Quoting GSyren:

Quote:
My friends are generally more surprised at what I have seen, rather than what I haven't. I rectified one glaring oversight recently when my girlfriend realized that I hadn't seen Fried Green Tomatoes, so she made me buy it...

Personally I am more ashamed of the number of Bergman films that I haven't seen. You'd think that being a Swede I would prefer Bergman to Kurosawa, Fellini et al, but no. I have seen a few Bergman films, like The Seventh Seal and The Silence. I have Fanny & Alexander in my unwatched pile... 

I'm a guy and I actually enjoyed Fried Green Tomatoes. Been meaning to add it to my collection.

Quoting JonM:

Quote:

I owned Dogville for ages, thinking exactly like that. Eventually I attempted it and hated it. I'm sure it is very very clever, but I don't watch films just because they are clever. I found it absolutely impossible to be involved in any way and ended up watching it in fast forward!

Do you know anything about it? I bought it based on the story, with only a vague notion of the format and it's the latter that will dictate whether you find it watchable or not. You can hope for twists to rescue a story you might not be enjoying.

I seriously suggest you pop the disc in and pick a random chapter. If you think "hmm this looks interesting", fine, try it properly. But if you think "what the hell is this crap?", the entire film is like that!

I picked it up one night at the video store I used to work at, because all the new stuff I wanted to see was rented out, and I wanted to try something different for a change. Plus, my girlfriend had been nagging me about wanting to watch that one for weeks.

IMO, it's a pretty simple story (runaway finds her way to a secluded city, finds shelter and discovers the dark side of human nature in her hosts (at first) / captors (later on), and gets her revenge in the end.

There's dozens of campy B- and C-movies out there with similar plots, so the story is not what makes this one stand out.

It's the style of the movie that pulls you in (or completely pushes you away, that is), as von Trier set it up like a stage play with minimalistic decoration, akin to the early rehearsal stages of a theatrical show. Houses are just chalklines on the floor, it's all very basic, like the guys from the decoration department went on strike and didn't build the stage yet.

But since this setup doesn't take up any of the attention of the viewer at all, you can concentrate on the actual acting far better than usual and are destined to discover some of the most intense acting done by Nicole Kidman and Paul Bettany. James Caan is great as well, but for the most part I was impressed by the - at least to me - unknown actors playing the townsfolk.

It's definitely different, and in a major way, and it's not mainstream aimed (so if your prime interest is mainstream popcorn cinema, stay away from this one, as it will be a waste of time to you purely for stylish reasons that can't be ignored). But it's a very intriguing way of doing a movie, successfully building a solid bridge between stage theater and cinema, with an exceptional cast and an interesting enough story to keep you interested.

Sorry for adding this OT piece, but opening a new thread would have been a bit too much IMO.

On topic:

I haven't watched Citizen Cane yet (plan to do so though), and I am sure there are a lot of other "classics" I have missed so far, as my interest in movies doesn't go back much farther than the late '60s.