Hard to do. But I am sure my top 5 would be found on the 2007 American Film Institute list of top 100 of all time.
Looking above, choices from that list have been:
Godfather (2)
Star Wars (13)
Space Odyssey: 2001 (15)
LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE (2001) (50)
Taxi Driver (52)
Deer Hunter (53)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (56)
A Clockwork Orange (70)
Shawshank Redemption (74)
Forest Gump (76)
Platoon (86)
Pulp Fiction (94)
I like all those, although a movie with a nihilistic theme such as Pulp Fiction disturbs me a bit, as I see society moving more in a nihilistic direction, and that trend, if it continues, may bode for a future that makes the 20th century look tame in comparison, with respect to horrors. The entertainment industry seems to me to be reinforcing that trend, and exacerbating it.
If I were to choose five, looking at the list, not being very sophisticated (so I won't pick Citizen Kane) my choices are:
Lawrence of Arabia (7)
The Wizard of Oz (10) ...my be prejudice here, being from Kansas. This movie actually was based on a book that was a metaphor for the political conflict at the time between farming interests and industrial/banking interests. That is why the bad witch's came from the West and East, the good witch was from the North, agricultural base.
The Maltese Falcon (31) ...hard to go wrong with the best novel by the man who invented the hard nosed detective genre, and the industry expert consensus best American actor of all time (Bogart).
Raiders of the Lost Ark (56)
Bringing Up Baby (88) ...my favorite all time comedy. Although Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant comes a close second.
I base this on how creative, the quality of the film when it first came out, in relation to it's time. Sure such films have been rehashed hundreds of times under different names. But there is something to appreciate in the creative original, that such later movies lack, even with all the slick computer graphics.
edit: removed last line where I directly knocked a specific movie. I will also mention that Bringing Up Baby is noteworthy for being the first time the word "Gay" was used in a movie to refer to homosexuals. Cary Grant ad libbed it. Most of the general public were unaware of what it meant.
You are at GuitarMasterClass.net
Don't miss today's
free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with
free content!
This post has been edited by fkalich: Jun 21 2009, 03:49 PM
