Top 30 has finally resumed. We are up to the top ten....which will be revealed later today!

[baumer]

Okay everyone, I'm about to start the countdown for 1994 and I am actually going to try to finish as much of it as I can today and tonight. I wanted this to be started earlier in the week but life gets busy at times and we don't always get to start the things that we want to on time. So without further ado strap in, buckle up and get ready for a countdown that is going to have some really surprising entries an interesting top 10 and a number one that may or may not surprised a lot of people. It's 7:15 a.m. my time I'm going to try rifle off as many of these as I can right now.

 

I'm working on the first few write ups so the countdown should begin in about 15 - 30 minutes.

[baumer]

Thanks to @grim22... Everything has been tabulated and we had a pretty close race for number one.

 

We received 22 lists and I want to thank everybody who helped out and participated.

 

130 movies got nominated and we're going to have some fun with the countdown.

[baumer]

Here's a few films that made the list:

 

Try not to suck any dick on the way to the parking lot

Battery Aziz!

I'm too old for this shit.

How dare you come into this office and bark at me like some little junkyard dog? I am the President of the United States!

[baumer]

#30

Reality Bites

Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller

Directed by Ben Stiller

Box office:  33.3 million

 

Number of lists:  6

Number one placement:  0

Top 5:  0

 

Quick synopsis:  A documentary filmmaker and her fellow Gen X graduates face life after college, looking for work and love in Houston.

IMDB synopsis:  In this study of Generation X manners, Lelaina, the valedictorian of her college class, camcords her friends in a mock documentary of posteducation life. Troy is her best friend, a perpetually unemployed musical slacker. Vickie is a manager at the Gap who worries about the results of an AIDS test, while Sammy has problems grappling with his sexuality. When Lelaina meets Michael, an earnest video executive who takes her homemade video to his MTV-like station, she must decide what she values--the materialism of yuppie Michael or the philosophical musings of Troy.

Critic Opinion:  "Reality Bites" sings, jokes and dances to the culture of the so-called post-baby boomers. A romantic triangle among Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Ben Stiller, with quippy references to "Melrose Place" and "Brady Bunch" reruns, it isn't likely to draw the "On Golden Pond" audience.

Or the baby boomers. Or the post-apocalyptic haberdashers.

But if "Reality" is full of twentysomething Esperanto, it's perfectly understandable -- and enjoyable -- to anyone who speaks humor. While its age ceiling seems a little low at times (at least, for this old man), the comedy constantly breaks through. There's a rousing, engaging spirit on the loose, more than emphasized by 32 songs on the soundtrack. This is an MTV-era movie: If you don't get it, as they say of a certain newspaper, you don't get it.

Ryder, a valedictorian college graduate, works at a Houston TV station as production assistant to distasteful talk-show host John Mahoney. But job security is hardly promising to Ryder, who intends to break into public television with a noncommercialized video documentary on her friends.

Ryder's friends, like her, are stuck in an unpromising world of divorcing parents, sitcom reruns and less-than-gainful employment. There's sexually repressed -- but funny -- friend Steve Zahn. There's roommate Janeane Garofalo, a gonzo earth-mother who works at the Gap, hops into bed with everyone and fondly remembers the disco era.

Most significantly, there's Ryder's soul-pal Hawke, an intelligent, aspiring rock musician who acts aloof towards everything from capitalistic society.

"I do not understand why this moment has to be Memorexed," says Mr. Disdainful, as Ryder points the camera at him.  (Washington Post)

User Opinion:  N/A

My opinion:  I really enjoyed this movie. Looking back in hindsight, I can see the selfishness of the characters, and I have read the complaints about this, but isn't that kind of the whole point of the movie? It's about people talking about not "selling out" while at the same time they ARE "selling out" in many different ways. They (the characters in the movie) are all consumers who satirize the very idea of "consumerism" but refuse to "stoop down to the level" of getting menial jobs to try and pay the bills. The movie defines for me how education isn't everything and from my own experience I have learned that sometimes the "great dream" (of being a writer, artist, musician, etc.) just doesn't pay the bills and in order to make decent money one may have to go into a field that is not originally their first choice as a means of employment. I remember being young and wistful, with dreams of being an artist, only to have to "settle" for an office job to make ends meet.

The movie does express what life was like for me at the time. I was a naive student with dreams of producing great artistic work, but who learned that what is taught in college as "reality" is not really reality at all. College students are fed with lofty artistic statements and philosophies and are taught to analyze endless aspects of society, ideals, etc., and are taught that "knowledge and education are power" but are not taught that credibility and respect are things which must be earned and that very few people actually start out at the top of the career ladder.

 

 

[baumer]

#29

Eat Drink Man Woman

Sihung Lung, Yu-Wen Wang

Directed by Ang Lee

Box office:  7.2 million

 

Number of Lists:  3

Number one Placement:  1

Top 5:  1

 

Quick Synopsis:  A senior chef lives with his three grown daughters; the middle one finds her future plans affected by unexpected events and the life changes of the other household members.

IMDB synopsis:  Senior Master Chef Chu lives in a large house in Taipei with his three unmarried daughters, Jia-Jen, a chemistry teacher converted to Christianity, Jia-Chien, an airline executive, and Jia-Ning, a student who also works in a fast food restaurant. Life in the house revolves around the ritual of an elaborate dinner each Sunday, and the love lives of all the family members.

Critic Opinion:  

The Taiwanese writer-director Ang Lee, whose 1993 Oscar nominee "The Wedding Banquet" was the most profitable movie (in relation to costs) in the world last year, puts on another dizzyingly luscious repast in "Eat Drink Man Woman."

It's a movie that literally makes your mouth water. A smart, sprightly, lip-smacking comedy about a Taipei master chef who's lost his sense of taste and his tangled family problems with three romantically troubled daughters. It crackles with iridescent style and wit.

More distinctively, it's filled with exquisitely toothsome on-screen meals, an all-star gourmet's delight of Taiwanese cuisine. Exotic dishes by the score pass by, underlining the action and punctuating the plot: Dragon salad, winter-melon soup, clay-baked chicken, steamed deer in a pumpkin pot, honey-glazed pork and a dazzling variety of salads and soups send off clouds of aromatic steam as they're piled high on tables, or painstakingly diced, stir-fried, served and eaten before our eyes.

User Opinion:  N/A

My Opinion:  I saw this movie once back in the day and unfortunately don't remember much about it.  I do remember enjoying it.  

 

[baumer]

#28

Natural Born Killers

Starring:  Woody Harrelson, Julliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Robert Downey Jr.

Directed by:  Oliver Stone...Written by:  Quentin Tarantino

Box office:  50.2 million

 

Number of lists:  7

 Number one placements:  0

Top 5:  1

 

Quick Synopsis:  Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.

IMDB synopsis:  Mickey Knox and Mallory Wilson aren't your typical lovers - after killing her abusive father, they go on a road trip where, every time they stop somewhere, they kill pretty well everyone around them. They do however leave one person alive at every shootout to tell the story and they soon become a media sensation thanks to sensationalized reporting. Told in a highly visual style.

Critic Opinion:  Oliver Stone says he operates from the gut, and it won’t be just goodies and Gumps who dismiss the volcanically violent Natural Born Killers as something he puked up. Stone made the film after ingesting every media-hyped crime story from Bobbitt and Buttafuoco to Menendez and Simpson. You’ll see all of them and more in the epilogue. Incoherent as drama or satire, this surreal splatterfest soars on its visual audacity. Beware, you woozy-stomach types: Killers is a sensory assault (stretch that R rating, bro). And Stone shows no mercy. In the prologue, lovebirds Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory Knox (Juliette Lewis) stomp, stab and shoot rednecks in a diner. Their selection process is pretty much “eenie meenie,” though one cowboy stupidly howls, “I call her pussy!” when Mallory, her midriff bare, gives her tight jeans a workout at the jukebox. Credits roll over a splash of blood on a windshield as Mickey and Mallory drive off on a murder spree through the Southwest that makes them worldwide stars and leaves 52 dead:  Rolling Stone

User Opinion:  Wow! What a crazy movie! This film was filled with lots of adrenaline and Oliver Stone's style to the film like some scenes like the opening with the black and white and the lighting when Woddy Harrelson is tripping out is fantastic! A fun cast! Grade B+  @Maxmoser3

My Opinion:  From director Oliver Stone comes this flashy but frustratingly uneven and unfocused story of a sadistic, recently married couple who brutally butcher random people across the United States as part of their honeymoon. Their heinous acts and eventual apprehension attract the attention of the media and interested viewers all over the world, but instead of punishing them they would prefer to tell their life story. Well-crafted film holds your interest by making social points that are poignant, provocative, at times even satirical, but alas, they're set in the midst of noisy and excessive action scenes that are relentless and headache-inducing, not to mention extremely violent. Cast is good, especially Harrelson and Lewis who make a good match, but they need much more sturdy direction.

 

[La Binoche]

Four Weddings & a Funeral better be on there! 

[cannastop]

Hope something French language shows up.

[baumer]

#27

Clear and Present Danger

Starring:  Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, Henry Czerny, Anne Archer

Directed by:  Phillip Noyce

Box office:  215.8 million

 

Number of lists:  10

Number one:  0

Top 5:  0

 

Quick Synopsis:  Jack Ryan deals with drug cartels, an unscrupulous president and an illegal drug war.

IMDB synopsis:  Jack Ryan is back and this time the bad guys are in his own government. When Admiral James Greer becomes sick with cancer, Ryan is appointed acting CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence. Almost before he can draw a breath in his new position, one of the president's closest friends and his family are murdered in their sleep by what appears to by drug cartels. Ryan is called in to investigate, but unknown to him the CIA has already sent a secret field operative to lead an illegal paramilitary force in Colombia against cartels. Things get even more complicated when his team is set up and he loses an agent in the field and a friend of his wife's, who was the murdered agent's secretary, is murdered that same day. Ryan must then risk not only his career, but his life to expose the truth behind the mystery.

Critic opinion:  Clear and Present Danger, despite sharing the same director (Phillip Noyce) and star as Patriot Games and most of the production team, is an entirely different beast, eschewing the personal in favor of a broader political narrative about corruption and military malfeasance at the highest levels of government. It is both cutting in its indictment of how power corrupts even the best intentions and bravely optimistic in asserting that, not only can one maintain one’s sense of honor and integrity in a system rigged against such old-fashioned values, but very possibly make all the difference in the world. It’s a fascinating film to watch 25 years later in the pits of the Trump Era. (Tim brandt..Antagony and Ecstacy)

User Opinion:  N/A

My Opinion:  My favourite of the Jack Ryan movies.  Ford is sizzling here and there are so many well written scenes.  "Watch your back, Jack", Admirable Greer tells him.  And so sets in motion a film about politics, double crosses, money and drugs.  

 

[baumer]

#26

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Starring:  Hugo Weaving, Terrence Stamp, Guy Pearce

Directed by:  Stephen Elliott

 

Number of lists: 7

Number one:  0

Top five:  0

 

Quick synopsis:  Two drag performers and a transgender woman travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret.

IMDB summary:  Three friends, three lives, one persuasion and a pink bus named Priscilla head into the Australian desert with their colourful, extravagant show in a road movie that brings culture clash to the forefront of a comedy of errors. A mixture of vast landscapes, narrow minds and a melancholy, reflective mood that with the help of a larger than life gal that is Priscilla she more than widens the comfort zones and finds not just new horizons but also finds that is lost.

Critic Opinion: 

"What this film does for the drag scene is what Sean Connery did for the secret service. It glamorizes it."
- Michael Hamlyn, producer of Priscilla

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is about the most fun you can have with three guys who like to dress up as women. There are movies of Mrs. Doubtfire's ilk, which treat crossdressing as a joke, then there's Just Like a Woman, which has its maudlin moments. Somewhere in between is Priscilla, which takes the matter seriously, but delivers a lot of laughs while doing so.

The latest export from down under, Priscilla is the story of three drag queens -- Bernadette/Ralph (Terrence Stamp), Mitzi/Tick (Hugo Weaving from Jocelyn Moorehouse's Proof), and Felicia/Adam (soap star Guy Pearce) -- on their way across the Australian desert to play a gig. Along the way, their bus, Priscilla, breaks down, and they have to rely on help from strangers. And, while crossdressing performers are accepted in the big city, their welcome in a less urban setting is not always warm and friendly.

The dance numbers are lavish and fun to watch, whether they're performed in the middle of the desert, atop a bar in some out-of-the-way town, or on a stage in Sydney. Mostly seventies disco hits (including once-popular tunes by Gloria Gaynor, the Village People, and Abba), these songs are lip-synched and gyrated to with gusto by the transvestite trio as they don garish costumes and even worse makeup to wow their audiences.

User Opinion:  N/A

My opinion:  N/A

 

 

[baumer]

#25

Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Starring:  Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Wes Craven

Directed by Wes Craven

Box office:  19.7 million

 

Number of Lists:  4

Number one:  1

Top 5:  1

 

Quick synopsis:  A demonic force has chosen Freddy Krueger as its portal to the real world. Can Heather Langenkamp play the part of Nancy one last time and trap the evil trying to enter our world?

Imdb summary:  It's nearing the 10th Anniversary of the film 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and one of the stars, Heather Langenkamp is being scared by a voice on a phone, sounding very similar to the film's villain, Freddy Krueger. When Heather's husband is killed in a car accident and is discovered with slash marks on him, Heather starts to wonder something. Especially when she discovers that Wes Craven is writing another 'Nightmare' film. Soon, she realizes that Freddy has now entered the real world, and the only way to defeat him is to become Nancy Thompson once again.

Critic Opinion:  Considering that Craven's original nightmare movie was famously inspired by a series of Los Angeles Times articles about people who told relatives of their fears of killer nightmares - and then died the next night - it would seem as if Craven and his cast are asking for trouble here. That's part of the fascination, as "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" dances back and forth across the line separating fantasy from reality. This is the first horror movie that is actually about the question, "Don't you people ever think about the effect your movies have on the people who watch them?" As the movie opens, Langenkamp is happily married to a movie special effects guy (David Newsom), and dotes on their young son Dylan (Miko Hughes). Then a series of tragedies and alarming omens take place - including the real Los Angeles earthquake, which is seamlessly, inserted into the plot. She's terrified. At the same time, other members of the "Nightmare" movies have had their sleep haunted by dreams suggesting, well, that the nightmare is not over. (Roger Ebert)

User Opinion:  N/A (the search feature is not working right now)

My opinion:  The only truly worthy sequel to the original.  This came out two years before Scream and it kind of shares the same DNA.  Perhaps this film is the reason Craven took on Scream.  The great thing about this film is that it is much closer in tone to the original than all of the shitty sequels that concentrate more in humour than horror.  In here, Freddy is scary again.  It's a concept way ahead of it's time.  The actors from the Nightmare movies are having trouble separating fiction from reality.  This gives Robert Englund to really play the hell out of Freddy invention.  New Nightmare is one of only a handful of good movies in the 90's pre-Scream.  And it's no wonder that the only really good entries in the series are directed by Craven.  He cares about Freddy and doesn't treat him like an ersatz villain, he treats him like he's a bad-ass murdering, child molester.  Craven made this the masterpiece that it is.  

 

 

[baumer]

Taking a quick break...will be back at it soon.

[baumer]

#24

The Santa Clause

Starring:  Tim Allen, Judge Reinhold

Directed by:  John Pasquin

Box office:  189 million

 

Number of lists:  7

Number one:  0

Top 5: 0

 

Quick synopsis:  When a man inadvertently makes Santa fall off of his roof on Christmas Eve, he finds himself magically recruited to take his place.

IMDB synopsis:  Divorcee Scott Calvin is disgusted to learn that his ex and her husband have tried - and failed - to break it easy to their 6-year-old son Charlie that Santa isn't real. On Christmas Eve, Scott reads The Night Before Christmas... then receives an unexpected visitor on his roof. When he's startled by Scott's calling out and falls, the Santa impersonator disappears, leaving only an 8-reindeer sleigh and a suit with instructions to put it on if he's involved in an accident. Scott does, and is transported around the town dropping gifts through chimneys until he's taken to the North Pole and informed by a group who claim they're elves that he is now Santa. Charlie is proud of his dad's new job, though Scott's convinced it's a dream. Until his hair turns white, his beard refuses to stay shaved, he gains weight inexplicably, even for his sudden love of junk food... Now he's accepted it, there's just one problem: how to keep it secret from his disbelieving family?

Critic Opinion:  The Santa Clause is a really good uplifting movie. There’s really nothing all that wrong with the film’s more juvenile and cheesy moments, they just didn’t always appeal to me. John Pasquin and company have delivered a movie with a very positive message, lots of imagination, and a film that is a plain old fun time. I was afraid that The Santa Clause would not hold up to my fond memories, but it held up quite nicely. (Tim's Movie Emporium)

Forum opinion:  N/A

My opinion:  Another terrific entry in the Christmas movie genre.  I'm a sucker for most Christmas movies and this one delivers.  

 

[baumer]

I'll be back later today or tonight to get some more done.  Life is calling.  

[Plain Old Tele]

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER didn’t even make the top 25? It got beat by THE SANTA CLAUSE?!
 

 

[La Binoche]

1 hour ago, cannastop said:

Hope something French language shows up.

Queen Margot? 

[La Binoche]

We need to talk about how overrated Shawshank is. I think it's a result of men dominating imdb voting. Little Women and Four Weddings and a Funeral are objectively better films. 

[cannastop]

1 hour ago, La Binoche said:

Queen Margot? 

Something made by a Polish guy.

[baumer]

2 hours ago, La Binoche said:

We need to talk about how overrated Shawshank is. I think it's a result of men dominating imdb voting. Little Women and Four Weddings and a Funeral are objectively better films. 

 

You're crazy. Seriously. Shawshank is as far from over rated as possible. 

[baumer]

Besides, who's to say that Shawshank Redemption actually made this list?