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Great film. It's on my 100 and it's one of the few noirs that I really love.
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Cobpyth's Top 101 Favorite Feature Films
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Double Indemnity is brilliant. It was one of our study films for my first year of Film studies.
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Double Indemnity is a masterpiece. Great pick. If Chinatown didn't exist, it'd be my favorite film-noir ever.
59. American Beauty (1999)
This delightful dark dramedy is in my opinion still one of the most interesting and memorable representations of unsatisfying suburbian life.
I saw this movie for the first time way back when I was 8 or 9 years old. My parents had purchased the DVD and the sensual cover immediately intrigued me. One evening, when there was a party in the neighborhood that my parents attended, I was home alone and I decided to take the film up to my room and watch it (back then I had a television in my room, which was awesome). Needless to say, this was one of the more 'adult' films I'd seen at that period of my life. I was strangely captivated by this film's hypnotic atmosphere and story. I was obviously too young to understand all of the subtlety of what was going on and some things naturally came across as 'strange', but all in all the uniqueness and beauty of the film touched me. This film was a mystery that I didn't fully understand yet at that age, but the watching experience always stayed with me.
Years later, when I was starting to profile myself as a cinephile, I suddenly came across American Beauty again. I took that same DVD of the shelf and rewatched it. The film's dark, but heartfelt magic enchanted me just as it did all those years ago and probably because of my prior viewing experience, it had a strangely nostalgic effect on me too. It always reminds me of that 'turn of the millennium' time period.
I don't know how to put this into words, but the bright sun on those white houses, the soft, but very noticeable cinematography, the girl lying in a bath of red rose petals and the hypnotizing music score somehow make me feel very 'aware' of reality. The film tackles a various string of dramatic topics, but it observes it all with a deep sense of beauty. It observes unhappiness in a nihilistic, provocative, venomous, but strangely optimistic manner. I love it.
American Beauty is a film that I will definitely revisit a couple more times during my lifetime, preferably alone on a summer night, somewhere in the middle of a suburbian neighborhood...
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This delightful dark dramedy is in my opinion still one of the most interesting and memorable representations of unsatisfying suburbian life.
I saw this movie for the first time way back when I was 8 or 9 years old. My parents had purchased the DVD and the sensual cover immediately intrigued me. One evening, when there was a party in the neighborhood that my parents attended, I was home alone and I decided to take the film up to my room and watch it (back then I had a television in my room, which was awesome). Needless to say, this was one of the more 'adult' films I'd seen at that period of my life. I was strangely captivated by this film's hypnotic atmosphere and story. I was obviously too young to understand all of the subtlety of what was going on and some things naturally came across as 'strange', but all in all the uniqueness and beauty of the film touched me. This film was a mystery that I didn't fully understand yet at that age, but the watching experience always stayed with me.
Years later, when I was starting to profile myself as a cinephile, I suddenly came across American Beauty again. I took that same DVD of the shelf and rewatched it. The film's dark, but heartfelt magic enchanted me just as it did all those years ago and probably because of my prior viewing experience, it had a strangely nostalgic effect on me too. It always reminds me of that 'turn of the millennium' time period.
I don't know how to put this into words, but the bright sun on those white houses, the soft, but very noticeable cinematography, the girl lying in a bath of red rose petals and the hypnotizing music score somehow make me feel very 'aware' of reality. The film tackles a various string of dramatic topics, but it observes it all with a deep sense of beauty. It observes unhappiness in a nihilistic, provocative, venomous, but strangely optimistic manner. I love it.
American Beauty is a film that I will definitely revisit a couple more times during my lifetime, preferably alone on a summer night, somewhere in the middle of a suburbian neighborhood...
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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019
Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019
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Very good film, I remember watching it when I was first getting into films, has been a while though.
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Blue Velvet and American Beauty are probably the two greatest representations of a dark suburban setting. I love American Beauty, tons of great subtle symbolism. Also Spacey is hilarious in this, even in some of the darkest scenes I couldn't stop laughing at his perspective. Want to watch it again now...
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Yeah, there's no body mutilation in it
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American Beauty is in my top 10 and Lester Burnham is one of my top 5 favorite characters. My wife loves it too.
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Double Indemnity is one of the best film noir that I have seen and you are doing a great job on your list so far.
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I think this is one of the best lists so far 
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58. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
If I'm not mistaken, this is the first Coen Brothers entry on my list. I can tell you already that it won't be the last and I can also tell you that many of their films were in the running for some of the lower spots on my list. There was never a doubt, however, that this film would make it. I simply adore it.
Studying classic roman languages like Greek or Latin is still a fairly common thing in my country. I personally attended Latin classes for six years in high school. I wasn't the very best at actually translating the texts we had to read, but the content of the stories, the history of the Roman empire, the philosophical studies and the extra cultural baggage were always interesting.
This film is based on one of the most famous Greek texts, called "The Oddysey" by Homer. It's an epic story about the tumultuous return of Greek king Oddyseus, after the Trojan War, to his home country. Naturally, this was one of the big stories we read in Latin class (even though it's actually a Greek story), so I am pretty familiar with the source material.
The coens did something very cool with it, in my opinion. They transformed the epic Greek legend into a comedy that's set in the environment of the South of the USA during the 1930s and Oddyseus' crew is reduced to three escaped prisoners, played by George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson. The script is hilarious and is also a beautiful hommage to the classic literature it is based on. It uses certain story elements of the classic legend in a very fluent manner and it perfectly transfers some of the source material's original meanings, be it in a light and typically coenesque fashion.
This is also the film that made me a huge fan of George Clooney. Beside his obvious charisma and star power, I think his comical timing is phenomenal in this. He carries this film brilliantly.
If you're in the mood for an entertaining, hilarious, visually stunning and adventurous ride through the old South with a delightful classical touch, you should definitely see this film. It's a great piece of modern cinema!
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If I'm not mistaken, this is the first Coen Brothers entry on my list. I can tell you already that it won't be the last and I can also tell you that many of their films were in the running for some of the lower spots on my list. There was never a doubt, however, that this film would make it. I simply adore it.
Studying classic roman languages like Greek or Latin is still a fairly common thing in my country. I personally attended Latin classes for six years in high school. I wasn't the very best at actually translating the texts we had to read, but the content of the stories, the history of the Roman empire, the philosophical studies and the extra cultural baggage were always interesting.
This film is based on one of the most famous Greek texts, called "The Oddysey" by Homer. It's an epic story about the tumultuous return of Greek king Oddyseus, after the Trojan War, to his home country. Naturally, this was one of the big stories we read in Latin class (even though it's actually a Greek story), so I am pretty familiar with the source material.
The coens did something very cool with it, in my opinion. They transformed the epic Greek legend into a comedy that's set in the environment of the South of the USA during the 1930s and Oddyseus' crew is reduced to three escaped prisoners, played by George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson. The script is hilarious and is also a beautiful hommage to the classic literature it is based on. It uses certain story elements of the classic legend in a very fluent manner and it perfectly transfers some of the source material's original meanings, be it in a light and typically coenesque fashion.
This is also the film that made me a huge fan of George Clooney. Beside his obvious charisma and star power, I think his comical timing is phenomenal in this. He carries this film brilliantly.
If you're in the mood for an entertaining, hilarious, visually stunning and adventurous ride through the old South with a delightful classical touch, you should definitely see this film. It's a great piece of modern cinema!
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One of the few Coen Brother films I haven't seen, and reading your post makes me desperately want to correct that.
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I liked it when it came out, but I've never felt the need to watch it again. That's not to say I wouldn't enjoy it or even that I think I wouldn't, I've just never felt like it.
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I like Oh Brother, Where art Thou, a really interesting interpretation of the odyssey, and the usual hilarious Coen Brother characters. Interested to see what Coens you will rank higher than this. I feel that Millers Crossing will make this list, it should atleast!
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O Brother where art thou is pretty damn good. Not my favorite Coen Brothers film, but its very amusing and sweet. Shows how diverse and talented they are as filmmakers. They can make something like this one second, and then No Country For Old Men another.
