The PG Cooper List Thread: Gamer Days

I think I respect Brooks more than I actually enjoy his movies. Young Frankenstein is an awesome love-letter to classic Universal Horror and Blazing Saddles has some really smart satire, but I don't find either particularly funny.

If Jaws isn't on here

Good choices. Id probably have Close Encounters in about the same position.

82. Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997)



Hayao Miyazaki might well be among the most beloved filmmakers of the modern era, and not without good reason. His films demonstrate a sincerity and creativity which is not only rare in animation, but film in general. His greatest work is certainly debatable, but for me, the crown jewel is Princess Mononoke. The film is an epic fantasy in the grandest sense, dropping the viewer into a fascinating world of strange creatures, Gods, and political conflict. Princess Mononoke is perhaps best remembered for its jaw-dropping animation and creative designs, but the film also deserves praise for its well-drawn story. This is a rousing adventure film in the best possible sense, with great characters and an epic tale which perfectly mixes a personal story with a greater political context. The film's environmental themes and critique of industrialism are thoughtful, and Miyazaki never reduces the conflict to a simple dichotomy of good and evil. The conflict and characters are far more complicated in Princess Mononoke, but such seriousness never impedes on the film's sense of adventure. Before Game of Thrones, and before The Lord of the Rings, Princess Mononoke was the definitive word in cinematic fantasy.


81. Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)



Literary types often like to dismiss James Whale's Frankenstein as a silly and shallow adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic, but that's bullshit. Though many of the details were changed in adaptation, Whale's film does indeed capture the novel's themes of blind ambition, unchecked industrialism, and humanity's cruelty. For all the fun horror elements, Frankenstein is ultimately a very sad story. The film does an amazing job demonstrating the titular doctor's mistakes while alsoexploring the Creature's sorrow. Crucial to this is Boris Karloff's performance. Easy to underrate, but Karloff does an amazing job humanizing the creature and squeezing out so much emotion from the simplest gestures. The film also features some incredible make-up work, some of the most iconic scenes in movie history, and a classic horror atmosphere that's to die for.


80. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)



Oh boy, I can already hear Doomsday furiously typing at me. This is probably gonna be my most fanboy looking entry in this list, but fuck it, I love The Dark Knight, and I'm not gonna drop it from this list just to look better than those "other" nerds. The film, of course, deserves credit for some of the instantly iconic elements. Heath Ledger's Joker is pretty firmly entrenched as one of the great villains in cinema and a lot of the movie's scenes and lines have pretty firmly embedded themselves in pop-culture. The Dark Knight is also probably still the best film of its subgenre, and that's nothing to sneeze it. Even if you were to strip The Dark Knight's legacy though, I still love this movie. It's an exhilarating action movie with a great story about the cost of heroism which asks important questions about how to fight terrorism. The movie's answers are perhaps contradictory, but the exploration remains stirring. The film is an excellent spectacle, but it's really as drama that the film most succeeds. It's not every day an action movie climaxes on a conversation between three former friends.

I wrote a college essay on Memento. You’ll outgrow Christopher Nolan too.

Frankenstein has a few little things that bother me, like the intro with Edward Van Sloan, and the tacked on ending. Still love the hell out of the movie (obviously) but these beats were enough to give Dark Knight the edge.



You tellin' me you don't love The Dark Knight?



The only other Miyazaki that comes close for me is My Neighbour Totoro. I like that film a lot too, but Mononoke is a lot more grand and just feels like Miyazaki's masterpiece.

Minor issue in the scope of things, but it was enough to give Doomsday and I's favourite filmmaker the edge.

Didn't know about the cut Dracula content.

79. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)



Federico Fellini's breakthrough sensation is one of the most fun films of the golden age of world cinema to watch, but also one of the most distressing. At its core, La Dolce Vita is about despair, as journalist Marcello fruitlessly tries to find some meaning in his life during a series of vignettes over the course of a week. Despite the glamour and decadence of the Italy Marcello experiences, the man is consistently plagued by an emptiness; a lack of satisfaction which never quite ceases. The episodic format works wonders in terms of creating that cyclical sense of misery, and Fellini never gives the character, or the audience, an easy answer. Quite the contrary in fact. But for as heavy as La Dolce Vita is thematically, it's never hard to watch. The film is just so damn stylish, with Fellini taking great advantage of decadent post-war Italy. Fellini's effortlessly glides through scenes, which, in combination with great blocking of the actors Nino Rota's fantastic score, create the feeling of a coordinated dance. La Dolce Vita is pure poety, with several incredible sequences and beautiful imagery. The whole thing is anchored by Marcello Mastroianni, who perfectly captures a sense of fatigue and subdued despair, which plays against Fellini's playful style brilliantly.


78. The Empire Strikes Back (Irwin Kershner, 1980)



The typical line on The Empire Strikes Back is that it's the best Star Wars movie because it's the darkest. I love the dark tone as much as the next guy, but I'd argue it's less the darkness of the film and more its maturity that makes Empire special. The characters are fleshed out more fully, ideas like the Force and Jedi are given greater complexity, and the conflict between our heroes and villains deepens. The film carries a great sense of weight, and this drama is matched in terms of the film's direction. The cinematography is much cooler and precise than the original Star Wars, while the emotions stirred are much more ambiguous. John Williams even improves on his legendary score for Star Wars, probing deeper and darker places. The film also introduces amazing new characters like Yoda to the Star Wars mythos and the final confrontation between Luke and Vader is amazing, from top to bottom. For better for worse, The Empire Strikes Back is the film that helped solidify the notion that Star Wars is a vast universe of endless possibilities. Actually analyze the films and you'll realize Star Wars is kind of limited, but Empire hits an epic level that opens up wondrous possibilities.


77. Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2001)



A Nolan film two posts in a row? Take that gun out of your mouth Doomsday, I promise this is the last one. Given Nolan's still at the top of his game, it's hard to determine his masterpiece. Inception seems a likely candidate, but it's still a little too recent for me to pull the trigger on. For now though, my gut tells me its Memento. Revenge stories, when they're written well, tend to be about the futility of revenge, and the ultimately the feelings of emptiness it produces. In its own way, Memento expresses this theme perhaps better than any revenge film, following a character who, even if he accomplishes his mission, wouldn't even remember. The main character's anterograde amnesia and the film's unconventional narrative structure certainly make the film unique, but more importantly, they also lead to a really rewarding narrative, with great twists that are rewarding to unpack on rewatches. Nolan's visual style isn't quite fully formed here, but his themes of obsession and losing oneself to a cause are well-entrenched, and maybe at their best.

I don't think so. A lot of the themes are found explicitly in the dialogue. The whole point of the twist is that

My college screened Memento when it was still a fairly new movie. Nolan's only other movies were Following, Insomnia and Batman Begins. He was arguably still a nobody at the time. It's crazy to think about that in retrospect. Watching Memento didn't make think this guy was gonna "re-invent cinema" a few years later. This would be like watching Duel or American Graffiti in 1974 and having no clue those two nerds were gonna change Hollywood forever.

Anyway, we watched Memento and The Machinist. Both movies, if I recall correctly, are about self harm. Memento isn't a revenge story. The big twist is that HE killed his wife. He's going around creating these elaborate revenge stories to mask the fact that his wife tried to call his bluff and paid the price.

This list already got better.

Jk, I actually enjoy Memento quite a bit.  I don't think I would put it on my top 100 list but I certainly won't argue with anyone who does.  I mean it's not like you included the Dark Knight or anythi....oh.