Wow! Some of these covers are amazing. I love checking this thread. I’m not an artist (or good with programs like Photoshop) so I can’t contribute, but I’d love to see covers of any of the following films if anyone is interested in giving them a shot.
Angel’s Egg by Mamoru Oshii (or, basically, any movie by Mamoru Oshii)
Election by Alexander Payne
Fucking Åmål (a.k.a. Show Me Love) by Lukas Moodysson
Cure by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Bitter Moon by Roman Polanski
Shiki-Jitsu by Hideaki Anno
The End of Evangelion by Hideaki Anno
All About Lily Chou-Chou by Shunji Iwai
The Hospital by Arthur Hiller
Carnal Knowledge by Mike Nichols
Perfect Blue by Satoshi Kon
1984 by Michael Radford
Vanilla Sky by Cameron Crowe
I really like those Cure and Election covers! The font on the Election one makes me think of George Orwell’s 1984 for some reason, and strangely, that kind of fits.
I’m a big fan of Cronenberg. To me all his movies are great except for the following:
Fast Company — This isn’t necessarily a bad film, but it’s not a very good one either. I found it boring. It really doesn’t fit with the rest of Cronenberg’s films. It’s a B-grade movie about race-car drivers. Who fucking cares?
Scanners — Cheesy, bad acting, and boring compared to his other sci-fi/horror films. The only good part of this movie was Michael Ironside.
The Dead Zone — This can be thrown in with all the other crappy movies based on Stephen King novels. The only director that can make Stephen King watchable is Stanley Kubrick.
Stereo & Crimes of the Future — These were a little too ‘arty’ for my taste.
I don’t know if Nolan ever mentioned eXistenZ specifically, but I do know that he said Inception was inspired by the glut of movies that came out in the late 1990s that all shared the ‘what-is-real?’ theme, (films like: The Matrix, Dark City, The Thirteenth Floor, eXistenZ, etc.).
I hope it’s okay to resurrect old threads like this.
10. Election (Alexander Payne)
9. Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann)
8. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)
7. Into the Wild (Sean Penn)
6. Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick)
4. Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino)
3. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
2. The End of Evangelion (Hideaki Anno)
1. Fight Club (David Fincher)
Darren Aronofsky — Pi, Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan
Whether or not these movies fall into the horror genre (and whether they are “masterpieces”) is debatable. However, I find these films to be a lot scarrier than most of the crap that passes for ‘horror’ out there.
The Chumscrubber
Youth Without Youth
The Weather Man
Vanilla Sky
Towelhead
Spread
Solaris (2002)
Sex and Death 101
Bitter Moon
The Box
Chaos Theory
The Cable Guy
Alexander (The Final Cut; Oliver Stone)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Fountain
I have to agree with you Caligula about Palindromes. That is one the strangest movies I’ve seen, but I really like it. Like all of Tod Solondz’ movies, it’s depressing while at the same time being absurdly hilarious… It’s a lot like my life. haha.
Some of these films might seem a bit strange to ellicit crying. However, I don’t generally cry at things that are traditionally thought of as ‘sad’ (i.e. Bambi’s mother being shot), instead I tend to cry when a movie overwhelms me on some sort of emotional/visceral/profound level —if I reach some sort of Catharsis.
District 9
The Fountain
Water Lilies (2007)
Apocalypse Now
Fight Club
Sunshine (2007)
Synecdoche, New York
Eternal Sunshine…
The Breakfast Club
Blade Runner
Crash (1996)
5 Centimeters per Second
Voices of a Distant Star
Moulin Rouge!
Heat
Magnolia
The End of Evangelion
Into the Wild
Another embarrasing year for the Oscars. It will be remembered as the year the actual best picture, The Social Network, lost to the middle-brow Oscar-bait product The King’s Speech.
It’s as bad as the year Crash beat Brokeback Mountain.
They (Brokeback Mountain; The Social Network) might not be the best movies if one was to consider all the movies of the year, but they are definitely the best movies that were nominated for Best Picture by the Oscar’s in their respective years.
1. Eyes Wide Shut – This is in my top 10 favorite films ever list.
2. The Shining – Arguable the best horror movie ever made.
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. A Clockwork Orange
5. Barry Lyndon
6. Full Metal Jacket
7. Dr. Strangelove
8. Lolita – I prefer the version with Jeremy Irons.
1. The Social Network
2. Dogtooth
3. The Ghost Writer
4. Never Let Me Go
5. Greenberg
6. Splice
7. Inception
8. Solitary Man
9. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
10. The Runaways
Films I still need to see that might make it on my list:
Another Year
Blue Valentine
Enter the Void
Rabbit Hole
Get Low
Winter’s Bone
Biutiful
Fish Tank
Somewhere
Exit Through the Gift Shop
A lot of the really great SF films have already been mentioned. So I’ll list some good ones that I think have been overlooked.
Never Let Me Go (dir. Mark Romanek) Splice (dir. Vincenzo Natali) Body Snatchers (dir. Abel Ferrara) Timer (dir. Jac Schaeffer) The End of Evangelion (dir. Hideaki Anno) — Along with the tv series it belongs to Neon Genesis Evangelion District 9 (dir. Neill Blomkamp) Akira (dir. Katsuhiro Otomo) Paprika (dir. Satoshi Kon) Existenz (dir. David Cronenberg) Videodrome (dir. David Cronenberg) Starship Troopers (dir. Paul Verhoeven) — This is a really good war satire SF movie. Metropolis (dir. Rintaro) — This is the anime film, not the Fritz Lang film. Youth Without Youth (dir. Francis Ford Coppola) The Time Machine (dir. George Pal)
Also good are these tv series
Serial Experiments Lang Gankutsuou: the Count of Monte Cristo Wolf’s Rain Texhnolyze
I love the horror genre. Unfortunately, however, good horror movies are hard to find. There are so many bad, unoriginal horror films. But finding the unappreciated gems makes the search worthwhile. For example, just a few days ago I saw one of the best horror movies I’ve seen in a long time. It was called Heartless directed by Philip Ridley. He’s the same director that did the movie The Reflecting Skin. Anyway, Heartless is creepy, surreal, and darkly funny. The movie is very unsettling. The DVD was just released in the USA by IFC films a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think many people know about it, which is a shame. I highly recommend it.
Shivers ✔
Rabid ✔
Fast Company X
The Brood ✔
Scanners X
Videodrome ✔
The Dead Zone X
The Fly ✔
Dead Ringers ✔
Naked Lunch ✔
M Butterfly ✔
Crash ✔
eXistenZ ✔
Spider ✔
A History of Violence ✔
Eastern Promises ✔
Pretty darn consistent for me. 13/16
@Kate. You need to see Bitter Moon. It’s really overlooked, and I think it’s a brilliant dark comedy.
@ the people saying that ALL birthers are necessarily racists.
Do you not realize how hypocritical you sound? You are using the same faulty logic that racists use lumping a whole group of people (birthers) together into a separate, though overlapping group (racists). It’s almost as stupid as saying things like “all black people are athletic” or “all republicans are homophobes.” Ignorant blanket statements.
Just because you are a birther [which simply means you believe that President Obama was not born in the USA, thus prohibiting him by law (an outdated, nationalistic law) from holding the position of President] does not necissarily mean that your motivation for having that belief is racial. It is possible that someone who is not a racist, but does not agree with President Obama’s politics, might latch on to the birther lie simply because they don’t want Obama in office for political reasons
Just because someone is a birther doesn’t mean that that person is necessarily racist; but it does necissarily mean that that person is either ignorant of, or in denial of, the facts.
Where one is born is no indication of where ones allegiance lies. Just because someone is born in one country doesn’t mean that that person could not be a good and loyal leader for another country later in life.
My post was not aimed at any one poster in particular.
I agree with you about the birther movement itself being a racist movement. I do not know where the birther idea began exactly, but I do not doubt that the movement’s spread has been primarily fueled by racial animosity.
I saw The Reflecting Skin recently for the first time on a crappy German blu ray. I wish this film would receive a proper Region 1 release. Having said that, I do somewhat agree with Kate about the ‘badness’ making it more disturbing.
For example, (spoilers) the child actor who played the lead was a pretty bad actor. The way he said some of his lines was not natural at all. However, I found that that actually added to the surreal nature of the film. It added another layer of strangeness, and it works. The movie is not supposed to be a realistic depiction of life, but more of a subjective interpretation of reality through the eyes of a disturbed child. Because of this, filmmaking and writing techniques that would normally be considered ‘bad’ actually work in the film’s favor.
Some other films that I think are better because of their ‘badness’:
Carnival of Souls (1962) It’s Alive (1974) Inland Empire (2006)
The Ghost Writer Spider (David Cronenberg) Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) Buddy Boy The Truman Show Body Snatchers (Abel Ferrara) Habit Moon The White Ribbon Edmond Talk Radio
The Auteurs' Fake Criterion Covers over 2 years ago
Wow! Some of these covers are amazing. I love checking this thread. I’m not an artist (or good with programs like Photoshop) so I can’t contribute, but I’d love to see covers of any of the following films if anyone is interested in giving them a shot.
Angel’s Egg by Mamoru Oshii (or, basically, any movie by Mamoru Oshii)
Election by Alexander Payne
Fucking Åmål (a.k.a. Show Me Love) by Lukas Moodysson
Cure by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Bitter Moon by Roman Polanski
Shiki-Jitsu by Hideaki Anno
The End of Evangelion by Hideaki Anno
All About Lily Chou-Chou by Shunji Iwai
The Hospital by Arthur Hiller
Carnal Knowledge by Mike Nichols
Perfect Blue by Satoshi Kon
1984 by Michael Radford
Vanilla Sky by Cameron Crowe
Go to Comment
The Auteurs' Fake Criterion Covers over 2 years ago
I really like those Cure and Election covers! The font on the Election one makes me think of George Orwell’s 1984 for some reason, and strangely, that kind of fits.
The Nashville cover is also amazing, by the way.
Go to Comment
Bands (Or Members Of Bands) You'd Like To Compose Music... over 2 years ago
Lucky for you Maurice Arcade Fire already has done music for a film. They did the score for film The Box (2009) directed by Richard Kelly.
Go to Comment
Hit or Miss? over 2 years ago
I’m a big fan of Cronenberg. To me all his movies are great except for the following:
Fast Company — This isn’t necessarily a bad film, but it’s not a very good one either. I found it boring. It really doesn’t fit with the rest of Cronenberg’s films. It’s a B-grade movie about race-car drivers. Who fucking cares?
Scanners — Cheesy, bad acting, and boring compared to his other sci-fi/horror films. The only good part of this movie was Michael Ironside.
The Dead Zone — This can be thrown in with all the other crappy movies based on Stephen King novels. The only director that can make Stephen King watchable is Stanley Kubrick.
Stereo & Crimes of the Future — These were a little too ‘arty’ for my taste.
Go to Comment
Hit or Miss? over 2 years ago
I don’t know if Nolan ever mentioned eXistenZ specifically, but I do know that he said Inception was inspired by the glut of movies that came out in the late 1990s that all shared the ‘what-is-real?’ theme, (films like: The Matrix, Dark City, The Thirteenth Floor, eXistenZ, etc.).
Go to Comment
True Masters Of Horror: Directors With More Than Two Horror Masterpieces over 2 years ago
Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Cure, Kairo, Retribution
Go to Comment
What's your Top 10? over 2 years ago
I hope it’s okay to resurrect old threads like this.
10. Election (Alexander Payne)
9. Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann)
8. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)
7. Into the Wild (Sean Penn)
6. Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick)
4. Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino)
3. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
2. The End of Evangelion (Hideaki Anno)
1. Fight Club (David Fincher)
Go to Comment
David Fincher Theme over 2 years ago
1. Fight Club
2. Seven
3. Zodiac
Do NOT show Alien 3, Panic Room or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button because they are awful. David Fincher is inexplicably hit-or-miss.
Go to Comment
True Masters Of Horror: Directors With More Than Two Horror Masterpieces about 2 years ago
Darren Aronofsky — Pi, Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan
Whether or not these movies fall into the horror genre (and whether they are “masterpieces”) is debatable. However, I find these films to be a lot scarrier than most of the crap that passes for ‘horror’ out there.
Go to Comment
How would you rank Christopher Nolan's Films? about 2 years ago
1. The Prestige
2. The Dark Knight
3. Memento
4. Inception
5. Batman Begins
6. Following
7. Insomnia
Go to Comment
Movies You love that Critics Hated about 2 years ago
The Chumscrubber
Youth Without Youth
The Weather Man
Vanilla Sky
Towelhead
Spread
Solaris (2002)
Sex and Death 101
Bitter Moon
The Box
Chaos Theory
The Cable Guy
Alexander (The Final Cut; Oliver Stone)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Fountain
Go to Comment
Movies You love that Critics Hated about 2 years ago
I have to agree with you Caligula about Palindromes. That is one the strangest movies I’ve seen, but I really like it. Like all of Tod Solondz’ movies, it’s depressing while at the same time being absurdly hilarious… It’s a lot like my life. haha.
Go to Comment
Movies that made you cry about 2 years ago
Some of these films might seem a bit strange to ellicit crying. However, I don’t generally cry at things that are traditionally thought of as ‘sad’ (i.e. Bambi’s mother being shot), instead I tend to cry when a movie overwhelms me on some sort of emotional/visceral/profound level —if I reach some sort of Catharsis.
District 9
The Fountain
Water Lilies (2007)
Apocalypse Now
Fight Club
Sunshine (2007)
Synecdoche, New York
Eternal Sunshine…
The Breakfast Club
Blade Runner
Crash (1996)
5 Centimeters per Second
Voices of a Distant Star
Moulin Rouge!
Heat
Magnolia
The End of Evangelion
Into the Wild
Go to Comment
2011 Oscars about 2 years ago
Another embarrasing year for the Oscars. It will be remembered as the year the actual best picture, The Social Network, lost to the middle-brow Oscar-bait product The King’s Speech.
It’s as bad as the year Crash beat Brokeback Mountain.
Go to Comment
2011 Oscars about 2 years ago
They (Brokeback Mountain; The Social Network) might not be the best movies if one was to consider all the movies of the year, but they are definitely the best movies that were nominated for Best Picture by the Oscar’s in their respective years.
Go to Comment
Ranking Kubrick about 2 years ago
1. Eyes Wide Shut – This is in my top 10 favorite films ever list.
2. The Shining – Arguable the best horror movie ever made.
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. A Clockwork Orange
5. Barry Lyndon
6. Full Metal Jacket
7. Dr. Strangelove
8. Lolita – I prefer the version with Jeremy Irons.
I haven’t seen the rest of Kubrick’s films yet.
Go to Comment
Top 10 Films of 2010? about 2 years ago
Favorite films so far:
1. The Social Network
2. Dogtooth
3. The Ghost Writer
4. Never Let Me Go
5. Greenberg
6. Splice
7. Inception
8. Solitary Man
9. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
10. The Runaways
Films I still need to see that might make it on my list:
Another Year
Blue Valentine
Enter the Void
Rabbit Hole
Get Low
Winter’s Bone
Biutiful
Fish Tank
Somewhere
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Go to Comment
SCIENCE-FICTION AS A GENRE - WHICH ARE THE BEST FILMS AND WHY? about 2 years ago
A lot of the really great SF films have already been mentioned. So I’ll list some good ones that I think have been overlooked.
Never Let Me Go (dir. Mark Romanek)
Splice (dir. Vincenzo Natali)
Body Snatchers (dir. Abel Ferrara)
Timer (dir. Jac Schaeffer)
The End of Evangelion (dir. Hideaki Anno) — Along with the tv series it belongs to Neon Genesis Evangelion
District 9 (dir. Neill Blomkamp)
Akira (dir. Katsuhiro Otomo)
Paprika (dir. Satoshi Kon)
Existenz (dir. David Cronenberg)
Videodrome (dir. David Cronenberg)
Starship Troopers (dir. Paul Verhoeven) — This is a really good war satire SF movie.
Metropolis (dir. Rintaro) — This is the anime film, not the Fritz Lang film.
Youth Without Youth (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
The Time Machine (dir. George Pal)
Also good are these tv series
Serial Experiments Lang
Gankutsuou: the Count of Monte Cristo
Wolf’s Rain
Texhnolyze
Go to Comment
Truly Terrifying Performances about 2 years ago
Gary Oldman in True Romance
Michael Shannon in Bug
De Niro in Taxi Driver
Ewan McGregor in Young Adam
Ralph Fiennes in Spider
Richard Burton in 1984
Go to Comment
Dark and disturbing yet well made films about 2 years ago
They Came Back (Robin Campillo)
Spider (David Cronenberg)
Habit (Larry Fessender)
River’s Edge (Tim Hunter)
Afterschool (Antonio Campos)
Bug (William Friedkin)
Birth (Jonathan Glazer)
Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg)
Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Frownland (Ronald Bronstein)
Lunacy (Jan Svankmajer)
The Machinist (Brad Anderson)
Love Object (Robert Parigi)
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Palindromes (Todd Solondz)
Go to Comment
Who should have directed Alice in Wonderland? about 2 years ago
Henry Selick already did it the right way. It was called Coraline.
Okay, so maybe it’s not a literal adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, but it’s close enough.
Go to Comment
WHY CAN'T WE WATCH GOOD HORROR MOVIES ANYMORE... about 2 years ago
I love the horror genre. Unfortunately, however, good horror movies are hard to find. There are so many bad, unoriginal horror films. But finding the unappreciated gems makes the search worthwhile. For example, just a few days ago I saw one of the best horror movies I’ve seen in a long time. It was called Heartless directed by Philip Ridley. He’s the same director that did the movie The Reflecting Skin. Anyway, Heartless is creepy, surreal, and darkly funny. The movie is very unsettling. The DVD was just released in the USA by IFC films a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think many people know about it, which is a shame. I highly recommend it.
Go to Comment
HiTS & MiSSES about 2 years ago
I’m gonna do Cronenberg.
Shivers ✔
Rabid ✔
Fast Company X
The Brood ✔
Scanners X
Videodrome ✔
The Dead Zone X
The Fly ✔
Dead Ringers ✔
Naked Lunch ✔
M Butterfly ✔
Crash ✔
eXistenZ ✔
Spider ✔
A History of Violence ✔
Eastern Promises ✔
Pretty darn consistent for me. 13/16
@Kate. You need to see Bitter Moon. It’s really overlooked, and I think it’s a brilliant dark comedy.
Go to Comment
HiTS & MiSSES about 2 years ago
Okay, now for David Fincher. My favorite working mainstream director.
Alien 3 X
Se7en ✔
The Game ✔/X
Fight Club ✔
Panic Room X
Zodiac ✔
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button X
The Social Network ✔
He’s only 4/8 for me. But I really like the 4 good ones.
Go to Comment
Bigger Morons: Brits Who Camped Out for the Royal Wedding or American Birthers? about 2 years ago
@ the people saying that ALL birthers are necessarily racists.
Do you not realize how hypocritical you sound? You are using the same faulty logic that racists use lumping a whole group of people (birthers) together into a separate, though overlapping group (racists). It’s almost as stupid as saying things like “all black people are athletic” or “all republicans are homophobes.” Ignorant blanket statements.
Just because you are a birther [which simply means you believe that President Obama was not born in the USA, thus prohibiting him by law (an outdated, nationalistic law) from holding the position of President] does not necissarily mean that your motivation for having that belief is racial. It is possible that someone who is not a racist, but does not agree with President Obama’s politics, might latch on to the birther lie simply because they don’t want Obama in office for political reasons
Just because someone is a birther doesn’t mean that that person is necessarily racist; but it does necissarily mean that that person is either ignorant of, or in denial of, the facts.
Go to Comment
Bigger Morons: Brits Who Camped Out for the Royal Wedding or American Birthers? about 2 years ago
Where one is born is no indication of where ones allegiance lies. Just because someone is born in one country doesn’t mean that that person could not be a good and loyal leader for another country later in life.
Go to Comment
Bigger Morons: Brits Who Camped Out for the Royal Wedding or American Birthers? about 2 years ago
@ Blue
My post was not aimed at any one poster in particular.
I agree with you about the birther movement itself being a racist movement. I do not know where the birther idea began exactly, but I do not doubt that the movement’s spread has been primarily fueled by racial animosity.
Go to Comment
movies made more disturbing by their "badness" about 2 years ago
I saw The Reflecting Skin recently for the first time on a crappy German blu ray. I wish this film would receive a proper Region 1 release. Having said that, I do somewhat agree with Kate about the ‘badness’ making it more disturbing.
For example, (spoilers) the child actor who played the lead was a pretty bad actor. The way he said some of his lines was not natural at all. However, I found that that actually added to the surreal nature of the film. It added another layer of strangeness, and it works. The movie is not supposed to be a realistic depiction of life, but more of a subjective interpretation of reality through the eyes of a disturbed child. Because of this, filmmaking and writing techniques that would normally be considered ‘bad’ actually work in the film’s favor.
Some other films that I think are better because of their ‘badness’:
Carnival of Souls (1962)
It’s Alive (1974)
Inland Empire (2006)
Go to Comment
3 Favourite Movies From 5 Favourite Directors almost 2 years ago
Mamoru Oshii
The Sky Crawlers
The Red Spectacles
Ghost in the Shell
David Cronenberg
Videodrome
Spider
Crash
Woody Allen
Husbands and Wives
Manhattan
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Hideaki Anno
The End of Evangelion
Shiki Jitsu (a.k.a. Ritual)
Evangelion 2.22: You Are (Not) Alone
Quentin Tarantino
Kill Bill
Pulp Fiction
Inglourious Basterds
Go to Comment
Good films that involve conspiracies and paranoia almost 2 years ago
The Ghost Writer
Spider (David Cronenberg)
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Buddy Boy
The Truman Show
Body Snatchers (Abel Ferrara)
Habit
Moon
The White Ribbon
Edmond
Talk Radio
Go to Comment