1000 Films To See Before You Die
The Guardian’s ‘essential list’ of films as well as a few quizzes can be found on that page. I only got 3/5 on quiz-part one (haven’t taken the others yet) and I’ve seen 382 of the thousand films listed.
How about you?
casa azahar 
Well, I’ve seen 505 of them (Would have been 507 but we haven’t yet watched Pan’s Labyrinth and missed Dodgeball the other night…)
Scored 4/3/5/4/4 on the quiz, and fell for the two obvious trick questions as well. Grr!
The list itself is pretty good, I thought, though I question the inclusion of the bloated T2: Judgement Day. Certainly it has a very good mix of popular, ‘arthouse’ and world cinema.
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I questioned the inclusion of quite a lot of what made the list … and even with some of the films I’d seen I couldn’t help but think ‘there’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back again’. Well, except for the one – the only one – I’ve ever walked out on. Only lost half an hour that time.
Oh, you must see Pan’s Labyrinth – which has nothing at all to do with Pan … that was a dodgy translation. There is a Faun in the film but it isn’t Pan. And the labyrinth is … well, you’ll find out.
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The translation is the directors own, you know. As he is Mexican and speaks faultless English I think he might be insulted to find you calling his translation ‘dodgy’…
And like all lists it is never going to be a perfect reflection of everyone’s tastes. But it is a very good mix and there are at least another 200 on the list that i would happily watch.
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I did not know that. So perhaps the faun was meant to be Pan after all, but it didn’t strike me that way. The Spanish title is El Laberinto del Fauno. Could be that when ‘fauno’ is capitalized it means ‘Pan’?
In general I think it was a good list too and there are a few there that I’d like to see – also some I’m surprised I haven’t seen.
Must do the rest of the quizzes …
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del Toro is an amazingly talented man, and has managed very cleverly to arrange his life into a ‘one for me, one for them’ rota that has meant he can make the films he wants as well as make a decent living.
And when you consider that the last two ‘for them’ were Hellboy and Hellboy 2 (due next year) which were also deeply personal projects (he’s hinted that Hellboy 2 will have some connection to Pan’s Labyrinth) he’s not doing to badly. 🙂
As for translations, well , they are notiously difficult – would a direct translation of the original Spanish title have meant much a non-Spanish speaking audience? It’s always a difficult one.
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Quizzes:
part one – 3/5
part two – 3/5
part three – 1/5
part four – 3/5
part five – 3/5
How pathetic! 😦
I didn’t realise del Toro also directed Hellboy. Loved that film and am quite looking forward to Hellboy 2.
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Quizzes:
part one 3/5
part two 4/5 😯
part three 2/5
part four 1/5
part five 3/5
I’ve not motivated myself to read through the list yet. The task of getting the swedish titles of 1000 movies is way overkill for the moment
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I started scanning through the lists, but had to pick tomatoes and green beans. The tomatoes are now pureed and simmering quietly on the stove. The green beans still have to be trimmed, cut and blanched. Maybe I’ll get around to reading the list tonight.
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I have seen 206 of the listed films. Obviously, I have been wasting too much of my life reading. My scores on the quizzes are as follows:
Part 1 2/5
Part 2 2/5
Part 3 1/5
Part 4 2/5
Part 5 0/5
This is remarkable because I don’t believe I had seen more than two or three of the movies listed in teh quiz, and I was guessing on all but one of the answers. The one I thought I knew I got wrong. (!)
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Well I was a bit worried for a moment there. I tallied my total and thought I’d seen 609 which would have worried me because that’s a freakin’ lot, but then I realised that tallies have 5 in a group not 10 in a group, so the total was actually 309 – phew!
I’m not sure about Pan’s Labyrinth. It was fairly decent, but not amazing. I was impressed though by the woman who was sitting a couple of seats away from me in the cinema though. She had this incredibly strong emotional reaction to every scene in the film. Without giving anything of the plot away, in the scene with the girl and the fruit this woman was on the absolute edge of her seat wringing her hands and quietly muttering “no, no, no” to herself. After the film we had to push past her as she was sitting in her seat sobbing and not moving. I’d love to be able to have a reaction like that to a film. Presumably it only happens if you hardly ever watch them?
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I hadn’t seen most of the films mentioned in the quizzes either, hmh, so I guess I should feel happy I got as many right as I did.
Counting which films you’ve seen doesn’t really take that long once you get going (unless of course you’re having to find the Swedish titles). DQ, if they’re anything like Spanish titles they often won’t have any connection at all the the English ones.
I would say Pan’s Labyrinth is extremely moving and very well made … not especially ‘amazing’ but certainly well above average. Perhaps the woman you saw responds like that to every film she sees?
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I agree with dan about The Faun’s Labyrinth (;-)). Several people had hyped it as ‘Best Film Ever’…but then they said that about ‘Cinama Paradiso, too.
No – I’m not counting. See my Desert Island comment on list making. I much prefer the David Lodge game where you gain points for admitting the books/films you haven’t read/watched. But I’m glad they included Star Wars because it means I might live forever.
I’d be far more interested in a list of films to see after you’re dead.
One day Bergman, the next Antonioni, eh? (Actually – it seems they died on the same day.)
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Topical cartoon from Steve Bell:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,,2138323,00.html
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Sorry Ed, that last comment ended up in my spam file and I just found it now.
Nice one!
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