Welcome back! We were offline for a little while trying to remember our 5 all-time favorite movies (All-time) and 5 that we’ve liked pretty well from the last decade (2001). Get busy catching up, and don’t miss the next madcap edition of WATPA?
Suzanne Knight:
All-time: The Godfather, Jaws, The Shawshank Redemption, A Few Good Men, Dirty Dancing
2001: The King’s Speech, Death at a Funeral (the 2007 Frank Oz iteration), Finding Nemo, Little Miss Sunshine, The Lord of the Rings (all three)
James Schirmer:
All-time: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Limey, The Big Lebowski
2001: No Country for Old Men, District 9, Mulholland Drive, Children of Men, The Proposition
Steve Bernstein:
All-time: The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Chinatown, Vertigo, Blue Velvet
2001: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 24 Hour Party People, The Illusionist (2006), Spirited Away, The Tree of Life
Jim Anderson:
All-time: 1. Casablanca, 2. Annie Hall, 3. The Maltese Falcon, 4. The Searchers, 5. Chinatown
2001: I have been to five movies since 2001, maybe just, but none struck me as great.
Kazuko Hiramatsu:
All-time: The Princess Bride, Charade, My Neighbor Totoro, Rajio no jikan (Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald), Galaxy Quest
2001: Love Actually, Gosford Park, How to Train your Dragon, Star Trek, Catch Me If You Can
Scott Russell:
All-time: Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lawrence of Arabia, Rear Window, Tootsie, Citizen Cane
2001: Inception, Frost/Nixon, Lord of the Rings trilogy, Anger Management, Capote
Suchitra Rathnam:
All-time: 1) March of the Penguins, 2) Shrek-all parts, 3) A Beautiful Mind, 4) The Next Three Days, 5) Throw Momma from the Train
2001: 1) Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr. & Jude Law), 2) Pirates of the Caribbean, 3) Blind Side, 4) A Beautiful Mind, 5) As Good As it Gets
Brian Boggs:
All-time: Star Wars (three old ones and the last new one, episode III), Back to the Future, The Thin Man (series), Sabrina (old and new versions both), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
2001: Doubt, Sherlock Holmes, Superman, The Dukes of Hazzard, Avatar
Scott Caddy:
All-time (in no particular order): High Fidelity, Apocalypse Now, Braveheart, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
2001 (again, no particular order): Garden State, La Vie en Rose, Big Fish, Team America: World Police, Napoleon Dynamite
Cathy Akers-Jordan:
All-time: 1. Just about anything with John Wayne, 2. Indiana Jones 1 and 3, 3. Star Trek 2 and 4, 4. The Lord of the Rings series, 5. The original Star Wars series (4, 5, & 6) before George Lucas started editing each DVD release
2001: 1. Captain America, 2. The Lord of the Rings series, 3. The Harry Potter series, 4. Just about any animated film by Disney/Pixar, 5. Julie and Julia
John Pendell:
All-time: Being John Malkovich, Sling Blade, The Godfather, pt. 2, The Deer Hunter, Fight Club
2001: Volver, Lost in Translation, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Triplets of Belleville, Million Dollar Baby
Stephanie Roach:
All-time: The Goodbye Girl, The Princess Bride, Star Wars, When Harry Met Sally, The Wiz
2001: Big Fish, (500) Days of Summer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Social Network, Toy Story 3
Fred Svoboda:
All-time: “The Gold Rush” (1925). Charlie Chaplin as a prospector looking for gold and love in the frozen North.
“IT” (1927). Clara Bow in a silent movie comedy that is the prototype for the later “Pretty Woman” starring Julia Roberts.
“The Grapes of Wrath” (1940). John Ford directs Henry Fonda in what was generally considered the greatest American film of its time.
“The Graduate” (1967) made Dustin Hoffman a star in the original “cougar” film.
“Do the Right Thing” (1989). Great ensemble piece addressing American racism is also a great viewing experience. It’s the hottest day of the year in Brooklyn!
2001: “Lost in Translation” (2003): Scarlet Johanssen and Bill Murray meet in Tokyo, try to figure out why they’re there and where they’re going next.
“A Very Long Engagement” (2004): Audrey Tautou in a touching French love story wrapped around a harrowing recreation of the trench warfare of the First World War.
“Death at a Funeral” (the 2007 British version): Hugely funny yet subtle comedy of a family whose members don’t know as much about each other as they thought. (The 2010 Chris Rock version is also funny, but not spot-on like the original.)
“Up” (2009): You can’t get a more literally and figuratively uplifting film experience. “Up” is about finding the adventure in any life.
“Up in the Air” (2009): George Clooney fires up to 30 people a day in a stinging parody of corporate outsourcing. This film is a mainstream movie with bite.
Monika Ehrlich:
All-time: 1. Annie Hall, 2. Life is Beautiful, 3. American Beauty, 4. The Shawshank Redemption, 5. Reservoir Dogs
2001: 1. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2. Sideways, 3. The Last King of Scotland, 4. The Royal Tenenbaums, 5. Everything is Illuminated
Matt Kanefsky:
All-time: Star Wars; Au revoir, les enfants; History of the World, Part I; On the Waterfront; The Princess Bride
2001: Night at the Museum 2, Gran Torino, Sin Nombre, Ondine, Lost in Translation