The Pitters' Place

Let's do this. Once everyone who would respond responds, a supreme list shall be made.

Mine, in chronological order of release:

Casablanca
A Hard Day's Night
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Taxi Driver
Malcolm X
Friday
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The Matrix
Training Day
Rango/Nightcrawler (tie)

Pan's Labyrinth
Lost in Translation
The Americanization of Emily
2001
Nightcrawler
Two Days, One Night
Happy Go Lucky
How to Train Your Dragon
Silence of the Lambs
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

notables: The Incredibles, Rango, Submarine, Princess Mononoke, The Virgin Suicides, Bully, a lot more

Nice. There are two in your collection I can't get behind, the first being Two Days, One Night, but I don't hate it. The second is The Americanization of Emily, only because I haven't seen it. I shall do so straight away.

+2 cool points for Rango and Nightcrawler, though, of course.

It really is excellent. In my opinion, it is the best anti-war film that I've seen, and far more intelligent, funny, meaningful, and incisive than Dr. Strangelove, and many others of its type that are far more well-known. It's also incredibly brave. I doubt it would be able to be made and/or widely distributed today.

Also, with this list I hope I can get rid of my reputation for disliking all mainstream movies.

Derived Absurdity wrote:more funny than Dr. Strangelove

Quite a difficult task! I'll check it out.

Derived Absurdity wrote:Also, with this list I hope I can get rid of my reputation for disliking all mainstream movies.

I've never gotten that impression from you. Then again, I hardly pay attention to if a movie is "mainstream" or not; good art is good art.

I don't really have a top 10, so I'll just list movies that come to mind as being "one of the best" movies I've seen, in the order that they pop into my head, until I've written 10 movies. There's plenty films that I acknowledge are "better" from a "film point of view", but that didn't leave as big an impression on me.

The Shawshank Redemption
The Machinist
The Green Mile
Memento
Requiem for a Dream
Inglorious Basterds
The Butterfly Effect
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Shining (Kubrick)
The Big Lebowski

*Edit* Dang, just thought of American Beauty, but I don't think I want to bump any of those for it. But if I'd thought if it sooner, it would be on the list.

sikax wrote:

Derived Absurdity wrote:more funny than Dr. Strangelove

Quite a difficult task! I'll check it out.

Well... to be honest that part is sort of damning with faint praise, as I found Dr. Strangelove to be as funny as I found The Shining to be scary and A Clockwork Orange to be thought-provoking. Meaning... not really much at all. I mean, it is still funny for its time, but that's not why I like it so much.

sikax wrote:

Derived Absurdity wrote:Also, with this list I hope I can get rid of my reputation for disliking all mainstream movies.

I've never gotten that impression from you. Then again, I hardly pay attention to if a movie is "mainstream" or not; good art is good art.

Thanks. I agree. The past year especially, the line separating "mainstream" and whatever the opposite is is starting to become really blurred anyway.

If you dislike Christopher Nolan, Marvel, and Game of Thrones, that pretty much means you dislike all mainstream things, I have found.

Derived Absurdity wrote: If you dislike Christopher Nolan, Marvel, and Game of Thrones, that pretty much means you dislike all mainstream things, I have found.

Don't forget TWD.

TWD is one of those 'love-to-hate' things. I mostly just hate it.

Three of those four things actually suck.

The Dark Knight
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Shawshank Redemption
The Silence of the Lambs
Batman Begins
Gone With the Wind
The Return of the Jedi
The Searchers
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Full Metal Jacket

At least half of those would easily make my top 50 or better (except for Gone with the Wind, don't like it much).

The Dark Knight
The Empire Strikes Back
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Forest Gump
Inglorious Basterds
How to Train Your Dragon
Singin' in the Rain
Wizard of Oz
Toy Story 2
Young Frankenstein

Derived Absurdity wrote: Also, with this list I hope I can get rid of my reputation for disliking all mainstream movies.

So your list showed me that I was wrong in thinking you and I didn't like any of the same movies. There's a few on there I haven't heard of, but a few that I really like as well.

However, I don't think your reputation (at least my own impression of you) is that you don't like anything mainstream. It's that you only like things that are different/artsy/groundbreaking. You like movies that are the type people would study in film school; not the type that are simply entertaining. It's just a different category of film.

And only a few from his list enjoyed immediate critical and commercial success; most are indeed what would become "cult" classics. So, while we may love Eternal Sunshine and Nightcrawler and even 2001 today, they weren't always accepted as traditionally "good", ya know? I mean, Shawshank wasn't immediately accepted as one of the greatest films of all-time, but now is pretty much a top-five consensus. Consider time and aging when it comes to what's considered "mainstream" or "indie". That's why it's all bullshit.

Gendo wrote:

Derived Absurdity wrote: Also, with this list I hope I can get rid of my reputation for disliking all mainstream movies.

So your list showed me that I was wrong in thinking you and I didn't like any of the same movies. There's a few on there I haven't heard of, but a few that I really like as well.

However, I don't think your reputation (at least my own impression of you) is that you don't like anything mainstream. It's that you only like things that are different/artsy/groundbreaking. You like movies that are the type people would study in film school; not the type that are simply entertaining. It's just a different category of film.

^ I never really thought of that but that's probably close to it.

I'd rather be a snob than a hipster.

Derived Absurdity wrote:I'd rather be a snob than a hipster.

A hipster would say that.