Genre : Thrillers/Suspense/Drama

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Topic started by vj on Mon Jun 7 20:09:03 .


Lets discuss this genre in which Hollywood really has produced some very good films.

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I was not too much into this but my interest has been flamed after watching a movie called 'The Usual Suspects' .. A very good movie with some amazing screenplay and plot that makes you want to watch the movie till the end.. Isnt this we want from a movie? The best part about such movies is that there is minimal emotional involvement which actually enhances the pleasure of watching it :)
So please tell me about more such well-made movies

Vijay

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This is my favourite genre in movies!
And yes, Usual Suspects was a great movie; LA Confidential was a slick one. I absolutely love old Hitchcock movies. If you are a mystery/suspense buff, his "Dial M for Murder" and "Rope" are a must watch. Not whodunnits, but quite gripping. An interesting tidbit about the latter - the whole movie was filmed in one room in one shot/take with the camera just panning the entire scene for an hour and a half from beginning to end. The recent Perfect Murder was a not-so-good remake of Dial M for Murder.
Will be back with more later....

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psycho.... the scene where the police inspector goes through the Hotel register and Bates is looking over chewing gum which is all Perkins the actor needs to show his nervousness and Hitchcock the Director needs for effect.

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unfortunately, the psycho sequels didn't live upto expectations.. psycho itself was based on a real life guy called eddie gein. i think it also inspired the movie "the texas chainsaw massacre".
my fav is hannibal lector of silence of the lambs.
how about anatomy of a murder?

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Some of the old classics in this genre that I would recommend are:

Orson Welles "Touch of Evil". Some of the shots in this movie are outstanding. A great role by Orson Welles himself and a good, solid plot.

Billy wilder's "Double Indemnity" is another great movie. Billy Wilder's way of narrating a story is unique whether it is drama or comedy. BTW, does he have the maximum number of academy award nominations for sreenplay or is it Woody Allen ?

China Town is another movie that comes to my mind. Great performances by Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

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"Birds" by Hitchcock. the scene where the school teacher is sitting on a roadside bench. It is so quiet, we see the birds landing one by one on the overhead elec line behind her. everything is so quiet until suddenly..... that's Hitchcock.

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the sequel to silence of the lambs, hannibal is out and promises to be made into a film soon:-)
birds is a wonderful movie ,as ramji said it is hitchcock at his best.

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watched L.A confidential .. as nalini had said very slickly taken! what was amazing was the way it recreated the film-noir milieu , taking us back to the 1950's..left wondering why Kim bassinger was even considered for an award? and Woody Allen has 13 nominations for screenplay ( I think he won a few) awhile Wilder had 10. This category is called 'Screenplay written diresctly for the screen' ..!

Vijay

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Talking about film noir (btw, why is it called
so ? ) and Woody Allen, the movie "Bullets over Broadway" comes to my mind. This movie of course does not belong to the milieu that we are discussing here, but, I guess its ok to talk about it. An added incentive for this movie is that Woody Allen does not appear on screen :) This movie, I think was nominated for original screenplay. Pulp fiction got the Oscar for best
original screenplay that year (1994).

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I completely agree with vj on 'The usual suspects'. I started liking Kevin Spacy only after that movie.

I feel 'The Matrix' is the best movie in this year, so far. Of course, though atmost it can get an oscar for spl-fx, i feel, it was better than the much hyped Star Wars Episode-I (I have seen both the movies three times... as on today :-)

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psycho!

probably i am the only one who likes all the psychos (some people call me sicko :-) ), especially the second one. the second one is one of the best social commentaries i have ever seen on the screen. perkins was as usual great. the third one was sickening. some scenes were really gross.

talking about psycho, a couple of years before psycho was made, a movie starring janet leigh was released. the movie was "touch of evil". it's about a corrupt police officer who goes to any length to keep his city (on the border of mexico) under HIS control. a really scary one (for that period). there is a great scene in the movie where janet leigh is alone in a motel and some weird things were happening around. i would rate this a notch above psycho.

birds was, i think, hitchcock's personal favorite. there is no musical score for the movie. all sounds were natural sounds. apparently hitchcock wanted to make the famous shower scene of psycho without any musical support but hermann (what is his last name?) surprised hitchcock with his score which gave the scene its immortality.

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in the mid 1980's i saw more than 120 movies in a year. One of them was a suspence thriller which runs in a hospital. The poster showed an outline of a hospital with the some rooms lit in the shape of a skull. Does anybody remember the title of the movie? (1983-86)

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My favorite Hitchcock movie is "The Rear Window." For all practical purposes it is a very difficult story for a movie, pretty much the entire movie is shown through the perspective of bed ridden Jimmy Stewart. And yet, Hitchcock pulls it off. It plays at two levels, the surface story builds slowly but gets very tense in the closing moments. On another level, pretty much every thing that Jimmy Stewart sees through his rear window reflects his own fears and desires about his possible married life with the gorgeous Grace Kelly. A very satisfying film.

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Viewed Psycho, was a strange experience. After all the hype about the shower scene.. well... I preferred the scene where amongst some shocking music, an old lady comes out brandishing a knife to kill the detective...that was chilling!
The actor who played Norman bates :) was unbelievably good. Can someone explain where the female was trying to do with so much of cash, driving away? That missed my mind.

Vijay

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Anyone saw the "Blair Witch Project"?? Fine movie!

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do NOT miss the blair witch project.

(but please don't blame me if you get recurrent nightmare.)

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we don't know when BW project is coming here but the hype has already started. can't wait and pleaseee don't tell any secrets from the movie.

Any body love the noir 'gun crazy'(b&w) and 'detour'. i think those early jaisankar movies for modern theatres should be termed tamil noir.

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aruLarasan,
You could have put a smiley at the end of ur posting :((
I did not find Blair witch impressive at all. It may have been supposed to be novel. But the end product did look like a home video.

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Kamesh :::: Are you referring to Michael Crichton's "Coma" ?? (but it was released in late 70's)

'Blair Witch Project' was good ! paadhikku mEla iruttilEyE eduththirukkaanga - Beware Maniratnam and P.C.Sriram... here comes a tough competition ! ;-) The movie could have been better had it been completed in about 30 to 45 minutes ;-)))))

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How abt "Sixth sense" . A 'common' myth that tooo very much an Indian myth was wonderfully created as a movie. The writer is ofcourse a America-born-Indian: 'Night' Shymalan. But he has done a wonderful job. Some of the suspense scenes were real scary and the ending was superb.

You guys have any thoughts?

NaNbaN

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venky,

:-))

pOdhumA :-)).

yes. the movie was long. it could have been cut short but i liked the novelty of not making it clear whether it was a documentary or a fictional movie. they wanted the viewers to get scared by their own imaginations, but didn't succeed as much they wanted, i guess.

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Arul ;-))

nanban: Yes. Sixth sense is a good movie. worth watching. Though the movie was little slow, some of the scenes were very scary (good BGM in those places). Very good ending ! I haven't seen such a twisty ending in recent times ! I would say it is a must see !!!

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Venky

It was not Coma. Something else.

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Venky

I got the name. It is Visiting Hours

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anybody seen the aussie flicks 'heaven's burning'('97) with the brilliant russel crowe of LA confidential and 'kiss or kill'('97).both r of the road movie/thriller genre and r very good.

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Guys:
Try seeing Breakdown, MAddening. Breakdown *ing Kurt Russels, and MAddening *ing Burt Reynolds.
I liked both of them.

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yeah..breakdown is a great suspence. kurt russell is great but it's a brill taut script.

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What about "Primal Fear"?...Ed Norton turns in an amazing performance and it sure fits the genre of movies under discussion here.

Has anyone seen "Lock,Stock, and 2 smoking barrels"? The movie was suspenseful in a strange way...and satarical too!

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kith...lock stock etc was filmed in front of my flat in east london!!!! great film etc.... now every body wants to act ina guy ritchie film and madonna is going out with him.how did the film fare in US.. did u understand it...language wise i mean...?

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Amazing how this thread is being kept very ALIVE...for over 7 months.

The Usual Suspects (TUS to connoiseurs) is absolutely the best, rising to cult stature very quickly. I, especially, enjoy the casual narrative style in such movies.

Another such production is an obscure BBC production that I saw titled "A sense of history" or something like that..narrated by the guy who finally reveals that he was his wife's murderer.

I also happened to catch Night Shyamalan's earlier movie "Praying with Anger" and thought it was brilliant. Glad to see Bruce Willis agreed with me ! :-) That, of course, is not of this genre, but deals with a tamil ABCD who dissects the social milleu of Madras and the concept of respect for elders.

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And for 7 months everyone's been talking about
"The Usual Suspects"! Good movie though, I agree.

I know what you did last Summer didn't deliver what it promised, did it?

Is this thread restricted to Hollywood movies?
Anyone watched this Rishi Kapoor movie called "Khoj"?

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Some great movies i have seen:

1. Usual Suspect
2. Swimming with the Sharks
3. Forrest Gump
4. Shawshank Redemption
5. Bonnie and Clyde
6. Bugsy
7. Reds
8. Bridges on Madisson County
9. Absolute power
10.12 Angry men( old )

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the other woman
director jug mundra
please send this films heroien lee anne beaman,s
photo rakon2000@yahoo.com

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'The Siege' is one of the most memorable suspense movies I've seen. The movie has some very good moral messages. The film has Denzel Washington, Annett Benning(forgive the spelling),Bruce Willis etc in it.
All u gals'n'guys, this movie is a must see. Unforgettable

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frankly speaking i thought that i was the only interested in movies but it seems there whole lotta people there who love 2 watch movies like i do. well i really like this part of or genre of hollywood movies for movies like PSYCHO, A PERFECT ALIBI, THE SAINT ARE FEW OF MY FAVS. BUT I ALSO THINK THAT HOLLYWOOD EVEN EXCELLS IN MAKING US LAUGH. RIGHTO!

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For me, my favourite film of all time has to be the epic that is 'The Shining', featuring a timeless performance from the legendary Jack Nicholson. One of the few truly scary horror films out there, the atmosphere created in The Shining is positively pant-filling! Perhaps. I reccommend it to anyone into tense horror films who has felt short-changed by so called 'terrifying' teen flicks. A true classic that cleans the floor with most of its peers.

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Hello Mr shamalan!
I have watched 3 of your movies- 6th sense, unbreakable and signs(today). The experience has been just mesmarizing. The movies lingers on and on for hours and days. Everythings is so much right in place that- the only words pouring out are WOW!
I just have one request- Can you please teach some tips to other directors in India so that they can come up with something else but Love triangles!
All the best for all the movies you are going to work in future on.
(You have already reached a place in States which I don't think any other Indian directors has!) For now, I am taking pride in the fact that an Indian director can make movies so good that can compel most American directors to bite their nails.
I would really appreicate if Mr.Shyamalam can spare some time and can get to write back to me.
Ankur.

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hey ya,
im bored and schoool is sooooooo crapy