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.

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Favoritest Movies of 1981



WTF?

1981.  We're talking about 19, EIGHTY, Freaking ONE!  The year that practically birthed the decade no one can stop talking about!  The first Space Shuttle launch, Ronald Regan becomes president. On television, Dynasty, Fall Guy, Hill Street Blues, heck just on Saturday morning cartoons we get Smurfs and Spider-man and his Amazing Friends.

Aside from all of that geekery, one movie dominates the box office, and goes on to get nine Academy Award nominations, winning five, and being robbed of best picture, sorry Best Picture by aspiring Olympic runners (Though Harrison Ford will run with Vangelis music in 1982 so Hah,)  How bad was this robbery?  Raiders of the Lost Ark has a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer of 94% (All Critics) to Chariots of Fire's 87% (All Critics).  AFI All time 100 list, Raiders is #60! Chariots doesn't even place.  Their Heroes and Villians list; Indiana Jones is the #2 hero!  Above James Bond and Rick from Casablanca!  Sure, he's below Atticus Finch, but we all know Atticus wouldn't make it to the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol!

So how in Frakes name could I pick, like, favor a movie with a RTT score of 60%.  I didn't know either.  It was hard.  Almost Empire vs. Jedi hard.  Raiders is a far superior movie to Heavy Metal.  It is one of the greatest achievements ever.  Seriously.  I wouldn't be surprised if that poster wasn't composed like the Mona Lisa just because the movie was honestly a rear kicking cultural masterpiece.  But head to head, I chose Heavy Metal.  We all want to see more movies like Raiders.  That Star Wars scale of fun, adventure, tension, the pleasant sensation of having our brain beaten to putty while our eyes were lovingly effed out of existence and our ears floated in pure euphoria.

We'll never get that.  We shouldn't want that, we wouldn't want to live in a universe that flat.  If everything were perfect, we'd become bored with perfection, start noticing differences, and even artificially create standards of quality and differentiate the essentially homogeneous media.  (Carnac the Magnificent says you're thinking: "That's what we do with movies today!")

I do want more movies like Heavy Metal, I wish we got a Heavy Metal movie every year.  An annual Animated Sci-Fi anthology showcasing a variety of styles, and stories with a a broad yet central feel, showing just how big, and in some ways, hard to define nerdom is.  We'd be better off having more movies like Heavy Metal, but sadly it's almost completely unique.  Raiders gets the #2 spot, since, I'm always seeing movies wishing they were Raiders.  Fine, I like them, some I even love... okay, I don't love any of them.  I love Raiders, Captain America and I need a few more dates before we commit, and National Treasure and I have agreed to see other people, but remain the closest of friends, not ruling out benefits.  The best part of cinematic polyamory; movies don't get jealous.  Heavy Metal, will never take offense at my wish for a harem of Heavy Metal, it just might punish me with less than better episodes of Liquid Television.



  1. Heavy Metal
  2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
  3. The Great Muppet Caper
  4. Clash of the Titans
  5. History of the World: Part I
  6. Escape from New York
  7. Time Bandits
  8. Excalibur
  9. Outland
  10. For Your Eyes Only
  11. Stripes
  12. Condorman
  13. An American Werewolf in London
  14. Das Boot
  15. The Legend of the Lone Ranger
  16. Dragonslayer
  17. Omen III: The Final Conflict
  18. The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie
  19. Scanners
  20. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
  21. Quest for Fire
  22. Chariots of Fire
  23. Gallipoli
  24. Heartbeeps
  25. Reds
  26. Tarzan, the Ape Man
  27. The Evil Dead
  28. The Cannonball Run
  29. Arthur
  30. The Howling
  31. Sharky's Machine
  32. Body Heat
  33. The Professional
  34. On Golden Pond
  35. American Pop
  36. Tuck Everlasting
  37. The Devil and Max Devlin
  38. Bustin' Loose







1 comment:

Jace Pawlak said...

I have never seen Heavy Metal.
Clash of The Titans is awesome.
Never seen History of The World.
I have not seen Das Boot.
I actually didn't care for Stripes.
American Werewolf In London scared the crap out of me! Awesome movie.
Scanners: great movie.
Sharky's Machine? SHARKY'S MACHINE?! :)
On Golden Pond was a good movie. Always love good dialogue.