Past Years and Decades . . .

On my old YouTube account I had made a montage using old posters of Siskel's, Ebert's & Roeper's end-of-decade lists. However, as my account is gone (and thanks to a computer crash, the original video is gone too), I decided to make a new one and include their alphabetical best-of-the-1970s lists too.

I've decided to put this up again now partly as a reaction to the rather uninteresting year for movies it has been so far - there's not too much to talk about as far as current films go, so why not discuss about some past treasures?

I won't begin by dissecting their picks in any great detail, just mentioning a few that I strongly agree with, don't at all agree with, or feel were left out. Take a look at what they chose and see what you think:

1970s:
The biggest surprise is Ebert's omission of Taxi Driver - he's since called it the best movie of the decade (which I agree with), and even in 1982 he called it one of the ten best films of all time. I guess it was just overlooked, or it took a little longer to grow on him.
He's also packed a lot of movies from the decade's final two years, allowing The Deer Hunter to come in rather unexpectedly (not that I disapprove of including it!)
Siskel mentions some films that are not mentioned on such lists that often that I'm glad he remembered, particularly The Conversation, which might be my favorite Coppola movie. I wouldn't have included The Last Detail on such a list, but am still a bit glad he put it in: it's not nearly well-remembered enough today, and Jack Nicholson is just fabulous in it.

1980s:
When I first saw this list, I was surprised by how high The Right Stuff ranked - again, it's not a film too many people remember now, but it's easily my favorite for the decade and probably for all time, so I'm very pleased they put it in.
I have mixed feelings about My Dinner with Andre; I still am not quite sure whether I like that film or not, but I've watched it more than a lot of other movies on the list so it certainly has me curious.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit & Mississippi Burning are two movies that, while I probably wouldn't include them on a list of mine, I am still rather pleased were included here. Roger Rabbit is probably as fun a movie as you could ever find, while Mississippi Burning is a very good crime story (though not so much a history lesson, which is unfortunately how it was marketed), with Gene Hackman at his very best (which is saying a lot).
The only film on any of these lists that I flat-out dislike is E.T. - even when I was eight and saw it for the first time, I felt like I had to scrape the sugar off myself with a spatula. Spielberg is sometimes called too sentimental, which I often think is unfair, but in the case of this film it's more than deserved. He pulls on my heartstrings so relentlessly (not just at the end, but much of the way through) that I just became irritated.

1990s:
Schindler's List is by far my top film of this decade, so I'm actually a bit surprised Ebert ranked it outside of his top five, but at least he mentioned it. The Three Colors films are perhaps my all-time favorite film trilogy, and Leaving Las Vegas & Breaking the Waves, while I wouldn't include either of them on my own list, are not nearly well-remembered enough today, so I'm happy he put them in as well. As for Fargo, Goodfellas & Pulp Fiction . . . what can I say? They appear on just about every 1990s list, and deservedly so. Glengarry Glen Ross & The Big Lebowski are more cult films (though Ebert seems to have come round to both of them quite heavily in recent years) and are among my favorites of the decade, but no way would Ebert ever have included them here.

2000s:
Ebert seemed to go almost out of his way to include little-known or little-seen movies here, especially in comparison with past decades, but they are all good - in particular The Son. Almost Famous was my favorite of 2000, and 25th Hour is great, but I find myself more in agreement with Roeper's list: The Departed, his top pick, is a favorite of mine (it seems to have suffered from post-Oscar revisionism, which is a shame), as is Mystic River. Ebert's honorable mentions list does have some jewels in it, though: No Country for Old Men, Minority Report, Pan's Labyrinth and especially City of God (my favorite of the decade).