Comments on: “My brain’s on fire”: Movies that moved me

By: Jeryyms

Jeryyms — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:32:05 +0000

Nice site you have

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:52:07 +0000

I know, I’m late to the party.

I agree with Bob about “Bull Durham.” The rose goes in front, big guy. And, Kristi, say it with me: “Candlesticks make a nice wedding gift.”

The movie that moved me? “The Harder They Come” with Jimmy Cliff. My brother hauled me to it when I was an impressionable teen. Yep, sans parents. The heart-pounding reggae, the thick pot smoke, the tender and raunchy sex, the gun-blazing defiance against compromise at any cost that leads to self-destructive depravity. Could puberty have a better cultural touchstone?

By: Art Scatter » Pre-Labor Day Scatter: Red shoes, hot peppers, art scams

Art Scatter » Pre-Labor Day Scatter: Red shoes, hot peppers, art scams — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:49:52 +0000

[...] The Red Shoes, which Friend of Art Scatter First Class Martha Ullman West has recently promoted as one of the greatest movies of all time. If you’ve done what we often do on holiday weekends and let your newspaper sit untouched, do [...]

By: cynthia fuhrman

cynthia fuhrman — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:17:04 +0000

I’m late to this game, not sure if it’s just movies that moved us but also have a bit of guilty pleasure attached to them, but here I go:

1. “Grand Canyon.” something about this Kasdan film totally got to me, and the tone of it stayed with me for days after. It’s one of the few movies I actually own, not being someone who buys DVDs. Maybe it’s partly because I was born and partly raised in L.A., but that film never fails to move me in a real way. Just love it.

2. “Holiday.” Probably not the most famous Hepburn/Grant movie, most people love “Bringing up Baby” more, but I watch this movie at least once a year, sometimes more. And truth be told, it’s for Edward Everett Horton. I have a HUGE crush on him in this movie; seriously, you just want to wrap him up and take him home.

3. “The Member of the Wedding.” Sorry, just makes me weep.

By: Barry Johnson

Barry Johnson — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:37:13 +0000

This thread may never die! Rachael’s comment suggests another topic — movies that feature movie audiences in important roles, the most recent great example I can think of is in “O Brother Where Art Thou”: “We thought you was a toad!” Delmar yells in a movie-theater hushed voice to Pete. But yes “Cinema Paradiso”! And another topic from Toy Cannon: the birth of the mockumentary. We’ll have to get Shawn back into the thread to figure that one out, I bet…

By: MightyToyCannon

MightyToyCannon — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:18:18 +0000

This strand may have played itself out, but I still “owe” a third movie that rocked my socks. Barry’s recent post about the new Woody Allen flick prompted a fond memory of “Take the Money and Run” (1969). Besides being packed with indelible gags, Woody’s parody of the documentary form was, for me, the pioneer of great ones that followed–from “Spinal Tap” to the brilliant send-ups of the media found nightly on the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Are there earlier examples of “mockumentaries” that I don’t know about?

And, while I’m at it, let me concur with an earlier post on Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast.” I tagged along with my older sister and her totally hip, artistic boyfriend to see it at a San Francisco “art house.” I had no clue what I was in for, and it felt a little bit illicit, like entering an opium den. I think I spotted Jerry Garcia in the audience, though it might have been Francis Ford Coppola.

By: rachael

rachael — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:03:29 +0000

I remember two mind blowers.

1) While visiting family friends, movie people in west hollywood, and after the 6th, 7th, or 10th viewing of “The Producers” in that household, in my lifetime, someone suggested we watch “Man with a Movie Camera.” I was young enough to not have seen anything experimental, at least not with an understanding of experimentation. The people responsible for introducing me to art had failed, up to that point, to note how neat everyday life can look on film. I was impressed.

2) “Cinema Paradiso” had me rethinking not how movies are made but how movies are watched. It is still representative of my favorite sort of film; sweet, family stories, starring adorable kids, filmed elsewhere. I was mostly in awe of movie theaters filled with swearing, drinking, smoking Italians. Where and how can I experience movies like that? As an event with full audience participation. I don’t mean those annoying popcorn munching, gum chewing, cell phone talking, snide comment making american movie viewers. I want fully engaged and enraged Italians. Ok, they could be Greek or French.

By: Martha Ullman West

Martha Ullman West — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:26:57 +0000

Memorable too was a day when I was walking home from school (age 12) and ran into my dad on 8th Street, headed for the Art Theater (yup that’s what it was called) to see a matinee of Menotti’s The Medium, so I tagged along and learned that opera can be very compelling on film. Some choreography there too.

By: Barry Johnson

Barry Johnson — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 04:47:11 +0000

See, you lived in the Village and they showed movies like The Red Shoes not to mention Fellini! Now, the Jimmy Stewart Westerns, that’s where we intersect! The choreography of the double take!

By: Martha Ullman West

Martha Ullman West — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:06:39 +0000

WHAT? Nobody lists The Red Shoes? Shame, shame. I saw it seven times when I was 13 and it was revived in a theater in the Village (not East, not West, thank you very much, but The Village) the first time as a way to beat the unspeakable heat and the next six because I couldn’t stay away. Michael Powell set the standard for filming dance in that movie, as early as 1938.
I too would include Beauty and the Beast, and probably all of Fellini, and Jimmy Stewart Westerns I saw with my father on Saturday afternoons, and Gene Kelly musicals. Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, etc. etc.
So there, from the dance critic.