No matter how many times I’ve seen it, if I happen upon it while channel surfing, I get sucked into it again. Tight writing and directing that doesn’t miss a beat, top-notch actors with believable chemistry, an evocative sense of time and place, great cinematography, and unforgettable music…such movies often define an entire genre.
For all or most of those reasons, my Top 12:
Blade Runner
Chinatown
Dirty Dancing
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
High Fidelity
Out of Africa
Primal Fear
Pulp Fiction
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Big Lebowski
The Game
Thelma & Louise
Urban Cowboy
///
RetroFlash/100 words
Barbara BucklesArtist, writer, storyteller, spy. Okay, not a spy…I was just going for the rhythm.
I call myself “an inveterate dabbler.” (And my husband calls me “an invertebrate babbler.”) I just love to create one way or another. My latest passion is telling true stories live, on stage. Because it scares the hell out of me.
As a memoirist, I focus on the undercurrents. Drawing from memory, diaries, notes, letters and photographs, I never ever lie, but I do claim creative license when fleshing out actual events in order to enhance the literary quality, i.e., what I might have been wearing, what might have been on the table, what season it might have been. By virtue of its genre, memoir also adds a patina of introspection and insight that most probably did not exist in real time.
Characterizations:
right on!, well written
Thanx Bebe, you’ve named some movies I’ve never seen, adding them to my bucket list!
Enjoy, Dee!
Good list, Barb. We get sucked into movies while channel surfing too. The only one on your list that I’m not very familiar with is The Game. I think we’ve only seen bits of it, but David Fincher always delivers.
I think I’ll watch The Game again…it’s definitely worth it!
You reminded me of many of my favorites, Barb. We just saw Chinatown for an online film class and it really holds up well. Have Ferris Bueller on our DVD for a pick me up. I would rewatch any of the films on your list!
Yep, Ferris Bueller is a feel-good hoot…and quite the love letter to Chicago!
A really good list, Barb. Thanks for sharing. And it reminded me that, despite the disclaimer in my own story, there are some other movies that I’ve at least seen large parts of more than once. Ferris Bueller and The Big Lebowski in particular.
Both of which have become iconic and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, I might add. Heady.
Nice RetroFlash, Barb, and a good reminder to rewatch a bunch on this list, plus a few I’ve not seen, like High Fidelity and Primal Fear.
Thanks, Mare…I’m excited to think of you watching both of those films…vastly different but equally enjoyable, at least in my book.
I am a wuss when it comes to drama, and some of the films you mention sound like scary movies (Primal Fear, Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction) and too painful to watch, however well-made. But I trust your artistic sense, and thank you for the list.
And I trust your instinct NOT to watch those, Khati…yes, they are a little scary but, to me, in a good way!
Actually you list 13 movies. I’ve seen 8 of them, and agree that they were all wonderful, although I don’t know if I necessarily want to rewatch them. Now I need to take a look at the other 5. We don’t have any such thing as channel surfing, because we don’t have cable, but presumably I can find them streaming somewhere, or check out the DVDs from the library.
Well, be sure to read some reviews first…your taste may not be the same as mine!
“Tight writing and directing that doesn’t miss a beat, top-notch actors with believable chemistry, an evocative sense of time and place, great cinematography, and unforgettable music…such movies often define an entire genre.” Well, I guess that defines the polar opposite of my rewatchable movies. Just kidding. Sorta. But well said, and your list is spot on.
LOL…that’s what makes for horse racing, Tom!
I have seen most but not all of your 13. The others are now on my bucket list. Actually my bucket list–both for movies and for other things to do–is more conceptual than real. If I do not do everything on my list, will I be disappointed? I don’t think so, and I hope that I will not know.
Starting a bucket list is now on my bucket list.