I have listed the top movie from each decade starting in 1910 that I most enjoy. Keep in mind that while almost all of these movies are critical and box-office hits, they are not necessarily the best the decade has to offer. They are simply my personal favorites.
To give credit where credit is due, I got this idea from the Sports Guy, Bill Simmons.
Along with each favorite movie, I have included some close runners-up that I felt needed some deserved praise.
Now on with the list:
1910-1919: Birth of a Nation (1915) – While other countries were making films that were multiple reels long, America’s Hollywood was sticking to short, one-reel wonders. D.W. Griffith’s Civil War epic showed local moviegoers that stories could be woven among numerous movie reels and still hold our attention for more than 12 minutes. This is the film that changed movie making in Hollywood like Citizen Kane did three decades later. Honorable Mention: Intolerance (1916)
1920-1929: Metropolis (1927) – You will see when you get to the other titles given honorable mention in this decade that the best directors of this decade were not in America. Metropolis is a story that tackles a serious issue of the working poor vs. the prosperous capitalist owners and put it to a science fiction theme. It has great visuals and is a classic in silent film cinema. Honorable Mention: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligeri (1920), Nosferatu (1922).
1930-1939: King Kong (1933) – The 1930s and 1940s are considered the Golden Age of filmmaking, and from the list of movies to choose from for my favorite from these two decades it is easy to see why. A 9-year-old child watching the 1933 classic King Kong today would probably think he could do a better job of special effects and stop motion photography, but at the time it was akin to today’s animation in a Pixar film and the Star Wars prequel CGI. I could watch Kong and original scream queen Fay Wray hours upon end because it illustrates the creativity Hollywood had to use before computers. Honorable Mention: Frankenstein (1931), Gone With the Wind (1939)
1940-1949: Casablanca (1942) – This film has everything: drama, comedy, romance, songs and it’s all set during World War II, adding another genre. The chemistry among all the actors from Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Raines on down to Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Conrad Veidt and Dooley Wilson. The dialogue and cinematography is some of the best you will find in film, with iconic quotes and shots having become a part of pop culture. I can safely say this film is about as perfect as it gets. Honorable Mention: The Great Dictator (1940), The Maltese Falcon (1942), The Third Man (1949)
1950-1959: The Asphalt Jungle (1950) – This is likely the most obscure film on this list. A dark, methodical crime drama that shows the inner-workings of planning and executing a heist, The Asphalt Jungle is outstanding in its storytelling and acting. If you are into movies like Heat and The Italian Job, then check this out and the payoff will be worth it. Honorable Mention: On the Waterfront (1954), North by Northwest (1959)
1960-1969: From Russia With Love (1963) – Of course I am going to have a Bond movie somewhere on this list. Its utilization of fewer gadgets lets Bond use his wits rather than an Omega watch with built-in laser. There are twists and turns throughout the film, which begins during the first Bond pre-title sequence where our hero is hunted down by a homicidal assassin, fabulously played by Robert Shaw. I enjoy this film more than the formulaic Bond movie because it is more authentic than any other film in the series. Honorable Mention: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
1970-1979: The Godfather (1972) – This is the quintessential mafia movie. It is the litmus test of other gangster flicks. From the first glimpse of the title being held up by a puppeteer to the final scene of Diane Keaton having the door closed on her to hide a meeting between the other family, you are shown the greatest thing ever put to celluloid. Every time I watch The Godfather I want to start it over and watch it again. Honorable Mention: The Godfather: Part II (1974); Jaws (1975); One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
1980-1989: Back to the Future (1985) – From a pure entertainment point of view, this and From Russia With Love are my two favorite movies to watch. The amount of quotable lines from this movie is endless. I sometimes even find myself walking around just saying them out loud, with no context whatsoever. I’m sure when I am mumbling, “Save the clock tower! Save the clock tower!” it gets me a few quizzical looks from passersby. My brother and I wore this movie’s videocassette out at our house when we were younger. Another great aspect of this movie is that it doesn’t lose value from its sequels. Despite the third movie not being near what number one and two are, all three mesh together very well for a quality trilogy. Honorable Mention: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
1990-1999: Saving Private Ryan (1998) – This movie was robbed at the Academy Awards of a Best Picture Oscar. There is no way if voting was held again on all the movies from that year that Shakespeare in Love would beat out this superior work. Although the scenes tacked on to the beginning and end seem a little cheesy, they are perfect bookends to what is – in my humble opinion – the greatest war movie ever made. The 20-minute storming of Normandy rocked moviegoers and proved that war really was hell in those days. Beautiful cinematography, well-paced storytelling, and exceptional performances from every actor makes this movie a must see for any fan of film. Honorable Mention: Forrest Gump (1994); Swingers (1996)
2000-2009: The Incredibles (2004) – I discovered in my mid- to late-20s that I was a comic book geek. I had a small stash of comic books when I was a kid, but I wasn’t really into the whole scene of waiting outside the store for the latest edition of Spider-man or Superman. However, once the genre blew up in movie theaters in the late 1990s I was scouring Wikipedia wanting to know all about these characters I was watching. Then Pixar came along with their superhero family. The greatness of Pixar has been well documented and it would be a waste of time to go into great detail about what makes their movies superior to everyone else’s. Let’s just say Pixar makes movies for themselves and their fans. They don’t do it for advertising dollars. The Incredibles is my favorite of the Pixar movies, not because it is the best, but because it leaves me laughing and entertained every time I watch it. Edna Mode alone is worth coming back for more. Honorable Mention: Finding Nemo (2003); The Dark Knight (2008)
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Top Movie Studios Of 2008
One of the biggest film industry surprises in 2008 was The Dark Knight (a widely revered film by both critics and fans) breaking the billion-dollar mark after about 30 weeks in theaters. Since Warner Bros. made a killing off the superhero in 2008, I was interested to know how that company, along with several others, made out for the year. The following are some numbers to make your head spin that calculate how much money the top 10 production companies grossed last year.
The entire film industry grossed $9.63 billion in 2008, with nearly half of that going to Warner Bros., Paramount and Sony/Columbia.
Thanks mostly in part to The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. grossed $1.767 billion, or 18.4 percent of the market share. Paramount was close behind with $1.577 billion (16.4 percent) and Sony/Columbia rounded out the top three grossing $1.267 billion (13.2 percent).
Universal — which is owned by NBC — grossed 11 percent of the market share, receiving 1.054 billion. The last two companies to receive more than a billion each were 20th Century Fox ($1.014 billion) and Buena Vista ($1.011 billion). Both grossed approximately 10.5 percent of the market share.
Rounding out the top 10 were Lionsgate ($436 million, 4.5 percent), Summit Entertainment ($226 million, 2.4 percent), Fox Searchlight (214 million, 2.2 percent) and MGM/UA (160 million, 1.7 percent).
All of this is great, but what does it really mean? Well, if you look at each production company’s slate of movies released, studios like Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox and MGM/UA don’t really come off as well as they might originally have looked. Keep in mind that the rule of thumb for movie making is a film has to gross approximately twice its budget to break even, but that is combining both domestic and international box office money. So although production companies might make more than a billion dollars in one year, their profits don’t necessarily show that they had a great year.
Take Lionsgate for example. It came in as the seventh highest grossing company earning $436 million, but it also released 19 films in 2008. Paramount tracked 17 movies in 2008 — three of which were released in 2007 and the gross from those films were taken from a certain amount of weeks after its initial release — and made nearly four times as much money. Per film, Lionsgate made $22.95 million for 2008. Paramount grossed approximately $92.76 million in the same amount of time.
Lionsgate wasn’t the lowest performing movie studio in 2008, however, MGM/UA earned somewhere between $9-13 million per picture.
As daunting as these figures are, I’m not even taking into account what the budgets for each film were, so really Lionsgate and MGM/UA might have made movies on shoestring budgets while Paramount lost money on every single one of its movies because of blockbuster budgets that didn’t ever pay off, but that is unlikely.
Maybe one of these days I’ll do the extra work and figure out exactly who was the big winner for 2008, but since I’m exhausted after all of this I’m just going to pretend that since The Dark Knight kicked butt both monetarily and literally this past year, Warner Bros. is the big winner. Warner Bros. wins. Now let’s go down to the Dresden and be all happy that some girl is wearing a backpack.
The entire film industry grossed $9.63 billion in 2008, with nearly half of that going to Warner Bros., Paramount and Sony/Columbia.
Thanks mostly in part to The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. grossed $1.767 billion, or 18.4 percent of the market share. Paramount was close behind with $1.577 billion (16.4 percent) and Sony/Columbia rounded out the top three grossing $1.267 billion (13.2 percent).
Universal — which is owned by NBC — grossed 11 percent of the market share, receiving 1.054 billion. The last two companies to receive more than a billion each were 20th Century Fox ($1.014 billion) and Buena Vista ($1.011 billion). Both grossed approximately 10.5 percent of the market share.
Rounding out the top 10 were Lionsgate ($436 million, 4.5 percent), Summit Entertainment ($226 million, 2.4 percent), Fox Searchlight (214 million, 2.2 percent) and MGM/UA (160 million, 1.7 percent).
All of this is great, but what does it really mean? Well, if you look at each production company’s slate of movies released, studios like Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox and MGM/UA don’t really come off as well as they might originally have looked. Keep in mind that the rule of thumb for movie making is a film has to gross approximately twice its budget to break even, but that is combining both domestic and international box office money. So although production companies might make more than a billion dollars in one year, their profits don’t necessarily show that they had a great year.
Take Lionsgate for example. It came in as the seventh highest grossing company earning $436 million, but it also released 19 films in 2008. Paramount tracked 17 movies in 2008 — three of which were released in 2007 and the gross from those films were taken from a certain amount of weeks after its initial release — and made nearly four times as much money. Per film, Lionsgate made $22.95 million for 2008. Paramount grossed approximately $92.76 million in the same amount of time.
Lionsgate wasn’t the lowest performing movie studio in 2008, however, MGM/UA earned somewhere between $9-13 million per picture.
As daunting as these figures are, I’m not even taking into account what the budgets for each film were, so really Lionsgate and MGM/UA might have made movies on shoestring budgets while Paramount lost money on every single one of its movies because of blockbuster budgets that didn’t ever pay off, but that is unlikely.
Maybe one of these days I’ll do the extra work and figure out exactly who was the big winner for 2008, but since I’m exhausted after all of this I’m just going to pretend that since The Dark Knight kicked butt both monetarily and literally this past year, Warner Bros. is the big winner. Warner Bros. wins. Now let’s go down to the Dresden and be all happy that some girl is wearing a backpack.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Why I’m A Fan Of James Bond
For those who love movies, there are certain milestone moments in life that cinema gives us. It might be the first flick a person was watching when they made it to second base. Maybe for you it is when a special effect or CGI innovation makes your eyes bug out and you can’t hold back a “wow” in the theater.
For me I have a few highlights in cinema. Take for example the animated/live action classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That is the movie I saw the most times in theaters (13 if you were wondering). Like many other 1993 summer moviegoers, Steven Spielberg made me believe dinosaurs could be resurrected from millions of years of extinction with fossilized mosquitoes and frog DNA because of the realism his effects portrayed in Jurassic Park.
When I was 17 I had another one of these moments that involved my cinematic hero, James Bond.
While working at a video store in high school, my coworker and I had a pretty slow summer afternoon shift and we discussed watching a movie (which was a no-no with corporate management). After bouncing around some ideas of movies to watch, we settled on starting with Dr. No and watching all the films in the series every time we had a shift together. A couple of hours later I was leaving work and with me were From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball and You Only Live Twice.
I have never been so hooked on something so fast before. I had a new shiny toy and I wanted to play with it until its batteries died or Daddy took it away because I wouldn’t come to the dinner table.
Within a matter of days I had watched every James Bond movie available and was already on my way to purchasing the entire series on video (yes, this was way back in the day of the VCR).
Although at times (and certainly with the reboot of 2007’s Casino Royale) the series’ creators throw a curve ball at the audience to keep things fresh, the James Bond movies pretty much follow a formula that has been laid out since From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. You know exactly what you are going to get from a 007 picture, but that is sort of what makes me love the series even more.
The elements are always there: action, a dashing leading man, beautiful women, megalomaniac villains, gadgets, fast cars, exotic locales, henchmen with a distinctive characteristic and sidekicks who play the sacrificial lamb. Also, you can almost always rely on a scene or two with your favorite MI6 allies in the forms of M, Moneypenny and Q.
This repetition bothers some people who think the series is played out and should be put down for lack of originality, but every entry in the series brings something new to cinemagoers, whether it is a fresh take on how to hold the world ransom or simply a new stunt that excites the audience like never before. James Bond is going to win in the end and the credits usually scroll as our favorite British spy has his arms locked around some international beauty. I don’t go to the theater or buy the DVDs to be surprised by Bond. No, I go because I want to live vicariously through this man and his over-the-top, out-of-this-world, no fear lifestyle.
Just think that if James Bond were a real man, he would have contracted a venereal disease with one of his many partners, smoke and drunk himself a tumor or died by the third or fourth adventure because bad guys in the real world don’t invite their rivals to dinner.
So why would we want James Bond to be a realistic character? Real spies don’t drive fancy cars or wear tuxedos. They sneak around offices and organizations obtaining information from e-mails and late-night rendezvous. Occasionally gunplay is involved I’m sure (I don’t really know because the CIA won’t get back to me about my application), but in general it is a pretty low-profile occupation that involves high risk and very low reward.
Have I covered anything that hasn’t already been said before? Not really. We all know who James Bond is. We know the routine going into the theater. That doesn’t mean though that the ride isn’t still going to be fun.
For me I have a few highlights in cinema. Take for example the animated/live action classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That is the movie I saw the most times in theaters (13 if you were wondering). Like many other 1993 summer moviegoers, Steven Spielberg made me believe dinosaurs could be resurrected from millions of years of extinction with fossilized mosquitoes and frog DNA because of the realism his effects portrayed in Jurassic Park.
When I was 17 I had another one of these moments that involved my cinematic hero, James Bond.
While working at a video store in high school, my coworker and I had a pretty slow summer afternoon shift and we discussed watching a movie (which was a no-no with corporate management). After bouncing around some ideas of movies to watch, we settled on starting with Dr. No and watching all the films in the series every time we had a shift together. A couple of hours later I was leaving work and with me were From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball and You Only Live Twice.
I have never been so hooked on something so fast before. I had a new shiny toy and I wanted to play with it until its batteries died or Daddy took it away because I wouldn’t come to the dinner table.
Within a matter of days I had watched every James Bond movie available and was already on my way to purchasing the entire series on video (yes, this was way back in the day of the VCR).
Although at times (and certainly with the reboot of 2007’s Casino Royale) the series’ creators throw a curve ball at the audience to keep things fresh, the James Bond movies pretty much follow a formula that has been laid out since From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. You know exactly what you are going to get from a 007 picture, but that is sort of what makes me love the series even more.
The elements are always there: action, a dashing leading man, beautiful women, megalomaniac villains, gadgets, fast cars, exotic locales, henchmen with a distinctive characteristic and sidekicks who play the sacrificial lamb. Also, you can almost always rely on a scene or two with your favorite MI6 allies in the forms of M, Moneypenny and Q.
This repetition bothers some people who think the series is played out and should be put down for lack of originality, but every entry in the series brings something new to cinemagoers, whether it is a fresh take on how to hold the world ransom or simply a new stunt that excites the audience like never before. James Bond is going to win in the end and the credits usually scroll as our favorite British spy has his arms locked around some international beauty. I don’t go to the theater or buy the DVDs to be surprised by Bond. No, I go because I want to live vicariously through this man and his over-the-top, out-of-this-world, no fear lifestyle.
Just think that if James Bond were a real man, he would have contracted a venereal disease with one of his many partners, smoke and drunk himself a tumor or died by the third or fourth adventure because bad guys in the real world don’t invite their rivals to dinner.
So why would we want James Bond to be a realistic character? Real spies don’t drive fancy cars or wear tuxedos. They sneak around offices and organizations obtaining information from e-mails and late-night rendezvous. Occasionally gunplay is involved I’m sure (I don’t really know because the CIA won’t get back to me about my application), but in general it is a pretty low-profile occupation that involves high risk and very low reward.
Have I covered anything that hasn’t already been said before? Not really. We all know who James Bond is. We know the routine going into the theater. That doesn’t mean though that the ride isn’t still going to be fun.
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