Evening Widdershins: At the Movies
Posted by: chatblu on: May 30, 2010
- In: movies | Open Thread
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Pass the popcorn. Everyone has favorite movies, the ones that we can – and have – watched again, and again, and again.
Here’s a quick list of mine, again by genre:
(1) Best of Alfred Hitchcock: North by Northwest, although The Birds scared the beejeezuz out of me as well.
(2) Best of the Sixties: The Graduate. One word? “Plastics”.
(3) Best of the Zillion Dollar Budgets: Cleopatra. Oh, yeah, it had moments of true hokiness, but it was grand and gorgeous.
(4) Best Bogart Film: Casablanca. No doubt about it.
(5) Best Quasi-Historic Movie: Gone With the Wind. The costumes are fabulous, the scenery is gorgeous, and the acting has never been paralleled.
(6) Best Francis Ford Coppola: Apocalypse Now. I know, I know – The Godfather‘s hard to beat, but I think that AN did. Feel free to disagree.
(7) Best Spielberg: Schindler’s List. Almost any of his would be just as good here.’
(8) Best WWII Flick: Midway vs. Patton – I can’t decide
(9) Best Comedy: Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
(10) Best Children’s Movie: Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
(11) Best Three Hanky-Weeper: Beaches.
This is an open thread.
55 Responses to "Evening Widdershins: At the Movies"
May 30, 2010 at 5:46 PM
Favorite Movie / Best Romance / Best Four-Hanky-Weeper: “Waterloo Bridge” ( 1940 )
May 30, 2010 at 6:09 PM
Well…this is tough…. But I’ll try!
11) Kill Bill, Vol. 1 + 2
10) Fight Club
9) The Third Man
8) Trois Couleurs: Blue, White, Red (okay, it’s 3 movies, but it’s a trilogy!)
7) Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (winner of an Oscar for Best Foreign Film)
6) The Purple Rose of Cairo
5) Casablanca
4) Howards End
3) The English Patient
2) Hara-kiri (I bet most people here haven’t seen it. It’s a absolute must.)
1) Apocalypse Now (No arguments from me, Chat!)
But this list is quite inadequate: it should also include “The Godfather 1 and 2,” “The Seven Samurai,” “Yojimbo,” “Sanjuro,” “A Cruel Romance,” “The Remains of the Day,” “Dangerous Liaisons,” “Wonder Boys,” “The Opposite of Sex,” “Toy Story,” “Up,” “Finding Nemo.” The list actually goes on and on.
May 30, 2010 at 6:19 PM
Best historic dramas — I’m going to have to nominate the Korean historical dramas — well done historical pieces. From early first century AD to Yi San — the emperor who introduced democracy to his people. We get to see strong performances from women — WOW — what a treat!! Some great acting by strong women in key roles. We even get to watch two talented women fight for the title of Queen.
Dramafever.com is where to view these. OK they aren’t cinema type productions — although many of the 1 hour dramas could stand alone toe to toe with some of the movie drama fluff (where women have minor roles) in the historical dramas produced by the west.
Jumong — is the one covering the oldest reign. The writers consulted the historical written record and took dramatic liberties. But you really do get involved with the characters and understand political science and the personalities who try to rule a Nation.
Since I don’t understand Korean at all — I rely on the English subtitles — and I don’t have any trouble following the story line or the characters.
Political intrigues, double dealing and backstabbing weren’t invented by modern politicians — the same sort of personalities drawn to politics seems to be universal.
Kingdom of the Wind — is the third in the series. This is about the grandson of the great Jumong.
And — Queen Seon Duk — is probably my favorite of the three — taking place in the 7th century AD.
Yi San take place in the mid 18th century.
These stories are so complex (the costumes are outstanding) and the back stories are needed to understand the backstabbing and double dealing. The Kings and Queens who manage to survive to assume the leadership are truly examples of survival of the fittest.
One theme I found through these dramas is the great efforts that groups put forth to place their puppet King or Queen on the throne. The ideal seems to be to have weak ruler who can be controlled. Doesn’t that sound so very modern????
May 30, 2010 at 6:25 PM
Outstanding US Movies of the 70s — The Sting — hands down one of the best.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).
Three Faces of EVE — Strong performance by Joanne Woodward.
So what other films had STRONG female performances and told a great story?
(I’m a SciFi fan — so the first Star Wars movies are some of the best of the SciFi)
May 30, 2010 at 6:27 PM
I agree about Carol Reed’s “The Third Man”. Also love Reed’s “Odd Man Out”.
May 30, 2010 at 6:29 PM
The Ring Trilogy — Lord of the Rings. One of the few series that I have watched many times and will continue to watch. I love the music — I need to get a CD of the music!!
May 30, 2010 at 6:33 PM
80s movies —
Dirty Dancing — dealing with growing up in the early 60s. (When abortion was illegal etc.)
May 30, 2010 at 6:49 PM
Beata> That magnificent, endless final shot from “The Third Man” is unforgettable. A real punch in the gut.
One director who made an art-form of that sort of thing was Andrei Tarkovsky. His movies are not for everyone. (He made the original “Solaris,” which is excellent.) I think his greatest film is “Andrei Rublev,” about the medieval Russian icon painter. The movie is very long – and slow. But worth getting lost in. Visually it’s astonishing. Tarkovsky was a real visual artist, capturing images in nature like very few people I’ve ever seen. The clip below is one of my favorite sections in the movie. The images as a man is being led to a crucifixion are stunning. I remember when Criterion released a DVD of the film a critic in Premiere magazine wrote that the black and white cinematography is so stunning one wishes the world really looked like that.
The movie was very controversial in its day. The Soviet government banned it and a print was smuggled out of the country and screened at the Cannes Film Festival. The Soviets lodged a formal complaint – but it was too late, word was out. For years it’s been available in heavily truncated form until Criterion restored Tarkovsky’s original 3+ hour version.
May 30, 2010 at 7:02 PM
More about Tarkovsky and “Andrei Rublev.” Tarkovsky is probably one of the most imitated filmmakers around today. Or at least directors keep paying visual homages to him. You can see a few examples in the clip I posted above.
At 5:10 there’s an image of a child smiling at a man about to be crucified. There is a very similar image in “Schindler’s List” of a boy making a “slashing of the throat” gesture as he smiles at a train taking Jews to a death camp.
In “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” Peter Jackson was doing a little not to Tarkovsky in the scene where Eomer and volunteer soldiers are going on their suicide mission: Jackson shows the crowd watching them while standing in these very stylized poses, like statues. Ridley Scott did something almost identical in a few shots in “Gladiator.” These are direct nods to Tarkovsky.
And, of course, R.E.M.’s video for “Losing My Religion” is entirely based on images from Tarkovsky’s films, most notably “Andrei Rublev.”
May 30, 2010 at 7:14 PM
This is torture, plain and simple. How can one even begin? In addition to the ones already named:
The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938 version with Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone.
All About Eve with Bette Davis and Gary Merrill
The Maltese Falcon, with Bogie and that incomparable cast.
The African Queen – Bogie and Katherine Hepburn
The Big Sleep – Bogie and Bacall
Key Largo – Bogie and Bacall (sense a theme here?)
Bonnie and Clyde – Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty
Doctor Strangelove – Peter Sellers and a terrifically insane cast
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Fantasia – Walt Disney
His Girl Friday – Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell
Auntie Mame – Rosalind Russell
Jaws – Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfus and Robert Shaw
The Night of the Hunter – Robert Mitchum – scared me silly.
On the Waterfront – Marlon Brando and Hope Lange
Psycho – Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles – scared me silly and still does. The scene with Martin Balsalm climbing the stairs when “mother” attacks gives me shudders even today.
Rebecca – Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest – Jack Nicholson
The Shawshank Redemption – Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman – the Warden made me furious.
Some like it Hot – Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon
2001 A Space Odyssey – Keir Dullea and Hal, the computer
Silence of the Lambs – Jodie Foster and (shiver) Anthony Hopkins
Death at a Funeral – the Frank Oz British one, not the American remake. I still laugh when I watch it. The midget in the casket breaks me up every time, as does Alan Tudyk when he inadvertently takes a drug that his girlfriend thought was valium, but….When he climbs out on the roof naked – I’m laughing just remembering it.
There are so many more I could name and I have them all in my collection so I can watch them over and over.
Oh, and the original three Star Wars movies, Galaxy Quest (corny, but it breaks me up), Dog Soldiers (Scary British werewolf movie) – see I warned you. I could go on all night!
May 30, 2010 at 7:26 PM
DYB: Wow, stunning is right. I want to see that film. Thank you so much for sharing your insight into Russian and Soviet cultural history with us the past couple days. Fascinating.
Who can see the Odessa Steps scene from Sergei Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin” (1925) and ever forget it?
May 30, 2010 at 7:29 PM
Ooooooooooohhhhhhhh…………if we’re still at this late tonite, I’ll put up a Late, Late Show thread for scary movies!
May 30, 2010 at 7:37 PM
Pan’s Labyrinth – Ivana Banquero – a dark, gothic fairy tale intermixed with the Spanish Civil War reality.
Crimson River – Jean Reno (it’s about a Parisian detective called to a murder in a mountain valley outside Paris)
Robin Hood; Men in tights – Cary Elwes
The Princess Bride – Cary Elwes
The Rope – James Stewart and Farley Granger – a Hitchcock film that mirrors the Leopold-Loeb murder case. Actually, anything Hitchcock.
Snatch – Dennis Farina
Murder by Death – Truman Capote, Alec Guiness, Maggie Smith, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Elsa Lanchester, Peter Falk to name a few – I still laugh at this one, even though it is over 30 years old.
May 30, 2010 at 7:43 PM
Northwestrain> “Dirty Dancing” is my mother’s favorite movie. When we first came to the US somebody gave her a video of it – we didn’t speak English, of course – and told her what happens. She watched that movie dozens of times, not understanding a word they said.
LOTR soundtrack is amazing. If you love it so much and plan to buy it, you should really get the “Complete Recordings” sets. They are 3 multi-disc sets of ALL the music Howard Shore wrote for the films in chronological order. Really amazing stuff!!!
Beata> Ahhh, “Battleship Potemkin” – perhaps the most imitated movie of all time? Or maybe just the most imitated 20 seconds in film history?
I highly recommend “Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears” (which is on my list above.) There’s a DVD from Kino with English subtitles. It’s one of the most beloved films among Russian people. American critics tend to be divided; those who don’t like it dismiss it as sentimental Hollywood-type romantic schlock. But something most definitely gets lost in translation. American critics might be seeing a derivative Hollywood romantic dramedy, but the film was made in the USSR when Brezhnev was still alive. Most older Russians I know think it’s a superb representation of their lives in the 1950s through 1970s. Perhaps US critics want everything out of the USSR to be a searing indictment of the political system, but they forget that in every country the common wo(man) just lives his or her life day to day doing the same boring things they do in America. “Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears” itself is about 3 women and their lives over a 20 year span. It really does say something about the lives of women in the USSR. (Ronald Raygun watched the movie several times before meeting with Gorbachev because he wanted to have a better understanding of the Russian psyche.)
May 30, 2010 at 7:56 PM
Chat> You mentioned “Schindler’s List” as one of your favorite movies. Spielberg has acknowledged his debt to a Soviet WWII film called “Come and See” made in the mid-1980s. It’s unforgettable. Here’s a brief clip; it doesn’t have subtitles, but there’s very little dialog. The DVD (from Kino) has subtitles. Very highly recommended.
May 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM
@25 & 26 — Yes! Yes!
As for comedies — who can forget Monty Python — search for the Holy Grail — one among many great historical (hysterical) comedies.
May 30, 2010 at 8:01 PM
Ooh, definitely “Pan’s Labyrinth.” And “Brazil.” Masterpieces. So is “Children of Men.” And “The Princess Bride.”
BTW, I apologize if I’m becoming annoying with all the Russian stuff. But I figure you don’t need me to recommend an American movie to you, but there are so many great Soviet/Russian films out there you’ve probably never heard of and should see!
Here’s another one, a recent one, called “The Return.”
May 30, 2010 at 8:06 PM
Chat> The DVDs will have subtitles. I know Netflix has all of these.
May 30, 2010 at 8:15 PM
I’m watching “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears” on YouTube.
See you all later….
May 30, 2010 at 8:19 PM
DYB, I’m really glad you’re giving the information about the Russian movies. I watched a recent one – a really well done mystery with subtitles of course, and I wrote down the name so I could go looking for a DVD, then, senility being what it is, I forgot where I put the note!
May 30, 2010 at 8:24 PM
Away from Her – Julie Christie (the most beautiful 69 year old lady, with the exception of Sophia Loren) and Gordon Pinsent – a very sad, but moving story about a lady suffering with Alzheimer’s and the affect it has on her husband and those around her.
May 30, 2010 at 8:28 PM
I think “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” is Billy Wilder’s most underrated film. It’s very funny and deeply moving. Here are the first 10 minutes.
May 30, 2010 at 8:29 PM
HT> “Away from Her” was directed by the actress Sarah Polley, who stars in a very powerful Atom Egoyan film “The Sweet Hereafter” (alongside Ian Holm.)
May 30, 2010 at 9:05 PM
You know, I’m sorry to say I never liked “M.A.S.H.” I just found it so…mean. But Altman’s “Short Cuts” is one of my all-time favorites. And “Gosford Park” is wonderful. And “A Prairie Home Companion” is just lovely.
May 30, 2010 at 9:12 PM
Gosford Park, yes! Jeremy Northam was brilliant as Ivor Novello, and Maggie Smith – sublime.
Another off the wall movie – The Royal Tanenbaums.
May 30, 2010 at 9:14 PM
Here’s Jeremy Northam and Maggie Smith – in “Gosford Park.” It’s such a good movie! Wonderful cast all around!
May 30, 2010 at 9:25 PM
Wong Kar-Wai’s films can be an acquired taste. His most accessible film is probably “Chungking Express.” But “In The Mood For Love” is just ravishing…
It should be noted that before there was “Brokeback Mountain” (which I loved) Kar-Wai made “Happy Together” starring Tony Leung and Lesley Chung – two of the biggest stars in Asia – as a gay couple (and featured an explicit sex scene!) He’s a fascinating filmmaker.
May 30, 2010 at 10:09 PM
OMG Beata, Waterloo Bridge!!! My mom loved it and introduced me to it shortly before she became ill. Vivien was never more heartbreaking and beautiful.
May 30, 2010 at 10:16 PM
Back Bay: Both Vivien and Robert Taylor considered “Waterloo Bridge” to be their best film. I agree.
May 31, 2010 at 10:36 PM
Sound of Music
Ryan’s Daughter
Dr Zhivago
Paint Your Wagon
The President’s Analyst
Sand Pebbles
Cat Ballou
The Sand Lot
May 31, 2010 at 11:27 PM
Meeeee, Agreed, but then again, I actually enjoyed Clint Eastwood singing, so hey, what do I know?
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