It's been so long since I've seen Chinatown...I'd have to watch it again before I could vote for it. I've only seen six on that list, and of those, I'd vote for Knife in the Water.
I remember really enjoying Frantic. Seems like Harrison Ford's best movies (Frantic, Working Girl, Mosquito Coast) are the ones that get swept under the rug of popular memory.
― Radiant Flowering Crab (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 28 September 2008 14:23 (fifteen years ago) link
For me it's either Repulsion or The Tenant, I love the surreal/psychological tension of those movies.
― Tuomas, Sunday, 28 September 2008 14:42 (fifteen years ago) link
that's the same two i came down to. voted for the tenant.
― tipsy mothra, Sunday, 28 September 2008 14:43 (fifteen years ago) link
Frantic has one of the best premises ever for a thriller (Ford's wife walks out of their hotel room in France and just vanishes, and he isn't really able to convince the authorities that something has happened to her), but unfortunately it gets more formulaic towards the end.
― Tuomas, Sunday, 28 September 2008 14:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Rosemary's Baby. I saw it in June again and, again, I thought it was the funniest, scariest horror film ever. Alarmingly well-cast too.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, 28 September 2008 15:00 (fifteen years ago) link
^ Rosemary's Baby is the shit.
Still, my vote goes to Chinatown.
― Brosef Stalin (latebloomer), Sunday, 28 September 2008 15:16 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm torn between the apartment trilogy. It might end up I compromise vote on Bitter Moon.
― Eric H., Sunday, 28 September 2008 20:52 (fifteen years ago) link
I saw that in the theatre; I was so relieved when most of the audience treated it as a comedy.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, 28 September 2008 20:53 (fifteen years ago) link
How could it not be a comedy?
― Eric H., Sunday, 28 September 2008 21:14 (fifteen years ago) link
Not too familiar with Polanski's work, but Rosemary's Baby is probably my second or third fav movie.
― Ivan, Sunday, 28 September 2008 21:38 (fifteen years ago) link
how many of you have seen Pirates?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, 28 September 2008 21:42 (fifteen years ago) link
That's one I've skipped up until now.
― Eric H., Sunday, 28 September 2008 21:57 (fifteen years ago) link
the scores of his movies are so great in and of themselves. i mean ...the opening notes to RB that i think were covered by Fantomas - wow. also chinatown's is of course so well-known now that we cant imagine a noir world without it
― Vichitravirya_XI, Sunday, 28 September 2008 22:10 (fifteen years ago) link
Tenant.
― fields of salmon, Monday, 29 September 2008 00:09 (fifteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Wednesday, 15 October 2008 23:01 (fifteen years ago) link
too many of these I still haven't seen, I'm going to vote for Repulsion
― akm, Wednesday, 15 October 2008 23:03 (fifteen years ago) link
I think I voted for Repulsion. Not seen anything pre-Knife and everything post-Tenant has uh problems.
― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 15 October 2008 23:05 (fifteen years ago) link
i like the johnny depp one.
― akm, Wednesday, 15 October 2008 23:18 (fifteen years ago) link
Ninth Gate (I should really scroll up to figure out what I'm talking about before posting). Death and Maiden was very good as well. Obviously neither of these are up to Repulsion/Rosemary's Baby standards; in fact, I'd say that very-obvious-Polanski-rip-off film "Birth" is better than those.
― akm, Wednesday, 15 October 2008 23:20 (fifteen years ago) link
Some of the post-Tenant stuff is okay (neither of the two you mention I liked much though) but it seriously pales compared to the stuff which preceded it.
― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 15 October 2008 23:24 (fifteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Thursday, 16 October 2008 23:01 (fifteen years ago) link
Kind of surprised Chinatown is so loved.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 16 October 2008 23:02 (fifteen years ago) link
rosemary's baby is one of my favorites of all-time
― Surmounter, Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:21 (fifteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Friday, October 17, 2008 1:02 AM (5 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
er what?
― FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:23 (fifteen years ago) link
It's great, but I don't think its his best film by any stretch.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:28 (fifteen years ago) link
I voted for Knife in the Water, back in the day. Such a beautiful movie.
― I f'd up the word rear (Z S), Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:30 (fifteen years ago) link
dvd advice: skip repulsion. the current dvd is pan & scan and looks like shit.
― abanana, Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:31 (fifteen years ago) link
There isn't a Criterion version of Repulsion? That sucks.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:32 (fifteen years ago) link
It does diagnose what's most wrong with America; when it's set, when it was made, now.
― Past a Diving Jeter (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:43 (fifteen years ago) link
Albacore Insurance Group
"It does diagnose what's most wrong with America; when it's set, when it was made, now."
I don't think it does that any better than oh let's say Who Framed Roger Rabbit though. Rosemary's Baby is just a better movie IMO. Repulsion too, but I can understand why people couldn't get into that as much.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:47 (fifteen years ago) link
I think RB is a solid #2, like everything that got votes cept Pirates andTwo Men and a Wardrobe (unseen). Preferred Tess to FVK but it's been awhile.
― Past a Diving Jeter (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:49 (fifteen years ago) link
FVK is fluffy. It's kind of hard to imagine it being made by the same guy who did the Tenant.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:51 (fifteen years ago) link
well, his interest in changing up was a common trait that more current directors w/ talent should investigate. (Wes Anderson, how bout a spy thriller)
oh his Macbeth is one of the 5-6 best Shakespeare films, probably.
― Past a Diving Jeter (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:54 (fifteen years ago) link
Never actually seen that. I should. Do you count Kurosawa as Shakespeare btw?
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:56 (fifteen years ago) link
nah, not quite. Goes in the "variations" column with Forbidden Planet.
― Past a Diving Jeter (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:59 (fifteen years ago) link
I want to hear your top 5-6 then.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 19 March 2009 16:00 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm forgetful! Top of the head: Welles' Othello, Olivier's Richard III, Polanski, Almereyda's Hamlet, Chimes at Midnight, then maybe Dieterle's A Midsummer's Night Dream, the Soviet Hamlet from the '60s, and Branagh's Henry V.
― Past a Diving Jeter (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 19 March 2009 16:08 (fifteen years ago) link
Never seen Almereyda's Hamlet. Recall liking Branagh's quite a bit, plus it reminds you that the actual play is long long long (there is a Northrop Frye line about the play being so long cuz no one ever shuts the fuck in it.) Taymor's Titus is good for a very minor play. Can't argue with the first two at all though, Welles and Olivier are stone classics.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 19 March 2009 16:12 (fifteen years ago) link
Richard III might be the funniest of the tragedies too.
― Past a Diving Jeter (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 19 March 2009 16:14 (fifteen years ago) link
ooh yeah Polanski's MacBeth is fantastic. vividly remember watching it in high school English
― Roberto Mussolini (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 19 March 2009 16:33 (fifteen years ago) link
Welle's Othello also somewhere near the top, Morbz has a good list there
all the film versions of macbeth i've seen are good -- kurosawa's is my fav kurosawa, welles's is great and bizarre (like "caligari" filmed on a star trek set), and polanski's is just a brilliant realization of the play, probably the best polanski i've seen after repulsion and RB.
morb's list would be close to mine (though i haven't seen the soviet hamlet yet -- according to imdb it's called "gamlet"!!), with chimes easily taking top honors.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 19 March 2009 21:57 (fifteen years ago) link
Welles' Macbeth >>>> Polanski's Macbeth >>>> Welles' Othello
― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 19 March 2009 22:03 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah -- Chimes at Midnight and the William Richert-Keanu Reeves bits in My Own Private Idaho are my favorite screen Shakespeares.
No Keanu Reeves bits are my favorite anything.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 19 March 2009 22:04 (fifteen years ago) link
the William Richert-Keanu Reeves bits in My Own Private Idaho are my favorite screen Shakespeare.
you've said this before and I am nonetheless still alarmed at your toleration for this terribly misguided claptrap. I don't think Keanu even understands a single line he says in that movie.
― Roberto Mussolini (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 19 March 2009 22:05 (fifteen years ago) link
haha x-post
His diffidence dovetails nicely with Hal/Scotty's. I didn't say it was a good performance.
― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 19 March 2009 22:06 (fifteen years ago) link
The best thing I can say about those sequences is Keanu was even worse in Much Ado About Nothing.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 19 March 2009 22:07 (fifteen years ago) link
Or you wouldn't like him.
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Monday, 27 May 2013 18:04 (ten years ago) link
why can't broads do broad comedy?
― crüt, Monday, 27 May 2013 18:06 (ten years ago) link
Why does only he who slaps dick dig slapstick?
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Monday, 27 May 2013 18:11 (ten years ago) link
I'm a fan of all sorts of assholes, Lewis, Bob Hope, and Prince included.
(a good followup to Lewis wd be to ask him where his films woulda been w/out Kathleen Freeman et al)
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 May 2013 18:19 (ten years ago) link
Or even this bit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5MpO9grPpk
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Monday, 27 May 2013 18:23 (ten years ago) link
Which was maybe already posted on the Jer thread. I can't remember.
polanskicoccygeus
― how's life, Monday, 27 May 2013 19:42 (ten years ago) link
The new looks really interesting, was reading about it this morning.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 24 May 2014 13:17 (nine years ago) link
If anyone's willing to drive me to the reservoir and stick a rubber knife in my nostril, i'd be game
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/the_ultimate_chinatown_filming_location_map_of_los_angeles.php
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 June 2014 21:03 (nine years ago) link
Sure.
rubber
Oh, no deal.
― Cronk's Not Cronk (Eric H.), Monday, 23 June 2014 21:11 (nine years ago) link
tsk tsk
Gould's apt in The Long Goodbye is a lot closer to my hotel
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 June 2014 21:44 (nine years ago) link
yer too tall to wield that switchblade anyway, kittycat.
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 June 2014 21:49 (nine years ago) link
if you haven't seen Macbeth yet, get on it
http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3303-macbeth-something-wicked
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 25 September 2014 14:36 (nine years ago) link
Dooooooope.
― fields of salmon, Friday, 26 September 2014 00:31 (nine years ago) link
Venus in Fur is pretty good if familiar. Maybe the best part he's given his spouse.
Beware, lots of "opinions on women" implicit in it.
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 20 December 2014 18:27 (nine years ago) link
Watching carnage tonight
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 20 December 2014 19:03 (nine years ago) link
people watch this slimebag's movies?
― The Understated Twee Hotel On A Mountain (silby), Saturday, 20 December 2014 23:21 (nine years ago) link
I think so
― tl;dr, gukbar, morbis detrius (wins), Saturday, 20 December 2014 23:36 (nine years ago) link
Let me check just to be sure
Yep
Omg apparently he won an academy award - do people know about this?
― tl;dr, gukbar, morbis detrius (wins), Saturday, 20 December 2014 23:42 (nine years ago) link
All movies are made by slimeballs
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 20 December 2014 23:42 (nine years ago) link
It's in the union bylaws
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 20 December 2014 23:43 (nine years ago) link
Every movie production must feature at least 25% slimebag produced content
Thought that was only in Canada
― The Understated Twee Hotel On A Mountain (silby), Saturday, 20 December 2014 23:44 (nine years ago) link
"All movies are made by slimeballs"
Sitcoms, too.
― nickn, Sunday, 21 December 2014 00:17 (nine years ago) link
Carnage was ok. Foster overracting a bit much, and since all you have in this kind of movie is the acting, when one of the four actors is distracting it becomes a bigger problem than it might otherwise be. Winslet's character seemed underdeveloped compared to the other three. Waltz and O'Reilly are great, deliver some much-needed laughs.
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 16:19 (nine years ago) link
Liked Foster, bcuz I haven't even bothered to see much she's in the last 15 years, and that is a scarcely exaggerated Park Slope Parent, really.
Venus in Fur is both superficially "stagier" and more cinematic.
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 23 December 2014 16:30 (nine years ago) link
there was just so much vein-popping straining going on w her
my wife's review: "I'm glad we don't live in New York" lol
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 16:32 (nine years ago) link
My list and comments.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 12 August 2017 02:17 (six years ago) link
Oh my, The Tenant is an easy second behind the obvious winner.
I have unwatched copies of The Pianist and Tess (not to mention Oliver Twist) that I should get around to someday.
― Say, I Heard You Had a Quarrel With Your Best Girl (Old Lunch), Saturday, 12 August 2017 02:22 (six years ago) link
I have good-ish memories of Bitter Moon and Death and the Maiden. Anyone seen them lately?
― the general theme of STUFF (cryptosicko), Saturday, 12 August 2017 03:58 (six years ago) link
I thought Frantic was terrific but only saw it once, on release. I'd like to see it again.
― WilliamC, Saturday, 12 August 2017 12:23 (six years ago) link
...an opinion I've already put in this thread. I need to remember, "just quit posting."
― WilliamC, Saturday, 12 August 2017 12:25 (six years ago) link
From the Criterion Daily:
Back in August, a woman identified only as Robin became the third woman to accuse Roman Polanski of sexual assault after Samantha Geimer and Charlotte Lewis. On October 3, two days before the New York Times blew the Harvey Weinstein scandal wide open, a fourth woman, Renate Langer, accused Polanski of raping her in 1972 when she was fifteen. Last week, Marianne Barnard became the fifth woman to come forward and, as Martha Ross reports for the Mercury News, her call to have Polanski expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been met with considerable support.
Whatever the outcome, films such as Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974) will endure, even if the context in which they’re viewed now or in the future evolves. The Cinémathèque française will present its Roman Polanski retrospective from October 30 through December 3, and Polanski, now eighty-four, will evidently carry on working. He’s “returned to Poland for the first time since the country's top court rejected a U.S. extradition request last year to shoot a documentary about his life in wartime Krakow,” according to Nick Holdsworth in the Hollywood Reporter. Polanski, Horowitz (working title) will be “about his childhood and youth in the southern Polish city with his longtime friend, the photographer Ryszard Horowitz.” The AP notes that they’ve specifically visited “the site of the former ghetto where he was held as a child by the German Nazis. His mother was taken from there to her death at Auschwitz, and later his father made him flee the ghetto.”
Relevant links here:
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5058-the-daily-in-the-works-polanski-cuaron-and-more
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 October 2017 15:17 (six years ago) link
Just seen Tess and I think it's my favorite, really beautiful, glad I didn't pass on it. Tenant is probably my second.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 3 June 2018 13:30 (five years ago) link
for a debut feature-length film, Knife in the Water is outstanding
― Dan S, Sunday, 30 December 2018 23:22 (five years ago) link
This has been out since February, but I just stumbled over it last week.
http://www.amazon.ca/Big-Goodbye-Chinatown-Years-Hollywood-ebook/dp/B07QSPPLQQ
Waiting for the price to come down, will certainly read it then.
― clemenza, Friday, 22 May 2020 03:47 (three years ago) link
Just finished it a couple weeks ago, and while I think the author sometimes presumptively gets inside his protagonists' heads in a way that kind of turned me off, and while its denouement is a little sharper than I'd hoped for, it's not merely the love letter to New Hollywood the subtitle suggests.
― Vegemite Is My Grrl (Eric H.), Friday, 22 May 2020 13:56 (three years ago) link
tragic he’s not dead yet
― no (Left), Friday, 22 May 2020 14:13 (three years ago) link
He will be. His films will go on, so you'll have to come to terms with that.
(xpost) I don't think I have any illusions about that period. I'm sure the Peter Biskind book barely touched on the horrible stuff that went on off-camera (if that's what you mean). And as I've said many times, the more self-indulgent films of the era are almost unwatchable by any standard except repeated exposure to them at a young age (i.e., why I can still watch, say, Save the Tiger).
― clemenza, Friday, 22 May 2020 16:11 (three years ago) link
I will watch a Roman Polanski movie no sooner than the day he dies, I decided quite some time ago.
― silby, Friday, 22 May 2020 16:49 (three years ago) link
i read that book, it was fairly interesting but the writing was frustratingly florid
― na (NA), Friday, 22 May 2020 17:07 (three years ago) link
(xpost) Intrigued by the marker; I would have thought that people are either okay with watching his films or not okay with that, regardless of the timing.
― clemenza, Friday, 22 May 2020 17:28 (three years ago) link
(xp) yeah, I think that's kinda where I was trying to go with the bit about needlessly inserting himself into the mindset of the players
― Vegemite Is My Grrl (Eric H.), Friday, 22 May 2020 17:32 (three years ago) link
"tess" is a decent historical costume drama but dang it LOOKS gorgeous
― na (NA), Tuesday, 13 July 2021 14:29 (two years ago) link
How does nobody vote for FVK? Bloomin Bad Brains even wrote a toetapping toon with the title
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 13 July 2021 15:45 (two years ago) link
Fearless Vampire Killers is amusing and well-made, doesn't deserve the terrible reviews I've read; I saw both it and Tess on the big screen. My vote would have been for Cul de Sac.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 13 July 2021 20:59 (two years ago) link