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TM2YC's 1001 Movies (Chronological up to page 25/post 481)

TM2YC

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Amadeus (1984)
Director: Milos Forman
Country: United States
Length: 161 minutes
Type: Period, Musical, Historical, Drama

"Amadeus" means "God's love", or "the love of God", or "the beloved of God" and is of course also the middle name of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is the secondary subject of Milos Forman's film.  His life is narrated in flashback by rival composer Antonio Salieri, who both fervently admires Mozart's music and jealously despises the man who creates it.  Salieri believes as a youth he made a devout, chaste and life long pact with God, who would in return bestow Salieri with musical genius.  When he encounters Mozart, he immediately sees that the loutish, impudent youngster is the true genius and Salieri finally recognises himself as a journeyman composer.  He then vows to take revenge on God, through destroying Mozart.  Although most of the characters are real people and there is much historical detail, the main thrust of the narrative is entirely fictional.  When the story is this powerful, I don't think anybody is really going to complain.  Not even the descendants of Salieri, because F. Murray Abraham's Oscar winning portrayal made the once forgotten composer's work widely known again (it's used in Marvel's 'Iron Man').

Forman cleverly uses American actors for the Austrians, commoners, or iconoclasts (Tom Hulce's Mozart is all three) but uses posh British actors for the Italians at court, or sneering establishment figures.  It's an artful way of conveying class, nationality and attitude to a modern audience, without having to have his cast attempt any silly accents.  I watched the 1984 theatrical cut last time, so this time I went with the longer 2002 "director's cut".  The original was perfect, this 20-minute longer cut is too much of a good thing.  Nothing that dramatically changes the story is added, the additional footage just manages to make a long but expertly paced movie, feel long.  However, 'Amadeus' is still a masterpiece in either version.





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The Color Purple (1985)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Country: United States
Length: 153 minutes
Type: Period, Drama

Steven Spielberg's first film after 10-years of making massive blockbusters was this smaller scale adaptation Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. There are some really nice Spielberg touches with the transitions and editing and the ensemble cast featuring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey are incredible. It being about a black family/community in pre-war rural Georgia, I lazily just assumed it would be about their struggle against racism but refreshingly it's actually almost entirely about the struggle of three very different women with the problems created by the abusive men in their lives. White people barely feature, although racism does rear it's ugly head a couple of times when they do. It starts well and ends very strongly but the middle couple of hours meandered, where misery is heaped upon heartbreak but I didn't see much change in the characters. Quincy Jones' overly sentimental score took me out of the movie a number of times. 'The Color Purple' was a huge financial success and was Nominated for 11 Oscars but controversially won nothing... nothing changes.


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She's Gotta Have It (1986)
Director: Spike Lee
Country: United States
Length: 84 minutes
Type: Comedy, Drama

Spike Lee's micro-budget black 'n' white debut feature film is about a taboo-crossing Brooklyn girl sharing her bed with three men and takes a humorous look at their competition for her affections. The constant 4th wall breaking and lo-fi sound give this an improvisational, documentary touch. None of the cast are top flight actors, so Lee's usual weak acting doesn't stand out so much. Lee gives himself one of the funniest lines when he calls a self-regarding moustachioed guy a "Fake Billy Dee motherf***er".

 

mnkykungfu

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^Time for a rewatch of The Color Purple. Like Schindler's List, I found it incredibly moving and yet so crushing I couldn't bear another watch. But more so. I've still only seen it the once, about 20 years ago.

Re: Amadeus, it apparently took much from the stage play, where Mark Hamill was famous for the role. He's the one who originated the iconic laugh (a historical speculation, still unconfirmed), which makes a lot of sense when you hear his Joker laugh years later. Hamill campaigned hard for the film role and was crushed when producers told him after months of back and forth "We just can't have Luke Skywalker play Mozart. Nobody will take it seriously." He said that after that he just lost his enthusiasm for pursuing films, and focused on stage and voicework.
 

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mnkykungfu said:
Re: Amadeus, it apparently took much from the stage play, where Mark Hamill was famous for the role. He's the one who originated the iconic laugh (a historical speculation, still unconfirmed), which makes a lot of sense when you hear his Joker laugh years later. Hamill campaigned hard for the film role and was crushed when producers told him after months of back and forth "We just can't have Luke Skywalker play Mozart. Nobody will take it seriously." He said that after that he just lost his enthusiasm for pursuing films, and focused on stage and voicework.

I read that too :( . I feel bad for Hamill because it wasn't his only bit of misfortune.  1980s 'The Big Red One' in which he had a prominent role was heavily cut and buried before being declared a masterpiece a couple of decades later when it was too late to be any benefit to his career (it's on this 1001 list).  I need to re-watch that some time.  Carrie Fisher and to some extent Alec Guinness suffered the same fate.  Guinness did about 40 films before RotJ and 4 afterwards, although he did win multiple Baftas for playing George Smiley on TV.  I need to rewatch that as well, I got the blurays for Christmas.  Harrison Ford got all the luck, rapidly getting Blade Runner and Indiana Jones, preventing anybody from saying he was just Han.

I did a Letterbox list of Hamill's films to encourage myself to watch more of them: https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/mark-hamill-actor/

Some do sound dodgy though.

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^ I bet this is just as good as Blade Runner :D .

Simon Callow who originated the Mozart role in the 1979 play is in the film as the vaudeville type impresario.  I wonder if Hamill was offered a similar supporting role as compensation?
 

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mnkykungfu said:
^Time for a rewatch of The Color Purple. Like Schindler's List, I found it incredibly moving and yet so crushing I couldn't bear another watch.

For a second I got The Color Purple mixed up with Color Out of Space and was very confused.
 

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The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
Director: Roger Corman
Country: United Kingdom / United States
Length: 90 minutes
Type: Horror

'The Masque of the Red Death' was the seventh of eight Edgar Allan Poe based films made by Director Roger Corman and star Vincent Price. He plays the despotic satanist Prince Prospero holed up in his medieval Italian castle, laying on a masquerade ball for a few corrupt nobles who he deems worthy of shelter from the "red death" plague that is consuming the poor villagers that surround them.  Jane Asher plays an innocent peasant girl imprisoned by Prospero for his amusement but her purity is able to kindle some last vestige of humanity in the corrupted man.  Price and his iconic voice are so wonderful and his gleeful performance almost makes the despicable Prospero loveable.  Cinematographer Nicolas Roeg's (not yet a director himself) intense primary coloured visuals are a treat.



Might as well rock out to The White Stripes 'Red Death at 6:14' while I'm at it:


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The Great Escape (1963)
Director: John Sturges
Country: United States
Length: 172 minutes
Type: War, Epic, Drama, Historical

As always, the nearly 3-hour runtime melts away thanks to an all-star cast and a script packed with humour, drama and action. James Garner was the standout for me, positively radiating impertinence and mischievous wit in the face of a deadly enemy. Richard Attenborough's performance was much darker than I remembered and Charles Bronson is powerful yet vulnerable as the heroic Polish tunnel master who suffers from claustrophobia. Steve McQueen is just being 100% Steve McQueen, 100% of the time, looking roguish, ruggedly handsome and riding the hell outta that motorcycle! Only James Coburn lets the side down with the least convincing Australian accent ever committed to celluloid.

 

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TM2YC said:
 I feel bad for Hamill because it wasn't his only bit of misfortune.  1980s 'The Big Red One' in which he had a prominent role was heavily cut and buried before being declared a masterpiece a couple of decades later when it was too late to be any benefit to his career (it's on this 1001 list).  I need to re-watch that some time. 

I watched the restored version of B.R.O. It wasn't for me...I found it meandering, hard to get invested in, and often dull. You may like it, though. My tastes seem to run much more commercial than yours. Hammill was pretty good...not significantly different than his wide-eyed farmboy from ANH. Got a bad break with that car accident right before Empire, too. So much for those flawless sunchild looks.
 
Carrie Fisher and to some extent Alec Guinness suffered the same fate.
 Fisher had the double whammy of being in the shadow of/competing with her mom. I get why she took to writing.
  Harrison Ford got all the luck, rapidly getting Blade Runner and Indiana Jones, preventing anybody from saying he was just Han.
To hear him tell it, he had it just as bad. I guess perception is 9/10ths of the law. He talks about not being able to get any roles he wanted for years after Star Wars. He didn't want any sci-fi, and that's mostly what he was getting offered. He says George rescued him from career hell by suggesting him to Steven when Tom Selleck dropped out of Indy Jones. But even then, it was kind of a curse because he said he got turned down for interesting roles because he was too recognizable. Then again, you see him getting the roles he supposedly wanted in the 2000s, and a lot of them are mediocre-to-bad movies. So what does he know.
I did a Letterbox list of Hamill's films to encourage myself to watch more of them: https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/mark-hamill-actor/
Some do sound dodgy though.
For Hamill, I've heard that Sushi Girl and Con Man are both quite good. Slipstream looks like some excellent '90s cheese. But if you really want to get into his best work, you have to go into his voicework.

And play Wing Commander.
 

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Heat (1995)
Director: Michael Mann
Country: United States
Length: 170 minutes
Type: Crime, Thriller, Drama

Happily I'd forgotten much of the plot, having not seen this since the 90s, so I could enjoy it all over again.  'Heat' is a high-grade heist thriller with some super intense and brutal action set-pieces but some of the energy is dissipated across nearly 3-hours.  Unfortunately the problem is with the female supporting characters.  Michael Mann's script is only really interested in the male characters but he didn't seem to want to make the women merely plot points (just the goals and obstacles for the men, that they basically are) but he also doesn't have time in a single movie to develop them fully.  So he goes for something in the middle, meaning we have to spend time on thin characters, holding up the exciting cat and mouse game between the cops and robbers.  The film is asking will these men give up their lives, their women and vendettas, when the "heat" is round the corner and simply walk away (or in the cop's case, it's the reverse).  So dramatically they require something to walk away from but the movie needed more time to explore this with deeper female characters, a mini-series maybe?  Only Ashley Judd's character made any real impact thanks to her great performance.  Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are the main focus and it's electric when either is on screen, together or separately.  Al Pacino is a little hammy at times but much more restrained than he can be.  Pacino has claimed his character was supposed to be a coke addict, which would entirely justify the 'Tony Montana' way he plays him but no drug taking is seen in the finished film.  Robert De Niro is his usual subtle, internalised, best.  I'd forgotten it ended with Moby's 'God Moving Over the Face of the Waters', that's a beautiful piece of music.



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The Player (1992)
Director: Robert Altman
Country: United States
Length: 124 minutes
Type: Satire, Thriller

I was expecting this to be a satire of Hollywood but wasn't expecting it to also have elements of a Dario Argento style thriller. Thomas Newman's score and the dramatic red/blue coloured lighting gently recalls 'Suspiria'. The opening 7-8 minute shot is designed to top Orson Welles' sequence in 'Touch of Evil' but that had a narrative purpose and a natural feel, the shot here doesn't enhance the story and it's often awkwardly composed, it's basically about showing off.  Director Robert Altman is constantly at pains to misdirect you from who the stalker is and keep you guessing (like Argento would) but then just goes "surprise!" it doesn't matter because we're doing a satirical ending commenting on a Hollywood ending, instead of a proper resolution. Having said all that, the quantity of fun cameos and fine performances kept me thoroughly entertained.


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Naked Lunch (1991)
Director: David Cronenberg
Country: Canada
Length: 115 minutes
Type: Sci-Fi, Drama

Director David Cronenberg fuses together William S. Burroughs' novel, elements from the author's life and his own disturbing visions.  Stylistically it's a classic Film-Noir but shot in golden browns and sickly greens. The characters and the plot are largely either uninteresting, or unintelligible but Cronenberg's wild and disgusting visual ideas and the freaky makeup FX are enough to sustain the viewer's interest.  By the time you get to Roy Scheider peeling off the woman skin he's wearing, you've probably got used to that kind of stuff happening.  Peter Weller plays a writer/exterminator/fugitive having bad trips on "Bug powder Dust", "Black Meat Powder" and "Mugwump Jism".  The croaky voice that Peter Boretski does for all the creatures is the creepiest thing.

 

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^I was obsessed with that movie for about a year of high school. I would try to show it to anyone who would watch...they usually didn't make it to the end. To me it was like a Phillip K. Dick tale that got slipped some acid and derailed on the way to the final confrontation with a dispassionate and nihilistic corporate antagonist. You just reminded me that I still need to see Existenz.
 

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mnkykungfu said:
You just reminded me that I still need to see Existenz.

I rented it 20 years ago and thought it was terrific but I don't know, it might not hold up?  What I really remember was a gun made out chicken bones and there being a scene where Jude Law's character was asking Jennifer Jason Leigh's character why their bio/machine interface ports don't get infected (because they're holes in the body) and she replies by slowly opening her mouth and sticks her tongue out in a kind of mocking, kind of creepy, kind of sexual way.

It recently got a blu-ray release at last:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07GW2PCKW/

I might get a copy and revisit it.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Director: Wes Craven
Country: United States
Length: 91 minutes
Type: Slasher, Horror

I'd seen 1987's 'A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors' on VHS when I was waaaaay too young (about 6 or 7) by sneaking downstairs and watching it after everybody else had gone to sleep.  Apparently I had nightmares afterwards and I still remember the image of Freddy with syringes for fingers sticking into somebody's arm, despite never having re-watched it, or any other films in the series.  Needless to say my viewing of this first film in the franchise much later in life can't hope to recreate that kind of terror but I could appreciate the technical aspects.  The buckets of gore, imaginative makeup FX and gravity defying sets are terrific.  Johnny Depp plays one of the highschoolers, mere fodder for Freddy, in his earliest film.  The last shot of Freddy pulling what looks like a hastily re-dressed blowup sex doll through a tiny window looks embarrassingly bad.


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Salvador (1986)
Director: Oliver Stone
Country: United States
Length: 123 minutes
Type: War, Drama, Historical

After a couple of early low-budget Genre Horror pictures, 1986's 'Salvador' (depicting the bloody civil war) was the first in Oliver Stone's run of politically charged films.  Real-life d*cks James Woods and Jim Belushi are perfectly cast as seemingly amoral a**holes trapped in the pit of hell, finding their humanity.  Stone's fury at the CIA and Reagan's financial and political support of the murderous regime really comes through the screen. It's sort of "Fear and Loathing in Schindler's List" and might be Stone's best film.  Some of the characters are actual people who lived and died but some are fictional (based on real people), so I think it was a mistake for Stone to have closing titles which give the audience the impression they were all equally real.  The new 'Masters of Cinema' blu-ray (the first HD release for the film in Europe) is a big improvement on the old DVD but isn't up to the standard that other full 4K-masters can offer.

 

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TM2YC said:
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Director: Wes Craven
Country: United States
Length: 91 minutes
Type: Slasher, Horror

I'd seen 1987's 'A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors' on VHS when I was waaaaay too young (about 6 or 7) by sneaking downstairs and watching it after everybody else had gone to sleep.  Apparently I had nightmares afterwards and I still remember the image of Freddy with syringes for fingers sticking into somebody's arm, despite never having re-watched it, or any other films in the series.  Needless to say my viewing of this first film in the franchise much later in life can't hope to recreate that kind of terror but I could appreciate the technical aspects.  The buckets of gore, imaginative makeup FX and gravity defying sets are terrific.  Johnny Depp plays one of the highschoolers, mere fodder for Freddy, in his earliest film.  The last shot of Freddy pulling what looks like a hastily re-dressed blowup sex doll through a tiny window looks embarrassingly bad.

Dream Warriors isn't a bad place to start. As I talked about in my October Movie Marathon thread, it's one of the only good sequels, and it's a direct sequel to the original. The first one is definitely the best of the series, but Dream Warriors and New Nightmare all entertaining. The rest are progressively worse trash.
 

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^I love Dream Warriors, actually more than the original (though, come on @"TM2YC" weren't you impressed by Depp's bed sequence?) because it leans into the camp, hard. The original can feel dated, but the 3rd film holds up because it's good-bad.

And F*** yes! Salvador! Such an underappreciated film! You're right that it is up there with Stone's best. Definitely on my personal 1,001 Movies to See Before You Die list.
 

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mnkykungfu said:
^I love Dream Warriors, actually more than the original (though, come on @"TM2YC" weren't you impressed by Depp's bed sequence?)

Yeah it was wild, I was referring to things like that "The buckets of gore... and gravity defying sets are terrific".

Another thing I remember from Dream Warriors is Freddy walking a sleepwalking guy out of 10 story hospital window like a puppet master (I think?).  It's funny how vividly you remember things at an early age.  I'm picturing it at night, shot from below.  I almost don't ever want to rewatch it because those memories would get overwritten in my brain drive :D .

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Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Country: Italy
Length: 124 minutes
Type: Drama, Comedy

Writer/Director Giuseppe Tornatore's wonderful love-letter to cinema is always a pleasure to revisit.  This time I watched the 2-hour international Theatrical Cut, rather than the later 3-hour Director's Cut.  The longer version has some nice scenes but a few of them disturb the narrative, the pacing and our feelings about the characters, slightly for the worse.  Apparently it was originally exhibited in Italy at 2.5-hours but this version hasn't been released on home video (that I'm aware of), maybe it would be the best of both worlds?  Ennio Morricone's score is magical, romantic and nostalgic, a contender for his best work, out of many masterpieces.  The story is a coming-of-age tale about a famous film director Salvatore, recalling his youth spent hanging out in the Italian rural village cinema projection booth of the kindly old Alfredo.  The lives and loves of the villagers play out inside and around the theatre as young Salvatore watches the films with wide eyed delight.  The finale with the older Salvatore watching Alfredo's compilation of censored kisses is rightly celebrated and tear inducing.  The sequence says more with just visuals and music than most other films can with whole scripts full of dialogue.  Tornatore handles the romance, comedy and drama with equal skill.

This new re-release trailer really captures it:



I've just uploaded the segment from my short 'Birthday Presents' edit which combines Michael Powell's 'Peeping Tom' with the final scene footage from 'Nuovo Cinema Paradiso'.


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The Right Stuff (1983)
Director: Philip Kaufman
Country: United States
Length: 192 minutes
Type: Historical, Epic, Drama

This was made by The Ladd Company soon after 'Blade Runner' and it's inexplicable financial failure doomed the company very unfairly given how brilliant this film is.  It really takes it's time, confidant that the story of the Mercury Astronauts is dramatic enough to grip an audience for 3 hours and 12 minutes. 'The Right Stuff' really captures the poetry and romance of the aviation pioneer spirit, not least through the soaring beauty of Bill Conti's synthesiser score.



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The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978)
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Country: Germany
Length: 120 minutes
Type: Drama

Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder explores post-war Germany, starting with the marriage ceremony of the title during an Allied bombing raid (symbolising what is to come for the couple). Maria (Hanna Schygulla) dedicates her life to her husband despite war, imprisonment, geographical separation and fate conspiring to keep them apart and disaster striking whenever they meet.  Schygulla is captivating in the lead role.   Fassbinder has such empathy for his damaged characters and the film looks much more visually polished than some of his other films.  Another meisterwerk from RWF.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLr8MEWcQXE[/video]
 

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^Creesus! Hanna Schygulla was reincarnated as Kirsten Dunst! And she hasn't even died yet...
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Withnail and I (1987)

Director: Bruce Robinson
Country: United Kingdom
Length: 107 minutes
Type: Comedy, Drama

The arrow 2K restoration from the camera negative looks amazing, better than I'd ever imagine this could look.  You can make out every postcard, painting, booze label and mound of grotty detritus that festoons the Camden flat of unemployed actors Withnail and "I" (aka 'Marwood').  For the first time I could see that kooky Uncle Monty has a Radish on his lapel, not a flower.  Good gods the soundtrack is amazing!  By happy coincidence, just after re-watching the film I had to drive the same motorway for work, to the same area where the cottage is set, so naturally I had Jimi Hendrix blasting on the stereo.  It wasn't in a clapped-out Jaguar MKII, being driven at 100 mph, swerving all over the road and I wasn't drunk and high but it still felt damn good.  'Withnail and I' is semi-autobiographical, it's based pretty closely on Director/Writer Bruce Robinson's friendship with flat mate and fellow alcoholic actor Vivian MacKerrell ("I" and Withnail respectively), who really drank lighter fluid and had a sad life and death, while Robinson went on to some success, exactly like in the film.  That feeling of weight and melancholy is all over the movie, no matter how funny it gets, it's wistfully laughing in the shadow of death.

The dialogue is endlessly quotable, "Monty you terrible c**t!", "Scrubbers!", "I've only had a few ales", "I demand to have some booze!", "My thumbs have gone weird" etc.  All the cast are outstanding but it's Richard E. Grant's maniacally bladdered performance as Withnail that dominates, this despite the actor being allergic to alcohol.   Richard Griffiths is also rather wonderful as Monty, Withnail's loopy, lonely, lovelorn gay uncle.  He's a sorrowful product of a point in British history, just before (or slightly after) homosexuality had been decriminalised.  The script is full of wistful poetry and tragic romance about the end of an era, the tail end of the swinging-sixties party, when everybody else had gone home.  The final scene where Withnail is left alone performing lines from Hamlet, with his tears drowned by the applause of the rain, is so heart-rending.  What makes it worse and what I hadn't fully appreciated before was that despite all the abuse he throws at "I" and all his cowardice, selfishness and monstrous behaviour, when it really counts he's a true friend.  The couple of times when "I" gets good news, opportunities that will change his life for the better, you can see Withnail making a real effort to smile and be happy for him, even as he internally contemplates his own ruin.  I always enjoyed 'Withnail and I' but now I think it might be one of the finest films ever made.



Do not attempt the drinking game like these 90s students :D :


Director Bruce Robinson did an terrific watch-along commentary during lockdown.  Full of real anecdotes and escapades which inspired the film, somehow more outlandish than in the script.  I've heard him talk before about fellow Director Franco Zeffirelli being the loose inspiration for Uncle Monty but in a light-hearted way.  Robinson played Benvolio in Zeffirelli's 1968 'Romeo and Juliet' and had to fight of Zeffirelli's advances, much like "I" with Monty.  Perhaps because Zeffirelli died in 2019 and following other #me2 revelations, here Robinson speaks more frankly and painfully about the experience and it being the impetuous for him getting into writing and directing, so he wouldn't have to put up with that kind of behaviour.  The first drafts of 'Withnail and I' were written soon after 'Romeo and Juliet'.


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Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
Director: Louis Malle
Country: France
Length: 104 minutes
Type: Drama

This is the first Louis Malle film I've watched and is now one of my favourites.  Malle based it on his own experiences of attending a Catholic boarding school in Nazi occupied France that secretly hid a few Jewish children. The film and the superb young cast perfectly capture the way boys behave at an age teetering between childhood and manhood. The camera never takes us away from their world of tedious lessons and playground rough-housing, so we experience some of their blissful ignorance of the dangers we know are closing in. The scene showing the school kids enjoying a Charlie Chaplin silent short was designed to make me love this movie.


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Alice (1988)
Director: Jan Svankmajer
Country: Czechoslovakia
Length: 86 minutes
Type: Animation, Fantasy

Jan Svankmajer's astonishing Stop-Motion/Live-Action hybrid adaptation of Lewis Carroll walks an eccentric line between enchanting and disturbing. Although faithful to the structure of the story, it plays as a dream Alice is having, asleep in an old house, the derelict surroundings and strewn objects reflected, refracted and repeated back to her in increasingly unusual ways. This goes straight on to my favourite films list.

(btw I watched with the English language dub because there were only a few words in Czech anyway)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11831Y1y7eA[/video]
 

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Ah, you got around to watching Alice! Good for a kids' Halloween film, I reckon.

England is a weird little country. Ostensibly, having spread much of their language and culture around the world, there should be little-to-no barrier to appreciating English films (unlike with Italian or French or Indian or Thai, etc.) And yet, there are a great many that just seem so very ...English...that it's almost as if they're some litmus test of cultural membership. My experience with Withnail and I was like this, where in a rare moment of creature comforts, a British couple invited us to watch their favorite movie with them on a system they had jury-rigged for the occasion. I was traveling with a caravan in the Gobi desert, and with us were a few Mongolians, a North Londoner, a Swissman, and myself, an American.

The couple from England where trying to make a documentary about climate change as they traveled through developing countries and interviewed farmers and people who had firsthand experience with The Land. They had Withnail and I on a tape they could put in their backup camera and run through a screen for previewing footage. After sundown, we huddled together under blankets in our ger and watched what they assured us was sure to be a laugh riot. And we proceeded to mostly chuckle good-naturedly once or twice as they nearly split their seams. Even the other Brit's spirits were dimmed, and he was forced to admit that it was a lot funnier with other people who had grown up with it. Chock one up to a cultural barrier.
 

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^ Great story thanks :) .

There is probably an element of post-student, squallid, charity shop, on the dole, semi-bohemian existance, where you've no money for food but always enough money for drink, art and music, that is parculilalry British and even that is a vanished world, when you practically have to a millionaire to afford to live in London.  It's always described as a "cult film", which it is, even on it's home turf.  That being said, it does have some American fans, celebs anyway.  Roger Ebert has it on his "great films" list and said Withnail was "one of the iconic figures in modern films".  Vin Diesel can quote the movie.  Johnny Depp is such a fan he coaxed Bruce Robinson out of his 19-year retirement to write/direct 'The Rum Diary' for him.  David Fincher is also a fan.  He wanted to reunite the cast for 'Alien 3' but Richard E. Grant turned down the role of the doctor, which went to Charles Dance.  Ralph Brown and Paul McGann do appear.

What if Threepio is saying Withnail's lines, it's funny then right?  :D (NSFW):


As with all comedy, one either finds it funny, or one doesn't.  Too underline that point, personally I thought this supposed comedy classic was a wasteland of unfunny...

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The Ladies Man (1961)
Director: Jerry Lewis
Country: United States
Length: 106 minutes
Type: "Comedy"

The couple of other Jerry Lewis movies I've watched, I've hated and this was no different.  Lewis wrote, directed, starred and produced, so it's all his fault.  He endlessly mugs for the camera, pulls faces, overplays every moment beyond the point that you'd think humanely possible and generally screeches and shouts in an irritating nasal howl.  Christ, the poster even declares it's Lewis' "broadest" comedy yet, as if that was a good thing!  This time he's playing an accident prone handyman in a nutty women-only boarding house.  The tall, wide and deep 3-level, multi-layer set is very impressive, able to be shot in close and from a distance like a gigantic dolls house.


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Easy Rider (1969)
Director: Dennis Hopper
Country: United States
Length: 96 minutes
Type: Road Movie

I first watched 'Easy Rider' a very long time ago, so this was basically like seeing it new. The iconic jukebox Pop/Rock soundtrack is terrific, a choice that was apparently groundbreaking in 1969. The plot is minimal, two bikers (Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper) score big on a drug deal (with recently deceased musical genius and homicidal maniac Phil Spector) and set off on a road-trip from L.A. to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras. It's more about their experiences along the way, 1969 America seen through new counter-cultural eyes. They befriend a delightfully shambolic lawyer (played by Jack Nicholson) but their long hair, wild clothes and free spirits attract anger from rednecks. The shots of Monument Valley as they ride through have rarely looked more beautiful. The editing is bold and unusual and the tight 95-minute run time makes what could be a meandering experience sail by.


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The Deer Hunter (1978)
Director: Michael Cimino
Country: United States
Length: 184 minutes
Type: War, Drama, Epic

I watched this when I was much younger and thought it was unnecessarily long and slow but his time I was blown away.  The first hour spent entirely setting up the characters was perfectly edited and timed. The other two hours are gruelling and powerful and needed that setup, to feel what is lost.

 

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All the President's Men (1976)
Director: Alan J. Pakula
Country: United States
Length: 138 minutes
Type: Political, Thriller

I've seen this 3 or 4 times now and it never gets less exciting.  It's not about piecing together a vast jigsaw puzzle, it's more about filling in enough of a jigsaw that has most of it's pieces missing, in order to deduce what it depicted, then find somebody who is willing to confirm you are right.  Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of Woodward and Bernstein is heroic and inspiring.  Chasing down every lead, digging through every file, looking in every place, even all the wrong places and checking every fact.  I imagine you could screen this for new journalists as a training tool and then have a reasonable expectation of them turning into very good ones.  Jason Robards is also sensational as Ben Bradlee, the perfect stern but supportive boss.  I love his half-sarcastic final line of the film "Nothing's riding on this... except the First Amendment of the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country... not that any of that matters but if you guys f**k up again I'm gonna get mad... goodnight".  The camera work and the sound are mostly in a documentary style (plus lots of expert split-diopter shots), even deliberately drowning out actors with aircraft noise (usually a cardinal sin) and the score is minimal.  Steven Spielberg's 2017 film 'The Post' makes a perfect companion piece, ending precisely where 'All the President's Men' starts.  Although it's marginally inferior, one thing the later film did better was including trailblazing 'Washington Post' publisher Katharine Graham in the story.  Alan J. Pakula's film only mentions Graham once and lacks any important female characters, when there was at least one right there at the center.


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Suspiria (1977)
Director: Dario Argento
Country: Italy
Length: 99 minutes
Type: Horror

'Suspiria' looks and sounds like nothing else. The use of intense contrasting colour lights and set design is unique. A total artistic vision. The score by Goblin is unforgettable and unsettling. I listen to it all the time.  The story and characterisation is minimal which detracted a little from the experience. By the way, the bonus features on the blu-ray restoration were fascinating. Lots of long nerdy discussions about raw scans and film repairing techno babble. Loved it.



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Halloween (1978)
Director: John Carpenter
Country: United States
Length: 91 minutes
Type: Horror

It looks cheap as hell (and was) but this is it's strength because John Carpenter then had to rely on all the "free" stuff like framing it well, doing a quick and effective Synth score himself, keeping it all grounded and realistic(ish) and editing the pacing to perfection. The rising tension is a precise upward exponential curve of pacing and drama. This makes it almost impossible to lose interest because each minute is more intense than the last. Craftsmanship like that meant it could afford to start off very slowly and not lose the viewer (IIRC the first proper killing takes place after the halfway point). The recent sequel is comparatively all over the place pacing wise. The budget also meant he couldn't use big elaborate gore effects, so nothing has dated and it looks convincingly real.

 

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TM2YC said:
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The other two hours are gruelling and powerful and needed that setup, to feel what is lost.

It's also incredibly racist and the use of documentary footage spliced in with new scenes implies a realism that was completely fabricated. This isn't even putting contemporary values on an old film: Vietnam Vets at the time found the film so wildly inaccurate and offensive to the Vietnamese people that they protested outside the Academy Awards. The police could only maintain order after arresting 13 Vets. This film goes right up there with Birth of a Nation for me.
 

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mnkykungfu said:
TM2YC said:
The Deer Hunter (1978)

This film goes right up there with Birth of a Nation for me.

Hardly. Nothing else is close to that monstrosity.
mnkykungfu said:
It's also incredibly racist and the use of documentary footage spliced in with new scenes implies a realism that was completely fabricated. This isn't even putting contemporary values on an old film: Vietnam Vets at the time found the film so wildly inaccurate and offensive to the Vietnamese people that they protested outside the Academy Awards. The police could only maintain order after arresting 13 Vets.

I'm well aware of the much discussed controversies around 'The Deer Hunter'. For me, the most troubling one was Cimino (no stranger to insanity, dishonestly and raging ego) claiming the film was inspired by his own Green Beret service in Vietnam, when he'd done no such thing and been no such thing. But I don't see the racism accusation at all. I don't watch other fictional films like 'Apocalypse Now', 'Full Metal Jacket' and 'Platoon' and think they're prejudiced against Americans because they depict the US committing atrocities in Vietnam. Sadly that's what happens in war and Vietnam was arguably one of the worst, with well documented war crimes, sadism and torture on both sides. That is depicts a fictional game of Russian Roulette, happening to fictional characters, in a fictional POW camp, overseen by fictional characters is just fictional. It hardly matters if such a game really took place, it's a storytelling device and metaphor in a made up film.

I'm sure a lot of the long standing controversy dating to the time it was first released was partly caused by the other thing I mentioned. By Cimino promoting it as 100% fact based, he was just asking for people to call him out on his bullsh*t. However, the content of the movie is what I base my opinion on and I have no problem with that. IIRC the credits of the film make no claim to being based on reality, unlike 'Salvador' for example.

To cite another example. Cimino again wildly exaggerated the atrocities perpetrated by representatives of the US government (from the President down) during the "Johnson County War" in his follow up 'Heaven's Gate' (a film I kinda love). I've never heard of that film being accused of prejudice because that more obviously wasn't Cimino's intent in that case (because everybody is white American/European). He's just hyping up the drama, stakes and violence, in both films. He seems to like a group of morally ambiguous protagonists, contrasted with unambiguously evil antagonists, nothing more.

Well that's my take anyway.  You're certainly not alone in your opinion.

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Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Director: Mike Newell
Country: United Kingdom
Length: 117 minutes
Type: Comedy, Romantic, Drama

Like a lot of people (Brits at least), I probably watched this to death back in the day but it still holds up. It's the zingy humour of screamingly awkward social situations and unintended public faux pas. The opening scene where Hugh Grant runs around mostly just saying "F**k" in a creative variety of ways declares how much fun it's going to be. I'd forgotten that it's almost literally "Four Weddings and a Funeral", apart from one shopping scene it takes place entirely in and around those five occasions, across the lives of a group of friends. IMO, they should have removed that one scene, just so it could have a structural perfection to the plot and premise. The depiction of the two gay characters was ground breaking for 1994. They're the only enduring and monogamous couple in the film. When you've got a massive mainstream audience (probably every man, woman and child in the 90s UK) tearing up over the love between two men, I'm sure it had a positive effect for change. The poem that John Hannah's character reads out ('Funeral Blues' aka 'Stop all the clocks' by W. H. Auden) is so beautifully performed, surely not a dry eye in the house. In 1994 the UK still had 'Section 28', by 2004 it had Civil Partnerships, supported by all political parties. It also features a deaf character but doesn't make a big fuss about it, he's just one of the gang. The cast is a spectacularly funny and endearing but if I had to nitpick, Andie MacDowell is merely adequate. The script is by comedy genius Richard Curtis but it's easy to forget he didn't direct this first hit. I think Director Mike Newell did an amazing job, equally at ease with the comedy, as with the painful drama, perhaps restraining some of Curtis' more syrupy tendencies.



When looking up the trailer I discovered they'd recently remade it into a mini-series. Sacrilege!


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Mad Max (1979)
Director: George Miller
Country: Australia
Length: 93 minutes
Type: Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Action

My friends and I used to recite lines from 'Mad Max' to each other when we played computer racing games in the 80s/90s e.g. "I'm a fuel-injected suicide machine!", "I'm laying down a rubber road right to freedom!" and "I'm outta the game" etc (we we're more obsessed by this one than the more popular sequel for some reason). Around that time I got to see Max's "Pursuit Special" car prop when it was housed in a museum not far from where I lived. The custom police vehicles in their striking yellow, blue and red MFP livery look fantastic and those scenes of them speeding along, bumper-to-bumper, with the camera nearly touching the road are always thrilling. I still had every frame and line of all the chase scenes burned into my brain, yet had a hazy recollection of the scenes in the middle between Max and his wife... I guess my family VCR had excellent fast-forwarding facilities!  I was and still am a big Judge Dredd fan, so the world of Mad Max was very familiar. George Miller's "maximum force of the future" was influenced by 2000AD's post-apocalyptic leather-biker "lawman of the future" and the nightmare "cursed earth" wasteland that surrounded him (JD debuted 2-years before MM). Dredd artist Brendan McCarthy returned the compliment by co-writing 'Mad Max: Fury Road' with Miller years later.

Mel Gibson has done some fine performances in his long career but this first title role wasn't one of them. He does the cold dead-inside Max very well in the 2nd-half but the scenes where he has to be a family man have little chemistry, or emotion. Thankfully most of the rest of the cast are exceptional and take up the slack, like Steve Bisley as dare-devil motorcycle cop 'Goose', Roger Ward's Neckerchief-wearing Police-Captain 'Fifi' and Geoff Parry's morose 'Bubba Zanetti'. Nobody on earth could've played 'The Toecutter' like the late Hugh Keays-Byrne, it's such an eccentric, memorable and believably insane performance. I love all the lingo like "meat trucks" for ambulances (Similar to the Dredd comic's "meat wagons"), "road rash" (which was used for the name of a 90s bike game), "bronze" for the Cops and "very toey" for fast. The soundtrack by Brian May (no not that one) is patchy, I love some of it but I've always disliked the cheesy love theme and the singer in the nightclub is terrible. It's surprising how little violence there actually is, being mostly implied through Miller and his team's genius filming/editing, making cuts to the film that feel like car impacts and knife blows. The most famous and shocking example was them simply tossing a child's shoe and ball into the road to imply a horrific vehicular murder. Characters also talk about violence they've witnessed in explicit detail and we are shown the build-up and then aftermath of presumably terrifying scenes. Perhaps the filmmakers were trying to avoid a tough rating from the censors by keeping blood letting to a minimum (and little profanity) but they managed to imply it too well, earning an R-rating in the US, an 18-Cert in the UK and even bans in a couple of countries.


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Do the Right Thing (1989)
Director: Spike Lee
Country: United States
Length: 120 minutes
Type: Drama, Comedy

I've had the 'Do the Right Thing' soundtrack CD for years but oddly had never got round to seeing the film itself. Like Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee is a pretty poor actor but even QT was never vain enough to give himself the co-lead.  Luckily you never really mind because Spike surrounds himself with a large and faultless ensemble cast, particularly Danny Aiello's Pizzeria owner, a complex and superbly acted part. Lee expertly ratchets up the racial tension alongside the rising heat of a Brooklyn neighbourhood but also packs the film full of salty wit.  I'm glad I watched the Criterion transfer with the deliberate intense orange grade because it's not there in the other blu-ray transfers I'm seeing screenshots of.  It's a crucial element of the film.


It gave us this classic video for Public Enemy's 'Fight the Power':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmo3HFa2vjg[/video]
 

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The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Country: United States
Length: 118 minutes
Type: Horror, Thriller

Every last element of 'The Silence of the Lambs' is such pure class, that I'd almost bet the crew catering was Michelin level.  Right from the opening you know it's something pretty special, with those beautiful M&Co designed black&white titles.  The camera follows Starling running through autumnal woods scored by Howard Shore's icy music.  It effortlessly conveys so much about the themes of the movie and the character, her isolation, her determination, her toughness, her vulnerability and it concludes with that shot were she boards an office lift dwarfed and surrounded by men.  I reckon Director Jonathan Demme thought about every camera position and movement from a phycological perspective, with particular attention to POV shots.  The thing I love most about 'The Silence of the Lambs' is the oppressive gothic atmosphere.  The whole cast is faultless but Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins and Ted Levine are of course the iconic standouts.  You often hear people saying Hopkins' Dr. Lecter never blinks, which is rubbish.  He blinks quite frequently but it's in a deliberate way, as if Lecter is so in control that the timing and speed of his blinks are something he has to carefully consider.  It's a very creepy performance but there's also a lot of humour to it.  Plus the film somehow makes you root for him a bit.  Partly this is achieved by making his nemesis Dr. Chilton such a colossal d*ck.  Chilton creeps all over Starling and is petty and vindictive toward Lector, where as Lecter treats Starling and others like Barney with civility.  'The Silence of the Lambs' is definitely one of the greatest films of all-time and a "perfect movie" in my estimation.



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Sex, Lies & Videotape (1989)
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Country: United States
Length: 100 minutes
Type: Drama

Initially I wasn't too sure about the fairly dislikeable self-obsessed characters in this Steven Soderbergh psycho-sexual drama. His unhurried direction and sympathy for the damaged characters soon starts to suck you in to their lives and begin to appreciate them for their personality flaws (except slimy lawyer John). James Spader is fascinating as Graham, an impotent man who tapes consensual interviews with women about their sexual experiences for his own gratification, something he is totally frank and open about. A revelation late into the story about why he is the way he is totally changes your perspective on his behaviour and makes you want to watch the film over again to experience Spader's performance in a new light. Graham is contrasted with uptight prudish middle-class housewife Ann (Andie MacDowell) and her unashamedly promiscuous younger sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). It's interesting that Soderbergh chooses to feature (virtually) no sex or nudity in the film.


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The Quiet Earth (1985)
Director: Geoff Murphy
Country: New Zealand
Length: 91 minutes
Type: Post-Apocalyptic, Sci-Fi, Drama

What if you woke up and you were the last person on earth? This inventive low-budget New Zealand film follows Scientist Zac as he goes through waves of confusion, elation, grieving, denial, despair, introspection and madness. Euphoric scenes of racing a hotrod round an empty city, going for a joy ride in a train, or moving into a mansion are contrasted with him going crazy, declaring himself President and God, wreaking havoc on the world and contemplating suicide. The little blackly comedic details are so well observed, like Zac deliberately parking near a "Keep off the grass" sign. It's a bit darker and more serious but I'd definitely compare Geoff Murphy's movie with the work of fellow kiwi Taika Waititi. It's a got a similar tragicomic sensibility. The score by John Charles is really lovely in a John Barry-type way.

 
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