Five of the ten best movies are reviewed. Another five of the ten best movies are reviewed in Ten Best Movies. All ten movies are for watching and even highly rated movie classics that are no longer watchable are not included. .
I almost left Casablanca off the ten best list thinking it is a little dated for actual watching. That would have been heresy as Casablanca is generally rated with Citizen Kane as the best two movies of all time. Note: I did leave off Citizen Kane which is getting outdated . I once thought Gone With The Wind was the greatest Hollywood had ever produced Now, it is so dated, I won't watch it.
The time is early World War 2 in Casablanca, North Africa. Humphrey Bogart (Rick) has a cafe (bar) in the city that caters to all kinds of characters fleeing the war - Nazis harassing the fleeing folks - and assorted other shady and colorful characters. Rick has become very cynical and selfish because his former girlfriend, Ingrid Bergman, left him in Paris. Suddenly, Bergman and her husband, a resistance fighter, reappear at Rick's trying to escape to America and Rick is drawn into their circle still holding the torch for Bergman. The well-known movie tale goes on and on with Rick finally losing his cynicism and helping the couple escape to America. The movie spawned the famous song "As Time Goes By" and also spawned countless clichés, one of the most famous probably being "Pick up the usual suspects."
It is an engrossing tale with the powerful backdrop being World War 2, probably, the most calamitous event in world history. Casablanca will be with us a long time.
I first heard of Godfather 1 at the water cooler at work.
The movie had just been released and Murph had seen it. As we stood
at the water cooler over the next few days, Murph had to recite in graphic
detail how each of the many execution victims in the movie was killed. I loved the
violence Murph described even before I saw it on the screen.
Before Godfather 1, I was 100 % against crime, etc. After Godfather 1, I spent some time not being too concerned about wiping criminals off the face of the Earth. After all, the crime family members - Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and James Caan - were now my heroes.
The movie involves the passing of the torch. Brando, the Mafia crime boss, is getting old and his son, Al Pacino, is being groomed to take over. Many crime adventures and misadventures occur, Caan is murdered, Brando dies a natural death, and, at the end, Pacino becomes the new and ruthless crime boss. A great tale.
In one scene, when Italian mob members prepare a spaghetti dinner using their bare hands to stir the spaghetti and sauce, the scene was so realistic, I developed a sudden hunger for spaghetti that knew no bounds. Unfortunately, there was no spaghetti available in the theater.
Brando received a pittance for appearing in the movie and, as a result, refused to appear in Godfather 2. Robert DeNiro was scheduled to have a minor role in the movie but eventually had to pull out because of other commitments. This left him free to play the lead role in Godfather 2.
Godfather 1 is generally rated as one of the three or four top movies of all time. I can't argue with that rating.
The movie was directed by Francis Ford Coppola (Remember Apocalypse Now?)
Francis Ford Coppola continued his directing success by directing Godfather 2 which won more awards than did Godfather 1. As a matter of fact, Godfather 2 is often rated the better of the two movies. (Godfather 3, which I recently saw, is not in the same class as the first two Godfather films. I was terribly disappointed.)
Godfather 2 serves as both a prequel and a sequel to Godfather 1. Al Pacino stars in the sequel sections and Robert DeNiro stars in the prequel sections. Both are at their best as the movie, simultaneously, covers the early days of Don Corleone and also the modern days of the crime family. In the sequel section, the movie scene shifts from various locales in the U.S. to Cuba where Fidel Castro is about to take power, an event that does not favor the Corleone family which wants to get involved in crime action there.
There is also the episode in Godfather 2 on a U.S. Senator who is kicking all kind of dirt on the family but who the crime family manages to entrap with a dead prostitute. The Senator shuts up real quick.
The movie also has a sad note as Pacino has his older (and kind of dumb) brother Fredo terminated after Fredo does a double cross of Pacino.
Oh, well! No one ever said organized crime was a pretty sight.
Of all the movies made about the World War 2 era in Europe, Cabaret, a musical, is the best at showing what was happening in the 30's as Hitler and the Nazis were beginning to take over Germany. As we in the U.S. presently observe our freedoms being terminated, it may be a good idea to watch Cabaret again. Is this in store for us?
But, after the politics, don't forget the music of Cabaret. Lisa Minnelli as Sally Bowles and Joel Gray as the Emcee of the Kit Kat Club do an incredible job in the movie. This is a wild and wooly movie of the 30's with the undercurrent of a world about to be plunged into war. Even homosexuality is displayed in the movie.
Joel Gray's Emcee role has to be the star of the film. I recall when Cabaret first came out in '72 or '73. It was heavily criticized at my work place in Louisiana mainly because of Gray's bazaar appearance. (He wore heavy makeup). In '73, Louisiana wasn't ready for such a sight.
Cabaret was a once-in-a-lifetime role for Gray. He hasn't been heard from much, since.
The feature song, "Life is a Cabaret," sung by Minnelli is a classic.
Every list of top ten movies has to have a comedy - doesn't it? Airplane is my comedy. A few years ago, it would have been the first Producers film but that has aged terribly. The same is true of Dr Strangelove, the only movie where I laughed until I was actually almost sick. It has begun to age also. All the Bob Hope comedies were a real trip back in the 40's - they wouldn't get a grin now.
So, I'll stick with Airplane.
One thing I like about Airplane is that it is pure comedy. There is no underlying message in it. It is strictly for laughs. Everybody and every cliché gets ridiculed. Nothing is sacred. Some of your more recent movie comedies are so full of political correctness, they aren't funny. Either that or the modern comedies are dependent on computer-generated laughs which isn't very funny to me.
The "story" is that the crew of a passenger plane all become incapacitated while the plane is in flight and landing the plane falls into the hands of a ex-fighter pilot on board who has some serious problems of his own. But the story is meaningless. The laughs are in the countless plays on language and everyday clichés that are in virtually every scene.
There is a huge all star cast so I won't try to name them. All were funny.
I know! I know! The comedy in Airplane will age as it does in all comedies. I agree. Comedy does age quickly. But, when Airplane ages, I will just pick another more recent comedy. The movie I pick won't be politically correct, though, and it won't have computer-generated laughs.
The ten best movies for watching were fairly easily to select although at least three or four other films could have easily made the list. Additionally, there is a group of movies that, while not in the best ten list, are excellent for watching. Remember, my number one criteria in selecting the top ten is their watchability, not their critical reviews or the number of awards they won. The top ten listing will be revised as I watch movies I have missed and, especially, as I watch newly released versions of old films. Some of the new releases, e.g., Apocalypse Now, provide major new content to the original versions.
The best of the honorable mention list follows: High Plains Drifter (the most underrated western), The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (a rambling, classic spaghetti western), Road Warrior (before Mel got religion and became a hypocrite), The Gambler (Caan's best movie), Yankee Doodle Dandy (Cagney's singing & dancing says it all), and Halloween (One of the oldest of the scary movies but still watchable).
Others on the honorable mention list: Citizen Kane (getting old but still a classic), Night of the Living Dead (the original version), Thin Red Line (underrated war movie), Blue Max (World War 1 planes are the real star), Treasure of Sierre Madre (the Mexican bandit leader has become a cult figure), Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood, again), Escape From New York (strictly for escapist watching), Psycho, and Once Upon a Time in America. I am anxious to obtain the extended DVD version of Once Upon a Time In America. A few internet movie critics rate the original version of the movie as only fair but the long new-release version as the best movie ever. I'll have to see for myself.
1. Best Western Movies. Five of the best westerns of all time.
The second five of the ten best movies.
updated: 06/28/2009
e-mail me @ vanc13@cox.net (Movie Reviewer: Van Cook)