[Wildly off topic] - My top 50-ish Movies

By Desslok, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Off Topic: One of these days, I need to see a top 50 list of Desslok's favorite (or maybe just recommended) movies. I feel like I'm missing out on so much.

Sorry about taking so long, I got a new computer over the weekend, so this weekend was all getting set up. And I'm spinning it off into it's own thread, as not to dominate the other discussion
Now with this list, I've tried to stay away from mainstream stuff, stuff that you're likely to find on your own. You don’t need me to tell you that John Carpenter is a good director and that Halloween is a great flick (although I'll defend Halloween III with my dying breath). Naw, this all the quirky and offbeat stuff from my collection that you've almost certainly have missed.
I tried to look through the streaming sources - and occasionally you'll find one on youtube or Amazon, but a lot . . . well, that's what the library is for. :) At least most of these are on disc, so that's a start.
HORROR
Deathgasm - Honestly, the Dildo vs Chainsaw fight versus Satan is worth the price of admission alone.
The Final Girls - A well done love letter to eighties slasher flicks, not to be confused with the similarly titled Final Girl. But if you like Friday the 13th, you'll totally dig this flick!
Lifeforce - It's like a Pertwee Era Doctor Who, but by way of horror director Tobe Hooper, and with way more boobs. Oh, and you get to see Patrick Stewart's face explode into a massive geyser of blood.
Tenebrae - A well done giallo (meaning an Italian thriller/horror flick with elements of mystery and slasher) from genre master Dario Argento.
A Bay of Blood (AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve) - Another giallo, this time from Mario Bava. More horror than the Who-Done-it of Tenebrae, more in line with eighties slasher flicks (you can tell that Friday the 13th was clearly inspired by this flick)
Count Yorga, Vampire - A stylish and elegant flick, filled with this bizarre, stilted well done acting.
The Return of Count Yorga - More of the same, just in sequel format
Slugs - You wouldnt think that a movie about mutant carnivorous slugs would be any good. You would be wrong.
The Witchfinder General - One of Vincent Price's best movies where he plays such a smarmy, evil bastard. A genuinely upsetting and disturbing film.
Dead & Buried - A interesting, all new take on the zombie flick, more Haitian voodoo mythology than your Romero Night of the Living Dead type.
CHEESE
Miami Connection - Words fail me to fully describe this terrible, awesome movie about Tae Kwon Do Rockers versus Cocaine Dealing Ninjas. It's equal measure bafflingly bad and goddamned epic.
Piranha - Roger Corman gives us the best Jaws knock off of the seventies, hands down.
The Inglorious Bastards - Not to be confused with the Tarantino flick. This is an Italian Knock-off of The Dirty Dozen from Enzo G. Castellari, one of my favorite Italian directors.
The New Barbarians - A fun, batshit crazy knockoff of Mad Max and Escape from New York. Also in the 'trilogy' and just as good, Escape from The Bronx and 1990: Bronx Warriors
Turbo Kid - Take a 10 year old boy from the eighties, show him The Road Warrior, and then hand him a movie camera. Turbo Kid would be the result. Plus it has Michael Ironside as the Warlord of the Wasteland, so that's a point in the movie's favor!
Streets of Fire - Oh my god, what an epic soundtrack. It's a two hour Music Video with street gangs and Rick Moranis.
Death Race 2000 - You know that "10 points if you run over the kid on the skateboard"? This movie is where that comes from. Mind you, find the Roger Corman version from 1978, not the dour and depressing remake from a couple of years ago.
Invasion USA - One of my favorite flicks from Cannon Films. Chuck Norris epicly destroys shopping malls and beats up Communists.
Runaway Train - Not really cheese, but I have nowhere else to put it. Probably the best movie from Cannon Films, with great characters, great acting and great stunt work. And holy Christ, what happens to Manny's hand makes me - a hard core horror fan - really cringe. Yikes.
Ninja III: The Domination - Another wonderful, terrible film from the Cannon Group. Imagine if The Exorcist, Flashdance and a Kung Fu movie had a love child. This movie would be that result. Also, try Revenge of the Ninja and Enter The Ninja for all your crazy Chop-Sockie needs!
ASIAN ACTION
The Man From Hong Kong - When Ozploitation legend Brian Trenchard-Smith was writing Man, he said he deliberate paced it "Action scene, Dialog scene, Action scene, Dialog scene" - so while the story is a little weak, the action (and stunt work) is off the goddamned rails.
Hard Boiled - John Woo and Chow Yun Fat masterpiece of hong-kong shoot'em up
The Killer - John Woo and Chow Yun Fat's other masterpiece of Hong-Kong shoot'em up. Between the two, I'd go Hard Boiled over The Killer, but both are epic
Five Element Ninja (AKA Chinese Super Ninja) - The movie is a little rough, but it's got some ridiculously over the top kung fu action with some great choreography.
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (AKA Shaolin Master Killer) - Quite probably one of the best Hong Kong action movies ever made, and that's including Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan in that list.
A Chinese Ghost Story - To try and describe this genre bending flick would be to do it a disservice. It doesn't break any new ground, but it is extremely entertaining
The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk (better known in the states as just The Legend) - One of Jet Li's best flicks, directed by Hong Kong god Corey Yuen who puts down some spectacular action sequences.
Drunken Master 2 (better known in the states as Legend of the Drunken Master, although try and find the original unedited version) - Hands down my favorite Jackie Chan flick of all time. The stunt work and fights are some of the most amazing stuff put to film.
Shaolin Soccer - The story isn't that strong, but the Kung Fu 'fights' - well really soccer matches - between Team Evil (yes, that's what they're actually called) and the Shaolin Monk Football Squad is so goddamned Super Sayen insane, it's worth watching. Also try and find the unedited version
SPAGHETTI WESTERNS
Django - A darker, and dirtier take on the Yojimbo/Fistfull of Dollars 'Two warring factions pitted against each other' story. Pretty good stuff!
Sabata - One of my favorite Spaghetti Westerns, full of colorful characters and badass moments and Lee Van Cleef being cool.
Adios Sabata - Not actually a sequel to the Lee Van Cleef movie, but a flick that Yul Brynner was making that was re-titled mid production to cash in on the first Sabata flick. A great score, great cinematography and some badass action.
The Big Gundown - More Lee Van Cleef badassery, pretty solid action, great direction. A very strong flick
Day of Anger - Go and watch this and you'll be "Ah, so that's where Tarantino stole the music for Django Unchained!" And if it's good enough for him to crib from, it's good enough for you!
Cemetery Without Crosses (AKA The Rope and the Colt) - A dark tale of revenge with very atmospheric scenes, some great music and exceptional acting and directing.
Take A Hard Ride - Slightly less Spaghetti than the others in this section, but still has some over the top action with some great stars like Fred The Hammer Williamson and Jim Brown
A Bullet for the General - a great cast and a really strong story that could easily be stolen for a Star Wars game. (See! Relevance!)
Have A Good Funeral, My Friend . . . . Sartana Will Pay - The story makes no godamned sense, but it's so relentlessly awesome as it rampages forward, you wont have time to notice.
Keoma - Italian director Enzo Castellari strikes again with this dark, violent and very nihilist western. Not at all what you would expect from the genre.
The Great Silence - Klaus Kinski does a mute gunslinger, not a lot of action but still some pretty badass moments
The Grand Duel - the story is a little sloppy, but it's still a really good western.
Navajo Joe - Dont be put off by Burt Renyolds doing a Spaghetti Western. This thing is action packed.
OTHER RANDOM GOOD STUFF -
Shadows in an Empty Room (AKA Blazing Magnum) - A reasonably entertaining Italian Dirty Harry knockoff, but holy christ, that 15 minute car chase is goddamned insane.
Fantastic Planet - Want see what it's like to take acid without that whole "drugs" thing. This animated french movie is for you!
Eagles Over London - Another Enzo Castellari war flick. The back half of the movie is okay, but the first reel, the Miracle of Dunkirk is really good stuff.
Alegro Non Tropo - Imagine if underground comic artist R. Crumb did Disney's Fantasia.
Robot Carnival - Imagine if Disney was Japanese and Fantasia was anime, and was robot-centric
The Castle of Cagilostro - While all his movies are pure gold, this one is my personal favorite from anime legend Hayao Miyazaki.
Blacula and Scream Blacula Scream - Once you get past the goofy title (and it is pretty goofy), this is probably one of the best Dracula/Vampire movies I've seen, and William Marshall is easily as good as Lugosi and Lee as far as portraying The Count.
Black Belt Jones - Jim Kelly (who was one of Bruce Lee's students) does a whole bunch of kung fu on The Man. Plus a pretty cool Kung Fu fight in a car wash!
Force: Five - Five Kung Fu masters have to penetrate a secret cult on a south seas island. Not much story, but dear god is there tons and tons and tons of action.
Black Samson - A big black brotha and his lion (it's a long story) beats the snausages out of The Man and cleans up the streets of Harlem.
Names to Bank on -
Since I can do this all day, let me give you a list of folks who you can be reasonably assured of getting a fun movie (if not necessarily a good movie)
Roger Corman
Dario Argento
Enzo Castellari
Hammer Studios
Shaw Brothers studios
Jackie Chan
One last thing for the list: Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. While not a particularly good movie, it's memorable for shooting in the Stalag 13 set after Hogan's Heroes shut down production. It's so bizarre to see this sexploitation movie set in Colonel Kink's office.
Edited by Desslok

While I wouldn't place any of these in *my* Top 50 (except for possibly 36th Chamber and Hard Boiled)?

I have seen nearly every one of these flicks and now believe we could ABSOLUTELY hang.

Well, like I said, I was trying to avoid the mainstream and more popular. If I were to include those, there'd be more Fist Full of Dollars and Ghostbusters and Back to the Futures and the like on the list. I mean I didn't bother listing TESB on a Star Wars forum, and that would be easily in the top 5. :)

So this is more of a "Top 50 Starting About #75 or so" list.

Edited by Desslok

I count 11 on your list that I've seen. I used to work in a VHS rental store because old. Yet even with that, my viewings trended towards the more obscure corners of the mainstream. So I admit this list is humbling, because I recognize a lot of the names, yet have not seen most of them.

My Top 50 List would be a LOT more mainstream than yours.

I spent most of my best thinkin' years doing a PhD in English Literature, so all of my obscure/unique/non-mainstream contributions to arts and culture lists would be in the form of books.

I'm young-ish compared to many of the regulars on these forums. I can only count a few on this list that I've seen.

Glad to see Five Element Ninja on the list. I caught that movie on netflix on a whim and I found it pretty enjoyable.

I'm here to ask the question we are all thinking but no one else will ask: where's your top porn films? We know you got them. You know we know you got them. Fill us in man!

Actually I only have one adult film - Abducted by the Daleks, a movie that was very, very sued by the BBC. I have it less for the titillation and more for the utter and utter strangeness of a pair of Daleks commanding hawt young girls to make out or be exterminated.

It's not very good. . . .

Actually I only have one adult film - Abducted by the Daleks, a movie that was very, very sued by the BBC. I have it less for the titillation and more for the utter and utter strangeness of a pair of Daleks commanding hawt young girls to make out or be exterminated.

Did I just get the plot for my MarcyVerse/Dr Who crossover...?

(when I was a little girl I soooo wanted to be Jon Pertwee's assistant when I grew up... It's hard to overstate the impact Dr Who had on us impressionable young Brits..)

I always regreted that the US doesnt have a cultural common point like the Daleks. The closest we get are these guys:

sleestak1.jpg

If you grew up in the seventies and watched any Saturday Morning Cartoons at all, odds are that you watched Land of the Lost and was utterly freaked out by the Sleestack. I've never found a kid of my generation that wasn't pants wettingly scared by these slow, fake-looking rubber monsters.

I don't think it's just the Daleks, but the whole array of monsters, many of whom were actually disturbing. The cybermen and autons were horrors drawn from metal and plastic in a world that had yet to be computerised.

And we were used to sci-fi heroes who were two-fisted tough-guys with laser guns - the Doctor was so quintessentially British - an eccentric, Distinguished Older Man scientist who spoke like a Shakesperean actor, and messed about in space and time with an assistant who was usually a dolly-bird in a mini-skirt. It was just so different to everything we'd seen before. (Just as Star wars stuns us and derails our expectations with the very first lines...)

(and on the subject of Dr Who porn...Katy Manning, the actress who played Jo, Pertwee's thinly-disguised love-interest, posed nude with a BBC dalek in a magazine years later, much to Pertwee's amusement...)

I only recognise some of those films.

My top film of all time would probably be strange days.

I'd also have honourable mentions for island on fire (uncut version), the killer, brotherhood and willow.

I can't resist.

Here are my 50. I am not going to win any awards for originality here. I stopped watching "good" movies back in college. (Like, 20 years ago.) I save all my viewing brain power for TV now.

In no particular order, in any category:

SF/Fantasy
Mad Max: Fury Road
Dune
Man of Steel
Starship Troopers
Aliens
Star Wars Episodes IV, V, VI
Star Trek VI, VIII
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Edge of Tomorrow
2001: A Space Odyssey
Ghostbusters
The Princess Bride
Blade Runner
Galaxy Quest
Snowpiercer
Horror
The Thing
Dawn of the Dead
The Ring
The Shining
Pan's Labyrinth
Detective/Crime/Spy
Chinatown
Skyfall
The Bourne Identity
Goodfellas
Animated
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
WALL-E
Ghost in the Shell
Akira
Spirited Away
South Park: The Musical
How to Train Your Dragon
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Comedy
Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail
Zoolander
Spaceballs
Mallrats
The Big Lebowski
Hot Fuzz
Office Space
Drama
Lawrence of Arabia
No Country for Old Men
Documentaries
Grizzly Man
Blackfish
Western
The Wild Bunch
WTF
Inglorious Basterds

Trainspotting

Edited by GreyMatter

I always regreted that the US doesnt have a cultural common point like the Daleks. The closest we get are these guys:

sleestak1.jpg

If you grew up in the seventies and watched any Saturday Morning Cartoons at all, odds are that you watched Land of the Lost and was utterly freaked out by the Sleestack. I've never found a kid of my generation that wasn't pants wettingly scared by these slow, fake-looking rubber monsters.

These bastards are tattooed on my brain. THANKS FOR THE FLASHBACKS, DESSLOK

Ahh Mayasaki and ghibli in general would have @ least 5 entries on a list like this. As would at least 2 real Godzilla Movies, the Japanese ones not Godzilla (2014).

Two films of the "silly horror" category I would urge you to find, Note these are good because they are soooooooooooooooo bad.

My name is Bruce.

What can I say Bruce Campbell sending up himself. This is great if you have ever loved Evil Dead army of darkness.

The Last Lovecraft.

A terribad send up of the Cthulhu mythos.

Check em out at your own peril.

F*** now I have the My name is Bruce bean curd song in my head!!!

Well, if I were to issue an addendum, I would go, in no particular order:

Shin Godzilla - A sarcastic take on the usual Godzilla themes

Godzilla Final Wars - A balls to the wall non-stop monster fight. The human bits are pretty good too

Destroy All Monsters - A slightly slower version of Final Wars

The Terror of Mecha Godzilla - A good story with some solid monster fight scenes and outstanding model work

Godzilla vs King Ghidorah - It knows exactly what it is: a campy, fun godzilla flick, and isnt afraid to wear that fact on it's sleeve.

Gamera, Guardian of the Universe, Gamera 2 and Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris - a really well done trilogy with a solid payoff and a human-scale prospective on the usual monster brawl

And for Ghibli, I would go

Grave of the Fireflies - if you don't cry, you have no soul

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind - a great, well paced flick with a beautiful soundtrack

Kiki’s Delivery Service - A brilliant parable on moving out and growing up without being heavy handed about it.

Castle in the Sky - Honestly one of the best adventure movies I've seen.

Actually I only have one adult film - Abducted by the Daleks, a movie that was very, very sued by the BBC. I have it less for the titillation and more for the utter and utter strangeness of a pair of Daleks commanding hawt young girls to make out or be exterminated.

It's not very good. . . .

Really? REALLY?! Daleks? In a porn film? How would you get the, you know, with the, you know... You know what, I don't wanna know. The logistics of this is giving me a headache. That's me done asking the hard questions.

Grave of the Fireflies - if you don't cry, you have no soul

I keep seeing this mentioned or popping up every now and again, I keep thinking I should really watch this film, and I keep not seeing it. I'm gonna have to make the effort one of these days, and as to not crying...

cover256x256-adb5b94f4a6a4017a4933d9c63e

Keeping in step with the movie theme, I've been writing the basis for a scenario I've tentatively titled 'YT1300 to Yuma'.

Actually I only have one adult film - Abducted by the Daleks, a movie that was very, very sued by the BBC. I have it less for the titillation and more for the utter and utter strangeness of a pair of Daleks commanding hawt young girls to make out or be exterminated.

It's not very good. . . .

Really? REALLY?! Daleks? In a porn film? How would you get the, you know, with the, you know... You know what, I don't wanna know. The logistics of this is giving me a headache. That's me done asking the hard questions.

Grave of the Fireflies - if you don't cry, you have no soul

I keep seeing this mentioned or popping up every now and again, I keep thinking I should really watch this film, and I keep not seeing it. I'm gonna have to make the effort one of these days, and as to not crying...

cover256x256-adb5b94f4a6a4017a4933d9c63e

Challenge may be accepted, but I have seen it accepted many times. I have not seen it completed.

Keeping in step with the movie theme, I've been writing the basis for a scenario I've tentatively titled 'YT1300 to Yuma'.

I spent the longest time trying to figure out how to make that story work as a game. At a high level - have to hold a prisoner at a location for X time until the transport arrives - it could, but all the good stuff of the movie, the character interplay and drama, would be really, really tough to pull off with characters that may or may not follow the script.

Challenge may be accepted, but I have seen it accepted many times. I have not seen it completed.

If he makes it, he's a stronger man than I. . . .

Challenge may be accepted, but I have seen it accepted many times. I have not seen it completed.

If he makes it, he's a stronger man than I. . . .

Stronger? Or heartless? Nah, I weeped at Pan's Labyrinth, if it's all its cracked up to be you'll hear the wailing.

Holy sh*t, desslok, that's a lot of movies.

Thank you man - it was my pleasure to deliver. Mind you, I'm looking at the list and going "Man, how did I forget The Last Dragon or Don't Go In the House!"

By the way, The Last Dragon is a huge slice of awesome and everyone needs to see it!

SHO-NUFF!

Edited by Desslok

A director I have enjoyed is Neil Marshal.

His first movie Dog Soldiers still remains one of my favorites. Centurion is also fun. He's only done four movies but has directed a lot of interesting shows of late.

Rise! Rise!

What skill do I roll for necromancy? It's Cool, right?

I'm sure you have seen this movie Desslok, but I watched it the other day and it's ridiculous levels of incredulity reminded me of you. Plus I know a few other regulars here have seen it as well.

Introducing...

Redline.. It's a love story and the woman is the car.

Edited by kaosoe

That trailer was awesome.