Battleship Potemkin
Crash

Runaway Bride (know thyself)
Amelie (fuck with others)
Punch Drunk Love (when all else fails, beat the shit out of them)
Fight Club (that little voice isn't always a good thing.)

whenever i present to a client i always refer to chris marker, godard, greenaway, antonioni and eisenstein. maybe a bit much for my dollar store clients however.

seriously though check out "diva" by benieux most beautiful and thrilling

see previous threads

garden state (life isn't what you expect)

"10" (subtlety is priceless)

Mon Oncle by Jaques Tati

What Dreams May Come

Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL...

link

hands down.

awesome.

A Notebook on Cities and Clothes (Wim Wenders)

12 MONKEYS
SE7EN
IRREVERSIBLE
THE WIZARD OF OZ
LA HAINE
THE BIG L
BIG NIGHT
EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN
WHATS EATING GILBERT GRAPE
CLERKS
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
FALLING DOWN

and on and on

jitter12

hey that little voice got rid of most of the effin banks and credit history so dont knock it.

if you actually read the book by mr chuck

there is another twist (as the towers fall), which for some reason didnt make it into the film

STALKER
THE OPPOSITE OF SEX!

jb, I did read it, but can't remember the twist. I am Jack's advance alzheimers disease.

When is he going to make CHOKE into a movie?

battleship potempkin

almost anything by Wim Wenders: alice in the cities, kings of the road, wings of desire, faraway so close, until the end of the world, paris texas, american friend, tokyo ga.....

Not for issues + themes but for mastery of the visual component of film, anything by Michael Mann stands the test of time. Including Miami Vice -- although maybe just watch Thief, if you want to go that far back.

I think Mann exacts more control than any other director over what is in the frame and what isn't. Sometimes it is totally over the top -- borderline hysterical (like when you know he just wants to show Al Pacino, on a cell phone, at night, wading in the ocean [The Insider]) -- but it is always a party for the eyes.

All horizontals (oceans, sunsets, wet streets), verticals (Pacino, De Niro, Caan, other manly actors), and reflections (wet streets, car paint, modernist glass houses).

This becomes even clearer after viewers have smoked a little something. Although, as I mentioned, it is already almost painfully obvious.

check out some nicholas ray. thats cinema baby. love michael mann's maneater(the movie made from the red dragon book awhile back) when fbi guy goes to interview hannibal lechter and runs from the prison the building is actually meier's high museum. also used thom maynes house in heat.

_the red balloon_ and tarkovsky's _stalker_.

Wim Wenders, definitely. I think Fellini comes close to topping him, though. 8 1/2 especially. Marcello Mastroianni was fantastic in there.

a few more for the list:

greenaway's the pillow book is fantastic
and i really liked a chinese film called suzhou creek- which showed a great deal of the ambience of shanghai before all the skyscrapers.
i think that generally the films of takeshi kitano are unmissable, especially hanna bi and dolls
then chungking express from wong kar wai among his others
and i think we could easily argue george lucas' thx 1138 into this thread, along with bergmans Wild strawberries.
the best of all applications of thoughts about design for me is the five obstructions by lars von trier. Based on a film called the perfect human, lars von trier gets the original director- i forgot his name- to remake the film five times- imposing ever more difficult obstuctions for him to try and think his way around. It is an incredible feat of invention and design- watch it for sure!
and chris marker too- not only la jettee but also Sans soleil. those are the only two i have seen and i would love to see more of his- does anyone know where i can get them/watch them?