LaMa - 24 June 2007 12:50 PM

“A bridge too far“ (1977)

Well, there’s a surprise. . . 

How about ‘Bridge On the River Kwai’ ?

It was filmed on location, so it was stunning to watch, and once again, the human element is what made the story, with the British commander of the troops actually trying to prevent the destruction of the bridge.

Great human-nature examination.

Dan, who also wonders why more Woody Allen films aren’t listed, to me his comedy is light-years forward, both his early inane stuff * and the newer stuff, too.

* unforgettable:  In ‘Take The Money and Run’, when he is in prison for bank robbery, he acts up on the chain gang, so is sentenced to go to ‘the hole’ with a life insurance salesman.  As they enter the ladder-well, Woody in his striped con-suit, and the life insurance salesman in a business suit and carrying an attache case, saying, ‘Now, with this policy, you get…...‘

After actually going through the list, I have only seen 27 of them…and about 8 of them…I can’t remember at all.  I just know that I had seen them.

The day the Earth stood still wasn’t on there…and I always loved that.  It really felt suspenseful.  But, maybe not as suspenseful enough to be on the list.

I saw “The Last Picture Show”...I didn’t even get why that was good…was it just b/c it was a more modern film, but it was black & white?

LaMa…I recently saw Pan’s Labrynth…I don’t know if I “got it”.  I mean, I got the whole fairy tale aspect of it…but it seemed to be such a small part of it, that I wasn’t quite sure why it was hailed (here) as a “fairy tale for adults”...?

Well I’ve seen 39 off those 100 films.  That’s uh…carry the seven…three…nineteen.  That’s 39 percent of them.  Wow!

Anyway, like most people here I find it rather funny and weird to have a list.  The criteria is so subjective for what you find good or not or even what you enjoy to watch (whether you consider it good or not).

But the list is really doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It has people talking about it and about the movies that encompass it.

Maegan - 24 June 2007 07:57 PM

LaMa…I recently saw Pan’s Labrynth…I don’t know if I “got it”.  I mean, I got the whole fairy tale aspect of it…but it seemed to be such a small part of it, that I wasn’t quite sure why it was hailed (here) as a “fairy tale for adults”...?

It’s a strange mixture of fantasy (with a touch of horror) and hard reality, and both aspects are used very cleverly to reinforce each other. For example, while the girl encounters monsters and horrors like the “Pale Man” and the toad in her fantasy world, in the hard realistic world she encounters even bigger monsters and horrors in the shape of the torturing and murdering Fascist Captain Vidal and the death of her mother after being just horribly used by Vidal for his own purpose.  The message: evil in the real world surpasses that in a fantasy fairy tale world.

Fairy tales usually are about good versus evil and about choices, they mix beauty with horror. The movie shows that they reflect real life in this sense, but that real life is simply more brutal. The girl Ofelia discovers that the good versus evil and thin line between life and death that she learned to know from fairy tales is no match for reality, as reality is even worse. Hence her escape into fantasy, even though that is a world with dark sides too. So yes, like a fairy tale the movie has a moral.

For the others, if interested: the movie website itself here. It gives some nice backgrounds. I absolutely loved this movie, even though I by no means am a fantasy fan normally.

Ahhh…Yes.  Once you explain it, it changes a little of the “idea” of the movie for me.  I did enjoy it anyway…b/c the “real” story could have been excellet alone.  Same with the fairy tale story…

I felt a little overly emotional about it…being pregnant and all!  There were just too many similarities that I kept drawing between myself & Ofelia’s mother.  My husband isn’t dead, and I haven’t re-married…but as a mom & a wife I have often thought about those things anyway.  It just made it seem very scary to be in that position.

Maegan - 25 June 2007 06:01 AM

I felt a little overly emotional about it…being pregnant and all!  There were just too many similarities that I kept drawing between myself & Ofelia’s mother.  My husband isn’t dead, and I haven’t re-married…but as a mom & a wife I have often thought about those things anyway.  It just made it seem very scary to be in that position.

I am not pregnant (just depressive) but it made me emotional too   And yes, I can see it gets another dimension if you’re pregnant yourself.

Not that anyone asked for it, but this post got me thinking, so I made my own Top 100 list. I’m not saying these films are all great because some of them are truly awful, but these are/were/will be in my DVD collection. I’m sure I’m overlooking something glaringly obvious, but oh well.

MadCarlotta’s Top 100 Films of All Time
(in no particular order except maybe the top 5 - maybe)

1. Blade Runner
2. Vertigo
3. Brazil
4. Elizabeth
5. Faust (Svenkmajer)
6. Frankenstein
7. Bride of Frankenstein
8. A Clockwork Orange
9. 2001: A Space Odyssey (sorry Acci)
10. Like Water for Chocolate
11. Gummo
12. Mystery Train
13. Susperia
14. Labyrinth of Passion
15. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
16. Polyester
17. Hardware
18. Wizard of Oz
19. Rear Window
20. Alien
21. The Company of Wolves
22. Wickerman (the original one - NOT THE ONE WITH NICK CAGE!)
23. Blue Velvet
24. Wild at Heart
25. Raising Arizona
26. Pulp Fiction
27. Fight Club
28. 300
29. Memento
30. Matrix
31. The Hideous Sun Demon
32. Fiend without a Face
33. The Women
34. Carnival of Souls
35. Dawn of the Dead
36. Sirens
37. Gods and Monsters
38. Vincent and Theo
39. Citizen Kane
40. To Kill a Mockingbird
41. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
42. Empire Strikes Back
43. Toy Story
44. Tom and Viv
45. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
46. Dark Crystal
47. Funny Bones
48. All About Eve
49. Casablanca
50. Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (heh)
51. Fellowship of the Ring
52. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
53. Immortal Beloved
54. True Romance
55. Sid and Nancy
56. Edward Scissorhands
57. The Hunger (Bowie)
58. Henry and June
59. Nightmare Before Christmas
60. Liquid Sky
61. Heathers
62. Pans Labyrinth
63. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
64. The Day the Earth Stood Still
65. The Wall
66. Down By Law
67. Betty Blue
68. The Last Temptation of Christ
69. Mystic River
70. Harold and Maude
71. Rosemary’s Baby
72. The Exorcist
73. Beguiled
74. I Walked with a Zombie (a zombie movie based on Jane Eyre, brilliant!)
75. Raiders of the Lost Ark
76. Gothic
77. Dumbo
78. Silence of the Lambs
79. The Driver’s Seat
80. The Birds
81. Un Chien Andalou
82. Nosferatu
83. Lost in Translation
84. The Life Aquatic
85. The Royal Tannenbaums
86. Batman Begins
87. Rob Roy
88. The Road Warrior
89. Wings of Desire
90. Shakes the Clown
91. A Place in the Sun
92. Dolemite
93. Water
94. Babel
95. The Shining
96. Suburbia (1984, not the later one, eek!)
97. Hellraiser
98. Iris
99. It’s a Wonderful Life
100. The Philadelphia Story

MadCarlotta - 25 June 2007 08:15 AM

6. Frankenstein
35. Dawn of the Dead
52. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
87. Rob Roy
95. The Shining

Which versions of those?

32. Fiend without a Face

Yay!  A woman after my own heart! 

5. Faust (Svenkmajer)

Have you ever seen the Murnau version?

Accipiter - 25 June 2007 08:25 AM

MadCarlotta - 25 June 2007 08:15 AM

6. Frankenstein
35. Dawn of the Dead
52. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
87. Rob Roy
95. The Shining

Which versions of those?

6. Frankenstein 1931
35. Dawn of the Dead 1978, but I liked the 2004 version too
52. Bram Stoker’s Dracula Coppola version, but I love Christopher Lee’s Hammer classic too
87. Rob Roy Liam Neeson, mid nineties(?)
95. The Shining The classic Nicholson one with Scatman Carruthers

Accipiter - 25 June 2007 08:25 AM

MadCarlotta - 25 June 2007 08:15 AM

5. Faust (Svenkmajer)

Have you ever seen the Murnau version?

Not in it’s entirety I’m afraid. They were showing it along with some early German ski film (I can’t remember the name now) at an arty theatre near my place in NYC. Unfortunately we were late and missed most of Faust.

I imagine that I could find it on DVD somewhere now, I’ll have to look into it - thanks for bringing it up, I probably wouldn’t have thought to, otherwise

MadCarlotta - 25 June 2007 08:15 AM

46. Dark Crystal

The Dark Crystal! How could I forget that one!