Listosaurus Rex

The IMDb Top 250 is one of my favorite lists to follow.  It’s a list of the best-rated movies by hundreds of thousands of users on the International Movie Database, imdb.com.  The Godfather had been #1 for the two years I’ve been following the list, and sources online state that it’s held the top spot for over a decade.

The Shawshank Redemption has long held the #2 spot.  Its rating has always hovered right next to The Godfather’s, and many message boards have bickered about whether Andy Dufresne’s spiritual epic would ever take the top spot.

And finally, a little over a week ago The Godfather was finally dethroned.  The big surprise that it wasn’t The Shawshank Redemption that took the final spot, but a brand new movie.  The Dark Knight, this summer’s number one blockbuster, climbed into the top five spots on its first night, and within two days held an unbelievable 9.5 weighted rating, which takes away points from movies that not many have seen.  This meant that The Dark Knight’s astronomical score was doubly impressive. The Dark Knight did what Shawshank could never do and took the #1 spot, blowing away The Godfather’s 9.1 weighted rating

The shift caused an uproar among fans of the list, who started putting in votes for the two movies — some trying to keep Dark Knight on top, others trying to restore order on the list and bring Dark Knight down a few notches.

Fans of The Dark Knight have won the battle so far:  The Godfather’s average has sunk a little while Dark Knight’s has leveled out a tenth of a point above The Godfather’s.  In fact, The Godfather even slipped down to #3 below Shawshank for a couple of days, before a flurry of positive votes brought Godfather back to #2.

Whether hype machine The Dark Knight, perennial classic The Godfather, or cult classic The Shawshank Redemption deserves the number one spot is not necessarily the point of this post.  It is merely to speculate how people will vote in the coming days, months, and years.

My prediction is that The Dark Knight will hold the number one spot for a month or two before slipping down to number two and gradually towards number five or so.  It will very likely settle in the bottom half of the top ten, slightly above Lord of the Rings 3, which peaked at #2 not long after coming out on the list but now sits at #14.  The thing is, The Dark Knight is a much better movie than LotR and has a more dedicated fan base, I think.  I wouldn’t call it out of the question for Dark Knight to stay at #1 for over a year based on the number of votes it has so far, which is pretty substantial and well over half of the votes that The Godfather holds.

What do you think will happen?

Roger Ebert is absolutely my favorite movie critic. I don’t always agree with him (for example: he gave The Usual Suspects only one and a half stars) but I always like the thoughtful analysis. “Roger Ebert loves movies more, and better, than almost any critic” says famous director Martin Scorsese, and from my limited observation of movie criticism, I’d have to agree. He has a warm heart and an open mind towards movies, never afraid to learn something new from them or about them, never afraid to be pleasantly surprised or unfortunately disappointed. He gives a lot of four star reviews, but I think that such an esteemed critic, such an experienced viewer, is able to see beauty in so many movies is a great thing. Most people lose appreciation for an art when it becomes a career, when they spend too much time with it, when they develop familiarity. Not Roger. He remains passionate and joyous towards the art of cinema.

It’s just a little bit overdue, as he released it a few weeks ago, but here is his list of his top ten favorite movies from 2007:

1. Juno
2. No Country For Old Men
3. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
4. Atonement
5. The Kite Runner
6. Away From Her
7. Across The Universe
8. La Vie En Rose
9. The Great Debaters
10. Into the Wild

Of these I have sadly only seen three. I’m working on it, though. A few are coming to the cheap local theater I usher at, so I’ll get to see them for free.

Movies are an art, and as such, Ebert tends to go with the movies that move him the most, as opposed to those that have the tightest scripts, highest technical achievement, and the most critical praise. We see some of this with Juno, a romantic dramedy, at number one, and oft-maligned Kite Runner and Across the Universe earning spots on the list.

He provides solid reasoning for each of his picks. I think the list is worth a look.

What movies did you enjoy in 2007?

I watched The Shawshank Redemption for about the fifth or sixth time last night, and I still love it. What a good movie. That ending never fails to pump me up.

I’ve decided that the best part of the movie is the script. It ranks right up there with Pulp Fiction, Casablanca, and Annie Hall as my favorite scripts ever. There are so many brilliant moments in the script.

This got me thinking. What exactly are the best moments of this exceptional script?

After several hours of combing through the movie and pulling out the best moments, it is my pleasure to present what I believe are the greatest quotes from the script.

Let it be known that this post is a SPOILER WARNING! If you haven’t seen Shawshank, don’t read this post. In fact, don’t read anything else about the movie. Just go see it as soon possible, it’s a mighty fine movie.

Without further ado, I present my twenty-five favorite quotes and exchanges from The Shawshank Redemption.

——–

(n) = narration

25.

Red (n): I must admit, I didn’t think much of Andy first time I laid eyes on him. Looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over.

24.

Andy: How could you be so obtuse?

23.

Board member: Do you feel you’ve been rehabilitated?
Red: Rehabilitated? Well now, let me see. You know, I don’t have any idea what that means.
Board member: Well, it means that you’re ready to rejoin society…
Red: I know what you think it means, sonny. To me it’s just a made up word. Politicians word, so young fellows like yourself can wear a suit and a tie and have a job. What do you really want to know. Am I sorry for what I did?
Board member: Well, are you?
Red: There’s not a day goes by that I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here and because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then, a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. Try and talk some sense into him. Tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone, and this old man is all that is left. I gotta live with that. Rehabilitated? That’s just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. ‘Cause, to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit

22.

Warden: Lord, it’s a miracle! A man up and vanished like a fart in the wind.

21.

Red: It’s just shitty pipe dreams. I mean, Mexico is way the hell down there, and you’re in here.

20.

District Attorney: And that, also, is very convenient. Isn’t it, Mr. Dufresne?
Andy: Since I am innocent of this crime, sir, I find it decidedly inconvenient that the gun was never found.

19.

Red: I’m telling you, these walls are funny. First you hate them. Then you get used to them. Enough time passes, it gets so you depend on them. That’s institutionalized.

18.

Red (n): I could see why some of the boys took him for snobby. He had a quiet way about him. A walk and a talk that just wasn’t normal around here. He strolled like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world, like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place. Yeah, I think it would be fair to say I liked Andy from the start.

17.

Red (n): Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes, really. Pressure and time.

16.

Red: Only guilty man in Shawshank.

15.

Heywood: Count of Monte Crisco.
Floyd: It’s Cristo, you dumb shit.
Heywood: By Alexan-dree Dumm-ass. Dumbass?
Andy: Dumm-ass? Dumas. You know what that’s about? You’ll like that, it’s about a prison break.
Red: We ought to file that under educational too, oughtn’t we?

14.

Red (n): And that’s how it came to pass that on the second last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate factory roof in the spring of ‘49 wound up sitting in a row at ten o’clock in the morning drinking icy cold Bohemia-style beer, courtesy of the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison.
Captain Hadley: Drink up while it’s cold, ladies.
Red (n): The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous. We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. Hell, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We were the lords of all creation. As for Andy, he spent that break hunkered in the shade, a strange little smile on his face, watching us drink his beer.
Heywood: Hey, want a cold one Andy?
Andy: No thanks, I gave up drinking.
Red (n): You could argue he’d done it to curry favor with the guards or maybe make a few friends among us cons. Me? I think he just did it to feel normal again, if only for a short while.

13.

Andy: You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific?
Red: No.
Andy: They say it has no memory. That’s where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.

12.

Red: They send you here for life, that’s exactly what they’re taking.

11.

Andy: So you don’t forget… forget that there are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone. That there’s something inside that they can’t get to, that they can’t touch. It’s yours.
Red: What are you talking about?
Andy: Hope.
Red: Hope? Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It’s got no use on the inside. You better get used to that idea.
Andy: Like Brooks did?

10.

Andy: I understand you’re a man who knows how to get things.
Red: I’m known to locate certain things from time to time.

9.

Red (n): Sometimes it makes me sad, though, Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty when they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

8.

Brooks: Easy peezy Japanesey.

7.

The Warden: Salvation lies within.

6.

Red (n): Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards of shit-smelling foulness I can’t even imagine. Or maybe I just don’t want to. 500 yards. That’s the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.

5.

Red: This is wear she does that shit with her hair.

4.

Red (n): I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

3.

Red: Same ol’ shit, different day.
2.

Andy: I guess it comes down to a simple choice. Get busy living or get busy dying.

1.

Red (n): I find I’m so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

The guys over at filmschoolrejects.com have put together a list of the twenty films to most look forward to this year.

Here is their top ten:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
4. Iron Man
5. Cloverfield
6. Wall-E
7. Star Trek
8. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
9. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
10. Hellboy II: The Golden Army

They would have been mad not to put The Dark Knight, sequel to the phenomenal Batman Begins and featuring a psychotic-looking Heath Ledger as Joker, at #1, even though I don’t think it will be the best movie of the year. Nope, I think his #6 pick, Wall-E, Pixar’s next movie, will be the best movie of the year. I am somewhat of a Pixar fan boy, mind you, but I really think Wall-E will be their magnum opus. Pixar’s other movies feature creative and touching scenarios — toys that can talk and have their own little world, a rat that is really a great chef, a lonely clownfish losing his son in the vast ocean, a former superhero going through a middle-age crisis — but Wall-E tops them all: The last robot on Earth is spending eternity at Earth in a junk yard, crushing metal into cubes, before he’s greeted by some extra-terrestrial visitors.

Back to the list: The world is certainly looking forward to the fourth Indiana Jones movie, as the first three are some of the most exciting films ever made. Rumor has it that this one will have more of a campy sci-fi feel to it than previous ones, which should make for some spectacular visuals and exciting cinema.

After that, though, it quickly becomes obvious that 2008 will not be full of as many high-profile sequels as last year. Though this makes the headlines a little bit less exciting, I’m ready for this change. I want to fall in love with a movie I have little expectation for, rather than be constantly disappointed by a movie not living up to the original. Rarely are blockbuster sequels better than the originals. Terminator 2, The Empire Strikes Back, Spider-Man 2, that’s about it.

Iron Man looks to be an excellent Marvel super-hero movie, with one of the coolest trailers around. Cloverfield aims at being this year’s Blair Witch Project, except scarier and deeper. Stoner comedy stars Harold and Kumar need another good movie after their first one was such a hit. Hellboy, work of visual maestro Guillermo del Toro, was decent, and looks to up the ante this time around. The first Chronicles of Narnia was a respectable cinematic translation of the classic children’s book series, but nothing to write home about.

Two movies on the top ten I’m particularly curious about are Star Trek and Zack and Miri. With plenty of franchises seeing grittier, darker, more character-based rebirths (Batman, Bond), it’ll be interesting to see how this Star Trek movie plays out. It could have the potential to convert a lot of casual viewers to the historically nerd-based world of Star Trek.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno, despite its off-setting name, has the potential to be an awkward but warm comedy from director Kevin Smith of Clerks fame. It’s about two people who decide to set up an adult film studio together. I get the feeling it’s going to be something like Little Miss Sunshine but with fewer characters and less cross-country VW Bus riding.

But this is the sort of year when a dark horse could pop out of nowhere and be the big hit of the year, thanks to the lack of big-name sequels headed our way.

What movies are you most looking forward to this year?

Don’t forget to check out the original list, he’s got plenty of good stuff to say.

FilmCritic.com, an excellent film review site, has released a list of their picks for the greatest movie endings. (I assume this is obvious, but major spoiler warning alert — skip over the movies you haven’t seen).

Here is their top ten:

1. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
2. Fight Club (1999)
3. Chinatown (1974)
4. Casablanca (1942)
5. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
6. Boogie Nights (1997)
7. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
8. Big Night (1996)
9. Don’t Look Now (1973)
10. Some Like It Hot (1959)

There are a few unconventional picks in there. Boogie Nights is a beloved movie, but I’ve never seen its ending mentioned among the best ever. I’m not sure I’d ever heard of Big Night before this list, and I haven’t actually seen mostly-forgotten horror flick Don’t Look Now.

It’s hard to argue with most of those picks, though. I’m not sure I loved the ending of Chinatown enough to put it in the top five, but there’s no doubt it’s a classic. I was surprised, and impressed, to see Bonnie and Clyde so high: it’s abrupt, stark finale is an amazing moment in cinema.

The rest of the fifty don’t disappoint either. There’s a respectable mix of old and new, blockbusters and cult favorites, comedy and drama. The authors’ writing is penetrative and thoughtful. Each pick is clearly well-thought out, too, with specific reasons for the spot.

I could nitpick about minor qualms I have (Usual Suspects not high enough, no Rudy, no Psycho), but the list is so charming, thoughtful, and complete, that I’ll just let it go. Instead, I’ll remark how pleasantly surprised I was to see Batman Begins, Pulp Fiction, Before Sunset, and a few other personal favorites on there.

The list is clearly passionate, well-informed, and thoughtful. For any cinephiles out there, I recommend you check it out. Who knows, you may fall in love with FilmCritic.com and its 7000+ reviews like I have.

This post is an entrant in the Carnival of Cinema: Episode 58