I must make a quick start to this, then come back and make changes:
I hate lists, but there's something about movies that drives otherwise astute people to make them.
This list is a short one. It's a list of movies you have to watch if you're an American. Either because of the illustration of American culture, or the sheer weight of cultural references. I thought of this a lot when I was teaching ESL, but never got to act on it.
Here's the list:
The Wizard of Oz
It's a Wonderful Life
That's it. The list of runner-ups is very long and says more about my taste, but I cannot defend these 100%:
Greed (Eric von Stroheim), The Kid (Charlie Chaplin), The General (Buster Keaton), High Noon, Shane, Stagecoach, The Godfather.
I know someone younger than I am would include Star Wars and Forrest Gump...
I'm leaving room here for mistakes: (I can't believe I forgot about...)
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like you said, i think the only other one that definitely deserves to be on there is star wars. hell, star wars nearly ended mutual assured destruction in the 80s.
ReplyDeletemy runners up might be: west side story, the lion king, goldfinger, the godfather, pulp fiction, rocky
side note: i watched lock stock and two smoking barrels last night, guy ritchie's first movie. ever seen it? very, very similar to snatch, which i know you liked, right down to the same actors and the same gags. lacks some of the depth and polish of snatch, but pretty good considering the low budget and virtually unknown actors. ritchie's had something of a monopoly on the caper genre for the past decade or so.