Did I not post this when the “five movies” thing was going around?

[moon_custafer]

There’s been a “five movies to watch if you want to understand me” meme going around on Facebook, and sovay noted it recently on Dreamwidth. I’ve begun trying to pick five – it’s tricky to select movies that I think explain something about myself, rather than ones I simply like; and then, I think one of the things about myself that I might need to convey is a sort of fragmented way of looking at things, which might be easier to get across if I could individual scenes to the list, i.e. “Jamaica Inn, but just the bit where Sir Humphrey is weirdly polite about tying up the heroine,” “Orphee, but only the scenes with Heurtebise,” or “the Freedonia’s going to war” sequence from Duck Soup.”

 

Then there are tv shows – I was quietly, wrigglingly obsessed, for part of the early ‘nineties, with a 1976-78 low-budget Grenada tv show called the Ghosts of Motley Hall that YTV was re-running. It was the work of Richard Carpenter, better known for Robin of Sherwood, and I think part of the reason it fascinated me was that I couldn’t quite figure out who, besides myself, had been the target audience for a children’s gothic/folk-horror britcom shot on a single set (though I’ve since come to believe that sort of thing was probably quite normal for 1970s UK television). Even then, it was very specific bits that touched me – mainly the conversations between Bodkin (Arthur English) and Matt (Sean Flanagan), and perhaps the ghosts’ wry affection for Mr. Gudgin, who can’t see them.

 

So, mentioning those things, but leaving them off the official list:

 

 The Old Dark House (1932) 

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)

Subway (1985)

Ghost in the Shell 2 – Innocence (2004)

 

For the fifth movie, I’m torn between two documentaries,both from 1965, each containing footage from older works:

 /Buster Keaton Rides Again, or The Epic That Never Was.

 

 

I’m not entirely sure what this list and its notes say about me, except that I evidently like ghosts.

 

Comments

[sovay]

Subway (1985)

I've never heard of this one; what you can tell me about it?

[moon_custafer]

This is why I feel I must have posted before... anyway, Subway is early Luc Besson — an eccentric thief played by Christophe Lambert hides out in the Metro with various other oddball characters, including a roller-skating purse-snatcher and two cops nicknamed “Batman and Robin” by everyone including their exasperated captain. Meanwhile, the woman whose household safe he robbed tries to find him before her husband’s goons do. In the middle of all this, our protagonist just wants to start a band. It’s this weird combo of New New Wave and Orpheus if his position and Eurydice’s were reversed.
ETA also Jean Reno plays a laconic busker who drums in everything.