I don't know if we have one already, but here we go...
I took a chance on a flop this weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed the Scottish film Filth, starring James McAvoy. It's about a horrible, coke-addled detective sergeant who hates everyone and everyone hates him. There's a lot of fucking and punching.
This film earned less than US$35,000 in a week in five theaters in the United States, and it's excellent. Stream it on Netflix or Torrent the movie as soon as you can.
Rent it on iTunes. I'm on the couch in my basement and my laptop is two floors up. I'd rather spend a couple bucks than get up and download the torrent.
Gosh, I thought it was a brilliant film. I can't argue with your assessment that the story was ridiculous, confusing, and depressing, but it was gripping as well. Sorry I can't help you with the Scottish accents; living overseas as I do I am accustomed to all sorts of accents. After seeing this film I've bought Irvine Welsh's novel and am reading it now.
They made it for US$5 million, reportedly. A lot of film for five million.
How about a more narrow focus. I was thinking about good drug movies to recommend to a friend. Not well-known recent stuff like Trainspotting or Blow, but lesser known dope flicks. I'll start off.
Panic in Needle Park Cisco Pike Puppet on a Chain Salton Sea Rush Spun Drugstore Cowboy (most mainstream of the list) The Man With The Golden Arm Bad Lieutenant Withnail and I
Orlando The Cook, the Thief, the Wife, and the Lover The Wrestler Belle de Jour Son of Sam Dark Days All John Hugh's films except Home Alone The River's Edge Drugstore Cowboy Requiem for a Dream Candy (the Heath Ledger one) Trust House of Yes 24 Hour Party People Sliver Saturday Night Fever American Hustle Hotel Budapest
How about a more narrow focus. I was thinking about good drug movies to recommend to a friend. Not well-known recent stuff like Trainspotting or Blow, but lesser known dope flicks. I'll start off.
Panic in Needle Park Cisco Pike Puppet on a Chain Salton Sea Rush Spun Drugstore Cowboy (most mainstream of the list) The Man With The Golden Arm Bad Lieutenant Withnail and I
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas is my favorite drug movie. Followed by Requiem For a Dream and Spun. I had one more in my head, but lost it.
Traffic was more about the Narcotics Industry than Drug Use, so I can't count that.
Salton Sea is a cop story going deep undercover wth some meth dealers and maybe crossing the line. Vincent D'onfrio plays Pooh Bear McCutchen, who is featured in the clip below.
Rush is Jason Patric and Jennifer Jason Leigh in another deep undercover drug op with Gregg Allman as the bad guy. This one is very sexy and seductive with a great soundtrack. I am betting Gian will love it.
Cisco Pike is a 1971 cop drama with Kris Kristofferson as a retired drug dealer forced back into the trade by dirty cop Gene Hackman. Cisco and his best pal Harry Dean Stanton ramble through the Hollywood Hills and Sunset Strip to peddle the drugs before the deadline. Karen Black and 60s legend Viva play some tramps along for the ride. Fantastic soundtrack, 70s fashions, and even a visit to a recording studio to sell to Sam Sham and the Pharoahs included! Awesome flick.
Getting away from the vintage drug theme, here is one of my fav "little" movies ever. Five Corners by Tony Bill. Produced by George Harrison's Handmade Films, this one features John Tuturro, Jodie Foster and Tim Robbins. Tuturro plays Heinz Sabatini, home from jail after attempting to rape Jodie Foster years prior. His return to the Five Corners neighborhood is not well received and drama follows. Tony Bill once referred to this as his "monster movie". I recommend it to those of you in or familiar with the NYC and Brooklyn/Bronx areas for its local color and to the rest of you for it's gentle brilliance and subtle comedy. Oh yeah, it stars out slow and takes a while to kick into gear.
Shifting gears 180 degrees, I present to you Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star. This one is porn related and a riot. Bucky discovers that his parents were 70s porn stars and that he was "born to be a porn star". Only problem is that he is hung like a gnat and blows his giant load at the first sight of boobies. This ends up making him a huge AVN winning star in a page taken from our own The Minion legacy. It's a silly movie like Duece Bigelow, but with much more heart and Christina Ricci as his love interest and Don Johnson as his mentor director. Getting high might be required.
Salton Sea is a cop story going deep undercover wth some meth dealers and maybe crossing the line. Vincent D'onfrio plays Pooh Bear McCutchen, who is featured in the clip below.
Rush is Jason Patric and Jennifer Jason Leigh in another deep undercover drug op with Gregg Allman as the bad guy. This one is very sexy and seductive with a great soundtrack. I am betting Gian will love it.
Cisco Pike is a 1971 cop drama with Kris Kristofferson as a retired drug dealer forced back into the trade by dirty cop Gene Hackman. Cisco and his best pal Harry Dean Stanton ramble through the Hollywood Hills and Sunset Strip to peddle the drugs before the deadline. Karen Black and 60s legend Viva play some tramps along for the ride. Fantastic soundtrack, 70s fashions, and even a visit to a recording studio to sell to Sam Sham and the Pharoahs included! Awesome flick.
Ya lost me at Kris Kristofferson. Fuckin worthless hippie couldn't hack it in rock, so he went country. Truly the weak link in The Highwaymen.
Ya lost me at Kris Kristofferson. Fuckin worthless hippie couldn't hack it in rock, so he went country. Truly the weak link in The Highwaymen.
Lots of performers go country, because country speaks to America's soul. (And probably also because country still sells records.) Darius Rucker from Hootie & the Blowfish is now one of the top country artists going.
Dekalog/Decalogue - directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski Double Life of Veronique - ditto Anatomy of a Murder The Human Factor Fitzcarraldo Aguirre, the Wrath of God Cria Cuervos (Carlos Saura) The Night Porter Lawrence of Arabia Tristana The Exterminating Angel Claire's Knee A Tale of Winter A Tale of Springtime Lesson Faust The Ice Storm Return of the Secaucus Seven Lone Star The Seven Samurai Mephisto Colonel Redl
Ya lost me at Kris Kristofferson. Fuckin worthless hippie couldn't hack it in rock, so he went country. Truly the weak link in The Highwaymen.
Where'd you get that idea? Kris wrote for Johnny Cash and was presented by Cash at Newport. He wrote Sunday Morning Coming Down, Bobby McGee, Help Me Make it Through the Night, and For The Good Times. All country classics. He was a rocker much later in life. As for the Highwaymen, that was a gesture from the other three to pay Kris his due. Yes, he was the weakest performer.
Kris aside, Cisco Pike should be seen just for Harry Dean Stanton and Karen Black.
Dekalog/Decalogue - directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski Double Life of Veronique - ditto Anatomy of a Murder The Human Factor Fitzcarraldo Aguirre, the Wrath of God Cria Cuervos (Carlos Saura) The Night Porter Lawrence of Arabia Tristana The Exterminating Angel Claire's Knee A Tale of Winter A Tale of Springtime Lesson Faust The Ice Storm Return of the Secaucus Seven Lone Star The Seven Samurai Mephisto Colonel Redl
Great list. Very film school/indie-house. Everyone who posts here should be required to watch The Night Porter. You forgot The Conformists and 400 Blows.
Aguirre cracks me up. You like Jacques Tati? I fucking love Mon Oncle.
Where'd you get that idea? Kris wrote for Johnny Cash and was presented by Cash at Newport. He wrote Sunday Morning Coming Down, Bobby McGee, Help Me Make it Through the Night, and For The Good Times. All country classics. He was a rocker much later in life. As for the Highwaymen, that was a gesture from the other three to pay Kris his due. Yes, he was the weakest performer.
"The Night Porter," is so dirty in a way no porno can be; it makes you want to take a long, hot shower or take a long, random drive after you watch it. "400 Blows" should be there, of course, as well as "Contempt," with Bridgette Bardot when she was still hot. I'd add, "Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" but it's probably been mentioned and I've never been able to finish it at one go (no subliminal pun intended).
I never did watch a Tati film but it's a new one to add to the Netflix queue.
I should add Pasolini's Salo or 120 Days of Sodom. A few college friends and I checked it out from a mom and pop video place back in the 1980s. I remember the proprietress giving us a weird look.
Also, for the so inclined, a Czech classic, Marketa Lazarova. Weirdly mind-bending. It's probably best to watch it during an acid trip.
Battle of Algiers - Diary of a Chambermaid Day of the Beast The Entity Tokyo Story Bubba-Ho Tep At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (Ze do Caixao) Atonement Dog Soldiers Scanners The Wicker Man (1973, not the crap remake) The Joke Alucarda Quatermass The Third Man Il Generalle Della Rovere La Strada Nights of Cabiria Le Notti Blanche La Terra Trema Badlands Torremolinos 73 Gigante Dust Devil Solaris (Tarkovsky) Phantasm Dead and Buried Berlin Alexanderplatz (long slog) Repulsion Rules of the Game The Sea Inside THX 1138 Suspiria Baise-Moi Garden State I'll Sleep When I'm Dead Yojimbo The Convent Angel Heart Throne of Blood My Favorite Season/Ma Saison Preferee Les Voleurs Onibaba The Aura Ossessione Twilight's Last Gleaming Coffin Joe-Awakening the Beast On the Beach Witchhammer - Kladivo na carodejnice (original title) Amarcord 8 1/2 City of Women
From that list, my favs are Repulsion and Susperia. I love all the early Polanski flicks, Cul de Sac is an obscure fav. I saw The Tennant at the age of 15 and it scared the living shit out of me. I had no idea what was going on, but I felt uneasy for days afterwards.
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai is on TV right now. Another great film with a killer soundtrack. (by RZA)
Life Of Brian Dr Zavagio Aliens Dark City Fargo Jeremiah Johnson 28 Days Later 28 Weeks Later Lawrence of Arabia Seven The Simpson's Movie Heavy Metal Guardians of the Galaxy Fraility
And last but not least, Jaws, Star Wars, and The Exorcist. I can still remember, as a kid, the buzz these movies created.
Sleep Away Camp really scared the shit out of me and the surprise ending disgusted and weired me out for days after I watched it when I was a kid. I was maybe 11 or 12 when the movie came out on video.
Polanski was a good mood setter in his early films. Of the films that creeped me out as a kid I remember Shock Waves, with Peter Cushing, John Carradine, and Brooke Adams.
Most of these are going to be pretty well known but most of the best films are.
Once Upon a Time in the West The Third Man The Night of the Hunter Judgement at Nuremberg The Hustler The Manchurian Candidate The Spy Who Came in from the Cold The Sand Pebbles Z The Last Picture Show The Day of the Jackal The Stunt Man Southern Comfort American Pop Runaway Train A Fish Called Wanda Ran Once Upon a Time in America A Bullet in the Head The Killer Hard Boiled The Aristocrats Running Down a Dream (Peter Bogdon...however you spell his last name, Dorothy Stratten's white knight wannabe who directed The Last Picture Show's documentary on Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)
In the case of all of the above go with the original and stay away from fecestastic remakes starring Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis or Slyvester Stallone.
Now I am assuming you have already seen the following.
The Maltese Falcon The Treasure of the Sierra Madre The Bridge on the River Kwai Lawrence of Arabia It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World 2001: A Space Odyssey The Searchers The Wild Bunch Patton A Clockwork Orange The Godfather Chinatown The Godfather Part II Jaws Marathon Man Pulp Fiction The Usual Suspects L.A. Confidential Monty Python and the Holy Grail Blazing Saddles The Last Waltz GoodFellas
because who hasn't? If not then I hereby sentence you to a double feature of St. Elmo's Fire and Wall Street with audio commentary tracks of FatBloodyFingers giving a dissertation breaking down how these films represent the exploitation of the poor and middle class by the economic policies of Ronald Reagan and the amorality of the parasitic Yuppie scum of the 1980s.
Agreed. TUP's list has many of my favs on it- Night of the Hunter, Last Picture Show, Mad Mad World. Just press the button marked booze!
Touch of Evil and Night of the Hunter are two of my top movies of all time. Along with the original Day The Earth Stood Still. I have original film posters of these hanging in my home.
Sleep Away Camp really scared the shit out of me and the surprise ending disgusted and weired me out for days after I watched it when I was a kid. I was maybe 11 or 12 when the movie came out on video.
Forgot about Touch of Evil. That one should have made my list too.
I'm generally much more fond of the films from the 50s through the 70s. A little less fond of the 80s and 90s though I'm not a grumblepuss about them. I am a grumblepuss about the vast majority of movies made in this century though. Fucking shitty remakes of good to great 1960s and 1970s films (Taking of Pelham 123, The Manchurian Candidate, Straw Dogs, etc.), fucking shitty remakes of 1970s television series (Charlie's Angels, Starsky & Hutch, etc.) and fucking stupid zombie movie after stupid zombie movie after stupid zombie movie.
There was a passle of us us riding home from seeing Rob Zombie/ Godsmack the other nite. Hit a Carl's Jr. on the way home. Someone ordered a "liter of cola". Things went down hill pretty quick.
