So this site is four years old today! Wow that time certainly flew, I still remember the site’s second year birthday, which was a post dedicated to sharing some of my favourite movies ever made. Speaking of which that list is two years old now, and within that time it has almost doubled in size. Since it’s inception I’ve just been adding movies I’m fond of as I watch them, and the list is almost big enough now, that I might consider ranking them in the near future. I’m working on a couple of posts at the moment so I figured for this anniversary I’ll just share all the movies that have been added to the list. Some I’ve mentioned in a previous post, while for others this will be the first time I’ll be singing its praises, so let’s share them.

Link to List: The Blog Complainer’s Favourite Movie List

Our first movie is a classic, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. A movie about a convict wanting an easier prison sentence by pretending to be insane so he can be transferred to a mental asylum, but yeah because movie, it doesn’t really work out as well as he expected. It’s essentially a movie where lovable con McMurphy stirs up trouble in the asylum and is always at odds with the immovable ice mountain that is Nurse Ratched. For the most part Cuckoo’s Nest is a fun time, as it’s carried by Jack Nicholson’s Oscar winning performance as the rebellious McMurphy. The supporting cast is also great, from all the actors who played the mental patients, as they’re all very unique and believable, which is especially impressive that most of the cast is made up of unexperienced actors. When I say Cuckoo’s Nest is fun, I mainly refer to moments such as when McMurphy broke himself and his mental buddies out of the hospital to go on a fishing trip, but it’s when they come back to the cold, unforgiving and remorseless of Louise Fletcher’s Oscar winning Nurse Ratched, is when the true horrors of this film are exposed. Especially in the last 20 minutes of the movie, where it’s absolutely devastating. One of the best endings out there and I wish I could physically cry for movies to give this masterpiece what it deserves.

Next is Flying High or Airplane, I don’t really know. When I was first introduced to this film it was called Flying High, but when I decided to revisit this movie on Netflix, last year it was called Airplane! Why?! Anyway, our first movie is a comedy, which must mean something coming from me because it has to be really funny to get any enjoyment out of me or to put it lightly we’re not going to get along otherwise. The best way I would describe Flying Airplane is essentially a piss-take on a dramatic disaster/romance movie, that has been turned into a live action cartoon. Most of the scenes in this movie play out like a normal drama, but then someone either does or says something that is completely ridiculous and the shock of it makes it instant comedy. That’s how most of this movie’s more adult jokes fly under the radar, and no I didn’t mean for that to be a pun. On a rewatch the dialogue is probably the best aspect of Flying High Airplanes as most of it is characters taking whatever someone says quite literally. Such as the iconic lines ‘Surely, you can’t be serious‘ ‘I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley’ the latter being said by Leslie Nielsen in a scene stealing performance as the deadpan doctor on the plane who says some of the dumbest things ever, yet never cracks a smile. I would say more, but I would just be explaining jokes, and that’s best done in your own time. Flying High is essentially the kick off point for raising the absurdity factor for The Naked Gun movies.

Next is two Scorsese/De Niro movies that have joined the Blog Complainer’s hall of fame collection. The King of Comedy I have shared before on the Older Films I’ve Discovered in 2021 post, but to sum up my thoughts from there it’s a great character study on a delusional comedian, played by Robert de Niro, in his best role. Looking over the movies I have lined up for this post, you might also start to pick up my love for character focused movies, because there is a couple more coming up. Speaking of which, here’s Goodfellas. Easily mobster movie to recommend to someone new to the genre. It’s a perfect movie of showing the mob lifestyle from an outsider perspective. We see everything from Henry’s point of view and at first the gangster lifestyle looks really attractive, but as the film goes along it exposes what a terrible lifestyle it would have been. The first time I watched this I thought Joe Pesci stole the show as the loud, but ever scary Tommy DeVito, but on rewatch I got more out of Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco as our dysfunctional leading couple, trapped in this life with terrible friends. Goodfellas is a more glamourised and streamlined take of what The Sopranos eventually did.

Re-Animator is a fun horror movie I have reviewed twice in the past. The first being my discovery of the movie, and the other was a proper review. I haven’t seen the movie since then, so I don’t have anything new to say about it, other than it’s about time for another watch and now you know it’s also on the favourite list.

Aliens is the most recent member to join the BC’s Favourite Movies library, as I’ve just started an Alien marathon. The first Alien was pretty close to getting on here, but after watching Aliens again it just does it all better. I might need to review my favourite sequels, but I think Aliens might in my humble opinion be the best sequel ever made. James Cameron took the sequel in a more action oriented direction, which means it’s not as scary as the first, but the tension is still there and you’ve got to do a really bad job to make Xenomorphs anything other than terrifying. (Such as the later sequels eventually did.) It’s also the film that defines Ripley as the quintessential movie heroine as she takes on the whole xenomorph army, all by herself in order to save the little girl Newt, in probably the most satisfying last half hour in fiction. Another reason I love this movie more than the first is the marines are better written characters. They’re funny and surprisingly very fleshed out, especially Private Hudson in a scene chewing performance from the late Bill Paxton, as only he can make a character that can easily come off as very annoying, ever so lovable.

I had the first movie on my original list, so now I finally got around to adding the sequel. Back to the Future Part II is another personal favourite follow-up as like Aliens it’s not just a complete rehash of the first, unlike Part III and while we’re at it the other Alien sequels. It’s a time travelling adventure with Marty and Doc where they continue on from the cliffhanger of the first movie, by going into the future. 2015 to be precise, which sounded a lot more exciting when I saw this as a kid. It’s also the movie that started the trend that the main cast play all of their descending and ascending family members, for example Michael J Fox plays regular Marty, old Marty, his son named Marty and also his daughter named Marlene, which I didn’t even realise until this most recent watch. Biff is probably the standout of this movie as he’s not just your typical bully like in the last movie, but an actual villainous threat that is completely fine with killing our heroes if he has to. It’s the darkest of the Back to the Future trilogy, which is another whole reason, why I love this movie.

The Nightmare Before Christmas, I originally watched for the Disneyathon series, but I have since watched it again and love it even more. Since that review I have come around on the character of Sally and some of the other Halloween towns people. Also Oogie Boogie’s song is something I always listen to on repeat, as it’s now one of my favourite villain songs. Some other notes are Jack Skellington is still a great main character, and got to love Danny Elfman’s singing voice. Lastly, I also stupidly watched it on Halloween, when it really has that warm feeling of a Christmas movie, so I don’t understand why this is a real debate among fans.

Forrest Gump is another Back to The Future type of entry from the post I made 2 years ago, as I can easily watch this thing at any time of the year. The charming comedic life adventures of a simple man living the dream, doing whatever task he’s asked to do, yep that sounds like quality entertainment for me. The main enjoyment I get out of Forrest Gump is more to do with watching it with my family, as we can talk scenes and quotes for hours on end. I’ll never forget watching Forrest Gump for the first time as it was on the plane home from America after the curiosity of hearing endless references about it at the Forrest Gump themed restaurant, made me keen to watch it. I haven’t been to America since then, but I have seen Forrest Gump numerous times since then. Forrest Gump probably shouldn’t have beaten out Shawshank Redemption at the Oscars for Best Picture, but I would still watch Forrest over the latter.

The David Fincher/Brad Pitt collection is next. First is Seven or Se7en, which has a pretty dumb premise, but yet it is so well executed. Old wise detective Morgan Freeman and young hot shot detective Brad Pitt are investigating a series of killings that happen to be based on the seven deadly sins. I think what makes this movie work so well is the rising stakes build up throughout the movie. As we see our detectives get more frustrated and they learn more about this sick killer. I don’t really want to delve into the killer here, but I want to mention it’s one of the most bone chilling performances out there. We also have this other movie that I’m not supposed to talk about, for some reason, but I’ll talk about it anyway, because I’m a rule breaker. This movie is called Fight Club and it’s great. Thought provoking, not very violent and very subversive not just in the title, but the whole plot, goes places I wouldn’t have ever suspected. The two main characters make this movie, I won’t explain why, but if you’ve seen this movie, you know what I’m getting at.

South Park even though I still feel like a newcomer to the whole thing, yet it has a better quality track record than some of the shows and movies I have invested more than 10 years. I’m not sure if I prefer the 2004 SpongeBob movie, or the South Park movie as the best cartoon TV adaptation. To give South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut some leeway, it’s one of my favourite musicals ever, which is funny as it’s mostly a mockery of musicals. It’s a movie that lives up to its title for being a more epic cruder tale of the show. It’s got a lot of storylines going on for an animated comedy, but they’re all managed perfectly and build up to this awesome finale. It’s also got a really clever over the top take on censorship. We see this message projected through Kyle’s Mum when she sings the Oscar nominated song “Blame Canada” which tells you how far she’s willing to go to protect her children from an inappropriate movie, but the song is actually a subtle jab at how dumb and insane she is. Great movie, only problem with it is this movie was made when my favourite South Park character, Butters, was still an extra. Damn it Trey & Matt where’s the sequel!

Two Tarantino movies about revenge, hell yeah we’re grouping them together. First is the tail end of the Kill Bill duology, while I like Volume one well enough, it just doesn’t have that emotional finality that I loved in Volume 2. It’s the one that further explores The Bride’s relationship with Bill, and how that builds to its satisfying climax, plus the outstanding performances from Uma Thurman and David Carradine. It’s more focused on character drama, than the bloody action, but that’s where Django: Unchained rides on in. (This time I purposely put in a pun.) Django is just an awesome movie where all our main characters are total badasses and our villains are so detestable that it’s satisfying as heck when they finally die. Django is probably the funniest Tarantino movie, mainly because the violence is so over the top, but the dialogue is really witty too. That KKK scene being a particular standout. I would list a scene stealing performance from this one, but that would be too difficult as that’s almost the entire cast, so I’ll just move on to the next one.

I felt like seeking out some superhero movies I remember actually loving, as in recent times whenever a new superhero movie comes out, I seem to just bash at it. This one and another movie in this post, would be in my top three favourite superhero movies. So here’s number 3, V for Vendetta, a movie you should watch on the fifth of November, by the way. What makes this movie is the two main characters. Evie the young woman who goes through quite the character journey and V the most likable vigilante/terrorist in all of fiction and one of the most intriguing too. It’s a pretty bleak movie for the most part where our main characters are constantly being pushed around by an uncaring tyrannical government, but it’s as V’s plan slowly comes into play, it builds to one hell of a satisfying finale. It’s another good revenge plot, but on a larger scale of course and some great acting, with the big standout being Hugo Weaving as the charismatic masked figurehead V.

Two 3D animated 2011 movies, and are both pretty heavy for kid movies. Rango is a western from the director of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which you can mostly tell, because Johnny Depp stars as the titular character and his performance is kind of similar to Jack Sparrow. As a fan of those movies this was up my alley, as it was very entertaining, it has an epic score and the story for this is quite thought provoking for a kids movie. It’s also another movie to feature a scene stealing performance, this time from Bill Nighy as Davy Jones 2.0, Rattlesnake Jake. He’s only in the last 15 minutes of the movie, but he’s very menacing and has a cool voice! The Adventures of Tintin on the other hand is just epic! This is from the tail end of that mo-cap realistic CG era of animation, and this was made by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, probably the most epic combination you could come up with. This movie is so great, that someday I’m going to give it the full review treatment, as I feel it’s underrated and it deserves some love, since it’s been over 10 years now since we were teased a sequel. (It still hurts.)

The only new guilty pleasure I’ve added to my list, so now Sharkboy and Lavagirl has a friend at least. Only, just watched Fateful Findings last year, and rewatching it again last month the movie it’s still comically inept. I think I understand what the magic rock that Neil Breen uses does this time. I think, it makes him immortal, it protects him from danger, it makes him invisible, it can make him teleport, have strange naked dreams, I think it makes him aware and gives him the power to hack into the government of their national and international secrets. Maybe I just made the last three up, but I’m sure Neil Breen understands his own movie, and as you can tell this movie is clearly too smart for me.

I try not to do this anymore, but I couldn’t help, but put Snowpiercer on my list after one viewing. It’s only Bong Joon-Ho and his movies, as he never fails to impress me and since Snowpiercer I have been tempted to add two more of his movies to my list. Anyway Snowpiercer is a unique action movie where the remainder of the human race inhabit this train on a never ending loop, and all the poor people in the back of the cart, decide to rebel against the passengers near the front of the train. It’s got some good commentary on social classes and people in poverty, along with some other interesting stuff that I won’t share as it’s connected to the ending. I mainly enjoyed this one because of the commentary and the great story, but also for how dark it was as it’s a hopeless movie. Speaking of which…

Here’s another no hope filled movie and it’s also my second favourite superhero movie ever. (You won’t see my number one in this post, but I will tell it is indeed incredible!) Logan is a movie that is just impressive that it even exists, especially since it’s from the same studio that has failed twice to adapt the same popular comic storyline and give us two decent Wolverine movies. Coming off the success of Deadpool, Logan proved that dark R rated superhero movies not only sell, but can be really damn good. Logan and Charles are heading for the end of the road, but are given a last chance to do something heroic by helping the young mutant girl Laura get over the border and out of harm’s way. It’s a great character drama, with excellent performances from veteran X-Men actors Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, plus a great child performance from Dafne Keen, which is a bonus. It’s also a satisfying action film for those who have been waiting for Wolverine to finally go berserk and it’s just an awesome final movie for old man Wolvie, and it was just a shame it wasn’t the last X-Men movie, because this is as good as it gets from here.

We’re near the end with two movies I have discussed on this site in the past. The Favourite, is probably my favourite period piece based on British royals, despite it being entirely fictional. It’s a very well made movie, that was overlooked by the Oscars, but we won’t dwell on that. It was the film that started my appreciation for Olivia Colman as an actress and it also has probably the most tense love triangle in film. Jojo Rabbit I love for entirely different reasons. I don’t think it’s as good as I remember it being and Taika Waititi has made better movies, but I still appreciate it for what it was trying to say and for how charming and entertaining it was. It’s also the movie to have the best assortment of child actors on film, which Waititi has a talent for picking out great child actors, as evidenced in Boy and The Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

These two I just grouped together, as they’re both ranked number one on my best of the year lists. They’ve only being added to the list as I have watched them again since then as I still have strong feelings for them as from when I first watched them. Widows a great tense female heist movie, that should have got nominated for some Oscars and like Bong Joon-Ho, Steve McQueen is coming around as one of my favourite directors. The Father is great because it’s depressing and for its great performances from Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman.

That’s it from me. Stay tuned for those secret mystery posts and I’ll be seeing that new Dr. Strange movie, soon, so that will probably come first. I have been The Blog Complainer, signing out.