Movies on my "To Watch" List
Submitted by jenhowel on Tue, 02/20/2001 - 09:15
Tags:
- Afterlife
- Battle Royale (If this also Japanese flick is ever released stateside, I long to see it.)
- Cecil B. Demented (recommended by many)
- Sweet and Lowdown (Uma, and critically acclaimed)
- Beyond Rangoon (for Patricia Arquette)
- Bandit Queen (same director as "Elizabeth")
- Raging Bull (classic)
- Mean Streets (classic)
- On the Waterfront (classic)
- Marie Baie Des Anges (read intriguing review)
- The Vanishing (ditto)
- Hardcore (read review of 8MM which referred me to this movie)
- Repulsion (can't remember)
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (classic)
- Midnight Cowboy (classic)
- In the Heat of the Night (classic)
- Bonnie and Clyde (classic)
- Ben Hur (classic)
- The Wild Bunch (classic)
- Faces (can't remember)
- True Grit (classic)
- Shaft (cause I can't remember it)
- Dirty Harry (classic?)
- Platoon (classic)
- Nashville (classic)
- Reds (classic)
- 48 Hours (probably on some EW list as well)
- 5 Easy Pieces (Nicholson)
- Kramer vs. Kramer (classic)
- Apocalypse Now (classic)
- A Star is Born (classic)
- Terms of Endearment (classic?)
- The Searchers (classic)
- The Ten Commandments (classic, plus how can I resist Charlton Heston as Moses when I think of him exclusively in terms of Planet of the Apes?)
- Seven Samurai (classic)
- Vertigo (cause maybe I missed something)
- Les Miserables (can't remember)
- The 400 Blows (classic)
- Lawrence of Arabia (classic)
- Hamlet (Branagh version, heard good things about it)
- La Dolce Vita (must see some Fellini)
- 8 1/2 (also, must see Fellini, plus just saw 8 1/2 Women by Peter Greenaway which was supposedly part homage to it.)
- Il Postino (cause of the hype)
- Das Boot (classic)
- La Cage Aux Folles (on list of fav. foreign films)
- My Life as a Dog (ditto)
- Jean de Florette (ditto)
- Wings of Desire (ditto, plus must see original of City of Angels)
- Children of Paradise (ditto)
- Farewell my Concubine (ditto)
- Diva (ditto, though I have a sinking feeling that I did see this and hated it. Guess I'll find out.)
- Ran (classic)
- Antonia's Line (think it won Best Foreign Film Oscar)
- Rashomon (on that foreign favorites list)
- The Baker's Wife (ditto)
- White (ditto)
- Blue (ditto, though saw it and was bored)
- A Man and a Woman (ditto)
- Z (ditto)
- Manon of the Spring (on fave foreign film list)
- King of Hearts (can't remember at all)
- Fanny and Alexander (on fave foreign list)
- La Strada (ditto)
- And God Created Woman (have not the SLIGHTEST idea how it got on here, but oh well)
- Diabolique 1955 (not sure either)
- The Gods Must be Crazy (?????? Did I write this part of the list?)
- Island in the Sun (Dorothy Dandridge)
- The Brandon Teena Story (to check out the real deal)
- Windhorse (Tibetan, supposedly very good)
- AND I THINK THE FOLLOWING WERE ON A LIST BY LBANGS:
- The Best Years of Our Lives
- The Big Sleep
- The Blue Angel
- Breathless
- The Children of Paradise (45)
- City Lights
- Duck Soup
- 8 1/2
- From Here to Eternity
- THe General (27)
- Gold Rush
- Grand Illusion
- High Noon
- Jules et Jim
- La Strada
- Lawrence of Arabia
- Lola Montes
- The Magnificent Ambersons
- THe Maltese Falcon
- Nashville
- THe Night of the Hunter
- THe Passion of Joan of Arc
- Pather Panchali
- Persona
- Rashomon
- REd River
- The REd Shoes
- Rules of the Game
- Sansho the Bailiff
- The Searchers
- The Seven Samurai
- THe Seventh Seal
- Stagecoach
- Strangers on a Train
- Sullivan's Travels
- Sunrise
- THe Third Man
- TOkyo Story
- Tom Jones
- Top Hat
- Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- THe WIld bunch
- Zero for Conduct
- The Hours (the last 15 minutes we missed when the FILM broke!)
- Adaptation
- Punch Drunk Love
- The Shape of Things (I can't believe The Pickford didn't pick this one up!)
- Thirteen
- 28 Days Later
- Frida
- Far From Heaven
- Brother from Another Planet (I've now watched nearly everything by John Sayles. This is maybe my last one to watch!)
- Christine (To see how bad it sucks compared to the book. Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment.)
Author Comments:
The list just keeps on growing...
isn't it called last tango IN paris? just being picky...yeah dude...all those movies on the fave horror list you refer to...did you see the christopher walken movie, THE DEAD ZONE, on that list?? it's a steven king book i think...saw it in 5th grade dude and it really scared me. i think we should watch it sometime...although it probably won't be as scary...
yes it is a stePHen king book...doh...and actually it's directed by david cronenberg (also did dead ringers?)
Actually the title is "3 Days of the Condor" and it is an exceptional 70's thriller starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, and Max Von Sydow. I'm sure "The Vanishing" is the foreign title; stay away from the American remake with Kiefer Sutherland. For confirmation, Diabolique 1955 should definitely be on your list. Overall, I would agree that almost every title is a must; all I have to say is good luck.
Great list! I need to see several on here as well.
If you do make it to Cabaret (which I highly recommend), I will suggest that it will be well worth your time to rent the DVD of the film. Most video (and, oddly enough, television) prints I have seen of the film have bleed-out colors, cropped scenes, and horrible, horrible sound, which may not matter so much if the music and the colors in the frame were not so important to the film's overall effect.
Last Tango in Paris is a great film, but I will warn you that it is not very sexy in a traditional way. In fact, it really isn't very sexy all, but it is indeed partly about sex. A very depressing and moving film.
I'll comment on one more film. For any Bond fan, Dr. No is a unique delight. Being the first film in the series, it has little trace of the formula that controls the later films. It was rather low budget, and the film has an almost sort of lo fi sci fi vibe to it which is definitely missing in the future installments. Sean plays Bond much truer to the Bond of the books - colder, perhaps a bit more cruel. A fascinating look at what the series may have been had the more serious Dr. No and From Russia with Love set the formula rather than the breezier (yet fun) Goldfinger.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Jen, if you look at my list of 25 greatest films you will find 7 movies on your to watch list. WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?/MIDNIGHT COWBOY/APOCALYPSE NOW/DAS BOOT/LAST TANGO IN PARIS/THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES/FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. If you see those and LEAVING LAS VEGAS/MEAN STREETS/ON THE WATERFRONT/COOL HAND LUKE/BONNIE AND CLYDE/ORDINARY PEOPLE AND REDS you will be changed forever and so will your greatest movies list. trust me baby.
My goodness! Now I'm "baby". That's cool, though. I'm glad you weren't totally offended by my nitpicking of your horror movie list. Really it was a sign of excitement that someone else was paying attention to the horror genre. Glad to see others are up at all hours of the night, doing this list thing. Or perhaps you're from another country and actually do have a life, unlike myself! I hope those movies live up to their hype, I could use a little shaking up.
Interesting to see your movie list, as I have one of my own (sans descriptions) that I have been keeping in some form (currently Listology) for four years.
Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy ( Blue , White , and Red , in that order) are absolutely astounding. It's hard to believe you watched Blue and were bored, especially if you pay attention to the symbolism.
Also, Wings of Desire is amazing. Make sure you're ready and willing to be able to read subtitles for a while, because of its serenity and subtleness, it's a very easy movie to fall asleep to. It's one of the best movies I've seen, though! Be sure to add its sequel, Faraway, So Close!
Make sure you watch Manon of the Spring (Manon des Sources) after Jean de Florette , as this is its sequel. Good set of movies, though. I suggest watching them both in the same week.
Have you already seen any of these Jen? there are some great movies on this list.
No, I have not. I take care to remove things from the list once I've seen them. "Ordinary People" did floor me, by the way. I totally understood it, having gone through depression and the loss of my mother.
The reason I don't click down the list faster, however, is that sometimes I just want to be entertained, and not do the work that watching a great film demands. Watching "Taxi Driver" while paying close attention and even taking a few notes was way more rewarding than the first time I watched it, when I was just in the mood for a movie, not a film.
So I try only to watch the great ones when my mind is ready to do some work. Out of respect, I guess. Anyway, I'm reading Middlemarch right now, so my mind is doing a lot of work in that avenue. But the Listology movie club's advent is a great thing for my cinematic education. Great to share viewpoints with other intelligent people such as yourself.
If you can hold off, Wings of Desire is supposed to arrive as a special edition DVD in 2003. Of course, if you can't, so much the better!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs