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Travis Knight recommended Yojimbo (1961) in Movies (curated)

 
Yojimbo (1961)
Yojimbo (1961)
1961 | Action, Adventure, Classics
8.4 (9 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"An utter masterpiece from the great Akira Kurosawa. Curiously, a Dashiell Hammet novel provided the inspiration for this film. I love that an American pulp novel from the 1920s was the spark for a staggering work of genius from Japan over three decades later. It demonstrates how art can transcend barriers across time, space, and culture and speak to us in a meaningful way. Yojimbo was remade as Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western classic A Fistful of Dollars, which I saw and loved long before I knew the original even existed. But when I discovered Yojimbo, it was like a gift from the universe. Everything else paled in comparison. Yojimbo is part western, part gangster noir, part samurai story, all awesome. It’s so good. Plus, if Kubo’s dad looks a wee bit like Kurosawa’s resplendent muse Toshiro Mifune, that’s not necessarily a coincidence."

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The Goldfinch (2019)
The Goldfinch (2019)
2019 | Drama
I read the book so this story of loss and longing cut down inside of me. On the way to a meeting with the principal at his upper crust private school, Theo and his mother visit the Met. Unfortunately, a bomb inside the museum turns Theo's life upside down as his mother is killed and he steals a beautiful painting. This rash decision will affect the rest of his life.

The movie has a lot of pretension trying to maintain the loyalty to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. It also moves glacierly and is hard to sit through if you can't follow everything. The frame of the film is full of artistic art direction and spectular cinematography. A lot of care went into the production, but very little thought was given to "juice" the story into something that nonreaders could enjoy.
  
Fanny and Alexander (1982)
Fanny and Alexander (1982)
1982 | Drama, International

"The television cut of Fanny and Alexander, of course, which is the one and only version Bergman approved of. It is called the television version because that’s how it was financed, but this is meant to be seen on a big screen with one intermission. It is Bergman’s final masterpiece. Well, not exactly, as he kept on making great films for years afterward. But in the master plan, this is the last actual film, the closing of his main body of work—others are supposed to be footnotes (they’re not). Initially, this film was overlooked because, in the shortened so-called theatrical version, it lost some of the richness of its texture. It was only gradually, when it was revisited in its full version, that it imposed itself, at least on me, as the key to his whole body of work. I had to fit Topsy-Turvy into this list. It is also a period piece. This misunderstood, underrated biography of Gilbert and Sullivan must be one of the most touching, funniest—and cruelest—depictions of show business, split between art and commerce. We see both the torments of creation and the anxieties of the box office. To me, it compares only with Jean Renoir’s French Cancan."

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Olivier Assayas recommended Topsy-Turvy (1999) in Movies (curated)

 
Topsy-Turvy (1999)
Topsy-Turvy (1999)
1999 | International, Comedy, Drama
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"The television cut of Fanny and Alexander, of course, which is the one and only version Bergman approved of. It is called the television version because that’s how it was financed, but this is meant to be seen on a big screen with one intermission. It is Bergman’s final masterpiece. Well, not exactly, as he kept on making great films for years afterward. But in the master plan, this is the last actual film, the closing of his main body of work—others are supposed to be footnotes (they’re not). Initially, this film was overlooked because, in the shortened so-called theatrical version, it lost some of the richness of its texture. It was only gradually, when it was revisited in its full version, that it imposed itself, at least on me, as the key to his whole body of work. I had to fit Topsy-Turvy into this list. It is also a period piece. This misunderstood, underrated biography of Gilbert and Sullivan must be one of the most touching, funniest—and cruelest—depictions of show business, split between art and commerce. We see both the torments of creation and the anxieties of the box office. To me, it compares only with Jean Renoir’s French Cancan."

Source