I need to see Synecdoche still, I've loved most of Kaufman's work so its worth a shot, though it looked kind of unpleasant and depressing from the trailers.

Tree of Life is a justified choice on Ebert's part. It reminds me a lot of 2001: Space Odyssey in that it attempts to capture the entirety of human existence, and is more concerned with theme and vision than telling an actual story (though I found the family/growing up stuff remarkably reminiscent of my own childhood memories). I don't know that it would go on my personal list, it's not as tidy of a movie as 2001 and could use some editing, but I suspect it will climb higher as I get older.

Really curious to see some of the others on his list though, I've sadly seen almost none of them. If any of them are half as good as Apocalypse Now it'd be worth the effort.

What?!

No Casablanca...?

Pick a weapon.

Well, looks like there's a-gonna be all kinds of fightin' here today....

^ What he said.

I'm a Kane defender. I fucking love that movie, not cause it's a 'classic', but cause it's a fucking good movie and the sort of film I like: A movie about a guy and his issues.

He mentioned La Strada in that list as well, and that's another one I'd probably put on a list of 'greatest films of all time (that I've seen)'. Doesn't hurt that it's also the movie that got me 'into' movies.

However, Aside from those, I'd probably put mostly modern films on my list, cause I'm young and a lot of old movies are like torture to me. If it's pre 1960's, then it's gotta be fucking La Strada or Kane or 7 Samurai or cut from that sort of cloth to keep me interested.

But Citizen Kane is amazing, and I want you to fucking acknowledge it!
(yeah, I know that's the wrong scene. I couldn't find the proper car shot...)

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2012-05-03 01:57:06)

I've recently come to love Citizen Kane. When you go in expecting the Best Movie Ever, it may be disappointing. But watch it without that baggage, and I think it works really really well.

Rear Window has Grace Kelly, your argument is invalid. Seriously though, there are so many great Hitchcock movies to choose from, Vertigo just isn't my favourite of them by a long shot. That's not to say it's not a great film. I just enjoy watching something like Rear Window a lot more, or especially Rope, which is my personal favourite of his.

The problem I remember with Citizen Kane was that its main character had little to no redeeming qualities, which subsequently makes it hard to care about him or what rosebud means. Also, I'm sorry to say, I didn't like Orson Welles' performance that much. He's just not a very good actor (and neither was the actress playing his wife).

Ya Herzog's one of the coolest people on the planet. I could listen to him just talk poetically for hours.

I despised Tree of Life. As much as I liked the "Creation" sequence, the movie as a whole was total bullshit. If Malick had made a 45 minute space porn IMAX film, I would have forked over the cash. I'm just glad I only paid a buck for it at Redbox.