films you SHOULD have seen

The Bollox

are there any films that you feel you really should have seen by now? there are a few for me: A Clockwork Orange. I have heard from many many people that this is probably one of Kubrick's best.

2001: A Space Odyssey. Another of Kubricks films. Maybe it not as popular as A Clockwork Orange, but is supposidly great if you are looking for a good laugh.

I'm sure If I thought about it there would be loads more, but those are two that spring to mind, what would be yours?

monkeyfudge

Clockwork Orange really isn't all that great. It just had this air of mystique about it because it was banned for so long. I remember I was fairly disapointed when I finally got around to seeing it on Laserdisc while it was still banned.

2001: A Space Oddessy is a brilliant film though. But perhaps not everyones cup of tea as it's over 2 and a half hours long with only about 20 minutes of dialogue. I certainly don't see how it would be the tpye of film you'd see if you were looking for a laugh though. The sequel 2010 is very enjoyable too, but it's a far more conventional type of film.

ARGINITE

Clockwork Orange > 2001: A Space Oddessy.
But they are both good films and worth the watch.

are there any films that you feel you really should have seen by now?

Not really, I think I spend to much time watching films

TerrorFirmer

A Clockwork Orange was quite good but I never really liked 2001 all that much. It was good in spots, never terrible in spots either, just a bit boring.

The only type of films I feel I should have seen are the type that'll inevitably grace our screens via the sci-fi channel at 2am on a Saturday night one of these days.

monkeyfudge

I honestly can't think of any.... Although I think there are a few Hitchcock's that I haven't seen since I was a kid that I'd like to see again to evaluate as an adult.

Personally I think everyone should see Casablanca and Chinatown as they are a great example of pretty much perfect cinema.

Wacker

It is particularly mad that I haven't seen 2001 (at least, not all of it. I've watched an hour or so of it) because it has been sitting on my DVD shelf for about six months now. Like Rebel Without A Cause, except I have owned that for about three years and not watched it all yet.

The only recent film that I regularly get abuse for not having seen yet is Magnolia. Just one of those things I guess; I'll get around to it eventually.

Sam Vimes

citizen kane?

never seen it myself

monkeyfudge

Ha.. I've always wondered if the people who haven't seen Citizen Kane realise quite how often The Simpsons references it.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Dylan_James

citizen kane
apocalypse now
the french connection
the orginal italian job
cariltos way

2001 is good for the direction and it is a klassic kubrick image feast for the eyes just like clockwork orange although unlike clockwork orange the story is very lacking and in the end you just want to see 2010 which is a better story but a worse film.

The Bollox

Carlito's Way is deffinitly my favourite Pacino film. See it as soon as you can because you will not be dissapointed at all. His acting is fantastic and Sean Penn's performance is equally brilliant. A must see

johnny_ultimate

I'm trying to make my way through the films I SHOULD have seen. Watched a few Kurosawa's now, Citizen Kane, etc.. etc... It is very slow work however (free screenclick O2 trial is very helpful)
Although I have yet to go near much Bergman, Fellini etc.. just seen the big two -The Seventh Seal (excellent by the way), La Dolce Vita.

Wacker

johnny_ultimate wrote:

I'm trying to make my way through the films I SHOULD have seen. Watched a few Kurosawa's now, Citizen Kane, etc.. etc... It is very slow work however (free screenclick O2 trial is very helpful)
Although I have yet to go near much Bergman, Fellini etc.. just seen the big two -The Seventh Seal (excellent by the way), La Dolce Vita.

I did something similair myself; I bought all the movies on IMDB's top 50 that I didn't already own. Neither the Seventh Seal nor La Dolce Vita had made it on to the list, so I'm yet to see them.

kdevitt

Quite ashamed to say it, but haven't seen any of the Godfather movies...

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

kdevitt wrote:

Quite ashamed to say it, but haven't seen any of the Godfather movies...

Damn! Beat me to it!

Clockwork Orange and Apolalypse Now again... Also Usual Suspects (some wnaker ruined it for my by giving away the ending)

Pigman II

Kakushi-toride no san-akunin (The Hidden Fortress)

last_orders

one film iv always wanted to see but only got round to it 3 nights ago was easy rider, i built up this image in my head but the actual film although keeping what i imagined had a whole other dimension that i loved, not to spoil but the ending was great and totally unexpected. iv never seen gotfather 3 but apparently im not missing much, i loved the first 2 so much that i dont wanna mar them. also iv never seen many of the old classics like casablanca, the only 2 oldie films i love are 12 angry men and im alrite jack, surpurb stuff.

cashback

Apocalypse now is one of mine and it was on RTE2 the other night but just wasn't in the mood for it I think.
Raging Bull - Have it on DVD a few months now as part of a triple pack but not got round to seeing it yet.
And yeah, 2001 is another.
Everyone says Seven is great too, maybe not a stone-cold classic though.

Maxwell

Was actually disappointed when I did watch Raging Bull again, years after seeing it first.

Seven is a brilliant, brilliant film with a fantastic ending.

I have Citizen Kane at home and still haven't got to see it. Haven't seen Casablanca or Its Wonderful Life and Im ashamed at that as I know they are 2 of the best films ever.

Was also tempted to pick up a special box set of Ben Hur in HMV the other day, I think it was on offer for only €14 and I can't remember seeing it.

So many classic's that I really do need to make time for.

TerrorFirmer

I don't know if it's what you'd consider a 'classic' but I have never seen the Dead Zone, and I really, really must...

jomo25dub

See anything you can find by Georges Melies (his work dates from 1896 to 1914). His films are very short and very old but they demonstate the primitive movies better than anyone else's work. The plot to many of them concerns a group of people flying to space. The imagery of Voyage to the Moon[/b] is iconic. Other films are like magic tricks: cards come alive, people take off their heads, etc.

The Birth of a Nation (1915) is one of the most notorious films yet made. It's about two families during the American Civil War, one from the North, one from the South, and how their lives overlap. It laments the end of the old South and the Ku Klux Klan are portrayed as heroes, saving a girl from rape. It's extremely racist and always carries an apology but it's very well mounted. The battle scenes are still extraordinary and the chase scenes are exciting. It's director D. W. Griffith is regarded as "the father of American film" and an American President, Teddy Roosevelt (I think), described it as "writing history with lightning".

Griffith followed this with Intolerance (1916), preaching the importance of love. He intertwines four stories from four different places times (Babylon, Palestine in Jesus' time, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre 1572 and then-contemporary USA). Linking the stories is the image of a mother-and-baby endlessly rocking. Again, the subject matter of Griffith's film is old-fashioned but his approach is ambitious. Nobody had linked parallel stories on this scale before. The Babylon scenes are colossal. It's a little stodgy; its pleasures lie in Griffith's style rather than its content.

Charlie Chaplin became popular at this time with a series of short films. Among his best are the Mutual films shorts (1916-1917). These include The Cure, Easy Street, The Adventurer and The Immigrant. My favourite is The Cure. Chaplin plays a dipso who goes to a space to get relief. The gags are simple but it's very funny and typical of his short films. Also look out for One a.m. - this is where Chaplin arrives home drunk and struggles to get to bed.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) is a German horror movie about a travelling magician (Dr. Caligari) who exhibits a somnambulist, Cesare. Their arrival in town coincides with a series of savage killings. There is a twist to the end of the film that shatters your expectations. Caligari is regarded as the most influential of the German expressionist pieces. Its marked by exaggerated sets and odd angles. Quite an unusual film. There is a version of this on Eureka DVD but the print quality is disappointing.

F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) is apparently very good too but I haven't seen it. The making of this film is the subject of Shadow of the Vampire with John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. Murnau also made The Last Laugh and Faust with Emil Jannings, who was among the most highly regarded actors of the silent era. His best film, apparnetly, is Sunrise, which I got on DVD but have yet to see.

Chaplin went on to make features films in the 1920s. These include The Kid (1921) and The Gold Rush (1925), both of which are essential viewing. In The Kid, Chaplin's kid breaks windows so that Chaplin can repair them. How convenient. They live in poverty and the authorities try to take Chaplin's kid away. The scenes where this happens are very touching. Its tagline ran "Six reels of joy and perhaps a tear". The Gold Rush is about prospectors and features the classic scene where Chaplin eats his boots, his laces like spaghetti.

Chaplin's leading rivals in screen comedy were Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. In The General, Keaton plays a young man turned down by the army during the American Civil War. He attempts to prove that he's not a coward by rescuing the beloved train and his girl. Keaton's comedy is very inventive, the stunts are spectacular. There's a sequence in which a train crosses a weakened bridge; the wreck that ensued remained a tourist attraction, I think, until the 1970s. Keaton's other movies include Our Hospitality, The Naviagor, Sherlock Jnr. and The Cameraman. The General was not so popular in the 1920s; it has earned its acclaim and stature in more recent times.

Harold Lloyd's silent work is difficult to come across; The Kid Brother (1927) is apparently his masterpiece but I have yet to see this. Safety Last (1923) is the movie that features Lloyd scaling the face of a building.

Lenin believed that cinema would be the most important arts to the Communist regime in the Soviet Union. Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned to make a film to celebrate the 1905 revolution. The resulting work was The Battleship Potemkin (1925), one of the most influential films in history. Until this point, directors attempted to make films as smooth as possible, developing editing techniques that became and remain convetional (a sequence of establishing shot, two-shot, one-shot, reverse-shot, etc). Eisenstein experimented with editing and used irregular patterns that would allow viewers to make the connections between shots and also disrupt expectations. The results were among the most famous sequences in cinema history. The shooting on the Odessa steps, in which a mother loses a her baby in a pram, is famously quoted in de Palma's The Untouchables. The story concerns a group of sailors that mutiny because of the appalling conditions. Their revolt spreads to the town but it's brutally suppressed. Eisentein's movie is both revolutionary in content and in style.

Eisentein's contemporaries included V. I. Pudovkin, who made the highly-regarded Mother (1926), Alexander Dovzhenko, famous for Earth (1930) and Dziga Vertov, who made The Man with the Movie Camera (1929). Vertov's film features a man with a camera, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness. It was recently released with a new score by Michael Nyman (noted for his work with Peter Greenaway and The Piano).

A film I'm desperate to see is The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). It was made by Carl Theodor Dreyer, who produced a small but highly distinctive body of work, similar to that of Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky. Its star, Maria (or Renee) Falconetti, only appeared in this movie, which by all accounts is among the most remarkable ever committed to film. There is no (or very little) make-up and filmed with tight close-ups throughout. This is alleged to be film of singular power as the judges condemn Joan of Arc to death.

Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927) is also difficult to come across on video or DVD but it seems it would gain more from a viewing on the big screen. It tells the story of Napoleon's early life (it was meant to be the first of six films but was so costly that Gance could not follow it up). Gance expanded the screen with an innovative wide-screen. I have not seen this either.

Other silent films worth mentioning are Ben-Hur (1925), The Big Parade (1925) and The Crowd (1928). Rudolph Valentino, Lon Chaney and Douglas Fairbanks were among the most famous silent stars: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and The Thief of Baghdad (1924) exemplify each of these respectively.

Early animation by Winsor McMay and (stop-motion work) by Ladislaw Starewicz is also noteworthy.

Irish Destiny (1926) is the most famous film from Ireland and it has recently been made available on DVD.

Colonel Kurtz

Yeah, Apocalypse Now....Pure masterpiece alright. Watched it again on RTE on Sunday night for the first time in ages. It never disappoints. So many memorable scenes.
With the exception of The Godfather, and that other one set in the docks with Karl Malden (can't remember what that was called) it's really the only decent thing Brando ever did, in what was a very over-rated career.

On the subject of Kubrick, both 2001 and A Clockwork Orange are masterpieces. Personally, I would rate "Clockwork" slightly the higer of the two. After all the fuss with it being banned for over 20 years, it would have been very understandable if it was a let-down on release.... but not a bit of it. I was completely blown away by it. The performance of Mc Dowell in particular was nothing short of sensational. After seeing "A Clockwork", I started looking into some of his other filems. He has'nt made very many, but IF and O Lucky Man! are also well worth checking out. Brilliant pieces of cinematic anarchy.

If you're looking for something a little different, you should check out some of the French films by Michael Haneke.
Hidden (or Cache in french), with Daniel Auteil and Juliet Binoche, is excellent. Very unsettling with little satisfactory plot resolution by the time it ends, but it's one of those films that really stays with you for days.
Time of the Wolf is also quite good.

Bodhidharma

Haven't seen any of the Superman films, or practically every "classic" made before 1960. Ditto French, Italian or Japanese art house films.

My brother has somehow managed to avoid seeing E.T

monkeyfudge

Nice list there jomo25dub.

I think a mention should also go to Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl. Not an incredibly tasteful subject.. but it still pioneered so many important cinematic techniques.

And if you like your science fiction films then you really should see Metropolis as it's been highly influential to so many of the great science fiction films over the years.

The Bollox

Colonel Kurtz wrote:

Yeah, Apocalypse Now....Pure masterpiece alright. Watched it again on RTE on Sunday night for the first time in ages. It never disappoints. So many memorable scenes.
With the exception of The Godfather, and that other one set in the docks with Karl Malden (can't remember what that was called) it's really the only decent thing Brando ever did, in what was a very over-rated career.

On The Waterfront is what I am assuming you mean. It is a fantastic film. We studied it for the LC

Colonel Kurtz

Marts wrote:

On The Waterfront is what I am assuming you mean. It is a fantastic film. We studied it for the LC

Yes indeed, On the Waterfront. Spot on Marts. It's an excellent film alright.

Not sure I agree with you completely on Pacino.
Carlito's Way is very good.....But the first two Godfathers and Heat are better.

MikeHoncho

Bought the conversation about a year ago and havent watched it yet.

The Bollox

Colonel Kurtz wrote:

Yes indeed, On the Waterfront. Spot on Marts. It's an excellent film alright.

Not sure I agree with you completely on Pacino.
Carlito's Way is very good.....But the first two Godfathers and Heat are better.

I'm not a great fan of heat. I watched it once and was not impressed really at all. I was expecting too much tho probably with two of the worlds best actors in the same film.

However I cannot completly argue your point as I have never seen Godfather I, II or III *bows head in shame* I should probably add that to my list

Creature

HavoK wrote:

I don't know if it's what you'd consider a 'classic' but I have never seen the Dead Zone, and I really, really must...

Then you are in luck because it's on tonight at 2.45 on RTE1.

Huggles

Battleship Potemkin ftw!!!

topher182

afew i think people have to see:

Scarface
Star Wars I,II,III,IV,V,VI
Snatch
V For Vendetta
Trainspotting
Inside Man
28 Days Later
Saw I,II,III
The Matrix
Meet The Perants
American Pie


^^these are all worth a watch

Hobbes

Leprechaun 4 : Leprechaun in Space

5uspect

The Evil Dead trilogy! Absolute classics.
I'm ashamed to say I've never seen Scarface. But I promise it will be watched soon.

Carcharodon

The Scientist wrote:

Had a list of 11 three months ago so all im left with is: La Haine and Amores Perros .

Oh, btw after waiting all these years to finally get around to seeing Das Boot and Apocalyspe now i must say that i was dissapointed to say the least.


T.Sc.

La Haine is one of my favourite films,loved everything about it, but i did big it up to a couple of friends of mine and gave them my copy, they were not very impressed the swines, i probably over hyped it
I havent seen Clock Work Orange from start to finish, only bits when its on TV, and Seven Samurai, really must get that one.

Colonel Kurtz

Marts wrote:

I'm not a great fan of heat. I watched it once and was not impressed really at all. I was expecting too much tho probably with two of the worlds best actors in the same film.

However I cannot completly argue your point as I have never seen Godfather I, II or III *bows head in shame* I should probably add that to my list

If you're thinking of checking out some older classic Pacino flicks, you should also see Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico.

Colonel Kurtz

MikeHoncho wrote:

Bought the conversation about a year ago and havent watched it yet.

Decent movie. It was Coppola's next movie after the Godfather and was'nt very well received at the time - he was expected to do another grand epic on the scale of that film.....but it's still a well made piece of paranoia. And Gene Hackman is excellent in it.

BopNiblets

Apocalypse Now gave me flashbacks of this magic mushroom milkshake hut I wandered into on Koh Pha Ngan.

The music alone and the crazy soldiers made me turn it off when it was on TV the other night. Stoopid.

megadodge

Of all the 'classic' films I have watched on other's recommendations 'Apocalypse Now' was among the most disappointing.
Actually, if I was to make a list of the most pretentious films ever, it would definitely rank no. 1 !!
A badly lit, half-hidden (so his massive girth wouldn't be visible - true) Brando spouting seemingly endless lines of sh!te just doesn't do it for me. Was impressed with Martin Sheen though.
Overall, a major letdown.

The classic that I most thought "now that was worth waiting for" was 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. That's a perfect film IMO.

Amazingly, I have yet to see Casablanca and every time it's on TV somehow I manage to miss it. I feel I'm destined never to see it as it's over 10 years since I "decided" that I had to see it and yet...

djkeogh

I just picked up "The Third Man" and "Eyes Without a Face" the other day and look forward to watching these two. Have never managed to see all of It's a Wonderful Life but will try and change that this Christmas. Also have to get around to seeing Casablanca and Citizen Kane. Most of the others I have seen and loved.

When I first saw Apocalypse now way back when I didn't think much of it at all but What I did find was that alot of scenes in it stay with you and when watching again it's much more satisfying. Recent Must see for people would be Pan's Labyrinth.

Raekwon

The Scientist wrote:

Had a list of 11 three months ago so all im left with is: La Haine and Amores Perros

Both excellent films. Amores Perros in particular is an absolute classic and it is right up there along side City of God as one of my all-time favorite foreign language films.

The one movie that I haven't seen but really want to for some reason is Roman Polanski's 'Rosemary's Baby'. Has anyone seen this and if so what did you think of it?

missingtime

The Vengeance Trilogy, The Devils Backbone, Downfall and lots of small indie/foreign movies.