Thank God I'd been fortified by The Reaper before watching the conclusion of the repeat of C4's 100 Best Films Ever last night. I missed this the first time round, and you know what a sucker I am for these lists and charts. But by the seething void of uttunul, this was mortifying. Stubbs' savagings of Gladiator and The Shawshank Redemption were thankfully fresh enough in my mind to defend my CNS against a Scanner-style meltdown of rage upon witnessing their top ten - that's right top fucking ten -placings, which is to say, higher than Vertigo, higher than Citizen Kane.... The Reaper's invective also innoculated me against the fact that The Full Monty was placed in the top 100 - yes, people really do consider it one of the 100 best films ever made. Give me strength. But NOTHING, nothing, could protect me from the unveiling of - calm down, Mark, take deep breaths -Star mothafucking shitting bastard Wars as number one. Number one! The best film ever made.
The best film ever made.
Time was when I would idly toss Ballard's description - 'Hobbits in space' - at SW by way of dismissal, but that, errr, doesn't really suggest withering contempt any more. One can only assume that the top ten would be worse now than when C4 did the poll in 2002 - I suppose it's just a question of how many of the goddamn LOTR movies would make it into the top 10.
Posted by mark at March 21, 2004 03:35 PM | TrackBacki'm so glad i didn't see this programme as i think the telly would have been out the window...;-)
Posted by: scott at March 22, 2004 08:31 AMhaha, OK in that case I take back what I said about Gladiator below! Obviously I live a sheltered life, I wasn't aware that anyone other than Oscar voters thought it was any good.
Posted by: Angus at March 26, 2004 02:32 PMAngus, I wish you were right. And yet I wonder if anyone really DOES like it, or if they're just hype-notized....
Posted by: mark k-punk at March 26, 2004 05:40 PM