Sleuth should definitely count. From Laurence Olivier, and continuing all the way to Michael Caine, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the entire cast are A-listers.
Are you suggesting that as an example of an all-star film? If so, which of the cast was a big star in 1983?
I disagree with many on this list. The all-star cameo films of the late fifties/early sixties were basically gimmicks (*Around the World in Eighty Days, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, * the justly-forgotten Pepe) and the big star list disaster films of the seventies were similarly gimmicks, and generally awful (Airport, I think, started the trend, and I think Airplane! was intended in part to skewer that, but not before we’d gotten *The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, * and the truly abysmal The Swarm/.
We’re talking about movie stars, however. Being well known on TV in the UK doesn’t make you a movie star. And as I said, they never became major movie stars at any point, even after the Python movies. Cleese had the most extensive career in movies, and he generally had cameos or minor roles rather than being a lead (Wanda and Fierce Creatures excepted.)
I happily agree with all of these.
ISWYDT.
I’ve always loved the 1976 comedy country-house mystery spoof Murder by Death..
Written by Neil Simon, starring Peter Sellers, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Peter Falk, Elsa Lanchester, Alec Guinness, and Estelle Winwood, among others. Also Truman Capote in his only film appearance acting a part.
Plus James Cromwell in his first feature role. He went on to star in Babe and L.A. Confidential.
Mad, Mad, Mad was the first movie that came to my mind as an all-star movie, but I don’t see it, or really any of them as working all that well. They can be entertaining, but in terms of movie quality and comparative ratings they all seem to be a little short outside of the star studded cast category.
Still, among those, Mad, Mad, Mad deserves a spot. It had a huge number of stars and for a long movie (2 1/2 - 3 hour versions) it remained entertaining throughout.
Not to mention the opening credits: pop ups of a spooky house and caricatures of the stars, drawn by the great Charles Addams.
(Bolding mine) Why must people always try to come with with a reason why other people don’t like their favorite whatever, usually ascribing it to those people trying to be hip or jumping on the bandwagon or something? Why not just accept that a lot of people just dislike the movie (and may have disliked it from the start)? You’ve even given 2 plot lines that didn’t work for a lot of people. I can give you reasons why many of the plot lines didn’t work for me. And if you think the Keira Knightley plot line only became unpleasant after 2003 under today’s lens, you’re mistaken. In fact I know people who love the movie who never liked the Keira Knightley segment past the wedding.
I may have gotten that one wrong, I tend to ignore those types of articles.
Bolding my bit…
Because it’s true. I’ve been a big fan of that movie since the jump and there are some legit criticisms of it that I’ve read over the years that I disagree with, but make sense. One of these is that the movie is too saccharine. I love how drippingly sweet it is, but I can see how a lot of people don’t.
However, unless proven otherwise, articles like this and this and this which talks about the “male gaze” and “treating the women like pawns” is a much more modern interpretation of a feel-good story from 2001 than what was originally reported at the time. I’m all for you not liking the things I like, but I get a bit :dubious: when the reasons all are told to me within the past 5 years and they have nothing to do with the way the movie was made and/or plotted.
There was an old trivia game…you start naming a cast, and people have to guess the movie. I always got people with this one until it became obvious by the end:
Laurence Olivier
Daniel Day Lewis
Bernard Hill
Liam Neeson
Edward Fox…
Mel Gibson
Anthony Hopkins
I’m sure under a ‘modern lens’…contemporary thinkpieces dislike the Firth storyline in “Love Actually” because "The colonizer Firth takes advantage of the power dynamic between him and his Portugese housekeeper to pressure her into a relationship’.
Also the Hugh Grant storyline with the PM having a relationship with his tea lady. And Alan Rickman having an extramarital affair with an employee. Really, quite a few of the relationships shown in the movie are between people at different levels of the power structure. (And yet I really like the movie a whole lot.)
Come to think of it, the movie Lonely Hearts had a big star line-up including, John Travolta, Salma Hayek, James Gandolfini, Jared Leto, Scott Caan, Laura Dern and Tibby.
That’s right,* yours truly* starred in that movie. 
So did my ex and my oldest daughter.
Alright, we can quibble over the term “starred in.” Let’s just say I was an “all-star extra.”
As a lark we responded to a cattle call when they were casting in my city. They chose ¾ of my family. They told my 3 year old daughter to hit the bricks (and she was the most photogenic of our seedy lot).
It was a blast! For some reason, the assistant director kept choosing *me *to be in a number of scenes. The other extras were getting pissed.
My ex and I got reamed out by the director when he called “action!” and we were bickering on screen during a big, complicated scene and he had to re-set everything. :o He also got a little miffed when my 5-year old daughter kept grabbing a banana instead of an apple during the outdoor market scene (the kid prefers bananas, what can I say?).
Travolta and Hayek were both quite nice and chatty with the extras between takes. John told me I was “lookin’ good” (in my period 40’s suit). Hayek’s dog peed on me on the lot, but she apologized (Salma, not the dog).
I had one scene where the director told me to walk around the corner and head directly toward the camera, then pass on the right. For ~10 seconds, I was the only person framed on screen (ultimately filling the screen) until Travolta, Gandolfini and Caan passed me on the left from behind the camera. I believe this is how Sir Lawrence Olivier got his start?
Damn idiot editor cut the beginning of my big scene out! :mad: Pretty embarrassing since at the premiere I told friends and family, “shuddup, here comes my big scene!” and the movie cuts to those *other *3 chumps. Back to my day job, I suppose.
Shame the movie bombed at the box office (maybe they shouldn’t have cut out my big scene?). If you ever get a chance to be an extra in a Hollywood film, take it. It’s an eye-opening experience. But, once was enough.
Did I miss a Bridge Too Far above? As war movies goes it is reasonably decent IMHO( though many critics disagreed ).
Major cast:
Michael Caine
Sean Connery
James Caan
Gene Hackman
Robert Redford
Anthony Hopkins
Elliot Gould
Ryan O’Neal
Liv Ullmann
Laurence Olivier
Maximilian Schell
Edward Fox
…among others
So, find the articles about it and cite them here.
Because it’s not a take I recall ever reading.
Needless to say, it’s certainly not the story shown.
Ninja’d! I scrolled all the way to the bottom of this thread to finally find Bridge Too Far. Surprisingly good movie - handles the complexity of the operation well, avoids cliche, attempts realism. Makes you forget it was from the 1970s, when production quality of this level was rare. (Just look at Midway from 1976. OMG.)
Still my favorite lines:
Sidney Wang: “Oh, there, voice come from cow on wall…”
Lionel Twain: [from moose head] “Moose, moose, you imbecile! And use your damn prepositions!”
Sam Diamond: “Everybody, freeze!..I gotta go to the can again, and I don’t want ta miss nothing!”
You’re welcome to your opinion, but it is a minority opinion. It has solid ratings and is well remembered. Stanley Kramer by most accounts pulled off a solid comedic effort.
IMDB: 7.5
Amazon: 4.6/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 69% critics 83% Audience!
Google: 90%
I happen to think it is an excellent comedy.