Your Top 5 movies

[Art Vandelay]

I'm a Cormac McCarhy devotee. Next to his greatest narratives, no country is weak tea, tge novel and especially the film.

Cormac is either my first or 2nd favorite author of all time. What makes NCFOM unique is a better movie than book (and the book is very good). The Road and All The Pretty Horses were significantly worse films. Blood Meridian may be the single strangest novel I’ve ever read. I know there has been rumors for years about a movie adaptation. Don’t know if it will ever come to fruition.

[BigFatMeanie]

1. The Great Escape
2. Cool Hand Luke
3. Ben Hur
4. The Dirty Dozen
5. Miss Congeniality

One of these things is not like the others

[Non Sequitur]

Cormac is either my first or 2nd favorite author of all time. What makes NCFOM unique is a better movie than book (and the book is very good). The Road and All The Pretty Horses were significantly worse films. Blood Meridian may be the single strangest novel I’ve ever read. I know there has been rumors for years about a movie adaptation. Don’t know if it will ever come to fruition.

I would love to see Blood Meridian put to film. I believe James Franco tried for years to get it done but it never got off the ground. He settled for Child of God, which is even darker than Blood Meridian. He wasn't up to the task. It would take a rare directorial talent to make Blood Meridian palatable to the general public.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Cormac is either my first or 2nd favorite author of all time. What makes NCFOM unique is a better movie than book (and the book is very good). The Road and All The Pretty Horses were significantly worse films. Blood Meridian may be the single strangest novel I’ve ever read. I know there has been rumors for years about a movie adaptation. Don’t know if it will ever come to fruition.

Huge CM fan here. I am not sure NCFOM is better than the book - it was true to the book for sure.

The Road is his best book, and I thought it was a decent movie, but that is not something that translates well to film. Have not seen All the Pretty Horses movie, but I really loved that book.

[Pelado]

One of these things is not like the others

No kidding. What would make your line even better, though, is if you were to link to a video clip of the Sesame Street song.

[Non Sequitur]

One of these things is not like the others

I can only assume it was TIC. Otherwise a solid list.

[falafel]

Huge CM fan here. I am not sure NCFOM is better than the book - it was true to the book for sure.

The Road is his best book, and I thought it was a decent movie, but that is not something that translates well to film. Have not seen All the Pretty Horses movie, but I really loved that book.

All the Pretty Horses was a poor adaptation of one of my favorite books of all time. The Road was so excellent and so terrifying at the same time, I never considered even watching the movie.

[BigFatMeanie]

No kidding. What would make your line even better, though, is if you were to link to a video clip of the Sesame Street song.

Yeah, I was too lazy to go hunt it up.

EDIT: Oh yeah, maybe I should mention that I was a hack and didn't read the whole thread before I commented? On second thought, why bother?

[SeattleUte]

Huge CM fan here. I am not sure NCFOM is better than the book - it was true to the book for sure.

The Road is his best book, and I thought it was a decent movie, but that is not something that translates well to film. Have not seen All the Pretty Horses movie, but I really loved that book.

I disagree.

MC's novels re ranked as follows in greatness, in my opinion:

1) Blood Meridian. Far and away. This one ranks with the best of Melville, Twain, Poe, Morrison, Cather, Faulkner, as an American classic. I recently read it for the fourth time right after I reread Moby Dick because of Melville's influence is well recognized. It really is Moby Dick in the desert with scalps instead of whales, but he goes places in revealing male if not human evil that Melville would not have dared. It is also (like Moby Dick) timeless in addressing all the issues that will always captivate us--racism, environmental destruction, genocide, totalitarianism, religion for good or evil, Western Civilization for better or worse. All of Moby Dick's themes. It's a more modern novel than Moby Dick in its avoidance of a lot of digressions. But CM learned from Melville the wonderful art of dramatizing manual labor. This is really evident in the Road in a very different context. But like Moby Dick, BM really doesn't do women.

Blood Meridian is also the funniest of his novels.

2) The Border Trilogy. Of that, the Crossing is the best.

3) The Road

4) No Country (by far the worst, very derivative of the great narratives and essentially just a crime novel).

I've never read the early Southeastern US novels. But I think the consensus is the later novels are better. I think most academics agree with me about all this. Harold Bloom would.

[SeattleUte]

I love the apostate Mormon in the Crossing.

[SeattleUte]

The thing about all of MC's novels that's peerless, is the imagery. Who needs movies with that? The Corns just basically downloaded No Country.

[chrisrenrut]

In no particular order. Mostly comedies.

The Big Lebowski (Coen bros classic)
What’s Up Doc (70’s slapstick, kills me every time, edges out It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World)
The Way Way Back (love Rash and Faxon, just edges out The Descendants)
The Matrix (seems like a turning point in what is possible in film making, plus it’s badass and eminently rewatchable)
Good Will Hunting

We went to Boston recently and when I mentioned the Good Will Hunting bench in Boston Commons, a 27 year old family member said they had never seen it. I was shocked. It seems like it should be mandatory viewing in the teens or early 20’s.

Some that could dip into the top 5 depending on mood-
Payback (The only Mel Gibson movie in the thread so far?)
Airplane
Godfather 1-2 (they are almost one movie, if you have read the book)
Premium Rush
Chasing Mavericks
A Farrelly bros Film like Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber, or Kingpin

[Jeff Lebowski]

Reposted from the other thread with a slight tweak:

- Shawshank
- Saving Private Ryan
- Goodfellas
- Gladiator
- Pulp Fiction

Honorable mention:

- Fargo
- Godfather I & II (I am going to cheat and lump these)
- Spirited Away
- O Brother, where art thou?
- Good Will Hunting

[Clark Addison]

Reposted from the other thread with a slight tweak:

- Shawshank
- Saving Private Ryan
- Goodfellas
- Gladiator
- Pulp Fiction

Honorable mention:

- Fargo
- Godfather I & II (I am going to cheat and lump these)
- Spirited Away
- O Brother, where art thou?
- Good Will Hunting

Jeff Lebowski doesn't have The Big Lebowski in his top 11??????

[Jeff Lebowski]

Jeff Lebowski doesn't have The Big Lebowski in his top 11??????

Top 15 for sure!