“La dolce vita”, “8 1/2”, “Fellini-Satyricon”, “Fellini-Roma”, “Fellini-Casanova”, “Ginger e Fred”, “La voce della luna” by Federico Fellini.
“Salvatore Giuliano”, “Cadaveri Eccellenti” by Francesco Rosi.
“The Darjeeling Limited” by Wes Anderson.
“Mean Streets”, “Raging Bull”, “Bringing Out the Dead”, “Gangs of New York” by Martin Scorsese.
“Duel” by Steven Spielberg.
“Dr. Strangelove”, “A Clockwork Orange”, “Barry Lyndon”, “Eyes Wide Shut” by Stanley Kubrick.
“Limelight” by Charles Chaplin.
“Manhattan”, “Annie Hall”, “Match Point”, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” by Allen Konigsberg.
“Sunset Blvd.” by Billy Wilder.
“Cabiria” by Giovanni Pastrone.
“Intolerance” by David W. Griffith.
“Que Viva Mexico” by Serjei Eisenstein.
“Det Sjunde Inseglet” by Ingmar Bergman.
“Roma Città Aperta” by Roberto Rossellini.
“Nuovo Cinema Paradiso”, “L’uomo delle stelle” by Giuseppe Tornatore.
“Gomorra” by Matteo Garrone.
“Notorious”, “Rope”, “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “North by Northwest”, “Vertigo” by Alfred Hitchcock.
Symmetry in the pictures before everything. Plus, his shots (mainly with 4:3 aspect ratio) remind paintings (like in Barry Lyndon) or photographs.
Kubrick gave all his best in every thing he had done. He’s been a genius because he has been more-than-precise in his work. The fact that what remains of him is just the 10% of what he has directed is a great evidence of it.
He made one masterpiece for every genre of 20th Century cinema (probably he just left Silent movies and Western movies). That’s the final reason because he is of the most unforgettable characters of 20th Century.
P.S.
Probably “2001: A Space Odyssey” could be considered a Silent movie in many parts. And “Dr. Strangelove” ’s Maj. King Kong could be considered a cow-boy as well…
Umberto’s TOP 10 Films (on Sunday 1st March 2009):
1) “8 1/2” (1963), by Federico Fellini
2) “La Dolce Vita” (1960), by Federico Fellini
3) “Dr. Strangelove or: …” (1964), by Stanley Kubrick
4) “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), by Stanley Kubrick
5) “Apocalypse Now Redux” (1979-2001), by Francis Ford Coppola
6) “Raging Bull” (1980), by Martin Scorsese
7) “Notorious” (1946), by Alfred Hitchcock
8) “Limelight” (1952), by Charles S. Chaplin
9) “Taxi Driver” (1976), by Martin Scorsese
10) “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), by Sergio Leone
UMBERTO’s TOP 10 Directors (on Sunday 1st March 2009):
1) Federico Fellini
2) Stanley Kubrick
3) Martin Scorsese
4) Alfred Hitchcock
5) Orson Welles
6) Serjei Eisenstein
7) Charles S. Chaplin
8) Ingmar Bergman
9) Sergio Leone
10) Krzysztof Kieślowski
- “Apocalypse Now”, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Coppola
- “Bringing Out the Dead”, “New York, New York”, “Mean Streets”, “Gangs of New York”, “The Departed” and “The Key to Reserva”, by Scorsese
- “Le Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio”, “Fellini-Satyricon”, “Fellini-Casanova” and “Roma”, by Fellini
- "Fistful of Dollars and “Once upon a Time in America”, by Leone
- “Amator”, “A Short Film About Love” and “A Short Film About Killing”, by Kieslowski
- “Deconstructing Harry”, “Match Point”, “Cassandra’s Dream” and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”, by Woody Allen
- “From Dusk till Dawn” and “Sin City”, by Robert Rodriguez
- “Kill Bill Vol.1&2”, by Tarantino
Since when “Fellini-Satyricon” has become a lousy movie?
To me it is Fellini’s 3rd best picture. I’ll tell you more: togheter with “Le Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio”, “8 1/2” and “Giuilietta degli Spiriti”, this film features the best directing from Fellini.
I could understand your dislike for this film just if you’re not Italian (or French). Just the people who are born among the ruins of Roman Empire can perceive this film correctly. This comes from the Collective Unconscious theory. Experience confirms that… Personally I don’t know a single friend of mine who doesn’t like this film. While I could enumerate thousands of North American who dislike this masterpiece…
That’s the why Hollywoodian reconstructions of Ancient Rome (from “Ben Hur” to “Gladiator”) will always be inferior to the Rome envisioned by Fellini or Brass.
Very good job, Adam. The results came out very close to the “objective” values on the pitch.
The lists are also very similar to the effective “Sight & Sound” poll: someone could consider us critics, instead of film-goers.
However, a rapid analisys of the poll, makes me disagree (that’s just my opinion) with two things:
1) Francis Ford Coppola takes full advantage of the numerous “Godfather” fans. In this way he results higher than Martin Scorsese in the Top Directors’ chart. Sometimes I wish Coppola had never directed that “thing”. I really don’t know how many hundreds of masterpieces the poor Marty will have to produce to overtake Coppola, according to your opinions… LOL
2) France is higher than Italy in the “Top Ten Nations of Cinema” chart. So, I would like to remind that the “Best foreign language film” category was institued by the Academy to award those masterpieces that were coming out in the 1950s from the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, directed by Rossellini, De Sica and Fellini… The reason because the Cannes Film Festival exists is that Frenchmen couldn’t “defeat” the too-powerful Italian directors. It is clear that this result of today came out just because there are too many people from France on www.theauteurs.com, or too many enthusiastic fans of the Nouvelle Vague. It was just a consideration, I hope you don’t really mind. ;)
The last works of Fellini wouldn’t have never existed if RAI TV didn’t co-operate to produce them. Plus, Fellini made a documentary on himself for the NBC, “Block-Notes di un regista” (aka "Fellini – A Director’s Notebook) which is useful for students/fans to understand his work behind “Satyricon” and behind the greatest masterpiece never-made “Il Viaggio di G. Mastorna”.
I like Kieslowski’s “Dekalog” a lot, too. And what about “Twin Peaks” by David Lynch?
Of course I do appreciate the directors’ work for television!
I totally agree on the fact that “Dekalog” deserves the “Criterion treatment”.
I just disagree on the fact that should come out on Blu-Ray for two reasons.
1) “Dekalog” has a 4:3 AR. The image should be somehow letterboxed (see “The Third Man”).
2) Since the series was shot in the 1980s in Poland, I don’t even know how much the video and audio quality is improveable. Don’t forget that some Hollywood films of the 1930s have a better quality than films from the ex-URSS Countries still today !!!
However, I join my scream to your voices:
- PLEASE, CRITERION, RESTORE THIS UNFORGETTABLE MASTERPIECE AND GIVE HIM THE QUALITY IT DESERVES !!! -
Since my whole life is chaotic (probably more that Fellini’s), I do not agree at all with putting up lists and charts. It is impossible to rule the chaos.
My real top 10 chart wouldn’t be much different from this one:
1. The complete oeuvre of Federico Fellini
2. The complete oeuvre of Stanley Kubrick
3. Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Vertigo, Notorious, Apocalypse Now Redux, City Lights, Limelight
4. (Too many Woody Allen’s films)
5. Kieslowski’s “Amator”, “Dekalog”, “Trois Couleurs”
6. …
As you can see, it is so difficult to decide which films are the best, because many of them are on the same floor.
And if I think to this sentence, often repeated by Fellini: “I direct always the same film”, then I realize how much innatural the process of classification is.
Could you choose a single film among these Kubrick masterpieces: “Paths of Glory”, “Dr. Strangelove”, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “A Clockwork Orange”, “Barry Lyndon”… Of course not. Otherwise Kubrick would have been just a good director, but he is not. He is a genius, that’s the point.
Could you compare Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Balzac, Proust, Joyce, Kafka, Pirandello and Fitzgerald?… Total absurdity!
It’s very difficult to choose among so many masterpieces. However, I’ll give it a try:
1) Raging Bull
2) Goodfellas
3) Taxi Driver
4) The Departed
5) Gangs of New York
6) Bringing Out the Dead
7) The Key to Reserva
8) Mean Streets
9) Casino
10) The Aviator
11) Cape Fear
12) …
= I must have forgot someone for sure, so – please – do not blame me!
“Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), by Sergio Leone.
Watch the original cut (the Italian version), not the fu**ing Arnon Milchan shorter one (aka “the killed edition”). Leone would have won the Oscars, if only that piece of sh*t didn’t touch that masterpiece…
However, I think that this is the best film about life. And also the one that gives the real impression of the running time.
Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
“La dolce vita”, “8 1/2”, “Fellini-Satyricon”, “Fellini-Roma”, “Fellini-Casanova”, “Ginger e Fred”, “La voce della luna” by Federico Fellini.
“Salvatore Giuliano”, “Cadaveri Eccellenti” by Francesco Rosi.
“The Darjeeling Limited” by Wes Anderson.
“Mean Streets”, “Raging Bull”, “Bringing Out the Dead”, “Gangs of New York” by Martin Scorsese.
“Duel” by Steven Spielberg.
“Dr. Strangelove”, “A Clockwork Orange”, “Barry Lyndon”, “Eyes Wide Shut” by Stanley Kubrick.
“Limelight” by Charles Chaplin.
“Manhattan”, “Annie Hall”, “Match Point”, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” by Allen Konigsberg.
“Sunset Blvd.” by Billy Wilder.
“Cabiria” by Giovanni Pastrone.
“Intolerance” by David W. Griffith.
“Que Viva Mexico” by Serjei Eisenstein.
“Det Sjunde Inseglet” by Ingmar Bergman.
“Roma Città Aperta” by Roberto Rossellini.
“Nuovo Cinema Paradiso”, “L’uomo delle stelle” by Giuseppe Tornatore.
“Gomorra” by Matteo Garrone.
“Notorious”, “Rope”, “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “North by Northwest”, “Vertigo” by Alfred Hitchcock.
I think it’s everything for the moment.
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What sets Stanley apart from the others? over 3 years ago
Symmetry in the pictures before everything. Plus, his shots (mainly with 4:3 aspect ratio) remind paintings (like in Barry Lyndon) or photographs.
Kubrick gave all his best in every thing he had done. He’s been a genius because he has been more-than-precise in his work. The fact that what remains of him is just the 10% of what he has directed is a great evidence of it.
He made one masterpiece for every genre of 20th Century cinema (probably he just left Silent movies and Western movies). That’s the final reason because he is of the most unforgettable characters of 20th Century.
P.S.
Probably “2001: A Space Odyssey” could be considered a Silent movie in many parts. And “Dr. Strangelove” ’s Maj. King Kong could be considered a cow-boy as well…
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The Auteurs "Sight & Sound" Poll over 3 years ago
Is there enough room for me?
@:-)
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The Auteurs "Sight & Sound" Poll over 3 years ago
Umberto’s TOP 10 Films (on Sunday 1st March 2009):
1) “8 1/2” (1963), by Federico Fellini
2) “La Dolce Vita” (1960), by Federico Fellini
3) “Dr. Strangelove or: …” (1964), by Stanley Kubrick
4) “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), by Stanley Kubrick
5) “Apocalypse Now Redux” (1979-2001), by Francis Ford Coppola
6) “Raging Bull” (1980), by Martin Scorsese
7) “Notorious” (1946), by Alfred Hitchcock
8) “Limelight” (1952), by Charles S. Chaplin
9) “Taxi Driver” (1976), by Martin Scorsese
10) “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), by Sergio Leone
UMBERTO’s TOP 10 Directors (on Sunday 1st March 2009):
1) Federico Fellini
2) Stanley Kubrick
3) Martin Scorsese
4) Alfred Hitchcock
5) Orson Welles
6) Serjei Eisenstein
7) Charles S. Chaplin
8) Ingmar Bergman
9) Sergio Leone
10) Krzysztof Kieślowski
Thanks for this interesting project.
Cheers
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The Auteurs "Sight & Sound" Poll over 3 years ago
I’d like to kill myself… I didn’t include “Vertigo” in my own list !
In the meanwhile, I want to say that I’m proud of having seen Fellini and Kubrick in many lists!
:D
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The Auteurs "Sight & Sound" Poll over 3 years ago
Does DEKALOG count as a single film?
I thought it was a TV series whose episodes came out in a random order. Many of ’em also have a double version…
So, even HEIMAT and BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ count as single films?
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Most Versatile Director over 3 years ago
It depends on what is intended for “versatile”…
If you mean someone who could direct just “every kind of film”, then Stanley Kubrick is the guy you’re looking for!
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The Greatest Movies Never Made... over 3 years ago
Federico Fellini’s “Il Viaggio di G. Mastorna”, I guess.
Then, there are Kubrick’s “Napoleon”, Leone’s “Stalingrad” and Lean’s remake of “Doctor Zhivago”.
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The Greatest Movies Never Made... over 3 years ago
I forgot another one: “Caligula”, by Giovanni “Tinto” Brass.
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Movies Not On Criterion (& therefore, not on TheAuteurs) over 3 years ago
- “Apocalypse Now”, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Coppola
- “Bringing Out the Dead”, “New York, New York”, “Mean Streets”, “Gangs of New York”, “The Departed” and “The Key to Reserva”, by Scorsese
- “Le Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio”, “Fellini-Satyricon”, “Fellini-Casanova” and “Roma”, by Fellini
- "Fistful of Dollars and “Once upon a Time in America”, by Leone
- “Amator”, “A Short Film About Love” and “A Short Film About Killing”, by Kieslowski
- “Deconstructing Harry”, “Match Point”, “Cassandra’s Dream” and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”, by Woody Allen
- “From Dusk till Dawn” and “Sin City”, by Robert Rodriguez
- “Kill Bill Vol.1&2”, by Tarantino
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The Auteurs "Sight & Sound" Poll over 3 years ago
Ouch! Probably the 10-entries lists are too much poor…
People exclude a lot of “obvious” masterpieces like “Goodfellas” !
Let’s see, but I’n not confident this is going to work properly…
:(
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Last Time Best Picture Oscar Winner was a Masterpiece? about 3 years ago
“The Departed” and “No Country for Old Men” are two masterpieces of the 2000s. I guess nobody disagrees with me.
Probably “Crash” and “Slumdog Millionnaire” are not that good, but I find them great, too.
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How could such a great director make such a lousy movie? about 3 years ago
Since when “Fellini-Satyricon” has become a lousy movie?
To me it is Fellini’s 3rd best picture. I’ll tell you more: togheter with “Le Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio”, “8 1/2” and “Giuilietta degli Spiriti”, this film features the best directing from Fellini.
I could understand your dislike for this film just if you’re not Italian (or French). Just the people who are born among the ruins of Roman Empire can perceive this film correctly. This comes from the Collective Unconscious theory. Experience confirms that… Personally I don’t know a single friend of mine who doesn’t like this film. While I could enumerate thousands of North American who dislike this masterpiece…
That’s the why Hollywoodian reconstructions of Ancient Rome (from “Ben Hur” to “Gladiator”) will always be inferior to the Rome envisioned by Fellini or Brass.
BENE VALETE.
:D
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Last Time Best Picture Oscar Winner was a Masterpiece? about 3 years ago
Why not? At least “The Departed” could be considered so. It thrills me just like “Goodfellas” does…
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Last Time Best Picture Oscar Winner was a Masterpiece? about 3 years ago
Why not? At least “The Departed” could be considered so. It thrills me just like “Goodfellas” does…
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The Auteurs Poll Results about 3 years ago
Very good job, Adam. The results came out very close to the “objective” values on the pitch.
The lists are also very similar to the effective “Sight & Sound” poll: someone could consider us critics, instead of film-goers.
However, a rapid analisys of the poll, makes me disagree (that’s just my opinion) with two things:
1) Francis Ford Coppola takes full advantage of the numerous “Godfather” fans. In this way he results higher than Martin Scorsese in the Top Directors’ chart. Sometimes I wish Coppola had never directed that “thing”. I really don’t know how many hundreds of masterpieces the poor Marty will have to produce to overtake Coppola, according to your opinions… LOL
2) France is higher than Italy in the “Top Ten Nations of Cinema” chart. So, I would like to remind that the “Best foreign language film” category was institued by the Academy to award those masterpieces that were coming out in the 1950s from the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, directed by Rossellini, De Sica and Fellini… The reason because the Cannes Film Festival exists is that Frenchmen couldn’t “defeat” the too-powerful Italian directors. It is clear that this result of today came out just because there are too many people from France on www.theauteurs.com, or too many enthusiastic fans of the Nouvelle Vague. It was just a consideration, I hope you don’t really mind. ;)
Thank you for your generous attention.
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WHO IS / WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FILM ACTRESS EVER? about 3 years ago
Although I prefer brown-haired women, I have to say Ingrid Bergman for life.
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Best Film About Film? about 3 years ago
These are four nice entries:
8 1/2
Sunset Blvd.
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
Fellini-Intervista
But I guess “8 1/2” wins because of the prodigious directing and the level of depth used to describe the hard job of the film-maker.
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Where are you from? about 3 years ago
Isernia, Italy, EU
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Do you consider a director's work for television as significant as his work for the big screen? about 3 years ago
The last works of Fellini wouldn’t have never existed if RAI TV didn’t co-operate to produce them. Plus, Fellini made a documentary on himself for the NBC, “Block-Notes di un regista” (aka "Fellini – A Director’s Notebook) which is useful for students/fans to understand his work behind “Satyricon” and behind the greatest masterpiece never-made “Il Viaggio di G. Mastorna”.
I like Kieslowski’s “Dekalog” a lot, too. And what about “Twin Peaks” by David Lynch?
Of course I do appreciate the directors’ work for television!
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Expanding the Criterion Collection about 3 years ago
I totally agree on the fact that “Dekalog” deserves the “Criterion treatment”.
I just disagree on the fact that should come out on Blu-Ray for two reasons.
1) “Dekalog” has a 4:3 AR. The image should be somehow letterboxed (see “The Third Man”).
2) Since the series was shot in the 1980s in Poland, I don’t even know how much the video and audio quality is improveable. Don’t forget that some Hollywood films of the 1930s have a better quality than films from the ex-URSS Countries still today !!!
However, I join my scream to your voices:
- PLEASE, CRITERION, RESTORE THIS UNFORGETTABLE MASTERPIECE AND GIVE HIM THE QUALITY IT DESERVES !!! -
Go to Comment
The Auteurs Poll Results about 3 years ago
A very simple question for Adam:
Why did you write down just the TOP 9 films?
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What is Kubrick's Most Under-Appreciated Film? about 3 years ago
Barry Lyndon is the most under-rated. This is because of the bad reviews from the American critics.
To me it is not just good, but a truly masterpiece.
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Lists: Important or not? about 3 years ago
Since my whole life is chaotic (probably more that Fellini’s), I do not agree at all with putting up lists and charts. It is impossible to rule the chaos.
My real top 10 chart wouldn’t be much different from this one:
1. The complete oeuvre of Federico Fellini
2. The complete oeuvre of Stanley Kubrick
3. Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Vertigo, Notorious, Apocalypse Now Redux, City Lights, Limelight
4. (Too many Woody Allen’s films)
5. Kieslowski’s “Amator”, “Dekalog”, “Trois Couleurs”
6. …
As you can see, it is so difficult to decide which films are the best, because many of them are on the same floor.
And if I think to this sentence, often repeated by Fellini: “I direct always the same film”, then I realize how much innatural the process of classification is.
Could you choose a single film among these Kubrick masterpieces: “Paths of Glory”, “Dr. Strangelove”, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “A Clockwork Orange”, “Barry Lyndon”… Of course not. Otherwise Kubrick would have been just a good director, but he is not. He is a genius, that’s the point.
Could you compare Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Balzac, Proust, Joyce, Kafka, Pirandello and Fitzgerald?… Total absurdity!
That’s my humble opinion.
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Directors that consistently make terrible films about 3 years ago
I agree on Brian De Palma… a real waste of talent. However other two hot picks are Ron Howard and Ridley Scott.
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The Coen Bros. -- Best film about 3 years ago
Fargo
The Big Lebowski
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Man Who Wasn’t There
No Country for Old Men
Believe me, I cannot choose. Probably the most “Coenian” is “The Man Who Wasn’t There”.
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Tullio Pinelli dies at 100 about 3 years ago
A typical intellectual of XX Century. And also one of the greatest writers in the Italian Cinema of his generation.
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Top Scorsese about 3 years ago
It’s very difficult to choose among so many masterpieces. However, I’ll give it a try:
1) Raging Bull
2) Goodfellas
3) Taxi Driver
4) The Departed
5) Gangs of New York
6) Bringing Out the Dead
7) The Key to Reserva
8) Mean Streets
9) Casino
10) The Aviator
11) Cape Fear
12) …
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Most violent films you've seen about 3 years ago
- “Dobermann” (1997), by Jan Kounen
- “Caligola” (1979), by Giovanni “Tinto” Brass and Bob Guccione.
- “Videodrome” (1983), by David Cronenberg.
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Films about life. about 3 years ago
“Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), by Sergio Leone.
Watch the original cut (the Italian version), not the fu**ing Arnon Milchan shorter one (aka “the killed edition”). Leone would have won the Oscars, if only that piece of sh*t didn’t touch that masterpiece…
However, I think that this is the best film about life. And also the one that gives the real impression of the running time.
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