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

[Blankments]

Oh, and although I haven't seen it, from what I've heard, Night of the Living Dead a lot for racial representation and commentary in mainstream films, so that's pretty cool too.

[ttr]

Two more horror movies are left

a Movie 50+ years old

a 70's film 

a film or films with chocolate candy being mentioned

Hopefully Chocolat. Awesome movie ? When Johnny was still more than guy making weird faces...

I am a bit disappointed Ringu has not made your list. Since I understood you're a horror fan. It did start somesort of "remake-fashion"(?)

[The Stingray]

Pulp Fiction is the most important movie of the '90s.

 

[IronJimbo]

2 hours ago, The Stingray said:

Pulp Fiction is the most important movie of the '90s.

 

Nope.

 

1997 had something far more important.

[baumer]

5 hours ago, ttr said:

Hopefully Chocolat. Awesome movie ? When Johnny was still more than guy making weird faces...

I am a bit disappointed Ringu has not made your list. Since I understood you're a horror fan. It did start somesort of "remake-fashion"(?)

 

In what sense is Chocolate important though?  And Ringu is not on this list.  I can tell you that much.

[baumer]

3 hours ago, The Stingray said:

Pulp Fiction is the most important movie of the '90s.

 

 

I agree.  Pulp Fiction broke all the conventional rules and is one of the most influential films of all time.

 

36 minutes ago, IronJimbo said:

Nope.

 

1997 had something far more important.

 

Titanic made the list but it's lower than Pulp Fiction.

[holcs]

haven't read thru all the pages yet but eh pulp eh.  It's a damn good movie...I like some other QTs better though, especially Inglorious Basterds.  But pretty much any QT movie is cool with me because he writes scripts like no one else.  I'm an action junkie and even if there's barely any action going on in a QT movie...it still keeps my attention. 

[baumer]

Number 10

Citizen Kane

Orson Welles, Agnes Moorehead

Directed by Welles

"ROSEBUD!!"

 

 

Box office:  1.5 million

Quick:  Invented a bunch of shit...and the AFI loves it

Imdb Summary: The newspaper baron Charles Foster Kane, one of the richest and most powerful men in America if not the world, dies. A newspaperman digs into his past seeking the meaning of his enigmatic last word: "Rosebud." He finds evidence of a child torn away from his family to serve Mammon. Grown into manhood, Charles Foster Kane becomes a newspaperman to indulge his idealism. He marries the niece of the man who will become President of the United States, and gradually assumes more and more power while losing more and more of his soul. Kane's money and power does not bring him happiness, as he has lost his youthful idealism, as has the America he is a symbol for.

Why it's important:  Citizen Kane's critical acclaim has continued to grow ever since its release in 1941, even though it was a commercial failure at its time of release. The film's structure has gone on to become a template for classics such as Paul Schrader's infinitely underrated Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and Lawrence of Arabia and is a good reason as to why the film hasn't aged a day. The story is a universal one that was expertly parodied in The Simpsons - an all-powerful man who wants the one thing he can't have - and can still resonate with audiences because of its simplicity but emotional depth.

Welles was only 26 when he made Citizen Kane and due to studio politics, his career could never reach the same heights - which is a shame because films like Touch of Evil, The Stranger and The Trial are all classics that have been little seen in comparison. For five decades, Sight and Sound named it the greatest film of all time and directors such as Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg have all acknowledged the film's influence on their own work. Citizen Kane changed the way movies could look - Welles' use of flashbacks was unprecedented, the way he used lighting was revolutionary and it has gone to be one of the most talked about and acclaimed movies of all time. You can't claim to be a fan of cinema until you've seen Citizen Kane.

Why it's important to me:  It means nothing to me except that it is the single most confusing aspect of Hollywood to me.  I don't understand how anyone can like this film.  It confuses the hell out of me.  It's boring, it's boring, it's boring.  Beyond boredom, some of the acting in it is hilariously bad.  Think of Julianne Moore in Magnolia, and then add ten fold to it.  That's some of the performances you get from the actresses in this film.  But it obviously has a place on this list and it cannot be ignored as one of the most important films of all time, but not in my eyes. 

[baumer]

Number 9

Halloween (1978)

Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance

Directed by John Carpenter

 I met him, fifteen years ago; I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding; and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil.

 

 

 

Box office:  47 million

Quick:  IMO, the second most influential horror film ever made 

Imdb Summary:  In 1963, Mike Myers stabbed his 15 year-old sister to death. He was institutionalized and according to his doctor, Sam Loomis, is the personification of evil. On the day before Halloween 15 years later, Myers manages to escape and heads for his home town. On Halloween night, he goes on a rampage while Loomis and the local sheriff search Myers' neighborhood for him. Meanwhile Laurie Strode, a serious student who rarely goes out on dates, is babysitting a neighbor's child. Little does she know the danger she is in.

Why it's important:  The first film to have the unstoppable killer.  The boogeyman that won't die.  It's the horror film that all other horror is measured against.  It's also one of the fines films ever made.  But this film is way more important to me than it is to the history of Hollywood.

Why it's important to me:  My original review:

 

I have just recently been through a stage where I wanted to see why it is that horror films of the 90's can't hold a candle to 70's and 80's horror films. I have been very public in this forum about the vileness of films like The Haunting and Urban Legend and such. I feel that they (and others like them) don't know what true horror is. And it bothered me to the point where it made me go to my local video store and rent some of the classic horror films. I already own all the Friday's so I rented The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original Nightmare On Elm Street, Jaws, The Exorcist, Angel Heart, The Exorcist and Halloween. Now the other films are classics in their own right but it is here that I want to tell you about Halloween. Because what Halloween does is perhaps something no other film in the history of horror film can do, and that is it uses subtle techniques, techniques that don't rely on blood and gore, and it uses these to scare the living daylights out of you. I was in a room by myself with the lights off and as silly as I knew it was, I wanted to look behind me to see if Michael Myers was there. No movie that I have seen in the last ten years has done that to me. No movie.

John Carpenter took a low budget film and he scared a generation of movie goers. He showed that you don't need budgets in the 8 or 9 figures to evoke fear on an audience. Because sometimes the best element of fear is not what actually happens, but what is about to happen. What was that shadow? What was that noise upstairs? He knows that these are the ways to scare someone and he uses every element of textbook horror that I think you can use. I even think he made up some of his own ideas and these should be ideas that people use today. But they don't. No one uses lighting and detail to provoke scares, they use special effects and rivers of blood. And it is just not the same. You can't be scared by a giant special effect that makes loud noises and jumps out of a wall. It's the moments when the killer is lurking, somewhere, you just don't know where, that scare you. And Halloween succeeds like no other film in this endeavor.

In 1963 a young Micael Myers kills his sister with a large butcher knife and then spends the next 15 years of his life, silently locked up in an institute. As Loomis ( his doctor) says to Sheriff Brackett, " I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven making sure that he never gets out, because what I saw behind those eyes was pure e-vil. " That sets up the manic and relentless idea of a killer that will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And all he wants here is to kill Laurie. No one know why he wants to kill her, but he does.( Halloween II continues the story quite well )

What Carpenter has done here is taken a haunting score, mendacious lighting techniques and wrote and directed a tightly paced masterpiece of horror. There is one scene that has to be described. And that is the scene where Annie is on her way to pick up Paul. She goes to the car and tries to open it. Only then does she realize that she has left her keys in the house. She gets them, comes back out and inadvertently opens the car door without using the keys. The audience picks up on this but she doesn't. She is too busy thinking about Paul. When she sits down, she notices that the windows are fogged up. She is puzzled and starts to wipe away the mist, and then Myers strikes, from the back seat. This is such a great scene because it pays attention to detail. We know what is happening and Annie doesn't. But it's astute observations that Carpenter made that scared the hell out of movie goers in 1978 and beyond. 

Halloween uses blurry images of a killer standing in the background, it has shadows ominously gliding across a wall, dark rooms, creepy and haunting music, a sinister story told hauntingly by Donald Pleasance and a menacing, relentless killer. My advice to film makers in our day and age is to study Halloween. It should be the blue print for what scary movies are all about. After all, Carpenter followed in Hitchcock's steps, maybe director's should follow in his.

Halloween personifies everything that scares us. If you are tired of all the mindless horror films that don't know the difference between evil and cuteness, then Halloween is a film that should be seen. It won't let you down. I enjoy being scared, I don't know why, but I do. But nothing has scared me in the 90's, except maybe one film ( Wes Craven's final Nightmare ). If you enjoy beings scared, then Halloween is one that you should see. And if you have already seen it a hundred times, go and watch it again, back to back with a film like Urban Legend. Urban Legend will have you enticed at all the pretty faces in the movie. Halloween will have you frozen with fear, stuck in your seat, not wanting to move. Now tell me, what horror film would you rather watch?

And just to follow up after seeing Zombie's version, it makes you appreciate this that much more. This is a classic by definition. Zombie bastardized his version, but it doesn't take away from the brilliance of this one.

[baumer]

More later.

 

Hope some of you are happy...Citizen Fucking Kane made it.

[IronJimbo]

Quote

 It means nothing to me except that it is the single most confusing aspect of Hollywood to me.  I don't understand how anyone can like this film.  It confuses the hell out of me.  It's boring, it's boring, it's boring.  Beyond boredom, some of the acting in it is hilariously bad.  Think of Julianne Moore in Magnolia, and then add ten fold to it.  That's some of the performances you get from the actresses in this film.  But it obviously has a place on this list and it cannot be ignored as one of the most important films of all time, but not in my eyes. 

 

Translation: I put it on the list to keep you guys happy

 

I hated it too Baumer.

[baumer]

Well, I can't ignore the historical importance of it @IronJimbo

[baumer]

7 hours ago, ttr said:

Hopefully Chocolat. Awesome movie ? When Johnny was still more than guy making weird faces...

I am a bit disappointed Ringu has not made your list. Since I understood you're a horror fan. It did start somesort of "remake-fashion"(?)

 

Don't get me wrong...I liked Chocolate and Ringu but in terms of the 50 most important films of all time....and their influence/impact on me......sorry, no room for those movies.

[baumer]

Coming up at number 8...Oh mother!! What have you done

Coming in at number 7, the film that impacted me in some ways more than any other film in 1999

and then penis breath (not the sex thread)

[Chaz]

Halloween is fresh every single time I watch it.

[RandomCat]

I'm not doing another list. When I have more time to go back over everything fully, I'll comment on ones I can comment on. But I'll do Citizen Kane. I tried watching it once when I was in my teens, and didn't stick. I think I still have the DVD, may try again some day. But my biggest problem with the movie is it's "Best Movie Ever" kind of placement. The idea that the best film ever made, was made 70 years ago and that nothing can be made better bothers me to no end. The blind loyalty some film people have to Citizen Kane also bothers me.

 

Halloween. Is perhaps the perfect film from the slasher horror genre. It scares you, but doesn't feel the need to drop blood and guts at your feet so you're standing knee deep in viscera.

1 hour ago, Baumer said:

I have just recently been through a stage where I wanted to see why it is that horror films of the 90's can't hold a candle to 70's and 80's horror films. I have been very public in this forum about the vileness of films like The Haunting and Urban Legend and such.

 

I know you mean the 90s The Haunting, but the original 1963 film I enjoyed a lot. It is a horror movie that does a lot with very little, using mood, score, and just a genuinely terrified look on it's actor's faces to make you feel like something very wrong is going on.

[Plain Old Tele]

[RandomCat]

I think I just realized the general hypocrisy in my own statement. It's hard to deride people for placing Citizen Kane on the best movie pedestal and then put Halloween up there in it's own way.

 

Perhaps a better way is to say Halloween is one that appeals to those who don't normally like slashers, and while I can call it perfect, it is ultimately my opinion, and the possibility for a better film does exist.

 

Did I cover my ass enough right there?

Edited June 6, 2016 by RandomJC

[baumer]

Definitely meant the Haunting remake

[RandomCat]

This thread has made me really want to just sit back and marathon a block of movies, just put a TV in my bed room and just stay in bed and watch a bunch of movies.

 

Thank you Baumer