Quote:
Originally Posted by Camille
There are so many films that we could all recommend that I don't know where I'd start. I tend to watch for specific reasons, depending on what I need at the time. At the moment I'm chasing character studies and playing with structure issue or fresh takes on the biblical 3 act structure. With that in mind I'd recommend the following that may be lesser known:
Character studies:
Fish Tank
Shifty
White Girl
Nil by Mouth (very hard to watch)
Sexy Beast
Rise of the Footsolider
Monster
Hard Candy
American Psycho
Gone baby gone
Mystic River
Brick Lane
Stuart: A life backwards
Structure:
Anything directed by Chris Nolan. He has a gift for filming through the eyes of his character (i.e. disjointed if he's filming someone feeling disjointed)
Run Lola Run
Pulp Fiction
Crash
If you like period drama:
Bright Star
North and South (the UK BBC adaptation 2004)
Wuthering Heights (2009 with Hardy and Riley PURELY because Hardy nails the character of Heathcliff for the first time on screen)
An Education
Tess of the D's (with Jason Flemyng)
From Hell (with J. Depp)
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I tend to look for those things, but from the perspective of acting and directing, not scripting. For instance, character studies makes me think of an actor or director, in this example Spencer Tracy, instead of a movie specifically. I'm inspired to watch Judgment at Nuremberg now, and his character in Inherit the Wind is just as satisfying.
Which Crash?
Sexy Beast is
excellent.
For Bret Easton Ellis adaptations, Less Than Zero always stands out more for me. Downey and Spader are brilliant in their roles.