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Wondering if anyone else on here collects DVDs, BlueRays, etc. of films and TV that they really like.
Over several years my horizon has been expanded by Netflix, Amazon, and the good old library system in my town. I would be most interested in hearing from other collectors about their top ten/twenty or whatever of favorite movies and videos.
I'm an old guy so not too many of the contemporary movies or TV shows would show up on my own list.
A couple of films/vids I wish I could buy reasonably to give as gifts: Jazz on a Summer's Day and, Clarissa Explains it All ( the whole series). Actually, there are more.
Follow Ups:
Listing favorites is more complicated. For instance, I have a top ten or twenty list for each of these genres:
*Silent films (pre-1930 for the most part, includes comedies and dramas)
*Classics (mostly sound, mostly B&W, pre-1965)
*SF & Fantasy (includes silent and sound extending to modern films into the 2010's)
*Serials (includes silent and sound targeting various demographic audiences)
*TV series (mostly classic 1950's to 1990's)
*Music concert & documentary (various genres, classic rock to jazz)
*Documentary (historical and natural history)
So, as you can see, posting lists of ten to twenty titles from each of these seven groups ...where that many are favorites... could be a daunting task. That doesn't mean I won't give it a try, but this requires a bit of patience to consider and sort.
Cheers,
AuPh
***So, as you can see, posting lists of ten to twenty titles from each of these seven groups ...where that many are favorites... could be a daunting task. ***
Fortunately, that is not even required. One can simply type: "Best xxxxx movies of xxxx period" and he will usually get VERY meaningful list of 100 or so titles, with their ratings.
Your ratings might differ sometimes, but in general those will be very solid lists.
Here's one such example:
Thanks for the link. In the Noir list, I'd replace "White Heat" with "The Mask of Dimitrios" starring Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet.
Wow, you are way more organized than I could ever be.
I'm more interested in exploring the landscape, especially areas a bit off the beaten track. I'm also interested in films or documentaries/ tv shows that I can watch more than twice and still enjoy. Foreign films with subtitles are ok, too.
With all the violence in media lately, comedies are a welcome break.
There are quite a few films and vids that are very well done by classic directors and actors that I have no desire to ever watch again. Case in point: films of Stanley Kubrick. The man was a genius but his vision of humanity--wow. I don't want to go there.
Comedies, at least the ones I like best, are silent. My favorites are Harold Lloyd's most popular silent features remastered in 4K, released by Criterion on Blu-ray and listed below in order of preference...
The Kid Brother
Safety Last
The Freshman
Speedy
I also enjoy most Buster Keaton films, the best of those were packaged by Masters of Cinema in a limited edition last year. That quickly sold out, but I understand it's scheduled for a U.S. Reissue from the same Cohen owned low generation negatives either from Flicker Alley or KINO. This set includes three of Keaton's best remastered on Blu-ray...
Sherlock Jr.
The General
Steamboat Bill Jr.
There is also a set of Charley Chase shorts (silent and sound) that are quite funny released last year on MOD-DVD that should be attainable through Amazon.
Also, there's a set of silent two-reel comedy shorts by Max Davidson that are absolutely hilarious (the best IMO is Pass The Gravy). Davidson's humor often focused the trials and tribulations of being first generation European immigrants trying to raise a middle class family.
Finally, there's a silent feature titled Exit Smiling featuring Beatrice Lilly, directed by Sam Taylor, written by Frank Capra. This is quite clever.
For silent and early sound comedies, that pretty much covers it. For strong comedic feature films, the earliest director's work I'll recommend pretty much across the board are Preston Sturges films such as Miracle At Morgan Creek.
Think I'll leave the comedies and move forward onother genres of film in another post.
Cheers,
AuPh
I have almost totally overlooked silent films. There have been some shorts and some of Charlie Chaplain and Buster Keaton, of course. My dad liked Harold Lloyd, wasn't he the guy on the buildings?
Must be I'm more language oriented. A lot of faves are witty movies. I still watch "My Man Godfrey", once a year. Another fave is "Rumpole of the Bailey".
Still and all, there is a place for silents. Maybe try watching one a week, beginning with those you suggested. We really take special effects and such for granted these days. Would be interesting to see how they did things before a lot of mechanization and computers.
I didn't want to bore you with too much marginal stuff you may not be interested in seeing. Especially when it comes to silent films which are definitely an acquired taste. I feel comfortable recommending everything comedy-wise that I listed. BTW, if seeking the Max Davidson two-reelers the source is Edition Filmmuseum in Germany. The one film I mentioned from this set "Pass The Gravy" is among the funniest films I've ever seen. It's a live action comedy with scenes that heavily influenced animators a dozen years later.
Pete Doctor of PIXAR and Disney gave a Saturday morning lecture at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival around eight years ago lauding this and two other influential short comedies that influenced the animator's art. My wife and I attended the lecture and in the audience when this was screened. It literally brought the house down (well, ...not literally in the literal sense). :0)
The main sound film comedy recommendations include Preston Sturges' films from the 40's such as The Great McGinty, The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan's Travels and Miracle At Morgan Creek.
Anyway, as I said earlier, I'll move on from comedy to other genres, hopefully providing a thorough, but eclectic sampling of the best from genres that I personally consider worthwhile. Many of the films I mention you may have already seen at one time or another, but the films deserve mention..
Noir favorites (random ten off the top of my head):
Citizen Kane
Key Largo
The Third Man
The Big Sleep
Double Indemnity
Touch of Evil
Dark Passage
Kiss Me Deadly (Ralph Meeker)
The Killers (Lancaster)
The Maltese Falcon (Bogart)
I'll follow up with a few more personal recommendations and fleshed out thoughts on diverse cinema worth checking out later on, if interested.
Cheers,
AuPh
I find film noir interesting. Thanks for the picks. I've seen at least six of them and endorse them. The others I've seen bits of.
Just wondering about your take on why film noir continued in popularity in the US after WW2 after the earlier economic depression ended with the war economy back then. US in the 1950's was booming. Had it something to do with the looming possibility of nuclear warfare and the pessimism resulting from that?
Further, why has its influence on filmmakers continued until today? Same deal? We are still on the verge of blowing up the planet, despite cell phones, Amazon and Youtube?
B&W movies were still much cheaper to produce especially with theater attendance dropping. To save production costs most studios opted for B&W over color except for the most prestigious budgeted productions, but that was more of a band-aid.
TV had the greatest impact on dwindling theater attendances. The number of local movie theaters fell dramatically in the 1950's. Most families found it more convenient and much cheaper ...after the initial cost of buying a television set... to stay at home and let TV programming entertain the family. The biggest accomplishment filmmakers concocted to bring folks back to the cinema were various widescreen technologies along with science fiction & horror films that teenagers could groove on.
Studios successfully marketed films that appealed to younger audiences who wanted to get out from under their parent's watchful eyes. This is also why drive-in theaters were the rage in the 50's for dating.
I'm assuming that many/most filmmakers ...even today... are generally influenced to make movies with some degree of nostalgia for the classic films they watched in their youth or grew to appreciate through festivals and film school classes. But you're right, the nuclear scare throughout the 1950's and paranoia about external threats to democracy played heavily on folk's minds and are reflected in the films that were made then.
Cheers,
AuPh
TV had several very good serial shows back in the fifties and later.
One I remember well was Naked City based on the movie of the same name. IMO, a continuation and development of the Noir "movement". One episode I remember in particular was the one with David Wayne, where the wife brings the cops in to investigate her husband who spends a lot of time away from home. Another is the one with Roddy McDowell as a serial killer...chilling.
I bought the complete Naked City DVDs, but overall the noir stuff on them is too depressing for me these days.
I here ya, but the nuanced noir in Naked City isn't anywhere near as depressing from my perspective as the devisively unethical world we live in today. The NYPD officers whose lives are realistically portrayed in that series come across as more compassionate and down to earth than the real world grifters and politicians we see on TV every day.
We both apparently have the entire series on DVD and consider Naked City one of the best dramas of the late 50's/early 60's. The most gut wrenching episode of Naked City I remember has hillbilly drifter Bruce Dern driving to NYC with his underage wife, quickly turning to random robbery and thrill killing while the police, with little to go on, try to track them down. Awesome performances all around.
Maybe it's just me, but I've rarely found anything noirish in film & television from that era that's too depressing to watch. Nevertheless, I can certainly understand others being more sensitive to the darker mood driven settings in police procedurals such as Naked City. It's gritty B&W realism still holds up today.
Cheers,
AuPh
Somewhere I read that "modern day" police officers picked "Naked City" as their favorite cop show.
There were a number of good ones, including Highway Patrol ...which seems less noirish in retrospect in spite of being B&W... and Decoy featuring Beverly Garland as a tough undercover police woman, but Naked City is solid. Also, I'd recommend 87th Precinct from '61/'62. That series was very popular among police as well.
For private detectives, the ultimate noir series has to be Peter Gunn, but another worth picking is Mike Hammer (the '58/'59 series starring Daren McGavin). There's another good B&W police detective series from the late 50's worth checking out that starred Lee Marvin. It was titled M Squad and ran for three seasons if you can find watchable prints on DVD.
I don't mean to take anything away from modern police procedurals, but most are more character driven and built around story arcs rather than emphasizing concise episodic storytelling. If you enjoy more expansive story arcs with greater emphasis on the personal lives of characters and can handle grittier modern tales, I'd recommend Bosch, right off the top of my head, but that series is much less noirish even though much is shot at night..
Cheers,
AuPh
Thanks for the list of Peter Gunn, etal. I was in high school at the time, and Dad had priority on the one TV we had then so I didn't to get to see a lot of shows.
Lately, and for quite a while I've been watching UK cop shows--Even going back to Sherlock. Pretty much a mixed bag for me. Some good episodes, but some stinkers, as well. OK, one exception that I bought for home viewing was Rumpole of the Bailey. Yes, it was technically not a cop show, but Rumpole always defended those in trouble with the cops. Too bad the set I bought doesn't have subtitles.
I've collected quite a few European and U.K. series on DVD including many police detective dramas. Most of them hold up quite well. Definitely a different approach to writing with a bit more emphasis on character development than action in general. More recent police procedurals from the U.K. and Europe are often grittier than US efforts.
For instance, the Swedish Wallander 2005-2013 (the version starring Krister Henriksson) is one of the most gripping detective series ever from start to finish with a unique and brilliantly executed finali. Alas, the British reinterpretation starring Kenneth Branaugh pales in comparison and makes the character so boringly moody that the stories tend to get lost.
Cheers,
AuPh
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