The Best Film You've Never Seen: 35 Directors Champion the Forgotten or Critically Savaged Movies They Love
Robert K. Elder
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 1569768382
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In this book, 35 directors champion their favorite overlooked or critically savaged gems. Among these guilty pleasures, almost-masterpieces, and undeniable classics in need of revival are unsung noirs (Murder by Contract), famous flops (Can’t Stop the Music, Joe Versus the Volcano), art films (L’ange), theatrical adaptations (The Iceman Cometh), B-movies (Killer Klowns from Outer Space), and even a few Oscar-winners (Some Came Running).
In these conversations, the filmmakers defend their choices. These films, they argue, deserve a larger audience and for their place in movie history to be reconsidered. But the conversations’ tangents, diversions, and side trips provide as much insight into the directors’ own approach to moviemaking as into the film they’re discussing. The filmmakers are the perfect hosts, often setting the tone, managing expectations, and giving advice about how you should watch each movie. They’re often brutally honest about a film’s shortcomings or the reasons why it was lost in the first place.
The Best Film You’ve Never Seen is not only a guide to some badly overlooked movies but a bold attempt to rewrite film history.
Remaking the Frankenstein Myth on Film (Suny Series in Psychoanalysis and Culture)
Avatar and Philosophy: Learning to See (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series)
The Abide Guide: Living Like Lebowski
Indie Producers Handbook: Creative Producing from A to Z
Masculinity in the Golden Age of Swedish Cinema: A Cultural Analysis of 1920s Films
Valerie Perrine, Bruce Jenner, Alex Briley, David Hodo, Glenn Hughes, Randy Jones, Felipe Rose, and Ray Simpson 51 52 Jonathan Levine How would you describe Can’t Stop the Music to someone who’s never seen it? Levine: It’s a musical movie with the Village People, a triumphant tale of this ramshackle band that includes an Indian and a leather guy and a construction worker and a cop. It’s like A Hard Day’s Night, but if you replace talented musicians with the Village People and a coherent
The Quays have said that it’s best to abandon the idea of translating the action in a literal sense. Their justification: if somebody tells you about an extraordinary dream, you don’t pick it apart later and say it had a lousy story; you accept it as a whole. Polish: Dreams have a symbolic nature. They come to you in symbols, because it’s very hard to put a narrative structure to a dream. You might be linking pictures in a narrative way, but the way they are coming at you, you accept them. Maybe
was in complete control of the way this film was made. In Afterschool, many of your characters are also kept out of frame, especially in that first twenty minutes. Am I right to draw that parallel to Murder by Contract? Campos: It wasn’t necessarily a direct influence. There was a certain kinship, I felt, with the way that he was approaching his composition. My feeling about offscreen action and that fragmentation of characters is that you heighten the mystery and the tension because you’re
close to being an alcoholic bum, kind of a has-been, and that’s where Dave finds himself right at that moment. This was filmed just after Elvis hit it big in 1956, so Sinatra had been outshined or replaced by the advent of rock ’n’ roll. Linklater: Yeah. It’s interesting that you bring up this thing about Shirley MacLaine as the mascot. It’s been written over and over that she was the mascot of the Rat Pack. In this film, that’s exactly her role. I’m wondering if that was informed by their
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011) The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012) Sweet Charity 1969 Directed by Bob Fosse Starring Shirley MacLaine and John McMartin How would you describe Sweet Charity to someone who’s never seen it? Condon: Sweet Charity is the first movie Bob Fosse made. It’s an adaptation of a Broadway musical about Charity (Shirley MacLaine), a dancer who has several romantic misadventures in her quest to find somebody who’s going to love her. 183
