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Do you like foreign and independent films?
Posted by clioandme • 5/05/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: foreign films, movies
Finally got off my butt last week and saw four foreign films in the 22nd annual DC International Film Festival. They were “Egg” [Yumurta] (Semih Kaplanoglu, Turkey/Greece, 2007), “Tricks” [Sztuczki] (Andrzej Jakimowski, Poland, 2007), “The Edge of Heaven” [Auf der anderen Seite] (Fatih Akin, Germany/Turkey, 2007), and “With Your Permission” [Til Doden os Skiller] (Paprika Steen, Sweden/Denmark, 2007). I blogged about them here: markstoneman.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/filmfest-dc/ .
Do any of you enjoy independent and foreign films? Care to share your tips? Maybe you sometimes blog about them and have a link or two to share?
User Comments
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No links, but I know I find my self on the Indy Films channel and Sundance channel more and more often when I'm movie surfing.-
You mean there might actually be a good reason to get cable or satellite TV?
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Yeah - on directv channels 550 and 549 I think - it's the IFC and Sundance channels. I've seen lots of goodies.
There was one weird one about the Russo-Chechen conflict where a Chechen woman thinks she's fallen in love with American pop singer Bryan Adams. There's also this weird inter-woven stuff about this Russian tank grew that trades for drugs with some of the local Chechens. Very weird - but good.
Saw another (don't think this was "Indy" technically) about a S.African cop named David Stander who went around robbing banks.
Perhaps my favorite was some small budget U.S. film called "Twelve and Holding" about a bunch of 12 year olds that deal with the awkwardness of the age as well as a host of other issues (death, murder, obesity, etc.). Very good (yet strange) film. -
The movie was called Stander. I don't think it was indy, but it is a foreign film.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0326208/
Another Seffrikan movie worth seeing is Tsotsi. It won an Oscar for best foreign language film.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0468565/
Tsotsi is an allegory of an Athol Fugard novel. A Tsotsi is a gangster or a thug. Director Gavin Hood took the Athol Fugard novel and set it against the backdrop of our current extremely violent society.
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Foreign films (for lack of a better term...maybe "non-Hollywood") are great if only for the contrast they provide from the usual Hollywood style.
Haven't seen many in the last few years though.
City of God was quite good: a group of hoods growing up in the slums of Rio.
Ong Bak was alright: Thai kick-boxing movie. The plot was crap but the fight scenes were worth it. -
Definitely, Yes! Hollywood Films are worth my money and time..Movie industry here in the Philippines really sucks! -
No doubt there are loads of great Hollywood flicks as well. It's just nice to get that different "flavour" on occasion.
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As for independent films, there has been and will continue to be an explosion of good documentaries what with the relative ease that the average person can now shoot and edit on their own.
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Yes, I love foreign or independent films. There are plenty of independent films that are really bad, but I still get them.
I like mostly horror and I review horror films for my blog. My favourite films are by Dario Argento, known as the Italian Hitchcock.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dario_Argento
Suspiria, Sleepless and Deep Red(sometimes called Hatchet Murders) are my favourites.
I don't go to the cinema often, but the last time I went I saw Perfume. It is a German film, but filmed in English, and it is brilliant. Note the performances of Dustin Hoffman (does he ever disappoint?) and Alan Rickman.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0396171/ -
Yes i like it, i own some of foreign & indy movies DVD here. I like Frida, City of Gold, Malena and Savages. I gotta say here, you should see Savages, great movie!
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Yes, I do love foreign and independent films. Unfortunately the New Orleans area misses out on a lot films in general. We do have one four theater Landmark Theater which plays those kinds of films and sometimes the AMC theaters shows some of the more arthouse fare. But on a whole I have to wait and see them on DVD. I do like the convenience of stopping and starting as needed with DVDs. My DVD player will even remember a place I stopped on a specific place if I switched DVDs - smart little machine.
I've been using both Netflix (for harder to get films) and Blockbuster (the Pass), which is a couple of blocks away. I do like that the Blockbster Pass which can be used at all the stores instead of only one branch. -
No. -
I'm a big fan of world cinema especially Asian cinema. Takeshi Kitano's films are brilliant.-
Audition was a great Japanese flick.
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Yeah that was freaky.
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Silly me, I'd probably still date that chick. So she'd make me eat throw-up from a bowl....there's pros and cons to everything in life.
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I saw some crazy Japanese film once, all surrealist and stuff. And some French film called "Mon Uncle", which was a bit of laugh. And of course there are some great Chinese action films, even if the jokes in them suck.
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You should rent some Akira Kurosawa films you'd love them, I recommend the seven samaurai or Throne of blood.
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Didn't he do one about Ieyasu Tokugawa at Sekigahara? The name sounds familiar.
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Yeah I think you're right the name escapes me though.
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I did like some foreign films I saw years ago. But no cable means no access to foreign flicks via tv and I cannot bring myself to spend a bundle just to go to the city to see them. The minute I hit the city streets I can barely breathe due to car exhaust fumes that no one else around me even seems to notice. It takes two days a fresh air at home before the headache clears and I feel well again.
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i love the smell of petrol and tarmac and scraped cement and cheap kebab shops for some reason. its weird.
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I love cheap kebob shops and but the rest (filthy, gas reeking pavement, etc.) just makes me feel sickly.
Worse still are the smelly hordes of people pushing and shoving in queues everywhere. When I go to a city either in Canada or south of the line what really makes my jaw drop, is the legions of malnourished fat human beings who look like they have never exercised a day in their lives but are all heading for restaurants. It's truly shocking that some are of such an enormous a girth that they resemble the male sea lions that haul out with their harems on the beaches here.-
But the poetry of the smokestacks, graffiti, closed-down factories, rows of narrow brick houses, chain-link fences, newspaper and plastic bags blowing across street corners, defaced bus timetable, clipped hedges, broken beer bottles, strewn cigarette butts, harassed young women pushing prams with screaming children, rattling cars, whirring bicycles, old grannies with shopping bags, men reading the paper in their undershirt, pneumatic drills, vicious speed-bumps, spilled bins... Ah, the poetry!
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You just described my street, you urban poet you.
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strangely, i actually miss all that, being in (rural) America.
The Jam's song "Entertainment" gets me so nostalgic every time. -
Yeah Down in the tube station at midnight is the same you can't get more British.
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@Daniel
Hmmmm ... I think your poetic description of living in hell is right on.-
living hell? i call it home sweet home.
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The last foreign movie I saw was a Spanish horror film called The Orphanage. The scariest film I've seen in a while, and miles removed from the gorefests coming out of Hollywood at the moment. Recommended! -
Another good Thai movie: The Eye: a horror flick that I believe is being remade in English.
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I've heard about that one before - always heard it was a good one. Any idea when the remake is scheduled for and if it's supposed to be any good (you know how remakes can be)?
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The American version with Jessica Alba already played in theaters. Netflix had this about the DVD release:
"This movie will be released on DVD Jun 03, 2008."
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love it. maybe by default, cause hollywood is cranking out some terrible flicks. plus side is that it's openned my eyes to films from other countries. i love japanese and french films. love the style and love the women -
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French Films
Priceless
Mr Average
Amalee -
Funny how a discussion about films can mutate into a discussion about urban living. (See TimeThief and Daniel above.) Should o' seen that coming. I suffer from some noises and pollution, but we moved into a more residential area, so now it's more about birds in the wee hours and leaf blowers during the day at times. And allergies from all of the wonderful plant life in DC. Anyway, the ability to see movies that are not from Hollywood is one of the benefits of living in the city. Tickets to the film festival were $10.00. We smuggle in our own water and possibly munchies. Then there's just bus fair and maybe a coffee or ice cream afterwards, or like last week some food from a Turkish take-away joint, all of this another fringe benefit of city life.
By the way, Daniel, I get your poetry. I used to walk around working class sections of German cities smelling the coal and marveling at the steel and movment in the railroad yards. Or take a really busy intersection in DC on a weekday morning, when there are more people than cars, and there are a ton of cars. K St. and Conn. Ave. never fails to impress me on a weekday morning. If you like that poetry, check out "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City" (Berlin: Symphonie einer Grossstadt), which is on YouTube, though better on a bigger screen. Here's a link to the first part: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ej84nN1WcE No words. Just movement and music (the music added later). [edit] Looks like the version I linked doesn't have the music. That might be a good thing. Also, you should appreciate the clear role of class in the movie, though the main point seems to be a celebration of modernity (in the Weimar era). [/edit] -
'wit' with emma thompson was very very good
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