100. Ben-Hur (1959)

Director: William Wyler
Starring: Charlton Heston
Synopsis: When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.

Thoughts before watching: I do not recall if I have seen this whole movie before, though there are some scenes I am sure I have seen. I certainly have not seen it since I have been old enough to really appreciate it, I would have been a child. I have always been a fan of Charlton Heston. 

Review: Wow such an iconic movie, and what do I mean by Iconic? I mean that I have certainly seen many parodies of it (find me a better way to judge iconic, because I argue the more iconic a film the more it will be parodied). Really though this movie is classic, the chariot race is one of the scenes that I have seen a number of times, but it still gets the old ticker thumping a bit harder. The scale of this movie is just off the charts, it is hard to imagine because today computers can make a small movie look large, but this movie really is large. I cannot fathom the amount of costumes, props and extras that went into this movie. The other thing I found myself pondering is special effects, today is full of people denouncing CG, but there were scenes in this that used paintings to polish off what they built, to portray ancient Rome. This effect worked well, especially for the time, but even then it had to be obvious that some movie trickery was afoot, but people didn't care , they suspended disbelief to enjoy the film, and without the critical eye, the effects are super enjoyable. Same can probably be said today with CG, if people would just suspend disbelief a bit and enjoy films more, and just quite being so picky they would enjoy films more. 

The storytelling here is incredible, the way that they weave Judah's story in and out of the life of Christ is very effective. It never really seemed forced, or obvious, it just seemed that this man, in his quest for vengeance,  came across Jesus a few times. The music, the acting, the sets, the costumes, so much of this film is just so artistically done. This film is a masterpiece and has aged very well. The only complaint I could have is there is some pretty rough editing, there two or three parts of the movie where it is so obvious that the film was cut and spliced, probably with a different take, but one was so obvious because the positioning of Heston changes from one frame to the next without him moving, so those few moments did jar me out of the film and remind me that this is a film, if only for a moment. 


Rating: I have given this 8 out of 10


(Up next is #99 Toy Story)

The Genesis of this project

First a little background on me!

I am a 27 year old dude who LOVES movies.I love everything about movies, I enjoy watching them, then discussing them, and rating them. It is nothing more than a hobby but I love it. I love the medium of film so much, I think it can be one of the highest forms of art, after all when done well it is all the other forms of art working together as a cohesive unit. Photography, Performing, Writing, Construction, Pyrotechnics, Lighting, and Music. I know this art is probably whored out more than almost any other but there are times when a film fires near perfection on every cylinder and you see genuine art. Even if a film fails at some or most of the aspects, you can usually appreciate some of the aspects that they did right.

So though, I like to discuss movies and as such I will criticize movies. I know my opinion does not matter, I know I am nothing more than a consumer that pays to watch movies, I have not gone to film school, and I have not made a film, and I know my opinions are not the be all end all of truth. That being said I really enjoy the art of storytelling in general, and I look at it from that aspect so often I find myself at least partially enjoying a film that many of my friends or family may have not liked. I don't have any insane ideas that I am smarter or classier or more artistically in tune with films, I think I might try harder to see what a director was trying to do.

I will say one of the things I do grow tired of is remakes, I hate them because often they are not about storytelling, or an artistic idea of what to do but cashing in on an already established fan base, so I will say now I do despise them almost entirely with a few exceptions. Sequels are a bit different, I enjoy some sequels it just depends on what they are offering me in terms of creativity and vision.

Now with some info about me out of the way, now lets get to what I am doing.

Internet Movie Database is one of my favorite websites, and is one of my homepages. I enjoy every part of it, from the, now defunct, Daily Poll, to the Message Boards. I had originally decided to watch the entire IMDB top 250 Films starting with 250 working my way to number 1. The reasoning behind this is to broaden my horizons in the medium of film, and I love good movies. I have recently changed the whole idea of this and I will explain my reasons,

1. First of all the IMDB Top 250 has never been something that I have ever really respected much. I see a huge issue when films that are good, not great, shoot up to the top 50 because they are popular at the time, good example is when Avatar became number 1 UGH, and now with some justice it does not even appear on the list.

2. The size is rather formidable, and being a blue collar dude I simply cannot afford buying, or even renting, the many movies I do not own.

So what I have decided is to change it from the IMDB 250 to the American Film Institutes Top 100 films of all time (The 2007 version of this list). This brings the volume down considerably and also is a lot more weighted list that doesn't ebb and flow with popularity.

So the reasoning behind this blog is to be my diary of this event, and also I am going to personally grade each movie on a scale of 1-10 and give my thoughts on the film. One problem I foresee is with this being the top 100, these are probably going to all be really good movies, so I am sure most will get good grades from me but who knows.

Also I own 28 of the films right now. I have seen just under half (43) of these movies going in. I own the bottom two (therefore the first two) but the third one I do NOT so I might start quick with the first two and I will continue on when I figure out how I am going to go about some of these movies. I have Netflix streaming, I have not decided if I am going to sign up for the discs or just rent them on Amazon/iTunes or if I will buy them (used copies at FYE are awesome).

Either way this should be a fun undertaking.