Okay man...lose the tie

lol

Tim Curry is amazing - I liked him in Legend too. Though the emphasis was more on sprites and goblins.

Neil LaBute's films especially, In the Company of Men. The ending kills me everytime.

Watch It - a film with Peter Gallagher.

Some Like It Hot - Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis have great chemistry.

Swingers - I saw this film at the Los Feliz 3 in Los Angeles and have spent many a friday night listening to Marty & Elaine while drinking a Blood & Sand.

Diner - I recently saw this film and loved it - especially the scene where he's talking about his record collection with his buddy. I can definately relate to this.

Clerks - Kevin Smith's best film, in my opinion. I love eavesdropping on funny discussions.

www.amazon.com/Tom-Finlan.../ref=sr_1_1 - Tom of Finland

i've seen both films though it's difficult for me to put Bais Moi in the category as Triumph of the Will.

Triumph of the Will is a documentary? hmmmm, are you sure about that?

Leni Riefenstahl is a unique figure in the history of cinema and arguably the most hated. She was a young woman when she directed, wrote & edited Triumph of the Will, single handedly creating the most, influential, important, and greatest propaganda film in history. I have yet to see it's equal. calling this film a documentary is selling this masterwork short and ignoring all of the subsequent propaganda films (remember Frank Capra?) which borrowed footage from this film.

this film will continue to be studied by directors, ad/marketing agencies, artists, news programmers & anyone interested in selling a vision or idea - Bais Moi will not be considered.

but don't take my word for it. here's what the experts have to say:

this excerpt from wikipedia features a quote from Frank Capra:

The reception in other countries was not as enthusiastic. British documentarian Paul Rotha called it tedious, while others were repelled by its pro-Nazi sentiments.[3] During World War II, Frank Capra made a direct response called Why We Fight, a series of newsreels commissioned by the United States government that spliced in footage from Triumph of the Will, but recontextualized it so that it promoted the cause of the Allies instead. Capra later remarked that Triumph, "fired no gun, dropped no bombs. But as a psychological weapon aimed at destroying the will to resist, it was just as lethal."[11] Clips from Triumph were also used in an Allied propaganda short called General Adolph Takes Over, set to the British dance tune "The Lambeth Walk." The legions of marching soldiers, as well as Hitler giving his Nazi salute, were made to look like wind-up dolls, dancing to the music. Also during World War II, the poet Dylan Thomas wrote the screenplay and narrated "These Are The Men", a propaganda piece using "Triumph" footage to discredit Nazi leadership.

Like American filmmaker D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, Triumph of the Will has been criticized as a use of spectacular filmmaking to promote a system that is widely seen as both evil and profoundly reprehensible. In Germany, this movie is classified as National Socialist propaganda and its showing is restricted under post-war denazification laws, but it may be shown in an educational context.

Susan Sontag considered Triumph of the Will the "most successful, most purely propagandistic film ever made, whose very conception negates the possibility of the filmmaker's having an aesthetic or visual conception independent of propaganda" ( "Fascinating Fascism" in B. Nichols (ed.) Movies & Methods, 1976). Sontag points to Riefenstahl's involvement in the planning and design of the Nuremberg ceremonies as evidence that Riefenstahl was working, not as an artist in any sense of the word, but as propagandist. With some 30 cameras and a crew of 150, the marches, parades, speeches and processions were orchestrated like a movie set for Riefenstahl's film. Nor was this the first political film made by Riefenstahl for the Third Reich (there was Victory of Faith, 1933, and Day of Freedom, shot in 1933 released in 1935). Nor was it the last (Olympiad, 1938). "Anyone who defends Riefenstahl's films as documentary", Sontag states, "if documentary is to be distinguished from propaganda, is being ingenuous. In Triumph of Will, the document (the image) is no longer simply the record of reality; 'reality' has been constructed to serve the image" (1976:36).

{an interesting counterpoint}

Brian Winston's essay on the film in The Movies as History: Visions of the Twentieth Century, an anthology edited by David Ellwood (published by the International Association for Media and History), is largely a critique of Sontag's analysis, which he finds faulty. His ultimate point is that any filmmaker could have made the film look impressive because the Nazi's mise en scène was impressive, particularly when they were offering it for camera re-stagings. In form, the film alternates repetitively between marches and speeches. Winston asks the viewers to consider if such a film should be seen as anything more than a pedestrian effort. Like Rotha, he finds the film tedious, and believes anyone who takes the time to analyze its structure will quickly agree.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triu...f_the_Will



{excerpts taken from a the film blog, Shadowplay}

(I love the stories about various filmmakers sitting down to a screening of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL to see what America’s propaganda response should be. René Clair was horrified: “This must never be shown!” Frank Capra wrote later was that his initial reaction was that immediate surrender was the only sane response in the face of such mass unity of will. Only Chaplin sat laughing until the tears ran down his face. He’d had an idea for a film. Later, Capra claims to have conceived the idea of turning this weapon back on the Nazis, using it show the horror of mass conformity, threat of fascism and the need to resist. Luis Bunuel seems to have had the job of cutting Riefenstahl’s epic down to size so that it could be deployed in this way.)

dcairns.wordpress.com/2008/02...-unseen/



Why We Fight 1943 directed by Frank Capra
www.youtube.com/watch



Brand New Day - John McCain's ad (note, the name, rank & serial number for added effect):
www.businessweek.com/the_thr...d_r.html



Obama's video (excerpt taken from BusinessWeek)

This viral video is, after all, just a video, produced by some very talented and artistic people. Call it propaganda if you like. But what it also shows is that Obama is gaining ground because he is playing a different game. McCain, Romney, Clinton, Thompson, Edwards, Giuliani were all told that they were going to be playing a game of smash-mouth football. Obama heard “football,” and came to play in his soccer togs. He is running around the field, capturing attention and attracting fans to his game. He is, in short, playing a different game.

www.businessweek.com/the_thr...bes.html

David Gordon Greene!!!

oh yeah, George Washington & Undertow

- excellent choices

and in the back there's a picture of your old friend Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank?

Midnight Express was great. That was a hot scene. They almost did it. That guy ( Brad Davis ) was hotter than James Dean and Brat Pitt before B.P. was Brad Pitt.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0077928/

I wonder why no one has mentioned Saving Private Ryan..

I also really liked "The Sum of Us" - and Aussie film ... maybe you have not seen it ?

www.imdb.com/title/tt0111309/