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

[TM2YC]

Gandhi (1982)
Director: Richard Attenborough
Country: United Kingdom / India
Length: 191 minutes
Type: Historical, Epic

'Gandhi' is just about the definition of the "historical epic", featuring vast crowd scenes numbering as many as 300,000 people in one shot, a runtime over 3-hours (but never feels it), a story spanning 5-decades and a huge cast of famous actors in big and small roles. The writing, editing and directing seem to dramatise Gandhi's whole life with out any obvious effort (far from the truth I'm sure), while also portraying his philosophy and giving you rounded depictions of many of the real people he knew and campaigned with. The storytelling touch is so light and skilful, full of drama and pain but humour and beauty too. The central cast of Indian change-makers and their political and moral debates are the most exciting part of the film, played by Ben Kingsley in the brilliant title performance, Rohini Hattangadi as Ghandi's faithful wife, Roshan Seth as Nehru, a twinkle-eyed Saeed Jaffrey and Alyque Padamsee as a proud Jinnah. Plus the supporting cast of venerable British thespians like Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Ian Charleson, Richard Griffiths, Nigel Hawthorne and Michael Hordern. Blink and you might miss a very young Daniel Day-Lewis in his first speaking role. Ravi Shankar and George Fenton (a much unvalued film composer in my opinion) deliver a terrific score, bringing together the best of Indian classical music and traditional orchestral film music. I doubt I'd ever get tired of re-watching 'Ghandi'.

Who needs CGI for crowd scenes when you've got this many extras!

 

[TM2YC]

8 1/2 (1963)
Director: Federico Fellini
Country: Italy / France
Length: 138 minutes
Type: Surreal, Drama

The last Sight & Sound magazine semi-official "Greatest Films of All Time" list included Federico Fellini's '8 1/2' in the top-10 films of all-time. So I was expecting to at least like it, even if I didn't love it but I got nothing out of this and the film's reputation is the only thing that compelled me to watch all 138-minutes. I love black & white films, I love Italian films, I love other Fellini films and I especially love films about film-making so it's difficult to explain why this didn't connect with me at all. I'm not a big fan of surrealism and this has quite a bit and it's mostly of the existential and pretentious sort, rather than the outlandish, fun variety. The cast is great, including the luminous Claudia Cardinale but none of the characters are very sympathetic, including Marcello Mastroianni's troubled director Guido. The dream sequence inside an imaginary harem where all of Guido's past and present loves revolt and berate him was the only part were I was having fun. It's true that Mastroianni's portrayal of a bored, frustrated and confused man, exactly mirrored my experience of the film, so I suppose it worked on that level. I'll give this another go some time.

 

[TM2YC]

Strictly Ballroom (1992)
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Country: Australia
Length: 94 minutes
Type: Dance, Romantic, Comedy

I loved everything about and every moment of 'Strictly Ballroom'. It's a perfectly structured rom-com, a colourful visual spectacular and a downright hilarious character comedy too. Baz Luhrmann's unique filming and editing style is just right in this first movie, it's exciting and daring, highly stylised but not over stylised and distracting like it can be in his later films. Magical pop songs like 'Love is in the Air' and 'Time After Time' are beautifully woven into the fabric of the movie. I want to watch it again already!

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I think this one doesn't get enough credit. I didn't love it like you, but from a directing point of view, it's absolutely cracking. I generally hate rom-coms, and there's still enough here to warrant a re-watch.

 

[Racerx1969]

Same here. Rom-coms are not at all my thing and I avoid them. My wife twisted my arm a while back to watch this as she loved it. I actually enjoyed watching it--it is pretty darn funny.

 

[TM2YC]

The romcom genre is often dismissed based on the hundreds of awful ones made every year, instead of the few good ones. While genres like horror are accepted because of that genre's few good movies each year, in a vast sea of thousands of truly dreadful low-budget/low-talent cash-ins. Same with sci-fi and action and any genre really.

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Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
Director: Federico Fellini
Country: Italy / France
Length: 143 minutes
Type: Fantasy, Comedy, Drama

Giulietta Masina stars in one of her many collaborations with her husband Federico Fellini. She plays a character also called Giulietta, a meek, introverted upper-middle-class house wife, who begins to gain the courage to not need her cheating husband through time spent with her glamorous, sensual neighbour Suzy and kaleidoscopic waking visions that increasingly envelope and liberate her mind. Fellini apparently cheated on Masina frequently, so it's obviously a semi-autobiographical comment on their relationship on some level but I'm not sure if it was about him apologising to her, or about him externalising the knowledge that she was strong enough to leave him any time but it's a bold choice for them to explore their marital problems on the cinema screen. Fellini reputedly dropped acid before making 'Juliet of the Spirits', so maybe that had something to do with his introspection, as much as with the psychedelic visuals. This was Fellini's first colour feature (15-years into his career), so he goes wild with it, featuring clothes of every vibrant shade and a gorgeous peacock stained-glass window. An actor of Masina's range and depth makes the fragile courage of the character very powerful but the long runtime and constant diversions made it drag at times. Nino Rota's score is delightful as usual.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I'll take that 'rom-com vs sci-fi' bait. I can't speak for how much rom-coms are "generally dismissed", but I personally just can't stand the majority of them. (No slight against those who dig them.) It's not that I'm judging them by all the bad ones... I legitimately struggle to find ones I think are good at all, and I can count the ones I love on one hand.

Compare to sci-fi, where I think it doesn't get dismissed based on all the bad ones...it gets dismissed based even on the GOOD ones. Star Wars vs Annie Hall is the classic example, but just take a look at awards shows every year and notice how underappreciated even a film like The Dark Knight goes. A phenomenal film by any standard, but because there's a guy using technology to enhance his vigilantism, many people won't even include it in the same conversation as say, Taxi Driver. Even when the films are lauded, it's with the caveat of "pretty good for...."

I think most people don't even delve into the majority of sci-fi movies made...your Cherry 2000, your Moon 44, your The One... which I will admit are all movies that will be hard for some to get into, but I unabashedly love them. I'm just a big advocate for science fiction in all its forms. I wish more rom-coms connected with me, but even critically lauded ones usually don't. I find the romance usually problematic and the comedy usually not funny. But hey, I'm always up for suggestions, like if there's any from this list that you fully recommend...

 

[TM2YC]

^ What awards shows like/dislike, or approve/disapprove of is a whole other debate. The don't really like "genre films" of any kind. I'm more talking about film fans in general.

Here are some other classic romcoms (in my opinion anyway):

Groundhog Day
Monsoon Wedding
Roxanne
Four Weddings and a Funeral
The Princess Bride
The Apartment
Life is Beautiful
Roman Holiday
When Harry Met Sally...
Bridesmaids
Broadcast News
Muriel’s Wedding
His Girl Friday

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Fellini Satyricon (1969)
Director: Federico Fellini
Country: Italy
Length: 129 minutes
Type: Fantasy, Drama

Fellini described 'Satyricon' as "science fiction of the past" and that's a good way to approach it. Instead of sticking to meticulous research, Fellini creates his own fantasy vision of ancient Rome. A modernist, brutalist, fantasia and why not, medieval artists depicted the ancient world filtered though the style of their times, this is a Rome viewed from the 1960s. It also feels resolutely pre-Christian in it's ribald moral sensibility, violence, decadence and open sexuality. However, I still found this film as exhaustingly long, frustratingly directionless and self-indulgent as Fellini's other works. The Eureka blu-ray had the option to watch with the vintage English dub (unlike the typically puritanical Criterion blu-ray). Since some of the actors were British and speaking that language on camera, the sync is actually often better, plus one of the key roles is recognisably voiced by Sir Michael Hordern, who I've had a minor obsession with since I was a kid. Hearing him reeling off voluminous lines of poetry in his warm and authoritative voice was worth the watch alone. I can't find any information on Google as to who the other voice actors were?

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I often cite Satyricon as the worst movie I've ever watched all the way through to the end. Even though it has no end.

Well, of the rom-coms you mentioned that I've watched, you did name several I absolutely love. Groundhog Day, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Princess Bride, and When Harry Met Sally are absolute classics. You might argue if two of those are more properly classed as sci-fi/fantasy, but anyway, I'll have to check out some of the others on your list. Cheers.

 

[Racerx1969]

Princess Bride a romcom?! You use that word but I don't think it means what you think it means... It transcends genre. Romcom? Check. Fantasy? Check. Adventure? Check. Princesses? Check. Brides? Check.

 

[TM2YC]

PB is a comedy and it's a romance. Romcom is a portmanteau of those two words, so it's a romcom in a literal sense. I don't think it being in an adventure setting precludes it. Which reminds me, 'Romancing the Stone' is another great romcom adventure film. A good romcom works by dove-tailing the duel "warm fuzzies" of laughter and love together, PB certainly does that with great success.

RT users voted it the best romcom ever: https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/rom-com-showdown-2021/

TimeOut had it no35: https://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-50-best-romcoms-of-all-time

Rolling Stone has it at no14: https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-lists/50-greatest-romantic-comedies-of-all-time-790068/

Some films don't fit into one genre. I was also thinking about 'Back to the Future' in that's it's kind of like a deconstruction of a romcom. It's a story about a son going back in time and accidentally interrupting his parent's "meet cute" (George getting hit by the car), then having to figure out how to re-engineer that spark and accidentally improving on it. It would be interesting to see the original romcom version of BttF where Marty doesn't show up and George and Elaine fall in love after the accident and go to the dance (then live out the hell of the rest of their lives ).

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Classic argument. Entertainment Weekly actually has a decent article trying to define "rom-com". However you do it, most notably it is not simply any film which features both romance and comedy. EW uses the guide of matching
A) Tone, and
B) Composition
I think that works pretty well for me, most notably because it passes the smell test. Virtually every film they list as fitting both criteria is a film that turns my stomach. And in fact, I think it was helpful to me in realizing it's the Tone that's more important to me. Films like Miss Congeniality fit Tone but not Composition... and yet I can't stand to watch 5 minutes of that.

FWIW, Romancing the Stone is a favorite of mine, and I suppose you could view it as a rom-com. But to me the plot is far too involved...it has elements of a rom-com but doesn't fit for Composition. Or Tone, for that matter.... too much of the comedy and tension come from the adventure narrative and other antics. I watch it as a light-hearted adventure film, which has a strong romantic angle, just like Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Also not a rom-com, to clarify. )

 

[TM2YC]

^ Agreed Raiders is definitely not a romcom. It's not an outright comedy and the romance is a minor element of the plotting. Where as the romance in tPB and RtS is the object of the plot.

Interesting article although the argument that Bridesmaids isn't a romcom but Edward Scissorhands is a romcom, is madness IMO.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Yeah, I don't think she follows her own rule for that one, somehow. She says the Composition fits but the Tone doesn't. Then says it's a Rom-Com anyway? Nah. Similarly, I think you'd find others who'd disagree that the "the romance is the object of the plot" in The Princess Bride and Romancing the Stone. It's ONE object, but there's a lot more going on.
In TPB, Buttercup isn't even aware of any romance for the majority of the film. Her goal is to avoid marriage. Plus there are the goals of the rest of the ensemble, and the grandpa/grandson story.
In Romancing, it's a subversion of the rom-com. That's the point. The main character writes romance novels, but then she gets swept up in an actual adventure and finds it's not like the romance she expected. There's a lot of lighthearted '80s comedy, particularly with Danny Devito (a romantic figure?) but the plot is driven by the adventure.
Anyway, feel free to define "rom-com" how you want, but in reference to my statement earlier about hating rom-coms, apparently I define them much less broadly than you do. So I'm really talking about disliking a particular subset of films in what you'd call "rom-com". Some films that fit both Tone and Composition that are tired and annoying:
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
The Proposal
Crazy Rich Asians
Maid in Manhattan
How Do You Know
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Just Go With It
Blended
Addicted to Love
All Roads Lead to Rome
Get a Job
Everybody Loves Somebody
The Kissing Booth
Can You Keep a Secret?
Holidate
Just Say Yes
Love Actually!
etc. etc. I think that gives a pretty good picture. You could look at the posters for most of these and know immediately what they are.

 

[Racerx1969]

View attachment 298

PB is a comedy and it's a romance. Romcom is a portmanteau of those two words, so it's a romcom in a literal sense. I don't think it being in an adventure setting precludes it. Which reminds me, 'Romancing the Stone' is another great romcom adventure film. A good romcom works by dove-tailing the duel "warm fuzzies" of laughter and love together, PB certainly does that with great success.

RT users voted it the best romcom ever: https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/rom-com-showdown-2021/

TimeOut had it no35: https://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-50-best-romcoms-of-all-time

Rolling Stone has it at no14: https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-lists/50-greatest-romantic-comedies-of-all-time-790068/

Some films don't fit into one genre. I was also thinking about 'Back to the Future' in that's it's kind of like a deconstruction of a romcom. It's a story about a son going back in time and accidentally interrupting his parent's "meet cute" (George getting hit by the car), then having to figure out how to re-engineer that spark and accidentally improving on it. It would be interesting to see the original romcom version of BttF where Marty doesn't show up and George and Elaine fall in love after the accident and go to the dance (then live out the hell of the rest of their lives ).

ROFL! Of course it's a romcom. Probably nearly the only one I like. An aside, when my wife and I first showed it to our son...about the same age as Fred was there, right on cue he had the exact same reaction. We were dying.

 

[TM2YC]

^^ That is a real list of atrocities. You could come up with a much longer list of terrible Horror movies though, like...

The House with the Door that Dripped Blood from the Key Hole
The Bludgeonator
Hide under the Floorboards
The Cat with the Bronze Claws
Clown Party Slaughter V
Roses are Red, Violence is Blue
The Vverewolf
The Bracelet
Midnight Murder Motel III - The Final Chapter: Part I
Texas Slicer

Reveal message: spoiler

...and those are just the ones I made up!

 

[Gaith]

^Classic argument. Entertainment Weekly actually has a decent article trying to define "rom-com". However you do it, most notably it is not simply any film which features both romance and comedy. EW uses the guide of matching
A) Tone, and
B) Composition
I think that works pretty well for me, most notably because it passes the smell test. Virtually every film they list as fitting both criteria is a film that turns my stomach. And in fact, I think it was helpful to me in realizing it's the Tone that's more important to me. Films like Miss Congeniality fit Tone but not Composition... and yet I can't stand to watch 5 minutes of that.

Excellent EW article, IMO. I agree that "rom-com" is distinct genre that's not equal to "a mix of comedy and romance," and that The Princess Bride isn't a rom-com, but rather a romantic fantasy adventure comedy. It's primarily an adventure-comedy, or ad-com. The Mummy '99 is actually closer to a rom-com than TPB, because, while the romantic tension between Rick and Evy - which is primarily expressed via comedy beats, whereas there's little to no comedy at all between Westley and Buttercup - is the secondary plot, said plot comes very close to being a co-equal main plot. Heck, remove the action sequences, and we probably spend more time on their romantic shenanigans than Imhotep's quest.

So, while I'm nowhere near an expert on the genre, allow me to name, in no particular order, a few good rom-coms, with an emphasis on those not often highlighted:

- La La Land (thanks to the EW piece for reminding me)
- Celeste and Jesse Forever
- About a Boy
- Pride and Prejudice (2005)
- Imagine Me and You
- The Sure Thing
- 27 Dresses (yep, despite its ultra-schlocky high-concept hook, it's pretty good!)
- Bedazzled (the Brendan Fraser one)
- Wristcutters: A Love Story
- Some Kind of Wonderful (probably the closest we'll actually see to Eric Stoltz playing Marty McFly)

... And, of course, this gem of a short film!

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Yeah, see, that seals it. No offense to those films, several of which I know are well-made, but I just hate them. Just can't stand the genre. I do have a soft spot for The Sure Thing, which I think is about 50% rom-com and 50% screwball sex comedy (of the 'buncha horny guys in the '80s' quest for sex type). And I'd have to rewatch Some Kind of Wonderful, which I keep getting mixed up with Pretty in Pink. But I have a soft-spot for Hughes, so maybe I'd like them both anyway.

Not that any of these films will make a "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" list.

You could come up with a much longer list of terrible Horror movies though

^You could for sure come up with a long list, if nothing else just because there are so many made, and at such a low budget! I'm not a huge horror fan either, but just by virtue of how many are made, it's easier for me to come up with a list of some I really loved.

@TM2YC If you knocked off Suspense, Thriller, Mystery, etc. and stuck to strictly Horror, do you think the number of those movies in the book is greater than Rom-coms (sticking to a strict definition of those, too)? I honestly wonder if there's many of either...

 

[Gaith]

^ You might enjoy Wristcutters: A Love Story, then, as it's primarily a weird, supernatural road trip, and not entirely unlike The Sure Thing in that regard...

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I have heard good things! For sure, the typical way to get me into a rom-com is to mix it with some other genre and give it a strong narrative. I'll add it to The List!