14 Movies to see before you die

[transward (imported)]

There were some outstanding Westerns, a genre now largely forgotten.

John Ford made several of the best Westerns, some with John Wayne:

The Searchers

My Darling Clementine - with Henry Fonda, a film I love

Stagecoach

Fort Apache

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Rio Grande

Not sure it they or great or a guilty pleasures, but I am fond of the western remakes of Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Seven Samurai, Fistful of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven.

Transward

[Taylor (imported)]

StefanIsMe -

HOLY CRAP! I thought I was the only one who had ever seen Straight to Hell!!! Those guys were some serious caffeine addicts & you knew they were serious when the long coats came out!

Dr. Strangelove was funny as hell (“Sir, the self-destruct device destroyed itself.” and “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!”)

Ok, the following are a few of my recommendations (in no particular order):

-Harold & Maude

-They Died With Their Boots On (b&w version, not the crappy colorized version)

-The Cuckoo

-Better Than Chocolate

-The Manchurian Candidate (the original, not the shitty remake)

-Casablanca

-Hard Candy

-Frailty

-Closetland

-The Hunger (although brief, the best lesbian scene in cinematic history)

-Blade Runner (theatrical cut)

-Johnny Got His Gun

-The Man From Earth

-The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

-The Great Escape

[Paolo]

"Frailty" was an excellent and edge-of-your-seat movie. I've watched it many times.

[Sweetpickle (imported)]

Appropiate tothis site would be;

The World according to Garp with it's penectomy scene.

[StefanIsMe (imported)]

Oh I remember Garp, that was a hoot.

I can't let the opportunity to mention another favorite slip by.

Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings fame, made a number of nasty little films when he was younger, but none nastyer than Meet the Feebles ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097858/ ). "Hell hath No Fury like a Hippo With a Machine Gun". This movie was a total take-off on the Muppets, with equivalent characters; watch out for a Heroin-injecting Gonzo who pimps out his chicken-choir.

It certainly does not belong on any 'best made' movie list, but it holds a place in my heart. Somebody I knew had a projection tv back in 1990, and put that film on during a party when a good number of us were doing acid (this was a looooong time ago, folks). I couldn't turn my head away from the screen... utterly mesmerized by the sick hilarity of it.

[JesusA (imported)]

Meet the Feebles may be the most perverse movie of all time. There are bits and pieces of it available on Youtube, including the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yrI01TOlOE

It's great.....

[Jean Op den Kamp (imported)]

Hey hey hey,

what a heavy stories

turn on disney's

"OLD YELLER"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emn0hHY3wkg&NR=1

and have a nice cry

loveUall

Jean

[calmeilles (imported)]

I'm not sure I'm a judge of what people should see in such absolute terms so perhaps you'll forgive me for listing a few that are personally significant without suggesting any obligation to view them.

Il Gattopardo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leopard_(film)) (AKA The Leopard) by Luchino Visconti, based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon.

"If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change."

"We were the Leopards, the Lions, those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth."

Medea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea_(film)) by Pier Paolo Pasolini, with Maria Callas.

Le Petit Soldat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Petit_Soldat) by Jean-Luc Goddard with Muchel Subor and Anna Karina.

Scum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scum_(film)) by Alan Clarke (dir) and Roy Minton (Wr). With Ray Winston.

The Killing of Sister George (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killin ... ter_George) by Robert Aldritch, with Berryl Reid, Susannah York and Coral Browne.

Unforgiven (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unforgiven) by Clint Eastwoon. With Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris.

Les amants criminels (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205735/) (AKA Criminal Lovers) By François Ozon with Natacha Régnier and Jérémie Renier.

Tokyo Drifter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Drifter) by Seijun Suzuki. West Side Story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side_Story_(film)) by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise. Love in the Time of Cholera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_in_th ... era_(film)) by Mike Newell, from the novel of Gabriel García Márquez. The Warriors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warriors_(film)) by Walter Hill. Ararat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ararat_(film)) by Atom Egoyan. The Mission (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mission_(film)) by Roland Joffé. Laila Ma Raison (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116842/) by Taieb Louhichi. Les Enfants Terribles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Enfant ... les_(film)) by Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean Cocteau.

There, I exceed the quota by one. No particular order except that Il Gattopardo is first and foremost.

[bobover3 (imported)]

Thanks for a most interesting list, Calmeilles. I've missed many of the films you list, but they all sound good. I'll add them to my Netflix queue today.

Do you prefer the English or Italian version of The Leopard? Odd that I've read the novel without seeing the movie.

You mention some favorite directors: Visconti, Pasolini, Eastwood, and Melville. (Melville's becoming a cult favorite. I've never seen anything by him I didn't like.)

I've got to confess I dislike most Godard, except for his early films. He's turned into a bore of "progressive" anti-Americanism, and art which springs from a meretricious ideology rather than from life is poisoned at the source.

[StefanIsMe (imported)]

Speaking of Eastwood.

I just saw Gran Torino. I don't know what reviewers think of it, but I gotta say, I was extremely impressed. He was great in Unforgiven, yes, but THIS movie just takes the whole position one step further somehow.

I love this film, he has refined and aged his tough ol' hombre roll to PERFECTION. The entire storyline seemed secondary to me, watching this film, secondary to what for me was a totally delicious character study by Clint.

There's a part where he sort of rescues a young girl from a small gang of black guys... beyond the language used (Clints' character here plays extremely prejudiced), the scene was just perfect. Dirty Harry don't bluster around lahk he used to, folks, but he can play the most threatening 75 year old you-all ever done seen, while still coming across as apropriately frail.

Definitely on my top-14 list, now.