BS: Inspirational Films

Subject: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 26 Apr 11 - 04:46 PM

Taking the inspiration for this thread from the 'Old black & white film noir favorites' thread...

One of mine is 'Inn of the Sixth Happiness' with Ingrid Bergman.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: alanabit
Date: 26 Apr 11 - 05:25 PM

"Cry The Beloved Country" starring Sidney Poittier, which was set in apartheid South Africa, was certainly a film to point the way forward.
"Twelve Angry Men", which is one of many excellent American films on the subject of moral courage, is another film, which will ring true through all ages.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Apr 11 - 07:40 PM

Sound of Music.........inspires sleep.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: J-boy
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 02:00 AM

"Get busy living or get busy dying."-The Shawshank Redemption.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Stu
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 06:24 AM

Sleep Furiously

Dhrupad

Anything by Werner Herzog

Cheesy but excellent Dead Poets Society

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Richie Black (misused acct, bad email)
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 06:33 AM

The Patriot with Mel Gibson.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 07:25 AM

Oliver (musical version) and Oliver Twist (non-musical, more sinister version). Viewed together, they give quite a comprehensive idea of life in Victorian times.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 08:32 AM

Inspiring me to anger:
The Grapes of Wrath.
Brassed Off.
Cabaret.
Love on the Dole.
I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang.
In The Name of the Father.

Inspiring me to love my fellow man.
Places in the Heart.
The Wizard of Oz.
Gandhi.
Philadelphia.
Serpico.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 11:27 AM

The courage to choose love over fear is best presented in the inspirational romantic film 'Defending Your Life'.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Richie Black (misused acct, bad email)
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 11:42 AM

The wind that shakes the Barley.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 12:26 PM

Anything by Werner Herzog

Aguirre I grant, but Nosferartu? Good title sequence, but the rest of it's sub-Hammer in the Vampire stakes...

Otherwise - Kikujiro is hard to beat.

Two puns in one post, not bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 01:03 PM

Pay it Forward.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 02:12 PM

To Kill a Mocking Bird.

Theme, personal integrity, doing the right thing when it's not just the unpopular thing to do, but it could be dangerous.

Choke-up line:   "Stand up, Louise*. Your Daddy's passin'."

Don Firth

*Scout's real name.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: richd
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 02:13 PM

Toy Story 3
Listen to Britain
The New Babylon
Valerie and Her Week Of Wonders
Heavy Water- A film for Chernobyl
Lalees' Kin- The Legacy of Cotton
Buffalo Creek Flood- an act of Man- Mimi Pickering- anyone know her?
Handsworth Songs

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 04:41 PM

The choke-up line in To Kill A Mockingbird:

Scout: Hey, Boo...

Cracks me up every time!

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 04:53 PM

Or very shortly before the end of the movie.

Atticus Finch and Boo Radley sitting on the porch swing:

"Thank you, Arthur, for my children."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 05:09 PM

Thing is, there's so many great lines in that film - see HERE for a choice selection! - maybe more that that other great (& inspirational) film Apocalypse Now, the script of which is one perfect one-liner after another.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 05:10 PM

The Power of One. Little known but stunning.

MP

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Apr 11 - 07:48 PM

Casablanca

Miracle

The Rookie

Rocky (only the first one)

The Hurricane

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: J-boy
Date: 28 Apr 11 - 12:00 AM

I just watched "A Bridge on the River Kwai" for the hundredth time. Still the best anti-war film ever made. Madness. Madness!

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: alanabit
Date: 28 Apr 11 - 03:52 AM

David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia", another war film, is just as much about mental illness in its way. I think both are brilliant films, but I would only find them inspirational in the sense that they would tell me what not to do!

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 28 Apr 11 - 04:32 AM

Kes was the most inspirational film for me in the late 60's and typical of what life could be like in schools in small towns like this back then. It is based in a northern town in England about the sort of small framed boy who is the stereotypical target for bullies unhappy at home and equally unhappy at school until he discovers a kestrel. He studies all he can about the kestrel (pre-internet!) and trains it. It becomes his whole world until the harshness of life in the form of his bullying older brother kills the only thing he loved, the kestrel. For me it was hard hitting not over sentimental either surprisingly despite the subject matter but whenever it is shown I make a point of watching it.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Stu
Date: 28 Apr 11 - 04:37 AM

Suibhne:

I really love Nosferatu (and the original, which is exceptional) for both the cinematography and Kinski's performance. Sub-hammer? No way Hosé! I love the whole feel of the film, the sound design and grading, the surreal scenes in the city with the dancers . . . I could blather on but in truth I love Kinski's portrayal of the Count more than anyone elses. Apart from Max Schrek. Or Gary Oldman. No, I prefer Kinski's . . .

Agree totally on Apocalypse Now. Brilliant. Have you read Dispatches by Michael Herr?

Excaliber

Music of Chance

Jurassic Park (amateur dino-hunter geekfest)

Goodfellas

Winstanley

Anything by David Lynch. Anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Apr 11 - 04:46 AM

Counter to the thread, but I have to say that the film that had the most profound effect on me was The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, by Peter Greenaway. Absolutely traumatising, but superbly crafted.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Apr 11 - 05:20 PM

Just watched District 9 - What a movie. Another South African one like 'The Power of One'. No feelgood but inspirational in that it holds much hope for the human race if at least one person acts humanely. Or should that be humanly??

:-)

MP

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Richie Black (misused acct, bad email)
Date: 28 Apr 11 - 06:43 PM

Just watched "Changeling" excellent fim.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: robomatic
Date: 28 Apr 11 - 11:39 PM

"Inherit The Wind"

"The Day The Earth Stood Still"

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 03:32 AM

'Amazing Grace' almost had me cheering in the cinema. You literally come out enthused with the outlook of William Wilberforce, wanting to make the world a better place.

An Amazing Man...and thank God he had his friend William Pitt beside him at that same point of history, along with the woman he married, a woman who became inspired herself by William, as a young woman...going on to become his wife, and who, when William was at his lowest point, was the person who took his own inspiration buring inside her, passing his back that torch, enabling him to claw his way back to become the man he was born to be...

'Amazing Grace - Trailer'

A young man called Zach Hunter, whose own life has been so inspired by William Wilberforce, who is now leading his own generation to become aware of the slavery still happening around the world...
'The Amazing Change' Movement

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 05:07 AM

Just watched District 9 - What a movie.

It's a belter isn't it? The best sci-fi since the glory days of the Alien Franchise (though I'm a sucker for the gore-fest of the AVP films). Didn't you think the sentimental ending of D9 was the perfect touch? I had tears in my eyes!

This is England - and a lot of other Shane Meadows' stuff (though it gets slack when he resorts to known actors who get in the way of the essence of it) - the TV sequels to This is England were pretty good too, harrowing & insprational by turns. Near perfect storytelling though.

Just for the music I'd say Duck You Sucker is one of the most inspirational films ever even if does fizzle out in a blaze of not very special effects.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 04:29 PM

I did indeed, SA. Amidst the cheering for the getaway:-)

MP

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 09:18 PM

Ah!

A Man for All Seasons.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 08:14 AM

Don, agreed, an excellent film, but why didn't they have the role of The Common Man represented? In the Robert Bolt play, he's a key person, and is there to emphasise that we're all jointly responsible for such tragic events.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Amergin
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 08:31 PM

Well I think Deep Throat inspired John Boehner to be an absolute cocksucker....

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 11:31 PM

"All Quiet on the Western Front"

no other film had such a profound impact and life changing influence
on me,
as watching this on TV as a young child in the early 60's..

It suddenly made me aware the true meaning of mortality and death
and frightened the life out of me.

I still continued to play make believe games with toy soldiers and guns with my friends..
but from that point on I became a life long pacifist...



..until recently..

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 11:44 PM

I agree with Eliza about the film of A Man For All Seasons. The play has a lightness of touch and a humorous undertow despite the seriousness of its subject. The film I found mainly turgid and portentous.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: fat B****rd
Date: 01 May 11 - 03:33 PM

I like and admire quite a few films, but, a 1987 Nick Nolte film called Weeds which is about rehabilitating ex convicts by the use of theatre (very broad outline by me)is the one that sticks in the mind as inspirational.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 01 May 11 - 03:45 PM

The Warriors - a surreal struggle for redemption across the urban jungle.
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - two beautifully drawn flawed characters fighting tooth and nail to hold onto their memories of each other. Most genuinely inspiring love story I've watched by a country mile.

District 9? I found it OK, but too preachy.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 01 May 11 - 03:59 PM

"Have you read Dispatches by Michael Herr?"

Yes - it's a rather self-consciously 'hip' piece of writing - and it's worth balancing out the journalistic smugness of Herr with something more gritty from the soldier's point of view. Still, a good read, and of course Apocalypse Now is a stunning film. Incidentally I watched the Director's Cut a couple of years ago and it's an entirely different animal. Far bleaker in many respects. The scene with the old (French) colonials is of particular symbolic interest (we are retreating into the past as we travel up river of course), and the crash scene where the surviving dancers are whoring themselves out to soldiers is deeply dispiriting..

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 May 11 - 04:03 PM

...and of course there is always the ultimate inspirational film, as on some UK cable channel earlier today -

Carry on Camping.

:-)

MP

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 01 May 11 - 04:06 PM

The Warriors

Another firm favorite in this house - and a re-telling of Ancient Greek legend (the Anabasis by Xenophon. according to Wiki) to boot.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 01 May 11 - 04:20 PM

Children of a Lesser God

'The Miracle Worker' - The story of Helen Keller

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Bert
Date: 01 May 11 - 04:50 PM

Avatar

The Full Monty

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 01 May 11 - 04:51 PM

"a re-telling of Ancient Greek legend (the Anabasis by Xenophon."

Indeed. While I've not read the Anabasis, I have read other pieces of classic Greek literature and there does seem to be something of the 'heroic' and 'epic' which is successfully communicated in The Warriors I feel - including in the slightly more surreal or fantasy elements of course. The end sequence where the sun rises on the beach is quite one of my most favourite ending sequences ever. Not for the implicit violence remaining, but for the opposite - the journey is over.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 01 May 11 - 04:58 PM

With reference to Greek literature, it's possibly worth revisiting Aristotle's Poetics here and his "Catharsis of Pity and Fear" which The Warriors succeeds in doing exceedingly well in my view.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 01 May 11 - 05:46 PM

I was looking for the end sequence but it seems a Warriors game got released and now YouTube is flooded with gaming clips. Pity.

Wings of Desire
The Big Blue

Both quite romantic in a perverse way, but I was trying to follow the 'inspiration' theme of the thread title.

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 May 11 - 06:24 PM

If we are going all literary, how's about Chariots of Fire?

MP

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 01 May 11 - 07:19 PM

How's Chariots of Fire literary? Apart from the title being pulled from William Blake's mytho-visionary poem which has now (weirdly) become a fecking hymn and thus spins old Bill in his grave every time it's sung... mutter mutter...

How about Quatermass and the Pit? Or Scum? Or Battle Royale? Actually the end of the latter had me in floods of tears, emailing my man in Tokyo for a copy of the CD which duly arrived the following week. I'm a sucker for folk tinged Japanese Hip-Hop...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJKtR7qVkRY

Shizuka na Hibi no Kaidan wo...

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 01 May 11 - 07:22 PM

PS - Here's the inspirational video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1DL0sE93y0

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 May 11 - 04:11 AM

Apart from the title being pulled from William Blake's mytho-visionary poem

Errrr - Yes.

:D

MP

Subject: RE: BS: Inspirational Films
From: Stu
Date: 02 May 11 - 04:41 AM

+1 for The Warriors

I'm rather fond of Silent Running for it's execution as well as it's message; sympathy for the robots. R2D2? Pah!

Life of Brian.