I saw this film a few days ago called the “Baader-Meinhoff Complex.” It’s a German film that was nominated for an Oscar. I thought it was a pretty good action film and I found the subject matter interesting. It’s based on a true story about these German terrorists who bomb buildings and rob a bank or maybe it was a few banks. They are against the war in Vietnam and the film goes into the seventies showing them not being deterred from carrying out their attacks, even if some of them have been put in jail. I guess you could say that some of the point of the film is that they are not going to stop with their attacks. It covers the RAF. I think I would give it three and a half stars out of four. The terrorist group is also against other governments like their own German government. I like the contrast between one of the characters who starts off as a journalist covering these events to how she becomes involved in them. The film is about two and a half hours long. Maybe the point of the film is that they go too far in their activities. Anyways, I recommend it.
I can’t seem to think of all the films I’ve seen over the past ten years, because I have seen so many. But, one that immediately comes to mind is Antoine Suga and I think I’d include Bill the Butcher too.
I can’t seem to think of all the films I’ve seen over the past ten years, because I have seen so many. But, one that immediately comes to mind is Antoine Suga and I think I’d include Bill the Butcher too.
Barry Lyndon. I think it is one of the most beautifully photographed films of all time. He used Zeiss lenses that had wide apertures that allowed a lot of light onto the film. I think most period films, even a little after that, used artificial light for night scenes but Kubrick used actual candlelight. I like the fact that Kubrick used available light in a lot of his movies, eventhough I am not against using articial light at the same time. I love the music. I love the way the characters talk. The sets and the costumes are well designed. I think the length of the film is appropriate because things were more leisurely in that time period and it fits in with the way the story is told. Maybe it’s not for everybody, but I think there are a fair number of people that really appreciate this film, such as some professional cinematographers. Scorsese mentions on the Stantley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures documentary of how a zoom lens was used in a scene that relates to paintings at that time period or something along those lines. In fact, this film is Scorsese’s favorite Stanley Kubrick film.
I wished Kubrick had made the Napoleon film that he had considered making. I think it would have been a fantastic film. If someone were to make a movie about Napoleon, I don’t know if they could really use Kubrick’s script or not, based on what was expected of how it would be received. I think they may have to do it their own way, so maybe the Kubrick script would get in the way of the way of how good they could make the film because they probably could not pull it off too well. I saw on a documentary on Stanley Kubrick that Kubrick scouted locations for the Napoleon film and was allready to shoot when he found out that there had been a film about Napoleon starring Rod Steiger called Waterloo. I don’t know how successful that film was, but I wished that Kubrick would have made that film anyway.
I think Pulp Fiction is a little overrated, eventhough I might like it a little more. I have a series of books published by the British Film Institute that cover various modern classic and and old classic movies. I bought one that covers Pulp Fiction but I haven’t read it yet. I also have the collector’s edition DVD of Pulp Fiction. I guess I want to understand why people praise this film so highly. I also don’t really like Reservoir Dogs that much and I have that one on tape. However, I loved Kill Bill, especially Vol. 1. In fact, I saw Vol. 1 twice in the theatre. The thing that gets me about Tarantino is his dialogue. I do plan on going to see Inglorious Basterds and I am looking forward to it. I do like films that have a lot of dialogue such as Clockwork Orange and Casablanca, but I like a lot of films that are extremely visual, eventhough I guess I probably like a lot of films that have quite a large amount of dialogue as well. Pulp Fiction I guess is a fairly visual film, but the dialogue, for me, draws attention to itself, which I guess it is supposed to do. Other films that I think are really overrated are some of Ron Howard’s films. I liked Cinderella Man and Cocoon and maybe I forgot one or two, but most of them I do not care for. For example, I think Apollo 13 is just mediocre. There’s a scene where Kathleen Quinlan’s character is having a party at her house and she introduces an astronaut at the party to her grandmother or mother or someone elderly and I just found that scene kind of pretentious. Also, Tom Hanks is talking in an earlier scene to her about going up to the moon, which was just so melodramatic. In A Beautiful Mind, I find the characters that the Russel Crowe character hallucinates about don’t seem all that convincing, especially the little girl. I can’t understand why one of the characters he’s hallucinating about is a little girl. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the story set up to explain this. I guess Crash is a pretty bad movie too. Maybe it seems just a little too contrived from what I remember about it. Chicago is another. I never saw it on a stage, but I think it would probably look better that way. I agree on Heat too. I thought that was kind of pretentious as well. Mann’s Collateral was bad in the way that the Jamie Foxx character talks about that postcard he has in the front seat of his taxi. He sounded like he was reading off of a script and it didn’t seem natural, eventhough the Tom Cruise character was well played. The last one I can think of right at this moment is Spy Game. I thought Robert Redford was just walking back and forth through CIA headquarters, sort of, I guess, phoning it in. He basically just contributed some lines, but I guess it seemed like he was just talking it through, walking into one room and out of another. Anyways, those are the films that come to my mind at the moment.
I like Hannibal a lot. I think some people wanted it to follow the tone of Silence of the Lambs, but I think Silence was more of a thriller and Hannibal sort of like a Beauty and the Beast romance story mixed with a horror film. Granted, there are some scenes that have a little awkwardness to them such as the scene where Ray Liotta is talking to Mason Verger on the phone while bouncing a tennis ball, the scene where the boars are eating away at a dummy and maybe where Hannibal is talking to Clarice via a portable phone in a shopping mall, but most of the film makes up for that. For instance, the recurrent use of the boar imagery seen in Florence where Hannibal washes blood off of his hands from a statue of a boar that founts water from it’s snout and later on when Clarice is rescuing Hannibal from being eaten alive by Mason Verger’s boars. The use of Christian motifs such as hanging Patsi from the balcony like Judas as Hannibal mentions himself within the film and Hannibal mentioning to Clarice that Paul, Ray Liotta’s character is a mysogonist just like Paul in the Bible. I also like the double image of Hannibal at the shopping mall, when his face is split by the side of a mirro. A lot of the film has a horror type feel to it such as the camera lighting and the Hans Zimmer music. The opera is a beautiful scene as well: wonderfully lit and visually beautiful. Granted, some of the dialogue might not run too smoothly at times, but for the most part, it works fairly well. As far as the Beauty and the Beast comparison goes, we can see a visual representation of this in a shot where Hannibal and Clarice are backlit as Hannibal carries Clarice out of Mason Verger’s barn. I am a big Ridley Scott fan and eventhough this film is not Blade Runner or Alien, I think it is sufficiently entertaining. Another film that I think would be a guilty pleasurue of mine would be Al Pacino in Scarface. The music is not the greatest, but it is tolerable to an extent, not the score itself, but the songs that were composed by Giorgio Moroder, the dialogue in some places might be rather mediocre, but there are a good amount of memorable lines and it is very entertaining.
People here have allready mentioned the ones that I have thought of, but I’ll list them anyway. Most of the Bunuel films that I have seen do not have any music except for maybe Un Chien Andalou and L’age D’or. I think Antoninoi did not use a lot of traditional type of music in a lot of his films that I have seen, but instead tried to make the music different by sort of experimenting with the soundtrack and the film that I have seen of his such as L’eclisse basically is devoid of music. L’avventura and La notte do have people playing music in the background but there really does not seem to be a score to those films except with the starting of those two films and the ending of L’avventura. Another film that uses I guess uses atonal or dissonant type music is Red Desert. I think his sound effects are the music for his films if that makes any sense as well as the silence within them. And of course, No Country for Old Men and the Birds.
In an e-mail from my friend, I found out that the Baader-Meinhoff Complex is just being released and I guess is Germany’s submission to the Academy Awards. Anyways, that’s what I think that it is. It will be opening up in New York soon. It could have been just released. Today I saw Julia and Julie. The parts with Meryl Streep as Julia Child were well done, but I didn’t love the modern day story with Amy Adams, although it wasn’t too bad. For the Amy Adams parts, I thought some of the dialogue was poorly written and there didn’t seem to be a lot of subtext in it. It sort of spelled things out, without holding anything back and gradually building tension. There didn’t seem to be in those parts a lot of conflict compared with the Meryl Streep part of the film. Nonetheless, I guess I’d give it three stars. It’s not a bad film. It’s good, but not great.
I’ve got a fairly long list, but I’ll list them anyways starting with a top ten, but also including other films added onto that are just as good.
1.2001: A Space Odyssey
2.Citizen Kane
3.Lawrence of Arabia
4.Throne of Blood
5.La Dolce Vita
6.Patton
7.Vertigo
8.Shame
9.Apocalypse Now
10.Taxi Driver and also
Touch of Evil
Clockwork Orange
The Shining
Barry Lyndon
Dr. Strangelove
Paths of Glory
Dr. Zhivago
Ikiru
Ran
Rashomon
Seven Samurai
Yojimbo
8 1/2
Psycho
Cries and Whispers
Seventh Seal
Persona
Conversation
Raging Bull
Last Temptation of Christ
Eraserhead
Knife in the Water
Natural Born Killers
Fight Club
Matrix
Blade Runner
Aguirre: Wrath of God
M
Metropolis
La Notte
Weekend
Beware of a Holy Whore
Ivan’s Childhood
The Conformist
I went to see Watchmen when it came out in the theatres with a friend of mine. I do not read comic books, but I think there are better comic book movies such as the last two Batman films and Superman. For the most part, I found it to be a visually beautiful film. It was entertaining, but not a great film. Some of the characters I liked such as Rorschach but his voice sounded a lot like Batman. The comedian being thrown out of the window at the start of the film reminded me of the Matrix Reloaded. I liked the music, but the soundtrack seemed to be oversaturated with too much of it. When the characters are at the South Pole and they are playing a part of Philip Glass’s score for Kaayaanasatqi, I found it drew a little attention to itself, not that the music at the particular scene should be very soft though. I think the budget for the movie was half the cost of Titanic, I think one hundred and fifty million. My friend and I were wondering why they released the film in theatres in March. Perhaps the film was released in March due to the bad economy and Warner Brothers wasn’t sure how it would fare during the summer. I can’t seem to remember how much the film grossed the first weekend it came out. I sort of like the idea in the film of the Viet Cong surrendering to Dr. Manhattan and President Nixon being relelected for I believe a fourth term. The nuclear war at the end of the film is an interesting idea. The way that Rorschach has no mercy going after criminals and how he keeps his cool while in jail. The Mars scenes I also found interesting. But there are parts that I didn’t like as well such as the South Pole scene and the villian who appears in that scene. I find that villian in the film not too fantastic, but I can’t remember much about him or the scenes he was in. For me, a film has to work differently than a book or comic book in order for it to work in the medium that it is being used in, so if the person was seeing a film based on a comic book or a book or some other type of medium than it has to work in a cinematic pretext, or it will probably not work on the screen.
Did you listen to the commentary on the Criterion Collection disc of L’eclisse? I think that, according to the commentator, that the film switched characters from one person to another, instead of following one main character that you would see in a fair number of American films. I don’t know if Antonioni is making a traditional statement or message that other filmmakers might do. He is sort of observing and maybe allowing you to come in with your own conclusions. I think I have may have heard on the commentary for L’avventura that people have begun to distance themselves from one another and he illustrates this with his trademark of silence in his films. The last scene in L’eclisse, according to the commentator was chopped out for the American release because the distributor didn’t think it fit the rest of the movie, when in fact it was just another eclipse into a different way of observing things, like when we are placed in scenes with other characters, compared with the previous scenes with different characters. The commentator mentions during the last scene that the Japanese liked it because of it’s Zen like view on things or something along those lines. La notte is great. Great jazz music. Thought provoking dialogue. It sort of reminds me of the Ice Storm. I believe La Notte was Ingmar Bergman’s favorite Antonioni film.
I like Beware of a Holy Whore. I like that it is about a film crew and I think it fits well with other films concerning filmmaking such as Badaass, Hearts of Darkness, Burden of Dreams, American Movie and 8 1/2 for example. I like the boredom and ennui that the film crew and cast are going through, showing the realities of what it is like to film on a movie set. Also, I think it’s one of the best films I have seen about boredom and self indulgence. I do have a copy of Berlin Alexanderplatz but I have yet to watch it.
My friend is a big fan of David Lynch and lent me his copy of Inland Empire. When I watched it the first time, I gradually became lost and bored. However, I tried to watch it a second time and give it another chance. There are some interesting things going on in this film such as the rabbits, the morphing face, but for the most part I felt that scenes went on too long and I didn’t seem to understand it completely. I guess the Polish story, the story told on the movie set about some incident involving lovers, the way the Laura Dern’s character interacts with all this might work together in some sense but I got tired out fairly quickly and was just waiting for it to end. Eraserhead is one of my favorite movies and I think Mulholland Drive is a great picture. Blue Velvet is pretty good too. However, I didn’t seem to get this film. Sometimes, I guess the theories explaining a movie like this might help in making people understand it better, but still it doesn’t seem to change my chance of viewing this movie again. Maybe at some point, I will be able to get through a movie like this, but I have no idea when. By seeing what people have left on this thread here and another one related to the same film, I think it’s allright to love it or not love it. As for me, for the moment, I mostly cannot stand this film. It seems indulgent and incredibly slow. Not that a film can’t be indulgent or incredibly slow, like Beware of a Holy Whore or Barry Lyndon, but the indulgence and slowness that I find within this film seem to not work for it’s advantage. Still, perhaps by studying the various theories, one could appreciate viewing this film.
Vittorio Storaro, John Toll, Greg Tolland, Michael Ballhaus, Chapman, can’t remember his first name, Darius Khandji, Jordan Cronenwenth, Jeff Cronenwenth, Gordon Willis, Richardson, I can’t remember his first name either, Sven Nykvist, Gunnar Fischer, John Alcott, Geoffrey Unsworth.
From what I can remember about Rules of the Game, I found it to be rather overrated, but perhaps if I saw it again, I might change my opinion. I think it was sort of like Gosford Park and I wasn’t wild about that film either. Potemkin however is a very well structured film and is a milestone in cinema history, having an influence on editing for one thing. I agree that a ten best films of all time list will not always mirror other filmgoers choices, but it provides people to perhaps gather a greater appreciation for cinema which is not a bad thing. And perhaps, it can help influence people to watch other films or come to websites like this and learn about more great films.
2001 happens to be one of my favorite movies. I think the first time I saw it many years ago, I don’t know if I got it. Now I love it. I think HAL is one of the greatest movie villians of all time such as talking calmly to David Bowman as Bowman slowly murders him. The set inside the Discovery where you see someone walking upside down was truly innovative for it’s time and the star gate scene blows me away. I think the stargate is supposed to be a hole in the universe or some kind of way of going at light speed that leads to this room at the end where these aliens have been waiting for man to come and I think David Bowman is that symbol for humankind. The film is sort of like a poem. I think the monolith is something that gives intelligence to the apemen at the start of the film and turns David Bowman into the starchild at the end of the film. It’s sort of like an evolution of early man to modern man to man as energy or god or however you want to interpret it. Those are just some theories I have. Also, it showed the moon and was fairly accurate a year before man actually walked upon the moon. I think the film is great because it allows a lot of leeway for interpretation, sort of like Eraserhead by David Lynch. Like mentioned above, a lot of Kubrick movie require repeat viewings. The movie was way ahead of it’s time and special effects did not really advance until probably when Star Wars kicked it up a notch. There are plenty of essays that go into interpreting the film. For me, it is not outdated but still way ahead of it’s time and works beautifully.
The first one I would have to go with would be La Strada. I think it’s sort of marking his change from neorealism to a more surrealist type of filmmaking that you can see in 8 1/2. I like it’s simplicity and it’s sadness. Then, I would have to go with Juliet of the Spirits. I like how Fellini uses color in Juliet and the huge scale he puts on in the movie such as the size of the sets. I would then have to go with Amarcord. I didn’t always like it but after buying it from Criterion, I really started to enjoy it. I like the loose sense of structure in the film, eventhough a lot of the film follows the young man growing up in the town and not other characters. Satyricon really plays loosely with structure and I have begun to appreciate it more. Like Juliet, it has a wonderful use of color and well designed sets. Again, some of the film does not have the characters we have been following at the beginning of the movie. I saw I vitelloni at a movie theatre and I just found it rather dull.
I love Bunuel. I have seen Belle de Jour, Exterminating Angel, That Obsure Object of Desire, Un Chien Andalou, Viridiana, Land Without Bread ( did he make that film? ), Discreet Charm of the Burgeiousse and the Milky Way. I like how he pokes fun at the rich and the church. I also agree that he also makes fun of the lower classes too. I have a copy of Diary of a Chambermaid and The Phantom of Liberty, but I haven’t watched those yet. I think, like Godard, that Bunuel was more making fun of things like the Catholic church and the upper class, just like Godard I think did with Marxism and capitalism. At least, that it is how I interpret it. I want to buy a copy of Simon of the Desert, but haven’t managed to do so yet. I don’t know if all of Bunuel’s films or some of them are trying to make some sort of point, but I think that his movies are more like some kind of commentary on society and how ridiculous some of our beliefs are. Does that make sense?
I sort of feel that we need both arthouse and big studio type films. I think if one predominated the other, then maybe we could not measure what an arthouse film is compared to a big studio type film. For me, it’s not a matter of how big the budget is or what kind of movie is being made, but if it has something like a good story or a very well thought out artistic form to it. Big Hollywood actors star in smaller indepent films and I don’t really feel that you can separate them completely from the big studio films they star in as well. Some films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Blair Witch Project and I think Little Miss Sunshine have been shown in multiplexe’s and it doesn’t affect their ticket sales. Granted, there are films like Transformers and Terminator: Resurrection that are more big tentpole type movies that are geared toward a much younger audience in multiplexe’s but I don’t view it completely as a bad thing, because it helps keep some people interested in going to the movies rather than not going at all. Perhaps, this might bring people to sites like this or to films featured on the Criterion Collection maybe a little later in their lives. So, the answer for me would not be no or yes but rather some like compared art house fare and big studio films to apples and oranges.
I sort of feel that we need both arthouse and big studio type films. I think if one predominated the other, then maybe we could not measure what an arthouse film is compared to a big studio type film. For me, it’s not a matter of how big the budget is or what kind of movie is being made, but if it has something like a good story or a very well thought out artistic form to it. Big Hollywood actors star in smaller indepent films and I don’t really feel that you can separate them completely from the big studio films they star in as well. Some films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Blair Witch Project and I think Little Miss Sunshine have been shown in multiplexe’s and it doesn’t affect their ticket sales. Granted, there are films like Transformers and Terminator: Resurrection that are more big tentpole type movies that are geared toward a much younger audience in multiplexe’s but I don’t view it completely as a bad thing, because it helps keep some people interested in going to the movies rather than not going at all. Perhaps, this might bring people to sites like this or to films featured on the Criterion Collection maybe a little later in their lives. So, the answer for me would not be no or yes but rather some like compared art house fare and big studio films to apples and oranges.
I sort of feel that we need both arthouse and big studio type films. I think if one predominated the other, then maybe we could not measure what an arthouse film is compared to a big studio type film. For me, it’s not a matter of how big the budget is or what kind of movie is being made, but if it has something like a good story or a very well thought out artistic form to it. Big Hollywood actors star in smaller indepent films and I don’t really feel that you can separate them completely from the big studio films they star in as well. Some films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Blair Witch Project and I think Little Miss Sunshine have been shown in multiplexe’s and it doesn’t affect their ticket sales. Granted, there are films like Transformers and Terminator: Resurrection that are more big tentpole type movies that are geared toward a much younger audience in multiplexe’s but I don’t view it completely as a bad thing, because it helps keep some people interested in going to the movies rather than not going at all. Perhaps, this might bring people to sites like this or to films featured on the Criterion Collection maybe a little later in their lives. So, the answer for me would not be no or yes but rather some like compared art house fare and big studio films to apples and oranges.
Here are my ten
1.Taxi Driver
2.Raging Bull
3.Last Temptation of Christ
4.Good Fellas
5.Mean Streets
6.Gangs of New York
7.Departed
8.Casino
9.Cape Fear
10.The Aviator
I don’t think you can totally separate films from making a profit. Film is a business and I do also believe it is also an art form but at the end of the day, you have to have money in order to show films or get them distributed. True, there are films that have bombed at the box office and are really great films like Metropolis and Blade Runner, but thanks to first home video, then DVDs and now Blu-ray as well, we are able to view these films because we have been able to see them again. So, as long as people are on sites like this, have things like NetFlix subscriptions or can get their DVDs or tapes at the local library, not all films are necessarily going to fall off the radar. Yes, it would be nice to have a lot more people aware of filmmakers like Godard and Antonioni, but film is now so open to different means of distribution such as also the internet, that I think perhaps it’s not whether a film makes a huge profit or not, but the level of exposure that it gets.
Sam Lin, I just saw a youtube video on Bergman where he talks about Antonioni and he mentions in the video that the two films he really like of his are Blow Up and La Notte. I thought that Bergman was a big admirer of Antonioni’s. That video I saw on youtube I believe is in one of the bonus documentaries on the Ingmar Bergman Collection box set I have a copy of. So, you’re saying that he didn’t admire Antonioni too much? I don’t really know myself. Thanks for letting me know.
I think that by the use of the camera and sound, sometimes with slow motion, sometimes fast motion, the way different lenses are used, the slowing down and speeding up of the sound, the way the lights are placed within the scenes, the camera angles, the music allows us to see the movie through Jake’s eyes and see, for the most part, how he comprehends life. At the end of the film, there is a piece of scripture from the Bible that talks about whether a blind man who has just got his sight back sees the man he is told to look at is a sinner and says something like “I do not know if this man is a sinner. All I know is once I was blind and now I see.” So, perhaps Jake LaMotta’s becomes reborn at the end of the movie from an unsympathetic character to a character who has found salvation and that, even if the film features a dark point of view of life, every person can be redeemed. Perhaps, Jake LaMotta had to go down a dark tunnel to find the light or a purpose within his life and instead of channeling his rage through fighting against other people, he has instead found out he is the one that needs to change and that’s how he will become a better person. So, eventhough the film may be depressing, it has an optimistic point of view at the end.
Most depressing film you have ever seen? almost 4 years ago
Just off the top of my head, I would have to say Shame and Vagabond.
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Favorite Novel of Yours which is dying to made into Film almost 4 years ago
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, Camus’ The Plague, The Stranger and The Fall.
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Last movie you saw and rate it almost 4 years ago
I saw this film a few days ago called the “Baader-Meinhoff Complex.” It’s a German film that was nominated for an Oscar. I thought it was a pretty good action film and I found the subject matter interesting. It’s based on a true story about these German terrorists who bomb buildings and rob a bank or maybe it was a few banks. They are against the war in Vietnam and the film goes into the seventies showing them not being deterred from carrying out their attacks, even if some of them have been put in jail. I guess you could say that some of the point of the film is that they are not going to stop with their attacks. It covers the RAF. I think I would give it three and a half stars out of four. The terrorist group is also against other governments like their own German government. I like the contrast between one of the characters who starts off as a journalist covering these events to how she becomes involved in them. The film is about two and a half hours long. Maybe the point of the film is that they go too far in their activities. Anyways, I recommend it.
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What are the best written film characters of the past ten years? almost 4 years ago
I can’t seem to think of all the films I’ve seen over the past ten years, because I have seen so many. But, one that immediately comes to mind is Antoine Suga and I think I’d include Bill the Butcher too.
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What are the best written film characters of the past ten years? almost 4 years ago
I can’t seem to think of all the films I’ve seen over the past ten years, because I have seen so many. But, one that immediately comes to mind is Antoine Suga and I think I’d include Bill the Butcher too.
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What is Kubrick's Most Under-Appreciated Film? almost 4 years ago
Barry Lyndon. I think it is one of the most beautifully photographed films of all time. He used Zeiss lenses that had wide apertures that allowed a lot of light onto the film. I think most period films, even a little after that, used artificial light for night scenes but Kubrick used actual candlelight. I like the fact that Kubrick used available light in a lot of his movies, eventhough I am not against using articial light at the same time. I love the music. I love the way the characters talk. The sets and the costumes are well designed. I think the length of the film is appropriate because things were more leisurely in that time period and it fits in with the way the story is told. Maybe it’s not for everybody, but I think there are a fair number of people that really appreciate this film, such as some professional cinematographers. Scorsese mentions on the Stantley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures documentary of how a zoom lens was used in a scene that relates to paintings at that time period or something along those lines. In fact, this film is Scorsese’s favorite Stanley Kubrick film.
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The Unfinished Films Of Kubrick almost 4 years ago
I wished Kubrick had made the Napoleon film that he had considered making. I think it would have been a fantastic film. If someone were to make a movie about Napoleon, I don’t know if they could really use Kubrick’s script or not, based on what was expected of how it would be received. I think they may have to do it their own way, so maybe the Kubrick script would get in the way of the way of how good they could make the film because they probably could not pull it off too well. I saw on a documentary on Stanley Kubrick that Kubrick scouted locations for the Napoleon film and was allready to shoot when he found out that there had been a film about Napoleon starring Rod Steiger called Waterloo. I don’t know how successful that film was, but I wished that Kubrick would have made that film anyway.
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Overrated Movies almost 4 years ago
I think Pulp Fiction is a little overrated, eventhough I might like it a little more. I have a series of books published by the British Film Institute that cover various modern classic and and old classic movies. I bought one that covers Pulp Fiction but I haven’t read it yet. I also have the collector’s edition DVD of Pulp Fiction. I guess I want to understand why people praise this film so highly. I also don’t really like Reservoir Dogs that much and I have that one on tape. However, I loved Kill Bill, especially Vol. 1. In fact, I saw Vol. 1 twice in the theatre. The thing that gets me about Tarantino is his dialogue. I do plan on going to see Inglorious Basterds and I am looking forward to it. I do like films that have a lot of dialogue such as Clockwork Orange and Casablanca, but I like a lot of films that are extremely visual, eventhough I guess I probably like a lot of films that have quite a large amount of dialogue as well. Pulp Fiction I guess is a fairly visual film, but the dialogue, for me, draws attention to itself, which I guess it is supposed to do. Other films that I think are really overrated are some of Ron Howard’s films. I liked Cinderella Man and Cocoon and maybe I forgot one or two, but most of them I do not care for. For example, I think Apollo 13 is just mediocre. There’s a scene where Kathleen Quinlan’s character is having a party at her house and she introduces an astronaut at the party to her grandmother or mother or someone elderly and I just found that scene kind of pretentious. Also, Tom Hanks is talking in an earlier scene to her about going up to the moon, which was just so melodramatic. In A Beautiful Mind, I find the characters that the Russel Crowe character hallucinates about don’t seem all that convincing, especially the little girl. I can’t understand why one of the characters he’s hallucinating about is a little girl. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the story set up to explain this. I guess Crash is a pretty bad movie too. Maybe it seems just a little too contrived from what I remember about it. Chicago is another. I never saw it on a stage, but I think it would probably look better that way. I agree on Heat too. I thought that was kind of pretentious as well. Mann’s Collateral was bad in the way that the Jamie Foxx character talks about that postcard he has in the front seat of his taxi. He sounded like he was reading off of a script and it didn’t seem natural, eventhough the Tom Cruise character was well played. The last one I can think of right at this moment is Spy Game. I thought Robert Redford was just walking back and forth through CIA headquarters, sort of, I guess, phoning it in. He basically just contributed some lines, but I guess it seemed like he was just talking it through, walking into one room and out of another. Anyways, those are the films that come to my mind at the moment.
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What are your "Guilty Pleasure" films? almost 4 years ago
I like Hannibal a lot. I think some people wanted it to follow the tone of Silence of the Lambs, but I think Silence was more of a thriller and Hannibal sort of like a Beauty and the Beast romance story mixed with a horror film. Granted, there are some scenes that have a little awkwardness to them such as the scene where Ray Liotta is talking to Mason Verger on the phone while bouncing a tennis ball, the scene where the boars are eating away at a dummy and maybe where Hannibal is talking to Clarice via a portable phone in a shopping mall, but most of the film makes up for that. For instance, the recurrent use of the boar imagery seen in Florence where Hannibal washes blood off of his hands from a statue of a boar that founts water from it’s snout and later on when Clarice is rescuing Hannibal from being eaten alive by Mason Verger’s boars. The use of Christian motifs such as hanging Patsi from the balcony like Judas as Hannibal mentions himself within the film and Hannibal mentioning to Clarice that Paul, Ray Liotta’s character is a mysogonist just like Paul in the Bible. I also like the double image of Hannibal at the shopping mall, when his face is split by the side of a mirro. A lot of the film has a horror type feel to it such as the camera lighting and the Hans Zimmer music. The opera is a beautiful scene as well: wonderfully lit and visually beautiful. Granted, some of the dialogue might not run too smoothly at times, but for the most part, it works fairly well. As far as the Beauty and the Beast comparison goes, we can see a visual representation of this in a shot where Hannibal and Clarice are backlit as Hannibal carries Clarice out of Mason Verger’s barn. I am a big Ridley Scott fan and eventhough this film is not Blade Runner or Alien, I think it is sufficiently entertaining. Another film that I think would be a guilty pleasurue of mine would be Al Pacino in Scarface. The music is not the greatest, but it is tolerable to an extent, not the score itself, but the songs that were composed by Giorgio Moroder, the dialogue in some places might be rather mediocre, but there are a good amount of memorable lines and it is very entertaining.
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Best Films with NO soundtrack almost 4 years ago
People here have allready mentioned the ones that I have thought of, but I’ll list them anyway. Most of the Bunuel films that I have seen do not have any music except for maybe Un Chien Andalou and L’age D’or. I think Antoninoi did not use a lot of traditional type of music in a lot of his films that I have seen, but instead tried to make the music different by sort of experimenting with the soundtrack and the film that I have seen of his such as L’eclisse basically is devoid of music. L’avventura and La notte do have people playing music in the background but there really does not seem to be a score to those films except with the starting of those two films and the ending of L’avventura. Another film that uses I guess uses atonal or dissonant type music is Red Desert. I think his sound effects are the music for his films if that makes any sense as well as the silence within them. And of course, No Country for Old Men and the Birds.
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Last movie you saw and rate it almost 4 years ago
In an e-mail from my friend, I found out that the Baader-Meinhoff Complex is just being released and I guess is Germany’s submission to the Academy Awards. Anyways, that’s what I think that it is. It will be opening up in New York soon. It could have been just released. Today I saw Julia and Julie. The parts with Meryl Streep as Julia Child were well done, but I didn’t love the modern day story with Amy Adams, although it wasn’t too bad. For the Amy Adams parts, I thought some of the dialogue was poorly written and there didn’t seem to be a lot of subtext in it. It sort of spelled things out, without holding anything back and gradually building tension. There didn’t seem to be in those parts a lot of conflict compared with the Meryl Streep part of the film. Nonetheless, I guess I’d give it three stars. It’s not a bad film. It’s good, but not great.
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The Best Films in the History of Ever almost 4 years ago
I’ve got a fairly long list, but I’ll list them anyways starting with a top ten, but also including other films added onto that are just as good.
1.2001: A Space Odyssey
2.Citizen Kane
3.Lawrence of Arabia
4.Throne of Blood
5.La Dolce Vita
6.Patton
7.Vertigo
8.Shame
9.Apocalypse Now
10.Taxi Driver and also
Touch of Evil
Clockwork Orange
The Shining
Barry Lyndon
Dr. Strangelove
Paths of Glory
Dr. Zhivago
Ikiru
Ran
Rashomon
Seven Samurai
Yojimbo
8 1/2
Psycho
Cries and Whispers
Seventh Seal
Persona
Conversation
Raging Bull
Last Temptation of Christ
Eraserhead
Knife in the Water
Natural Born Killers
Fight Club
Matrix
Blade Runner
Aguirre: Wrath of God
M
Metropolis
La Notte
Weekend
Beware of a Holy Whore
Ivan’s Childhood
The Conformist
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Watchmen Appreciation Thread almost 4 years ago
I went to see Watchmen when it came out in the theatres with a friend of mine. I do not read comic books, but I think there are better comic book movies such as the last two Batman films and Superman. For the most part, I found it to be a visually beautiful film. It was entertaining, but not a great film. Some of the characters I liked such as Rorschach but his voice sounded a lot like Batman. The comedian being thrown out of the window at the start of the film reminded me of the Matrix Reloaded. I liked the music, but the soundtrack seemed to be oversaturated with too much of it. When the characters are at the South Pole and they are playing a part of Philip Glass’s score for Kaayaanasatqi, I found it drew a little attention to itself, not that the music at the particular scene should be very soft though. I think the budget for the movie was half the cost of Titanic, I think one hundred and fifty million. My friend and I were wondering why they released the film in theatres in March. Perhaps the film was released in March due to the bad economy and Warner Brothers wasn’t sure how it would fare during the summer. I can’t seem to remember how much the film grossed the first weekend it came out. I sort of like the idea in the film of the Viet Cong surrendering to Dr. Manhattan and President Nixon being relelected for I believe a fourth term. The nuclear war at the end of the film is an interesting idea. The way that Rorschach has no mercy going after criminals and how he keeps his cool while in jail. The Mars scenes I also found interesting. But there are parts that I didn’t like as well such as the South Pole scene and the villian who appears in that scene. I find that villian in the film not too fantastic, but I can’t remember much about him or the scenes he was in. For me, a film has to work differently than a book or comic book in order for it to work in the medium that it is being used in, so if the person was seeing a film based on a comic book or a book or some other type of medium than it has to work in a cinematic pretext, or it will probably not work on the screen.
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l'eclisse...what the hell? almost 4 years ago
Did you listen to the commentary on the Criterion Collection disc of L’eclisse? I think that, according to the commentator, that the film switched characters from one person to another, instead of following one main character that you would see in a fair number of American films. I don’t know if Antonioni is making a traditional statement or message that other filmmakers might do. He is sort of observing and maybe allowing you to come in with your own conclusions. I think I have may have heard on the commentary for L’avventura that people have begun to distance themselves from one another and he illustrates this with his trademark of silence in his films. The last scene in L’eclisse, according to the commentator was chopped out for the American release because the distributor didn’t think it fit the rest of the movie, when in fact it was just another eclipse into a different way of observing things, like when we are placed in scenes with other characters, compared with the previous scenes with different characters. The commentator mentions during the last scene that the Japanese liked it because of it’s Zen like view on things or something along those lines. La notte is great. Great jazz music. Thought provoking dialogue. It sort of reminds me of the Ice Storm. I believe La Notte was Ingmar Bergman’s favorite Antonioni film.
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Favorite fassbinder film almost 4 years ago
I like Beware of a Holy Whore. I like that it is about a film crew and I think it fits well with other films concerning filmmaking such as Badaass, Hearts of Darkness, Burden of Dreams, American Movie and 8 1/2 for example. I like the boredom and ennui that the film crew and cast are going through, showing the realities of what it is like to film on a movie set. Also, I think it’s one of the best films I have seen about boredom and self indulgence. I do have a copy of Berlin Alexanderplatz but I have yet to watch it.
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Contrary to popular belief... it's okay to hate Inland Empire almost 4 years ago
My friend is a big fan of David Lynch and lent me his copy of Inland Empire. When I watched it the first time, I gradually became lost and bored. However, I tried to watch it a second time and give it another chance. There are some interesting things going on in this film such as the rabbits, the morphing face, but for the most part I felt that scenes went on too long and I didn’t seem to understand it completely. I guess the Polish story, the story told on the movie set about some incident involving lovers, the way the Laura Dern’s character interacts with all this might work together in some sense but I got tired out fairly quickly and was just waiting for it to end. Eraserhead is one of my favorite movies and I think Mulholland Drive is a great picture. Blue Velvet is pretty good too. However, I didn’t seem to get this film. Sometimes, I guess the theories explaining a movie like this might help in making people understand it better, but still it doesn’t seem to change my chance of viewing this movie again. Maybe at some point, I will be able to get through a movie like this, but I have no idea when. By seeing what people have left on this thread here and another one related to the same film, I think it’s allright to love it or not love it. As for me, for the moment, I mostly cannot stand this film. It seems indulgent and incredibly slow. Not that a film can’t be indulgent or incredibly slow, like Beware of a Holy Whore or Barry Lyndon, but the indulgence and slowness that I find within this film seem to not work for it’s advantage. Still, perhaps by studying the various theories, one could appreciate viewing this film.
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What Film Are You Most Looking Forward To In 2009? almost 4 years ago
Inglorious Basterds and Shutter Island.
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Who do you think the most overrated director is? almost 4 years ago
Ron Howard. To some extent, Quentin Tarantino. Steven Soderbergh perhaps.
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Best Cinematographers almost 4 years ago
Vittorio Storaro, John Toll, Greg Tolland, Michael Ballhaus, Chapman, can’t remember his first name, Darius Khandji, Jordan Cronenwenth, Jeff Cronenwenth, Gordon Willis, Richardson, I can’t remember his first name either, Sven Nykvist, Gunnar Fischer, John Alcott, Geoffrey Unsworth.
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Are "The Rules of the Game" and "Battleship Potemkin" the two greatest films of all time? almost 4 years ago
From what I can remember about Rules of the Game, I found it to be rather overrated, but perhaps if I saw it again, I might change my opinion. I think it was sort of like Gosford Park and I wasn’t wild about that film either. Potemkin however is a very well structured film and is a milestone in cinema history, having an influence on editing for one thing. I agree that a ten best films of all time list will not always mirror other filmgoers choices, but it provides people to perhaps gather a greater appreciation for cinema which is not a bad thing. And perhaps, it can help influence people to watch other films or come to websites like this and learn about more great films.
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2001: A Space Odyssey...Outdated? almost 4 years ago
2001 happens to be one of my favorite movies. I think the first time I saw it many years ago, I don’t know if I got it. Now I love it. I think HAL is one of the greatest movie villians of all time such as talking calmly to David Bowman as Bowman slowly murders him. The set inside the Discovery where you see someone walking upside down was truly innovative for it’s time and the star gate scene blows me away. I think the stargate is supposed to be a hole in the universe or some kind of way of going at light speed that leads to this room at the end where these aliens have been waiting for man to come and I think David Bowman is that symbol for humankind. The film is sort of like a poem. I think the monolith is something that gives intelligence to the apemen at the start of the film and turns David Bowman into the starchild at the end of the film. It’s sort of like an evolution of early man to modern man to man as energy or god or however you want to interpret it. Those are just some theories I have. Also, it showed the moon and was fairly accurate a year before man actually walked upon the moon. I think the film is great because it allows a lot of leeway for interpretation, sort of like Eraserhead by David Lynch. Like mentioned above, a lot of Kubrick movie require repeat viewings. The movie was way ahead of it’s time and special effects did not really advance until probably when Star Wars kicked it up a notch. There are plenty of essays that go into interpreting the film. For me, it is not outdated but still way ahead of it’s time and works beautifully.
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IF WE IGNORE 81/2 AND DOLCE VITA, WHAT'D BE THE BEST FELLINI MOVIE? almost 4 years ago
The first one I would have to go with would be La Strada. I think it’s sort of marking his change from neorealism to a more surrealist type of filmmaking that you can see in 8 1/2. I like it’s simplicity and it’s sadness. Then, I would have to go with Juliet of the Spirits. I like how Fellini uses color in Juliet and the huge scale he puts on in the movie such as the size of the sets. I would then have to go with Amarcord. I didn’t always like it but after buying it from Criterion, I really started to enjoy it. I like the loose sense of structure in the film, eventhough a lot of the film follows the young man growing up in the town and not other characters. Satyricon really plays loosely with structure and I have begun to appreciate it more. Like Juliet, it has a wonderful use of color and well designed sets. Again, some of the film does not have the characters we have been following at the beginning of the movie. I saw I vitelloni at a movie theatre and I just found it rather dull.
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On Luis Bunuel almost 4 years ago
I love Bunuel. I have seen Belle de Jour, Exterminating Angel, That Obsure Object of Desire, Un Chien Andalou, Viridiana, Land Without Bread ( did he make that film? ), Discreet Charm of the Burgeiousse and the Milky Way. I like how he pokes fun at the rich and the church. I also agree that he also makes fun of the lower classes too. I have a copy of Diary of a Chambermaid and The Phantom of Liberty, but I haven’t watched those yet. I think, like Godard, that Bunuel was more making fun of things like the Catholic church and the upper class, just like Godard I think did with Marxism and capitalism. At least, that it is how I interpret it. I want to buy a copy of Simon of the Desert, but haven’t managed to do so yet. I don’t know if all of Bunuel’s films or some of them are trying to make some sort of point, but I think that his movies are more like some kind of commentary on society and how ridiculous some of our beliefs are. Does that make sense?
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Would the world be better if 'arthouse' type films ruled the cineplex? almost 4 years ago
I sort of feel that we need both arthouse and big studio type films. I think if one predominated the other, then maybe we could not measure what an arthouse film is compared to a big studio type film. For me, it’s not a matter of how big the budget is or what kind of movie is being made, but if it has something like a good story or a very well thought out artistic form to it. Big Hollywood actors star in smaller indepent films and I don’t really feel that you can separate them completely from the big studio films they star in as well. Some films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Blair Witch Project and I think Little Miss Sunshine have been shown in multiplexe’s and it doesn’t affect their ticket sales. Granted, there are films like Transformers and Terminator: Resurrection that are more big tentpole type movies that are geared toward a much younger audience in multiplexe’s but I don’t view it completely as a bad thing, because it helps keep some people interested in going to the movies rather than not going at all. Perhaps, this might bring people to sites like this or to films featured on the Criterion Collection maybe a little later in their lives. So, the answer for me would not be no or yes but rather some like compared art house fare and big studio films to apples and oranges.
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Would the world be better if 'arthouse' type films ruled the cineplex? almost 4 years ago
I sort of feel that we need both arthouse and big studio type films. I think if one predominated the other, then maybe we could not measure what an arthouse film is compared to a big studio type film. For me, it’s not a matter of how big the budget is or what kind of movie is being made, but if it has something like a good story or a very well thought out artistic form to it. Big Hollywood actors star in smaller indepent films and I don’t really feel that you can separate them completely from the big studio films they star in as well. Some films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Blair Witch Project and I think Little Miss Sunshine have been shown in multiplexe’s and it doesn’t affect their ticket sales. Granted, there are films like Transformers and Terminator: Resurrection that are more big tentpole type movies that are geared toward a much younger audience in multiplexe’s but I don’t view it completely as a bad thing, because it helps keep some people interested in going to the movies rather than not going at all. Perhaps, this might bring people to sites like this or to films featured on the Criterion Collection maybe a little later in their lives. So, the answer for me would not be no or yes but rather some like compared art house fare and big studio films to apples and oranges.
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Would the world be better if 'arthouse' type films ruled the cineplex? almost 4 years ago
I sort of feel that we need both arthouse and big studio type films. I think if one predominated the other, then maybe we could not measure what an arthouse film is compared to a big studio type film. For me, it’s not a matter of how big the budget is or what kind of movie is being made, but if it has something like a good story or a very well thought out artistic form to it. Big Hollywood actors star in smaller indepent films and I don’t really feel that you can separate them completely from the big studio films they star in as well. Some films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Blair Witch Project and I think Little Miss Sunshine have been shown in multiplexe’s and it doesn’t affect their ticket sales. Granted, there are films like Transformers and Terminator: Resurrection that are more big tentpole type movies that are geared toward a much younger audience in multiplexe’s but I don’t view it completely as a bad thing, because it helps keep some people interested in going to the movies rather than not going at all. Perhaps, this might bring people to sites like this or to films featured on the Criterion Collection maybe a little later in their lives. So, the answer for me would not be no or yes but rather some like compared art house fare and big studio films to apples and oranges.
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Top Scorsese almost 4 years ago
Here are my ten
1.Taxi Driver
2.Raging Bull
3.Last Temptation of Christ
4.Good Fellas
5.Mean Streets
6.Gangs of New York
7.Departed
8.Casino
9.Cape Fear
10.The Aviator
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Would the world be better if 'arthouse' type films ruled the cineplex? almost 4 years ago
I don’t think you can totally separate films from making a profit. Film is a business and I do also believe it is also an art form but at the end of the day, you have to have money in order to show films or get them distributed. True, there are films that have bombed at the box office and are really great films like Metropolis and Blade Runner, but thanks to first home video, then DVDs and now Blu-ray as well, we are able to view these films because we have been able to see them again. So, as long as people are on sites like this, have things like NetFlix subscriptions or can get their DVDs or tapes at the local library, not all films are necessarily going to fall off the radar. Yes, it would be nice to have a lot more people aware of filmmakers like Godard and Antonioni, but film is now so open to different means of distribution such as also the internet, that I think perhaps it’s not whether a film makes a huge profit or not, but the level of exposure that it gets.
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l'eclisse...what the hell? almost 4 years ago
Sam Lin, I just saw a youtube video on Bergman where he talks about Antonioni and he mentions in the video that the two films he really like of his are Blow Up and La Notte. I thought that Bergman was a big admirer of Antonioni’s. That video I saw on youtube I believe is in one of the bonus documentaries on the Ingmar Bergman Collection box set I have a copy of. So, you’re saying that he didn’t admire Antonioni too much? I don’t really know myself. Thanks for letting me know.
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I Didn't Like Raging Bull... almost 4 years ago
I think that by the use of the camera and sound, sometimes with slow motion, sometimes fast motion, the way different lenses are used, the slowing down and speeding up of the sound, the way the lights are placed within the scenes, the camera angles, the music allows us to see the movie through Jake’s eyes and see, for the most part, how he comprehends life. At the end of the film, there is a piece of scripture from the Bible that talks about whether a blind man who has just got his sight back sees the man he is told to look at is a sinner and says something like “I do not know if this man is a sinner. All I know is once I was blind and now I see.” So, perhaps Jake LaMotta’s becomes reborn at the end of the movie from an unsympathetic character to a character who has found salvation and that, even if the film features a dark point of view of life, every person can be redeemed. Perhaps, Jake LaMotta had to go down a dark tunnel to find the light or a purpose within his life and instead of channeling his rage through fighting against other people, he has instead found out he is the one that needs to change and that’s how he will become a better person. So, eventhough the film may be depressing, it has an optimistic point of view at the end.
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