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Share a Favorite Movie, Why Do You Like It?

And this

www.criterion.com

Lone Wolf and Cub

Based on the best-selling manga series, the six intensely kinetic Lone Wolf and Cub films elevated chanbara to bloody new heights. The shogun’s executioner, Itto Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama), takes to wandering the countryside as an assassin—along with his infant son Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa)...
www.criterion.com www.criterion.com

the manga version is even better

en.wikipedia.org

Lone Wolf and Cub - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Pulp Fiction - So over the Top
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Performance—Mick Jagger, James Fox, Anita Pallenberg. A fixer for a crew very reminiscent of the Kray Brothers, gets too personal in his work and is forced to go "underground". Winds up in the digs of a devolving one-time rock star, a bit too similar to Brian Jones. Drugs ensue, personal identities merge and one of the great music videos is but one of the results. Very controversial when first released thanks to the gender-bending nature of the story. Directors are Donald Cammell and in his first film as a director, notable cinematographer Nick Roeg:


Everybody talks about "Citizen Kane" as the greatest movie of all time. I'm not sure it's Orson Welles best film. Welles' final film, the flawed but inspired "The Other Side of the Wind", was completed long after the director died. It is a brutal disembowelment of Hollywood when the "new breed"—Dennis Hopper, Paul Mazursky, Francis Ford Coppola—rode into town. Even includes cameos from Hopper and Mazursky. Anticipates the tabloid television culture and "reality TV" at least 20 years in advance. Fantastic performances by John Huston standing in for Welles as a washed-up director "Jake Hannaford" and Peter Bogdanovich as "Brooks Otterlake" (Peter Bogdanovich, really), an "apostle" of said director. Many small roles performed by Hollywood actors who once were "Big" Only available to stream on Netflix:


Prospero's Books is Peter Greenaway's deconstruction of Shakespeare's "Tempest, with Sir John Gielgud voicing nearly all participants thanks to the use of such things as vocoders. More nudity than you can shake a stick at, fantastic sets and cinematography. Hard to find, but accessible on Kanopy:

 
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Speaking of samurai dramas, there's the Hanzo the Razor trilogy: Hanzo is so tough that even his member is battle-hardened! But be warned that there's scenes stylized sexual violence. In the notes accompanying the DVD collection, Patrick Macias and Tomohiro Machiyama note that the early 1970s was an era of "exploitation" films.
Perhaps at another time, the decidedly un-PC content of the three films that followed ... would have offended feminists and outraged moral watchdog groups. But cinema had lost the limelight to television and was regarded as a medium in decline: what remained was not worth policing. And so a wild streak in entertainment was allowed to run relatively free in Japan, not only in the movies, but in other media as well.
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Burt Lancaster in, “The Swimmer,” (1968).
Swimming from one end of life to the other, seemingly sane until the wave of reality comes crashing down.
 
I asked my mate -as a pop quiz- so she would not think too long to answer.
Her initial answer was "Nonnas".
Nonnas is a 2025 American biographical comedy-drama film starring Vince Vaughn, Lorraine Bracco.
Trailer is here, the movie is a Netflix offering at the current time. RottenTomatoes rates it high, and Facebook shows it as number 1 [?].

OT1: Fond memories of Italian food/cooking [drooling], when entangled in an Italian marriage. :)
OT2: Our Nonna refused to speak English but I was her chauffeur for her weekly Bingo. All I recall was Nonna keep repeating "Piano, Piano!" during the rides.:oops:
 
There is one movie that really impresses me – Dune (2021). It is such an epic science fiction with stunning visuals and a captivating world. What is very good is that it supports Dolby Atmos for rich sound. This combination of strong direction, captivating music track and complex plot makes it special.
 
Les vacances de M. Hulot (Mr. Hulot's Holiday) 1953. Comedy, monaural soundtrack. DVD, Bluray.
Les vacances de M Hulot.jpg

There's no particular plot or story here, so much as a series of mishaps unwittingly caused by a well-meaning Mr. Hulot. I've heard repeated viewings described as "revisiting old friends", and that seems like a fine way to put it. The first couple of times I watched, I found it pleasant, if a bit dull. But once I got it, I adored it. French dialog, but subtitles are optional.
 
I'll try for a small list. "La Belle et la Bete," Jean Cocteau, 1946. It's a fairy tale that sticks to the original story. It has the otherworldly atmosphere of a real fairy tale. One of the most beautiful movies ever made. "Chinatown,' 1974, Roman Polanski. My favorite hard boiled detective movie. It echoes "The Big Sleep," but stands on its own. Great cast and the closing line, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." "Horse Feathers" or "Duck Soup," take your choice. The Marx brothers at their best. S. J. Perelman dialogue.

There are lots more.
 
Oddball said:
Let us know your thoughts after you had some time to digest. It took me a while to do so.
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(On "Life is Beautiful" (1997))

Just saw it. It was brilliant.

It's got this long exposition time to develop your affection for the main characters, then the rug is pulled. Kind of like in "The Deer Hunter" (thinking of the wedding and singing in bar scenes in the latter film).

The recurring motif of surprising the princess was great, like when he rotates the phonograph so she can hear.

The idea of the "game" was clever, as the quite unconventional protagonist didn't take his original ordinary life too seriously either. Passing on his think positive attitude - keeping it alive.

There were a few slightly mind-bending / clever moments scattered throughout the dialogue too.

Makes you want the most out of life
 
About a decade ago, we had fully given up going to the theaters, as we are devout anti-advertisement consumers.
We had figured that it was time to go and experience an IMAX 3D movie, for the first time.

Things sure have changed much in movie theaters, with reclining seats and 3D glasses and all...
But this event confirmed to us that paying for a movie (start time @1400Hours) and then being forced to watching 20 minutes of advertisements is NOT what we had thought we paid for.:mad:

"Avatar Fire and Ice" was awesome in 3D (for us novices), but we will never visit another movie-theater again.:(
 
Gattaca - because achieving the impossible and sacrifice


Blade Runner - because of world building


Walk Hard the Dewey Cox Story - because silly + music


The Incredibles - cause that's what family is about


About Time - cause sometimes "feelin's" and time travel do mix

 
Flow 4K - From the imagination of filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis comes a thrilling animated adventure. One of the few pictures where never a word is spoken and you know exactly what's going on....

Watch Flow | Prime Video

From the boundless imagination of filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis comes this thrilling animated spectacle, a wondrous journey through realms natural and mystical. A courageous cat teams up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog in search of dry land after their home is devastated by a great...
www.amazon.com
 
I'm gonna name a few oddball films that impressed me by it's simple storytelling and just being lighthearted and fun:

Slumberland
A kids movie that makes you think about and appreciate your life.
Year of Release 2022, Netflix.

Billy Elliot
An Irish boy in a struggling family finds his true passion in ... ballet.
The background of the story would normally fill the newslines. Not here.
2000

Spy
Melissa McCarthy letting herself be mocked for a spy role.
Especially funny because someone makes fun of herself while desperately wanting to play the hero.
2015

Darkest hour
Gary Oldman playing Churchill as if he was him.
Quirky, brilliant, aware of his own shortcomings.
2017

Ending with a truely masterfully told story

Dunkirk
The storytelling, filming and sound is just out of this world, while everything is just humbly playing its part in a bigger whole. Takes you right there. Rewatching makes it more beautiful.
2017
 
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