32. All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)

A heart wrenching anti war film from director Lewis Milestone that has stood the test of time.

I have yet to see the 'jaw dropping' battle scene in Saving Private Ryan, but it will have to go a long way to beat the one here.

The film follows a German, yes German, infantry unit from recruitment through to training and finally to combat. Not an ounce of glamour is used in the depiction of war. No slow mo, no stunningly lit trenches, just drab and dire. Soldiers being driven mad by the noise, or scavenging for anything to eat or just dying needlessly in battle.
It's not complete doom and gloom. There are  couple of light comedic points, but they only set to ingratiate you with the different soldiers and make the death more poignant.

It's an excellent film. The cast is a great band of brothers and the battle sequences truly are astonishingly realistic. Considering when this was made, on the cusp of talkie pics, the sound effects stand proud today. The final scene is beyond poignant and the whole shabbang is rather upsetting, but excellent all the same. Few films have captured the pain and pointlessness of war than this.

A true classic.

The final scene as Paul sees a moment of beauty and home in a butterfly and he reaches out to it. Oops!

31. All About My Mother (1999)

Almodovar time and time again creates powerful female roles in his films, but here is his love letter to the female sex.

On his seventeenth birthday, Manuela witnesses her son run down and killed by a car while he is pursuing his idol, Huma Roja, for her autograph.
For his birthday Manuella promised to tell Esteban about his father whose identity she had kept from him all his life. Overcome with guilt and grief she moves to Barcelona to tell his father about the son he never knew he had. The reason she was keeping him a secret is that the father is a transvestite prostitute called Lola. During her quest she forms friendships with her old friend and Lola's transsexual roommate Agrado; Sister Rosa a church social worker who Lola has not only impregnated, but has infected with HIV; and Huma when her play comes to town and she becomes her assistant.
This motley crew of women form a deep bond as thy share each others heartbreak and emotions.

It's a beautifully filmed work. Almodovar and cinematographer Affonso Beato cast a luxuriant glow over everything, be it a theatre to a circle of cars picking up prostitute. All roles of life are given equal respect.

I think that is what I love about Almodovar's films. Everything is luxuriant and everyone is shown with respect, in particular his roles for women. Hollywood should really take a few leafs from his book.
Look at the central roles. A successful single mother, a transsexual prostitute, a nun, a lesbian actress. All female. All played magnificently by the outstanding cast, all written with the greatest love and respect. the film also takes a bow to A Streetcar Named Desire and All About Eve. Manuella's life is highlighted in both of them and these films are also have strong central female characters.

At the end of the film is a dedication:-

"To all the women who have played actresses... who can act... to men who act and become women... to all the people who want to be mothers... to my mother."

I ♥ Pedro

30. All About Eve (1950)

A classic tale of ambition and treachery. As Margo remarks at the start of the party scene; "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night!"

After being invited backstage to meet her idol Margo Channing, Eve Harringdon worms her way into Margo's life and turns it into her own, becoming a successful stage actress.

I adore this film on so many levels, but above all else, it's the acting ensemble.
5 of the cast were nominated for Oscars, 4 of whom were women, giving it the record for female acting nominations in a single film. Sanders was the only one of the five to take home the statue. The film itself held the nomination haul record for some time at 14, finally taking home 6.

Bette Davis has never been better as the deliciously bitter Margo. She delivers the witty cutting lines like poison arrows, but also showing a ensitive emotional side when the cracks show in her hard exterior.

Celeste Holm plays the downtrodden best friend to a tee. It is her viewpoint, along with the critic Addison DeWitt, that we take. Their dual narration is perfectly timed never overbearing with exposition, just enough to keep the story moving along.

George Sanders(who will always be Shere Khan to me!) plays DeWitt and is mesmerising. It is DeWitt who never falls for Eve's deception and ends up using her for his own benefits.

Marilyn Monroe, in one of her early roles, turns up playing Miss Caswell, a starlet on the arm of a rich producer. It's a very brief, but perfectly pitched performance.

I wasn't so illuminated by Ann Baxter's Eve. from the get go you have no sympathy for her, just deep suspicion and it's Birdie(Thelma Ritter on witty form) who you are cheering for when she makes a jarring remark after Eve's sob story confessional. "What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end."
 Eve is played so bi-polar. It's either the innocent down trodden Eve or the steely cold successful Eve. There is no in between. I suppose this is as we see her through Karen or DeWitt's eyes. It's either a very clever performance or a glitch in the writing.

This is a classic film about showbusiness too in particular the snobbery involved. 'Selling out' to go to Hollywood instead of being on or writing for the stage; DeWitt's comments about television:-
Miss Claudia Caswell: Tell me this, do they have auditions for television?
Addison DeWitt: That's, uh, all television is, my dear, nothing but auditions.
In Margo and Eve's world, it's the stage that is the purest art form.

You can't fault the story. I just find that Eve has no arc to her character, though you have to love the ending.
What goes around, comes around!

Fabulous costume design by Edith Head winning one of her numerous Oscars.

Post script or What Ripley did next!

I believe that if you are going to watch all these films before you die, it would be churlish not to take in Alien³ and Alien Resurrection and look at the whole story of Ripley.

Wasn't that a happy ending to Aliens? Apart from all those people dying, that is. Ripley is on her way back to Earth with a hot marine and a pseudo daughter in tow. They are travelling on a fully functioning starship. What could go wrong?
 Well let's set fire to Ripley's pipe dream and kill off the daughter and hot marine before the credits have finished rolling. The alien queen left an egg on board the ship. Naughty queen. Cue alien blood causing a fire in the cryogenic chamber and all the pods being put into an escape 'shuttle'. This is jettisoned of onto a nearby planet, crashing into the sea and killing all bar Ripley. Oh and this planet is actually a male prison colony housing rapists, murderers and child molesters. I think I'd rather have taken my chances on the Sulaco. It was a bit of an over reaction by the ship's computer. Couldn't it have just put out the fire?
So anyway, it's another shit ride for Ripley. Also on the escape pod was another egg (clever queen) the other having hatched and planted a queen embryo in Ripley.

The adventure, this time, is helmed by David Fincher in his first feature. Once again it is visually stunning, but the story is ever so meh and this film got panned. I personally thought it was rather good and had some excellent scenes. The cremation/alien birth scene is fantastic and I was rather a fan of the ending. Ripley finally getting some closure on this hell ride.

Watching the quadrilogy DVDs however, I saw there was a director's cut and decided to watch that. It is a ton better than the theatrical cut of the film and quite different, dramatically. 20th Century Fox cut and messed around a much better film, all to get the right length and sell more tickets. Bunch of bastards.
The director's cut has a side story of Golic, played by Paul McGann. In the original cut, he is a very minor character who was seemingly driven a bit crazy from witnessing an alien attack. In this version, there is more to his story. He actually IS a bit crazy anyway and has bad hygiene problems. None of the other inmates want to work with him. Two are forced to and it's their deaths he witnesses and is blamed for. Meanwhile, Ripley and the inmates manage to capture the alien in a vault. Golic is getting more and more cuckoo as he is held in sickbay. He eventually manages to persuade the inmate guarding him to unlock his shackles, then knocks this inmate out cold and goes off to unleash the 'dragon' and help it kill. This dragon works alone and thanks him by eating him. Paul McGann is excellent as Golic and it's a shame this storyline is cut. You get to know more of the prisoners and they aren't just random nameless bald Brits being offed one by one.

Why are they British anyway? Bit of an odd casting decision? I think Charles S Dutton was the only American amongst some rather elite British thesps.

Some things in the director's cut aren't so good. The cremation/alien birth scene doesn't work as well. In that version, it is one of the oxen that is impregnated. The dog works better and also makes more sense. I think you'd notice a face hugger on one of your cows, whereas the dog could simply go missing.
Ripley's Christ dive at the end is slightly different in that you don't see the alien come out. I think both scenes are a little too false and this finale should have been shot so much better. It looks hurried and tagged on. The major problem during filming is that there was never a final script and it was all a bit winged. Given such a crapload to deal with, I think Fincher (the 3rd director to be attached) did rather well and you could see he would go on to do great things and not just awesome Madonna videos.

And so 20th Century Fox grew more greedy and decided to pull out another one. I actually thought the third was a pretty decent finish and had a great arc to Ripley's character.

I think this film is quite frankly, unnecessary and a bit of a mess. Ripley is now a cloned hybrid of Ripley and the queen alien. It's not Ripley, it's something else and I cared about as much for her as I did for any of the characters in this okay film.

Is this one worth a watch? Not really, but it's this that really paved the way for the ridiculousness of the Alien vs Predator films(although Weaver came on board because she heard about the planning for that film and wanted to make something more worthy of the franchise), so it's interesting to see that path. The franchise makes full circle. From the original alien almost becoming a Roger Corman monster B movie, that's actually what the franchise has turned into. Shame.

29. Aliens (1986)

This time it's war indeed. In possibly one of the best film sequels of all time, James Cameron decided to go down a different route than the first film's horror story and instead, make a combat film. Packed with guns, explosions and a shed load of xenomorphs. This is a thrill a minute ride.

Ripley's escape pod is picked up floating in space. Unfortunately she's had a bit of a nap and it's 57 years later. Hypersleep does wonders for the ageing process though. After telling her story to the company, they don't believe it and she has her pilot's licence revoked and is set to live a solitary life working on loaders in the docks. That is until the company loses contact with the colony set up on LV-426 and they ask her to accompany a marine reconnaissance mission as an adviser. Cue shit hitting fan!

Once again, it's the studied characters that make the film so good. The Ripley character has a more emotional side and is given a background. Weaver even received an Oscar nomination. Paul Reiser plays a brilliant villain as the nasty, back-stabbing Carter Burke, always after a fast buck and caring about no-one but himself. Carrie Henn is brilliant as Newt. Fearful, but willing to survive and never annoying or whiny. Lance Hendrik's android, Bishop, goes to prove that they aren't all psychos!
It's the marines characters that are particularly well studied. Even the ones who don't last very long. You actually care that they died. Cameron let the good ones last a bit longer. Super tough Vasquez, Hapless Gorman, dishy man under control Hicks and the king of Soundbites(and also dishy) Hudson.

The relationship between Ripley, Newt and the lovely Hicks is a nice touch. After learning of the death of her daughter (who was in her 60s) it looks like Ripley has a second chance to start a family. I just wonder when that conversation comes up about her bing an octogenarian? Awkward!

The director's cut of the film adds an extra 17 or so, minutes to the film. We see the colony before the alien takeover amongst other things. Although it doesn't drag the film out, the colony footage doesn't really add anything to the film.

"We're on an express elevator to hell; going down!"

"That's it man, game over man, game over!"

"Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen!"

"I'm ready, man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State of the badass art! You do NOT wanna fuck with me. Check it out! Hey Ripley, don't worry. Me and my squad of ultimate badasses will protect you! Check it out! Independently targeting particle beam phalanx. Vwap! Fry half a city with this puppy. We got tactical smart missiles, phase-plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks..."

How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?"

Gotta love that Hudson! ♥

28. Alien (1979)

Ridley Scott's Alien started life as a Roger Corman B-movie and almost was until 20th Century Fox showed interest.

Fortunately, what came about is basically a haunted house horror film, but set in space. The haunted house being the starship tug, Nostromo.

On their way home to Earth, the 7 crew members of the Nostromo are wakened early from their hypersleep to answer a distress signal from a nearby planet. A team is dispatched to find the source of the signal and it turns out to be an alien ship full of eggs. Don't go near those eggs, John Hurt! Oh...too late!

There are many things that make this film brilliant.
The acting is great. Very studied characters. Sigourney Weaver, in her first starring movie role, shows Ripley to be this woman who takes no shit and gets things done, yet still shows her fragility, All the other characters have their function to play. Tom Skeritt's Captain Dallas is the straight guy, a bit brow beaten and sick of this shit; Yaphet Kotto is the alpha male; Harry Dean Stanton is the light relief; Ian Holm is the spanner-in-the-works ice-cold psycho and Veronica Cartwright holds the audience viewpoint and reaction.
Apparently, the famous chest bursting scene was secretly done. Though the actors knew what was going on,they didn't know the scale of it and those shocked reactions are quite genuine. Poor Cartwright getting hosed down by a couple of litres of blood is particularly genuine terror!

H R Gieger's alien design is extraordinarily beautiful and terrifying. Basically the perfect killing machine. Scott's shooting of the alien is masterful, keeping everything close to the details of the thing, but never really revealing it all, thus letting the audience's imagination do the work. It also means there is no man in a rubber suit running about. This way the design is never dated and it still stands up today in it's look.

A true sci-fi classic.

27. Neco Z Alenky/Alice (1988)

Czech surrealist vision of an absurdist English writer's nonsense tale. Yes, this is a bit bonkers.

Jan Swankmajer's version of the classic tale is told through stop motion animation, mixing live action and puppetry. it's a pared down version of the story. Gone are the Cheshire Cat, Gryphon, Mock Turtle and the Duchess. The White Rabbit is the main protagonist taking on the role of the Duchess and the high executioner. He's not a very nice rabbit at all. In fact no-one comes off well in this version. Alice is a bratty cunt who needs a good smack. The Mad Hatter's tea party has upped it to eleven on the nonsense, making the scene really quite annoying and pointless and the Queen is a great let down.

The setting is Alice's house, but a surreal dream version of it. Animated are taxidermied animals, fragmented skeletons of animals and grim old toys. It casts a sheath of macabre over the whole thing. It's clearly not one for the kids. There is even a warning up front made by Alice.

<< Alice thought to herself, 'Now you will see a film... made for children... perhaps... ' But, I nearly forgot... you must... close your eyes... otherwise... you won't see anything.>>

If you don't watch the film, you won't miss anything either. It's like the makers of Bagpuss took some crack and decided to make a film.