19
votes
What's a movie that has entranced you?
Whether by dialogue or cinematography, you've likely seen at least one movie that left you unable to turn away. Tell me about it.
Whether by dialogue or cinematography, you've likely seen at least one movie that left you unable to turn away. Tell me about it.
Fritz Lange's "Metropolis." It's a feature-length silent science fiction movie, and it is amazing. I went in thinking I'd watch a cool movie and be bugged by the subtitles, but it's such a great movie that I became completely immersed in it.
I remember getting a VHS rental of the Moroder version from the back corner of a video king scifi section. Best surprise in the store.
That looks so weird. I watched the version Netflix has with the original score.
I love this movie. They did so much with so little, and the effects they used still look pretty great today.
I would also recommend reading the novella that it is based on; it fills in more details and gives you a lot more detail on the themes and motivations.
I've got a few I remember as truely entralling:
The Matrix. Utterly enthhralling at the time. Sequels were fun but not the same at all.
Supertroopers. Was one of the only times I laughed damn near an entire film. Helped that I was with a group of equally immature teenagers.
Memento. Not sure I'd ever watch it again, but had me hooked.
Mad Max: Fury Road. Damn near a perfect movie IMO.
For a looser definition, films I will watch basically indefinitely:
Repo's sort of an oddball compared to the rest of these boy movies, no? The love affair that several of my friends had with it sort of bewildered me, tho I am not disputing that it is very stylish. Did you get caught up in the phenomenon when it was released, I suppose?
Kind a mix:
Also feels in the same family as:
I'd argue Fury Road is less bro-y as well, but yea enthralling movies are a bit of 'reflection of self' and few enthrall me anymore...CGI took a lot of wonder out of the spectecal, and few movies manage to keep me 100% engrossed the whole time.
One that got cut from the list was Cutthroat Island. It's prime for a good remake. The one-liners and a lot of the fights were terrible, but otherwise it was a fantastic feminist film. We need more like it.
I love Hedwig! And I see the connection to Repo. I may have been turned off mostly because of the gruesomeness, which has always been difficult for me. The rest of your list are all movies I do enjoy, Groundhog Day especially is an anytime-watch -- and I agree that Fury Road does have a much less masculine energy. My favorite Mel Brooks is History of the World Pt. 1, probably.
Primer, low-budget time travel movie. The smartest time travel concept I have ever seen or read. The ending gets weird and complicated, fast, and I've never 100% understood what happened, and I keep going back, rewatching it, literally taking notes, on paper, trying to piece it together.
Cloud Atlas is similar, in that sense of "I missed something and I know it was good", keeps bringing me back.
have you seen the timelines? This one is decent, but I'm still not certain it's perfect.
Primer is amazing. It's a shame Carruth doesn't get more made. Upstream Color was unbelievable, and A Topiary sounds amazing from the screenplay.
I am aware of the existence of such timelines and explanatory sites; I am not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the ending.
So far, however, I have avoided the various Primer primers (heh-heh ... I kill me), still hoping to someday piece it together myself.
One day you'll be primed for Primer primers. I would say that the Primer primer I linked to is the prime Primer primer. :)
Primer is amazing. I have a buddy who has watched it close to fifty times or so. He's fairly confident that he knows the timeline, but isn't ready to make a chronological cut.
If you're into director's commentaries, Carruth did a good one for Primer that is easy to either mux or sync up.
The scope and imagery of Lawrence of Arabia captured me like none other. I was fortunate enough to have seen it in 70mm on the big screen and it was truly an amazing experience. The 4 hours just flew by.
Where did you get to see that? I've love to get the full experience.
I saw it at The Music Box Theatre in Chicago. They have a 70mm festival every year with tons of great movies, and every few years Lawrence of Arabia is in the rotation. I imagine other cities have similar festivals as well so you should look one up in your town or nearby.
Post pandemic that sounds like a good idea. I visit LA enough that I should time a trip with one of those festivals.
For me it was definitively Christopher Nolan's The Prestige, a movie about the tragic rivalry of two stage magicians. It makes brilliant use of foreshadowing and sleight of hand -- much like a magic trick itself.
A very compelling, human film with characters you'll care deeply about. Features Brie Larson before she got big (and she does a phenomenal job).
Draws you in and doesn't let you go. The kind of movie that's better the less you know going in, so don't read too much about it.
I second Coherence. Is one of those movies that leaves you thinking and wanting to watch it again and for the good reasons.
For me the immediate answer is Woman in the Dunes. Everything about the movie is drawn out, with tensions building slowly and persistently. The way the film captures the anxiety of the protagonist through sweat and heat keeps me transfixed every time I watch it.
OMFG, I thought I was the only person on the planet who'd fallen in love with Woman in the Dunes. I genuinely wish that the YouTube series, "Every Frame a Painting" would do an analysis of this film because each scene is utterly mesmerizing. The quality of light, the visceral tension of the very few spoken words, the palpable heat (both literal and sexual)... it's an incredible experience for the patient watcher.
The cinematography of Ran. I could not stop watching it.
I liked realizing while watching that he framed everything to feel like you're watching a play rather than a movie.
I've been on a bit of a Kurosawa kick lately, and it feels like every movie of his I've seen has a very entrancing quality, even beyond the cinematography... I don't know if it's his pacing or what, but you don't realize you've been sitting there for two and a half hours until the credits start rolling. In particular, Ran, Rashomon, and The Bad Sleep Well stood out to me.
I watched Ran for the first time recently, and I agree the cinematography was spectacular. I also noticed a ton of similarities to Sekiro by FromSoftware, which made it even more enjoyable for me.
The Accountant - It's an average movie that I just love to watch for some odd reason.
Article 15 | It has 1 shot in particular that is super haunting with a sort of living painting feeling. I am not going to spoil the movie, but I highly recommend watching the film.
Possession (1981) | Possession is the only movie that I finished with a slack jaw, I was literally just staring in shock from a movie that was probably made by an alien.
Housefull 4 | Best, worst movie of all time. I am genuinely not exaggerating when I say I laughed for 2 hours straight AFTER finishing the movie. I have never come close to enjoying a movie more.
As someone who grew up sheltered, I can imagine the shock and horror on their face was priceless. But at least you got to watch a memorable movie.
Synecdoche New York
Last year I caught this danish scifi movie Aniara, I found out about the movie and watched it immediately, couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I don't want to spoil anything but the premise is a luxury liner spaceship gets knocked off course with no hope of rescue and the people have to face living the rest of their lives trapped onboard. It is a very bleak but I thought deeply human film, highly recommend.
Take Shelter - I have a relative who was diagnosed with schizophrenia who has lived all over (mostly rural) Ohio. As I was watching it, I felt very connected to the premise and the setting. I thought the film did an excellent job of representing schizophrenia allegorically, the other-worldliness of some of the hallucinatory scenes were grounded in things that felt very familiar to me (weirdly undulating migratory swarms of birds, the fear and tension of pending extreme weather events). I hated the ending. I hated it so much that, several years after watching it, I was reminded of how much I hated it. This compelled me to read other people's opinions/reviews and I eventually encountered an interpretation that sort of turned me around on it. I still think the last 5-10 minutes could have been cut entirely, whatever message it conveyed was already beautifully done in the climax before that one.
Avatar, when I first saw it in 3D at the theater. It's not a particularly good movie, so I don't expect it holds up outside of that context, but at that time the visuals were definitely an enthralling experience.
Kingsman: The Secret Service: a film inspired by classic spy movies, but presented as almost a parody. The action scenes are sublime, and the plot is very good IMO as well. (Apart from the ending scene, which was pretty universally disliked.)