Ive studied film extensively in college. I've watched everything and anything film including Leon The Professional,
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Burning_Sosobra — 13 years ago(July 16, 2012 11:37 PM)
It's all subjective, most found it to be at the very least entertaining, if not quite a masterpiece. Some, a minority, disliked it for whatever reason. It doesn't really matter. This film is no Acadamey Award winning, breathtaking masterpiece. But in my opinion, it's a great fvcking movie. I loved it when I first saw it, and I love it still after seeing it numerous times since its release. Oldman may have been over the top in his performance, but I still found him to be electrifying and so enjoyable to watch, even as you watch him kill women and children with a shotgun. But I've always thought Oldman was a great actor.
"Beethoven's overtures just get my juices flowing, but after the openingI must admit, he does tend to get a tad fvcking boring. That's why I STOPPED!" You gotta love his crazed, drugged out, maniacal madman performance. Gary Oldman does it well.
They burned Sosobra, God of bad luck! -
tom-yanowitz — 13 years ago(November 22, 2012 05:38 PM)
People need to understand that the IMDb top 250 is nowhere near to being a serious "greatest films" list, especially when it comes to 90s and 00s movies, because a whole lot of users aren't curious enough about cinema to dig further in its history, which leads in tons of movies from de last decades being massively overrated.
As a comparison theyshootpictures.com gathers all the "greatest films" lists from critics around the world and tries to present a mean to all of them:
The Shawshank arrives 474th, not freaking first.
No Besson movie is in the Top 1000.
So to sum it all up, the IMDb 250 does okay for old films, because well, they're rated by people who know a bit more about Cinema than Shyamalan and Michael Bay, but this list tends to overrate the "cult" movies of our younger generation (I'm 22) -
DFC-2 — 13 years ago(November 23, 2012 07:04 AM)
Though I fully agree that the IMDb 250 is not (and makes no claim to be) a greatest film list, I completely disagree that www.theyshootpictures.com (TSPDT) is better. Greatness is necessarily a subjective measure. There is and can be no universal set of facets (e.g. acting, script, cinematography, artistic style, symbolism), nor a universally agreed upon weighting of each facet (e.g. acting counting for more than cinematography or script or style). Under the circumstances, all any critic can claim is a respected set of biases, not objectivity about greatness.
The IMDb 250 list is better balanced than TSPDT and represents a decent statistical sample. TSPDT titles often have fewer that a few thousand endorsements each. A substantial percentage of these titles are obscure films that relatively few have seen. Also, TSPDT is heavily weighted towards top ten lists garnered from critics. Such lists favor name recognition (e.g. recommended films from the past). When reviewing the thousands of titles any respectable critic has seen over a lifetime, the titles that come to mind most easily are those others have mentioned in the past. TSPDT, and its most important contributing list the Sight & Sound decade poll, are largely petrified and very poor when it comes to newer films.
Films that achieved renown in the 1950s and 1960s, because of young Cahiers fan boys, are permanent fixtures on TSPDT. Critics like Godard established an intellectual standard that had not existed before them. However, he and others were also egotistical young fan boys. Godard not only ranked his own films as great, but also a number of American directors that he had loved as a young man. Just like the Nolan fan boys now, Godard and others lionized directors of their youth and uncritically endorsed a large percentage of their output as great because they were in love with their style, not because they were all truly better than every other film.
Those not so enamored by style rarely grant any director more than a few truly great films. TSPDT still has a laughable bias with as many as dozens of films from a small group of 50s & 60s directors. You can complain that several directors on the IMDb list have more titles than they should, but this bias is much reduced before 2000.
IMDb 250 offers:- Current popular resonance (a true standard of greatness for any media designed to be projected for the viewing pleasure of many)
- A well-designed opinion poll (e.g. 160,000,000 IMDb members, high minimum number of votes, comparing ratings of every title seen, rather than just thinking up a top ten)
- Humility about the hundreds of different facets (and the comparative weighting of these facets) that contribute to the greatness of any film. IMDb doesnt pretend that their 250 represents the greatest films, nor should any responsible site
TSPDT offers: - Safe choices for those worried about being embarrassed
- The elitism of a canon
- A nostalgic refuge for those who think everything in the world is getting worse
I'm 60, and have been reviewing and showing films to audiences for many decades.
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ancatdubher — 12 years ago(March 05, 2014 03:15 AM)
IMDB's rating is no indication of whether or not YOU will like a particular movie. It's just a summary of what other people thought of this movie. I have disliked movies that others have called masterpieces. Nothing to be baffled about. Taste is subjective.
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nickynichole01 — 11 years ago(September 30, 2014 10:12 AM)
No big deal its what humans are and think. We are all different and have different likes and dislikes. So who cares? Me? Well I like it but I could careless what others think. But why do you types always have to really say crap about stuff you don't like? As NO ONE CARES. Why not just clam up and keep it to yourself? LOL! If I don't like some film? I wouldn't even waste the time to tell it to a bunch of strangers. I have better things to do with my life. In fact I have life I hardly use the web except for work emails etc. Unlike the majority of people online I don't live on the web 24/7. Especially about useless nonsense like this. Was ein verlierer. Sigh
Dr.Nichole MD. Oh and Nicky was here.
I never revisit posts. Too busy and way above arguing. -
cinema_forever19 — 11 years ago(December 06, 2014 12:39 AM)
Maybe I'm no movie historian, but I own 400 Blu-ray movies and according to my IMDb profile I've seen over 900 titles. I've seen and enjoy all kinds of movies, classic, foreign, silent films, etc. But I think what makes Leon so good is it's execution. It is just well done at presenting it's characters and then developing them in ways most movies fail at. You learn to hate the DEA agent and you learn that Leon isn't that smart but in the end he has heart. Mathilda I think is performed realistically if anything, she acts like what some teens might act at that age, take it or leave it. The story goes places, it's action packed and entertaining and it all wraps up in the end pretty well with no loose screws. I think it's just a poetic and compelling piece of work IMHO. Of course I'd suggest watching the uncut version, but it's just a great movie all in all. My two cents.
Without mercy, man is like a beast.
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=33163288