Baumer's 50 most important films of all time (JFK 3, Earthlings 2.....FREE YOUR MIND! THE MATRIX NUMBER 1)

[TalismanRing]

The Jazz Singer while not an especially good movie is far more seminal and influential than it's placement on the list.  It's enormous success changed the entire film industry.  Careers and studios toppled and rose in it's wake.  Interestingly, it wasn't the first talkie and was actually made as a silent film and sound was later added.

 

 

[Dementeleus]

This whole conversation is reminding me I need to work on my Lesser Known Movies to See list.

[baumer]

Every performance from the "golden era" of Hollywood is borderline silly.  It's one note and every guy is tough and macho and every girl is prudish and secretly wants to be kissed.  I just can't take the acting seriously in many movies.  Bogart included.  There's just no substance to it imo.  I'll take a fairly bad actor from today and say he has more range and has a more realistic performance than 99% of the performances from back in the day.  

[JohnnyGossamer]

Just now, Baumer said:

Every performance from the "golden era" of Hollywood is borderline silly.  It's one note and every guy is tough and macho and every girl is prudish and secretly wants to be kissed.  I just can't take the acting seriously in many movies.  Bogart included.  There's just no substance to it imo.  I'll take a fairly had actor from today and say he has more range and believability than 99% of the performances from back in the day.  

Agree to disagree. It's difficult for me to remotely respect this opinion.

[baumer]

6 minutes ago, RascarCapat said:

 

Here's the scene I'm talking about :

 

 

 

This is a perfect example of how silly the acting is.  You seriously watch this and there's depth here?  lol

[Dementeleus]

2 minutes ago, Baumer said:

Every performance from the "golden era" of Hollywood is borderline silly.  It's one note and every guy is tough and macho and every girl is prudish and secretly wants to be kissed.  I just can't take the acting seriously in many movies.  Bogart included.  There's just no substance to it imo.  I'll take a fairly bad actor from today and say he has more range and has a more realistic performance than 99% of the performances from back in the day.  

 

 

Look, we all have our own opinions and what sort of movies or performances we prefer, but this just isn't true, unless you're talking about a very narrow slice of movies.

[JohnnyGossamer]

I mean, Baumer, there's so many great movies and dynamic characters within said movies in that era. Again, personally, I have to agree to disagree.

[baumer]

4 minutes ago, JohnnyGossamer said:

Agree to disagree. It's difficult for me to remotely respect this opinion.

 

It's not really an opinion.  Its pretty much a fact.  There's no true range the way there is today.    I would say Adam Sandler is more realistic in film than someone like Bogart.  All they do in the black and white era is talk tough and speak in monotone.  

[RandomCat]

Another movie dear to my heart: Bringing Up Baby.

The very definition of tough and macho.

[TalismanRing]

1 minute ago, Baumer said:

 

It's not really an opinion.  Its pretty much a fact.  There's no true range the way there is today.    I would say Adam Sandler is more realistic in film than someone like Bogart.  All they do in the black and white era is talk tough and speak in monotone.  

 

Please.  Just stop.  You're entering James territory.

[Dementeleus]

1 minute ago, Baumer said:

 

It's not really an opinion.  Its pretty much a fact.  There's no true range the way there is today.    I would say Adam Sandler is more realistic in film than someone like Bogart.  All they do in the black and white era is talk tough and speak in monotone.  

 

I... can't disagree more. In fact, I'm convinced you're living in another reality than me.

[Dementeleus]

1 minute ago, RandomJC said:

Another movie dear to my heart: Bringing Up Baby.

The very definition of tough and macho.

 

I was thinking about mentioning ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, but this works too.

[Goffe]

1 hour ago, Baumer said:

Number 44

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh

Directed by Elia Kazan

 "I never met a dame yet that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and there's some of them that give themselves credit for more than they've got."

 

 

Box Office:  8 million

Quick Synopsis:  Acting and especially the portrayal of men in the movies, changed after Brando's performance in this film.

Imdb summary:  Blanche Dubois goes to visit her pregnant sister and husband Stanley in New Orleans. Stanley doesn't like her, and starts pushing her for information on some property he know was left to the sisters. He discovers she has mortgaged the place and spent all the money, and wants to find out all he can about her. Even more friction develops between the two while they are in the apartment together.

Why it's important:  I'll let the great Roger Ebert tell you:  

Marlon Brando didn't win the Academy Award in 1951 for his acting in "A Streetcar Named Desire." The Oscar went to Humphrey Bogart, for "The African Queen." But you could make a good case that no performance had more influence on modern film acting styles than Brando's work as Stanley Kowalski, Tennessee Williams' rough, smelly, sexually charged hero.

Before this role, there was usually a certain restraint in American movie performances. Actors would portray violent emotions, but you could always sense to some degree a certain modesty that prevented them from displaying their feelings in raw nakedness.

Brando held nothing back, and within a few years his was the style that dominated Hollywood movie acting. This movie led directly to work by Brando's heirs such as Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Jack Nicholson and Sean Penn.

The film itself, hailed as realistic in 1951, now seems claustrophobic and mannered - and all the more effective for that.

The Method actors, Brando foremost, always claimed their style was a way to reach realism in a performance, but the Method led to super-realism, to a heightened emotional content that few "real" people would be able to sustain for long, or convincingly.   When "A Streetcar Named Desire" was first released, it created a firestorm of controversy. It was immoral, decadent, vulgar and sinful, its critics cried. And that was after substantial cuts had already been made in the picture, at the insistence of Warner Bros., driven on by the industry's own censors. Elia Kazan, who directed the film, fought the cuts and lost. For years the missing footage - only about five minutes in length, but crucial - was thought lost. But this 1993 restoration splices together Kazan's original cut, and we can see how daring the film really was."  Basically, this was the Basic Instinct of it's time, but to a much larger degree.

Why it's important to me:  I've always felt that a good amount of acting in films before the 70's is wooden and phoney and has one pitch.  Brando changed that.  This performance really was the catalyst to change performances to become much more of what we know today.  This film, and even I can recognize this, paved the way for that change.  

It's an amazing movie and deserves to be in the list.

 

shame it's not more popular.

[JohnnyGossamer]

5 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

Another movie dear to my heart: Bringing Up Baby.

The very definition of tough and macho.

Prefer Philadelphia Story but love Baby too.

[baumer]

6 minutes ago, TalismanRing said:

 

Please.  Just stop.  You're entering James territory.

 

Oh please....lol.  Give me anyone from today and I'll put them up against any of the so called giants from the past.

[RandomCat]

3 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

I was thinking about mentioning ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, but this works too.

 

I'd also wouldn't call Hepburn "prudish" in Bringing Up Baby.

 

I'm going to go watch these movies when I get off work now...

[RandomCat]

6 minutes ago, JohnnyGossamer said:

Prefer Philadelphia Story but love Baby too.

 

I love Philadelphia story, It's great, and has Jimmy Stewart in it. My favorite is Arsenic and Old Lace. But I'm a sucker for the meta streak in that film.

[cannastop]

7 minutes ago, Baumer said:

 

Oh please....lol.  Give me anyone from today and I'll put them up against any of the so called giants from the past.

Nice one on letting James have the password to your account. It really helps you sell the joke.

[4815162342]

15 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

I... can't disagree more. In fact, I'm convinced you're living in another reality than me.

 

Insanity runs in these posts by Baumer. In fact it practically gallops.

[JohnnyGossamer]

4 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

 

I love Philadelphia story, It's great, and has Jimmy Stewart in it. My favorite is Arsenic and Old Lace. But I'm a sucker for the meta streak in that film.

Some of Grant's zingers in Story just knock me out cold. Such as the line below. So blunt but fits his relationship with his ex-wife and their constant sniping at one another so well.

 

C. K. Dexter Haven: Orange juice, certainly.

Tracy Lord: Don't tell me you've forsaken your beloved whisky and whiskies.

C. K. Dexter Haven: No-no-no-no. I've just changed their colour, that's all. I'm going for the pale pastel shades now. They're more becoming of me. How about you, Mr. Connor? You drink, don't you - alcohol, I mean?

Macaulay Connor: Oh, a little.

C. K. Dexter Haven: [Amused] A little? And you a writer? Tsk, tsk, tsk. I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know, at one time I think I secretly wanted to be a writer.

[He and Tracy exchange scornful looks]

Edited June 1, 2016 by JohnnyGossamer