DAMN DAMN shame on me i forgot to include Shichinin no samurai in my list how could i do such mistake.

yeah holden, "sayles's best" would be saying a lot with me too. i'd actually go a step farther anyway, and put it as number one on my 'top sayles movies list', followed closely by the extremely cool period film, 'matewan'. i think men with guns is his most ambitious and successful example of writing, speaks about so much and on so many levels....plus his endings never fail to surprise and delight me.

i kind of figured that was a slip of the mind with aguirre, and yes, it's an understandable one. as cool as herzog is, that's one of the few movies i've seen where it wouldnt have even had half the impact with anyone other than the lead actor. i actually think kinski's performance was slightly more impressive in fitzcarraldo, but what put aguirre in second place (instead of fitz) was his megalomaniacal ending monologue. --> THE high point of cinema, in my mind.

Linespalsy, I hope you've seen both Burden of Dreams (1982) and My Best Fiend (1999), two documentaries. Burden of Dreams is an amaizng on-the-set look at the making of Fitzcarraldo (including soem rare footage of Jason Robards and Mick Jagger in the leads before production was initially halted), and My Best Fiend is Herzog's varied memories of the intensely bizarre/bizarrely intense Kinski.

And I'd have to give the slight edge to Kinski's Aguirre performance, but not by much over Fitzcarraldo. Both are amazing.

Le Pacte des loups was known as 'The Brotherhood of the Wolf' here in the states

It was a French Movie Directed by Christophe Gans
Very popular in Europe

About the legendary Beast of Gevaudan which killed over 100 people and wounded about 30 in the Gevaudan/Auvergne region of France between 1764 and 1766.
Very Gothic

Stars Mark Dacascos (who played the Crow in the T.V. series) as Mani a Companion/Blood brother to French Chevalier Grégoire de Fronsac (the Protagonist).

Wonderful cinematography, lavish costumes, Stunning fight scenes (choreographed by Tak-ngai Yeung the hong kong stunt guru and who starred in Bride with white hair 2)

Relay asked so I answered :)

A bit long but that's ok about 2 hrs 22 min

re: burden of dreams and my best fiend:
ack! actually i've never even heard of burden of dreams, but i've always felt that a documentary about the making of fitzcarraldo could potentially be even more interesting than the film itself. had no idea about jagger and robards, they were actually casted before kinski? now that's just another movie i'm going to have to find...right along with 'my best fiend', which i've heard all about, but have yet to find anywhere around me . i've seen that they have it in the herzog/kinski dvd set (which also has woyzeck and cobra verde, two others that i have yet to see.) this set, and the buster keaton box have really been testing my anti-dvd campaign lately. :(
anyway, yeah, i'll have to check them out as soon as i get a chance.
i have, however, seen the 'werner herzog eats his shoe' documentary, which i found quite amusing. had some very neat anecdotes (i think my fave was the cactus story from 'even dwarves started small'). have you seen it?

Yeah, Eat my Shoe was fun too.

Robards was cast as Fitzcarraldo before Kinski, and Jagger was his assistant - a part that was eliminated and never recast when the movie began refilming.

The story behind the making of Fitzcarraldo is every bit as fascinating as the movie itself. The ambitious madness of the title character and Herzog himself is mirrored perfectly. Definitely seek it out, though sadly it has been out-of-print for years and is tough to come by. I rank it only behind Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse as the best look at the making of a film.

I thought it might be interesting to say that of my favorite movies so far this year, a good number of them are non-english language. What Time is it There(Taiwan), ABC Africa(Iran), In Praise of Love(France), Time Out (France), The Fast Runner (Inuit/Canada), and Michael Snow's *Corpus Callosum (Canada) are all wonderful, amazing movies. It's a shame most of the American public won't get to see a lot of them.

And it's just harder to name a 'best non-english film' than it is to name the best American, because there are a lot more countries and a lot more films elsewhere in the world. But, for the purposes of this thread, I'll say that my favorites are Aguirre, Tokyo Story and A Bout de Souffle. My favorite last year was In the Mood for Love.

I'm swedish.

Hey, I'm Swedish too. Altough I wouldn't be surprised if y'all had forgotten me by now. School is really heavy right now, and my visits here lately have been sparodic to say the least.

Anyway, on topic: I have yet to sit through an entire Bergman flick. I can understand why some people like his work, but I mostly watch movies to have a good time, not to become enlightened :p.

The only Moodyson movie I really like is Together. Lilja was too heavy, and I really couldn't understand the hype F*cking Åmål got. Well it was really hyped in Sweden at least. I was in the U.S. when it was released, and all of my friends kept calling and e-mailing me, saying that I MUST se F*cking Åmål, it's sooo great ect. Well when I finally got back I saw it and wasn't at all impressed.

My favourite Swedish movie by far is Torsk på Tallin. A simple 60 minute mockumentary about some guys going to Estonia to find themselves wifes. Hillarious is a mild word for this movie, I have seen it at least 30 times and I know most of it by heart. Even if you could for some reason find this movie outside of Sweden, I wouldn't reccomend it though. It deals way too much with regional Swedish stereotypes, so anyone who's not from around here prolly wouldn't understand why it's so funny.

I love "Fanny & Alexander" and since it's his last movie and his most appreciated one I believe that he might have much more "to come with".

It's not like Bergman made films about specifically Swedes. As a matter of fact, he was first regarded a master in countries like Italy and USA since religion (which is one of Bergman's most central themes) is more important in those countries.

I wouldn't consider Ingmar Bergman to be one of my absolute favourite directors but I think he has a very own style and noone depicts some certain mental states like he does (or did). I agree on that his films sometimes feel unbearably long but sometimes they can be very entertaining too.

Now... Non English Language tips

Of course, as some have mentioned before.. All of Lukas Moodyson's films.

One of my favourite films all categories is the danish "Festen" (The Celebration") by Thomas Vinterberg. Another great great danish film is "Pusher" by Nicolas Winding Refn.

"Ran" , Akira Kurosawa

"Funny Games" , Michael Haneke

"The 400 Blows" , Francois Truffaut

"Ring" , Hideo Nakata. Maybe one of the scariest horror movies ever.

"LIfe Is Beautiful" , Roberto Benigni

"The Bicycle Thief" , Vittorio De Sica

"The Battleship Potemkin" , Sergei Eisenstein

"The Mirror", "Stalker", "Solaris" , Andrej Tarkovsky

"A Man Escaped" , Robert Bresson

"Here's Your Life", "The Emigrants", "The New Land" , Jan Troell

"Hate" , Mathieu Kassovitz

"Amores Perros" , Alejandro González Iñárritu

"Eat Drink Man Woman" , Ang Lee

"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" , Luis Buñuel

"No Man's Land" , Danos Tanovic

"Zappa" , Bille August


...Oups... didn't mean to bore you...

Well well well i saw a pre show of ****** Åmål the night before the official realase so i had not the hype to go after but i really liked the movie alot. I have not seen the movie together yet.

About Torsk på tallin it is good but some people could mistaket it to be a real documentary instead of a movie.

Good Foreign Films
 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Naked Killer
Police Story
Betty Blue
The City Of Lost Children
Run Lola Run
Sara
Flodders (1, 2 & 3)

can't think of anymore at the moment...

Well, as I said, I was in the U.S. when the movie was released, but a friend of mine actually sent me the script of the movie for my birthday (that's how big the movie was in Sweden, you could even buy the script in regular bookstores). I kinda liked it when I read the script, esp. how the language seemed authentic teenager language, and the various bits of how people act in small Swedih towns. And really liked the title. But when I finally got to see the movie, i was dissapointed. Some of the actors were horrible, and the movie looked and felt like a 90 minute long "Bullen Brevfilm" (Swedish thing, don't ask). Esp. the camera was really annoying, it felt like it always filmed close up on people's faces, and the whole movie looked yellowish. Could have been made so much better. Of course I realize that part of this was due to the fact that no one knew of Moodyson before the movie, and thus he probably received little funding, but it still felt way too amateurish.

About Torsk på Tallin. So what if people think it's a real documentary? And do you really think that there's that many people in Sweden who don't recognize Robert Gustavsson, Johan Rheborg and the others. And even then, they would probably see that Robert plays three parts in the movie (Roland, Micke och Lasse Kongo), and Johan plays two (Percy och Magnus). I really don't think many people thought of it as real.

Vetinari at least a neighbours old mother thought it was a real fact program and was shocked.

Yeah well, you will always have some people who don't understand that a mockumentary is not a documentary. I still don't see the point your making though. Do you not like the movie since it can confuse people? Couldn't all movies if the person was confused to begin with? :D

I know someone in Crouiching Tiger. (snicker)
But I didn't enjoy it as much as Amelie. Or some Chinese film whose name I can't quite remember "Remeber the days" or something like that