The Incredible Suit is 10 years old, so here are its 100 best films obviously!

Unbelievably (despite time being a constant), it's one-tenth of a century today since this ridiculous excuse for a website winked into existence. 1,168 blog posts later, somebody at The Incredible Suit HQ thought it would be a good idea to celebrate by collating the entire team's 100 favourite films and ranking them for you to ignore at your leisure. So we took all the votes, assigned points, divided the results by the total number of staff, fed the whole lot to a diarrhitic cow and what fell out of the other end can be found below.

Now this is very much a combination of what might loosely be described as "best" and "favourite" films, so yes it's quite Hitchcock-heavy, yes there are a few Bond films that probably won't be troubling the Sight & Sound top ten any time soon, and no Citizen Kane isn't in there even though it's obviously brilliant. It's just, what would you rather watch, Kane or Licence To Kill? Exactly.

So without further ado, and the obvious caveat that despite the wealth of knowledge and experience across the board, nobody at The Incredible Suit has seen all of the films ever made, here goes. See you in another ten years for the 100 worst films.

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100. THE MACHINE THAT KILLS BAD PEOPLE (Roberto Rossellini, 1952)

Rossellini blends social commentary with commedia dell'arte in a politically turbulent post-war Italy; the result is as incisive and comprehensive a jab at human failings as you'll find in all of cinema. An underrated, underseen gem.

99. BARRY LYNDON (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
Long, slow and low on incident, yet hypnotically wonderful and - thanks mainly to Michael Hordern's droll voiceover - devilishly funny. Show me a better 18th century period tragicomedy and I'll pretend I can't hear you.

98. RAISING CAIN (Brian De Palma, 1992)
John Lithgow at his most deliciously hammy, a ridiculous surprise every five minutes and some inspired twists on De Palma's mandatory Hitchcock nods. The best film with a two-word title wherein the second word is, or is a slight variation of, "Cain".

97. DAISIES (Věra Chytilová, 1966)

The Thelma & Louise of the Czechoslavakian new wave tear society a new one in this gleefully provocative, adorably bonkers blast of kaleidoscopic anarchy. Features the kind of cinematic women I'd love to hang out with if I didn't think they'd eat me for breakfast.

96. PILLOW TALK (Michael Gordon, 1959)
Gloriously 1950s in its production design yet driven by surprisingly modern sexual attitudes, Pillow Talk boasts a crackling, innuendo-laden script in which Doris Day and Rock Hudson become embroiled in a hilarious battle of the sexes. Delightful.

95. THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (Robert Wiene, 1920)

A multi-layered murder-mystery set in a splintered, spiky dreamscape, this bastard-mad nightmare is a skewed comment on its own unique historical context and an undeniable template for the next century of filmmaking: Alfred Hitchcock and Tim Burton would have been fucked without it.

94. DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (John McTiernan, 1995)
Obviously not a patch on the original, but this final film in the Die Hard series is a fitting end to the trilogy. It's a pity they never made any more Die Hard films, but there you go. Nothing lasts forever.

93. ANIMAL KINGDOM (David Michôd, 2010)

Michôd treats his audience with absolute respect in this intelligent and shattering drama about loyalty, conscience and finding your place in the world. Also features terrifying bastard Ben Mendelsohn at his most terrifyingly bastardy.

92. BATMAN BEGINS (Christopher Nolan, 2005)
More gripping and emotionally complex than the Burton/Schumacher years, Begins gave me everything I wanted from a Batflick: ferocious fight scenes, a Gotham City risen from Hell itself and a Batman who, if you met him in a dark alley, would actually make you do a poo in your trousers.

91. THE DARK KNIGHT (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
Nolan takes the duality motif that drives the Batman mythology and cranks it up to 11 in his sequel, but never lets the immense scale of his film overwhelm it. Obvious MVP: Heath Ledger, for straight up pretending Jack Nicholson never existed.

90. DRIVE (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)
Genre-defying retro-neo-noir in which Ryan Gosling does very little apart from pootle about in a car and beat a few people up, but does it in such inimitable style and backed by an achingly hip soundtrack that it's impossible to take your eyes off him.

89. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (Spike Jonze, 1999)
Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich Malkovich: Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich.

88. E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL (Steven Spielberg, 1982)

Like the best kids' films, E.T. deals with the misery of growing up: the magical twilight of the first half, with its faceless grown-ups (except for Mom) and literal wide-eyed optimism, gives way to a harshly-lit second full of mean adults, death and loss. Fun for all the family!

87. MEAN STREETS (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
Scorsese's youth splashed across the screen in deathly blacks and hellish reds. Evocative and original, this is effectively Ground Zero for both the Scorsese brand and decades of pale imitations to come.

86. LOLITA (Stanley Kubrick, 1962)
Kubrick makes you pity a paedophile in this indefinable oddity. Controversial, sure, but more importantly funny as fuck, with fully-drawn characters that blow Kubrick's false rep as a cold, dispassionate director out of the water.

85. THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
To me this is much richer than that other Jimmy Stewart Christmas film they keep banging on about: I love Lubitsch's effortless blend of frothy romcom with a darker edge that opens up the comedy like the bitters in a martini.

84. PADDINGTON 2 (Paul King, 2017)
As bursting with heart, charm and barely-tolerable delightfulness as its predecessor. Everything here is wonderful, from Peter Capaldi's all-too-brief turn as the Daily Mail in human form to Ben Whishaw's unfailingly affable delivery in his role as the ultimate care bear.

83. MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (Maya Deren, 1943)

Deren's wacky avant-garde adventure still has the power to baffle and unsettle in equal measure. Unbelievable that chrome ping-pong-ball glasses didn't take off after this was released.

82. JAWS (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
I still maintain the first half is the best: the island-based tension, the pig-headedness of Mayor Vaughn (the film's true villain), Spielberg's impeccable deep staging and the terror that comes from never seeing the shark are all more fun than the second half's Alien-on-a-boat stuff. But, you know, it's Jaws.

81. THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927)
Hitchcock's first masterpiece: a mesmerising combination of German Expressionism, Hollywood stylings and distinctly British humour. Even Ivor Novello's decision to act like he has an awkwardly-shaped object stuck up his bum can't spoil the mood.

80. TRAINSPOTTING (Danny Boyle, 1996)
I don't actually remember most of the time I spent shooting up skag in mid-'90s Edinburgh, but Trainspotting is so exquisitely evocative of that time that I'm convinced I must have done.

79. THE CLOCK (Christian Marclay, 2010)
I'll be honest, I haven't seen it all (it's twenty-four hours long, do me a favour) but what I have seen was so unbelievably well done and dangerously addictive that there's no way it shouldn't be on this list.

78. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (Brian De Palma, 1996)
Still the best Mission, yeah whatever Chris McQuarrie. The Langley break-in is one of the greatest set-pieces in action cinema, and all that train stuff is fab too. Let's not talk about the "internet" bits.

77. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (Peter Hunt, 1969)

Takes more risks than any Bond film before or since, and it's all the better for it. The first act plays out like a romantic melodrama and culminates in a full-on cheesegasm that sits oddly in the canon, but from then on it's vintage Bond action all the way to its shattering climax.

76. ROBOCOP (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)
Mild-mannered police officer Rob O'Cop is shot to shreds and reborn as a walking justice machine, with hilariously gory consequences! Verhoeven makes his villains so unbelievably horrible that every splattery death is air-punchingly satisfying.

75. THE FLY (David Cronenberg, 1986)
Stomach-churningly gross but razor sharp critique of the dangers of technological hubris, or useful primer on home preserving and pickling? Hard to say.

74. CLOVERFIELD (Matt Reeves, 2008)
Twenty minutes of zippy setup followed by fifty minutes of sheer balls-out action, nerve-shredding tension and sphincter-clenching terror. Found footage movies peaked with this, as did the Cloverfield franchise.

73. SKYFALL (Sam Mendes, 2012)
Probably the most thematically rich Bond film, with notions of honour, loyalty and mortality woven into almost every scene. Bond as a character and a franchise undergo some surprising existential evaluation before deciding that yes, it's all brilliant, keep up the good work. And then they made Spectre.

72. JURASSIC PARK (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
The grand convergence of all Spielberg's talents in one glorious, toothy package. Everything he ever did well, he does perfectly here, aided by across-the-board technical excellence in an opus of peerless entertainment.

71. SCHOOL OF ROCK (Richard Linklater, 2003)

Joan Cusack and a bunch of schoolkids hold their own against Jack Black at his Jackest Blackest. An absolute happy place of a film.

70. SPEED (Jan de Bont, 1994)
Absolutely shameless popcorn flick that has no right to be as good as it is, nor as emotionally affecting. Every time the bus ploughs through the pram I want to hold Sandra close and tell her it's fine, it's just full of cans. It's just full of cans.

69. THE LORD OF THE RINGS (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003)
Lumping the trilogy together because its constituent parts are beautifully consistent in tone and style, which is just one of the many things that makes it one of the greatest achievements in cinema. Maybe one day they'll make a film of The Hobbit?

68. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (Terence Young, 1963)
Shot through with paranoia, double-crosses and shadow-cloaked deaths at every turn, this is Bond's greatest Cold War adventure. The formula hasn't settled yet so it's not quite A James Bond Film, but it is a great film with James Bond in it.

67. BEFORE SUNSET (Richard Linklater, 2004)
Romantic idealism meets cold reality in a stream of Parisian waffle, and it's as lovely as (but, crucially, even shorter than) the first one.

66. THELMA & LOUISE (Ridley Scott, 1991)

Cinema's greatest female double act since Daisies leaves a trail of empowering, feminist destruction across the US and a scar across my heart. Makes me want to rush to the Grand Canyon with a massive net.

65. THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF (Basil Dearden, 1970)

Roger Moore's best film, this sees him in a dual role as a starched exec and his mysterious, antagonistic doppelgänger, a womanising bounder intent on taking over his dull counterpart’s life. As mad as it sounds, and then some.

64. NOTORIOUS (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
With impressively tight storytelling across a bare minimum of scenes, Hitchcock handles the script's various discoveries and revelations impeccably, driving the film to its perfect climax in typically classy style. Bergman and Rains are untouchable.

63. TOY STORY (John Lasseter, 1995)
It's one thing to make an entire film inside a computer; it's another thing entirely to make it THIS GOOD. I mean that computer must have been amazing, like a Spectrum 128K +2 or something.

62. MONSTERS, INC. (Pete Docter, 2001)
The point at which it became clear Pixar were just going to be tossing these masterpieces off like clipped toenails every couple of years. Imagine knowing then that they'd eventually be doing it every six months or so.

61. CASINO ROYALE (Martin Campbell, 2006)
Daniel Craig grabs James Bond by the lapels and turns him into a box office juggernaut, a sharply-dressed bricklayer and an emotional wreck. The long-term effect on the franchise is still anyone's guess, but as a standalone film this is one of the 21st century's greatest action movies.

60. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Lynne Ramsay, 2011)

Possibly the most effective method of contraception on the market. If you still want kids after seeing this then you should probably consider some kind of therapy. Tilda Swinton predictably knocks it out of the park, but the three youngsters who play Kevin give the film its spine-chilling spine.

59. INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (Steven Spielberg, 1984)
Breathlessly exciting and gleefully dark se/prequel. Every fight and stunt matters, every set-piece is seared into action cinema lore and the script is emblematic of the wit that characterises the Golden Age of Spielberg. Temple Of Doom is Raiders' evil twin, and anyone who prefers Last Crusade is an unbearable goody-goody.

58. GOLDFINGER (Guy Hamilton, 1964)
Established the formula the series would employ repeatedly, with varying degrees of success, over the next forty-odd years, so cannot be underestimated. Every frame oozes impeccable style, 1960s cool and a sense of fun that mark it out as the definitive Bond Film.

57. THE APARTMENT (Billy Wilder, 1960)

Despicable, Fred MacMurray-wise; adorable, Jack Lemmon-wise; delightful, Shirley Maclaine-wise and wonderful, otherwise-wise.

56. BEFORE MIDNIGHT (Richard Linklater, 2013)
The best of the trilogy, only because it's so brutally honest and real. Hard as fuck to watch, mind, like seeing your mum & dad rowing (as in having a row, not rowing a boat).

55. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (John Glen, 1987)
Timothy Dalton reboots Bond as a vaguely realistic human being twenty years before audiences were ready for it. Audiences are fucken idiots.

54. LICENCE TO KILL (John Glen, 1989)

Dalton ensures that Ian Fleming's James Bond - largely absent from his own film series since From Russia With Love - makes a welcome reappearance in this, the best James Bond film shut up.

53. MOULIN ROUGE! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
Like shoving a lit firework up your bottom and having it explode behind your eyeballs for two hours. Audacious contemporary songs and retina-terrorising production design combine with a beautiful, passionate love story. Also Nicole Kidman is well fit.

52. THE INCREDIBLES (Brad Bird, 2004)
Still one of Pixar's finest, with their most thrilling set pieces, the coolest music and Samuel L Jackson’s greatest ever scene, in which he attempts to locate his costume against the wishes of his obstreperous missus.

51. THE LADY VANISHES (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938)
A deliciously tongue-in-cheek love letter to Hitchcock's fellow countrymen, The Lady Vanishes simultaneously embraces and mercilessly lampoons the idiosyncracies of the English like a 1930s Paddington.

50. THE TERMINATOR (James Cameron, 1984)
The simplest of plots spiced up with a little cheeky time travel and some hilarious ultraviolence are all well and good, but Schwarzenegger knocks everything up a notch. Who can forget his brilliant catchphrase, "I'll come back later on, say 7ish"?

49. FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)

Absolutely belting wartime thriller that racks up more inventive set-pieces, humour and diabolical intrigue than most of its modern-day counterparts: the sixteen-minute Amsterdam sequence alone is slicker and more exciting than most of what Ethan Hunt or James Bond have managed recently.

48. X2 (Bryan Singer, 2003)

Roughly the point where superhero films stopped being silly and became epic, thoughtful metaphors for real-world issues. Also the point where it became clear that Hugh Jackman is a god amongst mortals.

47. SPIDER-MAN 2 (Sam Raimi, 2004)
Still the best Spidey film, mostly down to Doc Ock, who's written and played to perfection. Also my favourite superhero film; everything both amazing and shitty about being a super are in here. Looks exactly like a comic book, too.

46. REAR WINDOW (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
The way Jimmy Stewart pieces a murder mystery together from the available information is a delicious reflection of Hitchcock's own storytelling technique. A film about films, full of tiny cinema screens, told by a master manipulator.

45. INSIDE OUT (Pete Docter, 2015)
A party bag of visual delights backed up by Pixar's trademark emotional wallop, Inside Out packs enough of a punch to put you in intensive care at Feels General. A ridiculously triumphant comeback for the studio after a run of lesser films and a miserable hiatus.

44. BRIEF ENCOUNTER (David Lean, 1945)
The most buttock-clenchingly British film ever made, in which two painfully repressed toffs meet, fall in love when they shouldn't and fuck like Duracell bunnies whenever they're off camera. So classy.

43. PATHS OF GLORY (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
Kubrick's first masterpiece is a devastating, furious assault on the injustices committed in wartime in the name of patriotism. Staggering in all the best and worst ways, with Kirk Douglas magnetic as one of Stan's few heroes.

42. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (James Cameron, 1991)
An object lesson in how to make a bigger, better sequel without shitting on the spirit of the original (all other Terminator films have failed to learn this lesson). Arnie is absolutely perfect; never has a star been so irreplaceable in a role.

41. SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

Everything Miyazaki cares about, and everything he was a master of, is woven into this film in exactly the right proportions, making it both the ideal introduction to his work and the definitive Miyazaki masterpiece.

40. TOY STORY 2 (John Lasseter, 1999)
Themes of friendship and belonging, wrapped in an existential crisis undergone by a cowboy doll made of pixels, masquerading as a hilarious action adventure. Still Pixar's greatest achievement, which is really saying something.

39. 12 ANGRY MEN (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Gloriously sweaty courtroom drama about tolerance, selflessness and not being a prick that everyone who is an intolerant, selfish prick should watch. Henry Fonda is cinema's least exciting (but genuinely heroic) hero.

38. THE COLOR PURPLE (Steven Spielberg, 1985)

Whoopi Goldberg is terrific as the downtrodden housewife who just about keeps a slender grip on her pride in Spielberg’s first “grown up” film. The Colo(u)r Purple wrings joy from small kindnesses, lacing a potentially crushing experience with the sweet potential of hope. Cried my tits off.

37. THE BIRDS (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
Hitchcock's fourth masterpiece in a row ends cinema's most phenomenal purple patch in technically breathtaking style. A story about men and women, mothers and children, and birds and bees. Mostly birds, to be fair. The clue's in the title.

36. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (George Cukor, 1940)
Delightfully perfect and perfectly delightful example of Hollywood's Golden Age at its goldenest. Jimmy Stewart's drunk chat with Cary Grant is bigger than Jesus.

35. FUNNY GAMES (Michael Haneke, 1997)
Enough to put you off films for life. (This is a recommendation)

34. ARRIVAL (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)
The kind of smart, elegant sci-fi that Christopher Nolan routinely overcomplicates. Takes time to get where it's going, but when it does, WOAH.

33. THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (Jacques Demy, 1967)

The Frenchest thing I've ever seen, and also among the most delightful musicals. Michel Legrand's songs are ooh la la, Gene Kelly is magnifique and the serial killer subplot is incroyable.

32. TAXI DRIVER (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
A hallucinatory tale of shattering loneliness and misguided vengeance. Scorsese commands a din of inscrutable characters and mysterious stylings to accompany one man's descent from amusing social awkwardness to ferocious, guns-blazing psychopathy.

31. ALIENS (James Cameron, 1986)
Two ideologically-opposed mother figures snipe at each other like they're on a sci-fi Mumsnet, while James Cameron amps everything up for a change in this tremendous, balls-to-the-wall sequel.

30. PADDINGTON (Paul King, 2014)
A sweet, intelligent, tears-streaming-down-your-chops joy which celebrates and commemorates the idiosyncracies of the English with pinpoint accuracy.

29. TOP HAT (Mark Sandrich, 1935)

Almost unbearably delightful hoofer in which weapons-grade farce is deployed to bring Fred & Ginger together against all odds. Spellbinding dancing, gorgeous songs and high camp combine to spoil the audience rotten.

28. SCHINDLER'S LIST (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Few directors have been in a position to adequately convey such inexplicable evil to a mass audience; Spielberg recognises and respects his awesome responsibility, and the result is a devastating lesson in the consequences of intolerance that's no less relevant now than it was 25 years ago.

27. GROUNDHOG DAY (Harold Ramis, 1993)
I've watched this over and over and over and over and over again but no matter what I do, it always ends up being hilarious, touching and totally brilliant.

26. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)
An absolutely charming film, full of delightful songs and dances, that whimsically tells the tale of how three smug bastards conspire to publicly humiliate and destroy the career of an established actress, leading to her offscreen depression and eventual suicide.

25. KING KONG (Merian C Cooper & Ernest B Schoedsack, 1933)
Few monster movies have come close to the genius of the genre's grandaddy; most of them fail hopelessly at the first roar. Kong oozes personality thanks to the groundbreaking special effects, and that's why he's King.

24. 12 YEARS A SLAVE (Steve McQueen, 2013)

An astonishing true story of tenacity and endurance so harrowing and excruciating that it's near-unbearable, yet buoyed by hope and the kindness that exists in a world of horror.

23. GROSSE POINTE BLANK (George Armitage, 1997)
There's a reason why I connect with this film so hard but I'm not sure I want to know what it is. Cinema's most enjoyable existential crisis, featuring an adorable pair of leads with genuine chemistry, flawless support all round and shit hot action ("Thank you for the pen"), all set to a catalogue of '80s bangers. Popcorn!

22. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
Alfredson pitches every moment of horror and trope of vampire lore with the accuracy of a marksman, slowly but inexorably building towards that triumphant and deliriously satisfying swimming pool scene. Gorgeously terrifying.

21. NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (Jared Hess, 2004)

Everything about this weird little gem is adorable. It has a bigger heart than romcoms and love stories with ten times the budget, and it's ridiculously funny to (sweet moon)boot. I love it like Tina loves ham.

20. DIE HARD (John McTiernan, 1988)
Nobody puts a glass-shredded foot wrong in this masterpiece of tension, wit and perplexing F-bombs. Still no idea what “I’ll kiss your FUCKIN’ dalmatian!” is supposed to mean.

19. THE GODFATHER PART II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
A sequel that fucked with the rules of what sequels were supposed to be, GF2 expands the Corleone legacy in every direction, all of them amazing.

18. THE GODFATHER (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
This insanely ambitious and lavish epic is so rich in detail and character that you can't afford it. Michael Corleone's arc might be the greatest combination of writing and acting in all of cinema. All critics please note I am putting this and Part II separately because THEY ARE TWO TOTALLY DISTINCT FILMS.

17. GOODFELLAS (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Breathlessly entertaining and unconventionally structured, GoodFellas feels like the picture Scorsese had been building to since film school. A handful of his movies since have come close, but this would be the Lufthansa heist of his career: spectacular, audacious and long-investigated.

16. ALIEN (Ridley Scott, 1979)
Unbearably atmospheric pant-shitter that launched the movies' greatest heroine / villain combo. Shame Ridley Scott shat all over his own legacy worse than George Lucas ever did.

15. RAGING BULL (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
Scorsese put himself into therapy with Raging Bull: a bruising comeback fight that spatters the director's own self-destructive tendencies across the canvas in stark, unforgiving monochrome.

14. THE GENERAL (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926)

Buster Keaton’s greatest comedy is as dazzling now as it was 93 (NINETY-THREE) years ago. Still hard to believe it was all done for real, but it’s that blend of breathtaking stunts and timeless wit that makes it what it is, which is the 14th best film I’ve ever seen.

13. STAR WARS (George Lucas, 1977)
Still as magically exciting, beguiling and brilliant as ever. Obviously nostalgia is a massive variable in the Star Wars Amazingness Formula, but let's be honest, EVERYTHING works here.

12. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
The Empire Strikes Back deserves every ounce of pomp heaped on it over the last 40 years, and I'm not about to change that. Every character and their connections to each other are deepened, the significance of every action is dramatically weighty and everything is accomplished with cast iron confidence.

11. PSYCHO (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
So Hitchcock it hurts, but Psycho is very much a team effort: the slicing score, crisp, high-contrast cinematography, flawless editing and Anthony Perkins' bewitching performance all stamp their own mark on the film. Even Janet Leigh's mascara feels like it should get its own credit.

10. THE 39 STEPS (Alfred Hitchcock, 1935)
Perhaps Hitchcock's most efficient thriller: an episodic odyssey in which an innocent chump-on-the-run is bounced from one adventure to another like an immaculately-moustachioed pinball, it swings from tragedy to comedy with breathless economy.

9. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
A Bond film from the girl's point of view, with Cary Grant as the girl and Eva Marie Saint as the secret agent using sex to further the mission. Hitchcock's slickest version of The 39 Steps surfs a rogue wave of ludicrous fun from start to finish.

8. ROPE (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)
Lip-smacking chamber piece about the smug entitlement of the over-privileged, and therefore never not relevant. Jimmy Stewart is incredible as the smart-arse who inadvertently radicalises a sycophantic psychopath; his final speech, in which he tries to extricate himself from his own terrible responsibility, is spine-tingling.

7. SE7EN (David Fincher, 1995)

The last great serial killer movie, and one which is as grand and horrific a statement of intent from its director as John Doe’s gruesome, misguided retribution is.

6. THE SHINING (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Not many horrors on this list because I’m a massive pussy and they’re mostly rubbish, but The Shining gets everything just right in its quest to entertain and terrify. It crawls under my skin and slowly picks my nerves apart until I can barely take it.

5. CASABLANCA (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
I always get depressed after watching Casablanca because it feels like nothing else could possibly be as good so what’s the point? Turns out there are four films just as good, if not better, so this list hasn’t been a complete waste of time after all. (Narrator: "It has")

4. BACK TO THE FUTURE (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
Proof that if your script is good enough (and this one is flawless), you can make a great family film about a teenager who hangs around with a weird old man and actively encourages his mum to try and fuck him.

3. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
Heroes don't get more heroic than Indiana Jones, and his first outing is the greatest action adventure of all time, combining thrills and LOLs with copious Nazi-punching and Harrison Ford's winning everyman performance.

2. VERTIGO (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
A tall tale about a tall tale, with manipulated actors and sadistic directors in both, Vertigo's storytelling audacity and refusal to limit the depths to which it plunges its characters make it Hitchcock's most awful, brilliant achievement.

1. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

Kubrick's greatest triumph is a beautiful, terrifying mindfuck that asks all the biggest questions and answers precisely none (except how to do a poo in zero gravity). For a film with almost no plot and whose only interesting character is a computer, It's a miracle 2001 is even watchable, let alone THE GREATEST FILM EVER MADE ACCORDING TO THE INCREDIBLE SUIT WHICH IS TEN YEARS OLD TODAY.

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What have I missed? What should be number one? What have I got against the MCU? Leave your valued comments in the goddamn toilet where they belong.

Welcome To Marwen: The figure picture

Like many children of the '80s, my life was nudged in a specific direction by Bob Zemeckis and his little film about the boy whose mum tried to fuck him in the past. Zemeckis channelled 1.21 gigawatts of power into my interest in cinema, and I repaid him by watching everything else he made, up to and including Beowulf. But his forays into motion capture left me as cold as CG Tom Hanks' dead doll's eyes, and forgive me father, for I have forsaken Bob this past decade; not one of his post-2007 films have passed mine eyes.

But then along came Welcome To Marwen, with its intriguing blend of motion capture and live action, and its bizarre claim to be based on a true story despite having a trailer full of scenes that appeared to be from a spectacularly violent, war-movie version of Toy Story, and like Doc Brown I figured: what the hell.

Steve Carell engages Serious Steve Mode for his role as Mark Hogancamp, a lonely and apparently eccentric man who takes photos of dolls posed in WWII costumes and situations, and who has a thing for women's shoes. Hogancamp's true story was told - reasonably well, by all accounts (I haven't seen it) - in Marwencol, a 2010 documentary that provided the inspiration for Zemeckis' film. The reasons for Hogancamp's model behaviour are undeniably fascinating and tragic, but the first problem with Welcome To Marwen is that it takes two hours to explain them when they could have been dealt with in a ten-minute prologue. This has two immediate effects: firstly, to summarise the premise here would count as a spoiler for the whole film; secondly, Zemeckis needs to pad out the running time somehow. And if there's one thing Hogancamp's story doesn't have that Bob Zemeckis can add, it's a metric fucktonne of motion capture action sequences.

And so about half of Welcome To Marwen consists of those war-movie Toy Story scenes, in which 'Hogie', a heroic GI action figure in 1940s Belgium (who looks suspiciously like Steve Carell) is repeatedly captured by Nazi action figures, then rescued by a collection of sexy female action figures who kill the Nazis in increasingly violent fashion. Hogancamp merely photographed these imagined stories; Zemeckis splashes them on the screen in stunningly-realised fantasy sequences that are undeniably fun to watch, but which add little to the film's emotional core that the photographs don't. In fact these sequences unbalance the story, creating a weird tonal mixture of effects-driven action comedy and weighty drama that is going to be a nightmare to sell to audiences. Here's a film that wants to cover transvestism, Neo-Nazism, hate crime, violence as a solution, substance abuse, PTSD and other assorted mental health issues, but at the same time foregrounds cutting-edge CG action and visual gags. It's certainly not boring, but it is a little uncomfortable.

Carell is fine as Hogancamp (although clearly has an absolute ball as his 1/6th scale alter-ego), and Leslie Mann is wonderful as his near-mythically non-judgemental neighbour Nicol, but every other character is a cliché of some kind or other - Gwendoline Christie's Russian carer, for example, is teeth-itchingly ill-advised. Zemeckis' script, co-written with Caroline Thompson, is clunky and obvious at times: a barman drops a lead weight of exposition on a character who is only there to receive that exposition on our behalf, for example, and unnecessary narrative devices are crowbarred in to ramp up dramatic tension. Good Characters 100% accept Mark for who he is while Bad Characters 100% reject him for being a weirdo, as if the script is terrified of offending anyone with nuance. And Zemeckis can't resist a distractingly meta, extended Back To The Future-referencing gag which made me wonder if he'd lobbed it in after watching Ready Player One.

There's a truly original and inspiring film in here somewhere, but you can't help thinking it's the one that somebody else made eight years ago. Hogancamp deserves to be acknowledged for his art and the events that led him to create it, but he probably didn't deserve to have those events diminished by embellishing them with button-pushing melodrama and a side order of mega-budget kids' holiday filler. Welcome To Marwen isn't a total failure while you're watching it, and if more people look up Mark Hogancamp as a result then all well and good. But I'm fairly sure Bob Zemeckis can do better than this, and I hope it's not another ten years before I can be arsed to find out.

Book Corner: Back To The Future - The Ultimate Visual History

As we are all no doubt painfully aware, Back To The Future is the joint-best film ever made of all time ever, and so when the sexual tyrannosaurs at Titan Books offered me a copy of their new book Back To The Future: The Ultimate Visual History to review, I bit their hand off at the shoulder. Having once, long ago, owned and read to within an inch of its papery life Michael Klastorin and Sally Hibbin's Back To The Future: The Official Book Of The Complete Movie Trilogy but flogged it on eBay in a moment of foolish desperation, I welcomed this new volume with open cheeks. It gives me unbridled joy to say that it is everything I could have hoped for and more, and when I say "and more" I mean "with added Eric Stoltz".

OLD NEWS

Put in its simplest, most pullquote-friendly terms, you cannot not be a person who doesn't not own this book. Co-written by Klastorin from his extensive and enviably deep connection with the trilogy, it's an exhaustive detailing of the genesis, production and legacy of Marty McFly's adventures dicking about in the space-time continuum. But more - so much more - than that, it is, as you might expect from a "visual history", full of lovely, lovely pictures. So when you get bored of the words, which you won't, the pictures will be there for you. Pictures like the reference photo of Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd that Drew Struzan took before turning it into a work of airbrushed genius for the BTTF Part II poster; pictures of concept art for Hill Valley across three time periods (plus a Biffhorrific version); pictures of Eric Stoltz as Marty - about FIFTEEN PAGES of them: every page reveals a new eye-arousing wonder.

What's more, many of the pictures are replica props: "a wealth of special removable items", as the book's press release describes them. Sure enough, you too can wave a 'SAVE THE CLOCK TOWER' flyer in your spouse's face, boggle at the amazing lenticular photo of the McFly family (complete with disappearing Dave and Linda) for hours on end, or frame the sepia snap of Marty and Doc either side of the Hill Valley clock in 1885 and proudly display it on your bedside table, as I may or may not have.

WHAT'S THE MEANING OF THIS?!

Of course, pictures are all well and good, but one thing many books have in the past included in order to deepen their potential is a shitload of words. And Back To The Future: The Ultimate Visual History has precisely one shitload of words. I'm not going to pretend I've read them all (some of them are quite long, plus the book only arrived the other day and it comes out on Friday, JESUS give me a break), but I can tell you that those I have read are the pictures' equal in terms of fun things to look at. Christopher Lloyd's preface, for example, asks you to imagine a world in which you were reading Jeff Goldblum's or John Lithgow's preface to the same book. This set my mind wandering for about half an hour, and upon its return I was uncertain that neither option would be a bad thing at all.

Alternate timelines aside, this book approaches its subject in a pleasingly linear fashion, describing the making of each film in order of production. So after all the idea-having and draft-writing and title-wrangling (MCA president Sid Sheinberg's hilarious memo pushing for Space Man From Pluto gets a full page to itself) is dealt with, the Stoltz era is given meaty coverage before the "real" Marty McFly arrives, complete with Fox's own battered (and discontinued) sneakers, 25 pairs of which had to be made specially by Nike because costume designer Deborah L Scott forgot Marty's "proper" shoes and preferred those the actor turned up in on day one.

Further memories, anecdotes and revelations from pretty much everyone involved in the trilogy's successive five years follow, and the briefest flick-through while standing in Waterstones will provide as convincing an ad for the book as I can give here (I just opened it at random looking for an example and accidentally spent ten minutes reading about the painstaking attempts to recreate scenes from the first film for the second). An appropriately tiddly section is given over to the Universal Studios ride and the animated series, and as you discover the final treat - a fold-out poster for Jaws 19 - you'll immediately want to stick the films on for the bazillionth time and re-indulge in their wondrousness once more. Or, like me, you can just keep playing with that lenticular photo. It really is quite clever.

Yeah, 'bye Dave

Crispin Glover's UK tour is as mad as eggs and you should definitely see it

Last Friday found me at London's deeply sensual Hackney Picturehouse for the opening night of the UK tour of Crispin Glover: actor, director, writer and artist who - whether he likes it or not - will forever be connected to the role of George McFly in Back To The Future. While that role is undeniably magnificently written and portrayed, Glover has a remarkable body of other work behind him, much of which is completely and utterly batshit mental. And I'm not just talking about Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

A typical evening on his current tour (which visits several Picturehouses in the UK over the next three weeks) consists of Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Slide Show, in which he reads from obscure 19th century books which he's altered for his own ends; a screening of one of two films he's directed (which film you get depends on which venue you book) and a post-screening Q&A. It's a fascinatingly odd experience which will delight as many as it will frustrate; personally I loved it, but the gentleman next to me in the Back To The Future t-shirt was left visibly and audibly frustrated by Glover's insistence on yelling non-sequiturs in German rather than discussing fondly-remembered weekends spent skateboarding with Michael J Fox.

The slide show is the maddest part of the event: less a deconstruction of the concept of storytelling than a total obliteration and subsequent reconstruction of it by a demented force. Glover reads lengthy extracts - often from memory - of stories, manuals and textbooks from which he's removed several passages and, occasionally, added his own contributions. The pages appear behind him on screen, and are annotated and illustrated by what appears to be a deranged spider with too many dark thoughts and not enough friends. Not a second of it makes an ounce of sense, so you have to be prepared to let it happen to you, although towards the end I found myself so immersed in Glover's world that I began to appreciate and enjoy some of the readings. I remember thoroughly liking one called An Egg Farm, but can't for the life of me remember anything about it now except that it was really quite crackers.

Friday's screening was of Glover's second film in his proposed It trilogy, It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE., while some dates on the tour will screen the first film, What Is It?. Part three, IT IS MINE, is some years from completion, although evidently it will continue to employ an avant-garde approach to capitalisation. It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. is a remarkable, surreal and challenging film written by its lead, Steven C Stewart, who was crippled by cerebral palsy (he died a month after filming wrapped). Stewart plays a man who deals with his handicap and his feelings for long-haired, beautiful women in unusual and occasionally troubling ways, and while it's certainly an offbeat film it's much less bonkers than Glover's slide show. A lazy person would probably describe it as almost Lynchian in its wilful weirdness, so I'll simply say that to me it seemed almost Lynchian in its wilful weirdness.

Low on production values but high on originality, It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. feels like a far braver and much more starkly honest version of last year's Helen Hunt / John Hawkes-starring The Sessions. Unrestricted by such annoyances as certification and studio approval, Glover's film dispenses entirely with cheese and goes straight for the jugular with its rage-fuelled protagonist and arguably misogynistic approach. It's probably not one to watch with your mum, but it does give you some insight into what it must be to be so agonisingly frustrated by a disease which renders your body useless but your mind lively and bursting with everyday impulses upon which it is near-impossible to act.

I had to leave the post-screening Q&A early in order to take advantage of outer London's marvellous weekend public transport timings (want to stay out past 11pm on a Friday? Then enjoy getting home via at least four varied and torturous methods, possibly by Sunday if you're lucky), but fortunately Mr Glover kindly agreed to my own personal Q&A via email. So here's a closer look at the musings of a deranged madman, and as a bonus I've included Crispin Glover's responses.

Hello Crispin. IS EVERYTHING FINE? Hello Neil! One usually only says "It is fine!" when something is actually wrong. How would you prepare someone who's coming to one of your current shows because they loved you in Back To The Future but know nothing else about you? I'm thinking in particular of someone like this chap: Frankly that is quite rare. I’ve not had many people come to the show that have exclusively seen me in Back To The Future. At least not people that come up to me. I would prepare them in the same way I would prepare anyone. I prefer films that cause the audience to ask questions. Your Big Slide Show includes some amazing slides: did you make all those annotations and illustrations yourself? How long did the process take? I started making my books in 1983 for my own enjoyment without the concept of publishing them. I had always written and drawn and the books came as an accidental outgrowth of that. I made most of the books in the '80s and very early '90s. Some of the books utilize text from the binding it was taken from and some of them are basically completely original text. Sometimes I would find images that I was inspired to create stories for or sometimes it was the binding or sometimes it was portions of the texts that were interesting. Altogether, I made about twenty of them. The books and films are all narrative. Sometimes people see thematic correlations between the content of my books and the content of the films. How did you select which books to use as the basis for the Big Slide Show? Many of the books that are in the show are specifically books that will perform well dramatically or that have a sense of humor. Some of the books that I have not used in the slide shows are books that work more as art objects as opposed to narratives. Your presentation technique in the Big Slide Show feels like you, as an actor, playing a part. Is that fair? How much of the real Crispin Glover are we watching? I would assess the slide show performance as a performance and interpretation of books I made not originally meant for performance. That being said I enjoy performing them. You described It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE as "the best film I'll have anything to do with in my whole career". What is it about the film that you are most proud of? The cinematic and subconscious emotional catharsis that happens with the protagonist / writer / Steven C Stewart in the film is central to what I am proud of with this film. You played Andy Warhol in The Doors: as an avant-garde artist do you feel any affinity with him? I met and spoke with Andy Warhol at the wedding of Madonna and Sean Penn. It was right after Back To The Future had come out which he had apparently seen. I did not speak with him for so long but definitely enough to get an idea about him. He was quite nice to me. After I spoke with him I stood back and looked at him and watched how he held himself and thought he would be an interesting person to play. I had met Oliver Stone previously for Platoon which I was not in, but we had a good meeting and I auditioned for the role and got it. I would not compare myself to Warhol for a lot of reasons, but I would take any comparison as a compliment. First off, the enormity of influence of Warhol’s art is something that is extremely important to consider. Someone asked me once if I related to Warhol's eccentricities. I feel like Warhol’s "eccentricities" were very different from my own, and frankly I believe that a lot of my own perceived eccentricities are greatly exacerbated by inaccurate media myopia. I do not know what Warhol would say about his perceived eccentricities, although I would say he was much more in control of his media perception during his entire career than I have been of mine for much of mine. You've also dabbled in music, and I love your song 'Clowny Clown Clown'. How do you really feel about clowns? The lyrics leave one uncertain. Even as a child I never found clowns particularly amusing. I am a little confused as to why even children find clowns amusing. 'Clowny Clown Clown' by Crispin Glover. Warning: contains clowns I recently watched Rubin & Ed, the film in which you play Rubin Farr, who also infamously appeared on David Letterman and in your video for 'Clowny Clown Clown'. Is Rubin an alter ego of sorts? I have neither confirmed nor denied in media whether or not that was me on the 1986 Late Night with David Letterman appearance. If asked I go in to a lot of detail about it at my shows. You own a 17th century castle in the Czech Republic where you are planning to shoot your future films. Do you know any Czech swear words? No. Like me, you are an only child. Did you ever invent imaginary friends as substitute siblings? I mean, not that I did or anything. No. I did not invent imaginary friends. Unlike me, your father Bruce played a Bond villain's henchman in Diamonds Are Forever. Are you a Bond fan? Who's your favourite James Bond and what's your favourite Bond film? I have not seen all the Bond films or all the actors that have played Bond. I think the first Bond film I saw was Diamonds Are Forever so I do like that one. I also like Dr. No. I love Notorious by Hitchcock with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. That is the movie that supposedly influenced Ian Fleming to write his first Bond novel Casino Royale. I did see the recent Casino Royale and thought Daniel Craig did an excellent job and liked to see the obvious structural influences on that story from Hitchcock’s and Ben Hecht's great screenplay for Notorious. Would playing a Bond villain be something that might interest you? Certainly. Who is your favourite Charlie's Angel? I do not have a favorite Angel. All three of the actresses were very nice people to work with. Of note structurally, the character I played in Charlie’s Angels was somewhat similar to the character my father played in Diamonds Are Forever. They were both assassins that kept coming back to at least seem to attempt to assassinate the protagonists. You starred in Hot Tub Time Machine, a film which examined some of the most basic elements of the human condition, such as what it is to be a man, to be an adult, to lose sight of your hopes and dreams, and to find true happiness and a peaceful soul. If you had a hot tub time machine, would you use it to travel in time or just to feel the bubbles? Time travel would be of course amazing. Crispin Glover's one-armed bell boy was tragically absent from the Hot Tub Time Machine marketing campaign. Finally, as a man who has long contemplated growing a beard, I am impressed by your very handsome facial hair. How do you decide when to grow a beard and when to shave it off, and how do you maintain it? I have only in the last several years grown out facial hair because it has been appropriate for a number of period films in which I have played characters that it would be appropriate for. I do not grow facial hair or wear my hair for my own personal preference. My preference is probably shorter hair and clean shaven. Crispin Glover, thank you very much for your time. Thank you Neil!

Details of the rest of Crispin Hellion Glover's UK tour can be found at his website, CrispinGlover.com.

What The Hell Do NASA Know About Anything?

Those crazy kids over at NASA have proclaimed 2009's steaming apocalyptic turdcake 2012 to be the most absurd science fiction film ever, due to its 158-minute eruption of scientifically implausible events and, of course, its massive shitness.

Well excuse me, but I'd prefer it if NASA would stick to building rockets rather than ripping apart rubbish films for their own entertainment. That's my job. Besides, I bet I could pick five science fiction films at random that are more absurd than 2012. What's that? You want me to do just that? Oh OK. Jesus, anybody would think I was just desperately looking around for something to blog about.

Back To The Future

A teenage boy spots another teenage boy watching a teenage girl undressing and, rather than hoofing up the tree and joining him, looks on in disgust? ZAZEEV.

Absurdity: Heavy

WALL·E

He spends the entire film calling his girlfriend by the wrong name and at no point does she get so pissed off that she fires red hot laserbolts into his stupid, massive, undeniably adorable eyes? That woman must be some kind of robot.

Absurdity: MIGHT·E

District 9

There's an alien mincing about in a pink bra. PINK. With those shoes? Bitch please.

Absurdity: Intergalactic

Transformers

Megan Fox is sexually attracted to Shia LaBeouf? Er, HELLO? Have you looked at his face, love?

Absurdity: Astronomical

The Thing

A man puts his hands through another man's chest, gets them bitten off by a gigantic set of rib-teeth, then a tower of guts shoots out of the chest cavity with a set of tentacles and a really ugly wailing head on top which Kurt Russell immediately sets fire to, only for the chesty rib-teeth guy's own head to pull itself off and along the floor with a four-foot-long tongue before sprouting spider's legs and antennae and scampering out of the room, and NOBODY says "You've gotta be fucking kidding"?

What's that?

Oh.

Absurdity: Zero. Totes plausible.

One Of The 15 Greatest Films Ever Made In The History Of Ever Is Being Re-Released

This is a message to all parents of children between about 8 and 17: If your kids haven't seen Back To The Future and you don't take them to see it when it's re-released in cinemas on October 1st, I will report all of your asses to social services. YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE PARENTS.

In the meantime, here's some old stuff I wrote about a perfect film with a perfect cast and a brilliant script and a flawless plot and amazing music and more charm, wit and fun than anything that's been released this year.

As the trailer clumsily points out: "It's about time... you saw... Back To The Future... Back To The Future!" A film so good they named it twice.

Unfortunately they let the work experience kid loose on the poster, and this is what he puked up in between making tea:

I can't wait to see a film about half a teenager inexplicably floating above a tiny car which is such an iconic vehicle in the history of the cinema that I'm only allowed to see the back of it.

Seriously, what's wrong with this?

NOTHING.

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A Silly Question

"If you could live forever, what car would you drive?", asks this billboard for Eclipse, knowing full well it isn't going to get the answer it wants to hear.

If I could live forever, I wouldn't limit myself to one car. That would be crackers. I'd drive a series of increasingly outrageous motors to reflect the mounting insanity brought on by watching everyone around me die.

I'd start with something amazing like a Ferrari 288 GTO, move on to every Aston Martin James Bond ever drove from the DB5 to the DBS, use a time-travelling DeLorean just to pop to the shops, get the General Lee from The Dukes Of Hazzard and KITT from Knight Rider (the original, obv) to leap over rivers, probably get one of those hideous Lamborghini Countach things just to annoy the neighbours and then I'd drive every movie Batmobile up and down the M1, using the Tumbler from Batman Begins to cross the central reservation and crush oncoming vehicles. At weekends I would drive the Condormobile from Condorman very slowly around the estate trying to pick up chicks.

What I would never drive, even in an eternity of everlasting life, is a Volvo XC60, which, according to Wikipedia, boasts such tedious safety features as:

"a whiplash protection system, side impact protection system, roll stability control, dynamic stability and traction control, inflatable curtain airbags, hill descent control, collision warning with brake support, active bi-xenon lights, blah blah yawn yawn zeds."

Why would I want any of that? I'M IMMORTAL!! I could ride naked on a Harley Davidson at 200mph through a fine mesh of razor wire and it wouldn't make a scratch, you 24-hour-headlight-shining idiots!

Any vampire caught at the wheels of one of those is clearly a pasty-faced, pointy-toothed, blood-guzzling loser who's been forced into the most incongruous piece of product placement since Daniel Craig squeezed his gigantic pecs into a Ford Mondeo in Casino Royale.

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Hot Tub Time Machine: Exactly Like Back To The Future!

I've been analysing Hot Tub Time Machine since I saw it, and what has struck me as quite remarkable is its uncanny similarity to Back To The Future. Obviously a claim like that requires empirical evidence to back it up, so I've wheeled out The Incredible Suit's Comparotron 2000 to illustrate my point.

I think you'll agree that pretty much seals it.

In fact the only ways in which Hot Tub Time Machine differs from Back To The Future are in its all-encompassing absence of wit, charm and likeable characters, its reliance on poo and knob jokes and a continuous stream of swears in place of clever humour, its entirely predictable and lazy plotting, its casting of a kooky Zooey Deschanel-alike who I think I was actually supposed to think was Zooey Deschanel, its staggering failure to make us celebrate the return of Chevy Chase, its central message that to be happy and successful you need to be unspeakably wealthy and a complete asshole, the general impression that it was written by a plate of minced beef and the fact that it's not even as good as you'd expect a film called Hot Tub Time Machine to be.

Other than that, it's practically a shot-for-shot remake.

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