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Post by Gg on Jan 11, 2006 8:40:17 GMT 8
a place to recommend and discuss our favorite foreign and independent films:
fire away
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Post by Virgil Reality on Jan 11, 2006 9:35:06 GMT 8
"Canone Inverso"
"I Am Dina"
"Nero"
Oh, foreign AND independent?
Half Light (2005)....
Deathwatch (2002) ...
I Am Dina (2002
Canone Inverso- Making Love (2000) ...
Bodywork (1999) ...
Still Crazy (1998) ...
Stella Does Tricks (1997)...
Mojo (1997) ...
Poldark (1996) ...
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Post by JenoWhatIMean on Jan 11, 2006 13:36:26 GMT 8
Er, perhaps we should say favorite non-Hans films? The others are a given!
Gregory's Girl
Clerks (independent only)
Flirting (and everything else by John Duigan esp. Wide Sargasso Sea)
Being John Malkovich
Julia and Julia was kind of cool and had Sting in it :-)
And there's a ton more if I think about it, especially if we're talking either foreign or independent.
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Post by Virgil Reality on Jan 12, 2006 9:18:27 GMT 8
Well it is so hard to know exactly what independent means so i think I'll stick to foreign films in the sense that foreign means non- English speaking You don't call British films foreign do you? Though my video store has "Breaking the Waves" in the foreign section - not sure if it's because director is Lars Von Trier or the accents are so hard to decipher.
My list includes all the usual suspects, mainly because that's how we get exposure I guess. And a crazy mix of English and proper titles - whatever I usually think of first, plus I can't do all those accents and stuff. And... pretentious? Moi? Mais non.
Amelie
Three Colours trilogy
Jean de Florette
Cages Aux Folles
Ma Vie En Rose
Belle du Jour
Run Lola Run
Princess and the Warrior
Women On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown ( my first time with Antonio Banderras!)
All About My Mother
Talk to Her
Bad Education - my second best movie of 2005
Life Is Beautiful ( I know, but I liked it the first time)
Bread and Tulips
Kolya
Pelle the Conqueror
Central Station
Like Water for Chocolate
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Motorcycle Diaries
Amores Perros
Zatoichi - the 2003 movie version
Kikijuro
Hana-bi
My Secret Cache
Shall We Dance/ - the original
Rhapsody in August ( has Richard Gere in it) need tissues
Waterboys
Spirited Away
Howls Moving Castle
Kikis Delivery Service
My Neighbour Totoro ( kiddy movie but sweet)
Tampopo - corny but a classic
Hero
Eat Drink Man Woman
Scent of green Papaya
Bicycle Thief
Emperor and the Assassin
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Heaps more - when I think of them I'll add them in
Which brings me to another topic - Hollywood's tendency to remake a foreign film I suppose the classic one is the remaking of Kurosawa's "Shichinin no Samurai" into "The Magnificent Seven". I'm sure sometimes it's quite appropriate - a story is a story after all. Any good ones? any total travesties?
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Post by starkiller on Jan 12, 2006 14:10:25 GMT 8
Which brings me to another topic - Hollywood's tendency to remake a foreign film I suppose the classic one is the remaking of Kurosawa's "Shichinin no Samurai" into "The Magnificent Seven". I'm sure sometimes it's quite appropriate - a story is a story after all. Any good ones? any total travesties? "Three Men and a Baby" springs most immediately to mind as a really bad version of an amusing French original film. Some of my fave foreign films are: Three Colours trilogy Allegro Non Troppo La Vie et Rien de Plus Cinema Paradiso City of Lost Children Brotherhood of the Wolf Bent Ringu trilogy To name but a few. |
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Post by starkiller on Jan 12, 2006 14:11:39 GMT 8
Which brings me to another topic - Hollywood's tendency to remake a foreign film I suppose the classic one is the remaking of Kurosawa's "Shichinin no Samurai" into "The Magnificent Seven". I'm sure sometimes it's quite appropriate - a story is a story after all. Any good ones? any total travesties? I also forgot "La Cage Aux Folles" which became "The Birdcage" in Hollywood. |
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Post by JenoWhatIMean on Jan 12, 2006 16:42:50 GMT 8
This is reminding me of so many wonderful films (and yes, I confess, I was counting British as foreign. I am American after all!) Anyone seen Grave of The Fireflies?
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Post by Gg on Jan 13, 2006 0:12:06 GMT 8
you know Kevin Smith (Miramax) is making a sequel to "Clerks" -- "Clerks 2: The Passion of the Clerks" -- started shooting in New Jersey in September...
Bill Nighy is also in Pirates 2... just while I'm mentioning.
One of my favorite films from the UK this last year was "Millions" -- anyone else see it? I took my grandmother. It was pretty adorable.
I can't narrow mine down to a list -- but one I'd mention is "Babette's Feast" -- saw it the same time as "Pelle" which I was a bit obessed with for a while. And "My Life as a Dog". I also loved "Cyrano" in it's day.
I saw "Eat Drink..." in a NYC theater that was right next to this amazing Japanese place and we left the theater smelling the food -- oiy -- films that elicit food cravings!
I think Kurosawa should be left alone... but, not to repeat my post from the other thread, remakes, if done well and purposefully, can be a tribute -- bringing a well formed story that speaks on a universal level and presenting it on a platform more excessible (and in all likelihood commercial) to a larger "domestic" audience. But I think, like adaptations from any source -- novel, theater, foreign -- you have to try to look at it fresh, without prejudice, as it's own entity, made in its own place and time and medium. try... and if it can stand on it's own then -- it's a tribute to the original story really.
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Post by Gg on Mar 22, 2006 1:06:03 GMT 8
If you get a chance -- "St. Ralph" is really adorable
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Post by Morrigan on Mar 22, 2006 1:17:13 GMT 8
Foreign...not italian yes?
Hero
Mononoke Hime
Spirited Away
Howl's Moving Castle
Mare Dentro
The corpse Bride
Edward Scissorhands
Much Ado about nothing
Chocolat...
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Post by Gg on Mar 22, 2006 7:42:41 GMT 8
"St. Ralph" went to the Toronto Film Festival (a few other palm leaves as well) -- a Canadian Independent --very sweet. One of those films you can watch with your grandmother (if she has a sense of humor).
WELCOME! By the way!
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Post by Morrigan on Mar 23, 2006 1:24:05 GMT 8
thanks Gg!
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Post by Gg on Aug 14, 2006 2:18:08 GMT 8
OKAY, I've not been able to se many films on the big screen, in a theater, this summer, and what I've seen has been lackluster...
BUT for rental I highly recommend:
"Girl in the Cafe" -- Bill Nighy and Kelly McDonald (need I say more)
and
"Little Manhattan" -- particularly for anyone who grew up there, and definitely if you lived there and have left.
I did mention "St. Ralph" ?? Canadian lovely, another story about the journey of a little boy.
Now that I think of it, many of my favorites:
My Life as a Dog
Pelle the Conqueror
My Father the Hero
Millions
for example,
heroic boyhood journey's
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Post by Jonathan on Aug 23, 2006 11:45:35 GMT 8
Mmmmmmmh, I recommend:
Last life in the universe
Naboer
Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind
Requiem for a dream
Irreversible (a great, great film)
Being John Malcovich
Amores perros
Los amantes del Círculo Polar
Closer
Dogville
Kolya
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Post by Virgil Reality on Aug 25, 2006 21:15:26 GMT 8
I loved Being John Malkovich.
A couple of indy movies I've seen recently and quite enjoyed have been "Colour Me Kubrick" starring none other than John Malkovich, and "Tristram Shandy - a thingy and Bull Story". Both quite bizarre and definitely a change from the surfeit of CGI extravaganzas that have dominated screens lately.
Interestingly, both had interesting glimpses of life behind the scenes on film sets and during the production process. And "thingy and Bull story" had Kelly McDonald as a very new young mum. It was just a small part and she was so convincing I wondered if it really was her own baby and that her other half was involved with the project somehow
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I've never been an extrovert, but i'm still breathing. 
