Your Top 10 Most Influential Feature Films (fun/non-gear-related)

[Guest]

The World According to Garp (1982)
 

This was the first adult film I ever watched. I watched it on TV with my mum in the late 80's, when I was about 8 or 9 years old. It was an incredibly emotional experience (mainly because I was too young for the subject matter I think). I haven't seen it or read the book since, and I can't remember the story particularly. But I can remember exactly how it felt. The scene with the car accident/loss of a certain anatomical part boggled my tiny mind. I've looked for it on DVD a few times over the years, but you can't get it on Region 2 afaik.

 

Other John Irving adaptations have been decent IMO. I didn't particularly like The Cider House Rules, but The Door in the Floor was good and I liked Hotel New Hampshire a lot (particularly Natassja Kinski in a bear suit). 

 

Which reminds me, Natassja Kinski in Cat People was one of my great teenage crushes. What I remember most about that film is that she had an incredibly beautiful back ...

[Sean Cunningham]

...Which reminds me, Natassja Kinski in Cat People was one of my great teenage crushes. What I remember most about that film is that she had an incredibly beautiful back ...

 

A dear friend of mine's father wrote this film.  Nice photography, great '80s score by Giorgio Moroder.  And Natassja was definitely easy on the eyes.  

 

 

 and even some shots were from the POV of one of the killers...

 

 

Skiphunt, if you want to see this sort of thing taken to a fantastic extreme, check out the recent remake of Maniac.  Outside a few shots it's purely first person POV but done with beautiful photography, mostly nights.  This segues nicely with the above because it has a brilliant '80s throwback score by Rob that riffs off of one of the main themes from Giorgio Moroder's score for Cat People.  

 

If this were a "Top 11" list Maniac would be on there, and might slide one of the others out in retrospect for a Top 10.  It and Drive are what I think of as my ideal non-anamorphic "urban night" look.

[Guest]

Some were visually stunning, some not so much, but all of them were subordinate to telling the story I think.

 

...

 

2.Blade Runner

 

 

 

BR is no doubt a great film in many, many ways, but personally I always thought of the narrative as its weakest aspect. I don't mean the PKD story or the depth of the script. I just don't think you get enough from the characters to really care about what's happening to them - it's quite a 'cold' narrative IMO.

[skiphunt]

BR is no doubt a great film in many, many ways, but personally I always thought of the narrative as its weakest aspect. I don't mean the PKD story or the depth of the script. I just don't think you get enough from the characters to really care about what's happening to them - it's quite a 'cold' narrative IMO.

I believe there are 7 different versions of Bladerunner and I'm not sure which two I've seen. I do recall thinking I preferred the addition of Harrison Ford's VO in the first US theatrical release, but preferred the vague, non-happy ending of the Director's cut (I think) and the extra violence that was cut back in. 

 

@BR thanks for the Maniac tip. Looks like it's streaming on Netflix. 2012 with Elijah Wood correct? 

[Guest]

A dear friend of mine's father wrote this film.  Nice photography, great '80s score by Giorgio Moroder.  And Natassja was definitely easy on the eyes.  

 

I'd always assumed Schrader wrote the screenplay. Cat People is a good film - underrated (misunderstood?) IMO.

[JohnBarlow]

These are movies I find myself watching over again

 

The Red Shoes http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040725/

 

The Grandmaster http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462900/

 

L'uomo delle stelle/The Star Maker http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114808/

 

Malèna http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213847/

 

La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano/The Legend of 1900 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120731/

 

La migliore offerta/The Best Offer http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1924396/

 

Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain/Amelie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915/

 

La cité des enfants perdus/The City of Lost Children http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112682/

 

Micmacs à tire-larigot/Micmacs http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149361/

 

Un long dimanche de fiançailles/A Very Long Engagement http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344510/

 

 

 

Some are not yet available on Blu Ray, but when they are you bet I shall be watching over again :P

[Guest]

Well, I checked out "Only God Forgives" based not the fact I too like Ryan Gosling. It was certainly an interesting film and I can definitely see how the craft could definitely inspire. It was beautifully shot, and the acting was an interesting exercise in restraint. The whole film felt like that. It seemed to linger forever... to the point I almost thought it'd got stuck on freeze frame ;). Not sure how I felt about it overall though. Great poetic violence that's expertly executed. But also had to wake up and back up a few times to get through it. ;)

Have you seen Drive? A NWR film that's definitely not slow ...

[Sean Cunningham]

 

 

@BR thanks for the Maniac tip. Looks like it's streaming on Netflix. 2012 with Elijah Wood correct? 

 

That's correct.  It was produced by Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension) and the best film he's been involved with since coming to America, IMO.

 

 

 

I'd always assumed Schrader wrote the screenplay. Cat People is a good film - underrated (misunderstood?) IMO.

 

 

Yeah, Alan Ormsby (My Bodyguard, The Substitute, Popcorn) wrote the screenplay.  His son Ethan died of cancer a few years ago, tragically.  He and I hit it off pretty quick when he got his first job at DD and was assigned to my team on Strange Days.  We both loved a lot of the same '70s and '80s horror and working late at night he'd entertain us with stories of his childhood as a Hollywood kid, his dad putting him in Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and the like.  

 

He hadn't had the same life as a Corey Feldman or anything but his experience growing up and the jobs he had were definitely a different world from most kids, stuff like being Alan Funt's personal assistant for a while, working for Charles Band at Full Moon, etc.  

 

Every year we'd gather at Ethan's come Oscar season because his dad would just give him the stack of screeners the Academy would send every year.  I miss the guy.

[fuzzynormal]

I can remember exactly how it felt. The scene with the car accident/loss of a certain anatomical part boggled my tiny mind.

 

Same here.  Roberta Muldoon confused me.

[Aussie Ash]

The World According to Garp.

 I remember this as being a strange and wacky film but quite enjoyable all the same.

Garp's Grandfather would not allow the use of the word "Sperm" in their home !

 

Matt-I've looked for it on DVD a few times over the years, but you can't get it on Region 2 afaik.

 

Here in Ausi our  Blu-Ray player is a Sony BDP-S370 it plays DVDs from any region,I feel your pain as many DVDs

are only available as  region 1 USA/Canada.

[Guest]

I just found Garp on Amazon Instant! I'll be watching it very soon ...

[Axel]

It was probably about 10 years ago now when I met Brick Mason at a party (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0556624/)  I asked him what his  most influential films were (at the time).  One of them was "Fast Runner"  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285441/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

 

 

You can download The Fast Runner here for a 'pay what you want' donation: http://www.isuma.tv/fastrunnertrilogy

I'm gonna check it out :)

 

Thanks Maxotics and Julian. These insider tips are always the best. Same with music. Mainstream is often too predictable.

 

... and even some shots were from the POV of one of the killers while he shot with the victim's home video camera, then tossed it on the floor to join in the killing. The viewer continues to witness the killing from the sideways home video camera laying on the floor. GENIUS.

 

A propos POV. Don't miss Enter The Void. It's a film with very many flaws and I wouldn't call it influential (at least not for me, who a least twice a year opens his 'doors of perception' as a recreative vacation).

 

But that's imo what most interesting films have in common: They have something that makes them stand out for the individual, in this sense:

 

... but I can say in my case there would be specific shots or sequences from each that I would say are my touchstones for specific types of photography or shots, color and composition.  These would represent personal taste ...

 

Art is not so much about perfection than about bold exclusivity. The meanest and lowest mainstream movies can be more perfect (technically or in the closeness of narration and narrational form) than the masterpieces. Those tend to have some very strong aspects, but also flaws. Leonardo didn't know about materials, his Mona Lisa had the 500.000 crackles the moment the paint had dried (which took months though). Same with his Last Supper: The wall sucked the colors off, it weren't the farts of admirers over 500 years (source: Donald Sassoon, Mona Lisa). The numerous fakers know better than the master. Beethoven chose improper instruments for his symphonies (Bernstein said, none of his students would have gotten away with such an orchestration). Shakespeare had so many logic flaws in his (predominantly adapted) plays that a modern script doctor would despair.

[Guest]

Fairly regularly I see posts on here (and have on similar sites too) asking whether there's a forum that focuses more on the creative side of filmmaking rather than tech/gear. Because I've wondered about something similar myself for a while now I've decided to have a crack at setting one up. Nothing ambitious - just a bare-bones forum that is weighted toward the creative in a very open-ended way.

 

Obviously for a forum to work it needs a reasonable number of enthusiastic members to begin with, so of course it's possible this won't even get off the ground. I think it's worth giving it a good try though as I think there is a gap online in this area, and it could be very useful to a lot of people.

 

Let me know your thoughts please. I want to start a few threads on the forum before I direct people toward it. Does anyone have any suggestions for topics you might find useful/interesting? Threads similar to this one perhaps, or threads focused more on creative issues within your own work. Like I say, the idea is that the forum's agenda is very open ended. Thanks.  :)

 

P.S. If anyone is very keen on the idea and would like to talk about being involved with setting up the forum, let me know (perhaps send me a personal message). The more it's a collaborative thing the better IMO.

 

EDIT: I ran this past Andrew and he's fine with this being discussed here. It seemed polite to ask ...

[Clay Stevens]

Lack of great movies recently, I will try some in the collections. To myself

The Silence of the Lambs

Gravity

Fifty First Dates

Leo

Triangle

2012

Forrest Gump

The Butterfly Effect

Clash of the Titans

Life of Pi

[TrueIndigo]

Very interesting idea, Matt, about a creative site rather than a gear-centric site - there are quite a few of the latter but I haven't found one of the former that I've ever bookmarked. A possible idea I have concerns two distinct areas of creative origination:

That which inspires
Such as suggested films that have appeared on this thread. Perhaps a list of films could be created with various peoples explanations added about why (from the point of view of story construction, cinematography, characterisation, dramatic situations, etc) people find them inspiring. Could also include painting, music, TV, still photography (other media that inspires), though that might be straying too far.  

Initial exploitation of ideas
There are quite a few "how to write screenplays" sites, with advice about 3 or 9 Act structure, plot points, how many pages a treatment should be, etc, but I think one of the under-reported issues are how you handle the initial ideas before writing really starts. For example, formulating a powerful "what if statement" (to help you focus the key concept which will hook interest). What makes a story alluring; what sort of themes or subjects appeal to you? Discussions about style, ways of seeing and personal ways of showing.

[Guest]

@TrueIndigo: Glad you posted this, I'd been thinking of something similar myself - one category for discussing issues related to your own filmmaking, one for discussing 'existing work'. It makes sense ...

[Oliver Daniel]

Honestly, one of the best films I've ever seen is a 1985 film called Ninja Terminator. 

 

Its that good, the cameraman sometimes zooms in and misses the actor, or frames a speaking actor almost out of shot. I love it and it influences me greatly. 

[Sean Cunningham]

Honestly, one of the best films I've ever seen is a 1985 film called Ninja Terminator. 

 

 

I just watched the trailer.  It actually looks like good fun.  There's an interesting aesthetic in a lot of martial arts films in this period.   Back in '83 to about '86 or so I was obsessed with ninja.  I loved the Golan/Globus/Canon productions with Sho Kosugi and that silly TV show with Lee Van Cleef (The Master).  

 

A beautiful anamorphic film from the '80s that has been an influence, I suppose, is The Ninja Wars, aka Death of a Ninja.  It's finally available in a halfway decent form as part of the Sonny Chiba collection as well as streaming on Amazon Prime.  You'll see a lot of motifs that John Carpenter would borrow for Big Trouble in Little China, particularly the "devil monks" featured. (TRAILER HERE)

 

It has a dreamy, storybook atmosphere that I think about and have thought about since I was a kid.  I normally like realism in setting and production value but this film and Ronny Yu's The Bride With White Hair have got to be my favorite use of theatrical lighting, sets and production value in a fantasy film. (TRAILER HERE)  

 

They're both very stylish while having fantastic stories and characters as well.

[dahlfors]

I just watched the trailer.  It actually looks like good fun.  There's an interesting aesthetic in a lot of martial arts films in this period.   Back in '83 to about '86 or so I was obsessed with ninja.  I loved the Golan/Globus/Canon productions with Sho Kosugi and that silly TV show with Lee Van Cleef (The Master).  

 

 

Hehe. Those Golan-Globus / Cannon films have a special place in my memories. I too loved the various Ninja films they output.

 

I've actually rewatched a few of them in later years. And while the martial arts scenes aren't always that good (American Ninja / American Warrior comes to mind), the films still have that 80s charm that makes me smile.

 

And when talking about 80's films... I'm personally not a big fan of most action films. But, there's something about Predator that just makes me love that film. I like how they are building up that fear of the unknown out there in a big part of the film. And I'll never stop smiling to the classical quote "If it bleeds, we can kill it".

[Sean Cunningham]

Predator will always be a favorite.  It's been many years since I saw it but I'm pretty sure it was anamorphic, like a lot of the bigger budget '80s action films were.

 

When I was 17 my family went to Puerto Vallarta for Christmas (1988) and, at the time, you could make the trek up one of the mountain passes to a place called El Eden which was the location used during the raid on the rebels camp in the first act.  They turned it into a tourist destination and restaurant, complete with a burned out Huey chopper left by production near the entrance for picture taking.  I have no idea if it's still there but this was one of the highlights of that trip for me.  

 

What was crazy was you're going along this incredibly rough and tumble road, with sheer cliffs and no barriers, through the jungle.  All along there are these LOL-inducing paintings of Schwarzenegger to let you know you're on the right road which felt seriously 4x4 only territory.  Then you get up to the top of the mountain and you see a full-size Coca-Cola or Corona truck making a delivery and you can't help but think, "no way!" and thank your lucky stars you didn't meet it coming back down while on your way up.