Getting Away from Things That Get Bad: The ILX Road-Movie Poll Results Thread

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14. Wanda
64 points/6 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/14-wanda.jpg

"Goddamn it, it was 'Wanda, Wander.'"
"It was 'Wonder, Wanda.'"
"'Wanda, Wander'! 'Wanda, Wander'!"
"'Wonder, Wanda.'"
"What difference does it make? It was a hit!"

(Henry Gibson and Barbara Baxley in Nashville.)

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 00:27 (seven years ago) link

Would love to read a book on the making of this.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 00:28 (seven years ago) link

Well, yep. Only saw it for the first time during nominations but it went straight into my top five. Barbara Loden is amazing.

emil.y, Friday, 19 May 2017 00:33 (seven years ago) link

She made two more shorts, both 1975, and nothing else till her death in 1980 (age 48). Married Kazan in 1968, was still with him when she died. I got some of the background when I saw someone introduce this a couple of years ago, but what a story.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 00:37 (seven years ago) link

13. Paris, Texas
64 points/8 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/13-paris.jpg

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 00:41 (seven years ago) link

As good as it gets when Ry Cooder's playing and they're driving at night. Some of the last third loses me.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 00:42 (seven years ago) link

Two more I need to see. I PVR'd Wanda a while ago and must have accidentally erased it.

some sad trombone Twilight Zone shit (cryptosicko), Friday, 19 May 2017 00:44 (seven years ago) link

12. Weekend
67 points/6 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/12-weekend.jpg

There's a road, and there are cars.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 00:47 (seven years ago) link

Another one I've never seen, but I'm right in the middle of reading Laura Mulvey on Godard, so I'm gearing up for a big JLC catch-up soon.

some sad trombone Twilight Zone shit (cryptosicko), Friday, 19 May 2017 00:49 (seven years ago) link

Paris was another one of my top votes, love it.

also hoping this gets some kind of uk release: http://variety.com/2017/film/festivals/lucky-sxsw-film-review-1202008227/

devvvine, Friday, 19 May 2017 00:50 (seven years ago) link

John Carroll Lynch, wow. His parts in Fargo and Zodiac make for one of the most schizophrenic pairings I can think of.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 00:53 (seven years ago) link

xp
I remember seeing a DVD of Wanda in a Tower Records when they were doing their going out of business sale, and I thought if a waited a few more days it'll be cheaper, but when I went back it was gone. They also had a Ross McElwee box set I planned to do the same with, also gone.

nickn, Friday, 19 May 2017 01:01 (seven years ago) link

11. Five Easy Pieces
67 points/9 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/11-easy.jpg

Perfect place to end for today. I had it fifth on my ballot, but any one of my top five could have been #1. I realize that part of why I think of this as a road movie actually has to do with the first paragraph of Stanley Kauffmann's review, reprinted in Living Images:

Two months ago I was driving down through the Grand Tetons and gave a lift to a young man. He turned out to be a Ph.D. candidate from an eastern university who had just finished his course work and couldn't get up enough interest to write his dissertation. The whole process had turned futile on him. He had come out to Wyoming to get a job with his hands; he didn't know how long it would be before he went back. Perhaps never.

I thought of him when I saw Five Easy Pieces.

I'm conflating an anecdote in a review with the film itself, but that opening has always stayed with me. In my mind, the part of me that wishes I were Bobby Dupea has this whole separate life that bears little resemblance to the one I actually lead.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 01:07 (seven years ago) link

Weekend or The Freewheelin' Jean Luc Godard is the bratty inversion of the genre i think, kind of a big fuck you to the romance of the car and the road, but it still manages to be soaked with the romance of the car and the road. i love how at this point onwards in his career JLG pushes boredom as a formal quality and still fills up on beautiful shot-framing. plus the notorious tracking shot near the beginning is everything that a road movie ought to be and kids really love it if you make them sit and watch it all in class. think i'm just back in a phase where he chimes with my shitty mood, wd've made this my own number 1 i think.

The Remoans of the May (Noodle Vague), Friday, 19 May 2017 06:06 (seven years ago) link

oh and that song the female protagonist sings periodically sticks in my head all day

The Remoans of the May (Noodle Vague), Friday, 19 May 2017 06:07 (seven years ago) link

I come at Weekend from two angles: the experience of watching it, and conceptually. I've seen it four or five times: sequences and images that stay with you forever, also boredom and impatience and befuddlement. It's not one of my favourite films, or even one of my favourite Godards.

Conceptually, though, everything NV says and more--as one person's response to 1968 (something that clearly starts building in his work as the decade goes along, all of it coalescing in Weekend), there aren't many films I hold in higher esteem.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 11:28 (seven years ago) link

10. Lost in America
68 points/8 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/10-lost.jpg

"Why are you treating me like an animal?"
"I'll explain it to you later."

If that makes you inexplicably smile, you're on this film's unique wavelength.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 11:31 (seven years ago) link

It'll be scattershot, but I've got to finish this during the day. I promise you the most downbeat, anti-climactic Top 10 ever.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 11:38 (seven years ago) link

downbeat and anti-climactic are key notes of the true road movie

The Remoans of the May (Noodle Vague), Friday, 19 May 2017 11:41 (seven years ago) link

think 4 Mad Max films in the top 10 or just 3?

Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, 19 May 2017 11:41 (seven years ago) link

Weekend is far and away my favourite Godard of the ones I've seen, btw.

emil.y, Friday, 19 May 2017 11:52 (seven years ago) link

9. L’Avventura
69 points/5 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/9-lavventura.jpg

There's no film I've tried harder to connect with. Seven or eight times I've gone back to it (unlike, say, 8-1/2, which I realized after a couple of tries was of a temperament far from my own). L’Avventura isn't. But I come up short every time.

(My favourite Godard is one of My Life to Live, Band of Outsiders, or Masculin Féminin. But I realize he had to get all of the Truffaut that flits in and out of those films out of his system before he could make Weekend.)

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 11:58 (seven years ago) link

8. Stroszek
72 points/7 votes/two #1s

http://phildellio.tripod.com/8-stroszek.jpg

I wrote about the music in this after re-watching it last week. I find Herzog himself a little cartoonish in his recent documentaries--find it hard to put together his persona there with this film.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:25 (seven years ago) link

(Sorry for rushing this along...I've got to get most of this finished before 9:00.)

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:26 (seven years ago) link

Would have been my no. 1 on a straight ballot, the last act is just unforgettable and it also includes the funniest jump cut in history.

devvvine, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:33 (seven years ago) link

Trying to think of which jump-cut you mean...That auctioneer's amazing. Was surprised to see Errol Morris's name in the opening credits.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:37 (seven years ago) link

Stroszek is probably my favorite Herzog movie

circa1916, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:38 (seven years ago) link

xp The cut from Strozsek gazing out at where his house used to be to him and in the car with the old man holding a rifle. Just the most perfectly comic/tragic ending to what came before.

devvvine, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:42 (seven years ago) link

to him in the car*

devvvine, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:42 (seven years ago) link

The old guy kills me. There was a short film they were playing throughout Toronto's Hot Docs this year that I'm pretty sure was inspired by the old guy's research project on "animal magnetism."

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:47 (seven years ago) link

7. Y Tu Mamá También
73 points/8 votes/one #1

http://phildellio.tripod.com/7-tambien.jpg

Haven't seen this. I have it home, so I'll look after that shortly.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:48 (seven years ago) link

...That auctioneer's amazing

you might be interested in this... a number of people appearing in it also show up in stroszek including the auctioneer and the banker dude.

no lime tangier, Friday, 19 May 2017 12:56 (seven years ago) link

Thanks, that looks great--will download it tonight.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 13:02 (seven years ago) link

6. The Straight Story
82 points/8 votes/one #1

http://phildellio.tripod.com/6-straight.jpg

I've got to duck out for a couple of hours. This was my #1. I'm sure there are comparable examples if I gave it some thought, but the most anomalous film I can think of in anyone's filmography.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 13:04 (seven years ago) link

i reeeeeally hated Y Tu Mamá También

Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, 19 May 2017 14:38 (seven years ago) link

Me too

Οὖτις, Friday, 19 May 2017 14:57 (seven years ago) link

Fuuuuuuuuck guys. I have this thing, consistently, where I confuse Y Tu Mama Tambien with another film (I believe the film I confuse it with is A Ma Soeur because they're both foreign language titles with family members in them?). I voted for it. I've never seen it. Sorry I completely goddamn fucked up my ballot.

emil.y, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:12 (seven years ago) link

5. Easy Rider
82 points/10 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/5-easy.jpg

Sorry--two-hour assembly. Wouldn't worry about it, Emily, it would have been high anyway.

Probably the only film countdown we've had where one film in the Top 10 references another one in the Top 10.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:16 (seven years ago) link

I like this okay. Some incredible cinematography, love the use of "Wasn't Born to Follow." Some of it, obviously, a little dated. Still haven't seen The Last Movie, although I saw Kit Carson's making-of documentary last year.

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:23 (seven years ago) link

If it had finished first, I might have been tempted to say "We blew it."

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:23 (seven years ago) link

4. Walkabout
93 points/7 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/4-walkabout.jpg

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:35 (seven years ago) link

honestly my favorite scene in Easy Rider is the opening scene w Spector

Οὖτις, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:36 (seven years ago) link

so many things I've never even heard of placing

Οὖτις, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:36 (seven years ago) link

mostly all the ones that start w/ the letter "W" - Wanda, Weekend, Walkabout

Οὖτις, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:36 (seven years ago) link

Forgot about Spector--great casting.

Have you seen Wild Strawberries or Wizard of Oz, The?

clemenza, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:41 (seven years ago) link

Yay, Walkabout. I wondered if people were gonna be 'not road movie enough' about that one. Completely excellent in every way.

Also Easy Rider deserves to be so high even if it is dated and a clichéd film to like etc, because part of the reason it is those things is that it is one of the Platonic ideals of the whole road movie concept.

emil.y, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:42 (seven years ago) link

mostly all the ones that start w/ the letter "W" - Wanda, Weekend, Walkabout

Fun fact - three fifths of my top five began with W. And yes, it was those three.

emil.y, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:43 (seven years ago) link

Also the Milky Way, which has one of its words beginning with W.

emil.y, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:43 (seven years ago) link

Have you seen Wild Strawberries or Wizard of Oz, The?

well yeah

Οὖτις, Friday, 19 May 2017 15:44 (seven years ago) link

respect

http://torrentking.eu/covers/movies/79/69/0027969.jpg

Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, 19 May 2017 15:49 (seven years ago) link


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