Whenever some organization or critic puts together a best movies list, he/she also puts together a worst movies list to compliment and contrast with the good.....
Recently I posted my favorite Black movies list as well as my favorite overall list. I always intended to revisit this subject and eventually post my worst movies list, as well....
However there is a problem in that I am having trouble naming any movies that I don't like, primarily because I only go see movies that catch me with the trailer in the first place...
The cost of a movie ticket these days makes me very selective in what I go to see. It also makes me selective in the bootlegs that I buy on the street, since they do cost a few bucks..
And the movies that I may download from the internet...If I'm gonna get busted for movie theft....I want it to be a movie that I liked and actually wanted to see...
I can name movies that I refused to see.......”Soul Plane” for instance....
I can name movies that I walked out on.....”Hotel New Hampshire" to name one...
But a list of movies that I didn't like.....well....here goes... In no certain order...
The Color Purple...or Stuff by Steven Spielberg...He whitewashes good stories..takes the teeth out of them for the masses....turning mature stories into bedtime stories for children..
Brokeback Mountain....bored me to tears....If I had been in a theater, I would have left within 20 minutes...as it was, I was viewing a friend's copy and simply turned it off...There are straight guys who can play gay...but these two weren't it.....
Claire of the Moon....an absolute joke of a movie...saw it at the premier in Chicago...the entire audience loudly and verbally abused this movie during the screening...It remains a travesty..
Thelma and Louise...I wanted this one to be good...It was girls night out.... One of my favorite actors (Susan Sarandon)...two of us didn't like it and said so....blew that date...
Jodie Foster movies....with the exception of Silence of the Lambs...that includes Taxi Driver
Tropical Thunder....Robert Downey was funny as hell...but the movie was too damn long...fell asleep on it...still have it in my rack of movies to revisit in order to give it a second chance...maybe..
Dave Chapelle's Block Party....another one turned off after 20 minutes in...
Steven Seagal movies...nearly all of them....seen a few...hated em...they were usually always date movies not of my choosing... the one about the submarine with Tommy Lee Jones and the blond crazy guy...that one was okay..
Animal House and Animal House genre movies...young white boys getting stoned, puking, drinking beer, and doing tricks with feces and their undersized male parts don't tickle my funny bone in the least...
American Beauty with Kevin Spacey....boring.....
X Files....movies and TV series......boring....and I paid for that one....Only one episode that I liked...it was called, I believe....”Humbug”....It contained a character named The conundrum...
Bruno movies....He's so not funny....
Wow....I'm getting a headache trying to think about stuff I don't like....so I will stop now...
My list of best movies continues to grow...I think at my age, I need to do a “best” list for every decade...
Because after the fact...I left out some damn good movies on my first list....like
The Godfather movies...all three...
Bonnie and Clyde....Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway
The Hunger with the afore mentioned Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie
Street Car Named Desire with Marlon Brando and Karl Maldon
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Paul Newman, Liz Taylor
Suddenly Last Summer, Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift and Katherine Hepburn
Silence of the Lambs
The Long Hot Summer.... You can see, I've just got a thing for Tennessee Williams...
I quit....
to be continued later...
Showing posts with label black movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black movies. Show all posts
7.11.2009
4.06.2009
Best Black Movies
My brain is still on vacation from the politics of the past two years, that has actually continued to swirl around our first chocolate covered first family.
So while the Obama’s are touring the world, that fool in North Korea is firing missiles that he says sing songs about him into the air, and everyone else is going crazy killing people while the rest of us pretend there is no gun problem in America...
I choose to think about movies....
I got started on this subject because I’m working on an article about the dumbing down of America, kids, and grown ups via education, television and the mass media....
Which brought to memory movies that I needed to see again, one of which was NETWORK, the Paddy Chayevsky story about an anchor man, played by the late Peter Finch who goes crazy on air. The network allows it to happen strictly for ratings. ..The movie is on point for my article and also a prediction of what we are currently experiencing......if you haven’t seen it...you should dial it up and watch and learn....
There is also this movie channel network called THIS....Don’t know who owns it.... It’s playing movies that I had forgotten existed, like...they played back to back.....IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, followed by THEY CALL ME MR TIBBS, followed by THE ORGANIZATION, followed by PRESSURE POINT....all Sydney Poitier movies, where he was not playing the acquiescent Negro.
THIS tends to play black movies and cowboy movies like....Jane Fonda, James Caan and Jason Robards in COMES A HORSEMAN....This channel even plays the old Bat Masterson series with Gene Barry..On Saturday, it plays THE OUTER LIMITS.....watching that program as a kid was one thing...watching it from the future is amazing....
All this got me thinking about the number of best ever movie lists and how many of them contain movies by and about black people....
I found two lists of best 100 that listed THE COLOR PURPLE....I found one list that included Spike Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING....after that nothing.....other than lists made up completely of black movies....no comparisons or competitions between "regular" movies and our
movies...
Regular movie lists always start with GONE WITH THE WIND or CITIZEN KANE...
So without further ado....I’m giving you my top 20 list of black movies...
1. In the Heat of the Night
2. The Defiant Ones (the original)
3. A Soldier’s Story
4. Shaft-(both of them)
5. Come Back Charleston Blue
6. Sweet Back
7. New Jack City
8. Lady Sings the Blues
9. Set it Off
10. Harlem Nights
11. Inside Man
13. Trading Places
14. Car Wash
15. The Mack
16. Man on Fire
18. Spawn
19. Blazing Saddles
20.Cotton Comes to Harlem
This list differs from my favorite all time list which is has more action...in no certain order
1. Aliens
2. Alien
3. Star Wars
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. The Magnificent Seven
6. Seven Samurai
7. To Kill A Mockingbird
8. Moby Dick (gregory peck version)
9. The Three Musketeers
10. Psycho
11. When Night is Falling
12. Bound
13. Matrix
14. The Usual Suspects
15. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
16.The Tin Drum
17. Batman Begins
18. Chocolate
19. La Femme Nikita
20. Gladiator
Honorable mentions: The Count of Monte Cristo, Rage in Harlem, Glory, The Debaters, The Killing of Sister George, Midnight Cowboy and Victor/Victoria, The Sting, Deserts Hearts
My criteria....I will watch these films anytime they are on, can quote lines, and have memorized segments such as when the emperor demands that the gladiator say his name in the arena and gladiator turns and says..........."my name is......etc"
So while the Obama’s are touring the world, that fool in North Korea is firing missiles that he says sing songs about him into the air, and everyone else is going crazy killing people while the rest of us pretend there is no gun problem in America...
I choose to think about movies....
I got started on this subject because I’m working on an article about the dumbing down of America, kids, and grown ups via education, television and the mass media....
Which brought to memory movies that I needed to see again, one of which was NETWORK, the Paddy Chayevsky story about an anchor man, played by the late Peter Finch who goes crazy on air. The network allows it to happen strictly for ratings. ..The movie is on point for my article and also a prediction of what we are currently experiencing......if you haven’t seen it...you should dial it up and watch and learn....
There is also this movie channel network called THIS....Don’t know who owns it.... It’s playing movies that I had forgotten existed, like...they played back to back.....IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, followed by THEY CALL ME MR TIBBS, followed by THE ORGANIZATION, followed by PRESSURE POINT....all Sydney Poitier movies, where he was not playing the acquiescent Negro.
THIS tends to play black movies and cowboy movies like....Jane Fonda, James Caan and Jason Robards in COMES A HORSEMAN....This channel even plays the old Bat Masterson series with Gene Barry..On Saturday, it plays THE OUTER LIMITS.....watching that program as a kid was one thing...watching it from the future is amazing....
All this got me thinking about the number of best ever movie lists and how many of them contain movies by and about black people....
I found two lists of best 100 that listed THE COLOR PURPLE....I found one list that included Spike Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING....after that nothing.....other than lists made up completely of black movies....no comparisons or competitions between "regular" movies and our
movies...
Regular movie lists always start with GONE WITH THE WIND or CITIZEN KANE...
So without further ado....I’m giving you my top 20 list of black movies...
1. In the Heat of the Night
2. The Defiant Ones (the original)
3. A Soldier’s Story
4. Shaft-(both of them)
5. Come Back Charleston Blue
6. Sweet Back
7. New Jack City
8. Lady Sings the Blues
9. Set it Off
10. Harlem Nights
11. Inside Man
13. Trading Places
14. Car Wash
15. The Mack
16. Man on Fire
18. Spawn
19. Blazing Saddles
20.Cotton Comes to Harlem
This list differs from my favorite all time list which is has more action...in no certain order
1. Aliens
2. Alien
3. Star Wars
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. The Magnificent Seven
6. Seven Samurai
7. To Kill A Mockingbird
8. Moby Dick (gregory peck version)
9. The Three Musketeers
10. Psycho
11. When Night is Falling
12. Bound
13. Matrix
14. The Usual Suspects
15. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
16.The Tin Drum
17. Batman Begins
18. Chocolate
19. La Femme Nikita
20. Gladiator
Honorable mentions: The Count of Monte Cristo, Rage in Harlem, Glory, The Debaters, The Killing of Sister George, Midnight Cowboy and Victor/Victoria, The Sting, Deserts Hearts
My criteria....I will watch these films anytime they are on, can quote lines, and have memorized segments such as when the emperor demands that the gladiator say his name in the arena and gladiator turns and says..........."my name is......etc"
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