My Favorite Movies

Once considered the greatest film ever made, and though it has arguably been surpassed by more recent works of genius, Potemkin itself has only improved with age. It remains, in my experience, the best edited film of all time. Many unfairly dismiss it as Communist propaganda., which in its time, it was. Objectively viewed, however, it is simply an homage to the dignity of all human beings.

With perfect command over his story and style, Bergman poses a uniquely chilling set of questions: when an eventful, active, and morally "good" life is lived mechanically, does it cease to be good? Can charity become sour and selfish? Can forgiveness become cold and inhuman? Can automatic action be as indolent as inaction? And if the answer to all these is yes, how can an aging man redeem his thoughtless life, when there are few remaining wrongs that he has the power to right? An unprecedented perspective on the existential crises afflicting even the most decent human beings.

A cool, spare filmmaking style + the simple, unaltered words of the Matthew gospel = a compelling film that depicts the message of Christ as shocking, radical, urgent, and uncompromising attacking conventional morality and established tradition to replace it with fiercely unconditional love and forgiveness. The truest account of the life of Christ I've ever seen on film.

To those who were confused and disgusted by the violence of Kill Bill Volume 1: your instincts are right. See Volume 2. The redemptive finale will make you weep. The Japanese tag line for the film sums it up: "Kill Is Love."

Sometimes tense, sometimes tender, but always piercingly human, the film beggars commentary. I have little to add except that this represents perhaps the fastest and most cathartic three and a half hours I've ever spent in front of a screen.
So far my favorite film after "Citizen Kane."

Everyone's favorite film. I have nothing to add. Itemizing its moments of genius is futile, because it is greater than the sum of its already impressive parts.

Deeply tragic in some ways, but ultimately its message is one of giddy humanism in the face of a chaotic and fleeting world. As a meditation on age and youth, stagnancy and action, despair and hope, I like to view it as the more emotive counterpart to Ingmar Bergman's more cerebral "Wild Strawberries."

I can't add much, except to say that the characters are the most lovable I've seen in a film, the dialogue is perfect, the story world is real, or really, better than real, and the message is powerful and redemptive. Don't see it because it's "cult," see it because it's canon.

One of Shakespeare's weakest and most confusing plays becomes what I consider to be the greatest Shakespeare film ever made. Strikes the right balance between faithfulness to the text and interpretive creativity. The film's tone can turn on a dime from dark humor to horror to epic magnificence to emotional intimacy.

Most people like this for the wrong reasons. If you're one of those people, don't see it, it might encourage you to go do something abominable and criminal. If you are looking for a film that explores the human id, ego, and superego, sympathetically analyzes the dilemmas afflicting latter-day knights in shining armor, and features stunning cinematography and razor-sharp dialogue, then you're probably mature enough to enter "Sin City."

Among Park Chan-wook's influences are Sophocles, Shakespeare, Kafka, and Dostoevsky. This film captures the spirit of all of them.

A powerful humanist hagiography, which treats its flawed, confused, but fiercely compassionate protagonist with the utmost reverence.

Structurally perfect, yes; psychologically harrowing, yes; gorgeous musical score; but the truly mystifying thing about this movie, for me, is how drawn I am to the subtle, dreamlike world in which it takes place. I truly forget myself watching it.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

(the Tempest)

I'm still turning this one over in my mind, and my pulse is still racing. Even on the most superficial level, M succeeds as a frenetically paced, maddeningly suspenseful, and jump-out-of-your-seat shocking thriller. But with more thought, the film gradually begins to show its more disturbing side, as a razor-sharp, double-edged social indictment that strips the flesh from "normal" "civilized" life and lets the abnormal brutality bleed through.

The apotheosis of the "epic" genre. The most powerful depiction of the raw power of the human spirit, undiluted by weapons, explosions, robots, or dragons.

Tight, stylish, and brutal. The small cast is firing on all cylinders. Nolan secures his title of the industry's current master of narrative structure. After viewing his more recent entries, I think he should return to his strengths.

Ridley Scott's first feature-length film is short, intimate, and tightly focused, but his camera is already capturing sweeping vistas and a subtle but rich palette of colors. His use of light is stunning. As always, William Hobbs provides fight choreography that is as gritty as it is authentic. The story is simple, but well-told and provocative, analyzing the senselessness of honor and the soul-consuming allure of violence. The only noticeable weak point is the way Keith Carradine's flat American accent distracts from some of the sequences of dialogue. When he's silent, however, he's superb. To compliment the acting of Harvey Keitel is redundant.

Bleak, bleak, and more bleak, but beautiful.

I need to find a copy of this. The parts I've seen have been breathtaking. Closely follows Gustav Dore's artwork for the Divine Comedy.