TDOS Cabin by the Lake Movie Draft - DRAFT COMPLETED

#94
With the 6th pick of the 2nd round, it is an easy choice for yours truly...

The Maltese Falcon - 1941

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0033870/

1529208077604.png

This is easily in the top 100 for all-time films. I have it as #2 just behind Casablanca (arguably the greatest film of all time). If you enjoy Humphrey Bogart, and mysteries with private detectives, I highly recomend this film. I did not want to get cute and try to nab this one in the mid-rounds, as this film is truly one of the reasons I fell in love with classic movies. I think this film did a great deal for the noir genre over 70 years ago. It has stood the test of time, and cemented Bogart as a Hollywoof superstar.

PM sent to Hrdboild!
 
Last edited:

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
#96
With the 6th pick of the 2nd round, it is an easy choice for yours truly...

The Maltese Falcon - 1941

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0033870/

View attachment 7729

This is easily in the top 100 for all-time films. I have it as #2 just behind Casablanca (arguably the greatest film of all time). If you enjoy Humphrey Bogart, and mysteries with private detectives, I highly recomend this film. I did not want to get cute and try to nab this one in the mid-rounds, as this film is truly one of the reasons I fell in love with classic movies. I think this film did a great deal for the noir genre over 70 years ago. It has stood the test of time, and cented Bogart as a Hollywoof superstar.

PM sent to Hrdboild!
Great pick! That's another one of my favorites. Also because you didn't snipe the movie I wanted here. So cheers all-around! Looks like I'm not getting any Bogart with me in my cabin but that's alright, I've seen those movies enough at this point that I can basically play them in my head when I feel like it.
 

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
#98
With the 7th pick of the second round (23rd overall)...

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) -- David Lean / Historical Epic


https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/

___Since my second favorite movie of all-time Casablanca is off the board, I'm dropping down to my number 3 -- David Lean's landmark masterpiece adaptation of T.E. Lawrence's autobiographical novel "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom". From the rain-soaked streets of future Los Angeles, join me as we trek out to the Saudi Arabian peninsula at the dawn of World War I where we'll meet Officer Lawrence, portrayed by Peter O'Toole with a dry wit and a hint of rascal about him, as he's sent to find Prince Faisal (none other than Alec Guinness!) and assist in his fight against the Ottomans and if possible to steer the Arab Revolt in a direction beneficial to the British Empire. One of the first films to utilize the Super Panavision 65mm format (which was later upscaled to 70mm Cinerama for theatrical release) Lawrence of Arabia is a widescreen celebration of all that the film medium has to offer. Its breathtaking canvases are often locked down almost like still-life paintings as a solitary figure (or camel) explores the length or breadth of the frame. Speaking of camels, if you ever have a chance to watch this on the big screen, pay attention to what the camels are doing on the edges of the frame any time they appear. It almost turns the movie into a comedy!

___Sir David Lean has become synonymous with the historical epic as his work in the late 50s and 60s also included similar event pictures Bridge on the River Kwai and Doctor Zhivago. Filming with great difficulty on location in Jordan and Morocco (truckloads of ice were required to keep the cameras from overheating) and packing the frame with thousands of extras, David Lean crafted one of those movies that lives up to the phrase "They don't make them like they used to". If we zoom in past all the surface opulence (considerable though it is) what's at the center of the movie is a character study about a magnificent true-life figure who remains a bit of an enigma even to himself throughout the proceedings. Halfway through the film a sand-blasted and thirsty Lawrence arrives at the Suez canal looking like a refugee from some lost desert tribe and encounters a British man riding his motorbike up the road. "Who are you?" the man asks and David Lean lingers on Peter O'Toole's face as his expression tells us he's still trying to figure it out himself. The director then cuts to the bustling city of Cairo leaving the question unanswered. The second act only widens and deepens the mystery as Lawrence sways dramatically from megalomania to despair to blood-lust and ultimately sidesteps the spotlight altogether. I suppose we're not meant to know, just watch and observe a complicated person who rode at the very forefront of fate for a time.

___I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the sweeping musical score from composer Maurice Jarre, which captures the emotion of the images perfectly and inseparably. Like Blade Runner this is a complete sensory experience -- a peek into an exotic world (this one in the past) which will never exist again -- and a beautiful portrait of a flawed but fascinating person which dares us to dream a little bigger, travel a little further, and engage with our own time the way he engaged with his.

Musical choice: Maurice Jarre -- Main Theme for Lawrence of Arabia




[whitechocolate is back on the clock, PM has been sent]
 
Last edited:
What We Do in the Shadows (2014), Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi

ababd-what-we-do-in-the-shadows-dance.jpg


The 2010s are the hardest decade for me so I am going to get it out of the way with this permanent smile inducing gem. What We Do in the Shadows is not the only classic monster based comedy film, nor the only one that takes place in modern society. But it is unique, and very funny. This movie turns facial expressions and still shots into hilarious punchlines. On top of that, it has great quote after great quote. Lots of movies are known for their one liners, but this is my favorite. There's a youtube video of the song that plays during the opening credits, and most of the comments are quotes from the movie. Just reading these quotes is enough to bring back the joy of watching the movie. If you're a fan of monster movies and a fan of comedies, this is a must see.
 
Last edited:

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
What We Do in the Shadows is not the only classic monster based comedy film, nor the only one that takes place in modern society. But it is unique, and very funny. This movie turns facial expressions and still shots into hilarious punchlines. On top of that, it has great quote after great quote. Lots of movies are known for their one liners, but this is my favorite.
Definitely a hilarious movie. Gotta admit, the joke about the sandwich...
 
Some great picks were made yesterday. Alien and The Thing, in particular, were on my list. Carpenter’s The Thing was actually released in the same summer as Blade Runner, and suffered the same abysmal box office fate due to much more popular fare in 1982. But it’s an absolute stone cold classic, one of the most taut and compactly perfect horror movies ever made.
 
I didn't really have much interest in watching Blade Runner 2049 - until I read Padrino's post. That situation will be remedied as soon as I can get to the video store. :)
I’m glad my pick influenced your desire to see it. I will say again that it’s not a film for everybody. It’s slow and hypnotic, much like the first film, but a good 45 minutes longer. However, it’s one of the most impressive pieces of production design and sound design that you will find this side of the new millennium. It’s a visual marvel, gorgeously shot and meticulously constructed, and Ryan Gosling’s entire career has basically been building to the masterful performance he gives in 2049. He’s learned how to make stoicism layered and detailed, and can do more with a simple stare than many actors can do with a scenery-chewing monologue.
 
Alien's gone too now? Wow, this is brutal. I'm so happy I got Blade Runner when I did but movies are tumbling off the top of my wishlist rapidly now. I'll post some screenshots for you folks that took my movies since I obviously can't use them now. :)

Also... I'm one of the few Blade Runner fans that did not like 2049 I suppose. It would take me a long time to explain why and I don't really want to go into all the details. But if I can try to briefly state some of the big points. I watched the original 1982 film for the first time while I was working on a film history project in 10th grade. I was also confounded after my first viewing but it was sufficiently interesting that I rewound the tape (we're all dating ourselves here aren't we?) and watched it straight through a second time. It's such an insular film that it takes a few viewings to pry it open and get past the surface to where all the philosophical introspection lies. But once you get there it truly is a film that never gets old. I've watched it more times than any other movie and I'm transfixed every time. I decided it was my favorite movie around senior year of high school and vowed to watch it every year on my birthday (a tradition I still stick to, what is this, 18 years later?)

When the announcement was made that a sequel was going to happen I was also skeptical. The ambiguous ending is part of what makes the first movie so wonderful. How do you continue on where that story ends without picking a side on the "Is Deckard a Replicant or not?" argument and potentially alienating half the fans? I'm also a screenwriter so I eventually decided that I was just going to have to write my own version and see if it can be done. I decided to move the story up to San Francisco where the book takes place. I also wanted to see what Off-World looks like, if only briefly. The story was going to center around a Gaff inspired character (a sortof police bureaucrat in a suit) who is in his 50s now and gets hired by the Tyrell corporation to track down a rogue Blade Runner model replicant who has VK'ed himself and disappeared, popping up again Off World and murdering (retiring) replicants who haven't done anything wrong. Like the first film it would center around the idea of personal identity -- how do we know what we are, what makes us human? I spent years outlining it but only ended up writing a dozen pages or so. It was taking me a long time and the prospects of actually making a movie to which I don't own the rights were so remote that I decided to divert my energy into other projects.

Anyway, flash forward to the release of 2049 last year. I went into it with trepidation having recently seen Denis Villeneuve's previous film Arrival which I felt completely butchered a beautifully optimistic and humanistic short story and made it into something far darker and, I would say funereal. I also of course had the movie I invented bouncing around in my head constantly to compare this sequel to. Blade Runner 2049 is marvelously shot (always a given with Roger Deakins) and has some of the same thematic material with a main character trying to solve a case and sort out at the same time who they are and where they come from. It was an interesting angle telling the audience that the main character is a replicant right from the beginning and I wished they'd carried on with this theme of a divided society and bigotry toward replicants further than they did. It also had some great scenes -- the whole section of the story involving the toy horse for example. My main issues with the movie began as soon as Deckard was introduced because it started answering questions that I didn't really want answered (which is what I was afraid would happen). I don't personally care what happens to Deckard and Rachel after the first movie. I have my own version of how their story ends that feels poetic and appropriate to me but more than any movie I can think of Blade Runner is more about theme and setting than plot. And visually, while it is masterfully lit and lensed it is massively suffering from the loss of Ridley Scott's eye. The images in Blade Runner all have 20 things happening in every frame while 2049 is much more into broad strokes.

This thread has become such a Blade Runner celebration at this point that I felt like sharing a little of that. Blade Runner is very personal to me, it feels like my movie. Like you Padrino I know very few people who "get it". Most of the people I introduce it to are bored which doesn't surprise me since I didn't like it right off the bat either and I don't honestly expect other people to return to movies they didn't like in hopes that they might change their minds since there's just so many other things out there bidding for our attention. I don't know if there will be more Blade Runner movies or not. It's hard to justify it as a commercial venture at this point. I'd like to think my version of a sequel is relevant and artistically interesting but it may not be. I can't objectively judge. Anyway, thanks for sharing your comments Padrino -- I enjoyed reading about your relationship to these movies. It's nice to know there are other people out there who enjoy diving into this world over and over again and contemplating the questions it asks of us.
2049 has slightly different aims than Blade Runner, thematically speaking. It’s interested in agency, and the rationale we use to explain our manufactured hierarchies and the cultural lines we draw in order to feel comfortable and important in our world (it seems resonant and necessary that a film tackles such subject matter, given the state of current events). But K’s journey within that world becomes fascinating given the choices he makes, particularly with respect to the choice he makes at the end of the film. I didn’t think any movie could top Roy Batty’s tears in rain speech, by the way. It gets me every time. But I thought the final moments of 2049 might actually have managed to top it for me.
K gets no grand speech and no audience. There is nobody present to comfort him, no opportunity to explain himself. He isn’t even rewarded with the sight of Deckard being reunited with his daughter. All K has is his knowledge of his own agency, his own humanity. Time to die...
 
The Godfather, 1972, Francis Ford Coppola

GLtueTv.jpg

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/

The Godfather (1972) is a one of a kind movie, one of the greatest films in American culture. This movie has everything from great action scenes to world famous actors. It stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Cann and Robert Duvall.
The Godfather is the story of a Mafia family. The movie portrays one major theme throughout the entire movie and that is violence. Almost every scene in this movie is either a shot of actual violence accruing or characters talking about violence. Having said that, and even though there is a great deal of violence in this movie, there is something else the audience gets to experience and that is the strength of family unity. The Corleone family has a very strong bond and will do anything to keep the family safe and together. So despite the brutal violence and mass killing it is a story about love, care and loyalty.
 
Last edited:

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
Well, if R2D2 hadn't pulled out that last pick, it wasn't lasting any longer. I'll just have to go to my backup pick:

Back To The Future - 1985

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/

1529264072014.png


I am a child of the '80s. My very first memory of current events is the May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, so I think it's safe to say that my first ten formative years coincided completely with the '80s. As such, the films of the '80s really speak to me. I'd have loved to have nabbed up the eminently quotable The Princess Bride but it somewhat predictably didn't get to me, and Back to the Future is for me only a tiny step down from that height. Because of its time travel theme, it stands as a veritable cornucopia of '80s culture, from rock and roll to skateboarding to Pepsi Free (a short-lived phenomenon) to Calvin Klein...this list could go on for a while. And on top of that, BTTF may be the single most *fun* time travel movie out there. There are points that are a bit hokey - assuming knowledge of a lightning strike to the second and of course it always bothered me that Zemeckis decided to have a voice over instead of letting Fox sing Johnny B. Goode himself - but the film holds up really well, and who can get tired of Doc Brown screaming "One point twenty-one gigawatts!?!?"

This movie was a major piece of my childhood (on Betamax!!!), and I love it every time I revisit it. I'm definitely glad to have it on my island.
 
Last edited:
With the 27th pick in the 2018 TDOS Cabin by the Lake Movie Draft, I select...

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968):



Director: Stanley Kubrick
Dir. of Photography: Geoffrey Unsworth
Writer(s): Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke (based on the novel by)
Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Douglas Rain
Genre(s): Science fiction
Runtime: 2 hours, 29 minutes

IMDb Entry: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/?ref_=nv_sr_2

If my love of film flows outward from Blade Runner, then Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey represents my first major step towards understanding the sci-fi tradition that Blade Runner belongs to. Though they are wildly different films, each is emblematic of a visually arresting, cerebral, Nietzschean approach to the craft.

2001 is another film that I managed to see in the theater long passed its initial theatrical release, and what a wonder it is to behold in such an environment. Its investigation of the relationship between man and his machines, as well as the prognostication of what the "next step" may look like as man outgrows his machines, is positively sublime, and reflective of a time in film history when the film could not be extricated from its home in the theater. 2001 was meant for the big screen.

It's a difficult film to describe, and also difficult to "spoil," in the contemporary sense. It's more like a symphony in three distinct movements than a linear filmic experience. Each movement illustrates man's connection to the stars, and how man was destined to be thought of as more than the sum of his physiological components. Man, like the very monolith that figures so centrally to the film's thematic resonance, is out of place in the universe, in that man can question his very place in that universe.

2001 articulates that question of "place" in a number of fascinating and cyclical ways. In the "Dawn of Man" segment at the film's opening, we see our genetic ancestors discovering power, and a beginning for man. By the "Star Gate" sequence at the film's close, we're introduced to the next beginning for man. The film is an allegory of birth and death, of what it means to come into being, and what it means to .

There is also sense of delight and whimsy at the heart of 2001's interrogations into the nature of our universe. Kubrick's decision to score the film using an array of classical pieces proved to be both balletic and beautifully-rendered. The shots of Discovery One, the satellites, and other spacecraft set against the black of space, spinning in their centrifugal motion to the tune of a waltz, betrays a charm that Kubrick is not often credited for. These tools of man delight us, but as the failure of Hal 9000 shows us during the "Jupiter Mission" section, and as the "Star Gate" sequence makes abundantly clear, man is destined for greater things than the management of machines.

There is so much to say about 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I'm afraid I don't have the time to say it all. t is clearly a film designed to inspire awe, rather than to thrill or shock or satiate. It is a film that resists the audience's desire for answers. It is "required reading" for anybody who's ever looked up at the stars and wondered, "What lies beyond the moon for man to discover?"











PM sent to @Sluggah.
 
Last edited:

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
With the 27th pick in the 2018 TDOS Cabin by the Lake Movie Draft, I select...

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968):



Director: Stanley Kubrick
Dir. of Photography: Geoffrey Unsworth
Writer(s): Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke
Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Douglas Rain
Genre(s): Science fiction
Runtime: 2 hours, 29 minutes

IMDb Entry: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/?ref_=nv_sr_2

It’s Father’s Day, and I’m headed out to celebrate with my dad, so I won’t have time for my write-up until tomorrow. But this is another big one for me.

PM sent to @Sluggah.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
 
Nicely done Padrino. This is another film I really expected to go in the first round. I can't wait to read your right up and by the way I don't expect to see any more sci-fi's! This was double-dipping ;)
 
With my 2nd pick in the TDOS Cabin in the Woods Movie Draft, I select:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Monty-Python-Art_Paul-Shipper_Holy-Grail.jpg

IMDB Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/

The 70s is the toughest decade for me to cover, so this will do nicely. On the oft occasions when I fancy some silly humor, I expect this movie to bring back all of the adolescent gigglings of my formative years. This movie stands up to years of rewatchability, and remains gut busting in it's irreverence, absurdity, macabre black humor, and take no prisoners satire. It pokes fun of religion, government, poor, noble, French, English, and varying sizes of rabbits and swallows, each with equal admonition. Welcome to the cabin!


Quotes:

"Listen, strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power is derived from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
"Be quiet!"
"You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you."
"SHUT UP!"
"Look if I went round, saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bink had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away."
"Shut up will you, shut up"
"Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system."
"Shut up"
"Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

"What is your name?"
"It is Arthur, King of the Britans."
"What is your quest?"
"To seek the Holy Grail."
"What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
"What do you mean, an African or a European swallow"
"I don't know that...AAAAHHHH"
"How do you know so much about swallows?"
"Well you have to know these things when you're a king you know."

"Come back here and fight. I'll bite your legs off!"

"I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries."
"Is there someone else up there we could talk to?"
"No now go away or I shall taunt you a second time."

"On second thought let's not go to camelot, tis a silly place."

"Don't like her, what's wrong with her? She is beautiful, she is rich, she has huge...tracks of land."
 
Last edited:
Cap took my back-up pick here. I knew if I was going to have BttF in my cabin, I'd have to take it early, but hoped it wouldn't be first round early. Missing out on it hurts, but I can recite the whole movie from memory by now, so it's as if I have it with me for eternity anyway.

Instead with this spot, I'm taking a film that might be safe until much later in the draft, but I couldn't stand to see it swiped. Plus, it has some special significance in that the only reason I know about this one at all is because of a previous Kingsfans Draft game.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - 2010

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446029/

1529279905181.png

Tragically, I missed this one in theaters, was only vaguely aware it existed on release (might remember seeing the previews and being exceedingly confused) and had zero interest in it. It wasn't until years after its release when Gadget took it as one of her picks in the last movie draft that I gave it a shot. Must have watched it 4 times before I sent Netflix back their DVD, then went out that same day and bought it myself.

I felt like Knives Chau on the couch in the opening listening to Sex Bob-Omb play for the first time. It was intense, almost mystical, as though my own room was expanding just as it was on screen. I may not have been instantly hooked, but it was enough to keep me watching through the first 30 minutes of 20-something hipster rom-com melodrama; abrupt, anachronistic, stylized, Edgar Wright patented flash cuts; and dreamlike subspace weirdness.

By the time Matthew Patel crashed through the roof to challenge Scott in mortal (k)combat, my mind was reeling in utter disturbed chaos. Just what the heck was this movie?

I finally started connecting the dots during the Lucas Lee fight. When Clash at Demonhead walked on stage and Envy belted out Black Sheep, I was fully committed to the psychedelic roller coaster.

Clearly I see this as a purely entertaining, style over substance movie on my list. It would fit nicely in my pre-enlightenment criterion of what makes a good movie: is it fun? (A: Yes!) There isn't a whole lot of depth or philosophy here. As Gideon aptly puts it "Are we done with the hugging and learning? I thought we had a fight going on." But even with that said, this is easily the most brilliant adaptation of a graphic novel I have ever seen; it's simultaneously a stellar satire AND celebration of vintage gaming, indie music, and hipster culture; and Wright is a genius of visual storytelling (seriously, this movie could be used as a case study in how creative use of editing and stylish cuts can enhance a narrative).

Also, Knives is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction. Glad she'll be with me in the cabin.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I select: The Wizard of Oz (1939)
wizard_of_oz_poster1939.jpg

This was my mother's favorite movie when she was a little girl. She has miniature action figures of each of the characters that she passed along to me and my brothers to add to our movie character collection.

The scarecrow says he needs more brains, but he tricks the apple trees into throwing free food at them. The cowardly lion says he needs more courage, but he faces the witches forces to rescue his friends. The tin man says that he needs a heart to feel emotion, and yet he always cries until he rusts. This story tells us that the journey is just as important as our dreams, and the things that we really want in life are often the things that we already have. Don't take for granted how precious they are.


https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138
 
Last edited:

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
Monty Python and Raiders are direct hits. I was considering Raiders for this pick. Things are getting ugly. ;)

As such, I want to take one of my favorite movies of all time lest it slip away in the next round:

Aliens (1986)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/

A James Cameron-directed masterpiece of sci-fi action/suspense, this has been a go-to movie of mine since I bought it on VHS MANY moons ago. And not the theatrical version, mind you, but the Special Edition with an extra 17 minutes (IIRC, it was a bootleg of the laserdisc with the extra footage - no VHS had the extra footage at the time). The added scenes with the sentry guns alone is worth the Special Edition.

I have typically enjoyed movies with strong female leads - but women that are not trying to be men, but just trying to be the best versions of themselves. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver at her finest) shows her maternal instinct for Newt, the little girl they find on the alien planet, both in tenderly caring for her right after they find her and also in defending her from the aliens as the movie pushes towards the climactic final battle with the Alien queen. The first movie (Alien) was slow to build, with much more of a horror/suspense vibe - a masterpiece in it's own right. That's not really my thing though, and the reason I think that by far this is the best of the series. I like action more than horror, and this film delivers. With a tagline of "This Time it's War" - you know this one is right up my alley.

After escaping from her encounter in Alien (sorry, spoiler alert), she volunteers to return with a crew of space marines to wipe out the Alien infestation on a planet being terraformed by humans for colonization. The cast is great, with Weaver leading the way and Michael Biehn, Paul Riser, Lance Henriksen, and personal favorite Bill Paxton ("Game over, man, game over!") rounding out the most well known names. As can be expected, things don't go as expected and with some corporate backstabbing mucking things up along the way, it's up to Ellen to save Newt and get back home. If you haven't seen this one, do so. Now.

From wiki:

It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including a Best Actress nomination for Sigourney Weaver, winning both Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. It won eight Saturn Awards (Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actress for Weaver, Best Supporting Actor for Paxton, Best Supporting Actress for Goldstein, and Best Direction and Best Writing for Cameron), and a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. Empire magazine voted it the 'Greatest Film Sequel Of All Time'.

The film holds a 98% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 65 reviews, and an average rating of 9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "While Alien was a marvel of slow-building, atmospheric tension, Aliens packs a much more visceral punch, and features a typically strong performance from Sigourney Weaver." It also holds a score of 86 out of 100 based on 10 critics on Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim". Aliens was also featured in Empire Magazine's 500 Greatest films of All Time poll at #30 in 2008, in Empire's 301 Greatest Films of All Time poll at #19 in 2014 and in Empire's recent 100 Greatest films of All Time poll at #15.

Aliens 1986.jpg aliens.jpg aliens-1986-3.jpg
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 2004

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304141/

1529292620224.png

I knew I had to have a Harry Potter film and this is the one that I think best defines the whole series. An inflated Marge shooting around the room, the emergence of Sirius Black and the terrifying image of Dementors, along with a "new" Dumbledore are just a few of the highlights of this film. All these and so much more make this my favorite one of the series. This film gets a lot darker, with more indication of the evil that is to come.

With Alfonso Cuaron taking the helm as director, this film brought a depth to the characters that was somewhat missing before. Many of the nuances in the book were brought to the screen - an admirable task considering how each book in succession got longer and more detailed. I started to feel at home in Harry's world, as well as getting a better feel about who Harry, Ron and Hermione really are and what they might become.

I've probably watched this film a dozen times and I'll be watching it over and over again in my cabin. I'll even make sure to have a supply of butterbeer on hand when I do.
 
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 2004

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304141/



I knew I had to have a Harry Potter film and this is the one that I think best defines the whole series. An inflated Marge shooting around the room, the emergence of Sirius Black and the terrifying image of Dementors, along with a "new" Dumbledore are just a few of the highlights of this film. All these and so much more make this my favorite one of the series. This film gets a lot darker, with more indication of the evil that is to come.

With Alfonso Cuaron taking the helm as director, this film brought a depth to the characters that was somewhat missing before. Many of the nuances in the book were brought to the screen - an admirable task considering how each book in succession got longer and more detailed. I started to feel at home in Harry's world, as well as getting a better feel about who Harry, Ron and Hermione really are and what they might become.

I've probably watched this film a dozen times and I'll be watching it over and over again in my cabin. I'll even make sure to have a supply of butterbeer on hand when I do.
Best Harry Potter hands down. Nice.