I See Dead People (no. 2)

[koganbot]

Look, this is really sad. No list of all-time great movies whose top ten includes only movies I've already seen can be credible.* Or if it is credible, this is a sad world. Not to denigrate my own tastes, judgments, and habits, but round '78 I decided that I didn't have the time or money to watch a lot of movies. And in 1999 I made the decision, I can either be a writer or someone who owns a TV set, but I don't have time for both. So not a lot of movies made in the last 35 years have unfolded (or unspooled or whatever) in front of my eyes.

Not that I've seen nothing in that time. Likely any movie with Steven Seagal that appeared on cable in the late '80s got viewed by me. But in general I no longer have my explorer's hat on.

I'm sure the Sight And Sound poll included gobs of people excited by right now, but obviously there was no consensus in it, no "Here's a movie that's changed the game" or "Here's the flick that called out to everyone."

Strange: visit a local lending library and you'll see just the opposite, the past a bare flickering shadow, westerns all but nonexistent, everybody relaxing into the here and now.

In any event, what's the next movie you're gonna see? Here's mine, if I can find it streaming somewhere for free (was taken down from mysoju):

Watch on YouTube

*Unless the list is entitled Frank's All-Time Top Ten Movies (Restricted To Movies That He's Actually Seen).

Comments

Re: Haven't done one of these in a while.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Sure: was just wondrin if Aliens counts as a non-overrated Cameron. (Alien3 is my favourite of the actual series.)

Re: Haven't done one of these in a while.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I think Aliens is overrated within the Alien series (I often here it cited as the best one), but it's certainly good. Haven't seen it in ages, but as I recall Alien3 was the most "appropriate" alien movie, in the sense that its bizarreness/OTT-ness matches some of the absurdity/borderline-camp of the premise (apparently Prometheus does this pretty well, from someone who saw it -- he told me it's pretty hardcore body horror stuff!) I still kind of want to see the flop by Jeunet (Resurrection). Aliens is like the Nolan Batman -- takes itself a little too seriously, difference being Cameron is a better action director. (Carpenter is a lot better at taking his material seriously without making it straight-up humorless. I'm relatively new to classic Carpenter, but it seems like The Thing makes the whole Alien series redundant.)

Re: Haven't done one of these in a while.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Key (but I feel significant) diff is that The Thing has no GURLZ! Carpenter is never humourless, tho he can be pretty boring...