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The top 100 Most Violent Movies Ever Made by Tim Wambolt
Favs/dislikes: 59:1. Warning: These are the top 100 sickest, cruelest, most violent, gruesome, upsetting and sadistic films ever made! They contain torture, snuff, rape, animal cruelty, baby killing, genital mutilation and much more! You have been warned! Although none of these films are real like Traces of Death, they are still very realistic and may in fact contain real footage that may be traumatizing, (Seed, Snuff 102, I'm looking at you guys!) Please watch with caution! (Not complete yet. Some entries seem to be missing from IMDB). -
Ronny's Top 99 Arthouse Films
Favs/dislikes: 23:0. There are way too many arthouse / surreal / artistic films out there to know where the hell to start. Even if you've watched them for years you can still get lost in the searching. One of the reasons why we started Film Bizarro was to highlight the weird for the masses, and while I think we have done that, we've also gotten wider. That's why I wanted to make this list - to make a list that focuses on only the good of the weird. I decided to call it my "Favorite Arthouse Films" because I think "Arthouse" is a word that sums it up perfectly even though the origins of the word might not apply to 100%. I've tried to write a good but short description for each film - it's just too much work to write a full review for each of these so bare with me. There are some fascinating films in this list and sometimes words just doesn't do it, at least not with my limited vocabulary, so don't judge them solely on what I have to say. If you find a film of interest: watch it! I decided to only include 3 movies from the same director, otherwise some directors would take up too much space. This list consists of films that are my favorites, I'm not claiming they are the best. Simply being weird doesn't do it!! When I decided to make this list I took it upon myself to watch a few films I have missed out on - LOTS and LOTS of films didn't make it, but some of them did. This of course means that in 6 months maybe the list would've looked slightly different, as I watch movies all the time. This documents the time when it was made, and I assure you that's good enough! Five of the movies are missing from IMDb. Missing from IMDb: #78. Tephrasect (Justin Curfman, 2004) #68. Ass (Usama Alshaibi, 2001) #61. I Never Left The White Room (Michael Todd Schneider, 2007) #30. ...and then i helped (Michael Todd Schneider, 2010) #15. Convulsion Expulsion (Usama Alshaibi, 2003) -
DigitalDreamDoor's 100 Greatest Documentary Films
Favs/dislikes: 21:0. List best documentaries films from digitaldreamdoor.com. These are the Greatest Documentary Films chosen for their influence, impact, historical importance, cinematography, direction, and popularity. Also added lists: — Documentary Series — Best 2010 Documentaries — Best 2009 Documentaries -
The 50 Most Controversial Films
Favs/dislikes: 15:0. 50 most controversial films by SkyMovies -
Top Ten Experiments In Horror
Favs/dislikes: 10:0. Cinema is commonly thought of as a medium that brings our dreams into waking consciousness. And our nightmares. It cannot be argued that film has gravitated toward capturing the horrific ever since its inception. The Horror genre purposefully experiments with our fears and fear comes in many forms, as we all know. Most film makers tend to take somewhat formulaic approaches to style and narrative; however, through different manipulations of sight and sound, some attempt to involve the viewer into the presentation, beyond just observing it. These strange and frightening dreamscapes often attempt to question our perceptions - in both a visual and intellectual sense. Unfortunately, they are rarely met with much commercial acceptance or success. Nevertheless, many of the elements employed are often highly innovative and later copied by the mainstream. Look no further than 1929's impenetrable yet fascinating Un Chien Andalou for sixteen of the most peculiar minutes ever compiled, if you have any doubts. That opening eyeball scene alone is worth the watch, I assure you. Audiences of that time had seen nothing like it, but viewers today can easily spot the film's integrity. In accordance, here I'd like to focus on some of the most unconventional, surreal, abstract, ambiguous or indulgent works to ever be made. Where nothing is as it seems. Or is it? It is within these vague perimeters that I offer ten of the most compelling experimental horror films ever made. (Not complete yet. Some entries seem to be missing from IMDB). Missing from IMDb: In Stillness I Lie (Pepper Negron, 2009) -
The 25 Most Disturbing Horror Movies of All Time
Favs/dislikes: 8:0. The term disturbing is defined as something that can be troubling mentally or emotionally. It is something that is upsetting and may even make you physically ill. That being said, the term can be considered rather subjective. As human beings, we all have had our own unique experiences that over time have molded our characteristics, behavior, feelings, and personal judgments. So something that is disturbing to one person may not be disturbing to another. That being said, this is list of twenty five films from the horror genre that are disturbing or could be considered to be disturbing. The horror genre is the most likely place that we are going to find imagery that will shock and disturb the audience, featuring tales of true crime, serial killers, slashers, rape and revenge, torture, scenes of horrific gore, and the list can go on forever. Within the genre and its many subgenres, they can take us into the deepest and darkest corridors of humanity. Places that we hope to never witness or become a part of. It is those types of events that can be potentially disturbing. This list contains a little bit of everything, with at least one film from every decade between 1966 and 2016 and at least one from America, Serbia, Germany, Austria, Italy, Mexico, Hong Kong, Japan, Spain, China, France, Sweden and Argentina. It is a varied collection of horror pictures; with some between being critically hailed, many being labeled as exploitative and controversial, and some being banned in various parts of the world. [Author’s Note: This list is not meant to be an all inclusive list or a best of list; it is simply twenty five horror movies that may be disturbing.] -
50 Bad Taste Movies
Favs/dislikes: 6:3. The movie world is littered with any number of controversial films. But the real jaw-dropping moments come from the most disgusting, morally vacuous and downright bad taste movies around - here's our Top 50. -
20 Amazing Slow-Paced Movies You Shouldn’t Miss
Favs/dislikes: 5:0. Some of the best, and most obvious, advice to give anyone trying to get into cinema is to just be patient, and pay attention at all times. It is axiomatic for sure, but this advice is even more prevalent when considering slow, meandering cinema. It can be tempting to wander off and lose focus, but remaining diligent is what is going to provide the best understanding and enjoyment of the content over anything else. The history of slow cinema runs the gauntlet of auteur legends such as Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, Chantal Akerman, Yasujiro Ozu, and Michelangelo Antonioni. Since the infamous boos and jeers directed towards the groundbreaking L’Avventura at Cannes, slow film has always seemed to have an uphill struggle to find a proper home. Now many filmmakers are applauded for such “relentless” pacing. In fact, from an academic and historical point-of-view, slow film is entirely antithetical to classical style filmmaking. Old (and new) films are dominated by successive cutting, varying of shots/angles, and utilizing the Kuleshov effect to its fullest for easier plotting. Usually classic Hollywood films did this so the editor could cover up any mistakes or discrepancies. Now it seems as if newer, mainstream films are vying for audience attention with as much visual stimuli as possible. However, many slow films like to have the mise-en-scène at such a minimum to where it seems as if nothing is happening. Some directors have a preference for keeping the camera at a long or medium-long shot to maintain verisimilitude, letting the scene play out in sequence. There are many fantastic slow films, but these 20 films are emblematic of what the style/technique has to offer. -
20 Recent Horror Movies Based on Actual Medical Conditions
Favs/dislikes: 5:0. From masterpieces to obscure splatter films, the horror genre has always preyed upon the weaknesses of the human mind. Whether it’s the monster under the bed or the monster next door, most horror films share a common currency: fear and its more popular form of exchange, anxiety. However, there are certain titles that manage to refine this formula and, instead of relying only on supernatural antagonists and murderous maniacs, follow the more intricate paths of psychology and psychiatry. The list next contains a series of recent films that manage to trade their characters’ psychological and sometimes physical wellness for a copious amount of fear. While these movies might feature their own dose of supernatural, the classical horror recipe is not their strong point. Also, most of these productions will cast doubt either on their characters’ sanity or the viewer’s. We went for titles that came out during the past three years and intentionally left out the classics, including Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and highlights from the 2000’s such as Identity or Frailty. Also note that this list does not contain any actual plot spoilers, but it might “spoil” the thrills you’d eventually get from discovering some of these movies’ key characters. -
21 Movies About Weird, Kinky Or Compulsive Sex
Favs/dislikes: 5:0. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Lars Von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac” (both parts are now on VOD: here’s our review of Part 1 and Part 2) is Shia LaBeouf’s accent that it’s a film that is totally, unashamedly, unavoidably about sex. While coitus, rumpy, intercourse, balling, humping, beast-with-two-back-making does feature in some shape or form with extreme frequency in cinema, it only rarely forms the central, wait for it, thrust of the story, likely partly because distributors (especially in the U.S.) are often accused of a streak of puritanism when it comes to sex, particularly when compared to the their much more carefree attitude toward violence, and partly because even today mainstream audiences can be put off by even a whiff of the smutty-old-man-in-a-dirty-coat connotation. Which means that furthermore, films like “Nymphomaniac” that delve into the darker recesses of human sexuality—power play, taboo fantasies and fetishes, BDSM, sex addiction, etc.—are even fewer. We dabbled in this arena not so long ago, choosing to, um “celebrate” the grotesque and unforgettable image of Cameron Diaz grinding into a car windshield in “The Counselor,” by running down 15 Weird Sex Scenes, having already run down the Best and Worst Sex Scenes. But it got us to thinking about films that took the bold stance of “Nymphomaniac” further, that built their whole narrative around shocking, discomfiting or fetishistic sex. So while avoiding tamer stuff that we’ve covered before, like in our Losing Your Virginity Movies feature, and also while trying to steer largely clear of the erotic thriller subgenre that deserves a feature all to itself someday (sorry “Basic Instinct” fans) we zipped open the eyeholes on our gimp masks and handcuffed ourselves to the DVD player, to bring you 21 films that, from comedies to dramas to uncategorizable arthouse explorations, walk on the wilder, weirder, and often more worrisome side of sex. -
The 15 Best Movies Influenced by Bertolt Brecht’s Theater Techniques
Favs/dislikes: 5:0. Since the beginning of cinema, the theater has been a major influence on the medium. Cinematic staging is largely based on precepts from the theater. Though cinema developed its own language, a lot of traces of theater are still present. To point out the obvious, most acting techniques come directly from theater. Perhaps in Hollywood cinema the major influence was the Stanislavski system. Stanislavski proposed a school of acting where the actor was expected to control every facet of his performance in order to mix theatrical emotions with real ones to create a truly dramatic performance. This style can be seen in Robert De Niro’s performance in Raging Bull, or in almost every Daniel Day-Lewis performance. The literary counterpart of this was incarnated in the person of the German poet and writer Bertolt Brecht. Brecht proposed the “epic-theater”, where the thoughts were more important than emotion. For Brecht a play was completed outside the theater, in the reflections of the audience when the play is over. To achieve this he employed the verfremdungseffekt (distancing effect), a strategy which constantly reminded the audience that they were in a theater. In Brechtian theory, if the spectator knows that what he is watching is fiction and is not driven by an emotional identification, he can complete the play in his mind. Brecht was also a Marxist and his main interest was to expose contradictions from the stage, and involve the audience. He never gave complete answers which would go against dialectical exercise. The influence of these ideas became so prominent, that there are a number of examples of them in cinema. Some of his techniques became popular in modern cinema, though not necessarily with the same objectives Brecht had in mind. Addressing the audience by breaking the fourth-wall was one of Brecht’s revolutions, but now this is quite normal, and is not always related to distancing ideas. This 15 films listed are among the finest examples of Brecht’s lessons applied to film. -
10 Great Anti-Detective Films For The Post-Truth Era
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. There is a moral in detective fiction perhaps put best by a slogan of The X-Files, a science fictional inheritor of the genre: The Truth is out there. More than the conviction of evidence for extraterrestrial life this is in the context of the show, this phrase also speaks to a belief in objective truth, and the knowability of this truth essential to the entire detective genre, to the implication of forces which conceal it, and the moral imperative of its pursuit. This is the project of the detective, a knight errant of the modern world who seeks the hidden coherency of truth from out of a web of disparate and often contradictory clues and in finding it, restores some justice, order, or at least sense to the world. Of course the genre’s moral core is often offset by its characteristic cynicism, where truth alone unbiased and pure may well be the only moral good. Where the hero is often positioned outside any law, private, unincorporated, as comfortable in the world of criminality as order, never above snooping, lying, breaking and entering, aiding or abetting in order to make a case, and devoted even to truth by profession alone, driven as much by mercenary selfishness as any moral force. Where the detective is just as often frustrated in their quest, if not by the all pervasive corruption of the law and its society of cheats, as in the ending of Polanski’s Chinatown, then by the ultimate inaccessibility of the facts. But even when frustrated, the detective still traditionally secures us within a world where truth exists as something objective and knowable and where there are those capable of and committed to its pursuit. But what happens when the detective enters a strange abstracting space where truth is no longer knowable or based on objective grounds, where contradictory truths seem to coexist, where paranoid fantasy replaces intuition, and the process of detection itself becomes suspect? These are the questions asked by a countercurrent of anti-detective films emerging in the 1960’s and 70’s art cinemas – striking a new resonance, and re-emerging in our current era of ‘post-truth’ – which in one way or another deconstruct the assumptions on which the genre is founded from the perspectives of a new skeptical relativism, not only as genre critique, but also as a repurposing of this now disemboweled form to new and creative ends. Through it all the detective persists, stubborn holdovers as they are from a world where truth was absolute. There is another slogan in The X-Files: I want to believe. Here is a list of ten anti-detective films to put Philip Marlowe on his ass. -
20 Great Conspiracy Movies That Are Worth Your Time
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. Conspiracies are a common part of history. Technically, anytime two or more people make a plan to rob a bank, murder a rival, or throw a boxing match they are engaging in a conspiracy. Most crime films, however, are not seen as, “conspiracy movies.” That subgenre label is generally reserved for stories that involve political conspiracies. In some cases, conspiracy movies can help the general public better understand the past and what is, or is not, possible in the real world. More often than not, however, these films feed off public paranoia and misconceptions of the real world, making viewers more inclined to believe false, “conspiracy theories” (e.g. vast, complex, secret plans, run by super powerful puppet masters who have a unity of purpose and a level of control over society that no one actually possesses). -
20 Great Movies That Revolutionized Film Editing
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. Editing is one of the most important steps in any filmmaking process, and yet, if it is done well, it will often be ignored. Hollywood taught us that a good montage was “invisible,” impossible to notice. These 20 examples defied the idea of montage as a passive construction and instead developed techniques to make this aspect not only visible, but emotionally impactful. From mastering old techniques to bringing “mistakes” purposely to a scene, editing has developed and enlarged its codes through time. In chronological order, here are 20 revolutionary works in film editing. -
Art of Found Footage
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. -
Greatest Disaster Film Scenes
Favs/dislikes: 4:1. Greatest Disaster Film Scenes: Disasters have been the subject of film-goers' fascination since the time of silent film epics, and this interest continues to exist up to the present time. Films have often depicted large-scale natural disasters (weather-related usually) or man-made calamities (a wreck at sea, an airplane crash), often accompanied by massive crowd scenes. Other disasters may be planetary-related, criminally-instigated, nuclear-related, millennial-related, or involving alien or mutant invasions of some kind. They can be either impending or ongoing, or they can exist locally or globally. -
One hundred and eleven cult films by Alexander Pavlov
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. -
The 15 Best Movies About The Creative Process
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. There is evidence of human artwork dating back 500,000 years. It is our very nature to express ourselves through creative endeavors and share them with others. Creativity is in our blood. The passage of time has allowed us to graduate from crude paintings on cave walls to magnificent moving images projected onto massive theater screens. But the point is still the same: sharing a story. Not surprisingly, the creative art of filmmaking loves looking at creative types. Movies are the perfect vehicle to explore the creative process, the method, the origin of inspiration, and the struggle to bring them to fruition. Movies utilize many of the great arts: writing, music, acting, composition, color, and of course a little magic – the age-old deception of doing the impossible. Let’s gather ‘round the fire and share some stories. -
The 25 Most Infamous Movies of All Time
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. A quick glance at IMDb’s Top 250 page, or even at nominally more serious attempts to supposedly list the “greatest films ever,” shows that few people, their claims of be-ing “cinephiles” notwithstanding, take cinema seriously as an art form. The petit bourgeois journalist-cum-“critic” views cinema the same way he (it is usually a he) views a late-afternoon newspaper crossword or Sudoku puzzle, namely, as a decoder-ring semiotic symbolization to be deconstructed, by “reading” visu-al/formalistic and stylistic virtuosity or assigning meaning to easily-decoded predeter-mined camera movements. He views the “greatest films ever” as being so great pre-cisely because every moment in them – every shot, every camera movement or position, every editing technique and decision, etc. – is intentionally and specifically endowed with an obviously- and easily-decodable “meaning” even the most unsophisticated viewer can understand within a few seconds. So, for example, a large and empty house – especially if filmed from within a corridor – signifies a character is either lone-ly or depressed (and, naturally, so must the viewer feel after decoding said meaning), a lightning storm that the characters experienced an emotional turmoil, a husband and wife sitting at the opposite ends of a massive dinner table that their marriage is in shambles, and so forth. These films do not engage with emotions or have viewers work out their emotional responses to depicted situations step-by-step perceptually and perceptively, rather, they explicitly tell the viewers when to feel sad or happy and, rather than having them work with the characters’s emotional, physical, or vocal/verbal states, simply tell the viewers immediately how they feel. Dialogue, acting, characteri-zations, human interactions, etc., are minimal and functional at best, and frowned up-on at worst, in these “greatest films ever,” interfering with the journalist’s definition of great cinema as one that “tells a story and a plot using visual and cinematic devices.” And, if these “greatest films ever” have some generic and simplistic formulaic and/or abstract take-home message, especially if conveyed through these easily-decodable “hidden and deep meanings” – virtually always either some basically-true yet painful-ly-obvious-without-seeing-the-film and banal cliché or stereotype taken for granted by practically every semi-educated adult (e.g. “racism and war are bad,” “money is not everything and our current economic system is not perfect either,” “different people have different opinions,” “it is a bad and even dangerous idea to allow governments and corporations to develop technologies that shall allow them to spy on civilians, that may even cause alienation,” “there are several differences between the Jewish and Christian views of morality,” “society tends to be dominated by men,” “American so-ciety tends to value X or Y and that is not optimal,” “politicians and journalists some-times lie,” etc.), a crude and rather abstract popularization of some philosopher’s or theoretician’s views with little to no relevance to actual life and lived experience, triv-ial informative tidbits derivative of ideas more fully expressed elsewhere where the sole purpose of cinema is not to present anything new but merely to use said “cinemat-ic language” to express them (e.g. the director’s views regarding the Vietnam War or the Gulf War, metaphorical retellings of the stories found in the Book of Genesis or the New Testament, “this-means-that” metaphors where one easily “gets” the direc-tor’s intention of pointing our attention at some historical event, etc.), or, pandering to the politically-correct ideology of the bourgeoisie endlessly regurgitated by the media (yet still presented as subversive despite being hegemonic) by telling it what it wishes to hear regarding, for example, victimhood – the journalist likes them even more and he will even claim they are “deep.” What is clear is that emotionally-profound learning, truth-based experiences, and actor-focused character interactions based on the human body intended to provide the viewers with an understanding of and ways to improve themselves, their selves, and their lives are the last things on these people’s minds. These are referred to by this coterie as “merely filmed theatre or literature,” just about the worst offence in their eyes. Easy and easily-understandable Platonic grand themes and ideas as well as shortcuts to emotional understandings of characters and self, en-gendered by intellectually codifying camera angles within two seconds and other such easily-decodable devices situated outside the human body, in which life is framed and nothing is its brute self but a symbol, easily take the cake over emotional profundity for these folks. Films dealing with difficult emotional situations and with the com-plexities of life by focusing on the body and acting, in which the camera is merely functional, are “non-cinematic” and hence more-or-less the enemy. The testosterone-fueled dudebro psychology underlying much of this “canon,” the obsession with, not to say fetishizing of, technological tricks and lack of interest in emotional and psychological complexity, as can be ascertained just by looking at the top fifty or so films at IMDb’s Top 250 page or the endless columns claiming that tel-evision series glorifying the mucho thuggery of mobsters and their explosions and car chases (“quality dramas”) are somehow equal to the greatest works of Western civili-zation (not to mention beer commercials!), should be clear. In my country, the most popular website dealing with cinema seems to operate out of some ressentiment allow-ing its visitors to eat their cake while keeping it too, namely, to be interested in little more than emotionally-stale flicks centered on simplistic messages and easily-decodable decoder-ring symbolizations, all filled with all the explosions and car chas-es and button-pushing fight-or-flight reptilian comic-book thriller plots and “cool” stylizations teenage boys like, while still winning cultural and symbolic capital by claiming nobody can define what art is and that all cultural values are subjective and arbitrary, indeed, the very existence of art, independent, and experimental/avant-garde cinema often causes these people extreme anxiety for these very reasons. “There’s also a gender component to it [and] [i]t’s no accident that most of these critics – and the filmmakers they adore – are men [because] [i]t’s a boy thing [and a] teenage boy thing. ‘[l]ook at how tough I am [and] [h]ow unsentimental I can be. I’m a real guy,’” wrote critic Ray Carney. “Films which plug”, he wrote elsewhere, “into boy fantasies of dis-covering secrets about the adult world and enacting a cosmic destiny [in which] [e]very button in the adolescent male psyche is pushed—from the fascination with gadgets (computers and cell phones), to the feeling that no one understands you, to a sense of nostalgia for a lost youth [in which] every boy-in-a-baseball-cap can revel in his fantasy of rebelling against authority and saving the world, obtaining the love of an older and wiser woman (so there will be no messy sexual complications, like having actually to talk to her), and being a ninja-samurai warrior-Zen master […] at the same time [in which] [t]wenty-somethings undergoing a crisis about becoming middle-class wage slaves can indulge their fantasy of being closet-rebels with deep philosophies,” merely collapse “into an adolescent wail of despair or trying to recapture a golden age of childhood that never existed in the first place [which] is just another form of escap-ism, another way of avoiding and denying the claims and complexities of adult life, another way of refusing to grow up […] young people in these films and the young people watching them wash their hands of the problems of adult society and console themselves that they are the hapless victims of even more screwed-up parents [so] [t]hey can blame their father, mother, or other authority figure for their problems [and] [i]t’s flattering because it allows young viewers […] to cast themselves as and to iden-tify with all of the other damaged, weak, heartbroken misfits [hence] [i]n a word, it allows the viewer […] to feel sorry for himself: ‘[o]h, it’s so hard to be born into a world where there are no more heroes, where everyone is flawed, where eternal love is no longer possible. I’m so lonely I could cry [and] [w]oe is me [b]ut it’s comforting to know I’m not the only one who feels this way.’” No wonder most films considered the “greatest ever” or the most “philosophically” (i.e. being based on easily-decodable tidbits pandering to adolescent boys) “profound” could be summarized as “nobody understands you and adult society is just a bunch of dirty secrets, so be a real man, rebel against authority, and blow something up.” This list/article is the first in a series trying to take a different approach by moving beyond the “greatest films ever.” Could actor-based performances, as a form of truth-telling, enrich our lives much more and in much more complex ways than the standard Hollywood-filmmaking of assigning meaning to easily-decoded predeter-mined camera movements and other such shortcuts to understanding? Could films taking this approach teach us anything new that is not trivial, move us past received opinions and social dogmas, and force us to look at that we have forgotten? Of course, it is possible to try to clumsily coerce art, experimental/avant-garde, and independent cinema into the aforementioned standard modes of understanding, though, by doing so, one will never understand what makes them different from Hollywood fare. To-day we shall try to answer this question, by paying attention only to body-, dialogue-, and acting-focused cinema and ways of knowing and by ignoring all “purely cinemat-ic language” approaches, by looking at films often described as infamous, politically-incorrect, shocking, offensive, gross, or disturbing. -
The 40 Best Stop-Motion Animated Movies of All Time
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. This technique has been used since the dawn of cinema to bring objects to life and manufacture magical worlds. Before the days of CGI, it was a primary way to produce special effects, in classics from King Kong, to Jason and the Argonauts, to Star Wars. It’s called stop-motion. It’s rumored that the legendary cinema pioneer Georges Melies accidentally discovered it when his camera jammed once, and upon restarting it he noticed how everything slightly changed. Soon after, stop-motion films began appearing in Europe. What started as a novelty turned into an art form when artists with unique skill and vision began making their films utilizing it. Most commonly, it’s associated with puppet, but over the course of cinema development other mediums were used as well-figures made of clay (claymation), puppetoons (ready-made figurines), silhouettes. The final results are often fascinating, but the process is traditionally painstaking. To make the character move, the filmmaker has to take a picture, adjust the figure, take another, and so on. As there are 24 frames in a second of film, it can take hours to shoot each second. That’s especially true for more advanced works, with multiple characters. With the advent of CGI, stop-motion is considered passé. But it’s still alive and well, with new interesting works coming out almost every year. Much like each painter has a unique brush stroke, each animator creates a uniquely looking work, as the creation of characters and scenes is literally a hands-on experience here. This list consists of a variety of films made using stop-motion, and was compiled in order to best illustrate this unique art form. -
The 50 Most Iconic Heist Movies, Ranked - CrimeReads
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. Okay gang, let’s get down to business. I’d like to get one thing out of the way right at the beginning… this is a list ranking “heist movies,” not the heists that are in movies or movies that have heists in them (if it were, we’d include the opening of the original The In-Laws, where the big magnet on the crane picks the armored car up off the road and hauls it away to be raided). I’d like to make this distinction at the outset because, also, some movies which seem to centrally feature heists are not actually “heist films,” but capers, which are ultimately their own genre, despite many similarities. We will be releasing an accompanying list of the Best Capers shortly after this one, so if you don’t see a film with a great heist in it, keep your shirts on, because it’s probably on the other list. Okay, so what IS a heist movie? Good question! It’s a movie whose plot and theme centers around a large heist, or a series of heists. But “heists” have to play the weightiest roles in their films; a movie in which there are, say, a whole slew of bank robberies, but the whole thing is ultimately about the relationships between fathers and sons, is not a heist movie (in case anyone remembers The Place Beyond the Pines and thinks it belongs on this list, which it doesn’t). And actually, I should just explain now why you won’t see The Sting or Hustlers on this list: a heist isn’t a con, either, even if it’s a Big Con. Indeed, Merriam-Webster defines “heist” as a straight-up robbery. In case you’re wondering, although we will get to this later, the dictionary defines “Caper” as an “amusing movie or story about… an illegal or questionable act or escapade” which is not necessarily limited to a robbery but probably is a robbery. Heists are action-packed, serious, and while they can be fun and there will certainly be moments of comic relief, these films are frequently on the darker side. ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER ADVERTISEMENT Indeed, many heist movies are also about failed heists, which begs some further clarification. A movie about a failed heist is a certified heist movie if the “heist” part is the main part. If the movie is mostly about some element surrounding a failed heist, like The Usual Suspects, or uses the setting of the failed heist to tell another kind of story, like Dog Day Afternoon or Goodfellas, it’s not on this list. Also, just to warn you, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is not on this list. It’s not a heist movie. I don’t make the rules. Most importantly, heist movies frequently feature ensemble casts—these are often movies about working together as team, and splitting the prize. Partially because heists are often too difficult for one person to handle, and partially because the point of the heist is rounding up a crew of motley, misfit criminal savants with disparate skills and connections. So, without further ado, let’s blow this popsicle stand. -
10 Great Cult Movies That Are Actually About Cults
Favs/dislikes: 3:0. At the root of the horror genre lies a proclivity towards hyperbole in manifesting our fear of the unknown. For writers like David Cronenberg, domestic dramas about custody battles and marital unrest are simply too inexpressive to represent the dismal reality of dissolving the family unit or falling out of love. Such emotions, instead, deserve to be treated with shocking visuals depicting bodily decay and irreparable mental defilement centered around the exploitation of an unfamiliar – or monstrous – physicality. These allegorical fables are the filmic equivalent to poetry in their ability to communicate complex feelings despite the severe limitations of their medium. There are a number of criteria a horror movie can meet to attain “cult” status, and the devisiveness of such multifaceted plots as Cronenberg’s often propels movies initially panned to warrant induction into the cult canon. Many critics were slow to accept the filmography of David Lynch on the basis of his films’ overwhelming nonsensicality before rediagnosing his abstract thinking as a commendable stab at articulating the unconscious. In the tradition of John Waters and Kenneth Anger, the label “cult” also proves synonymous with “taboo,” as the subjects of these filmmakers’ work dispute the notion of film’s compatibility with television’s ratings-conscious, family-minded hospitality. But one subject that’s often overlooked in the culture of cult horror, ironically, is religious deviance – or cults. With the exception of Rosemary’s Baby and his Satanic offspring, the horrific glimpse into oppressive theological environs and its resulting disparity in spirituality are rarely considered when taking stock of the pulpy subculture, as the sensational subject matter can easily be read as superficial biography of the nonsecularly-ensnared. As an exercise in analyzing the inherent terror in novel self-doubt, the following ten movies exemplify the secretion of alternative theologies as the mental virus propelling their hosts towards self-destruction. -
10 great films about life in the digital age
Favs/dislikes: 3:0. Remember when it took ages to dial up and go online in the early days of the digital age? Hollywood’s relationship with the internet evolved at a similar pace, with stories that struggled to connect our everyday experiences online with narratives that actually made sense. Because of this lag, there have been plenty of films that failed to represent the internet accurately without already feeling dated by the time that they hit our screens. Even as far back as 1999, our online experiences were already about so much more than just the sprawling green code seen in The Matrix, and since then countless techno-thrillers have shown hackers somehow infiltrating top-tier government systems in the blink of an eye. However, there are some directors out there who have managed to cut through the clichés to better represent what life is really like now we live so much of it online. With the internet now 30 years old, here are 10 powerful time capsules charting our digital evolution. -
10 Great Movies That Meditate On Time
Favs/dislikes: 3:0. Cinema is truly one of the most complex forms of art. Legendary director Andrei Tarkovsky once said, “No art form can fix time as cinema does. So, what is a film? It’s a mosaic made of time.” In this list, we’re approaching movies that somehow have reflections about time in its theme (or themes). As always, it is never too late to remember that many aspects interfere on the choice of the titles of an article like this. But, as usual, memory and personal preferences are the main factors. If you think any other movie should be on this list, please leave it as a recommendation in the comments section below. So, here are 10 amazing movies that meditate on time: -
10 Great Movies That Push The Limits of Digital Filmmaking
Favs/dislikes: 3:0. Cinema is stuck in a circle of conventions and forced and unforced nostalgia, and particularly fervent supporters of the analogic qualities of cinema have taken the digital revolution as something to be criticized. What some people have missed is that the digital medium has a sort of punk attitude that represents the best chance at challenging the rules of cinema, rediscovering a more intimate nature, defying old codes of representation as well as the temporal and economical rules of cinema. It is also the best medium to approach the society of the late 90s and the 2000s, where digital is slowly beginning to dominate every artistic, economical, and philosophical field.
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