Greatest B movie ever? Raiders of the Lost Ark. (perhaps)

[Alan Smithee]

Okay, maybe it's a toss up between Raiders or Star Wars: A New Hope.

But I want to talk about Raiders.

It is the perfect escapist entertainment. It's probably the best action/adventure movie, ever.
It has everything. Thrills. Chases. The Supernatural. Nazis. Snakes. Spiders. Tombs. Submarines. Melting faces. Exploding heads. Corpses. Booby traps.
But everything works so well. I can't say anything bad about Raiders, and I dare anyone to.

I saw this movie in the theatres with my dad when I was 7 or 8. I was initially shaken up right after I saw this movie, because the movie has so intense and action packed for a PG rated movie. I might've had nightmares after seeing it.

Twenty-five years later, this movie still astounds me. After all these years, it still holds up well. It's probably the best Indiana Jones, too. And certainly, Raiders is in Spielberg's top 5.

[Doc Daneeka]

B-Movie?? Not anymore! The greatest B-Movie ever is often said to be Evil Dead 2

[Derf]

There are several action/adventure movies that just seem to get everything right. Depending on your definition of what makes a movie a "B" movie, this includes (for me, anyway):

Star Wars IV: A New Hope

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Evil Dead 2

The Fifth Element

Time Bandits

The Princess Bride

I'm sure I'll think of a couple more later, but these are the ones that come immediately to mind. I've met very few people that didn't find these movies entertaining. Which was the greatest? I can see reasons for calling any of them the greatest action/adventure "B" movie ever. I don't think I could say any one of them is definitivley "better" than any of the others. Does that make me indecisive? Maybe it does; maybe it doesn't. I'm not sure.

[raj]

I can't put Raiders or Star Wars in the "B" category.  They are in part homages to ye olde "B" pictures, but they are "A" movies.  IMO.
Great fun though.  I thoroughly enjoyed them.

[Shadowphile]

Neither can you include Princess Bride.  It is intentionally campy, which disqualifies it...

[daveblackeye15]

Hmm Raiders a B-movie? Seems appropriate while at the same time maintaining that A-movie look but having the spirit of the old serials.

Seems like a one of a kind deal.

Star Wars better fits into the b-movie catergory but both do seem to do everything right.

[LH-C]

daveblackeye15 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hmm Raiders a B-movie? Seems appropriate while at
> the same time maintaining that A-movie look but
> having the spirit of the old serials.
>
> Seems like a one of a kind deal.
>
> Star Wars better fits into the b-movie catergory
> but both do seem to do everything right.

Right on the money. You wrote exactly what I was thinking.

[peter johnson]

I don't think it fair to diss Princess Bride because it was "Intentionally campy" -- Raiders was hardly The Seventh Seal -- There was certainly some intentional camp in all the films named.
     Okay, re. "dare you to say something bad about Raiders" -- 2 things:
     We see Indy get on board the submarine -- to hide, we presume -- and we then see the thousands of miles the submarine traveled -- where the hell was he?  We see him duck behind the conning tower, but we never see him get inside the sub.  Either he held his breath for several weeks, or the Nazis on the sub were all blind, or the sub ran entirely on the surface & he hid behind the conning tower where he originally hid --  This bothered me when I first saw the film, and it bothers me now -- Any input on this?  Seriously, where was he?
     The uniforms and insignia on the trucks etc. for the Germans are of the Afrika Corps.  The Afrika Corps was not founded until Germany took over from Italy during Italy's  failed North African campaign, in '41/'42 -- there was no Afrika Corps at the time the film is set, not for about 8 years. This is like having Sabre jets in the Battle of Britain -- admittedly a cool thing to think about, in an Anime sort of way, but really kind of jarring to try to suspend disbelief over if you know that period of history.
     I really didn't like the film when it came out & I didn't warm to it during subsequent viewings.  I preferred "Buckaroo Banzai", which made little pretext to reality & had endless B elements.
peter johnson/denny crane

[Derf]

I know the discussion of what makes a movie a "B" movie has already been addressed on this board, so I won't go into it too much. That said, to address Shadowphile's comment about disqualifying The Princess Bride for its campiness, we would also have to disqualify all the movies I mentioned except Star Wars. EDII has Three Stooges routines in it (Ash fighting his own hand as the main one), ROTLA has no end of campy touches thrown in as homages to the old serials, Fifth Element has Zorg as its villain and Ruby Rhod as its whatever exactly he is (both are very campy, although Zorg still qualifies as one of the best villains ever for me), and Time Bandits has Shelley Duvall and Michael Palin as Pansy and Vincent (not to mention the fact that it is an out-and-out comedy) and John Cleese as a very campy Robin Hood. I know that PB may focus more on the camp factor than the others, but all are "B" movies by design (though not all are based on budget).

Unrelated rant: We seem to be entering a new era (though not an altogether good new era) of movie making where there is little real difference between homages and ripoffs, campiness and crappiness, cliches and conventions, etc., and Hollywood counts on the short attention span of most of its audience and its dismissal of anything more than 10 years old (around where I live, I meet people all the time who refuse to watch anything in black and white, or anything that is obviously "old" (unless there is enough nudity and/or juvenile humor to justify it), so remakes are not an issue around here because most people have never heard of the originals).

Sorry if this post came across as snotty or defensive; I didn't mean it that way. I just meant to point out the camp factor of most of the movies I listed. I'll get back on my medication now...

[Scott]

Derf is correct in his "unrelated rant".

There is also another factor. We have no real hollywood stars like long ago. Everyone just looks the same and I hardly even know the names of todays top stars. Even the 80's had a few stars like Arnold, Stallone, and Harrison Ford. The closes thing we  have today is Johnny Depp, Travolta (70's star), and Jackson.

[daveblackeye15]

Go Johnny Depp!

[peter johnson]

Okay, on the flip side of the "No stars" complaint, which is valid, we have actors who have the ability to span genres:
Here we're all naming 2:  Johnny Depp and Samuel Jackson.
Jackson can make something like the uniquely intentional tripe of "Snakes On A . . ." and still be totally convincing and enthralling in the deadly serious/no camp about it film "The Caveman's Valentine".  See it if you haven't already.  Brrr . . .
Depp?   Who on the board here hasn't seen "Dead Man" yet?   Or Gilbert Grape?  We know this guy's range.  Hell, I even loved him in Fear and Loathing, and in person Hunter Thompson is not a pleasant fellow, yet Depp made him likeable -- now that's acting!
Yet by being Great Actors, neither of these fellows have risen to the status of "Star" in its old sense --
Paul Newman, God bless him, is a Star -- how much longer?
Lauren Bacall is a Star, but she doesn't work like she used to -- how much longer?
I see Dakota Fanning, if she manages to avoid the usual traps, rising to the level of adult Star, much as Elizabeth Taylor did, but can she?  Lindsay Lohan, who showed great promise, has pretty much dropped out, though could return --
Heath Ledger?  Jake Gylleanthal?  Nope, not a cough in carload . . . The guys & gals of today are mostly bland bland bland, cookie-cutter images of one another.  Sure, technically very very good actors and actresses, but where are the Individuals?
One of my old teachers, Wiley Harker, who worked with Errol Flynn, Henry Fonda, and James Stewart, among others, told me that these guys used to work on their offscreen personas as much as their onscreen.  That their vocal stylings, like John Wayne's, were the result of merticulous choices -- Fonda didn't have that "sincere deadpan" in "real life", but worked at it.  
Sure that's artifice, but so is Stardom --
peter johnson/denny crane

[Scott]

I hear you Peter Johnson on the older actors working on their craft. Another thing I once heard mentioned somewhere was that the old movie stars had "large" faces and this somehow worked on the screen better.

[ulthar]

Maybe this is bringing the debate into a circular arguement, but one COULD claim that it is hard to breed 'stars' when the scripts are so much garbage.  The big dollars go to the lowest common denomenator projects, ones that purposefully do NOT push the envelope of creativity either in direction or acting.

Was this different 'back in the day?'  I think so.  The real creativity now is in the Indies, and for the most part, those don't create Stars.

As for a list of "Stars," I'd have to add Tom Hanks to the list.  He's done some outstanding roles in divergent parts.  And, his presence in a movie is almost a guarantee of success at the box office.  Maybe his "range" is limited (do all his characters sound alike?), but then, so was John Wayne's if you think about it.

It's REALLY hard to think of female stand-outs, though.  Of course, it seems to me that most female roles are simply to fulfill some stereotype of women - either as 'sex object,' 'poor victim' or 'feminist gets even,' etc.  Hollywood has perfected the "woman as card-board cutout of a real person" image.

Boy, this is in direct contrast with Bergman in CASSABLANCA.  She was a real person, a 3-D character.  For example.

In short, my take can be summarized: the Hollywood machinery no longer takes risks, but sticks mostly to established formulae.  Without risks, without challenges, no actor can show their range and potential depth.

[dean]

Right on Ulthar!

Creativity is certainly in short supply, it seems.  Which is probably why box office numbers are dwindling.

I think that you'll gradually find an upsurgance in quality.  Like mentioned earlier, indie films are getting pretty creative and there's actually more and more of them popping out into mainstream, which really helps.

For all their faults, at least the emo-generation seems to have gotten something right in cult indie films that actually shy away from what has become the stale mainstream.

That or just release more B-movie ridiculous trash...