My Top Ten Films

With marvellous adeptness my Blog Buddy, Old Cheeser, tagged me over the weekend to produce a potted account of my top ten movies.

Easy, I thought. No problem.

Except to narrow my positively obese DVD collection down to a carrot stick thin top ten proved harder than I thought possible. Nevertheless. Here, compiled in no order whatsoever, are my favourite top ten movies. Or, at least the ones that are in top ten right now. Ask me again tomorrow and it could be completely different (though The Land Before Time IX is never going to make the list – no matter how hard you look).

1) Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain – Audrey Tautou. Paris. A travelling gnome. Perfect.

2) Bladerunner – still, after all this time, the film refuses to look dated. And it still hits me right in the guts. Roy Batty’s final speech is one of cinema’s finest moments and I’m led to believe that he improvised much of it.

3) The Company of Wolves – being a massive Angela Carter fan it’s a real treat to see her literary genius transfigured into an amazingly evocative manifestation of every childhood fairy tale you were ever told. The Brother’s Grimm and then some...

4) The Outlaw Josie Wales – I like a good Western and this is one of the best. Great one liners too: “Hell’s come to breakfast”, “You gonna reach for that iron or just stand there whistling Dixie?” and “What we have in Texas is something called the Mississippi boat ride...”

5) Enchanted April – a lesser known Film Four production of the novel of the same name. It’s just a really lovely movie that makes the whole world seem much better. Josie Lawrence and Miranda Richardson put in breathtakingly gorgeous performances.

6) Donnie Darko – this film effects me on so many different levels I can’t even begin to describe them.

7) Unbreakable – I preferred this to Sixth Sense because it was so off the wall. Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson both put in bruising yet vulnerable performances. A film that stays true to itself right to the last frame...

8) Lord Of The Rings – what can I say? It did the job for me. End of story.

9) About A Boy – I like the occasional chick flick and there’s just something about this that grabs me. I like the way the relationships within the film are handled. And it stars Toni Colette. That’s enough for me!

10) Memento – Guy Pierce is so good in this it’s untrue. Few films get this uncompromisingly dark. Not an easy film to watch but worth the effort.

Also vying for top ten places were: Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Unforgiven, Le Pacte De Loup, Plunkett & Macleane, Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Get Carter, Elizabeth, Nil By Mouth, Akira, Planet Of The Apes (original), Kill Bill, L'Apartement, True Grit, Pulp Fiction, Muriel’s Wedding, LA Confidential, The Usual Suspects and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.

Like I said, narrowing them down to a mere ten is nigh on impossible... and a top hundred would take far too much of my time to write up!