amateurist, i have a question,

>5. The Wind & the Lion (Houston, 1975)<

Sorry that's John Milius. (ie Huston lobotomized!)

so my "least favorite" films that i can think of: dancer in the dark, elephant, in the company of men

i would like him here to tell me his 10 favourite movies and his ten least favourite.

other people can do this

What the hell.

Ten favorite:

1.The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock, 1935)
2.Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)
3.Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
4.Waiting For Guffman (Christopher Guest, 1996)
5.Wise Blood (John Huston, 1979)
6.The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
7.Metropolitan (Whit Stillman, 1990)
8.Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
9.The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Joseph Sargent, 1974)
10.Une Femme Est Une Femme (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961)

I'm not gonna bother wtih least favorite.

top ten not in order:
hiroshima mon amour (resnais, 1959)
vivre sa vie (godard, 1961)
tokyo story (ozu)
nashville (altman)
through a glass darkly (bergman)
rules of the game (renoir)
spirit of the beehive (erice)
once upon a time in the west (leone)
ordet (dreyer)
day of wrath (dreyer)

10 least favorite:
irreversible
juliet of the spirits
win a date with tad hamilton
the dreamers
boondock saints
the texas chainsaw massacre remake

i cant think of many more

Honorable mention on dislikes: The Big Lebowski and the films of Christopher Guest.

Ten favorites, kind of:
Gates of Heaven (Morris, 1978)
The Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich, 1972)
Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellman, 1971)
Dazed & Confused (Linklater, 1993)
25th Hour (Lee, 2002)
Love & Death (Allen, 1975)
Umberto D. (de Sica, 1952)
The Bicycle Thief (de Sica, 1947)
Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich, 1956)
Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick, 1987)

some favorites include carmen jones, a canterbury tale, the thin red line, miss oyu, my darling clementine, a scene at the sea, and lots of melodramas like leave her to heaven, stella dallas, imitation of life, etc.

Therefore, top 10 movies I first saw in the past month or two:

La Dolce Vita
Yi Yi
Punch-Drunk Love
Tarnation
All About Lily Chou-Chou
Rodrigo D: No Future
Boogie Nights
Kids
Survive Style 5+
American Psycho

Lamest movie seen recently: The Grudge

my ten favorite movies:
falstaff (chimes at midnight) (welles, 1966)
rules of the game (renoir, 1939)
grand illusion (renoir, 1937)
kiki's delivery service (miyazaki, 1989)
the manchurian candidate (frankenheimer, 1962)
meet john doe (capra, 1941)
the lady eve (sturges, 1941)
vertigo (hitchcock, 1958)
bande a parte (godard, 1964)
a taste of honey (richardson, 1961)

it's weird that 4 of my choices are from the '60s, since i never thought that was a very good decade for movies. anyway, i don't have a lot of least favorites, but american beauty, the dreamers and stardust memories come to mind.

Most of mine I saw almost blind or on minimal reviews - given five or ten years space (or 30 or 40) with the all the criticism and discussion that come with time, I wouldn't go to Garden State or Lost In Translation.

or i guess you might think portman is so hot that you'd like it despite that guy and all the standing on a dumpster or whatever it was, yelling in the rain, and whatnot

Faves
1. After Hours (Scorcese, 1985)
2. Blow-Up (Antonioni, 1966)
3. Local Hero (Forsyth, 1983)
4. Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir, 1975)
5. The Wind & the Lion (Houston, 1975)
6. The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
7. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
8. Mystery Train (Jarmusch, 1989)
9. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
10. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Weir, 1975)
11. Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)

..and I could do about twenty-five more.

Least Faves/Most Loathed
1.Dead Again (Branagh, 1991)
2. Platoon (Stone, 1986)
3. Scream (Craven, 1996)
4. Weekend at Bernie's (Kotcheff, 1989)
5. Mystic Pizza (Petrie, 1988)
6. Pushing Tin (Newell, 1999)
7. Die Hard 2 (Harlin, 1990)
8. In Good Company (Weitz, 2004)
9. Love, Actually (Curtis, 2003)
10. Serendipity (Chelsom, 2001)

Aw, it's cool, dude.

Favourite

1. Human Resources (Cantet, 1999)
2. Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
3. Farewell My Concubine (Kaige, 1993)
4. Down by Law (Jarmusch, 1986)
5. Street of Shame (Mizoguchi, 1956)
6. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
7. Stalker (Tarkovksky, 1979)
8. My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki, 1987)
9. Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, 1964)
10. Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964)

Least favourite

1. Bio-Dome (Bloom, 1996)
2. Best of the Best 2 (Radler, 1993)
3. Police Academy 6 (Bonerz[!], 1989)
4. Home Alone 2 (Columbus, 1992)
5. Friday the 13th Part VI (McLoughlin, 1986)
6. Cobra (Cosmatos, 1986)
7. Rocky IV (Stallone, 1985)
8. Turner & Hooch (Spottiswoode, 1989)
9. Cannonball Run II (Needham, 1984)
10. Hook (Spielberg, 1991)

1. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Schrader, 1985)
2. L'Age d'Or (Bunuel, 1930)
3. The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946)
4. M (Lang, 1931)
5. Du bi quan wang da po xue di zi (The One-Armed Boxer II) (Yu Wang,

(Yu Wang, 1975)
6. The Godfather, Parts I and II (damn straight I'm cheating) (Coppola, 1972, 1974)]
7. North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959)
8. Shichinin no samurai (The Seven Samurai) (Kurosawa, 1954)
9. For A Few Dollars More (Leone, 1965)
10. Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger, 1947)

1 Film I loathe:

1. 8mm (Schumacher, 1999)

Some are just sentimal picks - fe Room With A View - and some are just random picks (by a director I admire).

And a ton of others, whover started the Godard thread, thanks btw, been digging Alphaville greatly and am delving further.

1. Spirited Away
2. Donnie Darko
3. ID
4. Fellowship of the Ring
5. Naked Blood
6. Office Space
7. Napoleon Dynamite
8. Amelie
9. Kill Bill vol 1
10. The Grudge

Least favourite:
Unbreakable
Essex Boys

My mind is blank, wtf?!

But I won't say that because "just don't get" is a difficult accusation to substantiate.

Maybe I'll say that I get the impression people are too quick to dismiss it and/or view it very cynically.

But maybe I'm wrong!

re. caterbury tale: the powell & pressburger one from...er...1943? 1942?

re. carmen jones: based on the hammerstein black-cast musical which was based on bizet's opera (which was based on merimee's short story). starring dorothy dandridge and harry belafonte (both beautiful), directed by otto preminger. for some lucid thoughts on this movie see v.f. perkins, 'film as film.' (though it hasn't received much more critical notice.)

re. melodramas: i don't know, i like big outsized emotions put across with integrity. i like to cry at the movies. re. leave her to heaven, i like john stahl's strange hard-edged lighting, rusty colors, and deep focus. also gene tierney. creepy implied incest subplots are always good. see also: preminger's angel face w/jean simmons and robert mitchum.

http://images.art.com/images/PRODUCTS/large/10126000/10126217.jpg

Least favorite:
Donnie Darko
The Santa Clause
Mulholland Dr.
Ruby
Harlem Nights
The Fan
Kundun
Mission To Mars
Jerry Springer - Ringmaster
The Sting

like one where he plays antonio gaudi?

the buildings in the 'fountainhead' movie are gloriously ugly, though.

x-post

1. the santa clause - judge reinhold is a big needledick and tim allen clowns his sweater

2. die hard 2 - when bruce willis figures out that dude from good times was firing blanks at the terrorists, also willis vs sipowicz, also dude from law & order as the frog-like air traffic controller

3. scream - all the movie horror nerd stuff and also the fonz saying 'your havoc-inducing, thieving, whoring generation disgusts me'

4. 8mm - ok this one is kinda bad but cmon lots of good stuff- funny dialogue, its well filmed, joaquin phoenix and tony soprano and nic cage bein squirmy, i will watch any nicolas cage movie and especially shitty fake noir ones

5. mission to mars - gary sinise astronaut bbq

My list remains the same I think:

8 1/2
2001: A Space Odyssey
In The Mood for Love
It's a Wonderful Life
Last Year at Marienbad
Top Secret!
The Night Porter
West Side Story
Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo
Apocalypse Now

1. nic cage
2. jeff goldblum
3. martin lawrence

# Aguirre: The Wrath of God
# Sunrise
# Shortcuts
# La Dolce Vita
# Yi Yi
# Wings of Desire
# Fitzcarraldo
# 8 1/2
# Andrei Rublyov
# M
# The Night of the Hunter
# A Woman Under the Influence
# The Thin Red Line
# In the Mood for Love
# Double Indemnity
# Taxi Driver
# The Third Man
# Gertrud
# Trois couleurs: Rouge
# Flowers of Shanghi

the messenger: story of joan of arc
i also hate kubrick, especially a clockwork orange, but not dr. strangelove
the "i am curious" films from sweden or norway are sooooo boring and bad.

i could write a book on why the dreamers is a terrible film. some key points include how trite the dialogue is, the unneeded nudity, the terribly shot ending, how the film focuses on films that are 1,000,000 times better than the dreamers actually is. etc.

e you've seen cage's japanese ads right?? they are a must

Which was on TCM about.... oh, two hours ago.

The Getaway
How High
Crimes and Misdemeanors
A Day At The Races
The Iron Cross
Day of the Dead
Godfather II
The Thing
The 39 Steps
Dog Day Afternoon
Glengary Glen Ross
Nashville
Time and Tide
The Thin Man
Celine and Julie Go Boating
The Queen of the Damned

(The "nah, i can't list *that* and besides it's tired now and I wouldn't really want to see it again" factor precludes at the least Heathers and Office Space)

This has been on IFC constantly lately.

"A strange man defecated on my sister."
"Why?"
"Is there any answer I could give you that would be satisfactory?"

1. Seven Samurai
2. Bringing Up Baby
3. The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp
4. Manhattan
5. The Philadelphia Story
6. An Actor's Revenge
7. La Grande Illusion
8. The Searchers
9. Rashomon
10. Double Indemnity

The one important change that I can think of would be making room for Rikyu, somewhere around 6th-8th place.

I struggle with least favourites. There are many films I've started to watch and abandoned (Titanic leaps to mind), so there has to be something to make me watch, and probably spare time, boredom and so on too. The first two of the recent Star Wars trilogy stand out as especially terrible movies.

Duck Soup is better than either, probably.

Favourites
10) Heavenly Creatures
9) L'Atalante
8) The Elephant Man
7) The Last Metro
6) Marat/Sade
5) The Battle of Algiers
4) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
3) L'Avventura
2) Belle de Jour
1) Closely Watched Trains

I don't know about all, Kenan - have you seen the late ones? They get very poor.

Only seen the classics. The late ones wouldn't make the Rhino compilation, I guess.

From what I've heard of JC2, it might well be better. But the first was so bad that I'm not likely to ever see it.

Sans soleil (Chris Marker)
Desperate Living (John Waters)
Land of Silence and Darkness (Werner Herzog)
Trash (Paul Morrissey)
Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson)
The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (Robert Florey & Slavko Vorkapich)
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Crime Wave (John Paizs)
The Mortal Storm (Frank Borzage)
Europa '51 (Roberto Rossellini)

I think Donnie Darko is still my favorite film. I wanted to like Napoleon Dynamite more than I did. I'm seeing Amelie soon.

the best movie ever though is princ3ss raccoon. this is a fact.

I can't wait to see this.

Also, add Love, Actually and Closer to my least favorite recent movies.

i think dan perry will go into a coma after seeing this movie

1. hook
2. parenthood
3. pay it forward
4. american beauty
5. anything by neil labute
6. anything by ed burns
7. true lies
8. rain man

that's enough.

i did my faves somewhere else. on another thread somewhere. over the edge is my favorite movie of all-time. not the BEST movie of all-time. just my favorite. then days of heaven. then i can't remember. there are so many.

"Which was on TCM about.... oh, two hours ago."

Ha! we watched that this morning. you gotta love that ending.

long kiss goodnight is fantastic! i dunno, i think true lies is priceless, jumping a horse, swimming w gasoline, and anticipatory! but im wistful, its part of a big group of r movies i ws 1st able to go to if moms bot the tix, the kind i dont think are made anymore

10. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek / This Is Spinal Tap
9. West Side Story
8. Drunken Master II
7. His Girl Friday
6. The Big Sleep
5. The Wages of Fear
4. Singin' in the Rain
3. Nostalghia
2. Big Trouble in Little China
1. Young Frankenstein

Vertigo
Sunset Blvd
Double Indemnity
High and Low
Singin' in the Rain
Sunrise
Full Metal Jacket
Ali: Feat Eats the Soul
Crumb
Dog Day Afternoon

5 bad ones (not including obvious crap, e.g. jack frost (the keaton one)):

Kids
Buena Vista Social Club
Priest
Lost Highway
Mrs. Miniver

shakespeare adaptations, in ruff and uninformed order

1. othello (welles, 60whatever) treats the text like shit (ie like any other screenplay), plus BLACKFACE, ie a "moor" not an actual african (let alone an african american). i've seen abt 2 mins of this and it ruled.

2. ran (kurosawa, 80s): i really feel for the cast & crew in this one, waiting for hours in place until the clouds behind them shifted just so and the wind blew the grasses at their feet in the correct manner before doing a take. the private-ryanizing of war movies might make the bloody finale less special (haven't seen it since) which would suck.

3. my own private idaho (van sant, 90s) more ppl need to fuck around w/ henry iv, considering it's the underlying logic of tons of stuff, like dune (for instance) and also GWB... remember right wing learned types muttering sagely circa 01 abt W being the "hal presidency"?? fuckup lovable castoff scion + access to wisdom of several competing/mutually exclusive social sectors = perfect hero king. points off for keanu presence but van sant’s non-Sh tweaks are embodied by river phoenix and UDO KIER so there's no way this is bad. haven't seen it it years.

4. throne of blood (kurosawa, whenever): haven't seen it. placed high on 2's coattails.

5. lear (kozcincev [sp] whatever year) haven't seen it. it's probably great.

6. henry v (branagh, 90s): THIS FILM HAS BRIAN BLESSED IN IT YAAAAYYY!!

7. richard iii (olivier) where exactly did the "johnny rotten drew from this fillum" idea come from? haven't seen it, apart from the bits that julian temple lifts, which are pretty great.

8. hamlet (branagh, 90s): branagh's nazi ambition made good. pretty, funny, sexy, impressive. wish to erase all performance history before and after completely forgivable (what's the fucking point otherwise??) "heir to welles and olivier..." is their anything in freud about wanting to kill your grandfather, too??

9. shakespeare's romeo + juliet (luhrmann, 90s sometime). interestingly terrible. argued abt this a lot on ilx earlier w/ gravel puzzleworth, much more fun than the movie. irrevocable flaws maybe Sh's fault, ie R+J supposed to be (imaginatively) dicaprio/danes gorgeous...but embodied in film actuality this means you actually have to have dicaprio and danes play them which is a PROBLEM.

10. henry v (olivier, 45?) the "blitz henry." saw it very young and barely remember it.

11. 0 (someone, 90s) great idea! never seen it. ppl said it was dippy but the play's closed & stunted moral universe makes perfect sense in a high school, frankly, if you did it right.

12. othello (branagh, 90s i think) this was ok but nothing special.

13. much ado abt nothing (branagh 90s) same. worse than 12 cos of keanu.

14. hamlet (89? zeferelli) the mel gibson/glen glose one. "freudian" shit amped up beyond "revelatory" into "DO YOU SEE?!?!" gibson should have kept his murtaugh haircut since he kept his line readings.

15. tromeo and juliet (90s) bloody porny troma version that my dad insisted on talking to me about on several occasions 1996-present. maybe kind of entertaining but i've never seen it and can't have this in the top half, sorry.

16. hamlet (almareyda, 00s?) oh come on this has ethan hawke & liev schreiber in it and it's "modern day" give me a fucking BREAK. never seen it.

17. titus (taymor, late 90s) ehhh ok. taymor's commentary: "shk was like the tarantino of his day" that's a B- paper julie!!

18. richard iii (whoever, 90s) the ian mckellan nazi one. ditto, ian.

19. romeo and juliet (whoever, 40s??) the lionel barrymore one. i've never seen this and neither has anyone else now living.

20. romeo and juliet (zeferelli, 70s) responsible for more schoolchildren hating shakespeare than oliver cromwell could have dreamed. also: gratuitous tits and ass reinforcing idea that if said t/a exists in "cultural items" then you are prohibited from being turned on by/laughing at it. plus they're all wearing the same tights. nothing about this movie is good.

there are 29034857029384 other shakespeare films.

surprised too, its problemmatic historiography but not all bad, not unsexy, the dreamers

This one is surprisingly effective... and almost the complete antithesis of Luhrmann's R+J (which I also like).

Come and See
The Elephant Man or Mulholland Dr.
Night of the Hunter
The Imitation of life
Barry Lyndon or 2001
Quiz Show
Safe
My Dinner with Andre
Pierrot le Fou
Code Unknown

unfaves

Royal Tennenabaums
American Beauty
i forget...

1 fight club
2 the long goodbye
3 l'eclisse
4 mon oncle american
5 the conformist
6 eternal sunshine...
7 touch of evil
8 code unknown
9 where eagles dare
10 zoolander

my fave musicals include: carmen jones, meet me in st louis, young girls of rochefort, gentlemen prefer blondes, and um ivan the terrible. the color sequence.

conan the barbarian
big lebowski
logan's run
sweet and lowdown
office space
gosford park
the new kid
the ister

some unfaves:
fight club
gladiator
garden state
working girl

The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch)
The Lady Eve (Sturges)
Rope (Hitchcock)
Band of Outsiders (Godard)
Goodfellas (Scorsese)
Barton Fink (Coen)
Dazed and Confused (Linklater)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai)
Goodbye South Goodbye (Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World (Weir)

Probably my favorite musical, except for maybe "Spinal Tap".

I have the ethan hawkes hamlet, spoils of war

safe
silent running
playtime
electra-glide in blue
[...]

i understand the fight club hate, but i put it number 1 anyway; just a big film for me personally, and a kind of totem i guess for intelligent populist modern cinema. the others are shit, though.

I didn't think Van Helsing was any worse than your average comic-book movie (better than either Spidey or the X-Men films). Bad but not inconceivably bad.

unfave
demonlolver

haha maybe, i wanna like stay 3 nights w anyone who owns all these comedies and watch and rank them and be able to just hop from chapter to chapter in passing

haha yeah fucking up a wagon

i sorta wanted all those movies to be invented!

i didn't enjoy 'salo'.

Life is Beautiful
Natural Born Killers
Signs
Jerry Maguire
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Trainspotting
Best In Show
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
The Usual Suspects
The Wizard of Oz

I forgot the Transformers movie, which is totally a fav of mine tho!

Also, The New Guy is great for the Mystikal song. I think it's slightly better than Road Trip overall, because it doesn't have fucking Tom Green in it, but it does have Eddie Griffin.

Loser is great aw-shucks romantic too. The NY montage is priceless and Mena looks cuter than in any other film I've seen her in.

What was that 1960s film about three single women making it in the big city at, i think, a greeting card company? There was some subplot about computerization and layoffs. That film was like the apartment, but somehow way better. Ams would know this, I think.

noodle otm re fascinating faces. i like movies divided into days or chapters, also

le mepris
pierrot le fou
le doulos
the thing
once upon a time in the west
the wild bunch
one, two,three
fallen angels
the third man
repo man

hate

3000 miles to graceland
arlington road
darkness falls
the killer elite
hero (the garcia one)
wing commander
ghostbusters 2
harvard man
clay pigeons
cold creek manor

i dunno how long its been since ive seen gbusters 2. it cld be i only wish it well cuz it actual scared me the 1st time, vlad. if its not funny im w you

miss oyu

also, gear, how could you hate the killer elite!? that movie is so fucking funny.

it's a totally weird mess, yeah, but i love how strange and absurd the whole thing is.

I can't remember the ones I hate.

Least -
True Lies (Scott Seward OTM, shrill, sexist, stupid, offensive in every possible way)
Bottle Rocket
Magnolia
12 Monkeys
Wild At Heart
Seul contre tous
Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Putain Poulain
American Beauty (MASSIVE HATE!!! makes me angry just thinking about it)
julien donkey-boy
La collectioneuse
Lock, Stock..
I think I hate Lars von Trier but I haven't seen any of his movies. I hate Kubrick, I see the art in what he does, but I hate it. I really need to see more Bresson films, some more of Abel Ferrara, and about ten films by Fassbinder.

Much love for Office Space and Big Lebowski (best thing the Coens ever did). Fight Club is fascinating, I used to think the ending was such a cheesy fairy tale cop out and it kind of is, but then, Marla is the one who doesn't really exist and Ed Norton doesn't get to date Brad Pitt any more, so maybe it's not so have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too after all.

i find that dismissal of true lies astonishing but otherwise im kind of w you, i mean, rublev is inscrutable and everything

There are a number of films I should've listed in the sense of "these are great films," but I was thinking let me just put a lot of the split personality psychosis type of stuff.

More..
Peau neuve (Emilie Deleuze)
George Washington (David Gordon Green)
Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay)
Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis)
La captive (Akerman)
Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (Agnes Varda)
Nha fala (Flora Gomes - GO SEE if you can manage to find it)

Gordon Green's dialogue frustrates me to death - so many pregnant pauses that don't deserve the weight he gives them, and then the Malick-aping that matches his visual poetry but never integrates as well with the story. But then he tells such an incredible story visually and gets great performances otherwise that I can forgive him to some degree.

milo 1ce again otm

my can't-think-very-straight-at-the-moment list:

the umbrellas of cherbourg
imitation of life
blue velvet
cries and whispers
a woman under the influence
annie hall
umberto d.
children of paradise
robocop
window water baby moving

can't think of a hate list right now

...is it?

and cries and whispers also, its abt a family, coming apart, maybe cancer im imagining?

gear i forget if you like bb2, from probably a scarjo thread, or that it ws like miccio. i havent seen it. i like maybe only the rock, im going to check, but ill take any mbay love. i think accusing him of eg music video editing is totally misplaced, other shit cld be more valid yeah

Bad Boys II is shit but better than the first one.

i dont even know if stupid is a pejorative at this pt

stupid v thoughtless, maybe?

-- A Trip to the Moon
-- Les Vampires
-- Pandora's Box
-- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
-- Laura
-- Eyes Without a Face
-- Yojimbo
-- Cabaret
-- My 20th Century
-- Cyclo
-- Dogville

(tip of the hat to those who flagged The Thin Man, Bringing Up Baby, Mildred Pierce, Late Spring, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and Over the Edge before me)

I can't do most hated of the top of my head, and devoting time to trying to think of things I hate seems like a waste. But Natural Born Killers would be on the list, I'm pretty sure.

i mean, i dunno if its straight dismissable, like that. but i like dogville and les vampires. and reluctantly eyes wo a face if its not like i have to agree its the best 50s movie. also um, im pretty indifferent to 7 sam and ran. am i being a dick, is there meat, a moist like well wetness, to kurosawa, to yojimbo, or is he for ppl whod rather see movies as photography and remember the title vs the pose

jd i hope that isnt a quip abt how im misspelling everything, im trying, and, whats more, like ernst so much!

Some people in these parts will realise how badly I react to the critical move from 'this film is shit/I hate it because' to 'this is the kind of film wrongly liked by people who,' and we see big steps towards the latter above.

(Mumbles some stuff about Zen and empty beauty which is urgent and key but not easy to convey on a Sunday morning.)

that's three gay directors--minnelli, eisenstein, davies--if you're keeping count, anthony.

i kid, i kid.

and minelli liked pussy to much to be totally a cocksucker. (though really judy garlands pussy was the dmz of that war wasnt it?

Kurosawa's def. a humanist, but usually in a completely unsentimental way. I love how his movies are full of schemers and backstabbers(like the whole village in Yojimbo, or the two schleps in Fortress, the 3PO/R2 characters), and all the Mifune characters who are mostly in it for the money (although not in Fortress). I like the humor in his movies, although it's not there in all of them (his two Shakespeare adaptations are pretty grim straight through). And his movies move, there's an aliveness that I always forget until I sit down to watch them again.

Just wanted to say that.

As you were.

Michael Pitt kind of reminds me of a junkie Chris Klein.

Least favorite: 8mm, Four Rooms, Lost In Translation, Crash (the Paul Haggis one), Sin City, Rules Of Attraction...

oh, me too!

what abt new york minute guys? ok let me search palmer

ive been hopint to watch it for awhile. and the gallo one

hahahaha!

I just rented Robinson in Space and I'm really excited to watch it.

I want to see Anthony's lists!

Robinson In Space is amazing, but I prefer London. They're both essential.

This has turned out to be the most amicable film thread ever.

But I forgave a lot of his sins after Dogville, which is my favorite movie of the last couple years.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

huh? what advice do you want?
-- Amateur(ist) (amateurist@gmail.com), June 27th, 2001.

Did Amateur!st turn back time just to show what awesome advice-giving power he wields???

er xpost

am what made u angry abt dancer in the dark? is there a thread? isnt there a truly lovable scene of dancing spinning and ageing on courtroom tables? fucking w the bailiff?

Whoever slammed Pvt Idaho for "Keanu presence" is senseless. The film wouldn't work if he didn't have presence.

and i kind of like miss congeniality.

Amateurist would you say that the common thread of the three films you hate most is that they cynically attempt to provoke certain reactions/force certain emotions out of you?

I've seen this criticism applied to all three. I haven't seen "In The Company of Men" but I quite like the other two.

I finally saw MOPI and don't get the love (where it exists). The hopped-up straight-from-Shakespeare scenes were fantastic, but nothing else clicked.

i realize this sort of reflexive self-mediation is also the type of cinema-crit that ams dislikes.

The Ladies' Man (Jerry Lewis)
Light is Calling (Bill Morrison)
Un Chant d'amour (Jean Genet)
Electrocuting an Elephant (Thomas Edison)
Too Funky (Thierry Mugler/George Michael)
Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais)
Elephant (Alan Clarke)
Le Tempestaire (Jean Epstein)
To Beep or Not to Beep (Chuck Jones)
Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)

i really want to see "le tempestaire" having seen a bunch of silent epstein films. apparently it's coming out on dvd soon.

...

"Amateurist would you say that the common thread of the three films you hate most is that they cynically attempt to provoke certain reactions/force certain emotions out of you?"

well for "in the company..." and "dancer" maybe. i probably had a different problem w/ "elephant."

although as noted above i am not averse to feeling strong emotions at the movies. i guess i didn't feel like anything else but a "strong reaction" was being stirred up in me. they didn't leave me with anything to chew on except the "point." i guess i would say they were little more than provocations. but i'm not sure i'm entirely comfortable with that form of dismissal.

i don't really know if that's the kind of "cinema crit" that i dislike. (is there a kind of cinema crit i dislike? i mostly dislike poor arguments, unreasoned ones. which characterizes a lot of writing in general.) i'm not quite sure i know what you're saying, actually. what jokes are the makers of those films making that i should try to be in on? or imagine myself to be in on?

btw i'm not saying no one should enjoy these films or that they enjoy them for the wrong reasons. i just happened to have strong reactions against them (i walked out on one of them and considered doing so for the other ones).

Yeah, I've only watched the two on this compilation, and both lead me to believe he's a supple awesome filmmaker.

http://www.american-buddha.com/ala.357.jpg

"Join the club!!!

that kino avant-garde thing is out already? i need to buy that.

if you ever get a chance to see epstein's 'faithful heart' or 'finisterre'... run don't walk.

Oh, just the whole kids shooting other kids on camera thing, esp. post Columbine. I'm not saying that the film fits the criticism, just that I read some allegations to that effect in reviews at the time.

The film that has made me feel like I'd been psychologically assaulted most strongly is probably Requiem for a Dream. I think I liked it though.

tim i suspect if you saw requiem again youd feel miles away, but its funny, storyboarding infection and allegory

I forgot Singing In The Rain and Black Narcissus too. And I probably forgot Young Frankenstein and The Big Lebowski too.

FWIW, I almost swapped out My American Uncle and put that one in instead. OK, I'll stop.

-- Eric H. (ephende...), July 20th, 2005. (Eric H.) (later)

Lewis' "Ladies Man" is pretty queer, but then he's an unconventional masculine model, considering he was among the top 10 box-office stars from 1950-65 or so.

A Fistful of Dynamite (Sergio Leone)
A Guide For the Married Man (Gene Kelly)
A New Leaf (Elaine May)
A Star is Born (George Cukor)
ABBA: The Movie (Lasse Hallström)
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (Charles Barton)
After Hours (Martin Scorsese)
Annie (John Huston)
Back to School (Alan Metter)
Bedazzled (Stanley Donen)
Best In Show (Christopher Guest)
Blood For Dracula (Paul Morrissey/Antonio Margheriti)
Boy On a Dolphin (Jean Negulesco)
Brewster McCloud (Robert Altman)
Butterflies Are Free (Milton Katselas)
Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss (Charles McDougall)
Can't Stop the Music (Nancy Walker)
Claudine (John Berry)
Cocksucker Blues (Robert Frank)
Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero)
Desk Set (Walter Lang)
Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman)
Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (John Hough)
Dogfight (Nancy Savoca)
Dude, Where's My Car? (Danny Leiner)
Ed Wood (Tim Burton)
Edison, The Man (Clarence Brown)
Exotica (Atom Egoyan)
Fame (Alan Parker)
Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes)
Four More Years (Michael Shamberg/Allen Rucker)
Foxes (Adrian Lyne)
Frances (Graeme Clifford)
Freaky Friday (Gary Nelson)
Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (Matthew Bright)
Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff)
Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman)
Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Alan Metter)
Goodbye, Columbus (Larry Peerce)
Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby)
Heat (Paul Morrissey)
Heathers (Michael Lehmann)
Home Room (Paul F. Ryan)
Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk)
Irma La Douce (Billy Wilder)
Little Darlings (Ronald F. Maxwell)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (Sidney J. Furie)
Lolita (Stanley Kubrick)
Love and Death (Woody Allen)
Love Story (Arthur Hiller)
Manhattan (Woody Allen)
Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
My Bodyguard (Tony Bill)
My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant)
Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch)
Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini)
Norma Rae (Martin Ritt)
North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)
Over the Edge (Jonathan Kaplan)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah)
Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma)
Purple Noon (René Clément)
Quiz Show (Robert Redford)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski)
Safe (Todd Haynes)
Slums of Beverly Hills (Tamara Jenkins)
Somewhere Tomorrow (Robert Wiemer)
Straight to Hell (Alex Cox)
Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Summer of Sam (Spike Lee)
Switchblade Sisters (Jack Hill)
The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola)
The Day After (Nicholas Meyer)
The Goodbye Girl (Herbert Ross)
The Jerk (Carl Reiner)
The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges)
The Lonely Guy (Arthur Hiller)
The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman)
The Out-of-Towners (Arthur Hiller)
The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg)
The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick)
The Sunshine Boys (Herbert Ross)
The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent)
The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola)
The Warriors (Walter Hill)
The Way We Were (Sydney Pollack)
Three Days of the Condor (Sydney Pollack)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch)
Two For the Road (Stanley Donen)
Vanishing Point (Richard C. Sarafian)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
Volcano (Mick Jackson)
West Side Story (Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise)
Westworld (Michael Crichton)
Xanadu (Robert Greenwald)

American Pie (Weitz Bros.)
Army Of Darkness (Sam Raimi)
Bad News Bears (Michael Ritchie)
Bitter Moon (Roman Polanski)
Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks)
Blue Velvet (David Lynch)
Bonnie And Clyde (Arthur Penn)
Breaking Away (Peter Yates)
Bring It On (Peyton Reed)
Bull Durham (Ron Shelton)
Cabaret (Bob Fosse)
Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Clerks (Kevin Smith)
Clockers (Spike Lee)
Commando (Mark L. Lester)
Cruel Intentions (Roger Kumble)
Dangerous Liasions (Stephen Frears)
Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg)
Die Hard (John McTiernan)
Dr. Stangelove (Stanley Kubrick)
Dogs Of War (John Irvin)
Don’t Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker)
Dressed To Kill (Brian DePalma)
Dumb & Dumber (Farrelly Bros.)
Dumbo (Ben Sharpsteen)
Ed Wood (Tim Burton)
Election (Alexander Payne)
Fear (James Foley)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes)
Fish Called Wanda (Charles Chrichton)
The Game (David Fincher)
Georgia (Ulu Grosbard)
Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola)
The Great White Hype (Reginald Hudlin)
Gunga Din (George Stevens)
Hairspray (John Waters)
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (Danny Leiner)
The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven)
Hollywood Shuffle (Robert Townshend)
Identity Crisis (Melvin Van Peebles)
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman)
Jaws (Steven Spielberg)
The Killers (Robert Siodmak)
Klute (Alan J. Pakula)
The Lady From Shanghai (Orson Welles)
Last Tango In Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola)
The Manchurian Candidate (John Schlesinger)
Manhattan Murder Mystery (Woody Allen)
Manhunter (Michael Mann)
Married To The Mob (Jonathan Demme)
Martin (George Romero)
Mean Streets (Martin Scorcese)
Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster (Joe Berlinger/Bruce Sinofsky)
Monty Python And The Holy Grail (Terry Jones/ Terry Gilliam)
Moscow On The Hudson (Paul Mazursky)
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (Alan Parker)
Murder By Death (Robert Moore)
My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn)
My Dinner With Andre (Louis Malle)
My Left Foot (Jim Sheridan)
Mystery Men (Kinka Usher)
National Lampoon’s Animal House (John Landis)
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Jeremiah S. Chechik)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
Quick Change (Howard Franklin/Bill Murray)
Raising Arizona (Coen Bros.)
The Ref (Ted Demme)
Richard III (Laurence Olivier)
Romy And Michelle’s High School Reunion (David Mirkin)
Roxanne (Fred Schepisi)
Say Anything (Cameron Crowe)
Scrooged (Richard Donner)
Secretary (Steven Sheinberg)
The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
The Shop Around The Corner (Ernest Lubitsch)
Splash! (Ron Howard)
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Martin Ritt)
The Stepfather (Joseph Ruben)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan)
The Stunt Man (Richard Rush)
Superman II (Richard Lester)
Sweet Smell Of Success (Alexander Mackendrick)
Tequila Sunrise (Robert Towne)
They Live (John Carpenter)
The Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner)
Three Kings (David O. Russell)
Top Secret! (Zucker/Abrams/Zucker)
Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven)
Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (John Huston)
Used Cars (Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale)
Waiting For Guffman (Christopher Guest)
Wet Hot American Summer (David Wain)
Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols)
Wild One (Lazlo Benedek)
The Witches Of Eeastwick (George Miller)
Zardoz (John Boorman)
Zoolander (Ben Stiller)

bad news is that stress (and lonelines around holidays) inspired me to start smoking again after nearly 4 months without a cigarette. i'm hoping that after the semester is over i can go cold turky again.

It's Ammer time!

1. Dr. Zhivago
2. The Apostle
3. This is Spinal Tap
4. Ghost Dog
5. Dead Man
6. Empire Strikes Back
7. The Godfather
8. Grizzly Man
9. The Wanderers
10. Mullholland Drive

i've got a funny feeling amst is doing a... writing program!

i have been kept up all night, strangely and embarassingly, by regret. specifically, regrets concerning two women i met when i was in paris. more broadly, i've been nostalgic for the independence (even the loneliness) i felt in paris. i feel really robbed of that independence now because i've spent the past three weeks recovering from a really awful bout of mono on my mother's living room couch. bleh.

same. living in the same place at about the 2 year mark starts to feel constricting, doesn't it?

(6 years ago)

holy shit

i feel bad for flaking on n/a and sarah a few too many times. sorry guys. you and jaymc and other folks in chicago are really great. i feel like i abused people on ilx sometimes, by accepting lots of kindness but being sort of aloof in return.

i didn't know an individual could abuse a group

?

i don't remember you flaking on us? at least no more than i may have. it's cool.

Amateurist, have you seen "Hotel Imperial" (1927) dir. Mauritz Stiller, and what did you think of it if so? just curious, like.

(6 years ago)

holy shit

IIRC, sometime in 2005, ILX freaked out and changed the date to "June 27, 2001" for a day. Pretty sure you weren't actually here in 2001. Morbius definitely wasn't.

maybe. i definitely was hanging around in early 2002, when i had been working in e*a*s*o* for a while.

n/a, i feel like maybe i didn't return your phone calls or emails a few times, or said i was in town and then never got in touch to hang out. i guess for a long time (still, in fact) i'm ambivalent about whatever "life" i might have had online and wasn't comfortable making it a big part of my "real" life. if that makes sense. I just hope you didn't get any bad vibes or standoffishness because you guys are terrific, i always thought that. you too jaymc. hope everybody's doing fine.

no i haven't seen hotel imperial but i'd like to! can you get it from tcm or anything? (i don't have cable anymore. :-( )

I got my copy from Grapevine, so the quality isn't awesome, but it's watchable. it's a Paramount, so don't hold your breath for an "official" version.

It's very good! Some amazing tracking shots, a good story, Pola's acting is very good, and in a couple of scenes excellent. The leading guy is good too. I think it's the last Mauritz Stiller movie that survives complete.

˙˙˙ssɐd sɹɐǝʎ 4

i didn't know an individual could abuse a group

― gabbneb, Thursday, August 7, 2008 8:30 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://vetocorleone.com/files/2009/08/douche-bag.jpg

vote, amateurist

~~~~The Top 75 films/movies of the 2000s/oughties VOTING THREAD~~~~ BALLOTS DUE FEBRUARY 2

that's not really a question i suppose.

Amateurist, I thought about reviving the MS records thread for this but these is so much negativity contained therein.

How do you feel about the five volumes of Lomax field recordings coming out on Mississippi? They've been compiled by Nath4n Salsburg, who's been working with the archive for 10 yrs. Many of the performances have been previously issued on the volumes by Prestige & Atlantic, but there are many previously unreleased cuts as well. On the one hand it complicates the idea of 'collecting' the field recordings due to the extreme duplication with previous issues, but more importantly the puts the material back into print and i think that is much more important than its perception by record collectors, of which i am one tbh.

info here including track lists & liner note excerpt:
http://networkedblogs.com/6LYzB

yikes redunancy

ahem.

i said, AHEM!!!

@amateurist: 'misogyni' is my Danish spellcheck kicking in. Could you please stop making fun of me for being a foreigner? All over this site, you rag me and talk down to me for not being born in the same country as you, and not speaking your language as well as an English speaker. It pisses me off. So shut the fuck up, you xenophobic asshole. How well do you write in your second language? I write fucking brilliant English for a Dane, I've had pieces published on English-language websites, and I'm not going to take your patronizing bullshit anymore. Go to hell.

i'm putting this at the top of my CV

I've no axe to grind with fredb but as far as euro-mordybaiting-lefty-makes-overly-simplistic-arguments-while-looking-for-mad-kudos-hairtrigger-temper ilxors go le bateau ivre is my boy from now til eternity and I don't think we have room for a reserve

i get a tuomas with a bad attitude vibe from fred

THOUGHT YOU COULD ESCAPE TO ANOTHER THREAD? WHAT ARE YOU TWO UP TO UNDER THE COVERS WITH THAT FLASHLIGHT?

Need to identify this eighties/early nineties film. amy do you know what that movie with crabs might be

oh man that sounds familiar, but no

i don't want to ruin the paris thread w/ this engagement so i'll place it here:

i kinda didn't really notice you as a distinct poster for quite a while (nothing personal - i'm often very bad at linking individual posts to particular posters) but recently in between you calling my snotty twice in like a week, then some kinda lame posts on two separate threads i went back and realized you were the guy whining on the Nigeria thread that you didn't like the links i posted to ilx. so i have two questions a. were you always a crank? b. do you have a personal issue w/ me or am i just getting normal amateurist blowback and if it is personal, can i suggest that maybe you go back to your habit of not reading my posts? i mean i don't care but it does seem bizarre.

were you always a crank?

and when will you stop beating your wife?

hey amateurist, let me ask you a question: WHAT TIME IS LOVE?

also: leave Mordy alone. he's a star and sincere.

<3

hi mordy i'm actually not sure what you're referring to! i have nothing against you actually have a vaguely positive impression of you (i write "vaguely" just b/c i have a pretty vague impression of everybody on this site, it's really only the folks i've met IRL who i have a firmer impression of). i appreciate that you seem willing to buck some of the left-wing orthodoxy that shows up here, even if i don't always agree with you.

i don't actually recall calling you snotty (or even using the word "snotty") at all... are you sure you aren't mixing me up with another poster?

it's true that i don't like reading slavoj zizek but i don't mind that you posted a link to something he wrote! if there are some other links you posted that i didn't like, i don't remember them. there was some time when you (among other people) were posting a ton of thinkpieces about something or other and i remember expressing some general exhaustion of looking at thinkpieces... but i can't recall if i aimed that directly at you.

anyway that's all to say that i'm sorry if it seems like i'm picking on you, and i don't intend that, to the point where i honestly don't know how you might have gotten that impression.

i actually have no idea where i failed to "leave mordy alone." i don't think i engage with, or criticize, him any more than anyone else. i'm a bit mystified but i guess i'll consider it more in the future.

oh, i guess i did call you 'snotty' since you were mocking the idea that a communications professor would write about 'twilight.' i guess i think that is a little snotty. it doesn't seem like a particularly merciless putdown and i don't mean any real ill will.

ok no worries. normally i wouldn't notice but you wrote these two posts within a week of each other and snotty is the kind of thing you don't get called very often (tho ironically i do have a very strong high school memory in reference to being called snotty so i was susceptible to it standing out).

I wish you princes of the internet every happiness.

well now that i found the posts you reference, the other time i called you "snotty" is when you made a very snarky blanket dismissal of folks who support BDS. i'm actually not sure where i sit in relation to BDS, and i can see the points on both sides, but i think your caricature of people who would support BDS was, indeed, rather snotty.

so i guess this comes down to us having disagreements and me calling you names, for which i'm sorry. but that's pretty par for the course on ILX, and in context it doesn't seem like the strongest insult, really.

i dunno.

1. zizek has sriracha'ed

2. donno if its pass-agg or the art of pretend forgetfulness but i like how you each started this exchange by declaring that you are only vaguely aware of each other. you are both awful so count yourselves lucky, how i wish i could forget ;-)

i remember flopson. he's mopson and cotton tails brother.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/Tag_Team_-_Whoomp!_(There_It_Is).jpg

Is Zizek mordy's Perrin?

when did the "affecting not to know who flopson is" meme start?

lol @ "are you a crank?" do you say shit like that to strangers irl?

actually never mind, that's too meta trivia even for me xp

I don't know. His former name made me hungrier though.

chepa food, wrote this on thread Your secret mental list of chain restaurants that you will not frequent on board I Love Everything on 05-Apr-2005

ok all the mcd's haters still need to at least recognize the brilliance of the dollar menu. i mean you can get like a double cheeseburger, mcchicken sandwich, side salad, fruit and yogurt parfait and 2 apple pies for like not even 6 bucks! which is like the price of ONE hardees burger w/ fries. (1 monster burger alone tops 6 bucks i think)

otm

i really don't know what's going on, i don't mean any ill will toward anyone, sorry if i offended anyone etc. etc.

don't apologize, this revive was totally weird! public trial or some shit

In fact, let me take this opportunity to apologize for the dickish posts I've made towards you in the semi-recent past.

see, i wouldn't even have remembered that. no need to apologize.

Cuntishness itt. leave the lads to clear it out. Two good posters obv.

aye lads, just popped in for a meanie meanie coz i saw the opportunity, meant nothin by it ocourse

the single mean post is only slightly less cuddlestein than the rest of this revive

amateuris, i asked you a questiont: WHAT TIME IS LOVE?

i thought mordy was being noticeably polite considering he's talking to this board's grandpa simpson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28w2LVzxVkU&noredirect=1

I've always appreciated am's posts, especially in the movie threads, where he consistently makes unexpected insights.