Famous films you HAVE watched...

[pacman]

(Road Runner @ Jun. 08 2010,06:08) Being There  -  the US political system laid bare!

Thank you for reminding me of this Peter Sellers classic. How Chance the Gardener became Chauncy Gardiner, the next President of the United States.

An absolutley brilliant send-up of the entire political process. It has everything from naked ambition to wholesale misunderstanding to media manipulation & the whole time Sellers plays the naive idiot who fools them all.

I must catch it again. Recommended.

And to RR's excellent list I will add The Birdcage, the marvellous romp starring Robin Williams & Nathan Lane. One of the only American versions made of a French classic that was better than the original.

For a touch of the flavour, here's a clip -

[f0xxee]

(kahuna @ Jun. 08 2010,11:14)

(f0xxee @ Jun. 08 2010,06:14) There is only one film and one book.

Catch 22.

"Don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"
"Pain?" Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife pounced upon the word victoriously. "Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us of bodily dangers."
"And who created the dangers?" Yossarian demanded ... "Why couldn't He have used a doorbell instead to notify us?"

Thank you Kahuna... I enjoyed that.

FYI Milo Minderbinder is alive and well and exists in every industry as the Procurement and Logistics Manager.

Yeah Catch 22 was always going to be a hard book to make into a movie... But the casting was excellent and it got the story across mostly and stuck to the script mostly....

Which is much more than I can say for "Up in the Air" staring one G. Clooney, which shared so little with the book. Totally disappointing.

[iceberg]

Any Quentin Tarantino movie, The Godfather the Epic 1902-1959(only available on VHS but still the best movie version of all time) Forest Gump,Scarface, 3000 miles to Graceland, City of God, Shottas, Any Austin Powers movie, Any Matt Helm movie(Dean Martin is so cool), The old 3 Musketeers movies from the 70's, all Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry, Spaghetti western, and Philo Beddo movies, any Will Farrel movies(he is funny as hell)and so many more that i can't think of right now but are great.

[Lefty]

No matter how much a movie endeavors to closely follow the book they're based on, often they do not succeed even when the movie is a box office success.

As great a movie as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was, the book was much better. Ken's other book made into a movie, Sometimes a Great Notion, while it seems to have a cult following that love it, didn't come close to matching the book.

I guess one of the reasons is a movie has to condense things to fit into their time constraints. So things that fans of book found pertinent often get left out of the movie.

I thought the 2nd version of The Quiet American followed the premise of the book pretty well, but not everything could be fit into it.

[Bumpa STIKKA]

Frenzy
Strangers on a train
Rear window
Sneakers

I like a lot of movies but the list above I can watch multiple times.

[seanbeag7]

Thank you everyone for your selections, some excellent movies there.

Now i have to go through my dvd collection, and then put up the BIG list of everything i love.

[Jake_Sully]

Here's another classic that our french/ pom members might enjoy.. I forgot this one:

The Day of the Jackal. The remake "the Jackal" is not even worth pissing on.

[JaiDee]

(Jake_Sully @ Jun. 08 2010,20:00) The Day of the Jackal. The remake "the Jackal" is not even worth pissing on.

I didn't think the remake with Bruce Willis was horrible, but for sure the original was better.

 RE; books becoming movies....agreed the book is usually better, but one exception to this rule was The Beach by Alex Garland and later in a movie with that skinny runt Leonardo.  The book was worthless tripe, the movie wasn't half-bad and featured some hottie french chick and excellent Koh Phi Phi scenery.

[pacman]

I have just watched a movie based on a real incident in Iran that was written about by a visiting French-Iran journalist & published in 1994.

The movie is The Stoning of Soraya M & it is profound in its impact. It is also the most horrific thing I have ever watched in a cinema. Far more powerful than any horror story because it is true.

This film goes way beyond political correctness. Its timing is interesting.

If you ever felt sympathy for the Iranians, watch it.

If you ever thought there was something noble about Islam, watch it.

If you ever thought that Muslims are unfairly portrayed as brutal savages in their dealings with women, watch it.

I could go on but suffice to say, this film left me raging against the stupidity of ignorant fools who have been blinded by their devotion to an extreme religion.

There is no suspense in the conclusion. The film's title tells us what is going to happen. What I wasn't prepared for, what I never dreamt to see, was the graphic nature of the stoning itself.

It is long & explicit. It is brutal & unjust. Soraya's father is given the first stones to throw. Then her sons are made to throw stones. And she isn't within close throwing range. She takes an age to die. And we see every male in the village step up to take their revenge on the poor woman. And the other women are cheering while they do.

I suggest all movie fans check this one out. Quentin Tarentino fans might enjoy some real violence. But there is no sense of justice to this killing.

This film may not be that famous yet but it will be. They will be talking about this movie for many years to come. Quite frankly, at this time of resentment against extremists & terrorists in the Middle East, I am amazed this even got released.

Few movies you will see in your lifetime will effect you like this one.

[JaiDee]

wow, great review, I'd like to see that now for sure.

The hole behind the woman and the white dress leave no doubt as to how brutal this film must be.

*Never to be shown in any Muslim countries, THAT's for sure!

[guydesavoy]

or 'affect' even. Yes, it is Ignorance not Islam which is the greatest evil...

Sad indeed Paccie... I have met many liberal Iranians..they are a beautiful people

[pacman]

The men who set the poor woman up knew that this was dynamite & when the French-Iranian journalist was seen talking to Soraya's aunt, they knew they had to stop him.

Watch how it all unfolds, you know the ending but the film is so well made. 6 hours after leaving the cinema, I can't stop thinking about it.

And yes, it is banned in the Middle East. I am surprised it wasn't banned here on the pretext of inciting racial hatred.

[pacman]

(guydesavoy @ Jun. 08 2010,22:44) Sad indeed Paccie... I have met many liberal Iranians..they are a beautiful people  

I have met a few Iranians myself, the last one being a taxi driver I met & I was thinking about him when I was writing the review.

While he had a great sense of humour, I remember that old saying "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing".

There are men of good intentions in the movie too but they are all subject to Sharia Law & they didn't try to stop the actions of the mob once the decision was made.

Tarring all Iranians with the same brush is hardly fair but denying what happened to Soraya wouldn't be fair either. Apparently stonings are common in Iran. I am sure the good immigrants from Iran don't wish to discuss it.

[seanbeag7]

Just watched new sherlock Holmes film, excellent

I am still doing up the list of what films i love, but here are a few for now

Babbel
born free
pulp fiction
all Indiana jones films
Italian job (both versions)
any Micheal Cane film


And here are a few that might make some people

Sound of Music
westworld
Jurasic park
tipping the velvet

i am still thinking about other films...........

[JaiDee]

(seanbeag7 @ Jun. 09 2010,21:55) Sound of Music

Jurasic park

1] Liked it {yes, I am }

2] Thought it was decent, nothing to write home about or be a hater about.