The List

Zuly's Top Ten Favorite Movies

This list will have a special guest to Paris Hilton Presents: The Hellhole, Zuly. She will talk about her top ten favorite movies, and then I, Luis, will make fun of her about them. Sounds good? Good.

Zuly's List

Zuly's Top Ten Movies 10. Girl with a Pearl Earring: A young peasant maid working in the house of painter Johannes Vermeer becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works. It's actually based on a book that was based on a painting by Johannes Vermeer. He was a 17th century dutch painter and along with Rembrandt was part of the Dutch Golden age. This movie is wonderful. It really portrays the social/class boundaries between two people that obviously have a connection and cannot do much about it. It's the subtle things inspired by intense emotions that make this movie captivating. There's a pretty good cast but the ones that stand out are Colin Firth, which plays Veermer and Scarlett Johanssen which plays the Greit, the young peasent maid. Cillian Murphy is also in this movie. He plays Pieter, a butcher. 09. Dogma: The last known descendant of Christ is called upon to save the existence of humanity from being negated by two renegade angels trying to exploit a loophole. Now, I know it might seem like I'm sacriligious by liking this movie, maybe I am, but I think it's hilarious. It doesn't bother me much because it pokes fun at catholicism and I'm not catholic. (those who know me know how I feel about it too). Even if you think this movie is offensive, you have to admit that "Buddy Jesus" is pretty funny. 08. A Patch of Blue: A black professional man meets a young white blind girl and they fall in love. OK, so that's a bad synopsis but this movie is from 1965. Sydney Portier was one of the first recognized black actors of american movies. This movie, which is based on an Australian novel, shows that love has no superficial boundaries. It's set at a time where interracial dating was extremely taboo and the girl being blind allowed her to fall in love without the influence of society and what they think is right and wrong. Everyone around them isn't so accepting of their relationship, of course. 07. The Libertine: The story of John Wilmot, a.k.a. the Earl of Rochester, a 17th century poet who famously drank and debauched his way to an early grave, only to earn posthumous critical acclaim for his life's work. This movie is an instant favorite with me. If you've seen the movie Quills, you'll like this one. The acting is absolutely impecable. Johnny Depp plays John Wilmot and his love interest is played by Samantha Morton. At the beginning of the movie, you make a clear disctinction between who is "good" and who is "bad", but as the plot progresses those lines blur. It is very, very graphic ( that's where this movie and quills relate). I loved it. 06. L'Auberge Espagnole: A straight laced French student moves into an apartment in Barcelona with a cast of six other characters from all over Europe. Together, they speak the international language of love and friendship. This movie was recommended to me by a friend because he thought I would love it and he was absolutely right. It's a clever movie that gives people like me an insight about young people of other cultures. It's all based on one character's experience in the Erasmus program where he went to study economics in Barcelona, Spain. ( Erasmus is a student exchange program in Europe). I really can't describe this movie in a nutshell, but I just recommend it. It's lovely. 05. Garden State: A quietly troubled young man returns home for his mother's funeral after being estranged from his family for a decade. This was Zach Braff's writing and directorial debut. In my opinion, it's brilliant. There's a lot of attention to detail and subtle jokes here and there. Natalie Portman plays the quirky love interest. It's just a rare, heart-warming movie. It's not fluff at all, it's simple and adorable. 04. Love Actually: Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England. So this movie is like who's who of british actors. Every good british actor is in it. The script is quite clever and delightfu and enhanced by good acting. It's a feel good christmas movie but not the dumb, cheesy kind. 03. Pi : A paranoid mathematician searches for a key number that will unlock the universal patterns found in nature. This movie was also recommened to me by a friend and I honestly didn't think I'd like it. When I watched it, I was so intrigued. I couldn't stop watching it. I felt like the whole time I watched it I didn't blink. The way it is shot is pretty cool. black and white, grainy and interetsing angles. I'd describe this one as intriguing. 02. Pulp Fiction: The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption. This movie rules. It keeps me on my toes and it's full of great actors. I would have never thought that shooting someone in the head and everything splattering everywhere would be funny to me, but in this movie, it was. I did learn something from this movie...i had no idea what a gimp was until i saw it. And the number one pick is... 01. The Usual Suspects: Five villains in New York are rounded up by police in an unconventional manner that worries them. After release, they get together for a spot of revenge, but someone else is controling events. This is the mother of all movies, hands down. It is the best movie I have ever seen. It also has one of the most underrated actors in the world in it, Kevin Spacey. The movie just rules. I can't explain it and the best part is the sudden plot twist. Anyone who hasn't seen this movie has to see it, has to see it. You really don't know what you're missing.

Luis's Response

10. Girl with a Pearl Earring: Right off the bat, Zuly kicks things off with some boring artsy movie that nobody except her and her opera schoolmates have heard of. This movie probably isn't as good as Arnold's worst movie (tie between Batman and Robin and Junior), and I'll wager has no explosions, un-needed sex, terrorists getting their faces blown off, or one liners. This movie can't possibly be good. 9. Dogma: This movie would be funny...if the DEVIL hadn't made it! Watching this movie is a sin, and Zuly is going to hell for liking it. Buddy Christ is gonna look real funny when he's laughing at you while you burn in eternal flames, won't he? 8. A Patch of Blue: As Zuly stated, this movie was made in 1965, automatically negating it from being a good movie. They didn't make good movies before Dolemite in the 70's. Aside from that, the movie is about an inter-racial couple. Who cares? Every black rapper is banging a white girl right now as you read this. It's not a big deal anymore, and if you expect me to transport my mind back to a mentality that was around before I was even born, you're asking way too much of me as a movie-goer. 7. The Libertine: Zuly says that if you've watched the movie Quills, you'll love this movie. Too bad I've never heard of either, so I guess they both suck. The only reason Zuly likes this movie is because, according to the description, Johnny Depp must engage is some pretty near-porn sexual activities, causing Zuly's nipples to become ever so taut. As a heterosexual male, I can assume I'd be not so interested in seeing that, so this movie sucks as well. 6. L'Auberge Espagnole: This movie was recommended by a friend, huh? I think it'd be a safe assumption that this friend is gay, right? Moving on, it sounds like I'd either not understand the language, or I'd have to be reading subtitles the whole movie, which doesn't interest me unless the plot is unbelievable. Two people speaking to eachother in the language of love really doesn't sound that unbelievable. I would assume that by the end of the movie, you'd be asking, "Where's Kane? This movie sucks." So yeah. This movie sucks. 5. Garden State: This movie doesn't sound awful, but it sure doesn't sound like it belongs on anybody's favorite movies of all time list. It's just another quirky romance movie wtih a pretty good starlett, Natalie Portman. I could probably write this movie if I tried hard enough, but since my duties here at Paris Hilton Presents: The Hellhole far outweigh making movies that Zuly thinks are the greatest movies ever, I'll have to acquiese. Sorry. 4. Love Actually: Another movie that doesn't sound terrible but doesn't sound like anything that belongs on a greatest movies of all time list. There's some witty Brits in the movie, so I suppose that's why Zuly loves it so much. 3. Pi: How do you describe a movie as "intriguing" and then say it's your third favorite movie? I've never seen this, but everybody that's talked to me about it told me that the way it's shot is not "cool" but very distracting and annoying. One friend even told him he felt like vomitting by the end. I have no idea if this movie is interesting or not, but numbers flashing randomly across the screen sounds like it would ruin the entire experience for me, so I'm gonna have to say that Zuly is an idiot. 2. Pulp Fiction: Here's a problem. I actually like this movie. A lot. So there's no real way of making fun of it. Although I do suspect that one of the reasons Zuly likes it is because she has a thing for gay dudes, and Ving Rhames getting raped was probably pretty tantalizing to her. Who knows? 1. The Usual Suspects: And again...I have no problem with this movie. Jeez, Zuly had to kill all my insulting momentum I had built by putting two actually good movies as her top two. Oh well, for my own amusement, I'll ruin the huge plot twist and tell you that Keiser Sosie (or however you spell his name) is Stephen Baldwin. Live with it.