Over @ Zoom-In I've written a brief piece on DVD rental suggestions to pair up with movies you may have just seen in the theaters. In this case: There Will Be Blood (even better the second time!), Sweeney Todd and The Bucket List. But I'd love to hear other suggestions.Which rentals would you suggest for a makeshift interesting conversation with, say, Atonement, I Am Legend or Charlie Wilson's War?
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Atonement - Look for The Comfort of Strangers and see an flawed movie, but with the perfect tone to fit early McEwan. Dream with Atonement made by a team like Harold Pinter and Paul Schrader, the guys that would made a dry and demanding movie with no shades of melodrama. They would be so perfect to the movie that even the director is a high-profile writer - not the dyslexic and "I am not used do read" (!) Joe Wright.
I Am Legend - There are previous versions with marvelous Vincent Price and marvelous Charlton Heston. I havent seen them, but to see them all would be an interesting star contest.
Charlie Wilson' War - What about the best movie about politics ever made? I mean Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent... It is so tense and witty that you can't feel 2 1/2 pass and you ask for more. The screenplay is magnificent, and you have Charles Laughton is what is arguably one of his best perfomances. (I don't want to spoil anything, but you really should see it - there's a lot of interest for gay people. The mature way this movie handles an unexpected gay subplot is stunning for early 60's.
- cal roth
What an interesting topic!
I find La Fille Coupee En Deux to be a sort of companion piece to To Die For; but I'm probably the only person to think that.
Hee. You might get a kick out of this, Nathaniel! La Vie En Rose and What's Love Got To Do With It.
Perhaps even The Golden Age with the Bette Davis vehicle, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essek?
More might be forthcoming soon!
Not sure about the others, but why not pair Charlie Wilson's War with Ishtar? Yes, I know its rep, but set that aside and it's actually a pretty fun rental. But more to the point, it is- like Charlie- a big-budget comedy about Americans secretly playing a role in a war in a Muslim country. Directed, lest we forget, by Nichols' old comedy partner Elaine May.
ooh, excellent suggestion. And I've somehow never seen Ishtar so maybe now is the time
Netflix is Ishtar-less! Bastards!
The Last Man On Earth is the Vincent Price version of I Am Legend and The Omega Man is the Heston one. I haven't seen the Price version yet - damned Long Wait on my queue - but Omega is great camp fun.
Glad to hear TWBB grows with a second viewing. I'm seeing it again on Sunday and cannot wait.
The Omega Man is one of only two movies to ever give me a childhood nightmare. I saw it in the theater and not since, but clearly it's the right pairing for I Am Legend. Either that of The Stand mini-series.
For Charlie Wilson's war, you could do a Sorkinfest and rent The American President or A Few Good Men. Or you could be thematic and rent The Quiet American, which is so brilliant.
I agree with "The Omega Man" (Heston, 1971) for "I Am Legend". Another companion piece to "I Am Legend" might be another film based on a Richard Matheson book, like "Stir of Echoes" (Kevin Bacon, 1999). That was a surprisingly gripping movie.
As for "Atonement", I've read some critic compare it to "The Go-Between", 1970, directed by Joseph Losey, screenplay by Harold Pinter, starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates. The story is told from the viewpoint of a child who carries messages between secret lovers, but doesn't quite get what is happening. The movie is beautiful to look at, and Christie and Bates bring out the best in each other in the movies they did together.
P.S. The actor playing the child in old age in "The Go-Between" is Michael Redgrave, the father of the actress Vanessa Redgrave, who plays the child in old age in "Atonement". How's that for a full circle?
I want to live to see the day when Joe Wright can survive a comparision with Joseph Losey.
- cal roth
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