The Top 100 English Language Films of All Time (With Commentary)

(translation: do whatcha gotta do jess)

20. Super Mario Bros. – This is like if they let the guy who directed Tetsuo: The Ironman make a Dig Dug or Bionic Commando movie.

19. Robocop – Best science fiction film ever. Also, best satire.

18. Night of the Lepus – GIANT FUCKING KILLER BUNNIES.

17. Body Heat – This film makes me hella uncomfortable: like your mom teaching 8th grade health class.

16. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Fizzactory– They were eating rotisserie chicken.

15. The Chase (1994)– Makes Bullitt look like Driving Miss Daisy.

14. The Hobbit (Rakin/Bass versh) – Classic children’s fantasy tale populated by Precious Moments figurines melted under heat lamps.

13. Clueless – The Birth of a Nation of my generation. To hell with poverty!

12. Tommy Boy – When big fat Brian Dennehey dies it makes me cry nearly every time.

11. Enemy Mine – White spaceman and Louis Gossett Jr. - looking like an Admiral Ackbar knockoff or Miles Davis with severe sunburn peel - on a desolate barren wasteland planet for two hours. Cue “The Living Years.”

10. DC Cab – Joel Schumacher should have killed himself after this. (Why was the word “Schumacher” in my Word spell check already?)

9. Disorderlies – The only good film ever made by rappers.

8. One Crazy Summer – Normally I loathe 80s “teen” movies (John Hughes is high on the list of people I would kill if the law allowed), and yet and yet. A film so inept it can’t decide for its duration whether or not it wants to be high satire or earnestly serious, landing it in this underpopulated interzone of honestly artistically conflicted C-level crap. Also, made by the guy who would go on to make Eek The Cat.

7. Good Burger – I have three rules for avoiding a film: 1. Dabney Coleman, 2. Sinbad, 3. Anything starring an 80s “female comedienne” (Rita Rudner, etc.) This film manages to violate one of those rules and still come away in the plus column.

6. MVP 2: Most Vertical Primate – Children’s entertainment so starched and sanitized it forgoes plot, characterization, wit, dialogue, the works. I’m not even sure if anything actually happens in this film. Also, skateboarding monkeys.

5. Gremlins 2 – Bleak and fearful of our mechanized future as Phil Dick or Will Gibson, in it’s way.

4. Troll – Possibly the culmination of all ancillary endeavor in the field of “horror.” Also: kindly midgets.

3. PCU – 2nd greatest collegiate film of all time. The textbook definition of “hospitable world.”

2. Hot To Trot – Greatest talking animal movie of all time (which should really make it the greatest film ever, but hey), with the two greatest comedic actors of my lifetime. (And Glbert Gottfried.)

1. Back To School – 1st greatest collegiate film of all time, as well as the most perfect film ever made. Not a second of film wasted, a model of tightly controlled narrative & character development and comedic timing. Also: cod new wave references, bar fights, deans who squeal like pigs, crusty old academic nemesiseses. So what? So let’s dance! They could uncover the fourth reel of the Magnificent Ambersons tomorrow and it still wouldn’t mean a goddamn thing with prints of this film still in existence.

So you don't consider Shaq a rapper?

Back To School (it's GREAT! I know, Ally! I'm a big fan of the dude that played his son. In Dressed To Kill he had my haircut, and NOBODY has my haircut)
the flashback to Freshman year scene in PSU
John "Clamp" Glover in Gremlins 2
Clueless
a scene or two in Tommy Boy
Robocop

20. Empire Strikes Back
19. Ladri di bicicelette (you get extra points if you use the original language titles...take note all you collegiate types)
18. Terminal USA
17. Glengarry Glenn Ross
16. Do The Right Thing
15. Casablanca
14. The Conversation
13. Silence of the Lambs
12. Meet John Doe
11. Goodfellas
10. The Apu Trilogy
9. Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?
8. Goldfinger
7. Blade Runner
6. Touch of Evil
5. 8 1/2 (or La Dolce Vita...i can't decide)
4. Raging Bull
3. Pinocchio
2. Ikiru
1. The Rules of the Game

see, boring!! yes, yes, i can say that most of these films are better "made" and more "valuable" to humanity than my other list, but i don't want to WATCH them as often, so how is my first list any less "true"?

1. Rounders
2. Dave
3. All the President's Men
4. Raising Arizona
5. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

anyway, i really hate movies and it's an effort to even get me to watch most of them

this, more than any other reason you may bring up, is why spending $80K on film school was a bad idea.

(Yes, hstencil, YES)

In the case of this film in particular, I seem to remember you arguing that Verhoeven/Eszterhas knew the genre and its cliches well and were trying to subvert it -- personally I think that's reading too much into it and it's just an extremely dumb movie (and entertaining on that level because it's so bad) made by people who regard themselves as smarter than the material (though in this case I find the blame will always lie with Eszterhas more). So maybe I wasn't initially clear with my point, but I think we both agree that Showgirls's story is generic and that the creators knew it was generic, and that dismissing the film as horrible because of its genre would be a bad move.

That totally rules!

If you would all write in the active voice and leave the straw men at home you would get into fewer of these arguments.

Hm, in that case I do apologize, because I thought you had done something similar on a previous thread. I was not trying to put words in your mouth! I only recalled that being your take.

leave the straw men at home

But they are friends! I create armies of them and they follow me around. It's a pity when they get wet in the rain, though.

They really are like some of our best friends sometimes.

Jaws.

The smileys are like, the straw men, agreeing with Ned.

Yay! My army of pixels!

Felicity in Bevan-avatar shockah! ;-)

I liked Python a lot. Point Break was pretty good despite the prescence of Lori Petty and Anthony Keidis. Love Times Square, obviously. Foxes and Starstruck, too.

Lori Metcalf was so great in Making Mr. Right. Why'd she have to go and waste 10 years on Roseanne? That is all.

"Janusz," Ghostbusters 2

Anyone who thinks Poltergeist II is better than Poltergeist = one dumb fucking bitch.

yanc3y, who does yr friend play in 'ed'? they show tht during half-term here, ch4, I remember enjoying it.