A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#150-101)

Three parts left in the first 1000 (before the updates).  The introduction can be found here.  The preceding parts of the list can be found here.

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A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#250-201)

Another part of the Top 1000 films through 2011.  The introduction can be found here.  Preceding parts of the list can be found here.  All of these films are a 95, which is high ****.  All but 6 of these films (all in very good years) earned Nighthawk nominations for Best Picture.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 2010

“You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.” Not in Mezrich’s book. That’s pure Sorkin.  And true.  100% true.

My Top 10

1. The Social Network
2. True Grit
3. The Ghost Writer
4. Winter’s Bone
5. Toy Story 3
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
7. The Town
8. Shutter Island
9. Rabbit Hole
10. Never Let Me Go

note:  A much stronger Top 5 and Top 10 than the previous years.

 

A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#350-301)

Yet another part in my countdown of the Top 1000 films in the first Century of Film (1912-2011).  The introduction can be found here and be clicking here, you can scroll through the preceding parts.  Every film in this group of 50 earns a 94 which is high ****.

 

A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#450-401)

This is the 12th part of the countdown of the Top 1000 Films of the first Century of Film (1912-2011).  The introduction can be found here.  Just click here to find the other parts.

Films 450 through 428 are a 92.  The rest are a 93.  Both are mid ****.

 

A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#550-501)

This is the 10th part of the Top 1000 list.  The introduction can be found here.  This might be the only group of 50 in the Top 1000 without a single Hitchcock, Spielberg, Kurosawa or Woody Allen film among them.
Except for the four films at the bottom, these are all a 91 which is mid-range ****.  The bottom four films are all 92.

 

A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#650-601)

This is the 8th part and the introduction can be found here.  All 50 films in this section earn a 90 which is a lower range **** film.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 2002

“As Laura sets the plates and forks on the table – as they ring softly on the starched white cloth – it seems she has succeeded suddenly, at the last minute, the way a painter might brush a final line of color onto a painting and save it from incoherence; the way a writer might set down the line that brings to light the submerged patterns and symmetry in the drama. It has to do, somehow, with setting plates and forks on a white cloth. It is as unmistakable as it is unexpected.” (p 207)

My Top 10

1. The Hours
2. Adaptation
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
4. Minority Report
5. The Pianist
6. The Quiet American
7. About a Boy
8. Road to Perdition
9. Solaris
10. About Schmidt

note:  A fantastic Top 5 and Top 10 as should be expected from one of the best years in film history.  There is also a very long list after that.  My #11 (Catch Me if You Can), #12 (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) and #15 (Chicago) are reviewed because of award considerations.  But my full list was 30 films long and the other 17 are listed down at the bottom.
note:  Until libraries fully reopen in San Diego, this is the list Adapted Screenplay post I can do.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 1994

This didn’t come straight from the book but neither did anything else in the film.

My Top 10

1. Ed Wood
2. The Shawshank Redemption
3. Quiz Show
4. Nobody’s Fool
5. Grave of the Fireflies
6. The Madness of King George
7. Little Women
8. Death and the Maiden
9. Vanya on 42nd Street
10. To Live

note:  There will be more to say about this in the Awards post which comes next.

 

A Century of Film: Mysteries

A Century of Film

Mysteries

The Genre

 

“What about Film Noir?” Veronica asked me as I was talking about this category.  But, as I explained to her, Film Noir itself isn’t a genre, but a style that moves across multiple genres, usually Crime, Mystery and Suspense.  Crime films are easier to pull out because, as I explained in the Crime post, they are films in which the main character is a criminal.  It is a lot more difficult to draw a line between Crime films and Suspense films and you could easily take all of Mystery and make it a sub-section of Suspense films.  But I will try.