TOP TEN Lists - This Week: "Blank Check" Media Projects.

Some good ones on there @NIGHTBRINGER. I'll have to give it some thought, because this is another genre where LOTS of movies could fit.

 

Hmmmm.....

[LoR taps chin thoughfully...]

 

This is very much the case with me. I pretty much judge a movie on whether I would want to watch it again.

 

Thank you! I look forward to reading your list!

We have none in common this time!

 

Not even The Shawshank Redemption!

 

My mother loves those kinds of movies. Not really my cup of tea though. I suppose I don't like "true" dramas.

That's what makes these lists interesting. Seeing the different approaches people take with them!

 

I'm not a fan of drama particularly. The main thing I'm going for in watching a movie is some good escapism. Something completely different.

Dramas that I can think of that I really liked is:

Shawshank Redemption
Pursuit of Happiness
A Few Good Men
Jerry Maguire
Usual Suspects
The Game (Michael Douglas)
Blind Side

Meh, those are the ones that spring to mind. I don't usually go for these (as above).

I'm sure lots will disagree with what I consider to be drama. And some of these may recur on my other lists.

Sue me.

(Just kidding )

 

I'm sensing a growing trend (one that I agree with).

Collectively we seem to be of the mindset of...

Spoiler

Don't worry, next week's genre will make up for it!

 

Nope... better.

 

This has been a toughie, but after so much humming and hawing, here's my best shot:

1. The 300 Spartans (1962) - Given that a lot of older historical films focused on pageantry and spectacle rather than action, a fair few of these are going to appear in my Drama lineup. The top pick of these I definitely think has to be what is still the only retelling of Thermopylae with some semblance of historical accuracy (and even then it was made in the early 60s, so is not in touch with much of the more recent archaeological evidence).
2. Helen of Troy (1956): Probably one of the most fitting for the 'Drama' category, this one places more emphasis upon the romance between Paris and Helen that sparks the fires of Troy's doom, and the grand spectacle of the battles between the city and the Greek armies sent to recapture Menelaus' queen, compared to the more carnal lust and cut-and-thrust fighting depicted in the early 2000s remake. They certainly knew how to write a courtly, chivalrous romance on par with medieval poetry in those days.
3. Cromwell (1970): In more recent times one Oliver Cromwell has largely been demonised by layers of royalist and Irish nationalist propaganda as a miserable killjoy, a megalomaniac and a mass-murderer. This film, starring Richard Harris in the lead role, portrays him in a more respectful light, as a family man and a minor MP who ultimately did what he could to protect England from the dictatorial aspirations of Charles I (Alec Guinness) and was hurriedly propelled by his followers into ever greater power and responsibility (he was not the leader of Parliamentary forces in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, at least not to begin with - he was merely a cavalry commander who later took the place of the original leader, Thomas 'Black Tom' Fairfax, upon withdrawal of the latter from the fighting). While it skips a fair amount of the Civil Wars themselves and includes a bit of artistic licence in places, it nevertheless captures the key political scenes of the conflict that reveal how a troublemaking monarch can commit treason against their own country, how difficult it was to maintain the balance between sovereignty and democracy in those days, and essentially how Britain was able to avoid joining in with the genocidal madness that was the French Revolution a hundred years later.
4. Ben-Hur (1959): The chariot race has plenty of drama in it. That's enough to give it fourth place on this list without even considering the rest.
5. Spartacus (1960): "I'm Spartacus!" "No, I'm Spartacus!" "I'm Spartacus!" Another iconic sword-and-sandal drama, and still the definitive version of this story for family viewing. Currently I'm watching the far more brutal Starz TV series, but once I've finished that I'm definitely going to rewatch this one.
   
6. Scrooge (1951): Even though it's still three months yet until the right time to watch it, I wanted to include this on my list. Regularly (and rightly) considered the definitive adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and one of my personal favourites (alongside the Muppet and Mickey versions ), with some seriously eerie and ghostly chorals that can send a shiver down your spine and the ability to watch it in period black-and-white adding to the atmosphere. Alistair Sim was excellent as the eponymous miser and Michael Hordern (who would funnily enough go on to play Scrooge in an 80s TV adaptation) played a particularly mournful and unnerving Jacob Marley.
7. Oliver Twist (1948): One of David Lean's Dickens adaptations, that shaped the plot of the later 60s musical that went on to achieve even greater success. Despite missing out a whole chunk of the novel and the real 'big bad' of the story, it is an undeniable classic.
8. Great Expectations (1946): Do you sense a pattern here? The late, great Sir John Mills plays Phillip 'Pip' Pirrip in his adult years, and does so excellently.
9. A Man for All Seasons (1966): A biopic of Thomas More, Henry VIII's original advisor, that includes his tragic betrayal by the king determined to get his son and heir. Look out for a young John Hurt in the role that kick-started his acting career, the slimy Richard Rich.
10. A Night to Remember (1958): If you're more interested in the cold hard facts of the sinking of the Titanic, the blunders that led to it happening and the effect it had on the survivors, this is the version you should watch.

Honourable Mention: The Bounty (1984)

 

Probably one of the least well-known biopics, but a fantastic one.

 

I don't think I've seen a single one of those.

I noticed that the most recent film on your list is from 1970. How did you get into old time classic movies?

 

I'm very surprised you haven't seen the likes of Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Scrooge and Oliver Twist, those are definitely the most famous of the ones I've listed and are widely regarded as classics even to this day.

My parents are the ones to thank for that.

I am an oddity in that I am a late 90s-2000s child born to parents who themselves were born in the late 50s and early 60s, and thus either grew up with most of these old films being shown at the pictures (not to mention the multitudes of war films and westerns), or watched them later when looking for more old films to watch. They then showed me these in my later childhood and teenage years to broaden my film knowledge and satisfy my interest in history, and have not looked back. It's rare to meet someone of my generation who knows names like John Mills, Cecil Hardwicke and Michael Hordern (and arguably even rarer to meet someone my age who despises Friends, the Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother but laughs like anything at and makes mental memes of Ealing Comedies and 1960s-90s British sitcoms), but here I am .

I certainly recommend them to you, not least because the spectacle of some of these is all the more inspiring when you consider every person in a parade or battle scene was a real, paid extra rather than added with CGI (though CGI armies are impressive to look upon and much cheaper to create nowadays). I will warn you though, some of these are long - epics like Ben-Hur and also the renowned Cleopatra rival the Middle-Earth films in their duration, so if you fancy seeing some of those then be prepared for a long haul. The better ones, like Ben-Hur and Spartacus are, of course, the ones with the most action in to offset the film length.