Tag Archives: Masterpiece

Our Top Ten Spielberg Films Of All Time

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It’s not a secret to many who visit Cinema Crazed, or to many who know us that Steven Spielberg is our favorite film director of all time. The man has managed to re-think the way we look at film and filmmaking, and is one of the few film directors living today who can deliver a good old fashioned story that can inspire and amaze without rotting our teeth with over simplistic and sugary storytelling. Sure, he’s faltered a few times, but even his weakest films are much better than anything most young directors can deliver in cinemas today. Steven Spielberg has managed to stay relevant in an ever growing populace of movie goers with incredibly short attention spans who want flash and explosions over genuine storytelling, and for any director that’s a feat and a half.

He helped invent the blockbuster, helped define franchising, helped engineer the special edition (for better or worse), and he’s carved an amazing career from films that have touched, awed, and invoked conversation about movie goers and film buffs alike. Fanatics, supporters, and often apologists, we’ve followed Spielberg for years as he’s been one of our earliest memories of film going ever. There aren’t many guarantees in life. But the one thing we think life can guarantee is that there will always be a movie to grant me the same awe and wonderment every single time we pop in a film from Steven Spielberg.

Whether it’s a tale about a lone tourist in an airport, or the plight of the Jews in World War II, Spielberg can and always has guaranteed that awe and sheer enthusiasm for film will come with a film from his. And they guarantee to outlive Steven Spielberg even at the age of 66. Spielberg may just be a man biding his time in delivering masterpiece after masterpiece, but his films will have a shelf life of many many decades and introduce young audiences to the awe and charm of filmmaking as Spielberg did for us. We celebrate Steven Spielberg’s 66th birthday with our top ten Spielberg Films of All Time. So far.

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Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

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It’s rare that a film targeted toward the Christmas holiday can manage to not only capture the magic of the holiday spirit and its intent, but the beauty of the human spirit. George Seaton’s iconic “Miracle on 34th Street” isn’t just about Christmas and the spirit of the yearly event, but the kindness of the human soul and the remarkable things we’re capable of when our hearts are in the right place. It’s interesting to note that though “Miracle on 34th Street” lives on as a family film and a holiday movie, George Seaton’s picture stands on its own as a raucous comedy, and one that will draw laughs thanks to some great slapstick and hilarious one-liners that still manage to hit their marks.

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12 Angry Men (1957) (Criterion Collection) [Blu-Ray]

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“You’re faced with a grave responsibility, ladies and gentlemen…”

VC9HzgPOne of my favorite scenes of “12 Angry Men” is in fact the opening. Sidney Lumet doesn’t so much provide exposition as he lays out the basic rule of the premise. These twelve men don’t have to abide by story conventions so much as they have to abide by the law and a strict principle about judging someone during this horrible trial. The question soon becomes how far will these men stretch these laws and principals to fit their own agendas? What will keep them biased and subjective in a case that requires a clear thought and analytical mind? The opening shot features the young boy in question transposed over the establishing shot of the empty jury room where his fate lies. He’s a young, minority, juvenile delinquent, with a violent past and his life lies in the hands of twelve strangers. Worse is that these twelve strangers have their own vendettas. His cards are stacked against him immediately since the trial has drawn on for weeks in to the hottest day of the year. The jurors were, presumably, chosen for their ability to put aside their own personal preferences to judge a case, but once Sidney Lumet puts these twelve men in a room together, it soon becomes apparent everyone has arrived with their goals in mind. It’s a group of the worst and best of America.

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Aladdin (1992)

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Back in 1992, my family and I went to see “Aladdin” when it premiered in theaters. Many years ago, it was one of the best movie going experiences of my life, simply because as an experience, “Aladdin” succeeds in entertaining. As a movie it’s one of the sleekest and most memorable entries in the animated Disney library thanks to its wonderful voice acting and snappy musical numbers. Before “The Lion King” introduced us to Hakuna Matata, it was hard to think of an ear bug more memorable than “Friend Like Me” as sung by the Genie. Many years passed, “Aladdin” is still one of the more top notch efforts from Disney Animated studios, even if it does manage to show its wrinkles two decades later.

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Rosemary's Baby (1968) (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-Ray]

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Mn1rHMQIt’s not too often we’re granted a major motion picture with an all star cast that presents audience with such a subversive undertone of family and maternal struggles. It wasn’t up until this year that I learned “Rosemary’s Baby” comes from author Ira Levin who wrote “The Stepford Wives.” The latter work of fiction is a brilliant and horrifying look at the male animal struggling to repress the rising tide of feminism and women’s liberation across Western civilization through very shocking means. As the women of an elite group of men branch out seeking independence and liberation from home life, the men eventually form their plan to replace their women robotic drones that are perfectly content living the life of a subservient being whose goal is to please sexually and domestically.

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An American Werewolf in London (1981)

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anamericanwerewolf“An American Werewolf in London” is almost the perfect horror comedy and romance that never quite relies on either genre to move its story and deliver its horror. That’s pretty shocking considering John Landis was often a director known for comedies. Occasionally dark and almost always adult, Landis was once a man known for rich and iconic comedy films. “Animal House” and “The Kentucky Fried Movie.” Need I say more? With “An American Werewolf in London,” the stark comedy can often incite laughter, but it’s so dark it almost feels like awkward laughter most of the time. It’s just uncomfortable laughter because when there’s a laugh to be had, it’s at the expense of someone or something gruesome. When something is horrific it has a true sense of humanity behind it and there isn’t a cheap play for gross out sequences.

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Night of the Living Dead (1968)

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notld68posterI spend a lot of time debating and exploring “Night of the Living Dead” to an almost obscene degree. While today it’s been passed around more than a bong at a Grateful Dead concert, has been included in every horror boxed set imaginable, and has been remade, reworked, and rebooted to a sickening degree, somehow George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” has managed to survive it all. It still stands, feet planted, in the ground and taking whatever the film world throws at it. A lot of horror geeks say Romero gets too much credit for “Night.” I mean, in the end isn’t it just a retread of the novel “I Am Legend” and “The Last Man on Earth”? And surely, it’s not the first genre picture to star an African American man in a dominant role. But still, “Night” is just art in motion. It’s still a rich and deeply effective indictment on humanity, and still possesses themes about the inner monster that ring true even in the digital age.

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