My Favorite Movies

A beautiful and brilliant film in every possible way. Herzog's direction is, as usual, masterful and he gets out of Klaus Kinski a wonderfully tormented and astounding performance; in the process creating one of the greatest characters ever put on film. Herzog's guerrilla style of filmmaking is on display here and a true testament to how dedicated a director can be to his art.

Not only Kurosawa's best, but one of the single greatest filmmaking achievements of all time. A classic story and an immense performance by Takashi Shimura make this unmissable.

All I can say right now, its always been one of my favourites, but after watching it tonight I realized it really sits near the top of the list, and is a perfect film. Wenders' greatest triumph, Harry Dean Stanton's greatest role, an amazingly written and shot film, that is almost beyond words. It really has to be seen by everyone.

I am in total awe with this movie. Total awe. A decadent, surreal, introspective masterpiece. Words can not even begin to describe how fully affected I was by this movie. The directing was fucking incredible - every single second of every single frame was filled with purpose, the director had a tendency of staying with a scene for minutes, even, after a main character leaves the frame, no matter how minimal the action, that I found ingenious. The director was not afraid to get as close as possible to show the beauty in every human face, no matter how imperfect, and to stay with his characters' movement. No matter how repetitive, these shots always worked, especially when the actors filled the pregnant silence with their expressions or just mere presence. There were so many incredible shots, all of them more than notable. I also loved how the camera was almost constantly in movement, there were few completely still shots. The actors were brilliant, especially the lead - he had a quiet, intense dignity reminiscent of someone like Klaus Kinski that fascinated me. The story was surreal and so bloody potent, the final shot had me in tears not from any particular emotional drag but from the mere beauty of it and the power of what I had just witnessed. By all means, this is not for everyone, it requires a lot of patience. This is not just entertainment, this is a film that absolutely requires you to think about what you are viewing and ask questions, even if they aren't answered right away. But it is the most amazing film I have seen in quite some time, and has instantly become a favourite.

Utterly amazing every single time I see it. One of the greatest films of 90's and far and above the greatest action movie of all time. This is Micheal Mann's masterpiece - as he pits Al Pacino and Robert De Niro (in two of their greatest performances) against each other as a cop and a crook who have a mountain of respect for eachother but will stop at nothing to come out on top. Mann's style is constant and frenetically astounding, the writing is crisp, the original score great, it contains the infamous bank robbery shootout, one of the best action scenes of all time. Quite simply one of the best stories ever told on film.

A classic play is made into a very good movie by the great Werner Herzog. A basic but fundamentally solid adaptation of the stage play, in which Klaus Kinski delivers a monster of a performance as the title character.

I had a full review written for this but it wouldn't let me post it for like three days properly so I'm not going to bother now. But to summarize, this is a really great film and I highly recommend it!

Part of my post-war German film course. This is a tragic and totally raw film about Sibel, a young Turkish woman living in Germany and the man, Cahit, she chooses to "pretend marry" in order to appease her devoutly Turkish family so she can freely live her desired life of abundant sexuality (with many men) and partying. It becomes a love story when the two, inevitably, fall in love. I loved pretty much everything about this film. I appreciated the richness of the characters. The soundtrack was awesome and enhanced the film a lot. The cinematography and editing were totally neat and brilliantly done; the technique was used, for example, of hearing the first couple seconds of each scene before it actually appears, and this gave the film a continuous, unrippled flow despite the vivacity of the shots. The writing was swell, and the acting was great - major kudos to Sibel Kekilli (Sibel) and Birol Ünel (Cahit), their performances were both stellar. Birol Ünel has to be one of the coolest motherfuckers on the planet, as well.

The film comes off as totally authentic, and deals with a lot of serious issues, such as suicide, alcholism/drug addiction, the role of family, fidelity. And all of this was dealt with more than adequately by Fatih Akin's intelligent filmmaking, making great use of parallelism and symbolism and other thematic techniques that really presents us with something to think about. Its just totally realistic, and sensual, and funny, and at times, beautiful. This is a wonderful film, and if you get the chance - see it!

An epic by which all others epics must be judged. Stanley Kubrick handles this otherwordly epic with all the grace and skill he has brought to all his pictures. I had the pleasure of seeing it in a theater and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

Probably the best romantic comedy I've ever seen, and a definite precursor to some of my other favourites of that type like High Fidelity or Chasing Amy. Woody Allen is in top form here as both director and actor, and his co-star Diane Keaton, as the titular Annie Hall, is phenomenal. It's a really wonderful film that is so well written and constructed. The story is wonderful and the chemistry between Allen and Keaton (as it was also in Manhattan) is undeniable and allows the film to triumph as one of the best films purely about a relationship I've ever seen.

Kubrick defies conventional filmmaking (as usual) and delivers one of the most, controversial and astounding films ever. Despite not living up to this role at any point later in his career, Malcolm McDowell delivers one of the greatest performances of all time as the sadistic Alex De Large.

I really loved this film. Terry Gilliam delivers a film which comes close to Fear & Loathing in its amount of craziness and its zany characters, but it also has a really, really strong story with a lot of emotion. Robin Williams delivers a masterful performance while Jeff Bridges plays off of him wonderfully. Probably Gilliam's best.

With Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost do to the buddy-cop/action thriller what they did to the zombie movie in Shaun Of The Dead - except here they do it ever better. It really is a great flick, with a great cast, with that classic sense of British comedy that cannot be beaten. It's a blast to see in theaters, it was a great theater experience, just like Grindhouse, and will definitely be one of the year's best.

An absolutely wonderful film about a socialite journalist caught up in the decadent Roman society of the 60s. The character of Marcello I found interesting, at first its not clear what his occupation is, but we know he is trapped in a moral, photogenic abyss that he seems to love - it is as the film progresses that we learn a lot more about his true unhappiness and his search to find himself. This is the second Fellini film I have seen and I'm starting to appreciate why he is considered one of the true legends - La Dolce Vita is chock-full of stark, beautiful shots that stick with you after the film is over - such as the shot of the beautiful Sylvia bathing in the Trevi fountain (I've been there so I know what beauty it inherently holds) and the striking scene around the miracle tree. This is a busy film, as well, it is almost overwhelming at times trying to keep up with all the action and the ideas running around, but it the end it culminates and I found the ending scene itself to be absolutely wonderful, and also sad in what it ultimately says about the lead character. Beautiful. Classic. See it.

By far one of the most magical and unforgettable movies I have ever seen. A brilliant script compounded by PT Anderson's expert direction and several more than notable performances by the standout cast make this a truly great film.

My god, it took me much too long to see this film. But when I saw a cool new edition of it on sale at HMV for relatively cheap, I just had to buy it and see what I had been missing. Turns out, it was a lot! Midnight Cowboy, an Academy Award winner from 1969 stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight very early in their careers (it was I think the second feature film for both of them). They star as "Ratso" Rizzo and Joe Buck, respectively. Buck has just arrived from Texas with the intention of being the young cowboy stud lover for all the women in big New York. He meets Rizzo, a sickly man of the streets who forms a friendship with Buck as they both try to make it on the voracious streets of the big city. There's not much to say other than its a classic. A perfect film. It's a master-class in acting, editing, and direction. You can really see how it really must be a very influential film - some of its iconic scenes have been mimicked or referenced many times in other films and television shows, and it really appears to be ahead of its time in terms of American filmmaking. Midnight Cowboy is an absolutely unmissable American classic, so make sure you see it at some point.

David Lynch has produced his masterwork, and it is Mulholland Drive. The enigmatic director delivers on all fronts, and you may kick yourself trying to figure out certain parts of the movie, but there is do denying it's lingering impact and it's brilliance.

A landmark for both Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro - this being both Scorsese's best film and De Niro's strongest performance. A classic that has to be seen.

A great oddity of a film based around an alcoholic and his two companions being displaced to rural Wisconsin. Herzog keeps to his standard of not delivering a Hollywood-style payoff and that is one of the things I liked about this film, and all of his movies I've seen. I wonder if this film had any influence on Win Wenders' Paris, Texas - because a lot of the later stages of Stroszek seemed almost a prelude to some of the images Wenders used in that film. A good film with an ending that is a theatre of brilliant absurdity that just has to be seen.

Wow. So I just got back from seeing this film, which I have been drooling about ever since it was first announced. It's one of those films where you have to sit silent for a minute or two at the end, trying to fathom the awesomeness of what you had just seen. I hesitate to call it a masterpiece yet (that can only be determined by repeat viewings), but, most definitely, Anderson's There Will Be Blood is kin to his masterpiece, Magnolia, in that it is an absolutely perfect film in every way. From the beautiful opening shot to the striking closing shot, it is a film that utterly sweeps you away from beginning to end, and does all the great things you'd want a film to do in between (emotionally and otherwise). Of course, I can't go further without mentioning Daniel Day-Lewis's seminal performance, which has to be his best thus far. He definitely deserved the SAG award he just received (and any others before that), and though people are already bitching that he is the obvious pick to take the Oscar - the man simply deserves it, and anyone who has seen this film can not sanely argue otherwise. And though it is definitely a one-man show, with Lewis dominating pretty much every frame, his supporting cast is definitely allowed to shine. Paul Dano is awesome, and I loved the work of Dillon Freasier as the young H.M. Plainview, he was quietly brilliant. Indeed, one of the best aspects of this film was the father-son relationship, it grounded this epic film in an absolutely necessary way - as though we realize Daniel Plainview is a completely self-centered and vile man, his love for his son is absolutely real, even though he barely knows how to express it. Jonny Greenwood's score to this film was incredible, incredible! It complemented the film beautifully and was excellently composed in its own right - there was always something interesting going on in the score no matter what is happening on screen, and when a big moment occurs on screen it is picked up, intensified, and carried away by the score. I barely need mention Anderson's directing. He is definitely one of my favourite all-time filmmakers by now (right up there with the likes of David Lynch, Scorsese, Kubrick, etc) and like I said, he has made a perfect film here. There are no excuses not to see this film, and I think I can safely say it has ousted No Country For Old Men as my favourite film of 2007.