Name a film you've seen that left you with the thought, "This is art." If you want to explain why it made you feel that way, that would be pretty cool of you.
@RickiTarr Blade Runner 2049. I mean, if a studio's going to back a dump truck full of money up to your house, why not make a three-hour sci fi noir...
The whole thing is gorgeous, but there's a moment where Ryan Gosling's K is walking out of a tunnel in the "orphanage", and I literally turned to the person I was watching with and said "that's how you use light and shadow in a movie!"
@RickiTarr A Scanner Darkly. The most faithful adaptation of a PKD story, a movie Keanu Reeves fought to make the way it was made, an adaptation not just faithful to the source but loving it. That one scene where a scramble suit lingers on the author’s face
@RickiTarr My other 2 recommendations are movies I've only seen once, but will definitely watch again. These also stuck with me for some years, now.
The Way Way Back is a coming of age story that's kind of cozy in it's vague familiarity, shyness, and awful step-parent.
Eighth Grade is also a coming of age story about a girl struggling to fit in going into high school. The discomfort you feel is genuine, masterfully instilled. By Bo Burnham, which may (or not) set your expectations properly.
@simSalabim@RickiTarr I loved Amelie. The camera work is charming, curious, intelligent, fun, just like the protagonist. Also, I still want to mess with people like she did, despite my advanced age.
@RickiTarr Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro. Each scene is beautifully painted. Each vignette is executed beautifully. The movie is magical. It is art. More adults should see it and take it in … absorbing all the simple beauty and life affirming message within.
@RickiTarr
So many movies (most mentioned) have given me that feeling. Many have already been named here:
3 that haven't:
Lawrence of Arabia - The full movie, in a theater with full wide screen Cinemascope, is a life altering experience
Sanjuro - the sequel is more nuanced than Yojimbo & more powerful, exploring the nature of good/evil, honor/betrayal, self-knowledge/self-deception, I could watch this movie a 1000 times
Stranger Than Paradise - can't put in words.... it has soul, a broken one
@Okanogen@RickiTarr I loooove Sanjuro and I want more people to see it! Honestly, Toshiro Mifune is such an amazing actor and has done some amazing work both in period pieces like these and modern settings. And the movie has so much to it.
@Okanogen@RickiTarr Oh most definitely with Lawrence of Arabia. It's one of the first things I watched on my projection wall. It's one of those flicks that scales to the size of the screen.
@roadriverrail@RickiTarr
I saw the Director's Cut 70mm revival in the Cooper Twin theater in Minneapolis (the largest screen in the state at that time), It toured North America in the spring/summer of 1989. I recall it as a double bill with The Last Temptation of Christ, but maybe not? That was a long time to sit in a theater! I remember I fell asleep through part of LTOC. http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f1/t012188.html
@Okanogen@roadriverrail@RickiTarr That's an interesting double bill. I love Last Temptation. Harvey Keitel's Judas as the real hero of the story. David Bowie as Pilate. Dafoe playing Jesus as a cross-building carpenter. Not one of Scorese's better known films but if I were Christian this would be my bible.
@RickiTarr it's 3 films instead of one, but Three Colours by Krzysztof Kieślowski have to be watched as one. A buddy told me to watch because he needed someone to discuss them with. Blue is my favorite, Red and White are almost as good. Good story, acting, and camera work along with the great music let me call these films instead of movies.
@RickiTarr I'd also add "Immortals" by Tarsem Singh. It's really self-consciously art, but some of the visuals are so rich, and the set design is amazing!
Schindler's List's use of colour and sound.
Most Ghibli films for their deliberate choices. Every time I watch one, I think "someone decided to put that there."
1917 is the answer to a challenge fulfilled in such an amazing way.
Ralph Bakshi movies (American Pop, Wizards, etc) as well as their stylistic cousins (Don Bluth, etc).
@RickiTarr "Little Fugitive" (1953) was the kind of rare experience that combined the artistry of cinema with the reality of a tiny budget, and the results were unforgettable. Proof that the medium could be impactful with the fewest tools.
Name a film you've seen that left you with the thought, "This is art."
Spring, 1976, in Myrtle Beach for Spring Break. HS Senior. It rained one day, so I went off on my own and found a triple-feature that looked interesting from the one-sheets out front.
Slaughterhouse Five. TOMMY, and The Last Picture Show.
I walked out after 6+ hours, mind fully blown. I don't remember thinking the movies were ART then, but know now each is.
Who was the programmer in the mid-70s South who decided on that brilliant lineup. That's an art in itself. The theater was a large, old revival house that was all but empty that afternoon. $3.
@DemocracySpot@RickiTarr Two movies that come to mind as the examples you want are Peckenpaw’s “The Wild Bunch”, & “Koyansiqatsii”. For entirely different reasons
@richardsonstep@RickiTarr I felt like The Lighthouse should have ended with the two of them rotating out and a snippet of conversation about being back in a month.
@RickiTarr Night of the Living Dead - a movie that deals with racism and sexism, while masquerading as a horror film. Being directed by George Romero and filmed in black & white help add to the art factor.
@RickiTarr I'm sorry, I keep clogging up your replies with more comments, but your question really got my brain going on some of my favorites. 😅
I had a phase in my 20's where my best friend and I would smoke weed and watch strange movies from recommendation lists. So many of them made a lasting impact, and I've always felt that watching movies is an educational way to understand what works or doesn't work in film and storytelling.
Re-Animator, From Beyond, Pi by Darren Aaronofsky, Eraserhead and Lost Highway by David Lynch, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Never Let Me Go, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I could just go on and on.
Ever word of this, including watching-while-baked—except the part about clogging up the replies with more than one comment. 😂 I'm having a blast posting and reading. So many reminders of great movies I'd like to watch again now, and reasons to see many I haven't.
@RickiTarr “Passengers” was surprisingly cerebral and thought provoking. I feel it was superbly underrated and pitched as an action film when it was not.
@dsilverman Everyone will hate this, but I think Lolita is his most underrated film, followed closely by The Killing. Spartacus is the most overrated LONG and boring, no one is going to like that either lol
@RickiTarr Oh I don’t think Lolita is underrated at all. At the time it was as controversial as the book and considered his first “great” film. Not a particularly likable film though.
Agree on Spartacus, but it did give us the touchstone “I am Spartacus!” scene.
@RickiTarr birdman. or the unexpected virtue of ignorance. the meta. the interstitial jazz beats. the extravagant long takes. the camera as unreliable narrator. all of it.
Wow, watched Birdman last night based on your description, Mr. PtoothFish. That movie floored me. Freaking amazing film. The Jazz drummer was really great too. Love how he’s sprinkled in throughout. Great art meets hollywood movie. Thanks for sharing!
I guess the drummer in the film is not the drummer on the audio either. But the drumming is synched perfect. Damn.
@RickiTarr Werckmeister Harmonies. I saw the opening sequence on Warren Ellis's blog many years back, and was entranced. The visuals are astounding, but the hint of something moving just below the surface makes it memorable. The opening sequence is available on YouTube, by the way.
I live Shirow’s work. It is almost impossible for any animation to reflect the depth of his art, but you add elemental forces like Kenji Kawai to the movie and it entirely elevates the experience.
Fantastic!
Kenji Kawai's superpower is making 20 Japanese Women into a force of nature that you want to first run from danger, then in a moment of clarity turn and face it with all you got.
Even if it's a rubber chicken, a cup of soda, and about 45 yen in your pocket.
In the hazy, dreamy, poisonous world of The Virgin Suicides, language is limiting, even imprisoning, while greater, more profound truths lie beyond narration, in the visual, in the experiential, the imaginative. https://youtu.be/8kDcCGlaBwY?si=xGdusOWgVGfrDgvq
@mastosalo@RickiTarr interesting -- that's how i felt after seeing my first werner herzog film (jeder für sich und gott gegen alles/kaspar hausar) -- that something important had happened to me. intangible yet pivotal.
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