8 ms·

Film has such a huge library of "great movies", I have over 700 films logged on letterboxd, with a pretty decent spread of years/countries and I would say I sti

by kmnc 6y ago

Film has such a huge library of "great movies", I have over 700 films logged on letterboxd, with a pretty decent spread of years/countries and I would say I still know basically nothing about film. I can fire up Criterion Channel or MUBI and watch brilliant movies no one ever talks about. It is a real shame Criterion Channel isn't more popular...if you like movies you are doing a disservice to yourself not picking it up. If only Netflix embraced the library style dream instead of shilling their own over produced crap. Great to see Fitzcaraldo on here, a film that usually gets talked a lot about, or you see a lot of "Watch the documentary, it is better", but rarely gets the praise it deserves as film itself. Knowing nothing about this film, and watching it for the fist time was an amazing and unforgettable experience. Also great to see Last Year at Marienbad on here, for which Robbe-Grillet wrote the entire thing but rarely gets credited. If you like Last Year check out some of Robbe-Grillet's other films...not for everyone, but among my most favorite. His "The Erotic Dream Machine: Interviews with Alain Robbe-Grillet" offers some of the greatest insights about film and film as art.

gh-throw 6y ago
> Film has such a huge library of "great movies", I have over 700 films logged on letterboxd, with a pretty decent spread of years/countries and I would say I still know basically nothing about film. Film is so full of great stuff that there exists a reasonably-curated meta best-of-list of 1,000 great ones... with an overflow list of the next 1,000 that's also almost all excellent, and those still aren't a comprehensive list of all the films worth watching. https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm (Possibly NSFW because of screen-caps from movies)
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  Yea, I started with the "AFI Top 100 Films" and went through all of those (spoiler, you've likely already seen many of them if you are even slightly into movies). Definitely focuses on American films (surprise!). After that I have begun the "1001 Films To See Before You Die." I suspect I'll be finishing that up in about 3 years (need to hang on that much longer!). Most if not all of the AFI Top 100 Films are in the 1001. Also, again, some of the 901 remaining films you may also have seen already. But the 1001 have a lot more French New Wave, Italian Neorealist, and generally a more cosmopolitan mix. To be sure though the list skews Western. I'm happy to have another list of films. The set of Kurosawa's favorite films, of course, intersects with the above two lists but appears to add, unsurprisingly, a lot more Japanese films. Somehow I had to smile just imagining Kurosawa watching "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest". Does that film even make sense for someone growing up within Japanese culture?
  - sriram_sun 6y ago
    > Does that film even make sense for someone growing up within Japanese culture? Oh yeah! F*ck yeah! This movie was remade into a 1986 Malayalam movie by a really good actor/director pair and I'll bet almost everyone who watched it came away shaken. Institutionalizing someone who is not crazy is something every culture can identify with. You can also pretty easily draw parallels in any culture to even the supporting cast (Nurse Ratched). Probably because of the stigma associated with mental illness and how institutions across the world took advantage of it. Even now when I think about the (original) movie ending.. tears. I grew up in India. I don't know what I don't know, but after having lived in the US for over 20 years, I don't think folks missed much in translation. There might be a subtext there with a Native American winning some semblance of a freedom that most other cultures miss.
    - JKCalhoun 6y ago
      In the book McMurphy is trying to get admitted into the mental ward to get out of prison — it wasn't really a case of the state institutionalizing him against his will. I guess I was thinking more that he is the protagonist for challenging the establishment, breaking the rules, questioning authority. That seems like something someone in Japanese society would not enthusiastically cheer on.
      - sriram_sun 6y ago
        > In the book McMurphy is trying to get admitted into the mental ward to get out of prison — it wasn't really a case of the state institutionalizing him against his will. I know. But he can't get out when he wants to right?
      - sriram_sun 6y ago
        Yeah that's a good point about questioning authority. I don't know.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    As I recall the AFI list is a good "mid-brow" list which probably describes me pretty well. I like these films more than most of the blockbusters but I also tend to clock out a lot of the time when you get into real art house fare.
DarkCrusader2 6y ago
Strongly agree here. Letterboxd is the best thing that has happened to me in recent past. It introduced me to almost endless list of absolutely fantastic movies I didn't knew existed especially non-english movies no one talks about. And I just logged my 700th movie yesterday.
- graeme 6y ago
  How do you use it for film discovery? I had a look and that use case wasn’t clear. I really want to find a good film discovery service though, so I’d love to know how to use it for that. (When I looked it mainly seemed to be about rating movies I’d seen and making notes on them)
  - boraoztunc 6y ago
    There are people with different tastes, and great lists you can discover, also they are sending newsletter called "Letterboxd Rushes for you" a weekly Letterboxd digest which mostly evolves with your activities on the website, and includes such as "new reviews by your friends", "popular films with your friends" etc. I like making archives, offline dvds, brochures, posters, and logging movies feels like a digital part of it, and Letterboxd kind of fits perfectly, similar to here actually; people, conversations and content has quality.
  - DarkCrusader2 6y ago
    Lists work really well for me. Some popular lists like this[1] is a great place to start. Also on each film's page at the bottom, you can find lists it is on. So if you like a movie particularly well, you can find similar one in those lists. Most of the lists are not generic genre/actor/director based so I find really good stuff there. [1] https://letterboxd.com/dave/list/official-top-250-narrative-feature-films/ https://letterboxd.com/dave/list/official-top-250-narrative-...
    - yesenadam 6y ago
      I do the same thing on IMDb.
somedude895 6y ago
I didn't know about Criterion Channel. Shame it's US only. I'd love to have that.
- gregsadetsky 6y ago
  Good news, it isn't US only (anymore)! Criterion used to be available through Hulu (US only), then it was available through another streaming service whose name escapes me, but they (Criterion) finally started running their own VOD Netflix-like service: https://www.criterionchannel.com/ https://www.criterionchannel.com/ I have it setup on my Apple TV in Canada and it works great. Highly recommended! EDIT: Just checked [0], it's actually USA + Canada only for now... Sorry about that. [0] https://www.criterion.com/faq/channel https://www.criterion.com/faq/channel
- maleno 6y ago
  You can just use a VPN to sign up. Works perfectly (with no VPN) after that.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    Or you can just stream the movies with less friction more options and a wider catalogue. People thought netflix would en being the spotify of movies. They were wrong, so now watch a robust pirate scene to re-flourish.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  When Criterion licenses films from the copyright holders, they are only allowed to distribute those films in North America. Meanwhile, in Europe for example, some other company gets the right. That is why Criterion’s DVDs and Blu-rays have always been Region 1, and Criterion’s own store will (last time I checked) not ship abroad.
- beardyw 6y ago
  In the UK Curzon have a similar but smaller catelogue.
gordon_freeman 6y ago
Just a few days ago I watched Sci-fi classic "Solaris" by Andrei Tarkovsky and I had no expectations or knowledge about the movie or Director before watching it and it blew my mind. I then looked into other movies directed by Tarkovsky such as "Stalker" and "Andrei Rublev" which nobody in my age group knows or talk about but these are great movies. I am looking forward to finding such hidden gems and watching these films.
- SarikayaKomzin 6y ago
  Solaris is a beautiful book. It’s a short read, too. I highly recommend it.
  - UncleOxidant 6y ago
    This was a case where I thought the movie (Tarkovsky's Solaris) was much better than the book.
    - gordon_freeman 6y ago
      I would definitely put Andrei Tarkovsky in the same league of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch. Watching movies such as Solaris, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blue Velvet etc. feel like watching a beautiful and masterpiece art.
      - jvican 6y ago
        Andrei Arsenevich Tarkovsky is definitely greater than Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch in my book. He's a genius and I highly recommend reading "Sculping in Time", a book he wrote to explain his approach to film making.
        UncleOxidant 6y ago
        Agree. I think the ordering is Tarkovsky > Kubrick > Lynch. All great directors, though.
hardwaregeek 6y ago
I adore Last Year at Marienbad. Although I agree with Sofia Coppola that it's inevitably a movie where I doze off a little. That's alright since the entire film is like a weird dream. It's refreshing having a film that resists interpretation so intensely. It's utterly surreal, beautiful and tragic, yet without having a singular "correct" reading. Rashomon and Last Year at Marienbad would be an excellent double billing. Hiroshima Mon Amour is another fantastic film. In both films Resnais is so brilliant in his editing, in its non-linearity, in its emotional effect. Frankly he might be one of my favorite directors of the Left Bank/New Wave generation.
crispyambulance 6y ago
> I have over 700 films logged on letterboxd, with a pretty decent spread of years/countries and I would say I still know basically nothing about film. It depends on what it means to "know film". It's a deep rabbit hole, but if you're logging the films you appreciate in some way and now you're up to 700, I would say you "know" a lot more than most. Here's a gem for you... "Spring Night Summer Night". It's available free streaming on byNWR.com. Completely forgotten film that was meticulously restored by Nicholas Winding Refn. (review https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/spring-night-summer-night https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/spring...).
eddof13 6y ago
I was approaching 3000 films on criticker back in college when I realized, that I would never be able to begin to approach watching all of the films that I wanted to. Sort of like, the more you know the more you know you don't know. I ended up deleting all of my tracking of films, books (well now I'm tracking my books again for insurance purposes) etc and no longer worry about seeing all the important films.
lprd 6y ago
I've seen letterboxd mentioned a couple times in this thread. I use trakt.tv (which has nice Plex integration), are they both sort of the same thing?

by kmnc 6y ago

gh-throw 6y ago

> Film has such a huge library of "great movies", I have over 700 films logged on letterboxd, with a pretty decent spread of years/countries and I would say I still know basically nothing about film. Film is so full of great stuff that there exists a reasonably-curated meta best-of-list of 1,000 great ones... with an overflow list of the next 1,000 that's also almost all excellent, and those still aren't a comprehensive list of all the films worth watching. https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm (Possibly NSFW because of screen-caps from movies)

JKCalhoun 6y ago
Yea, I started with the "AFI Top 100 Films" and went through all of those (spoiler, you've likely already seen many of them if you are even slightly into movies). Definitely focuses on American films (surprise!). After that I have begun the "1001 Films To See Before You Die." I suspect I'll be finishing that up in about 3 years (need to hang on that much longer!). Most if not all of the AFI Top 100 Films are in the 1001. Also, again, some of the 901 remaining films you may also have seen already. But the 1001 have a lot more French New Wave, Italian Neorealist, and generally a more cosmopolitan mix. To be sure though the list skews Western. I'm happy to have another list of films. The set of Kurosawa's favorite films, of course, intersects with the above two lists but appears to add, unsurprisingly, a lot more Japanese films. Somehow I had to smile just imagining Kurosawa watching "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest". Does that film even make sense for someone growing up within Japanese culture?
- sriram_sun 6y ago
  > Does that film even make sense for someone growing up within Japanese culture? Oh yeah! F*ck yeah! This movie was remade into a 1986 Malayalam movie by a really good actor/director pair and I'll bet almost everyone who watched it came away shaken. Institutionalizing someone who is not crazy is something every culture can identify with. You can also pretty easily draw parallels in any culture to even the supporting cast (Nurse Ratched). Probably because of the stigma associated with mental illness and how institutions across the world took advantage of it. Even now when I think about the (original) movie ending.. tears. I grew up in India. I don't know what I don't know, but after having lived in the US for over 20 years, I don't think folks missed much in translation. There might be a subtext there with a Native American winning some semblance of a freedom that most other cultures miss.
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    In the book McMurphy is trying to get admitted into the mental ward to get out of prison — it wasn't really a case of the state institutionalizing him against his will. I guess I was thinking more that he is the protagonist for challenging the establishment, breaking the rules, questioning authority. That seems like something someone in Japanese society would not enthusiastically cheer on.
    - sriram_sun 6y ago
      > In the book McMurphy is trying to get admitted into the mental ward to get out of prison — it wasn't really a case of the state institutionalizing him against his will. I know. But he can't get out when he wants to right?
    - sriram_sun 6y ago
      Yeah that's a good point about questioning authority. I don't know.
- ghaff 6y ago
  As I recall the AFI list is a good "mid-brow" list which probably describes me pretty well. I like these films more than most of the blockbusters but I also tend to clock out a lot of the time when you get into real art house fare.

DarkCrusader2 6y ago

Strongly agree here. Letterboxd is the best thing that has happened to me in recent past. It introduced me to almost endless list of absolutely fantastic movies I didn't knew existed especially non-english movies no one talks about. And I just logged my 700th movie yesterday.

graeme 6y ago
How do you use it for film discovery? I had a look and that use case wasn’t clear. I really want to find a good film discovery service though, so I’d love to know how to use it for that. (When I looked it mainly seemed to be about rating movies I’d seen and making notes on them)
- boraoztunc 6y ago
  There are people with different tastes, and great lists you can discover, also they are sending newsletter called "Letterboxd Rushes for you" a weekly Letterboxd digest which mostly evolves with your activities on the website, and includes such as "new reviews by your friends", "popular films with your friends" etc. I like making archives, offline dvds, brochures, posters, and logging movies feels like a digital part of it, and Letterboxd kind of fits perfectly, similar to here actually; people, conversations and content has quality.
- DarkCrusader2 6y ago
  Lists work really well for me. Some popular lists like this[1] is a great place to start. Also on each film's page at the bottom, you can find lists it is on. So if you like a movie particularly well, you can find similar one in those lists. Most of the lists are not generic genre/actor/director based so I find really good stuff there. [1] https://letterboxd.com/dave/list/official-top-250-narrative-feature-films/ https://letterboxd.com/dave/list/official-top-250-narrative-...
  - yesenadam 6y ago
    I do the same thing on IMDb.

somedude895 6y ago

I didn't know about Criterion Channel. Shame it's US only. I'd love to have that.

gregsadetsky 6y ago
Good news, it isn't US only (anymore)! Criterion used to be available through Hulu (US only), then it was available through another streaming service whose name escapes me, but they (Criterion) finally started running their own VOD Netflix-like service: https://www.criterionchannel.com/ https://www.criterionchannel.com/ I have it setup on my Apple TV in Canada and it works great. Highly recommended! EDIT: Just checked [0], it's actually USA + Canada only for now... Sorry about that. [0] https://www.criterion.com/faq/channel https://www.criterion.com/faq/channel
maleno 6y ago
You can just use a VPN to sign up. Works perfectly (with no VPN) after that.
- cambalache 6y ago
  Or you can just stream the movies with less friction more options and a wider catalogue. People thought netflix would en being the spotify of movies. They were wrong, so now watch a robust pirate scene to re-flourish.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
When Criterion licenses films from the copyright holders, they are only allowed to distribute those films in North America. Meanwhile, in Europe for example, some other company gets the right. That is why Criterion’s DVDs and Blu-rays have always been Region 1, and Criterion’s own store will (last time I checked) not ship abroad.
beardyw 6y ago
In the UK Curzon have a similar but smaller catelogue.

gordon_freeman 6y ago

Just a few days ago I watched Sci-fi classic "Solaris" by Andrei Tarkovsky and I had no expectations or knowledge about the movie or Director before watching it and it blew my mind. I then looked into other movies directed by Tarkovsky such as "Stalker" and "Andrei Rublev" which nobody in my age group knows or talk about but these are great movies. I am looking forward to finding such hidden gems and watching these films.

SarikayaKomzin 6y ago
Solaris is a beautiful book. It’s a short read, too. I highly recommend it.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  This was a case where I thought the movie (Tarkovsky's Solaris) was much better than the book.
  - gordon_freeman 6y ago
    I would definitely put Andrei Tarkovsky in the same league of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch. Watching movies such as Solaris, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blue Velvet etc. feel like watching a beautiful and masterpiece art.
    - jvican 6y ago
      Andrei Arsenevich Tarkovsky is definitely greater than Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch in my book. He's a genius and I highly recommend reading "Sculping in Time", a book he wrote to explain his approach to film making.
      - UncleOxidant 6y ago
        Agree. I think the ordering is Tarkovsky > Kubrick > Lynch. All great directors, though.

hardwaregeek 6y ago

I adore Last Year at Marienbad. Although I agree with Sofia Coppola that it's inevitably a movie where I doze off a little. That's alright since the entire film is like a weird dream. It's refreshing having a film that resists interpretation so intensely. It's utterly surreal, beautiful and tragic, yet without having a singular "correct" reading. Rashomon and Last Year at Marienbad would be an excellent double billing. Hiroshima Mon Amour is another fantastic film. In both films Resnais is so brilliant in his editing, in its non-linearity, in its emotional effect. Frankly he might be one of my favorite directors of the Left Bank/New Wave generation.

crispyambulance 6y ago

> I have over 700 films logged on letterboxd, with a pretty decent spread of years/countries and I would say I still know basically nothing about film. It depends on what it means to "know film". It's a deep rabbit hole, but if you're logging the films you appreciate in some way and now you're up to 700, I would say you "know" a lot more than most. Here's a gem for you... "Spring Night Summer Night". It's available free streaming on byNWR.com. Completely forgotten film that was meticulously restored by Nicholas Winding Refn. (review https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/spring-night-summer-night https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/spring...).

eddof13 6y ago

I was approaching 3000 films on criticker back in college when I realized, that I would never be able to begin to approach watching all of the films that I wanted to. Sort of like, the more you know the more you know you don't know. I ended up deleting all of my tracking of films, books (well now I'm tracking my books again for insurance purposes) etc and no longer worry about seeing all the important films.

lprd 6y ago

I've seen letterboxd mentioned a couple times in this thread. I use trakt.tv (which has nice Plex integration), are they both sort of the same thing?