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They also get the Bond sound completely wrong. They sound nothing like Legrand .
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
-well, this sounds foreign. Because it is. Who knew a foreign film could be among my favorite films of all time. I have an indian friend who told me that if I ever watched an Indian film which I didnt want to, that to see this one. So we did. And it touched me in my soul in a way no other film has made me feep. It inspired me to do track for my highschool too. You do need subtitles for this and bollywood is differant from hollywood for sure, but as a piece of cinema, I think it is incredible and cant wait to see what you guys think. Its three hours though, so set apart some time to be sucked in to this one.
The Aviator
- this is a more "mainstream" film but nonetheless another film that has a great deal of importance to me. The drama and performances speak to me in a way no other film does. Perhaps its because I am a little ocd sometimes, but I find it wildly entertaining just watching this guy and his achievements in life
The machinist
- this is not like a favorite of mine or anything but I watched it recently and found that its very strange. It features a sickly thin Christian bale. I found it quite original and creepy.
Zindagi Na Milengi Dobara
So I asked my friend again" Dog, is there any other good bollywood films or are the rest shit" and he said okay there is another exceptional film in the league of the last one we watched. And boy it is. This film has maybe the best script and screenplay. The charcters, drama, emotions, tentions, and jokes feel so real that it is unparalleled by any other film in the drama-comedy genere that I can think of. Again though, subtitles needed which is kind of a pain in the ass but this movie is fantastic so its worth it.
Memento
My favorite non bond film. If everyone here has seen it already perhaps ill choose another film but for now it will stay. I love this film. Its unique and fun to watch everytime I switch it on
Exactly. You can do any genre or language (but it'd be great if there were subtitles) and you can pick things you think people haven't seen, or movies you really enjoy and simply wants to share. People could pick things they want to see for the first time with everyone too, if they wished. Doesn't matter, really.
I'll tell you what I think about Memento at the beginning of this thread.
@PropertyOfALady, if you were seeing it for the first time, I'd suggest reading nothing about it. The less you know going in, the better.
I was preparing a longer response, I'll go with MEMENTO. That offers a good start to the effort, plus time to work out the best way forward.
I didn't want to gum up the works, but I do want to follow the plan as closely as possible. I get that certain movies will be hard to track down, but I think it's important to get the lists out of the way first because those movies are the things we'll be picking from as the months go by.
I know that @GoldenGun and @Strog are doing theirs and will be posting them, and thought that everyone would follow suit. I'll try to finish off my list as well and post it, but I'm laboring on two or three picks.
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
3. The Driver (1978)
4. Following (1998)
5. A Night to Remember (1958)
Start with those from me @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7
Going down that road I'd propose these for consideration.
The Manchurian Candidate, John Frankenheimer, 1962
Get Carter, Michael Hodges, 1971
Léon: The Professional, Luc Besson, 1994
Grosse Point Blank, George Armitage, 1997
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Jim Jarmusch, 1999
Yes, access to the titles can be an issue. It's good to call out available sources at least in the UK, US, and locales of identified members. Help from the message board can confirm what's out there as well as grease the film choices.
1. KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962) / Polanski
2. FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) / Wilcox
3. THE LONG GOODBYE (1973) / Altman
4. THE OX-BOW INCIDENT (1943) / Wellman
5. F FOR FAKE (1974) / Welles
#3 is especially for you, Brady -- give you that kick in the pants you need ;)
A variety of genres for everyone, though, I hope, from a nice thirty-year window (the last two are available on the world's most popular video site by the way, and a library card should net you no.'s 2 and 3; 1 is available via Netflix DVD).
Two other points:
(1) It might be fun, at some point in the future—not for this first round of five—to line up a certain pick with a certain theme. So say we make it through everyone's five films here, then we all re-list another five. Beforehand we might stipulate that the new #5 can be any film in a certain genre, or from a certain director, or from a certain decade. That way we have a whole round of similar films that we might be able to build discussion off of from one to the next, comparing and contrasting and contextualizing, etc. Might be fun to switch it up once in a while like that. Just a thought.
(2) As far as availability, I recently switched back to using Netflix via mail (DVD.com now) and it is well worth it. Along with mostly everyone, I dropped the mail portion of Netflix when the split off streaming a few years back. Forgot what I was missing. There are more complaints about the service now than before, but from what I can gather, that's more to do with a decreasingly excellent postal service than it is Netflix. I'm lucky to live in an area where (so far, knock on wood) delivery has been speedy and mostly unaffected by mishandling (I received a cracked disc on one occasion and the replacement was quickly sent).
That said, I know Netflix isn't realistic for all. So alternatively, we could look into a service such as CyTube which would allow us to organize live-streamed, virtual movie screenings of the chosen films at agreed upon times. There's some setting up to do, and we would surely have to coordinate screening times across time zones, but it may be worth it as a means for anyone who can't get hold of the film.
My picks:
1. La Notte (1961)
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Featuring greats like Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau and Monica Vitti. Moreau recently passed away and has been hailed as nothing less than 'the greatest actress ever lived'. In her honour my first film has to be one of her best.
This film is widely considered by film scholars and quite a few acclaimed directors, including Orson Welles if I'm not mistaken, to be one of the best films ever. I am absolutely captivated by La Notte and would love to share it. Shouldn't be too hard to find with subtitles either.
2. Tenebre (1982)
Directed by Dario Argento
All horror fans should definitely be familiar with the work of Dario Argento. Influential to the horror genre with his 'giallo' films. A 'giallo' is an Italian murder mystery subgenre spiced with magnificent visual flair and astonishingly atypical music. This particular one is my favourite for the meta-question that it raises: "Do horror directors/writers have a bad influence on their public?".
English versions exist and are easy to find though the dubbing is, as in many Italian films, a bit off.
3. Persona (1966)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
In the same league as my first choice but instead of Italian chaos we get Swedish minimalism. Also considered one of the great movies with a captivating Liv Ullmann.
No problem finding a version with subtitles either.
4. Manhunter (1986)
Directed by Michael Mann
My first English language contribution has to be one from visual wizard Michael Mann. His impressive use of pastel colours gives an eery atmosphere to the mystery and tension on screen. Chilling from beginning to end, this is better than any Hannibal flick with Hopkins, sorry Anthony.
Brilliant 80's soundtrack as well, I would lie if I don't admit that I put it on sometimes.
5. Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Being Bond fans we all love spy films and this one might be the best of them all (excluding your favourite Bond film here ;) ). No action but human emotions are the core of this film about a Stasi, the East German secret police, operative who has to spy on civilians to make sure they won't be planning to escape the GDR or just have any non-communist sympathies for that matter. Mindblowingly understated performance from Ulrich Mühe.
Acadamy Award Best Foreign Language Film.
I really love this idea, @Strog, and was thinking about something similar to it today in a roundabout way. I wondered about how the ordering of members would go and how often we'd be watching certain genre films back-to-back in their lists (noir, western, espionage, etc) and thought it would be great to have some comparison between films from week to week if that did happen.
Your idea, of picking a theme for some numberings in the future, would give us the ability to do that. With how many people are participating now, it would be a great way to get through a big catalogue of certain directors, like a Kubrick, Welles or Huston, as we'd have over ten people picking movies. In the same way, it'd be a great way of seeing how a particular genre has changed over time, specifically with noirs, where members could pick movies from the 40s to now to see how the genre has changed over time but in other ways remained the same.
@GoldenGun, I remember you listing those titles in the favorite films thread. Great to see some international selections, and some horror and darker films as well.
1) Rocky
2) The Wicker Man
3) Police Story 3: Supercop
4) First Blood
5) The Inbetweeners Movie 2 (because I'd like to introduce some of our non British members to The Inbetweners)
It's only fair that Memento is doing everything out of order.
Ha ha, good point. So should everyone interested in joining in, regularly or irregularly get until next weekend to come up with a list?
1.) The Maltese Falcon (1941)/ Dir. John Huston
A film that can't be adequately put into perspective, no matter how much it is watched and appreciated. In a film that is called the springboard of the noir genre, Humphrey Bogart takes the lead as private eye Sam Spade while being supported by some of the best performers of his day, including Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet who would go on to make another filmmaking classic alongside him in the next year's Casablanca. Maltese weaves a complicated narrative web characteristic of noir films as a detective is lied to by everyone around him-and does some lying of his own-in order to probe the effects that a mysterious falcon statue has had on a set of interconnected lives. This one did for noir what Bond did for spy films, to give a bit of context.
I chose this film as the first on my list namely because I know we'll be watching a lot of noir films throughout this adventure and I thought it was important to have everyone watch the movie that began it all so that they could appreciate where the genre went in later noir films or even more modern neo-noirs. All you need to know about noir filmmaking and its visual style, tone and narrative archetypes of private dicks, femme fatales and gunsels are all here in this landmark piece of filmmaking. A viewing of The Maltese Falcon will give the uninitiated an education in noir to appreciate later movies that followed in its wake, and on top of that it's just damn fine filmmaking.
2.) High Noon (1952)/ Dir. Fred Zinnemann
Westerns are known for a lot of things: cowboys versus Indians, rip-roaring adventures across dusty terrains and a celebration of American tenacity and spirit. But few films outside of High Noon have experimented so daringly with the expectations of the genre to create a story that pushed boundaries during its original release and still remains powerful today. In a movie that famed western star John Wayne hated for its cynicism and lack of American spirit, a lone sheriff prepares to face an unexpected challenge as his retirement nears with every tick of the clocks that become visual motifs of the piece.
The surprising earnestness and emotional desperation of High Noon creates a bleak yet moving portrait of endurance through unexpected means, and is important to witness for how Zinnemann pushed the limits of his day to tell the story. I figure that a lot of westerns will be suggested in the coming months, so as with The Maltese Falcon, I thought it'd be appropriate to share a film that defined and innovated in a familiar genre and became an influence for many other movies following its release.
3.) Chinatown (1974)/ Dir. Roman Polanski
The reason it's important to watch The Maltese Falcon and study the conventions of a noir film is to fully appreciate how Chinatown used those narrative roots and expectations to become a classic that could be compared to the greats that influenced it over three decades earlier. Easily one of the finest films ever created and a golden standard of writing, directing and performance, Chinatown is the perfect representation of everything a noir should be no matter the place or time: labyrinthine, desperate, uncompromising and above all, honest. It deeply and inherently understands the worth and power of the noir genre, where plot is less a vehicle to make things happen and more about creating existential situations from its deep and contradictory characters to face and be changed by.
It's crucial for new watchers of Chinatown to avoid any story details about it at all costs, because what it has to offer should never be spoiled for anyone yet to experience it. The first time I watched this film I carried the baggage and weight of the viewing with me for weeks, and the powerful reaction I had told me I'd witnessed something spectacular.
4.) Apocalypse Now (1979)/ Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
Based on Joseph Conrad's haunting novella Heart of Darkness, this film ranks highly as one of the greatest adapted works not only for keeping the soul of its source intact, but for having another soul of its own in a hyper-original way. The novel's African Congo shifts to the American fight in Vietnam as a soldier wades into a jungle to confront a man who used to share his principles, colliding with all the misery, consequence and bloodshed of wartime conflict along the way. The film goes a long way to paint a very real picture of human conflict and the many faces savagery can own, all wrapped up inside a psychedelic and surreal nightmare. Important for any time period, Apocalypse Now also shows us what we lose sense and respect of when we go to war.
Coppola's masterpiece is much like the other films in this list because it takes a known genre (this time war) and experiments madly with it. This movie almost killed the director and the story of how it was made is just as bizarre as the script, but that's what makes it so profound. It's a landmark movie of the 1970s, a decade that pushed the boundaries of what the medium could do and proved just how unrestrained and powerful their content could be beyond Sunday entertainments. In a broader sense, it also closed out a decade of career and industry-defining classics for Coppola, who created The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now in the span of just seven years.
5.) The American (2010)/ Dir. Anton Corbijn
Taking the well-worn spy genre and giving it a European spin with a focus on quiet character and storytelling, the charismatic and light-hearted George Clooney gives one of the most interesting and refreshing performances of his career as a taciturn assassin who faces existential questions about his life and job while hidden away in the mountains of Italy. The movie stresses distrust and duplicity as you begin to share the protagonist's paranoia for what is real and what isn't. The simple but complex story is accentuated by beautiful cinematography, scoring and performance as layers of themes and messages frame and support the characters and narrative arc.
I expect this movie to be very divisive, as it is very niche and European in style and presentation. Your hand isn't held by it, demanding a lot of thought on your part to wonder about its story and characters, and the explosions, unending twists and high action of the genre are left behind to tell a very human story about a man who is concerned about losing his humanity.
I selected this film most primarily because this is a James Bond forum and I was curious to see what fans of the franchise and the epitome of the genre thought of it and how it sets itself apart from the more loud and proud movies of its kind. The American is a lot closer to how Fleming wrote his books because of how it takes a tough but compelling man and paints existential questions through his experiences, but how it clashes with the more traditional and expected elements presented by the franchise films could prove an interesting experience for first time viewers. Fans of Bond films like From Russia with Love may appreciate the slow build up in the plot, the restrained story, duplicitous characters and high atmosphere, while those who prefer films like The Spy Who Loved Me may find their interest challenged in the form of a story with little comfort or frivolity. With this in focus, The American will bore some and tantalize others, but I am very excited to discuss some of the questions it poses through its story and characters when the time comes.