Leaping Larry L (yeah, he’s a wrestling fan) is a DJ for independent radio station 3RRR down here in Melbourne. Every Thursday he and his sidekick Stu do their show “All Over The Shop” Anyway, I reckon Larry’s quite a funny guy and the other day he mentioned his website, so I thought I'd check it out. When I got there I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had a lot of interesting and amusing movie reviews on it.

Here's his take on the movie Henry Fool making The New York Times Top 1000 Movies list:

"Henry Fool” – With most people they’d probably get away with slipping this one in quietly, but unfortunately I saw it. Unlike most of the cult-suckers, it had a theme (and an intriguing one too, on the subject of creativity), some actual content as opposed to picturesque sleaze and cool people in offbeat clothing, substituted a good dose of gloom for the usual conceptual post-modern arse-gargling about, and Parker Posey. And diddled around forever before falling away into the usual cess-hole of general death and depression. Not entirely valueless, but pretty much your standard issue art-house mess in the end. Not a great picture’s arsehole."

Here’s his take on the The New York Times Top 1000 List:

http://leapster.cust.nearlyfreespeech.net/?m=200803

And here’s his take on the AFI’s Top 100 Move List:
http://leapster.cust.nearlyfreespeech.net/?page_id=4

There’s also an interesting article on Death Proof and on Quentin Tarantino in general

http://leapster.cust.nearlyfreespeech.net/?m=200711

I dunno. I think he ventured into a too ambitious project here taking apart the movies on the NYT top 1000 whose credentials he suspect. A lot of his choices are barely explained and make no case for their apparent disqualification.

Quoted Text “Die Hard” – Dunno. Not convinced it belongs. “Dead Ringers” – I like Cronenberg, particularly doing horror, but I think they’re stretching here. “The Breakfast Club” – Ah, the magic of time and place. This is a more interesting choice than some of the others though. “California Suite” – Ok, someone was really desperate to get home and pay the babysitter. “Chariots of Fire” – See “Breaker Morant”. “Body Heat” – Lawrence Kasdan. Really? “Boogie Nights” – I doubt it. “Robocop” – I’m struggling with it in this context.

Why bother qualifying your choices if you don't really do that?

But it got me thinking.

I did a check on the AFI top 100 though and found that the average year of their top 25 was 1958. 80% of the films on that entire list was made before 1975.

I think there is a tendency to go conservative when compiling lists such as these. Like the article mentions there are some choices you can't NOT have on. Could you have a list without Casablanca? I'd say yeah get rid of that dreck, but I'd probably be beaten to death by James Lipton. My point is cinema has evolved. There are many extremely important movies on the list in terms of historical worth, ingenuity and sheer pioneering. Griffith, Murnau,  and even Ford and Welles are all masterful directors for their time, some perhaps the latter two even outside of their time, but their movies...are dated. We may marvel at the wonder of depth in Citizen Kane but it's always in context. Context of the time, context of the technology etc.

I think the context we should be looking at is other narrative media. literature. Today movies absolutely can compete with written literature in terms of characterization, depth of story, thematic subtlety and so forth. But this wasn't always true. There's no fucking way you can tell me Gone with the Wind, AFI's number 7, in 1939 even came close to stuff put out by Faulkner, Kafka, Fitzgerald, or even Ralph Ellison. The dialogue in Gone with the Wind would've been lamented as hysterical had it been in a book. Well, it was in a book and it won the Pullitzer prize, so again maybe what I'm talking about is the certain way movies adapted stories. The stylized convetions of over-the-top theatrcis, intrusive and manipulative violins etc. Every line is read as we're on a stage. And we are, but we're not supposed to know that. But these were movies, and the standards were different at the time.

To me I think film didn't really grow up and become a medium on equal footing with literature until it left the theatrics of the stage behind. Sure we may laud the innovations and pioneers who propelled the craft into this phase but the actual movies of the time mostly have value in nostalgia or historical merit. In film it seems we may lack timelessness other mediums enjoy. Heart of Darkness is still as great a read now as it was a hundred years ago. Maybe this is because it has no production values, but even still. The characters, the dialogue, the story...it still works.

This is of course only my take.

Quoted from Death Monkey I dunno. I think he ventured into a too ambitious project here taking apart the movies on the NYT top 1000 whose credentials he suspect. A lot of his choices are barely explained and make no case for their apparent disqualification. Why bother qualifying your choices if you don't really do that?

Leaping Larry is pretty laid back, although I think he means what he says, I don't think he's taking himself too seriously. Nor should we. It's just a bit of a laugh.

Did you see his summary of The Shawshank Redemption?

"Shawshank Redemption: Never bothered."  

Even though I like The Shawshank Redemption I laughed at that.  

Quoted from Death Monkey But it got me thinking. I did a check on the AFI top 100 though and found that the average year of their top 25 was 1958. 80% of the films on that entire list was made before 1975. I think there is a tendency to go conservative when compiling lists such as these. Like the article mentions there are some choices you can't NOT have on. Could you have a list without Casablanca? I'd say yeah get rid of that dreck, but I'd probably be beaten to death by James Lipton. My point is cinema has evolved. There are many extremely important movies on the list in terms of historical worth, ingenuity and sheer pioneering. Griffith, Murnau,  and even Ford and Welles are all masterful directors for their time, some perhaps the latter two even outside of their time, but their movies...are dated. We may marvel at the wonder of depth in Citizen Kane but it's always in context. Context of the time, context of the technology etc. I think the context we should be looking at is other narrative media. literature. Today movies absolutely can compete with written literature in terms of characterization, depth of story, thematic subtlety and so forth. But this wasn't always true. There's no fucking way you can tell me Gone with the Wind, AFI's number 7, in 1939 even came close to stuff put out by Faulkner, Kafka, Fitzgerald, or even Ralph Ellison. The dialogue in Gone with the Wind would've been lamented as hysterical had it been in a book. But these were movies, and the standards were different at the time. movies were meant to entertain primarily. To me I think film didn't really grow up and become a medium on equal footing with literature until it left the theatrics of the stage behind. Sure we may laud the innovations and pioneers who propelled the craft into this phase but the actual movies of the time mostly have value in nostalgia or historical merit. In film it seems we may lack timelessness other mediums enjoy. Heart of Darkness is still as great a read now as it was a hundred years ago. Maybe this is because it has no production values, but even still. The characters, the dialogue, the story...it still works. This is of course only my take.

How about if they set criteria for greatness before they compiled the lists? Then instead of haggling over the films, the critics could haggle over the criteria. Then compiling the list would be just a matter of making sure that a film had ticked all the boxes before it could be included.  Although I noticed one thing that seems to be important for these types of lists is longevity. That's why Larry said "see me in another twenty years", and reserved his judgment on some of the contemporary films.  

Quoted from Takeshi Leaping Larry is pretty laid back, although I think he means what he says, I don't think he's taking himself too seriously. Nor should we. It's just a bit of a laugh. Did you see his summary of The Shawshank Redemption? "Shawshank Redemption: Never bothered."   Even though I like The Shawshank Redemption I laughed at that.

I didn't really catch they were meant to be funny. I guess I don't really think they were. Many of them were just kinda obvious like "I'm not sure this one should be on the list".

Anyway, I'd like to see movie reviews done like this guy reviews games:

Halo 3: http://www.escapistmagazine.co.....o-Punctuation-Halo-3

And some hate mail: http://www.escapistmagazine.co.....ion-Mailbag-Showdown

Quoted Text How about if they set criteria for greatness before they compiled the lists? Then instead of haggling over the films, the critics could haggle over the criteria. Then compiling the list would be just a matter of making sure that a film had ticked all the boxes before it could be included.  Although I noticed one thing that seems to be important for these types of lists is longevity. That's why Larry said "see me in another twenty years", and reserved his judgment on some of the contemporary films.

I think movies do need a certain amount of incubation time, if you will, before the can be deemed "classic" (sic) or not, but I think there are trappings in this approach as well. namely that some movies turn the amount of time it has gelled in the annals of filmhistory into an argument for inclusion in lists like these alone. In other words, once a film makes the top 20, it's not leaving the list ever.

But yeah I agree, it would be better if these lists were more specific what exactly they were extolling. Most important films, historically? Favorite films? movies that made a change? Box office?

Quoted from Death Monkey I didn't really catch they were meant to be funny. I guess I don't really think they were. Many of them were just kinda obvious like "I'm not sure this one should be on the list". Anyway, I'd like to see movie reviews done like this guy reviews games: Halo 3: http://www.escapistmagazine.co.....o-Punctuation-Halo-3 And some hate mail: http://www.escapistmagazine.co.....ion-Mailbag-Showdown

Those reviews were pretty amusing. He reminds me of Christopher Hitchens. Although it'd be better if he didn't speak at the same rate as a fourteen year old girl. It'd be interesting to hear him review something he liked.  

Quoted from Death Monkey But yeah I agree, it would be better if these lists were more specific what exactly they were extolling. Most important films, historically? Favorite films? movies that made a change? Box office?

Yeah. It's like when they do best album lists and they try to compare bands like Public Enemy, Slayer or The Rolling Stones. How can you prove that one is better than the other when it comes down to a matter of taste?