If you liked Babel...

reddmadder · « **on:** 25 Jan 2007, 03:31 pm »

Check out Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Amores perros" on dvd...intense drama...better than Babel IMHO.
Also recommend "City of God" by Fernando Meirelles...

gitarretyp · « **Reply #1 on:** 25 Jan 2007, 04:25 pm »

I haven't seen Amores Perros --it's in my netflix queue --but i'd strongly second the recommendation of City of God. Fantastic film but somewhat depressing.

fajimr · « **Reply #2 on:** 25 Jan 2007, 04:37 pm »

I thought I read somewhere that Babel, Amores Perros, and 21 grams were somehow all related (besides being directed by the same person).. anyone else see that too? Are they part of a (loosely connected) trilogy?

I've seen the others and finally saw Babel the other night... and loved it!!!

jim

reddmadder · « **Reply #3 on:** 25 Jan 2007, 05:03 pm »

Hi,
This is just a guess, but maybe Alejandro might think of them as a trilogy for the following reasons.
1.On a stylistic level all 3 films interweaves tory lines that intersect at some point.
2.All the characters are caught in a situation that reflects the socio-economic-political climate of a third world country...except 21 grams.But you could agrue that the Benicio Del Torro character is Mexician and as such, his economic situation is a reflection of his country.Just a guess..all 3 films work alone as far as I'm concerned and far surpass a majority of the Hollywood films made today.

Cacophonix · « **Reply #4 on:** 25 Jan 2007, 07:14 pm »

I've seen both, and strongly recommend "city of god". I liked amores perros, but it came across as disconnected somewhat.
But "city of god" is plain awesome! Depressing - yes , but still its a must watch movie!

fajimr · « **Reply #5 on:** 25 Jan 2007, 08:33 pm »

reddmadder

For me they transcend third world countries and actually make me think about culture (which also includes the socio-political climate you spoke of) and humanity: what defines culture and how we interact with those from differing cultures (and most of this comes from Babel... I really want to go back and watch the others again, especially 21 grams as that is the most opaque in my mind). Even for the Japanese girl- her culture and experience of the world was much different from other Japanese around her. It was quite a powerful movie ...

yes, MUCH better than anything I've seen out of Hollywood

jim

robert1325 · « **Reply #6 on:** 25 Jan 2007, 08:55 pm »

City of god

arthur · « **Reply #7 on:** 25 Jan 2007, 09:56 pm »

a friend of mine asked me to compile a list of my favorite movies for a project of his, so i figured i'll just post it here if any of you are interested. sorry it's a long list but i did all this work - might as well have it available for everyone.

this is a list of movies that i think are jems and i can watch over and over again!

AMELIE     Jean-Pierre Junet '01
APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX     Francis F Coppola '01/'79
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH     Spike Jonze 1999
BIG LEBOWSKI, THE     Joel Coen '98
BIRDCAGE, THE Mike Nichols '96
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America... Sacha Baron Cohen '06
BRAZIL: DIRECTOR'S CUT     Terry Gilliam '85
BULLWORTH     Warren Beatty '98
CANADIAN BACON     Michael Moore '95
CASTLE IN THE SKY     Hayao Miyazaki '86
CITY OF GOD     Katia Lund '02
CITY OF LOST CHILDREN     Marc Caro & Jean P Jeunet '95
CLOCKWORK ORANGE     Stanley Kubrick 1971
COMING TO AMERICA     John Landis 1988
CONSTANT GARDNER, THE     Fernando Meirelles 2005
CRIME OF PADRE AMARO, THE     Carlos Carrera 2002
CRONOS     Guillermo del Toro 1993
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON Ang Lee 2000
DAVID CROSS: LET AMERICA LAUGH     Lance Bags 2003
DAVID CROSS: THE PRIDE IS BACK     Troy Miller 1999
DAY AFTER TOMORROW, THE     Roland Emmerich 2004
DEACONS FOR DEFENSE     Bill Duke 2003
DEEP COVER     Bill Duke 1992
DELICATESSEN     Marc Caro & Jean P Jeunet '91
DIRTY PRETTY THINGS     Stephan Frears 2002
DOG DAY AFTERNOON     Sidney Lumet 1975
DR. STRANGELOVE     Stanley Kubrick 1964
EDDIE IZZARD: CIRCLE     Anastacia Pappas 2002
EDDIE IZZARD: DRESS TO KILL     Lawrence Jordan '99
ENTER THE DRAGON     Rober Clouse 1973
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind Michael Gondry 2004
EXPERIENT, THE     Oliver Hirshbiegel 2001
FIERCE CREATURES Fred Schepisi 1997
FIGHT CLUB     David Fincher 1999
FREEWAY     Matthew Bright 1996
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE     Dean Parisot 2005
HARSH TIMES     David Ayer '06
HERO     Yimou Zhang 2002
HOTEL RWANDA     Terry George 2004
HOUSE OF FOOLS     Andrei Konchalovsky 2002
HUSTLE AND THE FLOW     Craig Brewer 2005
I HEART HUCKEBEES     David O. Russel 2004
IN-LAWS, THE     Arthur Hiller 1979
KIKUJIRO     Takeshi (Beat) Kitano 1999
LAND AND FREEDOM     Ken Loach 1995
Last King of Scotland, The     Kevin Macdonald
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL     Roberto Benigni 1997
LIFE OF BRIAN     Terry Jones 1979
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE     Jonathan Dayton 2006
LORD OF WAR Andrew Niccol 2005
Malèna     Giuseppe Torantore 2000
MATRIX, THE (trilogy)     Andy & Larry Wachowsky '99, '03
MEANING OF LIFE, THE   T erry Gilliam & Terry Jones 1983
Menq enq, mer sarere     Henrik Malyan 1970
MIDNIGHT EXPRESS     Alan Parker 1978
MONSTER     Patty Jenkings 2003
Natural Born Killers: Director's cut     Oliver Stone 1994
Nausicaä     Hayao Miyazaki 1984
NOBODY'S BABY     David Seltzer 2001
O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU     Joel Coen 2000
OBLONGS, THE     Angus Oblong & Jace Richdale 2001
OFFICE SPACE     Mike Judge 1999
One Flew Over The Coocoo's Nest     Milos Forman 1975
PAN'S LABYRINTH Guillermo del Toro 2006
PAPILLION     Franklin J. Schaffner 1973
Pi     Darren Aronofsky 1998
PINK FLOYD THE WALL     Alan Parker 1982
PLATOON     Oliver Stone 1986
PLEASANTVILLE     Gary Ross 1998
PRINCESS MONONOKE Hayao Miyazaki 1999
RABBIT-PROOF FENCE     Phillip Noyce 2002
RED BEARD Akira Kurosawa 1965
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM     Darren Aronofsky 2000
RHAPSODY IN AUGUST Akira Kurosawa 1991
RICHARD PRYOR HERE AND NOW     Richard Pryor 1983
Richard Pryor Live on Sunset Strip     Joe Layton 1982
RICHARD PRYOR: LIVE AND SMOKIN     Michael Blum 1985
SCARFACE     Brian De Palma 1983
SEVEN SAMURAI, THE     Akira Kurosawa 1954
SPIRITED AWAY     Hayao Miyazaki 2001
STALINGRAD     Joseph Vilsmaier 1993
THREE FUGITIVES     Francis Veber 1989
THREE KINGS     David O. Russel 1999
TRUMAN SHOW, THE Peter Weir 1998
WAG THE DOG     Barry Levinson 1998
WAGES OF FEAR, THE Henri-Georges Clouzot 1953

this is most of them

robert1325 · « **Reply #8 on:** 25 Jan 2007, 10:15 pm »

Very nice list!

Don't like The day after tommorow

arthur · « **Reply #9 on:** 25 Jan 2007, 10:25 pm »

thank you

yeah after Katriana the ending of The Day After Tomorrow definitely needs to be completely re-done, but i do appreciate how they tried to stick with some of the most likely scientific theories of the direction in which we are heading unless there are drastic changes made... and the special effects were nice, but yes it did have many flaws... but either way i think it's a 'must see' for the science and special effects.

robert1325 · « **Reply #10 on:** 26 Jan 2007, 03:28 pm »

Yeah, I've only seen it once , that was before I knew the fact that climate change is going to be a very big problem in 30-50 years... maybe I should watch it again and feel guilty of supporting climate change by buying all the audio stuff

* I use a trends ta-10 t-amp so that's pretty low energy usage

The idea was good, but I didn't like the acting and the script , pretty weak

My fav. movie is Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, have you seen Sideways and Lost in translation?

gitarretyp · « **Reply #11 on:** 26 Jan 2007, 04:04 pm »

That's a very good list arthur. It's hard for me to put together a list of favorite films --so many good ones to choose. So, i tend to list favorite directors; ones whose style is great and even their worst work is still better than average. In that vein, i'd list in no particular order:

Andrei Tarkovsky, Akira Kurosawa, Darren Aronofsky, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Pierre Junet, Jean Cocteau, Takeshi Kitano, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze, Martin Scorsese, Takeshi Miike, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Yimou Zhang, Orson Welles, Errol Morris, Coen brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam, Vincenzo Natali, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, Sam Mendes, Sofia Coppola, David Fincher, Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, Luis Buñuel, Chan-wook Park, Roman Polanski (though, he's made a couple of stinkers), Bennett Miller showed a lot of potential with Capote, and Tom Stoppard even though he's more of a writer. Those are all i can think of right now.

robert1325 · « **Reply #12 on:** 26 Jan 2007, 04:13 pm »

WOW, that's a very nice list of directors

Kurosawa , Aronofsky, Kitano, Jonze, T.Anderson, Scorsese, Coen bro's, Kubrick, Gilliam,Tarantino,Nolan are very good.

I love Punch drunk love, but find magnolia a bit to much sometimes ( very well made tough ) would you recommend me to see that Boogie thing film?

Fear and loathing is a great laugh / trip, and batman begins surprised me!

gitarretyp · « **Reply #13 on:** 26 Jan 2007, 04:15 pm »

I added a couple more that came to me...And i forgot one of my absolute favorites: David Lynch.

I'd recommend Boogie Nights, if you have an open mind and don't mind lots of overt sexual content.

robert1325 · « **Reply #14 on:** 26 Jan 2007, 04:46 pm »

AAAAH sofia coppola! Lost in translation and the Virgin suicides are very good movies, I Like the way she gets everything so real .

Ok, I'll watch boogie nights... Don't really mind sexual content, I saw a docu called "this film is not yet rated" It's about the MPAA board system who rate movies , they don't mind violence to much, but Sex is something very filthy according to them

gitarretyp · « **Reply #15 on:** 26 Jan 2007, 05:18 pm »

Quote from: robert1325 on 26 Jan 2007, 04:46 pm

AAAAH sofia coppola! Lost in translation and the Virgin suicides are very good movies, I Like the way she gets everything so real .

Ok, I'll watch boogie nights... Don't really mind sexual content, I saw a docu called "this film is not yet rated" It's about the MPAA board system who rate movies , they don't mind violence to much, but Sex is something very filthy according to them

Yeah, especially female pleasure. I enjoyed This Film is Not Yet Rated. I didn't think it was too great a film, but the premise and points made were good.

reddmadder · « **Reply #16 on:** 27 Jan 2007, 12:14 pm »

Hi,
I didn't care much for The Virgin Suicides.One reason was that the voice over seemed like a last minute tag on and I couldn't easily figure out who it was supposed to be. I should see it again to clarify.
Now Lost in Translation is a really good film,you could easily find some neat metaphors throughout and have an intelligent conversation about that film. The only mistake ,I think,was the cliche ending.But other than that a really good film.

robert1325 · « **Reply #17 on:** 27 Jan 2007, 12:24 pm »

I loved the ending actually , it wasn't to overdone ... Don't know what he whispered in her ear, that made it so " heartwrecking"

reddmadder · « **Reply #18 on:** 27 Jan 2007, 01:35 pm »

Hi,
I forgot about the whisper...I assume it was something affectionate.
My thought is that the film is really unique in it's subject matter and treatment thereof.
So when it came time for Murray's character to leave Japan, I felt she pulled out the old car/bus/train ride farewell I've seen since the invention of cinema.I admit a small criticism...just my 2 cents.

Daygloworange · « **Reply #19 on:** 26 Feb 2007, 09:47 pm »

Just watched Babel last night at a friends place. I didn't like it much at all. I thought it sucked, actually. I found that they were trying to copy the "6 degrees of separation" pattern that the 2004 movie "Crash" did.

I wouldn't recommend Babel to anyone.

Cheers