[Movies] Foreign Movies & Movies without Shaky Cams

A movie buff who doesn't like French new wave?

Anyway, if you like "Taxi Driver" then look at films directed by Jean-Pierre Melville especially the ones with Alain Delon as the lead actor.

For long drawn out films there's the Russian sci-fi film "Solaris". It's interesting for being source material for Alien. As was the Italian movie Planet of the Vampires which is different by being a fun B-movie.

Going back to slower paced movies, there's the Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. Even though he's mostly known for his Leningrad Cowboys movies. I think his best films are Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana and The Match Factory Girl.

 

Hmm so I guess now's not a good time to mention Trollhunter? Man, I loved that movie--might be my favorite of the year so far. Shaky cam aside, a movie that is half Jurassic Park, half Christopher Guest film is a recipe for greatness!

 

By far one of my favorite movies
City of God


Y tu Mama tambien
12 Angry Men
Sunset Blvd
On the Waterfront
The Apartment
Chinatown
The Last Picture Show
The Conversation
Leon
Princess Mononoke
Spirited Away
Slumdog Millionaire
Delhi Belly

 

Paul Verhoeven: Black Book
Akira Kurosawa(all his films are great): Seven Samurai, Rashomon
Yimou Zhang: Raise the Red Lantern, The Road Home, Hero, Not One Less
Kar Wai Wong: In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express
Alejandro González Iñárritu: Babel

 

Ahhh... OK. :grin:

 

mexican movies:

Todo El poder
El Tigre de Santa Julia (I didnt watched, but I heard good reviews)
Matando Cabos

 

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If you haven't seen Laurence of Arabia, it sounds like you are ready for it.

Probably the greatest film ever, if you have a longer attention span than a 12 years old.

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^^^ "Lawrence of Arabia - Part 1 of 26"

26 parts... and that's just the preview.

 

I second this.

 

I Saw the Devil was okay... but to me it mostly seemed like violence p*rn without a lot of substance.

OldBoy, though... you can take that one to the bank. Anyone who hasn't seen it should see it. Awesome flick. Roger Ebert gives a nice and glowing review of it.

Park Chan-wook also did a more recent film in 2009 called Thirst, which is a fairly unconventional vampire movie. I don't normally think much of vampire movies, but this one was really quite interesting, although it was a bit more disjointed than OldBoy and was probably a bit too long.

Another foreign film I like is called Casshern, which is sort of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi distopian kind of deal. But be warned that that version that was brought to the US was shortened by about 20-30 minutes. If you can find a torrent or something of the original Japanese version, I'd recommend watching the uncut film.

EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot... I whole-heartedly second bobmarley's suggestion of City of God, if for some reason you have yet to see it. Someone else recommended it to me recently... one of the best films I've seen in years.

 

Lebanon was pretty good. Most of the movie takes place inside a tank, so there is not a lot of camera movement. It has a really claustrophobic feel to it. It is also a real pull no punches look at being in the middle of a war. The movie was based on the filmmaker's experiences in the first Lebanon/Israel war.

 

City of God and The Man of the Year (O Homem do Ano) are both really good.

In fact, if anyone can recommend me more foreign crime films in this thread, i would be very appreciative.

 

Yes, another vote for City of God here.

Try Nid de Guêpes (The Nest). It stars Samy Naceri (Indigenes). Not great, but entertaining.

 

Blow-Up, 1966. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.

Winner of the Grand Prize at the Canne Film Festival. Nominated for Best Film and Best Director by the Academy Awards. Starring David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, and Jane Birkin, with cameos by a host of players during London's Mod scene in the mid-'60's.

An excerpt from Rotten Tomatoes:

Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language production was also his only box office hit, widely considered one of the seminal films of the 1960s. Thomas (David Hemmings) is a nihilistic, wealthy fashion photographer in mod "Swinging London." Filled with ennui, bored with his "fab" but oddly-lifeless existence of casual sex and drug use, Thomas comes alive when he wanders through a park, stops to take pictures of a couple embracing, and upon developing the images, believes that he has photographed a murder.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blow_up_1966/

For the OP, this quote by Bosley Crowther, film critic of The New York Times when it was released, who called it a:

"fascinating picture, which has something real to say about the matter of personal involvement and emotional commitment in a jazzed-up, media-hooked-in world so cluttered with synthetic stimulations that natural feelings are overwhelmed". Crowther had reservations, describing the "usual Antonioni passages of seemingly endless wanderings" as "redundant and long"; nevertheless, he called Blow-Up a "stunning picture — beautifully built up with glowing images and color compositions that get us into the feelings of our man and into the characteristics of the mod world in which he dwells".

Even film director Ingmar Bergman, who generally disliked Antonioni, acknowledged its significance: "He's done two masterpieces, you don't have to bother with the rest. One is Blow-Up, which I've seen many times, and the other is La Notte, also a wonderful film, although that's mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau."

Of the film's ending, Roger Ebert wrote: "What remains is a hypnotic conjuring act, in which a character is awakened briefly from a deep sleep of bored alienation and then drifts away again. This is the arc of the film. Not 'Swinging London.' Not existential mystery. Not the parallels between what Hemmings does with his photos and what Antonioni does with Hemmings. But simply the observations that we are happy when we are doing what we do well, and unhappy seeking pleasure elsewhere."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowup

I saw this film when it came out and it is literally mind blowing. It also blew holes in the rating system that existed then, such as it was. Today, it would probably garner an NC-17 because of the threesome Hemmings has with two wannabe teenage models on the floor of his studio. Little is left to the imagination. Because of that, good luck finding it anywhere uncut. I have yet to see the flick in its original version that graced the theatres in 1966. Since then, on cable or in art houses, it has been sliced and diced. So good luck, and if the original can be bought, mention it here. The music is by the Yardbirds, who play at a club/party during the film, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page both playing guitar.