Important Movies

I would not deny that the movie is some sort of interesting footnote in the history of homosexuality on screen, but I haven't heard anything here that convinces me that it's top five most important caliber.


For the record, my personal favorite movies of 1997 are:
1. L.A. Confidential
2. Jackie Brown
3. Boogie Nights
4. Princess Mononoke
5. The Ice Storm

The five movies I submitted for consideration were:
1. Titanic
2. Princess Mononoke
3. Funny Games
4. L.A. Confidential
5. Taste of Cherry

Notice the differences. Three of my favorite movies from the year got left in the honorable mentions section. I submitted Funny Games. I don't even fucking like Funny Games. I think its condescending, unpleasant to watch, and I disagree with its very thesis, but I still submitted it because I think it was an important provocation that opened up certain cinematic doors.

As for Chasing Amy.  I like the movie.  I think it's an interesting little Kevin Smith movie and has some strong moments.  For the record it is my thirteenth favorite movie of 1997 but I don't feel like it's significant enough or influential enough to be considered among the very top five.  You've said your piece about it and I've considered it, but am not persuaded that belongs on this list and it sounds like I'm not alone.

Anyway, so it sounds like the majority of the support is behind Boogie Nights, Titanic, L.A. Confidential, and Princess Mononoke.  I'm not seeing any consensus at all for that fifth slot, so where do we stand on that?

My vote remains on Good Will Hunting, despite your strong argument against it. I also know Deexan has my back on this one.

Alright, Funny Games is a Michael Haneke film about a pair of psychopaths terrorizing a family.  That seems like a cliched story and that's intentional.  What makes it unique is that it frequently breaks the fourth wall and goes against convention in a number of places.  He's doing all this to make a statement about violence in film and about the thriller genre in general.  He's very much of the opinion that watching and getting enjoyment out of suffering is a profoundly troubling thing to do and he essentially means to chastise people for doing so.  I obviously don't agree with this and find the film kind of condescending, however, I do believe it's still a very important film that will have people debating its importance for decades.  

Taste of Cherry is an Abbas Kiarostami film is a highly uncommercial meditation on life and death played out against a man's attempt find someone to assist him with a suicide.  It's not the easiest movie to watch, but it's stylishly bold in its minimalism and has a number of interesting ways it can be interpreted.  Ultimately there probably are Kiarostami movies that were bigger breakthroughs, so I'm probably not going to go to the mat defending this one for the list, but I think it holds a fairly important place in the history of modern world cinema.

I haven't seen Lost Highway, so someone else is going to have to defend that one.

I do, but my opinion is hugely swayed by the fact that GWH is my favourite film and I'd actually agree that its importance and influence is relatively minor. 

I'm also of the opinion that Spirited Away was the movie that really put Studio Ghibli on the map in the Western world, moreso than Princess Mononoke. It might not be the better film but it felt as though it made a bigger cultural impact. I could be wrong.

Spirited Away probably did further establish the studio Ghibili brand, but I think Mononoke was what set it up to do that.  The previous Miyazaki films didn't get anything resembling a timely release outside of Japan but Mononoke managed to get distribution through Miramax that got a lot of attention in film circles.  His next film was Spirited Away and when it came out people knew who he was and that they were supposed to be excited.

As for Good Will Hunting, it seems like an exceedingly ordinary film to me and it doesn't seem all that innovative.  The main arguments I can see for its importance is that it played a big role in the careers of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, other than that I don't personally think its really going to stand the test of time and be all that remembered in thirty or fourty years.

Am I the only one who really doesn't give a shit if a movie is unanimously remembered?

No, but I've seen 1930's horror movies with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff that weren't about Dracula or Frankenstein. I saw a boxing movie from the 1950's that featured Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. I saw the only 1960's Italian movie featuring Clint Eastwood that's NOT a western. And let's not even get started on the 1970's, 80's and 90's. So as long as crazy people like us exist, Good Will Hunting will have an audience. 

Starship Troopers continues to be relevant and hilarious.

1. Good Will Hunting
2. Batman and Robin
3. Starship Troopers
4. Austin Powers
5. Jackie Brown

Good will hunting
Ma vie en rose
Funny games
Starship troopers
Lost highway