top ten films off the top of your head

[Hammer of Los]

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Don't diss Excalibur! Nicol Williamson's performance was perfection itself!

I loved White Heat too;

Top of the world, ma, top of the world!

Star Wars yeah, cos the force is real and really is an awesome energy field. And I love Yoda.

The Magic Flute! My fave film! With David Carradine!

What about Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon? That was pretty cool.

Ok ok the listy thing;


Star Wars

Jason and the Argonauts

Excalibur

The Magic Flute

Back to the Future

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[Hammer of Los]

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In no particular order:

4. Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Yes, seriously! I love this movie . And it still has one of the best soundtracks ever.

Basil Poledouris was the composer I recall. I had the album. You are quite correct.

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[Hammer of Los]

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The Singing Ringing Tree was a tv series, not a film.

I loved that tv show.

As a small child, it was almost as baffling to me as H R PufnStuf.

Crazy stuff, man. Crazy.

But we are not doing tv shows.

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[Nordic]

Re-reading this thread, a couple of additions spring to mind:

Great B movies: how could I have left off "Evil Dead 2"?

Movies that made me want to make movies: how could I have left out early Coen Bros: "Blood Simple" (which could also go into the best b movies category) and "Raising Arizona". What a gleeful love of filmmaking those 2 films conveyed!

And as far as just great movies how could I have left out "Paper Moon"?

"The Last Picture Show" was pretty damn great, too.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

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Don't diss Excalibur! Nicol Williamson's performance was perfection itself!

Sorry Hammer, I meant no disrespect to the great Nicol Williamson. He made the film even more memorable than it already would've been just through the visuals and the story. He does frequently (deliberately, I think) make me laugh throughout it though. I mean, this bit:



Apart from the obvious joke with the lightning, his pronunciation of "cinders" is so incredibly epic as to be almost outwith the range of human understanding. I could listen to that one word on a loop all day long, and never stop laughing and being impressed at the same time. I'm pretty easily amused though.

Mac mentioned Naked - I can't put it down as a favourite because a lot of it is too painful to watch, yet it's also a very funny film at some points.

One of my guilty pleasure B-movies is an ancient Anthony Hopkins film called "When Eight Bells Toll." It's about the IRA and a corrupt Greek businessman (and a corrupt Scottish laird) who hijack ships transporting gold bullion, at which point the ships disappear off the face of the earth and are never seen again (it turns out they are sinking them to recover the gold later).

A terrifyingly-young Anthony Hopkins plays the marine Special Forces type who is called in to deal with the situation, and he is suave as hell. Yup, Anthony Hopkins, Dr. lecter himself, is the wise-cracking full-fisted old-school action star. Somehow it just works, even though he looks a little bit like Paul McCartney.

[MacCruiskeen]

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The Singing Ringing Tree was a tv series, not a film.

I loved that tv show.

As a small child, it was almost as baffling to me as H R PufnStuf.

Crazy stuff, man. Crazy.

But we are not doing tv shows.

...

Oh, it was a film all right, Hol: Das singende, klingende Bäumchen, made here in (East) Berlin at the DEFA Studios in 1957, with Christel Bodenstein as the haughty princess who eventually developed a heart of gold (I think she was my first love.) But, like you, I probably saw it first as a two-part, or maybe three-part, mini-serial in the great BBC children's series, Tales from Europe. An amazing thing, that: They presumed, rightly, that even small kids could cope easily with minimal voice-over narration in foreign-language films, as long as the story was compelling enough to tell itself, essentially. They even let you hear a fair bit of the original language, which always fascinated me. Some of the best films were Czech or Polish. And all this at the height of the Cold War!

Try telling that to young people nowadays...

Here's the whole film online.

[MacCruiskeen]

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Don't diss Excalibur! Nicol Williamson's performance was perfection itself!

Sorry Hammer, I meant no disrespect to the great Nicol Williamson. He made the film even more memorable than it already would've been just through the visuals and the story. He does frequently (deliberately, I think) make me laugh throughout it though. I mean, this bit:



Apart from the obvious joke with the lightning, his pronunciation of "cinders" is so incredibly epic as to be almost outwith the range of human understanding. I could listen to that one word on a loop all day long, and never stop laughing and being impressed at the same time. I'm pretty easily amused though.

Ahab, I have to say that is one of worst pieces of film acting I have ever seen, not least because it infects the young - and no doubt intimidated - actor at his side. How could Boorman let him get away with it? Shameful. It's all the worse for being so "ironical". I put that that in inverted commas, and I wish I could put the inverted commas themselves in inverted commas. (You can do it as often as you want and it doesn't make it any better, on the contrary.) I have never seen anything so arch, and god knows that's saying something. And arch is always shite.

It's a terrible shame, because Nicol Williamson was by all accounts a fantastic actor in his prime. Here he is in the film of John McGrath's great play, The Bofors Gun, when he was still young and unwealthy and reasonably sober and therefore still thought acting was something worth doing, i.e., that it was possible to embody truth - including irony - for a moment without simultaneously taking the piss out of it in order to show how clever and knowing and invulnerable you are:

Mac mentioned Naked - I can't put it down as a favourite because a lot of it is too painful to watch, yet it's also a very funny film at some points.

The paradoxical thing about performances that true and painful is that there is a weird joy in them, precisely because they are so true. And if they're true, how can they not be painful? But if they're true, how can you not take pleasure in the truth? (I know, I know...) - I was talking to a couple of young actors a few days ago, and I said, "You have to see it. There has never been an acting performance on film like David Thewlis's in Naked." Except maybe Charles Laughton's in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And Thewlis didn't have the advantage (but he also didn't have the handicap) of make-up two feet thick.

But yes, Mike Leigh has made funnier films. Nuts in May is a favourite of mine. But by god it's painful too. English* comedy in the last half-century, at its best, has been a comedy of increasingly intense embarrassment. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Basil Fawlty, Alan Partridge and David Brent spend most of their life in hell.

*I mean English. Scotland and Ireland are different, for some reason. But this belongs in another thread, if any.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Ahab, I have to say that is one of worst pieces of film acting I have ever seen

Well Mac I have to say that you are being very rude to our guest Nicol Williamson.

He has made a great effort to come here at his own expense to fill our empty lives with large (indeed, unprecedented) servings of ham and cheese.

Well, ok, I can see the problems with his performance, honest I can, yet I still find it enjoyable and ... effective given the kind of film that Excalibur is, and the kind of character that Merlin is within it. I have no technical knowledge of acting though, so I am no doubt wrong, but ... don't ruin it for me.

not least because it infects the young - and no doubt intimidated - actor at his side.

For some reason that scene always puts me in mind of a similar one from The Wicker Man, where an older mentor character (played by a well-known star with a ferocious tendency toward overracting) instructs a young man in the ways of the world (the young man being played by someone who barely can, or even needs to, act at all).



Look at the similarity of these two scenes - the vibrant green leaves and insects representing life in both it's vibrant spledour and it's creepy-crawly sliminess, the sounds of night and the forest and potential danger, nature and it's systems shown as something both intimidating and thrilling, with the taller mentor standing to the left and slightly behind his protege. Then note the difference in the tones the mentor uses as he effectively sends the young man forth into the "unknown".

Arthur must learn to face The Dragon (the Dragon of Britain, and his own inescapable destiny) whereas Ash Buchannan only has to face, well, having sex with Britt Ekland in her prime. One mentor takes his role seriously, while the other chuckles it up. And it's odd that the serious threat of The Dragon is played for laughs, while the momentary anxiousness of losing virginity to Britt Ekland is treated as a sombre and momentous occasion - a rite of passage.

I'm not saying Boorman was paying a sneaky, joky, (and very director-y) tribute to that scene from The Wicker Man or anything... though he might have been... but that the scene from The Wicker Man is an example of this kind of stuff being done right, and the scene friom Excalibur is an example of it being done very entertainingly "wrong". I like both about equally to be honest.

How could Boorman let him get away with it?

Have you seen some of the utter rubbish Richard Burton got away with in Exorcist 2? Boorman is a great director, no doubt about that, but curbing the excesses of his actors - both on and off set - was clearly not a strong point, or maybe just not his main priority. I quite like that he lets people make fools of themselves, in a way.

"...it would burn you to cihinnduurrsssss...."

Thanks for the scene from The Bofors Gun, I had not heard of it but I want to see it now. I'll be able to find it online, I bet. Thanks.

The paradoxical thing about performances that true and painful is that there is a weird joy in them, precisely because they are so true. And if they're true, how can they not be painful? But if they're true, how can you not take pleasure in the truth? (I know, I know...)

And if they're true and painful, and also pleasurable, how can they not automatically be funny also? The inherent contradiction is humorous in itself. Every good drama must necessarily be a comedy too (hence the "Two-Dogs Fucking" gag in the middle of Silkwood) and every good comedy must contain a serious threat - a threat to the viewer, to their cosiness or complacency or comfort - and this threat must be assimilated and adapted to by the viewer (in an instant) in order to enjoy the comedy and laugh, and thereby accept the truth of the joke and the reality of their own situation...
I think that's why I don't mind Nicol Williamson visibly having a laugh in a serious scene, even if it is arch and self-defensive. We already know the threat he is talking about is serious. It makes it pleasurable when he plays that threat for laughs. I reckon.

English* comedy in the last half-century, at its best, has been a comedy of increasingly intense embarrassment. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Basil Fawlty, Alan Partridge and David Brent spend most of their life in hell.

Yes. It's not just an English thing though. Situation Comedy is supposed to be this way - it is supposed to be about people who are trapped, confined in a situation or mindset that makes them unhappy, that they resent but cannot understand or change, who struggle every week or every episode to escape the circumstances of their capture and torment but are always, always forced back into the same old soul-destroying shit they started in, often by ridiculous and cruel happenstance.

Witness (and laugh along with) Father Ted's many, many failed attempts to escape Craggy Island, where he always ended up in the exact same place he started from. Steptoe and Son - the hilarious tales of a terrified old man who, fearing that he may be abandoned by his only offspring, essentially manipulates his own son into dying a virgin despite his perpetual expressions of frustration and resentment, and frequent attempts to escape. Also note the fact that no one could ever leave Royston Vasey again after accidentally wandering in. They were trapped! Only Fools and Horses - it only failed and turned crap after Rodney and Del became millionaires, because this gave them an escape route that they were never supposed to have, and alleviated their suffering. The laughs died instantly when their dreams were fulfilled. It was their disappointments we enjoyed.

Situation comedy was always supposed to be about people trapped in horrible places (mentally or physically - usually both) who never get out and whose hopes of progress are constantly frustrated. America ruined the whole genre by making it about essentially happy people or families who have a few humorous scrapes now and then.

Everybody Loves Raymond?

This ties in with what I said earlier in this egregriously long post: Every good drama must necessarily be a comedy too and every good comedy must contain a serious threat - a threat to the viewer, to their cosiness or complacency or comfort - and this threat must be assimilated and adapted to by the viewer (in an instant) in order to enjoy the comedy and laugh, and thereby accept the truth of the joke and the reality of their own situation...

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

I have always viewed Taxi Driver as a sitcom also, just a really funny movie, when he tries to explain his feelings to that other taxidriver wizard, pretty hilarious, and at the end nothing has changed and he is still in the same shit he started in LOL! The soundtrack is already perfect otherwise they could remake it with that seinfeld bassline at the start of each new scene. Poor Travis... there is no escape.

[justdrew]

off with the top of their heads...

http://www.freddyinspace.com/2008/08/top-10-film-decapitations.html

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

How a movie like 'The Room' ever got made would seem to somewaht of a rigorous intuition subject. Here's one take on it:

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I have always viewed Taxi Driver as a sitcom also, just a really funny movie, when he tries to explain his feelings to that other taxidriver wizard, pretty hilarious, and at the end nothing has changed and he is still in the same shit he started in LOL! The soundtrack is already perfect otherwise they could remake it with that seinfeld bassline at the start of each new scene. Poor Travis... there is no escape.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

Ha, you made that Ahab? How did you manage to find the perfect George monologue for it so fast? I liked it A LOT!

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Yeah, I just got lucky that George's dialogue fitted so well, especially the last bit. Started out making a compare and contrast of the diner scenes in Taxi Driver and Sienfeld, but it wasn't really going anywhere, and Costanza is clearly The Wiz rather than Travis when you compare the diner bits anyway. You see what I'm saying though? It's not that I find suffering funny or that I emptied the cinema by cackling all through Hotel Rwanda - it's just that good comedy is nearly always about people in pain. I put it in an overlong and wanky way, but it's true for the most part.

I still wonder why those joky, cheesy, sitcom scenes of Betsy and the co-worker guy with the big hair are in Taxi Driver... they don't really fit, the tone is way off from the rest of the film, but they're not there by accident. Were they just meant as character introduction for Betsy, or as a contrast to Travis' world? I don't know. They don't fit. Why does Hamlet have so many gags in it?

I heard Tommy Wiseau funded the making of The Room by importing dru... leather jackets into America, then he sold the dru... leather jackets for more than they'd be worth in his home country of CzechosloItaly, thereby raising the necessary $600,000,000 budget all by himself. That's his story and he's sticking to it.

It was a small price to pay for such a masterpiece:





He looks like somebody doing a terrible impression of Harvey Keitel in Taxi Driver, funnily enough.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

Sure I see waht you are saying and I agree with it although when you say that "good comedy is almost always about people in pain" I think the suffering part is responsible more for the "good" than for the "comedy", in other words a comedy that is about people in pain will get more critical acclaim, because it has more than just laughs, it brings more to the table so to speak. But I also firmly believe a movie can be simply very funny without being about people in pain. These are more the gagdriven movies like for example Naked Gun 1, 21/2 and 3.333, Weekend at Bernie's I and II, Night at the Roxbury. Dumb & Dumber, Ace Ventura Pet Detective I & II, The Cable Guy, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure I & II, Kentucky Fried Movie, Repossessed, Cheech and Chong Up in Smoke, Airplane and so on. In my opinion they are funny at least, although for every funny one there are 100 totally unfunny ones.

On a random note another movie I really enjoyed watching is "They Might be Giants" and I think that most people would enjoy that one as well if they havent seen it already. It's about a paranoid man in 70s New York who thinks he's Sherlock Holmes and sees the evil doings of Moriarty in every newspaper article. Ahab, you'll be pleased to know that the man is very much in pain and I dont recall the ending precisely but I dont think any of his problems got solved! I'm joking but it's really a very atmospheric movie and can be seen on youtube: