Discuss movies that have influenced you or are favorites of yours. What movies do you plan to, or already, show your children to help them become intelligent and well-rounded adults?
Before the movie industry fixes itself, what are some movies that should be re-released in every theater across America? I think that free screenings of certain movies could help a country grow or prosper. For example if a country or even a community is struggling with hard work/dedication and they all watched Fitzcarraldo, Whiplash or Rocky, perhaps the ~10% of people who weren’t destined to fail, but weren’t succeeding yet could enter a different frame of mind. Or for a population with high rates of suicide to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Not fleshed out examples, but you get the picture, can be replicated for many types of issues on many different scales. One way to go about this is to show the films in schools across a country.
I know this isn’t a profound philosophy post, but I enjoy movies and I want to see if sofiechan users have as good of taste in movies as they do in ideas. My response will be a comment below.
One movie that has had a great impact on me is Sorcerer 1977, directed by William Friedkin. The synopsis is four men from around the world risk their lives driving unstable nitroglycerin 200 miles through South American Jungle. It is a great thriller movie with a stunning soundtrack, that after watching I have since dropped out of college to work at a startup and have traveled to a handful of countries. I didn’t do all of these things because of a movie, but it did help me think long and hard about my priorities and the risks I want to take in my life. One movie I hope to show my future children is Stalker (1979).
>>1683 I'm a big fan of Miyazaki and I find everything else way too cynical and unwholesome in comparison. I like some of the classic Arnold movies like terminator 2 and conan. The Lord of the Rings was watered down relative to the books, which annoyed me somewhat but they are still great movies. At least theoden's last ride was done almost right. I cry every time. I was deeply influenced by fight club as a teenager, becoming somewhat obsessed with the idea of a clandestine revolutionary brotherhood. I did like a wonderful life quite a lot, too. I'm not really a film guy though.
It's frustrating how many good movies have not been done. I think the iliad played utterly straight as homer wrote it including the poetic visual similies and Diomedes and Achilles going supersaiyan with flames of chi power coming off their shoulders would be incredible. It would either fail as a weird art film or start a violent revolution, which is why they won't do it. Another one they won't do that would be glorious is Bernal Diaz's Conquest of New Spain, without watering down his descriptions of eg the Aztec priests.
I often give The Omega Man, the 1971 Charlton Heston film, as my favorite. I watched it at a young age and it left an impression—Heston locked up in his handsome apartment in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, occasionally going to his balcony to fire a .30 caliber machine gun into the mutant anti-technology cult that wants to torture him to death, eventually hooking up with a black chick that leads a multiracial revolutionary cadre in the suburbs. At this point, it's mostly comforting, since I know all its beats.
For the same reason, I have watched Moneyball at least a dozen times.
Forced to give a favorite to someone that knows films, I would, if trying to start a conversation, say Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon, or Millennium Mambo, or maybe a Jia Zhangke film chosen at random (probably Platform, maybe A Touch of Sin), or, if hoping to stump them, Mera Naam Joker (maybe another Raj Kapoor: the nationalist-environmentalist epic Ram Teri Ganga Maili), Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, or Lee Jang-ho's Declaration of Fools, or any of the angry Zhou Xiaowen films from the 1980s, or any of the immediate postwar Nguyen Hong Sen films, and if I wanted to feel them out, I might express my sincere love for Louis Malle's Pretty Baby.
The last movie I saw that blew me away was Pale Flower (1964), which was partly down to Kaga Mariko in her prime. Over the past year or so, I have mostly kept in the 1950s for entertainment: I saw for the first time Paths of Glory (Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick First World War movie) and 12 Angry Men (bourgeois humanist fantasy about the competency of the legal system), and The Burmese Harp (the most enjoyable of dreary anti-war films from postwar Japan) and Some Like it Hot (Prohibition-era-set comedy with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn in her prime )...
I like movies. I discovered them late, mostly by staying up to catch the Drambuie Showcase Revue. I was disappointed at first by anything that wasn't European and sexy, but I started to sit through other sorts of movies. I discovered Wong Kar-wai that way, and David Lynch, Denys Arcand, and Cronenberg. When I went to university, I stumbled eventually into the repertory cinema nearby.
It's good to have children to show movies to. What first became a tactic to discourage my son staring at a screen—putting on headier, stranger, or more complex films—has backfired: he laughs through silent comedy features, sits patiently through samurai films and nature documentaries, and enjoys turgidly paced 1940s family movies. He hasn't gotten into Miyazaki, but likes golden age Disney. I don't interfere too much now.
I'd like to go to public screenings.
Local propaganda bureau or municipal government outdoor screenings on summer nights is how I saw some of my favorite Chinese films.
China in the decade or two after 1989 is probably a good model for running cinema: you keep your state studios funded, set strict rules for political guidance, cart school kids off to see the best examples, shut out of theaters most foreign films, and the independent pictures are allowed to be made, since nobody, except art world weirdos and French film festival attendees, is going to see them. Like everywhere else, though, the film industry has been reduced by the rise of digital technology.
>>1686 > I often give The Omega Man, the 1971 Charlton Heston film, as my favorite.
The Omega Man was an adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954). There were two others: The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price, and I Am Legend (2007) with Will Smith. Any opinion of these others?
Huh, I hadn’t realized it, but when I look back at the art that’s made me grow as a person, the stuff that wasn’t just enjoyable but which influenced how I think and who I am… there’s a lot of novels, a few songs, some video games, and a couple of plays, but I don’t think there are any movies on my list.
I do think there’s a lot of value to seeing art from many different times and places. As a kid I saw lots of movies from my parents’ and grandparents’ time, and that helped with realizing that the way we do things now is just one way of doing things, in some ways better and in some ways worse than the society that made The Sound of Music or whatever we were watching. But this is more of a sociological method, not the specific pointers for moral instruction that OP is asking about.
With The Last Man on Earth, I can't get past Vincent Price. I Am Legend gives over too much time to fighting zombies, and it looks dated in a way that I don't find attractive.
I can't quite put into words what sets The Omega Man apart from them. It looks better. The confused reactionary paranoia is more potent than whatever is supposed to energize the other two movies. A cult of extremists is scarier than zombies or vampires. Charlton Heston's Neville gets a more satisfying heroic arc, as well, going from somewhat purposeless to self-sacrificing.
>>1685 Miyazaki is the greatest. His movies are so calm and pure. My favorites are Castle in the Sky because it just has so much adventure and curiosity, as well as Howl's Moving Castle. I saw Ponyo when it came out in theaters, but have no recollection of it. There are definitely a lot of movies that would cause uprising's if done well. Dune 2 had some amazing aesthetics, it is so funny to me how hard they try to make Paul out to be the bad guy when he was powerful and godly.
>>1686 I have not seen a lot of these movies, will check them and Omega Man out. Have heard good things about Wong Kar-wai. It's funny you mention enjoying 12 Angry Men, because I watched Friedkin's remake of that after loving Sorcerer so much and thought it was cool to watch the whole story unfold in one room. (Sorcerer also a remake of a movie/book called Wages of Fear, which I started but have yet to finish) I like the Chinese model of film screenings you mention, I would be very curious to see it play out today. I don't think Mark Hamill wishing people a happy "May the 4th" next to Joe Biden won any voters over.
>>1691 >I saw lots of movies from my parents’ and grandparents’ time, and that helped with realizing that the way we do things now is just one way of doing things, in some ways better and in some ways worse...
I like this point, and some movies that I think portray a very different, and perhaps more happy way of living are Jacques Tati's movies. He makes beautiful movies about poking fun at modern styles(Mon Oncle), how heavy use of technology doesn't necessarily make life easier(Playtime), and how to enjoy the craziness of each day even(Trafic). I recommend Playtime for people who haven't seen any of his movies, they are all so playful, full of color and life.
When I get a chance to watch any of the movies in this thread, I'll try to remember to reply with my thoughts.
So many good movies. Its a little corny but I love Braveheart: 'They may take our lives, but they'll never take our Freeedooom!' Awesome speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TME0xubdHQc.
I also got really emotional over the Schindler's List. Such a beautiful, tragic film, to remind us, never again. And of course, LOTR trilogy was amazing with important themes like nobility, duty, courage being presented in an earnest manner.
