Carter's Top 39 Films (June 2016)

Here is an off-the-cuff list of my thirty nine "favorite" movies at present. Check out my "this is a gut feeling thing, not a critically thought-out thing" caveat the first time I did this, and see also my lists from August 2014 and November 2015 if you give a crap.

There's a new rule this time: to put a film on this list, I have to have watched it within the last two years.

Here goes:

Gas Food Lodging (1992)
Lovely and Amazing (2001)
Alien (1979)
The Terminator (1984)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Blade Runner (1982)
Peeping Tom (1960)
The TV Set (2006)
Duel (1971)
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Escape from New York (1981)
The Room (2003)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The Brood (1979)
Heat (1995)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Shampoo (1975)
Nashville (1975)
Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
The Shining (1980)
Cure (1997)
The Witch (2015)
Das Boot (1981)
Leviathan (2015)
Far From the Madding Crowd (2015)
Throne of Blood (1957)
The Third Man (1949)
Memories of Murder (2003)
Prometheus (2012)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Fargo (1996)
A Serious Man (2009)
Terri (2011)
Nosferatu (1979)
The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Some comments:

The Third Man is on the list this time because it is the best fuckin' 1940s film noir there is (and if not this, then Double Indemnity). I have always loved The Third Man. It has my favorite tone of any film noir or practically any film, absurdly whimsical yet pervasively melancholic -- and deadly serious when it needs to be. Its use of setting is unparalleled. It has one of the best soundtracks ever. It features one of Orson Welles' best onscreen performances. It only gets better with time. Everything about it is beautiful and awesome.

Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli in Carol Reed's noir masterpiece The Third Man. 

The Brood is here because it's the most recent David Cronenberg film I've laid eyes on, and anything that guy does, up to and including Eastern Promises (2007), pretty much mesmerizes me. I would normally place Videodrome as my all-out favorite Cronenberg outing, but I saw The Brood at the Dryden last year and it really blew me away. So creepy!

I substituted Das Boot for Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960), since I realized it's probably been over two years since I saw the latter. I saw Das Boot more recently and Wolfgang Petersen's anti-war masterpiece, a perennial favorite, has been on my mind a lot lately.

Similarly, I traded Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut for Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure, for the same reason -- I haven't seen Eyes recently, but I watched Cure earlier this year.

The most important new addition is Tommy Wiseau's schlock masterpiece The Room, which I had the good fortune to re-watch with an exuberant group of friends last weekend. I made an important plot-related realization during this latest viewing: the drug dealer Chris-R (Dan Janjigian) is essentially there to deliver the gun to Johnny. The gun Johnny confiscates from Chris-R during the rooftop scene is the same one he uses to rather dramatic effect in the film's final sequence.

Which is to say, The Room's "what kind of drugs?" subplot is in the film not just at random, but exists to serve a higher plot function. Sure, Chris-R is apparently sent to jail (as Denny claims during his rooftop confrontation with Lisa and Claudette) without the San Francisco Police ever investigating Denny's involvement in his drug dealings. Nor do the cops ever come looking for that gun. But these "plot holes" are rather minor when compared to the film's need to explain how the naive Johnny gets access to a handgun, wouldn't you say?

A few movies that should be on the list but aren't because I stopped at thirty nine this time include Vampyr (1932), King Kong (1933), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), and probably Crimson Peak (2015).

"Why is this happening to me?"

Carter's Top 60 Films (November 2015)

Every so often (about annually it looks like) I compose a list of my top fifty or so favorite films. Here are the lists from November 2013 and August 2014. This time, as always, I have tried my best not to overthink the process, instead to go from the gut and write down the first fifty-ish titles that pop into mind. This list of sixty took me about fifteen minutes to get down:

Leviathan (2014)
Gummo (1997)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Jaws (1975)
Duel (1971)
Heat (1995)
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Slacker (1991)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Terminator (1984)
Alien (1979)
Bladerunner (1982)
Chinatown (1975)
Double Indemnity (1944)
The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Touch of Evil (1958)
The Third Man (1949)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Holy Motors (2012)
Melancholia (2011)
Nosferatu (1922)
Nosferatu (1979)
King Kong (1933)
King Kong (1976)
Cure (1997)
Memories of Murder (2003)
Mother (2009)
Seven Samurai (1954)
Zodiac (2007)
Nashville (1975)
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
The Shining (1980)
Walkabout (1971)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Three Colors: Blue (1993)
The Last Waltz (1978)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Videodrome (1983)
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Grizzly Man (2005)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The Heiress (1949)
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
Das Boot (1981)
The Sting (1973)
When the Levees Broke (2006)
Now, Voyager (1942)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Vertigo (1958)
Shampoo (1975)
The Parallax View (1974)
The Babadook (2014)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1949)
Election (1999)
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Chuck&Buck (2000)

Randall Adams sez: "Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line got me off death row. No shit!"

Notes, thoughts, comments:

The last five entries were added a few minutes after the initial fifty-five. The last three were added AFTER I looked back at the August 2014 list -- I had to be "reminded" of my love for Election, John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, and Chuck&Buck. The first fifty-seven titles were written down very swiftly without any peeking at my previous lists.

The main criterion for a film's inclusion is: Is this a movie I get excited to watch at the mere mention of its name? And: Is this a film I have watched several times with ever-increasing returns?

Or, as I put it in 2014:

Remember, this is NOT a list of "must-see" classics provided by a film scholar or "expert," but rather a slapdash list of my "favorite" films at the present moment, the main criterion of value being how much pleasure I take from viewing and re-viewing these particular movies.

Noteworthy omissions:

First Blood nearly made the list again this time, but the truth is I haven't watched it in a few years. I have been thinking about it a lot recently though so maybe now that fall is here I should to give it a spin . . .

No Lynne Ramsay films made the list this time, nor any Coens, although I re-watched A Serious Man a couple of months ago and loved it even more than on previous viewings. So that one and Fargo probably belong up here too. Actually, a friend asked me for my thoughts on The Big Lebowski several months ago and I have slowly pecked away at a Coen Brothers post ever since . . .

I was tempted to put Nightcrawler (2014) on here, but chose to wait to make sure it passes the test of time.

The Terminator sez: "I'll be back . . . with more movie lists!"

Carter's Top 50 Films (August 2014)

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe."

Just under a year ago, I composed a "Top 40 Favorite Films" list. Following Lee Sabo's suggestion that I treat such lists as a kind of thought-exercise, like a Rubik's cube, I have decided to create another such list now, for fun. I have expanded it to fifty selections this time.

Remember, this is NOT a list of "must-see" classics provided by a film scholar or "expert," but rather a slapdash list of my "favorite" films at the present moment, the main criterion of value being how much pleasure I take from viewing and re-viewing these particular movies.

I have tried to go on instinct and simply jot down what the Top 50 might be, without reviewing my list from last time.

Here are a few notes on the changes and what they tell me about my tastes these days:

I typically do not throw newly discovered films into my "Favorites" list until they've had some time to "season." Given the types of films I generally prefer -- films made for adults with some narrative, thematic, and/or visual substance and ambition -- it doesn't do to rush movies into my personal canon until I ensure they will withstand the test of time.

That said, two films I discovered only last year -- We Need to Talk About Kevin and Holy Motors -- have made this list. These two are definitely solid favorites despite their newness to me.

I may be kind of "over" James Bond, I haven't sat down to do a Bond-fest in quite some time, and thus Thunderball -- still the best-ever Bond film IMO -- has been bumped.

I could have put First Blood and Blue Velvet and Female Trouble and especially Nebraska on this list, but the first three are ones that I haven't returned to as much lately and the last one is a "new favorite" I've only seen once -- Nebraska needs further road-testing before making a list like this.

I also more or less ignored documentaries on that previous list -- I don't know why -- and have corrected for that omission here.

So. . .

Tabloid (2010)*
Pitch Black (2000)
Holy Motors (2012)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Bernie (2011)
Brother's Keeper (1992)
Blade Runner (1982)
Zodiac (2007)
Memories of Murder (2003)
The Room (2003)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
King Kong (1933)
King Kong (1976)
Nashville (1975)
Chinatown (1974)
The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Shampoo (1975)
The Parallax View (1976)
The Birds (1963)
Dogville (2003)
Rashomon (1950)
Caché (2005)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Videodrome (1984)
Contagion (2011)
Election (1999)
Muriel's Wedding (1994)
The TV Set (2006)
Cure (1997)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Duel (1971)
Alien (1979)
The Terminator (1984)
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Last Waltz (1978)
Heat (1995)
Double Indemnity (1945)
City Lights (1931)
Fargo (1996)
A Serious Man (2009)
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
Chuck&Buck (2000)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Deep Water (2006)
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)


UPDATE 8/6/2014: A few more ruminations on the process behind and implications of this list:

First, Mother and Snowpiercer did not unseat Memories of Murder, the latter still being my favorite Bong Joon-ho film. This highlights the subjectivity of the film experience, in that Memories, while a terrific film, and surely worthy on an artistic level of being on any quasi-objective "best films" type list, is my #1 Bong Joon-ho film in part because of my personal tastes (I love serial killer stories) and due to how strongly I bonded with it when I first saw it (I was absolutely spellbound). As a scholar and film critic, I would say that Mother (2009) is Bong's objectively best film, and that Snowpiercer (2014) is his best big-budget, mass-audience film. But humble little Memories of Murder is still my personal favorite.

Other substitutions on this list are more arbitrary -- Contagion for Bubble, Dogville for Melancholia, The Birds for Psycho -- and these were based mainly on what came to mind this time. I probably like each of the films in these pairs about equally at the end of the day. In related news, I vaguely considered swapping in Zero Effect for The TV Set, because I saw the former Jake Kasdan film more recently and remembered how much I like it. But no dice on that one. See how arbitrary this process is?

Eyes Wide Shut, The Lost World, Election, and Rashomon represent films that would have made it onto last November's list if I were more honest with myself and/or I had remembered them when composing it.

Finally, yes, I do enjoy Jurassic Park 2 more than I usually enjoy the original Jurassic Park; I have watched the sequel MANY more times than the original. As with the Bong films discussed above, I know it's odd how much I like the second Jurassic Park film -- I am not saying that it is objectively better than the first, only that I personally enjoy it more.

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* This was a really tough one; Errol Morris is my favorite documentarian and I struggled with whether I should put Tabloid, The Thin Blue Line (1988), or Standard Operating Procedure (2008) down as my fave. Tabloid won out because I watched it (again) most recently so its pleasures were freshest in my mind.

Carter's Top 40 Films (November 2013)

"Forget it, Jake -- it's Chinatown."

I was recently asked by a couple of my students to give them a list of my favorite movies. I usually resist composing such lists, for my "favorite" movies change quite a bit from day to day and year to year, according to the whim of the present moment. For example, I have been on quite a "Golden Age of Hollywood" and "Foreign and/or Art Cinema" kick over the past several months, so that is kind of where my tastes are at right now. Check back with me in six more months, and I will likely have drifted into other periods / genres / cinemas.

Furthermore, while I am pretty sure my students had in mind that I might give them a list of about ten "favorite" titles, once I actually decided to compose the list for them, I jotted down almost 100 films pretty damn quickly. However, I knew that giving them a list of 100 movie titles would be both ostentatious and unwieldy, plus I wanted this list to be "from the gut," not too thought-out or self-conscious. So I weeded my longer list down to the 40 titles below with great swiftness and without too much thought. In the end, this is NOT a list of "must-see" classics provided by a film scholar or "expert," but rather a slapdash list of my "favorite" films at the present moment, the main criterion of value being how much pleasure I take from viewing and re-viewing these particular movies.

Ryan O'Neal in the criminally under-appreciated Kubrick masterpiece Barry Lyndon.  

You will see that this "Top 40" list reveals my longstanding love for films noir and certain genres of horror.* Some of these movies -- Thunderball, The Terminator, Blade Runner, and especially Chinatown -- are the ones that made me fall in love with cinema in the first place, and a couple of the others -- Stranger than Paradise and Gummo -- date back to my 1990s love affair with low-budget, independent cinema. I put the entries here in no particular order, but if I had to single out a few as being my very top favorites, they would be The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and the two Kubrick films, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barry Lyndon. 

Bubble (2005)
Heat (1995)
The Sting (1973)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Zodiac (2007)
Videodrome (1984)
Fargo (1996)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Blade Runner (1982)
Chinatown (1974)
Double Indemnity (1945)
Nashville (1975)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Psycho (1960)
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Gummo (1997)
Rules of the Game (1939)
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Shame (2011)
The TV Set (2006)
Memories of Murder (2003)
Caché (2005)
The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Lovely and Amazing (2001)
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
Melancholia (2011)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Chuck&Buck (2000)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Planet Terror (2007)
The Devil's Rejects (2005)
Duel (1971)
Alien (1979)
Thunderball (1965)
The Terminator (1984)
The Parallax View (1976)

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* I am not generally a fan of zombie films yet I rate Romero's Night of the Living Dead among my all-time favorites. I am a Rob Zombie fan. I love all Cronenberg's stuff but Videodrome is by far my favorite.