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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.234.71
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 06:51 am:   

A friend gave me a hand-out from when she entered the American Film Institute, back in 2001. Every student, no matter what the discipline, was expected to come in with a knowledge of (i.e., having seen) certain films - no exceptions - that were "representative of the very best of their type and style." A list of these was provided, so the students could make sure they'd seen them all before their terminal degree program even began.

The list is below, a total of 33 films, in the order they are numbered (for reasons unknown). Just another list out there of "Best Films" I thought you all might find momentarily interesting... fwiw.

----------------

1) 8 1/2 (1963)
2) TOKYO STORY (1953)
3) SEVEN SAMURAI (1954)
4) BADLANDS (1973)
5) WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957)
6) A MAN ESCAPED (1956)
7) RULES OF THE GAME (1939)
8) THE SEARCHERS (1956)
9) INTIMATE LIGHTING (1966)
10) ROCCO & HIS BROTHERS (1960)
11) THE BICYCLE THIEF (1949)
12) THE THIRD MAN (1949)
13) LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS (1945)
14) RED RIVER (1948)
15) BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
16) MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)
17) TOUCH OF EVIL (1958)
18) BLUE (1993)
19) DEKALOG (1993)
20) BREATHLESS (1959)
21) LA GUERRE EST FINIE (1966)
22) BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966)
23) BURNT BY THE SUN (1994)
24) TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)
25) SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1941)
26) CHINATOWN (1974)
27) THE PIANO (1993)
28) SWEPT WAY (1975)
29) VAGABOND (1985)
30) PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)
31) NASHVILLE (1975)
32) MEAN STREETS (1973)
33) RAGING BULL (1980)
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 85.158.137.195
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 12:05 pm:   

I've never even heard of RULES OF THE GAME or INTIMATE LIGHTING...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:18 pm:   

Raging Bull and The Piano should be off the list. Put Alien on instead of The Piano, and Tom Hanks' Cast Away instead of Raging Bull.
Just as random suggestions, you understand.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:24 pm:   

Castaway - two hours of that boring shitheap Tom Hanks by himself sexually abusing a basketball!!!

Why in the name of all that's holy would anyone want that in a list of good films???
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:26 pm:   

It's great! The two hours flies by. It's not my favourite, but it added more to my life than the pretentious Raging Bullshit did...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:28 pm:   

but it added more to my life than the pretentious Raging Bullshit did...

I'm not even touching this one. No, sir. Not me.

Oh, okay, then: Tony, you are clearly deluded (or simply don't like boxing films).
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:28 pm:   

However, to save a long debate let's pretend I DID like RB!
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:29 pm:   

It's the worlds most overated actor alone for two hours. The only thing that would make time fly by for me would be an entire litre bottle of Talisker beforehand to knock me out.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:29 pm:   

But look - according to this the last good film was 1993. Sheesh.

OK, swap RB for The Fountain. Or Naked. Or The Pledge.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:30 pm:   

Hanks is ok. It gets better the more you watch it, too.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:31 pm:   

Obviously I'm still talking about castaway.

Raging Bull is a fairly good effort by wotisface and thingy
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:31 pm:   

I like boxing films! Well, the first four Rockys, anyway...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:32 pm:   

Hoy! The clipart went wrong!
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:32 pm:   

hanks is poo.

that's my considered opinion.

After Big and The Burbs he's done nothing good.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:33 pm:   

He's better in comedies but Cast Away is quite a strong film, I think. That ending, when he lies on the floor with the torch, really affected me.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:35 pm:   

Maybe the Japanese name for De Niro in RB is 'Picturesque Fight Man'.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:36 pm:   

Raging Bull is a masterful study of uncontrolled machismo and deep masculine rage. To be pretentious as fuck, it's a terrifying deconstruction of the myth of malehood. De Niro is awe-inspiring as Jake Le Motta. One of the most horrifying scenes ever commited to film is when he's repeatedly punching the walls in the prison cell. It says so much about the character in a single heartwrenching scene.

Castaway, on the other hand, is a vaguely enjoyable time-waster.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:38 pm:   

Tom Hanks' best film: BACHELOR PARTY.

Japanese title for Castaway: Smug Cunt Man on Island.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:39 pm:   

Forrest Gump has to be the worst film ever made - it even beats battlefield earth and the Batman film with arnie in it to the crown.

And Hanks got a f*cking oscar for it??!!?? he talked in a monotone for two fucking hours. That's not acting!!! "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get!" there's a fucking guide sheet in the lid you daft bastard!!!

Sorry, but praising Hanks is the guaranteed way to make me blow up
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:39 pm:   



Maybe I need to see RB again. I just remember not feeling drawn into it, or bothered about the guy. Not that that is essential.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:40 pm:   

And BTW who allowed cunt on here these days?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:41 pm:   

Er, that laugh was at Zed's post.

I like Gump, a bit. But yes, I hate that chocolate box lid quote to bits too.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:45 pm:   

And BTW who allowed cunt on here these days?

Just some cunt.

Give RB another try, Tony. It's mesmerising.

I must admit, I'm with Weber on Hanks and especially GUMP, but I've mellowed over recent years. I almost had a fistfight with a bloke over which was the better film, PULP FICTION or FOREST GUMP.

Although, I think Hanks is actually pretty good in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. But I can think of other actors who would've been better.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:50 pm:   

Private Ryan is - for me- the worst type of american movie about the war. Going by that film, the only people in france in WWII were the Germans and the Americans. You never meet anyone else.

band of brothers was the same - even the episode set in England they only met two englishmen, one was a stereotype cockney who spoke nothing but rhyming slang and the other was a stereotype posh gent who apparently owned the field they were training in.

I hate that sort of thing.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 85.158.137.195
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:51 pm:   

I don't like boxing films as a rule, but love RAGING BULL...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:53 pm:   

I hate it when Spielberg touches the war. Apart from when he uses Indy to do it, that is.
I like Pulp AND Gump! Should I top myself or pat myself on the back?!?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:56 pm:   

What, you mean you don't like ROCKY? SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME? THE HURRICANE? CINDERELLA MAN? THE CHAMP? MILLION DOLLAR BABY? FAT CITY? HOMEBOY? ALI?

I love a good boxing film.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 01:58 pm:   

I hate it when Spielberg touches the war.

What about SCHINDLER'S LIST? Don't tell me you didn't think that was a good film...

Weber - all American war films are like that. You ether have to just grit yer teeth and enjoy them for what they are, or not bother.

I thought BAND OF BROTHERS was extraordinary, though.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.195.253
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 02:25 pm:   

I liked the eighties TV series adaptations of Herman Wouk's The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. They're very educational. I learned more about the Second World War watching them than I learned at school.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 02:38 pm:   

To return to the original list, I do think La Guerre est Finie is an odd choice to represent Resnais (if that's the purpose). I'd have Marienbad or Muriel myself. Rules of the Game is Renoir's La Regle du Jeu, Mick. But no Mizoguchi? Schlesinger rather than Michael Powell or Robert Hamer? No Lang? No Hitchcock?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 02:41 pm:   

No Kubrick?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.129.21.168
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 02:53 pm:   

And it's odd how no-one noticed, but no Kane! A first.
Yes - no Hitch. That's some kind of crime. It feels like a Bourne Identity kind of list, trying to be different and new.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.159.141.80
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 03:30 pm:   

What, you mean you don't like ROCKY? SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME? THE HURRICANE? CINDERELLA MAN? THE CHAMP? MILLION DOLLAR BABY? FAT CITY? HOMEBOY? ALI?

No, no, yes, no, definitely not, no, no, no, sort of.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.159.141.80
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 03:31 pm:   

Rules of the Game is Renoir's La Regle du Jeu, Mick.

Ah of course - I've only ever seen the title in French! Thanks Ramsey...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 03:45 pm:   

No Chris Columbus???
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.6.15
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 - 04:20 pm:   

I don't know why certain obvious films were left off the list, like CITIZEN KANE - maybe it was assumed the students had seen them? But then I'd assume film students had seen CHINATOWN, or BONNIE AND CLYDE... but maybe not. There's a number on here I've missed myself....

The one I'd take off is #30: I never did like that film. Shelly Winters whining and moaning, hell, who wouldn't push her off a !@#@ boat?!

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