While I might have hoped my kids would inherit my love of reading, they have instead inherited their father’s love of movies.
Especially Belle.
Before I had posted her Top Five/Bottom Five about me (see here), she had drafted this post about movies. And she has not stopped pestering me all week (sorry honey, it’s true!). In fact, this morning she asked for the umpteenth time if I’d gotten around to posting her movie post and when I said No, she groaned. Clearly I have nothing else to do with my time, right?
Anyhoo, I promised to do a double post day to accommodate her impatience.
Note: Indy hasn’t seen some of these movies. Most are not movies that would be considered suitable viewing for younger audiences. Also, John watched all these movies with Belle.
Okay, I’ll turn it over to Belle.
A quick note before I begin: the movies I’ve included in my list are the movies I’ve enjoyed the most/least not the movies I necessarily think are the best/worst done.
TOP FIVE
- The Usual Suspects. Need I say more?! This movie was my first real introduction to crime thrillers. The ending was very well put together. I don’t want to say too much and spoil it, but it’s an AMAZING movie. The cinematography is sub-par but the music and the screenplay are EXCELLENT!! It is a sort of heist movie. It follows a witness to a crime (Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint) in an interrogation room while he tells a complex story of how he and 4 other criminals were forced into a disastrous boat heist by the elusive Keyser Söze. It is certainly NOT suitable for young audiences. It stars Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak and Benicio del Toro. It’s directed by Brian Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie. This is a neo noir, crime thriller from the 90’s and takes the top stop on my list so far. It won Best Original Screenplay: Christopher McQuarrie and Best Supporting Actor: Kevin Spacey. [This movie is gritty but incredible.]
- The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King). I can’t possibly separate this trilogy because you can’t have one without the other. The cinematography in these movies is amazing. It’s one of the coolest settings I’ve seen in a movie. A big chunk of the filming was done in New Zealand and the mountains, valleys and other landscapes there feature heavily throughout the film. The duration is long (a whopping 4 hours and 23 minutes from opening to end in the extended version) but my final verdict is if there is a movie out there that can keep me engaged and entertained for that long and have me still excited to see the next one, then that is a good movie. The story follows a fellowship of 9 companions on a quest to destroy the most powerful weapon known in Middle Earth, before it falls into enemy hands. It stars Elijah Wood as Frodo and contains many other great actors and actresses (Cate Blanchette, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Sean Aston and many, many more). It was directed by Peter Jackson and is based off of the novel trilogy (The Lord of the Rings) by J.R.R Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings won a total of 17 Academy Awards, some more notable than others, but a few that stand out are Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Score. This movie is more of a fantasy/ fiction with elements of adventure. [I fell in love with these movies in high school which trickled down into reading all the books multiple times—that is a BIG commitment, let me tell you! I would love to go to New Zealand and tour some of the set locations.]
- Sicario and Sicario: Day of the Soldado. These are more movies I was recently introduced to by my father. They are a culturally accurate movie all about Mexican and Colombian cartels. This movie follows an FBI special agent who is enlisted by a government task force to bring down the leader of a powerful and brutal Mexican cartel. The movie stars Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin. It’s directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Taylor Sheridan. It won Best Cinematography and Best Original Score. It’s an action packed crime thriller and I really enjoyed both movies.
- The Silence of the Lambs. Many people would find this movie very creepy and chilling. I 100% agree and respect that. The movie was very scary at some points and if you don’t like intense thrillers and elements of horror, I wouldn’t recommend it (especially before bed). This movie won the big 5 academy awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (original or adapted)). The movie is a psychological crime thriller that follows a young FBI trainee (Clarice Starling played by Jodie Foster) who must interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter (a psychiatrist imprisoned at the state hospital for the criminally insane) to try to help catch a recent serial killer only known as Buffalo Bill. [I saw this movie once many years ago and once was enough. Very well done, but CREEPY! It places the lotion in the basket.]
- I absolutely cannot pick just one more movie so instead of the more in depth descriptions for 1-4, I am going to put a few movies sort of like a runner-up category:
- Inception [Loved this movie when I saw it but it’s SO confusing.]
- Shutter Island [I’ve never seen it.]
- Primal Fear [Ditto.]
- Interstellar [Meh.]
- The Marvel movies [She and Indy are currently rewatching the entire series. I find them entertaining but forget everything about the plot the second the credits start rolling.]
- Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol [A much-beloved series in our family. Belle has seen Ghost Protocol literally dozens of times at this point.]
Virtual gold stars to D in Texas who correctly guessed our interest in the Death’s Head moth at the Natural History Museum in Vienna!!!! Belle has seen the movie.
BOTTOM FIVE
- The Sixth Sense. I recently watched this movie and I never thought about how I felt about it. I never would have said I didn’t like it but as I’m thinking about it more and more, I realized it just was not a favourite of mine. There were a few things I just can’t quite describe about what I didn’t like about it. I was super excited because I heard there was a cool twist at the end but I was quite disappointed. It was a classic, so I’ve heard, but it just wasn’t something I’d ever want to watch again. [Nate Bargatze’s has a funny bit about The Sixth Sense.]
- Finding Nemo. Maybe if I watched it now I’d like it more but when I watched it as a younger child I did NOT like it. I found it confusing, boring and also creepy at some points. I don’t remember if I ever even finished it. [This movie was groundbreaking when it came out in terms of animation. But it makes me feel so old. IT WAS RELEASED IN 2003, which kinda feels like yesterday.]
- To Kill a Mockingbird. I can’t finish the book or the movie. Maybe if I locked in and got past the first half things would begin to excite me but so far, no luck. I found both the book and the movie to drag on and I have started and given up on both the book and the movie multiple times. It’s apparently a well-loved story which is sad to me that I don’t enjoy it as much as others but alas I can’t love every story. [Sob. I love this book. I haven’t seen the movie since high school, but I remember adoring Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Atticus Finch.]
- A Christmas Story. This was a movie I was excited to watch because one of my mom’s friends growing up had enjoyed this movie. She took me to a local theatre a few Christmas’s ago to watch a showing of the movie and I hated it. It was just lame. It was depressing and very underwhelming for a classic. I don’t ever need to watch it again and I usually like Christmas movies. [One of my closest friends in high school watched this every year with her family. I was so excited to finally see it. What a letdown. This movie was SO depressing and I hope to never see it again in my life. I wanted to shoot my eye out. Ugh.]
- Any movie that is in black and white throughout the whole story (there are a FEW exceptions but very little). I find usually they’re harder to follow because the editing and special effects weren’t as good. I’m not totally against old movies [both kids loved watching Rear Window with Birchie, though it’s not black and white!!!] but I usually find the ones in black and white to be harder to hear? I don’t know if that’s just me but I find the quality of the movie grainy and the voices get distorted. Then that makes the storyline harder to follow and in general makes the whole film not as enjoyable for someone born in Gen Z and has grown up with colour, special effects and good voice quality. I am not saying old movies in general are bad because it’s quite the opposite. In my opinion the stories were better in the 80’s and the 90’s but the effects and quality of the film isn’t as good as the 2000’s, on the other hand the quality of the film and the special effects are really cool and well done (of course there are many exceptions to this) but the plot isn’t as original or interesting.
Thanks for these movie reviews, sweetie. You should see her eclectic choice of music. According to Spotify Wrapped, my listening age is 21 (thanks to Indy’s love of clean rap). Belle’s was 64!!!!! Most days you can find her belting out a tune to ABBA (Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!), The Animals (House of the Rising Sun!) or Billy Joel (Vienna was very appropriate listening lately).
Okay! Now it’s your turn.
- What are you Top Five/Bottom Five movies?
- Have you seen any of Belle’s Top Five selections?
- Would you rather read a book or watch a movie? I think you know my answer…
- Does anyone like A Christmas Story?
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Belle- I’m glad I’m not the only person who doesn’t like Finding Nemo!
Depressing and irritating to me!! and Lord of the Rings- I try to rewatch it around Christmas time each year. Most of the others I have not seen- I’m not a movie person.
Some of my top five are: The princess bride, the breakfast club, Rear Window, Casablanca ( b&w!), animated Beaty and the Beast.
She has always hated that movie! It was such a classic when it came out.
I feel like so many people watch LOTR around Christmas (my kids do, too). I don’t see the holiday appeal.
My kids have never seen The Princess Bride. I found it confusing when I watched it several decades ago, but I really should try it. The Breakfast Club is a classic, haven’t seen it in FOREVER. I want to see Casablanca and the kids really enjoyed Rear Window. Beauty and the Beast is amazing and Belle loves it 🙂
I am not a Tolkien fan, so if I hadn’t fallen asleep during one (all? I can’t remember) of the LOTR, they would probably be in my bottom five! So I don’t agree BUT I also don’t think that Belle will be really on par with a 51 year old Gen X woman here! I’m going to do Top Five, because I have seen a LOT of movies and the race to the bottom is overwhelming for me.
Top Five!
When Harry Met Sally
Top Gun
Elf
Little Women (both the 93 version and the 2019 version, COME AT ME)
and….now I’m having trouble thinking what could be number five. In terms of movies I have watched over and over, maybe Say Anything? Hmm. This is very tricky. What could it be? I’ll think about it. I guess I could allow both Little Womens to have their own space. I have great fondness for the formative movies of my youth, that I would have seen when I was her age. Some of those have stayed with me forever – like Dirty Dancing.
The Tolkien books are a slog, but I adored the movies when I first saw them. Now, I’d rather use movie time to read a book.
Top Gun is amazing. They haven’t seen the original, but both kids love the new one.
I haven’t seen either of the Little Women movies OR When Harry Met Sally. I’ve never even heart of Say Anything.
Dirty Dancing I watched and then immediately rewatched. Like while the credits were rolling, I went back to the beginning and started again. Such a classic.
Wait. Silence of the Lambs is in the top five but FINDING NEMO is “creepy???” lol. The only one in Belle’s top five that I’ve seen is Silence (I’m pretty sure I also read the book). I like how Belle really articulates her reasons for not liking black and white movies- she makes some fair points.
I don’t see a lot of movies these days, so I’m going back into the 80s for a favorite- Hannah and Her Sisters. Also Crimes and Misdemeanors, and (moving into the 90s) Husbands and Wives. I know Woody Allen has fallen out of favor, but I was a big fan back in the day.
I’ve never heard of any of those movies you mention, Jenny. That dates me, for sure.
I didn’t even realize Silence of the Lambs was a book. Now I’m intrigued and kinda want to read it?!
What a great list! I love that you point out things like cinematography. When I was your age I was just into movies that had dance in them (there were a lot!) or horses (not so many).
I’ve never seen The Usual Suspects. Perhaps I should get on that!
A Christmas Story is both horrible and boring. What’s your favorite Christmas movie? We are partial to It’s a Wonderful Life (B&W) and Scrooged. It’s not Christmas if we haven’t watched those.
The Usual Suspects is a classic for a reason!
My favourite Christmas movie is White Christmas, which I watch with Joy every single holiday season. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Scrooged.
I asked Belle and she said her favourite is The Grinch (and more generally, Hallmark movies).
Blogger Belle, you are speaking my love language!!! Here are my takes on your titles:
Usual Suspects – don’t hate, but I’ve only seen it once and it didn’t make much of an impression on me. I would like to give it another chance to see if I can get in the hype, so how about the next time we meet let’s watch it together?
LOTR – the only reason that I saw it is a few years ago I watched all of the AFI Top 100 Movies. The first movie blew me away! The trilogy itself was…too much of a good thing.
Silence of the Lambs – another movie that I only saw because of the AFI Top 100 and it delivered!!!! I can’t say enough good things about this movie.
I haven’t seen Shutter Island, but tell your mom that I’ve heard that the book is really good, and I might be checking it out soon.
On the bottom side, I loved The Sixth Sense when it came out, but once you know the spoiler it just isn’t the same. I have touchy feelings about Mockingbird. As an adult I don’t mind the movie, but it was TOO MUCH when I was a kid and I had to see it too many times – with my parents and at school. I also couldn’t get into the book as a kid or as an adult.
Christmas Story is another one that I HATED as a young ‘un, and it was on 24/7 every Christmas so I had to see it a lot. As an adult I liked it, but it’s not something that I want to watch every Christmas or anything like that.
I have two minds about the black and white/old movie thing. Obviously I love them, but there are many other things that I don’t like and it’s not because I haven’t tried them. If old movies aren’t calling to you, it’s perfectly fine to skip them and to put the time toward other things (such as blogging). But if you did want to give them a bit more of a try, I would steer you to Casablanca (where “the usual suspects” came from) or The Maltese Falcon (another gritty gold standard). It would not be a hard sell to get your dad to watch them with you, and your mom told me that she has never seen Casablanca, so you could help her out with that. The thing that moves me the most about Casablanca is that it’s about war refugees, and a lot of the actors were real war refugees who had to escape from the Nazis, and some of them had to go to Casablanca to get out of Europe. Basically it’s a movie full of great actors who were not acting.
I was excited to see your response, Birchie. I know you love good movies!!! And Belle is definitely up for watching The Usual Suspects with you.
Ohhh. I haven’t seen the movie for Shutter Island, but maybe I need to check out the book first??
I am even more determined to see Casablanca now!
I don’t really like movies very much. Too loud and too far away and too expensive and my feet stick to the floor in a theater, my husband is in charge of the teevee which I don’t even know how to turn on, and i spend too much time on my laptop already.
My husband watches all Lord of the Rings movies over and over and over and over and over. . . (when they appear on one of his many overpriced channels because he doesn’t want to learn how to use the DVD player to play the movies which HE ASKED FOR!) I accidentally have learned some of the dialogue from all the repetition. I saw 2 in the theater with him when they first came out—all the aforementioned toos plus way too many scary creatures with horrible battles, in addition to all the horrible previews.
I read Silence of the Lambs, hated it, but couldn’t stop. Then one time while my husband was channel surfing, without me even looking up, I asked him if he was watching Silence of the Lambs because I recognized the dialogue. I would NEVER watch this.
What does “places the lotion in the basket mean”?
The LOTR movies are intense. I haven’t watched them in years and don’t really feel any draw to watch them again, but sure did love them when I was Belle’s age.
The lotion in the basket is a chilling reference to the serial killer they’re trying to catch who wants his victims to keep their skin soft. It’s one of the most famous lines from the movie.
I haven’t seen a lot of Belle’s top/bottom five movies, but Silence of the Lambs definitely isn’t in my top list! Eeek! My top 5 movies are 1. The Wedding Singer 2. When Harry Met Sally 3. Dirty Dancing 4. Flashdance 5. The Princess Bride. My bottom 5 movies are: 1. Nightmare on Elm Street 2. Halloween 3. Home Alone 4. Up 5. Pulp Fiction
I’ve never seen Flashdance OR When Harry Met Sally.
I’ve never seen Nightmare on Elm Street, or Halloween. Up was SO sad. Pulp Fiction is intense and I didn’t love it. I’m glad I saw it, in a sense, because it’s such a classic, but will never watch it again.
How fun to see more posts from Belle! I love movies as much as I love books. If I was told I could only take 20 books to a desert island I would negotiate and ask to take 10 books and 10 movies!
I have seen all of Belle’s top 4 and agree they are all excellent movies. Last year I made it my goal to finally watch the LOTR trilogy. I watched them back to back, (a perk of being retired) and was glad I completed my goal. Fantasy and sci-fi are not my favourite genre, but I agree that the story is interesting and the cinematography is excellent. I did see Shutter Island but not the other ones.
The bottom ones I have also seen. I felt a little stab to my heart when I read Belle didn’t like To Kill a Mockingbird, either the book or movie. It’s one of my favourite books and one of the few books made into a movie that I think was done well. And, yes, I do like A Christmas Story! My favourite Christmas movie is A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim in black and white.
I have a hard time nailing down top/bottom five because it keeps changing. I will say that my favourite films are character-driven dramas, and my least favourite are action.
LOTR is an epic film series. What Peter Jackson accomplished is incredible.
I’ve only seen A Christmas Carol once and really should add it to my watch list for this holiday season. In fact, I’ve never seen quite a few classic holiday films!
Books are my go to over movies too!
I did see all the LOTR movies in the cinema and organised a marathon as a student (and also read the books of course – although I’m not sure where my copy went). It would be fun to watch these with my eldest (14 now).
A LOTR marathon would be EPIC! It must have been incredible to see them in a cinema when they first came out. The music and epic battle scenes on a big screen must have been next level.
Apparently I *have* seen The Usual Suspects. I asked my husband, and he said, ‘yes, we saw that together, it was really good.’ I have a pathetic memory!
Ha! I forget the plot of most movies the second the credits roll, so you won’t get any shade from me.
I’ve never seen The Usual Suspects! It’s on my list of films I ‘should’ watch but don’t feel particularly motivated to, lol. There’s a funny Derry Girls episode about it!
It’s an intense movie; quite gritty in terms of the amount of swearing (unfortunately), and the story can be incredible at times but the end is such a mic drop. You’ll never forget it!
I’ve only seen 1 of Belle’s top 4 movies (Silence of the Lambs). It was a well done movie but not something I would EVER want to watch again! I am the opposite of a movie snob. I have watched so few! My top 5 are movies that I will happily watch over and over and over. 1) You’ve Got Mail, 2) When Harry Met Sally, 3) The Holiday, 4) Home Alone, 5) Sleepless in Seattle. So 3 rom-coms and 2 Christmas movies. I’m so original, clearly.
I don’t have a bottom 5 so instead I’ll share the one movie I walked out of during in a movie theater – Magnolia. I went in college and we were all like – what is even happening! When they got to the scene where it was raining frogs we were like – NOPE, WE’RE OUT OF HERE.
I’m like you: give me feel-good comfort movies.
When I was her age, I really loved movies, but now I’d much rather read a book (or watch a documentary). I find it hard to get “into” a movie these days.
On her top-rated, I’ve only watched The Silence Of The Lambs and believe it or not, we rented it in our hotel room on our honeymoon in 1991. That was such a new thing back then! I didn’t love it, and I’ve not seen it since.
Ok, I was right on the death moth! I was shocked when my sweet, demure, mostly passive (also knows her way around weapons) daughter got a gigantic tattoo on her back of a death moth. I was all WHAT? IS THAT PERMANENT?
I liked Sixth Sense, but it scared the bejesus out of me. I quite the opposite of Belle; I’m a wimp!
That’s quite the honeymoon movie selection, Suz. Haha.
Ha, I cannot watch Finding Nemo after going to see it when it came out and then being forced to watch it innumerable times afterwards. I thought The Sixth Sense was really clever in terms of filming though (like its use of the colour red) and I LOVE To Kill a Mockingbird! I read the book right before watching it, when I was thirteen, and have always loved both.
I also like The Silence of the Lambs but I’m a bit of a chicken, so I don’t watch it very frequently!
I’ve only seen Silence of the Lambs once and… I think that was enough for me 🙂
I did see Finding Nemo A LOT when it came out. It was revolutionary at the time.
I loved To Kill a Mockingbird and want to re-read the book again soon.
I read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry around the same time, which is definitely worth reading as a complement to Mockingbird. It’s part of a series but the first book is the best, IMO. I think it asks harder questions from the reader.
Belle, you’re going to die when you learn that I have not watched a movie in… 8 years. (I read, instead.) The last movie I saw in a theater was the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie. So thanks for the inside scoop—now, at least, I won’t feel like a complete idiot when other people mention some of these. 😉
Well, LOTR is a solid movie to make your last one to see in theaters!