Pretend you have a ballot for the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list

I've seen Touch of Evil both pre- and post-restoration, and I'm not sure if I'm remembering this correctly: the opening shot in the original comes with jazzy music (great) and credits overtop (distracting), while the restoration loses the credits (good) but also, to its detriment, the music? It's been a while--is that right? Anyway, I love it. The De Palma thread has some back-and-forth on Raising Cane; Touch of Evil, for me, is an example of a great director veering off into delirium and making it work brilliantly. I think you could also lose yourself in it with the sound off, even though you'd lose great lines like "You're a mess, honey." And in terms of Welles pondering his own career, it's so much smarter and more moving than F Is for Fake.

the enigma of kaspar hauser is easily herzog's best pre-cage work

i saw the opening scene on tv as a kid and was transfixed by the swaying wheat and pachelbel! so nice to discover later on what it was, and that i hadn't imagined it

easily herzog's best pre-cage work

lol

wtf ppl loving F is for Fake?
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, September 13, 2010 9:35 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah seriously, it's like repping for Jade as the best Friedkin.

because it's one of the most wonderfully grand, sly and overwhelming depictions of artifice in cinematic history? plus it has the chartres cathedral bit which is proper hairs-on-neck-stand-up material

F is for Fake is fine, but I can't rewatch it like I can Ambersons, TOE, or Chimes of Midnight.

I've seen Touch of Evil both pre- and post-restoration, and I'm not sure if I'm remembering this correctly: the opening shot in the original comes with jazzy music (great) and credits overtop (distracting), while the restoration loses the credits (good) but also, to its detriment, the music? It's been a while--is that right?

Yup. Also: the Grande-Suzie stand-off and the walk across the Mexican border in the first third play out in natural time without cross-cutting. Not an improvement, in my view.

Which may or may not say something about the limitations of the auteur theory. The music was presumably a crass, studio-imposed contrivance. It's great.

lol duh at confusing the bergman and the haneke (they're both horror movies!)

the music may be great but the ambient soundtrack is great also

not sure it matters ~that~ much anyway

Chimes at Midnight srsly handicapped by Keith Baxter and the fly-by-night financing. My three fave Welles remain Othello, Kane, Lady from Shanghai.

man no ambersons?

The first 2/3, yeah. We really don't have his film.

*Keeping fingers crossed that Metropolis guy in Argentina can find some footage*

See, Baxter's terrific; it's Welles who's the trouble.

Truncated Ambersons is better than intact Kane.

eric h = eric hearst

don't wanna know what rosebud equals

shocked at noodle vague picking the most reactionary Carry On!

They're all pretty reactionary :) Convenience just shows it more clearly cos of the contemporary setting, which is one of the reasons I love it + more or less ideal Carry On cast + hugely moving & nostalgic portrayal of a chunk of working class life that's more or less dead dead dead + genuinely sweet unrequited love story between Sid and Joan Sims.

It seems like insanity to put up Ambersons on these lists to me. The ending is atrocious.

Well, it's not Welles' ending at least.

besides, lots of the finished films on this list have more problems than Ambersons.

Fires on the Plain

watched it yesterday - great stuff!

It's a shame that it got butchered and the studio changed the ending, but it's still the film we've got. xpost

Tim Holt is about the least interesting lead actor in a Welles film 'cept maybe the Mr Arkadin guy

I know that Holt's performance is generally considered a major flaw, but I always found him oddly effective. His tentativeness and awkwardness, like he never quite seems to know what's going on around him, fits George Minifer.

so he's Kim Novak Amberson

Which is preferable to Ruth Gordon Anderson.

It seems like insanity to put up Ambersons on these lists to me. The ending is atrocious.

― a cankle of rads (Gukbe), Tuesday, 14 September 2010 16:49 (2 hours ago)

don't watch the ending then

perhaps that's the best approach.

i think most fans (me included) sorta mentally tune out the ending.

my boring, pedestrian list:

Vertigo
Lolita
Mulholland Drive
Alien
Love and Death
Manhattan
Taxi Driver
All About Eve
Fantasia
Rosemary's Baby

Lolita

Which verzh?

Kubrick - I forgot about the other one

I was joking.

straight down the lyne

ha! xp

My take on the two Lolitas:

Swain > Lyon
Winters > Griffith
Irons = Mason

(Don't really remember Langella's perf in the '97 version, so can't compare him to Sellers.)

Kubrick >>>>>>1 Billion>>>>>>> Lyne
Nabokov >>>>>>>>> Infinite >>>>>>>>> Schiff

my take on jaymc

you = fucking crazy dude

About a year away now I think. It's a little sad how excited I am for this.

"this" = Vertigo finally overtaking Kane

you think so? i remember last time there was so few films from 1975 to 2002 that they had a separate poll, which Apocalypse Now won. Will be interesting to see if that's any different this time.

I don't remember that--are you sure it was S&S, and if so, do you have a link for it online?

I remember that (and being glad something other than Raging Bull won).

about the the 1975-2002 poll? yes here's the link: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/63

oh it says "last 25 years" so i guess it was 77 to 02

tbh almost none of those films deserve to be in the overall top 10, Do the Right Thing excepted

id consider Yi Yi and Apocalypse Now

though i haven't seen A Brighter Summer Day so maybe that's a more worthy Yang