Your favourite books/TV/films from your country

Mortte wrote: Logan wrote: Thanks for reviving this; really great to see what people like and to notice so much that I love in people's lists. Kurt Vonnegut is one of my absolute favourite authors, and I have quite the Stephen King collection. I think that if I were to choose one King it would be his collaboration with Peter Straub, The Talisman. My first of his was Pet Cemetary. I love his Bachman Books and read Rage and The Long Walk especially many times over back in the day. Catch 22 is one of my wife's very favourite novels, and she hot me into Cormac McCarthy (starting with The Road which gave me nightmares). As for Aki Kaurismäki, he was of my favourite directors too for a number of films. I haven't seen anything of his in years. The, to use the English, Man Without a Past film I loved. I am really big King-fan, I have read all his books that are translated into Finnish, just read his latest book (End Of Watch). My favourite is the Dark Tower-series. Also liked Vonnegut, my favourite from him is Slaughterhouse 5. About Kaurismäki, he made his latest movie last year, named the Other Side Of Hope. Haven´t seen it. Man Without a past is also my favourite from him.

I should out Kaurismäki's latest. I read about it because of it showing at the Vancouver International Film Festival as I recall. He's commonly considered to be one of the greatest living film directors (well, especially in Art House film circles). Love the Dark Tower series. I love everything Ive read that is Vonnegut. Slaughterhouse 5 is terrific. Sirens of Titan was at one time my favourite when asked. I was obsessed with Kurt Vonnegut, Phillip K. Dick and Stanislaw Lem at one time (those authors are interlocked in my mind as I was heavily into those three at the same time in my life).

I guess Austrian books don't count, so Kafka, Meyrink and Kubin are out.

Books:

Gisbert Haefs - Troja (German for "Troy"; it is a novel).
Hermann Hesse - Der Steppenwolf.
Erich Maria Remarque - Der Funke Leben ("Spark of Life")
Irmtraud Morgner - Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielfrau Laura ("The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by Her Minstrel Laura").
Stefan Heym - Der König David Bericht ("The King David Report").

Morgner and Heym are authors from the former GDR and wrote their novels in the 70s.

omphaloskepsis wrote: Logan wrote: Thanks for reviving this; really great to see what people like and to notice so much that I love in people's lists. Kurt Vonnegut is one of my absolute favourite authors, and I have quite the Stephen King collection. I think that if I were to choose one King it would be his collaboration with Peter Straub, The Talisman. My first of his was Pet Cemetary. I love his Bachman Books and read Rage and The Long Walk especially many times over back in the day. Catch 22 is one of my wife's very favourite novels, and she hot me into Cormac McCarthy (starting with The Road which gave me nightmares). As for Aki Kaurismäki, he was of my favourite directors too for a number of films. I haven't seen anything of his in years. The, to use the English, Man Without a Past film I loved. My grandfather was from Finland, by the way (but he spoke Swedish). My dad spoke Finnish cause he was trained in it for military intelligence work. I totally read you.  I've read Vonnegut and King "wall to wall".  Pet Cemetary may be King's scariest novel.  "The Long Walk" is wonderful.  Never met a Vonnegut or Heller novel I didn't like.  You must have a peach of a wife!  What's the catch?

The only Catch is that we've been together for 22 years.

Seriously, I got lucky, but she could have done much better.

Edited by Logan - March 08 2018 at 11:07

Thanks for reviving this; really great to see what people like and to notice so much that I love in people's lists. Kurt Vonnegut is one of my absolute favourite authors, and I have quite the Stephen King collection. I think that if I were to choose one King it would be his collaboration with Peter Straub, The Talisman. My first of his was Pet Cemetary. I love his Bachman Books and read Rage and The Long Walk especially many times over back in the day. Catch 22 is one of my wife's very favourite novels, and she hot me into Cormac McCarthy (starting with The Road which gave me nightmares).

As for Aki Kaurismäki, he was of my favourite directors too for a number of films. I haven't seen anything of his in years. The, to use the English, Man Without a Past film I loved.

Edited by Logan - March 08 2018 at 11:02

Mortte wrote: Books: Marko Tapio: Arktinen Hysteria I & II Veijo Meri: Manillaköysi Anu Kaipainen: Arkkienkeli Oulussa Aleksis Kivi: Seitsemän Veljestä Kauko Röyhkä: Kaksi Aurinkoa Joni Skiftesvik: Pystyyn Haudattu Movies: Aki Kaurismäki: Mies Vailla Menneisyyttä Mika Kaurismäki: Tyttökuningas Mika Rättö: Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen

I like both brothers, but Aki is one of about three living directors who I'd consider favorites.
-Shadows in Paradise
-Ariel
-Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana
-The Bohemian Life

Matti Pellonpaa is one of my favorite actors, and I'm always trying to find movies with him in it by the brothers, but maybe in the future.

My favorites from the US

Movies
-Harry and Tonto
-Nashville
-They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
-Network
-One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

"A Catcher in the Rye" - I mostly read biographies - Mort Sahl, Marlon Brando, Bill Hicks, John Cassavetes are interesting.. I should mention Frank Capra - who is probably the best director from here.

TV -- "The Larry Sanders Show".. I am curious to see how "Roseanne" will be when it re-boots this month.

Atavachron wrote: U.S.  I've got a thing for film & tv of the 50s and early 60s, probably because they were all in reruns when I was a kid and were so much better than anything new in the 70s & 80s.

Same here David.

TV shows that I'm following on network and cable...

I thought of what the best Danish album might be after listening to Burnin' Red Ivanhoe w/ Povl Dissing - Elefantskovcikadeviser today. It is certainly up there for me, but then again there's also Steppeulvene - HIP, Kim Larsen - Værsgo' and Povl Dissing's own debut album Jeg Er En Tosset Spillemand....all of which probably goes waaaay over foreign heads and ears - especially Dissing's vocals that to the untrained ear sound awfully close to an astma patient on the wrong meds.

Edited by Guldbamsen - July 03 2016 at 13:14

Thanks, those look good. Definitely going to watch all of that first one at some time.

I want to share two films, both of which I would have included in my first post had I decided to do more than one of each (saw both in the theatre when they came out and both had a big effect on me).

Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (1997)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7w-dPZI_LY

The trailer sucks, maybe I'll remake the trailer one of these days. They did a poor job with the trailer, but it is a very moving and powerful film. Like my Cronenberg choice, it is something of an oddity in these people's oeuvres. Egoyan, like Cronenberg and Arcand, is a huge name in Canadian cinema. The movie takes place in BC (my province). Like Les Revenants which I do go on about, it involves a bus accident with children. It's based on a novel that I haven't read.

amazon.com wrote: In synopsis "The Sweet Hereafter" may sound like a devastatingly unpleasant downer, but don't be discouraged. The real subjects of this luminous picture (adapted by director Atom Egoyan from Russell Banks's novel) are hope and renewal--avoiding the cheap emotions suggested by those clich?©d terms. Like other Egoyan films ("Exotica", for one), it's an intriguing sort of mystery, a puzzle in which the big picture is not revealed until the very last piece is in place. A metropolitan attorney (Ian Holm) travels to a small British Columbian town where 14 children have been killed in a school bus accident to prepare a class-action suit. With sensitivity and empathy, he approaches relatives with promises that the suit will give focus and closure to their grief. And as he investigates the circumstances of the accident, he not only uncovers a few local secrets, but dredges up some painful pieces of his own past. Slowly, deeper mysteries are revealed--eternal mysteries at the very heart of human nature: Who is to blame for a tragedy like this? And why do people feel such a need to assign blame? Is that how they give meaning to otherwise inconceivable events? How does one reassemble a shattered life? "The Sweet Hereafter" is too honest to offer bromides, but it shows how a few people struggle, as best they can, to answer these questions for themselves. "--Jim Emerson"

And from Don Mckellar, Last Night (1998)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0skcGu6A01w

google wrote: In this Canadian drama by Don McKellar, various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring, for reasons explained, at midnight. While widower Patrick Wheeler (McKellar) braces for his fate, he meets Sandra (Sandra Oh), the wife of a businessman, who is intent on committing suicide. Meanwhile, Patrick's friend Craig Zwiller (Callum Keith Rennie), embracing a hedonistic approach to the apocalypse, decides to have as much sex as he can while there is still time.

Speaking of Don MCKellar who has made some other great stuff as well as been involved with lots of great stuff as an actor and or/writer such as Road Kill, Highway 61, the Red Violin, Blindness (not a great adaptation of what was one of the best novels I've read in recent years to be honest), was in Existenz (Cronenberg) and Exotica (Atom Egoyan) -- so these guys work together. He also starred in and wrote some of Bruce McDonald's (another leading light in the small world of English-speaking Canada) Twitch City (1998 to 2000 -- strong years here):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_upgJ-RYWbA

Then there's Made in Canada which was a highly enjoyable show, but I had a very negative experience with it (and it's far too late to deal with those issues now).

As for book: was going to go with a Mordecahi Richler, but I'll go with the American/Canadian William Gibson. He moved to Canada to escape the draft as a conscientious objector (or draft dodger to some). Going with Neuromancer (1984 which won the Philip K. Dick Award, the Hugo award, and the Nebula award ):

amazon.com wrote: The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . . Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction. Hotwired to the leading edges of art and technology, Neuromancer ranks with 1984 and Brave New World as one of the century's most potent visions of the future.

Edited by Logan - March 07 2018 at 23:10