Filip Pagowski:

On Wednesday, September 29, 2004, at 06:42 PM, Filip Pagowski wrote:

Here are something to chew on:

Johnny Guitar (N. Ray)
The Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich)
The Hired Hand (Peter Fonda)
Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski)
Alphaville (J-L Godard)
Last Year in Marienbad (Resnais)
Midnight Cowboy (Schlezinger)
Macunaima (Joaquino de Andrade)
Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda)
Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman)
One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest (Milos Forman)
Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
Knife in the Water (Roman Polanski)
Cul de Sac (Roman Polanski)
Seven Men From Now (Budd Boetticher)
400 Blows (Truffault)
Milky Way (Bunuel)
Ballad of a Soldier (Grigoriy Chukhroy)
Le Samourai (Melville)
Arabian Nights (Pier Paolo Passolini)
Canterburry Tales (PP Passolini)
Baker's Wife (Marcel Pagnol)
La Strada (Fellini)
3:10 to Yuma (Delmer Daves)
Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder)
Napoleon (Abel Gance)
Goto Island of Love (Walerian Borowczyk)
Brazil (Terry Gilliam)
Doctor Strangelove (Kubrick)
The River (Renoir)
If (Lindsay Anderson)
Tokyo Olympiad (Kon Ichikawa)
Klute (Alan Pakula)
The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni)
Blow Up (M. Antonioni)
Walkabout (Nicholas Roeg)
Local Hero (Bill Forsyth)
American Friend (Wim Wenders)
etc...

Thanks Filip! Good list. Some obscure good ones here. Johnny Guitar is awesome. I love Nicholas Ray: Rebel Without a Cause, On Dangerous Ground, In a Lonely Place -- Bigger Than Life! I like Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show -- his first few movies (also Targets and Paper Moon) were really strong, then he kind of petered out rather quickly. Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand features the amazing Warren Oates; haven't seen Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End. I liked Godard's Alphaville; haven't seen Last Year in Marienbad; Midnight Cowboy; Macunaima; Ashes and Diamonds; Loves of a Blonde. Saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 20 years ago. Taxi Driver; Knife in the Water is good, and I really love some Polanski films, but Cul-de-Sac I couldn't sit through -- maybe I just wasn't in the mood. I seem to remember Lionel Stander getting on my nerves.

I love the Randolph Scott/Budd Boetticher westerns, and Seven Men From Now is awesome. I saw it a couple of years ago in Berkeley and Budd Boetticher was there, and spoke (he would die like a year later). I like Truffaut a lot and 400 Blows is good. Haven't seen Bunuel's Milky Way or Grigoriy Chukhroy's Ballad of a Soldier. Melville's Le Samourai is one of my favorites, though.

Haven't seen any Passolini; haven't seen Pagnol's Baker's Wife. I don't think I've seen Fellini's La Strada. I liked 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vida; I didn't really like Fellini Satyricon or Juliet of the Spirits very much. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but Giulietta Masina; sometimes Fellini does too. Maybe I'll change my opinion.

I love Glenn Ford, and Delmer Daves' film of Elmore Leonard's 3:10 to Yuma is really good. Wilder's Sunset Blvd is good; I love William Holden. I think he's even better three years later in Wilder's Stalag 17.

Haven't seen Abel Gance's Napoleon; or Walerian Borowczyk's Goto Island of Love -- but I have seen some some of Borowczyk's erotic films which I think are generally pretty strong.

I saw Brazil when it came out and don't remember much of it. Dr Strangelove is good; don't think I've seen Renoir's The River, but I liked his films The Woman on the Beach and The Southerner. Haven't seen Lindsay Anderson's If....; or Ichikawa Tokyo Olympiad. Klute I thought was just okay. I saw Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger when I was in high school I think, and at that time, at least, I was as bored as I'd ever been watching a movie. But Antonioni's Blow Up I loved. Roeg's Walkabout is very cool. Local Hero was fine. The American Friend based on one of Highsmith's Ripley novels is great.

Thanks for the list!