A Special Guest Post by Belle: Top Five/Bottom Five Movies

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

1. 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.]
2. 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.]
3. 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.
4. 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.]
5. 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

1. 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.]
2. 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.]
3. 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.]
4. 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.]
5. 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?