Movie Time

Posted December 19, 2014 by Hayley Botnen

For today, I wanted to do something a little bit different. Now that the semester is over, I have time to pursue some of my other interests, and if you’ve looked at my profile, you know that one of the things I’ve been trying to do for the last few years is watch through Empire Magazine’s 500 Greatest Films. So here’s my own take on the handful of films I’ve watched since the semester finished.

312. Suspiria 1977

            Terrible. Truly. The music that accompanied this film gave both me and my roommate a headache within the first five minutes. I think if it hadn’t been for the terrible sound-editing, it may have been an okay movie. However, even the special effect sounds were obnoxious. I literally wanted to sit in absolute silence after this movie was over so my ears could recover.

142. Almost Famous 2000

            I had no idea how many well-known actors were in this! Also it starts with the Chipmunk’s Christmas song and a discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird, so we’re off to a good start. This movie was so good! It was a movie about music, but unlike some other movies about music, it didn’t make you feel like a failure for liking “mainstream” music. It was about the ups and downs of being in a band and starting to get famous. I think it’s probably still really applicable to bands today even though it is set in the 1970s.

157. True Romance 1993

            I’m tempted to like it right away because Quentin Tarantino wrote it, and I love Tarantino. But he didn’t direct it, so we’ll see. Oh gosh, remember when Christian Slater was like the hottest actor? So I’m a huge feminist, and when I first heard of the Bechdel test, I was like, this is too easy. Every movie must pass this. For those of you who don’t know, the Bechdel test is used to guage representation of women in media. It consists of three parts. 1. There have to be at least two women in the movie. 2. They both have to have names. 3. They have to talk to each other about something other than men. True Romance fails the Bechdel test. In fact, the only female character gets “rescued” from being a call girl. Then gets beaten up later (when she’s half-naked for really no reason). I did quite like the ending though, so overall, I’d give it a shot, if you want.

98. North by Northwest 1959

            Not as good as Rear Window. It has a pretty slow start, but the climax is exciting. Over all, I thought it was going to be more adventurous.

410. A Hard Day’s Night 1964

            I was mildly ambivalent about The Beatles (themselves not their music), but after watching A Hard Day’s Night, I’ll consider myself a fan. I spent half the movie laughing my bum off. They’re hilarious. And their music added a nice background to the film. I would say that the screaming fans got sort of annoying, but then I started to wonder if they hired actors or actually just told fans where they were filming.

So there we go! 5 films in 6 days. Not too shabby. What about you? How many of the 500 “greatest” films have you watched? What do you think should be on there that isn’t?

All the Best – Hayley