[ooheadsoo]

Another mention for Blade Runner.

[mjosef]

The Matrix I.

[Hogg]

Bergman's "Jungfrukällan" or "Virgin Spring"  A true masterpiece.


                                                         Jim

[Danberg]

"Kalifornia" gets my vote. 

Both the violence and getting a glimpse into the mind of a serial killer did not leave my mind for years.

[Whitese]

2001 A Space Odyssey
Chariots of Fire
The Fountain
Bergman's Seventh Seal

[Jon L]

Just watched "Ikiru" by Kurosawa.  Holy cr@@@ 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044741/

I do believe movies have become way, waaayy too slick for their own good.

[gongos]

Surviving the Game.

[arthurs]

American Beauty

[Russell Dawkins]

Asani Sanket (Distant Thunder) by Satyajit Ray.

http://www.satyajitray.org/films/ashani.htm

Maybe not absolutely the most thought provoking, but I mention this because it's very obscure and deserves to be known better.

It is the story of a man-made famine in Bengal during 1943-44 which killed 5 million people. The film covers the story as it affects one village, starting from pre-famine normalcy and spanning the whole process to devastation.

I was surprised not to have been aware of this famine at all prior to the film.

Not fun, but it was thought provoking

[dangerbird]

Hah,,, " Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"

[Turnandcough]

"Seconds" by John Frankenheimer is by far the single most disturbing/thought provoking film I've ever seen. The whole premise of being reborn, with all that it entails, James Wong Howe's excellent cinematography and the morbid ending really creeped me out. 

[Danny Kaey]

Matlock "The Judge"

[Night_Train]

"Kalifornia" gets my vote. 

Both the violence and getting a glimpse into the mind of a serial killer did not leave my mind for years.

Early Grace, he da' man!!! Those two depraved individuals in that movie played in a similar themed one named: "Too Young To Die." I always wondered if that movie was a precursor to "Kalifornia." Instead of the character Early Grace, he is called Billy Canton. He is just demented in this film too!

Another one like this is "The Salton Sea."

[Tyson]

Eyes Wide Shut.  I love it because of the sheer intelligence that Kubrick invests in every scene.  I love that at any given time there are at least 3 or 4 layers of meaning or references, and he does it all with an utterly banal plot and characters.  Kubrick felt that this was his best movie and (as a lifelong fan), I agree. 

OK, I know I'll be challenged on this, so here are a few things - look at how Kubrick is making a not so subtle comment on human nature when "Doctor Bill" is about to sleep with the prostitute Domino - he's interrupted by a call from his wife.  While he is in the middle of lying to his wife about his whereabouts and his actions, there is a book with the title "Introducing Sociology".  Kubrick is commenting in a very snarky way that the foundation of human interaction is prostitution and deception.  That's pretty cool. 

The cool thing about Kubrick is that he was attempting to break the hold that literature and language had on cinema, and this is just one example of that.  I think he was more successful in EWS than in any other movie. 

If you look at the structure of the movie, the symbolism and metaphors in it, the overall presentation, it could reasonably be interpreted as all taking place in "Doctor Bill's" head.  Notice that the location of every major scene is visited twice (Ziegler's, Domino's, the mansion, rainbow fashions, etc).  Notice that each scene is fragmented from the other scenes, that they have little or no transition from one location to another.  This is similar to how things happen in dreams.  So that's one layer.

Another layer is the continuation (and final expression) of Kubrick's long interest in the unreliable narrator.  Look at the movies that have some kind of narration - Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket.  Clearly CO's Alex the very essence of unreliable.  But in Barry Lyndon Kubrick seems to be playing it straight, with a more objective narration.  Or is he?  On closer examination it can be seen that the narrator is clearly older, commenting on something seen at a distance (not experienced or observed first hand), and is English, which would certainly give him a dim view of the Irish Redmond Barry.  With Full Metal Jacket the narrator is Joker, and again we seem to be on solid, objectively sound footing.  But Joker is a man of extreme self conflict and certainly a very skewed view of himself and with little insight into his own character (notice the fact that he beats Pile with the soap harder than anyone, but covers his ears to Pyle's cries immediately after).  Each film the narrator is just as unreliable as the previous film, but detecting it is more difficult because it is more subtle. 

This leads us to EWS, which has no voice narration at all.  But it's there, it's just baked directly into the structure of the story.  This is the reason that each scene is shot so disconnectedly from every other scene.  They each stand alone, and it is Bill (and us) who actually connect them together.  He is the one who sees/imposes meaning on these disparate events.  Is his interpretation of the events correct?  Probably not.  But because we have only seen what he has seen, we take his side, we come to similar conclusions.  And this is the ultimate masterstroke of Kubrick in this regard - an unreliable narrator at the heart of a movie without a voice over.  Brilliant.

And we've not even considered the camera work.  Small example - look at the pot-smoking fight scene between bill and alice.  Alice is picking a fight with bill and trying to logically out-argue him.  The camera work during this portion is rock steady, each cut is precise and the images are solid within the frame.  As the scene progresses, alice loses the argument (since she's trying to beat bill using the tools that are associated with the masculine, ie, reason and logic).  But notice that once bill says (as the smug capstone to his logically bulletproof argument), "No Alice, I'm sure of you", Alice starts to laugh hysterically.  Suddenly the perspective has been shifted and we are looking up at her from a shot on the floor.  And the frame shakes.  Now, shaky camera work is not of much consequence in most other movies.  But in a Kubrick movie it's a significant moment. 

And what a moment.  Having lost by using the masculine approach, Alice digs down and pulls out something much deeper and scarier, and Bill is powerless in the face of it.  I call it the monstrous feminine.  And here is where I find parallels to "The Shining" very strong.  For me, the Shining was very much about the monstrous masculine, ie, that dark part of the male soul that ends with an (attempted) ax murder of loved ones.  The monstrous masculine is about physical violence and destruction and is single track and linear (kill, kill, kill!!).  But in EWS, the monstrous feminine is about psychological destruction (and boy is that destruction brutal), but notice that even at the very moment when she she is metaphorically "cutting his balls off", she is also tender and loving toward him.  THAT's some crazy shite.  So, while the monstrous masculine is physical and simplistic, the monstrous feminine is psychological and complex.  I'd say that Kubrick had pretty accurate insight into both genders.

I could go on and on, but I'll try to curtail it here   The final thing I will say is that the more I watch the film, the more it progresses from a relatively straightforward experience to one that is truly mysterious.  Each time I watch it I'm less certain of the things I've seen.  Which is to say that it becomes more thought provoking with each viewing, and that is why I'd say it's the most thought provoking film I've seen.

[1000a]

memento

[PhilNYC]

Tyson...that's a pretty interesting perspective on EWS.  I've heard some of it before, and I've watched the film a couple of times, trying to keep an open mind to the variety of interpretations.  But ultimately, IMHO it failed, because it was TOO disjointed in its structure while at the same time being "too clever" with its attempts at symbolism.

For that kind of filmmaking, my favorite director is David Lynch.  "Lost Highway" was IMHO brilliant in all of the ways you've presented....

[Gaara]

I'll throw a few into the fray, I second Donnie Darko and Memento and add The Prestige and Pan's Labyrinth.  All of these movies i thought about for days after first viewing and still go over them in my head, few movies make me do this.

[EDS_]

It's a supportive documentary so maybe it does not fit the context of this thread. It's also sickening and sad.

"Triumph Des Willens" (Triumph of the Will), Leni Riefenstahl's film about the 1934 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg stirs emotion and thought. What if someone had sacked-up and put a slug in Hitler's head? How could a large group (the German citizenry) become flaccid enough as to allow a group of psychopaths and occultists (Hitler and maybe fifty others) to dominate and ruin their country. How could so many look the other way as "undesirables" were warehoused and killed?

Synapse Films distributes a version that while in German features defeatable English subtitles and defeatable running commentary by noted WWII/Nazi historian Anthony Santoro.

[Tyson]

Tyson...that's a pretty interesting perspective on EWS.  I've heard some of it before, and I've watched the film a couple of times, trying to keep an open mind to the variety of interpretations.  But ultimately, IMHO it failed, because it was TOO disjointed in its structure while at the same time being "too clever" with its attempts at symbolism.

For that kind of filmmaking, my favorite director is David Lynch.  "Lost Highway" was IMHO brilliant in all of the ways you've presented....

I like lynch because he does have a unique vision.  But sometimes I tire of his movies because they are (to me) much more obvious and labored attempts at the "look at how brilliant and deep I am" film.  I like and respect lynch, but I love kubrick, especially for his subtlety with regard to the surface plot.  I mean look at how he takes what are really "genre" type stories and turns them into something far more universal and deep, while staying more or less true to the conventions of each genre.  Look at the shining - a horror movie that is a metaphysical study of madness and uses the supernatural to focus the evil that lives inside man.  Or Barry Lyndon, a historical epic that is   undercut by a subtext of cynicism around man's ability to better himself.  I could go on but I think you get my point, that kubrick more than most, is about what you are "seeing" rather than what you are hearing or are being told.  He demands that we draw our own conclusions.  And he does it not by showing us things we've never seen before, but rather by showing us things that we "know", but in a subtly new and different way.

Of course lynch movies (and croenenburg) are very big on the WTF? moments.  And I love that about them.  Kubrick is more sparing with their use (ie, the star-child in 2001, the black mass/masked orgy in EWS), and thus doesn't jade us to their effect.

Sorry for rambling on here, it's hard not to when talking about this stuff....

[mcullinan]

Ill say it again, even though this is the first time, Barton Fink... what a freaking great movie, John Goodman and turturro put in some amazing acting, and off beat doesnt even begin to capture it.
Mike