Five favorite movies

[David]

I ran across this link from Rotten Tomatoes, which gets responses from various actors, directors, and other people on their top five favorite movies.  Just from perusing the Hugo Weaving entre I find he enjoyed three films I was unfamiliar with, and two I enjoy a lot as well:  Lindsay Anderson's If... and Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.  I like how he prefaces his favorites by saying, these are my top five films today--tomorrow it might be another list.  At any rate, here's the link if you'd like to read it:

www.rottentomatoes.com/news/columns/column.php?id=62

My top five today might be:

1. Midnight Cowboy

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey

3. King Kong (original)

4. Dirty Harry

5. Dr. Strangelove

Yep, tomorrow it would probably be something else.

[thatboy]

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Women In Love

Andy Warhol's Bad

A Wedding

Valley of the Dolls

[David]

I liked Beyond Valley of the Dolls too.  ;)

[Ando]

Hmm. Don't get the ever changing favorites. My top five haven't changed in years:

Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
Sátántangó (Béla Tarr, 1994)
Prospero's Books (Peter Greenaway, 1991)
Long Day's Journey Into Night (Sidney Lumet, 1962)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1980 )

[David]

Well, I think Ewan McGregor prefaced his listing of a top five films by saying, these aren't my top five favorite of all time ie. they are just five of my favorite films.   Perhaps because if you're a movie lover, there really should be a top 25 or even a top 100 favorite films, and also because with a lot of people, myself included, my taste vary a bit day to day, and plus the fact, I'm always discovering new films to add--so it allows a bit of a catch-22 clause.  It's malleable.  I'm a huge music fan too, so if I were to list a top 100 favorite albums, I'd always be perplexed that I left something out.

[YnEoS]

Really nice list.

[Janes'_kid]

I rarely if ever contribute "favorites" or "best" lists but were I to do so there would there would have to be a Fassbinder.

[YnEoS]

Tough narrowing it down to 5, and mine would probably change if you asked me tomorrow.  But for now...

1. Stalker
2. The Passion of Joan of Arc

3. Johnny Guitar

4. Mr. Thankyou

5. Babobilicons

Babobilicons

[David]

I've yet to see Stalker, which I should make time to watch since I'm a pretty big fan of that sort of thing.  I've seen Johnny Guitar, and was curious why you picked that one.  I'm a pretty big western fan, but I never cared much for that film if just looking at it from the western genre point of view.   I do need to re-watch it however.  Some of your other suggestions, I'll have to check out, thanks.

[Ando]

Yeah, the presence Johnny Guitar intrigued me, too. So I checked out a cool version but nodded off halfway. Sterling Hayden was quite the stud. And Crawford never looked harder. Found it hard to believe Sterling had the hots for her but he put it over. Mercedes McCambridge has to be the most rabid bitch that ever snarled in the Hollywood West.

[Sevorin]

You're missing the point:

 

Mercedes McCambridge's rabid bitchery is what makes the movie sexy. Notice there are only two wimmin in the film. Mercedes obviously wants the Dancing Kid to fuck her, but suffers the mortification of him nosing around the pants of the only other chick in the territory. In fact, every guy  prefers Joan to her. That's not exactly good for her emotional stability.

 

She rides around in black -- her horse might as well be a broomstick -- and is infinitely more erotic than La Crawford. In fact, I've heard that Joan was the real  bitch on the film-shoot and that her jealousy of McCambridge adversely affected the latter's career.

 

All I can say is that, when I saw Johnny Guitar for the first time as a kid, I knew there was something dangerously sexual about Mercedes McCambridge. And I've kept that feeling all my life.

[Pihk]

Actually, I'll bet that YesNo cited that one because it was directed by Nicholas Ray rather than for how hot Mercedes McCambridge looked in it.

[Sevorin]

You're probably right.

And as much as my dick was roused by MM, I've never liked the film as much as its cultists seem to.

If I wanted to include a Nicholas Ray movie among my very favorites I'd have chosen differently.