I recently appeared on the LAMB’s second podcast, The Film Pasture, hosted by Pat of 100 Years of Movies. We, along with Steve from 1001Plus, spent the episode discussing that most illustrious and time-consuming of movie goals, the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, that both Steve and I are working our ways through, although o course Steve is both much faster and further along his quest than I am. As it stands, I have around 800 films still to watch and review from the list (which, including all the films that have been added or removed over the years, stands at 1103 films), however many of the reviews I have written didn’t necessarily give the film a fair chance, or they’re just not very good reviews, so I may well go back and re-review some of them – something I intend to do shortly with 1903’s The Great Train Robbery.
I started working through the List to try and gain a better understanding and appreciation for film, and there are many films amongst its pages that I am genuinely looking forward to watching. For many it will be a re-watch of something I’ve loved before, or possibly something that’s fallen from my memory, but for others I long for the experience of seeing a bonafide classic for the first time – something I experienced last year with the likes of Casablanca and Brief Encounter. However, the compilers of the List are a bunch of stuck-up, pompous, cruel sadists, who have taken it upon themselves to pepper the List with some of the most tedious, aggravating and downright grotesque productions ever made, and they even go so far as to claim that these outlandish qualities are the very reason they’ve been included. As such I thought I’d exacerbate my apprehension for eventually watching these films by looking into the List and picking out those films that I’m least looking forward to. I’ve tried to separate the films out into specific categories, and given the most egregious entry from each. As I haven’t actually seen these films yet, this is all based upon rumour, reputation and reviews from others in the 1001 club.
Honourable Mentions The Color Purple
There are some films on the List that I know a little bit about, or that I’ve read the book of. I’m quite looking forward to watching To Kill A Mockingbird, because the book is great and I hear only good things about the film. The Color Purple, on the other hand, is the worst book I’ve ever read, possibly because I was forced to read it in college, but also because it’s thoroughly depressing and downright difficult to read, given the unintelligible vernacular with which it was scribed. Therefore, I’m really not looking forward to watching it unfold on screen, even if it is directed by Steve Spielberg. The fact that it stars Whoopi Goldberg and features Oprah Winfrey may have something to do with it too.
10. Performance
When I lived in London for a year I was a part of a small Film Appreciation class that only cost me £5.00 a term, which entitled me to sit a small room once a week and watch a film specially selected by our teacher, Peter. I figured it was a great deal, in that I’d essentially be watching 10 films for 50p a go, bargain! Especially when you consider that some of the gems selected included Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Rear Window. However, there were some odd choices in there too, like a Chinese farce called The Missing Gun, or Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima, both of which weren’t too enjoyable, for different reasons. The film that I enjoyed the least, however, was Nicolas Roeg’s Performance, starring Mick Jagger. The film seemed to be a perfect embodiment of everything in the 60s and 70s that I’d have disapproved of, as well as being an epileptic’s nightmare of flashing images and fragmented audio. It may well be that I’m remembering it all wrong, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing if I’m right. Other films I’ve seen before but aren’t particularly looking forward to include Blade Runner (although I’m keen to give this another go, due to the massive following it has) and The Hangover, which was enjoyable the first time around but has suffered severely from repeat viewings.
9. Mulholland Drive
I’ve seen Mulholland Drive before, and I didn’t hate it. The problem is, I didn’t understand a damn thing that was going on either. Now, this is fine, until the day comes when I’ll be required to discuss the film in a cohesive manner (hopefully I’ll have learned how to do that by then), at which point I fear my brain may begin to melt through the nearest orifice and leave a nasty stain on the carpet. I was overjoyed that one of David Lynch’s other messed-up masterpieces, Inland Empire, wasn’t on the list, as that’s the first film I ever just gave up on watching halfway through, but alas it’s reared its grotesque, twisted, bunny-shaped head on another list I’m going through, so I’ll have to watch it there instead.
8. The Best of Youth
These days I hear a lot of people complaining about how long most of the ‘decent’ films are. In fact, almost half of this year’s best picture Oscar nominees were over two and a half hours long. That’s more than ten hours I spent in the cinema, just seeing four films. Geez. But that doesn’t even compare to some of the ridiculous films on the List. Fortunately I’ve knocked out a few of the longer ones – the 9+ hour Polish TV series Decalogue, the 7 1/2 hour insanely slow and bizarre Satantango – so the longest film I’ve got left is 2003’s Italian story of two brothers and their wildly different lives. It’s just over six and a half hours long, and my main issue is just finding that length of time to watch it in, seeing as I prefer to watch films in one sitting (which was impossible with Decalogue, seeing as it’s on four discs and my LoveFilm account at the time only allowed me two at a time), so it will need to be saved for a weekend when I’ll be alone, which doesn’t happen all that often, and there’s an awful lot of films that are going to require such time slots, many of which sound mind-numbingly dull. The Beautiful Troublemaker, for example, apparently spends a great deal of its four-hour run-time watching a man draw a picture, which at the end you never even see. You can chalk that up as one of the many honourable mentions.
7. Marnie
Marnie is a film that I’m not looking forward to mainly because I’ve heard it isn’t very good. There are other examples of this – Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s Earth – but Marnie stands out because I’ll definitely have to review it for my Hitchcock series, as he directed it. It’s questionable as to why Marnie was included in the List, and even the entry in the book only picks out the fact that the ‘hero’ (Sean Connery) rapes the heroine (Tippi Hedren), and that the film is strange and unsettling”. It seems neither an important nor necessarily good film (I have in fact seen it, but recall very little), and as long as Hitchcock’s Psycho and Vertigo are included it seems pointless to count Marnie as well, seeing as it sounds like an amalgamation of those two, with maybe a little Notorious thrown in for good measure.
6. Napoleon
As with The Best of Youth, Napoleon is a film I’m dreading because it’s really damn long, however it’s over an hour shorter than Youth. The reason I’m dreading it more is because Napoleon is a silent film, which I’m OK with in short doses, but I’m not sure how I’ll cope by the five-hour mark. It could just be me being lazy, as I find I have to work harder with silent films to ascertain what is going on, due to the minimal dialogue accompanying the scenes. Other such silent epics I’ve yet to see include 1923’s The Wheel, Dr. Mabuse, Intolerance and of course Birth of a Nation, which is not only silent, but also, I hear, horribly racist. Huzzah.
5. Blonde Cobra
When it comes to films, for me it’s narrative or bust. Which doesn’t mean that a good story can be replaced with a nice set of boobs, as that’d make both Justin Lin and Michael Bay my favourite directors. No, what I mean is that I only really like films that have a plot, so experimental works tend to leave me cold and confused. The likes of George Kuchar’s Hold Me While I’m Naked and Bruce Donner’s investigation into editing with Report are two such examples that I’ve watched and since blocked from memory, but alas there are more yet to come, including Ken Jacobs’ Blonde Cobra. The book tells me that this is not only an experimental film, but an experimental semi-documentary about a real-life experimental comedian, by the name of Jack Smith. The film is compiled of footage of him, as well as imageless black sequences over which Smith’s stories and routines are played. He doesn’t really sounds like my kind of performer (one of his ‘jokes’ is as follows: “Why shave, when I can’t even think of a reason for living?”), and this most definitely doesn’t sound like my kind of film. Apparently this is considered to be a masterpiece of the New York film scene, but if this is the best that sect could produce, why exactly is it being remembered?
4. The Crying Game
As a film fan I find it incredibly difficult to avoid major spoilers. Some, like The Sixth Sense, The Empire Strikes Back, The Usual Suspects, Soylent Green or Planet of the Apes are almost impossible not to know from birth, so integral are they to popular culture, but others, like The Crying Game or Chinatown, are harder to know the truth behind, as they don’t tend to get brought up as often. I don’t know how, but I’ve known the twist of The Crying Game for a long time, and I fear it’s going to ruin my first viewing of the film. There’s absolutely nothing I can do about it, so I may as well just knuckle down and watch it before anything else gets spoiled, but I think I’m hoping I’ll forget what I know.
3. Hotel Terminus/The Sorrow and The Pity
OK, so we’ve covered really long films, and we’ve covered really long and silent films, but what about documentaries? There’s nothing wrong with a good doc, and Hoop Dreams is a great example of one that’s both long and decent, even though it’s about a subject I have no interest in (basketball/sport in general). No, the problems lie when the length gets silly (here four and a half hours), and the subject matter is not only something I’m not overly passionate about, but is also horribly depressing. Fortunately I’ve already watched Shoah, the longest film on the list at 9 1/2 hours, which is entirely new, non-archive footage of interviews about the holocaust, but if I hadn’t watched it that would most certainly be on here. As it happens Shoah was a fascinating watch, but it isn’t an experience I can readily recommend or say I’ll be repeating again, which I’m pretty sure will be the case for Hotel Terminus, centred entirely around one previously elusive Nazi, and The Sorrow and The Pity, about a French town during world war 2, which I’d only previously heard about in Annie Hall. I completely understand the need to feature a documentary about such events, my only issue is why do we need so many? I think including them is worthwhile, but when you consider there’s at least three others – Night and Fog has a similar subject matter, but is mercifully only 32 minutes long – I start to wonder whether including these films just makes the List-compilers feel better about themselves.
2. Irreversible
A lot of films on the List feature scenes that are often described as unforgettable, however this isn’t always meant as a compliment. Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible, for instance, contains a 9-minute long rape sequence that is apparently so visceral and realistic that once seen it can never be excavated from your memory. I’m all for films inspiring conversation and even being genuinely terrifying or disturbing, but mentally scarring? No thank you. I find it difficult enough to sleep as it is, without being forced to relive a rape scene every time I close my eyes. Other potentially mentally damaging films I’m not overly looking forward to include A Clockwork Orange (more rape), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (the stills I’ve seen are just freaky), Freaks and Haxan.
1. Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom
This was the easiest no. 1 pick since Jurassic Park miraculously found its way to the pole position of Top 5… Dinosaur Movies, and if anyone has seen Salo, then I’m sure you’ll understand why. From what I can tell, it sounds like two hours of watching people being tortured and raped, with some feces-eating thrown in for good measure, and truly I cannot think of a worse thing to watch. It sounds like it’s on a par with the likes of A Serbian Film, and possibly worse than The Human Centipede, neither of which I have any intention of ever seeing. When it comes to Salo, I may well do what I did with In The Realm of the Senses, as discussed on the Film Pasture, where I stuck with it for as long as I could (approximately 10-15 minutes), before I ejected the disc from my DVD player and weighed up the decision of either posting it back to LoveFilm, or just destroying the disc there and then and bleaching my PlayStation. Other disgusting films I’m not looking forward to include The Idiots, Naked Lunch and Pink Flamingoes (with more feces eating).|
A bit of a niche list this week, sorry about that non-1001ers, but it’s one I’ve been meaning to post for a while. All you club members, what are the films you’ve got to go that you’re putting off? And what else do I have ahead of me that’s worse than this lot, if that’s possible?
Life Vs Film 
So, no real surprise that I’ve seen all of these, given my position on The List. Let’s see if I can remove some fears.
Performance–I kind of liked. I didn’t love it, The music video in the middle is fantastic, though.
Mulholland Dr.–Yeah, it’s Lynch, so good luck. Don’t try to be coherent; he doesn’t.
The Best of Youth–It’s really long, but it’s also really good. I loved it.
Marnie–It’s shite. Sorry.
Napoleon–Fantastic. Really. You shouldn’t be bored watching it.
Blonde Cobra–At least it’s short. It’s awful, but it’s short.
The Crying Game–I knew the twist, and I still liked it a lot. And the twist isn’t at the end, but in the middle, and knowing the twist didn’t change the shock value of the moment.
Hotel Terminus/The Sorrow and the Pity–They’re both overlong, but not terrible. Night and Fog is a difficult watch, but utterly amazing.
Irreversible–I’m not sure I buy the hype. The rape scene is terrible, but I survived. Audition was harder. Haxan, by the way, is hardly disturbing for a modern audience.
Salo–As I told you on that podcast, this is the closest a film has ever come to making me vomit. Good luck.
Thanks Steve, you have indeed aleviated some fears, especially about Performance, Best of Youth, Crying Game, Napoleon and Irreversible, but then you went and made it worse with Audition. I’ve seen Night and Fog, and calling it a difficult watch is an understatement! If it had been any longer I don’t think I could have taken it!
This list is woefully incomplete without such gems as Jeanne Dielman and Flaming Creatures. Unless you’ve seen those already.
I definitely haven’t seen them, but I hadn’t heard much negative about them either. However, now I’ve read a little more about them they should most assuredly be included on this list.
I’m just getting started on my list properly (even though my copy is one that ends with Slumdog Millionaire) and I know that I won’t be watching films like Salo, W.R: Mysteries of the Organism or any other experimental, disgusting sounding films and I don’t understand why they’re included over films like Toy Story 2, Good Night and Good Luck, Ed Wood or Letters From Iwo Jima (BTW looking at the thing at the top, did you mean Clint Eastwood’s Letters From Iwo Jima or John Wayne’s Sands of Iwo Jima). I have to say though, if I ever get round to watching The Idiots, I already know what my review will be if it’s as vile as I think it’ll be; “Il est merde, Il est merde”
Glad to hear your starting on the list, Tony. If you’re interested in joining the 1001 Movies club, you can visit it at http://www.filmsquish.com, where you can also find a list of all the films that have ever been in all the books. There’s some very good ones that have been removed (Amelie, Adaptation, Apocalypto).
I don’t blame you at all for wanting to watch some of the films, I’m going to at least try to watch some, but I’m fully prepared to stop at any point.
I meant Letters from Iwo Jima, I always get those confused, thanks for pointing it out.
And this comment fully shows how outdated my copy of the book is as Amelie is still in mine. Plus, there are some films in the list where I don’t understand why they are included. I mean, putting in There’s Something About Mary above Good Night and Good Luck.
Tony – I provide a viewable and downloadable tracking sheet for the complete list at my Lists from Chip site. You can find that here: http://www.listsfromchip.blogspot.com/
I would also recommend you check out a wiki that I help maintain that is related to the 1,001 Movies. Among other things it helps you find some of the rarer entries. That is here: http://1001films.wikia.com/wiki/1001_Movies_You_Must_See_Before_You_Die_Wiki
Oh I hope you like The Color Purple when you see it. I thought it was an excellent film. Can’t say I enjoyed it though. The only other film in the list I’ve seen it Mullholland Drive. It’s great but like you, I couldn’t tell you why.
I hope I like The Color Purple too, I just don’t think I will. Hopefully Spielberg’s direction will help me out.
Don’t worry, there’s FAR worse films on the list than some of the ones you’ve named. Wait, maybe that doesn’t help. 🙂
The Color Purple – I disliked this film, and it’s long, so you’re probably right on this one.
Performance – I actually disagree with Steve on this one. I thought it was mostly a waste of time, so I agree with you.
Mulholland Drive – the key to enjoying this film is to NOT buy into the Emperor’s New Clothes aspect of Lynch’s films. There IS no coherent plot here, and Lynch knows it. He just lets his fans make up stuff then he sorta kinda agrees/disagrees with it.
The Best of Youth – I agree with Steve on this one. It is quite good. And it’s actually a TV mini-series so it breaks down into logical places to stop, if you need to.
Marnie – haven’t seen this one myself yet, and I’m in the home stretch (69 to go as of this writing.)
Napolean – once again I agree with Steve. I really enjoyed this, especially something that happens during a big battle sequence towards the end – something so unexpected in a film from 1927 that it blew me away.
Blond Cobra – as Steve said, it’s bad, but it’s short
The Crying Game – I can’t help you here. I saw it in theaters before the twist got spoiled for me. I have to say that I think this movie is much more than just a surprise twist.
Holocaust movies – Even though the two you named are long, Night and Fog actually hit me harder even though it was only 30 minutes long.
Irreversible – this is utter crap. In addition to the rape scene, the director set out to intentionally try to make his audience either throw up or walk out, by also playing a low tone that is supposed to cause disorientation and by deliberately shaking the camera as much as he could.
Salo – complete and utter crap (not a pun). That people still try to wax poetic about how powerful it is is another example of the Emperor’s New Clothes. I read one blogger who praised it for the filmmaking skill that made it achieve a strong reaction from him. I pointed out to him that it doesn’t take the remotest amount of filmmaking skill to generate a strong reaction from showing people really being forced to eat shit.
What are the ones you missed?
Jeanne Dielman is three hours of watching a woman perform the same mundane tasks over and over and over, followed by five minutes of her doing two new things, followed by 10 minutes of her staring off camera. The End. Have fun with that one. (The fast forward button was invented for films like this. Satantango, too)
Vinyl – my pick for the absolute biggest piece of crap on the entire list. It’s there because it’s Andy Warhol. You can watch videos on Youtube of teenagers goofing around in their rooms that have better production values and acting than Vinyl. Seriously. At least it’s short.
Wavelength – 45 minutes of listening to an annoying tone rise in pitch while a camera slowly pans in on a wall. Seriously. People get so bored their minds wander and they end up trying to make up things that this is symbolizing just to rationalize why the hell they are watching it or that anyone would recommend it. Some even decide that whatever their minds came up with makes it a good movie that others should see.
You always know how to brighten up my day Chip, thanks. I’m regretting making this list, it’s spelled out just what I’ve got ahead of me. Maybe I should make a sister list of the 10 I’m looking forward to seeing the most to try and cheer myself up a bit!
That would be a very good idea. I’d have some great ones to recommend, too.
On a related note, I tracked down that podcast and listened to it (something I never do.) I had to smile at many of the comments from you and Steve. I also had to laugh when Steve called Vinyl the absolute worst film he has ever seen.
Regarding Chip’s new entries to the fear list…
Jeanne Dielmann is the most ferociously boring thing I have witnessed. Seriously. Chip’s description is dead on.
Vinyl is, hands down, the worst film I’ve seen from virtually every aspect. But it’s short.
Wavelength, so help me, I sort of liked. I admit it may have been my mood, but I found it fascinating in spite of itself.
I’ll give you one more to be wary of: Heaven and Earth Magic. Imagine 70 minutes of Terry Gilliam-style animation, but none of it funny and all of it completely obscure.
There’s a lot to look forward to, though. Really. I’ve enjoyed far more films on this list than I’ve hated.
Chip, I’m glad you enjoyed the podcast. I forgot about Vinyl when I was making this list, by the sounds of it it should definitely be on here.
Steve, thanks for alleviating my fears about the rest of the list. I’m definitely going to put a top 10 I’m looking forward to list together now.
Ooooh, interesting list!!! And I’ll jump right in to ameliorate some of your fears (that Steve and Chip have already spelled out, but hey, I’ll just add force to their arguments).
Long films tend to drive me bonkers. Why say in four hours what you could have said in 90 minutes, and all that.
I was kind of dreading Best of Youth too. It turned out to be awesome, and I wound up watching it in one sitting. ME, the girl who, after two hours, tends to start throwing things at the screen because her patience has worn out. I certainly can’t guarantee that you’ll love it like I did, but I hate long movies and I loved Best of Youth. I’m going to tackle The Decalogue this summer (which I have a feeling I’ll love) and I’m also considering taking on Satantango as well (which I have a feeling I’ll hate).
That’s my biggest recommendation from the films you listed.
I only thought Napoleon was OK. Again, hi, me, I don’t like long movies because I have the patience of a gnat.
I also knew the twist to The Crying Game before seeing it, but it doesn’t stop the movie from being really good and really interesting. The first time I saw The Crying Game I didn’t intend to; it was on television and it was so compelling I couldn’t turn it off.
I saw Salo in a theater. I purposely sat in the balcony towards the back of the theater in an effort to distance myself from the film. It was not a very fun night, and I’m glad I don’t have to watch it again. It’s worthy of being your number one pick.
I second everyone else’s comments on “you should be dreading Jeanne Dielman.” What the fuck is that movie, jesus christ. I gave up about an hour in and started watching it on fast forward.
As for my remaining “least looking forward to” films from 1001 Movies, anything that’s a war movie with graphic war violence is going to be a very hard film for me to get through. Come and See, The Night of Shooting Stars, Platoon (yes, I’ve not seen it yet), Full Metal Jacket (ditto) are the ones that I’m honest to god dreading to the point of wondering if I really need to see them at all. War movies are horrifically traumatic for me. They give me nightmares. And I will flat out refuse to see films that have violence towards animals in them, so Amores Perros is right out. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever be able to find it in myself to watch that movie. And I’m okay with that.
@Jay – I second Steve’s comment that there is much more good than bad in the list. Think of it like when experienced mothers tell horror stories to a woman who’s going to have her first child – “I was in labor for 40 hours.”
@Siobhan – The Night of the Shooting Stars doesn’t have anything that graphic in it that I can remember.
@Steve – I didn’t mind Heaven and Earth Magic. I wouldn’t recommend it really, but I didn’t get bothered by it, either.
Thanks for the info, Chip, that actually helps.
I knocked out Decalogue over the period of about 2 weeks, as my girlfriend had to get up early to travel to London, so I’d get up too and watch an episode before going to work, it only works for something like this that’s nicely split into hour segments. I did something similar for Les Vampires. I kind of liked it, but I think I should watch it again.
I kind of liked Satantango too, but it is needlessly long and slow.
I’m starting to think The Crying Game no longer needs to be on this list. I’ll mentally replace it with Vinyl.
There are theatres that show Salo?!?!? Do they charge extra for the tickets, to take into account all the extra clean-up required afterwards?
It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but there isn’t actually that much warfare in Full Metal Jacket; it’s more just training then some combat at the end. I could be very wrong then. And I’m assuming War Horse is never going to be seen by you then, given it’s about both war and an animal being used cruelly during it.
Jay, I have a similar list of dreaded entries, mostly made of from sneak-peeking at Steve’s reveiws. He is usually spot on.
Some movies I am still considering to simply skip. Salo for instance or some of the more gory horror movies. Poltergeist gave me nightmares as a child. Yet so far I have skipped none and the worst have not been those I considered skipping. In fact I am glad I saw those. The nazi documentaries are scary but so important and frankly well made so I am happy I saw them.
The worst so far (up to 1943) is:
Greed (for being intolerably long and boring)
Intolerance (for being intolerable)
Earth (So ridiculous it may actually be funny, try read Steve’s or Siobhan’s reviews)
Babes in Arms (Terrible musical with too many child actors and way too much patos)
Ye Ban Ge Sheng (An example of how poor preservation, bad tecnique and horrible subtitling can conspire to destroy a film)
Foolish Wives (A combination of the above except this is not a musical)
I think I can take films that are bad or boring, it’s more the ones that are nauseating and mentally scarring that I’m concerned about, so these five I think I can take. I think Ye Ban Ge Sheng may piss me off the most though, as I tend to not be able to get past poor production and subtitling, hence why some early Hitchcock films have really irked me due to the horrible audio issues.
@Chip thanks a lot for that, it’ll be really helpful when I’m going through all those films. Also, great to see In The Loop, Four Lions and Senna but I will not be watching Bridesmaids again to go through the list, I hated that film, I mean it was so unfunny which is really bad considering how it has a lot of people I normally really like such as Kristen Wiig and Chris O’Dowd.
Yes! I hated Bridesmaids too! I felt like such a sexist writing that the only funny parts were the men (O’Dowd and John Hamm, who I found hilarious), but everything else barely raised even a smile, and regularly felt drawn out and just dull. It may have been due to all the hype I’d heard beforehand, but it didn’t live up to it. Great thing is though, I bought the DVD for £1 and sold it for £5, so I can’t hate the film too much for making me money.
Well for me, not even Chris O’Dowd and John Hamm were funny. That type of humour just doesn’t work for me. Luckily for me, the copy I had had some slight disc skips so I returned it, claiming the disk was broken and got HP7b instead, definitely a much better use of that money.
I agree with the two of you on Bridesmaids. I laughed exactly once the entire movie (the tackle on the plane.) Maybe it’s a gender thing because I listened to the commentary and the actresses were practically peeing themselves laughing so hard at the fact that one of their characters was overdressed for a party – something I noticed but didn’t much care one way or the other about, let alone find funny.
I just listened to the podcast episode and liked it a lot. I haven’t actually seen any of the movies on this list yet, but some of the ones you mentioned otherwise.
The Color Purple I did try to watch but shut it off… I’ll have to revisit it some time, sadly.
A Clockwork Orange is an amazing movie, by far one of my favorite Kubrick films… I didn’t find it disturbing, but depressing. And funny.
Dr. Caligari isn’t scary either, but maybe I just can’t get scared by silent movies. Nosferatu was the closest to a scary silent movie I’ve seen.
And yes, Birth of a Nation is a pain in every possible way a movie can be. So good luck with that one.
Nosferatu didn’t scare me, so I’ll probably be OK with Caligari, it just looks so damn creepy and disorientating. Birth of a Nation seems to be unanimously regarded as a chore to endure, so I’ll have to get that one out of the way soon, I think!
Thanks for stopping by Mette!
Salo is the reason that I will just have to die without having watched all the movies on The List. And now that I find out that Irreversible has a long graphic rape scene I may have another!
I have been putting off The Color Purple for years but will probably get to it. I am glad to say I saw A Clockwork Orange when it came out it in the theater because I will certainly never watch it again (hate those rapes!). Same goes for Mullholland Drive, I saw it in the theater and thought Lynch was laughing at me.
Marnie has really grown on me, though I will admit that it is a lesser Hitchcock. I admire Sorrow and the Pity and Night and Fog a lot.
Salo is the reason I will just have to die without completing The List. And now that I find out that Irreversible has a long graphic rape scene I may have another reason!
I’m glad I saw A Clockwork Orange when it came out in theaters because I will certainly never see it again (hate those rape scenes!). Same goes for Mulholland Drive. I just thought Lynch was laughing at me.
Marnie has grown on me over the years, although it is a lesser Hitchcock and I admire Night and Fog and The Sorrow and the Pity greatly.
I’m with you on 3+ hour movies. They have to be something really special to work for me. Mostly they are epics which I can’t stand. I don’t consider The Decalog to be a long movie but a TV series of somewhat related but stand alone episodes. Love it.
Thanks for your thoughts! I wonder if there’s anyone out there that doesn’t work on the 1001 book that actually likes or even appreciates the existence of Salo? I kind of hope not.
I don’t mind a good epic – love Lord of the Rings, Bridge on the River Kwai etc. – but sometimes the length is just silly.
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