12. Wall-E (2008)

 

Another Pixar heartwarming tale with a difference - this time the last miniature robot left working on an abandoned planet Earth, environmental catastrophe appearing to have wiped out most life, bar a superfast mutated smart cockroach. It’s a film of 2 halves, the first half almost free of dialogue, full of mystery and engaging the viewer on a tiny l’il robot, still beavering away on his rubbish collecting and saving of souvenirs. Self-aware and curious, and above all lonely, a recurring Pixar theme is loneliness and finding love, and Wall-E finds it in a mysterious visiting probe and a rescued plant, a plant that is the saviour of a space-bound obese dumbed-down race of idiots under the thrall of super-computer in the second-half action-packed space-bound part of the film. There’s a lot of social commentary going on, and it’s certainly ambitious and critically-acclaimed, but that doesn’t mean the film isn’t charming in the extreme. It so is. One of the ultimate feel-good films, and just for bonus I’ll mention two names that just keep on cropping up in my list. Sigourney Weaver. John Ratzenberger. Voices. Nuff said. Me, I love the mood change in the film, I don’t think the entire film could have worked focused on one location or the other, it needed both to give it a sense of scale, and the scale is grand. The future of the human race and the planet? Can’t really get more important than that... Brilliant!

14. Some Like It Hot (1959)

 

This is a perfect film, and it’s difficult to imagine a Best, Favourite or Greatest list of films without it in – exceptions granted for those too young to have seen it yet! Billy Wilder’s comedy is regularly acclaimed critically and popularity-wise as the best comedy of all-time, and it’s just brilliant. The script is terrific, but the performances lift it up a notch further, especially Tony Curtis in his light-leading-man prime (doing a fantastic impotent Cary Grant impression on top of his Tony Curtis Brooklyn-charmer), and Jack Lemmon going way over the top in drag. Plot: a historical setting (well, all of 30 years at the time at any rate) as two musicians witness the St Valentine’s Day Massacre and go on the run in drag with a band of female musicians, especially Marilyn Monroe at her breathy iconic best: I Wanna Be Loved By You (poop poop bi do). The Mob (with many a great gangster actor) are out to get them. The gender-confusing cross-dressing plot is a lark (and quite daring for the time) and the sparring between Curtis & Lemmon for Monroe’s affections is great fun. Throw in Joe E. Ross and that perfect throwaway last line to Jack Lemmon’s wig-removing “Aww I’m A Man” after he got swept away being romanced (as a woman) by millionaire Ross: Nobody’s Perfect. But some films are. Top-rated film from the 50’s, top black and white movie, top notch.

 

Great classic movie :wub:

 

Edited June 11, 201411 yr by Alex.

'Some Like It Hot' and 'Wall-E' are two of my favourite also :wub:

 

13. Gravity (2013)

 

The film has no flab, it’s perfectly-formed and perfectly-edited, inspiring, involving...

I don't know, i think George was carrying a bit to be honest :o (:heehee:)

 

Great classic movie :wub:

 

aaah thanks Alex B-)

'Some Like It Hot' and 'Wall-E' are two of my favourite also :wub:

I don't know, i think George was carrying a bit to be honest :o (:heehee:)

 

Thanks Haus, and George gag... :lol:

11. Galaxy Quest (1999)

 

I couldn’t quite bring myself to put a daft film into the Top 10, and it DOES parody Star Trek and it’s fandom - but it’s so without malice, and accurate, and funny, and engaging it almost comes over as a mix of Star Trek and the Star Trek actors lifestyles. Alan Rickman is hilarious (as he often is) as the Spock-Nimoy character, Sigourney Weaver is wonderful (yes her again, I wonder if she’s in my Top 10. I wonder if Star Trek is...) as the computer-repeating Uhura-role, and Tim “Buzz Lightyear” Allen as Shatner-Kirk is marvellous. The rest of the cast is equally delightful, including the unknowns, and including the better-knowns such as Tony Shalhoub (see Men In Black) and Sam Rockwell (see Cowboys & Aliens). The script is funny, both for kids and adults, the aliens that turn a sci-fi show into reality are a great invention for the purposes of the laughs, and it’s not afraid to turn geeks into heroes. So I’m bound to love it. It’s fairly well-regarded as a great movie but not a Great movie, but there are few films that just give you a massive warm fuzzy feeling inside after watching it. It’s so damn lovable. It became my mum’s all-time favourite film when it came out on DVD, age 61, one watched with regularity, so that’s good enough for me. She still watches it, and still loves it, even though she has memory problems now (we watched it last week). Anyone mistakenly thinking it’s low-brow can just go and re-assess themselves, cos it’s an under-rated gem. So there! :lol:

10. Back To The Future Part III (1990)

 

The conclusion to the Robert Zemeckis trilogy, it’s part sci-fi Time Travel, part western-romp and re-unites the cast, notably Michael J. Fox in multiple roles, and Christopher Lloyd having a ball as old Doc Brown living in the past with new flame Mary Steenburgen and Thomas F. Wilson, the unsung great baddie of the three movies (Biff), here playing his descendant Mad Dog with nasty gusto, he’s great to watch. Fox is a great hero-with-flaws in these films, his TV days long behind him, till illness cut short his movie career, and Christopher Lloyd had been a major fave of mine since he debuted as Reverend Jim in Taxi. His Doc Brown is one of the great cinema eccentric scientists. As a western movie fan, it was great to have this final box-office hit for the genre (more or less) and having Pat Buttram in a saloon cameo didn’t hurt, star in many a western I was a huge fan of the Simpsons-influencing 60’s sitcom Green Acres, where he played wheeler-dealer Mr. Haney, complete with “has to be heard to be believed” nasal whiney voice. The plot of this film is more coherent than part II (which it quickly followed, as both were filmed simultaneously) and has a much lighter tone to it. Try not to think too hard about all of the time-travel paradoxes that each film creates, I count two past history changes, three 1980’s-present alternates (at least) and two future-possibilities (at least), so it’s better to just enjoy the romp, cos it’s the ultimate feel-good trilogy.

Edited June 14, 201411 yr by popchartfreak

9. Back To The Future Part II (1989)

 

Sprawling sequel, this was in a way Back To The Future revisited, with it’s revisit of 1950’s small-town america, had most of the original cast return (bar 2), and took things further by going into the far future of 2015, where a lighthearted romp ensues showcasing such ridiculous far-fetched fantasy devices as wall-TV’s, skype, computer-controlled houses, 1980’s nostalgia, real-life celebrities recreated by computers and other stuff. OK, the fax is still about in 2015 (as if!) and the hoverboard and flying car better get going as they’ve only got 6 months now to sort themselves out, not to mention the ending of oil as a fuel. 2115 maybe....! For a long while this was my favourite part of the trilogy cos I loved the future setting followed by the time-travel-caused alternate dystopian future where Biff seems to have single-handedly caused the hope to be replaced with worldwide misery (or at least American). Michael J. Fox as his own daughter looked good, but was probably inadvised after the initial laugh, and Christopher Lloyd playing young and old Doc Brown got over the problem thanks to that rejuvenation treatment that I could do with next year. Looking forward to that coming onto the market! I also love time travel films, and paradoxes, though if you look too closely at it poor old Jennifer and Einstein end up left in an alternate universe 1985 present-day which has always bugged me. My nostalgia for the fifties (to be more accurate, nostalgia for 70’s versions of the 50’s) was still going strong, and I enjoyed the double-take revisit of the events of the original movie. Thomas F. Wilson again gives several great performances as various versions of Biff, the Bob Gale-Robert Zemeckis script is sharp and entertaining, I love hearing Mr Sandman in the film, and there’s a great cliffhanger at the end. In 2014, the 2015 sequences look a bit overly-ambitious technology-wise but they insisted they had to have flying cars, just because. And why not!? Fab.

Finding Nemo missing out on the top 20 :snif:

 

Great countdown so far!

Finding Nemo missing out on the top 20 :snif:

 

Great countdown so far!

 

Thanks Tim, Nemo may yet climb up in years to come - or maybe Finding Dory will be even better! I love it to bits anyway.... :dance: B-)

8. Paul (2011)

 

OK I said there weren’t any daft films in the Top 10. I lied. This one ticks all the right boxes for me: sci-fi? Tick. Great cast? Tick. Funny script? Tick. References to past movies? Tick. Aliens? Tick. Affectionate pastiche of fandom? Tick. In a way, it does for Close Encounters (even to the same locations), E.T. and X-Files what Galaxy Quest did for Star Trek - takes the piss in a knowing and lovable way. To be honest, I’d not been a huge fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost up to this point - I mean, I liked them, but hadn’t been totally convinced till Pegg popped up in Doctor Who and Star Trek (as Scotty) - but their performances, their script, and their obvious love of the fandom/sci-fi stuff won me over. Seth Rogen as smart-assed alien Paul was a good modern-cynical take on the cliche, Jason Bateman is great as CIA baddie (sort of), Kristin Wiig is hilarious as the religious fundamentalist daughter (and opened up a career for her as romcom star of good movies like Bridesmaids), and of course, no sci-fi blockbuster is complete without Sigourney Weaver as a bad-ass bitch these days. Tick! Chuck in great character actors like Joe Lo Truglio (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Jeffrey Tambor (Hill Street Blues among a million TV series, and fabulous The Invention Of Lying among a million movies), Jane “Glee” Lynch, and Bill “Men In Black 3” Hader and it’s one of the most joyous road movies ever made. It should have been a huge hit, but maybe it’s most appreciated by sci-fi geeks like me who juuuuust feel the love in it rather than the mainstream. Plus it has a great oldies soundtrack, notably the brilliant Todd Rundgren’s Hello It’s Me. Classic!

7. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

 

Just voted the greatest movie of all-time in Empire magazine, the second-part (or fifth) of the Star Wars saga is a bonafide classic. Darker than the original (part IV), it has a few advantages over it (special effects are better, it’s on a bigger scale even than the universe-crossing original, most of the cast reprise their roles) but it also has some disadvantages to me (the Yoda scenes are over-long, Lando’s a bit bland) and one major flaw that will always stop it being top-rated: it just ends. OK, Luke gets his hand chopped off and Darth Vader announces he’s his dad, but it’s very much part 1 of 2 parts with Han Solo freeze-dried and the goodies in turmoil licking their wounds. That said, it was of course a joy to have the sequel after the cinema-changing sensation that was Star Wars 1977, and there’s many a cinema memorable moment, the ice-planet, the battle between Luke and Darth, and of course there’s many a great tribute to it, not least the funny Family Guy trilogy. George Lucas had a less-hands-on role in this one, but you wouldn’t notice too much, if anything the actors are better - guiding actors has never been one of Lucas’ strong points, nor has dialogue, here carried out by Irvin Kershner (Director), Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan (writers). I should also mention Pixar-regular

John Ratzenberger is in it. I haven’t checked who gets more mentions in my Top 100 films, but it must be Ratzenberger, Ford, or Weaver, just ahead of Will Smith. Ratzenberger though, wins as top supporting/cameo actor. I do enjoy trivia. Great film.

6. Star Trek (2009)

 

Highest-placed Star Trek film, it’s more of a surprise that it’s been forced out of my Top 5, cos, simply-put, I immediately fell in love with Star Trek the TV series when I was 11, it became my all-time fave TV series - until subsequent Star Trek series, notably Deep Space 9, overhauled it in my affections. I’ve been to conventions, met the stars of the various shows (briefly) and my mum has been a fan throughout too. After all the TV overdose, the franchise needed a rest until it got revitalised. J.J. Abrams did exactly that. He took the original characters, legendary and world-famous, got a perfect new cast of actors to reprise and keep the flavour of the original cast, and then rewrote the premise (time-travel tragedy changes everything that originally happened and this is now a new Star Trek universe where anything can happen and does. It’s obviously geared for modern action-oriented blockbuster-savvy audiences but it stays reverential to the original for the fans, even to the point of having Leonard Nimoy back meeting his new younger self (Zachary Quinto), and Majel Barrett as the voice of the computer two weeks before she died. Chris Pine is brilliant as Kirk, Karl Urban is great as McCoy, Simon Pegg is perfect as Scotty, and all the others actors are equally great in their roles. I love that it has brought classic Trek back to me, and JJ Abrams handling of the forth-coming Star Wars films also promises much (in comparison to the prequel trilogy that never really captured the zest of the original trilogy). OK, it’s not as ideas-based as the TV series, but movies have to appeal across-the-board, and this one bought in the dosh without dumbing down anything, keeping the heart of the show alive - that’s the character-interplay between Kirk and Spock, and all of the rest of the loyal characters - while adding in a new early-life trauma for this Spock (his mother’s death) and Kirk (his father’s death before he was born) to punch up the drama. That I rate it higher than any of the other Star Trek films is a joy!

OK Top 5 up in the next few days, I think it's obvious what 2 of them are..Part 1's of part 2 and 3's that have already featured, namely Star Wars and Back To The Future. Or is it? :lol: Of the other 3, one's a 2010's blockbuster, one a 90's rom-com, one a 2000's family classic. I make that one each from the 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's, 10's, I think that's a fair spread chronologically. Kudos to anyone who can guess the top 5, bearing in mind they are all sci-fi or fantasy... :lol:

My guesses (not remembering if they hab appeard yet or not)

Back to the future

Inception

Star Wars

Pretty woman

The chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe

Of the other 3, one's a 2010's blockbuster, one a 90's rom-com, one a 2000's family classic.

Maybe I even watched this movie. :)

My guesses (not remembering if they hab appeard yet or not)

Back to the future

Inception

Star Wars

Pretty woman

The chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe

 

ooh interesting guesses but I haven't seen Pretty Woman and Narnia (Hard to believe I know!) so they may yet feature one day when I get round to seeing them B-)

 

Inception was good, prob would make my Top 200...

Maybe I even watched this movie. :)

 

maybe, though it's not a traditional rom-com, but it makes me feel warm and cuddly and life is worth living to the full when things get rough B-)

ooh interesting guesses but I haven't seen Pretty Woman and Narnia (Hard to believe I know!) so they may yet feature one day when I get round to seeing them B-)

 

Inception was good, prob would make my Top 200...

 

 

Ok will go for there's something about Mary, a lord of the rings movie and for some random guess the wolfman/clash of the titans/ alice in wonderland even if they were all badly reviewed

Or avengers