Originally posted on Facebook - July 3, 2009
I have seen 45 movies that I have rated 10/10. Here are what I consider the 12 greatest - not of all time, but of those that I've seen. I'm presenting them in order of production.
1. King Kong (1933)
Merian C. Cooper thought that he was making a monster movie, in which a dashing adventurer (a filmmaker whose character represented Cooper himself) conquers an incorrigible beast, and a resolute hero (who closely matches co-director Ernest Schoedsack) rescues a beautiful damsel. If that had been all, it would have been relegated to B-movie status. But puppeteer Ray Harryhausen, quite on his own, created an antagonist that audiences could sympathize with, and whom they would mourn. This unintentional juxtaposition results in a film, barely 90 minutes long, that raises the questions of how a creature becomes a beast, how the modern West relates to the wild places of the world, and who has the right to enslave - or rescue - whom.
2. Casablanca (1942)
Rick is a jaded idealist who profits from the traffic in the city of Casablanca, Morocco. An African city under the rule of Vichy France, Casablanca is a sort of political no-man's land in the middle of World War II. And in the middle of Casablanca is Rick's Café Americain. When Rick comes into possession of two travel permits, free and clear, he only needs to find a way to profit. When the love of his life and her husband, a leader in the Resistance, arrive in town, Rick sees an opportunity to claim her back. Finally his deep idealism and his through-going self-interest are in conflict. Will he turn over the fugitive and escape with the woman? Or will his political convictions finally assert themselves after so many years? The film did not break any new ground in filming techniques, storytelling, or effects. But its characters, themes, and relevance to its own time make it one of the all-time classics.
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
With political attention on Cuba and southeast Asia, social issues at home sometimes seemed like an afterthought. To Kill A Mockingbird, published as a novel in 1960, is told from the perspective of a young motherless girl whose father, attorney Atticus Finch, defends a black man accused of rape in the 1930s South. The combination of Scout Finch’s youthful outlook and the challenging topics of rape and racial injustice provide a metaphor for a nation’s coming of age, in terms of civil rights. The subplot of social outsider "Boo" Radley reminds us that prejudice is not only a racial issue.
4. Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Stanley Kubrick satirizes cold-war brinksmanship and military development, as a plot unfolds that is at one and the same time utterly ludicrous and totally plausible. A comedy of errors with apocalyptic consequences, featuring masterful performances by Peter Sellers (in three roles), George C. Scott, and Slim Pickens, among others, the fast-paced film tumbles toward its inexorable conclusion. The audience is at once delighted by the comedy (a military man is ordered to shoot the lock off of a vending machine to obtain change for a phone call that will prevent nuclear war -- after agreeing to do it he says, “Okay, but you’ll have to answer to the Coca-Cola Company for this!”) and horrified by the story. This is the only comedy that makes my list.
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