Your favourite off-beat, strange films

A couple of hours ago I watched Arventur (2015). A Russian movie, divided into two independent plots. Arventur is a place where a real and imaginary world exist at the same time. It was invented by the Russian writer Alexander Grin.

A visually mesmerizing art movie; where there's some impressive effort and imagination exerted. The first part of the film is "Fandango", but I liked its second part "Secret of a Sea Landscape" better. (Did I ever say that I'm very much interested in the Chinese culture?)

It was quite a nuisance to find it and provide proper English subtitles, though.

A Clockwork Orange is one of my all-time favourite films, and I like the novel very much. I have liked to double-bill it with Brazil. I would recommend checking out If... and O Lucky Man. A Serbian Film is hard to stomach.

Some other faves of mine are the rather surrealistic City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, Pan's Labyrinth, The Bothersome Man and I loved the sort of horror film Under the Skin.

Logan wrote: A Clockwork Orange is one of my all-time favourite films, and I like the novel very much. I have liked to double-bill it with Brazil. I would recommend checking out If... and O Lucky Man. A Serbian Film is hard to stomach. Some other faves of mine are the rather surrealistic City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, Pan's Labyrinth, The Bothersome Man and I loved the sort of horror film Under the Skin.

richardh wrote: Logan wrote: A Clockwork Orange is one of my all-time favourite films, and I like the novel very much. I have liked to double-bill it with Brazil. I would recommend checking out If... and O Lucky Man. A Serbian Film is hard to stomach. Some other faves of mine are the rather surrealistic City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, Pan's Labyrinth, The Bothersome Man and I loved the sort of horror film Under the Skin. Never got round to watching Clockwork Orange to be honest. I've always found Kubrick to be massively overrated despite his undoubted influence on film makers like Ridley Scott. Enjoyed Pan's Labyrinth a lot but hated Under The Skin and almost wished I hadn't bothered , seemed a high price to pay just to see Scarlett Johansson 'in the raw'.

To each his or her own. Overrated is a term that I often have a problem with (and I do have a film studies background, not that that makes my opinion more valuable except if I was like having to teach it which I wouldn't be that qualified to do). I tend to think that most everything is overrated by some and underrated by others. Generally I don't think that it is a very useful concept in terms of "truth writ large" rather than just a very subjective response since for so many it really just means "I don't like it as much as many people do". It is interesting to think about what one thinks that oneself overrates. Where I most like the term overrated is when one uses it to refer to specific claims being made about something or someone, and then one can use facts and sound reasoning to show errors in overestimation (undue credit being given, esteem that does not logically follow...).

I've been accused of holding things in too high esteem (overrating) by people who have claimed that I only really liked something because that seems to be some kind of general consensus (a herd mentality), yet to my recollection I loved those things before hearing what the critics were saying. It was my personal relationship with the material. And everyone's experience with art is unique since we each have individual brains that interpret the material and we each bring in our own associations and experiences.   A problem I often have with people telling others that they have overrated or underrated something is that it can seem to negate or invalidate the other's experience which may be genuinely profound for that individual, or not. Others who rate works highly of his that I love are still not having quite the same experience that I am. It's very hard to be truly objective about such things. We all have our biases, we all have our own unique experiences, and then there are shared experiences (but still each experience is unique). We may be watching the same movie, but it's not quite the same movie as interpreted by our brains as individual neurology bring uniqueness to the experience.

What one values of course says a lot about the individual's psyche. As I said another thread yesterday, as the saying goes, in matters of taste there can be no dispute (I won't say that that is absolutely true, but to tell others that they value something too highly because one does not enjoy it oneself can be very egocentric and lacking in a certain empathy-- and sometimes it's just a general sense that others got it wrong and there are no solid arguments or details to back up the assertion). That said, you may have a very good thesis on specific claims where you think people are commonly overrating Kubrick (but I don't know how familiar with his oeuvre you are). I'd have to see your reasoning and how it doesn't just reflect on your tastes.

Kubrick had his issues (going over budget, obsessively detail oriented, quite or very possibly misogynistic, arrogant, didn't always treat the people he worked with well and exploitative) and I won't claim to particularly enjoy everything he worked on, but I love various of his films, and A Clockwork Orange is my favourite of them for its black comedy. I do find it disturbing. I happen to love 2001, and I have since I was a young child, but I can understand why others might find it too slow and boring.   A lot of people would not appreciate so called art house film as much as I do, or surreal films. The Shining, Barry Lyndon and Doctor Strangelove I love as well. The formalism of the shots is one thing that appeals to me. He has many scenes that really stuck with me and deeply resonated with me. In 2001 the shadow boxing around the centrifuge while passing by the sarcophagi is one. I'm very visuals and composition oriented and often like films that take their time and may have moments with very little happening (dead space, like in Paris, Texas, if you have seen it).

I won't say that I much liked Eyes Wide Shut, although as a Kubrick follower (watched many of his films and read books about him), it still interested me when it came out.

I was an admirer of Kubrick films before remembering being told that I should like it. I loved A Clockwork Orange from my first watch as a teenager. While I can see the Kubrick in it, in quite big part because of Malcolm McDowell, it most reminds me of Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man. I'd sooner compare directors such as Gilliam, Jeunet, del Toro, or Tarkovsky to Kubrick (I would compare Solaris with 2001) than Ridley Scott, but that's me making my own associations.

I wouldn't put Ridley Scott on the same artistic pedestal as Kubrick (not that I've seen all of Scott's work and I only read a book about his Blade Runner on him). Take for instance Blade Runner (and I am a huge Philip K. Dick admirer), I loved that film when it came out, but it largely lost its luster for me (I have seen it many times in different versions ). That said, I still love Alien. If you put him higher, well, we all have our biases (hopefully we recognise our biases and try to compensate for them).

Some of my favourite films in the sci-fi tradition I know are not generally considered to be very good, such as Zardoz, Logan's Run, Lynch's Dune or even Clonus: Body Parts Horror, but they resonated with me. That said, I also love a lot of so called art house film that is generally acclaimed by so-called intellectuals and film academics (as opposed to the so-called ignorant masses-- lol).

A Boy and His Dog is a favourite of mine that I've seen ridiculed.

As for Under the Skin, for me it was very poignant and haunting. I was moved by it and found the imagery compelling. The beginning, in particular, did remind me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's not a film that I would expect most to like and would be too obviously artsy for some people. It does seem to be a very marmite film. It's one of my very favourite films of the last decade (and is obviously not one to be recommended to most mainstream audiences). It also felt fresh and "different" to me. Quite unique and daring.

The Lobster and Dogtooth (and I liked The Killing of a Sacred Deer) directed by Yorgos Lanthimos are some of my very favourite strange films, and some of my favourite films period. I loved High-Rise (the fairly recent film adaptation). I often favour black comedy and sort of dystopian tales (I am a pessimist),

What we value is deeply personal and says so much about one which is a reason why telling someone else that they overvalue something can feel like a personal attack.

Here are some of my favourite directors and films by them to give a taste of the kind of things I like (I posted this before and some I like more than others). It is a pretty eclectic list, so goes beyond the strange parameters, except perhaps it says a little about my strange self.

- Woody Allen - Sleeper, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Casino Royale

- Pedro Almodóvar - Talk to Her, All About My Mother, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

- Robert Altman - The Player, Vincent & Theo, Nashville

- Lindsay Anderson - if..., O Lucky Man, This Sporting Life

- Michael Anderson - Logan's Run, All the Fine Young Cannibals

- Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love, Boogie Nights

- Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

- Theo Angelopoulos - The Travelling Players, Eternity and a Day, Ulysses' Gaze

- Michelangelo Antonioni - L'Avventura, La Notte, The Passenger

- Denys Arcand - Jesus of Montreal, The Decline of the American Empire, The Barbarian Invasions

- Hal Ashby - Harold and Maude, Being There

- Ari Aster - Hereditary, Midsommar

- Ingmar Bergman - Through a Glass Darkly, Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal

- Bong Joon-ho - Parasite, The Host, Memories of Murder, Snowpiercer

- John Boorman - Zardoz, Deliverance, Excalibur

- Robert Bresson - Diary of a Country Priest, Mouchette, The Trial of Joan of Arc

- Luis Buñuel - The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Belle de Jour, The Exterminating Angel

- Chen Kaige - Yellow Earth, Farewell My Concubine, Temptress Moon

- Jean Cocteau - Orpheus, Beauty and the Beast

- Joel & Ethan Coen - Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink, Fargo

- Francis Ford Coppola - Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, The Godfather: Part 2

- David Cronenberg - Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Spider (love so much of his)

- Brian De Palma - Carrie, Scarface, Phantom of the Paradise

- Vittorio De Sica - Bicycle Thieves, Umberto D.

- Richard Donner - The Omen (worth mentioning for that alone, he also did Superman and the Goonies).

- Robert Eggers - The Witch (loved this horror film)

- Atom Egoyan - The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, Felicia's Journey

- Sergei M. Eisenstein - Alexander Nevsky, Battleship Potemkin, Ivan the Terrible

- Rainer Werner Fassbinder - World on a Wire (TV miniseries), Fox and His Friends, Despair

- Federico Fellini - La Dolce Vita, 8½, Fellini's Satyricon

- David Fincher - Se7en, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fight Club

-Bryan Forbes - The Stepford Wives (1975), the Wrong Box, King Rat

- Terry Gilliam - Brazil, Time Bandits, Twelve Monkeys

- Jonathan Glazer - Under the Skin, Sexy Beast

- Jean-Luc Godard - Alphaville, Breathless, La Chinoise

- Michel Gondry - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep

- Peter Greenaway - Drowning by Numbers, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, 8 ½ Women

- Michael Haneke - Funny Games (1997), Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher

- Robin Hardy - The Wicker Man (1973)

- Todd Haynes - Far From Heaven, Velvet Goldmine

- Werner Herzog - Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, Where the Green Ants Dream

- Toby Hooper - Poltergeist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

- Hirokazu Kore-eda - After Life, Air Doll, Nobody Knows

- Alfred Hitchcock - Psycho, The Birds, Vertigo

- Agnieszka Holland - Olivier, Olivier, Europa, Europa

- Hou Hsiao-hsien - Flowers of Shanghai, Taipei Story, A Time to Live, A Time to Die

- Shohei Imamura - Black Rain, Vengeance is Mine, The Insect Woman

- Juzo Itami - Tampopo, The Funeral, A Taxing Woman

- Jim Jarmusch - Mystery Train, Stranger than Paradise, Night on Earth

- Jean-Pierre Jeunet - Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children, Amélie

- Terry Jones - Monty Python and the Holy Grail (with Gilliam), Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life

- Spike Jonze - Her, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation

- Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Holy Mountain, El Topo

- Aki Kaurismaki - The Man Without a Past, Juha, Drifting Clouds

- Jennifer Kent - The Babadook

- Abbas Kiarostami - Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us, Where is the Friend's Home?

- Krzysztof Kieślowski - Dekalog (tv miniseries); Three Colours Trilogy: Blue, White, Red; The Double Life of Veronique

- Takeshi Kitano - Fireworks, Kikujiro

- Stanley Kubrick - A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Barry Lyndon

- Akira Kurosawa - Dodes'ka-den, Rashomon, Ran

- John Landis - An American Werewolf in London (had to get this film in)

- Fritz Lang - M, Metropolis, Contempt

- Yorgos Lanthimos - Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer

- Ray Lawrence - Bliss

- Ang Lee - Eat Drink Man Woman; Lust, Caution; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

- Mike Leigh - Naked, Secrets & Lies, Life is Sweet

- Jens Lien - The Bothersome Man, Sons of Norway

- Sergio Leone - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, Once Upon a Time in the West

- Ken Loach - Riff-Raff, Raining Stones, Land and Freedom

- George Lucas - THX 1138 (for that film particularly)

- Bigas Luna - Jamón, Jamón; La teta y la luna; Golden Balls

- David Lynch - Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Eraserhead etc.

- Terrence Malick - The Tree of Life, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line

- George Miller - Mad Max and Mad Max II (The Road Warrior)

- Hayao Miyazaki - Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle

- Gaspar Noé - Enter the Void, Irreversible

- Yasujirō Ozu - Tokyo Story, Tokyo Twilight, A Story of Floating Weeds

- Park Chan-wook - Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, I'm a Cyborg but That's OK

- Alan Parker - Midnight Express, Mississippi Burning

- Wolfgang Petersen - Das Boot, Consequence

- He Ping - Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker; Wheat

- Satyajit Ray- The World of Apu, Aparajito, Pather Panchali

- Jean Renoir - The Rules of the Game, The Grand Illusion, La Chienne

- Alan Resnais - Night and Fog, Hiroshia Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad

- Jacques Rivette - The Nun, Celine and Julie Go Boating, Paris Belongs to Us

- Nicolas Roeg - The Man Who Fell to Earth, Don't Look Now, Walkabout

- Éric Rohmer- Pauline at the Beach, Claire's Knee, My Night at Maud's

- Walter Salles - Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries, Behind the Sun

- John Schlesinger - Sunday Bloody Sunday, Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man

- Martin Scorsese - Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

- Vittorio De Sica - Umberto D., Bicycle Thieves, Two Women

- Volker Schlöndorff - The Tin Drum, The Ogre, The Ninth Day

- Stephen Spielberg - Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler's List...

- Ridley Scott - Alien, The Duellists, Blade Runner

- Tony Scott - The Hunger

- Todd Solondz - Happiness, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Palindromes

- Oliver Stone - Natural Born Killers, Salvador, Platoon

- Quentin Tarantino - Kill Bill Volumes 1 & 2, Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, The Hateful Eight

- Andrei Tarkovsky - Stalker, Andrei Rublev, Solaris

- Béla Tarr - Damnation, The Prefab People

- Lars von Trier - The Element of Crime, Europa, Melancholia

- François Truffaut - Fahrenheit 451, The 400 Blows, Jules et Jim

- Tsui Hark - Butterfly Murders, Once Upon a Time in China, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain

- Tom Tykwer - Run Lola Run, Winter Sleepers, Heaven

- Denis Villeneuve - Maelstrom, Sicario, Arrival (he also directed Blade Runner 2049)

- Luchino Visconti - The Damned, The Leopard, Ossessione

- Peter Weir - Gallipoli, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Truman Show

- Wim Wenders - Paris, Texas; Wings of Desire; Until the End of the World

- Michael Winterbottom - Code 46, Wonderland

- Robert Wise - The Andromeda Strain (really why I included him), The Haunting, Star Trek: The Motion Picture

- Edgar Wright - Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, The World's End

- Wong Kar-wai - In the Mood For Love, 2046, Ashes of Time

- Zhang Yimou - Red Sorghum, Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern

EDITed for terrible typos and one very silly mistake.

Edited by Logan - December 29 2020 at 08:00

Logan wrote: triptych wrote: 4 I watched on 2 cold, snowy and dark nites in the family :):) REPO MEN; I WILL FOLLOW YOU DOWN; THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU; WONDERWALL (1968) psychedelic flip-out movie with songs by George Harrison in the Beatles' psychedelic period:) I lied Repo Men and The Adjustment Bureau (based on Philip K. Dick story, a very favourite writer of mine), but I have yet to see the others. Wonderwall I should get around to seeing. Thanks for the mentions.

Logan wrote: To each his or her own. Overrated is a term that I often have a problem with.

So do I! Also "underratedness" is another issue. I think such convictions are within the encompassment of egocentric bias; whilst, I'm not much of a saint in this regard, honestly. I sometimes use these words to attack the crowds, who generally suck. 

Harry and Tonto
La Strada
Nashville
They Shoot Horses, Don't they?
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
Network
The Battle of Algiers
A Woman Under The Influence
Buffalo '66
la grande illusion
the seventh seal
ace in the hole
wild strawberries
mccabe and mrs. miller
-Fat City
mikey and nicky
a face in the crowd
elmer gantry
annie hall
sunset boulevard
johnny got his gun
harold and maude
umberto D
taxi driver
a clockwork orange
rashomon
ikiru
bicycle thieves
seven samurai
shoeshine
You can't take it with you
A Taste of Cherry
the devil and daniel webster
the outlaw josey wales
the swimmer
the incident
never on sunday
the rules of the game
last tango in paris
loneliness of a long distance runner
le jour se le ve
-Knife in the water
-bad boy bubby
-the collector
-shadows in paradise
-the match factory girl
-ariel
-the plumber
-crime and punishment
-ladybug, ladybug
-il sorpasso
-la tera trema (the earth trembles)
love streams
opening night
fist in pocket
pather panchali
accattone
mamma roma
-M
-the woman on the beach
-david and lisa
-whity
-naked
-nuts in may
-meantime
-all or nothing
-two is a happy number
-a woman in the dunes
-riff raff
-the happy ending
-hombre
-the road builder
-dry summer
-an enemy of the people
-Place de la République
-A Special Day
-the roof
-Sunflower
-the blue hotel
midnight cowboy
-zandy's bride
-litle fugitive
-lies my father told me
-my dinner with andre
-The Working Class Go To Heaven
-Hunger (Sult)
-Close-Up
-nights of cabiria
-The Caretaker
le jour se le ve
the lost weekend
the deer hunter
-Peeping Tom   
-Hell Drivers   
-Ride the high country
-Ordet
-Marriage Italian Style
lolita
heaven can wait
Godfather Part II
The Blue Dahlia
too late blues
One-Eyed jacks
M
the last detail
persona
in cold blood
and justice for all
the conversation
marty
five easy pieces
-Joe
caged
il gido
two women
-paper moon
-johnny belinda
interiors
come back, little sheba
Patch of Blue
caged
alice in the cities
wrong move
raging bull
the snake pit
splendor in the grass
seargant york
the third man
Baby Doll
paths of glory
home of the brave
the caine mutiny
mr. smith goes to washington
I live in fear
La Dolce Vita
inherit the wind
asphalt jungle
love story
The Graduate
high noon
stagecoach
the getaway
The Wild One
anatomy of a murder
from here to eternity
the long goodbye
Salt of the Earth
mildred pierce
This is Spinal Tap
the searchers
No Regrets For Our Youth
One Wonderful Sunday
-The Slender thread
-The Hitchhiker
easy rider
cool hand luke
blackboard jungle
a place in the sun
lust for life
vagabond
the bad and the beautiful
the wild bunch
alfie
hud
Summer With Monika
husbands
i never sang for my father
opening night
cool hand luke
-nights at maud's
-Hell in the Pacific

Edited by The Anders - December 29 2020 at 13:13

In case it was mentioned, Antonioni's Blow Up.