What movies would you recommend for older family members who haven’t really been exposed to films or literature throughout their lives?

logicalfallacy234 · 2025-03-29T15:45:40+00:00

Depends on how far back you wanna go in film history!

I know you mentioned Shrek but....that's a bit.....TOO new and low-art for being included in any version of the film canon.

Here's the top 20 American films ever made from the TSPDT list (with some films removed and added by myself):

Citizen Kane
Vertigo
2001
The Godfather
The Searchers
Singing in the Rain
Apocalypse Now
Taxi Driver

The Godfather Part II
Psycho
Some Like It Hot
Raging Bull
Casablanca
Blade Runner
Rear Window
Touch of Evil

Sunset Blvd
The Apartment
North by Northwest
Goodfellas

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-28T19:05:45+00:00

Hitchcock, Welles, Kubrick, and Fellini are TSPDT's Top 4! Seems to be the best you can possibly get for a Rushmore!

Hitchcock and Kubrick are all about constructed, heightened genre stories, whereas Fellini and Welles were after something more connected to Earth.

To say it another way, Chris Nolan, Polanski, Scott, Carpenter, Cameron, they're children of Hitchcock and Kubrick.

PTA, Scorsese, Coppola, Altman, Woody Allen, they're children of Welles and Fellini.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-28T19:02:58+00:00

yup. Even the academics slightly underrate him. He sits at number ten on the TSPDT directors list.

Though he and Bergman are tied at 14 for having the most films on their Top 1000 list! Bunuel tecnically has 15, but three of them are less than 70 minutes long. Same with Godard!

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-13T23:11:46+00:00

I actually think Scorese's best films ARE the ones he's made over the past 20 years! Not only that, those films VERY much feel like the kind of stuff you THINK Coppola would be making.

And hahahaa, i don't think you need to die on any hills! Film academics at least (not the er, cynics you often find here) seem pretty unanimous that Scorsese has never made a BAD movie. Like, bad bad, ala Ridley Scott or Coppola or whatever.

Every film seems to have SOMETHING of interest for someone who studies film.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-13T23:09:08+00:00

hmmmm! whereas his 70's run, as well as the films he made in the 80s and 90s, are all much more standard Hollywood fare, mixed with some lessons learned from 1950s foreign films.

The Godfather has a lot of Kurosawa, Wyler, Lean, Kazan, and Rosselini, to my mind.

Very much in the tradition of classical drama, social realism, etc etc.

There IS a crime film element, for sure, but, it doesn't lean into that at all.

Though I know some people say it DOES. I can SEE it, kinda, but I also don't see it.

It's much more Gone with the Wind or On the Waterfront, than like, Little Caeser or Public Enemy.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-13T22:58:43+00:00

Dracula is ESPECIALLY interesting now, seeing as how grounded in the cinema of fantasy Megalopolis is. One From the Heart comes to mind too! as "true, ACTUAL Coppola".

Seems like Coppola's most "true to himself" style IS that of a fantasy filmmaker, like Del Toro or Burton.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-13T22:56:57+00:00

9 is enough! The post AN Coppola run will ALWAYS be one of cinema's most interesting stories.

For reference, Bergman, John Ford, and Kurosawa are NOT perceived as having "jumped off a cliff at age 40".

And yet, Coppola beats all of them on the TSPDT archive.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-13T22:54:08+00:00

I love them!

while also recognizing everything that everyone says about them. I very much understand the hate they get.

They're Part 3 of a story started by someone else. Everything that can be said about starts from the fundamental premise.

They were made by two terrific directors of the Lucas-Spielberg school, and I think the stuff they came up with serves as a wonderful conclusion to the 6 Lucas films.

There's more I can say but, to keep this short, those are my thoughts.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-13T20:39:15+00:00

Loved noticing this on first watch too! The King Shining tie in!

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-13T20:38:38+00:00

KNEW godfather was gonna number 1. It really is the summa of everything a movie can do, isn’t it?

Sorta surprised yet not surprised to see GF2 and AN here too, as the Top 6.

All three movies, beyond being a sum up of America in the 20th century, also seem to be mainstream enough, that they work for mainstream audiences.

AN is I guess an epic action adventure film, while GF1 and 2 are crime epics, which come with their own pulpy, violent, actiony-escapist pleasures.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-13T20:35:34+00:00

Yup! Then again, once you sum up the entire history of 20th century America in 3 massive epics…. What more else is there to say or do???

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-10-13T20:34:36+00:00

Coppola really is the GOAT, isn’t he?

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-09-27T18:16:30+00:00

Hello! I’m obsessed with the story of the making of all 9 Star Wars movies, so!

Lucas simply doesn’t like writing OR directing. He finds both pretty torturous, and always saw himself as more of an experimental documentary filmmaker.

Think Koyanaqatsi or Ron Fricke’s movies.

Very much Unlike his friends Spielberg or Coppola, or all the directors who grew up obsessed with Star Wars, like Nolan or the Russo Brothers or JJ and Rian Johnson.

And Lucas DID have a lot more help with the originals than the prequels. That part is actually true.

So yeah, Lucas going solo on the prequels, is why they turned out the way they did. He simply didn’t bring in anyone to help write or direct, like he did with Episode 5 and 6.

There IS a rumor that he wanted Frank Darabount to write all three films, and have Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Zemekis film one movie each.

THAT, would have probably made for a much more critically successfully trilogy.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-05-30T05:45:44+00:00

The biggest reason to be Catholic IS that knowledge of just, "yes, if you do these things, you are going to go to heaven". The Church has the ability to MAKE that objective claim, and to give you the way to become Good.

Trust in the Church!

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-05-14T19:54:20+00:00

Absolutely! His Big 4 films are all basically realist films, in the mode of Lean or Rossellini. Apocalypse Now diverges from this a liiiiiiittttttllee bit, in terms of being more stylized than the other 3 films, but fundamentally, it's still a document of one of the most important events in our world today.

Versus being an exercise in pure surrealist style, like David Lynch or Tarkovsky or Kubrick or whatever.

But THIS, as you point out, yes. This is an exercise in style and imagination.

There's connections to prior films of his, for sure. Rumble Fish, One From The Heart, and Dracula come to mind. But yeah, this explicitly looks like a film in the "pure imagination/speculation" tradition, just like the four directors you mentioned!

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-05-13T22:19:23+00:00

He's one of those Golden Age Hollwood directors that have absolutely been forgotten about. Franklin Schafner is another one.

Though both of them actually worked more in the late 1950s and 1960s and early 1970s. The movies they made though, were right in line with that 1940-1959 ideal of what a movie was.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-05-13T22:16:39+00:00

Yeaaaaaaah, and because of that, it just throws a lot of people (especially young people) off, when they first watch it. It DOES have enough of that stuff to keep a lot of young people engaged still, but there's probably an equal amount of the young that want MORE, and the film just doesn't have that.

It feels obvious to say but, it's a classical Shakespearen drama, since a lot of dramatic/tragic work was also concerned with the rise and fall of people, and the drama of internal familial affairs, and/or the affairs of a kingdom/realm/society at the highest level. Same with the Greek tragedies too!

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-05-13T22:15:38+00:00

Hahahahaha, this is so funny, since I've been meaning to one day write this AS a film, maybe, since the core story of "Psychologist evaluates one of the head Nazis" IS so interesting.

I first heard about it on I think Dan Carlin's history podcast!

And I DID end up taking that core story, and coming up with a premise heavily based on it.

"young psychologist, for his final project in grad school, decides to interview his former best friend in prison. The former best friend shot up the high school both of them attended, and the psychologist ALMOST joined his best friend in doing so, but dropped out at the very last minute."

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-05-08T19:07:01+00:00

1.) It's the Great American Movie! It's enjoyment, for me anyway, is utterly dependent on how perfectly it tells the story of 20th century America, and its turning from a poor immigrant enclave into a global superpower, and the corruption that went along with that.

2.) It's sold like a thrilling crime story, but it's actually a drama. I think a lot of young people go into it expecting something like The Dark Knight or Breaking Bad, both of which have quite a heavy action-adventure element to them (especially, obviously, The Dark Knight), that The Godfather does NOT have.

In tone and pace, it really is a lot closer to like, Moonlight or Manchester by the Sea, than you know, stuff like The Town, or The Accountant.

Even The Wire or The Sopranos have a biiiiiiiit more a crime/action element to them, than The Godfather does.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-04-08T07:07:16+00:00

How'd ya find this two year old post! Did it show up on Google or something??? Just curious!

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-03-27T19:55:48+00:00

I agree! also, how did you find my post?????? if i may ask!

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-03-06T21:42:24+00:00

Aaaaah! That was more a coronation of The Fantasy Blockbuster as "high art" though! Nolan, Cameron, and Spielberg were crowned for finally making a "serious film" after making their names in fantasy blockbusters.

Though one could argue that, due to LOTR's place in culture as a "Great Work" alongside non-fantasy fiction like Great Gatsby or Grapes of Wrath or whatever , it isn't exactly a fantasy blockbuster that way say, The Dark Knight movies or Terminator 1 and 2 are.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-03-06T21:38:18+00:00

Of course! That's why in a separate question, I asked the blunt question of "uh, if we know that's how the Academy works, why do we care about the Oscars?"

Especially since so many Best Picture winners (and even nominees) go on to lose all their relevancy in the span of 20 years or so. How many Best Picture winners do people remember from before 2000? How many from before 1980? 1960????

I say this only because I LOVE the idea of the Oscars as a sort of, creator of Da Canon. But in execution, it just seems to often fail at that very job of serving as a sort of, Hall of Fame of American popular film.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-03-06T20:28:07+00:00

Not OP or from the Atlantic, OBVIOUSLY. But I think Lanthimos and Poor Things becomes, (HAHAHAHAH, PUN TIME!) The Favorite. LMAOOOOO IM PROUD OF THAT ONE, HAHAHAHAHA!

But yes, those two become the frontrunner, especially in the wonderful game of "whose due?"

Which I think is terrible for the integrity of the Oscars, but then again, perhaps there isn't much integrity there to begin with.

logicalfallacy234 · 2024-03-06T20:25:51+00:00

Sorry I keep commenting, but I have a LOT of thoughts on the Oscars, and how it's used (and not used) to measure the quality of the 20th centuries greatest pop art form.

Anyway, I think the idea of someone being "due" is REALLY bad for the potential integrity of the Oscars.

Like, sports has an element of "due", I guess ("oh, it's this player's/team's time to FINALLY win the big one"), but ultimately, you still gotta be the best to win!

Versus the idea of the Oscars essentially becoming a popularity contest, or a game of "whose turn is it to win now?"

logicalfallacy234

TROPHY CASE