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[elmono311]

Seems like we always spend the best part of our time just saying goodbye.
A Place in the Sun (1951)
Paramount
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters
Director: George Stevens
122 minutes
1998 List: #92 | 2007 List: NR
Academy Awards
Best Cinematography, Black and White
Best Costume Design, Black and White
Best Director - George Stevens
Best Film Editing
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
Best Writing, Screenplay
Best Actor - Montgomery Clift (nomination)
Best Actress - Shelley Winters (nomination)
Best Picture (nomination)

So this movie started out somewhat slow, gained a bunch of steam in the middle, and then just totally came up with a tragic ending. Yes, I am a fan of movies where the ending is unhappy but this one's ending just depressed me. Seriously, where was a manslaughter charge instead of first degree murder? Or even an appeal? I was very surprised a movie back then would kill off a pregnant woman. They seemed to have glossed over that fact when she died, like they were already pushing the Hayes Code as it was for an unmarried woman becoming pregnant. I did like the movie, but I was somewhat bored at the beginning with the whole typical falling in love sequences of the era but when it started hitting the fan, it became more interesting. The three leads did a good job and, to be honest, I would have chosen Elizabeth Taylor's character over Shelley Winters' character as well.

[elmono311]

It's not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.
12 Angry Men (1957)
United Artists
Cast: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley
Director: Sidney Lumet
96 minutes
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #87
Academy Awards
Best Director - Sidney Lumet (nomination)
Best Picture (nomination)
Best Adapted Screenplay (nomination)

This was a really good movie and I loved how it was all real-time so the jury's decision on the outcome of the trial really did take an hour and a half. It's a testament to the story when an entire movie can take place in one single room and not be a bore. The story was really good and how Henry Fonda's Juror #8 could slowly sway the other jurors to admit there was reasonable doubt. It's interesting how the jury selection process could completely miss Juror #10's bigotry towards Hispanics, though, as the person on trial was a Hispanic. I don't think he would have made it through in today's system. Anyways, it was a really good movie, very interesting and engaging, and all the characters were realistic and different from one another, as a jury tends to be (although as a sign of the times there were no women or blacks in the jury... for the former I guess they couldn't call it 12 Angry Men if there was a woman).

As an unrelated comment, I loved Yankee fan Juror #7's reaction to finding out Juror #5 was a Baltimore Orioles fan: "Baltimore? That's like being hit in the head with a crow bar once a day." As a present-day Baltimore fan, that's pretty accurate.

[elmono311]

I looked at you tonight and you weren't there... and I'm gonna howl it out, and I'm not gonna give a damn what I do and I'm gonna make the biggest god damn explosion you've ever heard.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Warner Bros.
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis
Director: Mike Nichols
131 minutes
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #67
Academy Awards
Best Actress - Elizabeth Taylor
Best Supporting Actress - Sandy Dennis
Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Black and White
Best Cinematography, Black and White
Best Costume Design, Black and White
Best Actor - Richard Burton (nomination)
Best Supporting Actor - George Segal (nomination)
Best Director - Mike Nichols (nomination)
Best Film Editing (nomination)
Best Original Music (nomination)
Best Picture (nomination)
Best Sound (nomination)
Best Adapted Screenplay (nomination)

I don't know what to say about this movie. It was completely crazy and screwed up. It was very very well acted as playing believable drunk, crazy people isn't easy to pull off. And they had to be good because there were only five speaking parts total, one of which was just a dance club owner who had a few lines. Also, there were only two main locations so the actors really had to shine or the movie would have failed completely. But... geez, what an insane movie. The entire movie is an angry, older couple arguing with each other and playing mind games, using an innocent younger couple to spit their hatred for each other towards. So, yes, it's a movie entirely about a couple arguing and fighting and playing mind games. It's crazy, but oddly it was appealing watching a movie like that because no one today would make an entire movie of only four people fighting and using only the acting to move the story along.

[elmono311]

Just a note to anybody who looks at this and haven't been here for the past 24 hours or so, I was very busy with the movie watching and there are actually three movie updates since then... A Place in the Sun, 12 Angry Men, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I decided to make a pretty large dent in the remaining movies on this project while I wait for the next Netflix DVD to come in.

[elmono311]

Why do people have to love people anyway?
The Apartment (1960)
United Artists
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray
Director:Billy Wilder
125 minutes
1998 List: #93 | 2007 List: #80
Academy Awards
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black and White
Best Director - Billy Wilder
Best Film Editing
Best Picture
Best Original Screenplay
Best Actor - Jack Lemmon (nomination)
Best Supporting Actor - Jack Kruschen (nomination)
Best Actress - Shirley MacLaine (nomination)
Best Cinematography, Black and White (nomination)
Best Sound (nomination)

I liked the movie, it was light-hearted and took itself seriously without taking itself seriously. I liked Jack Lemmon in his role, he played it well. It was also interesting seeing Shirley MacLaine so young. I'm so used to her playing the smartass older woman in movies these days. I don't have much to say as I didn't see anything wrong with it and I just simply enjoyed it for what it was. Of course, someone loaning his apartment to his bosses to get promoted was something I've never heard of and would have driven me crazy if I did it... well... it did sort of drive Baxter mad, but the promise of promotion kept him going.

[elmono311]

That'll be the day.
The Searchers (1956)
Warner Bros.
Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles
Director: John Ford
119 minutes
1998 List: #96| 2007 List: #12
Academy Awards
none

I didn't particularly care for this movie, I was rather bored by it. John Wayne's character was also a complete jerk. One thing I couldn't believe, though, was they searched for FIVE YEARS for the missing niece. The movie seemed to be a little disjointed and the whole plot with Vera Miles' character wasn't needed. I don't think the movie deserved that massive 84 spot from #96 to #12. I guess I'm just missing something from the movie that everybody else sees.

[elmono311]

Finally received The Wild Bunch after many failed tries so this is the second western movie in a row for me.

We're not gonna get rid of anybody! We're gonna stick together, just like it used to be! When you side with a man, you stay with him! And if you can't do that, you're like some animal, you're finished! We're finished! All of us!
The The Wild Bunch (1969)
Warner Bros.
Cast: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan
Director: Sam Peckinpah
134 minutes/145 minutes (director's cut)
1998 List: #80 | 2007 List: #79
Academy Awards
Best Original Score (nomination)
Best Original Screenplay (nomination)

While a good movie, I wasn't too particularly enthused with The Wild Bunch. It was an interesting tale but it didn't really do it for me, although the massive shootout at the end was really neat. I also liked William Holden's character's theme of once you're in it together, you stay together. That was particularly true when they went back for Angel despite the fact he was Mexican, but he was still a part of the gang. Otherwise, it was an okay movie. One other little thing I liked about this movie: While most western movies take place usually in the late 1800s, around the 1880s, this one was different. It actually took place around the time of the Mexican Revolution, around 1914. I haven't really known of any western to take place that late. I was initially confused as to why they were carrying semi-automatic pistols but that was explained through various bits in the movie if you paid attention and knew your history (plus the appearance of a car gives it away).

[elmono311]

And I'm done with the original top 100 list!!!

My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Warner Bros.
Cast: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston
Director: Michael Curtiz
126 minutes
1998 List: #100 | 2007 List: #98
Academy Awards
Best Actor - James Cagney
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture
Best Sound, Recording
Best Supporting Actor - Walter Huston (nomination)
Best Director - Michael Curtiz (nomination)
Best Film Editing (nomination)
Best Picture (nomination)
Best Writing, Original Story (nomination)

The movie was better than I expected but still not my cup of tea, musicals from this time period never really interested me. However, I liked it better than most of the musicals from the era and James Cagney did a good job. I also never knew, and probably wouldn't have known had I not read to synopsis, that this movie was a (deviated) biography of the real George M. Cohan. At least I have heard of one of his songs, "Give My Regards to Broadway," and now I know who it comes from. One sequence that did stick out in this movie was the post-WWI Broadway sequence that showed the passage of time by using advertisements with years on this as the camera went through the streets.

[elmono311]

ONLY 10 MORE TO GO!!!

If you lose this war don't blame me.
The General (1927)
United Artists
Cast: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender
Directors: Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton
103 minutes/75 minutes (2003 alternate version)
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #18
Academy Awards
none

Based on a true story, this was an amusing movie. I liked the hijinks of Buster Keaton's character and the plain dumb luck he had in the movie. It was slow to begin but when the train chase started (yes, you read that right... a train chase) it really picked up steam (no pun intended). However, I think the whole thing with the enlistment office denying Johnny and him still trying to enlist could have been avoided by them simply stating they needed train engineers for the war... and then given him a rejection slip noting the reason why. Then again, there would have been no movie. I liked it for a silent film. Again, not a knock on silent films but most of the time they do bore me. I guess it's the lack of dialogue to keep me in the movie, but The General had enough visual gags during the chase to keep me entertained.

Interesting fact: The locomotive Texas, which crashed into the river in the finale, remained there until World War II when it was stripped for scrap metal. I find it funny they just left the locomotive in the river after filming.

[disnut8]

That true story happened in northwest Georgia.  Pretty famous thing down here.

[elmono311]

Let the countdown begin!!!

10!!!

Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking...
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)
Triangle Distributing Corporation
Cast: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Constance Talmadge
Director: D.W. Griffith
163 minutes
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #49
Academy Awards
none

After D.W. Griffith found out his The Birth of a Nation was viewed as a pro-KKK movie and used as a recruitment video for the resurrected KKK, he decided to follow it up with Intolerance to show he's not the racist everybody thought he was. The movie started out extremely boring but once I got used to the storylines and figured out what was going on, I found myself enjoying it, mostly the Modern Story and the Babylonian Story. Those Uplifters were wenches and needed to be viciously beat down. However, the whole love theme was stretching it as it just seemed like four separate love stories in one movie. Also, Lillian Gish was horribly underused. All she did in the movie was rock a cradle to symbolize the passage of time and the switching between the four storylines. The storyline with the French was the weakest and the Judia one was simply put in there for the Jesus theme. However, I wouldn't really recommend the movie just for simply viewing, it's more a film to watch for historical reasons (or for AFI's Top 100 Movies)

[elmono311]

That true story happened in northwest Georgia.  Pretty famous thing down here.

Which is funny because it was the leader of the Union spies who received the Congressional Medal of Honor and the rest of his team were commendated as well.

[elmono311]

9!!!

They can't do this to us here in Nashville! Let's show them what we're made of. Come on everybody, sing! Somebody, sing!
Nashville (1975)
Paramount
Cast: Lily Tomlin, Keith Carradine, Ronee Blakley
Director: Robert Altman
159 minutes
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #59
Academy Awards
Best Original Song - "I'm Easy"
Best Supporting Actress - Ronee Blakley (nomination)
Best Supporting Actress - Lily Tomlin (nomination)
Best Director - Robert Altman (nomination)
Best Picture (nomination)

I don't get what this movie was all about. There were too many characters that really didn't add to anything. They all happened to end up at the same spot in the finale where a real famous country singer gets shot at a political rally. Some of the characters were quite pointless, like Jeff Goldblum's Tricycle Man, and it just seemed like a mishmash of different stories in one movie that I found not as effective as similar movies such as Pulp Fiction. I can pass on this movie, and not because I'm not a fan of country music, I had no problems with the songs. Oh, one unrelated note: I found it funny the character played by Robert DuQui mentioned he was going to Detroit on Wednesday. What's so funny about that? Well, he played Sergeant Reed in RoboCop, which takes place in Detroit.

[elmono311]

8!!!

There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that's all some people have?
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Paramount
Cast: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake
Director: Preston Sturges
90 minutes
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #61
Academy Awards
none

Quite an entertaining movie, and I find it funny that when Sullivan purposely attempted to see what life was like as a hobo, he always failed and wound up back in Hollywood where he didn't want to be... but when he gets knocked on the head and stashed away on a train car against his will, he finds out what it's like to be down in the dumps. Whatever judge tried Sullivan needs to be shot, too, because he was obviously out of it during his trial because he was suffering from what I guess a concussion to go with the amnesia. Jerk. Anyways, a good little movie about the plight of the homeless during the years before the United States entered World War II. It showed that even in times of need, in times of hopelessness, laughter is a constant and always welcomed no matter what.

[disnut8]

I never even heard of this movie.  That's a first for me on your list.

[elmono311]

The first time I had heard of it was in my America Comes to Age class where my teacher played a clip from it as an example of the Depression.

[elmono311]

7!!!

Just... follow the money.
All the President's Men (1976)
Warner Bros.
Cast: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Warden
Director: Alan J. Pakula
138 minutes
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #77
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actor - Jason Robards
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration
Best Sound
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Supporting Actress - Jane Alexander (nomination)
Best Director - Alan J. Pakula (nomination)
Best Film Editing (nomination)
Best Picture (nomination)

A really good and intriguing movie about the reporters who broke the Watergate scandal. It kept me interested throughout despite the fact I knew what was going to happen. Also a good movie to show as a historical movie in the realm of Watergate for those generations who don't know about the whole thing. Redford and Hoffman did their usual good acting and the mystery and intrigue held throughout the entire film. It was also interesting to see how the newsroom has changed from then to today. Redford's character had a tough time finding a name and he had to go through various cities' phone books to try to find it. Today, we just type the name into Yahoo or Google and we have all the information instantly. Good movie, recommended.

Interesting fact: The security guard who discovered the real-life break-in at Watergate, Frank Wills, plays himself in the movie.

[elmono311]

6!!!

I am Spartacus!
Spartacus (1960)
Universal
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons
Director: Stanley Kubrick
184 minutes/161 (1967 re-release/198 minutes (restored)
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #81
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actor - Peter Ustinov
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration
Best Cinematography, Color
Best Costume Design, Color
Best Film Editing (nomination)
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (nomination)

Something about these historical epics in the Roman times that really draw me in. It was a good movie and I loved the gladiator training scenes for some reason. Everybody did a fine job, except the guy who played Glabrus, he seemed to be a bit forceful in his acting. One thing that amazes me is the amount of extras used with the benefit of computers. Today they have it easy where they can create entire armies with computers. Back then they actually had to cast, equipment, and costume every single extra... it's most notable in the final battle where an entire Roman army is seen marching as well as the slave army attacking. The ending was a bit bittersweet because of Spartacus dying but he did set out what he promised to do and obviously he was going to die for what he did. Another sword and sandal epic I recommend. Note: I saw the 198 minute restored version.

[disnut8]

I didn't realize Kubrick directed this.  Learn something new every day.

[elmono311]

Yeah, I was surprised the first time I learned that. It looks like his first famous movie as his previous ones don't ring a bell with me. After this one, it was all those movies everybody knows about.

[elmono311]

5!!!

This song of the Man and his Wife is of no place and every place; you might hear it anywhere, at any time.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Fox Film Corporation
Cast: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston
Director: F.W. Murnau
94 minutes
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #82
Academy Awards
Best Actress - Janet Gaynor
Best Cinematography
Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production
Best Art Direction (nomination)

A decent silent movie about newfound love. Of course, the man cheated on his wife and then tried to kill her by drowning but all was fine and dandy when they went to the city and they saw a wedding. Then they had a blast in town and fell in love again. But, you know, he tried killing her. No big deal. Not a big fan of this movie as I have a hard time paying attention to dramatic silent films. It was okay, nothing to celebrate about.

[disnut8]

Sure it wasn't the Tiger and Elin Woods Story?

[elmono311]

I really know nothing about that situation. Why? Because I don't care. The media turned it into something huge, trying to cram it down our throats, and I just didn't care.

[elmono311]

4!!!

And now, on with the opera. Let joy be unconfined. Let there be dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons, and necking in the parlor.
A Night at the Opera (1935)
MGM
Cast: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx
Director: Sam Wood
96 minutes/91 minutes (1948 re-release)
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #85
Academy Awards
none

No too fond of this movie. Most of it really wasn't that humorous to me, although I do respect the Marx Brothers' comedic timing but it just doesn't seem to be anything that special today. I did, however, like the opera sabotage sequence, but it was just a decent movie. It kept me entertained but was not a knock out punch. This is the movie with the so-called famous stateroom scene but it was more of just a ridiculous situation rather than balls out hilarious. Oh, I was impressed with Chico's and Harpo's skills on the piano and harp respectively.

[elmono311]

3!!!

Don't you see, Sophie? We're dying.
Sophie's Choice (1982)
Universal
Cast: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNichol
Director: Alan J. Pakula
150 minutes
1998 List: NR | 2007 List: #91
Academy Awards
Best Actress - Meryl Streep
Best Cinematography (nomination)
Best Costume Design (nomination)
Best Original Score (nomination)
Best Adapted Screenplay (nomination)

That was the most depressing ending to a movie I have ever seen. And they didn't make it depressing just once but decided to give you a double whammy of depression at the end so it was just overwhelming. It was a very good movie and the entire time I was wondering what the heck Sophie's choice was (I had heard little mentions of it here and there but I didn't exactly know before watching this movie). There was also the mystery of Nathan's problem. He was an awesome guy when he wasn't mad with rage but to hear the truth about him was actually sad rather than horrifying. The movie kept me intrigued throughout because of the mysteries of Sophie and Nathan; I wanted to know what the heck was going on. I think Kevin Kline deserved an Oscar nod for his work in this movie, he was excellent but I see the Academy did not agree. I'm surprised this was Kline's very first film, he acted like he was a veteran of film. Meryl Streep, of course, also did an excellent job and deserved her Oscar. Highly recommended for those who do not suffer from chronic depression or those who don't have a problem with unhappy endings.