Greg’s Lists – Page 2 – Smug Film (1/7/13

The 10 Nicest Movies Ever Made (If These Movies Don’t Make You Cry, You Have a Black Heart)

Field of Dreams. The undisputed king, for sure. But here’s ten other great ones.

It was a really tricky thing putting this together because they’re ranked on niceness, not goodness. Number two and number five are the best movies on the list. But they aren’t the nicest.

Niceness is even harder to define than coolness. Niceness is a warm and fuzzy feeling that a lot of art can generate. Probably the most popular example would be Norman Rockwell paintings. Niceness, like coolness, taps into our primal brains somewhere. We’re wired to feel it because it connects us to each other. But the problem with niceness is that it borders so heavily on cheese. Cheese done right is transcendent. But cheese done wrong is, well, cheesy.
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The 10 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, Part II

You know how when you start trying to think of stuff, days later more stuff keep popping into your head? It’s the cousin phenomena to thinking of a clever comeback the day after the party when it’s way too late to use it.

The first few movie I thought of after the fact were added as ‘honorable mentions’ to my first list of The 10 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, but in the weeks that followed, I was able to come up with ten more, some equally as good as on the first list. Which I guess makes the first list bunk. But I don’t know how official these rankings really are.

Again, I know it’s audacious of me to suggest you haven’t seen these. I hope you have. And if you haven’t, I hope these become some of your new favorite movies!

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10. The Karate Kid, Part III (1989) | Dir. John G. Avildsen | 112 min.

Okay, this is on here because you all think you’ve seen this, but you haven’t. The Karate Kid Part III is NOT the one with Hillary Swank. That’s the fourth one. That one is called The Next Karate Kid, and it isn’t good.
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10 Actually Good Movies People Think Are Cool

Quentin Tarantino, director of some actually good ‘cool’ movies. This is a companion piece to my 10 Awful Movies People Think Are Cool list. Read that one first. Or read this one first. It doesn’t really matter. Continue reading 10 Actually Good Movies People Think Are Cool

10 Awful Movies People Think Are Cool

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Troy Duffy, director of a ‘cool’, albeit awful, movie.

‘Coolness’ is hard to define, as it should be. I suspect it’s difficult because coolness is an X factor. It’s the swagger generated by the totality of a bunch of compartmentalized variants or something. It’s also because coolness is not a science, it’s a feeling. However, like most things, although it can’t be defined, it can be explained. And, contrary to popular belief, explaining it is fun. It doesn’t ‘kill it’ as so many pseudo-smart, sanctimonious anti-thought peddlers would have you believe.
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The 10 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen

I realize it’s a little presumptuous to say you’ve never seen these movies. Some of you out there may have seen a few, but some are so rare I’m almost certain they have only been seen by like one dude other than myself. And some, I’m sorry to say, are virtually unavailable. So you may have to do some digging. But it’s more than worth it.

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10. Audience of One (2007) | Dir. Mike Jacobs | 88 min.

I had the pleasure of seeing this little-known documentary at a bar in Brooklyn a few years ago. Rather than wax on about how great it is, I’ll just tell you what it’s about, because you’ll immediately want to see it.
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