Orsons Picks

[jaime marzol]

jeff:
i'm not only into american films, i love italian, french, english, and german films. the french new wave, the german UFA period, the expresionist silent films, love and collect powell and pressburger

it's the mexican and indian and pakistani movies i don't care for. none of the festivals here show french, or english, or italian films, they are all banging the third world drum with mexican, paki, indian movies. they just are not my cup of tea.

i don't like modern films much, few and far between, but modern french, and italian movies hands down are more interesting than anything that comes out of hollywood. lately it seems to me the less money a filmmaker has to make his films, the more interesting the film becomes.

off the top of my head, in the last 11? years, the films i have added to my collection that were made after GOODFELLAS:

BOUND, ED WOOD, CAPE FEAR, LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, MONSTERS AND GODS, hbo's GOTTI, hbo's RAT PACK, and hbo's RKO281. the hbo stuff i added because i'm interested in the topic, not because they are great works, though the gotti thing is a bit better than the other 2.

[Peter Tonguette]

Coming into this a bit late, this would be my own top 15 favorite films. I've limited myself to own film per director and presented them alphabetically.

8 1/2 (Fellini)
Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
Chimes at Midnight
City Lights (Chaplin)
Greed (von Stroheim)
Love Streams (Cassavetes)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman)
A Man Escaped (Bresson)
Playtime (Tati)
Rashomon (Kurosawa)
The Rules of the Game (Renoir)
The Searchers (Ford)
Solaris (Tarkovsky)
Weekend (Godard)

Peter Tonguette

[jaime marzol]

glad to see some one else likes godard's WEEKEND, i like it a lot. good taste, CHIMES, MACABE, probably altman's best film, GREED.

john cassavetes movies make me feel like cutting my throat.

that one with pater falk, those people at the wedding reception singing, HUSBANDS AND WIVES i think it was? i was taping it for a friend and i swear i found myself being forced towards the kitchen for a knife to cut my throat. had to turn it off. many of my film friends think he's great, and collect his films. i can't sit through one.

saw MIKEY AND NICKY, which has cassavetes flavoring. the woman director was a cassavetes student. pretty cool how she could get a movie out of absolutely nothing, and keep the viewer's interest. i sat through it begining to end.. they had a hotel room with a window, an all night diner, a bus, and got an entire movie out of it.

[Michael]

Jeff,

Loved your list. The movie that stood out to me was Horror Of Dracula. I have always Loved the Hammer horror films (guilty pleasure), and HOD is my all-time favorite. As a 12 year old kid, I did my own 3 minute, 8mm film of Dracula! I recreated (or tried too) the exciting ending of the HOD-- Right down to the pulling down of the curtains. Of course, we were filiming in my basement, I had no table, and it was night time so my Dad went out (in the rain) and held a flood light to shine through the window. I also kept forgetting to take my glasses off, so theres a bit of a continuity problem (LOL). I even did a shot of Dracula's leg melting (courtesy of a balloon in a pant leg). Hilarious stuff. Haven't watched it in years.

OK, my favorites:

Citizen Kane (Orsen Welles, I believe?)
Wizard Of Oz
Aliens
A & C Meet Frankenstein
Touch Of Evil
Chimes At Midnight
Waiting for Guffman
Scrooged
A Christmas Story
S T Wrath of Khan
A Midwinters Tale
A Night To Remember
Horror Of Dracula
Ed Wood
Nightmare Before Christmas
M P Life Of Brian
M P Holy Grail
Nickolaus Nickleby (RSC)

And oh so many more......

Thanks! Michael

[Dave]

Jaime, Interesting that Cassavetes makes you "feel like cutting your throat." According to interviews, J.C. was opposed to his films being seen as entertainment. In fact he ordered his editor (when he wasn't actually manning the moviola) to push a scene to its uncomfortable conclusion. Kind of like Antonioni, except he also starred in the very cool, "The Killers" and "The Dirty Dozen". I'm not saying that all "uncomfortable" movies are worthy of a second look, but Art shouldn't always be palatable. To quote Orson, "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." Take a look at "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie", along with "The Long Good-bye"(my personal favourite Altman) and "Taxi Driver", it's probably the best of the 70's Noir flicks. I appreciate your thoughts on Cassevetes, seems a lot of people feel that way, just wanted to make sure I gave a differing opinion. I really think he's worth the effort.

[Rick Schmidlin]

I have to say I have a great deal of respect for Cassavetes I was his personal assistent on "Opening Night"

[Jaime N. Christley]

Playtime: Anybody who has this on their favorite films list is all right with me.

Films & Cutting Throats: I've only seen one John C. (besides the ones he's acted in - thou shalt not forget The Fury!!), and that was A Woman Under the Influence. I was very young, but I found it an enormously satisfying piece of work. Haven't made time for any others. Rosenbaum wrote an exc. piece on Cassavetes' films in one of his books (Movies as Politics or Placing Movies, I forget which one), and Adrian Martin wrote a highly acclaimed piece for Senses of Cinema last fall:

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/16/cassavetes_forms.html

That said, I don't believe a director should work to make his audiences uncomfortable just to make them uncomfortable. Like anything, there shd be a good reason. A great film is its own reward, of course, regardless of whether it's a tough sit or a thrill ride. But I think mindless abuse can be an act of bullshitting, just as mindless "feel-good"-ness can be. If I'm being pushed, you know? I want to feel that I'm being pushed into something, not just into despair.

[jaime marzol]

cassavete no doubt has a place on lists. people highly educated in film revere his work. i have no doubt about the greatness of his work. i think it's funny how his work affects me. i saw killing of a chinese bookie several times.
stopped myself from going in the kitchen to get a knife several times.

now that's hillarious that you tell me he was opposed to his films being viewed as entertainment. they are more like panic attacks. HUSBANDS, those drunks singing was grating on my nerves so bad. i wasn't even watching it. i was doing stuff around the house while i was taping it for a friend, and didn't really notice how uncomfortable it was making me, how it was pissing me off, and stressing me just under the surface. it didn't come to the surface till my wife walked in the room irritated and said, "i'm going to scream if you don't turn this off." ha! now i'm laughing. why the hell would cassavetes do this? bring people into a threater to slap them around.

now that i know this i might try to watch it again. but first i'll take all the knives in the house and ask some one to hold them for me.

i've seen shadows, faces, woman under the influence, minnie and moskowitz, husbands, killing of a chinese bookie; all knife to the throat stuff.

wanted to see opening night, missed it 3 times it was on.

i liked the long goodbye, didn't think technically, or the filmmaking craftsnanship was better than in macabe, but it is a more likable film. TAXI DRIVER, of course is in my top 10 of all time.

..................

[jaime marzol]

jaime c:

i love this comment, "mindless "feel-good"-ness".

feelgood films are repellent. when the tv says, "the feel-good movie of the year, i know i'm going to hate it.

one night wife was watching this gag-a-maggit movie, NATURAL MAGIC, or CASUAL MAGIC, or something like that. she was watching this before she started making diner, so when diner was rready, who am i to bring out KEY LARGO and pop in the vcr. so i had dinner while that movie played. at one point i said, "i swear to god, diane, if these people break into one more happy song and start dancing around their living room, i'm going to throw up." she understood. she said they were a bit too happy for her taste. but the world loved the movie and flocked to it. what does this tell me about the people i share the world with?

[Rick Schmidlin]

Bresson anybody now that is a director that will you a dim few of the world. As a screening of Mochette in L.A. I spotted Curtis Hanson white a as ghost. He was in shock and all he could say way brilliant. The audience all left in complete silence. That was the power of great cinema.

[jaime marzol]

great interview with bresson in sarris' INTERVIEWS WITH FILM DIRECTORS. never seen any of his films.

sarris' book also has a tememdous piece from von stroheim. instead of an intertview they printed a monologue he did in later life before a 16mm screening of one of his films.

when i hook up the anti-christ scanner again will post it, and a few more things from the huston book, PICTURE. the l.b. meyer meeting is priceless.

[Fredric]

Fred's current top 20 (no jokes please)

My Dinner With Andre
Barry Lyndon
Groundhog Day
Manhattan
Hopscotch
The Mosquito Coast
12 Monkeys
Once Upon a Time in the West
Local Hero
Waiting for Guffman
Shadow of a Doubt
Ronin
Prince of Darkness
F for Fake
Miller’s Crossing
Altered States
Sweet Smell of Success
Chinatown
The Apartment
Amelie

Ok . . . go ahead and joke.

[Jaime N. Christley]

Ok . . . go ahead and joke.

An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St. Peter checks his dossier and says, "Ah, you're an engineer -- you're in the wrong place."

So, the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in. Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements. After awhile, they've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy.

One day, God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"

Satan replies, "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."

God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake -- he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."

Satan says, "No way." I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him."

God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue."

Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?"

[Cole]

Ouch! That one hurt. Why are people always pickin' on us Grisby types?