Ingmar Bergman

Hi,

Luis Bunuel

Jean-Luc Godard

Nicolas Roeg

Terry Gilliam

Zhang Yimou

Akira Kurosawa

Up until the last 10 years or so, I had stuck with directors. These days, with the Internet, the names are not even mentioned and many of them are invisible and even a new film (as in the case of the last) by Godard was ignored ... as are some of the films by Gilliam and Yimou ... because they don't sell and there is no distribution for them.

A horrible sad state for a "world economy" where Gop Tun can get distributed and seen all over and no one will ever give a damn about other films! So much for the power of a "religion", no?

....

more:

Ken Russell (just about all of it including the BBC release of early stuff)

George Miller

The past few years is more about combing through the Amazon Prime to find a film or two worth watching, and half of them I don't even bother to write a review ... The series they had on Byron, got dumped, it seems, and they have not continued it, and I think they simplified the whole story too much to the point that Shelley dies before we even meet the women and the stories about the writing ... which has some of the characters in it, but not within a writing, role ... which tells you that it was not written by knowledgeable people, but by folks reading Cliff Notes for the Sophomorons.

but I miss some directors that were way too good ... and did some wonderful things. Akira Kurosawa is the best example of them all ... but I like Terry Gilliam whose sentiments are very close and similar to my own ... life is a vision, and then you turn left and you are in a desert! BOOM .... same as dreams and our minds! (Baron M film!)

Working on the old stuff right now

John Carpenter

Martin Scorsese

Ridley Scott

Don Siegel

Steven Spielberg

J. Lee Thompson

NB Ceylan

I've seen all of Kubrick's movies. But I think he only made 15. I think he'd be #6.

I've seen a few handfuls of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, who I think are the best living directors. Oh, and I saw (the other living director I like) all of Aki Kaurismaki's movies.

Ollallà!

Viva Italian cinema!

1) Pasolini 

2) Rossellini 

3) Fellini 

4) Petri 

5) Bertolucci

6) Tornatore

7) Leone

8) De Sica

9) Visconti

10) Olmi

--------

11) Moretti

12) Salvatores (until Puerto Escondido)

13) Sorrentino 

14) Garrone 

15) Ferreri

16) Virzì

17) Taviani

18) Rosi

19) Antonioni

20) Bellocchio

Dario Argento is awful, is horrible.... is he...horror?

One movie was enough. Yeah, horrible.

Really? He's got a few weak/bad movies, but overall I think he's really good. But i like giallo movies. I also like his collaboration with both Morricone and Goblin who made great soundtracks that are definitely relevant in the context of the movie (atmosphere that is) 

David Lean

Martin Scorsese

Alfred Hitchcock

John Ford

Frank Capra

Now that I think of it...I've seen a bunch of Clint Eastwood movies. 

Among the directors whose movies I've been very fond of are Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Zhang Yimou, Woody Allen, 

Yes, Everyone has their guilty pleasures.

For example, I, like many Italian males, have seen all the films with Bud Spencer and Terenche Hill, whose cult director is E. B. Clucher (aka Enzo Barboni). So I should mark Enzo Barboni, in this thread: a director of B movies.

Please, go with the names of the Italian and French directors!

Not sure what films from directors I've seen most but it will be the obvious popular ones such as Cameron, Spielberg and Ridley Scott etc. I don't watch many 'art films'.

Ridley Scott is certainly my favourite director just for Alien, The Martian and Blade Runner. Black Rain is also a good film. 

  1974: Dark Star 

  1976: Assault on Precinct 13

  1978: Halloween

  1980: The Fog

  1981: Escape from New York

  1982: The Thing

  1983: Christine

  1984: Starman

  1986: Big Trouble in Little China

  1987: Prince of Darkness

  1988: They Live

  1992: Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Vittorio De Sica

Luchino Visconti

Fellini 

Visconti 

Bertolucci 

Antonioni 

Coppola ( American, I know...but,)

Horror

Bava

Fulci

Argento

French

Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Jean-Pierre Melville

Jean Luc Godard 

Jean Renoir

Francois Truffaut 

Robert Bresson 

French Existential Eurotrash Horror

Jean Rollin  ( I don't know why I love it...it's so bad)

Hi,

You're missing Jacques Rivette, Claude Berri to mention 2 folks that I personally like a lot!

Spielberg

Zemeckis

Apatow

Burton

and so on...

Most prolific that I consistently enjoyed?

Terry Gilliam

Coen Brothers

Wes Anderson

Guillermo Del Torro

Rob Reiner

Please recommend your favorites.  I'd like to watch.  

Hi,

Rivette is notoriously slow, which a lot of folks dislike, however, something else comes to light ... his work is about the "quality", not the "quantity" and when you see the women in action in his films, they are immense. My personal favorite of his is a film everyone dislikes ... "La Belle Noiseusse", and the only thing you have to know is how you are going to sit for 4 hours ... but if you like art (specially!!!!), watching a hand create sketches and then paint, the movie itself becomes just an "after thought" and by the time the comment is made about a photograph, you know that you don't need anymore ... the best was watching that hand sketch and then paint. I picked up "la Bande des quatre" and like it, and have had a really hard time getting a hold of some of his other materials I would like to see. Remember that Rivette, Godard and Truffaut, were the 3 folks that made "Cahiers du Cinema" famous for their write ups on film and such! Rivette is not as free form as Godard and Truffaut, but it looks like he trusts the women a lot as you can see in "La Bande des Quatre".

Claude Berri, is very special ... if you sit through "Jean de Florette" and then "Manon of the Spring" ... (please do not see these out of order~~~~!!! ) ... you know that you have something special ... and it shines and then some. Later he did "Uranus" which is very good, and then a nice version of "Germinal".

Sadly the number of things by these two for me to mention is very hard, because of Europe's total disregard for the possible sales of DVDs in America, and everything is in that European version that you can not see in America ... the whole idea is just insane, when they could easily make more money off it. Thus, a lot of the distribution of these things slows down to a crawl, here on the West coast of America, although I imagine that it might be easier in the East Coast (I doubt it!) ... but somewhere along the line a better way of allowing these things to be seen, or sold would help ... but nooooooo .... they suck their thumbs instead! I suppose we could say that never heard of the "English invasion" in America of both film, theater and music in the late 60's, and then 70's ... but the majority of Europeans, are too isolated and seemingly ignorant of their ability to sell something in America ... it's like all they know is the 10 nickels they can get from their neighbors!

[/QUOTE]

Hi,

Rivette is notoriously slow, which a lot of folks dislike, however, something else comes to light ... his work is about the "quality", not the "quantity" and when you see the women in action in his films, they are immense. My personal favorite of his is a film everyone dislikes ... "La Belle Noiseusse", and the only thing you have to know is how you are going to sit for 4 hours ... but if you like art (specially!!!!), watching a hand create sketches and then paint, the movie itself becomes just an "after thought" and by the time the comment is made about a photograph, you know that you don't need anymore ... the best was watching that hand sketch and then paint. I picked up "la Bande des quatre" and like it, and have had a really hard time getting a hold of some of his other materials I would like to see. Remember that Rivette, Godard and Truffaut, were the 3 folks that made "Cahiers du Cinema" famous for their write ups on film and such! Rivette is not as free form as Godard and Truffaut, but it looks like he trusts the women a lot as you can see in "La Bande des Quatre".

Claude Berri, is very special ... if you sit through "Jean de Florette" and then "Manon of the Spring" ... (please do not see these out of order~~~~!!! ) ... you know that you have something special ... and it shines and then some. Later he did "Uranus" which is very good, and then a nice version of "Germinal".

Sadly the number of things by these two for me to mention is very hard, because of Europe's total disregard for the possible sales of DVDs in America, and everything is in that European version that you can not see in America ... the whole idea is just insane, when they could easily make more money off it. Thus, a lot of the distribution of these things slows down to a crawl, here on the West coast of America, although I imagine that it might be easier in the East Coast (I doubt it!) ... but somewhere along the line a better way of allowing these things to be seen, or sold would help ... but nooooooo .... they suck their thumbs instead! I suppose we could say that never heard of the "English invasion" in America of both film, theater and music in the late 60's, and then 70's ... but the majority of Europeans, are too isolated and seemingly ignorant of their ability to sell something in America ... it's like all they know is the 10 nickels they can get from their neighbors!

Good news.  I placed an EBAY bid on a Jean de Florette DVD.   I can watch "La Belle Noiseusse" on my Roku.  So, I'm good to go.  Thanks for the vivid descriptions.  I'm a prog-girl, so you know I can sit through a four hour film. 

If I have to select just one Italian film to recommend to you, I would recommend

Investigation of A Citizen Above Suspicion, 1970, directed by Elio Petri, 

starring Gian Maria Volonté (the best Italian actor ever, imo), 

which also gives you an idea of what life was like in Italy in the 1970s, known as the Leaden Years.

Hi,

Would love to see it ... someday, after I die I suppose I will see all of these things!!! In an age of the "world market" the divisions between cultures are harder than ever! Europe is still segregated when it comes to the arts, and DVD's in a different format, and many American banks locking up accounts ... as they do not want to deal with the conversion rates, and the Euro!

I have nothing but good things to say about Fellini, Bertolucci, some Antonioni, and then some of the less known stuff like Tornatore. De Sica has some magnificent things, but they are kinda hidden away in the history of it all and you don't notice ... oh dang, I missed that! Visconti, was interesting, although I think he had more ideas than he did resolutions for what to do with his films ... in this sense I much prefer Bertolucci, since he will just change a color and throw you a curve ... and give you a completely different set of thoughts and ideas. A lot of folks liked Antonioni in the early days, and I, personally, did not find anything special in all that stuff ... Fellini was more fun, because he was not predictable and would go fingers up to his Italian producers that were always upset that his films could not make that big money they wanted. ... something like that, and in this sense, both Fellini and Kurosawa were very special ... although Fellini was not afraid to tell the Vatican where to stuff it, when it came to them deciding which films were this and that and which ones got cut off mid-sentence ... (see Cinema Paradiso ... happened in Spain, Portugal and Latin America as well, although I'm told that not as badly in England and France.).

All in all, a very lively film scene in my book, although many of the films seem to be designed for a specific audience in smaller cities and towns, something that could excite them more than the (sometimes) overly impressed major film makers ... I, for some weird reason, can not see Antonioni, being liked in small town Italy ... since so many of the films are really bland, and sometimes trivial. But his shooting style is what helped make him famous, although he lost that side in his later years. Fellini, is kind of the clown in the group and he will always be liked in many places ... his politics are the circus! The only problem is that on occasion he hits a note that is very hard on the eyes of the church, and the opening of INTERVISTA is the best example of that ... as if we all were not kids once, and did the same thing without a camera behind us!

I watch The Thing quite a lot, extraordinary animatronic effects by Rob Bottin who had made his name on The Howling. I also love the fact it was actually filmed in Alaska, no comfy studio filming or CGI cop out. Its a classic of the sci-fi /horror genre for sure, in fact I only put Alien above it.

Carpenter has a real mixed bag of stuff as you highlight there. Dark Star is a very interesting low budget sci-fi outing especially the talking bomb idea (it has to be talked out of going off, very Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy kind of stuff!)

I'm on it!  Thanks for the rec!  I've seen over 100 Italian films. But, I haven't seen this one. 

Of the Carpenter pictures you have not seen, I'd recommend 1994's "In The Mouth Of Madness". I feel it's Carpenter's last great film.  More Lovecraft than Lovecraft.  That said, I cannot promise you'd like it Paul.  After all, you're Paul!

Ah, this is one of the best if not the best Bud Spencer & Terence Hill movie. Watch Out, We're Mad is its official international title I think. Out of curiosity, did Italians talk about the guys as Bud and Terence or by their real names?

As for the op, off the top of my head:

Jim Jarmusch

David Cronenberg

Tim Burton

Coen brothers

Aki Kaurismäki