I love Mamet and The 5th Element as well as Galaxy Quest are great films; something I never expected in watching GQ but walked away fullfilled :P

My favorite Mamet?

The Untouchables
House of Games

House of Games is my fav
2nd, the cop movie, Homicide(?)

I really loved SPANISH PRISONER, I can't say it enough. I watched it and went home and finished up a script I was writing. It had nothing to do with the S.P., but his filmmaking inspired me.

heath

SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO

About Last Night

I love it

i own it

I watched it

Awesome !

I'll step out on a limb again and say "Hot Fuzz" is brilliant!

All aspects of movie making and story telling are at a premium in my humble opinion.
Every shot and edit have a purpose, and better yet, sometimes not reveled 'till later.

Hopefully young Hollywood will see that great storytelling can be achieved with just the basics rules of shooting/editing and story development.
I think it's just to much work for some.

Anyway, go check it out.

Mamet's formidible skills as a playwright have never transferred over to his other creative sojourns, imo. And he ruined a couple films casting his girlfriend.

But it doesn't matter now. He's a known quantity so he can get big $ gigs directing Ford ads. For some reason, a lot of Hollywood "outsiders" end up directing commercials...

I'm a big Mamet fan ... loved House of Games, Spanish Prisoner, even like some of the Unit, though the story lines involving the wives are little soap opera for my taste, I even like his fasination with Ricky Jay.

Trying to recall the name of the movie he made with Don Ameche ... it was something about an innocent Italian-American barber or something who gets involved with the Mob. Title had "luck" in it.

Speaking of perfect movies: Rio Bravo. Perfect. Economical, concise ... the opening sequence that plays without dialouge .. camera movement, performances ... Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson's singing seems corny now but I remember liking it more when I first saw it.

"Let's make a little noise, Colorado" (Notice how all the good guys in the movie basically have nick names .. .OK, Wayne's character's name was actually Chance but its used like a nick name)