Still, though, you botched it. And not just botched it, but botched it in some really irritating ways. Just to set the record straight and to give you a sense of where I'm coming from, I'll now lay out my top five movies of all time ever ever (no easy feat):
1) Wages of Fear
2) Rashomon
3) The Duellists
4) Lawrence of Arabia
5) The Seventh Seal
Let's discuss that list for a second. Three out of the five are in black and white. Only two are in English. Not a single one was made during my lifetime. That is a list that could only come from some practically housebound film geek who didn't get out enough as an adolescent loner (which is a shamefully accurate description of me). And not just any loner film geek, but a film geek of the rather art-snobby pretentious variety. A hipster-style film geek who has never seen American Pie. In short, one of your own. Yet, you still managed to piss me off.
Reason 1
Would you like to know how many of those five films up there you included on your list-to-end-all-lists? Huh?
One.
You gave Lawrence some props, and I thank you for that. And, hey, The Duellists is a personal favorite of mine but I understand that there are bigger, better movies out there, so I can let that one slide. Wages of Fear is a woeful oversight on your parts, but hell, it's kind of been a woeful oversight on everyone and their mother's parts since it was made. I honestly don't understand why it's never been more widely viewed than it is, but it isn't, and though I don't approve I can't say its omission surprised me.
But Rashomon? What the hell is wrong with you? It's goddamn Rashomon! It's a landmark in so many, many ways! The direct shots of the sun through the trees! The multiple perspectives and retelling and non-traditional narrative structure that was so awesomely, shockingly new at the time that it's been done and re-done now into cliche! Mifune while he was still young and untamed and really, freakishly hot! I mean, come on.
The same goes for The Seventh Seal. It's the ultimate Bergman, the Bergman to end all Bergmans. For folks not so into slow-moving subtitled films it has been and always will be synonymous with bizarre art house movies. The characterization of Death is so inescapable and prevalent that people who have never seen the movie and have no intention of ever seeing the movie can recognize it instantly when it's being referenced. And on top of that, it really is one of Bergman's most watchable films. I'm totally not kidding -- it's got sex and Death and death and plagues and Max von Sydow's bony-ass face and a rather wicked sense of humor all wrapped up in one fairly straightforward tale. How could you make any film list and not have it float to the top? Just...wow.
Reason 2
Here's where I try to give you some benefit of the doubt and end up failing. You ready? Ok, here we go. So you didn't include Rashomon, but you did include to others by Kurasawa: Ikiru and Yojimbo. Now, being a huge Kurasawa fan (and I mean, like, rabid - I have twelve of his films, no exaggeration), I was all like, yeah! Ikiru! Yojimbo! Woot!
And then, I was like...Seven Samurai much? Because, let's face it, as awesome as Ikiru and Yojimbo are, Seven Samurai is the Kurasawa film to end all Kurasawa films. And if there were slots enough for two Kurasawas, we go right back to square one with Rashomon.
Here's the problem I have with your Kurasawa choices in particular, above and beyond the fact that in his wide and varied ouvre (see? playing your game here with the fancy, pretentious film-geek lingo, fellas) these two films are really second-stringers. They are fabulous films -- I am not undercutting them in any way, and in fact I was all sorts of excited to see Ikiru in particular get some love because I think it's horribly overlooked more often than not -- but they are not the ones he is most famous for. And he's not famous for them because they weren't massive game changers and sprawling opuses (opii? who knows.) like a couple of other films of his I have previously mentioned.
We run into a similar issue with Bergman. There are two Bergmans on the list: Persona (which I am 100% on board with) and Smiles of a Summer Night. Dudes. Smiles of a Summer Night, really? Honest and true, you're going with that over our ever-present chess-playing buddy Death and co.? That's just so wrong. Smiles of a Summer Night is like Bergman's version of a Lifetime movie. I've seen it, I know all about his little foray into comedy and sexcapades. And you know what? He should've stuck to the dour, depressing descents into madness like he was good at. I...just, well, I just don't even think it's that good a movie, frankly. And with that catalogue to choose from, I mean, jesus. If you really have a beef with The Seventh Seal, at least give that other spot to the Through a Glass Darkly/Winter Light/The Silence trilogy (hey, you collapsed Godfather I and II and the LOTR, you can do that here) or Cries and Whispers or Wild Strawberries. Those are Bergman movies. Real Bergman movies.
There are other examples of this weirdness, too. For Kurbrick, you nailed it with Dr. Strangelove, but then passed over 2001: A Space Odyssey and Full Metal Jacket for Barry Lyndon. Again, it's not like I don't like Barry Lyndon, but it's just not up there with the other two. Or even up there with A Clockwork Orange, which while more recognizable and famous, is probably not as good or important a film as the others. You went with Chungking Express over other Wong Kar-Wai's, and while it's a lovely and charming little thing, it begs the question of whether you've actually seen In the Mood for Love. And the nail in the coffin: Purple Rose of Cairo over Annie Hall. how do you sleep at night? Apparently not with Annie Hall, and so I guess it sucks to be you.
You see a pattern developing here? I do. This is like a weird, paternalistic way of peppering the list with 'forgotten gems.' Movies that the rest of us really should have seen that just never get their due. Or something. Because anyone who goes with Smiles of a Summer Night over anything else Bergman did is just throwing it around to prove they can. It's like when hipsters say they only like the bands no one else has ever heard of. It's just showing off for the hell of it. And I find it rather condescending, frankly, because I can't believe you're actually serious about some of those choices, considering.
Reason 3
Like I said before, 100 spots is really not that many. How then, dare I ask, did the 1986 The Fly make it in there? No room for anything by the Marx brothers (the goddamn Marx brothers!) or anything by Sergei Eisenstein or apparently by any black people at all (not a single Spike Lee movie? Really?), but, sure, Jeff Godblum with a fly's head get's a pass.
That's just not right. So not right. I can't be alone in thinking this.
Now, I can see that you got a little playful, there, with your listings. I appreciate the sentiment behind Drunken Master II, although it wouldn't have been the kung fu movie I'd have chosen (hell, give it to the original Drunken Master if you've got to give it to Jackie Chan, otherwise there's always Enter the Dragon), and I think it's impressive that you've got I believe not one, but two Bollywoods in there. I honestly do. I can even kinda sorta see where you were going with The Fly -- something along the lines of hey! let's include some guilty pleasure-ish horror flick!
To which I respond: flies over zombies? Because I think anything by George A. Romero can do the double duty of genuinely influential and important historical film/awesomely gory guilty pleasure, plus the added benefit of the Living Dead. Ok, maybe you've got a shared zombie phobia or something. Whatever. How about Rosemary's Baby, then? There's just so much genuinely right and deliciously wrong with that one. How is The Fly going to top that?
But when it comes down to it, I don't even know if I can support you on this, either. Because if my back was against the wall, there's no way I could look at myself in the mirror if I took anything I just mentioned over Dr. Zhivago. Which you left off your list. In favor of The fucking Fly.
Conclusion
Your list fails. Not just because you left off any number of my all-time favorites, but because it's full of purposely irreverent inclusions that seem to serve no purpose but to make it look like you're trying to tell us that a) you've seen way more movies than anyone else and the obvious choices are just too obvious for you and b) you're really not a movie snob - honest! You like all kinds! To which I say, that's just obnoxious. Give the greats the credit they're due, man.
-- a fellow film fanPS -- all ranting aside, I do agree with you on leaving Gone With the Wind off the list. That is just the most overrated piece of schlock ever.
