dadosaboya wrote:
Plein Soleil (1960) - (known internationaly by the titles Purple Noon, Full Sun or Blazing Sun)

René Clément directed this first adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's book The Talented Mr. Ripley (played by Alain Delon). The film spawned a loyal cult following even today, with fans including Martin Scorsese.

Acclaimed by critics, Plein Soleil made Delon a star (with the approval of the author) and many consider it to be superior than Minghella's version. I believe both films are excellent, but Delon's Ripley is far better.

Checking it out.


Belle de Jour (1967) - Luis Buñuel

Belle de Jour is a 1967 French film directed by Luis Buñuel. The film stars Catherine Deneuve as a woman who decides to spend her days as a prostitute while her husband is at work.

The title is the French name of the daylily (literally: "daylight beauty"), a flower that blooms only during the day, but also refers to a prostitute whose trade is conducted in daytime. The film was based on the 1928 novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel. American director Martin Scorsese promoted a 2002 release of the film on DVD.

The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1967.


IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061395/

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJXLCYZMGQ8

This is part of the infamous coliseum scene from the 1932 Cecil B. DeMille historical drama "The Sign of the Cross". Pretty risque for its time as a tied up woman is put on display to be devoured by crocodiles and another is bound to a post for a lustful gorilla. These scenes were originally removed by the censors but have since been restored.

m4st4 wrote:

This is part of the infamous coliseum scene from the 1932 Cecil B. DeMille historical drama "The Sign of the Cross". Pretty risque for its time as a tied up woman is put on display to be devoured by crocodiles and another is bound to a post for a lustful gorilla. These scenes were originally removed by the censors but have since been restored.

Wow! Wicked! Never heard of this!

Blow-Out (1981)
Brian DePalma


"Murder has a sound of its own."

Blow Out is a 1981 thriller film, written and directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, serendipitously captures audio evidence of an assassination involving a presidential hopeful. Nancy Allen stars as Sally Bedina, the young woman Jack rescues during the crime. The supporting cast includes John Lithgow and Dennis Franz.

-Wikipedia

IMO, this is DePalma's best, alongside "Scarface" and "Carrie".

It may be "Blow-Up" or "The Conversation" with cheese, but technically and aesthetically it's a beautiful and great film. Travolta is great in this. My only gripe is Nancy Allen's performance- she seemed wooden, overly bright and plain annoying in some scenes. All that aside, one of the staple films of the 80's and Tarantino calls the final shot "one of the most heartbreaking in all of cinema".

Another great poster for Blow Out, one of my favorite De Palma films!

John Lithgow - that sick fuck!

Blow Out incorporates multiple allusions both to other films and to historical events. Its protagonist's obsessive reconstruction of a sound recording to uncover a possible murder recall both Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation.

Fernando wrote:

IMO, this is DePalma's best, alongside "Scarface" and "Carrie".

It may be "Blow-Up" or "The Conversation" with cheese, but technically and aesthetically it's a beautiful and great film. Travolta is great in this. My only gripe is Nancy Allen's performance- she seemed wooden, overly bright and plain annoying in some scenes. All that aside, one of the staple films of the 80's and Tarantino calls the final shot "one of the most heartbreaking in all of cinema".

Yeah, one of my favorite De Palma too. He surely became famous for ripping off Hitchcock and Antonioni, but he did it with style As for Nancy Allen, yeah, she's awful, but she was fucking the guy (and ended up marrying him) so, guess that earned her the part.

m4st4 wrote:John Lithgow - that sick fuck!

My feelings exactly!!!

Kagemusha (1980)
Akira Kurosawa

When a powerful warlord in medieval Japan dies, a poor thief recruited to impersonate him finds difficulty living up to his role and clashes with the spirit of the warlord during turbulent times in the kingdom.

-IMDb

Wow, I revisited this last week and for me it's on par with Ran, but so overlooked. Every shot is, like many other genius works, composed like individual pieces of art- because that's what Kurosawa did, actually storyboarding most of this film on complex, colorful paintings.



The film is probably one of his most visually ambitious, and maybe his most beautiful, putting color to its best use. Amazing directing, great story and unmatched visuals. Hope to look more into Akira's earlier work.

^ Bravo Fernando! Kurosawa truly is one of the greatest Directors of all time.

Fernando wrote:
Blow-Out (1981)
Brian DePalma

Those sideburns make him look scarily like David Tennant.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

This is surely one of the great sci-fi classics. Directed by Don Siegel (Along with Sergio Leone, he's considered as a mentor to Clint Eastwood, having directed 5 films with him, including Dirty Harry), Body Snatchers may be the cleverest extra-terrestrial invasion film of the 50's (a decade where the genre ruled). In it, the invaders replace humans with appearently identical duplicates, but without emotions or individuality. As the replacements overrun a small town in their way to conquer the world, only the local doctor uncovers the plot and struggles to stop them.



Most interesting is that, popular interpretations made the film famous as a metaphor for the loss of individuality in communist regimes and the raging paranoia of McCarthyism.

The ending is one of sci-fi's most memmorable moments:
So far, this classic has already been revisited 3 times: Philip Kaufman directed an excellent version in 1978, starring Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy and newcomers Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright.



Directed by Abel Ferrara, Body Snatchers (1993) is way more hardcore (as expected of him), focusing mostly on the horror genre with lots of gore.



Starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, The Invasion (2007) was directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (with additional scenes written by the The Wachowski Bros). Being the most Hollywood-ish version of them all, it was poorly recieved, failing both critically and commercially. Still, if you're a fan of the previous, it's worth checking it out.