Discussion about great films

[sauronsfinger]

Understood. But that was some great piss and vinegar!

Aye - that it was. Do you think the beard had anything to do with it? Not seriously but it seems to have come off when the films started to change a bit.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Django Unchained was essentially a heroic African-American revenge fantasy (well, all of Tarantino's films seem to be revenge fantasies). It was very uncomfortable at times, but it certainly achieved its purpose. Not a film I'll likely ever watch again, but effective.

I can't believe I forgot Days of Heaven. I get absolutely lost in that film. Great stuff from Malick, as is usual.

Though I am apprehensive about seeing To the Wonder, for some reason...

[Passdagas the Brown]

Understood. But that was some great piss and vinegar!

Aye - that it was. Do you think the beard had anything to do with it? Not seriously but it seems to have come off when the films started to change a bit.

They do say that beards convey special powers to their owners. Whenever I'm growing mine out, I get progressively cooler.

[kzer_za]

Django Unchained was essentially a heroic African-American revenge fantasy (well, all of Tarantino's films seem to be revenge fantasies). It was very uncomfortable at times, but it certainly achieved its purpose. Not a film I'll likely ever watch again, but effective.

I didn't like it mostly because it tried too hard to be a comedy, a gory splatterfest, and a serious slavery movie all at the same time. The constant abrupt shifts in tone made it bad at all three. I know mishmashing different genres and tropes is sort of Tarantino's shtick and it's possible to do well (I like the Coen brothers), but I think it just created a mess here. By the time we reach Django's big rampage, I was sick of it and wanted to go home.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Perfectly understood. But that is, IMO, the essence of a heroic revenge fantasy. Comically over-the-top, but rooted in real pain and hatred.

[narya]

Here are a few more:

The Killing Fields
The Year of Living Dangerously
The Hunt for Red October
The Sting
Jurassic Park

And what everyone else said, mostly.

LAWRENCE is showing on the BIG screen at University of California, Berkeley, next week! So after all these years of saying "some movies really need to be seen on the big screen, like, say Lawrence of Arabia" I'll actually be able to do it!

http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN20519

[Passdagas the Brown]

Here are a few more:

The Killing Fields
The Year of Living Dangerously
The Hunt for Red October
The Sting
Jurassic Park

And what everyone else said, mostly.

LAWRENCE is showing on the BIG screen at University of California, Berkeley, next week! So after all these years of saying "some movies really need to be seen on the big screen, like, say Lawrence of Arabia" I'll actually be able to do it!

http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN20519

You won't regret it. And if you're like me, you'll cherish that viewing for a very long time!

[JewelSong]

btw...the stage show of Sound of Music has extra songs, doesn't it? I remember an LP my grandma had of S of M and it had 2 songs on it that weren't in the film - one was the Baroness's song, I believe. Same thing with "The King and I..."

The stage show had a terrific song sung by the Captain, the Baroness and Max called "No Way to Stop It." It was cut in the movie so Julie Andrews could have a solo called "Something Good" which was NOT a very good song (IMHO) The play also had a song called "How Can Love Survive" (again, by the Baroness, Captain and Max) which got cut so Julie Andrews could sing "I Have Confidence" as she is walking up to the house for the first time.

I think "No Way to Stop It" can be heard as an instrumental in the movie during the dance scene.

I grew up listening to the original sound track with Mary Martin and that is still my favourite. Love Mary Martin; she was such a trooper.

(Not sure about "The King and I" - as far as I know, the movie has the same songs and the play.)

[Elentári]

Ah - it was "How Can Love Survive?" that I remember.

As for "The King and I", the Wiki entry on the stage show does say that The movie's script was faithful to the stage version, although it cut a few songs..."

whilst the entry on the film version says

Three songs recorded for the film's soundtrack were never filmed and do not appear in the motion picture[5] (though three are on the soundtrack album: "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?" "I Have Dreamed" and "My Lord and Master"). "I Have Dreamed" and another song that was not used in the film, "Western People Funny", survive in the released film only as orchestral underscoring. The first half of the "Song of the King" was turned into ordinary spoken dialogue in the film, but survives as it was actually written on the soundtrack album. A special 50th Anniversary edition was released in 2006, which promised to restore the lost numbers, but it included only the audio for "Shall I Tell You?" This would seem to indicate no footage exists of these numbers. An off-screen choral reprise of "Something Wonderful" was added to serve as the film's finale (the play ends with musical underscoring, but no singing). None of the other reprises of the songs were retained in the film version.

[Padme]

Sitting here waiting for bread to get done and before heading out...here is a mere list of mine.

Shawshank Redemption
Godfather series
Schilders List
LoTR series (including Hobbit Series)
Star Wars series
Seven Samurai
Forrest Gump
Casablanca
It’s a wonderful life
Apocalypse Now
Psycho
The Shining
Saving Private Ryan
City Lights
Paths of Glory
Django
Taxi Driver
Gladiator
Toy Story 3
To Kill a Mockingbird
Requiem for a dream
Eternal Sunshine of a spotless mind
Braveheart
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Bus Stop
Unforgiven
Bridge on the River Kwai
UP
Pans Labyrinth
The Elephant Man
Maltese Falcon
African Queen
The Big Lebowski
The Deer Hunter
Cool Hand Luke
The Sixth Sense
Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
Kill Bill Series
Hotel Rwanda
Grapes of Wrath
Million dollar Baby
Stand by Me
The Kings Speech
Donnie Darko
Gandhi
A Beautiful Mind
Princess Bride
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Slumdog Millionaire
The Kite Runner
Life of Pi
Pirates of the Caribbean series
Jurassic Park
Harry Potter series
Last of the Mohicans
Despicable Me
Lincoln
Being Flynn
Cloud Atlas
Castaway
Out of Africa
And
Not really counts but Signs. Stupid movie that I am addicted to as of late.

[Passdagas the Brown]

I forgot Gandhi with Ben Kingsley. Great film.

[yovargas]

Grapes of Wrath

I finally read the book last year and it was so very powerful. So I decided to watch the movie this year and.......boy was it ever one of the dullest movies I've ever seen. I'm pretty baffled to find that this is actually a really well loved movie.

[Jude]

Did anyone see "Charlotte Gray", starring Cate Blanchett? I watched it once and was very moved by it.

[narya]

I saw Lawrence of Arabia tonight, on a relatively large screen (the theatre was about 20 seats wide and I sat two rows from the front) and I have mixed feelings about the experience. The film was a digital restoration, copied 8k pixels wide, then projected 4k wide. The crispness was great for the action scenes, but in the signature wide angle views with nothing but half blue sky and half white sand, the sky had an odd sparkly shimmer to it as the pixels cycled through a variety of shades of not-quite-perfect sky blue. Perhaps I would not have noticed it farther from the screen. Other than that, 4 hours of great cinematography, music, storytelling, and desert!

[Smaug's voice]

Well I have certainly seen far less "classic" movies than you people, but here's the list of my favorites (No laughing!) :

Spartacus
Godfather I and II
Schilder's List
LoTR
TH:AUJ
Star Wars (Original)
Gone with the Wind
Tower Inferno
Ratatouille
WALL-E
Lion-King (I have Disney pride )
To Kill a Mockingbird
Braveheart
Gravity
2001: A Space Odeyssey
Planet of the Apes
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Kung Fu Panda 1 and 2
The Great Dictator
Life of Pi
Jurassic Park I
Harry Potter 2,3 and 7.2
Lincoln
Cloud Atlas
Sound of Music
the Great Escape
Escape from Sobibor (Telefilm)
Ben-Hur
Ten Commandments
Johnny English 2 (it's just stupidly funny)
Gods Must be Crazy I (if you haven't seen, I really recommend this! It's comedy)
The Dark Knight Trilogy

[Passdagas the Brown]

You have some great films in that list - many of which are on mine!

And I LOVE "The Gods Must Be Crazy" and will never look at a Coca Cola bottle the same way again!

[Smaug's voice]

And I LOVE "The Gods Must Be Crazy" and will never look at a Coca Cola bottle the same way again!

I know, right?
And besides the clean and witty humor, I think it is a great depiction of the lifestyle of the Bushmen of kalahari. And their innocence. It is possibly my favorite comedy film, love it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I love The Gods Must Be Crazy as well. Definitely one of my favorites.

[yovargas]

Well I have certainly seen far less "classic" movies than you people...

Uhh, like half your picks are considered classics, man.

[Smaug's voice]

Glad to share that, V.

Well I have certainly seen far less "classic" movies than you people...

Uhh, like half your picks are considered classics, man.

Well that is only half. Almost everyone here has their lists full of classics I haven't seen and some that are not favorites.