One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) dir. Milos Forman
Another Earth (2011) dir. Mike Cahill
“When early explorers first set out West across the Atlantic, most people thought the world was flat. Most people thought if you sailed far enough West, you would drop off a plane into nothing. Those vessels sailing out into the unknown, they weren’t carrying noblemen or aristocrats, artists or merchants. They were crewed by people living on the edge of life: the madmen, orphans, ex-convicts, outcasts like myself. As a felon, I’m an unlikely candidate for most things. But perhaps not for this. Perhaps I am the most likely.”
A fabulous conceit.
(Editor’s note: Brit Marling is so waifu material)
Happy (2010) dir. Roko Belic
HAPPY is a feature documentary that takes us on a journey from the swamps of Louisiana to the slums of Calcutta in a search of what really makes people happy. Combining powerful interviews with the leading scientists in happiness research and real life stories of ordinary and extraordinary people around the world, HAPPY uncovers the secrets behind our most valued emotion.
The Descendants (2011) dir. Alexander Payne
“A family feels exactly like an archipelago, separate but part of a whole, and always drifting slowly apart”
Terri (2011) dir. Azazel Jacobs
A movie for gentle giants.
Casablanca (1942) dir. Michael Curtiz
Humphrey Bogart’s character is so sexually ambiguous.
The Artist (2011) dir. Michael Hazavanicius
Great performances all around, some creative use of sound (or lack thereof). Still prefer to hear people talk, as opposed to having them ‘mug’ in front of the camera though.
Still Walking (2008) dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
“Still Walking” strikes an extraordinary balance between the moment-to-moment pleasure of life and the inevitable regret that accompanies time’s passing. It’s a fresh, lovely, humorous family drama in which little happens but much is revealed.
…
Director Hirokazu Koreeda negotiates the heavy themes with a light touch. He has immense pictorial gifts, composing deep-focus frames that bustle with activity or sit intimately quiet. He holds on faces long enough for us to register which characters have trouble looking at each other. The camera moves seldomly, and with little fanfare. In his offhand way he seems to say, “Look how easy it is to understand people — all it takes is close observation of daily life.” You could complain that the pacing is monotonous, but you feel you’re eavesdropping on the quiet joys and sadness of real life.
This will stay with you for a long time.
(Via)
12 Angry Men (1957) dir. Sidney Lumet
The Apartment (1960) dir. Billy Wilder
This might’ve just become one of my favourite movies ever.
I Could Never Love A Woman Who Didn’t Love ‘The Seven Samurai’
Yours truly first laid eyes on my wife, Karen, when we were both nine-years-old, students in Yeshiva of Flatbush elementary school. Thus began a love affair that defined and continues to define my existence.
The time has come to introduce Karen to Akira Kurosawa. The time has come to introduce Karen to the single most important movie in my life, the film that shaped my consciousness, the film that turned me from a directionless yeshiva student into a rabid film fanatic, a screenwriter.
Yes, The Seven Samurai is playing at The Thalia, New York’s’ classic movie theater on Broadway between 94th and 95th Streets. I’ve invited Karen to see it with me. Keep in mind, this is 1976, ancient days. There are no videos, no DVD’s, no personal computers, and hard to imagine, no internet. To see a classic film, you must rush to Manhattan, to one of the revival houses, and hope that the print they screen is half-way decent. And with Japanese films, the biggest problem is the subtitles. Frequently, they are illegible.
As we stand on line to purchase tickets, Karen quizzes me about the film.
“What’s it about?”
“Courage and loyalty in 16th century Japan.”
“Does it have a… plot?”
“Oh, yes, several very strong plots running parallel to one another. Don’t worry, it’s a foreign film, but you’ll find that all the emotions are completely familiar.”
Karen looks a bit skeptical. By now she knows me well enough to recognize that my take on reality is not all that real.
“How long is it?”
“We’re incredibly lucky, Karen,” I enthuse, “This doesn’t happen very often but we’re actually getting to see the original three-hour version! Isn’t that great!?”
Karen smiles, but her smile is strained.
I’m not worried. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that once the film gets going she’ll be caught up in the magnificent imagery, in the classic story-telling, in the heroic, tragic characters. Once Karen imbibes this film, our relationship will be sealed.
The house lights dim and chills run up and down my spine as the opening shots of The Seven Samuraithunder across the screen. Karen is at full attention, her spine is rigid, she sits straight as a pilaster, like a proud Japanese princess.
A half-hour into the film Karen is:
Oh
My
Gosh
idly toying with her split ends. I am incredulous, in shock, awash in a psychic pain that I never knew existed. How is this possible?
Slumped in her seat, Karen is the portrait of a a bored student. My heart is actually pattering in my chest at twice its normal rate. I am twenty-five years old and I’m pretty sure that I’m having a massive heart attack.
A few years ago, I told a friend that I could never love a woman who didn’t love The Seven Samurai. Not only did I say it, but I believed it.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” says Karen, “I need to take a break.”
“There’s a break at the hour-and-a-half point,” I lamely point out.
“I need it now,” Karen says quite evenly with no hint of rancor.
Karen exits to the lobby.
I feel like committing hara-kiri.
In the dark, I gaze at my beloved and outnumbered Samurai warriors; even unto death they maintain their orthodox code of honor. There is something very Jewish about these men and their stubborn refusal to give up their way of life. This film has changed my life, made of me a screenwriter, a writer with a vision.
What to do?
The images no longer cohere for now I see Karen, nine-years old, on the day she first transferred from Yeshiva Ohel Moshe to Yeshiva Flatbush, the day I, also nine-years old, fell in love with her; now I see her leaning against the chain link fence during recess, pressing her linen handkerchief against unnaturally pale lips; there she is, years later, when we meet in Summer camp and exchange a few awkward sentences; and again I spot her at a high school basketball game. Karen has no idea how I feel. What am I saying? She has no idea that I even exist.
This life of mine can easily slip into utter catastrophe.
Karen’s image splits and flies away; there she is, up on the screen in full close-up. I love her, havealways loved her. And this moment, this film, this decision that I’m about to make will define the balance of my life.
The Samurai speak of Bushido, the soul of the warrior, the perpetual struggle to maintain honor and dignity, the fight to recognize your true inner-self. I catch a glimpse of my Bushido. It’s in danger of being crushed… by yours truly.
I bolt from my seat and follow Karen into the lobby. Sitting on a bench, she looks sad.
“I know how much this movie means to you,” says Karen.
“It doesn’t matter,” I respond.
And it doesn’t.
In a moment of perfect clarity I have gone from being a boy to a man.
Morally, I have matured, been forced by this honest and most unpretentious of women, to reorder my priorities.
I took another young lady to see The Seven Samurai and she told me that she adored it. “It’s fantastic,” she gushed. But in the darkness I felt her boredom, sensed her incredible yearning for the film to end. She was just saying what she knew I wanted to hear.
Karen cannot lie. Karen is constitutionally unable to say that she admires something when she just plain doesn’t like it.
To this day, when I slip the DVD of The Seven Samurai into the player, Karen beats a hasty retreat.
This night, this moment, I understand that admiring or despising The Seven Samurai—any movie—has nothing to do with the guts of a relationship. If you look closely, it’s just superficial aesthetics.
Admiring or disliking a movie or a book or painting or a song or whatever—is not a reliable indicator of the strength of a relationship.
Love—real love and lasting relationships—are built on shared values.
Karen knows how important this movie is to me. But because this film is so central to my life she cannot bring herself to pretend that she likes it. In fact, the way I feel about The Sound of Music is how she feels about The Seven Samurai.
I bid goodbye to The Seven Samurai.
We do not stay for the rest of the film.
We exit the theater.
“You wanna know how it ends?”
Karen smiles. “Not really.”
Walking along Broadway, Karen searches my face for some indication of what I’m feeling, some hint of what my reaction is to her reaction.
As we walk away from the movie theater, I discover that I feel lighter, unburdened, and gee-willikers, I’m grinning hugely. I smile because at long last I’m able to bid goodbye to my youth. Karen’s perfect scrupulousness, her Female/Jewish/Samurai personae has, as I have long suspected, compelled me to become not just a man—but a better man.
(Via)
“Things Wong Kar Wai taught me about love”
1. You will fall in love only once. Obstacles will prevail. The rest of your life is spent recovering.
2. Anything that distracts you from the pain of your loss is good. Some people are more successful in this regard than others.
3. Eroticising their objects will be the pinnacle of your sexual fulfillment.
4. Desire is kept eternally alive by the impossibility of contact.
5. The most potent way to exist is to occupy someone else’s imagination.
6. Technology will only heighten your sense of desolation making you more keenly aware that no one is trying to call.
7. Hook up with someone. Live with them. Sleep with them. Tag along. Don’t be fooled. You are only a transitory distraction. Ask for commitment. Declare your love. Watch the set up evaporate.
8. Some coincidences are deliberate.
(Source: protohyped, via evilwaveform)
La Vita è Bella (1997) dir. Roberto Benigni
This scene.
A History of Violence (2005) dir. David Cronenberg
Surprisingly nuanced performance from Viggo Mortenson.
To fill my lonely nights, lol.
gaws:
So, this is really big for me. This is way more important to me than any playlist or anything like that I’ve made. As you guys know, I’m a huge cinephile, and I’ve spent many-a-night trying to find old films on DVD in order to complete this. Over the last two weeks, I’ve began to compile a list. This isn’t the final, definitive version, but its the one that I’ll keep for now. These are the top 150(163) films that through the years, have helped shape me as a person, and really left something with me. Either that, or they’re just really really fucking good. I’m sure I’ve forgotten at least one film though, which is upsetting.
This is where people will be directed when they ask for a movie recommendation, so if you usually find yourself as a loss, you might want to bookmark this.
- 12 Angry Men (Lumet, 1957)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
- 400 Blows, The (Truffaut, 1959)
- 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
- A Bout de Souffle (Godard, 1960)
- Adaptation (Jonze, 2002)
- Alien (Scott, 1979)
- American Graffiti (Lucas, 1973)
- American History X (Kaye, 1998)
- Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
- Apartment, The (Wilder, 1960)
- Band A Parte (Godard, 1964)
- Basquait (Schnabel, 1996)
- Being John Malkovich (Jonze, 1999)
- Bicycle Thief (De Sica, 1948)
- Big Lebowski, The (Coen, 1998)
- Blow Up (Antonioni, 1966)
- Bob le Flambeur (Melville, 1956)
- Blue Velvet (Lynch, 1986)
- Brick (Johnson, 2005)
- Bridge On The River Kwai, The (Lean, 1957)
- Bullitt (Yates, 1968)
- Cape Fear (Scorsese, 1991)
- Cassablanca (Curtiz, 1942)
- Children Of Men (Cuaron, 2006)
- Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)
- Chungking Express (Kar Wai Wong, 1994)
- Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
- City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
- City Of God (Meirelles, 2002)
- Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971)
- Closely Watched Trains (Menzel, 1966)
- Coffee and Cigarettes (Jarmusch, 2003)
- Cool Hand Luke (Rosenberg, 1967)
- Conformist , The (Bertolucci, 1970)
- Conversation, The (F.F. Coppola, 1974)
- Crash (Haggis, 2004)
- Darjeeling Limited (Anderson, 2007)
- Dark Knight, The (Nolan, 2008)
- Day For Night (Truffaut, 1973)
- Dazed and Confused (Linklater, 1993)
- Departed, The (Scorsese, 2006)
- Do The Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
- Donnie Brasco (Newell, 1997)
- Donnie Darko (Kelly, 2001)
- Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick, 1964)
- Drunken Master (Yuen, 1978)
- Duck Soup (McCarey, 1933)
- Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969)
- Elephant (Sant, 2003)
- Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980)
- Eternal Sunshine Of A Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
- Fargo (Coen, 1996)
- Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (Gilliam, 1998)
- Fight Club (Fincher, 1999)
- Following (Nolan, 1998)
- For A Few Dollars More (Leone, 1965)
- French Connection, The (Friedkin, 1971)
- Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick, 1987)
- Glengarry Glen Ross (Foley, 1992)
- Godfather (F.F. Coppola, 1972)
- Godfather Part 2 (F.F. Coppola, 1974)
- Goldfinger (Hamilton, 1964)
- Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990)
- Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, The (Leone, 1966)
- Grapes of Wrath, The (Ford, 1940)
- Groundhog Day (Ramis, 1993)
- Hard Boiled (1992)
- High Fidelity (Frears, 2000)
- High Noon (Zinnermann, 1952)
- Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais, 1959)
- I Heart Huckabees (Russell, 2004)
- Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952)
- In Cold Blood (Brooks, 1967)
- Inception (Nolan, 2010)
- Inside Man (Lee, 2006)
- Insider, The (Mann, 1999)
- It Happened One Night (Capra, 1934)
- Jules Et Jim (Truffaut, 1962)
- KIDS (Clark, 1995)
- Kill Bill (Tarantino, 2003-2004)
- Knife In The Water (Polanski, 1962)
- L’Homme Du Train (Leconte, 2002)
- La Dolce Vita (Fellini, 1960)
- La Grande Illusion (Renoir, 1937)
- La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995)
- Late Spring (Ozu, 1949)
- Layer Cake (Vaughn, 2004)
- Le Genou de Claire (Rohmer2, 1970)
- Leon The Professional (Besson, 1994)
- Life Of Brian (Jones, 1979)
- Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (Ritchie, 1998)
- Long Good Friday ,The (Mackenzie, 1980)
- Lord Of The Rings, The (Jackson, ’01-’03)
- Lord Of War (Niccol, 2005)
- Lost In Translation (S. Coppola, 2003)
- M (Lang, 1931)
- Magnolia (Anderson, 1999)
- Maltese Falcon, The (Huston, 1941)
- Manhattan (Allen, 1979)
- Man Who Would Be King, The (Huston, 1975)
- Matchstick Men (Scott, 2003)
- Memento (Nolan, 2000)
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam/Jones, 1975)
- Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)
- My Dinner With Andre (Malle, 1981)
- Natural Born Killers (Stone, 1994)
- Network (Lumet, 1976)
- North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959)
- Nosferatu (1922)
- On The Waterfront (Kazan, 1954)
- One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest (Forman, 1975)
- Once Upon A Time In America (Leone, 1984)
- Passenger, The (Antonioni, 1975)
- Paths Of Glory (Kubrick, 1957)
- Platoon (Stone, 1986)
- Play It Again, Sam (Allen, 1972)
- Prestige, The (Nolan, 2006)
- Primer (Carruth, 2004)
- Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
- Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994)
- Purple Rose Of Cairo (Allen, 1985)
- Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980)
- Raiders Of The Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981)
- Raise The Red Lantern (Zhang, 1991)
- Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
- Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)
- Repulsion (Polanski, 1965)
- Requiem For A Dream (Aronofsky, 2000)
- Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992)
- Rome: Open City (Rossellini, 1945)
- Royal Tenenbaums, The (Anderson, 2001)
- Rules Of The Game (Renoir, 1939)
- Scarface (Palma, 1983)
- Searchers, The (Ford, 1956)
- Seven (Fincher, 1995)
- Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)
- Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957)
- Shawshank Redemption, The (Darabont, 1994)
- Silence Of The Lambs (Demme, 1991)
- Sin City (Miller, 2005)
- Singin’ In The Rain (Donen, 1952)
- Shining, The (Kubrick, 1980)
- Social Network, The (Fincher, 2010)
- Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959)
- Strangers On A Train (Hitchcock, 1951)
- Synedoche New York (Kaufman, 2008)
- Sunset Blvd. (Wilder, 1950)
- Thank You For Smoking (Reitman, 2005)
- Three Colors: Red (Kieslowski, 1994)
- Touch Of Evil (Welles, 1958)
- Traffic (Soderbergh, 2000)
- Treasure Of Sierra Madre, The (Huston, 1948)
- Truman Show, The (Weir, 1998)
- Usual Suspects, The (Singer, 1995)
- V for Vendetta (McTeigue, 2006)
- Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
- Waking Life (Linklater, 2001)
- Watchmen (Snyder, 2009)
- Weekend (Godard, 1967)
- Yojimbo (Kurosawa, 1961)
- You Don’t Know Jack (Levinson, 2010)
- Zodiac (Fincher, 2007)
