Pulp Fiction

#8 at the time of writing.

I watched this film when it first came out, I've watched it recently (this year), and I've watched it in between - and I have felt different ways about it at different times. Masterpiece of punk rock filmmaking? Or overblown self-indulgent tripe? Actually, that dichotomy sums up how I feel about most of Quentin Tarantino's output.

The strongest parts of this film, for me, are the off-beat dialogue, the willingness to throw the standard Hollywood screenplay structure out of the window, and the playful retro-fetishism. The weakest parts are the uneven pace and the occasionally grating turgidity. Weaknesses that, I think, were not as apparent in Tarantino's previous, more pared-down, Reservoir Dogs - but that become variously more apparent in his later films.

Worthy of being in IMDb's top 10 films of all time? Well... we're still talking about it, I suppose.

I do admire Tarantino's ability to turn himself into a brand - he tells everyone how great he is with such confidence that everybody believes him, and he builds a whole folklore around his movies, like he will only ever make 10 movies, or all his movies exist in the same world.

Incredibly, this film reportedly cost only $8 million to make, $5 million of which went on the actors' salaries. And it was successful enough to relaunch John Travolta and Bruce Willis' careers (and push Uma Karuna Thurman's into a new gear). Money well spent.

The Big Lebowski

#158 at time of writing.

Colourful scenery and colourful characters, with a wonderfully wry and highly quotable script. The warped imagination of this film bowls me over.




The Coen Brothers' taste for surreality can sometimes detract from their stories for me, which made me wary of this film on first viewing, but it has grown on me hugely. The Brothers can be hit or miss, and this is a hit.

The sense of humour is reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, with its bumbling gangsters and irreverent dialogue. The dysfunctional buddy couple at the core of the film, The Dude and Walter as played by Jeff Bridges and John Goodman, spark off each other wonderfully. John Goodman's misguidedly aggressive character, apparently his own favourite performance, is oddly familiar - I knew a guy like that.

Having raved about their film, I should say that I watched an interview with the Coen Brothers on the DVD extras (actually, VHS extras) and they are incredibly boring.

Comedy Central produced a wonderful example of preposterous TV censorship when they aired this film, dubbing Walter's dialogue in the scene where he is destroying the Corvette with a crowbar. Instead of repeating "This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass" he says "This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps" and then, even more bizarrely "This is what happens when you feed a plover scrambled eggs". See it for yourself.

The Dude's car is a 4-door 1973 Ford Gran Torino. Two vehicles were used in filming: one was destroyed during the filming, the other was destroyed in Season 8 of The X-Files in an episode called "Salvage".

Best Year for Film?

I was musing the other day about how 1999 was a truly fantastic year for film. Fight Club, The Matrix, American Beauty, Being John Malkovich, South Park... even Toy Story 2 was colossal. I used to love films, but after 1999 I became obsessed.

I wonder, what year was the best ever for film? 1939 also seems stuck in my head as a great year (The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind). But what about the sixty years in between?

Geeky as I am, I decided to run the stats on IMDb's Top 250 list. Here's the rundown:

The earliest film on the Top 250 is from 1921 (The Kid). Since then, only seven years do not feature in the Top 250 at all: 1924, 1928, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1937 and 1947. (1947 misses out despite Miracle on 34th Street - which goes to show how many wonderful and well-loved films must fall just short of IMDb's Top 250.)

Years that appear once each in the Top 250:
1921
1922
1923
1925
1926
1930
1934
1942
1956
1964
1965
1970
1978
1990
The early 1920s is in danger of dropping off the list altogether.

Years that appear twice each in the Top 250:
1927
1933
1936
1938
1941
1943
1945
1949
1955
1958
1963
1969
1971
1972
1973
1977
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1992
1993
1996
2009
Although 2009 may yet get promoted.

At this point there are only half a dozen years left before 1950. Does that mean that films didn't used to be as good? Or that our tastes have moved on? Or that the best early films just don't get watched any more? Most likely all of the above.

Years that appear three times each in the Top 250:
1931
1939
1944
1948
1952
1953
1961
1962
1966
1974
1976
1982
1984
1986
1988
2002
2005
Well, this is a very unscientific measure, but there goes 1939...

(Actually, this is quite a scientific measure, but therein lies it's fault. You can't rightly judge great films using scientific measures.)

Years that appear four times each in the Top 250:
1950
1951
1960
1967
1968
1979
1980
1997
1998
2001

Now the big hitters. There are fifteen years left - the fifteen greatest years for film.

Years that appear five times each in the Top 250:
1940
1946
1954
1959
1975
Good to see that plenty of golden oldies are still very much appreciated.

Years that appear six times each in the Top 250:
1994
1999
2000
2003
2007
So 1999 truly was a great year for film after all. Yet 1994 was even greater - with The Shawshank Redemption in the #1 slot and Pulp Fiction at #5.

Finally, the top 5 years for film... drumroll please...

#5: 2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Downfall
Hotel Rwanda
Million Dollar Baby
The Incredibles
Crash
Kill Bill: Vol. 2

#4: 2006
(Same number of films on the Top 250 as 2004, but higher rated on average, so more likely to stay there.)
The Departed
The Lives of Others
Pan's Labyrinth
The Prestige
Children of Men
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine

#3: 1995
(Ditto.)
The Usual Suspects
Se7en
Braveheart
Heat
Toy Story
Twelve Monkeys
Casino

#2: 1957
The top ten years are all within the last decade and a half, except 1957. This defiance of the bias suggests that 1957 is our true winner.
12 Angry Men
Paths of Glory
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Seventh Seal
Witness for the Prosecution
Wild Strawberries
Nights of Cabiria
Sweet Smell of Success

#1: 2008
No fewer than nine films in the Top 250, with a very strong average ranking - although not as strong as 1957.
The Dark Knight
WALL·E
Slumdog Millionaire
Gran Torino
The Wrestler
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Let the Right One In
In Bruges
Changeling

Movie Posters

Recently I got a big payrise at work. And I spent it all on film posters.

There are some great films with terribly mediocre posters. Either they just have mugshots of the top-billed actors on them, or they try and crowd too much stuff on. Or both (see Lord of the Rings).

And there are some excellent posters for awful films. For example...



I tried to find the happy medium, whilst avoiding the too-popular choices (Pulp Fiction) and avoiding posters that my wife would never let me put up (Phase IV).

So, several hundred pounds later (framing is expensive!), our lounge sports these:







Our hallway features:





The spare bedroom has:









And a Bilinsky in our bathroom: