I'm making the most definitive list of favorite movies ever.

For every year, I'm listing every movie I've seen and compare them all to each other asking one question; Which movie do I like more. Movies that score in the 80th percentile or higher, advance to the next round: Favorite of the Decade. After each Decade is done, an All Time list will be formed.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Favoritest Movies of 1980



Wow.  Hooray.  My hero.  What a big tough movie you are, imagine that Empire Strikes back could take on a whole year and come out on top... You'll probably win the decade as well, see you in the All Time round Empire!  Well, let's see who came in second...




What?  I feel the need to question myself here...
Q: Excuse me me, but how the Frakes in Riker's name does Flash Gordon end up with the second spot for 1980?  It's no Raiders fiasco, but you may be out of your own mind, to the extent that you could end up talking to yourself, and typing while doing it!

A: Superman II was a childhood favorite, but if you watch Superman II once a year, just once a year from, say ages 7 to 17; you can feel yourself getting older.  You start questioning just how nicely done some parts of it are, and how... (lengthy bull crap later) and where did the cellophane S come from?


Flash Gordon has gotten a boost, in just the past year or so, probably worth 7-8 places.  Actually, ironically, right this second as I'm typing this, the wife and daughter are watching Flash Gordon in the other room!  It has multigenerational appeal, even today!  Why could that be?  There's a clue on the poster... "filmed in Todd-AO" (My father used to rave about Todd-AO movies, and it was probably the second thing he thought off when thinking about Elizabeth Taylor).  The Flash Gordon movie of my youth was a dull pan and scan on tv movie, but having seen it in HD.  It's, well, beautiful.

More importantly, Flash is a movie that hits it's target.  It is everything it wants to be.  And movies that accomplish that are almost always well regarded, if not loved directly proportionally to the appeal of their goal.  For instance, if you like crime movies, than Godfather, Scarface and Goodfella's are your classics.  Hard Sci-Fi fan? 2001 and Blade Runner... Disney fare.. Lion King and Cinderella for the Classic Disney fare crowd.  Sometimes movies mix appeal base, they're still perfect, but it's where you land on both appeal orientations.  Flash Gordon is a movie that feels like it came out of an old MGM vault, like a victory lap made after Wizard of Oz.  It's everything George Lucas claimed he wanted Star Wars to be, except "believable" looking.  Flash trades realistic for retro deco.

  1. The Empire Strikes Back
  2. Flash Gordon
  3. Superman II
  4. Battle Beyond the Stars
  5. The Final Countdown
  6. Airplane!
  7. Raise the Titanic
  8. Kagemusha
  9. Hangar 18
  10. The Blues Brothers
  11. Midnight Madness
  12. Caddyshack
  13. Oh, God! Book II
  14. Altered States
  15. The Shining
  16. The Day Time Ended
  17. The Return of the King
  18. Private Benjamin
  19. Stir Crazy
  20. Somewhere in Time
  21. Xanadu
  22. Herbie Goes Bananas
  23. Popeye
  24. The Elephant Man
  25. Galaxina
  26. The Gods Must Be Crazy
  27. Coal Miner's Daughter
  28. The Watcher in the Woods
  29. American Gigolo
  30. Any Which Way You Can
  31. Urban Cowboy
  32. Ordinary People

1 comment:

Jace Pawlak said...

Dude, I'm FN TICKLED to see Midnight Madness on here! :)

What the hell is Kagemusha?