It was a tight competition and a tie has resulted. Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Treasure of the Sierra Madre were the top vote getters followed by The Last Hurrah and the The Untouchables. And when given a choice between a western and anything but a western, I have to go for anything but. Of course, being on Netflix instant also helped, so Long Day’s Journey Into Night is the winner and has been added to my queue. I will receive it next week to be watched that subsequent weekend (or watched this weekend if I have time) and reviewed in The Morning After to be posted on September 27.
Here’s the deal: every week, I will be calling for suggestions of films to be added to my Netflix queue. Each person makes one suggestion and one alternate (in case I have seen one of your suggestions). The next week, when I call for new suggestions, we begin a one-week voting period to select the film to be placed immediately into my Netflix queue to be reviewed the weekend after (because I’ll already have my Netflix queue selections for the coming weekend). Then, you’ll find out what I thought in my weekly Morning After feature on Monday morning.
To help decide what to pick, here is a list of what I’ve seen (or at least that I have personally logged).
Full List of Films I’ve Seen (some titles missing)
Here’s what you need to post today (and through next Wednesday):
Below, please provide your suggestions to add to my Netflix queue.
Next, please rate each of the following entries in order of preference. Item 1 will be most preferred, 2 next most preferred and so forth.
Beside Oscars nominations and wins, The Treasure is one of the greatest American pieces of cinema of all times. How can anyone at least interested in movies can miss it, is a mystery to me…
And tell me about Bogart’s Fred C. Dobbs…
“Can you help a fellow American down on his luck?”
My suggestion? grab the dvd today and give ABSOLUTE PRIORITY!!! to it 🙂
Spartacus was a job for hire with Kubrick replacing another director (Anthony Mann, I think) but the others have his unique stamp on them. Paths of Glory is the best of them, but The Killing is an exciting heist film that is very close to being the best of the genre.
Hopefully you will go through the Supporting Actor winners in the not too distant future the way you’re going through Supporting Actress now. Walter Huston’s performance in Treasure of Sierra Madre is one of, if not the, best performance among winners in that category.
I have seen everything Kubrick did from Lolita forward. I have not seen Spartacus back. They are in my queue, but because of all of the other films I’ve been catching up on, they haven’t gotten very close to the top. The Killing, Spartacus, Paths of Glory and Killer’s Kiss. Though to be fair, anything Spartacus and back were studio efforts and thus have less ownership than his other films have.
As for Sierra Madre, it’s just not my style, it’s still considered part of the western genre, even if not set there…at least as far as I was aware. Besides, the primary decision factor was that Journey had an online version meaning I can watch it any time and not take up one of my other slots (for Supporting Actress winners).
I agree with Mike here. Treasure of Sierra Madre is not a western in the classic sense – it takes place in 1925 Mexico, not the Old West. It’s not a tale of good guys vs. bad guys – they’re all bad guys.
I can’t believe you haven’t seen The Killing, It must be the only Kubrick film you haven’t seen.
I like all these films, but since you’ve been watching a lot of my suggestions lately I’ll support someone else’s first and list in order:
The Killing
The Innocents
The Women
Red River
The Searchers
Didn’t you used to be known as The Oscar Guy? Treasure of the Sierra Madre won Oscars for Best director (John Huston), best supporting actor (Walter Huston) and best screenplay (also John). To dismiss it as a simple western is almost cruel. It’s a classic tale of redemption, greed and human nature at its worst. I hope someday you will see this fine film 🙂
Preference:
The Killing
The Innocents
The Searchers
Red River
The Women
New suggestions:
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
It was a tight competition and a tie has resulted. Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Treasure of the Sierra Madre were the top vote getters followed by The Last Hurrah and the The Untouchables. And when given a choice between a western and anything but a western, I have to go for anything but. Of course, being on Netflix instant also helped, so Long Day’s Journey Into Night is the winner and has been added to my queue. I will receive it next week to be watched that subsequent weekend (or watched this weekend if I have time) and reviewed in The Morning After to be posted on September 27.
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