Something I Can Never Have - The Films I Want To See the Most

By: Coheed 2.5

If anyone has looked at all the films I want to see, it is very large with over 2000 choices on it and will continue to grow as I spot more and more interesting works. However, there is a small group of films, shorts and television series that above all the others that I want to see. Some are easy to get hold of, while others aren’t, but if I was able to see them, even if they turned out bad, I would be still glad. (While there are plenty of new releases I want to see, I will not include them unless they do not get a release in the United Kingdom.)

[To Be Continually Updated]

- Avalon (Mamoru Oshii, 2001) – My interest in Oshii’s filmography has grown since seeing Angel’s Egg, suggesting that beyond Ghost in the Shell he may have far more interesting and better films than it. The inclusion by Avalon on this list is reinforced by the fact that I thought I had managed to get hold of an out-of-print, 2 disc DVD set in a second-hand shop, a DVD that would cost a lot of money to get online, at a cheap price only to find that the shop had lost the discs when I took it to the counter.

- The Bird People in China (Takashi Miike, 1998) – I have barely touched Miike’s incredibly large filmography despite my high regard in him, but out of all the films I’ve yet to see this one is the one of most importance for me to see. The praise it holds, the fact that it is suppose to be Miike’s most calm, thoughtful work, and the surprising lack of DVD release of the film at all in the UK in combination together make it almost make it my own holy grail to see.

- Death Laid An Egg (Giulio Questi, 1968) – A film I’ve wanted to see so badly I’ve submitted it to the Auteurs just to add it to this list. Why is it here then? Well, there are three reasons. (1) It stars Jean-Louis Trintignant, who was a tremendous presence in ‘The Conformist’. (2) Its a bizarre, erratic take on a giallo that is said to be weird with a capital W. And finally (3) one of its subplots, at least 25 years or so before the sublime and controversial British series ‘Brass Eye’ did a similar thing as a joke, involves genetically modified chickens, with no heads or limbs, who are balls of feathered meal. Just the last point is worthy of interest. The only real concern, if I do finally get to see the film, is that I have seen the film the director made before this, the western ‘Django…If You Live Shoot!’, which wasn’t that great, but that diminish the interest in this later film.

- Higurashi no Naku Koro ni/When They Cry (Chiaki Kon, 2006-7) –
From what I have heard about this two series anime sounds incredibly fascinating, almost like a mix of Japanese psychological horror, Groundhog Day and Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, a twisted and dark cartoon which despite its cute, bobble-headed female characters is sinister and disturbed under its skin, not to mention sounding like a Japanese anime series which actually has an engaging and intelligent story in the centre and tries to be different.

[Addtional Notes 23rd March 2011: Having started the manga in 2011, my interest has peaked if its anything like the twisted, perverse and erratic story in the comic. I may have been wrong with the Antichrist conparison too…the manga reminds me more of a moe version of Andrzej Zulawski.]

- Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) – I know how it ends, but I have never seen it and it’ll keep bugging me until I do.

- The Last Movie (Dennis Hopper, 1971) – Since the death of Dennis Hopper, this film has been brought up again and again, and despite its possible flaws, I can only hope this gets re-evaluated and released.

- God Speed You! Black Emperor (Mitsuo Yanagimachi, 1976) – Another film that was added without seeing it, but desperately wanting too. Who wouldn’t want to watch a documentary of a Japanese motorbike gang?

— Moloch Tropical (Raoul Peck, 2009) – Thanks to cyclo xxx’s ‘Unheard Voices: Cinema of Haiti’ list, I really want to see a few films from Haiti, this one the most.

- Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981) – Having heard of this film in my adolescence, I was already interested, but now having seen the trailer for it and heard more about it, this interest has grown more.

- Pre-Damnation Bela Tarr Films – Having discovered Tarr’s work, I want to see his work before 1988’s Damnation, his social-realist films, but they have not been released in the UK.

- Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967) – Just seeing an image of Alain Delon in a suit and fedora was enough for me to see this.

- ‘Tusk’ and ‘The Rainbow Thief’ (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1980/1990) – Having discovered Jodorowsky’s work, including the wonderfully bizarre and one-off The Holy Mountain, it would be fantastic to see these films, as well as any other works I’ve misses, but they seem to be difficult to get hold of.

- ‘W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism’ (Dusan Makavejev, 1971) – For some reason the British are still not prepared for this film to be released here.

- Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000) – An extremely acclaimed film that it strangely absent on Region 2 DVD.

And finally…
The Day The Clown Cried (Jerry Lewis, 1972) – We may never see this even when Jerry Lewis is dead, but you can hope.