This thread has basically become "Movies that I like" not a thread about great movies which aren't hollywood produced blockbusters.
This is a list of my top 10 favourite movies I wrote out a year or two ago. I would probably make a couple of amendments to it, but I would have to put a lot of thought into doing it so I'll just post it as is, because they're all amazing movies. I don't really consider them all that obscure in the sense that they are all pretty much critically acclaimed, but the average joe who isn't really into cinema most likely won't have heard of most of them.
1: The Seventh Continent (Haneke) 2: The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck) 3: Persona (Bergman) 4: Stalker (Tarkovsky) 5: Yojimbo (Kurosawa) 6: 8 1/2 (Fellini) 7: Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone) 8: M (Lang) 9: Spirit of the Beehive (Erice) 10: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini)
The ones that I think are probably more appealing to a general audience would be:
The Lives of Others: I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I don't really consider it all that hidden since it won the oscar for best foreign language film just a few years ago. It's just a fucking brilliant film, set in east Germany during the Soviet occupation focusing on a stasi agent investigating an author for suspected anti nationalism.
Yojimbo: Kurosawa's epic story about a wandering nameless ronin who arrives in a town ruled by 2 warring clans and goes about setting them against each other to help the townspeople. Later remade by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars, part of the Dollars series that helped launch Clint Eastwood into stardom. Also remade as a prohibition era gangster movie with Bruce Willis called "Last Man Standing". All around awesome, timeless action movie.
Once Upon a Time in the West: I've never been a big western fan but this movie is amazing. I prefer it to the Dollars Trilogy with Eastwood, personally. Starring Charles Bronson as the nameless gunfighter "Harmonica" (because he plays a harmonica throughout the movie) doing what he does best: kicking a whole lot of ass. If you don't like Charles Bronson, you're probably not into seeing movies about dudes who just kick ass non-stop. Great acting, story, a sprawling epic with a lot of awesome action as well.
M: A black and white film by one of the masters of the era, Fritz Lang. About a serial killer terrorizing the children of a German village and the townspeople's effort to exercise vigilante justice. Awesome film, even if you don't like black and white movies you will probably enjoy this. One of the best serial-killer themed movies of all-time and one of the first as well.
The others are slower, "artsier", thoughtful type movies.
The Seventh Continent is my all-time favourite. Be warned, it is incredibly slow. Very little happens throughout the movie, there is almost no dialogue, and even the main characters' faces are hardly even seen for the first 20 minutes or so. This is, however, the point of the movie. It explores the mundane, repetitive, and seemingly pointless existence of the average middle-class family, based loosely on a true story. I just think to be able to make such an impact with a movie without any real dialogue or clearly defined plot-line is genius. The director, Michael Haneke, was nominated for the foreign language film oscar this year, which I believed he deserved to win for his movie "The White Ribbon", another amazing movie.
Spirit of the Beehive is a masterpiece by Victor Erice who is clearly a HEAVY stylistic influence on Guillermo Del Toro, whose films also tend to center around Franco-ruled Spain.
8 1/2 is one of the first recursive films, meaning it is a film about its own creation. Specifically the film is about a director trying to meet a deadline for his new film and his struggles with the creative process under time constraints. The main character is supposed to be Fellini himself, and the title is a reference to the fact that this was his 8th (and a half) movie. (6 movies, 2 shorts and a collaboration with another director, the last 3 being 1/2 a movie each.)
Salo is possibly the most brutal movie ever made. Based on the most graphically disturbing writings of the Marquis De Sade, presented as a critique of the increasingly consumerist society Pasolini found himself immersed in and disgusted with. I've seen more visually violent movies, but they are never presented in such a completely cold, detached point of view. In most cases you are allowed to empathize with the victims, which makes the viewing less disturbing. In this movie everything is presented in such a cold, automaton type of way that no empathy for the victims is every really allowed to be established.
Persona and Stalker are both very slow movies centering almost entirely around dialogue, exploring the nature of human desires and insecurities. Do we really want what we think we want, or would our deepest desires manifesting themselves in reality actually be an unimaginably horrific experience?
Now stop posting shit like braveheart and children of men. lol.
Thai Movie, although its bilingual with parts of it in Japanese. The main characters are a depressive librarian who`s convinced that death will be a pleasant nap and a Thai stoner girl. Very pleasant and different movie.
Japanese Movie. It's about a school-class being trapped on an island. Their objective is to kill each other until there's only one kid left. If after three days a winner is not declared, the explosive collars attached to each student's neck will be detonated. The movie isn't as ridiculous as my description might suggest, the movie is surprisingly character-driven. Watch this.
My three favorite movies from Wes Anderson, a grossly underrated director. All his movies are very character-driven and ridiculous in a good way. I also really like his regular cast of actors he uses. Just watch all his stuff.
The movie is set in an afterlife world reserved for people who have committed suicide. Although its title contains "A Love Story", the romance part of the movie isn't weighted to heavily.
9 Rota The action takes place in 1988 and 1989, several months before the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Seven of the recruits, after several months of hellish training "uchebke" under the command of ruthless sergeant, fall into the crucible of the Afghan campaign.
very good russian movie about war in afghanistan, im sure u can find english version, many real facts in the movie.
Thai Movie, although its bilingual with parts of it in Japanese. The main characters are a depressive librarian who`s convinced that death will be a pleasant nap and a Thai stoner girl. Very pleasant and different movie.
Japanese Movie. It's about a school-class being trapped on an island. Their objective is to kill each other until there's only one kid left. If after three days a winner is not declared, the explosive collars attached to each student's neck will be detonated. The movie isn't as ridiculous as my description might suggest, the movie is surprisingly character-driven. Watch this.
My three favorite movies from Wes Anderson, a grossly underrated director. All his movies are very character-driven and ridiculous in a good way. I also really like his regular cast of actors he uses. Just watch all his stuff.
The movie is set in an afterlife world reserved for people who have committed suicide. Although its title contains "A Love Story", the romance part of the movie isn't weighted to heavily.
darjeeling limited is fantastic! and i want to watch battle royale so bad, but the dvd is rather hard to get. since you're from germany, too: any tips where i can get this and other great movie gems?
contributing:
Edit: beware, if you dont know who miike is, or what kind of movies he makes, better check first. (gory and disturbing violence)
LOL.. gotta love how most of the ppl here completely misunderstood what OP was looking for. Most of the movies recommended are neither hidden nor gems. And some trog even mentioned an Adam Sandler movie.. wtf.
darjeeling limited is fantastic! and i want to watch battle royale so bad, but the dvd is rather hard to get. since you're from germany, too: any tips where i can get this and other great movie gems?
A psychological semi-thriller about a mans solitary work on the moon and his struggle with life, sanity and identity. Sam Rockwell should have gotten a nomination for his role in this film.
I just watched this last night. It's definitely one of the most interesting movies I've seen in a while.
The American Astronaut This is one of the most bizarre, unusual films I've ever seen. What's brilliant about it is how it explores how incredibly different and seemingly nonsensical a culture based in space removed from Earth might be.
The Orphanage The scariest movie I've ever seen, period. This is probably due to the fact you actually care about the characters.
The Seventh Seal This is pretty classic, not sure it's really a hidden gem, but I'm sure a lot of people haven't seen it. The theme is death, and there's a chess game.
Love Film To go really hidden now, we watched this in my Central European film course. Amazing storytelling structure, and I loved the characters. I'm not actually sure where you can find it to watch it though. :/
I have to +1: Children of Men - one of the top 3 films of the last decade IMO
Paprika - so visually inventive. Takes advantage of it's topic (dreams) to show such a wild array of images.
seconded. I initially thought this movie was going to be boring as shit judging from the premise but it's actually a really great film. It was also a nice change considering it the first german film I ever watched, and I was completely ignorant of the GDR secret police and what was going on in East Berlin at the time so it was a great eye-opener. Definitely 9/10
On June 07 2010 16:10 Aether wrote: This thread has basically become "Movies that I like" not a thread about great movies which aren't hollywood produced blockbusters.
This is a list of my top 10 favourite movies I wrote out a year or two ago. I would probably make a couple of amendments to it, but I would have to put a lot of thought into doing it so I'll just post it as is, because they're all amazing movies. I don't really consider them all that obscure in the sense that they are all pretty much critically acclaimed, but the average joe who isn't really into cinema most likely won't have heard of most of them.
1: The Seventh Continent (Haneke) 2: The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck) 3: Persona (Bergman) 4: Stalker (Tarkovsky) 5: Yojimbo (Kurosawa) 6: 8 1/2 (Fellini) 7: Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone) 8: M (Lang) 9: Spirit of the Beehive (Erice) 10: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini)
The ones that I think are probably more appealing to a general audience would be:
The Lives of Others: I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I don't really consider it all that hidden since it won the oscar for best foreign language film just a few years ago. It's just a fucking brilliant film, set in east Germany during the Soviet occupation focusing on a stasi agent investigating an author for suspected anti nationalism.
Yojimbo: Kurosawa's epic story about a wandering nameless ronin who arrives in a town ruled by 2 warring clans and goes about setting them against each other to help the townspeople. Later remade by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars, part of the Dollars series that helped launch Clint Eastwood into stardom. Also remade as a prohibition era gangster movie with Bruce Willis called "Last Man Standing". All around awesome, timeless action movie.
Once Upon a Time in the West: I've never been a big western fan but this movie is amazing. I prefer it to the Dollars Trilogy with Eastwood, personally. Starring Charles Bronson as the nameless gunfighter "Harmonica" (because he plays a harmonica throughout the movie) doing what he does best: kicking a whole lot of ass. If you don't like Charles Bronson, you're probably not into seeing movies about dudes who just kick ass non-stop. Great acting, story, a sprawling epic with a lot of awesome action as well.
M: A black and white film by one of the masters of the era, Fritz Lang. About a serial killer terrorizing the children of a German village and the townspeople's effort to exercise vigilante justice. Awesome film, even if you don't like black and white movies you will probably enjoy this. One of the best serial-killer themed movies of all-time and one of the first as well.
The others are slower, "artsier", thoughtful type movies.
The Seventh Continent is my all-time favourite. Be warned, it is incredibly slow. Very little happens throughout the movie, there is almost no dialogue, and even the main characters' faces are hardly even seen for the first 20 minutes or so. This is, however, the point of the movie. It explores the mundane, repetitive, and seemingly pointless existence of the average middle-class family, based loosely on a true story. I just think to be able to make such an impact with a movie without any real dialogue or clearly defined plot-line is genius. The director, Michael Haneke, was nominated for the foreign language film oscar this year, which I believed he deserved to win for his movie "The White Ribbon", another amazing movie.
Spirit of the Beehive is a masterpiece by Victor Erice who is clearly a HEAVY stylistic influence on Guillermo Del Toro, whose films also tend to center around Franco-ruled Spain.
8 1/2 is one of the first recursive films, meaning it is a film about its own creation. Specifically the film is about a director trying to meet a deadline for his new film and his struggles with the creative process under time constraints. The main character is supposed to be Fellini himself, and the title is a reference to the fact that this was his 8th (and a half) movie. (6 movies, 2 shorts and a collaboration with another director, the last 3 being 1/2 a movie each.)
Salo is possibly the most brutal movie ever made. Based on the most graphically disturbing writings of the Marquis De Sade, presented as a critique of the increasingly consumerist society Pasolini found himself immersed in and disgusted with. I've seen more visually violent movies, but they are never presented in such a completely cold, detached point of view. In most cases you are allowed to empathize with the victims, which makes the viewing less disturbing. In this movie everything is presented in such a cold, automaton type of way that no empathy for the victims is every really allowed to be established.
Persona and Stalker are both very slow movies centering almost entirely around dialogue, exploring the nature of human desires and insecurities. Do we really want what we think we want, or would our deepest desires manifesting themselves in reality actually be an unimaginably horrific experience?
Now stop posting shit like braveheart and children of men. lol.
pretty much the only post worth reading/movies worth watching in this thread. great post.
adams apples and the green butcher, staring the bad guy out of the latest james bond movies are excellent EXCELLENT movies, im an english speaking guy, you there is a "stage6" variation that hosts em with fantastic english subs, dont be discouraged just because you have to read what they are saying...
oh gosh, i forgot to mention they are both danish movies, there is a danish comedy group that does quite a few movies, similar to the english "comedy strip" team, but with black comedy (not african origin, but dark comedy)
On June 07 2010 16:10 Aether wrote: This thread has basically become "Movies that I like" not a thread about great movies which aren't hollywood produced blockbusters.
This is a list of my top 10 favourite movies I wrote out a year or two ago. I would probably make a couple of amendments to it, but I would have to put a lot of thought into doing it so I'll just post it as is, because they're all amazing movies. I don't really consider them all that obscure in the sense that they are all pretty much critically acclaimed, but the average joe who isn't really into cinema most likely won't have heard of most of them.
1: The Seventh Continent (Haneke) 2: The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck) 3: Persona (Bergman) 4: Stalker (Tarkovsky) 5: Yojimbo (Kurosawa) 6: 8 1/2 (Fellini) 7: Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone) 8: M (Lang) 9: Spirit of the Beehive (Erice) 10: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini)
The ones that I think are probably more appealing to a general audience would be:
The Lives of Others: I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I don't really consider it all that hidden since it won the oscar for best foreign language film just a few years ago. It's just a fucking brilliant film, set in east Germany during the Soviet occupation focusing on a stasi agent investigating an author for suspected anti nationalism.
Yojimbo: Kurosawa's epic story about a wandering nameless ronin who arrives in a town ruled by 2 warring clans and goes about setting them against each other to help the townspeople. Later remade by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars, part of the Dollars series that helped launch Clint Eastwood into stardom. Also remade as a prohibition era gangster movie with Bruce Willis called "Last Man Standing". All around awesome, timeless action movie.
Once Upon a Time in the West: I've never been a big western fan but this movie is amazing. I prefer it to the Dollars Trilogy with Eastwood, personally. Starring Charles Bronson as the nameless gunfighter "Harmonica" (because he plays a harmonica throughout the movie) doing what he does best: kicking a whole lot of ass. If you don't like Charles Bronson, you're probably not into seeing movies about dudes who just kick ass non-stop. Great acting, story, a sprawling epic with a lot of awesome action as well.
M: A black and white film by one of the masters of the era, Fritz Lang. About a serial killer terrorizing the children of a German village and the townspeople's effort to exercise vigilante justice. Awesome film, even if you don't like black and white movies you will probably enjoy this. One of the best serial-killer themed movies of all-time and one of the first as well.
The others are slower, "artsier", thoughtful type movies.
The Seventh Continent is my all-time favourite. Be warned, it is incredibly slow. Very little happens throughout the movie, there is almost no dialogue, and even the main characters' faces are hardly even seen for the first 20 minutes or so. This is, however, the point of the movie. It explores the mundane, repetitive, and seemingly pointless existence of the average middle-class family, based loosely on a true story. I just think to be able to make such an impact with a movie without any real dialogue or clearly defined plot-line is genius. The director, Michael Haneke, was nominated for the foreign language film oscar this year, which I believed he deserved to win for his movie "The White Ribbon", another amazing movie.
Spirit of the Beehive is a masterpiece by Victor Erice who is clearly a HEAVY stylistic influence on Guillermo Del Toro, whose films also tend to center around Franco-ruled Spain.
8 1/2 is one of the first recursive films, meaning it is a film about its own creation. Specifically the film is about a director trying to meet a deadline for his new film and his struggles with the creative process under time constraints. The main character is supposed to be Fellini himself, and the title is a reference to the fact that this was his 8th (and a half) movie. (6 movies, 2 shorts and a collaboration with another director, the last 3 being 1/2 a movie each.)
Salo is possibly the most brutal movie ever made. Based on the most graphically disturbing writings of the Marquis De Sade, presented as a critique of the increasingly consumerist society Pasolini found himself immersed in and disgusted with. I've seen more visually violent movies, but they are never presented in such a completely cold, detached point of view. In most cases you are allowed to empathize with the victims, which makes the viewing less disturbing. In this movie everything is presented in such a cold, automaton type of way that no empathy for the victims is every really allowed to be established.
Persona and Stalker are both very slow movies centering almost entirely around dialogue, exploring the nature of human desires and insecurities. Do we really want what we think we want, or would our deepest desires manifesting themselves in reality actually be an unimaginably horrific experience?
Now stop posting shit like braveheart and children of men. lol.
pretty much the only post worth reading/movies worth watching in this thread. great post.
Not everybody likes Asian movies. Ive seen half of those up there including the 7th continent and it sucked ass. Although I have seen quite a few other movies posted here recently and I liked them a lot, you should disregard every other post in this thread so easily.
Although, M was a really fucking good movie I got to give you that.
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