"Must See" Films

[Sweder]

Wow, what an incredible range of movies you've touched on Ana!
I agree Delicatessen is a great early movie from J-P Jeunet. He has an affection for Dominique Pinon, the rubber-faced frenchman who appears in such diverse Jeunet productions as Delicatessen, Alien Resurrection and the wonderful Amelie.

I went off Jeunet after Alien: Resurrection. I have an irrational passion for the Alien franchise; I feel (as many 'fans' often do) like I own part of the rights. The original film (1979, directed by Ridley Scott) is still the only movie which I have paid to see, watched (awestruck), left the cinema, stopped in the street and turned back to pay to see it again. It started an affair with the works of H.R.Giger and a long and unrequited love for the magnificent Sigourney Weaver (I did see her briefly jogging in Central Park once, but it's just not the same as her actually declaring her mutual affection). Jeunet opened the fourth film in the series with great promise. The premise (as ever) was far-fetched - it had to be when the main character was incinerated at the end of the previous film - but the cast (including Ron Pearlman and Winona Ryder) was 'interesting' and early reports promised great things. The action sequences showed imagination (the underwater chase scene is excellent, truly terrifying) and everything was rolling along nicely . . . and then, about an hour in, Ripley (Weaver) starts shagging an Alien and before you know it there's this hybrid snow-monkey-alien-thing shuffling around crying for its Mum and decapitating the cast. I felt like someone had crept into the cinema and stolen my wallet, or, for a more recent analogy, like Nigel must have felt when the barely-able-to-stand Stevie Mb€ smashed home the most improbable equaliser in FA Cup history last May.

Sorry, this is personal grief that perhaps should not see the light of day here. But whilst I'm having a good weep over the butchering of a promising franchise I may as well mention David Fincher's Alien 3, one of the first movie scripts to be mauled in pre-production over the internet and a film that Fincher (who went on to make Se7en - only his second movie and a meisterwerk) has since disowned, and of course the appalling video-game nonsense that was Alien versus Predator.

Jeunet redeemed himself with Amelie, an experience to warm the heart and send the spirits soaring, and gave us Audrey Tatou (gawd bless you, monsieur!). I loved American Beauty but confess I stood up and cheered at the end of The Piano - not because of the nature of the ending but because the whole thing had finally finished.
Vive la Différence!