Chasmmi recommends a film a day for a year

[chasmmi]

Ok, so I have been thinking about trying this for a while as it is something different from a list.

 

We all have films that we love / like / admire for different reasons. Some of these films have been seen by everybody, some by next to nobody. Let's say I took a sample of 5 or 6 members here that are vocal about their film tastes, no matter who those five people were, we could find movies we agree about and movies we strenuously disagree about.

 

What I do believe though, is that for every member of this forum, there is at least one film that I have seen and enjoyed, which they have not yet seen. Hopefully this thread can work to introduce said films to said members.

 

So how will this work?

 

Each day I will introduce a new film. There will be no rhyme, reason or method to my choice. I will not be starting with the best and working my way down or vice versa. I will try to make sure that in general, whatever film I suggest on say Tuesday is relatively different to the films from Monday and Sunday. Otherwise, any film I feel is recommendable is free game.

 

The general plan will be to post the trailer/clip of the film for that day, give a brief synopsis of the story and then say why I like it and what kind of person may also like it.

 

I make no claim that any film I put here is obscure. Some may be quite well known, others may be new to almost everyone. I won't include the super well known and watched by all like say Jurassic Park. But at the same time, I am not going to be spending a year recommending films about a lonely goatherd in Mozambique.

 

Anyway, enough blabbering, let's begin. (Days will always be on Korean time, in case it ever looks like I think I am in the future)

 

 

 

[chasmmi]

July 13th - Cruel Intentions 1999  

 

 

So why begin with this film? Simply because for about 15 years, this was my favourite English language film of all time.

 

Why choose that clip? Because, that scene is both a strong point within the film, plus also a reason to easily dismiss this film as some teen silliness aimed at teenage boys and nothing more. In fact I only ever saw this in the first place because it happened to be available to rent at a local DVD place and there was nothing better to pick. I also assumed it was going to be nothing more than pretty people doing sexy things. But I was wrong.

 

This was a modern retelling of Dangerous Liasons. The centre of the film is a bet between Ryan Philippe and Gellar that he cannot successfully seduce the new principle's daughter. If he succeeds, he will get to have sex with his step-sister and if he loses, she gets his car. It all sounds very trashy, but the acting in this is fantastic. The four main cast members play their roles so well. Philippe in particular really nails the transition from arsehole to a guy that might potentially care about someone.

 

There should also be a shoutout to the soundtrack. The songs for each crucial moment of the film are completely spot on and they elevate every scene. The ending especially hits so hard, that this was the first film I ever watched and then immediately went back to the beginning and watched it again without a break of any kind.

 

Even now this film is in my top 10 of all time and any fan of college-based drama should definitely give this a try.

[chasmmi]

July 14th - Joint Security Area 1999  

 

 

Yes there are going to periodically be Korean films on here. Partly because I live in Korea, partly because I studied Korean and mostly because between 1998 and 2008 Korean cinema was arguably the best in the world.

 

Decades of censorship in the lead up to Democratization and the nineties had reduced Korean cinema to be mostly a joke. Not because of a lack of talent, but because any reference to North Korea, government, socialism, politics in general, freedom of speech and so on was censored and banned.

 

As the 80s hit, this was combined with a liberal loosening of nudity and sex censorship in film in a misguided attempt to quell protest about film censorship. The result was a spate of quasi-porngraphic films where girls were sexually abused or taken advantage of under the guise that it was a metaphor for Japan/Former Dictators/Insert Issue here's treatment of Korea.

 

Combined with the strict quotas on Hollywood imports, this pushed the true Korean auteurs to seek out French and German embassy showings of European cinema in order to quench their thirst for decent cinema. 

 

So once censorship was finally lowered to a level in the late 90s, where discussion of political and social issues was allowed, studios just let directors go wild with any project they could get financed and the Holy trinity of Park Chan Wook, Bong Joon Ho and Kim Jee Woon (with support from Kim Ki Duk) was unleashed on cinema audience. 

 

JSA was Park Chan Wook's (Oldboy director) first big film and it is to this day one of the best directed and acted films you will ever see. Song Kang Ho plays a North Korean soldier stationed on the North SOuth Border who happen to befriend two South Korean soldiers stationed the other side. The friendship that blossoms is so organic and the acting of Song - a man with pretty much no formal acting training - is fantastic. There are scenes in this film where he swaps from being a friendly Korean friend of the Southerners to staunch and true Northern communist who believes in his nations political mantra and it is just Godly in its execution.

 

This was possibly the first Korean film to portray North Koreans as humans too. That being North Korean did not mean being a heartless robotic monster. In fact this film did the job so well that not only did it become the all time top grossing film upon release in South Korea, it also received high praise from Kim Jong Il for the quality of the film and the story. The reason I include the clip that I did is that it reflects this side of the North Korean characters in that the soldier just hands the cap back to the girls as opposed to stamping on it or spitting on it as a stereotyped North Korean monster would have likely done. 

 

To me, this is the best film Korea has ever produced, and it may never be surpassed. It is directed gloriously, has a real and engaging story and is acted so well that I think even a non-lover of subtitles could still find something from this. 

 

If you like political, yet human dramas with a dark twist. There are few films that could be argued do it better.   

 

 

   

 

 

 

[chasmmi]

July 15th - Frequency - 2000

 

It is both extremely difficult to make a time travel / timeline change based film and extremely easy: You create a set of rules that time follows in your universe and you stick to them. Simples.

 

Some classic films incorporate time travel to great effect (Back to the Future, Terminator), other lesser films aim high and fall just short of the rules they set up (Project Almanac), others just don't even try (Hot Tub Time Machine  )

 

In my opinion, Frequency has the best and most consistent use of timeline changes of any film I have ever seen. Almost every potential plot hole feels like it was considered and worked out. The radio based gimmick is great for the nature of the film and the acting of Cavieziel and Quaid is pretty great too.

 

Part mystery thriller / part drama, this was a great film that kind of flew under the radar a little and while I expect a number of the 100 films a year crowd, will know this one, I suspect there are many people out there that would really enjoy this film and have never thought to give it a go.

 

So go ahead  

 

 

 

[chasmmi]

July 16th - Everything Must Go - 2010

 

 

Well I realised that I managed to screw up my days in the first two posts! Go me. So this will count as my Saturday film (well it is Saturday here) and then I can zombie out until Sunday evening.

 

This film (as shown by the trailer) was marketed as a comedy. Maybe not a full on Will Ferrell comedy, but still pretty much every joke in the film is in the trailer. This film is so much more than that though. This is a portrayal of alcoholism that was as real as any I have seen on the big screen.

 

In this film Ferrell is not an angry man. He doesn't get drunk and fight people. He doesn't slap his wife/girlfriend /kid around. He doesn't get suicidal or dramatic. He just gets hit with two major life blows in the same day and responds to it all by buying a bunch of beer and get drunk on his front lawn like a pathetic loser.

 

I found this film knowing nothing about it and thought it would be a safe choice to kill 90 minutes as Ferrell is always the same person in everything, that is part of the reason it floored me so much. I was expecting comedy and instead was given a portrayal of the type of alcoholic that personally resonated with me. I know the violent or depressed alcoholic exists, but they exist in other people's worlds. Ferrell played the addict that hit me the hardest and he played it so god damn well that I don't know why he doesn't do more dramatic stuff.

 

This was a great film to watch, but it is not an easy film to watch. It is raw, it is pathetic. Ferrell is not a lovable rogue on a downturn, he is a loser: plain and simple. The film is so small and personal that I feel it was written with me in mind, maybe nobody well will get the same out of it. But what a tiny cast (there are maybe 9 speaking roles of any length total) achieve with just a lawn full of props is truly great.

 

This is one of the best alcoholism films I have seen, and sometimes I feel like I am the only person who ever saw it,  

 

 

 

[chasmmi]

July 17th - Mike Bassett: England Manager - 2001

 

If you are a fan of football (soccer), this British comedy is absolute gold. Yes some parts of it can be very British in its take on the World Cup, but let's be honest, by now everyone knows what supporting England means: Losing in horrible and embarrassing ways.

 

This film is the story of Mike Bassett: a lower league football manager who is given the job of qualifying England for the world cup because nobody else will take the job. He is out of touch, hated by the media, by his superiors and has an extremely rocky start to life as England manager.

 

The film is presented as a BBC type documentary (in ways a parody of a real documentary of Graham Taylor's failed reign as England coach). There are some touching moments, Tomlinson is a great actor who is nothing like the person he often portrays in film and TV. It is a film that is eminently rewatchable and just has so much for the sports fan / England fan / comedy fan to enjoy.

 

The only sad thing about it, is how the film continues to stay relevant to the England football team situation 15 years later  

[chasmmi]

July 18th - A Time to Kill - 1996

 

 

These are the sort of films that I wish got made more often these days. Courtroom dramas, when covering the right topic can be some of the best dramas out there.

 

The three main leads are astonishingly good in their roles (as is Spacey of course). Jackson especially is just perfect in his role as the hurt father who takes justice into his own hands and shoots two murder rapists in the middle of a court full of people and refuses to plead anything other than not-guilty.

 

The arguments made in court are so on point and at times heart-breaking that it can be a really difficult film to watch in many scenes. Then you get to the closing argument and the speech is just perfect, from the script itself, to the delivery from McCaunaghy, to the reactions of Jackson and the courtroom to what was being said.

 

It's a truly amazing dramatic film that showed twenty years ago that Matty was really all that he is finally showing he is now. I cannot recommend this film enough to anyone that hasn't seen it. The closing statements alone are worth the price of entry.

 

Wait a sec, Joel Schumacher directed this in between Batman Forever and Batman and Robin?!?!? How the hell did that happen?

 

 

 

 

 

[chasmmi]

It's 3am here, so this can count for July 19th now...

 

July 19th - The Land Before Time - 1988

 

 

I figured that it was time to throw in something animated and thought I'd resist the temptation of some slightly less omnipresent Disney film and go for a bit of Bluth. Don Bluth is known for having a philosophy regarding children and film that: so long as they can enjoy the last 10 minutes, you can throw anything at a kid for the preceeding 70 minutes without too much trouble.

 

I massively disagree with this sentiment in the sense that this film destroyed me as a kid every time. Yet at the same time, it must be true because we owned this on VHS and I watched it multiple times a year as a young kid. It's a great adventure film and still the best animated dinosaur film ever made.

 

This film is cute, tragic, fun and pretty much all the adjectives that a generic trailer uses to sell family films. It has darkness but nowhere near N.I.M.H levels (it may potentially have sadder moments though).

 

I have such fond memories of this film and even though it was diluted by 14 sequels (that isn't even an exaggeration), the original still holds up as a great story for people young and old to enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

[chasmmi]

July 20th - Castaway on the Moon - 2009

 

 

With the exception of perhaps @Rsyu and @yjs, it's likely nobody has even heard of this film, let alone seen it. However, out of all of the Korean films that got bandied about for a potential Hollywood remake, this is the one I actually hoped would happen.

 

The story is a great idea: A suicidal man throws himself off a bridge into the biggest river in Seoul only to wash up on some tiny little islet in the middle of the river. It cures his immediate wish to die, but he is left with a small problem: The little island is too small for people to ever be on or go to it, and he cannot swim. Hence he has been a Robinson Crusoe type castaway, but in the dead centre of one of the world's biggest Metropolis.

 

The only person to see him is a young woman who likes to look out of her apartment building with a telescope. Unfortunately for him, she is an intense agoraphobe who won't leave her home or communicate with the outside world. SHe is however drawn to this strange man living alone on a tiny island and tries to find ways to communicate with him.

 

The film is a great twist on the Robinson Crusoe story and is at times funny, sad, tragic, pathetic and everything in between. It is one of the most horribly underrated Korean films out there which is a shame because it deserves to be watched.

 

If anyone has any producer friends out there, get on to them to get the US remake of this underway as this story concept is perfect to translate over to New York, London or any other major city. I really hope somebody out there gives this a try one day,

 

[chasmmi]

July 21st - Dr. Doolittle - 1967

 

Wow it is hard to find a clip of this on YouTube.

 

So I think it is time to pick something that predates my own existence and why not pick a classic musical considering I showed a lack of enjoyment towards so many of them in the movie song countdown list I did earlier this month.

 

As a child I was introduced/subjected to many a classic musical. Some I really enjoyed (Mary Poppins), Some just existed (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), some I quite disliked (Sound of Music) and some I despised (Calamity Jane/Annie Get your Gun). Now people may agree/disagree with those sentiments regarding specific films, but it does at least show I was open to enjoying the genre. It was just that I was very capable of hating it as well.

 

Dr. Doolittle was one of those films that I watched dozens of times. The songs were great, the animal stuff helped and it was a cool fantastical adventure for its time. It's absolutely my favourite thing Rex Harrison ever did and I can still look back on it fondly.

 

The existence of magical creatures probably ages this film a bit/lot worse than simpler to create films like My Fair lady, Caberet or Sound of Music (none of them have a giant snail for example), but I think there is still fun to be had here.

 

As an aside, I also enjoyed the Eddy Murphy remake. It was a cool take on the concept that offered something different enough from the musical to become a film in its own right and not a cheap impersonation.

 

 

 

 

 

[chasmmi]

July 22nd - Baseketball - 1998

 

 

Back when Parker and Stone were employed just as actors...

 

Baseketball was a fun little comedy about a couple of guys that inadvertently create America's next great sport. A mix of basketball and baseball but for unathletic people, there is a lot of silliness in this film. However there is a message to the film too and the direction that it criticises major sports for heading towards 20 years ago is generally just as relevant today.

 

Of course you need to like Parker and Stone's brand of comedy to enjoy this I suspect, but South Park, Team America et all have enough fans out there to mean that there are likely many folks out there that would enjoy this film and possible never bothered to ever see it.

 

It's worth giving a shot.

 

 

 

[chasmmi]

July 23rd - The Hills Have Eyes - 2006

 

Horror remakes have been a very hit and miss affair the past decade or so. Some have been great (The Ring) and some have been not great at all (Nightmare on Elm Street).

 

This was a film that (at least in my circles) I felt went by a little under the radar compared to the bigger name remakes that were getting into gear around it. Yet this film has atmosphere, a continuous sense of dread and enough fucked up stuff happening to keep a viewer engaged with what is happening on screen. The victims do their jobs well, be they dying or surviving and there are enough scares and freak out moments to make this a good fun horror film to enjoy.

 

Admittedly I never saw the original and maybe that is vastly superior/inferior, but this is a good horror film with a good mix of horror, action and dread that make this is good film for horror fans to check out.

 

 

[chasmmi]

July 24th - Neverending Story - 1984

 

 

Oh the eighties... you really did have an interesting idea on what a kid's movie means.

 

The Neverending story was a fantasy adventure on a huge scale for a 1984 film. There were giant monsters galore in this some of the effects still feel impressive to me. The story is about a boy called Bastion who discovers a magical book through which he gets to experience the journey of Atreyu, a boy charged with having to save the world.

 

The story is beautiful, epic, exhilarating and (as every 80s film seems to be) dark and at times heartbreaking. This film has sad scenes that still stick with me over a decade since I last saw the film (People who have seen this will know what those scenes are).

 

If you are into fantasy adventure and can see past the dated visuals, I really urge people to see this film. It is great. (Number 2 was awesome too, number 3 not so much though).

 

[chasmmi]

July 25th - Anatomy - 1999

 

 

It is really hard to find anything English Language for this...

 

So do you remember back when Run Lola Run became a mini-cult hit from Germany? No? Well the main actress from that followed up that role with a lead role in this nice and reasonably unique horror film.

 

It takes place in Heidelberg (I think) University and is the story of students who are one by one getting abducted and dissected alive by an unknown killer. In one way it is a pretty standard 'Who Dun it?' horror film, but it still gets points for being interesting (I can't think of another film where people look up to see their limbs splayed into veins, arteries and muscles etc) and the German actors are pretty decent and probably better than the usual no names that American horror sadly mostly consists of these days (Sorry I just saw the Witch finally and was pissed at how horribly boring it was ).

 

Anyway I digress. If you are running out of horrors to get you through the week, I recommend trying to track this one down. It's well done, the affects are pretty impressive and being dissected alive... that's pretty horrific if you ask me.

 

[chasmmi]

July 26th - Coming to America -
Spoilers as the clip is a bit NSFW  

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

I know Beverly Hills Cop got the mega box office for Murphy but this (and Trading Places) were really the best of classic Murphy in my opinion.

 

Coming to America just never stops being funny and despite how famous the film is, it is old enough now that there could be a significant number of folks out there that never got round to watching it. If you are one of those people then change that now.

 

This film is Eddie Murphy at the height of his powers and has so many funny moments to enjoy and laugh at. As I am tired as balls right now (haven't slept in 32 hours now), I think that is all that is needed to be said about this film.

 

I mean how can any film with the line "The Royal Penis is clean your highness" be anything other than amazing? 

[yjs]

@chasmmi do you have a blog? I think this deserves a full-on blog treatment! very cool. 

[chasmmi]

6 hours ago, yjs said:

@chasmmi do you have a blog? I think this deserves a full-on blog treatment! very cool. 

 

Thanks

 

I do not have a blog sadly, I don't even have the twitters  

[chasmmi]

July 27th - The Green Mile - 1999

 

 

Wow, 1999 was pretty neat wasn't it?

 

So it's an epic story that is set in a prison with a massive running time and more than a couple of emotional moments. It's directed by Frank Darabont, based on a Stephen King story and two main leads are a white guy who doesn't quite know his place and an inspirational black prisoner who is expected to die in prison.

 

Admittedly this is the second best film that matches that description, but Shawshank makes all but about 11 films the second best anything it qualifies to be in the list for. Green Mile however is still an amazing film in it's own right. The story is intriguing and manages to be heartwarming and heartbreaking (sometimes at the same time).

 

I would also go as far as to say that Green Mile has a performance better than anything from Shawshank. Clarke Duncan in this was a revelation. It's a performance that you would never expect to come from a man of that size, but that is part of the reason this role works so well. To have a man who looks like he could break you in half with one arm whilst reading the newspaper while also displaying a childlike vulnerability to the point you feel he could be felled by an infant. It was a phenomenal piece of casting of a man we lost far too early.

 

if you haven't seen this, you really should.  

 

[chasmmi]

July 28th - Matchstick Men -  2003

 

 

I like a good con caper I do.

 

Now we all know that there are three Nicolas Cages in the cinematic world. Good Cage, Bad Cage and crazy Cage. This one has a mix of good Cage and crazy Cage. It's a fun film and the sort of role that Cage can pull off in his sleep. I am also pretty sure that the makers of Focus (which I also liked) watched this film before making theirs, so if you liked that, you will like this.

 

The cast is good, the heists are fun and overall it is an enjoyable ride for fans of the conman schtik (however that word be spelled).

 

I am off to find alcohol now so it is just a short review until I wake up tomorrow afternoon/evening.

 

 But still, yeah watch it.

 

 

[chasmmi]

July 29th - 10 Things I Hate About You

 

Before the Joker role came along, Heath Ledger was mostly known for being a pretty Australian with charisma. His career had moments where it was clear he wanted to be seen as a proper Oscar style actor (Brokeback for example), but he was also in a fair number of bad/fun films.

 

This part of his career coincided with a small period in Hollywood where remaking Shakespeare into modern teen comedies became a thing. There was a Midsummer Nights Dream inspired film starting Sisqo and there was a retelling of Taming of the Shrew which sounded pretty awful by all accounts.

 

However, it turns out that the Shrew remake actually was one of the best teen comedies of the nineties (1999 again!). The four main cast are great and the whole film is so much fun and this was Anchored by the natural charm and charisma that Ledger brought to the role. You just hope that everybody would fall in love with him.

 

If LEdger had lived another 50 years, he likely would never have topped the joker performance, but even within silliness like 10 things, it was clear that he had something special as a film presence and is still severely missed.