Paul's Favourites
The 7th Arts's highest level of achievement can be judged alongside great literature, great music, and great painting, with many filmmakers creating enduring masterpieces.
The list of film titles below may not all be enduring masterpieces, but I have however, fond lingering memories of all of them. They all fit the criteria of what I feel films can or should do, to not only be well crafted, but also to entertain, inform, enlighten and more often than not, take the viewer down roads less travelled...
Can only hope you also will discover or rediscover some viewing pleasures among my all-time favourites' listed below.
Kandahar (2001)
6.8/10
Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Starring: Nelofer Pazira, Hassan Tantai, Sadou Teymouri, Hoyatala Hakimi
Nafas, a young Afghan journalist now living in Canada recieves a desperate letter from her sister in Afghanistan who intends to kill herself at the ne... Read more
King Kong (1933)
7.9/10
Director: Ernest B Schoedsack, Merian C Cooper
Starring: Robert Armstrong, Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot
He is billed as "the eighth wonder of the world" and, in the sixty years since the movie's release, animator Willis O'Brien's awesome creature has all... Read more
Kingpin (1996)
6.9/10
Director: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Vanessa Angel, Bill Murray
A hilariously tasteless comedy about a hook-handed ex-bowling ace turned travelling salesman (Woody Harrelson) who joins forces with Amish lane maestr... Read more
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
8.3/10
Director: Godfrey Reggio
The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance", an apt summation of this mesmerizing collection of wonders both natural and man-made. S... Read more
La Strada ( The Road ) (1954)
8.1/10
Director: Federico Fellini
Starring: Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart
AKA 'The Road'. Fellini's Oscar-winning study of a brutish carnival strongman (Anthony Quinn) who uses a simple minded girl (Giulietta Masina) to serv... Read more
Local Hero (1983)
7.5/10
Director: Bill Forsyth
Starring: Peter Riegert, Burt Lancaster, Fulton MacKay
The delicate ecological balance of a small unspoiled Scottish village is threatened by the plans of a wealthy oilman. 'Local Hero' is a tender, very f... Read more
Man Of Flowers (1982)
7.2/10
Director: Paul Cox
Starring: Alyson Best, Chris Haywood, Norman Kaye, Werner Herzog
A haunting, sexually frank serio-comedy about a repressed man (Norman Kaye) whose obsessions include art, classical music and a young woman he hires t... Read more
Men With Guns (1998)
7.6/10
Director: John Sayles
Starring: Federico Luppi, Damian Alcazar, Tania Cruz
From writer/director John Sayles comes this sobering and politically awakening film about a recently widowed doctor who returns to an unnamed Latin Am... Read more
Mulholland Drive (2001)
8/10
Director: David Lynch
Starring: Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Ann Miller, Laura Harring, Robert Forster, Dan Heda...
David Lynch pulls out all the stops, upends all expectations, and, well, goes all Lynchian in this maniacal, mind-bending mix of Hollywood satire, fil... Read more
Natural Born Killers (1994)
7.3/10
Director: Oliver Stone
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore
Dubbed 'A Clockwork Orange' of the 90s, this all-out audio-visual experience is something that comes along all too rarely. Oliver Stone has, with the... Read more