1982: What I've Seen...
Submitted by SteveR on Fri, 06/04/2004 - 04:36
Tags:
- In order of preference:
MASTERPIECE
- Fanny and Alexander: 5-Hour Version (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden) - It's strange to me that a fellow human being could create such a sprawling yet so utterly precise and perfectly tuned vision. Bergman's best.
- The Thing (John Carpenter, USA) - A flawless monster movie.
NEAR-MASTERPIECE
- Conan the Barbarian (John Milius, USA) - No, I'm not kidding. Probably the best example of comic-book pulp ever adapted to screen. Milius' visual poetry combined with Poledouris' lyrical score elevate this far beyond B-movie stature. Raw, hypnotic, and strangely moving. Fuck anyone who disses this.
- Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, USA) - Amazing the allowances Scott was given in making his early sci-fi art movies. Could something this sedate and methodical get big-studio backing nowadays? Not likely.
GREAT
- Made in Britain (Alan Clarke, UK) - Have you ever seen an Alan Clarke movie? Probably not. That should change. Tim Roth gives a fire and brimstone performance here that he hasn't matched since.
- Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, France)
REALLY GOOD
- Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper, USA)
- The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, USA)
- The Ballad of Narayama (Shohei Imamura, Japan)
- E.T. The Extraterrestrial (Steven Spielberg, USA)
- The Night of the Shooting Stars (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Italy)
GOOD
- White Dog (Samuel Fuller, USA)
- Tenebre (Dario Argento, Italy)
- The Dark Crystal (Frank Oz and Jim Henson, USA)
- Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling, USA)
NOT RECOMMENDED
- The Beastmaster (Don Coscarelli, USA)
- Creepshow (George A. Romero, USA)
- First Blood (Ted Kotcheff, USA)
- Frances (Graeme Clifford, USA)
- Still need to see from this year:
- Home Sweet Home
- The Eyes, The Mouth
- Identification of a Woman
- Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
- Eureka
- One From the Heart
- Diner
- Veronika Voss
- Fitzcarraldo
- Gandhi
Fanny and Alexander Bergman's best? Blasphemy! Blasphemy against The Seventh Seal! :-)
Heh, just a question, but have you seen the long version of Fanny and Alexander or just the short one? Watching the long version of it was like a religious experience for me -- it's so mysterious, poetic, and even horrifying that I felt changed by its end.
You'll find no disparaging words about The Seventh Seal from me either -- it's one of his greatest and is a true masterpiece. But, for me, Fanny and Alexander beats it out by about a buck and change. :)
Indeed, it was the theatrical release I saw. One of these days I'll have to watch the 'full' version, but since I've seen the movie in at least some form and loved in anyway, it's not very high on my list of priorities for filmwatching. I haven't seen a single Bresson movie, for example :-)
I'd suggest starting with "A Man Escaped" or "Diary of a Country Priest" for Bresson. Definitely let me know what you think when you see one -- he might be my favorite director.
I'm dying to see those two and Balthazar. I think those two are available through my library system (and not Netflix, which I'm cancelling at the end of the month anyway). Balthazar seems to have fallen off the face of the earth, and it's the one I'm most dying to see.
OK, I'll bite, lukeprog, why are you canceling Netflix?
And given your ages, the number of movies you both have seen is downright frightening.
A couple of reasons. I recently moved further away from the nearest distribution center, and arrival/return times are dragging. Also, my mailman seems to have taken up the habit of delivering the mail without taking the stuff that's in the mailbox with the red flag up. I don't want to drive into town every day just to return Netflix movies. Furthrmore, the libraries in my new area are actually MUCH better than the ones nearer to Minneapolis/St. Paul (don't ask me why this is), and in some cases carry titles not even available via Netflix - so I've constantly got titles coming in from them, for free.
Fourthly is that I feel like dissing Netflix for refusing to pick up what may be one of the greatest films of all time: Sunrise. It's like Jim and Ox-Bow, but perhaps greater (which is more a reflection of my narrow-minded insanity than on Jim's dedication).
If I were near Cali, I'd sure as hell pick up a subscription to Greencine, though. When I had broadband I often checked if Greencine carried a title I wanted to see when Netflix didn't, and they often did (meaning there are dozens if not hundreds of excellent titles on DVD that Netflix simply doesn't carry).
Oh, and: I often fish, but not this time. As you can tell, though, I didn't mind sharing why I was cancelling Netflix :-)
I can certainly understand your reasons for dropping Netflix. I've had it for a good couple years now, and I think the only reason I keep it is because I live just an hour away from a distribution center, which means only a day turnaround between arrivals and returns. Sometimes I don't have the time or inclination (some things have priorities over others! :)) to watch everything right away and they just sit there for far too long to justify the monthly cost.
Of course, for people who don't have a good rental store around, it's a great alternative.
Thougths that came to me while reading this list:
1. So SteveR didn't like Creepshow. Why that?
2. He needs to see Gandhi?
3. I need to see Fanny and Alexander.
1. If I were still updating these by-year lists, I might just remove "Creepshow" from it -- it's one of those movies that's so foggy in my memory that I can't really trust my original opinion of it (which was negative). Since I generally like Romero, I should watch it again.
2. Yeah, though I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years. It's certainly on my to-watch list.
3. Yep. :)