Film Meme for Film Buffs (and a question on last night's House)

[shadowkat]

[Difficult day - spent the majority of it resolving problems, resolved all of them and got a "Good Job" from my boss who is not a woman prone to compliments.
So yay me. Also did my laundry or rather did my laundry the way most working New Yorker's do, which is get up bright and early (6:30 am), lug it to the laundramat, drop it off, then come back later, fork over some money, and lug it home again.

House was cool last night, but I missed approximately 20 minutes of it, because a close pal called me half way through, completely devastated over something personal, and I turned off the tv to calm her down. Didn't occur to me to tape until around the last 10 minutes or so, when the pal put me on hold to talk to someone else. So I caught the end and know what Stacy did. Also why she did it. What I don't know is what caused House's leg muscel to atrophy or die, and was the dead muscle causing the pain, if so why does he still have pain? Anyone out there know?]

Last night in between tv shows (ie. during commercials) I came up with my own film meme. It is a rigid, tough film meme, that may only be for film buffs.

Rules for the meme are:
1. In each category, name four films that you love and would want to own on DVD, already own on DVD or VHS, or would recommend to a friend to buy or see.
Films you consider A's.
2. The films must be accessible on DVD or in the theaters, they cannot be films that no one but you can find.
3. None of the films can be directed by George Lucas, or Steven Spielberg. You also are not allowed to list Lord of the Rings, although other films by Peter Jackson are permitted.
4. Try not list more than two films by any one director. In other words - you cannot list all the films the Coen Brothers or Alfred Hitchcock did. OR the entire Matrix triology. Of course if you are like me and can't remember the names of these frigging directors this may be a problem - I'm assuming I haven't, smack me if I have.
5. Try not to copy any of the films someone on your friends list has already listed. (ie. If you take this meme or gank it from me, don't use my choices, come up with your own.)
6. Explain briefly your choices.

Anyone Still with me? Or did you roll your eyes, and move on? Or just ignore me completely?

If so, here's the meme & my choices, cut for space considerations and to protect those who hate these things:



A. Film Noir/Mystery/Suspense/Crime Dramas (*Note, while there are noir Science Fiction films, do not list any in this category - save those for the Science Fiction category. These are pure mystery/suspense.)

1. The Big Easy, stars Dennis Quaid, Ned Beatty & Ellen Barkin.
Mystery/Suspense with a touch of romance. May be Quaid's best film. Sultry, suspenseful and comical. The dialogue is the reason I adore it though, the back and forth banter between Quaid and Barkin, the strong female role, and
the mystery which is neither emotionally nor dramatically simple.
2. La Femme Nikita - dir. Luc Besson. Stylish french noir thriller. A female assassin falls for an innocent artist and seeks a way out of her profession. Much better than either the series or the American remake - because the main character is kept dark, she actually killed an innocent person without remorse. The director doesn't pull any punchs either with the violence of the profession nor does he romanticize it the way most American versions have.
Subtitled.
3. Blood Simple - dir Coen Brothers. My favorite of their films and in my opinion possibly the best. The characters are dark, multifaceted, and at times monsterous. The movie is frightening in places. Sticks to the classic view of noir film, yet is innovative at the same time in its use of photography and character development. Plot is simple - a man hires someone to kill his wife and things go awry.
4. Shadow of a Doubt - dir. Alfred Hitchcock. My favorite Hitchcock. stars Teresa Wright, Hume Crone and Joseph Cotton. Girl's favorite uncle may in fact be the lady strangler. The best part of the movie is the dialogue riffs between Crone and another character actor I forget the name of, whose favorite past-time is figuring out the perfect murder.





B. Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror/Western (trick here is to try not to do all one genre, although you can if you wish. )

1. Blade Runner, (Sci-Fi)dir. Ridley Scott. Harrison Ford, Scean Young, Rutguer Hauer. Examines what it means to be human and to die and how the two are inter-related. Sort of an I Robot meets Philip K. Dick. Stylish photography. Every detail of the film is perfect. (If you hate the voice over - get the director's cut).
2. Red River, (Western) dir. Howard Hawkes, stars John Wayne and Montgomery Cliff. (John Wayne only becomes dark in two films - the Searchers by John Ford and Red River, Red River may be the better of the two because of Monty Cliff (Jeffery Hunter doesn't come close) and because Wayne's motivations are more muddied. The story is simple - a man and a boy start a cattle ranch, they drive the cattle to town, on the way they have a falling out - regarding how they should run the drive and how to treat others on it. This film was directed prior to the Searchers and is in black and white. The cinematography is amazing.
3. The Haunting (horror/fantasy) dir. Robert Wise (I think, will have to check), stars Julie Harris, Clair Bloom, Russ Tambolyn. Far more frightening than the remake. Wise (or whatever his name is) was of the less is more school of direction and special effects, he believed in suggesting something with just a tilt of a camera angle, and felt that it was what we thought we saw, not what we actually saw that was the most frightening. He was right. The camera angles suggest ghosts. It's not your typical ghost story - the tale is about a lonely woman who joins a bunch of paranormal specialists in what may be a haunted house - very close adaptation of Shirly Jacksons Novel, the Haunting of Hill House. At the end we are left with more questions than answers.
4. Total Recall (science fiction) dir. Paul Verhovan, starred Arnold S and Sharon Stone, one of the few Arnold movies I enjoy. Based on a Philip K. Dick short story, I Can Get it For You Wholesale - Verhovan has a great deal to say and the perfect cast to say it with. Deals with memory, perception, and what is real and what is a dream. Hard to say whether Arnold is hero or anti-hero here, possibly both. Plot? Construction Worker goes to a place to get a vacation implant - apparently you can have virtual reality vacations in the future, finds out he and his wife aren't who he thought they were and ends up on Mars, or does he, was he just sitting in the chair the whole time and if so, what does that say about him?





C. Romantic Comedy/Comedy/Animation/Musicals
1. Philadephia Story, (Romantic Comedy) Carey Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Katherine Hepburn. (no clue who directed, sorry) Been copied a million times but nothing holds a candle to the bantering dialogue and wit of this piece. Story? Socialite is about to get remarried. Her ex shows up and ruins things along with a reporter covering the story.
2. The Triplets of Belleville - (comedy/animated musical)About a woman and her son and a bicycle and a bunch of jazz singers. French. Most innovative animated story to come out in years.
3. Heathers (comedy) - Christian Slater/Winona Ryder (can't remember the director) Great high school black comedy, for anyone who hated high school. The first to actually go there - all the way. Paved the way for shows like BTVS, Freaks and Geeks, Mean Girls (which looks a bit weak next to it), Clueless, Popular, etc.
Plot: Girl meets Guy, guy convinces girl to kill girl's enemies and make it look like a suicide.
4. Gross Pointe Blank (comedy)- John Cusak, Joan Cusak, Minnie Driver. Hitman goes to his highschool reunion. Great soundtrack. Best known for the scene in which he tries to go home again.





D. Dramas (straight drama, can be historical, classical, epics, but none of the other categories)

1. Breaking Away- (can't remember the directors name or the name of the cast. Dennis Quaid and Barbara Berrie, but that's all that I remember. Will look it up later and update when I get a chance, if it's not available on DVD or VHS, will choose another. will do the same with others up there) Plot: bunch of friends go their separate ways over the course of a year - is set around a bicycle race.
2. Lawrence of Arabia - dir. David Lean, stars Peter O'Toole and Omar Shariff. Story of TE Lawrence during first World War (I think it's the first). Best desert movie ever, also best bio-pic. Also notable for it's ability to show the complexity of its hero without flinching.
3. The Year of Living Dangerously - dir. Peter Weir, stars Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver. About a journalist in war torn Indonesia. Perplexing morality play, with many hidden complexities. I'm pretty sure it's available.
4. All About Eve - Bette Davis, don't remember the director. Story about age, rivalry, jealousy, envy, and rising above it. Also about the theater in the 1930s/40s. The best of old Hollywood. Plot: Broadway Diva is upstaged by her under-study.

Okay must eat, will come back at some point and fill in directors and such, unless some nice reader knows them and tell me? Smack me if any aren't available on DVD or VHS (I know they aren't in theaters at the moment), also if I've used one director twice. Hate to think I broke my own rules.

Comments

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

I guess source authors are ok to double up on . . . or at least I'll consider the author and let it go . . .

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I debated putting Spirited Away by Mazuki in that slot (fits fantasy) or My Name is Nobody - which is the quintessential parody of the Sergio Leone Western. (Not a huge fan of parodies, but Nobody is the type that celebrates the form while jibbing at it.) But Total Recall is so perfect in so many ways...

Also same source authors aren't a big deal - just don't use movies based on the same source material. ie - you can't mention La Femme Nikita and Point of No Return or Dial M for Murder and The Perfect Murder (I think that's the name of the Michael Douglas/Gwenyth Paltrow version). Should update the rules tonight to make that distinction clear.

Agree on the source author...movies based on Dick novels seem to come out pretty well in most cases. But I'll put in a caveat - you aren't allowed to list more than two movies based on same source author - ie. no listing of all Agatha Christie films.

[graffitiandsara.livejournal.com]

We saw House last night, but Darbs an I are disagreeing about the cause of his leg problems. I remember them saying something about an aneurysm that caused a blood clot and Darby says that's not right. The truth is most of their medical stuff is pretty crazy so it doesn't matter all that much. But it did leave him with chronic pain. I think the dead muscle put poisons into his system and that was the cause of the pain. But I am a little confused so I don't know how helpful this was.

Great movie choices! The Big Easy is one of my favorite movies ever! Along with The Philadelphia Story. If only you had Lion in Winter on your list it would have been close to perfect.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Great movie choices! The Big Easy is one of my favorite movies ever! Along with The Philadelphia Story. If only you had Lion in Winter on your list it would have been close to perfect.

Yeah, well - I limited it to four and was trying not to name more than one film with the same actor. Course as d'h points out below, did end up quoting more than one with same source material...but that's different I think. It was a tough battle between Lion and Winter & All About Eve. Eve won because I saw Lion recently.

I remember them saying something about an aneurysm that caused a blood clot and Darby says that's not right. The truth is most of their medical stuff is pretty crazy so it doesn't matter all that much. But it did leave him with chronic pain. I think the dead muscle put poisons into his system and that was the cause of the pain. But I am a little confused so I don't know how helpful this was.

Oh. I get it now. They told us through the three similar cases, the trick was figuring out what felt similar about each case to House or rather what about each case reminded him of himself : 1) Basketball player with blood clot in the leg - which involved surgery for removal or amputation. The clot was causing senstivity to touch and pain. The similarity to House? Surgery to remove the clot which could also remove the muscel and result in slight paralysis and chronic pain. Surgery successfully removes the clot or cancerous growth, she's fine.
2.)Farmer with snake bite - if leg is not amputed the poison will spread to the rest of his body, no time to find an antidote. What they do is amputate.
3) must be House's case? So...maybe a blood clot or snake bite caused muscel death in his leg, the options were to remove the dead muscel causing chronic pain and slight paralysis or amputate the leg. House appeared to want the leg removed? That's my confusion, what did House want?

[graffitiandsara.livejournal.com]

House wanted a non surgical treatment that could allow a complete recovery, but because of the poisons it would put in his system could also cause pain so extreme it would kill him. The middle ground option of just removing the dead muscle meant that he would never have full use of his leg again, and it did end up leaving him with chronic pain. He wouldn't even consider the amputation, which was the only option where he was sure not to have chronic pain. House, being House, insisted on the treatment that was most likely to kill him on the small chance he would have a complete recovery.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Ah. Thank you! I think Darby is right, it probably was something akin to a blood clot - similar to the basketball player whose problem was cancerous growth in her femur, and similar to the farmer which is poison that will kill you if it goes to the brain. That also explains the two dreams. The first where the basketball player had surgery but also regained use of her leg and the amputee who with a prosethetic also had use of his leg. But with the first scenario they warned the player that the operation may not work and could end up with a similar scenario that House had. It also explains House's comments to the class: 1) That Cameron (the female attending) had taken a thorough enough history to realize that something needed to be removed immediately from the players leg. But in the scenario of the guy with chronic pain in his leg - the attending assumed he was drug addict, didn't take the time to do a thorough history and background check, the patient diagnosed himself and returned to the hospital - but the doctors continued to disregard the patient's wishes, including his attorney and lover. And that's been the theme all season long - do we listen to what the patient wants or do we treat the patient like a file or a dumb animal to experiment on? And why does House get so upset with his doctors making decisions and refusing to take responsibility for them or refusing to listen to their patients? Is House right? Or is there a middle ground?

Ugh. why is this show on at the same time as Veronica Mars? Damn.
Toss-up between which is better.

[anomster.livejournal.com]

I got home late & missed the 1st 1/2-hour of House, so I didn't catch all of the info on his case. But an aneurysm is a bulging out of an artery; the danger is that it will burst & cause internal bleeding, not cause a clot. From what I saw, House had a clot that got into his bloodstream & blocked a blood vessel in his leg, cutting off the circulation to the muscle, so part of it died. Waste products accumulated at the site, & the risk of removing the clot was that these would be released into the bloodstream all at once & cause further damage & possibly death. I don't know why they couldn't be suctioned out or neutralized at the same time the procedure was done (maybe the technology wasn't advanced enough at the time it took place).

It looked to me like no one ever ran the "middle ground" option past House before they put him under so he'd be unconscious during the worst of the pain. The toxins in his system wouldn't cause the ongoing pain (I think); I didn't catch enough of the dialog to be sure what did. Sara's right about most of the medical stuff being crazy. So is not even telling him about the procedure they ended up carrying out on him. Who knows, he might've actually made that choice for himself if they had. After all, his main concern was not losing his leg. That was the most interesting part to me: w/all his medical knowledge & understanding of what was happening to him & the risks involved, he just didn't want his leg cut off. He couldn't even say why. That's so human: this is what I want, just because I want it. And the not wanting to lose body parts.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Breaking Away starred Dennis Christopher who played Cyrus Vail on Ats and well as Paul Dooley, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Haley. It's available as both a vhs tape and a dvd. It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Peter Yates), Best Supporting Actress and Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (It won that one).
One of my all time favorite films.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks for attempting my meme - enjoyed your choices, especially Monsoon Wedding and Lion in Winter. Also Kind Hearts and Coronets - which I haven't seen.

[ailleurs.livejournal.com]

Very good choices.

You're spot-on about Besson's Nikita.