More of the Top 100

So Matt and I have been continuing to chip away at the top 100 list (only 30 more to go!) and polished off these few in the past couple weeks:

Raging Bull- These past few movies have secured some actors on my favorite actors list. Bustin Hoffman, Jimmy Stewart, Alec Guinness, Marlon Brando, and Robert De Niro are a few of them. De Niro was fantastic in this movie. It makes me sad that his (and Hoffman's) talents are now wasted on trash like Meet The Fockers.
Also, I didn't catch this at the time, but did a little study on the movie after the fact and some of the visual elements Scorsese incorporates are pretty cool. In general, I love being able to dissect things on multiple levels. If all that is present is all that I see or read on the surface, I may enjoy it, but I won't count it among the greats. I love that there are directors out there who plan up artistic details incomprehensible to the average viewer. It shows that there is incredible depth to a medium that has historically been limited by technology, time, physical constraints, etc. I like art that makes me think, and this one did.

Patton- Matt and I watched this one last night and it was one of the first that he approved as being Top 100 worthy. I'm not always a huge fan of war epics (unless they are made by David Lean... more on that later), but this one was good. It's possible I enjoyed this more than I otherwise would have because I knew Matt was enjoying it.

Midnight Cowboy- This was the only X rated film to ever win Best Picture. And probably one of the greatest acting performances of all time (by Hoffman of course, who else?). AND it contains the famous line (which maybe you didn't even KNOW was a famous line) "Hey, I'm WALKIN' here!" when Rizzo is nearly hit by a taxi while walking across the street.
I liked this movie the same way one might like reading The Catcher In The Rye. It was painful, but beautiful.

The Apartment- REALLY enjoyed this movie. It reminded me of one of my high school friends. It had a clever plot and was well-cast. This was the first time I had ever seen young Shirley MacLaine and she was unbelievably gorgeous. I kind of wish actresses were still classy like that. Ohhh well. C'est la vie.


I also mostly done with both Bonnie and Clyde and Lawrence of Arabia and will post my thoughts on these soon.