Spontaneous Musings

Don't mind me, still playing with lists for some reason. This morning it's movies and tv shows.
Honestly, I have no idea why this has popped into my head and I'm certain if you asked me a month from now, my choices would change dramatically. They tend to do that. I'm moody when it comes to artistic appreciation.

Five movies that I'd recommend seeing before you die, or art films:

1. Death in Venice - an Italien film by Luchino Visconti, 1971, starring Dirk Bogard.
the first of the surreal artistic films of that period, about an aging Italian artist who becomes betwitched by a beautiful boy, when pestilence hits and symbolizes corruption and death of ideals.

2.Raise the Red Lantern - a chinese film by Zang Yimou, starring Gong Li, who'd also directed House of Flying Daggers and Hero. This is the lesser known of those films. And far quieter and more disturbing. I saw it years ago but am still haunted by it. It's about an educated woman who quits school after the death of her father and marries a rich landowner much to her stepmother's dismay and warnings. She's the fourth wife and finds herself isolated in his home, with only servants, and the other wives hatching plots against her. Each time he wants to see one of his wives he lights a lantern.
The movie is disturbing in its portrayal of gender politics, politics in general.

3.To Kill A Mockingbird by Robert Mulligan, 1962, starring Gregory Peck. Filmed in black and white, the movie also stars a young Robert Duvall. It is a film that challenges our perceptions, shot entirely in the pov of a young girl, and centers around the case of a black man being tried for the molestation of a white woman in the South in the 1950s.

4.All About My Mother - directed by Pedro Almodovar - a single mother in Madrid watches her only son die at 17 as he runs to seek an actress' autograph. She journeys to find his father, a transvesite named Lola. The film is about motherhood and grief.

5. Breaking the Waves by Lars Von Trier (the best of this director's films in my opinion).
Oilman is paralyzed in an accident and insists that his wife, who prayed for his return, to have sex with another man. It deals with loniliness and isolation. And the need to connect, but inability to do so.

Five Guilty Pleasures, that I've watched over and over again, and pause when they come on tv and watch yet again :

1. Gross Point Blank - starring John Cusak, Minni Driver, Jeffrey Piven. About a hit man who goes to his high reunion.
2. Lady Hawk - starring Mathew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, and Michelle Peffier. A fantasy about a theif who helps two estranged and cursed lovers break their curse. One is cursed to be a wolf by night and the other cursed to be a Hawk by day.
3. BladeRunner - directed by Ridely Scott, based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Stars Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, and Scean Young. A noir sci-fi about a private dick who hunts down artificial humans or robots, who want to be human.
4. West Side Story - by Robert Wise/Jerome Robbins - adapatation of the Broadway musical of the same name. Starring Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Morena.
5. Jaws - directed by Stephen Spielberg


Five American TV series to watch before you die, if you like tv that is:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - say what you will, the series changed pop culture, created a new female hero, flipped the slasher/gothic movie upside down and created a new sub-genre of fantasy - urban. And it had a blast doing it. Academics went nutty over it - to the extent they created college courses and conventions and published articles analyzing all the themes - which is fascinating in of itself, since the series makes fun of academia, and questions it.

2. MASH - amongst the first dramedy's. It made fun but not light of war. Lasting longer than the war it was about, the Korean Conflict, it showcased how crazy such things are and through black comedy, examined the foibles.

3. Hill Street Blues - changed the cop show forever. Created in some respects the ensemble work drama that focused on what people did, not so much on personal lives.

4. St. Elsewhere - did for medicine what Hill Street did for Cops. Without St. Elsewhere, I'm not sure we'd have ER or for that matter Grey's Anatomy.

5. Star Trek - created the science-fiction series - did for TV what Star Wars did for movies.
Campy at times, but always thought-provoking. Make sure you check the newer hybrids, Star Trek the NExt Generation, Deep Space Nine, and the earlier seasons of Voyager. The first cancelled tv show that spanned a film. Without Star Trek - we may not have BattleStar Galatica, Farscape, Star-Gate, or Firefly.

And Twilight Zone - by Rod Serling, the first great sci-fi anthology series....

Plus five foreign tv series:

1. Doctor Who
2. Prime Suspect
3. Kimba the White Lion
4. The Avengers
5. The Prisoner