Joseph I loved this movie. I saw your comments about the 30 minutes it could have done without. I said that exact thing last night after we watched it. Milla was VERY good. She was perfect for that part. Sometimes I wasn't sure if what was happening was real or a dream. It was very realistic, they just looked like they smelled. I couldn't help but get distracted by the women's head gear. I laughed when I first saw Faye Dunaway. It looked positively "Tim Burton".
Edit: That was incoherent....Joan of Arc is just a fascinating story and the movie helped make it more real. I was disappointed we didn't to see how the word spread about Joan, how she came to be known. She was a child with visions and boom she is on her way to see the Dauphin of France. I felt that was sacrificed for the action sequences, which were wonderful by the way. Joan's story is one of what the force of personality can do. What can be accomplished if you follow your passion. If it hadn't been a true story it would be difficult to believe that a woman could to what she did at that time. What a brutal period of history.
Edit II: I think Joseph wants to know what I think of how the movie was made. It was visually appealing and I hadn't expected, but liked, the dream/vision sequences. I really felt her desperation about her message. They kept up the action enough that, though the movie felt long, it wasn't painful. Milla was very believable and good job with the horse riding!! It was smart to put unexpected chuckles in. That gave it a human/realistic touch. The battle scenes were exciting and done well with just enough gore to show the horror of it all. I'm pretty sure Joan was tortured more than was shown and I'm glad they didn't go into that.
This morning I joined Netflix and I don't know why I waited so long! I haven't watched anything that is available RIGHT NOW but I bet I will before this day is over. I finally had to force myself to quit looking through all the documentaries. First in my queue is The Messanger. Thanks for tagging all your movie posts Joseph. That was helpfull this morning. Now I need to get outside and walk my dogs!
So after I wrote those posts I thought of a few other lesser known movies that were greatly under appreciated.
The Messenger which was the story of Joan of Arc. I'm not a fan of Jesus, but this film was something special with an ensemble cast including (chicago's) John Malkovich. It highlighted the dirty political side of religion and I think it took a lot of heat when it came out. A catholic took me to see this in the theatre when I was in middle school and the performance by Milla Jovavich has stuck with me ever since - as well as the message about religion and power. Here is a less than perfect quality trailer.
Another film that I adore in my heart of hearts is Toys with Robin Williams and (chicago's) Joan Cusack as well as others. This was also an ensemble cast - I'm starting to sense a trend in my taste. This looks like a really cheesy crappy attempt at a comedy but it actually adresses several very important social, corporate, and political problems. This movie showed the inhumanity of unmanned drones before they even existed. They also display how corporations are molding our children into something unnatural. You may not like it, especially if you don't like Robin Williams, but it is just one of the films that are kind of personal to me. It's cute and extremely deep: a rare combination.
I will just randomly put posts like this up and I am always open to having conversations about the films if you don't agree.
So rather than go into each of these movies I am just going to post trailers for them. All of these are creme of the industry, again, in my opinion.
Children of Men - Cannot embed, click the link. Michael Caine, Clive Barker, Juliana Moore, Tim Robbins. No one on earth can get pregnant and the world is in political chaos. Juliana Moore is seen as a terrorist by the state and she has found the only pregnant woman on the entire planet.
City of Ember - Bill Murray, Tim Robbins Kids movie but clearly extremely political for adults
Frida - Epic
Hard Candy - Insanely Underrated Film
Moon - This should be a big contender during the next Oscars.
Time After Time - Despite the horrible trailer, this movie was a serious drama and well worth a rent.
This is tough because this category needs to be subdivided into fairy tale and honesty. It would either be Amelie or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. They were both big budget and big Oscar winners so if you haven't seen them, you've likely heard of them. I'll start with Amelie.
Here is the official English trailer - the film is French.
I can't pinpoint what it is exactly about this film that makes it so great. It is great work from the director, writer/s, actors, and just everything. This is a masterpiece and truly was an instant classic. I'm crazy about directing and one of the great scenes of film as far as directing is concerned (imho) is when she turns to water and flushes which is featured in that preview. The story is just like the preview says, it is just about a girl trying to make other people's lives better - and while she is doing that she makes her own better. I guess it is the golden rule in film form. Here is the movie in 1:46 seconds. If you are as emotional as I am, you might tear up like I just did.
Eternal Sunshine is titled after my favorite literary work "Eloisa to Abelard" by Alexander Pope.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd; Labour and rest, that equal periods keep; "Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;" Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n, Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n.
Here is a trailer.
This is an even harder film to explain. It is an honest portrayal of love. The whole movie takes place inside the main characters head for the most part and it is during a procedure he elected to have in which you can completely erase all memories of something that causes you pain. He chose to have his ex erased completely and the movie takes place in his consciousness with his own manufactured Clementine (his ex). They revisit all of their old memories as they are being erased and they know that by the end the wouldn't recognize anyone on the street. It is kind of a play on the expression 'better to have loved and lost, than to never loved at all.' This is the only movie that has shown "love" for what it really is, at least in my experience on this marble. Since it takes place in someone consciousness it was a huge opportunity for a director to go wild, so you have all kinds of stuff going on. This is a film that you have to watch 2 or 3 times to truly understand. Here is a scene from Eternal Sunshine:
I just thought I'd make a post of out of this instead of carrying on the conversation in the comments with kerry. We all get the comments sent to our email anyways. This is just a little more organized.
This is a movie I really really liked that is totally artsy-fartsy and obscure. Triplets of Belleville is a french animation project that features less than 2 sentences of dialog through the whole thing. One of them being a fat american saying "Hamburger?" It is impossible to not be intrigued by this movie since no one talks but there is always something amazing going on with the best music ever. In a nutshell it is about a boy who trains for the tour and gets kidnapped during the race by american mobsters, and his elderly and loving grandmother and loyal dog bruno track him down and they meet the triplets in New York who are an elderly group of sisters who like to improvise music using stuff like fridgerator racks and vacuum cleaners. They used to be really famous in the 20's but now they are really old and very poor... Here is the trailer. There is a sequence in this film which is Bruno's dream (the dog) and it might be one of my favorite scenes in a movie ever. This movie was stolen from me, so I can't just clip it out for you. It is a really emotional cartoon, believe it or not. The love the grandmother and dog have for the grandson is something that would be hard to capture in film.
Das Experiment is my favorite thriller ever. It is German and features Moritz Bleibtreu who turns me on more than any other man on the planet. There is full frontal in this film too. It is about the Stanford Prison Experiment of the 70's that you likely studied if you took a psych, soc, or abnormal psych class in college or high school. X amount of people signed up for a study where they would either be inmates or prison guards and the prisoners had to sign away their legal rights. It was a study about power and social roles. Needless to say it got out of hand, people went crazy and in real life the study was shut down because of the results they were getting. This film took liberties.
It is my favorite suspense/thriller because it is the only movie that has ever had me dig my nails into my seat and boyfriends arm and I was literally leaning forward. Germans are VERY good at telling a story and their whole film scene is less glamorous so people take the art a lot more seriously. That comes thru in every german movie you will ever watch. Here is the only english preview I could find. It doesn't do it justice at all. This movie will have your heart pounding, your inner lib screaming, and wanting to jump into your tv to save people. This is a good movie to watch high if you get a little paranoid, but not if it makes it harder to pay attention for you. I HIGHLY recommend this movie to anyone, even if they don't like subtitles.
Run Lola Run is a movie you've probably heard of if not seen. It also features Moritz and is another German film. Franka Potente (spelling?) crossed over into American films with the Bourne series after this. If you like artsy-fartsy you'll like this movie. It is the same story told 3 times with an extreme event in their lives. Each 1/3 shows what would happen differently if they chose a different avenue when trying to resolve their crisis. There is some TREMENDOUS directing in this project - ground breaking. It has a very 90's grunge feel, but despite that this was an instant classic. The first clip is a trailer I have found, and the second is the beginning scenes of the film I ripped and uploaded in high quality.
One more thing about this. I have actually learned a basic amount of German from watching this film over and over and over and over again. Granted, I am like 80% kraut and most of my friends speak it so that may have made it easier. THIS is the film that will make your heart melt with love for Moritz too. He is so gorgous and this character just makes you want to hold him. I need to take a break to think of some more films that aren't foreign language and to just do some stuff.
I will say that Gael Garcia Bernal is in a tight running with Moritz for sexiest man to have ever had the pleasure of crossing my cornea. I would expect one of his movies to come up in part 2 or 3 of this post. Thinking back on the good movies is really hard. Forgive me.
