Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Confession Time: Best Foreign Movie(s) edition.
Well, it's been more than a month since our last Confession Time. And for whatever reason, this afternoon I was thinking about my favorite foreign movie, so that'll be our theme.
Fess up - name your favorite foreign movie. For our purposes, any non-American movie will qualify, though extra points will be awarded to movies which were not made in English. No need to explain why you have to 'confess' that this is a favorite - just liking a 'furrin' movie is confession enough. Multiple entries allowed.
As usual, I'll start.
I actually like a lot of foreign movies. My favorite is Diva, even if it is French and about opera (actually, I usually tell people that it is about passion). Sticking with the "made in a language other than English", I'd also list almost anything by Akira Kurosawa, Fitzcarraldo (also see Burden of Dreams, which was about making that movie - Werner Herzog is a lunatic). In the foreign, but made in English, category, I'd list The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (I've been to the Welsh village where it was filmed) as well as Waking Ned Divine and Local Hero (with the soundtrack by Mark Knopfler).
So, what's your confession this time?
Jim Downey
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so many good movies
Thanks Jim, and all of the other posters, for pulling me out of lurkdom.
One of my favorite Spanish films is 'Mar adentro' or 'The Sea Inside' by Amenabar. From IMDB, "The real-life story of Spaniard Ramon Sampedro, who fought a 30 year campaign in favor of euthanasia and his own right to die." And it is not a downer! Great performance by Javier Bardem.
And 'Diva.' I had forgotten how much fun that film was! Additionally, 'Dark Habits' and a couple of other older Almodovar have been added to my Netflix queue.
Paul
My usual randomness
La Femme Nikita - First movie I watched with subtitles. Loved it when I was in high school. Merely fond of it now.
Breathless - Mainly because I wanted to look just as chic as Jean Seberg. I'm getting there.
Funny Games - Twisted, disturbing and left me very shaken and contemplative for the next few days.
Cache - Saw this before Funny Games and didn't realize it was another Michael Hanneke film. Guess I like movies that don't give me all the answers.
"Get three coffins ready."
No one has mentioned "Per un Pugno di Dollari"? Great movie.
anime
As a big anime fan, it's not much surprise that most of my favorite movies are in Japanese. Most things by Hayao Miyazaki could qualify as my favorite foreign movie (and it's really tough to pick a favorite).
As for favorite English language foreign movie, that's easy: Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (which is an anime, but the original voice acting was English, it was then dubbed into Japanese). Weird choice, I know, but the artwork is gorgeous.
Anyone ever see...
Tampopo, by Juzo Itami? Anyhow, that's my fav.
Great Foreign Movies
I'll go all the way back to 1963, the year I graduated from college. Tom Jones won Best Picture and a ton of other Oscars. I consider it a "perfect movie".
Some of my favorite furrin films...
All French as it happens - yeah, I know it's unamerican of me, but I'm not an American anyway, so deal with it.
- No More Mr. Nice Guy!
ooooh, man, Diabolique was scary. That and ...
... les Yeux Sans Visage. Saw em on the big screen when I was about 12 and they froze me to the marrow.
French and German
Das Boot, as several of you have already suggested, is certainly right up there.
Also, the french pair of films "Jean de Florette" and "Manon des Sources" about a family from Paris who inherits a house in a small village in the south of France and move in, meeting a terrible culture clash: beautifully filmed, great acting and a plot that falls into place at the end of the second of the two movies.
Hmm, mine are all Japanese...
If you like The Seven Samurai (and especially if you also like Joss Whedon), I highly recommend The Twilight Samurai, by Yoji Yamada. It's a samurai film set just before the Meiji Restoration, but the title character is low-ranking and low-paid, and would rather take care of his children than go for a beer with the boys (or fight). Of course, as it turns out, he fights really well. How 'bout that? The movie is not about the fights (there are only two), but they're shot Whedon style, with long oners instead of the standard 12-frame cut-cut-cut style most modern movies have. You can have long clips in your fight scenes when your star learned stage combat before he learned acting! Oh, but can he act. I almost turned off the subtitles because he was saying all he needed to with his face.
Or, for something lighter, since nobody's mentioned Juzo Itami, how about Tampopo? It's sold as a "noodle western", but it's really a pastiche of styles by a man who loved genre as much as anyone.
My favorite "foreign film"
Without a doubt, "Two Days In Paris". Written and directed by Julie Delpy. Just kick ass. Sure, it's kinda depressing, but it's French, and what's not depressing about that?
LOTR
In reply to Hank who says "Truth be told, there are long, long parts of the original book trilogy that were tedious". Yes, from the foreward to the last page, not that I got past page 30. I really don't get all that Tolkein stuff.
My vote: "Amelie of Montmartre", with Audrey Tautou (who also starred in 'A very long engagement' mentioned above and ). Charming, funny, warming, and very french. And I defy any male not to fall instantly in love with Miss Tautou (http://audrey.tautou.info/pictures)
Mine too
I'm not someone who remembers movie names, actors, or plots unless the movie touches me in an emotional or intellectual way. I first saw Diva many years ago and was so enchanted with the soundtrack, that I pirated a copy on a tape player (appropriate) from the VHS tape. I still remember the emotions and passion of the film when I play that tape.
I'd also vote for Das Boot. Another one that I finally saw this summer is Lucía y el sexo. In turns very erotic and tragic.
Any twelve people who can't get themselves out of jury duty are not my peers.
______________________
Claybow
A Very Long Engagement
Chiming in on the "My Neighbor Totoro" love. Herzog's a great call, too. I also like the very weird underground film "El Topo" and "Santa Sangre", both by Jodorowsky.
If Canadians count as furriners, just about anything by David Cronenberg tops my list. Henson was American but since most of the crew and a lot of the cast were British, I'm also electing "Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal".
My current favorite film is an atypical period (WW1) romance from France, "A Very Long Engagement". Normally I prefer films where werewolves rip people's guts out to romance, but this one has a twisty plot with plenty of gruesomeness to salt the sappy stuff (the good-looking male lead spends most of the movie insane after a fellow soldier takes an artillery shell to the head and ends up as a fine red jelly covering the poor lead, including chunks in his mouth).
Aguirre
Aguirre.
Kannst du sie verstehen? Was sagen sie?
Ja. Sie sagen: Fleisch, fleisch, fleisch kommt vorbei.
Honorable mention for Miyazaki's kiddie movies, especially My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service. I was kind of disappointed by the other Miyazaki (Nausikaa, Spirited Away, Howl's, Castle in the Sky). They seemed to lack the "inner emotional authenticity" so to speak of Totoro and Kiki, and to try to compensate by getting louder. Still, since somebody recomments Mononoke maybe I'll give him another try.
Aguirre.
It's on topic for an atheist blog, with that scumbag priest - -
Fur der gut unseres Herren, die Kirche ist immer auf der Seite der Stark.
best foreign films
I agree that Kiki's Delivery Service is very good. Especially Kiki's cat.
A couple that come to mind immediately:
Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God
A more recent one that was pretty great: The Lives of Others.
Werner Herzog is a Dick
If Bill O'Reilly became a filmmaker, 'Grizzly Man' is what he'd make.
You think so? I disagree.
You think so? I disagree. Bill O'Reilly would've played the audio recording of Timothy's death. I thought it was in good taste and respectful of Werner not to do so (you know he probably could've if he wanted to). It's obviously somewhat exploitative to take all of the video Timothy shot and make a documentary out of it (and to make it about Timothy, not the grizzlies...as Timothy was probably planning to do eventually). All that aside, I thought it was a powerful documentary and I went away from it with a tremendous amount of respect for Timothy.
Ah.
Well, yours was an uncommonly mature understanding of what was going on. I've heard very few people who came away with respect for Tim. Or for grizzlies.
Herzog took great pains to make every person in the film, save the pilot, Willy Fulton, look dim-witted.
I only met Tim once, but I could see what he was trying to do, and it was something difficult and delicate and, remotely but conceivably, as revolutionary as what Jane Goodall did with chimpanzees.
After 13 years of Tim working at it, Herzog stomped on the whole thing with the stupid, heavy boots of the ignorant and uncaring, and made it all vanish. He made the grizzlies stay tabloid-fodder monsters. And he did it for fucking money.
Far as I'm concerned, the man's an idiot, and a mean-spirited one.
My rating system goes from 0 to 4 ponies
My favorite foreign movie is Cube, if you count Canada as a foreign country. (And if you do, tell Sarah Palin so she can add more foreign policy experience to her résumé.) For all you Stargate: Atlantis fans, the movie has David Hewlett in it.
Flipping the question around: Casshern is the worst foreign movie I've ever seen. It is one of the only movies I've ever seen that I'd walked out on (if I hadn't downloaded it watched it on my computer, of course). And I'm one of those "I paid my money and I'm gonna see all the movie" kinds of people. I am so glad Hikki divorced that bastard.
--
"Ponies are atheists, you know, technically."
- Me
So many...
Good calls with Miyazaki, Kurosawa. One of my other favorite directors is Pedro Amodovar. I don't think I've seen a single film from him that wasn't extraordinary.
One film in particular of his that I'm sure would go over well with this crowd would be Dark Habits.
How can you go wrong when the IMDB plot synopsis is:
An incomplete list of some of my other favorites is: 101 Reykjavik, Amelie, Bandit Queen, City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, Joyeux Noel, Kolja, Life is Beautiful, Princess and the Warrior, Run Lola Run, Shall We Dance (original Japanese version), Subway, Tsotsi.
BTW, I love Das Boot and Diva as well and have both on DVD :)
All of these I can recommend wholeheartedly.
Good choices
I heart Almodovar! I also agree on Amelie. Lovely movie.
"It's not every day you see a nun on smack…"
Thanks for the Dark Habits link - yeah, that looks like fun! And for the others, as well - this is why I posted this, in order to pad out my NetFlix queue . . .
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
86 and counting
At the moment I've got 86 films in our Netflix Queue. If we're lucky we average about one movie per week so we're set for quite some time.
Do Monty Python movies count?
If so, I'd have to go with The Life of Brian.
If you are going for the artsy films that are usually shown as "foreign" films in the U.S., I suggest Rape Me. It's a French movie about two women who share a rape experience and then go on a multi-province(?) crime spree in modern France. Think Thelma and Louise meets Killing Zoe.
It is a very disturbing, yet riveting film. I don't know that I'd call it my favorite foreign film, but it did make an impression on me. (Also, I don't watch many movies, foreign or domestic.)
Battle of Algiers-fictional
Battle of Algiers-fictional but made so well it views like a documentary.
Rashomon and & 7 Ssamurai and yes, I know I named 7 S on a previous list but dammit I like it!
Two Women and Boy on a Dolphin-Sophia Loren's Oscar was well deserved for 2 Women and, well I was about 11 or 12 when Sophia climbed out of the Aegean Sea (all wet !!) and... 'nuff said.
Agree with Hank on Waking Ned Devine-one damn funny film.
Can't believe that I forgot...
Nosferatu-the 1922 version- still so atmospheric and timeless. And anything by Eisenstein.
Huge Cronenberg fan
He's Canadian, so that counts, right? His early films were all made with financing from the Canadian government. I wonder if they approved of the end product. Anyway, the Brood is one of my personal favorites. Those creepy kids still give me the willies.
best foreign film
Any Hayao Miyazaki film. To pick one ... Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke).
Foreign Faves
"The Dish" and "Man From Snowy River" from Australia. Also "Sirens."
"The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill," oh, yeah, another vote for that, and for "Waking Ned Devine."
"Das Boot" from Germany (I think), and "La Cage Aux Folles" from France.
Something I think was called "Dog Soldiers," a sort of low-budget British-made werewolf movie.
Is "The Lord of the Rings" foreign?
My younger self liked every Godzilla movie ever made. "Rook! Godzirra! Aieee!"
Also good.
Yeah, both Das Boot and La Cage Aux Folles were quite good.
Hmm - if LOTR is considered foreign (I suppose it should be), then yeah, that'd have to be on my list. I thought Jackson's adaptation was brilliant (though still not as good as the book, of course), and I own the big box version that has like 126 hours of additional viewing time or whatever the hell it is.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
LOTR - ugh
That's not a movie. That's a casting project.
Sure, they did great on casting and costumes. All the faces look just about right. Good sets, too - - many scenes look just like the book.
Creativity, though? Zip.
As the movie drags on, they realize more and more that simply reading the book out loud is not enough, so they start going for the special effects, and the movie gets shallower and shallower as it relies more and more on technology. By the time they give you a good look at the big nasty monster in Moria (who looks like the troll in the girly animation TV show Winx Club) they've lost all the poetry and degraded to just another Scary Fake Monster movie.
Feh.
Book-to-movie projects almost invariably fail on good books, and often do brilliantly on bad books. It's like poetry-to-music (consider An Die Freude - - now there's a lame-ass poem for you).
Eh.
I loved the Lord of the Rings movie. I thought it was one of the best of all time movie adaptations.
I can't remember what animated movie it was I was criticizing some time back, but talking about it with a friend, I said I wished the characters weren't so one-dimensional. And then both of us laughed out loud. I said "You know you're messed up when you're critiquing an animated superhero movie and you wish they'd devoted more time to character development."
Just so with LOTR. At some point, I have to ask "Jeez, what the hell do you WANT?" (Truth be told, there are long, long parts of the original book trilogy that were tedious.)
The movie did everything well, and some things fantastic. LOTR the Movie was epic.
I'm with you, Hank...
I had a hard time reading the LOTR books when I was a kid; in fact, I only made it through about a 1/3 of the first book before giving up. I loved the Hobbit, though, and knew some day I'd try to read them again. There was a horrible, animated LOTR movie that came out around that time, and it didn't help my enthusiasm any.
But when I knew the release date for the first LOTR movie, in 2001, I decided to try reading the series again. This time, it really captivated me and I breezed through the three books much quicker than I thought I would. There were slow parts, and I didn't much care for all the "singing" that went on, but I liked the books enough to dread what would happen in the movies.
But I was really surprised at how good they were. Visually, they were stunning, of course, but even little Elijah Woods did a good acting job, I thought. And I thought the movies were a very good translation of the books to the screen.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
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