AFI Lists - the new challenges - Page 10

Adam_S · 08-28-2003, 11:34 PM

Easy Rider -

Movies list
Songs list - Born to be Wild
OAR DVD

We blew it
What a stupid movie.

Incredibly arrogant, everybody in the film that is living an alternative lifestyle are utter saints (aside from some drug use), but anyone that is living a 'normal' life are bigots, racists, ignorant, ugly, self righteous hicks. Just damned annoying and idiotic waste of time. of course there's also the ludicrous editing from time to time... it's like way out there man, man its wierd like the wierdest, just man it's like man, dude it's wierd man.

Thank god they had someone talented shoot most of the film, I could not have gotten through this if the whole thing had looked like Hopper's Mardi Gras footage.

at least there is the occasionally good soundtrack to distract me from time to time.

Lew Crippen · 08-29-2003, 10:31 AM

Sister! Hah! That make-a no difference. To him, you're just another girl. Someday when he need you, he mix you up and...just like anyone else. And it's gonna make you bad like-a him.

Somehow when I watched Scarface again as a part of the 30s challenge, I missed that it was on the AFI list because of Paul Muni’s outstanding representation of Tony Camonte, a not-too bright gangster but as tough as any before or since. Muni is just so magnificent, managing to let us all know his desire for his sister (and one that we suspect has been consummated at some point).

This film has no finesse, it is as brutal and straightforward as Tony. Too bad that we get the standard ‘gangs and gangsters are bad’ title card at the start, but I’m sure that the studio had no real choice.

Lew Crippen · 08-29-2003, 10:41 AM

Well, bless my blonde heart!

Topper is pretty close to the book according to my wife, other than he is much richer (and older) in the film. I suspect that he is older, so that the flirtation with Marion Kerby appears as only comic on the screen. Cary Grant and Constance Bennett toss lines back and forth as they party their way through life like they were Nick and Nora.

Good fun, but not a must.

Walter Kittel · 08-29-2003, 10:46 AM

Easy Rider is more important for its affect upon filmmaking vs. any intrinsic merits of the film ( which it does possess, most notably the parallel structure of the film in which the landscape and the tone of the film are linked / mirrored. ) Aside from nostalgia of the voters, the film's impact on the box office, as it helped open the doors to counter culture filmmaking is what puts it on the AFI 100 list, IMHO.

- Walter.

Lew Crippen · 08-29-2003, 10:57 AM

Go to the refrigerator and get the butter.

Who knew that would turn out to be a catch-phrase for sexual innuendo in the early 70s? Those who saw Last Tango in Paris needed no explanation—and a lot of people saw it because they had a chance to see a naked Maria Schneider. Many came away puzzled. Others came away with a profound appreciation for Bernardo Bertolucci’s film and filmmaking style.

And this film has style in abundance. The camerawork is so constant that it never seems to stop, the narrative starts and stops, sometimes rushing, sometimes languid, sometimes in the present, sometimes in a flashback, some things real and some things imagined.

Brando is masterful and Schneider a fine match. The theme is honest and honestly portrayed. But for me, this film is less (much less) than the sum of its parts. To be sure I liked it more than when it first appeared, when I thought that Bertolucci made quite the self-indulgent film. But still there is too much that draws attention to itself for no reason. Worth watching—and most film lovers find more here than me.

Lew Crippen · 08-29-2003, 11:05 AM

You want that gun, pick it up. I wish you would.

Says John Wayne in Rio Bravo—just in case you thought that Dirty Harry had an original thought, this film is the real deal. How this could not be on any AFI list is a question that only the AFI can answer. An excellent cast, great story the sure hand of Howard Hawks and night photography that still seems impressive today.

What’s not to like? I think one of the best Westerns ever made. But perhaps that is why I was not asked to vote.

Lew Crippen · 08-29-2003, 11:13 AM

My ratings for the first 25 movies on the AFI Villains list (4 star system where 4=masterpiece; 3=must see; 2=worth seeing; 1=has redeeming feature)

Alex De Large – Clockwork Orange

Alonzo Harris – Training Day

Caesar Enrico Bandello - Little Caesar

Captain Bligh - Mutiny on the Bounty

Clyde Barrow & Bonnie Parker – Bonnie and Clyde

Cody Jarrett - White Heat

Count Dracula – Dracula

Darth Vader - The Empire Strikes Back

Dr. Hannibal Lector – The Silence of the Lambs

Eve Harrington – All About Eve

Frank Booth - Blue Velvet

Hal 9000 – 2001: A Space Odyssey

Harry Lime – The Third Man

Michael Corleone – The Godfather Part II

Mrs. Danvers - Rebecca

Norman Bates – Psycho

Nurse Ratched – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Reverend Harry Powell – The Night of the Hunter

Terminator - The Terminator

The Alien - Alien

The Queen – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The Wicked Witch of the West – The Wizard of Oz

Tom Powers - The Public Enemy

Tony Camonte - Scarface

Travis Bickle – Taxi Driver

george kaplan · 08-29-2003, 10:45 PM

Silkwood - this film is part of a subgenre of whistleblower/corporate malfeasence films, that includes films like Philadelphia, The China Syndrome, Erin Brockovich, The Insider, etc.

I pretty much feel about Silkwood the same I way I do about all those others. A very well done film, worth seeing once, with no rewatchability.

Lew Crippen · 08-30-2003, 02:59 PM

In most ways Judgment at Nuremberg is an old-fashioned film, and very dated. But there are such sterling performances that it is one that should be seen. Look especially for the musical reference to Marlene Detrich.

I found the story compelling and the execution above reproach.

Brook K · 08-31-2003, 03:27 AM

George, for using malfeasence in a sentence.