Art House/Foreign/John Hughes/Eastwood +

From R. L. Johnson:

Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002
Some Favorite Films:

Heat
Good Fellas
Awakenings
The Deer Hunter
Cape Fear
Ronin
Taxi Driver
Purple Noon
Pulp Fiction
The Shinning
One Flew Over The Cuckoos's Nest
The Eighth Day
Search And Destroy
American Beauty
The Monster
Celestial Clockwork
My Life In Pink
The Closet
Hate
Amelie
City Of The Lost Children
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawerence
Midnight Run
Full Metal Jacket
True Romance
A Clockwork Orange
Ferris Beuler's Day Off
The Hair Dresser's Husband
Austin Powers
South Park
Where Eagles Dare
Escape from Alcatraz
Hang 'em High
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
A Fistful of Dollars
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Big Blue
The Professional
Nosferatu
JFK(despite Kevin Cosner sucking ass as an actor and a human being)
The Godfather
The Dark Crystal
Damage
Blue (Binoche)
Il Postino
Wild Side
The Elephant Man
Silence Of The Lambs
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
BIG
Beyond The Clouds
The Running Man
Conan The Barbarian
Kundun

-Azraq

Thanks for writing! Well, this is a good list and very original.

I assume you mean the DeNiro-Pacino Heat and not the Burt Reynolds version. Heat is great.
Good Fellas is good. Haven't seen it in a long time.
Cape Fear -- I guess you mean the remake. I like both. May like the remake better.
Ronin is great action. A nice comeback of sorts from Frankenheimer. It's car chase is the most exciting since Bullitt.
Taxi Driver is good; haven't seen it recently.
Purple Noon is good, but I think The Talented Mr Ripley might be better. I'm a huge fan of the five Highsmith novels.
Pulp Fiction is great. I like Jackie Brown a little more; it's more mature, deeper, and less flashy.
The Shining is good. But I know the film has a large following which I am not a part of.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest -- hijinks and pathos in the mental ward.
American Beauty is really good.
The Closet was funny.
Amelie was really good and a huge hit for a French film in the US, but it wasn't even my favorite French film of that year.
Midnight Run I loved when I was younger, but now I don't ever feel like watching it.
Full Metal Jacket was disturbing and possibly manipulative, but I saw it only the once when it first came out.
True Romance is pretty good, but not as good as Pulp Fiction.
A Clockwork Orange I saw most of years and years ago, now I am going to read the book before I see the movie again.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I don't know about this. I'm not a fan of the 80s Hughes teen comedy films.
Austin Powers, very funny, but I think the second one is the funniest of the three.
South Park; good movie; great show.
Where Eagles Dare; highly entertaining action adventure epic of the 1960s.
Escape from Alcatraz; Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan is the warden. Good movie.
Hang 'em High; think I am getting this one mixed up with Joe Kidd.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is really good but not near as good as ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST!
A Fistful of Dollars is good but not as good as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Outlaw Josey Wales is a neat one.
The Professional is good.
Nosferatu was very influential.
JFK(despite Kevin Cosner sucking ass as an actor and a human being). I hate Costner too, because he's a smug, self-important asshole, much like Chevy Chase. But this is a really good movie; engrossing.
The Godfather. Totally.
Damage -- nice one!
Blue (Binoche) -- Binoche rules; and this is her best performance. Amazing film.
Silence Of The Lambs -- this is really good, but frankly I don't understand how it won all these Oscars and is so highly thought of. It's an effective (and gory and disgusting) suspense film, but... ? What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a little too precious.
BIG is annoying. Penny Marshall sucks. This film has a lot of plot holes and just spends the whole time tugging at your heartstrings in a heavy-handed manner, while throwing in bits of comedy every now and then.
The Running Man. You mean the Schwartzenegger version, not the Laurence Harvey one? I saw it 15 or 20 years ago and enjoyed Richard Dawson, but I feel like it was a bit of a good idea poorly executed? So says my shoddy memory anyway.

 

I have not seen these:

Awakenings
The Deer Hunter
The Eighth Day
Search And Destroy
The Monster
Celestial Clockwork
My Life In Pink
Hate
City Of The Lost Children
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawerence
The Hair Dresser's Husband
The Big Blue
The Dark Crystal
Il Postino
Wild Side
The Elephant Man
Beyond The Clouds
Conan The Barbarian
Kundun