Perfect Movies

[Mandle]

I guess this is the third thread in my trilogy of movie threads:

"Good Movies You Hate"

"Movies That Should Have Been Bad But Were Awesome"

And now we have arrived at "Perfect Movies".

Post here a movie that you consider to be perfect, in that you would not change one single frame of film, line delivery, casting choice, camera angle, or whatever.

I will start with:

True Lies

I have watched this film over 50 times over and still cannot believe the perfection of it.

It's an action movie where the plot is perfectly understandable, but also you have a guy on a horse in a hotel elevator, a terrorist pleb running low on video battery just as his "Bond Villain" boss starts to complete his world-wide demands. You have an actual nuclear bomb going off, something that is usually disappointing in other films where it gets disabled at the last moment. You have a drama between a wife and a husband who has been lying to her for 17 years, but he's much more attractive to her in who he is in his actual life than he was in the lie and she has to deal with the conflict there as well.

And there's also so much more to unpack in this movie. Every camera angle, every performance, every plot-point arriving just on time, and getting properly paid-off later on, all in a normal movie length.

Incredible.

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So, what are you all's choices for perfect movies?

I have a list a few meters long but I won't pollute the thread by just spamming them. But I will agree with you, or not, when you mention one, if I also consider it to be "perfect"or not , for whatever reasons. 

Also, this thread is not a place to call other people's opinions "stupid" (or worse) and I hope my trust in the sensibilities of the people on the AGS forum is well placed.

[eri0o]

Jurassic Park

Well written characters, fun and great dialog lines, movie science that made me excited with getting real life dinossaurs (it was so believable when I was a kid!), and a ton of little details that makes it fun to rewatch. The effects are also believable and the movie immerses you in it's world right from the start.

If you haven't seen this in recent years, I bet you still will pick up new things here and there. The story is also great because it has things for people in all ages.

[Crimson Wizard]

Akira Kurosawa's "Ran" and Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" are two films that both look like a picture gallery, that you can watch over many times or watch its pieces at random and still like it.

[Snarky]

I don't think any of my favorite movies are "perfect," because in my opinion it's the quirks, messiness and flaws that give a work of art personality and uniqueness. For me, anyway, I find that to really care about something, there needs to be a little bit of work involved, some friction: things I need to excuse, get used to or look past; things that don't fit quite right, which snag in the mind and make me return to it over and over. Or to put it another way, I need to feel like the filmmakers have taken risks that they're just barely pulling off, and that I'm taking some risk in return by accepting it.

So, a film I think is "perfect" is The Sixth Sense. Just a really excellently crafted movie from beginning to end, without (in my opinion) a single false note. I can't think of one detail I would change. And yet, the very perfection makes it a bit too slick, too "professional" and safe to form a strong bond with. It's a movie I enjoy, like and admire, but it's not one of my favorites.

Whereas Heathers (which is a favorite), for example, is not "perfect" by any stretchâ€"if I were a producer when it was being made I would have plenty of notesâ€"but its flaws are part of what makes it memorable and meaningful.

[KyriakosCH]

Some moves I liked considerably:

Spider (with Ralph Fiennes)
Phase IV (scifi)

Movies just aren't my medium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7wotKNaj_s

[TheFrighter]

I think Neveroyatnye Priklyucheniya Italyantsev v Rossii - Una matta, matta, matta corsa in Russia (western title Unbelievable Adventures of Italians in Russia) directed by Eldar Ryazanov e Franco Prosperi is the close enough my idea of a perfect movie:

_

[heltenjon]

I totally get Snarky's point about liking movies because of their flaws. That being said, I think I have a few movies that I think are close to perfect in their genre. I think genre movies is the way to go here, which again means that my favourites won't be everyone's darlings. And some genres are meant to be cheesy. 

I think Sin City is a perfect adaptation of the graphic novel. It's done frame-by-frame in a way I wouldn't have thought possible. But if you thought the graphic novel was crap, then you won't like this either. The story takes second seat to style and execution, and there's plenty to be offended by. But I loved it.

I also think Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns are perfect. I'll mention For a few dollars more and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The music, juxtaposition of the characters and the use of different zooms and camera work is great.

[KyriakosCH]

Profondo Rosso is nice, if you don't mind some random moments and the general lack of plot (which is worse in virtually all other Argento films).

[Mandle]

Jurassic Park

This is on my list of movies that changed me intrinsically by watching them. I felt like a different person almost when I came out of the movie theater than when I went in.

There's only been a few.

The first was Star Wars.

The second was Jurassic Park.

The third was Toy Story.

The fourth was Pulp Fiction.

But, anyway, I have watched Jurassic Park so many times that I always have a chuckle towards the end about what a great magic trick Spielberg pulled off with the classic art of misdirection. It doesn't spoil the movie for me but it might for others, I dunno, but I will hide it in spoiler mode just in case:

Spoiler

There was no way to have the climactic chase escaping from the raptors through the air-ducts with the elderly John Hammond in tow, toddling along on his cane, so he just vanishes from the movie for a while. Then he shows up just in time driving the jeep that gets everyone out of there. I know we are expected to believe that he is so knowledgeable about his own facility that he can just take secret tunnels to get to where the jeeps are without getting killed. So why didn't he just take everyone else with him? The movie distracts us enough, through the magic trick I spoke of above, so that it's very hard to notice the trick unless you've watched the movie dozens of times. The issue was that Hammond died in the book, but Spielberg made him a more charming character in the movie and didn't want that kind of downer end for him right near the finish, so pulled off this lovely bit of sleight-of-hand to have him live.

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[Snarky]

I also think Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns are perfect. I'll mention For a few dollars more and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The music, juxtaposition of the characters and the use of different zooms and camera work is great.

Yeah, I think this might be the example that disproves my rule, in that I can think of no flaw in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and I do consider it a movie I love and a personal favorite.

[lorenzo]

Jurassic Park

Well written characters, fun and great dialog lines, movie science that made me excited with getting real life dinossaurs (it was so believable when I was a kid!), and a ton of little details that makes it fun to rewatch. The effects are also believable and the movie immerses you in it's world right from the start.

I haven't seen it in years, so I don't know how it holds up. But man, first seeing those dinosaurs at the cinema was jaw-dropping when it came out!

Akira Kurosawa's "Ran" and Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" are two films that both look like a picture gallery, that you can watch over many times or watch its pieces at random and still like it.

Ran was a fantastic film, although I personally prefer Kagemusha from the same period. But then again, almost every film by Kurosawa is worth watching.

I liked Barry Lyndon, but I prefer Thackeray's novel. It's a great film, but I don't think Kubrick captured well the tone of the book and he changed the protagonist quite a bit, in my opinion.

Phase IV (scifi)

Phase IV was a very good film, in my opinion. The first time I saw it it was by chance and I knew nothing about it, and I was impressed.

[Danvzare]

Jurassic Park

Well written characters, fun and great dialog lines, movie science that made me excited with getting real life dinossaurs (it was so believable when I was a kid!), and a ton of little details that makes it fun to rewatch. The effects are also believable and the movie immerses you in it's world right from the start.

I haven't seen it in years, so I don't know how it holds up. But man, first seeing those dinosaurs at the cinema was jaw-dropping when it came out!

I never liked the Jurassic Park movies. They always came across as being nothing more than "Ooh, look dinosaurs!" as though the spectacle alone was supposed to be enough to carry the movies. And I never really cared much for dinosaurs either, so... 
That being said, I can safely say that the dinosaurs still hold up, and are still jaw-dropping. 

[cat]

Jurassic Park was a milestone. I dare to put it in line with movies like Metropolis and Matrix. I once saw a documentary about it and how it was basically the transition from traditional animation (robotic puppets, stop motion) to CG.
It's been years since I've last seen it and I still hear the main theme in my head sometimes.

Not a movie, but do you remember this short clip:

I got this sent by mail some 20 years ago and recently found it again on Youtube. And I was amazed how it still (apart from resolution and artifacts) holds up today. The animation, gestures, facial expressions - it is still perfect.

[milkanannan]

Cool idea for a thread, Mandle. I guess the films that first come to my mind are the ones I can tap into at any moment and feel completely plugged in and captivated:

Indie Game - instant motivation to build something when I see it. It's a documentary, yes, but the way it is shot and the way the stories are threaded together, plus the music, just makes it always pop for me.

Peter and the Farm - another doc, but something about this guy's glory days and now eroded empire just interests me. I can watch it on repeat.

The Royal Tenenbaums - there's something so tiny and contained about the ecosystem in this movie. When I was a kid, there was this battery-powered Disney toy video projector with a crank on the side that you turned to make a short Disney movie-clip happen. You'd cut one side off a large carboard box to give you enough shade to clearly see what was going on, and like 10 neighbourhood kids would try to cram their heads into the same box. Didn't matter what point in the film you joined in at - you'd plug right in. Just felt like a small but important world all to our own, and I get echoes of that from this movie. (Sorry, hope that's not nonsensical rambling there.)

Off the top of my head. More to come, no doubt...

[KyriakosCH]

Angel Heart is pretty nice. And Rourke was excellent at the time.

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[KyriakosCH]

I never liked Tarantino, tbh. Not even his first two films.
He did try to keep floating for decades on account of 1,5 nice plot in those early films.

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[Mouth for war]

One of my all time favourite movies is "Falling down" with Michael Douglas. A perfect movie in my opinion.

"Now you're gonna die, wearing that stupid little hat. How does it feel"

[Mandle]

Angel Heart is pretty nice. And Rourke was excellent at the time.

100% agree. I would also add that it is a beautifully filmed movie. Every shot is lovely which is a weird thing to have in a movie with such a grim story.

Also interesting that this is the film that got Lisa Bonet fired from The Cosby Show because her sex scene offended Bill Cosby so much. Maybe because she was conscious during it?