![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpb(That's OK, actually. Just indulging a grumble. I really quite like memes.)
Total number of films I own on DVD/video - Some 50 or so.
The last film I bought: Lantana, because someone on my f-list had recommended it and it was for sale cheap. Haven't seen it yet.
The last film I watched On DVD: The Horse Soldiers. One of the greatest war movies ever done, except for a fairly irrelevant subplot about the commanding officer's prejudice against doctors. But the sequence of war scenes is awesome, and the climax of the movies - when a battalion of children, led by an old man, advances to fight - is one of the most shattering things I have ever seen in film. When we see it happen, we have already seen an adult troop of the same army falling into a trap and being wiped out on screen; and as we watch the children march on, we tremble. All the horror and pity and courage of war is there; and yet John Ford brilliantly manages to make us feel it without any slaughter of innocents. A masterpiece.
In the cinema: Lord of the Rings II. I found it beautiful but hyperkinetic and lacking in the odd but undoubted realism of Tolkien's book. Tolkien had really fought in war and had studied history, and knew what worked and what did not. For instance, the scene in which the cavalry of Rohan charges downhill against a solid shieldwall only looks good if you know nothing whatever about how war was actually fought: if you do, it looks like certain disaster for the horsemen. Massed ranks of pikemen on foot, behind locked shields, have the advantage over any cavalry, as the English learned at Bannockburn. The most successful army in history, the Roman legions, consisted entirely of lightly armoured foot-pikemen bearing large shields, with practically no cavalry. IN general, the LOTR movies only made me appreciate more how superb Tolkien really is.
Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:
Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) by Luchino Visconti. Most of you will never, I am sorry to say, be able to understand why I regard this as the greatest movie I ever saw; for the English version deserves the public flogging of all responsible. In Italian, it is a total masterpiece, a tragic epic of the Italian nation as well as the story of a man's greatness and decline; and indubitably the finest adaptation of a great work of literature ever done.
Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves. Except for the utterly infuriating protagonist, who makes me feel that the real hero of the movie is the poisoned apple, this remains matchless. Disney himself never approached it again, except possibly - in a wholly different way - in Fantasia. It is the most beautiful single movie ever made, and I cannot believe that anyone will ever again produce anything so full of utter gorgeousness. No, not even Hayao Miyazaki.
Casablanca What can anyone say? Every time I watch this, it looks better. Every time, I learn something new. Perfect casting (can you believe that they originally wanted Ronald Reagan for Rick?), an avalanche of the best one-liners in cinema, a dense and astonishingly tight story (it is hard to believe that this movie was scripted on the hop, as it was being filmed), photography that re-defines the word "ravishing", and, finally, a powerful moral content, makes this probably the best movie Hollywood will ever make.
Easter Parade The privilege of watching Fred Astaire and Judy Garland together. 'Nuff said.
Singin' in the rain Shouldn't have included another musical, but really, how can anyone not adore this? Only Debbie Reynolds can ever have had something to complain about it: this was her debut movie, and a movie actress who can never again match the brilliance of her debut is in trouble.
Special mention to Charlotte Rampling for being the most astonishing mixture of overwhelming beauty and shattering acting brilliance in movies. (And untrained at that, since she started her career as a model.) And to most anything featuring Katharine Hepburn. Spencer Tracy was a lucky man and I hope he appreciated it.
Finally, tag five people to do this meme: (If some of you have already done it, consider yourselves off the hook)
Avus
Private Maladict
Patchworkmind
Thepreciouss
Tashmania
Total number of films I own on DVD/video - Some 50 or so.
The last film I bought: Lantana, because someone on my f-list had recommended it and it was for sale cheap. Haven't seen it yet.
The last film I watched On DVD: The Horse Soldiers. One of the greatest war movies ever done, except for a fairly irrelevant subplot about the commanding officer's prejudice against doctors. But the sequence of war scenes is awesome, and the climax of the movies - when a battalion of children, led by an old man, advances to fight - is one of the most shattering things I have ever seen in film. When we see it happen, we have already seen an adult troop of the same army falling into a trap and being wiped out on screen; and as we watch the children march on, we tremble. All the horror and pity and courage of war is there; and yet John Ford brilliantly manages to make us feel it without any slaughter of innocents. A masterpiece.
In the cinema: Lord of the Rings II. I found it beautiful but hyperkinetic and lacking in the odd but undoubted realism of Tolkien's book. Tolkien had really fought in war and had studied history, and knew what worked and what did not. For instance, the scene in which the cavalry of Rohan charges downhill against a solid shieldwall only looks good if you know nothing whatever about how war was actually fought: if you do, it looks like certain disaster for the horsemen. Massed ranks of pikemen on foot, behind locked shields, have the advantage over any cavalry, as the English learned at Bannockburn. The most successful army in history, the Roman legions, consisted entirely of lightly armoured foot-pikemen bearing large shields, with practically no cavalry. IN general, the LOTR movies only made me appreciate more how superb Tolkien really is.
Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:
Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) by Luchino Visconti. Most of you will never, I am sorry to say, be able to understand why I regard this as the greatest movie I ever saw; for the English version deserves the public flogging of all responsible. In Italian, it is a total masterpiece, a tragic epic of the Italian nation as well as the story of a man's greatness and decline; and indubitably the finest adaptation of a great work of literature ever done.
Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves. Except for the utterly infuriating protagonist, who makes me feel that the real hero of the movie is the poisoned apple, this remains matchless. Disney himself never approached it again, except possibly - in a wholly different way - in Fantasia. It is the most beautiful single movie ever made, and I cannot believe that anyone will ever again produce anything so full of utter gorgeousness. No, not even Hayao Miyazaki.
Casablanca What can anyone say? Every time I watch this, it looks better. Every time, I learn something new. Perfect casting (can you believe that they originally wanted Ronald Reagan for Rick?), an avalanche of the best one-liners in cinema, a dense and astonishingly tight story (it is hard to believe that this movie was scripted on the hop, as it was being filmed), photography that re-defines the word "ravishing", and, finally, a powerful moral content, makes this probably the best movie Hollywood will ever make.
Easter Parade The privilege of watching Fred Astaire and Judy Garland together. 'Nuff said.
Singin' in the rain Shouldn't have included another musical, but really, how can anyone not adore this? Only Debbie Reynolds can ever have had something to complain about it: this was her debut movie, and a movie actress who can never again match the brilliance of her debut is in trouble.
Special mention to Charlotte Rampling for being the most astonishing mixture of overwhelming beauty and shattering acting brilliance in movies. (And untrained at that, since she started her career as a model.) And to most anything featuring Katharine Hepburn. Spencer Tracy was a lucky man and I hope he appreciated it.
Finally, tag five people to do this meme: (If some of you have already done it, consider yourselves off the hook)
Avus
Private Maladict
Patchworkmind
Thepreciouss
Tashmania
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Just realized I've been tagged....
Date: 2005-05-16 03:08 am (UTC)Films, videos, DVD's. I'm afraid I'm quite a disappointment. My wife & I can't get TV in our mountain cabin, don't own a DVD player, and haven't used our 20 y/o VCR in over a year.
Last film I watched on video: I think it was HPII -- my favorite of the movies. Last film I saw was HPIII, and I found that rather disappointing. My wife & I are pretty exclusively book people, and lead a fairly simple life. We do listen to a lot of music, and go to concerts.
Last DVD or video I bought -- Oh, dear, it's professional. 2 DVD's by Tony Attwood, and Austrailian psychologist, speaking on Asperger's Syndrome. Those are the only DVD's I own, and I bought them to led to clients. (I've been to a workshop of his, so I'm fairly confident about the DVD's.)
Five films that mean something to me. Hmmmmm....
It's been years since I've seen my favorites, in some cases over 10 years.
Olivier's Hamlet & Henry V. I love the plays, and enjoyed his performances. Our local college does a live Shakespeare with fairly good professionals each summer; it's one of the things we look forward to. The movie of Bernstein's West Side Story. Again, I love the play and the music. I keep all three of these Shakespeare plays in my office for reading when I get a moment.
I rather like the first Star Wars -- not only rousing good action, but also lots of archetypes. (I have a weakness for Jung; he's the only psychodynamic/analytical theorist I read. One of his students was a consultant for the fics.)
Already up to four -- I'm proud of myself. I should be able to do this.... Robin William's performance in Good Morning Vietnam. While it didn't portray the action of Apcolypse Now, Platoon & Born on the 4th of July, still in many ways I found myself further into that experience than with the other fics. I'm from the Nam generation, though I missed going by the numbers -- a bare 4 numbers away from being called on my draft lottery. I still work with Viet Nam vets recovering from that war. A horrible time, and a time, I'm sure, much worse, then & following, for the poor people of SE Asia. A tragedy I hope we aren't duplicating in the MidEast.
In the helicopter scene of Apocolypse Now, though, I got an insight into Wagner that I'd never had as a musicologist -- an immediacy of the power & danger of his work. I'm still thinking that through.