, beady eyes look. Which is his only look. Which makes you wonder if he’s acting. And Morgan Freedman? He’s a good actor, but the role is so stereotypical – the old, wizened, street-smart, black buddy sidekick? As if this is supposed to humanize the white guy, by showing how he tolerates (or even treats as equals) black people? I hate when movies do that. There’s always some white person in some “fish out of water” exotic backdrop, like a foreign country, or oh, American ghettos, like Michelle Pfiffer as an inner city teacher, or blah, blah, blah… Freaking white people. You’d think they were the only ones with a lot of disposable money to spend on movies, or that they aren’t likely to go see a movie about a character that’s not white.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 21:48:21 +0000

Three Kings is underappreciated, my main man.

By: Dave F

Dave F — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 09:40:14 +0000

Well, like most of those who actually did the poll, I was kind of peeved with some of my favourites being either missing or lowly on the list. I used the criteria longevity, repeated watchability and whether I would buy the DVD. I still came up with Citizen Kane, it just isn’t a film I can get tired of, it will go the full distance, etc. But it was down with Spinal Tap, admittedly a flim I have watched a few times, at No 13. Casablanca is a small but perfectly formed film, but the shallowness of its platitudes wears thin after the first couple of viewings. Withnail and I is in the same category of small but etc, yet it bears many repeated viewings. It doesn’t have a platitude or an easy emotional metaphor in it. And it is still howlingly funny when you have heard all the great lines eight times. For lots of reasons David O Russell’s Three Kings has turned out to be the most frequently watchable film I have in my collection. Perfect, wickedly funny and v a film to capture the moral ambiguity of our age. Miuch better than Catch-22.

By: enthymeme

enthymeme — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 03:44:45 +0000

I think Grave of the Fireflies is the English translation; Hotaru no haka is the transliteration. It’s really a shame that this film gets little attention in the US. I think confining it to the “anime” genre is doing it a, er, grave injustice. Anyone who’s not familiar with it should at least read the Ebert review I link above. It’s a powerful film. It’s too early to tell, but I think that Spirited Away will have tremendous longevity and will eventually enter the ranks of the great. I think so too. That, and perhaps Princess Mononoke. Actually, I think most of the Studio Ghibli canon is pretty damn good. As for the translation of Hotaru no haka - I think there are a number of different translations out there. Some "grave" others "graveyard". My Studio Ghibli compilation lists it as Tombstone of the Fireflies. Anime aside, I really like plot twisters like The Usual Suspects and the lesser-known The Name of the Rose (the adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel of the same name, starring Sean Connery and a young Christian Slater).

By: Glenn Condell

Glenn Condell — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 00:16:17 +0000

Shawshank – it relies too heavily on the ‘gotcha’ payoff, which itself relies far too heavily on some implausible plotting. I mean to say, he dug a great big hole in his wall over 19 years and no-one noticed? He never got moved? Come on. Such a movie must have suspension of disbelief throughout; if the escape wasn’t bad enough, we also had the ham villain Director and his stormtroopers. Brubaker is a far superior prison movie.

By: phil

phil — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 19:33:20 +0000

Truly great films are those we can all agree are great without resorting to interminable petty squabbling about whether they are in fact great. Thus, no great films exist.

By: jdsm

jdsm — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:03:13 +0000

I think keith is making a lot of sense. I have noticed on this thread that though many people are sure Shawshank is not great, and though they have an inkling as to why, they are far less bold in explaining what actually would make a movie great. One interesting insight was that it depends largely on your world view. Someone found Shawshank trite because the message of hope was unrealistic. Ophelia Benson drew the analogy between film and literature, saying that you can go back to great literature and get something more from them with every reading. I actually think film and literature differ in a very important way here, since literature is not really narratively driven. Film, as has often been said, has more in common with pulp fiction than literature. If we accept this then we have to accept that it is in the nature of film not to be as re-watchable as Jane Austen. There are exceptions. The Thin Red Line was fairly meandering yet was a very good film in my opinion. The same can be said of Mike Leigh’s Naked. On the whole tough, pace is tremendously important in film (note the criticism Mystic River has recieved for its lack of it and of course Eyes Wide Shut). Those films generally regarded as great mostly have very strong plots (certainly if we accept Norm’s list). This doesn’t leave us much the wiser about what makes great film. Suggestions on a postcard.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 09:37:12 +0000

I think Grave of the Fireflies is the English translation; Hotaru no haka is the transliteration. It's really a shame that this film gets little attention in the US. I think confining it to the "anime" genre is doing it a, er, grave injustice. Anyone who's not familiar with it should at least read the Ebert review I link above. It's a powerful film. It's too early to tell, but I think that Spirited Away will have tremendous longevity and will eventually enter the ranks of the great.

"Shawshank Redemption? "When I was a kid, and knew no better, I used to like a regular article in Reader’s Digest called something like 'My Most Memorable Character'. Shawshank Redemption is the movie version."—Alan

In light of the preceding discussion, you're really not being very nice. I think that the mere fact that someone is reading "Crooked Timber" would indicate that they're very likely not knuckle-dragging imbeciles. Intelligent and thoughtful people disagree with you and have strong feelings and thoughts about it. Still, a claim of greatness requires something more than a mere report of subjective satisfaction. In contrast, I'm reminded of the people that claimed that Blair Witch Project wasn't scary. Clearly, it scared a lot of people so by definition it was scary. Yeah, one can argue that there was an implied "to me" in the heated claims of lack of scariness; but I'm a little skeptical since loudly and repeatedly proclaiming that it wasn't scary "to me" seems pretty unnecessary. One's report of one's own reaction is well-nigh indisputable, isn't it? What's to argue? I really think to some degree such people are trying to dispute the legitimacy of other people's experience—which is also pretty weird. There is, I submit, some degree of that going on in this thread. There's no denying that many, many people enormously enjoyed Shawshank. I don't think it's valid to argue that they "shouldn't have", even implicitly. On the other hand, I think claims of inherent "greatness" of the film need substantiation far beyond how much one liked it.

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 07:34:14 +0000

Shawshank Redemption? When I was a kid, and knew no better, I used to like a regular article in Reader’s Digest called something like “My Most Memorable Character”. Shawshank Redemption is the movie version.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 02:29:24 +0000

“I’d like to leave the Shawshank debate alone but due to the currents of condecension I can’t…Shawshank is the most complete film I have seen that has a happy ending. I wonder how many of the “Shawshank’s naff” crowd would have been quite so critical if Andy Dufresne had been found hanging in his cell.” I do wish people could argue without arguing that way. People can dislike a movie other people like without being “condescending.” And they ought to be able to dislike it without having suspect motives attributed to them. Shawshank is the most complete movie with a happy ending you’ve seen (you say, though I find even that hard to believe, I think you must have forgotten some, or else have a very odd definition of ‘complete’); fine. But it’s not the most complete movie with a happy ending everyone has seen, all right? Happy ending? You want happy ending? The Secret of Roan Inish, Lone Star, In the Name of the Father, Rear Window, Bringing Up Baby, Holiday, You’ve Got Mail, Big, Beetlejuice, The Miracle Worker, Norma Rae – just to name a very very few off the top of my head. There are masses of movies with happy endings! Including a lot of good ones, brilliant ones! There is just no need to look for horrible sinister elitist anti-The People reasons for not liking Shawshank. I for one do quite like it, but I can think of hundreds of movies I like better, and I don’t even see all that many movies.

By: enthymeme

enthymeme — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 02:04:32 +0000

No anime made the list?? Graveyard of the Fireflies and Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade deserve to be in there, somewhere.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:31:52 +0000

“The idea that it’s not “real” as someone pointed out is both false and irrelevant. It’s false because the characters are well-drawn and believable. It’s irrelevant because the same would apply for pretty much every film made before 1970. Seriously, who talks like the people in Casablanca?“—jdsm

I disagree on both counts. Respectfully, if you think there was no such thing as realism in cinema before 1970, then your experience is limited. Anyway, it’s not a question of the verisimilitude of the dialog; it’s that in my opinion the characters in Shawshank ultimately don’t have much human depth which causes the film to not have a payoff that validates its large dose of sentimentalism. Let me put it another way: the criticism against Lars von Trier has been that his films are all about emotional manipulation of the audience without any true, underlying artistic integrity. In its own way, “Breaking the Waves” was “sentimental”; it was a sort of perverse melodrama. And the criticism is that is all that it is. I disagree (but not with complete conviction); but my point is that there is something similar going on with Shawshank. It’s emotionally manipulative, and it’s a well told story; but I can’t imagine having a seminar on it. I can’t imagine what is worth talking about. That’s the difference between “enjoyable” and “great”. I agree somewhat with your point about “difficulty”. I don’t really believe that good art needs to be difficult—at least superficially, which is how much so-called “difficult” art is difficult. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is superficially very light and easy; but I think it is difficult underneath and I would argue that any great piece of art is difficult in some subterranean way. But the superficial experience itself shouldn’t be “difficult” unless that difficulty is intimately connected with the expression of its theme—something many artists attempt but do poorly. Another way to try to get at this conflict that Kevin is describing and you are illustrating, is that to a large degree it is the aesthetics of cinema that is the fundamental disagreement. That is, I suspect that those critical of “Shawshank” expect more artistic depth and “heft” from films they think are very good; while perhaps you more strongly equate “good” with “enjoyable” and a high level of technical craft, all things that “Shawshank” has in spades. “Shawshank” is problematic because, I believe, many people are simply biased against its sentimentality. Your complaint against them has merit, in my opinion. Conversely, I think its hard for many people that think highly of the film to understand how a film that is so affecting—and it is—could also be thought to be not very good.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:18:38 +0000

The best film among those is certainly “Kane”

And the person who can be so positive about that is certainly stuck up their own arse.

By: kevin_k

kevin_k — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 00:49:40 +0000

“I’d like to leave the Shawshank debate alone but due to the currents of condecension I can’t. It’s simply a great movie on every level.”

-jdsm This is exactly the kind of discussion I have had over and over again about this particular film. Other films are a matter of taste…people may not agree, but they usually have some common ground. Not so with Shawshank. Sorry, but I am on the condescending team. I simply do not understand what people see in the film, and find it preposterous when they call it a “great movie.” However, I intend no offence to the people who love it. I must acknowledge that there is something valuable in this picture that some of us truly don’t “get.” Whether I am right or the Shawshankites are is almost irrelevant to me now. I am just amazed that intelligent people can disagree so profoundly about a film that is not politically or culturally controversial.

By: laura

laura — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:51:12 +0000

Simon Frith has written some really good stuff on the issue of aesthetics in popular culture and the widespread reluctance and/or inability to discuss it. I like Shawshank, btw, though I don’t think I’d count it one of my VERY favorites. (Those would be The Opposite of Sex, the Errol Flynn Robin Hood, and a few others.) The movie I can’t believe scored as well as it did is O Brother Where Art Thou—great soundtrack, extremely mediocre movie. This sure is a list slanted toward big-name directors. I’m trying not to think that’s pretentious, but I’m not having total success with that project.