Movies that will always be in your DVD collection

[PT Caffey]

The "repeat viewing" (RV's) rule-of-thumb is a good one. Which films, if unexpectantly encountered in the middle of the night, would one feel compelled to watch?

A few of my own RV's:

1. The Third Man - Reed
("...and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.")

2. 2001: a Space Odyssey - Kubrick
("I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.")

3. Citizen Kane - Welles
("She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second...but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl.")

4. Dr. Strangelove - Kubrick
("Women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake... but I do deny them my essence."

5. The General - Keaton

6. Wings of Desire - Wenders

7. I Know Where I'm Going - Powell/Pressburger

8. Roman Holiday - Wyler
("The Mouth of Truth. Legend is that if you're given to lying and put your hand in there, it'll be bitten off.")

9. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - Gilliam

10. The Lady Vanishes - Hitchcock


PT Caffey

[TheMcGuffin]

Dear Sir....hehe I like how that sounds.

You really must watch Notorious it is one of Hitchcock's finer movies from his early American Period. I have always felt that Hitch's early American Period movies (Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious and Strangers on a Train) are more fun to watch. They are great stories and purer dramas. While Hitch's Middle American period, his best period (Rear Window, Vertigo, North By Northwest, and Psycho) are a little less "fun" to watch and much more enjoyable to study...for me anyways. For those movies, I am much more interested and facinated by Hitch's technique, direction and experimentation in the movies.

Rob

[Sir Bygber Brown]

Great list, PT. I've seen all of them except I Know Where i'm Going and Munchausen, and love all of them as much as you seem to. Great list. Third Man probably has the most repeat viewing value of all movies.

I was shocked by how natural Peck's performance was in Roman Holiday. Its like he's not on camera at all, but a reporter named Joe Bradley.

Isn't Buster great? Steamboat Bill and Sherlock Jr are great too. You just can't help liking his little character. Scarecrow and Electric House are prob my favourite shorts.

I probably laugh more at Buster, but i love Charlie's features for different reasons. The combination of Charlie's beautiful scores, the operatic quality of his comic situations. I've only seen The Kid, City Lights and Modern Times so far and i loved the first and third best. Paulette Godard was simply stunningly beautiful, and i thought her and Charlie made a great pair in Modern Times. I thought they had better chemistry than with the blind girl in City Lights.

[Flint]

Glen- We are indeed referring to Baz Luhrmann's film. I'm so glad we can be friends. Also wanted to mention I've never seen nor even heard of numbers 8-10 on your list. I'll have to check them out!


Sir Bygber- You absolutely must see the Lean epics again. This guy is truly one of the greats. Along with "Lawrence", "Zhivago" (my personal favorite!) & "Kwai" don't forget to check out "Summertime" with Katherine Hepbern. Its fabulous. I also heartily recommend "Hobson's Choice". Also must agree with you about "Wonderful Life", except my favorite scene is when the young Donna Reed knowingly whispers into Jimmy Stewart's deaf ear "I'll love you till the day I die". I get choked up every single time!




-Flint

[PT Caffey]

With regard to Buster Keaton, the documentary, "A Hard Act to Follow" by Kevin Brownlow & David Gill, is indispensable. (I believe it's only available on VHS at present.)

Keaton's extended riffs on "modern" technology--locomotives, automobiles, ships, paddle-wheel riverboats, cameras and the cinema itself--give us a hint of what might have been had Keaton taken the next logical step and made a film set in outer space. His penchant for the extreme-long shot would serve him well here, I suspect. I can imagine Buster (à la "The Navigator") tugging by hand a gigantic space station into orbit, or standing atop a Saturn V rocket.

[dmolson]

Those that would be required 'Repeat Viewing' could number 100, but I'll stay with the theme of a round ten...
1) Casablanca - "Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca, and the Germans have outlawed miracles."
2) The Wizard of Oz - "Who would have thought a little brat like you could destroy such beautiful wickedness!"
3) The Third Man - "Death's at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.."
4) My Life As A Dog - "Ingemar, be a good boy."
5) To Be or Not To Be <1942> - "Heil Myself!"
6) Hannah and Her Sisters - "And Nietzsche, with his theory of eternal recurrence... Great. That means I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again."
7) Brazil - "Care for a little necrophelia?"
Citizen Kane - "that's the second sentence you've started with 'I'."
9) The Apartment - "that's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise."
10) Rear Window - "Nobody ever invented a polite word for a killing yet."

[Sir Bygber Brown]

"That's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise" - lol. I loved those cookie-wise jokes. I really must see that again. Unfortunately i don't own it, so i haven't had the opportunity to watch it again since i last rented it.

McGuffin - i think you've got a good theory going there. I haven't seen Rebecca, i but generally i think his english films are more fun than his late american films. Trouble With Harry is a pale imitation of the sense of his english films. I don't think i would use the word "fun" to describe Vertigo, but it and Rear Window have different appeal, like you say. I find Rear Window draws you into its world so effectively - the environment out that Rear Window is so great i always want to visit it again.

Major exception to your rule - North by Northwest (perhaps largely due to the Hitch-Cary Grant collaboration) is probably the most fun movie Hitch ever made.

[TheMcGuffin]

Sir,

I do agree about North by Northwest...it is very fun to watch. There is some overlaps in my distinctions between the different periods in Hitch's career. I do enjoy Notorious more than North by Northwest. Think NbNW was Hitch's ultimate achievement in his "wrong man" scenario, but i still thing Notorious is more fun to watch.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

To Catch a Thief and Lady Vanishes are probably my favourites on the Hitch fun-o-meter.

[PT Caffey]

All right, here's a second grab bag of RV's:

1. Sunset Boulevard - Wilder
2. Barry Lyndon - Kubrick
3. Empire of the Sun (primarily the first half) - Spielberg
4. The Heiress - Wyler
5. The Haunting - Wise
6. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Kaufman
7. The Fly - Cronenberg
8. My Darling Clementine - Ford
9. The Grapes of Wrath - Ford with Gregg Toland
10. Chinatown - Polanski

It would be difficult for me to resist any of these.

[Flint]

As an addendum to this discussion, I thought I'd post Sight & Sound's 2002 Top Ten Movies of all time lists:

CRITIC'S TOP TEN FILMS:
Citizen Kane
Vertigo
The Rules of the Game
The Godfather pts I & II
Tokyo Story
2001: A Space Odyssey
Battleship Potemkin
Sunrise
8 1/2
Singin' in the Rain


DIRECTOR'S TOP TEN FILMS:
Citizen Kane
Godfather pt I & II
8 1/2
Lawrence of Arabia
Dr. Strangelove
The Bicylce Thief
Raging Bull
Vertigo
Rashomon
The Rules of the Game
Seven Samurai


-Flint

[Harvey Chartrand]

Instead that bastard Irving Thalberg reduced Buster Keaton to a second banana for schnozolla no-talent Jimmy Durante in such classics as WHAT! NO BEER? and THE PASSIONATE PLUMBER. Keaton never again directed a full-length feature film after THE CAMERAMAN in 1928. He became an alcoholic and suffered decades of misery. But God punished Thalberg for his folly, striking down the boy wonder MGM production head at the tender age of 36.

[maxrael]

Bearing in mind this list would probably be differenet from day to day depending on my mood, here are ten films i adore in no particular order:

Touch Of Evil (welles)
Memento (nolan)
Pi (aronofsky)
Betty Blue (beineix)
Fight Club (fincher)
Harvey (koster)
Citizen Kane (welles)
Mrs Parker And The Vicious Circle (rudolph)
Videodrome (cronenberg)
It's A Wonderful Life (capra)

i'm surprised to see i've not got anything from David Lynch in there today!!

[Jeff Wilson]

While I have no interest in defending Thalberg, Keaton was a heavy duty boozehound long before his MGM days.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

Buster did like to drink (i always remember that joke in The Playhouse, where Buster is seeing multiples of himself, and doubles of his sweetheart, and more, and he disappears into his room and writes a note-to-self "I will never drink again" or words to similar effect.)

But it seemed he did little else after his contract was sold to MGM. His fall was something to do with alcoholism and a lot to do with losing creative freedom by having his contract sold to MGM. He still made The Cameraman (1928 or 9 i think) at MGM, it was his first film there, let's not forget that. He couldn't get all the same elements together after that, though, that worked so well when he was produced by an independent. Alas. Like Grace Kelly choosing Rainier over the movies and James Dean dying, and perhaps Welles not having a billionaire uncle, certain things about movie history can get you down, but they are the way the are.