Classic Film Recs

3 Penny Opera (1931) - A sort of crime drama about a newly freed criminal called "Mack the Knife" and his marriage to crime heiress Polly Peachum. Also kind of about evil totalitarian governmental bodies, as this was a Weimar era German film (with very good sound for the era!) It's also a musical! Based on a Kurt Weil operetta of the same name, it even casts some of the stars from the operetta.

Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - Very good sort of "coming of age" film, Jim Stark is a troublemaking teen who's just moved into town. He befriends nerd Plato and popular girl Judy, the three have some insane chemistry the movie could literally just be them hanging out and I'd still recommend it. The film seems to think that being a Troubled Youth is irredemable however, and pretty much everyone ends up with the bad ending. Still a fun ride though, and James Dean is in it!

The Ten Commandments (1956) - It's just the Bible story of Exodus, but it's done really really well. It's a very large-scale film, lots of extravagant sets, SFX and extras everywhere. It's also 220 minutes, so maybe break it up across several sessions, but I would recommend watching the whole thing, it's a very well made film.

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957) - This is a very poorly made film, but in the most fun to watch way possible. People talk about The Room being the most "so bad it's good" film ever made? They're wrong, this is it. There's aliens, vampires, and sets made entirely of cardboard. Bela Lugosi cannot deliver a single line without mumbling. The editing is insane. I love this movie so much.

Vivre Sa Vie (1962) - Here's a Goddard film to watch, one of his more accesable films I guess. It's about a girl named Nana who's kind of struggling for money, and it just follows her very slow descent into prositution and eventual death. That sounds really bleak but I promise it's a really thought provoking and philosophically interesting film! It's Goddard for christ's sake!!

Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965) - This one is for my Sal Mineo freaks. Also just regular pervert freaks. This film is about a young disc jockey in NYC who keeps getting weird sexual phone calls from an unknown number. She enlists the help of a local cop to try and figure out who's calling before they find her. It's a really compelling Pervert Movie, and there's a lot of good footage of 1960s NYC through the whole thing, which is cool to see! Sal Mineo is also just incredibly gorgeous in this one, so there's that.

Daisies (1966) - A Czech film about two best friends, both named Marie, who basically run around eating, scamming men, and destroying property for the whole runtime. This film feels Dadaist to me, like it's so absurd and strange in every way, it's interesting to pick apart. Also really good outfit inspo, the Maries are serving LOOKS!

The Wicker Man (1973) - People call this a horror film, I disagree, it's a normal detective film until the last ten minutes or so. Very very compelling atmosphere, music, and characters. This one is about a cop from mainland Scotland who goes out to a remote island jurisdiction in search of a missing girl, and he finds a little more than he bargained for. There is also a remake of this with Nicholas Cage but please don't watch that one, watch this one instead it's a much better movie.

Logan's Run (1976) - A film that would've probably been a genre-defining sci-fi staple had Star Wars not come out less than a year later. It follows Logan, a cop in a sort of dystopian future where people are killed at age thirty, he must enforce these killings as the people believe they are necessary to continue their way of life. He, and a girl named Jessica, end up rebelling, leaving the safety of their city, and journeying out into the ruins of Washington DC. There, they meet an old man, and learn that people can live normal lives well after age thirty, so they return to liberate the rest of their people. And they do! This film is clearly pretty low-budget, but there's a lot of interesting concepts going on so I think that makes up for it.

I Spit On Your Grave/Day of the Woman (1978) - OK this one gets a BIG content warning for sexual assault. A young woman named Jennifer decides to take a vacation/writing retreat to a cabin in the woods of a small town. There, she is terrorized, raped, and stalked by several men. After being victimized for the first half of the movie, she decides to get revenge, and this is when the movie gets really good. She murders the men, one by one in very personal and specific ways relating to how they treated her. This is definitely a tough watch, and I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but if you think you can stomach the first half the second half is soooo worth it.

Heavy Metal (1981) - An animated anthology film based on the Heavy Metal magazine publication. It features a few segments with some sci-fi, fantasy and general 80s sleaze influence. It's a weird, ugly, horny movie, but it's also a really fun ride. If you don't feel like watching the whole thing, at least watch the Taarna segment.

Scarface (1983) - Just an objectively great film. Tony Montana, a Cuban immigrant, takes up drug trafficking in Miami. He works his way up to the top, marries Michelle Pfieffer, buys a huge mansion, all the good stuff. Then the second half of the film is his total fall from grace into paranoia and cocaine addiction. It's so good, everything about it is good, if you haven't seen it already please go watch it.

Amadeus (1984) - An all-timer for me. The film follows Antonio Salieri, famed court composer for the Emporer of Austria. Then Mozart arrives in Vienna. Mozart, being a former child prodigee with several operas and other famous compositions under his belt, is welcomed into the Vienna music scene at first. Mozart is also kind of an obnoxious asshole, and Salieri makes it his life's mission to fuck over Mozart at every possible opportunity. All the while though, Salieri cannot deny Mozart's talent, and simultaneously hates that someone so annoying could be so great, and that the masses fail to recognize Mozart's obvious genius because of how he acts. Mozart ends up dying penniless and in obscurity, and Salieri blames himself, believing he murdered Mozart. This movie rules it's just so good, acting performances are top notch.

Bound (1996) - A Wachowski film that isn't The Matrix? Yes! It's about two lesbians, one of whom happens to be married to a mobster. They decide to steal money from him and go on the run together. This plan ends in several murders, including the husband, but both girls survive and do in fact get to live happily every after! Yay lesbians!!

Velvet Goldmine (1998) - This one is just an unsanctioned/unofficial Bowie biopic, and also possibly the director's Bowie x Iggy Pop fanfic. It's also a kind of meditation on Glamrock as a whole and it's impact on the fans. It follows the general trajectory of not-Bowie's career through the 70s, and is a pretty compelling exploration of what it means to be a queer artist or a queer fan of an artist. It also just has some incredible needle drops, big moment for me is hearing Brian Eno's "Baby's On Fire" nearly in full at one point. This guy understood the assignment!

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Another all-timer for me, if you're at all a fan of things like Marble Hornets or analog horror, you have this film to thank. The film follows three college film students on a shoot in the woods, said woods are allegedly haunted. One by one all three dissapear, and the film is portrayed as footage found on a camera left in the woods. I think this film's greatest strength is its ambiguity around the Blair Witch, it's unclear if what's happenning is supernatural or just some kids getting lost in the woods and freaking out. Really good suspensful film.

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) - Yeah I unironically really enjoy this film. People online make fun of it for being completely absurd, and it is, but I think that's on purpose. The film follows Tom Green as Gord, a fuck-up guy who wants to go to Hollywood and work as an animator. There isn't a whole lot of plot, it's just sort of a series of increasingly absurd circumstances. IDK if you enjoy laughing at weird nonsense you might enjoy this.