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

[baumer]

Whew.....thanks for catching that one lol.

[baumer]

11 minutes ago, AABATTERY said:

Nope, only been around a month and bit. Dunno why I got pointed out.

 

My bad.....you have a presence that I haven't felt since......

[Blankments]

Cool, more I've seen!! (Terminator 2, Scream, Breakfast Club, Toy Story, Titanic, and Steamboat Willie, Singin' in the Rain haha)

 

Guess I'm not as illiterate as I thought

[baumer]

I'd say the rest are going to be much more up to our speed.

[baumer]

All right one more for tonight....for Blank.  

 

Actually.....sorry....rest will be tomorrow

[narniadis]

Enjoying your list B - you like me can see why some films are appreciated even if they aren't to our em, tempo.... unlike some in life and on this board. Looking forward to the top 20 - no guesses cause I like to be surprised but Surely Star Wars makes an appearance lol.

[ttr]

Up to the top 20.  Any guesses as to what some of the remaining films are?

I am hoping for Sound of Music, but reckon it is a long shot. For a reason it is inked in MY dna. I am a fan of Peckinpah westerns, maybe The Wild Bunch? Anyhow, very happy to see the Breakfast Club on your list. [emoji4]

[baumer]

Number 19

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Heather Lagenkamp, Robert Englund, Johnny Depp

Directed by Wes Craven

"Come to FREDDY!"

 

 

Box office:  25 million

Quick:  The house that Freddy built

Imdb summary:  Nancy is having nightmares about a frightening, badly-scarred figure who wears a glove with razor-sharp "finger knives". She soon discovers that her friends are having similar dreams. When the kids begin to die, Nancy realizes that she must stay awake to survive. Uncovering the secret identity of the dream killer and his connection with the children of Elm Street, the girl plots to draw him out into the real world.

Why it's important:  By 1984, the slasher genre was wearing thin. Halloween bombed out with number 3, and Friday the 13th was falling into the dreadful mix of completely cliché horror. Without A Nightmare on Elm Street, that could have been it for the slasher film. With it, however, the genre was brought off the respirator for another 10 years when Craven did it again with Scream, but I digress. Wes Craven delivers a very original, creative, and well played out horror film that has the perfect level of plot, fright, gore, and imagination. The balance of these elements is key, as it gives you the best of all of them, without becoming too cliché, too bloody, or too silly. The movie keeps you with the characters throughout, who, unlike in the Friday the 13th series, aren't there only to be lined up for slaughter. To top all that off, there's the smart, fear-inspiring bogeyman Freddy Krueger, who is one of the greatest villains in cinema history. The combination of all these factors makes A Nightmare on Elm Street easily recognizable as a landmark in classic horror.  When this movie was made, Halloween had set the stage, and Friday the 13th turned into what is now known as a cliché slasher. Wes Craven picked up on the psychological terror of Halloween, and the gore in Friday the 13th, and made it a psychologically chilling gory movie, while not turning to exploitation just to keep your interest.  And without Freddy, New Line doesn't become the power independent that it did.  In essence, Freddy paved the way for Gollum and Gandalf.

Why it's important to me:  It's one of the five best horror films ever made imo.  It has more atmosphere than most films today and it has more iconic scenes that most horror films of its era.  Do you need a big budget to make a good Horror Movie? No, Wes Craven and many other Directors of that Genre proved that more than once. From today's point of view some special effects might look a bit poor but some others are still impressive and they still stick in my mind. What I impressed more than the blood and gore scenes are the creation of a new kind of Horror figure: Freddy Krueger. In a kind he is a modern Vampire. He isn't like Bela Lugosi's or Christopher Lee's Dracula a fashionable and handsome man who tries to seduce his victims. No he is more like Max Schreck's Count Orlok of the classic Nosferatu. An ugly person you fear when you see him. Freddy Krueger doesn't suck out the blood but the sucks out the fear of his victims. He needs their fear to live and like a Cat with a Mouse he plays with his victims before he kills them. Most of them are teenager and like a Vampire he is coming into the night when all the children sleep. If one of the youngsters let him in their dream it's pretty difficult to survive for them.

It's not so easy to create a horror figure. Director Wes Craven had the luck to find with Robert Englund the perfect cast for this role. Also some of the young actresses and actors are showing good performances. Robert Englund is Freddy Krueger. He embodies him and no one else can play him.  No wonder that so many sequels would follow. Next to the creation of a perfect new horror monster the whole movie follows somehow the concept of old classics. If you hear a children song in a horror movie it's always scary. The concept of the plot is like an old urban legend, myth or old classic ghost story. A young teenage girl is telling his parents that she dreamed of a monster that tried to kill her. Nobody believes her and keep on telling her it's just a nightmare. Freddy Krueger cannot come into the dreams of adults they don't have the imagination of fantasy anymore.

Next to the plot I was always impressed of the style of directing and photography of A Nightmare on Elm Street. It's 80's style with contemporary music. The movie it self has a Gothic nightmarish atmosphere but Wes Craven used the colors and the look of the 1980's for it. The first A Nightmare on Elm Street Movie isn't a typical Horror Mainstream product. Wes Craven not only broke with some of the common rules of the genre he also reinvented some old classic rules of the genre into a new light. I highly recommend this piece of 80's culture to every movie fan not only the horror fans. If you don't like horror series don't watch the sequels but watch Wes Craven's Version of a Nightmare.

[The Futurist]

You forgot the other main reason why Freddy was so important.

 

[baumer]

7 minutes ago, The Futurist said:

You forgot the other main reason why Freddy was so important.

 

????

[IronJimbo]

8 hours ago, Baumer said:

Up to the top 20.  Any guesses as to what some of the remaining films are?

50) Enter the Dragon

49) Sixth Sense

48) The Jazz Singer (1927)

47) Iron Man

46) Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

45) Boyz N The Hood

44) A Streetcar Named Desire

43) Free Willy

42) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

41) 2001 A Space Odyssey

40) They Live

39) Silence of the Lambs

38) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

37) Gone With the Wind

36) Battleship Potemkin

35) Airplane

34) Terminator 2

33) Blair Witch Project

32) The Breakfast Club

31) Scream

30) The Birth of a Nation

29) Rebel Without a Cause

28) The Exorcist

27) Toy Story

26) The Godfather

25) Metropolis

24) Titanic

23) Casablanca

22) Steamboat Willie

21) All Quiet on the Western Front

20) Singin in the Rain

10-19) King Kong, Citizen Kane, Jurassic Park, Dracula, Godzilla, The Matrix, Blade Runner, Alien

2-9) Jaws, Star Wars (1977), Lord of The Rings, Pulp Fiction (Overrated), Indianna Jones (1989), Psycho

1) Avatar

Edited June 5, 2016 by IronJimbo

[The Stingray]

Love Elm Street. Don't know if I'd call it that important/influential.
 

[baumer]

6 minutes ago, The Stingray said:

Love Elm Street. Don't know if I'd call it that important/influential.
 

 

I think it was very influential and important. It changed horror from just straight slasher into something more and different. I think Elm Street dominated horror for a good decade.

[baumer]

I'll say this. Spielberg will make an appearance for sure in the top 15.

John Laroquette is going to drop by as well.

Perhaps the greatest cast ever assembled.

Cuba Gooding Jr might drop by as well.

[baumer]

And I want to thank all of you who have read it or liked any post or commented on anything. Thank you for taking the time to do so.

[baumer]

I'm working all day. I'll be back tonight and it will be finished tomorrow.

[chasmmi]

7 minutes ago, Baumer said:

 

Cuba Gooding Jr might drop by as well.

 

SO it's Jerry Maguire or Boat Trip at number 1 then,

 

[baumer]

Chas pm me your cell number please

[The Stingray]

1 hour ago, Baumer said:

 

I think it was very influential and important. It changed horror from just straight slasher into something more and different. I think Elm Street dominated horror for a good decade.

 

Well, I guess I would call it important then, but not influential. Important because it showed that slashers could be something more than just the same old shit, but I wouldn't call it influential because after its release slashers were still the same old shit. There weren't many, if any, "sophisticated" slasher films following in its wake like there were meta horrors after Scream or found footage horrors after Blair Witch.
 

[chasmmi]

8 minutes ago, The Stingray said:

 

Well, I guess I would call it important then, but not influential. Important because it showed that slashers could be something more than just the same old shit, but I wouldn't call it influential because after its release slashers were still the same old shit. There weren't many, if any, "sophisticated" slasher films following in its wake like there were meta horrors after Scream or found footage horrors after Blair Witch.
 

 

I'd also say Nightmare style horrors were harder to make because you needed an actual talent playing the villain and most good actors don't usually do horror sadly (unless they are still starting out ala Depp, Bacon, Arquette etc). Any big intimidating guy can play a Jason or a Michael Myers, it's the director and sound guys etc. that make those films what they are, not the Oscar worthy walking skills of whoever played Myers.

 

In fact didn't Jason get recast for Freddy vs Jason purely because the original guy was the wrong height? It's also why it's the one franchise that will likely continue to fail with reboots because it's hard to cast a new Freddy, whereas a new Jason or Michael is easy.

 

For Nightmare 'clones', would Hellraiser or Child's Play perhaps be considered inspired more by Elm Street than the usual generic slasher?