Your Top Movies & Recommendations

Started by dsanchez, July 11, 2007, 00:34:22

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~*CherryRed*~

Quote from: japanesebaby on November 17, 2007, 11:18:52
Howl's Moving Castle was the first one i watched, and it's really one of my favorite movies now too.

Ah, you have reminded me of a film I wanted to see but missed - ebay here I come! I also tried to tape "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello" off of Tele - but we had a blackout during... bloody typical :evil:!!!
"prone to flights of whimsy"

ROGUE

Yey i got really excited reading this, thanks ~Cherry Red~ and Japanese Baby ~  I    l o v e   the cat bus- I saw that in Japan while eating dinner one night in a restaurant,
On the big screen without english but have always wanted to see it again, and without English, it was simply great, and the story didnt miss a beat via language interpretations.   :smth051
And i had good company with me, and i couldnt stop looking over my friends shoulder to the big screen, beautiful amazing story.!! By the end of dinner i was totally entranced and told friend
to turn around, he didnt, so i just kept watching... was that good !!

Also love BladeRunner, which i would just love to see also, aswell as LadyHawk- Long to see these both asap.   :rocker

Really love Harry Potter aswell, i think its always the best fantasy to have these powers and a place to feel welcome and channel the dark and light~
.. EEW just love it, takes me back to when anything was(/is?) possible- childhood years, Its great to read them so much more, and especially for kids now to grow that imagination,
instead of the platter like selection television gives, And takes away.   :shock:

I havent seen Labyrinth- another to add to the list-
When i am at the video (dvd) library i go blank, I have to take a list this time....for sure. :smth023


scatcat

YES the Astor cinema in St.Kilda  (more arthouse than mainstrem) was showing Miyazaki films, like Howl's moving castle etc.. they often play these , but I can't get there.. they often show these in a sort of cult-viewing , special screenings that are like a film festival!!  :smth023

As for LABYRINTH.. love this film, I've seen it a few times, wonderful, but not for awhile.. I love DAVID BOWIE!!

you can tell I just worked out only now, how to change size of fonts!!  :-D :P :D
Seventeen seconds
A measure of life

Hero

Harry Potter films hmmm....
Well personaly i don't like them, i think the actors are a bit crap and i think its also because i read all the books first and they are soo much better. They missed to much out of the films for me and changed it too much. I think the casting is soo wrong for so many characters although Helena Bonham Carter is PERFECT for Bellatrix as is the girl who played luna however they changed luna a bit. I still watch them though.
I think it just depends if you read the book or watch the film first.
I watched the da vinci code before i read the book and i much prefer the film but the only film that i think matches up to the book even though its changed still is Lord Of The Rings which is just amazing.

japanesebaby

.... watch out here comes the CAT BUS !!!  :smth026

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbutBhkrrZk


(and a SPOILER alert to those who do prefer watching movies in their entirity and hate seeing indiviual scenes taken out of context. anyway it's not a spoiler storyline wise.)

i think especially this scene is just superb, in several ways. one of my all time favorite movies scenes for sure!


i really do love the sense of magic in this film, the way all these fantastic creatures are presented in this movie. because they don't take the easy way out and make them all cuddly and cute (like they always do in all these disney/pixar movies  :roll:). instead, it's all something a bit frightening... i think they really managed to captured the imaginary world of a child very precisely: because you remember when you were a kid, there were things you sort of loved and which you very really drawn into but which you also feared at the same time... that's what i really love in this movie, it captures the feeling on strangeness perfectly. it's not trying to make these creatures cute and cozy and somehow "understandable", to make them as aprt of "this world". they are portraited as they truly are: creatures from another world.
and that's what makes the magic so real: you can believe in it because it's not faked. it's not trying to explain the fantastic, it simply portraits it as it is. and you can believe in it because it's so familiar to you, you recognize it from your own childhood... that tingling feeling of being very excited and afraid at the same time...
great filmmaking!
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

robiola

Quote from: ~*CherryRed*~ on November 14, 2007, 23:36:02
...Harry Potter... I want to have a **** about the films, if I may! Please feel free to add anything!
I think the main problem, as you say, is time, not only in the sense that they have to rush things because the actors are growing up, but in the sense that if they had to do justice to the detailed universe of the books and all the subplots, character development, etc., the movies would have to be at least 5 hours long! The movies just skip from main event to main event, and all the little things in between that IMO make the books great get left out.
It's true that the fact that the directors change all the time sacrifices continuity, but I don't mind, I kind of like seeing different interpretations of the HP universe!
One more thing -- I could go on, but I'm trying to control myself! -- they chose the actors when they were just kids, and though some grew up to be respectable actors with a moidcum of skill, others.....well.... should probably look into a career change after the Potter series is over. I won't name names!!

~*CherryRed*~

Quote from: robiola on November 18, 2007, 12:58:49
Quote from: ~*CherryRed*~ on November 14, 2007, 23:36:02
...Harry Potter... I want to have a **** about the films, if I may! Please feel free to add anything!
I think the main problem, as you say, is time, not only in the sense that they have to rush things because the actors are growing up, but in the sense that if they had to do justice to the detailed universe of the books and all the subplots, character development, etc., the movies would have to be at least 5 hours long! The movies just skip from main event to main event, and all the little things in between that IMO make the books great get left out.
It's true that the fact that the directors change all the time sacrifices continuity, but I don't mind, I kind of like seeing different interpretations of the HP universe!
One more thing -- I could go on, but I'm trying to control myself! -- they chose the actors when they were just kids, and though some grew up to be respectable actors with a moidcum of skill, others.....well.... should probably look into a career change after the Potter series is over. I won't name names!!


well - 'nuff said really!! ;)
"prone to flights of whimsy"

ROGUE

Quote from: japanesebaby on November 18, 2007, 12:42:37
.... watch out here comes the CAT BUS !!!  :smth026

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbutBhkrrZk


(and a SPOILER alert to those who do prefer watching movies in their entirity and hate seeing indiviual scenes taken out of context. anyway it's not a spoiler storyline wise.)

Thats great, that scene seeing it now, is so like my possum (i know, ahh the possum again  :roll: ) but just the claws, the fat belly and casual and confident scratch, eyes straight forward.
Much smaller than me, but also frightening and fascinating., couldnt believe how much it looks like her.

I saw 'Tales of Earthsea' last night, by Miyazaki's son Goro (his first time as director), and apparently Miyazaki wanted to make this film himself but wasnt aloud to 20yrs ago-
his son was inspired after working at Ghibli studio and managing it. Also after being by his fathers side and learning Everything.  His father didnt support the idea, so the story behind
the story- was also fascinating,   i watched the making of. . aswell   which came with the rental- Too much detail to go into but these are all inspired by Lord of the rings, etc. (why he couldnt
-senior Miyazaki-refer to 'earthsea' and other links, but still inspired by them all the while, in all his animation) apparently.-

I really enjoyed the movie and at the end was so beautiful.
Dont want to give anything away- So i hope that was understandable- Iam tired  :oops:

I agree it is better to read Harry Potter books rather than the movies, but i also watched the movies after reading the first 2 books, and they werent as good (books much better).


lordsquidy13

1.Aliens
2.The Sandlot
3.Artificial Intelligence
4.Jaws II
5.Scream
6.Alice, Sweet Alice (Reminds Me of Charlotte Sometimes)
7.Alien

japanesebaby

Quote from: ROGUE on November 19, 2007, 18:16:47
I saw 'Tales of Earthsea' last night, by Miyazaki's son Goro (his first time as director), and apparently Miyazaki wanted to make this film himself but wasnt aloud to 20yrs ago-
his son was inspired after working at Ghibli studio and managing it. Also after being by his fathers side and learning Everything.  His father didnt support the idea, so the story behind
the story- was also fascinating,   i watched the making of. . aswell   which came with the rental- Too much detail to go into but these are all inspired by Lord of the rings, etc. (why he couldnt
-senior Miyazaki-refer to 'earthsea' and other links, but still inspired by them all the while, in all his animation)

i also went to see Tales of Earthsea - i've always been a big fan of writer Ursula LeGuin, she's truly one of the finest writers alive imo. and i'm not a fantasy fan in particular, it's ot that at all. i simply love her use of language, her way to write and the themes she explores in her books behind the facade of fantasy so to speak.
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/

i was very unhappy with the way that five different 'earthsea' books very messed up and molded into one story in the goro miyazaki production: it was a complete mess, story wise. :oops: and i found it unforgivable since the original storylines by leGuin should really be worth a LOT more effort. they should have just made a film out of the first book or something, not to mess it all up.  :smth011
i heard LeGuin herself was disappointed with the result too. she only ever gave green light for the movi because she was told that Hayao will direct himself - so she was let down there. and then the messy script... oh well.
it's a shame because i had really high hopes for the Ghibli studios production! they could have (they should have!) made a marvellous production out of it instead...
and it was especially disappointing because the scifi channel had already totally murdered leGuin's earrthsea books with their embarrassing tv movie/miniseries production a few years back. i remember LeGuin herself was very angry about that one, she was completely stabbed in the back there already - and now it happened again, with the same books... too bad! :oops: :oops:


and Earthsea....being a more or less good link to Harry Potter: well, anyone who loves those books, don't get mad at me... but i never understood what was so amazing about harry potter books. i tried reading one of them once because everyone was going on and on about how wonderful and original they were - but i could only ever find it all pretty ordinary. i mean, the same themes (even the same 'school of wizards' themes) have been explored by other writers before so it's not really innovative, i only get a feeling of plagiarism many times.... sorry. and i think other writers have written better stories out of the same theme, also write better in general. leGuin is one that comes to mind. her Earthsea books beat harry potter 100-0 anytime. and ok, they are not exactly similar or even trying to be similar. but still, there are enough similarities for me and when put side by side, harry potter doesn't stand a chance. and there are other books/other writers too, with a lot more better stuff/sories/language/power of imagination than rowling's.
sorry, just my opinion of course...


the only harry potter movie i ever went to see was 'the prisoner of azkaban' (or something like that). the sole reason i bothered was because Gary Oldman (one of my favorite actors) was aboard. he had not been making movies for years and years... so i was really interested to see him on the screen again. what comes to oldman, i wasn't disappointed. he was fine, as always. but as the rest of the movie, i found it to be pretty typical and rather uninspiring.

Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

japanesebaby

Quote from: ROGUE on November 19, 2007, 18:16:47
I saw 'Tales of Earthsea' last night, by Miyazaki's son Goro (his first time as director), and apparently Miyazaki wanted to make this film himself but wasnt aloud to 20yrs ago-
his son was inspired after working at Ghibli studio and managing it. Also after being by his fathers side and learning Everything.  His father didnt support the idea, so the story behind
the story- was also fascinating,   i watched the making of. . aswell   which came with the rental- Too much detail to go into but these are all inspired by Lord of the rings, etc. (why he couldnt
-senior Miyazaki-refer to 'earthsea' and other links, but still inspired by them all the while, in all his animation)

like said, the father miyazaki was originally supposed to direct 'Earthsea'. LeGuin didn't want to give out the movie rights but after seeing 'Totoro', she was convinced that hayao will make a good movie out of her book(s). then after this and that and lots of fuss, the project was suddenly given to the son miyazaki, without leGuin's permission.

i'm not sure what you mean by saying " Too much detail to go into but these are all inspired by Lord of the rings, etc."
too much detail for what?
and especially, inspired by tolkien: well, i think it's easily said that pretty much all fantasy books are "inspired by lord of the rings" - but are they really? i mean it's easy to connect them because of the obviously similar surface and because of the fantasy setting, but what's underneath it? any good book - and also any good fantasy book - has something underneath. for a good writer the settings/genre is actually irrelevant - the importance is what's underneath it. there's so much completely useless fantasy literature these days, which doesn't have anything else in it than the surface. all these 'dragonslayer' series and whatever - it's total nonsense to be honest. it's something completely disposable and the writers have nothing to say.
yet tolkien is an excellent writer. leguin is an excellent writer. and surely the realm of fantasy ties them together, yes. but otherwise, the way they are focused/the way the themes are worked/the things that really inspired these two writers to sit down and write, those are really different with both of them. i dare to say i'm quite convinced about it.
after reading both books, tolkien's and leguin's (several times), i don't think 'Earthsea' books are in especially in dept to tolkien but really stand out as their own. tolkien was exploring the history of an entire world, the history of peoples and languages, and the classic" aspects of good and evil so to speak. leguin's approach is rather different in many ways. the surface might seem the same (because the settings is that of a fantasy world), but leguin is a lot more interested in the individual, the microcosmos of the story. and also, she's mostly really into observing how different sort of societies/society structures work/are built/how the societies interact, keep together or collapse. it could be said that leguin is a lot more topical and even more political writer. and through this, she's not shy of trying to mirror our world, the problems and wrongs of our world through the fantasy societies she's invented. - whereas tolkien never really was into that. tolkien clearly stated that he hated all kinds of allegories and he hated it that people tried to interpret his books as being some kind of allegories of our world, mostly allegories of the world war II.

so to say 'earthsea' was inspired to write because of tolkien? well leguin's certainly read the books and knows them well. but i think she's sourced her initial inspiration more from elsewhere than from other fantasy books.:!:
it's interetsing to read her own comments: she's atually said that she doesn't really like the fantasy just for the sake of it, but that she only sets her stories into a fantasy world because she's noticed it is a wonderful way to detach it from the present, to observe the themes free from the connotations to this world. so it's a way to try and observe the themes (whatever they were) sort of outside this society, this world. it's also a possibility to try and observe different society models, kind of a way to explore the "what if" aspects that one cannot reach within realistic genres. for instance, she's written a book about a planet where all inhabitants are humans like us but hermaphrodites - so the question there is: how would such a society work? how would it be different from ours? what kind of psychology would that involve?
i think this is all very different from what tolkie was aiming at.

sorry if i sound like i'm ranting, not my intention. but i do think that serious writers can really use fantasy settings in a really imaginable and interesting way and that there are a lot of ways to eplore it - if the writer has the skill for it! so not everything is "inspired by tolkien" just because it includes a few dragons or wizards etc.  ;)


**edit:

but if tolkien and leguin really do have something in common (and i think they do), then it's the underlying theme of death.
the more you read tolkien, the more you become aware of that he's writing about death, the fear of death, the unexplainablity (is there such a word? ;P) of death. the impossibility of escaping it. and most of all, the different reactions that we take under the awareness of mortality. whether we accept it or whether we still try to find all kinds of futile attemps to escape. i suppose all of tolkien's books are like series of observations about all this.
and if you read leguin, you'll find the theme of death too: the third 'Earthsea' book (which was also used a lot as the basis for the story in the miyazaki film) is very clearly about what happens if we deny the fact that we will die and there's no way to escape it.
i think that is the similarity between them. yet even this theme is worked out/explored in a very different way.

(sorry for a long rant....)
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

scatcat

Very interesting topic about the different writers. I tell you this.. I have never read a Harry Potter book. I have however, read Tolkein and Ursula Le Guin.
It is a well known fact that both writers have "inspired" other writers in their own fantasy writing.. introducing, shall we say, to another legion of worlds.
Tolkien, I have to admit, stands alone. A contemporary of C.S.Lewis..( Chronicles of Narnia) were friends, different takes on their own worlds. They basically tried to "outdo" each other in their novels, with a different take on christianity, God and good vs.evil. BOTH great writers.
They both have their unique style, without taking from the other.
I have read that Ursula le Guin was unhappy with the movie version of the book, The Earthsea Quartet, but, that's pretty normal with writers, isn't it?
Most movies I have seen, after I have read the book, do no justice to the book, or respect the writer's main objective or reader's perspective. The movies are rarely as good as the book. Cinematics cannot fit yours and the writer's entire imagination into 2 hours!! impossible!! They cahnge and distort, alter and trim parts out and ultimately left with a hollywood version of a classical tale, like cutting Homer down to a few pages.. it doesn't really express what the writer wanted to relay.
Anyway, i might be rambling on here, so.. I guess ..I just stop here.. sore fingers!!
Seventeen seconds
A measure of life

Meddy

I totally agree about movies and books.  However, I personally believe that Interview w/ the Vampire movie was definetly better than the book; and I enjoy Anne Rice's books but the movie was so much better.  Speaking of movies that don't do justice to books, I thought the Mists of Avalon was okay, but a poor rendition Ms Bradley's books.  The only good thing about that movie was Angelica Houston.
"I want to live deeply, and suck the marrow from life." HDT

ROGUE

Reply to Japanesebaby~ Yes was a shame that H.Miyazaki had promised LeGuin that he would do the animation and direct it himself, and she trusted ONLY him to do the job, So also was a pity he didnt do it 20yrs ago, but at the time he felt he was also too old to take it on~ ? So not sure what happened there, Only the outcome.  :roll:
~edit* Actually LeGuin said she'd be happy for Ghibli to do the movie, as she was impressed with H.Miyazaki's work. And at the time he said he was "too old" to start on the venture. ~Anyway dont want to de-rail topic.
Thanks for your interest on my post  :smth023 *

All in all, as a individual story, enduring a lonely evening with me, I found it comforting (Tales of EarthSea), But i didnt have any massive expectations (other than visuals, animation, atmosphere and being H's son).
  But often movies are not true to form- compared to their books who made them.
Put it this way ~i prefer the cat bus and "Totoros neighbor", much more pure, effortless and natural atmosphere and sounds.  :smth050

"too much to go into detail" ~ I said because i was tired and couldnt write all that was in the "making of tales of earthsea" dvd.  And the previous topic replies i wrote was directly related to what   'the making of  "tales of earthsea"  had said-  it was fresh on my mind, and there you go.
:smth023

Re: Harry Potter books, i Really liked the first two, but agree with you on the repeditive form, I have seen the other ones on movie, and wasnt very original, I like that sort of theme, but it was repeditive after the first one or two, all the same.
I like them also that it gets kids reading, but i couldnt find the urge to read any more of the same/similar format myself. I mean god why couldnt the Harry potter kids go on a camp or something? always the same old, same old.. in some ways it was charming, but too much is just too much. I get bored easily aswell, i was watching and hoping but ahh nothing new.  :smth011 But i do really love the moving portraits on the walls  :lol: never get tired of looking at those lol.

  ~edit* Really cant wait to see   "LadyHawk"   looked for it in library but not there.
Also i like, (as an old time fav)   "American Werewolf in London"   think its a cracker  :lol:
                                Also Love   "Alien"   another favourite of my massive list.   ~funny how it always changes.
                                 I bought    "Edward Scissor Hands"   think i will watch that this evening, also luv "Cry Baby" cant wait to see "Barber Shop"- umm whatever its called~you know the one. YEY  :smth023

ENJOY  :smth050


Carnage Visor

I'm not a book reader... :(

As my brother said stubbornly the other day:

"I don't like books...You have to read them to know what the hell's going on!"

I like to read, I just don't have the patience most of the time what with my AD/HD... :smth023