Entertainment Weekly calls LOTR Trilogy second best movie of the past 25 years

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Yes, I have read the posts and understand that many other EW selections on this list have been attacked. But is that not to give the tar and feather treatment to the very idea of putting LOTR on the list? After all, if you can show that there are silly or worthless selections on the list, then it also calls into doubt the inclusion of LOTR in such a lofty position doesn't it?

No, it doesn't in the least. In fact, if you had read my first post, you would see that I had listed LotR (right between Schindler's List and Pulp Fiction) as a film that is actually worthy of a Top 25 ranking of movies since '83; however, it just seemed to me that this EW list was one of the most questionable overall that I'd ever seen. Die Hard is a fun movie, but it is nowhere near Amadeus or even Fargo as far as the depth of acting; Casino Royale is a good Bond movie (but there are better), but it pales to the intricacies of The Usual Suspects; Jeremy Irons was very funny as the voice of Scar in the Lion King (and the best character in that cartoon), but his performances in The Mission or Dead Ringers are far more nuanced and...well...superior. Can anyone explain to me how the Disney epic Toy Story *snickers* is better than Akira Kurosawa's epic Ran? I'd like to hear the argument.

I also agreed with AFI's inclusion of FotR as second to the Wizard of Oz (Oz being a far more iconic movie and viewable by a wider demographic than FotR). But even in the AFI's 2007 Top 100 of All-Time (which are only American-made or financed movies), there are only 15 movies made after 1983. Of these, five couldn't even crack EW's vaunted Top 25:

Unforgiven
The Shawshank Redemption
Forest Gump
Platoon
The Sixth Sense

Add to these three more that were on the 1998 original AFI list:

Amadeus
Dances With Wolves
Fargo

And one scratches one's head at some of EW's inclusions (and even more so their exclusions).

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Nerewen..... if you go to other sites .... lets use theonering.com or theonering.net or board77 or halloffire or many others, you will find the opinion on the movies is not universal.

Ummm...StW, having posted occasionally on theonering, I can tell you that that site is fanboy central for the movies. There is so much swooning for Viggo or Orlando or Liv that I want to wretch.