Comments on Top 25 List ( Editorial )
B -
While I do appreciate the comments and additions many of you offered, I can’t (obviously) say I agree with them. Let me explain. There are so far 3 movies I have to argue against. I’m not one to hold dearly to something, so if I agreed that I omitted something great, I would change this list in a heartbeat. Unfortunatetly, I don’t tihnk errors were made (yet).
Raising Arizona? This movie is not great. It’s good, it makes me happy at times, but it’s very slow and has Nicholas Cage in it. Granted, this is clearly his best work, but that’s not saying anything at all. That’s like saying Jason Giambi’s best facial hair grooming job. It, and Nicholas Cage’s acting, is always terrible. If this were a top 100 list, Raising Arizona might be on there. But Fargo is ahead of that still.
Chinatown as a top 15 movie? I just can’t do it. I have seen Chinatown only twice, and read countless arguments as to why it is one of the great films of the past 100 years, but none of them seem to capture for me what makes a great movie a perfect one. This is a period piece that is so effective at bringing us into the 40’s, that we forget it’s not a 40’s movie. The acting is some of the best of the past 50 years, and the story is well written. It doesn’t have that X-Factor though. I do believe that an “x-factor” can be quantitatively measured, and this movie just doesn’t have enough to warrant a universal seal of approval. The story runs slowly at times (maybe intentionally), and the “twist” at the end is a bit forced. Jake is a great character, but he is very much a borrowed, typical one. Faye Dunaway is also univerally known to be one of the biggest cunts in Hollywood, which makes me like her alot less. I think there are better examples of great filmmaking within its genre, which is why I cannot, and will not bump it up.
And finally, Jurassic Park. A movie I love, that would get an A or an A - if it were reviewed today. Unforunately, I think there again better examples of great blockbusters out there that are on my list. Jurassic Park is conceptually great, executed well, and surprisngly tight for a big budget effects giant. There are 2 too many sequels and 10 too little pages of dialogue though. I could do without a Star Wars movie on the list, and could see Jurassic Park replacing Episode V, but then I would be having this same argument about why ESB isn’t on there. The facts of the matter are that they are great movies done well that could’ve used a couple more years of development each. Not to mention the fact that Star Wars was a movie first and a commerical rape job second, whereas Jurassic Park was a groundbreaking, best-selling novel first, and a worse movie second. Raiders is obviously better and Return of the King was the first movie that had excessive special effects that I didn’t notice. ROTK is almost unfair though because the last 1.25 books of the Tolkien Trilogy are some of the best writing ever done.
