Speaking of Aussie films: I love Archer and Walk About and Where the Green Ants Dream, though Green Ants was produced or directed by Werner Werzhog.
Please nominate your favourite film and say why you rate it so highly.
by lifelong humanist 92 Replies latest jw friends
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feenx
I definitely have a few that are always at the top of my list, but I have to say that my favorite right now is The Departed. Scorsese is an incredible artist and that really shined through for me in this film. Especially if anyone read the script and see how he presented this film based off what was actually on the page. And Di Caprio truly broke his cherry. I've never looked at him the same since.
Also high on my list of favs is Running With Scissors, American Beauty and Braveheart.
And how can anyone not crack up at any Apatow movie?
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keyser soze
Best HBO show: DEADWOOD!
Amen to that. No contest.
Favorite movies ever? Raiders of the Lost Ark. First non-G rated movie I ever watched. My oldest brother took me to see it, before he became a serious JW. Also, Full Metal Jacket, Cool Hand Luke, A Few Good Men( I can quote almost every line), Reservoir Dogs, and True Romance.
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keyser soze
The Usual Suspects- had a fantastic cast, they all did an awesome job, and it's a good drama with a twisty plot.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that one, too.
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minimus
Goodfellas is one of my all time favs. It's got all the best gangster actors and DeNiro and Pesci are da best!
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Twitch
Blade Runner
cos it's awesome
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Jadeen
Oh yeah, I forgot about that one, too.
Ha ha, keyser soze! Another good twisty plot is Memento. Just when you think that you know what's going on, bam! Everything changes.
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undercover
Too many favorite movies to name em all...depends on my mood too... I could spend all day naming movies.
It should be more like, what movie are you obsessing over at the present time?
I remember seeing It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as a kid and couple of times on TV since. I recently got the DVD. I love this movie...I watched it two days in a row and I've gone back and watched some of my favorites scenes even more.
What a cast...Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Durante, Mickey Rooney, Jim Backus, Milton Berle, Sid Caeser, Phil Silvers, Buddy Hackett, Jonathon Winters, Ethel Merman, Edie Adams (hubba hubba) and more with cameos by even more.
"It's under a big W, I tell ya...a big W"
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ninja
recently.....I liked the hangover
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poppers
One of my favorites is Little Women. The version with Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder. I think there are other versions, but I haven't seen them.
Other favorites are: Pride and Prejudice (I have two versions of this)
I totally agree with you on these (and I am a guy - I just love the sentimental stuff). I've seen bits of other productions of Little Women, but the Winona Ryder version is absolutely wonderful and far superior in my opinion. I've got the BBC/A&E production of Pride and Prejudice, which is great, as well as the Kiera Knightley one (I love it despite its obvious weaknesses). Along the same lines I would include the first two Anne of Green Gables; stay away from the horrid third one.
On the other end of the spectrum, I really loved Full Metal Jacket. The boot camp depiction was right on the money - I went through it myself (early 1970) at about the same timeframe as this movie depicts and that's the way it was. The drill instructor, R. Lee Ermey, was played by a one time real life DI, that's why it came off as so authentic. He was allowed to pretty much write his own lines as though he was still actually a DI. If I'm not mistaken, he was told to just "wing it" rather than memorize a script. We had a "Pvt. Pyle" type guy in my platoon - he slept with his bayonet under his pillow because he feared what we'd do because of all of his f*ck-ups. The only bootcamp scene which struck me as off was a brief marching shot with Pyle marching in front as a squad leader - that never would have happened in real life with a screw up like him.
Thriteen Days was very good because of its depiction of a real life event that I remember well, the Cuban Missile Crisis. It has its flaws too, but it showed the behind the scenes tension of the management of the crisis by JFK. The actors playing JFK and his brother Bobby, Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp, were excellent. Kevin Costner, on the other hand, was laughable. Even though it's obvious what the outcome will be it's easy to forget all that and get sucked into the story. It's chilling how close we really came to all out war, and this is brought out nicely in this movie.
For sheer wonder, story telling, and authenticity of space flight I highly recommend Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Real astronauts universally agree that the space flight scenes are the most true to life that the movie industry has produced in this genre. I always laugh when watching other space movies and how they have all of this noise going on in the vacuum of space. There's no atmosphere out in space so there should be no noise, people! But, people aren't looking for authenticity I guess and sound effects keeps them in their seats and sells more tickets. An added bonus to this movie is the classical music soundtrack they use. You'll never listen to The Blue Danube Waltz the same way after watching this movie.
Another great Kubrick movie is the black comedy, Dr. Strangelove. Wow, the cast was wonderful - Peter Seller's was so good in three roles, especially that of Dr. Strangelove, a former nazi scientist who can't refrain from giving the president, also played by Sellers, the nazi salute. And George C. Scott as Air Force General Buck Turgidson and Sterling Hayden's paranoid and lunatic depiction of Brigadeer General Jack D. Ripper (get it?) make one pause to think in light of the recent Cuban Missile Crisis that happened two years before this movie came out. Of course, the final scene of Slim Pickens riding the bomb bronco syle has become a classic.
I can't leave out Casablanca, starring the unforgettable Humphrey Bogart and the ultimate low maintenance woman, (Billy Crystal's description from When Harry Met Sally) Ingrid Bergman. What's amazing about this classic is that it was being written day to day as it was being filmed. Nobody knew how it was going to end, and my, what an ending. There are more memorable lines, and one infamous misquote (Play it again, Sam), from this movie than any movie I've ever come across.