What are your favorite movies?

[wraith808]

Switching gears for a second, does anybody find movies that take place in subways or on trains (or in train stations) particularly enjoyable like I do?

Check out that movie The Hunted with Christopher Lambert and John Lone.  They have a train scene that might cure you of that...  It's a good movie.  But that train scene was really intense...

[Renegade]

I saw a Jean-Claude Van Damme flick - or maybe it was Stephen Segal - same stuff, different name ---- it was on a train. Pretty bad movie. Good for 14 year old boys though.

[40hz]

^ For me it's not enough to have a train scene or have the train be just another locked room gimmick. It has to be an integral element to the story. Von Ryan's Express for example. Or  The Great Train Robbery. In those, the train introduced unique elements that much of the plot depended on.  

The subway fascinates me because I (along with a few equally daft friends) used to be an avid "abandoned," "lost" and "hidden places" explorer back in my college days. It was a very enjoyable hobby that made it almost too easy to get yourself arrested - or even killed. (You soon discovered that better than half those DANGER! KEEP OUT signs were put there for very good reasons.) Anybody stupid and ballsy enough to go crawling around in places you'd probably definitely be better off staying away from will understand what I'm saying here.  

[wraith808]

I saw a Jean-Claude Van Damme flick - or maybe it was Stephen Segal - same stuff, different name ---- it was on a train. Pretty bad movie. Good for 14 year old boys though.

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory - Steven Seagal.  It was pretty much a retread of the first one, which was good, but unlike Bruce Willis' ability to take Die Hard to different territories, this was a failure.  Not bad to me, just not good, and with a sense of deja vu thrown in for good measure.

Good Steven Seagal movies: Under Siege, Above the Law, Hard to Kill.  Bad ones... just about everything else.  Though  will say that he seems to have become more in touch with nature, and has done a couple of ones that benefit causes.  They're just too preachy though, as most of those types are.

[wraith808]

For me it's not enough to have a train scene or have the train be just another locked room gimmick. It has to be an integral element to the story. Von Ryan's Express for example. Or  The Great Train Robbery. In those, the train introduced unique elements that much of the plot depended on. 

Not sure if the Hunted's scene will satisfy you in that regard, then.  True, it's not a locked room gimmick- it's a flowing scene in a Japanese Bullet Train.  You have to see it... it doesn't really lend itself to words.

[40hz]

For me it's not enough to have a train scene or have the train be just another locked room gimmick. It has to be an integral element to the story. Von Ryan's Express for example. Or  The Great Train Robbery. In those, the train introduced unique elements that much of the plot depended on. 

Not sure if the Hunted's scene will satisfy you in that regard, then.  True, it's not a locked room gimmick- it's a flowing scene in a Japanese Bullet Train.  You have to see it... it doesn't really lend itself to words.

Sounds good. just put it on my watch list. thx!

[40hz]

I also like "The Warriors" quite a bit - it's kind of a subway movie.  I remember watching it on "Joe Bob's Last Call", and he had an MTA map that he used when coming back from the commercial breaks to show exactly what the progress of the Warriors was:

The Warriors was definitely one of the more surreal but believable quasi-dystopian flicks ever made. A cult classic. And deservedly so. I loved the "droogy" Clockwork Orange look:

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[sword]

Best by date with my star ratings:

The 39 Steps 1935 (British thriller) Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll *

The Third Man 1949 (British film noir) Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard *****

Born Yesterday 1950 (comedy) Broderick Crawford, Judy Holliday ***

Rashomon 1950 (Japanese crime drama) Toshirō Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyō, Takashi Shimura ****

North by Northwest 1959 (American thriller) Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason ***

The Trap 1966 (frontier trapping drama) Rita Tushingham **

Bullitt 1968 (American dramatic thriller) Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset ***

Where Eagles Dare 1968 (World War II action-adventure spy film) Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure ***

The Eiger Sanction 1975 (American action thriller) Clint Eastwood ****

Witness 1985 (crime drama) Harrison Ford **

Bagdad Cafe 1987 (American comedy) Jack Palance ****

[40hz]

I very briefly mentioned this little gem of a movie from 2003 earlier. If you like caper films (I'm addicted to them) it's one of the better ones. It's called Foolproof.

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[dspelley]

Wonder Boys

Das Boot

October Sky

Stalag 17

North by Northwest

This is Spinal Tap

[Curt]

The first and original The Gods Must Be Crazy movie. Yes, it became a series of films, but the others didn't have quite the same unpretending innocence as the first one (edit: in fact, the series was not even funny but plain silly, compared to the original's humorous wisdom). Wonderful ♥

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Must_Be_Crazy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080801/



click thumbnail to enlarge:

[40hz]

@Curt - that first GMBC was absolutely brilliant. Superb choice!

[40hz]

QUESTION to topic readers:

I was thinking of kicking off a new discussion thread to let people know about unreleased movies that are worth waiting and looking out for. I was thinking of it being more of a heads up to each other about interesting films by indy producers that are either in progress or out on limited distribution as opposed to your usual major studio announcements about "coming attractions." These would be oddball films most people would otherwise miss unless they were regularly trawling the indy film news scene.

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[Curt]

Best by date with my star ratings:
The 39 Steps 1935 (British thriller) Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll *
Bullitt 1968 (American dramatic thriller) Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset ***
Bagdad Cafe 1987 (American comedy) Jack Palance ****

-spanning half a century, but I gladly second sword's choices.  
My girly friend demands that I add Casablanca, and I agree.

I don't know if this Norwegian one ever crossed the Atlantic, but it surely was a major hit around here:
Pinchcliffe Grand Prix. The movie was made in 3½ years by approx 5-6 people, but became cult and was shown in cinemas (mainly in Norway, Moscow and Tokyo) every day of the week for 28 years (1975-2003)! In 2005 a new, digitally restored DVD was released which featured soundtracks and subtitles in 5 languages including English - read the creator's homepage: http://www.caprino.no/start/en/default.asp. I was, no, I AM a big fan (see >evidence<) of the included Il Tempo Gigante, the fastest and most advanced car ever made (take that, Bugatti!).

Here is a shortened first part, but be warned:
This is from when we took whatever time it took, to tell a story...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUuQwPOfQ1M

[40hz]

Just added to my top list. Less than 10 minutes long and absolutely brilliant. It's called Paperman and it's by... Disney?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM6cLnscmO8

[wraith808]

Oh... I love that!  I saw it before some Disney movie I saw with the kids recently.  It's great!

[app103]

Just added to my top list. Less than 10 minutes long and absolutely brilliant. It's called Paperman and it's by... Disney?

If you liked that one, you'll probably like this one too.

[40hz]

Just added to my top list. Less than 10 minutes long and absolutely brilliant. It's called Paperman and it's by... Disney?

If you liked that one, you'll probably like this one too.

Downloading. Looks really good. Thx!

My sister saw Paperman with me and laughed. Said of course I liked the picture. "Who does it look like?" she asked:

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[tomos]

Dunno whether this is overkill,
but I've started another film/movie thread: Movies or films you've seen lately

The thread What are your favorite movies? is pretty active at the moment,
but I thought I'd add this one just for stuff you've seen lately (good or bad).

[Deozaan]

Just added to my top list. Less than 10 minutes long and absolutely brilliant. It's called Paperman and it's by... Disney?

If you liked that one, you'll probably like this one too.

That was really cute. But a part of me doesn't like it because the cynic in me says that would never actually happen in real life. It's too implausible. Too scripted. But it sure is a cute, romantic idea.

[app103]

That was really cute. But a part of me doesn't like it because the cynic in me says that would never actually happen in real life. It's too implausible. Too scripted. But it sure is a cute, romantic idea.

Well, neither would Paperman. 

[Deozaan]

That was really cute. But a part of me doesn't like it because the cynic in me says that would never actually happen in real life. It's too implausible. Too scripted. But it sure is a cute, romantic idea.

Well, neither would Paperman.  

True. But Paperman was short enough that it was over before my brain started having those thoughts. I believe that's called Fridge Logic.

Potential Paperman spoiler

And also, the magical flying paper airplanes required extra suspension of disbelief.

[40hz]

^Yes Deo, you little grouch you!   That's the "willing suspension of disbelief" that makes all fiction and drama possible. Without that, fiction becomes a lie. Which was a major philosophical issue when novels first started getting extremely popular during the Enlightenment era. The Church worried about what knowingly telling and listening to "falsehood" would do to people and their sense of judgement and morality.

Looking back at the last 400 or so years of history, I guess we have our answer to that question.  

In the mean time, shut off the computer. It's Springtime. Get yourself out there and fall in love.  

[Deozaan]

It's Springtime. Get yourself out there and fall in love. 

It ain't for lack of trying. 

...

[Curt]

It's Springtime. Get yourself out there and fall in love.

It ain't for lack of trying.

here it is snowing. "Does this parka suite my bottom?"