Your top 5 ("Three sir!") 3 movies

[apophenia]

A simple thread. Name your top three movies. Please keep it to three.

Feel free to include synopses, pictures, trivia or your best Roger Ebert impression

I'll start.

1. Farewell My Concubine starring Leslie Cheung, Gong Li and Fengyi Zhang (Wikipedia)

"Farewell, My Concubine" is a movie with two parallel, intertwined stories. It is the story of two performers in the Beijing Opera, stage brothers, and the woman who comes between them. At the same time, it attempts to do no less than squeeze the entire political history of China in the twentieth century into a three-hour time-frame. Garnered 2 Oscar nominations and 7 other Best Foreign Film awards.



2. No Country For Old Men starring Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones (Wikipedia)



3. Aguirre: Wrath Of God starring Klaus Kinski (Wikipedia)

A few decades after the destruction of the Inca empire, a Spanish expedition leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon river in search of gold and wealth. Soon, they come across great difficulties and Don Aguirres, a ruthless man who cares only about riches, becomes their leader. But will his quest lead them to "the golden city", or to certain destruction?

[klr]

I regret to say I've not seen any of those, although No Country For Old Men is patiently waiting on my DVR for viewing at some point. I know of the other two, but being only a sometime movie watcher, it might take me some time yet to get to them.

And now I promise not to post in this thread again until I post my three (current) top movies.

[Ronja]

Waah! That is not a possible assignment! I have at least 20 "top" pictures, and most of them for vastly different reasons.

[Ronja]

Anyway "No Country for Old Men" is on my top list - I'm just not sure if it is in the top three (if I ever manage to define them).

[Jason]

Hmmm.. hard to say. I like different films at different times. I don't know that I can answer this.

edit: Well if I answer my three 'generally' top movies..

1. Logan's Run

2. Stalker

3. Seven Samurai

[Bella Fortuna]

Different moods, different films... I like so many, but these are the three I will choose now.

Sunrise



Greed



The Manchurian Candidate

[Audley Strange]

This is timely, since it's been a topic for much discussion around Strange Castle and environs. I think it very tough to limit to three. However I know definitely what my favourite is, because I have such a love hate relationship with it.

1. The Shining. I will now explain why in tedious detail.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

Kubrick seems to have made a movie which on the face of it seems like a dark farce (something I think all his later movies share) From Jack's daffy duck performance to Shelley's clothing and mannerisms being reflections of goofy (cartoon characters appear a lot in the movie) the whole thing has an air of the absurd about it, even down to the big teddy bear with the eyes that are mirror images of the dials above the bloody elevator. But beneath the overtly cartoonish aspect there are several things going on that I think Kubrick did deliberately to disturb the viewer, without them being conciously aware of it. For example the dead children appear in a corridor that is never seen in the hotel no matter how many times Kubrick maps the place out. The scene with Jack an the zombie chick in the bathtub seems to not be real but a vision of Danny's and of course there is the proliferating and disappearing photographs as well as the moving chairs(in many scenes including the dead girls scene and the bloody elevator) and entrance to the maze moving from the front of the building to the side. Some people have suggested such things are continuity errors. If so there are a lot, too many in fact for someone as obsessive about image as Kubrick I'd say.

There's the whole subtext of the hotel being a place for the elite, placed on an indian burial ground and Jack always being the "muderous" caretaker. This monster character sets about trying to kill a woman and a child and succeeds in killing a black man (a nigger cook as O'Grady has it). In this sense it becomes a horror movie about colonialism and oppression (even having Jack talking about booze being White Man's Burden. Having recently read the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, one of the things that stood out was just how drunk off our asses we were). The hotel manager even mentions them living in the West Wing. I'm stopping because I could go on and on and on.

edit. I'll be back with my other two in a little while.

[Svartalf]

My list would be
1) Excalibur
2) pick one between the Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, the Third Man.
3) Something by Kurosawa, most likely the 7 Samurai, though Castle of the Spider, Yojimbo, or maybe one of those I've not seen yet might take the prize
4) the Seventh Seal.

[Ronja]

Not the least tedious, Mr. Strange! Pray do continue!

[rachelbean]

I can possibly do top 5 (in no order):

The Godfather
The Godfather II
The Royal Tenenbaums
Taxi Driver
Singin' in the Rain

That is just a part of a larger top 20 or 25, but if I was forced to pick it would probably be those, although I may replace The Godfather II with Wild Strawberries or Ponette. Damn it, no, I'll stick with those...I think...

[hadespussercats]

[Bella Fortuna]

My list would be
1) Excalibur
2) pick one between the Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, the Third Man.
3) Something by Kurosawa, most likely the 7 Samurai, though Castle of the Spider, Yojimbo, or maybe one of those I've not seen yet might take the prize
4) the Seventh Seal.

The Third Man was one I almost chose...

[Jason]

My list would be
4) the Seventh Seal.

That's one of my top movies too. You cheated.

[Ronja]

OK, trying to not be too analytic - in alphabetic order:

84 Charing Cross Road
Blade Runner (director's cut, preferably)
Dersu Uzala

I'll have to return with links, pics etc. later - if I don't post this now I'll keep changing my mind forevah...

[Animavore]

Not in order but 3 I love.

Predator.

This is the only movie I can (and have) watch time and time again. I love the line up they have and the camaraderie between them. Even Arnie is quite likable in this. It's heavy on the beef. Heavy on the cheese but it's also fast-paced, tense and has nice explosions.

The Devils.

Interestingly this film is shown in priest seminar in Brazil as an example of what can happen when superstition takes a hold. I hope the irony isn't lost on them or its Catholic director, Ken Russel

In the Name of the Father

Seeing the Guilford Four being handed justice after years of false imprisonment at the hands of the British wells a patriotic sense of righteousness in my chest every time.