And the best Black and White movie ever is:

[ronmac]

Wow. That's a bit extreme, don't you think?

nope.

[Staun]

Wow. That's a bit extreme, don't you think?

[Staun]

nope.

[nycsteve]

I caught 1946s The Killers on TCM last night. It had been so long since I saw it last I forgot the finales reveal and most of the rest. This definitely deserves its rep as one of the premier noirs of the 40s. Burt Lancaster's debut film , the movie that put Ava Gardner on the map , and a top notch supporting cast. Excellent noir favorite Edmund O Brian has the lead. Even a slim William Conrad. In a way reminiscent of Citizen Kane or even Pulp Fiction in toying with the time line and plot advances on characters remembrances. Great plot , cool twists , high production values. Great to reconnect with this one.

[Hal...]

Yep. Saw it for the first time in the past couple years. Even gave my opinion of it ## pages back. Excellent movie.

[ronmac]

I watched "The Days of Wine and Roses" last night on TCM. Better than the 3 stars they gave it, IMO. Jack Lemon was amazing.

There was a mention after the movie how people walked out of the previews. It turned out that it wasn't because of the film, but because people expected a comedy, since that's what Lemmon had been mostly known for. So, it only required a marketing change. Lemmon and Lee Remick both got Oscar nominations.

[Staun]

On the Beach, on TCM tonight. Have not seen it in quite some time. It came out a few years before Fail-Safe and isn’t as good but still interesting. Worth the watch.

[Hal...]

Is that the movie with Burt Lancaster, where he and his crew are on a sub after a nuclear war and they're headed down to Australia?

[nycsteve]

Is that the movie with Burt Lancaster, where he and his crew are on a sub after a nuclear war and they're headed down to Australia?

Pretty sure it was Gregory Peck. I remember it as a sad movie. The prominent use of the song Waltzing Matilda and the coke bottle reveal are my 2 strongest memories of this one.

[Hal...]

Pretty sure it was Gregory Peck.

Yeah, I don't know why I said Burt Lancaster; I was thinking it was one of those tall actors with rugged good looks. I was also going from memory instead of looking it up on Wikipedia like I normally would when my memory of something is sketchy. Here's the really funny thing though: I was also going to say Ava Gardner but didn't trust my memory. I looked it up on Wikipedia, just now, and she was in it.

I remember it as a sad movie. The prominent use of the song Waltzing Matilda and the coke bottle reveal are my 2 strongest memories of this one.

It's been so long since I've seen it, I remember almost nothing about it. In fact, I think I saw it on AMC, back when it was an old movie channel like TCM is now.

I looked it up in Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide, just now, and he gives it four stars. I'll have to check to see if TCM is making it streamable.

And it isn't.

[Hal...]

You may have noticed that TCM occasionally has themes. Here are a couple, the first of which I find amusing:

Flowing Gold
The Silver Cord
Gold Raiders (a George O'Brien, Three Stooges comedy western)
The Silver Horde
Six-Gun Gold
Silver Dollar
Gold is Where You Find It
Silver River
Flaming Gold
The Silver Streak (1934)

BTW, five of those are westerns.

The other is a heist theme:

$ - w/Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn
The Hot Rock - w/Robert Redford and George Segal, et al.
The Thomas Crown Affair
How to Steal a Million - w/Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole

I've never seen the first or last but will definitely be watching $. I may see How to Steal a Million since it got a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

If any of you have never seen The Hot Rock, do yourself a favor and see it. It's not a 4 star movie but you won't be disappointed. I would even go so far as to say it's the best heist movie I've ever seen. We saw it at the drive-in the year it was released. I've seen it a few times since, over the years – the most recent time a couple years ago – and it's a pretty entertaining and often amusing movie.

I have another recommendation: Sisters, Brian de Palma's 1972 film. TCM calls it horror/sci-fi but I don't agree. It's more suspense/mystery than horror... and definitely not sci-fi. It expires Jan 27th, so you've got almost a month to see it.

FWIW, this is kind of a rare recommendation from me since I think Brian de Palma is a bit of a hack. Especially since this is, more or less, an updated, R-rated Rear Window. But I recommend this one because we saw it at the drive-in when I was 9 and I have a nostalgic feeling for it. It stars Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, and Charles Durning.

[nycsteve]

Hal; "If any of you have never seen The Hot Rock, do yourself a favor and see it. It's not a 4 star movie but you won't be disappointed. I would even go so far as to say it's the best heist movie I've ever seen. We saw it at the drive-in the year it was released. I've seen it a few times since, over the years – the most recent time a couple years ago – and it's a pretty entertaining and often amusing movie."

You're right , it's not a four star movie. It's a FIVE *****
Afganistan Bananastan

[Hal...]

You're a lot more generous than I am, Steve.

BTW, I never go above 4 stars. I use the Leonard Maltin rating system:

****
***½
***
**½
**
Bomb

In general, I'd recommend anything 2½ stars and above. A 2½ star movie is one with flaws but still enjoyable.

A 3 star movie is a good, solid, enjoyable movie but nothing great. Which is what I'd call The Hot Rock. The vast majority of good movies are 3 stars.

A 3½ star movie is a great movie but isn't a masterpiece. In my view, most great movies are 3½ stars.

On rare occasions, I also rate movies 3¾ stars, which is an excellent movie that doesn't quite reach the level of masterpiece.

A 4 star movie is a masterpiece, though not perfect. I have yet to see a perfect movie. I rate very few movies 4 stars, regardless of how much I love them or have seen them. I'm very stingy with 4 stars. Most movies Leonard Maltin has given 4 stars I'd give 3½.

Here's a list of my favorite movies and how I rate them:

Blood Simple - 3½
Casablanca - 3½
Dr Strangelove - 4
Ex Machina - 3½
The 400 Blows - 3½
Harvey - 3½
It's a Wonderful Life - 3¾
Lost Highway - 3½
Night of the Hunter - 3½
Psycho - 4
Scrooge (1951 version of A Christmas Carol) - 3¾*
Shane - 3½
The Shining - 3¾
Stalag 17 - 3½
12 Angry Men - 3¾
2001 - 4

*The reason Scrooge doesn't get 4 stars is because of a shooting error. In the scene after Scrooge has woken up Christmas morning and during his conversation with his maid, there are a couple of shots of him looking in a mirror. In the mirror you can see the reflection of a crewmember peaking out from behind a curtain. Had they re-shot those two shots, I'd give it 4 stars because it really is a wonderful movie. But that crewmember in the mirror briefly yanks me out of the fantasy and so in good conscience, I can't rate it as high as I'd like.

I should probably have mentioned that I will sometimes rate movies 3¼ stars, too. I usually do that for movies from great directors but need to distinguish between their best movies and their other movies, many of which are better than just 3 stars. A lot of Frank Capra and Coen Bros movies I'd give 3¼ stars. Or take Coppola. The Conversation and The Godfather I'd give 3¼ stars, whereas The Godfather II and Apocalypse Now I'd give 3½. And yeah, I know, most people would call them all 4 star movies. Not me. The Conversation is not a 3½ star movie but is still a movie of great craft. My problems with The Godfather are that James Caan should have never been cast as "Sonny", his fight with "Connie's" husband doesn't look real, and if you've ever seen old people who are "jowly", Brando's attempt at looking jowly doesn't work for me. Other than that, the movie's as good as anything Coppola ever did. TGII and AN are very nearly equal, tho I'd give the edge to AN... which I should probably give 3¾ stars, but it's been awhile since I've seen it. Regardless, neither are true masterpieces, imo.

Or another example is where you have a typical 3 star director who makes a movie much better than their usual stuff but not quite up to the level of a typical 3½ star movie. Two examples of this are Penny Marshall's Awakenings and Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men, both of which are 3¼ star movies, imo.

And then there are the movies that are fun to watch, that you can watch over and over again, and are better than just 3 stars but don't require much thought. Movies like Caddyshack, A Christmas Story, Get Shorty, and My Cousin Vinny are all 3¼ movies, in my book.

So, in general, I think I'm kind of generous giving 3 stars but get increasingly stingy the higher I go.


Sorry for going on so long.

[Jerjo]

How to Steal a Million - w/Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole

Damn, I missed that one. I love a good caper

[Staun]

Hal, I have noticed the themes TCM does. A while back I saw Billy Bud, Captain Blood, Mutiny On the Bounty with Brando and Black Beard. I have seen The Hot Rock, not bad. Your list of films using the Maltin scale seems fair.

[Staun]

Hal; "If any of you have never seen The Hot Rock, do yourself a favor and see it. It's not a 4 star movie but you won't be disappointed. I would even go so far as to say it's the best heist movie I've ever seen. We saw it at the drive-in the year it was released. I've seen it a few times since, over the years – the most recent time a couple years ago – and it's a pretty entertaining and often amusing movie."

You're right , it's not a four star movie. It's a FIVE *****
Afganistan Bananastan

For some reason it always makes me think of Harry In Your Pocket. Maybe I saw them around the same time.

[nycsteve]

All I have to say is,
Afghanistan Bananastan.
Period.

[Hal...]

Damn, I missed that one. I love a good caper

It expires today, so you can still stream it.

A while back I saw Billy Bud, Captain Blood, Mutiny On the Bounty with Brando and Black Beard.

I watched the original MotB w/Charles Laughton awhile back. It was pretty good. I also saw another movie in the same vein around the same time but can't think of what it was, now. It was pretty good, too. I'll have to wrack my brain to see if I can come up with the title.

Your list of films using the Maltin scale seems fair.

Thanks. I think it was the standard scale for a long time and I know Roger Ebert used it, too. Somewhere along the line some reviewers started using a 5 star scale and I didn't like it. With the internet, I think, came the 1 to 10 scale.

In the other movie thread, I usually use letter grades because that seems easier for everyone to understand. The consensus in that thread, however, seems to be a scale from 1 to 10. I can't quite come to terms with that one because in my opinion there is no perfect movie and giving something a 10 would make it perfect, to my way of thinking. With 4 stars or an A, there's a tiny bit of wiggle room.

[Hal...]

I noticed, the other day, the British Film Institute published their decennial Sight & Sound poll of the greatest movies ever made. They divide it into two; one for critics, the other for directors.

Here is the critics' list:

1. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975, Belgium/France)
2. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958, USA)
3. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941, USA)
4. Tokyo Story (Ozu Yasujiro, 1953, Japan)
5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai, 2000, Hong Kong/France)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968, UK/USA)
7. Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1998, France)
8. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001, USA)
9. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929, USSR)
10. Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952, USA)

The directors' list:

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
2. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
3. The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
4. Tie: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman, 1975); Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
6. Tie: Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958); 8½ (Fellini, 1963)
9. Tie: Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975); Close-up (Kiarostami, 1989); In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2000); Persona (Bergman, 1966)


I'd like to see your lists, as well, because you may list some things I haven't seen and because I'd like to see if there's any overlap with mine.

So here's my list, with a few sentimental favorites thrown in.

Other than the first two, I'm listing them chronologically. And, yes, I know there are more than ten because the list seems to keep growing.

2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968) – it's not my favorite movie but I'm of the opinion it's the greatest movie ever made.
Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, 1964) – this is my favorite. I also happen to think it's the second greatest movie ever made.
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
Harvey (Henry Koster, 1950)
Scrooge (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1951)
Shane (George Stevens, 1953)
Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder, 1957)
Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet 1957)
The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959)
Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
The Day of the Jackal (Fred Zinnemann, 1973)
The Shining (Kubrick, 1980)
Blood Simple (Joel Coen, 1984)
Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997)
Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2014)


So what are your favorites?

[ronmac]

Hal, what keeps "Psycho" from being a perfect movie? I suppose some kind of technical flaw?

[Staun]

All I have to say is,
Afghanistan Bananastan.
Period.

Stan Stanastan.

[Staun]

Hal, what keeps "Psycho" from being a perfect movie? I suppose some kind of technical flaw?

Maybe too uncomfortable for some.

[Staun]

Hal, you feel that 2001 is the greatest. I don’t even know how to approach this but I do remember a time when I held Dr. Zhivago in very high regard.

[ronmac]

Maybe too uncomfortable for some.

That's all about the viewer, though. That should have no bearing on the movie.

[Staun]

That's all about the viewer, though. That should have no bearing on the movie.

Yes, of course. Did you have a particular technical point in mind, Ron?