Tuesday, September 24, 2019

On My Tenth Birthday: The Best 100 of My Life

Ten years? That's how long Mo-View's been around. Me myself ... been available for almost half a century. So maybe this is a good time for the best of the best I've ever seen: a list of films that shouldn't disappoint - or at least considered a comprehensive profile of the person I am.

The main selection criterion here, like always, is entertainment value - and for me, that's dictated by the craving for multiple viewings. I've watched almost all the movies here more than once; except for a few like Million Dollar Baby or A Beautiful Mind, where the ending or a sudden mid-movie revelation, while powerful, hindered the drive for a second attempt. The earliest movie on the list is a 1939 classic about a certain bogus wizard from Oz, and the most recent, a very relevant sci-fi horror from 2017.

And alas, after 10 years of blogging, this may be my last entry. I've posted reviews on nearly 1,600 films, and finally, it may be time to move on. When you sometimes don't even remember whether you've seen a movie, and you have to use your blog's search feature to check if you have ... maybe you've watched way too many.

Any crazy omissions? Fill me in. Maybe it'll be the first (and likely last) time you'll comment on Mo-View.


THE LIST:


Paul Thomas Anderson
Boogie Nights (1997), There Will Be Blood (2007)

Luc Besson
Léon: The Professional (1994)

Joon-ho Bong
Snowpiercer (2013)

Tim Burton
Edward Scissorhands (1990)

James Cameron
Aliens (1986), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Titanic (1997), Avatar (2009)

Frank Capra
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Francis Ford Coppola 
The Godfather (1972), The Godfather: Part II (1974)

David Cronenberg 
Scanners (1981), A History of Violence (2005)

Alfonso Cuarón
Gravity (2013)

Frank Darabont
The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999)

Brian De Palma
Scarface (1983), The Untouchables (1987)

Richard Donner
The Omen (1976), Superman (1978)

Clint Eastwood
Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Asghar Farhadi
About Elly (2009), A Separation (2011)

David Fincher
Se7en (1995)

Victor Fleming
The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Milos Forman
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984), Man on the Moon (1999)

William Friedkin
The Exorcist (1973)

Mel Gibson
Braveheart (1995)

Guy Hamilton
Goldfinger (1964)

Alfred Hitchcock
Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963)

Ron Howard
A Beautiful Mind (2001), Willow (1988)

Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Irvin Kirshner
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Stanley Kubrick 
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Shining (1980), Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Akira Kurosawa
The Seven Samurai (1954), Rashomon (1950)

John Landis 
An American Werewolf in London (1981)

John Lasseter
Toy Story (1995)

David Lean
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Sergio Leone
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Richard Linklater 
Before Sunset (2004), Before Midnight (2013)

George Lucas
Star Wars (1977), Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Sidney Lumet
12 Angry Men (1957), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

David Lynch
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Mulholland Drive (2001)

Richard Marquand
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983)

John McTiernan
Predator (1987), Die Hard (1988)

Nicholas Meyer
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Christopher Nolan
The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017)

Jordan Peele
Get Out (2017)

Sam Raimi
Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Rob Reiner
Misery (1990), A Few Good Men (1992)

Martin Scorsese
Taxi Driver (1976), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Gangs of New York (2002)

Ridley Scott
Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Prometheus (2012)

M. Night Shyamalan
The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000)

Steven Spielberg
Jaws  (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981),  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Jurassic Park (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Minority Report (2002).

Oliver Stone
JFK (1991)

Quentin Tarantino
Pulp Fiction (1994), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003),  Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Giuseppe Tornatore
Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
The Lives of Others (2006)

Lars von Trier
Breaking the Waves (1996), Melancholia (2011)

Robert Zemeckis
Back to the Future (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), The Walk (2015)




12 comments:

  1. Dude ... REALLY??? The last one?? OK, then I'll have to post my first public comment here :-) :-)
    About the top 100, I think nothing can be said, it's all yours. Well ok, you know I like to bargain, so you miss at least one Miyazaki ;-)
    Seriously, you know I love your blog, I'll miss it :-( Am I still the record holder?? We'll definitely keep talking about movies, even if you don't blog them anymore. We started our passion for the movies together, didn't we? ;-)

    OK, one quizz as a happy Ending. If you win, your prize will be to review one more movie (out of my recommendations ;-). If you loose, you'll have to ... hang yourself :-) Here it is: out of your Top 100, which movie is the ONLY one we all (You, I, Mohi, Mamal and Hossein) watched together for the first time?

    Good luck ;-)
    And thanks for all these great reviews!!!

    Ali S.

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    1. Thank you for all the kind words, Ali jaan. Of course you were the MoMagic record-holder. Movies always bring people together.

      Okay now: was the movie "Return of the Jedi"?

      Wow ... I'll never forget the moment your Mom came into our apartments front yard, holding up the VHS videotape in her hand.

      Was I right? Okay, name your movie. Guessing it'll be "Parasite".

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    2. You owe us one more review man ;-)
      Yup your brain is still working great. How can we forget that moment anyway?? I remember also all the shouts when we all started realizing that she has holding THE VHS :-)
      Ok now that you re good for one more, i give you the choice. Parasite of course and The Sisters brothers. Both are GREAT ;-)

      Chakerim

      Ps: 4 nights ago there was Pirahna 3D on TV. We loughed loud with Quyen watching it again thinking of you :-) Especially the "I want to F fish" scene :-) :-)

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    3. Okay ... I'll go for both! Parasite, and The Sisters Brothers.

      :-D

      OMG, Piranha 3D was awesome.

      Good times ...

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    4. OK then 2 more reviews. Even better ;-)

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    5. Okay, Ali jaan, here's my promised 'last review', on "Parasite". Thanks again for the recommendation:


      PARASITE (2019)

      Director: Bong Joon Ho. Cast: Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Jo. 132 min. Rated R. South Korea. Drama/Thriller.

      From Bong Joon-Ho ('Snowpiercer', 'Okja'), comes another of the Korean auteur’s stabs at his favorite theme: social inequality. As opposed to the incredibly misdirected trailer introducing this as a horror, the movie works almost as a comedy, to end as something else entirely - magnifying the finale’s magnitude several fold. When it comes to Korean movies, you know gruesome violence is a given, but with this one, impossible to predict when the violence hits. In the end, you’re left with the haunting image of a poor man’s head, rising from the dark underground bowels of a rich man’s mansion.

      Mo says:

      MOMAGIC!

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    6. ;-)
      I'll miss your blog ...

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    7. "And the troubling part is, there's nobody out there as good as he was. When it comes to learning about movies, I don't know where to go from here."

      https://mohsen48.blogspot.com/2013/04/roger-and-me.html

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  2. HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY MO-VIEW!
    I would like to express my gratitude for following here: MO-VIEW for almost 10 years.Sometimes it's really difficult to find the right words to say for a something which means so much to you. A few words of thanks to express how grateful I am for so much things I have learned from these reviews and the way you groomed your followers to be sound professionals. We've disagreed numerous time. However; when you've expressed your love or dislike toward a movie that I had opposite feeling, I always wonder if I've missed something? You have a passion for movies, I have passion too, tons of cinephiles have passion. No doubt ...but more importantly, you have found a way to communicate that passion through your writing beautifully and professionally even when it limits to 100 words. That counts. Your guidance over the years has kept us away from dreck and steered us towards some terrific films in art of cinema. 
    Instead of farewell I would rather to hope... 

    "Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever die"

    Batman returns
    Superman Returns
    LOTR king returned
    Jedi returned

    So let us pretend and hope : Mo-View will return ....We will celebrate birthday again, We will read " The Best 1000 of My Life" Stay tuned!

    Thank you for devoting your time to write this treasure /collection spiritually and intellectually. I will save it for myself as my encyclopedia and guidance and teach other people what I have learned from Mo-View.

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  3. And about the list :
    my feedback and my choices are :
    Paul Thomas Anderson : I liked Inherent Vice too. Agree the best of his work might be : There will be blood. I watched it once but some famous scenes 10 times.
    Luc Besson Léon: The Professional (1994) : if its not on my top ten movies of all time, for sure will be in my 20.
    Joon-ho Bong Snowpiercer (2013) : great choice. Hopefully new adaptation series which will release next year won't ruin the movie's beauty. Looking forward to seeing highly critically acclaimed Palme d'Or winner “Parasite" in theater soon.
    Tim Burton: Edward Scissorhands (1990) : 100% agree. surely in my top 20 list
    James Cameron : Aliens (1986), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) : So excited to see Sarah Connor returns on screen, old but still badass.
    Frank Capra : For me : It Happened One Night (1934)
    Francis Ford Coppola The Godfather (1972), The Godfather: Part II (1974) and Apocalypse Now:In my top 10 movie list.
    David Cronenberg Haven't seen Scanners. A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises 2007 are my favorites.
    Alfonso Cuarón : I just saw :Y Tu Mamá También (2001) and became my best film from Alfonso.
    Frank Darabont : The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Happy 25th anniversary of The Shawshank Redemption yesterday.
    " Get busy living or get busy dying"
    Nice to listen to "Marriage of Figaro" with loud volume while remember that breathtaking and heartfelt scene of the movie.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwSNMibfaRg

    Brian De Palma: Scarface (1983) is my top ten.
    Richard Donner : The Omen (1976), Superman (1978)
    Clint Eastwood : I credit a lot to Mystic river, Unforgiven
    Asghar Farhadi : I pick About Eli from Farhadi
    David Fincher: Se7en (1995)
    I love all his movies honesty....you did not choose Fight Club. Thanks GOD. I get sick everyday I see something from this movie somewhere. too much !
    Victor Fleming : GWTW
    Milos Forman : One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984) : Masterpieces
    William Friedkin : The Exorcist (1973): RIP Max von Sydow
    Alfred Hitchcock : From Master : I pick psycho, rear window, Vertigo, Notorious
    Ron Howard : Haven't seen Willow. A Beautiful Mind (2001) is beautiful indeed!
    Stanley Kubrick :Eyes wide shut destroyed me.
    Akira Kurosawa : The Seven Samurai (1954), Rashomon (1950) are my choices too.
    Sergio Leone : "Dollars Trilogy"is on my top list and once upon a time in America too.Agree the best one is The good,The bad,The ugly
    Richard Linklater : "The before trilogy".All of them
    Sidney Lumet : 12 Angry Men (1957) is exceptional.Must be an academic stuff to teach in universities.
    David Lynch : Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Mulholland Drive (2001): Agree absolutely.
    Christopher Nolan: All trilogy of Batman, Dunkirk (2017)
    Rob Reiner : Misery (1990)
    Martin Scorsese : Taxi Driver (1976), Cape Fear , Casino
    Ridley Scott : Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982)
    M. Night Shyamalan : The Sixth Sense (1999),The Unbreakable trilogy,
    Steven Spielberg : Jaws (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989),
    Oliver Stone : Born on Forth July 1989, Platoon 1986
    Quentin Tarantino : Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

    About omission? In terms of directors these people may remind you some other masterworks...
    Robert Altman, Werner Herzog, Woody Allen , Roman Polanski, Sam Peckinpahi,Bernardo Bertolucci, Jonathan Demme,Spike Lee, Cohen Brothers, Alejandro González Aronofsky, Michael Mann, Jim Jarmusch, Ang lee,.....

    Thank you
    Sincerely,
    Maryam

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  4. Just noticed one more thing about your top 100: no Wachowski? Not even the Matrix???? Seriously???!
    Make it top 200 :-)

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