Friday 3 April 2009

100 Films What Is Rather Good - Part The Last

81. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
OK, so some of the blending of live-action and animation is starting to look a little crude but it's still a great fun film with a great concept. Just ignore Bob Hoskins' slightly wonky accent.

82. The Tune
I love Bill Plympton's stuff - weird yet silly with a really distinctive animation style. This film also has the distinction of being the first feature film fully animated by a single person.

83. Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes
Yes, it's a cheesy B-movie spoof of cheesy B-movies and it's low-budget nature just adds to the charm. Weirdly, Tim Burton used almost the same ending for Mars Attacks.

84. The Ladykillers
Another Ealing comedy. I'm talking about the Alec Guinness version here, naturally. I can't bring myself to watch the Coen Brothers version. This version's great - why bother to remake it?

85. Jackass: The Movie
OK, I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for people getting hit in the face. It doesn't always work but, when it hits the spot, it makes me laugh pretty damn hard.

86. The King Of Kong
An epic battle as the underdog contender goes up against the champ to wrest control of the world title. That title? The world record score in Donkey Kong. It's a great documentary - an odd little view into a subculture that really takes it itself very, very seriously.

87. Alferd Packer: The Musical
(Or Cannibal! The Musical as it's now known.) Trey Parker and Matt Stone again. This was their student film and the first thing of theirs I saw. We watched this obsessively at uni until it turned out they were making a new cartoon show called South Park. Wonder how that went?

88. Destroy All Monsters
Godzilla films are brilliant. Man in giant monster suit smacks around other man in giant monster suit while trampling on tiny cardboard city. Repeat as necessary. I've picked this one because it has lots of monsters in it therefore it's better.

89. Police Story
I like a good martial arts film. The bonus with Jackie Chan's early films? It's all combined with a slapstick-y sense of humour which is perfectly suited to this type of film.

90. Lost In La Mancha
Equals parts hilarious and heart-breaking. Terry Gilliam tried to make a film about Don Quixote. Everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong. Fortunately, a documentary crew were on hand every step of the way and this is the result.

91. The Italian Job
A Bank Holiday favourite and rightly so. The sort of old-fashioned caper flick that is emulated but not really successfully reproduced anymore. And I'm not going to use the line "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off." Ah, bugger.

92. Labyrinth
Bowie meets Henson with a fair helping of Monty Python thanks to Terry Jones' script. Just don't look directly at Bowie's trouser bulge - it can lead to incredulity and mockery. "You remind me of the babe..."

93. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
If I could find a good way to write the noises that the aliens make as part of their communication with us, I would. How about "doo dee doo dum der"? Hmmm, needs work.

94. Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery
Mike Myers is immensely likeable as a performer and this is his best effort. I also submit the Scottish dad from So I Married An Axe Murderer as a fine movie moment ("Heid! Paper! Now!")

95. American Splendor
Part biopic, part documentary, this follows independent comic book creator Harvey Pekar through his curmudgeonly life. A fine performance from Paul Giamatti.

96. Schindler's List
A powerful film, no doubt. I've actually only seen it once as I couldn't bring myself to go through it again.

97. Psycho
Gotta have some Hitchcock on here and I'm going to go with the cliched one. It's a simple story of a nice clean-cut young motel owner who just loves his mum. Aaaaah.

98. The Terminator
I wavered back and forth between putting this and Terminator 2 on here but decided to go for the original. So there.

99. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
It features a song called "Shut Your Fucking Face, Uncle Fucker" which made me laugh until I cried the first time I heard it. How can you not love a song that has a fart duet in it?

100. Plan 9 From Outer Space
And so, we come to the end with the finest film ever made. It has action, it has drama, it has effects and it has emotion. Well, it's got some people talking on a soundstage and knocking over the scenery a lot. It's an impressive achievement - a film that is just the right amount of awesomely bad so that it's massively entertaining. And it brings this list to a close...

So there you have it. 100 films what I am extremely fond of. That is the definitive lost. Well, until I remember loads of films that I've completely forgotten to add and end up posting An Additional 25 Films What Is Rather Good That I Did Forget About Last Time Round in about a months time.

Oh, I forgot Bedazzled. And The Bed-Sitting Room. And The Usual Suspects. And Harvey. And Se7en. And.....


3 comments:

Anna Russell said...

Yay, you got Psycho! Low down, but still at least it's there.

Now, I can say this has been a fun 100 this time and mean it, instead of messing up and thinking yesterday's was the last one.

Pearl said...

I loved American Splendour. Such an odd fellow.
Have you seen American Movie?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181288/
Fascinatingly pathetic.
Pearl

That Baldy Fella said...

Anna - Yep, there was one of your three in there after all (plus it wasn't necessarily low down - that wasn't in any real order).
Glad you liked it, me dear.

Pearl - Yeah, Harvey Pekar's definitely an odd guy. Hmmm, I think I may have seen that, it sounds kind of familiar...