ROTTEN TOMATOES: New Line Cinema: A Retrospective

New Line Cinema: A Retrospective

by Alex Vo

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	05.	Boogie Nights (1997)



		Tomatometer: 96%

	Where can you find the longest single takes in cinema? Porn movies...and Boogie Nights. P.T. Anderson's epic seriocomic homage to sex, drugs, and bellbottoms may have the glossy look of the era, but it also uncovers the human element that was stitched into the hedonism.


	04.	A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)



		Tomatometer: 94%

	It's always a trip when you re-watch the first movie of a horror series. Friday the 13th is actually pretty tame. Halloween is a subtle slasher. And A Nightmare on Elm Street? Wes Craven seeded the movie with ethereal lightness; the movie floats with unique dream-like anxiety.

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(1-20 of 36 posts) | Reply

RottenDC writes:
on May 07 2008 04:56 PM

#24 is a Dirty Girl kind of picture. Muchacha sucia...

Me like the TMNT inclusion - great movie with people in animal costumes, no easy task.

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Henry Ham writes:
on May 07 2008 04:57 PM

John Cho is my hero. Just like you Mr. Vo.

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Bruce Campbell writes:
on May 07 2008 05:23 PM

Evil Dead should be at 1.

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indiefilmfan2 writes:
on May 07 2008 06:18 PM

What about Rush Hour? And Wedding Crashers? Vince Vaughn is the master at ad-libbing.

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FantasyFan07 writes:
on May 07 2008 06:26 PM

The Fellowship definitely deserves to be #1. A masterpiece.

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John Z. Delorean writes:
on May 07 2008 06:34 PM

TMNT all day! Sid and Nancy should've been number 1 tho.

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jokerboy1991 writes:
on May 07 2008 08:04 PM

Dark City is Ausome! I cant wait til the blu ray directors cut in july!

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jokerboy1991 writes:
on May 07 2008 08:07 PM

Also cool to see Boogie Nights and Magnolia up there, P.T.Anderson is so ausome.

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DarthWonka writes:
on May 07 2008 08:39 PM

I'm so glad Fellowship topped this list. It truly is the best film of the LotR trilogy and the second best film of all time after "The Empire Strikes Back". Glad that you and the AFI recognize its greatness.

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CoUcH ToMaToE DoUgIe writes:
on May 08 2008 12:03 AM

Great List, it brings me great sadness to see such an

important Company leave us. But boy did they leave us quite a collection...

Also, I'm sorta conflicted with the number choice though. Most believe the

last one or even the second Lord of the Rings movie is better but as one

of my personal rules, of always loving the original the most, I can

understand why it was put so high. Although, I do disagree with having any of

the LoTR series out of the top ten. Still, I am so happy memorable, yet

not fresh movies, are on the list. One of my fondest memories was seeing

the first Turtles movie and its a shame most critics couldn't see that.

New Line Cinema, I thank you for all the fond memories you have given me

and countless other over your remarkable run!! you will be missed but clearly

not forgotten

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moviedvdfreak writes:
on May 08 2008 12:39 AM

the list is just ok imo.i would take out harold and kumar,hairspray,gummo,new nightmare,new world,dark city,sea inside,american splendor,and the player.not sayin these movies are bad,but not better than some of the ones i listed below.

and swith them out with american history x,blade 2,bolier room,final destination,friday,hoop dreams,king of kong,menace II society,the notebook,pump up the volume,rush hour,and wedding crashers.

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citizenjames writes:
on May 08 2008 05:26 AM

Okay. BLADE II is twice the movie BLADE could ever hope to be and resurrected a lame character, made him cool, gave wesley snipes a legacy and proved that david goyer can't write (BATMAN BEGINS is culled from great source material and DARK CITY has three credited writers). Anybody want to defend him and I'll make you watch DEATH WARRANT, DEMONIC TOYS, BLADE TRINITY, JUMPER, CROW II CITY OF ANGELS, KICKBOXER 2 and NICK FURY AGENT OF SHIELD and we can have this talk again.

And then I get to MAGNOLIA. Are you frickin' kidding me? HARD EIGHT and BOOGIE NIGHTS are genius. MAGNOLIA and PUNCH DRUNK LOVE are just proof that style is no substitute for talent. As for MAGNOLIA, if you're going to string fifteen interesting characters in interesting situations together and call it movie you may want to have a common theme... otherwise you have BABEL. It's like serving lobster and grilled cheese... why the hell are these on the same plate. Instead of an underlying connective tissue like BIG CHILL, GRAND CANYON, CRASH, TRAFFIC, SHORT CUTS, NASHVILLE and CRADLE WILL ROCK have, you end up with a dozen really good vinettes that have nothing to do with each other. MAGNOLIA never adds up to the sum of its parts.

In his defense, I have THERE WILL BE BLOOD at home and haven't watched it yet so the verdict is out.

www.jamesford.wordpress.com

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TombstoneLawDog writes:
on May 08 2008 07:46 AM

Decent list, though my personal feeling is New Nightmare committed the sin of taking a [for that time] brilliantly novel premise of evil existing outside the movie and absolutely wasting it in the end on cheap sets and lame conclusion... very sad.

Dark City was actually a bit of a disappointment, too, in that I thought the pervasive, unrelenting darkness ended up overwhelming the story and the characters. The commercial itself should be on this list or at least on a list of top 25 coolest commercials (are you listening, RT? Good list idea!)

Finally, I would've added Mortal Kombat. Yeah, corny video game adaptation, but compared to the failures of Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon and Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat was Citizen Kane. Cool cast, well-choreographed fights, passable VFX and a SLAMMIN' angry techno soundtrack. This one, they did right.

The sequel? That they f#cked up.

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mattdaddy36 writes:
on May 08 2008 09:04 AM

A fine list, and everyone will have a fave that is not ranked, or ranked high enough, or a director someone hates. But we are celebrating a company that had enough balls to make a 300 million dollar trilogy with a director who mostly made horror comedies (and one critically acclaimed drama). Look what a payoff that had for them, and us! I still don't understand why they got absorbed, they should have made enough on LOTR to last a lifetime! Maybe RT should dig in on that and do a feature about what happened! Anyway, many thanks New Line, you will be missed.

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dahluzz writes:
on May 08 2008 09:18 AM

people saying 'blade II' was all that need to check themselves. the first one was solid, the second, mediocre and the the third... well, let's not even go there.

i get what you guys were trying to do with rating 'magnolia' higher than 'boogie nights.' it came afterwards and represented anderson's ascension among the ranks of top american filmmakers. but really, 'boogie nights' is the superior film.

it's epic in scope and scale (chronicling entire decades), has one of the best soundtracks of all time, broke mark wahlberg, revived burt reynold's career and is pretty amazing from a technical standpoint. The tracking shots are staggering in terms of their complexity, and the art direction reflects a painstaking attention to detail.

as was said above, 'magnolia' never really pays off or comes together in a meaningful way and the frogs kind of ruined the ending for me. i know there was some deeper allegorical meaning behind them (i still don't quite know what that is, so if someone's aware, please let me know), but for me, the frogs just kind of falsified the whole world anderson had created. it meant that this world we kept thinking was too wierd to be real, in fact, was.

i will concur with others on awarding props for the inclusion of 'turtles,' especially at 44%. critics just didn't get it, but they also didn't watch the animated series every day after school or read the original comics in which the turtles were vicious gangbusters and all wore red instead of individual colors.

the guys who invented the turtles were from my home town, so i was naturally obsessed. i even met the woman that april o'neil is based on (the co-creator's ex-wife, who still lives there, and parties) and it turns out she's now a coke-snorting middle-aged single mom with rage issues. go figure.

oh, and you guys got the LOTR order just right: 1, 3, 2. once a year i bust out my extended trilogy and hunker down for a weekend. The twelve hours always fly by, but the first installment has the most classic appeal (and less comic "relief" from gimly).

good list.

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Elixor writes:
on May 08 2008 10:28 AM

Good list. Too many movies to argue about, and we could all argue ordering, but I like the movies that they chose.

My opinion is that Blade II is much better than Blade I. I'm not a fan of the Blade movies, but love Snipes in the role.

LOTR Fellowship is probably the only one I'd put in a top 'whatever' list of movies. The quality of the first one is just superior and the other two movies make too many errors that are insulting to the source material (Yes fellowship also has errors, but forgivable ones).

I wouldn't put Mortal Kombat on the list.

Wedding Crashers is one that I'd consider.

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Jen Yamato writes:
on May 08 2008 11:33 AM

Cowabunga!

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Alex Vo writes:
on May 08 2008 11:35 AM

In reply to this comment (#1725954)
The original concept of the New Line retrospective was going to be this wild, five-part feature, with one part going up every weekday (including a dissection of the rise and fall of New Line). Time and resources were an issue, but regardless I'm super happy how this list came out. Glad you guys are cool with it too.

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DarthWonka writes:
on May 08 2008 11:39 AM

Fellowship just gets everything right. It's the broadest in scope, goes the most places visually and emotionally, is the most colorful, the most tragic, and the most varying in its action (meaning that the second two films had just battles), and the balance between the time spent with all the characters is pitch perfect. Every single one of the characters is well-developed. The second two movies get kind of sloppy and the balance of the story shifts too heavily toward the humans.

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Endri writes:
on May 08 2008 11:43 AM

Blade is sick.

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