What three (3) films best describe your film taste?

[Sven]

This is something different than what you consider your favorite films to be, unless you consider your favorite films to be exemplar of the reasons you watch films. For example, my three would be:

Playtime, for its emphasis on shape, design, and overall geography

Lessons of Darkness, for its languorous, snaky, contemplative photography and playing with the difference between fiction and documentary

Snake Eyes, for its unabashed intention to thrill the audience but without forsaking dedication to craft, as well as its deliberate toying with several concepts of photographic reality

Any takers?

[Russ]

Good topic. I like that you included capsule explanations -- much better than just a simple list of three titles.

Challenging, but I think I can narrow it down. Will check back in later.

[lovejuice]

love this thread.

8 women: a combination of my four favorite genres: musical, play, murder mystery, and movies starring lot of chicks.

godford park, or any top tier altman's: altman's order-out-of-chaos approach is influential to me, not only in film taste, but also in literature and my own writing.

inglourious basterds: for how qt masterfully exphasizes and plays with audiences' expectation.

i might come up with better answers later. this is quite challenging indeed.

[number8]

Yeah, this is pretty tough, actually.

A Snake of June describes my attraction to loose narratives, celebration of profane sexual portrayals and surreal imageries.

3-Iron shows great care in composition and deliberate toying with audiences, not to mention a stubborn rejection of spoken text. If I were to be a director, this is how I wish my films to be like.

Battle Royale, as an example of how even the most profound social commentary and examination of human nature can still be delivered in a relentlessly fun (though skillfully made) camp—nor does it need to be subtle. Subtlety is overrated.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Probably Ghostbusters, Unbreakable, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. They respectively represent my sense of humor, my interest in the unknown, and my fuck-reality optimism.

[Philosophe_rouge]

Suspiria- My love for horror, baroque imagery, feminine perspective and protagonist, and evocative childhoods.

Catch-22 - How I love my humour, both absurd and close to tragedy. Stunning imagery, Alan Arkin, non-cohesive plot-lines.

Other Men's Women- I love me old Hollywood, tonal shifts, overblown but somehow insignificant romances, beautiful moments of laughter and nothingness.

That seems pretty good.

[Ezee E]

What would also be neat is seeing others pick three films that describe other posters.

I've thought of one, but need to figure out two others. Boogie Nights seems too much like Goodfellas as far as describing my taste.

[Sven]

And I realize I just cheated by naming four extra films, but whatareyougonnado?

Reported.

[megladon8]

Le Samourai - my love of inventive camerawork creating truly iconic shots, coupled with my love of both crime and western films which often tell simplistic stories riddled with complex morality.

Superman - superheroes and the magic that movies are capable of.

The Haunting - my love affair with horror films is perfectly summed up here, in what remains one of the scariest movies of all time. Still captures the "less is more" philosophy, which even applies to films with tons of gore and monsters, because even with all that snazzy stuff you need something else for the audience to grip on to, whether it be strength of plot, character, style, or whatever it may be.

[Adam]

Have you seen Le Cercle Rouge, meg? For my taste, it's gott essentially all you say you love about Le Samourai, except it's slightly better in every way.

[Adam]

And yeah, this is a nice thread. I'll go with...

Cache Okay, well firstly, I tend to dig movies that take their time. In addition to its pacing, Cache's mise en scène (forgive me) is flawless and this is also basically a clinic on how to successfully make a genre film with a point and which isn't at all shallow. It's stupefying how well Haneke walks the tightrope with this film in not sacrificing the narrative once to nail what he's trying to do thematically. I actually have a pretty huge problem with the grander message about how we're all apparently to blame for the sins of our fathers, but yeah, Cache is still more or less perfectly representative of a buttload of my favorite filmmakers/films, so I feel like it has to be here

Before Sunrise I'm an absurd romantic, above all else, and this is maybe the most romantic movie I've seen, so there you go. It's got two incredibly well-drawn and achingly real characters. Also very breezily and dreamily constructed, which I like. You kind of just float along with these two people in this foreign land for an a hour and a half and its just so delicately observed and pleasant and wonderful. Echoing number8 for a sec - If I were a director, this is the kind of film I'd wanna make

Modern Romance This is a tremendously cathartic movie for me. I go into detail about how hard Modern Romance and Albert Brooks in general jibes with my sense of humor and overall sensibilities here (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=223019&postcount=4)

But this is, of course, impossible. There are so many movies. I really, really wanna sub out Modern Romance and plug in Miller's Crossing or Floating Clouds or King of Hearts or especially Rushmore, but as of today, I guess three will have to suffice. And I realize I just cheated by naming four extra films, but whatareyougonnado?

[Adam]

Reported.

Dang, sorry. I deleted and re-posted

[Sven]

Dang. I deleted and re-posted

Dude, you're messing with time!

[Skitch]

Yeah, I may have to do several sets! :). Off the top of my head...

Akira because its just got everything.

Fight Club because I just love its humor and off-kilter quasi-nihilistic romantic comedy irony.

Aliens because its endlessly rewatchable sci-fi horror, with dialogue that never gets old.

I wanted to add a Kim Ki Duk flick, but I can't remember the title. I just finished a double shift, with two more on the horizon, my scotch kicking in, and I can't be troubled to kick a sleeping cat off my lap and pause The Brak Show to go back to the media room to refresh my memory.

[Boner M]

Three random choices...

A nos amours - The full spectrum of human emotion; the uncanny evocation of the rhythms of life; naturalism used to poetic ends.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch - Hollywood cash-grab transformed into a gleefully anarchic playground of cinematic invention.

Moonrise (Borzage) - Melodrama played with a nearly primal, heart-on-sleeve sincerity; expressionist noir style but without the genre's glib fatalism.

[Fezzik]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Sci-Fi mind-screw with a totally accessible story and yet still far enough out there to exhilarate.

Casablanca - Smooth performances, gorgeous to look at and a seemingly effortlessly awesome screenplay. I revisit this one a LOT.

Monster's Inc - Sweet, charming, beautiful animated film with one of the most endearing characters ever put to screen (Boo). It's like huddling in front of a fire on a cold day.

[monolith94]

Delicatessen
The Thief of Bagdad
Dracula, Pages From a Virgin's Diary

[number8]

Dracula, Pages From a Virgin's Diary

I never figured you for a ballet guy.

[Melville]

Emak-Bakia, for encapsulating the beauty of moving images, their visceral power, their capacity to capture a moment.

Edvard Munch, for its use of filmic form, primarily editing, and metatextual commentary to directly convey subjective and intersubjective experience, with its layers of memory and awareness, reality and ideality; in particular, for its depiction of romantic love.

Possession, for going into the breach, for being wildly expressionistic, showing the existential calamities of life not as an objective sequence of events, but as they are felt—tentacled miscarriages and all.

Damn. That really leaves out a lot.

[Raiders]

A Man Escaped - Austere, minimalist--characters defined by movements, actions, visuals

Werckmeister Harmonies - Bold, defined by visual contrast in lights and darks, stark and loaded images, static long takes and elegant tracking shots

Sherlock, Jr. - Profound expression of cinema, deft use of the artform to critique itself, displays a genuine love of filmmaking

[Beau]

The Rules of the Game -- Not only my favorite film, but also one that unites (or gave birth to: chicken or egg situation) most of my obsessions: the endless interactions between humor and tragedy; the dynamism of human beings moving their bodies around in an effort to communicate something, conceal something, fuck something, one-up something, do something, or quite simply survive something; the beauty of little expressions and mannerisms, holding within their movement folds and folds of meaning and insinuation; and finally, the aura of night, the vibe of it, the feeling that anything can happen after sunset, and the melancholy sigh of those final hours of darkness just before the dawn.

Jeanne Dielman -- Formal rigor and a contemplative gaze; a slow-moving portrait hoping to pick up on patterns, echoes, resemblances; a musical film, built on repeated visual notes.

The Empire Strikes Back -- Beautiful pop-art, replete with stunning vistas and grand adventure, all held together by essentially sad undercurrents, a bittersweet combination of childish glee and adult weariness ending in a blood-soaked sunset.

[Melville]

Moonrise (Borzage) - Melodrama played with a nearly primal, heart-on-sleeve sincerity; expressionist noir style but without the genre's glib fatalism.
I keep hoping this will appear on Surreal Moviez. (I'm too lazy for that torrent stuff.) I've probably already asked you this, but how do Borzage's other films compare?

[Boner M]

I keep hoping this will appear on Surreal Moviez. (I'm too lazy for that torrent stuff.) I've probably already asked you this, but how do Borzage's other films compare?
I've only seen History is Made at Night, which had similarly melodramatic sensibilities but not the dynamic visual style that was so present in Moonrise, although the wonderful chemistry of Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer made up for that. It's somewhat hampered by Borzage's need to throw PERIL! at his subjects for their love to transcend, but even at its most cornball it was still surprisingly engaging throughout. I remember Derek being really high on it, so your mileage may vary (I watched it on a terrible VHS copy, so perhaps my misgivings about the film's visual style are off-base).

[B-side]

I'll have to come back to this one.

[Melville]

I've only seen History is Made at Night, which had similarly melodramatic sensibilities but not the dynamic visual style that was so present in Moonrise, although the wonderful chemistry of Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer made up for that. It's somewhat hampered by Borzage's need to throw PERIL! at his subjects for their love to transcend, but even at its most cornball it was still surprisingly engaging throughout. I remember Derek being really high on it, so your mileage may vary (I watched it on a terrible VHS copy, so perhaps my misgivings about the film's visual style are off-base).
Ah, I was hoping you had seen The Mortal Storm, which seems to be his most widely praised. I do love expressionistic melodrama, so I guess I'll check out some of his other stuff while waiting for Moonrise to somehow find its way to me.

[B-side]

Ah, I was hoping you had seen The Mortal Storm, which seems to be his most widely praised. I do love expressionistic melodrama, so I guess I'll check out some of his other stuff while waiting for Moonrise to somehow find its way to me.

There's this site a bunch of us use. It's called Karagarga. I'd be happy to send you an invite.:P

[Melville]

There's this site a bunch of us use. It's called Karagarga. I'd be happy to send you an invite.:P
Evidently you missed that sentence about me being too lazy. Trying to maintain some kind of ratio of downloads to uploads seems like an especial hassle.

[B-side]

Evidently you missed that sentence about me being too lazy. Trying to maintain some kind of ratio of downloads to uploads seems like an especial hassle.

It's easy as pie, especially with the free to leech torrents. I'd be more than happy to give you a few GBs to start out with, too.

[Melville]

It's easy as pie, especially with the free to leech torrents. I'd be more than happy to give you a few GBs to start out with, too.
Nah, it all seems too confusing. I can't be bothered with anything that requires any thought or effort right now. Thanks for the offer, though.

[B-side]

Nah, it all seems too confusing. I can't be bothered with anything that requires any thought or effort right now. Thanks for the offer, though.

No problem. If you wanna get started on it, just let me know and I'll hook you up.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Excellent question. I feel my top 3 films though would describe my film taste as 'boring', though.

[Bosco B Thug]

Notorious - Tough-as-nails but sympathetic-as-heck, restrained but sparkling, dead serious but first-class drama all the same.

Candyman - Lucid, surreal horror, more metaphorical than anything else yet sparked up by the real world, and not bogged down in dreams and symbols.

Don't Look Now - True realism in film. The beautiful messiness of Roeg's constructing and the freedom of the performances make it seem like life caught on film, made into a work of art. Existential examination.


The Rules of the Game -- Not only my favorite film, but also one that unites (or gave birth to: chicken or egg situation) most of my obsessions: the endless interactions between humor and tragedy; the dynamism of human beings moving their bodies around in an effort to communicate something, conceal something, fuck something, one-up something, do something, or quite simply survive something; the beauty of little expressions and mannerisms, holding within their movement folds and folds of meaning and insinuation; and finally, the aura of night, the vibe of it, the feeling that anything can happen after sunset, and the melancholy sigh of those final hours of darkness just before the dawn. Very nice. It came down to this and Notorious - a B&W, soft-focus stand-off. RotG's night cinematography really is sublime.

[B-side]

Here are a few:

Dream Work (Tscherkassky): Surreal, atmospheric and fun to digest. It's the quintessential "figure me out" film.

In a Year with 13 Moons (Fassbinder): Deals with a weighty issue in a unique and tragic manner. Plus, there's those Fassbinder compositions I love so much.

Barry Lyndon (Kubrick): Painterly aesthetic meets epic story arc.

[Ivan Drago]

Magnolia - My favorite film of all time, I love character and dialogue driven films, specifically those that take place over the course of one or two days, like this.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence - I love movies I can relate to, and this film hits me on a very personal level.

Crank - OMFG I <3 MUUVEES THAT R TEH AWSUM & NSANE @ TEH SAME TIME!!!1 :head explodes:

[Russ]

A.I. Artificial Intelligence - I love movies I can relate to, and this film hits me on a very personal level.
uhh...I'm scared to ask..

[number8]

uhh...I'm scared to ask..

You must be new around here. Ivan Drago is our resident cyborg gigolo.

[Derek]

I've only seen History is Made at Night, which had similarly melodramatic sensibilities but not the dynamic visual style that was so present in Moonrise, although the wonderful chemistry of Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer made up for that.

Whatwhatwhat?? I thought History is Made at Night had a very dynamic visual style, particularly the final act. Certainly the most impressive Borzage I've seen, though I'll be sure to pick up Moonrise ASAP.

[Mysterious Dude]

The Bicycle Thief - for the faux-realism that doesn't sacrifice entertainment. It's not really any more 'realistic' than your average movie, but it seems a little more realistic, doesn't it? I don't think I'll ever go for the Yasujiro Ozu type of realism. At least give me a little bit of action and violence, too. See also: The Battle of Algiers, A Woman Under the Influence, Children of Men

Napoleon - Style over substance. Sometimes, I'm okay with it. I don't think this movie has anything intelligent to say about the emperor, but it says it with such style! I'm so enthralled by the direction that I don't really care about the story. See also: Touch of Evil, Requiem for a Dream

The Night of the Hunter - I often like movies with kids, but movies that have a little bit of darkness to them, too (or a lot). See also: Los Olvidados, Taxi Driver

[Ezee E]

Boogie Nights - a high level of style, mixed with a love for all of its characters. Surprising, sudden violence and comedy that you usually find out being funny on later viewings. This represents my taste moreso than Goodfellas I think.

Taxi Driver - a buildup of emotions to one explosive set piece. Where Boogie Nights makes you enjoy each character, this one you don't know what to think, but yet remain intrigued each frame.

No Country For Old Men - constantly tense, and a story that's mostly told through its images.

Eh... This was harder to do then I thought.

[Watashi]

Hook - the ultimate nostalgia film. I love movies that make you feel like a kid again and this film is the pan of that feeling.

Whisper of the Heart - yeah, it's my favorite movie, but it just captures the beauty of maturity better than any film I've seen. It's so delicately detailed in every frame it makes me appreciate the craft that goes into animation

The Iron Giant - the film that made me realize that animation were more than just cartoons for kids.

[chrisnu]

Mulholland Dr. - I love the use of dreams and the subconscious to reveal the longings and groanings of the heart. I love mystery. I love weirdness. I love a puzzle box I have to try to put together.

Fargo - So screwed up you have to laugh at it, non-stop catchy dialogue, cold and indifferent (but not malevolent).

Very difficult to pick a single Cassavetes film. How about Love Streams. This gets how benevolent, empathetic, backbiting, avaricious, possessive and loving family can be. Perhaps I'm extolling its virtues to highly. Ah, hell. I love teh drama.

[Dukefrukem]

Army of Darkness - Depicts my sense of humor; combination of slapstick goofy and my love for memorizing as many quotes as humanly possible that I can spout out during normal daily conversation - Ghostbusters, Animal House, Naked Gun

Rear Window - I love movies with high tension, particularly simple movies that lets your imagination take over, Phonebooth, the Game, Blair Witch - combine that with revenge and you get my my 3rd favorite genres; Godfather, Count of Monte Cristo, Payback, Breakdown

Dawn of the Dead - Then there's my brutal horror side, the fear side, my favorite side... add zombies to the mix and I'm pretty happy. the Descent, Martyrs, High Tension, Feast, Wolf Creek

[Grouchy]

Duck Soup, for obvious reasons. And besides, because between all the comedy and insanity, it represents a nihilistic portrait of stuff other people think is very important.

Goodfellas, because it's never boring. I want to make movies like this, where every scene, every shot is great. Also, the film hits upon a number of things I enjoy thinking about, such as the role of upbringing and surroundings in shaping one's morality. Besides, it has sex and violence, which are things worth representing in films.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, because I love westerns, I love genres, I love Clint Eastwood and I love to be entertained by a master.

[balmakboor]

I like a director to have a vision, a bold vision, perhaps even a folly of a vision and to go for it with every fiber of his being. My first inclination was Playtime, but I didn't want to seem to be copying Sven. So I'll go with:

1. Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom

I really like films where there is a sense of anything goes. One moment, it might be a melodrama, the next a documentary, the next a cartoon, old footage, new footage, home camcorder stuff next to 35mm, etc. I first thought WR: Mysteries of the Organism, but that's already in my sig. So I picked the more obscure:

2. Mock Up on Mu

I love documentaries above all else. But it isn't so much the teach you things type documentary that I go for. It's the stuff that's more like a slice of life look at interesting characters. What I go for the most is all the moments where characters do things or say things or get unexpected expressions on their faces that could never have been written or acted. They just happen because they are true. I almost listed Gimme Shelter, but then I took a slight left turn with:

3. Anvil! The Story of Anvil

[StanleyK]

2001: A Space Odyssey - The ultimate blend of style and substance, mostly told through images and sounds; pure cinema.

Persona - Bergman said that the human face is the great subject of cinema; I love when a close-up analyses every pore of an actor's face, the subtlest reaction or expression. It helps that this film contains two of the best performances ever.

Bus 174 - A fascinating analysis of violence, its causes and repercussions, on every social level, without casting judgments, only laying information.

[Ezee E]

I haven't read many people's reasonings, but when I saw that Salo was mentioned, it became a must read.

[D_Davis]

Probably Ghostbusters, Unbreakable, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. They respectively represent my sense of humor, my interest in the unknown, and my fuck-reality optimism.

Great choices, and I can totally see how these describe what I know of you.

[D_Davis]

The Boxer From Shantung - perfectly encapsulates everything I love about martial arts cinema, and, really, a lot of things I love about movies in general.

Mind Game - I love the artistry of movies. Everything form the paintings used for backdrops or animation to the music. No other movie I can think of celebrates the art of the medium better than Mind Game.

Inland Empire - I also love the bizarre reality of movies. Movieworld can be a scary, romantic, fascinating, interesting, devastating, happy and sad place. Lynch's film perfectly represents Movieworld, warts and all. It's a picture of a reality slightly removed from our own, an off-kilter view into a world that is simultaneously recognizable and all together alien.

[Russ]

Daniel, as you're aware, your 2nd and 3rd picks could easily have been mine as well. Great thoughts on each. Guess this means I really need to see The Boxer from Shantung.

[Beau]

Guess I need to see something from Daniel's list.

[Qrazy]

Guess I need to see something from Daniel's list.

Mind Game.

[Dillard]

No Inland Empire yet, Beau?

It's probably my first or second of the 00s.

[Beau]

No Inland Empire yet, Beau?

It's probably my first or second of the 00s.

Nope. I haven't seen any Lynch at all outside of Eraserhead, which I love. Not sure why I haven't seen more. Just one of those things.

[bac0n]

Destroy All Monsters - Old school sci-fi, cheesey plot, men in rubber monster suits lumbering around and smashing each other, wanton, gleeful destruction. Cardboard cities exploding. Stupid, innocent fun that i don't need to think too hard about.

Blade Runner - Sci-Fi with more than a hint of noir. Dense atmospherics. The idea of space/technology/the future being a dangerous, foreboding thing we can not possibly know.

Pink Panther Strikes Back - Patently absurd plot and characters. Laugh out loud funny physical humor. Men screaming in slow motion and destroying fragile objects. Peter Sellers.

[Dillard]

Nope. I haven't seen any Lynch at all outside of Eraserhead, which I love. Not sure why I haven't seen more. Just one of those things.

You need to fix that!

[dreamdead]

Fallen Angels - a film in love with style, one that uses it to examine the inner psychology of its lovelorn characters, all while cementing them fully within the framework of the global city. Such a wonderful selection of musical cues, and perhaps the most sadly erotic film around.

Love and Death - classic take on the Russian existential masterpieces, layering joke upon joke about the absurdity of existence, but always being aware that in the face of such despair, you can still laugh at it (something that more contemporary Allen films forget). Wonderfully quotable, and there is no other film with which I'd want to be stranded on a desert island.

The Thin Red Line - philosophical like Rohmer's best (that I'm including none of his work hurts me greatly when thinking about this question), this interrogates both the classic depiction of the bloodthirsty American, the dispassionate American, and the earnest American, arguing that all three can still find communion in something greater, even if no one is aware of their similarities outside their own perspectives. Great for trying to show multiple sides of WW2, and for being the most interestingly non-spiritual film about spirituality.

[Skitch]

Nope. I haven't seen any Lynch at all outside of Eraserhead, which I love. Not sure why I haven't seen more. Just one of those things.
Lost Highway almost made my list. Mulholland Drive is great too. Inland Empire was terrible, imo.

[The Mike]

Despite the fact Rear Window's my favorite movie, I'd start my three with Vertigo, which would hit on my love of Hitchcock, classic stars, beautiful leading ladies and my interest in films that push the envelope despite Hollywood standards.

Then comes Halloween, representing my simple love for horror based on ghost stories, mythology, and atmosphere, regardless of gore.

And lastly, The Rock. Because most of the time I'd rather see good actors deal with a ridiculous plot and lots of action at a breakneck pace than any critically acclaimed piece of melodrama.

[megladon8]

Have you seen Le Cercle Rouge, meg? For my taste, it's gott essentially all you say you love about Le Samourai, except it's slightly better in every way.


I'm sorry I totally missed this post.

No, I have not seen Le cercle rouge yet. I also really want to see Army of Shadows and Un flic.

In short, I just want to see more Melville. But I have a hard time ever believing that I'll enjoy something more than Le samourai. It's become one of my very favorites.

[Mysterious Dude]

Le Samourai is much better than Le Cercle Rouge, which seems like a pretty run-of-the-mill heist film by comparison.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Le Samourai is much better than Le Cercle Rouge, which seems like a pretty run-of-the-mill heist film by comparison.

This is truth.

[megladon8]

I have KF to thank for my initially seeing Le Samourai :)

I still remember when he told me "See it. It's pretty much one of the best movies I've ever seen."

But it was written with more HAXX0R / L33T SPEAK, typical of KF's writing patterns.

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

Chungking Express - I'm venturing a guess that I will watch this movie the most times throughout my life.

Anna - For my obsession with one Anna Karina.

Nights of Cabiria - The film that has influenced me most in my own artistic endeavors.