best movie written by david mamet

Well, he wrote De Palma's worst movie (excepting maybe Redacted).

Edmond was hot garbage,Ronin was ace, never finished Wag the Dog but kinda don't want to now that I know that his brain rotted afterwards, Glengarry is ace,and if Oleanna is as onerous as the play, idk if I wanna see it.

Untouchables has some stupid dialogue but I love it.

I’m gonna tell you something, the postman always rings twice is not as good as it would suggest

Before hating Sorkin was the obvious lifestyle, there was Mamet.

voted spanish prisoner, seen almost all of them

I've seen about half. I'll cast the stodgy vote for The Verdict.

(Didn't even realize he wrote Hannibal, which I rewatched last week.)

Spanish Prisoner was good, now that you mention it. I have fondness for the Untouchables because it features a heroic accountant.

Wag the Dog. I like The Spanish Prisoner quite a bit as well.

revisiting Spanish Prisoner presently. boy is Steve Martin ever great in this

The Verdict is good, Untouchables is perfect popcorn. The Winslow Boy was pretty strong, iirc, and from the year when both David Lynch and David Mamet rebased G-rated movies. Glengarry Glenn is excellent, because it actually *improves* on the play. At one point I was a big fan of The Edge, but I don't know how well I would like it now.

Wag the Dog was pretty schlocky imo.

House of Games or Ronin

These are all mostly bad. So, the Untouchables.

pity vote for spanish prisoner which is great fun but the correct answer is of course GGR

Spanish Prisoner. Glengarry Glenn Ross felt too much like a filmed stage play to be a great movie.

Ronin. Glengarry Glenn Ross doesn't have enough car chases to be a great movie.

I kinda wanna revisit Heist, which I remember being pretty shlocky but with some fun dialogue + performances

Rewatched House of Games recently and still liked it, the dynamic between Lindsay Crouse and Joe Mantegna is great. Runner-up would be Spanish Prisoner or Ronin. GGR is great, but I discount it for the purposes of this poll because it wasn’t written as a film and feels like it.

Voted Ronin, but i feel like this will come down to how people categorize GGR. My guilty pleasure from this list is Spartan, which is dumb fun and the only mamet-directed film I can watch that doesnt feel like watching paint dry. I dont know what trick he uses to get such bloodless performances, its like he applies valium directly to the lens. Never seen Redbelt and have always been sorta curious about it but at the same time man, i just dont know if i have it in me to watch a david mamet film about jiujitsu guys.

if u like spartan u will like redbelt

also The Unit

100% love late period zionist/fascist/masculinist mamet. still the best movie here is ronin followed by spanish prisoner

The dialogue is too baroque in Heist, but Gene Hackman and Ricky Jay are an inspired team.
I love Spartan and Ronin is amazing.
Glengarry Glen Ross is overpraised, plus, y'know, Kevin Spacey. (It does get points for Jack Lemmon's performance inspiring the character of Gil on The Simpsons, though.)
I'd like to rewatch The Edge sometime.

Homicide was my first exposure to his schtick and I love it madly

Redbelt is interesting to me maybe because he's clearly well into his weird crank phase and it shows throughout, yet Ejiofor is maybe the most inherently likable/human lead of any of his movies (that I've seen)

I saw Homicide in a theater and liked it a lot, but haven't seen it since.

remember when he was going to make an anne frank movie lol

"Anne? She's in the attic?"
"Who?"
"Anne."
"Could be."
"Could it?"
"You'd have to ask her."
"Where can I find her? The attic?"
"That is her location."
"Are you sure?"
"You'd have to ask Anne."

I kinda wanna revisit Heist, which I remember being pretty shlocky but with some fun dialogue + performances

― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Friday, November 6, 2020 7:21 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

heist is pretty awesome, contains the immortal danny devito line "everyone needs money that's why they call it money", i shd rescreen, i love heist movies, also it stars gene hackman, so yeah its good

I mostly remember the Bible-in-the-pocket monologue

others i love:
ronin
state and main
gggr
spartan
redbelt

lol totally forgot that line came from devito there

Am definitely guilty of using it 3 or 4x per annum

idk if this is the origin of this now popular phrase someone should research it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUXpYMV17fw

Writing in Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street. Screenplay is Mamet’s translation of Uncle Vanya and is some of the smoothest, least affected line reading of his cadences. American Buffalo is also slept-on.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Haven’t seen enough of these to have an informed opinion, voted homicide (1991) cause it rocks even though i prob prefer GGR

I enjoyed Spartan at the peak of my Ebert phase. Would've assumed it's not so good in hindsight, though someone was praising it on twitter the other day..

Spartan is really good. It's peak Mamet in its "you don't need that information so it's been omitted"-ness, and it's one of Val Kilmer's three or four best performances IMO.

spartan freaking rules

Good to know, might have to rewatch. All I remember is Val and some sort of narrative trickery.

haven't seen it since it came out but Spartan. I had no idea he had written so many of these

RONIN!

I joined letterboxd recently and former ilx user max’s favorite movies (you get to pick 4) are all RONIN lol

btw I’m r@diokeller there (@ = a) add me I want friends. letterboxd is the only good social media btw

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Correct

btw I’m r@diokeller there (@ = a) add me I want friends. letterboxd is the only good social media btw

― k3vin k., Sunday, November 29, 2020 4:18 AM (fifteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

added u

same!

RONIN forever!

(as former ilx user slocki has said on said letterboxd)

letterboxd is the only good social media btw

not true

bc it's not good or bc some other social media are also good?

letterboxd barely feels social. but that's kind of a good thing imo

have seen five of these, results look fair

I re-read Oleanna recently and was surprised how in-depth it goes as far as college as an institution vs. a place for individual pursuit of knowledge, and how conflicted the professor is about this. Even having seen multiple stage productions and writing my undergrad thesis partly on Mamet, I was too distracted by the style and subtext, the power games and so on, to absorb the substance of that debate. It's still flawed, although the earlier draft Pinter staged and that still exists in the French translation, in which John is given a retraction to recite, is much better than the "fuck your political correctness" revised ending in the published script and film.