NUFF SAID.

Yay, Ran.

Oh YAYAYAYAYAYAYA! My favorite Kurosawa! Better than Seven Samurai, imo. Hey....look at the old Foreign Film flyer. See the 3rd entry from the top? The one about Lord Hidetora's daughter and handmaids? I LOVE that scene. Seriously, its always reminded me of a flower blooming and wilting within seconds. Its one of the most gorgeously filmed few seconds or action and death ever. Oh, I have to really start getting myself some dvd's when I get a few pay checks!

OMFG!!!!!!!

*screams*

Should've won Best Directing Oscar in 1985, honestly.

I love Criterion...

I have seen/own:

001 Grand Illusion (own)
002 Seven Samurai (own)
009 Hard Boiled
011 The Seventh Seal
012 This Is Spinal Tap
013 Silence of the Lambs
014 Samurai I - Musashi Miyamoto
020 Sid & Nancy
023 Robocop
025 Alphaville
029 Picnic at Hanging Rock
034 Andrei Rublev (own)
037 Time Bandits (own)
039 Tokyo Drifter
040 Armageddon (own)
043 Lord of the Flies (own)
045 Taste of Chery
047 Insomnia (own)
051 Brazil (own)
052 Yojimbo
053 Sanjuro
054 For All Mankind (own)
061 Monty Pthyon's Life of Brian
065 Rushmore (own)
070 The Last Temptation of Christ
071 The Magic Flute
091 The Blob (own)
099 Gimmie Shelter (own)
105 Spartacus (own)
108 The Rock
116 The Hidden Fortress (own)
119 Withnail and I
140 8 1/2 (own)
142 The Last Wave
145 The Fireman's Ball
147 In the Mood for Love (own)
151 Traffic
157 The Royal Tenenbaums (own)
164 Solaris (own)
175 Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas (own)
178 My Life as a Dog
198 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
220 Naked Lunch
247 Slacker
288 F for Fake

Man... there will always be some on that list I need to see. I never will get through it... and that is so comforting

You know. Now that you've posted in here twice in one week, I'm going to coerce you to join the filmn festival right?


Honestly, I've only seen Kurosawa's epics. Though people say his later movies, Dreams, Rhapsody in August, and the earlier mystery High and Low, are especially good. I really only know his epic battle movies. But of those, Ran is the tightest. Seven Samurai gets alot of love, but I think in part its because people already got used to the Americanized story version of it, Magnificent Seven. They knew the story, and found it sentimental in a frontier setting, and so were pretty open to the idea of it, and the accompanying emotions, being transposed to another location. Even though I do know Samurai was made first. I liked it, but it really, and I rarely say this, got a bit carried off its own granduer. Could have used some editting. It felt kind of like segments of Lord of the Rings started to feel to me. But Ran had perfect timing, and was always moving around within the interiors and exteriors. Granted, it too had an easily relateable story, so for me, it comes down to the tightness and intensity of a family struggle against the epic battle scenes. That and the blind man in the hut at the end. That was well done. As was his hyper-animated assistant.



Andaroo? You saw 8 1/2? You own 8 1/2? You should not let me be privy to that type of information.....

muwahahhahahaha re: 8 1/2 ... maybe I will write something about it this weekend. It's a very nice package.

Re: Seven Samurai. I think other than The Hidden Fortress it's the greatest Kurosawa epic in terms of story and character development. Since you drew the lines parallel with Lord of the Rings, I would say that this is similar.

Not that you don't *enjoy* character development, but if you aren't into the characters then Seven Samurai can kind of plod along.

I've never seen Magnificent Seven. We saw The Seven Samurai, The Seventh Seal and some Greek movie in 10th grade as part of Humanities. I had great teachers.

Yeah, l agree.

Edit:

Oh man, andaroo, you've seen The Last Wave?! NO ONE has seen that movie. What did you think of it?

Ohhhhh. or if you want you can discuss it in the Italian film festival thread I start too. Give you a good month to prep a nice piece. I'll be testing you on it.


You'd like Magnificent Seven too by the way. Its pretty similar as far as being a character movie. It's a good bit shorter too, which helps. People need to remember that I was not the biggest fan of TTT and ROTK. Please do not mention Seventh Seal around me. I've already confessed but twice, please do not torture me by forcing my tongue thrice. I"VE NEVER SEEN A BERGMAN FILM! I hope someone holds a Scandanavian Film Festival thread next month. I'll watch three in a row just for it.


Betcha the Greek movie was Lyssistratta? Were there women going on a hilrious sex strike?

hahaha in Humanities class, we acted out Lysistrata. There was a movie about these crazy women???

It was awesome actually. i've never been able to find it again. it was put out by the MOMA I think, but it was in our video rental place and i don't know how it got there. Quite weel done. I have to say. The subtitle writers must have been sweating that one out, but they did a great job. PLus the giant orgy in the Vineyards at the end with the depressing final caption that no one ever heeded the warning of the women was spectacular.

No, the Greek movie had Agememnon in it and it was sword and sandals from the 1960s. It wasn't really good

I haven't seen much Bergman. The Seventh Seal is required tho. I've seen The Magic Flute and a long time ago I saw Through a Glass Darkly. I also fell asleep halfway through Scenes from a Marriage.

I really need to see those again, and Wild Straberries and Franny and Alexander to feel like I've "experienced" Bergman.

Swedish films, like Russian films, can be very hard.

I do NOT recommend The Magic Flute. It's like 2 hours but it feels like 8.

Eeek.

I'm ashamed to say the only 2 I've seen from the whole list are Traffic and In The Mood For Love...

I would like to add In The Mood For Love to my (very crappy so far) collection though.

Try Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night (available on Criterion, no less!). It's a really undervalued little flick. A Bergman comedy! That's funny and stuff! It's feather-light, and a bit of a slow starter on first watch, but it's awfully enjoyable. A personal favorite.

I love Peter Weir. I think Lecter can tell you that. Oh Master & Commander... how you taunt me with greatness.

ANYWAY, I rented it and Picnic at Hanging Rock together recently, to get the feel of old Weir. Picnic was interesting but a little slow, I did however like The Last Wave although I think I watched it 3 times to fully grasp it. It's a bit surreal, especially with all the water in the house etc and the storm at the end.

I still think it's quite obtuse. I'm threatening to buy it because I need to see it again because there's something about it which is intelligent yet a bit unobtainable. Next time I will read up a bit more on Aboriginal folklore or culture before venturing this far.

I think the thing I did like about it was...

1. It's an actually.. GOOD performance by Richard Chaimberlain.
2. It has that very... "White man meddling with powers behond his grasp and getting pwned" aspect to it.

*BUMP*

Anyone else got this?

What a great buy!

Andaroo, how is Andrei Rublev?

Last Wave deteriorates quickly for me. I like the water in the house, i hate the whole sewage passage way storm at the end. I watched it during the Australian Film Festival, and was a bit dissappointed by its ending when the first three quarters was masterfully psychological. It got too literal. Something that didn't happen to Picnic, which I love probably because it sustains me with suspense all the while being so paced.