What makes a movie a classic film? Is it the age of the picture, its relative popularity; does it have to be one particular genre or is it a genre unto itself? Do critics determine what is or isn't classic or is it the movie lovers? Do you have to take film appreciation courses to be able to identify whether or not a movie is classic? We will try to answer those questions for you as we introduce the first review in a new series we're calling, Raving Classics.
Answers:
You don't have to take any film classes to be able to identify a classic. We took some of those classes and can assure you they were a giant waste of time.
Classics don't belong to any one genre or any one time - they cross all of them. Films released this year could be classics and virtually any type of film might be considered classic - even some documentaries (Capra's "Why we Fight" is a good example).
You don't need critics to tell what is a classic, but they can help you find them if you haven't already discovered them on your own.
Classic Criteria: Here are some guidelines that might be used to help assess whether a film is worthy of being called "Classic."
It's fun to watch.
It never gets old - you watch it over and over again and still appreciate it.
It makes you feel something, or think something new, interesting or otherwise thrilling.
A classic often gets remade, but the remakes to a real classic never measure up to the original (which is perhaps why no one has tried a remake of Gone with the Wind).
A classic has memorable moments that stay with you and often these become cultural guideposts or pillars that help to define an age.
So there you have it; our criteria for a classic film. With that we will now review our first Raving Classic - just in time for the onset of cold weather but not too long after Halloween. We're reviewing one of our favorite movies ever - John Carpenter's, The Thing.
Things heat up in the coldest place in the world... Poster art for The Thing
John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) is all about atmosphere - it takes us to the end of the world and strands us there with a handful of bearded and ultimately desperate men (this is definitely not a chick flick). The film's understated soundtrack evokes Jaws but at a much deeper level - helping to establish a sense of foreboding that builds steadily as we drive deeper into the mystery and paranoia that ensues. As you may know this film is itself a remake of a 1951 film and has been remade again recently (2011), which makes it a bit unusual as classics go in that the second one hit the jackpot while the first and third tries missed badly.
CPR was never the same after this scene from "The Thing"
John Carpenter's The Thing succeeded where the others failed for a number of reasons:
An excellent ensemble cast with a very strong performances by the lead Kurt Russell and his sort of nemesis, Keith David (who can now be seen in Cloud Atlas).
A very neatly wrapped storyline - it wasn't complicated by any means - but seemed perfectly believable. We're dropped right into the situation and accept it instantly.
The tension of this film is palpable. Even after watching it more than 10 times it's still there - and the question of whether or not you can trust the folks around you allows us to drop into a temporary paranoid fantasy without having to stay too long (unlike the X-Files).
No One Gets Out Alive - How cool is that? No obvious sequels with the same cast anyway.
The Big Question - This film doesn't answer the big question - what happens next and that makes the movie even more menacing. The 2011 remake actually represents a sort of prequel with a focus on the Norwegian team that dug up the monster so we've still never found out what happened when the rescue team returns to the American Research station.
The Battle between McCready and the Monsters was Epic - This guy was cool, the hat, the Whiskey and the wits to take on the toughest bastards in the galaxy.
Groundbreaking Special Effects - This movie came well before the advent of computer animation. These monsters were handcrafted with lots of love and still look convincing today. Who can ever forget the slime dogs and spider-head guy? Unlike many monster, alien or horror flicks, these effects truly advance the plot and ensure the believability of the premise. They are among us and they are not nice...
McCready encounters a dead Norwegian (segue to 2011 remake)
The characters in The Thing seem like a very ordinary bunch of men placed in an extraordinary situation which unfolds before their eyes very rapidly. The situation makes them question who exactly their co-workers are in a more profound way than most of us will ever do. And keep in mind, the first two versions of the Thing were still very much Cold War metaphors - placing them both in cold locales was like having your cake and eating it too. Being paranoid and scared can be a lot of fun, so next time it starts snowing out, turn the lights down low and watch the 1982 version of The Thing.
A really great trailer, but that's to be expected.
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It's getting closer to Halloween and what better way to celebrate than to compile a list of what we consider to be the 10 scariest movies of all time. Now, of course, there are likely to be many of who disagree with our picks but then again, there were a lot of people who actually watched Rosanne and Saved by the Bell, so there's no accounting for taste. We will complement this post by adding another post tonight with the Least Scary Horror films of all time. Please keep in mind that some of what we found scary in years past may not seem so frightening now given the advances in special effects and the fact that many novel techniques in the horror genre back then are considered standard gimmicks today.
The only thing scarier than John Carradine alive was John Carradine dead in the Sentinel
Number 1 - Scariest Movie Ever - The Sentinel: This movie gave us nightmares for years. Moral of the story, don't buy an apartment that has a two bedrooms and a gateway to Hell. Burgess Meredith was particularly creepy in this picture - that and dead bodies and the gateway to Hell is mostly what we remember. We blocked the rest out.
Number 2 - The Shining: Without a doubt Jack Nicholson's best performance after One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Stephen Kings best novel and Stanley Kubrick's best film after 2001 a Space Odyssey. The kid was intensely creepy - the entire premise was great and the location perfect. This was not only one of the scariest films ever made it is one of the best movies ever.
Number 3 Scariest Movie Ever - The Exorcist: So, we don't know why our parents thought it was OK to take us to see this when we were little kids - perhaps they wanted to make a point to tell us never to use a Ouija board. After this movie, we never ate pea soup again. Ok, we'll admit it, we never ate pea soup before either but after this movie we resolved that we'd never try it. Linda Blair was the original Blair witch and lot's scarier than that other one.
This kid ate way too many pop tarts
Number 4 Scariest Movie Ever - Halloween: Before the 500 or 5,000 or teen slasher movies that we tend to dismiss nowadays were made we had Halloween. It was almost entirely original at the time, kind of a newer version of Psycho but much scarier. The use of the mask was pure genius - it was like the Mummy and Frankenstein all rolled into one. Jamie Lee Curtis did a great job as the heroine, more or less setting a standard for Sigourney Weaver in Alien and Linda Hamilton in the Terminator.
That Face-Cast must have been itchy
Number 5 Scariest Movie Ever - John Carpenters, The Thing: John Carpenter had made Halloween in 1978 and a few years later he remade an old 50's sci-fi horror film called the Thing. Oddly enough, in the original The Thing, the monster looked a lot like Jason from Halloween. Anyway, the Thing remains one of our favorite movies of all-time. The atmosphere, the characters and the groundbreaking special effects all add to the impact. He took a not so scary 50's plot and built enormous tension and suspense around it. We think this may have been Kurt Russel's best performance of his career.
"The Thing" introduced what we believe is the first Spiderhead in American Cinema
Number 6 Scariest Movie Ever - Dawn of the Dead (2004): Before the walkers of the Walking Dead desensitized us to extreme Zombie killing action in prime-time, Dawn of the Dead riveted us with a horrific gore fest that at the time set new boundaries for gore fests. The magic behind this movie which unlike many other Zombie flick was in fact pretty scary was the complete realism of the plot. We got to know the characters as they first tried to hide out in that mall and then make a dash for freedom. It seems clear that this movie more than anything provided the real model for the Walking Dead (comic books can't capture the medium, just the plot-line). This show freaked us out, gave us headaches and made us contemplate our mortality.
Get out of the Bathroom! (from Ghost Story)
Number 7 Scariest Movie Ever - Ghost Story: What made this film so scary was the absolute spookiness of the actress playing the ghost. She was very credible as the sexy spirit that steals the heart of the young professor. Later, this same actress played queen of the Borg and was equally spooky in that role.
Number 8 Scariest Movie Ever - Carrie: Talk about peer pressure! This movie takes a whole new approach to bullying, sex education and the Religious Right. Oddly enough all of that fits together as the same actress from Coal Miners Daughter gets her Spook on.
This year's prom theme is "Fire & Brimstone"
Number 9 Scariest Movie Ever - The Ring: This film takes an urban legend and our general distaste for mass medium and milks for it for everything its worth. What happens when you watch a really, really bad video - well you'll find out. Anyway - technology question - what happens you upload that video onto Youtube?
Well diving is one of the few sports not yet been sanctioned by Olympic committee
Number 10 Scariest Movie Ever - Nightmare on Elm Street: Despite the many sequels that more or less ruined the franchise, the initial film was clever, well-made and scary. The idea of the creepy janitor stalking hot kids at the high school was too good to pass up - the fact that he could do it in their dreams - well heck that is Inception 30 years ahead of time! BTW - it's ironic that Johnny Depp starred in this and just a few years later came out with his own scissor-hands movie.
The Raving Reviews Blog is dedicated to the convergence of popular and critical review of the motion picture art - that and taking a sometimes irreverent view of popular culture.
