Me and two friends had “classic movie nights” for a couple of years before I moved away. We would watch something which is considered a classic and it had to have been released before 2000. We watched only those which none of us three have seen before and we would watch it like once every two months or so. Movies like:
- M
- Gone with the Wind
- The Godfather
- Taxi Driver
- Murder on the Orient Express
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- Rear Window
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Chinatown
- Le Grande Bouffe
- L’Avventura
- Tengoku to jigoku
- etc.
It was a ton of fun and we talked about the movie before, what our expectations are and after just generally and each of us would give it a IMDB star rating.
Now sadly my friends live 9 time zones away, so we can’t really do that anymore. But I was thinking to try to convince my wife to do this classic movies night with me. Right now she is reluctant because English is her 4rth language and especially older movies are using language differently too, but one day she will give in :D.
Anyway, now that you know the rules, what movies do you think I still missed and should watch?
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Some Like It Hot
Alien
Blazzing Saddles
- The matrix
- Inception
- The big lebowski
- Trainspotting
- Edward scissorhands
- Lord of the rings (all three)
- scream
The Princess Bride
Right now she is reluctant because English is her 4rth language and especially older movies are using language differently too, but one day she will give in :D.
Turn it around and watch films in the languages she is comfortable with.
If you let us know what they are (and if she has any red lines, like “no horror”), I am sure we can rummage up some good suggestions.
Casablanca
In no particular order:
- Monty Python’s Life of Brian
- The Matrix
- Cool Runnings
- Inception
- Akira
- LOTR original trilogy
- Gladiator
- Alien
- Blade Runner
- Jurassic Park
- Shaolin Soccer
- Kung Fu Hustle
I’m sure there are more I could think of, but these are some of my favourites.
What do you mean when you say LOTR original trilogy?
The first three Lord of the Rings movies, directed by Peter Jackson: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers & The Return of the King.
Oh okay when you said original I thought you might be referring to the movies that came out before the Jackson ones. Also by original are you saying you want the theater cut instead of the director cut? Because if so I don’t know why anyone would be that wrong on purpose.
Would you and your wife be okay with reading subtitles? Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa is a Japanese movie, released in 1950, that explores how truth is perceived differently by different people.
Yes we read subtitles all the time, but my wife speaks Japanese so it would only be for me :D
Haha, then that makes the movie easier for her to enjoy. Have fun on your movie date nights!
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Why not start with classic films in your wife’s first or second languages?
Almost every language has a few films that stand out, and she’d be more engaged this way too.
And works very well as a good springboard for exploring the world’s cinematic greats.
Not much love for comedies so far, huh?
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Blazing Saddles
- Airplane!
- Planes, Trains and Automobiles
- Spaceballs or Galaxy Quest (flip a coin)
Also, the Back to the Future trilogy.
Gotta add Black Sheep and Tommy Boy to the list. Peak Farley/Spade era.
Airplane!
Surely you can’t be serious‽
I am serious and don’t call me Shirley
I feel like First Blood is not only a good movie but a glimpse into how traumatized veterans were neglected by the US government and stigmatized by the general population. With the current administration shitting on veterans left and right, they’re definitely keeping that tradition alive, and the movie has become a lot more relevant because of it.
Growing up I preferred Rambo 2 and 3 but as an adult First Blood is a masterpiece.
Tampopo (dandelion). Japanese film from the 80s about food and god knows what else, but very funny.
I think about this most times I eat ramen, and I eat ramen a lot.
Bit of trivia: the director Jūzō Itami was thrown off a rooftop by the yakuza and they typed up a suicide note for him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juzo_Itami#Death
In 2008, a former member of the Goto-gumi yakuza group told reporter Jake Adelstein: “We set it up to stage his murder as a suicide. We dragged him up to the rooftop and put a gun in his face. We gave him a choice: jump and you might live or stay and we’ll blow your face off. He jumped. He didn’t live.”
In the first season of Tokyo Vice, which is loosely based on the life of Jake Adelstein, there’s a scene where this choice is offered to a yakuza member. I wonder if the writers took inspiration from your piece of trivia or whether it’s just a common way of covering up murders over there.
[Tadamasa Goto’s] claim to infamy was alledgedly ordering a hit on the esteemed Japanese film director Juzo Itami in May 1992. Itami had directed a film called Minbo no onna, which, unlike all previous yakuza films in Japan, portrayed the yakuza as money-grubbing, ill-mannered louts, not noble outlaws. Goto was not pleased with the film and especially disturbed by the implications that yakuza did not live up to their threats. On May 22, five members of his organization attacked Itami in the parking lot in front of his house, slashing his left cheek and his neck, inflicting serious injuries upon him. Itami became a vocal supporter of the new anti–organized crime laws the Japanese government put in place that year and a general pain in the ass to organized crime. He was a living symbol of what the yakuza really did, not what they pretended to do. He allegedly killed himself a few years later by jumping from a tall building.
Tokyo Vice, chapter 21
I’d imagine this is not uncommon of them though. It’s a tidy way to off somebody in a city with lots of places to do it.
Well there you go, mystery solved! Very interesting piece of trivia, thanks for sharing.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
This movie has a special place in my heart. For me it constantly remains you who’s the most important person in your life. Your time together is short and fleeting. Unfortunate things can happen. You really need to hold the moments you have together while it lasts.
12 Angry Men (1957)
Definitely. I love this movie and I think it’s a great heavy character driven story. I believe it is something that everyone should watch once, at the very least. After all these years I’m still undecided on whether I would vote guilty or not guilty, there’s a lot to consider in the case and the jurors all have their flaws which makes it more interesting than just “juror good, juror bad”.
It’s a film that you can enjoy on so many levels. You can appreciate the way they keep a story shot essentially in a single room so visually stimulating the entire way through, or the performances from the cast whose characters grow into the film as more is revealed about their lives, or the way the film makes you think at the end about the morality, the legal system, peer pressure and the human desire to conform, etc. If you’re honest with yourself it’s a film that can really challenge some previously automatic beliefs you had about yourself as a person. Like the first time I watched it in my early 20s, admitting to myself that I probably would have been one of the jurors to cave to the majority opinion purely out of peer pressure was a reality I didn’t really want to face.
