"Classic Films" you haven't seen yet

[Tactful Cactus]

Unfortunately this is what 20 years of hollywood high concept films has done to a generation of movie watchers, made them immune to anything that requires thought or a narrative which privileges characterisation over exploding buildings.

Yeah, because they didn't make dumb-arse exploding building movies in the 70's, did they.

[Matt Wilson]

Your attention span has been shortened by all the fast cuts of modern television/film. This is why it seems slow to you.

Um no, i find that scene long because it is long imho, you have no idea the type of films i watch and believe me i ain't of the mtv type generation with all the fast cuts

Matts spot on actually. He's not necessarily suggesting we've been numbed to a bunch of idiots by Mtv. Movies in general have adopted a more fast paced approach in recent years. Thats not saying they're any worse, or any less thought provoking. Its just a different approach to storytelling, basically. I loved 21 Grams, but I wonder how this movie would have went down in 1977.

Oh, and it's not just movies. TV as well has shortened the time of a typical cut (for made-for-TV movies and commercials). Sometimes the cuts don't even last a second. We're bombarded with sensory overload every time we turn on the television.
Anyone under twenty has grown up with this and doesn't know any different. There has also been a huge increase in Attention- Deficit Disorder among young people since the '80s. Doctors are now recommending no TV for kids under age three or something like that. It completely rewires their brains.

I can imagine how the first forty minutes of The Deer Hunter would be sheer hell to sit through for someone younger than me. No major US filmmaker today would even attempt to do a three hour film which takes its time for the first three quarters of an hour. The movie would never be qreenlighted.

[The Modernist]

True Matt. But I think it is to the detriment of film making as an artform and I couldn't care less if it makes me sound like a reactionary old so and so. It's just depressing to read someone dismiss the whole of filmmaking before 1985. And God knows what so impressed him in this year, Top Gun probably.

[Matt Wilson]

True Matt. But I think it is to the detriment of film making as an artform and I couldn't care less if it makes me sound like a reactionary old so and so. It's just depressing to read someone dismiss the whole of filmmaking before 1985. And God knows what so impressed him in this year, Top Gun probably.

Now, G...

Top Gun came out in 1986.
How can I give your film theories any credit if you can't even get the Cruise canon straight?

And if someone really doesn't think that pictures were any good before the '80s (a terrible decade indeed) then his head's too far up his ass to ever come out.

[Guy E]

I can imagine how the first forty minutes of The Deer Hunter would be sheer hell to sit through for someone younger than me. No major US filmmaker today would even attempt to do a three hour film which takes its time for the first three quarters of an hour. The movie would never be qreenlighted.

Sad, but absolutely true.

I tend to love the Indie films of the late 60’s through the late 70’s and actually saw both cuts of Heaven’s Gate in the theaters – a great film and the end of an era. I have pretty much stopped going to movies. Not so much because of the pass-the-Dramamine editing, but more for the abundance of cheesy special effects, the pointless twelve-writers-in-a-blender screenplays and general lack of plausible dialogue, character development, chuckle-inducing humor, etc. On the other hand, my patience with many of the classic Hollywood films of the 30’s and 40’s often wears thin as the clever repartee seems to come from another world. I’m not always in the mood for that – we all come from our own eras. It should also be said that as much as I love Robert Altman, he has made some tedious films.

But any American who fails to be drawn into the crystalline chaos of Apocalypse Now is beyond help.

[James R]

the '80s (a terrible decade indeed)

It's only terrible if you don't know where to look. The only way you can make a blanket judgement on a whole decade is if you focus narrowly on one aspect of world cinema production, e.g. Hollywood. You could say the 80s were a bad time for mainstream Hollywood, but they weren't bad at all for Hong Kong cinema or for Europe. And even Hollywood had some striking moments.
This is a list I posted to my website a while ago of the films from the 80s that interest me the most for whatever reason:

Airplane (1980)
Altered States (1980)
Bad Timing (1980)
Breaker Morant (1980)
The Club (1980)
Demon Lover Diary (1980)
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)
The Long Good Friday (1980)
Lucifer Rising (1980)
Popeye (1980)
The Shining (1980)
The Stunt Man (1980)
The Sword (1980)
Das Boot (1981)
Coup de Torchon (1981)
Diva (1981)
Excalibur (1981)
Time Bandits (1981)
The Atomic Cafe (1982)
Cafe Flesh (1982)
The Dead and the Deadly (1982)
E.T. (1982)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
The Thing (1982)
The Final Combat (1983)
Project A (1983)
The Right Stuff (1983)
Trading Places (1983)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Once Upon A Time In America (1984)
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Come and See (1985)
Insignificance (1985)
Ran (1985)
Re-Animator (1985)
What Happened To Kerouac? (1985)
A Better Tomorrow (1986)
Crocodile Dundee (1986)
Eastern Condors (1986)
The Hitcher (1986)
Jean de Florette (1986)
Manon des Sources (1986)
The Name of the Rose (1986)
Peking Opera Blues (1986)
The Armour of God (1987)
Bad Taste (1987)
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)
Good Morning Vietnam (1987)
Hellraiser (1987)
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Project A part II (1987)
Wings of Desire (1987)
The Bear (1988)
Beetlejuice (1988)
Die Hard (1988)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
The Naked Gun (1988)
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Young Einstein (1988)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Batman (1989)
The Killer (1989)

[Tactful Cactus]

It's just depressing to read someone dismiss the whole of filmmaking before 1985. And God knows what so impressed him in this year, Top Gun probably.

Er, no I didn't. I said I can't stick alot of movies made before 1985, not all of them. There are a few exceptions, movies that haven't dated as badly as something like Deerhunter.

And yes, it probably was something stupid like Top Gun that set the ball rolling for me. I was only five though, what do you expect?

[The Write Profile]

the '80s (a terrible decade indeed)

It's only terrible if you don't know where to look. The only way you can make a blanket judgement on a whole decade is if you focus narrowly on one aspect of world cinema production, e.g. Hollywood.
This is a list I posted to my website a while ago of the films from the 80s that interest me the most for whatever reason:

Airplane (1980)
Altered States (1980)
Bad Timing (1980)
Breaker Morant (1980)
The Club (1980)
Demon Lover Diary (1980)
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)
The Long Good Friday (1980)
Lucifer Rising (1980)
Popeye (1980)
The Shining (1980)
The Stunt Man (1980)
The Sword (1980)
Das Boot (1981)
Coup de Torchon (1981)
Diva (1981)
Excalibur (1981)
Time Bandits (1981)
The Atomic Cafe (1982)
Cafe Flesh (1982)
The Dead and the Deadly (1982)
E.T. (1982)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
The Thing (1982)
The Final Combat (1983)
Project A (1983)
The Right Stuff (1983)
Trading Places (1983)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Once Upon A Time In America (1984)
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Come and See (1985)
Insignificance (1985)
Ran (1985)
Re-Animator (1985)
What Happened To Kerouac? (1985)
A Better Tomorrow (1986)
Crocodile Dundee (1986)
Eastern Condors (1986)
The Hitcher (1986)
Jean de Florette (1986)
Manon des Sources (1986)
The Name of the Rose (1986)
Peking Opera Blues (1986)
The Armour of God (1987)
Bad Taste (1987)
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)
Good Morning Vietnam (1987)
Hellraiser (1987)
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Project A part II (1987)
Wings of Desire (1987)
The Bear (1988)
Beetlejuice (1988)
Die Hard (1988)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
The Naked Gun (1988)
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Young Einstein (1988)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Batman (1989)
The Killer (1989)

Interesting list, but what do you make of the following:


Blood Simple (1983)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Utu (1984)
Came On A Hot Friday (1985)
The King of Comedy (1982)

You could say the 80s were a bad time for mainstream Hollywood, but they weren't bad at all for Hong Kong cinema or for Europe. And even Hollywood had some striking moments.

For some reason, that cropped up in my head when thinking about this decade for cinema. The 90s on the whole, weren't a bad decade for mainstream cinema either.

[The Prof]

Blood Simple (1983)

I watched this for the first time the other week (Jolly-up quiz prize -thank you Fish)

Although a lot of the fashion, music, camera work and settings looked dated and some of it far-fetched, it was a great film. Especially one bit where the penny finally drops and you realise that as the viewer you know what is going on, but none of the characters have the full picture.

[Scally Mcgrew]

Blood Simple (1983)

I watched this for the first time the other week (Jolly-up quiz prize -thank you Fish)

Although a lot of the fashion, music, camera work and settings looked dated and some of it far-fetched, it was a great film. Especially one bit where the penny finally drops and you realise that as the viewer you know what is going on, but none of the characters have the full picture.

Aye, it was bloody simple in the end, wasn't it?

[Mr Maps]

E.T.

[Whacko]

Never seen 'Train spotting'. I hear it's rather good.


Whack!

[James R]

Interesting list, but what do you make of the following:

Blood Simple (1983)
Raising Arizona (1987)

Haven't seen them.

Blue Velvet (1986)

I'm not a big Lynch fan, so this is a film which doesn't do much for me. I did get it out on DVD recently, though, for a second viewing, and was struck by how relatively straightforward as a narrative it actually is. The oddities are more in the details than in the structure. I think I disliked it less the second time round than I did the first, but that's not really saying much, I suppose.

Utu (1984)
Came On A Hot Friday (1985)

Haven't seen them. Hadn't even heard of the second film until now. New Zealand cinema is pretty much a blank to me, apart from the better-known ones to get a run on this side of the Tasman.

The King of Comedy (1982)

Not a big Scorsese fan either. I suspect this is one I should give another viewing, though.

[Matt Wilson]

I'm pretty sure King of Comedy was '83.
It's an interesting list but it proves nothing. Of course one can come up with a bunch of good (and some great) films from any decade. God, I would hope so--you are talking about ten years. But one can come up with a better list from any previous decade without even half trying and the pictures would be better.
Even the '90s were better than the '80s.

The greatest movie of that particular decade was Raging Bull according to just about every critics poll I've seen (and they weren't all American). And it is a great film. The thing is had it been released in 1979 instead of 1980 it would be just one more great picture in the '70s. I don't think it's any better than Apocalypse Now for instance, which came out the previous year. It's in the same league as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, or The Godfather, or The Last Picture Show, etc. In fact--I like all three of those films more than Raging Bull.

[The Great DeFector]

The wedding scene in The Deer Hunter is long and drawn out because it's building character. It also offers a contrast to the next scenes where they're playing Russian Roulette and everything is fast paced.

Your attention span has been shortened by all the fast cuts of modern television/film. This is why it seems slow to you.

i was just thinking i watched metropolis, and that's a long slow film and quite enjoyed it. thought it was brillaint.

[Matt Wilson]

The wedding scene in The Deer Hunter is long and drawn out because it's building character. It also offers a contrast to the next scenes where they're playing Russian Roulette and everything is fast paced.

Your attention span has been shortened by all the fast cuts of modern television/film. This is why it seems slow to you.

i was just thinking i watched metropolis, and that's a long slow film and quite enjoyed it. thought it was brillaint.

[The Great DeFector]

The wedding scene in The Deer Hunter is long and drawn out because it's building character. It also offers a contrast to the next scenes where they're playing Russian Roulette and everything is fast paced.

Your attention span has been shortened by all the fast cuts of modern television/film. This is why it seems slow to you.

i was just thinking i watched metropolis, and that's a long slow film and quite enjoyed it. thought it was brillaint.

what's so funny about that, i was just saying like

[The Write Profile]

Okay, maybe this is a Baron type question, but what's the best Melville films to see after Le Samourai and Bob le Flambeur? I really liked his hip, ironic style- obviously a key influence on the Coens and to a lesser extent Tarantino. (The Big Lebowski's stoned, digressive feel is v. similar to Bob le Flambeur, strangely). He has an interesting "look" to his films too, they often seem quite pared back and jazzy.

So, where to next?

[BARON CORNY DOG]

Okay, maybe this is a Baron type question, but what's the best Melville films to see after Le Samourai and Bob le Flambeur? I really liked his hip, ironic style- obviously a key influence on the Coens and to a lesser extent Tarantino. (The Big Lebowski's stoned, digressive feel is v. similar to Bob le Flambeur, strangely). He has an interesting "look" to his films too, they often seem quite pared back and jazzy.

So, where to next?

TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI!

Oh, wait. That was Becker.

See it anyway.

[James R]

Okay, maybe this is a Baron type question, but what's the best Melville films to see after Le Samourai and Bob le Flambeur? I really liked his hip, ironic style- obviously a key influence on the Coens and to a lesser extent Tarantino. (The Big Lebowski's stoned, digressive feel is v. similar to Bob le Flambeur, strangely). He has an interesting "look" to his films too, they often seem quite pared back and jazzy.

So, where to next?

Le Doulos (1962), from which Tarantino lifted the ending to Reservoir Dogs.
The Red Circle (1970).

Did you see Neil Jordan's The Good Thief?