Top 30 of 1989. Full List Revealed

[Porthos]

6 minutes ago, baumer said:

What might surprise you is the order they finish.    

 

2 minutes ago, captainwondyful said:

Not if people did the right thing! 

So the question is... Did BOT choose wisely?

[baumer]

#3

Batman

Starring:  Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger

Directed by Tim Burton

 

Number of Lists:  17

Number one:  1

Top 5:  8

 

Washington Post:  Dark, haunting and poetic, Tim Burton's "Batman" is a magnificent living comic book. From its opening shots, as the camera descends into the grim, teeming streets of Gotham City, the movie fixes you in its gravitational pull. It's an enveloping, walk-in vision. You enter into it as you would a magical forest in a fairy tale, and the deeper you're drawn into it, the more frighteningly vivid it becomes.

Ultimately, that's what "Batman" is -- a violent urban fairy tale. And it's as rich and satisfying a movie as you're likely to see all year. But though it springs from American pulp origins and provides comic book pleasures, it expands upon them as well, transmuting the raw material into operatic gold. Burton's pop vitality and his ability to make the world over in surreal cartoon terms could have been predicted from "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and "Beetlejuice," but nowhere in those films is there a sign of the muscularity and emotion he shows here.

Photographed by Roger Pratt, the movie is visually symphonic, with layers and layers of detail and color. Gotham City itself is both recognizable and alien, an imaginative extension of contemporary urban chaos. Anton Furst's sets have a post-Industrial Age grandeur. The buildings are heavy and squat; they're monumental examples of urban rot.

 

My take:  While not my favourite of the Batman films, (that goes to TDK), I cannot deny how monumental a film this is.  Keaton is the scene stealer imo.  Nicholson gets the flashy role but Keaton kills it as Batman.  This is the film that really put DC on top of the world.  I liked it enough, just didn't love it.  

 

[Porthos]

[tawasal]

[baumer]

#2

Do The Right Thing

Starring:  Danny Aielo, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis

Directed by:  Spike Lee

 

Number of Lists:  16

Number one:  3

Top 5:  11

Total points:  314

 

I have been given only a few filmgoing experiences in my life to equal the first time I saw “Do the Right Thing.” Most movies remain up there on the screen. Only a few penetrate your soul. In May of 1989 I walked out of the screening at the Cannes Film Festival with tears in my eyes. Spike Lee had done an almost impossible thing. He'd made a movie about race in America that empathized with all the participants. He didn't draw lines or take sides but simply looked with sadness at one racial flashpoint that stood for many others.

Not everybody thought the film was so even-handed. I sat behind a woman at the press conference who was convinced the film would cause race riots. Some critics agreed. On the Criterion DVD of the film, Lee reads from his reviews, noting that Joe Klein, in New York magazine, laments the burning of Sal's Pizzeria but fails to even note that it follows the death of a young black man at the hands of the police.

Many audiences are shocked that the destruction of Sal's begins with a trash can thrown through the window by Mookie (Lee), the employee Sal refers to as “like a son to me.” Mookie is a character we're meant to like. Lee says he has been asked many times over the years if Mookie did the right thing. Then he observes: “Not one person of color has ever asked me that question.” But the movie in any event is not just about how the cops kill a black man and a mob burns down a pizzeria. That would be too simple, and this is not a simplistic film. It covers a day in the life of a Brooklyn street, so that we get to know the neighbors, and see by what small steps the tragedy is approached.

The victim, Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), is not blameless; he plays his boom box at deafening volume and the noise not only drives Sal (Danny Aiello) crazy, but also the three old black guys who sit and talk at the corner. He wears steel knuckles that spell out “Love” and “Hate,” and although we know Radio is harmless, and we've seen that “Love” wins when he stages an imaginary bout for Mookie, to the cops the knuckles look bad. Not that the cops look closely, because they are white, and when they pull Radio off of Sal in the middle of a fight, it doesn't occur to them that Radio might have been provoked (Sal has just pounded his boom box to pieces with a baseball bat).

 

My take:  Next to Boyz N The Hood, the best film ever made about race relations in America.  

 

 

Number 1

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Starring:  Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, River Phoenix

Directed by Spielberg

 

Number of lists:  21

Number one:  3

Top 5  15

Total points:  320

 

In an incredibly close race, Indy wins out by 6 points.  

 

After Adolf Hitler and the Nazis fail to obtain the Ark of the Covenant, Hitler orders the S.S. and Wehrmacht to go after the cup of Christ, the Holy Grail. Indiana Jones is pressed back into action after a mining magnate's lead researcher disappears mysteriously. The lead researcher is none other than Indy's dad, the feisty Professor Henry Jones. Meeting up with Dr. Elsa Schneider in Venice, Indiana and Marcus Brody discover that a second marker that reveals the location of the grail is buried in the catacombs of a converted church. Escaping from rats, fire, gunmen, and a ship's propeller, Indy discovers that his dad is being held in a castle on the German border with Austria. When he and Dr. Schneider reach the castle, Indy locates his father, but Elsa proves to be a turncoat, and even worse, so is the mining magnate, Walter Donovan. After Indy and Henry escape the castle, they head to Berlin to get the map and Henry's diary that provides critical information to those who seek the Grail. Marcus, however, is kidnapped by Nazis in Iskenderun, and Indy and Henry meet up with Sallah and start their own journey toward the "Canyon of the Crescent Moon". They run into Donovan and the Nazis, and a huge fight ensues. Will Indy obtain the Grail and gain eternal life for he and his father, giving the world a future of light, or will Adolf Hitler and the Nazis triumph and send the armies of darkness marching all over the world?

 

My take:  The greatest third installment of a series ever

28 December 1999

Thanks to the Godfather and Rocky movies, sequels became a part of our vernacular in the 70's. If there was a sequel before these two franchises, I can't remember them. And since sequels have meant pretty much big bucks at the box office, many times they are pale imitations to the original. To name a few movie franchises that have now gone on to do at least three films, you have the Rocky's, Godfather, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Aliens, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Jaws, Star Wars, Batman, Rambo, Superman, Scream, Child's Play, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. These are just a few of the film franchises that have gone on to do at least three films. And I can guarantee you that no film series can boast that their third offering is almost as good as their first. It just doesn't happen. It is hard to duplicate the energy and originality of the first one that came out. But the Indy movies are different. First of all they are created by two of the best in the business and they star one of the greatest actors to ever live. And what you get when you have two creative genius behind the scenes is a series that tries so hard to please and a series that doesn't rehash the story that made the first one work. You get a story that furthers the trials and tribulations of the hero Indiana Jones, and you get a film that keeps giving you insights into his life. In the first, we meet Indiana Jones, the daring archeologist that risks life and limb to recover artifacts for his museum. You also meet Marion Ravenwood, a long lost love, Marcus Brody, his mentor and boss and Sola, one of best friends from Cairo and Belloq ( or according to Sola, Bellosh ). Temple of Doom takes us back in time and introduces us to Short Round. And finally we have Last Crusade. Here we meet Indiana Jones as a teenager. We are introduced to the folklore that is Indiana Jones. We see how his fear of snakes started, how he was introduced to his bullwhip and his fedora and even how he got that famous scar on his chin. And in the casting coup of the century, we meet his dad played by Sean Connery. We are also treated to some familiar faces as Brody and Sola return. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the best second sequel ever made. This could have been the beginning to a series if we didn't already know about Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is that much fun and so filled with richness.

The only complaint that I have about this film is what they did with Marcus Brody. In Raiders, he tells Indy that if he were five years younger he would have gone after the Ark himself. He was a warrior and one who probably went on many adventures in the style that Indy did. But in this one they forgot all about that adventurous side to him and instead they went for comic relief at his expense. Any true Indy fan will tell you that he should have been able to handle himself when he bumped into Sola. He should have been everything that Indy told Ilsa and Donovan that he was when they found out that Brody had the map. But aside from this small discrepency, the film is flawless and one of the most entertaining films ever made. And even though the talent involved here dictates that it should be perfect, keep in mind that making a sequel is never easy. You now have devoted fans that are going to judge you with every written word, every swing of the whip and every new character introduced. Last Crusade succeeds where most others fail and that is perhaps because the makers and star of this film ( Steven, George, Frank and Harrison ) care about Indiana Jones. They want him to be the same as he was in Raiders and Temple.

I saw this film 12 times at the theatre when it came out. I was fortunate enough to know an usher at The London Mews back in 1989 and he let me stay for the second and third showing of the day ( and night ) free of charge. This was a time when movies were events, they were and still are larger than life to me. I get excited when I see a good one and I get anxious when a movie like this comes out. I sincerely hope they get around to making a fourth one because as excited as I was to see Star Wars Episode 1, that excitement will pale in comparison to when I am sitting in the theater one day and I am waiting to see the new Tom Hanks movie ( whatever that may be at the time ) and that John Williams music invades the speakers and tells me that there is a new Indy movie that is going to be released on Victoria Day Weekend ( here in Canada that is). I will count the days down until it comes out.

The Indy movies are what movies are all about. They are a micorcosm of entertainment and as close to a religious experience, filmwise, as you can come. Raiders was a great beginning, Temple furthered the story wonderfully and Crusade summed it up beautifully. My life is richer because Indiana Jones is a part of it, and I know I am not the only one that feels that way.

 

[cannastop]

Just now, baumer said:

Number of Lists:  16

Number one:  3

Top 5:  11

Total points:  314

 

Just now, baumer said:

Number of lists:  21

Number one:  3

Top 5  15

Total points:  320

 

Dammit

[aabattery]

We Did the Wrong Thing

[Plain Old Tele]

The penitent man passed.  

[Jake Gittes]

[75Live]

5 minutes ago, Plain Old Tele said:

The penitent man passed.  

 

agreed with a lot on the list so it was pretty dead on and correct #1 too

[75Live]

good work @baumer and the guest writers.  Well done  

[Porthos]

Da List:

 

30 - Uncle Buck
29 - Look Who's Talking
28 - All Dogs Go to Heaven
27 - Crimes and Misdemeanors
26 - Major League
25 - Driving Miss Daisy
24 - My Left Foot
23 - Henry V
22 - Lethal Weapon 2
21 - The Killer
20 - Say Anything
19 - Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
18 - Weekend at Bernie's
17 - Born on the 4th of July
16 - Heathers
15 - Field of Dreams
14 - Sex, Lies, and Videotape
13 - The Abyss
12 - Parenthood
11 - Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
10 - Kiki's Delivery Service
9   - Back to the Future 2
8   - The Little Mermaid
7   - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
6   - Glory
5   - Dead Poet's Society
4   - When Harry Met Sally
3   - Batman
2   - Do the Right Thing
1   - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Edited September 5, 2019 by Porthos

[cannastop]

I think you could tell my preference from my avatar.

[Fancyarcher]

Just got back from work. Great job on the list @baumer, all of the write-ups were well-done, and put-together too. Can't complain about the ordering of the films either. 

[baumer]

Tomorrow I will list all the other movies that got votes. And I want to thank everybody for reading and commenting and hitting the like button. And especially thank you to everyone who did submit a list.

[tawasal]

Great work on all the movies and the countdown baumer. 

[75Live]

I really can't argue with anything in the top 7, not that I want to do so 😛

 

Not saying anything bad against 8 or below, just the top 7, for me, is completely stacked

[cannastop]

1 hour ago, 75Live said:

good work @baumer and the guest writers.  Well done  

ooh thank you.

[Plain Old Tele]

49 minutes ago, 75Live said:

I really can't argue with anything in the top 7, not that I want to do so 😛

 

Not saying anything bad against 8 or below, just the top 7, for me, is completely stacked

 

I can argue with the top 7.

[cannastop]

3 hours ago, baumer said:

Miyazaki knows how to make something beautiful and grand with perhaps not as many resources as Disney or Bluth had at this same time, although this might also be due to the lower salary that Japanese animators made and still make today compared to animators in America or Europe.

Whoops kind of sort of made an error here? Kiki's Delivery Service was budgeted about est. ¥800 million ($6.9 million), and Bluth's All Dog's Go to Heaven had a budget of $13.8 million and Disney's The Little Mermaid had $40 million?

 

So Hayao Miyazaki had a budget similar to Don Bluth's but he also made longer movies? Not sure how to parse this. Yes the budget for Bluth's movie is about two times as large, but he had other movies before this with smaller budgets.