Important Movies

Yeah, I'd be OK with it.

Okay, where are we at? Reservoir Dogs, Malcolm X, and Unforgiven seem sure things. Other two?

Looks like these are the possibilities: El Mariachi, Hard Boiled, Aladdin, Singles,Batman 2, League fo their own.

I say Hard Boiled, El Mariachi.

El Mariachi and Singles

DEFINITELY El Mariachi. And for 5th, yeah, throw in Batman Returns. Why not? Superhero movies define early 21st century cinema and Batman Returns was the first superhero movie to push boundaries. Even if you don't like, and I know most of you don't, it's obvious the movie is important to the history of that genre.

Let's look at your Top 5.

Reservoir Dogs
Unforgiven
Singles
Glengarry Glen Ross
El Mariachi

Singles? Really? Grunge has been over for 20 years. That movie is not important at all. Glengarry Glen Ross? Maybe if you're an acting student. Unforgiven? How is that movie important? Westerns are not popular anymore and Hollywood RARELY makes Westerns these days. And the westerns that Hollywood does make have nothing to do with Unforgiven. They're all throwbacks to John Ford and Sergio Leone and High Noon. The influence of Unforgiven is zero.

Not. At. ALL. Clint Eastwood has been directing movies since 1971. His first movie, Play Misty For Me, is the blueprint for every psycho girlfriend movie. Michael Douglas wouldn't have a career without Play Misty For Me. High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales are the defining American westerns of the 1970's. The Gauntlet is one of the most influential action movies of the 1970's. Sudden Impact is a popular Dirty Harry movie and coined the pop culture phrase, "Go ahead. Make my day." Pale Rider is one of the last traditional American westerns. Heartbreak Ridge is the defining Regan-Era military movie. Bird was critically praised. So to think that Clint Eastwood's directing career began with Unforgiven is ludicrous.




So what? Grunge was a music fad not a movie one. Sorry. But it's true. This is like me saying that Saturday Night Fever is important to cinema cause it's the defining disco movie. If you wanna honor grunge - or disco - you have the actual music. You don't need the movies for that. The movies were an extension of the musical movement. If grunge were still around, you would have a point because the music would have eventually become a mainstay of movie soundtracks. But since it was a music fad, it's completely irrelevant to important cinema.




Really? Video games are popular too. Does that mean Hollywood and audiences are having geekasms to video game movies? Where's that billion dollar Halo movie? Where's that Grand Theft Auto movie that was a huge success in April? Where are the Super Mario
and Sonic animated films that did HUGE business over the holidays? I don't see them. Do you? That is what superhero movies were like in 1992. If you were a superhero fan, Batman Returns was all you had. And the fact that Tim Burton had the balls to say, "I'm gonna make this movie dark, violent, sexual, psychological and I don't give a fuck what McDonald's and Warner Bros and parents think" is influential. MARVEL doesn't think that way. Fox doesn't think that way. You know who thinks that way? Christopher Nolan. So next time you're watching The Dark Knight, be thankful to Batman and Batman Returns.

Btw, I'm enjoying having a spirited conversation. Thanks, NE.

Of course. He won two Oscars for it.



3:10 to Yuma is a remake of a 1950's western starring Glenn Ford and both movies are pretty much the same. And I don't count No Country as a western. It's a crime drama set in the 1980's.

I don't think of Breaking Bad as a western either. The characters and their problems are too modern. I think of Breaking Bad as Scarface for the post-recession era. EDIT: OUR recession. 

Eastwood may have directed a lot of movies before Unforgiven, but Unforgiven was an artistic breakthrough for him. I really enjoy a lot of the movies he made before 1992, particularly The Outlaw Josey Wales, but Unforgiven is on another level. It may not have had a massive influence on all of the Westerns since, but I think certain films like The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford certainly have shades of it. Plus the movie is very unique is considered a masterpiece by pretty much everyone who sees it.

Batman makes sense to me. Batman returns does not.

Same.