What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

joxer said:

RottenTomatoes compiled a list of 200 movies you should watch before dying:
https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/200-essential-movies-to-watch-now/
If you spotted they "forgot" to add a movie there, post which one is that please.

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Pretty good list overall I guess, thought it's a bit too US-centric and there are some seriously glaring omissions in my opinion, the biggest being no Ingmar Bergman on the list, wtf is
that?!
No Studio Ghibli is also rather major. Plus, I don't think that just one Kurosawa and Tarkovsky is enough for a top 200. No 8½ is a head-scratcher. Etc .

Also, I've got a few personal pet peeves which usually apply when it comes to lists like this - for example I consider Life of Brian to be notably better than Holy Grail, or I think The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is Leone's third best film (behind For a Few Dollars More and Once Upon a Time in the West), or I consider The Awful Truth to be easily the best "screwball comedy", yet it's rarely mentioned anywhere, etc.

Won't dispute most of the inclusions, though I'm sure that Iron Man, Pan's Labyrinth or Inception most certainly would not be on my list.


Anyway, some films I'd add (am not sure how much of the original list would be replaced by these) and therefore recommend checking out:

A Trip to the Moon (1902)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
The Phantom Carriage (1921)
Nosferatu (1922)
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
M (1931)
L'Atalante (1934)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Modern Times (1936)
The Awful Truth (1937)
Rome, Open City (1945)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Late Spring (1949)
Orpheus (1950)
Rashomon (1950)
Ikiru (1952)
The Wages of Fear (1953)
Ugetsu (1953)
Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
Ordet (1955)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
A Man Escaped (1956)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Viridiana (1961)
Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Harakiri (1962)
The Exterminating Angel (1962)
8½ (1963)
Woman in the Dunes (1964)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Pierrot le fou (1965)
Andrei Rublev (1966)
Au hasard Balthazar (1966)
Blow-Up (1966)
Daisies (1966)
Persona (1966)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Markéta Lazarová (1967)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Cremator (1969)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
The Conformist (1970)
A Woman under the Influence (1972)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Paper Moon (1973)
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
The Conversation (1974)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Flåklypa Grand Prix (1975)
All That Jazz (1979)
Life of Brian (1979)
Manhattan (1979)
Stalker (1979)
Tale of Tales (1979)
Fanny and Alexander (1982)
Dimensions of Dialogue (1983)
Paris, Texas (1984)
Brazil (1985)
Come and See (1985)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Close-Up (1990)
The Legend of Drunken Master (1994)
Three Colours: Red (1994)
Underground (1995)
Breaking the Waves (1996)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Princess Mononoke (1997)
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Yi Yi: A One and Two (2000)
Spirited Away (2001)
Memories of Murder (2003)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2003)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Separation (2011)
The Act of Killing (2012)
Her (2013)

joxer said:

Saving Private Ryan lemonade

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I really recommend checking out Come and See featured above in case you haven't
already, that one is truly chilling.

I haven't seen all of those, but judging by the strength of the list, I will have to look them up.

Interestingly, the number 1 of the Rotten Tomatoes' list is The Wizard Of Oz, yet even although I posted about it here, no-one talks about it.

DeepO said:

I really recommend checking out Come and See featured above in case you haven't already, that one is truly chilling.

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I didn't, I thought it's just a variant of Salò which was notorious for describing war atrocities as horrifying real as possible. Note that I do not recommend this one unless you're in a phase where you believe you've seen everything or you're left without titles to discuss with your filmworm friends. Also please, if you're under 25, do not touch this one, wait as it won't escape anywhere. Perhaps even 30 is not enough to understand it, but we're different so… Dunno. I warned you and that's what matters.

But okay, I'll add Come and See on my "to watch" list.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Interestingly, the number 1 of the Rotten Tomatoes' list is The Wizard Of Oz, yet even although I posted about it here, no-one talks about it.

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Because we've all watched it and have no objections seeing it on any list.

I concluded my horror season last night with another Korean movie, The Wailing.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_wailing

Quite long, and a slow start, but I really enjoyed it. It seems to me the Koreans have a popular trope where the protagonist is a fool who learns a tragic lesson about life.

It's not korean exclusive trope - it dates since greek comedies/tragedies.

But I didn't like Wailing. Usually I like when things go bizarre and weird ways, but in this one everything somehow felt forced. Thus I can't recommend watching it.

I'd not watched Sunset Boulevard in a couple of years, but felt the need after the most recent episode of Twin Peaks. Still an excellent movie. I'm not certain but it may have been the first that actually had people playing themselves, if not the first one of the firsts for sure.

Wind River was very good; but Ingrid Goes West, while technically good, was not as enjoyable.

Watched "Despicable Me 3" not long ago. I felt well entertained, even although it didn't feel that fresh anymore, but they still had lots of good ideas. And that antagonist ... :lol:
The whole film is a very well made homage to the 80s and their sound !

There was only 1 thing I didn't like at all ...

Watched Blood Diamond yesterday, amazing movie

I finally watched The Fall (2006) three nights ago. Missed it back then and then all forgot about it.
Well, it was ... disturbing in a good way, I'd say. No video clip cuts at all - a slow, beautiful movie. The little girl was great, but that may be due to the fact that her dialog wasn't scripted.
Well, I'm still thinking about some scenes from that movie which speaks in its favor as I tend to delete flicks from my memory - this one isn't one of those.

vurt said:

Alien: Covenant - Loved it (my favorite genre though, so i get it if most won't agree). 8/10. Liked it better the Prometheus (which was great too, but had some annoying moments)

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Ripper said:

I really disliked Prometheus (as a huge fan of the original Alien films) and I'd certainly agree that Covenant was much better. I still didn't like it all that much, though.

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JDR13 said:

I finally got around to watching it last night, and I don't think it was much better than Prometheus. I didn't think it was horrible, but I was definitely disappointed.

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Yet again I'm saying Prometheus is a masterpiece, but that aside.
I finally watched Covenant.

Bigger bullshits than this one are rare. Perhaps the previous movie hit the right spot so hard they had to ruin it's sequel, perhaps the scriptwriter never heard about Alien franchise before, perhaps Ridley Scott needs to check his head by a shrink or something.
Not only the movie sucks so hard, it added whomever's "brilliant" idea to cut the story critical scenes and put them up as youtube video one will see only because numerous wtf during Covenant - and even that video will totally disappoint.

This plotholes ridden junk I wouldn't suggest watching even to my worst enemy, it's that bad. The only thing that doesn't suck is Fassbender's performance, but I don't see how he could save this trainwreck. Utterly wasted potential, I hope he charged them millions for appearance in this dud.

This garbage did not deserve Alien word in the title. Watch only if you have masochistic tendencies:
2/10

DeepO said:

There Will Be Blood (2007)

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There Will Be Blood is one of those movies that I can't figure out if it was suppose to be intentionally funny or deadly serious resulting in total unintentional hilarity. Two words: Paul Dano! :lol:

Ingmar Bergman is one of those directors that I would stop watching for years and years, thinking I outgrew him, then I would see something like Hour of the Wolf for the first time and think, "Man, did this guy have balls! Putting his whacked out, incredibly morbid dreams onto film and not caring what the fuck people thought!"… then I like him all over again.

Jaz said:

I finally watched The Fall (2006) three nights ago. Missed it back then and then all forgot about it.
Well, it was … disturbing in a good way, I'd say. No video clip cuts at all - a slow, beautiful movie. The little girl was great, but that may be due to the fact that her dialog wasn't scripted.
Well, I'm still thinking about some scenes from that movie which speaks in its favor as I tend to delete flicks from my memory - this one isn't one of those.

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I have no idea how this one got by my radar. Thank you for suggesting it!

The Hitman's Bodyguard 3/10. Absolute cringe fest from start to finish (expected, but it was way worse than expected). Surprised about the rather high IMDB score, though i guess they tend to go down after some time..

I started watching a bunch of old Noir classics that I missed - since I can't seem to connect with new movies (half of which are repetitive superhero movies). I didn't realise just how many quality Noir pictures are out there

Watched "In a Lonely Place" with Bogie last night. It was pretty good.

Just watched the Belko experiment. I almost feel like I should be taking a shower to wash away the dirt… This ended up being quite a disturbing film to watch. I wouldn't recommend it to the fainthearted. It isn't all bleak as they've thrown a bit of dark humour into mix, but overall it remains quite serious. The film isn't entirely without a purpose. There have been quite many unethical psychological experiments even in real life and the Belko experiement just takes that idea to the extreme level.

I didn't really "enjoy" watching this. In addition the intresting if quite disturbing idea behind this film gets lost somewhere when the violence begins and there just doesn't seem to be no end to it. I was actually relieved when it was all over. Maybe 2/5 or 5.5/10 would be my verdict.

Have just watched 'The Limehouse Golem'. I like thriller movies.

ronok said:

Have just watched 'The Limehouse Golem'. I like thriller movies.

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Never heard about that one before, but imdb description promises a nice setup for bedtime preparation.

Added on my "to watch" list. Thanks for bringing it up!

I was entertaining a bunch of kids, and we watched the Pete's Dragon remake. I really liked it. A kind of old-school family adventure with shades of ET, very well shot with a great sense of place. Far better than I thought it might be.