Comments on: Great Movies You Probably Never Heard Of

By: john Power

john Power — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:29:58 +0000

Antonio Gaudi by Hiroshi Teshigahara (He created the very weird movie Woman of the Dunes) with soundtrack by Toru Takemitsu. It’s an almost silent film of shots of Gaudi interiors and exteriors, with wonderful soundtrack by Takemitsu.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:20:22 +0000

“Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control.” The “his brain works differently than everyone else’s” filmmaker Erroll Morris creates one documentary out of four: he interviews an MIT robot building, a lion tamer, the world’s greatest topiary gardener, and a naked mole rat specialist, blends it together with stock footage, and comes up with a beautiful, profound meditation on the acceptance of death and other aspects of life you cannot control, the interconnectedness of all disciplines, and the search for immortality. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

By: Glenn Freeman

Glenn Freeman — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:21:16 +0000

I maintain a list of my favorite films below.

http://favorite-films.blogspot.com

… many are very well-known, others not. Leolo (Jerry’s 1st) is on my list.

By: Sparky P.

Sparky P. — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:08:42 +0000

Two short flims (check IMDB.com for these titles): 1. De Duva (1968): a send-up of Ingmar Bergman movies, with “Wild Strawberries” predominating, the dialog is in mock Swedish (all worrds ending in “-vska”) and a side note of the main charactar being challenged by Death (from the “Seventh Seal”) to game of badminton, who loses when a passing dove craps on him. Look for a young Madeline Kahn as the butch sister of the main guy. and 2. Norman Nurdlepick’s Suspension (1972), a send-up of Alfred Hitchcock. We’ll fing a way to get these babies (and other like that) into DVD format.

By: K. D.

K. D. — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 02:07:07 +0000

Huutajat (Screaming Men) — a documentary about the Finnish Screaming Men’s Choir. This intrepid ensemble screams every work they perform. In addition, they travel internationally, interpreting different national anthems and offending the French.

By: Mell Csicsila

Mell Csicsila — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:43:44 +0000

My obscure film that most people haven’t seen has finally been released on DVD after years of my family waiting. “The Loved One.” The movie with something to offend everyone. It’s based on the novella by Evelyn Waugh poking fun at Forest Lawn and the American film industry.

Rod Steiger, Anjanette Comer, Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters playing two brothers, Liberace as a casket salesman, Paul Williams, John Gielgud. Cameos include Milton Berle, Tab Hunter, James Coburn, Roddy McDowell.

“They say dear Francis Hinsley, they say that you were hung. With red protruding eyeballs and black protruding tongue.”

By: Graham Rieper

Graham Rieper — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:33:10 +0000

“Repentance: …it encompasses the whole breadth of human emotions such as joy, whimsy, sorrow, and regret.”

Not to mention incredulity in the presence of ham-fisted allegory.

By: zeno

zeno — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:49:32 +0000

thanks Tom and Jacob … how many recall that Tengiz Abuladze’s 1984 “Repentance” uses music by Sofia Gubaidulina (and Arvo Paert?) to help convey “the whole breadth of human emotions such as joy, whimsy, sorrow, and regret?”

And there is also Rolan Bykov’s Chuchelo (The Scarecrow), from 1983, the year before Repentance. I believe that this was Ms Gubaidulina’s most personally-favored film score (of many).
Some of that score turns up in her ‘Stimmen… Verstummen’, Symphony in 12 movements.

And while many of us admire the film work of Satyajit
Ray, how many recall vividly his sublime ‘Jalsaghar’ (The Music Room)?

[ ... and Andrei Wajda's 'A Generation' and 'Kanal', as well as 'Ashes and Diamonds'. And Krzysztof Zanussi's The Structure of Crystals and Camouflage, and Magdalena Piekorz's recent, Pregi ...]

By: Jacob Sudol

Jacob Sudol — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:00:47 +0000

zeno says “Do I detect an anti-Russian (Soviet) or Eastern European film bias here?”

Let me try to rectify that some (Eastern European and Soviet films are some of my favorites). Admittedly many of these films are classics of sort, but if you don’t know Eastern European and Soviet films you should definitely check them out….

Amator (aka Camera Buff): Directed by Krzystof Kieslowski. Early fictional Kieslowski film about a man sacrificing his family as he plummets head first into a sudden mild success in documentary film-making.

Arsenal: Aleksandr Dovzhenko. A brilliant silent Ukranian film depicting the start of a Civil War in Ukraine after WWI.

Ashes and Diamonds: Andrei Wajda. Another film depicting the immediate aftermath of war, this time a more personal look at Poland right after WWII.

Repentance: Tengiz Abuladze. A Georgian semi-fictional semi-true story about how a family is effected by the rule of a town’s dictator; it encompasses the whole breadth of human emotions such as joy, whimsy, sorrow, and regret.

and something completely Russian for good measure…

Stalker: Andrei Tarkovsky. One of the lesser known and most surreal and esthetically conceived works in Tarkovsky’s small oeuvre.

By: Rodney Lister

Rodney Lister — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:13:04 +0000

I don’t think I’ve ever run across anybody who knew Beauties of the Night by Rene Clair (except for Robert Helps–it was his favorite movie). It’s about a composer who, while waiting to hear whether of not his opera is going to be accepted by the Opera Comique, day-dreams himself into the Belle Epoch, where he’s a successful opera composer, the early days of the Foreign Legion in Algeria, and early nineteenth century France, unfortunately just as the revolution is starting. The scene where, as the successful composer, the first performance of his latest opera turns into a complete (dadaist) disaster is one of the best representations of a composer nightmare I’ve ever seen. It’s a very funny take off of structure of Intolerance, and it’s really just wonderful. Since he gets the girl and his opera is accepted, it also has a happy ending.

I’ve often thought it would be interesting to have a film festival featuring movies about fictional composers (as opposed to composer bios–which have their own kind of charm). The list would include Beauties of the Night, Dead Again, The Shout, and The Red Shoes (which is just as much a composer movie as it is a dancer movie). Any others?