icarusancalion

Roy does.

**runs**

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*sigh*

Roy compels me to tell you, that did you know the line that is used to open the book is the same line used to control the robot by the alien in The Day the Earth Stood Still?

Yeah. I don't care, either.

But Roy claims to have had dinner with the director of AoD....

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wildebeth.livejournal.com

I hate that movie. omg My ex (emphasis on ex) made me watch it several years ago. Look out. If you haven't already seen the others, this one is the third in a series.

Dave keeps trying to get me to watch all these movies with a ton of violence. I don't get the fascination with the mafia, and I'd rather spork myself in all my major arteries than watch any more "action" movies my parents stuffed down my throat over the years.

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My suggestion: The Pillow Book

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tekalynn.livejournal.com

Hmm. Almost anything by Truffaut sounds like it would be a good start. Bergman, maybe...Smiles of a Summer Night? or Fanny and Alexander? La Nuit de Varennes, I suggested that in your other post. The Story of Adele H. Camille Claudel. Cousin, Cousine, one of my favorite movies of all time. Peppermint Soda.

God, I saw approximately nine zillion French movies between 1978 and 1988, and I'm blanking on almost all of them. What was the one where they're all on a barge singing about women getting illegal abortions? Drat.

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tekalynn.livejournal.com

Klaatu barada nikto? Seriously?

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So he says!

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wildebeth.livejournal.com

Look here (http://www.nclrc.org/cultureclub/collection.html) in the Screening Room for inspiration. Great site.

I love Amélie; in fact, it's my favorite movie. :) I'm thinking about trying to learn French so I can watch without English subtitles; the director said they were a terrible translation.

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tekalynn.livejournal.com

This is freaky. I can remember almost the entire first stanza of that song, in French, as well as random lines of dialogue, but not the actual name of the movie. Argh.

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I've promised him that if he views those films in my presence I will MST3K throughout the movie, ripping them to shreds. He got a free pass on that one, though I told him that "I think less of you for liking that movie." I mean, I'm half kidding, but god. It's like... Monty Python without the cleverness, wit, or humor. With blood.

Like... teenagers trying to do Monty Python, and failing horribly.

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That's okay, I wouldn't dig that one. The others sound perfect.

Icarus

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If I tell you I love Shall We Dance, will you feel better?

Mostly Martha is a good film. Well, except that Martha's sister dies and she has to raise her niece and the niece is freaked out, but there are some excellent scenes where Martha and The Love Interest are all snarky and cute.

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I love Amelie. It's one of my all-time favorites (along with Clerks, Airplane, and Fantasia).

Unfortunately, WG liked that movie as well.

The trouble with him is he has very broad tastes, so it's hard to find something he'll loathe. But I'll keep working on it. *g*

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the director said they were a terrible translation

I'll second that.

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Yes, I will. It's such an amusing, sweet film (and the Japanese original is 20 times better than the US version, Richard Gere notwithstanding).

Oh yeah. He hated the new Battlestar Gallactica series. Oh! And he didn't want to see Oz. *evil smile*

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enname.livejournal.com

Being that about the only films I ever watch are arthouse I can say with a definitive tone of voice that I do not like Army of Darkness. The Japanese version of Shall We Dance I did like.

Hmm. Any of the truly kooky and offbeat stuff he might like. :P

Well The Spanish Apartment (best if you can get it in Spanish) is of course the ultimate foreign romantic comedy, with a side of sort of arthouse. The Trois couleurs Bleu, Rouge and Blanc or any of Krzysztof Kieslowski's films. Krótki film o milosci (A short film about love) would have a nice double edge. Bonus points for being very slow moving. Oh, and his Decalogue. Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, Gus van Sant of course, Werner Herzog ... although that is dabbling in history except for each film being incredibly long.

Half of French film? There is a wonderful pile of Iranian art house films out there (A Time For Drunken Horses etc), the classical German and ... Asia is wow, overload. Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung were in one that would be excactly what you want: pre revolutionary China, lost love... and I can't recall its name. :P Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring is a Korean one.

Try loading any of the film festival web pages and seeing what they have on offer as well. Should be easy to get hold of some of them as they are out and about trying to be shown.

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Oh, thank you! This is wonderful. I've already found movies I want to see.

And I bet Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) (1997) fits the bill perfectly.

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Truffaut's L'argent de poche. Lots of kids who are smarter (or more worldly) than the adults believe.

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kagyakusha.livejournal.com

The Fountain. it's light on history and heavy on strange strange moments. I haven't managed to get through the whole movie (yet) because I foolishly keep trying to watch it while i've been drinking

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jinxed-wood.livejournal.com

Two Days in Paris (http://nymag.com/listings/movie/two-days-in-paris-deux-j/)? See, even the title is enough to give him a headache...

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channonyarrow.livejournal.com

Um, if you are not totally required to enjoy it, there's a French film called Four Stars that's kind of funny. There are a couple of moments of REALLY WEIRD AND UNPLEASANT (fully deserving the caps) characterisation, such as when the "boyfriend" is a total dick to the "girlfriend" (iirc, he actually slaps her at one point) and she decides to stay with him, but it is also a) French, b) a rom com, and c) was highly regarded by the sometimes-insane staffers at the 2006 SIFF. If you can ignore the fact that there are bits that don't really hang together re characterisation, there are some genuinely funny moments.

There is also Free Floating, which is Russian, and I swear to god I thought it was the second most shit movie I've ever seen at the festival this year, but I've evaluated it and evaluated it and I think I just don't know enough about Russia to get all the subtleties, but that it is a biting commentary on how Russia works now and how someone who is honest is going to get completely lost. Very good, I think, though, like I say, I hated it totally when I first saw it and really wanted to stab the director.

Beauty In Trouble is Eastern European and has a couple of flaws but is generally good - a woman divorces her husband slowly as she's falling in love with another man. Again a few weird parts, but overall I liked it. The ending montage could have used some work, but that's the way it goes.

I don't know what you mean by art house, but one of my favourite movies ever (and NOT for the faint of heart) is Twist, a Canadian retelling of Oliver Twist that uses junkie hustlers in place of orphans. A lot of people don't like it because it doesn't follow the story all the way through and lacks a happy ending (the ending is really ambiguous rather than concrete) and there are some VERY, VERY violent scenes in it, including graphic IV drug use, so not for anyone needle-phobic, very graphic (in more ways than one) sex, physical violence, gore, and slightly-more-than-implied murder, but Nick Stahl is possibly the finest actor of his generation and waiting for the right part for the world to know this, and he really carries the movie. It is not an action flick, despite having all those action-y elements in it; it's mainly about choices and honesty and has some very brilliant moments to it. This is probably the closest-to-perfect movie I can think of, but I tend to like very dark movies that aren't necessarily as well-filmed as they think they are. It might be well out of what you mean by art house, particularly given your other requests of costume dramas and light foreign language rom com, but it's what I think of as art house. This movie was nominated for at least one of the Canadian version of the Oscar, for either best actor or best film.

Another, similar film (I like me some gay hustlers, apparently) is Mysterious Skin. Also very good, and won the Golden Space Needle for either best film or best director for 2005. This one is pretty easy to find and is based off a book of the same name. I don't recall particularly horrible scenes in it (or more than you would expect from a movie that I like, anyway).

And in a completely different vein, Red Coloured Grey Truck is not the finest former-Yugoslavian movie I've seen, but it's definitely a funny romantic comedy (with, as is true of most Eastern European films, a very pointed focus on the war, but covered well by some very genuine humor).

I have no idea if ANY of these are likely to interest you at all, and I know they're all flawed (I'd love to hand you a selection of movies and say "All of these are brilliant, watch them all!") but those are the ones I could think of on short notice. I would strongly suggest checking them out a bit further via the internet to see if you have any interest, but you're hardly dumb, so of course you're going to do that. I just kind of worry that I overrepresent things as quality and then people get freaked out by what I've suggested and I've been an idiot.

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