All-Time Favorite Films

[paintedshoes]

Thanks, Jay.  Don't do netflix, but will see if my local video store has it, and look for it on TCM.

[Katie of Sweden]

Fight club - the best movie seen ever...

[DaveinPhilly]

Ever?!

I've heard it is good so it's on my list to see.

The Ice Storm is of course another Ang Lee masterpiece and his Sense & Sensibility is exquisite.

[Katie of Sweden]

(yes, ever!)   

It has this rythm in it...very good. The cinematography is  p e r f e c t, love it! Have seen it 15 times. Even BBM doesn't beat it. Go see it now! 

[DaveinPhilly]

Them's fightin' words Kate!

[Boris]

I liked Fight Club and have seen it a couple of times but its nihilistic worldview and violent chic makes the experience rather uncomfortable for me. Guilty pleasures, I presume. David Fincher is a visionary but his visions are too void of real hope and meaning for me.

If someone seeks antidote to gloom and doom try to find a little French gem called "Amelie" starring Audrey Tautou. It is rare movie because it makes you feel happy, you just can't help it.

[DaveinPhilly]

Amelie is indeed charming and a good antidote to too much seriousness. Isn't Audrey Tatou in the Da Vinci Code or have I mixed my French actresses?

I've kind of avoided Fight Club due to it's supposed homoeroticism, though that's not my usual thing to avoid!

[Katie of Sweden]

Amelie - a gem indeed!

[Katie of Sweden]

I've kind of avoided Fight Club due to it's supposed homoeroticism, though that's not my usual thing to avoid!

I avoided it because of the violent title! A couple of ys after it had left the cinemas I was pursuaded to see it on VHS and that was it! Homoerotisism - maybe.. but I wouldn't say that is the focus in the film at all. Would love to get your reactions after you saw it.

[paintedshoes]

I watched "Fight Club" one time and disliked it intensely.  Didn't know how to express why not, til I read Boris's comments.  They state my feelings acurately.  Thanks, Boris.

"Amelie" is indeed a lovely film.  And yes, Tatou is one of the stars of "The DaVinci Code".

[Boris]

Amelie is indeed charming and a good antidote to too much seriousness. Isn't Audrey Tatou in the Da Vinci Code or have I mixed my French actresses?

I've kind of avoided Fight Club due to it's supposed homoeroticism, though that's not my usual thing to avoid!

Audrey Tautou is in DaVinci Code. Rather surprisingly I might add, I would have expacted the role to go to more classically beautiful actress in style of Juliette Binoche.

[DaveinPhilly]

Years ago, my partner and I were stunned by the film -Year of Living Dangerously - we recently saw it again and think it stands up as a remarkable fim.

[paintedshoes]

Linda Hunt was a revelation in that film.  Even knowing she is a woman, there is only the man on-screen.  Brilliant performance.

[jayiijay]

Linda Hunt is a woman?  Who knew?

It bothered me how at the time everybody was saying "Cher is gonna win for Silkwood".  Ridiculous, Cher wasn't even a "movie" star yet, Hunt was amazing, I was very relieved when she got her due.  But even now people still say "Cher should have won for Silkwood", without even knowing who she was up against.  Anyhow, it's one of those rare times where the Academy actually got it right.

Of course the Academy got plenty of other categories wrong, among others, Best Picture & Director.  I was moved by Terms of Endearment like everyone else, but c'mon, how can you not get misty when a recalcitrant kid is saying good-bye to his dying mother?  I give the film more credit than that, but when it comes down to it, it is an entertaining, well-acted soap opera - but as a piece of film "art", it was not as good as The Right Stuff or Local Hero or especially Fanny and Alexander (or Night of Shooting Stars).  I know the Academy never gives foreign films the Oscar, but that's a bad excuse since they could if they wanted to, and especially since "Fanny" was in serious contention for 6 awards, winning 4 (foreign film, art direction, costumes, cinematography), a record for foreign films.  Ingmar Bergman was considered a dark horse for director, James Brooks' (whom I think is great) work on Terms wasn't in the same league.  Anyhow, if one considers English-language films only, The Right Stuff still got the shaft, Philip Kaufmann wasn't even nominated for director, and Local Hero was shut out.  To me, other Best Picture nominees Tender Mercies and The Dresser were very well acted but kind of slow and dull (the latter worked much better on stage), and The Big Chill was virtually unwatchable apart from the great soundtrak.  Not the best year, but had the Academy been artistically (instead of commercially) inclined, Fanny would have swept, it made the 2002 Sight & Sound Top 50 films in world cinema, the highest rating of any film from 1981-2001.  Needless to say Terms didn't make any lists (about 200 films typically make 3 or more lists).

[TomS]

Jayiijay--

I always loved fillms of Ingmar Bergman.  Fanny and Alexander has a special place for me because my partner and I saw it at the Castro on our first trip to San Francisco a couple years back.
Here's a question related to Brokeback:  Did you find it Bergmanesque?
In my opinion, the scene in Jack's parents' house struck me as achieving the same kind of artistry and intensity of some of Bergman's work.  In the framing and the lighting, and the spare soundtrack, it reminded me of scenes from Fanny or Cries and Whispers.

I know I'm not the only persion to have thought this, but this idea came to me before I had read it anywhere else.