What is a Szirbi?! (And my Top Movies list)
E-mails which spoof the Classmates.com site by sending messages saying “there is an update on friend information”, or send a video link with a message stating, “Here’s a link of you doing something stupid” contain links which will infect your computer with Scirzi and turn it into a spambot.
So many people have been infected this way that spam has tripled in the last week. This article, Szirbi Botnet Causes Spam To Triple In A Week explains further.
And please folks, don’t click the links in e-mails. If you really must go to the site, type (or Copy>Paste) the link into your browser bar.
Folks, it is summertime here where I live, and old Tech Paul is fixin’ to put on his flip flops, bermuda shorts, straw hat and just “chill out” for well-deserved several days of vacationing.
I will post some prior articles, and maybe a small article, but I won’t do any heavy lifting.
In the spirit of goofing off, and taking it easy, I spent a little time thinking about what movies I needed to gather up for my popcorn-and-favorite-movies-marathon, scheduled for sometime this week.
I wound up assembling a Top 30 Movies Of All Time list (I was aiming at 20.. then 25..) which I posit to you here for your consideration.
True Grit
Saving Private Ryan
Unforgiven
Forrest Gump
North by Northwest
The Maltese Falcon
Double Indemnity
Key Largo
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Big Sleep
Dr. Strangelove (How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb)
Rear Window
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World
Casablanca
The Caine Mutiny
The Shootist
Anatomy of a Murder
Best Years of Our Lives
Fargo
It Happened One Night
Arsenic and Old Lace
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Searchers
The African Queen
Full Metal Jacket
The Sting
Witness for the Prosecution
The Wild Bunch
It’s a Wonderful Life
Die Hard
Night of the Living Dead
Rocky
* Lonely are the Brave
* The Usual Suspects
* King Rat
* Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
* Stalag 17
I did spend a little time arranging them in order, but.. I am not convinced this is my final version of this list and that I’ll want to “tweak” it some. I am also fairly certain that shortly after posting this, I’ll have a slap-my-forehead moment and remember a title that should have been included… that’s how it usually works with me.
Your comments, input, and critiques are welcome.
[Note: I am not of the female persuasion, and so a chick flick (aka “romantic comedy”) will never appear on my Top Movies list. Please don’t bother to suggest any.]
* Oh! Yeah!
Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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Tech - for Everyone 
Hey Paul,
Bit of an Alfred Hitchcock fan are ya?
Great list – one I might add is “Platoon” – otherwise it looks pretty much like my own list, except for some that I hadn’t thought of adding.
Good one!
BM
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Yes.
In an effort to not overload my list with war films (there isn’t a war flick I haven’t seen), I decided to list either Platoon or Full Metal Jacket.
I decided to go with Full Metal Jacket because it has drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman [talk about your “unforgetable characters”!], and Platoon has a Sheen.
Platoon is on the AFI Best Movies list and Full Metal Jacket ain’t.. wonder why?
If you can watch war films, Das Boot should be on your list.
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I have say that Kramer verses Kramer is one of my favorites.
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As being “not of the female persassion”, surely you would appreciate a young Liz in National Velvet.
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Jason–
You got me.
However, I have a very hard time watching Mickey Rooney.. and aside from Elizibeth Taylor at age 19, there’s not much in National Velvet that “does it for me”.
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I have never heard of some of these
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I see that you have True Grit as your #1 film. There is a sequil to that called “Rooster Cogburn” which also stars Katherine Hepburn.
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Sir or Madam–
John Wayne reprised his notable antihero role, U.S. Marshall Rooster J. Cogburn, in 1975′s Rooster Cogburn.
It is almost as good as True Grit, and I can highly recommend it.
I have been told that people of the feminine persuasion also enjoy this film.. Katherine Hepburn’s portrayal of Eula Goodnight is quite.. noteworthy too, and she matches him scene for scene.
It is a pleasure to watch these two legends perform.. in some of their last work.
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I like your list
Please try some French classics too Paul:
8 Women, 2001, François Ozon
Beauty and The Beast, 1946, Jean Cocteau
Belle de Jour, 1967, Luis Buñuel
Betty Blue, 1986, Jean-Jacques Beineix
Breathless, 1960, Jean-Luc Godard
Children of Paradise, 1945, Marcel Carne
Diva, 1981, Jean-Jacques Beineix
Jules et Jim, 1961, François Truffaut
La Femme Nikita, 1990, Luc Besson
It will open a world to you
Nightjar
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mrlokinight,
Thank you for your suggestions.
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Interesting list of movies…I only saw six on the list, but I saw some of the French Movies mentioned by your reader of which I enjoy, along with other European movies my favorite I think.
Nice to read the list…memories.
G.
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Gaia,
Many of these titles are on several Greatest Movies lists.
As for “foreign” films, there is no doubt that there are many good ones. I have watched several myself.
However, I am just one of those people who finds subtitles (or voiceovers) so distracting as to reduce my enjoyment enough that I avoid them. However, I know many folks who find the caliber of the films so much higher than what is coming out of Hollywood, that they seek out such films…
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Hi Paul
###
Fargo:
This is the most ‘foreign’ American film in your list [1996, Coen Brothers]. Because of this foreign quality it is my favourite of those you have listed. It hasn’t been pre-release-focus-group-tested-to-death. I’ve seen too many Hollywood films over the years & they suffer from slick dialogue, plot & character development. I watch an American movie & 9 times out of 10 I know the first 10 minutes is for establishing the hero/villain characters (as in Dirty Harry or Die Hard or just about every Western). Fargo is low key. Fargo is darkly humourous. Fargo is not swilling in sentiment. Fargo lets you know what you need to know as it happens. It’s intelligent cinema.
###
Saving Private Ryan:
I love the 24 minute Omaha beach sequence, fantastic. I hate the dialogue though – the idiom is too modern. Also the story has an arc with full closure. This full closure nonsense is the biggest Hollywood sin because it is too easy – life is not like that. Please MrFilmMaker let us walk into the street with some moral doubts ! Great film though.
###
I’ve enjoyed thinking about your film blog & I offer some more films for you to consider…
A] English language
The Bad Lieutenant (1992, Abel Ferrara) [NOT the 2009 remake]
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
Raging Bull (1980, Martin Scorsese) [Who needs Rocky ?]
Shane (1953, George Stevens)
The Usual Suspects (1995, Bryan Singer)
The Last Seduction (1993, John Dahl) [Linda Fiorentino is charmingly immoral – not one likeable person in the whole film – love it]
B] Non-English language, but worth it all the same
The Battle of Algiers (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo)
Triumph of the Will (1935, Leni Riefenstahl) [Evil masterpiece]
8½ (1963, Federico Fellini)
###
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mrlokinight,
I agree with everything you said. (And I think you might appreciate No Country For Old Men.)
* Usual Suspects is on the list. And Vertigo (and Lifeboat) aren’t, as this was an effort to be a Top 20 (and not Top 100) list, and I already had several Hitchcock. (I cannot think of a Hitchcock title I would not watch..)
I limited my film noir too…
Citizen Cain is not here – not because it isn’t high caliber, a great film, or I have a thing against Orson Welles, but because I don’t really enjoy watching the film.
I left off a lot of slapstick comedy as well.. hmmm.
Not to subtract from your point at all, but, sometimes (not always) I do not want “character development”, any confusion over who is protagonist, nor watching a fictional character go through (pretend) angst, and self-analysis and doubt. Sometimes I want simple “popcorn entertainment”. I am not above watching Mr. Bean.
I was a young lad when Star Wars came out, and I will never forget it, nor the experience of seeing it the first time. Yet it was a trite and hackneyed, re-vamped fairy tale, kept to the simplest dimensions… and maybe belongs on this list..
PS — Shane, I seriously considered. As I did High Noon. Both would be on my Top 100.
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