Movies that you like

[Pragmier]

I remember that - he's the big gangster's loyal right hand man until he decides he wants to be Number 1, right? Wait, or is he the big gangster who is betrayed?

Think I'll watch it again just to answer your query 

[ziznak]

For some reason I love those London ganster flicks... and the slang cracks me up. 

[LacyWoodrow]

Anyone seen the movie The Ninth Gate? Maybe I got bad taste in movies, but I can watch that a million times.

[Eddie Coyle]

          For London gangster flicks, my all time favorite is still The Long Good Friday from 1980, with the great Bob Hoskins. Though, it's a movie I've stopped reccomending because I get these responses (1) I can't understand a word they're saying (2) Uh, so...who gets him in the end?

        Damn, those movies that make you pay attention can be a motherfucker.

[Nucky Nolan]

A hard man indeed.

"Hard Men" hit the movie screens in the 90s. It starred Frankie Fraser, who was a real British gangster. He was declared insane during his "prime", and he was the inspiration for the vicious mob boss in Ritchie's work. He sired two sons, an athlete and a gangster.

[Nucky Nolan]

Ritchie fans might wanna also check out Gangster No.1

Thanks for the recommendation! It's extremely enticing.

[Nucky Nolan]

          For London gangster flicks, my all time favorite is still The Long Good Friday from 1980, with the great Bob Hoskins. Though, it's a movie I've stopped reccomending because I get these responses (1) I can't understand a word they're saying (2) Uh, so...who gets him in the end?

        Damn, those movies that make you pay attention can be a motherfucker.

Some people think that it's the gold standard of British gangster movies. Most of us do need subtitles to watch it, though. Like Morrissey, I'm a fan of "The Krays" too. He mentions Reggie and Ronnie in one of his songs.

[Eddie Coyle]

Some people think that it's the gold standard of British gangster movies. Most of us do need subtitles to watch it, though. Like Morrissey, I'm a fan of "The Krays" too. He mentions Reggie and Ronnie in one of his songs.

The Krays is very good as well, that one of them lead an "alternative" lifestyle is a rather unique quirk you don't encounter in underworld films...in America. In London, it's a pre-requisite.

[Sardondi]

Anyone seen the movie The Ninth Gate? Maybe I got bad taste in movies, but I can watch that a million times.

Ah, The Ninth Gate, one of my absolute favorites, and worthy of being called a classic. And I too can watch it back-to-back. Truly a spooky movie to me, with that extra bit of verisimilitude which Roman Polanski always seems to bring to his Satanic movies. (Creepy Roman Polanski strikes me as the guy who really should show up in the old picture à la Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining: the pedophile Pole has always seemed to be just a little too familiar with things truly Luciferian.) Johnny Depp is excellent as usual. He's proved himself, and I usually like the majority of the films he's in, notwithstanding the Pirates of The Caribbean embarrassments. I mean, one, sure; but four!? I don't want to hear him spew that what-the-true-artist-does-for-his-art crap ever again. But T9G is one of the great supernatural-quest thrillers IMO. Plus the memorable music fits perfectly.

The Long Good Friday is one of those movies you have to have watched, but for me it is very hard to follow. All I think I know is that previously very loyal #2 guy is pondering the betrayal of boss Bob Hoskins, mostly because he wants to screw Helen Mirren, who doesn't think he's worthy of kissing Hoskins' boots.

But you cant mention TLGF without bringing up what I think is a movie which is perhaps not quite as good as TLGF, but one which let's Hoskins chew the scenery to shreds: Mona Lisa The scene where he catches on and has it out with his girl while wearing those kid's sunglasses is very affecting. And Michael Caine shows us the chilling menace which he hides behind the false bonhomie of the malevolent crime boss who owns the call girl Hoskins drives.

And now I'm off on Caine. Usually I assume Caine is a screen "good guy" who almost always plays the sympathetic protagonist; but when I stop to think about the characters he's played who have larceny and mayhem if not murder in their hearts, I'm in for a surprise: Alfie, Play Dirty (although it's Nigel Green, who also played his cynical boss/enemy mole in The Ipcress File who is the real nasty one), the cult-to-classic Get Carter, the original Sleuth as well as the sequel, in which he respectively played the first and the opposing second lead role, Blood and Wine, Little Voice and Flawless. And what's the one from just a few years ago where Caine plays the gentle, old Korean War vet whose whole world falls apart when his wife of many years dies, and he sort of stumbles into the role of neighborhood protector; where he has some surprises for those who have dismissed him as an inconsequential old gaffer as jhe turns out to be a far more violent and deadly man than anyone imagines? And that's just some of them. 

And Long Good Friday reminds me of Helen Mirren's roles from those days, among which The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover is a big deal. I find it virtually unintelligible, worth viewing only if you have a good "slow motion" and "pause" function on your remote. Then of course that brings in her other boobacious movies like Excalibur and the infamous Caligula. Her very earliest nudies are too exploitative and embarrassing to even mention. As excellent an actress as she is, I will always hold in her slightly lower regard for what I feel is how she has always used, even up until today, her nude roles as career enhancements. Hell, she even turns putative "arty" films like The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and The Passion of Ayn Rand into little more than Cinemax late night softcore fare. It's as cheap and cynical a bit of career maneuvering as can be found in the movie biz. Don't gimme this "anyone who had her body would do it" stuff, because some of her contemporaries who could have didn't go her route: Judi Dench had a body that was just as good as Mirren's in 1968 (check out that year's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which starred not only Mirren and Dench, but a whole slew of actors who would make up the core of of English acting for the next 40 years and more), but she chose to make her way almost entirely on acting.

*sigh* No discipline. It's always like this for me with movies, tv or music: one leads to another, leads to another and so on ad infinitum. It's like the "Rock and Roll History" scene in School of Rock in which Jack Black tries to diagram on the blackboard all the intricate connections between rock musicians. (British rock and the British Invasion can be reduced to John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, which was the site and source of creation of so much of rock royalty which has ruled for 50 years.) Anyway, this enough for now, even though I've still got enough about just Bob Hoskins boiling in my brain to take up as much space as I already have - played as wonderful role as a sergeant whose devotion to duty overwhelms all else in Zulu Dawn; which echoed a similar role played by the great Nigel Green in Zulu.

[Nucky Nolan]

    The Krays is very good as well, that one of them lead an "alternative" lifestyle is a rather unique quirk you don't encounter in underworld films...in America. In London, it's a pre-requisite.

It had a creepy vibe that brought "Dead Ringers" to mind. It wasn't just because twins were featured. There was a dark and deep thread, that ran through the protagonists' psyches, in both movies. You saw the same kind of thing in "The Parent Trap". 

[Nucky Nolan]

Sardondi, Polanski was a devotee of esoterica. That fascination explained why some of his movies dealt with the occult and secret orders. To my knowledge, he didn't worship the devil. BTW, Caine grew up in a neighborhood like the ones we saw in some of the films included in this thread.

[Sardondi]

Sardondi, Polanski was a devotee of esoterica. That fascination explained why some of his movies dealt with the occult and secret orders. To my knowledge, he didn't worship the devil....

Well, no. It's just that his movies seem to take an entirely different approach to that kind of stuff; and he seems to be, I dunno, respectful of it.

John Huston strikes me the same way. I've forgotten what the connection was, but IIRC 6-8 years ago the lurid "Black Dahlia" murder case from Hollywood got solved by children of a doctor who recalled some things as well as found new records, or something like that. It seems like John Huston figured into it as a guest at some party (sex-related?) shortly before the victim's murder. Also, for a lot of different reasons, some having to do with John Huston's relationship with the doctor who was the likely murderer of the Black Dahlia (the details of which relationship I don't recall right now), I've wondered whether Huston might not have been an incestuous parent.

Huge leap, I understand, and it could be little more than the convincing way he played the role in Chinatown. But a lot of little things about him and also about Angelica make my skin crawl. Plus, in addition to Huston's famous narcissism and how he led the life of a conscience-less rake, I think he also might have had a documented weakness for fresh, young teenage girls. I'm no expert, but I know a little bit about the subject, and Angelica has always struck me as a victim of incest; even perhaps one of the terribly confused and tormented "willing" victims as and after she reached adulthood.

I'm going back to left field now.

[Juan]

The doctor was Hodel, IIRC, and his son was an LA cop who put it together.  Hodel's daughter went to the police when she was a young teen and reported parties at which several men, including Huston, tried to rape her.

[Pragmier]

Continuing with Brit gangster films, here's another - Layer Cake. Best part is the colorful bosses in all of them. The Krays was very good, going all Freudian with the twin's affection for MUM.

[Nucky Nolan]

Continuing with Brit gangster films, here's another - Layer Cake. Best part is the colorful bosses in all of them. The Krays was very good, going all Freudian with the twin's affection for MUM.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm not optimistic about the new Brad Pitt flick.

[Evil Twin Of Zen]

Seven of my top ten all time favorites so far....

The Wizard of OZ -1939-
Ben-Hur -1959-
Forbidden Planet -1956-
Goldfinger -1964-
The Birds -1963-
The Mists of Avalon -2001-
The Fountain -2006-

[Jasmine]

My brother recently introduced me to the films of Russ Meyer. He has a very unique style. I absolutely love the bad ass girls in his classic "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1965)

Here's a great clip from the film.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! 1965

[Mind Flayer Monk]

My brother recently introduced me to the films of Russ Meyer. He has a very unique style. I absolutely love the bad ass girls in his classic "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1965)

That guy got what he deserved for walking around in colored socks and shorts like a European.

[Sardondi]

My brother recently introduced me to the films of Russ Meyer. He has a very unique style. I absolutely love the bad ass girls in his classic "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1965)...

Heh. Russ Meyers: your granddad's porn.