hyacinth_black wrote:

I liked the Clockwork Orange book.  Not the movie.  It forgot the essential last chapter.

I liked the movie nevertheless - stumbling a bit in the last step doesn't negate the excellent atmosphere, or acting. Ofcourse I think that you should both see the movie and read the book, and enjoy both together, and let them fulfill each other - that should be done with all good movies made of good books.

Talking about really old movies, I enjoyed The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari quite a bit. It's a German silent film from the era of the Great Depression, and is one of the great classics of horror film. You can't throw a stone in a Tim Burton film without hitting in a reference to it, just for example. Again a movie that stumbles a bit in the end - though twisty, the ending gives exactly the opposite of the message its creators wanted to make due to executive meddling. Anti-authoritariarism wasn't popular in Germany in those days.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014429/

Safety Last. I love this movie. 1923, bitches.

Though, I don't own a copy (I want to though). The oldest movie I own is The Court Jester, which is incredibly fun.

Last edited by Baka Kakumei Reanna (01-13-2009 06:06:12 PM)

It may not be THAT old, but Gandhi was the best.

Oh, and March of the Wooden Soldiers/Babes in Toyland.

Out of curiosity, what do you guys consider old and classic?



(Had a semi related discussion earlier on this, and it seemed to be anything before the 80's...Which I don't really seem to be that od, but hey.)

Lightice wrote:

Talking about really old movies, I enjoyed The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari quite a bit. It's a German silent film from the era of the Great Depression, and is one of the great classics of horror film. You can't throw a stone in a Tim Burton film without hitting in a reference to it, just for example. Again a movie that stumbles a bit in the end - though twisty, the ending gives exactly the opposite of the message its creators wanted to make due to executive meddling. Anti-authoritariarism wasn't popular in Germany in those days.

Glad to hear that you enjoyed the original version of Caligari. It's my all-time favourite movie. However, you are the first one I've read saying that it "stumbles a bit in the end". In my opinion, what makes the film exceptionally special is that it was the first movie with a twist in the end and also the first cinema representation of altered mental states.

Lightice wrote:

Since this thread's been resurrected for my sake, lets add Dr. Strangelove among the old movies I love. The fact that it was made during some of the worst years of the Cold War just makes it more hilarious.

I really want to see this... but I promised my brother I would watch it with him, and the brat hasn't taken me up on it! Can I ask, is it enough for me to be a Kubrick fan to enjoy it, or should I brush up on my Cold War history as well?

God I *LOVE* classic movies and musicals. TCM is always on in my house. I was raised on Hitchcock and Vincent Price films, so much so that they're almost part of my blood now. I think I've watched Vertigo at least twenty times over the years. I love Judy Garland films (except The Wizard of Oz); A Star is Born is amazing. Another favorite musical of mine is Gigi; a 1958 musical which is essentially about prostitution. I still have yet to see Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and Suddenly, Last Summer, but they are absolutely on my must-see list.

Yasha wrote:

I really want to see this... but I promised my brother I would watch it with him, and the brat hasn't taken me up on it! Can I ask, is it enough for me to be a Kubrick fan to enjoy it, or should I brush up on my Cold War history as well?

You really don't need more than pedestrian knowledge of the general goings of the Cold War, as far as I can tell. From the little that I have dwelled in the topic more seriously, all I can say is that it's pretty amazing how little shit they actually made up for the movie. There actually were plans for a cobalt bomb, that could indeed potentially end the life on Earth's surface. There actually were nuts who believed that fluoridization of the drinking water was a Communist plot to poison the Americans. The movie went to extreme lengths to provide a scenario where a nuclear bomber couldn't be recalled after receiving its orders; something almost impossible under any sane circumstances. And yeah, not all the German scientists given important positions in the United States military were very nice people.

When I first saw it I was quite surprised how little role Dr. Strangelove himself actually had in the movie. He's pretty much just president Muffley's Mr. Exposition who towards the end gets increasingly nuts, calling the President "Mein Führer" and stuff.
But yeah, it has Peter Sellers doing three roles, adlibbing as much as he can, and a whole bunch of actors who thought they were making a serious war film, hamming it up on what Kubric claimed to be extra takes for the amusement of the studio staff. He ended up using the silliest performances in the final cut.

Horror movies before the mid 90's. To me the king of these is George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Hardly any gore at all and to this day I still get twitchy watching it.

As I recall there's a fair bit of gore. It's just all black and white, so it doesn't register as much. But yeah, it's a classic.

Last edited by Lightice (09-01-2010 05:12:21 PM)

Shmeecherz wrote:

2 great ones!

Paper Moon

To Kill a Mockingbird (book also awesome!)

I saw Paper Moon when it first came out, and enjoyed it immensely.  I read the book To Kill a Mockingbird in English class, during my sophomore year of high school, back in the late 1960's.