your favorites all suck

[winterhat]

1) Titanic
2) Fanny and Alexander
3) Jaws
4) Stripes
5) It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
6) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
7) Star Wars
8) Rosemary’s Baby
9) Odd Couple
10) Dial ‘M’ For Murder
11) Rear Window
12) Lord of the Rings
13) It’s a Wonderful Life
14) Alien
15) Double Indemnity
16) The Shining
17) Singin’ in the Rain
18) The Philadelphia Story
19) Glory
20) Halloween
21) The Andromeda Strain
22) Looker
23) The Lost Weekend
24) Planet of the Apes
25) Rocky Horror Picture Show

[malicious32dll]

bscly. Only complaint about your list is that you forgot to put big mommas house as #1. As a result... the list phails. (with a "p")

[kiddo]

I'm definitely not a fan of Titanic, but I love Fanny och Alexander, Rosemary's Baby, Rear Window, Alien and Planet of the Apes. I should probably see It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

[captainofbeef]

I love the majority of what is on here. But I hate Titanic...

[kiddo]

High five!

That movie seriosly suck. I'm waiting in excitement on winterhat's (possible) arguments of what makes the film so great in his eyes.

[sacrilegend]

Yeah, I hate to judge as he is doing, but HAHHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAhahahAHHAHHAHAHAHAhHAhAhahahahHAhahAhaH Titanic! HA!

[sacrilegend]

Hey, I hope that's a joke.

[winterhat]

titanic is flawless.

cinematography, directing, costume, acting, the perfectly designed screenplay (to weave in and out of the real history the way it did?), the soundtrack, every last detail.

cameron risked his reputation (and millions of dollars of his own money) to complete this.

this isn't what critics claim.... 'hollywood big budget...blah...blah...hollywood gone mad...blah...blah'

that argument is weak. it's a big story that required big money to tell. it was a director's ARTISTIC VISION! this is what many people on this site say is missing in most movies.

riding a wave of monster hits, cameron was able to sell this movie to the studios no problem. this was his pet project. he was a titanic historian (as am i) and this story of untellable human suffering needed TOLD again. if you read one book about the voyage, it's possible that this story will get stuck in your mind as it did his. it was something he HAD to make.

it ran into many, many problems. special effects, production probs, budget, delays, etc. the studio geeks were cutting their losses by selling off 'parts' of the potential profits in order to minimize their risk. cameron had to give up his director's fee in order to complete it.

when it came out, it was a woeful disappointment at the box-office. i don't know the specifics, but the movie was well received by the critics, but noone was going to see it. $200+ million budget and it made like 25 million in the opening weekend! (something low like that...not sure.)

the rags proclaimed, 'it's the end of cameron's reign' - he was a laughing stock. they made jokes about the big pig hollywood pouring so much money into such a flop.

but a strange thing happened. the people didn't listen to the rags. they kept going. and going. and going. it had NO HUGE opening weekend (like spiderman 3, etc). it just kept raking in $20-$25 million. week after week. it never had a big weekend...it destroyed all records because people loved the movie and kept going to see it....over months.

and, if you approach the movie with no preconceived bias, it's easy to love.

cameron magically worked his fictional characters into the most historically accurate telling of the titanic EVER. from the costumes, to the dishes, to the cook going down with the ship in the very last scene. all seemlessly told and shown.

the cook for example. he decided there was no way he was going to make it, so he decided to get drunk. he drank for several hours and went down with the ship. when it went down, he simply stepped off of the last railing of the titanic to sink. some say it was the alcohol that kept him warm....whatever...he was the only person to survive that was in the water.

how cameron would place his characters into and around the 'real' people so they could overhear key things without ruining the flow of his fictional story? genius.

it really was. i'm not saying you have to be a titanic historian to enjoy this movie. obviously, with $1 BILLION worldwide, there were millions of people who know nothing about the titanic before the movie came out...yet saw it over and over.

it's awe-inspiring to look at. the music is haunting. the special effects are PERFECT. done to TELL the story, not BE the story.

it's NOT too long or too slow, it's paced (edited) to include enough of the love story to create drama amongst all the drama.

i understand that because of it's success, the backlash was severe. you must understand the EVERYONE loved the movie for the first 6 months...year....whatever. then, it became ever so popular to talk about how terrible it is that the public (all those mindless drones) had been conned into another big-budget special effects pile-o-crap.

"this is what is wrong with hollywood!"

no, this is what is right about hollywood. a directors vision, beautifully told with skill and passion and he was rightfully rewarded for his work.

[PTAhole]

I like Titanic, too. Anyway, really good list here.