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whiskeypriest
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:36 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
billyweeds wrote:
Revisited The Third Man for the umpteenth time, but this time saw it from beginning to end for the first time in years. Is there a more perfect motion picture?
No. Or was that rhetorical?

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billyweeds
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:19 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
marantzo wrote:
I never saw The Ice Storm. Back in the NYTFF days I wrote a scathing review of American Beauty. The only scene I liked in the whole film was the sexual adultery one with the real estate KING. Now that was funny. The whole film should have been a comedy instead of an attempt to be a serious intellectual drama. So many scenes were so ridiculous that they were laughable. The wind blown plastic bag scene that was supposed to be some sort of artistic epiphany should have had Jacque Tati chasing it with his pipe in his mouth.

The first and only time I saw The Third Man on the big screen was in Paris. Great film. I caught up on all the movie classics I'd missed when I lived there. Merci Paris.


American Beauty is an outrageously overrated movie. It's not really bad, it's just overblown. That plastic bag scene is, as Gary says, ridiculous. David Lynch's The Straight Story was IMO the best movie of 1999.
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billyweeds
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:20 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
whiskeypriest wrote:
billyweeds wrote:
Revisited The Third Man for the umpteenth time, but this time saw it from beginning to end for the first time in years. Is there a more perfect motion picture?
No. Or was that rhetorical?


Rhetorical. There are movies just as perfect--Rear Window, Casablanca, Singin' in the Rain, for instance--but none more.
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yambu
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 12:01 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area
The Third Man has been my all-time favourite, ever since I frst saw it at age six. It stands alone in my memory and my love.
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bartist
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 12:20 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6948 Location: Black Hills
American Beauty seemed to be a muddled thing, afflicted with good moments. Never have wanted to see it again. It's hard to make a good movie about alienation, so easy to misfire and alienate the viewer.

The Third Man edges out PeeWee's Big Adventure on my list of most perfect films, by a hair.

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Ghulam
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 12:39 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4742 Location: Upstate NY
whiskeypriest wrote:
billyweeds wrote:
Revisited The Third Man for the umpteenth time, but this time saw it from beginning to end for the first time in years. Is there a more perfect motion picture?
No. Or was that rhetorical?


I must have seen it at least six times.
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whiskeypriest
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:41 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
Speaking of perfect movies, I rewatched Nashville again today, with a great big smile on my face for its entire length. God is it wonderful.

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gromit
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:59 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9008 Location: Shanghai
Really liked American Beauty.
Benning and Spacey are terrific.
Lots of humor throughout the film.
The only thing a little off is the dead man narration -- but if it's good enough for Sunset Blvd ...

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marantzo
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 4:54 pm Reply with quote
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"The Straight Story was IMO the best movie of 1999"

Without doubt and Farnsworth should have got the Oscar (posthumously).
gromit
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:06 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9008 Location: Shanghai
Being John Malkovich
American Beauty
Fight Club
Three Kings
Toy Story 2


Was a helluva good year.
The lawnmower film wouldn't make my cut ...

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whiskeypriest
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:34 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
billyweeds wrote:
David Lynch's The Straight Story was IMO the best movie of 1999.
Oh no. Even with the glow of your A Separation recommendation fresh in my mind, nope nope nope. Won't get fooled again!

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knox
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:06 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1245 Location: St. Louis
Straight Story - zzz.

American Beauty is not fit to lick dirt off the shoes of Sunset Blvd. But I sorta liked it, in spite of its many weak spots. The plastic bag scene invited parody (and I think parody came, including a bit on The Simpsons IIRC...)

Top of head, movies I would recommend to anyone - The Third Man, Sunset Blvd., The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Goodfellas, Miller's Crossing, Rear Window, Blade Runner, Chinatown, Vertigo, Casablanca, In a Lonely Place, The Godfather.
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Marj
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:26 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan
knox wrote:
Straight Story - zzz.

American Beauty is not fit to lick dirt off the shoes of Sunset Blvd. But I sorta liked it, in spite of its many weak spots. The plastic bag scene invited parody (and I think parody came, including a bit on The Simpsons IIRC...)

Top of head, movies I would recommend to anyone - The Third Man, Sunset Blvd., The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Goodfellas, Miller's Crossing, Rear Window, Blade Runner, Chinatown, Vertigo, Casablanca, In a Lonely Place, The Godfather.


Has it ever occurred to anyone that Sunset Blvd. may indeed be a terrific horror film?

Knox - You're a man after my own heart, but so is everyone in this discussion. Unfortunately I've lost count of how often I've seen The Third Man. I must wait at least a year or two before seeing it again. Still, every time I see it, I eagerly await Wells first appearance - you know, WP's avatar.
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whiskeypriest
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:31 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
knox wrote:
Straight Story - zzz.

American Beauty is not fit to lick dirt off the shoes of Sunset Blvd. But I sorta liked it, in spite of its many weak spots. The plastic bag scene invited parody (and I think parody came, including a bit on The Simpsons IIRC...)

Top of head, movies I would recommend to anyone - The Third Man, Sunset Blvd., The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Goodfellas, Miller's Crossing, Rear Window, Blade Runner, Chinatown, Vertigo, Casablanca, In a Lonely Place, The Godfather.
I would dearly love for someone to go over to the Coen Bros. forum and start a discussion of Miller's Crossing. I have always seen it as nothing more than a technically excellent genre exercise/spoof, and have always wondered what people saw in it that I did not. If they did. As a Coenfanatic, I am always anxious to see yet another one of their movies as a masterpiece.

The other movies you mention would be my recommendations as well, except In a Lonely Place, which I have never seen. How good could it be if I have never seen it? Not very good, I say.

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Marj
Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:34 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan
Almost forgot - I have gotten to a point where I cannot watch a film with commercials. Last night a friend and I wanted to watch O Brother, Where Art Thou. But it was on AMC. Not only did they cut in the middle of scenes, they were promoting Mad Men and another show on their station.

I gave up.
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