Slightly different format this week: the top five won’t be mentioned until, well, the top five. Instead I’ll just look at those that almost made it, but were just pipped at the post.
It was difficult to whittle 80 films down to 5 so a few outstanding films had to be rejected. From the 1920s a fine Laurel and Hardy film, From Soup to Nuts misses out as does Murnau’s silent German expressionist film, Faust. A couple more Laurel and Hardy films from the 30s miss out too – The Fixer Uppers and Flying Deuces.
There was lots of to-ing and fro-ing before I finally left Hitchcock’s 1940 thriller, Foreign Correspondent out of the top 5. Whilst I don’t think it’s up there with his best, it still very nearly broke the top 5 proving that even a non-classic Hitchcock can still be better than the majority of films from lesser filmmakers. The same could be said for three more major directors, all who made films in the 40s that just missed out. There’s the Powell and Pressburger team with 49th Parallel, John Ford with Fort Apache, and the great Billy Wilder with A Foreign Affair. All fine films, but all just fail to break into the shortlist.
From the 50s comes the multi-Oscar winning From Here to Eternity. Sinatra, Kerr, Lancaster – all still not quite enough to make it on the shortlist. Forbidden Planet is one of my guilty pleasures – Leslie Nielson (yes, him) takes the lead in a straight role in this loose reworking of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Very close to making the top five was Francois Truffaut’s classic, The 400 blows (or Les Quatre cent coups, to give it its French title); his tale of a young boy’s coming of age with that famous freeze-frame ending (later nicked by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).
Another Truffaut offering appears in the 60s with his only English language film Fahrenheit 451, an interesting if sometimes stilted adaptation of the Ray Bradbury novel concerning a future where books are banned. A couple of Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns also emerge with A Fistful of Dollars and then For a few Dollars More. The ubiquitous James Stewart also makes his compulsory appearance as part of the impressive ensemble cast of Flight of the Phoenix. And lets not forget James Bond again with From Russia With Love, a fine entry in the series.
Into the 70s and Hitchcock and Wilder both make another appearance – Hitchcock made films spanning over 50 years, from the 1920s onwards. Wilder’s entry is The Front Page with the marvellous Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau teaming up again with most funny results. Hitchcock has 2 films from the 70s which whilst sometimes maligned in comparison to his earlier films, are still decent enough and blow his other 1970s film, the dreadful Topaz out of the water. The films in question are Family Plot and Frenzy- worth a watch if you can catch them. Also from the 70s is The French Connection 2 which is a more than capable sequel to the original. Now mentioning that and not the original kind of gives away what one of the final five will be but never mind.
The 80s (worst decade for film since records began) does actually provide a couple of contenders – Flashdance definitely NOT being one of them though. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is looked upon with affection by many, there’s the first Friday 13th film which spawned approximately 147 sequels and another Bond film with For Your Eyes Only. The remake of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum is also worth a mention, as are Fatal Attraction, Polanski’s Frantic, and from the UK, A Fish Called Wanda – always good value for a laugh.
The early 90s brings us A Few Good Men. Then in 1993 and 1994 in one of those statistical quirks there’s 7 films released in those 2 years alone that were serious contenders for the top five. They are Falling Down, Farewell My Concubine, Fearless, The Firm, The Fugitive, Forrest Gump, and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Crikey, that’s a lot of F-ing films. The extremely silly, but mindlessly entertaining Face/Off is also worth a mention, then at the other end of the arthouse/mainstream spectrum comes Festen, a Dogme-95 film that is absolutely exceptional and probably closest of all these films listed to making the top 5. Michael Haneke’s original Austrian version of Funny Games is also a fine, if grim and difficult watch. Oh, and nearly forgot The Full Monty, the mammoth British hit of 1997.
From the 2000s we have Pixar in all their glory with Finding Nemo and the fascinating Errol Morris documentary The Fog of War. Sticking with documentary’s there’s Michael Moore’s polemic Fahrenheit 9/11 and then from last year, not a documentary but based on fact, there was the fine Frost/Nixon with sterling performances all round.
Without further ado, we move to the Top Five, the first top five in which I own all of the shortlisted five on DVD. Edit - don't know what i was talking about - I own all of the shortlists for A, B, C, and D too. Must have had a mind blank.
The Shortlist
Frankenstein – the original 1931 and the best version with Boris Karloff giving a career defining performance as the monster. Unlike Dracula, made in the same year, this hasn’t aged as badly, still looks great, and has been unsurpassed in the near 80 years since its release.
Freaks – From the director of Dracula came Freaks in 1932, a unique film in almost every sense. Banned for years after its release, I’m still not sure if it’s been shown on TV ever. It does what it says on the tin – it’s set in a freakshow with bearded ladies, Siamese twins, men with no arms and legs etc. It could be dreadful, but the humanity shines through and the “freaks” are never patronised by the film, and hey, they triumph in the end over the evil able bodied villain.
The French Connection – Winner of the Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Editing, Writing, and Actor for Gene Hackman, this was a deserved winner on all accounts. Hackman gives what is still perhaps a career defining performance as Popeye Doyle on the trail of drug traffickers. Shot in a naturalistic documentary style by William Friedkin, this set the standard for all police procedural films to follow. Plus it’s got one of the best car pursuits ever filmed (up there with the ones in Bullitt and Ronin).
Fargo – It’s difficult to pick my best Coen Brothers film – they’ve just made so many great ones, but at a push this may be my favourite. Exquisite cinematography from their regular collaborator Roger Deakins, a flawless script, and genius performances from, amongst others Frances Mcdormand, William H Macy, and Steve Buscemi add up to a modern classic that’s a pure joy to watch time and time again
Fight Club – Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are the stars in this quite remarkable film; an indictment of modern life as we reached the millennium casting a scathing look on our commodity ridden culture and the purposelessness felt by many in the consumer society in which we live. Extraordinarily filmed by the helmer of Se7en, David Fincher, this is perhaps one of the most dangerous films ever made mainstream in Hollywood and still packs a punch today.
And the winner is… I don’t really know. I’ve narrowed it down to Fargo and Fight Club but it’s a toughie – have probably seen both films half a dozen times of so. If I could make it a tie, I would, but I can’t so, deep breath:
The
Winner
Is
Fargo, no, Fight club. Fight Club, no. Fargo. Oh bloomin heck. For its sheer bravado I’ll go for
0 comments:
Post a Comment