Re: Essential Viewing
Space Jam
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Friends In Your Head | Forums → Off Topic → Essential Viewing
Nice spreadsheet, tho I'd agree that if you're gonna do both the 'good' and 'bad' stuff, it should probably be separate lists. Just so you don't randomly pick something to watch and end up with a turd when you were looking to watch something good ![]()
I feel like I should suggest these two films:
"Dreams" by Akira Kurosawa
The title is literally what the movie is. Kurosawa would apparently write down interesting dreams he had, and this film is a collection of several of them in short film form. I've found the first and last to be the most interesting to watch, but there are striking visuals in every sequence.
"Koyaanisqatsi" by Godfrey Reggio
It's an 'art' film / pseudo documentary I guess. Nothing but visuals set to music, but the juxtapositions and pace of the film along with the music is interesting. You kinda have to watch it to get it. The first trailer for GTA 4 was an homage to this movie.
Also:
M - Fritz Lang. Movie is AMAZING.
Also:
The post I made vis-a-vis anime films probably shouldn't be included on any list of 'best whatever' movies. Mind Game is not a 'great' film, although it's a great example of a movie that is balls-out insane. Tekkonkinkreet, tho... That's a hard call to make... That movie has some really well done character arcs and weaves a nice couple of themes throughout the film's various subplots... It just gets so god damn ANIME at the end, you know? I'd say keep it.
Be warned, Koyaanisqatsi will bore to you tears unless you smoke something prior to viewing.
I second Le Cercle Rouge as a fucking outstanding heist film, seriously check that out.
Similarly, I would throw in Jean Pierre Melville's other genre classic, Le Samourai, which is basically the prototypical lone hitman movie. It's purposefully completely minimalistic, very little dialogue, all mood and atmosphere, probably a bit less accessible than Le Cercle Rouge but more influential. You see it's DNA all over the next 30 years of genre movies, from French Connection (specifically the subway cat and mouse sequence), to The Killer, and Leon: The Professional, to Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (which you really should see, at least for the awesome Wu Tang soundtrack).
Fuck it, I'll add what is likely my favorite movie, O Brother Where Art Thou.
Also, hate to be a stickler, but you got the wrong "The Bridge," and the wrong "Spellbound." Both are docs.
tl;dr.
Everything is illuminated. And I'm not even Jewish.
It's actually one of the few films I've turned off half way through
Grave of the Fireflies is the non-Pixar animated film I always recommend. Although I did enjoy The Illusionist, and Akira was cool (other than having KANEDA! and TETSUO! ringing in my ears for days afterwards). Saw Wings of the Honneamise years ago and liked it, but need to revisit.
I love Grave of the Fireflies. It was one of the first anime I'd ever seen, and it was the first time I remember seeing an animated film that took it's subject matter that seriously. Lately I've heard conflicting things about WHY it was made. When I first saw it I was amazed and went out to find information about it. This was back in the dark age before the interwebs were a thing, so it was kinda hard to find info, and there was not much to find. I remember reading an arcticle / interview with Takahata who seemed surprised that audiences were relating to and pitying Seita by the end of the film, when - according to him - he had expected audiences to be angry at him for acting so selfish and prideful. But a recent interpretation quoted some other interview where he apparently stated that the film was made so that the target audience - teenagers and young adults - would understand what the older generation had been through. That their life was easy compared to their parents' lives. The film ends with Seita looking dead at the camera with this oddly stern sort of look that always confused me. If what this dude said is true, then that look is a literal "fuck you" to the audience, which kinda alters my perception of the film. The very last shot sorta drives that point further home.
But I still think it's an amazing film. It got me into anime for a long time, until I realized that I started out at the top of the anime pile and was slowly working my way down into the endless layers of demon porn and abstract nonsense.
My wife and I took it at face value when we watched it, and after reading Roger Ebert's review in his Great Movies book. We knew going in what the outcome would be, and yet Seita and Setsuko are in a relatively good place not too long before the end, so we started to hope that Ebert had been wrong, or lied - that everything would be ok. But, no. We were both a bit wrecked afterwards.
I can certainly see the "You kids today don't know how good you've got it!" slant though.
We often laughed about having a film fest with Grave of the Fireflies, House of Sand and Fog, Au Hasard Balthazar, and Requiem for a Dream...but it was nervous laughter.
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