Favorite movies

1. Time of the Gypsies

"When God came down to Earth, he took one look at the Gypsies and took the next flight back"

Directed by Emir Kusturica
Starring: Davor Dujmovic, Bora Todorovic, Ljubica Adzovic, Husnija Hasimovic, Sinolicka Trpkova, Elvira Sali

A sort of Balkan Gypsy version of "The Godfather". Perhan (Dujmovic) is a decent young man, who loves his grandmother. However, to marry the girl of his dreams and build a house for his granny, Perhan needs cash. He goes to Italy and becomes a petty criminal, helped by his magical power to move objects. Of course, as Perhan moves up the ladder of crime he risks destroying everything he loves. Mixes fantasy and realism to wonderful effect. Gorgeous cinematography & soundtrack to boot.

2. Taxi Driver

"On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody"

Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle

If you thought this is an action film, this ain't. This is a character study about alienation. Travis Bickle (De Niro), a Vietnam vet, is a simple country boy, who feels isolated in the city. He can't sleep, so he works night shift as a NYC cabbie, and spends his days in porno theatres. Disgusted and obsessed with the filth & scum he encounters on the streets, he eventually snaps and turns to violence.

3. Casablanca

"Mysterious city of sin and intrigue!"

Directed by Michael Curtiz
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre

Casablanca has everything you could want from a movie: Romance, mystery, suspense, comedy, melodrama. The most quotable dialogue. Gorgeous sets. And the most wonderful characters - idealistic, noble, cynical, slimy, buffoonish, warmhearted, temperamental, diabolical... A perfect movie. Guess I should have put this at #1.

4. Chungking Express

"If my memory of her has an expiration date, let it be 10,000 years..."

Directed by Wong Kar-Wai
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Faye Wong, Brigitte Lin, Takeshi Kaneshiro

Another film about urban alienation, this mixes romantic comedy and pulp action with the typical Wong Kar-Wai melancholy. Tony and Takeshi play the two lovelorn cops. Brigitte is the drug dealer, with trenchcoat, blonde wig & sunglasses. Faye is the kooky fast food waitress.

5. Apocalypse Now

"THIS IS THE END!"

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Frederic Forrest, Sam Bottoms

Vietnam, 1969. Cpt. Willard (Sheen) and his crew are on a mission to exterminate Green Beret colonel Kurtz (Brando), who has gone loco in the jungle, fashioning himself as a native king. Based on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkess", this ain't exactly your grandaddy's war film, and tends to get bad reviews from "Black Hawk Down" fans.

6. The Maltese Falcon

"A guy without a conscience! A dame without a heart!"

Directed by John Huston
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre

Private eye Sam Spade (Bogie) is all mixed up after his partner gets killed - specially, since he's the cops' #1 suspect. The whole affair revolves around a mysterious bird statue... Bogie's great, but it's the bad guys that steal this one. Joel Cairo (Lorre), Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Astor) and Kasper Gutman (Greenstreet) are the most hilariously amoral trio of rotten scoundrels & pathological liars you're ever gonna meet.

7. Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

"Comedie en...chanté"

Directed by Jacques Demy
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo

Yes yes, every single line of dialogue is sung. And in French to boot. And it's got an unhappy ending as well.

8. Vertigo

"It engulfs you in a whirlpool if terror and tension!"

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak

Scottie (Stewart), an ex-cop, is approached by an old friend, to keep tabs on his wife Madeleine (Novak), who's been acting strangely. Following her around, Scottie becomes drawn to her, but discovers that she's possessed by the past and possibly suicidal. By the time she does commit suicide, the pair have fallen in love. Traumatized by her death, Scottie sees Judy (Novak again), who bares a striking resemblance to Madeleine, and becomes obsessed into changing her into Madeleine's image... Features the finest musical score in cinema history.

9. Out of the Past

"A MAN - Trying to run away from his past... A WOMAN - Trying to escape her future!"

Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas

Top notch film noir, pretty much defines the genre. Jeff (Mitchum) is an ex-private eye living a new life under a new name, running a gas station in a small town. One day his past catches up with him, when a small time gangster visits him with a message from his boss, Whitt Sterling (Douglas). A few years earlier, Jeff had been ordered to find Whitt's girfriend Kathie (Greer) who had run away with a bundle of his money. The job didn't go as planned & Jeff's been hiding ever since. Now with Kathie back in his arms, Whitt's proposing a new job...

10. The Big Sleep

"The picture they were born for!"

Directed by Howard Hawks
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall

Private eye Philip Marlowe (Bogie) is hired by a millionaire to sort out a simple case of blackmail. What follows is an entangled web of murders & doublecrosses. Besides running into gangsters, blackmailers and pornographers, Marlowe falls in love with the millionaire's daughter (Bacall).

11. The Worthless

"A film about a world that has accepted its madness, and about people who couldn't care less"

Directed by Mika Kaurismäki
Starring: Matti Pellonpää, Pirkko Hämäläinen, Juuso Hirvikangas

A decidedly Finnish take on American gangster pictures & the French new wave. Manne (Pellonpää) is a petty crook, who steals a hot piece of art from his old mob boss out of principle. Soon, Manne, his girl & his best friend are fleeing through the countryside with the cops and gangsters in hot pursuit. Though set in the Finland of saunas & tango bars, this is also Finland like no one's ever seen: the good guys wear trenchcoats, drink calvados, read French newspapers, bad guys drive American cars, cops chase people with helicopters, terrorists wage guerilla warfare, and every one talks in quotable one-liners. The hilarious dialogue was written by Aki Kaurismäki, who does a cameo as the bohemian art dealer Ville Alfa.

12. Cercle rouge, Le

"Profoundly, ineffably cool"

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Alain Delon, Yves Montand, Gian-Maria Volonte, André Bourvil

French noir at its finest. By pure coincidence, three men meet to pull off a jewel heist. Corey (Delon) is released from prison, and immediately goes round to rob his old mob boss, who betrayed him. Whilst driving through the countryside, Corey finds a man hiding in his trunk: Vogel (Volonte), who just escaped police custody (his crime is never revealed). Total strangers, they immediately plan the robbery, deciding upon a third man, Jansen (Montand) an alcoholic ex-cop. Of course, both the mob and the cops are hot on their trail. Not one for feminists, "Le Cercle rouge" features exactly one line of spoken dialogue by a woman (well, it ain't exactly dialogue since no one bothers to answer her).

13. Le samouraï

"The closest thing to a perfect movie that I have ever seen" - John Woo

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Alain Delon, Francois Périer, Nathalie Delon

French noir at its finest. Jef Costello (Delon), a hitman, carries out the killing of a nightclub owner. He has constructed a perfect alibi, so he doesn't flich when he's arrested in a routine police roundup. However, an obsessive police detective (Périer), dismisses all evidence and logic and hounds Jef purely by instinct. By this time, Jef's employers have panicked and attempted to kill him. Jef's code of honour forces him to take action, even as the police net becomes tighter and tighter. The inspiration for Woo's "The Killer" & Jarmusch's "Ghost Dog".

14. On the Waterfront

"The man lived by the jungle law of the docks!"

Directed by Elia Kazan
Starring: Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb

Set in the New York docks of the 1950's, run by corrupt unions. Terry Malloy (Brando), an ex-pricefighter, gets mixed up in a murder, orchestrated by union boss Johnny Friendly (Cobb). Malloy is torn by his conscience, whether to "rat out" or not. Things get mixed up, when Malloy falls in love with the dead man's sister (Saint). Furthermore, Malloy's own brother (Steiger) is a crooked lawyer working for Friendly. Brando's acting, the gorgeously gritty cinematography & Bernstein's jazzy score lift this over the ho-hum plot to classic status.

15. Rumble Fish

"Rusty James can't live up to his brother's reputation. His brother can't live it down"

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Dennis Hopper

Someone called this the "Apocalypse Now" for teens, and this certainly ain't no typical 80's bratpack fare. It's in black & white, for starters. Basically, Coppola's take on the 50's rebel film, with Matt Dillon as the hopeless youth Rusty James, and Mickey Rourke as the legendary Motorcycle Boy.

16. Happy Together

"Stylistically brash, pulsing with life... Captures the restless, open-to-everything spirit of youth"

Directed by Wong Kar-Wai
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Leslie Cheung

Absolutely heartbreaking. Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony) and Ho Po-Wing (Leslie) are a Hong Kong gay couple stranded in Buenos Aires. Pretty much as the film starts, their romance comes to an end. Yiu-Fai is fed up with their troubled on/off relationship and Po-Wing's antics. Both men start working to pay their way back home: Yiu-Fai as a bouncer at a tango club, while Po-Wing becomes a rent boy. When Po-Wing is beaten up and Yiu-Fai has to take care of him, they briefly get together again. It doesn't last though. So basically, this is film about two devastated, lovelorn, lonely men, with no happy end in sight. Good luck recommending this to your straight male friends.

17. Bringing Up Baby

"The LAUGH HIT worth seeing time and again!"

Directed by Howard Hawks
Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant

The most hilarious comedy I've ever seen. Dr. David Huxley (Grant) is a serious-minded palaeontologist, supposed to raise a million dollars to his museum & get married to his collegue the next day. However, kooky socialite Susan Vance (Hepburn) wants that million for herself, and wants David as well, using all means necessary. Amongst other things, poor David ends up in New England, trying to catch a leopard with a butterfly net.

18. The Night of the Hunter

"The wedding night, the anticipation, the kiss, the knife, BUT ABOVE ALL... THE SUSPENSE!"

Directed by Charles Laughton
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish

Not exactly noir, more American gothic. Mitchum's finest hour as the crazed Southern preacher, who hunts a pair of innocent children through the countryside to get his hands on a loot of cash.

19. Mean Streets

"You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets..."

Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus

A gritty drama about a few days in the life of small-time hoods in New York's Little Italy. Charlie (Keitel) wants nothing but a steady future as a low-level mafioso and restoranteur, but his future is jeopardised by his wacked-out friend Johnny Boy (De Niro).

20. Lawrence of Arabia

"A Mighty Motion Picture Of Action And Adventure!"

Directed by David Lean
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Alec Guinness

The ultimate adventure epic.

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