Posted by: Häxan L. MorningStar 

The Neon Demon (2016)

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring: E. Fanning, K. Glusman, J. Malone and Keanu Reeves 

One of the (if not THE) best looking movie of 2016, from a director whose entire body of work is imbued in lynchian (and others) influences. The themes (the aleatory nature of beauty and its relation with death; surfaces and reflections; the way the entertainment and showbiz destroy people and so on) are nothing new and the style is glossy and shiny as the characters and the story it serves are superficial and vain. There's also, definitely, an argument to be made for the movie being a classic case of "style over substance" (it IS Nicolas Winding Refn, after all) - but it's an interesting, thought provoking and weird film, nonetheless. 

 

I'm gonna try Neon Demon 'cause I liked Only God Forgives.

My suggestions (they may not be weird enough or obscure enough, and if I write spoilers below it must be because I can't think of another juicy way to sell them.  ?) :

Perfume (Tom Tykwer) : Period setting.  Guy born with unnatural sense of smell.  Obsessed with creating the perfect perfume after he ran into a girl whose scent he liked.  He accidentally murdered her and learned the scent vanished soon after.  So he studied how to preserve smells under a perfume maker, then went about murdering a series of girls to create his perfect perfume.  Lacking exactly olfactory element, the director used macro cinematography and brilliant soundtrack to try to convey the dizzying first moment of the protagonist out in the streets of Paris, smelling luscious food, fineries, and people.

Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek) : 2 girls and a boy, clones in a boarding school, raised as future organ donors to their originals.  The good girl had been in love with the boy since childhood, but the naive boy was maliciously stolen by the bad girl.  For years to adulthood good girl was pained watching them together, and in the end the bad girl, sickly having been harvested, confessed her guilt for having stolen him from her, and that she wanted good girl and guy to be together now.  By this point he's already sickly too, and they're finally together after so much wasted time, and with so little left.  The audience should feel this devastating regret.  And then there's an even bigger hopelessness at the end which I won't spoil.  There's a gem of a scene with Andrew Garfield showing a very strange pained expression while talking to Carey Mulligan, as if he felt that he was in love with her, but didn't know it.

Heart Attack (Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit) : Try an exotic, funny one from Thailand.  Awkward and overworked freelance graphic designer got rashes and was told to rest and avoid certain foods by the cute, empathetic physician.  He developed a crush, and when he was healing, tried to get sick again and succeeded.

I'm reading the book of Never Let Me Go. I should restrain myself from reading your piece.

Some obvious recommendations are Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut by Kubrick.

2001 and Eyes Wide Shut are great movies for the (over)-analyzing TP fans.

I like watching Mad Men, it has a nice 'slow 'flow. It is similar to TP season 3 in the sense that nothing special is happening, but at the same everything is happening. And if something big happens then it hits you as a viewer.

Donnie Darko is great too.

Personally I like to see shows/movies that feature TP actors, sorta like a therapy. I watched Blue Velvet, Mullholland Drive, Psych: Dual Spires, Mad Men and now Gypsy, haha. It makes it easier to wait for a new episode. 

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/

This film had me reading about and thinking it for weeks. 

This is a great thread! Lots of good suggestions here, thanks all!

Would +1 Neon Demon, Primer, Les Revenants (music is so great), and Legion. 

@Zach - did you hear about the Psych Movie coming out in December? Also, did you hear about pluto? 

I don't think anyone mentioned it, but Mr. Robot is a pretty fantastic show. Mental (but in a good way). Also, Under the Skin by Jonathan Glazer is. . . I don't know, never seen something that felt so alien that still manages to be evocative of humanity. Worth it for the last few minutes alone. . . 

Upstream Color  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084989/ by the "Primer" director is also great too (maybe even greater).

And Jonathan Glazer's Birth http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337876/ is superb. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240913/?ref_=nv_sr_2
Ozon said that as a child he had basically witnessed it happen on the beach, that a woman's husband had gone missing that way.

I highly recommend this great and underrated 1993 film called "Red Rock West" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105226/  It features Frank Booth, Donna Hayward and Sailor Ripley (who was still enjoyable at the time). It has this gritty, small-town atmosphere of Deer Meadow and is full of twists and turns in the Double Indemnity kind of way. It's one of the best things to come out of the whole Neo-noir wave of late 80's-early 90's, definitely worth seeing if you're looking for an excellent cross between "Wild At Heart" and "Blue Velvet".

Oh crikey, unsung gems?! This is right up my alley.

Wild Bill. Dexter Fletcher's first film full of crime, grime and more heart than you could shake a trunk at. Amazeballs.

Cria Cuervos (Saura 1976)

The Conversation (Coppola 1974)

The Silence (Bergman 1963)

L'Intrus (Denis 2004)

Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich 1955)

The Element of Crime (von Trier 1984)

Saint Jack (Bogdanovich 1979)

Night Moves (Penn 1975)

Celine and Julie go Boating (Rivette 1974)

Don't Look Now (Roeg 1973)

Fingers (Toback 1978) 

The Watchmaker of St Paul (Tavernier 1974)

Two-lane Blacktop (Hellman 1971) (with HD Stanton)

HKG (Holthuis 1999)

The Late Show (Benton 1977)

Melvin and Howard (Demme 1980)

Goodnight, Mommy  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3086442/

Won't be surprised if DL saw that film and was inspired by it.

What to watch when not watching Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks - I'm going back and watching while I wait for the next episode!

Cheers to Neon Demon and Under the Skin. both are fantastic.

I would suggest one of my more recent watches: Nightcrawler. One of my favorite Jake Gyllenhaal films since Donnie Darko. Similar vibe to Refn's films

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339357/?ref_=nv_sr_1