Vic Sage

MST3K doesn't just introduce bad movies and make jokes during commercial breaks. They sit down front and watch the movie WITH you and yell funny (and less funny) shit at the screen throughout. It's like watching a bad horror movie in Times Square in the 1970s. But without the pungent aroma of cannibis pervading the air... and the floors are less sticky (at least in my house).

BLADE RUNNER is one of my favorite movies ever. I have watched at least one version of it every year since the 1980s, which is easier now that i have the "briefcase" collection. I've read numerous treatises about its impact on film-making over the last 35 years; its relation to Dick's original book; its commentary on global warming; its use of Noir elements... I even recall reading an interesting essay about its use of "eye" imagery. Is Deckard a replicant? No, nor should he be, but the debate goes on. So i had mixed feelings about the very idea of a sequel; equal parts dread and desire... like an anticipated rendevous with the protagonist of the vagina dentata horror film, TEETH. Was the new film going to resolve the Deckard/replicant debate in the worst possible way, or otherwise shit on other aspects of its progenitor, thus undermining the original? Was it going to be a wrong-headed disaster? When i heard Villanueve was going to direct, i became more hopeful. He is an interesting filmmaker, with a strong Dick-ian streak of questioning the underlying nature of reality in his stories, and an evocative visual style. But he's done some stinkers, too... so again, hope mixed with dread. And Jared Leto? Oy. I watched it with my family last Monday. Then i saw it again, this time in IMAX, on Wednesday. I was greatly relieved. Why? 1) It's great; 2) It stands on its own, while still evoking the original; 3) Its intense visuals of a decaying future are matched by a thoughtful story; 4) Ford hasn't been this good in a while; 5) It alludes to, but does not resolve, the Deckard/replicant issue; 6) It uses Leto in a limited, and thus more effective, way; 7) Great score that uses motifs of the Vangelis score but takes it in an original direction; and 8) No badly executed voice-over. Is it a flawless movie? Um, no. It's too long (by about 1/2 hour), and its deliberate pacing can be a slog for those not engaged with the story or the characters. And the characters probably aren't developed nearly well enough for those not already invested in this narrative. The story's reversals might be too clumsily executed, and its philosophical navel-gazing can be wearisome. And Ryan Gosling's emotionless "Joe" (at least at the outset) might not be everybody's idea of a compelling protagonist. But the original film had a lot of flaws, too. Both films remind me of Cindy Crawford, the gorgeous supermodel of the 1980s-90s, who had a big black mole on her face. She wasn't beautiful DESPITE the mole; her beauty was intensified by it. "Perfect imperfections", as John Legend sang. And like the original, this film has apparently flopped, too, despite good reviews. And as its critical reputation grows over the years and it, too, becomes a slowly discovered flawed masterpiece, I'll have other versions to look forward to when they release the work-print, the director's cut, the European version, and the "final" cut, and they then put them all together in another briefcase collection. So i've got that going for me... which is nice.

Thoughts?

my family loved it, particularly Lin-Manuel's songs.

he loved CITIZEN KANE so much, he was even willing to watch the "battle for Citizen Kane" pbs documentary right after it (it's about Hearst vs Welles). NETWORK is still over-the-top fun, and he appreciated that one too. I've made some revisions to the schedule. Here are the upcoming films, at this point: 7. Sullivan’s Travels (41)* / True Romance (95) 8. Casablanca (42)* / Annie Hall (77)* 9. Double Indemnity (44)* / Fargo (96) 10. White Heat (49) / Goodfellas (90)* 11. The Third Man (49)-n / Saving Private Ryan (98)* 12. Sunset Boulevard (50)* / The Player (91) [or May Favorite Year (82)] 13. African Queen (51)* / Apocalypse Now (79)* 14. Singin’ in the Rain (52)* / The Producers (68) 15. High Noon (52)* / Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (69)* 16. On the Waterfront (54)* /Raging Bull (80)* 17. The Searchers (56)* / Taxi Driver (76)* 18. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (56) / Close Encounters of 3rd Kind (76) 19. 12 Angry Men (57)* / Defending Your Life (91) 20. Vertigo (58)* / Blue Velvet (86) 21. Touch of Evil (58) / L.A. Confidential (97) 22. Some Like it Hot (59)* / Tootsie (82)* 23. Psycho (60)* / Silence of the Lambs (91)* 24. The Apartment (60)* / American Beauty (91) 25. West Side Story (61)* / Hair (80) 26. Lawrence of Arabia (62)* 27. Bonnie & Clyde (67)* / Untouchables (86) 28. The Graduate (67)* / Animal House (78) 29. Wild Bunch (69)*/ Unforgiven (92)* 30. M*A*S*H* (70)* / Platoon (86)* 31. French Connection (71)* / Sev7en (95) [or Robocop (86)] 32. A Clockwork Orange (71)* / Terminator 2 (91) 33. American Graffiti (73)*/ Ferris Bueller’s Day off (86) 34. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (75)* / Shawshank Redemption (94)* 35. The Godfather (72) * / Godfather II (74)* * = AFI top 100

So we just watched MALTESE FALCON and CHINATOWN. Matt liked MF alot, and CHINATOWN was ok, but less so. Franklly, i agree. CHINATOWN is better in my memory than it is on my tv. FALCON, however, is timeless. next week: CITIZEN KANE and NETWORK.

oh, and he gave a thumbs up to both BRINGING UP BABY and NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Its interesting to see the young Grant and the older Grant back-to-back like that, and see the development of the Grant style. And Hepburn is just amazing.

I do have SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (and THE PRODUCERS), but i did want to add more musicals. He's seen alot of them though, as well as action films, so he's not unfamiliar with the best stuff in those genres and I'm not including anything he's already seen. I was thinking of TOP HAT and either HAIR or PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, but i wanted to keep it to 26 weeks. And i was also thinking about ENTER THE DRAGON and CROUCHING TIGER, but i was saving that for our "foreign film & indie" class. And i think AMERICAN BEAUTY is not only brilliant, it pairs well with THE APARTMENT as satires of middle class values and aspirations.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" is such a great line. I also loved how Keenan Wynn's character was concerned, despite the threat of nuclear annihilation, about the Coke machine. he was very concerned about Sellers/Mandrake's "preversions", and warned him he'd have to answer to the coca cola company. There are so many great supporting performances in that movie -- George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens -- and then some interesting faces that pop up, including James Earl Jones as a member of the flight crew, along with William Daniels as the navigator. The Being There / Forrest Gump double feature occurred to me because (1) they fit together perfectly, (2) It is an amazing performance by sellers, and (3) Forrest Gump is on the AFI top 100 and did have a cultural impact, but there's alot less there than meets the eye and there was a reason that i didn't include it in my original list and i probably won't stick it in now. Maybe one of the Pink Panther movies.

we saw DUCK SOUP and DR. STRANGELOVE. He liked the Marx brothers alot (this is still a very funny movie), but didn't love DR. STRANGELOVE (it wasn't funny). I was trying to explain the difference between satire (which generally just causes a knowing smile) and farce, snappy patter and slapstick (like the brothers Marx), which generate guffaws. But he wasn't buying it. He did appreciate the performance(s) by Peter Sellers, though. I might add a BEING THERE / FORREST GUMP double feature near the end.

i didn't much like it until the court-martial scene. Then the combat stuff that followed was really harrowing; the best battle scenes since SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. It reminded me of the HBO mini-series THE PACIFIC, which, while not as good as BAND OF BROTHERS, was still pretty good. Gibson's constant use of religious imagery was a bit much, but at least it was relevant to the character, so i didn't mind. But Gibson surely does love to shoot scenes of violent christian martyrdom.

my son's responses to date: He like MODERN TIMES ok, but hated 2001. It is incredibly slow and ponderous film (intentionally so) and his contemporary teenage mind simply couldn't handle the pacing. He loved KING KONG, and while he appreciated ALIEN for its filmmaking, he doesn't like horror movies and the discomfort it causes him is not a feeling he likes to have. Which i generally feel, too, but i just find the design and direction of ALIEN to be extraordinary, so it really transcends the horror elements. Next up is DUCK SOUP and Dr. STRANGELOVE, which i'm looking forward to.

My son has also inherited a love of classic films from his father. Early on, I would just keep an eye on TCM and record whatever looked to me to be an "essential", as they put it. We never had any kind of formal curriculum. I've seen all of the movies on your list except for three: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly; Touch of Evil; and American Beauty. I agree with sharpie, it's a good list, although mine would probably have been somewhat different as well. Of course Casablanca is on the list! It HAS to be! (Gone With the Wind is a notable omission. Sure, it's a chick flick, but it's the one chick flick that everyone should see.) I'm glad to see several movies that I have a particular affection for: High Noon, King Kong, and Double Indemnity. Modern Times is a good example of Charlie Chaplin -- I would have gone with The Great Dictator but I'm glad you didn't choose City Lights. The only movies from the sound era that I would have definitely included but that you left off are Treasure of the Sierra Madre, I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, and Young Frankenstein. I would also have included some silents. The Birth of a Nation is an essential part of movie history. Others that are worthwhile are The Crowd and Sunrise. about Gone With the Wind, see my comment above; I thought about GREAT DICTATOR, but the series is chronological and i wanted to start with a silent film, and i wasn't going to do more than one (to keep my son's interest). I was thinking about Sunrise and The General, but i just thought he'd like "Modern Times" times more, and it gives the list a silent comedy, which i thought was an essential place to start. If he pursues his interests in film, he can get to BIRTH OF A NATION, and other silent classics, on his own; YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN? Did you mean BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN? That was on my list, too, but i can't show him everything. I was going to pair it with Cronenberg's remake of THE FLY. i might still. Ditto with TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. But i already had a few Bogie films and i needed to spread it around a bit.

sharpie wrote: If you were doing silents I would have gone with Metropolis although I have no quibble with Sunrise. i was only doing US films for this "semester". Metropolis will start off the 2nd series of foreign/Indy films and deep cuts.

Centerfield wrote: Terrific list. And I don't have the words to describe how cool of a thing this is to do with your son. I'm motivated to go through that list and fill in the gaps myself. Also feel like I should go back and re-watch some of them. I remember having watched Double Indemnity and Vertigo but remember almost nothing about the films. Has he seen Gone With the Wind? Or was it one of those you thought he didn't like? It may be a bit played out but is a must for anyone interested in classic cinema. Gone With the Wind is dated melodrama at its worst, adapting a book that is likewise. He wouldn' have sat through 1 hour of it, much less 4!

MFS62 wrote: Vic, I know you mentioned Hollywood films and the AFI 100 list. But an interesting companion movie to Lawrence of Arabia might be Hill 24 Doesn't Answer. You know. The British officer trying to find himself involved in a war in the Middle East. Just a thought. If not, how about Gunga Din? Anyhow, it sounds like a great thing to do with him. Later lawrence of arabia is 4 hours long - no double feature that day!

So my son loves movies (big surprise), but the only film classes in his high school are for seniors or for students in the performing arts program. So, I registered him for an online college course this summer, about "superhero cinema", which seemed perfect. Well, he started it, and the readings were overwhelming in both density and volume, and were more about philosophy and psychology than about films, and he was starting to get seriously stressed by it, so we withdrew him from the class. I promised him, instead, that he and i would watch double features every Sunday, and talk about them, and he'd get a basic grounding in classic Hollywood cinema and history. We've just finished week II and so far, so good. The program i've put together is a 28-week survey of classic Hollywood films of the 20th century, largely based on the AFI top 100 (revised in 2008), pairing older films with more recent ones around some common theme or element. I didn't include films he'd seen already (or ones i thought he probably wouldn't like). For those of you who'd like to follow along at home, here's the program: 1. Modern Times (36)* / 2001: A Space Odyssey (68)* - [7/30] 2. King Kong (33)* / Alien (79) – [8/6] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Duck Soup (33)* / Dr. Strangelove (64)* 4. Bringing Up Baby (38)* / North by Northwest (59)* 5. Maltese Falcon (41)* / Chinatown (74)* 6. Citizen Kane (41)* / Touch of Evil (58) 7. Sullivan’s Travels (41)* / Network (76)* 8. Casablanca (42)* / Annie Hall (77)* 9. Double Indemnity (44)* / Fargo (96) 10. The Third Man (49)/ Saving Private Ryan (98)* 11. Sunset Boulevard (50)* / The Player (91) 12. High Noon (52)* / Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (69)* 13. On the Waterfront (54)*/ Raging Bull (80)* 14. Singin’ in the Rain (52)* / The Producers (68) 15. The Searchers (56)* / Wild Bunch (69) 16. African Queen (51)* / Apocalypse Now (79)* 17. Vertigo (58) / Taxi Driver (76)* 18. Some Like it Hot (59)* / Tootsie (82)* 19. Psycho (60)* / Silence of the Lambs (91)* 20. The Apartment (60)* / American Beauty (91) 21. Lawrence of Arabia (62)* -- 22. Bonnie & Clyde (67)* / Untouchables (86) 23. The Graduate (67)* / Animal House (78) 24. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (67) / Unforgiven (92)* 25. MASH (70)* / Platoon (86)* 26. A Clockwork Orange (71)* / Goodfellas (90)* 27. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (75)*/ Shawshank Redemption (94)* 28. The Godfather (72) * / Godfather II (74)* * = AFI top 100

Chapter serials were the equivalent of tv series, before tv was prevalent. They were NOT filmed as movies; they were made as 20min episodes and then cut together as films later, to make more money off them. I happen to like the Flash Gordon serials (the first one, anyway... not so much Buck Rodgers, but the Captain Marvel series was better than either of them), but turning sequential, episode based comic strips into sequential episode based shorts is simply not the same thing as choosing from among all the Flash Gordon strips and serials ever made to create a single stand-alone feature film. And to include those serials, you then have to include every other comic-based serial (of which there were many), and then there is no rationale for keeping out episodic tv shows that replaced them, and that way madness lies.

just saw it on a flight. eh. Maybe if i saw it at home, with good sound...

Man At the Wheel: A Filmography http://archives.thecranepool.net/17500/f11_t17501.shtml

loved it. Edgar wright is one of the best filmmakers on this or any other planet (as far as i know).

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I've seen all of the top 22. I agree about The Rocketeer; I really liked that movie and it should be ranked higher. It could easily swap positions with Iron Man 3. I also think that, as low as it's ranked, Dick Tracy should be ranked even lower. I was trying to think of any movies that you've missed, but nothing's coming to me. If I think of anything, I'll be back! I wouldn't rank ROCKETEER outside of the top 25. And at least DICK TRACY has a couple of Sondheim songs and cool visuals.

see selection criteria: theatrical features only; no serials or tv series. it's a different challenge (and arguably easier) to adapt a comic book series into the episodic chapter/based storytelling format of serials and tv, and so not quite comparable. Same thing with adapting them into animated films/series.

I've now gone beyond the rankings of superhero movies that I posted in the Wonder Woman thread, in order to create this study that ranks superhero movies based on 4 criteria (Rotten Tomatoes "fresh" percentage, RT critic's average score, Metacritic score [when available] and IMDB rating); it then averages their rankings in each of these categories. These categories represent a cross-section of both critical and popular opinion, so aggregating them gives us (I would argue) a good cross-section of different views on these films. Here is the criteria i used for defining a "superhero film" (as i previously stated): * English language live-action feature films, * Released theatrically in the US after the publication of Action #1 (1938), that are * Based on a pre-existing US or UK comic-book or comic-strip superhero. This resulted in a list of 102 movies (not including the recently released "Spider-Man: Homecoming," for which not enough data has yet emerged). The list includes a few comic-strip based pulp characters that preceded Superman (flash gordon, the phantom, Dick Tracy, Sheena), but there are prose or radio-based characters that have not been included (Tarzan, Lone Ranger, Conan, the Shadow, Green Hornet, Zorro, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, etc.), because this exercise is really about seeing how the American film industry has converted 4-color sequential "superhero" stories into live-action motion pictures. So adapting radio shows or prose or animation, or creating original movie superhero characters, or comparing theatrically released films to tv shows or d2v movies, or comparing US adaptation to foreign films, are all very different things with significantly different artistic and economic models involved. Ultimately, this gets into some arbitrary line-drawing, but without parameters, I'd have to include myths, legends, religious tales, anime, etc. from all over the world, from every medium, and it would be totally unwieldy and a less useful exercise. And we wouldn't be comparing apples to apples, as it were. Anyway, here are the results of this unscientific survey: rank TITLE 1 DARK KNIGHT, the 2 LOGAN 3 IRON MAN 4 DARK KNIGHT RISES, the 5 SPIDER-MAN 2 6 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 7 SUPERMAN 8 WONDER WOMAN 9 AVENGERS 10 X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST 11 CAPTAIN AMERICA III: CIVIL WAR 12 BATMAN BEGINS 13 SPIDER-MAN 13 CAPTAIN AMERICA II: WINTER SOLDIER 15 DEADPOOL 16 DR. STRANGE 17 MEN IN BLACK 18 SUPERMAN II 19 X-MEN II: x-men united 20 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 21 X-MEN: FIRST CLASS 22 HELLBOY II: the golden army 23 CROW, the 24 KICK-ASS 25 X-MEN 26 ANT-MAN 26 V FOR VENDETTA 28 HELLBOY 29 BATMAN (89) 29 BATMAN RETURNS 31 AVENGERS II: AGE OF ULTRON 32 IRON MAN 3 32 CAPTAIN AMERICA: FIRST AVENGER 34 WATCHMEN 35 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 36 SUPERMAN RETURNS 37 KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE 38 DREDD 39 THOR 40 FLASH GORDON 41 WANTED 42 IRON MAN 2 43 MASK, the 44 BATMAN: The Movie (66) 45 INCREDIBLE HULK, the (08) 46 THOR: DARK WORLD 47 MAN OF STEEL 48 MEN IN BLACK III 49 WOLVERINE, the 50 SPIDER-MAN 3 50 X-MEN III: the last stand 52 X-MEN: APOCALYPSE 52 ROCKETEER 54 BLADE 54 MYSTERY MEN 56 BLADE II 57 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN II 58 DICK TRACY 59 HULK (03) 60 CONSTANTINE 61 SWAMP-THING 62 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (90) 63 X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE 64 MEN IN BLACK II 65 BATMAN V SUPERMAN 66 BATMAN FOREVER 67 PHANTOM, the 68 KICK ASS 2 69 DAREDEVIL 70 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS (16) 71 FANTASTIC FOUR II: rise of the silver surfer 72 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: Secret of the Ooze (91) 72 TANK GIRL 74 SUICIDE SQUAD 75 PUNISHER (04) 76 FANTASTIC FOUR (2005) 77 GREEN LANTERN 77 SUPERMAN III 79 BLADE III: Trinity 80 PUNISHER WAR ZONE 81 GHOST RIDER 82 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (14) 83 RETURN OF THE SWAMP-THING 84 SHEENA 85 SPAWN 86 BARB WIRE 87 LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN 88 JUDGE DREDD 89 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III (93) 90 ELEKTRA 91 GHOST RIDER II: spirit of vengeance 92 JONAH HEX 93 SPIRIT, the 94 CROW II: CITY OF ANGELS 94 HOWARD THE DUCK 96 BATMAN & ROBIN 97 FANTASTIC 4 (2015) 98 SUPERGIRL 99 STEEL 100 SUPERMAN IV: the quest for peace 101 CATWOMAN 102 SON OF THE MASK While i have personal quibbles about the order (everyone would, i imagine), i think the top 10 are the right 10 (more or less), and the top 40 are the right 40 (except for the criminally overlooked ROCKETEER, ranked 52). So, in the aggregate, i think this is a pretty good list to approach an objective understanding of the comparative quality and success of these films.

sounded like a French porn film by Edward Albee... i was disappointed to learn otherwise.