For me it’s Interstellar, it never fails to make me ugly cry at least twice during each viewing
John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece The Thing. The themes of paranoia and isolation are so perfectly explored; it launched the career of Keith David, who is just a treasure; the performances are all immaculate; and those effects. My god, the effects.
Absolutely amazing movie, the effects were so ahead of their time!
Right? I can’t watch it with people anymore, because I keep pausing to explain how certain effects were achieved. It’s a monumental achievement.
My god, the effects.
My god, the soundtrack. He’s a fantastic musician. I really liked his Lost Themes, especially Wraith:
A friend of mine mentioned ‘Contact’ was the perfect film. I thought about it for some time and found that I agree. The plot, casting, filmography, and score are all top notch.
Beyond favorite there are quite a few films I consider ‘done’ we don’t need sequels or remakes. Most recently the original ‘Willy Wonka’ came to mind.
I love the line “They should have sent a poet”
There’s a video by a designer talking about some of the symbolism of Ellie’s journey (Full talk video here – SPOILERS for the film in both).
And also an insightful YouTube comment(!) someone made in response describing their interpretation:
spoiler
"This is one of the most thoughtful and insightful reviews on deeper film meanings I think I’ve ever seen. In keeping with the rebirth symbolism, I would offer the following possibilities.
- The transport pod symbolizes more of a womb, rather than a gas chamber.
- The chair may not be an electric chair but rather a means for Ellie to assume a modified fetal position while in the capsule. This would mimic the position of a baby of in a womb prior to its own birth.
- The wires plugged into Ellie represent an umbilical cord to sustain her, rather than a means to kill her.
- The periodic updates given by the mission control staff as to the status of the machine (10%, 20%, 30%, etc.) mirror the increasing dilation of women in labor (1 cm dilated, 2cm dilated, 3cm dilated, etc.).
- The wormhole sequence mirrors the new life traveling through a birth canal.
- The capsule takes on a liquid form to symbolizes the protective amniotic fluid to keep the new life safe.
- After Ellie’s “birth”, the first person she sees is her father.
- This rebirth scene is enhanced by considering Ellie’s mother died from complications of childbirth when Ellie was born. This backstory enhances Ellie’s natural reluctance to be reborn as her initial birth killed her mother, and permanently altered her life.
There’s undeniably imagery of execution and rebirth simultaneously occurring within the same frames! The filmmakers did an outstanding of capturing some very compelling storytelling while inserting remarkable symbolism."
The Big Lebowski
Is gonna be the best movie you’ve ever seen once you see it twice
[email protected] beckons
Really? I tried watching it but I couldn’t get through it.
It has a really messy plot with fast paced dialogue and subtle details that you can miss, I also remember my first time seeing it and being like “wtf is going on?”
As I said, the second time I saw it years later, I already knew the general direction of the movie so I could focus on the single characters and let me tell you: there’s a reason why there are a bunch of people quoting it all the time, every line of the script is like a meme, everything is so iconic
Never seen it, I actually started watching it this week, so far so good!
The dude is like my spirit animal.
Aliens.
Great story. Excellent pacing. Fantastic characters. Awesome music. I’m running out of adjectives, so I’ll add that I really liked: dialog, acting, special effects, lore, and setting.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly… by like a lot.
I watched the Dollars Trilogy in order and I love all those movies. A Fistful of Dollars feels very low budget at certain points, including one of the worst day for night edits I’ve ever seen, but overall it’s a damn good 9/10 Yojimbo ripoff.
For a Few Dollars More is straigt up one of the best movies I have ever seen, an easy 10/10. It’s a full blown high budget movie that just shocked me when I saw it for the first time, I was amazed how good it was, and it confused me too since EVERYONE said that The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is the best of the bunch, like how could something be better than this???
Well, how is it…? When I first saw The Good, The Bad and The Ugly I almost went catatonic. If For a Few Dollars More is 10/10 then this movie is 11/10, or 12/10 or even 13/10. EVERYTHING about this movie is amazing, if the previous one was made with an A24 budget then this one was made with the same production level as fucking Oppenheimer. Everything is bigger, the scale of the movie is breathtaking, the Morricone music is the best of all time, the characters are amazing, the action is amazing, the climax of the movie is the best ever put on screen, I just fucking love this movie so SO fucking much.
So yeah… watch The Good, The Bad and The Ugly if you haven’t.
(Shout out to Duck, You Sucker. A movie that also blew my socks off, made by the same director.)
They are all great movies! Do you also think highly about What about Once Upon a Time in the West?
Absolutely! Both Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America are pure masterpieces too!
If you haven’t seen it, check out Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.
The Dollars Trilogy is a great recommendation, and I think your analysis is spot on! The cinematography in the second and third installments is incredible.
I like to follow up with Tarantino’s Hateful Eight (my personal favorite film to recommend, especially as a Christmas movie in place of Die Hard) to see how hugely influential the Trilogy was.
I’m always telling people to REALLY watch Napoleon Dynamite. I think it got quoted and proto-memed to death when it came out, leading to most people having an unfair idea in their head of what the movie is.
The soundtrack is phenomenal. The acting is (mostly) way better than you may have thought it was. Jon Gries (Uncle Rico) was nominated for an Independent Spirit award and he absolutely deserved that nomination. The cinematography is excellent, especially knowing how much it cost to make + how much experience the crew had. Though it’s not explicitly said, I think it’s ultimately a story about neurodivergent people finding friendship, solidarity, and happiness in a world not made for them.
Also, the scene where Uncle Rico throws a steak at Napoleon is still funny.
I still cry laughing when I see or think about the grapefruit peg the windshield and Uncle Rico’s scream.
Snatch. Such an absolutely quotable movie with interesting characters, and the great mix of storylines that Guy Ritchie films are know for. The dialogue is just phenomenal!
Y’like dags?
Has to be The Matrix. Was 13 or 14 at the time of release, marketing around it was very mysterious. Obviously my childmind was blown during opening scene!
here here!
didn’t think much of the sequels though
Grave of the Fireflies.
If I can’t be happy, no one will.
Seen it once, and never again. I will never recommend this movie to anyone.
with all the shit I read about it I’ve grown wary. Not sure I could handle it. I cry just watching my kitten be cute
Repo: The Genetic Opera.
It’s definitely not for everyone, but it hits all the right buttons in my moody theatre kid heart, and “I Didn’t Know I’d Love You So Much” will always get the tears going for me.
And even if someone bounces off it, I’ve gotten a terrifying number of them hooked on Zydrate Anatomy. Might be the only song they remember from the whole thing, but it stays stuck.
Zydrate comes in a little glass vial
Not too be mistaken with repo, the depressing film about organ repossession with a flimsy plot.
Network (1976) is a perfect movie.
Was just about to comment this. Paddy chafeyesky is a really unique but complicated figure, and how they let him, john sayles, and a few others get away with socialist themes in movies, I’ll never know.
The Matrix (1999). The one existential movie for all. Then, it’s probably “Serenity” (2005). Then, probably Galaxy Quest (1999).
Ratatouille.
I don’t think there’s a movie that loves food more, or pays more respect to food. It’s an actual masterpiece, from every strand of hair rendered on Remy’s body, to each note played in the score. I will never get tired of watching this movie.
I like it too, but goddamn do I hate movies that boil down an entire culture to a single city. There’s no greater French Culture than Paris! or There’s nothing more British than London! or New York is all that exists for the arts!
I like the part about rats that cook. I find the love story somewhat creepy.
My favorite movie of all time is Lord of the Rings, but most people have already seen that.
I find that I recommend Warrior a whole lot. It is an awesome movie and most people haven’t seen it.
I don’t “love” to recommend anything to anyone, but I’s say, 2001 is by far my most favorite movie. It’s in perfect balance between science, fiction, and philosophy and was waaay ahead of it’s time. And even nowadays it looks spectacularly good and has a timeless storyline.
I don’t usually recommend movies in situations where the solution space isn’t already limited significantly by the context, but 2001 is the one I thought of first upon reading the title, so I suppose there’s at least two of us!
