IMDb Top 250 Challenge: Remaining Films To Be Seen

I started this project, my IMDb Top 250 Challenge, on the 1st of January 2013 having already seen 151 of the 250 movies in the Top 250 IMDb list at that time. My goal was to watch the remaining 99.

In that time, I’ve managed to watch 65 of those. I posted a list of those 65 a couple of days ago HERE, all ranked & rated (Yeah, I love making lists). Now I’m going to focus on watching the remaining 34. Those I have left to watch are listed below, with their Top 250 rank as of 2013.

•I will also soon start a Best Picture Project & try to watch all the Best Picture Oscar Winners. I’ve put a dot next to those that are also Best Picture Winners•

The 34 IMDb Top 250 Movies I Have Left To Watch:

•66 Lawrence of Arabia
69 The Great Dictator
71 Das Boot
74 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
77 Once Upon a Time in America
107 Der Untergang (Downfall)
120 The General
126 Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)
133 Ran
137 The Gold Rush
145 High Noon
146 Hotel Rwanda
150 Casino
•154 Annie Hall
159 The Grapes of Wrath
168 The Big Sleep
181 Amores Perros
185 Persona
•187 Gandhi
•192 8½ (best international feature winner)
•199 La strada (best international feature winner)
204 Stalag 17
209 Barry Lyndon
213 Stalker
219 Le scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly)
220 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
221 In the Name of the Father
224 A Streetcar Named Desire
226 Incendies
230 Harvey
232 La Haine
236 Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring)
240 Battleship Potemkin
244 Papillon (I’ve just watched this one…)

I know there are some great films here. Which of these should I really have seen by now? 🙂

***IMDB Top 250 New Additions As Of 01/01/2016:***

In 2016, I did take the new IMDb Top 250 list to see if there were any new additions I’d not seen. There were lots of new ones but only 14 I’d not seen. I’ve been working through those too (as well as any on the current list), but the 2013 list is my first priority.

Here are the 9 remaining films that I need to see from the 2016 list:

•124 Sunrise
136 Sholay
147 Judgement at Nuremberg
173 The Wages of Fear
•184 12 Years a Slave
216 Memories of Murder
217 The Battle of Algiers
226 Throne of Blood
246 Three Colours: Red

Finally, I did watch three of the Top 250 films already this year. Liked them all: Les Diaboliques, It Happened One Night & Bringing Up Baby. And I’ve just watched Papillon, which I’ll review in my next monthly roundup.

And thanks again to everyone who joined in & did guest reviews of some of the 151 Top 250 movies I’d already seen when I started this project. You can see the full 2013 IMDb Top 250 list plus links to all the reviews of those movies HERE.

Play Misty For Me (1971) Blind Spot Review

**Welcome to Clint Eastwood Week here at Cinema Parrot Disco! I’ll be reviewing Clint Eastwood films for the rest of this week (all of which are ones I’ve only just watched for the first time this year). Happy Birthday to Mr. Eastwood, who is turning 86 tomorrow! I figured I might as well do this during the week of his birthday. Plus, I chose one of his films for my 2016 Blind Spot Series. So here’s my month of May Blind Spot review, directed by & starring Eastwood: Play Misty For Me.

Play Misty For Me (1971)

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills, John Larch

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
A brief fling between a male disc jockey and an obsessed female fan takes a frightening, and perhaps even deadly turn when another woman enters the picture.

My Opinion:

This was one of my “alternate” Blind Spot choices (see them all HERE) but then I went & watched it right away in January as it was one that I really wanted to see the most. Here are the Blind Spot movies I’ve reviewed so far including this one (I might as well start ranking them! Counting down to my favorite…):

5. An Education – 7/10
4. Summer Wars – 7/10
3. True Romance – 7/10
2. Play Misty For Me – 7.5/10
1. Natural Born Killers – 8/10

So, yeah – Play Misty For Me is pretty high for me so far.

This movie is so Seventies it hurts! The clothing & the hairstyles are ridiculously ugly/awesome. I love that decade! I always have a soft spot for 70’s & 80’s movies so I may rate them a bit too highly sometimes but I did enjoy this. Fatal Attraction owes a lot to Play Misty For Me – Glenn Close must have watched this movie. I don’t know Jessica Walter but it looks like she’s been in a lot of TV shows, such as Arrested Development (which I’ve never seen). She’s a great crazy bitch in this! I didn’t know just how unhinged her character would be. I think, if you’re gonna have a psycho stalker in a movie, they should be full-on crazy. I wasn’t disappointed with the level of nuttiness!

I also have a thing for movies involving a DJ so I really liked that part of it. Although, we see Eastwood in the studio & doing his DJ thing far less than I was expecting – he was mostly at home dealing with the crazy bitch or outdoors. Part of this may have been Eastwood wanting to show off his hometown? It’s a lovely place! I’d happily live in a town like that. Thanks to the hubby for knowing this fact beforehand so I looked into it afterwards: this movie was filmed in the town Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, where Eastwood has lived for many years & was elected mayor in 1986. He filmed this in local restaurants, the radio station, and friends’ homes. Oh, and in reading a bit about the town at Wikipedia, I read that they have a law prohibiting women from wearing high heel shoes without a permit. Ha! That’s weird. (Although I don’t think it’s strictly enforced)

There’s not much more that I can say about this film. It’s just a really good “stalker” movie so, if you like that genre, I’d certainly recommend this one. It’s also worth watching if you like this era & to see Eastwood’s directorial debut. So far, this is my favorite movie that he’s directed (but there are quite a few Eastwood-directed films I still haven’t seen). It’s a nice break from his cowboy thing & Dirty Harry thing – it’s a shame he didn’t do more movies like this one. Seriously, though – this is so SO Seventies! Look at these tighty whiteys!

Look at this outfit! I love those boots. Id totally wear this outfit with a different color top!

Look at the hideous hair on Donna Mills!

Love it. Good movie. One of Eastwood’s better films, actually. It should get more recognition.

My Rating: 7.5/10

Music Video Friday: The Cars – You Might Think

Today’s video for Music Video Friday is You Might Think by The Cars.

Most every band has been MY FAVORITE for at least a little while. I change my mind a lot. I’m indecisive! Or am I? Anyway, I’ve always gone through phases with bands & The Cars were MY FAVORITE for about two months when I was seventeen. I haven’t really listened to them much since…

Although their later albums were the ones I should’ve liked more due to my age, I didn’t really go for those as much. Their first album, the self-titled The Cars from 1978, was & still is the best. Great songs on that one! Just What I Needed, Best Friend’s Girl, Good Times Roll, Moving In Stereo, You’re All I’ve Got Tonight… ! I kind of feel like digging out that CD. No, wait – I think I only have that on cassette. 😦

You Might Think is from the 1984 album Heartbeat City and I’m sure everyone knows of the video as it was nominated for loads of awards. Actually, it won the very first MTV Video Of The Year award – I just read this at Wikipedia:

“The music video is one of the first videos to use computer graphics. The video features band leader Ric Ocasek and model Susan Gallagher in a series of encounters. You Might Think won the first MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year and was nominated for five more awards (best special effects, best art direction, viewer’s choice, best concept video, and most experimental video) at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards.

Jeff Stein, and Alex Weil and Charlie Levi of VFX company Charlex, directed and produced the video. Danny Rosenberg and Bill Weber served both as editors and video engineers, Kevin Jones was the lighting director, Danny Ducovny the cinematographer and Bob Ryzner the art director. The video cost $80,000 to make which was almost triple the average music video budget of the time.”

Well, here’s the video just in case some of the younger bloggers here never saw this one. I also know that The Cars weren’t nearly as successful in the UK as in the US (most people in the UK will only know the song Drive as it was used in a montage of famine footage for Live Aid in 1985) so it’s possible that some of you in the UK still haven’t seen this video. Witness Ric Ocasek being the creepiest stalker EVER! And I just dig the girl’s excessive 80’s make-up. So much pink & purple! God I miss that decade…