More must-see movies
March 19, 2007 | 12:00am
Last week’s listing of my top 10 favorite movies  which I also posted on my favorite Internet hangout at www.philmug.ph  provoked a torrent of other personal lists from fellow Mac addicts eager to share their viewing preferences. I’d underestimated the natural interest of people in the movies  and the degree to which this has become the "You-are-what-you-watch" generation, where viewing has pretty much taken the place of reading.
Before I give you an idea of what went into these "people’s choice" lists, let me follow through on a promise I made last week to list down more movies: this time, movies I didn’t just enjoy, but which I learned something about filmmaking from, and which any self-respecting film viewer, student, or prospective filmmaker should see at least once. In other words, if you’re relatively new to the art of film or  let’s be honest, now  you just want to be able to drop the right names and titles over cocktails and canapés, then this should be a good list to start with.
But first, and again, an important caveat: I’m not a film critic or even a teacher of film, just someone who’s seen a good number of movies over more than four decades, and has written a few scripts. I expect real film pundits like Noel Vera to weigh in with their own recommendations, if not to take issue with some of my choices. At this time, I’m leaving out Filipino movies and saving them for later.
So let’s begin with 10 must-see’s  especially for readers 30 years old and younger whose film memories begin with Star Wars  none of which should be a big surprise for true cineastes:
1. Metropolis (1927, directed by Fritz Lang; Alfred Abel, Gustav Froehlich). If you want to know what "Expressionism" means and what it looks like, then watch this film. But never mind the –isms; the film is a visual education in how directors work and how film is an art form in itself. As a minor bonus, watch this, and then download and watch a copy of the famous Ridley Scott-directed "Mac 1984" Super Bowl TV advertisement that launched the Macintosh.
2. Un Chien Andalou (1929, directed by Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali; Simone Mareuil, Peter Batcheff). I guarantee you’ll never forget the opening scene of this film. This film was strange in 1929 and it remains strange today, which is probably why it’s endured in our questioning imaginations. Heck, MTV can trace its roots to this surrealist work. (The title means "An Andalusian Dog," but don’t ask me why.)
3. Citizen Kane (1941, directed by Orson Welles; Orson Welles, Dorothy Comingore). Often hailed as the best film of all time, it’s another great example of how the camera can tell a story better than words, from the first shot to the last.
4. Casablanca (1942, directed by Michael Curtiz; Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman). A perennial sentimental favorite, this wartime romance is best remembered for its one-liners ("We’ll always have Paris," "Round up the usual suspects," "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine"), including at least one famous line that was never said in the movie ("Play it again, Sam!"). And then of course there’s that theme song, As Time Goes By.
5. The Third Man (1949, directed by Carol Reed; Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten). Speaking of themes, here’s another one that will keep lilting in your head for days after you’ve seen the movie. This is a British take on film noir, a category of physically and psychologically dark movies imbued with intrigue and moral ambiguity, of which Welles himself was a master in such works as The Lady from Shanghai and Touch of Evil.
6. High Noon (1952, directed by Fred Zinnemann; Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly). There have arguably been better Westerns made, but for sheer iconic power, High Noon is hard to beat, with good and evil squaring off on some dust-blown street. Trivium: the opening scene of the movie has a lone rider silhouetted against the horizon  played by an actor who wouldn’t have a line of dialogue in High Noon but who would go on to become the favorite baddie of the "spaghetti Westerns" of the next decade, Lee Van Cleef.
7. Throne of Blood (1957, directed by Akira Kurosawa; Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada). Seen to be Kurosawa’s version of Macbeth, it’s memorable in its own right in its depiction of fear, ambition, and violence in feudal Japan. Alternatively, you can watch Seven Samurai or Rashomon  but take in at least one early Kurosawa movie before seeing the much-later Kagemusha or Ran.
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, directed by Stanley Kubrick; Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood). Again, from the opening scene to the last, this film offers a breathtaking sweep of human evolution to the point when the machines take over. But many will remember it as their first almost-real view of space.
9. Amarcord (1973, directed by Federico Fellini; Bruno Zanin). Ah, sweet smalltown Italy  albeit Fascist Italy  seen through the eyes of the great Fellini. Who can forget those enormous, uhm, appendages that nearly suffocate our hero, and that magical cruise ship passing in the night? As with Kurosawa, Fellini may have made more important films (La Strada, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2), but Filipinos will find much to relate to in Amarcord and its locale.
10. Don’t Look Now (1973, directed by Nicholas Roeg; Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland). This mystery set in Venice will haunt you with its image of the girl in the red cape, and all that wetness.
I know, I know, great movies didn’t stop being made in 1973, and we could easily list another dozen must-see movies here, with enough left over for another week. (And there are two seminal films that should’ve been on this list but which I didn’t include, for the simple reason that while I’ve heard and read much about them, I have yet to see them: The Birth of a Nation (1915, D. W. Griffith; Lillian Gish) and The Battleship Potemkin (1925, Sergei Eisenstein).
Just to scratch that itch, let me list another set of movies that I think are also important or memorable in other ways  but again, they’re heavily loaded toward the ’60s and ’70s, which should be good for young students of film because these are the modern classics they never saw in the moviehouse:
1. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961, directed by Blake Edwards; Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard). How can you possibly resist Audrey Hepburn and Moon River? And if you’re a Hepburn fan, don’t forget Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road.
2. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1962, directed by Tony Richardson; Michael Redgrave, Tom Courtenay). Class, sport, and youthful rebellion come together in this gem of British "Free Cinema." You’ll be humming that quintessentially British hymn Jerusalem afterward.
3. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962, directed by Robert Enrico; Roger Jacquet). Presented as a Twilight Zone episode in 1964, this French version of the Ambrose Bierce short story is a compelling exploration of the power of illusion.
4. Lawrence of Arabia (1962, directed by David Lean; Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif). I told you I liked David Lean. Great score, and fantastic scenery, not to mention rousing adventure in the Arabian desert.
5. Cleopatra (1963, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz; Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton). I was a bit too young then to understand what all the fuss over Liz Taylor was about, but for sheer spectacle  and the ’50s and ’60s seemed to be obsessed with that  Cleopatra might have been matched only by The Ten Commandments. And between Elizabeth Taylor and Charlton Heston…
6. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, directed by Stanley Kubrick; Peter Sellers, George C. Scott). A darkly satirical take on a Cold War that suddenly, madly turns hot.
7. Blow-Up (1966, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni; David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave). Antonioni was supposed to have actually painted the frontage of buildings and even the grass to reflect the intensity of the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings.
8. A Clockwork Orange (1971, directed by Stanley Kubrick; Patrick Magee, Malcolm McDowell). Long before the also-stylish V for Vendetta, this Anthony Burgess take-off explored the mind of the fascist state and of its creatures. And also from this period, for political junkies: Costa Gravas’ Z, and Gillo Pontecorvo’s Burn!
9. Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August (1975, directed by Lina Wertmuller; Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato). Love among the castaways, with a strong class element. Lady Chatterley’s Lover meets Survivor. I’m swept away enough by the title.
10. Saturday Night Fever (1977, directed by John Badham; John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney). The next decade would declare disco cheesy, but the kinetic energy of this movie (and of its Bee Gees soundtrack, the best-selling of all time) is electric, and every time I see it I still feel like strutting down the street a la Tony Manero  well, maybe plus 100 pounds.
Sheesh, I haven’t even touched the James Bond movies, Blade Runner, Out of Africa, The Sand Pebbles, and a shelf of other personal favorites. But before I run out of space  speaking of people’s choices  let me share the Internet Movies Data Base (IMDB) top-10 list from the 250 most popular movies of all time, based on votes sent in by several hundred thousand viewers. How closely does this list match your own?
1. The Godfather (1972)
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
6. Casablanca (1942)
7. Pulp Fiction (1994)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)
9. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
10. Seven Samurai (1954)
Turning back to drama in real life, let me take this opportunity to thank some very fine people who’ve sent in donations toward the kidney transplant of Lita Peñalosa: May Flores, Rita Ledesma, Trexie Olvez, James Butial, Grace Saqueton, and others who’ve preferred to remain anonymous. If you have a little something to spare and would like to help someone in real need, you can deposit it directly to the savings account of Julita Peñaflor at any PNB branch; her account is at PNB Cubao, No. 211-575144-4. Many thanks and blessings to you!
E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com and visit my blog at http://www.penmanila.net.
Before I give you an idea of what went into these "people’s choice" lists, let me follow through on a promise I made last week to list down more movies: this time, movies I didn’t just enjoy, but which I learned something about filmmaking from, and which any self-respecting film viewer, student, or prospective filmmaker should see at least once. In other words, if you’re relatively new to the art of film or  let’s be honest, now  you just want to be able to drop the right names and titles over cocktails and canapés, then this should be a good list to start with.
But first, and again, an important caveat: I’m not a film critic or even a teacher of film, just someone who’s seen a good number of movies over more than four decades, and has written a few scripts. I expect real film pundits like Noel Vera to weigh in with their own recommendations, if not to take issue with some of my choices. At this time, I’m leaving out Filipino movies and saving them for later.
So let’s begin with 10 must-see’s  especially for readers 30 years old and younger whose film memories begin with Star Wars  none of which should be a big surprise for true cineastes:
1. Metropolis (1927, directed by Fritz Lang; Alfred Abel, Gustav Froehlich). If you want to know what "Expressionism" means and what it looks like, then watch this film. But never mind the –isms; the film is a visual education in how directors work and how film is an art form in itself. As a minor bonus, watch this, and then download and watch a copy of the famous Ridley Scott-directed "Mac 1984" Super Bowl TV advertisement that launched the Macintosh.
2. Un Chien Andalou (1929, directed by Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali; Simone Mareuil, Peter Batcheff). I guarantee you’ll never forget the opening scene of this film. This film was strange in 1929 and it remains strange today, which is probably why it’s endured in our questioning imaginations. Heck, MTV can trace its roots to this surrealist work. (The title means "An Andalusian Dog," but don’t ask me why.)
3. Citizen Kane (1941, directed by Orson Welles; Orson Welles, Dorothy Comingore). Often hailed as the best film of all time, it’s another great example of how the camera can tell a story better than words, from the first shot to the last.
4. Casablanca (1942, directed by Michael Curtiz; Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman). A perennial sentimental favorite, this wartime romance is best remembered for its one-liners ("We’ll always have Paris," "Round up the usual suspects," "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine"), including at least one famous line that was never said in the movie ("Play it again, Sam!"). And then of course there’s that theme song, As Time Goes By.
5. The Third Man (1949, directed by Carol Reed; Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten). Speaking of themes, here’s another one that will keep lilting in your head for days after you’ve seen the movie. This is a British take on film noir, a category of physically and psychologically dark movies imbued with intrigue and moral ambiguity, of which Welles himself was a master in such works as The Lady from Shanghai and Touch of Evil.
6. High Noon (1952, directed by Fred Zinnemann; Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly). There have arguably been better Westerns made, but for sheer iconic power, High Noon is hard to beat, with good and evil squaring off on some dust-blown street. Trivium: the opening scene of the movie has a lone rider silhouetted against the horizon  played by an actor who wouldn’t have a line of dialogue in High Noon but who would go on to become the favorite baddie of the "spaghetti Westerns" of the next decade, Lee Van Cleef.
7. Throne of Blood (1957, directed by Akira Kurosawa; Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada). Seen to be Kurosawa’s version of Macbeth, it’s memorable in its own right in its depiction of fear, ambition, and violence in feudal Japan. Alternatively, you can watch Seven Samurai or Rashomon  but take in at least one early Kurosawa movie before seeing the much-later Kagemusha or Ran.
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, directed by Stanley Kubrick; Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood). Again, from the opening scene to the last, this film offers a breathtaking sweep of human evolution to the point when the machines take over. But many will remember it as their first almost-real view of space.
9. Amarcord (1973, directed by Federico Fellini; Bruno Zanin). Ah, sweet smalltown Italy  albeit Fascist Italy  seen through the eyes of the great Fellini. Who can forget those enormous, uhm, appendages that nearly suffocate our hero, and that magical cruise ship passing in the night? As with Kurosawa, Fellini may have made more important films (La Strada, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2), but Filipinos will find much to relate to in Amarcord and its locale.
10. Don’t Look Now (1973, directed by Nicholas Roeg; Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland). This mystery set in Venice will haunt you with its image of the girl in the red cape, and all that wetness.
I know, I know, great movies didn’t stop being made in 1973, and we could easily list another dozen must-see movies here, with enough left over for another week. (And there are two seminal films that should’ve been on this list but which I didn’t include, for the simple reason that while I’ve heard and read much about them, I have yet to see them: The Birth of a Nation (1915, D. W. Griffith; Lillian Gish) and The Battleship Potemkin (1925, Sergei Eisenstein).
Just to scratch that itch, let me list another set of movies that I think are also important or memorable in other ways  but again, they’re heavily loaded toward the ’60s and ’70s, which should be good for young students of film because these are the modern classics they never saw in the moviehouse:
1. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961, directed by Blake Edwards; Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard). How can you possibly resist Audrey Hepburn and Moon River? And if you’re a Hepburn fan, don’t forget Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road.
2. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1962, directed by Tony Richardson; Michael Redgrave, Tom Courtenay). Class, sport, and youthful rebellion come together in this gem of British "Free Cinema." You’ll be humming that quintessentially British hymn Jerusalem afterward.
3. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962, directed by Robert Enrico; Roger Jacquet). Presented as a Twilight Zone episode in 1964, this French version of the Ambrose Bierce short story is a compelling exploration of the power of illusion.
4. Lawrence of Arabia (1962, directed by David Lean; Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif). I told you I liked David Lean. Great score, and fantastic scenery, not to mention rousing adventure in the Arabian desert.
5. Cleopatra (1963, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz; Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton). I was a bit too young then to understand what all the fuss over Liz Taylor was about, but for sheer spectacle  and the ’50s and ’60s seemed to be obsessed with that  Cleopatra might have been matched only by The Ten Commandments. And between Elizabeth Taylor and Charlton Heston…
6. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, directed by Stanley Kubrick; Peter Sellers, George C. Scott). A darkly satirical take on a Cold War that suddenly, madly turns hot.
7. Blow-Up (1966, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni; David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave). Antonioni was supposed to have actually painted the frontage of buildings and even the grass to reflect the intensity of the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings.
8. A Clockwork Orange (1971, directed by Stanley Kubrick; Patrick Magee, Malcolm McDowell). Long before the also-stylish V for Vendetta, this Anthony Burgess take-off explored the mind of the fascist state and of its creatures. And also from this period, for political junkies: Costa Gravas’ Z, and Gillo Pontecorvo’s Burn!
9. Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August (1975, directed by Lina Wertmuller; Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato). Love among the castaways, with a strong class element. Lady Chatterley’s Lover meets Survivor. I’m swept away enough by the title.
10. Saturday Night Fever (1977, directed by John Badham; John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney). The next decade would declare disco cheesy, but the kinetic energy of this movie (and of its Bee Gees soundtrack, the best-selling of all time) is electric, and every time I see it I still feel like strutting down the street a la Tony Manero  well, maybe plus 100 pounds.
Sheesh, I haven’t even touched the James Bond movies, Blade Runner, Out of Africa, The Sand Pebbles, and a shelf of other personal favorites. But before I run out of space  speaking of people’s choices  let me share the Internet Movies Data Base (IMDB) top-10 list from the 250 most popular movies of all time, based on votes sent in by several hundred thousand viewers. How closely does this list match your own?
1. The Godfather (1972)
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
6. Casablanca (1942)
7. Pulp Fiction (1994)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)
9. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
10. Seven Samurai (1954)
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