I jsut signed up for Netflix. Any recommendations?

[krispos42]

There are a bunch of 'classic' movies that are referenced ad nauseum in popular culture that I've never seen but are suppose to be these super-important parts of our culture. Like Casablanca, for example. Or North By Northwest.

Can the Lounge bring up some more that I'm suppose to have seen by now, as a red-blooded Ahmurrkin?

[MrCoffee]

1. The Castle

it's Australian, but you should still see it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118826/

[krispos42]

6. I put it in the queue

Thanks

[MrCoffee]

8. let me know what you think

it's my standard response to "what's a good movie?", so i'd be interested to see if you agree.

[ghostsofgiants]

2. What kind of stuff are you into?

[krispos42]

4. well, typical guy non-sports stuff, i guess

Action, mystery, sci-fi. Part of what I'm doing is to get movies for my kid to watch when he's with me. But I also seemed to have missed cultural classics like Hitchcock movies. Or "The Maltese Falcon".

[ghostsofgiants]

7. Hmm...

My tastes tend to lean more towards the cultural/artsy/indie/foreign stuff. If you're interested in those, I can definitely give you a list.

[krispos42]

9. Alas, not my area of interest, usually

Of course, I'm still new to this. I haven't had a video-store account for years, and when I did I rarely used it.

But I wanted to get some kid stuff and catch up on the classics, so... Netflix!

My problem is that usually I'm on the DU while watching TV or listening to Air America Minnesota, so I sort of multitask in my every day life. I'll have to buy some microwave popcorn and actually watch these movies now! :-)

[sarge43]

22. The Maltese Falcon, the film noir

Some more classic noirs

Scarlett Street, Murder My Sweet, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), The Woman in the Window and a couple of great neo-noirs, Chinatown and Body Heat. Chinatown is a must see classic; it can hold its own with Falcon and Indemnity. Netflix has all of them.

[IndianaJones]

3. Long Distance. nt.

[krispos42]

5. Ooo, that looks good. My friend like suspense stuff like this

Thanks!

:hi:

[China_cat]

11. The description of that sounds an awful lot like

Dial M for Murder

[CBHagman]

10. Before I start listing, a question.

Do you have also have Turner Classic Movies? They air a lot of the top classics of the '30s and '40s. Public broadcasting does the same, at least in my area, though they only run a title or two each week.

That said, consider the following classics.

To Have and Have Not
The Big Sleep
Casablanca
Arsenic and Old Lace
It's a Wonderful Life
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
You Can't Take It with You
The 39 Steps
Foreign Correspondent
To Catch a Thief
12 Angry Men
High Noon
Stagecoach (the 1939 version; accept no subtitutes!)
Bringing Up Baby
The Philadelphia Story
To Kill a Mockingbird

Some of the above are more kid-friendly than others. You know best what works.

From a later era and well worth catching.

Matewan
Henry V (1989)
The Front
Hannah and Her Sisters
Breaker Morant
Lantana
A Mighty Wind
Cradle Will Rock

Again, not all of those are kid-friendly, and they're not necessarily American.

[krispos42]

12. Ah, yest! Some of those!

I could not think of them when i wanted to!

I'll have to bookmark this thread!

[CBHagman]

13. After some thought, here are additional ideas.

I think you have myriad options, particularly if you are picking out movies for you and your child, and both of you feel you have missed out on some big titles. You have numerous strategies:

1. Work your way through a director's credits (for example, Billy Wilder, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges)
2. Pick a star (Jimmy Stewart, Buster Keaton)
3. Go with a genre (horror, screwball comedies, World War II dramas, westerns, adventure)
4. Or some combination of the above.
5. Or none of the above.

You could have Sword and Sandal Epic Night, or Marx Brothers Night, or Shakespeare night. You get the idea.

I'd be interested to know how your child responds, because filmmaking has changed a lot in the past few years. It's possible for a '30s or '40s film to be both politically incorrect (e.g., racial stereotypes) and sanitized (no graphic violence, no gross-out humor). Also, things were rather low-tech back in the day, though obviously that doesn't have to affect your enjoyment of a film, especially something like The Wizard of Oz.

Also, "classic" doesn't mean "non-scary." I think Night of the Hunter or To Kill a Mockingbird still has power to unsettle a viewer.

Anyway, here are some more ideas. Some are in color, some in black and white.

Night of the Hunter
The Ox-Bow Incident
The Adventures of Robin Hood


World War II dramas:

Mrs. Miniver
The Best Years of Our Lives
Mr. Roberts
Since You Went Away

Comedies:

I Married a Witch
My Man Godfrey
Some Like It Hot
The Man Who Came to Dinner
The General
Duck Soup
Night at the Opera
Horsefeathers

Musicals:

On the Town
The Wizard of Oz
Singin' in the Rain
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Gigi
The Music Man
Meet Me in St. Louis
Yankee Doodle Dandy

And I'm just getting started...

[PeaceNikki]

19. argh... wrong spot AGAIN!!

[madeline_con]

24. CBHagman is right about the way film making has chnged

but those old flicks have the best story lines, and some awesome dialogue!

[PeaceNikki]

18. oops, wrong spot

[redqueen]

14. Naked!

Loved that movie. Warning: it's depressing.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

15. start with the two you mentioned

North by Northwest holds up briliantly and stil seems fresh. the auction scene is hilarious.
then check out buster keaton's stuff and carol reid's 'the third man' - off the top of my head

[CBHagman]

23. Oh, The Third Man!

That is definitely a must-see, and so quotable!

And while we're talking about director Carol Reed, I should mention another of his films, Odd Man Out, a work of suspense that will have you digging your fingernails into the couch.

And don't forget:

Citizen Kane
Lost Horizon
A Man for All Seasons
The Lion in Winter
Lawrence of Arabia

Various Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn pairings (though she was great with many actors, including Cary Grant):

Pat and Mike
Adam's Rib
Woman of the Year
State of the Union
Without Love
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

[kath]

16. Here's a good place to start:

The AFI's "100 years 100 movies" lists - the original (1998) and the 10th anniversary edition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years..._100_Movies_%2810th_Anniversary_Edition%29

[kath]

21. You might also want to check out "The Great Movies" and "The Great Movies II", by Roger Ebert

these books include fairly lengthy reviews of each film -- each review was originally a newspaper column

Here's something he wrote when he started doing that column:

Movie history did not begin in 1967, but my career as a movie critic did.

Since then I've reviewed most of the new movies as they've opened, but there is almost never time to go back and write about the great movies of the past. Three or four times a year, when a classic movie is re-released in a restored version, I'll write something about it (recently I've revisited ``Belle de Jour,'' ``Taxi Driver,'' and ``The Umbrellas of Cherbourg''). But in general I press forward into the future.

Now I want to change that--to a small degree, anyway. Readers often helpfully suggest, ``Why don't you go back and review all the great movies of the past?'' I sigh and explain that there are about 250 new releases every year for me to review, that time is at a premium, that man doth not live by looking at movies alone, etc. But they have a point.

I've begun a new bi-weekly feature called ``The Great Movies,'' in which I review a classic from years past.

All of the movies included are available on home video and many play frequently on the cable movie channels; if you want to make a survey of the greatest films ever made, this would be a good way to start.

Somehow it seemed inevitable that my first Great Movie would be ``Casablanca.'' Why ``Casablanca?'' I am convinced that in a free-association test, if a psychologist shouted out ``name a movie!'' more people would name ``Casablanca'' than any other title. It is *the* movie, I wrote on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Within its frames are so many of the many different and sometimes conflicting reasons why the movies are so special to us; ``Casablanca'' is popular art, and it is Art, as well.

How will I choose the Great Movies? I've made a few flexible rules for myself. Although I have indeed written about ``Casablanca'' previously, in future weeks I will look for new territory. I will tend to select films I have never written about before. Wonderful possibilities come to mind: Welles' ``Magnificent Ambersons,'' Tati's ``Mr. Hulot's Holiday,'' Hitchcock's ``Vertigo,'' Fellini's ``8 1/2,'' Ozu's ``Floating Weeds,'' Keaton's ``The General.'' If I revisit a classic I've written about previously (for I must include titles like ``Citizen Kane,'' ``The Third Man,'' ``La Dolce Vita,'' ``Psycho,'' ``The Godfather,'' ``Apocalypse Now,'' ``Raging Bull'' and ``E.T.''), I will make a fresh start, a new evaluation, and not recycle my words from the past.

In selecting the titles, I will try to find a balance between titles most people have heard of (``2001: A Space Odyssey'') and those few readers may be familiar with (Satyajit Ray's ``The Music Room''). One of the gifts one movie lover can give another is the title of a wonderful film they have not yet discovered. In university, I had a Shakespeare professor who was the world's leading expert in ``Romeo and Juliet,'' and who used to say he would give anything for the ability to read the play again for the first time.

When I meet someone who has never seen ``The Third Man'' or ``Singin' in the Rain,'' I envy them the experience they are about to have.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=greatmovies_intro
(site also includes lists of the movies)

Pauline Kael also wrote some very good books on movies.

Your local library probably has Ebert's or Kael's books, or can get them via Interlibrary Loan.


Personal favorites of mine, just off the top of my head:
The African Queen
North by Northwest, Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window or just about anything by Hitchcock
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Graduate
Little Big Man

All of these are pretty kid-friendly, except The Graduate, and depending on the age of the kid.

Hubby and I have found the following two books helpful in finding movies to watch with our kids (they're older now, so can watch almost anything, but these were great references when they were younger and we wanted to introduce them to some great classics):
The Parents Guide to the Best Family Videos, byPatricia S. McCormick and Steve Cohen

The Family Video Guide: Over 300 movies to Share With Your Children, by Terry & Catherine Catchpole


Have Fun!

[lost-in-nj]

17. Hook for the kids

and Rebecca
and Waterloo Bridge for some classics

Also for the kids
The Secret Garden.....
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108071/

You would like it to....

not sure if it's been mentioned but
Jane Eyre
with Orson Wells is awesome

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036969/

have fun choosing!!!!


lost

[PeaceNikki]

20. Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore - co-written and co-produced by one of DU's own

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1431042

:thumbsup: