Blade Runner

#110 at time of writing.

Blade Runner is thirty years old if you can believe it - and it still looks fantastic. At least as good as, say, The Fifth Element. It could almost have been made yesterday.

This cyberpunk vision is the best kind of science fiction film. A rich world, layered characters, and a story that makes you stop and think.

A police assassin called Deckard is pulled out of retirement to hunt down and kill four rogue replicants - robots almost indistinguishable from humans. The ensuing story successfully explores the dehumanization of people through a society shaped by technological and capitalist excess, the roles of creator and creation, personal identity and self-awareness and other such complex issues.

The sets are wonderfully detailed. Amusingly, some of the buildings in the meticulously built model city are pieces of spaceships from earlier science fiction films, including a model of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, a model of the Dark Star, and piece of the spaceship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

There are a bewildering number of versions of the film, to the point where I'm not even sure which one(s) I've seen. The original print was thought lost until it was rediscovered in 1989 by sound preservationist Michael Arick while he was hunting through the Warner Bros attic for footage from Gypsy. It was one of the first ever films to be re-released in a "Director's Cut", in 1992. And there are five other versions too.

This is easily the best Philip K Dick adaptation, although Total Recall will always hold a special place in my heart (omigod it's being remade!).

Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi

#10 and #112 at time of writing.

I watched these two in quick succession today. The Empire Strikes Back is too... unfinished to watch on its own. It starts off slowly - the whole ice planet sequence is disappointingly reminiscent of the interminable desert planet scenes from the original Star Wars. But it picks up. A few buckles are swashed, sure enough.

It received mixed reviews upon release. Inevitable, I suppose, after the impact of the first in the trilogy - expectations were impossibly high. But since then it has come to be considered as the best Star Wars film.

Certainly, the emotional resonance of these two films is much more effective than the first film. They're packed with action, Henson muppets and glorious, glorious incest.

Return of the Jedi is the best of the three, in my opinion.

The epic backstory is implied with such pizazz that there would be no need to actually make the prequels...

I wonder if episodes VII-IX will ever get made? Actually, I'm sure they will, even if it's over George Lucas's dead body.

During the 2001 Census there was a viral email campaign encouraging people to record their religion as Jedi. You can't be prosecuted for lying about your religion on the Census, so I thought I'd register as a Jedi myself. I wasn't alone. In England and Wales 390,127 people (almost 0.8 percent) stated their religion as Jedi on their Census forms, surpassing Sikhism, Judaism, and Buddhism.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

#19 at time of writing.



This is a near-perfect film, from back when George Lucas still had new ideas. Actually, it is perfect. A script full of wit, cracking characters, wonderfully tongue-in-cheek hokum, truly creepy bad guys...

It's the king of B movies, with a depth of attention to detail that surpasses even the best high-budget flicks. This movie has it all: action, romance, comedy, and suspense. From beginning to end you are hooked. Critic Bernard Weinraub said it best: "Deliriously funny, ingenious, and stylish." Harrison Ford is at his best as Dr. Jones. Can you imagine Tom Selleck as Indy, as was originally intended? Hm...

It starts with one of the most memorable opening sequences of all time, lifted from old Scrooge McDuck comics. Then it sprints from set-piece to brilliant set-piece, packed with iconic moments from the red line travelling across the map to the warehouse full of boxes.

Matt Groening has said that the secret of designing characters is to make them immediately recognizable in silhouette. Indy's fedora and whip ensures that he fulfills that criteria. The original kangaroo-hide bullwhip was sold in December, 1999 at Christie's auction house in London for $43,000, and again in 2008 for $57,500.



The infamous scene in which Indy shoots a flamboyant swordsman was not in the original script. Harrison Ford was supposed to use his whip to get the swords out of his attacker's hands, but the food poisoning he and the rest of the crew were suffering from made him too sick to perform the stunt. After several unsuccessful tries, someone made the off-handed remark, "Why doesn't he just shoot him?" Steven Spielberg immediately took up the idea. (But, someone tell me please, hadn't this already been done in a Bond film? You Only Live Twice or something?) Another great ad-lib was Indy's line to Marion when they are on the ship - "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

The music is fantastic - as good as Star Wars. But, unlike Star Wars, there are some scenes that dispense with music altogether (like the brawl in Marion's bar) and the tension is compelling on its own merit. The editing is ten times pacier than Star Wars. The cheesiness is a few Hobo Power units more tolerable.

Forget Star Wars. This is it.

Star Wars

#12 at time of writing.

Star Wars. You had to be there.

I don't doubt that for teenagers in 1977, it was an absolutely mind-blowing experience. It's ambitious, and peppered with iconic (and very parody-able) moments. The universe is thoroughly imagined. But, well, it's not actually very good is it?

I avoided seeing Star Wars until I was at University in 2000, and predictably it didn't live up to the hype. It starts off promisingly enough, but then there's an interminable series of arid scenes on the desert planet and it doesn't get much better from there.

The acting is horrible, the story is unoriginal, it has plot holes big enough to drive the Millennium Falcon through, and the dialogue is beyond silly. That's not to say it wasn't an important film. Most know that Industrial Light and Magic was formed to do the special effects for Star Wars, thereby ushering in the age of the special effect driven movie.

The special effects were mind-blowing at the time, and so was the marketing. George Lucas may be a hack director, but he is a master of marketing. Star Wars was the first film to successfully create a line of merchandise and toys. And they sold like gangbusters, even though the first action figures were an empty box with an IOU inside!

I'm sure I'm being unfair. But there are certainly more than 11 better films. For one, Raiders of the Lost Ark was twice as good. Mind you, Empire Strikes Back was a vast improvement, and Temple of Doom was rubbish.

Having said all that, I remember enjoying Flash Gordon on Betamax when I was a kid, and that's a fucking awful film.



Believe it or not, several Star Wars characters are derived from Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. George Lucas acknowledges this in the first conference room scene on the Death Star. Just as an Imperial Officer is saying the line "...the Rebel's hidden fort..." he is telekinetically strangled by Darth Vader, shutting him up before he can say the full title.

Shame that Carrie Fisher did a Judy Garland and ended up addicted to drugs and wishing that she had turned down the film that made her famous.

For interest, here's a review from 1977. And for fun, here's the Star Wars Kid. This trailer made me laugh as well - why wasn't Fanboys released in the UK?

Snapshot afterthoughts

I found a breakdown of the IMDb Top 250 movies by genre here (as of October 2008).

And it occured to me that you can see historical lists of IMDb's Top 250 films using the Internet Archive (also try this link). Back in 1996, IMDb users rated Star Wars as the number one film, and Trainspotting as number two...

Snapshot of IMDb's Top 250 films - Feb 2009

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but wouldn't it be interesting to see how the Top 250 changes over time?

Below is a snapshot of how it looks today. Since I blogged about them:

7 films have gone up in the ranking (including The Prestige, which gained an impressive 104 places).

6 have stayed the same (including Little Miss Sunshine, dammit!).

And the rest have gone down - including five films that have disappeared from the Top 250 altogether (Walk the Line, Star Wars III, Pirates I, Hero and - I'm particularly disappointed about this one - Almost Famous).

My mission is about 14% complete...

---

IMDb Top 250 films as of 09 February 2009:

Rank	Rating	Title	Blogged?
1.	9.1	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2.	9.1	The Godfather (1972)
3.	9.0	The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4.	8.9	Buono, il brutto, il cattivo., Il (1966)
5.	8.9	The Dark Knight (2008)	Yes
6.	8.9	Pulp Fiction (1994)
7.	8.8	Schindler's List (1993)
8.	8.8	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
9.	8.8	12 Angry Men (1957)
10.	8.8	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
11.	8.8	Casablanca (1942)	Yes
12.	8.8	Star Wars (1977)
13.	8.8	Shichinin no samurai (1954)	Yes
14.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
15.	8.7	Goodfellas (1990)
16.	8.7	Rear Window (1954)	Yes
17.	8.7	Cidade de Deus (2002)
18.	8.7	Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
19.	8.7	C'era una volta il West (1968)
20.	8.7	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
21.	8.7	The Usual Suspects (1994)
22.	8.7	Fight Club (1999)	Yes
23.	8.7	Psycho (1960)
24.	8.6	The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
25.	8.6	Sunset Blvd. (1950)
26.	8.6	Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
27.	8.6	Memento (2000)	Yes
28.	8.6	North by Northwest (1959)
29.	8.6	Citizen Kane (1941)
30.	8.6	The Matrix (1999)
31.	8.6	It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
32.	8.6	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
33.	8.6	Se7en (1995)
34.	8.6	Slumdog Millionaire (2008)	Yes
35.	8.5	Léon (1994)
36.	8.5	Apocalypse Now (1979)
37.	8.5	American Beauty (1999)
38.	8.5	Taxi Driver (1976)	Yes
39.	8.5	Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
40.	8.5	WALL·E (2008)	Yes
41.	8.5	American History X (1998)
42.	8.5	Vertigo (1958)
43.	8.5	Paths of Glory (1957)
44.	8.5	Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le (2001)
45.	8.5	Forrest Gump (1994)
46.	8.5	M (1931)
47.	8.5	The Wrestler (2008)	Yes
48.	8.5	Double Indemnity (1944)
49.	8.5	To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
50.	8.5	The Departed (2006)	Yes
51.	8.5	Alien (1979)
52.	8.5	A Clockwork Orange (1971)
53.	8.5	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
54.	8.5	Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
55.	8.5	The Third Man (1949)
56.	8.4	The Shining (1980)
57.	8.4	Chinatown (1974)	Yes
58.	8.4	The Pianist (2002)
59.	8.4	Saving Private Ryan (1998)
60.	8.4	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)	Yes
61.	8.4	Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
62.	8.4	Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
63.	8.4	Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
64.	8.4	Aliens (1986)
65.	8.4	L.A. Confidential (1997)
66.	8.4	Requiem for a Dream (2000)	Yes
67.	8.4	Das Boot (1981)
68.	8.4	The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
69.	8.4	Laberinto del fauno, El (2006)
70.	8.4	Reservoir Dogs (1992)
71.	8.4	City Lights (1931)
72.	8.4	Rashômon (1950)	Yes
73.	8.4	The Maltese Falcon (1941)
74.	8.4	Raging Bull (1980)
75.	8.4	All About Eve (1950)
76.	8.3	Metropolis (1927)
77.	8.3	Modern Times (1936)
78.	8.3	Der Untergang (2004)
79.	8.3	Singin' in the Rain (1952)
80.	8.3	Rebecca (1940)
81.	8.3	Gran Torino (2008)
82.	8.3	Some Like It Hot (1959)
83.	8.3	The Prestige (2006)	Yes
84.	8.3	Amadeus (1984)
85.	8.3	2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
86.	8.3	The Elephant Man (1980)
87.	8.3	Vita è bella, La (1997)
88.	8.3	The Apartment (1960)
89.	8.3	Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988)
90.	8.3	The Great Escape (1963)
91.	8.3	Sin City (2005)	Yes
92.	8.3	Full Metal Jacket (1987)	Yes
93.	8.3	Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
94.	8.3	Touch of Evil (1958)
95.	8.3	The Sting (1973)
96.	8.3	The Great Dictator (1940)
97.	8.3	No Country for Old Men (2007)
98.	8.3	Hotel Rwanda (2004)	Yes
99.	8.3	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
100.	8.3	Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957)
101.	8.3	On the Waterfront (1954)
102.	8.3	Ladri di biciclette (1948)
103.	8.3	Back to the Future (1985)
104.	8.3	Braveheart (1995)
105.	8.3	Batman Begins (2005)	Yes
106.	8.3	The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
107.	8.3	Jaws (1975)
108.	8.3	Strangers on a Train (1951)
109.	8.3	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
110.	8.3	Blade Runner (1982)
111.	8.3	Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
112.	8.2	The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
113.	8.2	Unforgiven (1992)
114.	8.2	There Will Be Blood (2007)
115.	8.2	Notorious (1946)
116.	8.2	The Green Mile (1999)
117.	8.2	High Noon (1952)
118.	8.2	The Big Sleep (1946)
119.	8.2	Fargo (1996)
120.	8.2	Oldboy (2003)
121.	8.2	Gladiator (2000)
122.	8.2	Cool Hand Luke (1967)
123.	8.2	Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)
124.	8.2	The Wizard of Oz (1939)	Yes
125.	8.2	Die Hard (1988)
126.	8.2	Mononoke-hime (1997)
127.	8.2	Yojimbo (1961)
128.	8.2	Donnie Darko (2001)
129.	8.2	Ran (1985)
130.	8.2	The General (1927)
131.	8.2	Annie Hall (1977)
132.	8.2	Smultronstället (1957)
133.	8.2	Salaire de la peur, Le (1953)
134.	8.2	Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
135.	8.2	Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
136.	8.2	It Happened One Night (1934)
137.	8.2	Heat (1995)
138.	8.2	Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)	Yes
139.	8.2	The Deer Hunter (1978)
140.	8.2	The Sixth Sense (1999)
141.	8.2	Ben-Hur (1959)
142.	8.2	Platoon (1986)
143.	8.2	Into the Wild (2007)
144.	8.2	Million Dollar Baby (2004)
145.	8.1	The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
146.	8.1	Notti di Cabiria, Le (1957)
147.	8.1	Life of Brian (1979)
148.	8.1	Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
149.	8.1	Diaboliques, Les (1955)
150.	8.1	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
151.	8.1	8½ (1963)
152.	8.1	Ratatouille (2007)
153.	8.1	The Big Lebowski (1998)
154.	8.1	The Killing (1956)
155.	8.1	Amores perros (2000)
156.	8.1	The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
157.	8.1	Finding Nemo (2003)	Yes
158.	8.1	The Graduate (1967)
159.	8.1	Snatch. (2000)
160.	8.1	The Night of the Hunter (1955)
161.	8.1	Brief Encounter (1945)	Yes
162.	8.1	Stand by Me (1986)
163.	8.1	Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
164.	8.1	Gandhi (1982)
165.	8.1	The Wild Bunch (1969)
166.	8.1	The Gold Rush (1925)
167.	8.1	Gone with the Wind (1939)
168.	8.1	Trainspotting (1996)
169.	8.1	V for Vendetta (2005)	Yes
170.	8.1	The Princess Bride (1987)
171.	8.1	Scarface (1983)
172.	8.1	The Thing (1982)	Yes
173.	8.1	The Incredibles (2004)	Yes
174.	8.1	The Lion King (1994)
175.	8.1	Groundhog Day (1993)
176.	8.1	Harvey (1950)
177.	8.1	Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
178.	8.1	Battaglia di Algeri, La (1966)
179.	8.1	Toy Story (1995)
180.	8.1	Children of Men (2006)
181.	8.1	Sleuth (1972)
182.	8.1	The Terminator (1984)
183.	8.1	The Hustler (1961)
184.	8.1	Umberto D. (1952)
185.	8.0	The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
186.	8.0	Twelve Monkeys (1995)
187.	8.0	The African Queen (1951)	Yes
188.	8.0	Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)	Yes
189.	8.0	Låt den rätte komma in (2008)
190.	8.0	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
191.	8.0	Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
192.	8.0	Duck Soup (1933)	Yes
193.	8.0	The Conversation (1974)
194.	8.0	The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
195.	8.0	The Lady Vanishes (1938)
196.	8.0	The Kid (1921)
197.	8.0	Stalag 17 (1953)
198.	8.0	The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
199.	8.0	Casino (1995)
200.	8.0	Hotaru no haka (1988)
201.	8.0	King Kong (1933)
202.	8.0	Scaphandre et le papillon, Le (2007)
203.	8.0	Crash (2004/I)
204.	8.0	Dial M for Murder (1954)	Yes
205.	8.0	Ed Wood (1994)
206.	8.0	The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
207.	8.0	The Exorcist (1973)
208.	8.0	All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
209.	8.0	In Bruges (2008)
210.	8.0	The Lost Weekend (1945)
211.	8.0	Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
212.	8.0	Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)	Yes
213.	8.0	A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
214.	8.0	Rope (1948)
215.	8.0	Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
216.	8.0	Patton (1970)
217.	8.0	Rosemary's Baby (1968)
218.	8.0	Wo hu cang long (2000)
219.	8.0	Frankenstein (1931)
220.	8.0	Glory (1989)
221.	8.0	Little Miss Sunshine (2006)	Yes
222.	8.0	Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
223.	8.0	His Girl Friday (1940)
224.	8.0	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
225.	8.0	Magnolia (1999)
226.	8.0	Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
227.	8.0	Strada, La (1954)
228.	8.0	Safety Last! (1923)
229.	8.0	Belle et la bête, La (1946)
230.	8.0	Network (1976)
231.	8.0	Spartacus (1960)
232.	8.0	The Philadelphia Story (1940)
233.	8.0	Manhattan (1979)
234.	8.0	Big Fish (2003)
235.	8.0	In the Heat of the Night (1967)
236.	8.0	Great Expectations (1946)
237.	8.0	Roman Holiday (1953)
238.	8.0	Mystic River (2003)
239.	8.0	Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
240.	8.0	Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
241.	8.0	Rocky (1976)
242.	8.0	Dolce vita, La (1960)
243.	8.0	Frost/Nixon (2008)	Yes
244.	8.0	The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
245.	8.0	Laura (1944)
246.	8.0	Planet of the Apes (1968)
247.	8.0	Changeling (2008)
248.	8.0	Harold and Maude (1971)
249.	8.0	Eskiya (1996)
250.	8.0	The Message (1976)

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

#241 at time of writing.

Yes, the CGI is a little too slick for its own good. Yes, there are scenes that make you want to punch the screen and yell "NOOOOOOOO!" But it would be unfair to deny that this film wraps us the Star Wars story fantastically well.

I'm going to be controversial now and say I enjoyed this at least as much as Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, and much more than the original Star Wars (Episode IV). And it goes without saying that it's in a different league to the first two prequels.

Anakin's descent into betrayal is persuasive, the fall of the Jedis is affecting, and the light sabre duels kick ass. My favourite has to be Darth Sidious literally tearing down democracy by throwing bits of the Senate chamber at Yoda.

Trivia for the day: which two actors have appeared in all six Star Wars films?

Box office musings

I've just been browsing through IMDb's list of films that grossed the most money in worldwide box offices. It makes for interesting reading.

The big three are represented right at the top, as you would expect: Star Wars: Episode I comes in at number four with $922,379,000 of box office receipts. That in itself is incredible - it's 15 cents for every single person alive.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone enjoys the number three spot with $968,600,000 - which approaches the GDP of Belize. Number two goes to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with an astronomical $1,129,219,252. That's more than all three Indiana Jones films put together.

And guess how much the number one grossed. Nope, guess again. A little more... You're getting warmer...

Titanic stands alone with $1,835,300,000.

That's incredible. There are fewer than 40 films that have ever grossed more than half a billion, and then there's Titanic, which grossed nearly two billion. Look, I've put it on a graph so you can see how ridiculous it is:



A Titanic spike indeed.

Adjust for inflation, however, and there's a different story. Titanic drops to sixth, according to Box Office Mojo's list. The number one, thanks to 67 years of inflation and a re-release or two, is Gone with the Wind.

Interestingly, there is almost no correlation between the films with that grossed the highest at the box office and the films that were ranked as best by IMDb users. In other words, no correlation between popularity and quality: