Capo
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Post by Capo on Feb 26, 2008 15:10:34 GMT
FWIW, here's the short list I have on Facebook under "Favorite Movies":
Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Beau Travail, Blue Velvet, Children of Men, Climates, The Conversation, Damnation, The Deer Hunter, Don't Look Now, Double Indemnity, Éloge de l'amour, Eraserhead, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Goodfellas, The Intruder, Irreversible, Lost In Translation, Manhattan, Mean Streets, The New World, Paris, Texas, Persona, Raging Bull, Rear Window, Singin' in the Rain, Songs From the Second Floor, Stalker, Syndromes and a Century, Taxi Driver, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, There Will Be Blood, Uzak, Vertigo, Weekend, Werckmeister Harmonies, Zodiac
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Feb 26, 2008 15:16:31 GMT
And a current narrowing down to a Top 10 (which is changing daily these days):
_1. Lost In Translation (Coppola) _2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry) _3. The New World (Malick) _4. Damnation (Tarr) _5. Taxi Driver (Scorsese) _6. Children of Men (Cúaron) _7. There Will Be Blood (Anderson) _8. Blue Velvet (Lynch) _9. Manhattan (Allen) 10. Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr)
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jake
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Post by jake on Feb 26, 2008 15:40:22 GMT
My current list
1. Zerkalo (Tarkovsky) 2. Sans Soleil (Marker) 3. In Der Time Zeit (Wenders) 4. Days of Heaven (Malick) 5. L'Avventura (Antonioni) 6. Pickpocket (Bresson) 7. The Third Man (Reed) 8. Viskningar och rop (Bergman) 9. El Espíritu de la colmena (Erice) 10. Inland Empire (Lynch)
And Badlands (Malick), Der Himmel über Berlin & Paris, Texas (Wenders), L'Humanité (Dumont), Tôkyô monogatari (Ozu), McCabe & Mrs Miller (Altman) and a lot more..
On top of that I forgot Ta'm e guilass (Kirarostami), Weekend (Godard) and Dukhovnye golosa (Sokurov).
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Feb 26, 2008 15:45:30 GMT
I was planning on watching Mirror again this week. Also desperate to see Days of Heaven again. L'Humanité has influenced me more than I first thought possible - I should (like you and wetdog) bump it up a star for its lasting effect. I see Paris, Texas next Sunday or Mondaty at the cinema- there's a whole load of Wenders's stuff playing over the next few months. Jake, since it's your (most) local Picturehouse, here's the link to Cambridge (I'm seeing them in Norwich; I missed Alice in the Cities last night, though): www.picturehouses.co.uk/news_item.aspx?venueId=camb&id=855
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jake
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Post by jake on Feb 26, 2008 15:53:48 GMT
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Feb 26, 2008 16:03:17 GMT
I've seen it about six of seven times; twice at the cinema when it was out.
The cinema's the place to see it, of course - though the solitude of a darkened room and intimate screen is still pretty powerful. Last time I watched it (earlier this month) it pierced me in ways few films do. I think it's an absolute masterpiece. The quote in my signature is delivered with such knowing and implicit resignation it brings me to tears. The tragedy of transient love, eh?
I'm gatecrashing a screening of The Thin Red Line next week; it's showing on a unit called "Film as Philosophy" (they've shown Last Year in Marienbad, Blade Runner, Memento, Fight Club, The Shining and others so far).
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Post by seyfried on Apr 10, 2008 7:33:46 GMT
I missed out on the discussion (subsequently, haven't read through it), and from the looks of it I side with wetdog's belief that differentiation of a "best" list implies an self-realized "objective rating system"...something inherently flawed upon creation. Of course, certain films do more things, but being an encompassing arbiter on whether those things are better or worse (or more effective and useful) is something that is, once again, self-realized. Just my quick two-cents.
I've attempted a top-10 on a few occasions, became flustered, and then obliterated it in a flurry of frustration and rage. I'll just list some films in the last year or so, that I've felt quite a fondness for defending and promoting on any chance given -- and for that reason, these are essentially the films that have interested me the most:
Love Streams/Opening Night (John Cassavetes) Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola) The Shining/Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick) Je t'aime, Je t'aime/Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais) News From Home/Jeanne Diellman (Chantal Akerman) Miami Vice/ Heat/ The Insider (Michael Mann) Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese) Forest of Bliss (Robert Gardner) A History of Violence/Videodrome (Cronenberg) Vertigo/Marnie/Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock) The Life of Oharu (Kenji Mizoguchi) White Dog/Pick-up on South Street (Sam Fuller) Eraserhead/ Mulholland Drive/Lost Highway (David Lynch) Persona/ Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman) Y Tu Mama Tambien/ Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron) Woman in the Dunes (Heroshi Teshigahara) Zerkalo/Nostalghia/Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky) My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki) Hana-Bi (Takeshi Kitano) Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini) Elephant (Gus Van Sant) Basic Instinct 2 (Michael Caton-Jones) Southland Tales (Richard Kelly)
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 15, 2008 15:02:06 GMT
Ten films currently inspiring me as I walk to and from campus:
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Ming-liang Tsai; 2006) Climates (Nuri Bilge Ceylan; 2006) Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weeresakul; 2006) There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson; 2007) Beau travail (Claire Denis; 1999) Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weeresakul; 2002) L'humanité (Bruno Dumont; 1998) L'argent (Robert Bresson; 1983) Old Joy (Kelly Reichardt; 2006) 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Michael Haneke; 1994)
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 15, 2008 15:05:39 GMT
A solidified top ten is hopeless to me at the minute; it's changing rapidly and constantly, and any attempt to hold onto old favourites is just stubborn nostalgia on my part.
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Post by pizzaboy on Apr 16, 2008 16:53:04 GMT
I just read an interview with Sydney Pollack, where he stated his opinion of the ten best films of all-time. I think he did a decent job.
Here it is:
1) Casablanca 2) Citizen Kane 3) The Conformist 4) The Godfather Part II 5) La Grande Illusion 6) The Leopard 7) Once Upon a Time in America 8) Raging Bull 9) The Seventh Seal 10) Sunset Blvd
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 16, 2008 19:36:12 GMT
Was it online? Do you have a link? I'd be interested in reading it.
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Kino
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Post by Kino on Apr 16, 2008 21:22:20 GMT
Casablanca is a perfect film and a classic, but I do think it's overrated. I mean I like it and all, but outranking the best Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Keaton, Chaplin, Welles, etc.?
(No, the greatest films don't have to be dark or a non-romance movie.)
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Post by seyfried on Apr 16, 2008 21:54:54 GMT
For my money, Casablanca is a "better film" - whatever that term means nowadays - than Hawkes's, Ford's, and quite possibly, Welles's best. Hitchcock has arguably 3 that I prefer (Vertigo, Marnie, Rear Windown, and Psycho on even days) to it, but these things are as ephemeral as anything goes. It's not a bad list by Pollack ..albeit a bit boring (if that makes any sense). But all of this has been available for quite some time: www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/list.php?list=voters&votertype=director
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Post by pizzaboy on Apr 16, 2008 22:21:05 GMT
For my money, Casablanca is a "better film" - whatever that term means nowadays - than Hawkes's, Ford's, and quite possibly, Welles's best. Hitchcock has arguably 3 that I prefer (Vertigo, Marnie, Rear Windown, and Psycho on even days) to it, but these things are as ephemeral as anything goes. It's not a bad list by Pollack ..albeit a bit boring (if that makes any sense). But all of this has been available for quite some time: www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/list.php?list=voters&votertype=directorYeah, that's the link. I know it's a few years old, but I just recently read it. I really like Pollack, he's not a bad actor, either.
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Post by Michael on Apr 16, 2008 22:30:52 GMT
Kino, is there a film in existence that you don't like?
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 16, 2008 22:32:40 GMT
Anyone else wanna chime in with their current films? (Forget the solidified drivel; ten films you've been thinking of more than any others lately.)
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Post by pizzaboy on Apr 16, 2008 22:51:34 GMT
Anyone else wanna chime in with their current films? (Forget the solidified drivel; ten films you've been thinking of more than any others lately.) Okay Mick, here are my ten favorites of the 21st century so far. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS BIG FISH SIDEWAYS IN THE BEDROOM PUNCH DRUNK LOVE 25TH HOUR MICHAEL CLAYTON GHOST WORLD THERE WILL BE BLOOD
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Kino
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Post by Kino on Apr 16, 2008 22:54:13 GMT
Kino, is there a film in existence that you don't like? Sure. I don't like the films of Joe Swanberg - one of the oft-mentioned names of a subset of current American independent film called Mumblecore.
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Kino
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Post by Kino on Apr 16, 2008 23:10:50 GMT
ten films you've been thinking of more than any others lately.) I'll give you 15. 1. A Brighter Summer Day (Yang) 2. Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette) 3. La Jetee (Marker) 4. Back To the Future (trilogy) 5. Three Crowns of a Sailor (Ruiz) 6. Ratcatcher (Ramsay) 7. Killer of Sheep (Burnett) 8. Man Push Cart (Bahrani) 9. There Will Be Blood (Anderson) 10. The Assassination of Jesse James (Dominik) 11. Ritual in Transfigured Time (Deren) 12. Meshes of the Afternoon (Deren) 13. Rififi (Dassin) 14. Brute Force (Dassin) 15. Night and the City (Dassin) But, I'm thinking about The Wire most. I just finished a Season 4 rewatch and the run from Episode 6 to 13 has me shaken up and marvelling at its balls, content, themes, scope, and artistry. Might just be my favorite thing ever.
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Post by seyfried on Apr 16, 2008 23:20:46 GMT
Ghost World Psycho (1999) Me, You, and Everyone We Know Scorpio Rising Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles Hairspray (1988) Elephant Les Temps qui Changent (--Marnie--A History of Violence --Blue Velvet) Gun Crazy
(Oh, and Dennis Potter)
(doesn't mean I love all of these)
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