I was rather badly off-consensus with this one, though the final list is difficult to find fault with (outside of Ghost World, which I like less than just about everybody I've ever discussed it with). Please go check it out, and in the meanwhile, here's the ballot I submitted. You'll notice an absence of The Dark Knight; a lot of Batman and I wanted to put on the brakes somewhere, it's not my favorite of Nolan's trilogy, and whatever its merits as a movie, it's not nearly the best Batman picture as a comics adaptation.
1. Superman (1978)
2. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
3. My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999)
4. When the Wind Blows (1986)
5. Batman Begins (2005)
6. Oldboy (2003) [on the TFE list]
7. Danger: Diabolik (1968)
8. Spider-Man (2002)
9. Dick Tracy (1990) [on the TFE list]
10. Persepolis (2007) [on the TFE list]
Just missed the cut (alphabetically):
Addams Family Values (1993)
Batman Returns (1992) [on the TFE list]
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
A History of Violence (2005) [on the TFE list]
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) [on the TFE list]
Anybody who puts Batman: Mask of the Phantasm as the highest Batman film is a friend of mine
ReplyDeleteNot only do I love the Mask of the Phantasm respect, but I love whenever someone else likes Addams Family Values as much as I do.
ReplyDeleteAs the two previous comments have mentioned the fact that Mask of the Phantasm got your highest ranking for a Batman film and # 2 overall makes you awesome on all fronts! It's the perfect Batman movie in my mind! I also appreciate that Batman Returns also almost made your list, it's the most underrated live action Batman film in my mind!
ReplyDeleteB:MOTP is the best Batman movie, and Ghost World is only the best English-Language film of the 00's, nothing special there...
ReplyDeleteOh, and, um, Batman Returns... God, I still need someone to try and coherently explain the plot of that movie to me, because the movie itself sure failed at that task. Some great scenes and such, though...
People still like Ghost World? I thought we as a culture had evolved beyond enjoying "quirky" films.
ReplyDeleteNot so much as a fleeting mention of Ghost in the Shell? This saddens me.
ReplyDeleteThis would be a really hard list for me, mostly because I hardly read any comics that aren't manga. I really enjoy a lot of films that come from comics / graphic novels, but most of my favorites make total hashes of the source material ("From Hell" and "Constantine" anyone?). So should one rate on merits as a standalone movie, or proper adaptations?
ReplyDeleteI think the Film Experience went with the standalone merits, which explains how Akira and Oldboy could make it in.
Ghost World was a good movie, well made, well acted. I just didn't like it. Same reason as Rushmore, I thought the main character did reprehensible things and didn't learn or suffer a thing from it. Of course, I was much younger then.
@Thrash Very, very good point. Ghost in the Shell was one hell of a vision, and if Akira can make the TFE list, there's no reason GitS shouldn't. Its flaws are significant, but it's also one of the most influential anime films of all time. Personally I thought Innocence was the better movie, but I know I'm in the minority there.
A more detailed response:
ReplyDelete- I guess you've cooled towards The Dark Knight since you reviewed it Tim? I seem to remember a phrase to the effect of "so obviously the best superhero film of all time it seems silly to have to state it," which I still agree with now. I'm not speaking as a fan of the Batman comics, mind you. I've only ever read one, that being Grant Morrison's "Arkham Asylum."
- Glad to see "Persepolis" and "Oldboy" getting the kudos they deserve.
- I had no idea "A History of Violence" was based on a comic. You learn something every day.
- Three years later and I still don't quite get the furore over "Scott Pilgrim." It's good, but it's not all that. Might be I lacked investment in the B-plot because I thought Sex Bob-omb were a fucking awful band and they didn't deserve to be signed. Or were we meant to think that? I'm honestly asking.
@David - I love "Ghost in the Shell" more than is healthy. Like, fourth favourite movie of all time sort of love, to the point where I'd even object to people describing it as "flawed but brilliant." Not everyone's cup of tea, perhaps, because it does get pretty convoluted and esoteric (although not so much as "Innocence," which kind of lost me) , but I feel it's the sort of movie which, if you can get in sync with it, is functionally perfect.
@Thrash - "Ghost in the Shell" is a damn good movie, and essential viewing for anyone who appreciates anime or modern science fiction. My only beefs with it are probably matters of taste.
ReplyDeleteThe main thing keeping me from loving it to the degree some others do is Kusanagi as a main character. The core of the plot is her the personal journey of realizing that she doesn't need her physical body and would be happier as a free-roaming intelligence. But she's such a distant, icy protagonist from the very beginning that I felt the movie always kept me at arms length. I can understand that to a degree that's the point, she's more machine than human all along. All the same, it makes my appreciation for the film a bit academic. The fact that Innocence centers on Batou has an awful lot to do with my preference for it.
@David - I guess it speaks to what kind of viewer you are. I consider myself quite a clinical movie watcher, in it more for the ideas and themes rather than the characters, who prioritises situations over people. GitS most certainly is icy and detached, but that's sort of the wavelength I'm on most of the time. That, and I find it's a good register for the sort of cerebral, philosophically-inclined sci-fi that treats its characters more as hypothetical abstractions than people. Kusanagi is distant, certainly, but no more so than, say, Bowman from "2001: A Space Odyssey."
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I see where you're coming from. Also, I confess my perception of Kusanagi might be coloured by her rather more roguish, winning personality in the TV series, which I love almost as much but for completely different reasons.
Damn, but I love talking about GitS.
@Thrash - GitS is a fascinating franchise, and I always felt frustrated that while I admired it, I never really loved it from the bottom of my heart (though I loved the PSOne game and it's adorable cutscenes). I think it's interesting how different the various offshoots and adaptations are in tone, and thankfully Innocence finally hit me right on my wavelength.
ReplyDeleteThe Blood franchise is similarly diverse, but more pointedly so: Mamoru Oshii created the concept but had no interest in doing much with it, so he basically left an open challenge for anyone to play with the story and world however they wished. That's why the OVA, manga, and various TV series have had so little in common with one another. It's essentially big budget fanfiction. Even the American movie adaptation is pretty much its own thing.
So do we or do we not count Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind as a comics adaptation?
ReplyDeleteI'm not absolutely clear on the timeline vis-a-vis when Miyazaki started the comic vs. the movie, though I know he continued the comic until the mid-nineties. Which, incidentally, I just read a couple months ago and is absolutely phenomenal. It redefines the way you look at Miyazaki's body of work as a whole, and goes so far beyond the plot of the film (which takes up maybe the first 1/5 of the plot of the manga) that to a certain extent it's difficult to compare them. But the movie's still a masterpiece, and a good deal better than My Neighbors the Yamadas, I think, though I like that film too.
@Thrash - FWIW, the comic makes it very clear that Sex Bob-omb are terrible (although they don't have the whole getting signed sub-plot, either...) but the movie is very less clear on that. I dug some of their songs, but, then, I dig indie garage rock in general.
ReplyDeleteIt came up in comments at TFE, and as I understand it, the manga was written to gin up interest in making a feature, and Miyazaki ended up being so fond of the manga that he kept up with it. That was enough for me to not count it, though I did think about it.
ReplyDelete