Movies that you enjoy just for how the director shoots the movie.

[noncrazycanuck]

John Ford had an eye for silhouettes.

 

[DanoT]

I am not much of a movie or Hollywood fan but anything Ron Howard is involved in will be worth a watch.

Growing up on the set of the Andy Griffith Show, it is pretty obvious that Opie (Howard) was paying close attention.

 

[chopchop]

+1 on Lawrence of Arabia
The Godfather (I)
The Third Man

 

[scott43]

I would say Orson Welles..but..he kinda Benjamin Button'd it, didn't he? First few movies were great and all downhill after that...

 

[Uncle-A]

You mean director David Lean? Lawrence of Arabia (Oscar, Best Cinematography, Color, Freddie Young) might be my number one favorite film of all time. Dr Zhivago (Oscar, Best Cinematography, Color, Freddie Young) and Bridge On the River Kwai
(Oscar, Best Cinematography, Jack Hildyard) are great too, as well as some of his other films. Lean was the master of making epics!

You are correct, I was confused with the person that wrote the story. After all it was 55 years ago. This getting old stuff is not fun sometimes. Thanks for sharing this.

 

[cantunamunch]

I would say Orson Welles..but..he kinda Benjamin Button'd it, didn't he? First few movies were great and all downhill after that...

I actually enjoyed F for Fake quite a bit, but it wasn't for the directing.

 

[Uncle-A]

I actually enjoyed F for Fake quite a bit, but it wasn't for the directing.

Wasn't one of his movies kind of a put down of William Randolf Hearst the news paper millionaire? After that movie he got black balled by the news papers owned by Hearst.

 

[scott43]

Wasn't one of his movies kind of a put down of William Randolf Hearst the news paper millionaire? After that movie he got black balled by the news papers owned by Hearst.

Citizen Kane..a paradigm shift of a movie... The Third Man... The Magnificent Ambersons...and then crickets...

 

[Uncle-A]

Citizen Kane..a paradigm shift of a movie... The Third Man... The Magnificent Ambersons...and then crickets...

Yes, Citizen Kane that is the movie I was referring to, as the movie about Hearst. Thanks

 

[graham418]

David Lynch is definitely the man. His movies have that surrealist vibe going on.....Lost Highway, Mulholland drive, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet. Pure genius

 

[noncrazycanuck]

For the Orson Wells fans out there a very good interview he once did with Dick Cavette on the web.
In it he talks not only about his films and the trouble with raising money for more but much funnier is the stories he had about a lot of very important statesmen. His story about how Churchill helped him get some money out of a Russiant film investor is hilarious.

 

[Joby Graham]

A Clockwork Orange!

Righty, right, oh my brother!

 

[Joby Graham]

Me droogy, after a stop at the Korova for some moloko synthemesc catch 2001, A Space Odyssey.

Purity of Essence

 

[Uncle-A]

David Lynch is definitely the man. His movies have that surrealist vibe going on.....Lost Highway, Mulholland drive, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet. Pure genius

I have seen Mulholland Drive and it was a good film. The others I have not seen.

 

[Laurel Hill Crazie]

I wanna talk a bit about 2001 A Space Odyssey. It was the very first art or "high minded" movie I watched and it was pure chance that I saw it. It was 1968 and 2 junior high kids were bored with school so they hop a bus and took a 20 mile trip downtown to explore the record shops and the department stores not to mention the shady dealings down on Liberty Ave. We happened by the Warner Theater, a huge art deco movie house with a 70 mm screen, what did they call it Cinemascope or Panavision? I never saw a screen so big. It was the IMAX of its day. 2001 was playing and my buddy said he read that this was a good movie. He didn't need to convince me having grown up with the Mercury and Gemini Projects and Apollo just getting started, I was in.

We walked in with the film already underway. We watched for the next 15 minutes or so these apemen grunting and squawking as they went about their day of survival in a bleak arid landscape. It appeared they tried to live on grass and berries. They would get into screaming matches with a rival clan at the local watering hole. At night they would sleep in fear of big cat predators. One day a big black slab appears and the apes go crazy as weird sounds seem to emit from the slab. One ape picks up a bone from the carcass of a dead boar and begins to smash things with it. Soon they are back at the watering hole and the other clan arrives and the shouting match begins. This time the clan's ape leader advances bone in hand and beats the other ape leader to death then throws the bone up in the air and the camera follows as the bone spins up end over end, suspended a long time seeming to defy gravity as the scene dissolves to that of a satellite orbiting the earth. Then a scene of the interior of a space airplane and an attendant going about her business in zero-G. Beautifully shot scenes depicting near Earth space travel. There is no sound in a vacuum...but there is classical music to fill the void. Having followed the space race in real time, all those hours spent in front of the TV listening to various science experts I thought the idea of using music to fill the silence of the void was just great. No sound of rocket's roaring or metal clanks, just classical music combined with the dance of space flight set to the Blue Danube Waltz and still no dialogue, and we're almost a half-hour in! It all sent this 14-year-old brain spinning. When the dialogue begins it is all so plain, conversational. The acting almost amateurish, normal people talking about boring things until we finally learn that something is happening on the moon presented more as a curiosity, no drama or accusation just some skepticism. One can almost miss the point and what the hell does this have to do with apemen anyways?

Sorry for the long description of what all of you serious film buffs already know about this film but when Phil asked for movies that you enjoy just for how the director shoots the movie. I thought about the impact this film had on me just because of the way it was shot, the detail, the lack of dialogue, the commitment to depicting space travel as realistically, and how the plot unfolds with this minimalist dialogue, the beautiful cinematography. Contrast now with Sci-Fi as grand swashbuckling morality plays based on comic books where the spectacle is CGI and acting over the top. I do enjoy Star Wars or many of the Marvel based movies and all the work that goes into the special effects but at the end of the credits, all I have is a couple of hours of entertainment.

 

[scott43]

2001 was great..but I think it was Kubrick himself who said, if you understand the last 30 mins of the film, you're ahead of me..

 

[Jim McDonald]

If you read the book you'll at least have half a chance at understanding the movie

 

[Laurel Hill Crazie]

2001 was great..but I think it was Kubrick himself who said, if you understand the last 30 mins of the film, you're ahead of me..

Just a little excursion down a metaphysical mystery that has been explored since humankind became self aware, nothing to fret about.

 

[Jim Kenney]

I have seen Mulholland Drive and it was a good film. The others I have not seen.

Lynch also did The Elephant Man which is a good and fairly conventional story about a freaky subject.
Blue Velvet is a really good mystery film, if somewhat kinky. Creepy good performance by Denis Hopper.

 

[Jim Kenney]

I wanna talk a bit about 2001 A Space Odyssey. It was the very first art or "high minded" movie I watched and it was pure chance that I saw it. It was 1968 and 2 junior high kids were bored with school so they hop a bus and took a 20 mile trip downtown to explore the record shops and the department stores not to mention the shady dealings down on Liberty Ave. We happened by the Warner Theater, a huge art deco movie house with a 70 mm screen, what did they call it Cinemascope or Panavision? I never saw a screen so big. It was the IMAX of its day. 2001 was playing and my buddy said he read that this was a good movie. He didn't need to convince me having grown up with the Mercury and Gemini Projects and Apollo just getting started, I was in.

We walked in with the film already underway. We watched for the next 15 minutes or so these apemen grunting and squawking as they went about their day of survival in a bleak arid landscape. It appeared they tried to live on grass and berries. They would get into screaming matches with a rival clan at the local watering hole. At night they would sleep in fear of big cat predators. One day a big black slab appears and the apes go crazy as weird sounds seem to emit from the slab. One ape picks up a bone from the carcass of a dead boar and begins to smash things with it. Soon they are back at the watering hole and the other clan arrives and the shouting match begins. This time the clan's ape leader advances bone in hand and beats the other ape leader to death then throws the bone up in the air and the camera follows as the bone spins up end over end, suspended a long time seeming to defy gravity as the scene dissolves to that of a satellite orbiting the earth. Then a scene of the interior of a space airplane and an attendant going about her business in zero-G. Beautifully shot scenes depicting near Earth space travel. There is no sound in a vacuum...but there is classical music to fill the void. Having followed the space race in real time, all those hours spent in front of the TV listening to various science experts I thought the idea of using music to fill the silence of the void was just great. No sound of rocket's roaring or metal clanks, just classical music combined with the dance of space flight set to the Blue Danube Waltz and still no dialogue, and we're almost a half-hour in! It all sent this 14-year-old brain spinning. When the dialogue begins it is all so plain, conversational. The acting almost amateurish, normal people talking about boring things until we finally learn that something is happening on the moon presented more as a curiosity, no drama or accusation just some skepticism. One can almost miss the point and what the hell does this have to do with apemen anyways?

Sorry for the long description of what all of you serious film buffs already know about this film but when Phil asked for movies that you enjoy just for how the director shoots the movie. I thought about the impact this film had on me just because of the way it was shot, the detail, the lack of dialogue, the commitment to depicting space travel as realistically, and how the plot unfolds with this minimalist dialogue, the beautiful cinematography. Contrast now with Sci-Fi as grand swashbuckling morality plays based on comic books where the spectacle is CGI and acting over the top. I do enjoy Star Wars or many of the Marvel based movies and all the work that goes into the special effects but at the end of the credits, all I have is a couple of hours of entertainment.

About four or five years ago I tried to show my son Kubrick's 2001. He couldn't get into it. Even I didn't enjoy it as much as my fond memories from earlier viewings. Because movies are art, sometimes our enjoyment involves our mood at the time of watching them or other circumstances specific to the time and place we saw them.

I'll never forget the first time I saw the first Star Wars film in 1977. It was at the Uptown in Wash DC fairly early in the film's run there. Never ever have I experienced a movie where the audience was so into the film. The theatre was packed and people were oohing and ahhing or cheering and screaming over every little thing that happened in the story. The little land speeder car was just amazing to me, how it floated over the landscape. Now if you see that film, the land speeder special effects look super tacky. But back then it was amazing. You kinda had to be there

I sometimes get depressed watching a good film that features a bunch of CGI. I have problems with the suspension of disbelief as soon as the CGI kicks in, no matter what the subject.