Recommendations for Daniel

Ok recommendation incoming...

Pretty much all films by Martin McDonagh:
- In Bruges
- Seven Psychopaths
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Films by Denis Villeneuve:
- Incendies
- Enemy
- Arrival
- Prisoners
- Sicario


Otherwise films with great script (in my opinion):

- True Romance
- The Big Sleep
- Out of Sight
- Lady Bird
- Birdman
- Whiplash
- Notorious (the Hitchcock film)
- Leon
- Sunset Boulevard
- Good Will Hunting
- Almost Famous
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- O Brother where art thou
- Burn After Reading
- Amelie
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Juno
- Hell or High Water

Series wise I suggest Justified and Fringe, two of my all time favourite series. Justified has some of the best dialogues and one-liners ever.

Love Story - Erich Segal literally got me started writing.
Not My Will - Francena Arnold
Head of the House - Grace Livingston Hill
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Jubilee Trail and Calico Palace - Gwen Bristow
John D. MacDonald's Condominium, The Executioner (Cape Fear), The Brass Cupcake, and the Travis McGee series
Savage Ecstasy - Janelle Taylor and Rosemary Roger's Sweet Savage Love combined to influence my Indian MC White Wolf
Shakespeare's plays
Alexander Pope's poem Ode for Music on St. Cecilia's Day
Duchess of Malfi - John Webster
Louis L'amour's body of work
Larry McMurtry's body of work
John Jake's body of work
Stephen King's body of work
James A. Michener's body of work

Some of these are movies. Edited list down thread.

Midnight Cowboy is still movie uno for me.

Also if you want to get some sci-fi screenplay/movie to get into I recommend Predestination and Coherence (both quite good on how screenplays deal with time paradoxes)

EDIT: also Another Earth

Wow, so many of course. So without knowing your taste or what you've seen...

On The Waterfront
House of Sand and Fog
American Beauty
Unforgiven
You Can Count On Me
State Of Grace
Mystic River
Maltese Falcon
Donnie Brasco
Rachel getting Married
In The Heat Of The Night
Ordinary People
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Treasure of Sierra Madre
Dog Day Afternon

Off the top of my head I'd say Inception was interesting. The Martian.

Finally saw Casablanca. It's hard to get into, but when you do you start to appreciate how things used to be done and how things have changed, plus, themes. And it has like a dozen different lines that are still recognized in popular culture. 'Beginning of a beautiful friendship,' 'the usual suspects,' 'we'll always have Paris....'

Those movies are three different styles.

We saw the Hateful Eight before the news on Weinstein/Tarentino came out, and it's rough to watch but maybe useful to your goals. Another style, I suppose.

We re-watched Dead Poets Society and it's a good one too.

Imitation Game is excellent, also from the Weinstein Company if that matters to you.

Okay, a couple more, Daniel. And you're gonna watch all these, right?

Margot At The Weddingophie's
Carlito's Way
Raging Bull
Petrified Forest
Sophie's Choice
Annie Hall
Hud
Hombre
One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest
Addicted to Love
Family Business
Rocky (only the first one)
The Sting
Shampoo (not a great movie, but lighthearted fun)
Enjoy!

Maryn said:

(Cindyt, are those movies?)

You've got some great movies all queued up. Let me add some that are more obscure. I wish I were home, where I keep a list.

The Visitor (2007--there are multiple movies with this title. You want the one starring Richard Jenkins.)
Before Sunrise, a lesson in dialogue
The Squid and the Whale
The Crying Game, even if you know the big twist
Being John Malkovich
Memento
Blood Simple

Click to expand...

DanielSTJ said:

Yes, I've seen Midnight Cowboy! It was NUTS! In a good way!

I'm going to go through this whole list by everybody.

And, er, Cindy, those are books, not movies.

Still, I'll add those I haven't read onto my reading list.

Click to expand...

Some of them are:

Love Story
Romeo and Juliette
Lonesome Dove
North and South trilogy
Centinnial
Gone With the Wind

Movies with great scripts that mean the most to me:

Wonder Boys
Fargo
Lawn Dogs
Leon / The Professional
Dog Day Afternoon
My Own Private Idaho

There's also a David Mamet film called House of Games which has such a clever screenplay.

And if you get around to TV, Twin Peaks.

DanielSTJ said:

You'd be surprised. I possess a GREAT AMOUNT of free time. I'll utilize it!

Click to expand...

Good for you. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Laurasaurus said:

Movies with great scripts that mean the most to me:

Wonder Boys
Fargo
Lawn Dogs
Leon / The Professional
Dog Day Afternoon
My Own Private Idaho

There's also a David Mamet film called House of Games which has such a clever screenplay.

And if you get around to TV, Twin Peaks.

Click to expand...

House of Games, good call. Also, Glengarry Glen Ross by Mamet.

Second Fargo and Burn After Reading. Love My Cousin Vinnie. The Princess Bride is great (I mean it's William Goldman!) Best of all (won Oscar for best original screenplay) The Usual Suspects. Just brilliant writing and great plotting. Made me weep with jealousy. I tend to gravitate to movies when the bad guys redeem themselves in the end, so the Original Magnificent Seven.

TV series: The Americans, agree with Fringe and Justified. Also loved Lucifer and Sons of Anarchy. FX really attracts quality.

Comedy: 30 Rock. Went a bit off the rails at the end, but was hilarious.

Don't watch horror or family sagas or many sitcoms. Thought MASH was a great example of a movie that transitioned to TV very well.

Oh, and A Fish Called Wanda.

Thought the writing was stellar in all of these.

Do you like mind screws, Daniel?

Anything by the Cohen brothers.

Might be helpful. WGA members pick the best 101 prior to 2005.

http://www.wga.org/writers-room/101-best-lists/101-greatest-screenplays

I don't watch movies much anymore (can't sit still long enough) so most of mine are going to be older. I'm thinking in terms of good stories, or interesting techniques for the storytelling. No particular order.

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)--WWII vets come home only to learn nobody needs to hire a soda jerk turned bombadier.
Good Will Hunting (1990s)--I really connected to the struggles of the characters
Dogma (1990s)--irreverent but thoughtful questioning of convention
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)--understated tension building. Gripping without having to be over the top
Jaws (1977)--Scared the crap out of me as a kid
Lamb (201?)--Ethiopian growing-up flick about a kid who saves a lamb from slaughter and keeps it as a pet.
Kitchen Stories (199?)--Understated Norwegian film about the inevitability of friendship

So, so many and my mind blanks when I have to come up with lists!

Try Japanese movies too. Akira Kurosawa is a good start.