Kevin's Watch

Oh I loved Tombstone! Val Kilmer was awesome in that!
Also how could I have forgotten "Dead Man" and "Ghost Dog."
Two of Jim Jarmusch's best films?
"Stupid fucking white man!"

There are some decent films that y'all have listed, but none of them are going to have the lasting impact that stuff like The Godfather or Jaws had. I dearly love Tombstone, but it's hardly a great movie.

I think there are a few that may.....

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is a pretty decent piece of work on a huge scale and tho' in genre, totally different to the Godfather Trilogy, stands as one of film-makings masterpieces.

To name a few that I think would stand up there with the label great:

90's
Red October
Casino
Shcindlers List
Shawshank Redemption
Dances with Wolves
Groundhog Day
Scent of a Woman
Armageddon
Pulp Fiction

00's
LotR
Kill Bill
Black Hawk Down,
Gladiator
No Country for Old Men
Avatar (have to admit it had impact!)
Red

That's not mentioning Clint Eastwood's work in that time:

Mystic River
The Unforgiven
Million Dollar Baby
Gran Torino
Space Cowboys

Not all those above are of the sheer class of the Godfather, but they are all movies which are class or made impacts in the industry or have become benchmarks in their own genres. Myself I think most of the above are great movies and I could add another 10-12 from the lists on the last page without too much trouble.

Having said that, the creativity in film-making the 70's and 80's was probably the equivalent of music in the 60's and 70's.

HATED "Tombstone" but still thought Val great in it.
Last 20 yrs [roughly] can't go wrong with anything Daniel Day Lewis...all good, some absolutely great [and probably his next flick will be, and I'm not a fan of famous people bio flicks].

Screw "Pulp Fiction." It was a good movie, but "Reservoir Dogs" is way better...and on the great list [though that's probably barely within 20...when did it come out? 92?

I'm not a fan of 70's/80's as a period [though definitely some standouts] even though that was my prime "going to movies" time.

Except "Spinal Tap"...now, that flick is classic in every way, had no hype at all until it was already out for 2 weeks, far as I recall...now students I have recognize quotes from it and don't even know where they came from.

"When I look at this album cover, I think, how much blacker could it be? And the answer is...none. None blacker."

"Ours goes to eleven."

"I think the problem may have been we had a stonehenge monument in danger of being trod upon by dwarves."

or something like that.

What about Star Wars? The hype occured after it was released based on the reaction to it.

Y'know...Star Wars was something like that for me. I remember some rumblings that this was something special, and my sister had seen it and loved it, so I guess there was a modest amount of hype before going in, but I was young enough that hype had no influence on me. Nobody I knew other than my sister had seen it (and she doesn't count at that age), so it was fairly hype-free. And yeah...while I didn't realize it that early, it was a life changing moment. Which seems dumb to say, but it really was. I met several of my friends through a shared love of Star Wars, and at least two I am still in touch with. And we have Star Wars inspired tattoos to prove it.

I got into a heated argument last week with my wife and 6 year old stepson. They kept referring to "Episode IV" and "A New Hope".



The movie's called Star Wars.




And yeah Cag, it was a life-changing moment sitting in that theater in 1977 watching that HUGE Star Destroyer cross the screen.

It was a real 'wow' moment.... and its what 33 years ago?

I can still remember the awe of that moment and remember looking up at the theatre ceiling expecting to see the rest of it!

I wish I'd somehow, impossibly, managed to avoid the cultural saturation of Star Wars before I saw it. My little sister is the only person I know who saw The Empire Strikes Back with no idea that Vader was Luke's father. When the immortal line was spoken, she let out a huge wail of "NO!" and burst into tears!

Movies that blew me away without knowing of the hype...

Saving Grace, Hot Fuzz, The Orphanage.

Thinking about them, there probably wasn't much hype anyway!

I've withheld from saying this until I had the right words-- Cail, do you really think "Jaws" is a better piece of cinema than "El Mariachi"?
You might enjoy the picture more, and that's fine but is "Jaws" really a better film?

Lord Zombiac wrote:I've withheld from saying this until I had the right words-- Cail, do you really think "Jaws" is a better piece of cinema than "El Mariachi"?
You might enjoy the picture more, and that's fine but is "Jaws" really a better film?

Yes. In every, single, quantifiable way.

El Mariachi is certainly an enjoyable film, but Jaws was utterly groundbreaking. Without Jaws, there's no Alien.

I really don't like Steven Spielberg's movies. In fact, other than Jaws, about the only one I can stand is Always (I'm a sap, sue me). Jaws is like The Terminator, there's not a single wasted shot. There's no padding, nothing extraneous. And it keeps the monster hidden until the end, which makes the film that much more effective.