Recommend a movie

10 posts

Cornelio

maps to the stars
david cronenberg

good movie. couldn't finish it, but this is how i imagine hollywwod slimebaals living.

OrganicShadow
CLAMOR

"Blood Father"
Solid Mel Gibson flick. Recommended.

Kebab Removal Service
Thoughts
The Prestige (2006)

This is by far the best Christopher Nolan film, and makes up for the awful Batman spectacle that followed. As far as I know, it also depicts "magic tricks" quite accurately. In fact the entire film both presents magic tricks (with that excessive Nolan exposition being, in fact, perfect in such a subject), and is a magic trick on top of it, as the plot gradually develops into a puzzle and seeming impossibility, giving way to a gigantic "twist" at the end. This is one of those few cases in which the twist differs from the original novel version, and is also better .

There's something about the pacing of Nolan's direction of this film that fits the subject perfectly; the tense and jerky camera, the harsh contrasts of light and shadow, the over-exposition in the dialogue (and interchange resulting from exposition) fits this setting only as much as it could any of the Sherlock Holmes films -- which is essentially the same kind of procedure, in substance and style.

It's far from perfect, however.. one of which is the insertion of Nikola Tesla into the film, and in a context in which fantasy seems to replace stage magic. (Although, this is not an impossible obstacle to 'explain away', given enough time which I don't however have.)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/LC1n4HKQzlw


Low-quality clip:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/lI_qlGJ4OO0


Welund Abe de Ville President Camacho Bronze Age Pervert
Welund

One of my favorite directors is David Fincher. I've never thought about why , but he usually takes a trashy airplane novel and makes a quick stylistic movie out of it.

Amadis

As perkunos mentioned Capitaine Conan, I thought I should mention another of my favourite Bertrand Tavernier films:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Mn6rMAJme8

La Princesse de Montpensier (2010)

Based on an old novella it seems like classic Mills & Boon material: amidst the 16thC Wars of Religion in France, a beautiful young noblewoman who everyone falls in love with, is forced into a marriage she doesn't want. Tavernier has said that he wanted to show how women were historically used like chattel.

However the film actually contradicts that - instead it's a good portrait of how an aristocratic woman who chooses love (lust, really) over duty wrecks the lives of the men around her; she destroys her marriage to a caring beta to get pump'n'dumped by Le Chadde, leading to a tragic end for all the characters.

It's 20 minutes over-long but beautifully shot/acted/costumed/scored and has an excellent opening battle scene.

Mireman
Amadis
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/OvssXTX2tuw

Hamlet (1964)

Excellent Soviet high culture, adapted by Pasternak and scored by Shostakovich. A widescreen black and white picture, full of dramatic flourishes. The towering sets become a prison, the swirling crowds only isolate Hamlet further and the savage windswept coast reveals the inner torment.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/2el1OiOR-c4

Elefante Blanco (2012)

Priests in Argentina try to care for their flock in an enormous slum whilst trapped between rival drug gangs and the police. Borderline liberation theology propaganda that transcends itself through superb mise-en-scene and harsh authenticity. No answers, only total immersion in an alien life.
perkunos

Rolling Thunder (1977)

Intense revenge movie. Vietnam war veteran returns home. Bad things happen. Revenge is had. Apparently when they showed this in a test screening, the Mexicans in the theater set it on fire. It's that kind of movie (imaginary Mexicans are definitely harmed in this film). I found it heartwarming, however.

It's called existentialist by some reviewers, I think that's an overstatement, but it's probably the best made revenge movie I've seen short of Taxi Driver. In fact, same writer.