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Post by wilcinema on Jun 5, 2021 18:51:52 GMT
McCabe and Mrs. Miller is one Altman I can very easily get behind.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 5, 2021 18:53:04 GMT
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) Director: Robert Altman 214 points from 13 ballots Highest Placement: #1 on 2 ballots
6th and it predates The Godfather in what it says about America as a business too........it could have been higher than 6th too - it's an all-timer
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Post by Mattsby on Jun 5, 2021 18:53:26 GMT
All of these films are playing a fair game of chance... who's seen which and voted what where.... but how many have played that game at John Q McCabe's? I haven't been offered this much Good Liquor since my last PM from MsMovieStar......... 13 Ballots got poetry in 'em! they do they do....
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Nikan
Based
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Post by Nikan on Jun 5, 2021 18:53:39 GMT
Altman is so good he scares me.
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Archie
Based
Eraserhead son or Inland Empire daughter?
Posts: 3,662
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Post by Archie on Jun 5, 2021 18:55:22 GMT
Slow down my Altmaniacs! I can't like all these posts.
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Javi
Badass
Posts: 1,532
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Post by Javi on Jun 5, 2021 18:55:29 GMT
Sooo close to the Top 10 it hurts. Still, well done MAR!
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Post by themoviesinner on Jun 5, 2021 18:56:27 GMT
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Jun 5, 2021 18:57:47 GMT
Shocked but pleased this hit the Top 10. I doesn't get discussed much, so it's hard to gauge the boards opinion on it.
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Post by RiverleavesElmius on Jun 5, 2021 18:58:00 GMT
"And then leaning on your window sill He'll say one day you caused his will To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter. He was just some Joseph looking for a manger." My #1 favorite film western of ALL-TIME. In my ballot and my all-time Top 100. ❤❤
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Post by wilcinema on Jun 5, 2021 18:58:08 GMT
I didn't expect A Clockwork Orange to make the Top 10 but I'm glad because... it was my #1
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Post by ibbi on Jun 5, 2021 18:58:40 GMT
I should ask Ibbi for the review I did for this back during the BP review days. Ah, the nostalgia of the BP review series. (That series is how I wound up on this board, unfortunately for the lot of you.) Terrific film, is the short version. ta-dah! Author's note: I know this was meant to be a review, but this rewatch was not kind at all. I turned it into a sort of essay as a way to find something to write about. This gets very long-winded, and I repeat myself several times, but I'm hoping that there's something of worth in here, to look at the film in a new way. This will contain spoilers, so use your own judgment.
"They're telling me I'm crazy over here because I don't sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don't make a bit of sense to me. If that's what being crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko."
From the beginning of the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest stands proud of what it is: a counterculture call to arms, to tell conformity to shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Subtle it ain't, but there's much to admire in the sheer energy and zest that star Jack Nicholson brings to the film, as Randall Patrick McMurphy, a troublemaker sent from a penitentiary to a mental hospital on account of his unruly behavior. Dated as the film is, there is much to enjoy as he turns the institution on its head: mounting escapes, running a casino in his ward, calling in willing female company, or challenging the authoritarian Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) to screw the rules for once and just let the guys watch the goddamn World Series -- all along the way inspiring his fellow inmates to buck the rules, take a leap, and live a little.
This single-mindedness is both the movie's greatest strength and its most grating failing. The passion on display here is impossible to ignore, but "radical agitator as messiah" is a hard pill to swallow. I can laugh at him, but it is very hard to give a damn about a protagonist who is such a self-centered jackass.
But perhaps I'm not giving Cuckoo's Nest enough credit. Maybe that's the point.
R.P. is the shallowest of shallow figures. Several scenes throughout the film follow the same formula: McMurphy flicks off the system, everyone else looks on in awe, repeat, repeat, repeat. The message is clear as day. McMurphy is awesome, authority is stifling, you should kick an old lady in the shins today because you've always wanted to, don't deny it.
Now consider the scene when McMurphy learns that the other guys on the ward are all voluntarily committed. At first glance, this scene plays out as another counterculture tract, as he stares in shock at all these dumb lunks. Why would they give up th 5b4 eir own freedom for life in an ordered, predictable prison?
But is McMurphy so different from them?
He would argue that he is. He sees his rebellion as the very antithesis of their meek acceptance. He is the only one with balls, dammit. And yet his rebellion becomes a form of acceptance in its own way. It becomes the status quo. What starts as a genuine fight against totalitarianism transforms into an empty ritual, with McMurphy playing the role of one more crazy doing his crazy thing. And it works well for him: He gets praise and admiration from the guys, he has fun, and he never has to leave his comfort zone. He only has to trade away the one thing he's proud of: his individuality. One more nut in the nuthouse.
This happens in increments. When he refuses to take a pill without knowing what it is, or when he tries to do the impossible by throwing an immovable drinking fountain through a window, the fire of a revolutionary is in his speech and eyes. As the story moves along, though, he becomes respected. The others look up to him as he steals a fishing boat, or announces an imaginary World Series game.
By the end, he is bringing hookers into the ward, throwing parties, and speaking (but never more than speaking) of how he will make his daring escape. When he gets the chance to leave, he falls asleep next to an open window, the tantalizing possibility of freedom literally within his grasp. But is t b68 hat so hard to understand? Could he be celebrated and lauded as a hero out there? Maybe he could. But why risk it when he has everything he could ever need on the inside?
There are moments when the old Randall McMurphy comes shining through. There always are, you know. Twice, he gets involved in heated confrontations with the orderlies and nurses, rushing to the defense of a helpless patient. Sometimes, maybe he sees a window or a fence and thinks in his heart "I can leave here, I can go to Canada and make a new life." Sometimes, he sees oppression and instinctively fights to stop it, a remnant of spirit from days long past.
Some day perhaps, the legend of McMurphy, spoken in hushed voices, may inspire someone else to take the leap, screw the rules, throw that fountain through the window and to hell with the consequences.
But not him.
The perfect title for this film had been used five years earlier, by Bernardo Bertolucci: The Conformist. The greatest irony, of a man who set out to be different, and in the process conformed to the society around him. The man who "tried, goddamnit, at least he did that" became the man who was complacent in his own imprisonment.
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Post by themoviesinner on Jun 5, 2021 18:59:13 GMT
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Post by countjohn on Jun 5, 2021 19:00:06 GMT
Pretty meh on every aspect of Clockwork Orange other than McDowell's performance. It was a foregone conclusion it would rank highly, though.
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Jun 5, 2021 19:00:16 GMT
This film is kinda perfect...or as close to perfect as a film can get.
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Post by wilcinema on Jun 5, 2021 19:00:18 GMT
The music from The Conversation is sooooo underrated.
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Post by themoviesinner on Jun 5, 2021 19:01:11 GMT
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Post by Mattsby on Jun 5, 2021 19:01:20 GMT
[The Conversation] Gladly 1 of the #2s. As flawless a movie I've seens
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Jun 5, 2021 19:01:57 GMT
The music from The Conversation is sooooo underrated. I know, it's a great score. I actually consider it a personal favorite. David Shire is underrated in general.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 5, 2021 19:02:20 GMT
The Conversation (1974) Director: Francis Ford Coppola 250 points from 18 ballots Highest Placement: #2 on 2 ballotsObviously my number 2 since I've been saying it for 156 years on IMDB & here......this movie is about privacy which now no longer exists - some scary stuff .....I could write a book about it, and if you string together all my posts about it that wouldn't start to cover its genius
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Post by wilcinema on Jun 5, 2021 19:02:27 GMT
Duel walked so Jaws could run.
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Jun 5, 2021 19:02:29 GMT
Have always and will always love Jaws. It just made it onto my ballot.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jun 5, 2021 19:02:37 GMT
I actually put The Conversation at #3, but in this decade, that's no insult.
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Post by countjohn on Jun 5, 2021 19:02:44 GMT
In a similar vein to Alien I like Jaws but that's way too high.
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Post by themoviesinner on Jun 5, 2021 19:03:49 GMT
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Post by RiverleavesElmius on Jun 5, 2021 19:03:50 GMT
When I re-visited this classic a few years ago, I had the thought that it felt like what it would look like if the Monty Python guys tried to do a serious dark horror film with a satirical edge. Felt a lot more like that than any film Terry Gilliam's ever made. Another one in my ballot and all-time Top 100.
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