Tuesday 1 February 2011

TOTALLY FUTILE WASTE OF TIME.......

Over in the madhouse known as THE LAND OF CERPTS AND HONEY friend Cerpts obviously has nothing more productive to do with him time than make silly lists. Well, come to think of it, neither have I - so I'm going to rise to the bait and echo his list of favourite films by various film directors. Like him I emphasise favourite above "best". I have also followed, more or less, his list of directors, although I have omitted some and added only a couple. The deleted names are of directors I really don't have a favourite film by or who I have no experience of. Poor Von Stroheim (above) is obviously about to phone and complain about not being on either list.

Robert Aldrich : ATTACK!
Woody Allen : ANNIE HALL
Robert Altman : PRARIE HOME COMPANION
Michelangelo Antonioni : L'ECLISSE
Dario Argento : DEEP RED
Mario Bava : LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO
Jacques Becker : TOUCHEZ PAS LE GRISBI
Ingmar Bergman : WINTER LIGHT
Budd Boetticher : TALL T
Peter Bogdanovich : THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
Mel Brooks : YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
Luis Bunel : VIRIDIANA
Tim Burton : ED WOOD
Frank Capra : IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Marcel Carne : LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS
John Carpenter : ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13
John Cassavetes : SHADOWS
Claude Chabrol : LA FEMME INFIDELE
Charles Chaplin : MONSIEUR VERDOUX
Georges Clouzot : WAGES OF FEAR
George Cukor : A STAR IS BORN
John Ford : MY DARLING CLEMENTINE
Milos Forman : AMADEUS
Georges Franju : EYES WITHOUT A FACE
John Frankenheimer : THE TRAIN
Samuel Fuller : PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET
Robert Hamer : KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS
Howard Hawks : RIO BRAVO
Werner Herzog : AGUIRRE WRATH OF GOD
Alfred Hitchcock : VERTIGO
John Huston : THE MALTESE FALCON
Elia Kazan : ON THE WATERFRONT
Stanley Kubrick : THE KILLING
Akira Kurosawa : IKIRU
Fritz Lang : METROPOLIS
David Lean : LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
Sergio Leone : ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA
Joseph H.Lewis : GUN CRAZY
Sidney Lumet : SERPICO
Alexander MacKendrick : SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
Rouben Mamoulian : DR>JEKYLL AND MR.HYDE
Joseph L.Mankiewicz : ALL ABOUT EVE
Anthony Mann : THE FAR COUNTRY
Michael Mann : LAST OF THE MOHICANS
Jean=Pierre Melville : LE SAMOURAI
Vincente Minnelli : THE PIRATE
Robert Mulligan : TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Max Ophuls : LA RONDE
Ozu : TOKYO STORY
Sam Peckinpah : PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID
Michael Powell : THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CO> BLIMP
Otto Preminger : LAURA
Sam Raimi : THE QUICK AND THE DEAD
Nicholas Ray : JOHNNY GUITAR
Michael Reeves : WITCHFINDER GENERAL
Alain Resnais : LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD
Roberto Rossellini : LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST.FRANCIS
Martin Scorsese : MEAN STREETS
Ridley Scott : BLADE RUNNER
M.Night Shyamalan : UNBREAKABLE
Don Siegel : CHARLEY VARRICK
Douglas Sirk : WRITTEN ON THE WIND
Stephen Spielberg : CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
Robert Siodmak : THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE
Preston Sturges : SULLIVANS TRAVELS
John Sturges : THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Quentin Tarantino : KILL BILL
Jacques Tourneur : NIGHT OF THE DEMON
Francois Truffaut : DAY FOR NIGHT
Luchino Visconti : IL GATTOPARDO
Josef von Sternberg : SHANGHAI EXPRESS
Jean Vigo L'ATALANTE
Raoul Walsh : THE ROARING TWENTIES
Orson Welles : A TOUCH OF EVIL
William Wellman : PUBLIC ENEMY
Wim Wenders : THE AMERICAN FRIEND
James Whale : BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Billy Wilder : SUNSET BOULEVARD
William Wyler : THE LITTLE FOXES
Fred Zinnemann : HIGH NOON

2 comments:

Cerpts said...

Much obliged for the "madhouse" comment -- that's exactly what I'm a-goin' fer!

As regards your list:
Funnily enough, ATTACK! was my Aldrich runner-up and it killed me not to choose it.

I'm not really a Woody Allen fan so ANNIE HALL is the one I picked but I don't even own a copy LOL

For some reason, Altman's PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION sorta left me cold. I have been a long-time fan of Garrison Keillor's radio show since the early 1980's but somehow I just didn't warm to this one.

I was torn between YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and HIGH ANXIETY and truthfully it could go either way depending on how the wind blows (please no mention of BLAZING SADDLES and wind!!!)

I also almost picked LA FEMME INFIDELE over LE CEREMONIE by Chabrol. That one also is almost too close to call - I guess I chose the latter because of the extraordinary performances by the female leads.

Sadly I thinkI've only seen one Marcel Carne film and LES ENFANTS wasn't it. Ditto for Clouzot.

You don't know how it killed me having to choose only one John Ford or Howard Hawks movie. Probably my choice for either one isn't too valid since on any given day I could've chosen THE SEARCHERS or MY DARLING CLEMENTINE or STAGECOACH or..... well you get the picture.

Ah, also not much of a David Lean fan. I've tried watching LAWRENCE at least three times and it just doesn't grab me. DR. ZHIVAGO is one of my dad's favourites but it also leaves me slightly cold (HA! Get it?!? Russian winters! Cold! Ahem.) My #1 choice of SUMMERTIME would've been followed by BRIEF ENCOUNTER.

Cerpts said...

I've also only seen one Sergio Leone film and that's the one I picked.

I came this close to chosing ARMY OF SHADOWS over LE SAMOURAI but had to go with the latter.

Hokey smoke! How did I overlook LAURA for Preminger. I may have to rethink ANATOMY OF A MURDER.

I was torn between VIAGGIO IN ITALIA and FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS by Rossellini as well but had to go for the latter.

I would've chosen NIGHT OF THE DEMON for Tourneur but I just had to go with my heart and my deep love since childhood for THE COMEDY OF TERRORS.

Chosing THE APARTMENT for Billy Wilder over such personal favourites as DOUBLE INDEMNITY, SUNSET BLVD and more nearly struck me down with apoplexy!