Top 50 Foreign Films

The top 50 foreign language movies that I have seen, which were released after 1985, are these:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Cidade de Deus - City of God (2002). Portuguese
2. Das Leben der Anderen - The lives of others (2006). German
3. El Secreto de sus ojos - The secret of their eyes (2009). Spanish
4. La vita è bella - Life is beautiful (1997). Italian
5. Amores Perros - Love's a bitch (2000). Spanish
6. Krótki film o milosci - A short film about love (1988). Portuguese
7. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain - Amelie (2001). French
8. Okurubito - Departures (2008). Japanese
9. Un Prophete - A prophet (2009). Arabic
10. La haine - The Hate (1995). French.
    
11. Oldboy - Old Boy (2003). Korean
12. Festen - The Celebration (1998). Danish
13. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi - Spirited away (2001). Japanese
14. Låt den rätte komma in - Let the right one in (2008). Swedish.
15. Le scaphandre et le papillon - Driving bell and the butterfly (2007). French
    
16. Mar Adentro - The Sea Inside (2004). Spanish
17. Nicija zemlja - No Man's land (2001). Bosnian
18. Bacheha-Ye aseman. Children of heaven (1997). Persian
19. Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom - Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003). Korean
20. Chung Hing sam lam - Chungking Express (1994). Cantonese
21. Lola rennt - Run Lola Run (1998). German
22. Wo hu cang long - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Mandarin
23. Madeo - Mother (2009). Korean
24. Diarios de motocicleta - The Motorcycle Diaries (2004). Spanish
25. Batoru rowaiaru - Battle Royale (2000). Japanese
26. Lilja 4-ever - Lilya 4-ever (2002). Swedish
27. 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile - 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days (2007). Romanian
28. Tôkyô sonata - Tokyo Sonata (2008). Japanese
29. Entre les murs - The Class (2008). French
30. Volver - To Return (2006). Spanish
31. Kolja - Kolya (1996). Czech
32. Linda Linda Linda (2005). Japanese
33. Shi mian mai fu - The house of the flying daggers (2004). Mandarin
34. Die Fälscher - The Counterfeiters (2007). German
35. El paraíso ahora - Paradise Now (2005). Arabic
36. Revanche (2008). German/Russian
37. Mies vailla menneisyyttä - The man without a past (2002). Finnish
38. Tenten - Adrift in Tokyo (2007). Japanese
39. La Misa Luna - Under the Same Moon (2007). Spanish
40. 13 Tzameti (2005). French
41. Malena (2000). Italian/Sicilian
42. Irréversible (2002). French/Spanish
43. Ao no hono-o - The blue light (2003). Japanese
44. Maison do himiko - La maison de Himiko (2005). Japanese
45. Yeopgijeogin geunyeo - My sassy girl (2001). Korean
    
46. Mogari no mori - The Mourning Forest (2007). Japanese
47. Chi to hone - Blood and bones (2004). Japanese
48. Scrap Heaven (2005). Japanese
49. Bakwji - Thirst (2009). Korean
50. Gwoemul - The host (2001). Korean
    

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PS: The list is populated only with the movies whose names I could remember. And of those only those worth getting listed.
PPS: At least one component of the genre of most movies here is 'Drama'.
PPPS: Since rating every movie individually seemed a huge exercise, the list is arranged such that the real good movies are on top.

Trainspotting

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

The lines above are the reason this post came into existence. (But in that post.. there was nothing sarcastic.. only the idea of itemization of everyday things was borrowed)

By the way, I never knew there was a second half to the above thing.

So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers, all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person, but that's going to change, I'm going to change. This is the last of this sort of thing. I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm going to be just like you: the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisurewear, luggage, three-piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing the gutters, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die.

If this was there in the original movie, I don't remember it at all.
Just one of those things that are really huge to tweet.
Random post. Real heavy lines though.
Hail John Hodge.

Gmail: Set status here [Part 2]

After having seriously considered putting up a blank post tagged Life is still like that, for about 10 minutes, I thought since all the gchat status message space is being occupied these days... I would just put up random lines here that probably might have been put up there:

These follow no particular order. They make no particular sense too.

• Been to Hyderabad. Attended cousin sister's wedding. Came back. That's about all that happened.

• Read the Watchmen comics. The only non-manga comics till now. Liked them better than the movie. The movie wasn't that bad to be fair too.
  

• Read Ender's Game. Best science fiction I have read till now. Though the only others I remember reading are Asimov's 'A Child of Time' and Arthur Clarke's '3001, The Final Odyssey'. I do remember reading a book about sci-fi short stories, but its too far into the past and all too vague.
  

• Saw Harry Potter -and the Half Blood Prince in Inox, Forum. Liked Ron and Luna's acting. Liked the scene with the fire and Inferi in the end. The rest of the movie was trash. Re-reading the book to get over it.

• One Piece and Bleach manga are reaching amazing heights these days. And if you in any way like anime or manga, I would really recommend that you start on these. Naruto Shippuden is not too bad too. But the first two over shadow this.

• Been watching a lot of Joe Odagiri's movies. Yet to see one movie of his which was not downright brilliant. Saw Dream last. New respect for the dude.

• Watched the second season of Black Lagoon. Hate that they stopped at that. It was really good.
  

• Watched Trigun. Liked it better than Gun vs Sword, which is of the same genre.

• Started watching Samurai Deeper Kyo. Seems better than Buso Renkin. But still don't feel it measures in any way up to most other anime series that I have seen

• Read A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follet. The last paper back I read. Again, since I mostly used to read bits of it on the bus, and it was not all in one sitting, it didn't feel all that great.

• Have a Wilbur Smith(Wild Justice) and a Arthur Hailey (In High Places) now. Yet to start either. Miss reading books in one sitting.

• Saw the trailer for Dexter 4. Hate that no decent serials restart in the near future.

• Listening to Tool after a long time. Sounds good.

• And from 11:10 pm to 11:17 pm these are the only things that came into the mind.

• Life goes on.

• Sigh!

PS: Gmail: Set Status Here was posted April 16th,2008. Thus the [Part 2] in the title.

For Your Consideration

[Update]:
Prologue:
For Your Consideration is a heading frequently used in advertisements in entertainment trade publications such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. They are specifically directed towards members of awards voting groups in the entertainment industry, like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that annually presents the Academy Awards celebrating the best in motion pictures, or the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences which presents the Primetime Emmy Awards for television.

I stumbled upon these ads for Heath Ledger as Best Supporting Actor, and The Dark Knight as the Best Movie. They are posted here 'coz they look amazing

Come to think of it, I would have voted for the Best Actor Award itself.

Prologue [PS]: Was too damn bored to type this out before.
Prologue [PS2]: A horde of other such ads can be found here.
Prologue [Ps3]: Heath Ledger RIP

Why So Serious?

___________________________________________________________________________________
Knock, Knock
Who's there?
Boo
Boo Who?
Don't Cry, Its Just A Joke
_________________________________________________________________________________PS: Watch the movie, if you haven't already done so. If you have. go watch it again.

Non-English Movies... i guess

I downloaded Ayreon’s album called “Human Equation” yesterday, and that’s presently playing in the background. That music pretty much restricts one from watching any other thing. That, coupled with the fact that I don’t feel like reading Wilbur Smith’s ‘A Time to Die’ at this moment, I thought I would put down some great movies, that one just doesn’t stumble across often.

All the movies below are awesome. Thought provoking. And totally different from the regular mainstream movies.

Mogari No Mori [The Mourning Forest]
The Mourning Forest is a 2007 Japanese film directed by Naomi Kawase. It was awarded the Grand prix at the Cannes film festival. It tells the story of a nurse who is grieving for her dead child. She works at a nursing home and grows close to an elderly man suffering from dementia who is searching in the local forest for something connected to his dead wife that he cannot explain. On this unexpected journey of discovery, an eloquent story unfolds against the lush and tranquil setting of Japan’s forests.

The movie is all about ‘human warmth through understanding’. The growth in relationship between the nurse and the old man is beautifully pictured.

It is also one of the slowest movies that you will ever watch.

Jisatsu Sakuru [Suicide Cirle]
Tagline: Well then, goodbye everybody.
Suicide Circle [Suicide Club] is a 2002 Japanese independent film, written and directed by Sion Sono, that gained a considerable amount of notoriety in film festivals around the world for its controversial subject matter and gory presentation. It won the Jury Prize for "Most Ground-Breaking Film" at the Fantasia Film Festival. It deals with a wave of seemingly unconnected suicides that strikes Japan and the efforts of the police to determine the reasons behind the strange behavior.

Although parts of this movie, makes one squeamish, the overall effect is of wonderment and stupefaction. It makes one look at life from a different perspective.

La Haine [Hate]
Tagline: So far, so good…
La Haine is a film directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, released in 1995. It is about three teenage friends and their struggle to live life in the streets of Paris. Kassovitz won the Best Director award at the Cannes festival

This movie is supposed to be so ground-breaking that the then prime minister Alain Juppé arranged a special screening and ordered his entire cabinet to watch the film.

The most important quote of the movie is the one it begins and ends with:

"Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!"

It deals with the society’s negative view of cops in times of strife, racism, etc. The best part is, it tries to offer no solutions, just paints it raw and strong.

PS:

1. check out Ayreon if you want to know what rock-operas are all about.
2. the movie list above is not exhaustive… will be back with more later.
3. these movies can be found in mininova.org

Mar Adentro [The Sea Inside]

About the movie:

Mar Adentro is a 2004 film by the Spanish/Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar. It is based on the real-life story of Ramón Sampedro (played by Javier Bardem), a Spanish ship mechanic left quadriplegic after a diving accident who fought a 28-year campaign in support of euthanasia and his right to end his own life. [ripped from Wikipedia, the web-based solution to the question of life, the universe and everything else]

This person from Europe commented:

“This small, quiet, harmonious movie grows into a masterpiece on human dignity. It is intelligently structured, filled with meaningful little details and important side-plots. It tells a story of one man with great humanity without positioning itself politically, but fostering life as a precious right (not an obligation) and underlining individual's right to choose. It enjoys the richness of different landscapes (mental and physical) and languages (important detail). Outstanding acting by each of the actors, especially unbelievable by Javier Bardem. His screen-presence has such a force that you forget that this is fiction. The movie has a wonderful rhythm, it is beautifully shot and outstandingly directed. It takes real talent to make a movie on such a difficult theme with understanding, humor and heart. Six stars out of five.”

And that more or less is the same thing that I wanted to say anyway.

The other great thing of this movie is its soundtrack.

It is called "Negra sombra" [The Black Shadow]
[Lyrics by Rosalía de Castro, Music by Carlos Núñez, Performed by Luz Casal]

“Negra Sombra” gets a totally new dimension and depth if you listen to it after watching the movie [even though the song by itself, too, is pretty neat]. It is exactly like listening to Clint Mansell’s orchestral version of “Requiem for a Dream”, the original soundtrack of Saw and Departed, after having watched the movies.

Have a listen here, if you fancy one - "Negra Sombra":

boomp3.com

By the way, The Sea Inside won the 2004 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the 2004 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, and 14 Goya Awards including awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Lead Actor, Best Lead Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay, some other 58 wins and 30 nominations.

Regardless of the above hype, this is really worth watching. Movies like these are not made everyday.

PS: This post was mainly

• to try embedding a mp3 into a blog post.
• add ‘Movies’ to my tag list. [:-P].
  

Speaking of Movies, check out these crazy new DVD by the Japanese record label Avex. It is called Miteiru dake (Just Looking).

And the women there do just that. Stare. And thats pretty much all they do.

Stare back at them here.