The Movies - Page 5

R. Nemo Hill · #41 10-23-2018, 05:43 PM

Now that Sergio Leone has been mentioned, Once Upon A Time In America (the uncut version) is one that shattered me.
Time is virtually a character in that film.
(And time according to Tarkovsky is one of film's key tools).

Nemo

Cally Conan-Davies · #42 10-23-2018, 05:57 PM

Oooo - I haven't seen that. Must.

Mark McDonnell · #43 10-23-2018, 06:00 PM

Nemo, God yes, how did I miss this out! The 4 hour version. It is even better than West, you're right. That hallucinatory layering of the time-frames over each other, with the soundtrack — the telephone ringing endlessly over the opening sequence until you forget it's even there. The whole sequence with them all as kids is a movie by itself. And De Niro's wolfish enigmatic opium smile at the end. It's a beautifully exhausting melancholy dream of a film.

Cross-posted: Cally, yes you must!

R. Nemo Hill · #44 10-23-2018, 06:12 PM

Cally, just don't get the shortened version.
The real one is almost four hours long.
And the Morricone score is to die for.

Nemo

Allen Tice · #45 10-23-2018, 08:01 PM

A bag of titles:

The Truman Show
Sneakers
Somewhere in Time
Midnight in Paris
Minority Report
The Seventh Seal *
That Thing You Do
Cave of Forgotten Dreams *
The Usual Suspects
The Incredibles (number one only)
Yojimbo
Rashomon
The Wizard of Oz (saw it 125 times with my kids - stopped counting)
Guys and Dolls
The Music Man (original version)
The Hunt for Red October
Wag the Dog
Gladiator
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum
Last Year at Marienbad
Ulysses’ Gaze

I want to add a current US-available TV series on NETFLIX from Spain with subtitles: The Ministry of Time (El Ministerio del Tiempo). The Ministry is a top secret unit that has been owned by the Spanish Crown since the 1400s and it has access only to Spanish territory. Episode one (there are three seasons) has a new agent who is being inducted opening a numbered doorway to hear hammers clinking in the distance. He pushes past a cloth to see a Roman aquaduct being constructed a thousand yards away. Very impressive, except that the aquaduct is being built wrongly. The show has it proceeding from right to left with all three levels being built simultaneously. That would have be un-Romanly dumb. The slope for an aquaduct is more sensitive than a railroad grade. They had to be built from the ground up, and leveled constantly, not built sideways. Otherwise, the series is terrific.

I can’t apologize for my boozhy taste.

Quincy Lehr · #46 10-23-2018, 08:35 PM

Among documentaries, it is hard to do better than JEFFTOWNE, an inspirational tale of a mentally handicapped man who doesn’t let his condition get in the way of living his best life.

James Brancheau · #47 10-23-2018, 11:37 PM

I think I'm just going to print this thread out when it starts to sink. I'm having trouble keeping up. So many great suggestions (and reminders that I need to up my game...) Just some random thoughts-- yeah, I'd definitely echo Nemo on Spielberg and Lucas. Though I'd have to say Jaws is far and away my favorite Spielberg (yes yes Mark, wonderful characters) and I remember I enjoyed American Graffiti. Fargo is probably my favorite Coen brothers movie, though No Country For Old Men isn't too far behind. For me, they're very hit or miss. I'm also a Wenders fan (especially Wings of Desire and Paris, Texas) and certainly one of my favorite directors is Milos Forman (it was panned, but I even liked Goya's Ghosts).

As far as documentaries, I'd highly recommend Scorsese's No Direction Home (a mesmerizing film on Dylan-- a true work of art in itself) and Hoop Dreams.

Ann Drysdale · #48 10-24-2018, 01:29 AM

Three... (Marienbad being a given).

Night of the Hunter (Laughton)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
A Foreign Affair/One-Two-Three (Wilder)

I love most of Wilder but I guess I was the only person in the NFT who wept (quietly) when Lilo Pulver did her lewd dance on the restaurant table in O-T-T, remembering Dietrich in A Foreign Affair with a very different vision for the future of Berlin. It was like watching Wilder slit his wrists.

I also love Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, but I lost my heart to the anti-hero so perhaps my judgement is flawed.

James Brancheau · #49 10-24-2018, 02:32 AM

I'm a little surprised Jim Jarmusch hasn't come up (if it has, sorry I missed it). I'm not his biggest fan, but he always somehow keeps me watching.

Two of the biggest surprises for me recently were Scorsese's Silence and (especially) The Witch (2015, Robert Eggers). After reading some reviews about the former, I prepared myself for a slower (perhaps at times tedious) movie. Couldn't disagree more. I was fully engaged throughout and for some time after it ended. Really affected me. The latter is just wonderfully creepy. Hard to find a good scary movie anymore (or ever) and that one did it for me. (Comparisons to The Exorcist are deserved, though it's still not as good as that. But that's a high bar, imo.)

Oh, and as long as I'm thinking of it, There Will Be Blood. Other than his Gangs of New York role, my favorite Daniel Day-Lewis performance. And a killer soundtrack.

Allen Tice · #50 10-24-2018, 08:32 AM

--Double post--