Annie HallFanny and AlexanderNight of the HunterAguirre: The Wrath of GodJackie BrownBlade RunnerTouch of EvilWings of DesireNorth By NorthwestJules and Jim
― Look at how funky he is! (jer.fairall), Wednesday, 9 May 2012 13:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
if i really did get a ballot the temptation to be silly would be too great
Mostly I'd have to make the choice whether to have one token pick or go full-tilt gay. A ballot with one Pink Narcissus is fine. A ballot filled with Boom, Mommie Dearest, Un Chant d'amour, Showgirls and All About Eve is also fine. A ballot with 2 or 3 slots mixed in along with, say, Gertrud, Taste of Cherry and/or Rear Window looks a little weird.
― jungleous butterflies strange birds (Eric H.), Wednesday, 9 May 2012 14:26 (1 year ago) Permalink
A very big vote will take place in my grade 6 class sometime in the next few weeks. As I always do in conjunction with Welles' birthday (May 6), I showed them the first three minutes of Kane. They were definitely interested--a lot more than they were in MCA's death. I told them about the S&S poll, dramatically announcing that it was voted #1 in 1962, in 1972, etc. So I'll give them a choice soon as to whether they want to watch Kane, Bridge to Terabithia (we read the novel), or Where the Wild Things Are. Bridge will win, but I'm predicting three or four votes for Kane.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 23:10 (1 year ago) Permalink
http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/video-essay-the-sight-and-sound-film-poll-a-tribute-to-roger-ebert-and-his-favorite-films
― Count-Dracula-Down (Eric H.), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 15:54 (1 year ago) Permalink
A friend sent me a link this afternoon where a local critic writes about his first-ever invitation and shares his list. This critic used to write about pop music in the '90s; he's at a newspaper where music writers generally go on to something deemed more important, like film or politics or reality television. He was not a good music writer.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey2. The Tree of Life3. In the Mood for Love4. Vertigo5. Metropolis6. Tokyo Story7. Playtime8. La dolce vita9. Apocalypse Now10. Sunrise
Each pick is accompanied by a brief one-sentence comment.
I know I shouldn't do this, but the truth is--largely based on my memories of him as a music writer--I don't trust this list at all. In the accompanying piece he writes, "'Cue panic,' tweeted British critic Guy Lodge, when he received his own invite. As a fellow Sight & Sound poll virgin, I know exactly how he feels: What if I screw this up?" I guess I should appreciate the self-deprecation, but that's exactly how the list strikes me: "I think this is what you want--do I get a gold star now?" I mean, what does "What if I screw this up?" even mean? How do you screw up what is supposed to be, as I understand it, a list of your favourite films? (It's probably telling that his list is titled "________________'s 10 Greatest Films." You can go around and around forever on the distinction, or whether there is one--and I have.)
― clemenza, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 21:56 (1 year ago) Permalink
as long as The Shawshank Redemption isn't on there, it gets a pass from me.
― ryan, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 22:09 (1 year ago) Permalink
Well, that's one more ballot in #teamvertigo's favor.
― Count-Dracula-Down (Eric H.), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 22:11 (1 year ago) Permalink
also, 2 votes for newest Malick, too. o_0
― Count-Dracula-Down (Eric H.), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 22:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
(with Ebert's)
― Count-Dracula-Down (Eric H.), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 22:13 (1 year ago) Permalink
i think as a list by and more importantly FOR film critics/academics/passionate laymen/etc yeah it's pretty boring, but that's a decent list for someone newly interested in older or classic films, and at least a few of those would hit home with most people. films like that are good landmarks for finding your way around to a more personal or even idiosyncratic relationship to movies.
― ryan, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 22:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
Still can't shake my hunch that S&S's big innovation for 2012 is a third list comprised totally of new media votes.
― Count-Dracula-Down (Eric H.), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 22:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
feel like the list after 20 or so is gonna be pretty interesting this time.
― ryan, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 22:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'm doing something I try not to do anymore (i.e., I used to do it), which is to start analyzing someone's motivations for liking/disliking something, rather than just accept what they say at face value. It's also the Kael part of me that I'll probably never shake--she once had a line to the effect that she didn't trust people whose tastes were too exquisite.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 22:21 (1 year ago) Permalink
she was the proto-internet in many ways
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 22:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
Picking 10 films wouldn't say much about my taste in films, just my taste in symbolism.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 24 May 2012 00:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
ie, it's almost as much a fraud as the presidential election.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 24 May 2012 00:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
was wondering how you were gonna work that in there. nice.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 24 May 2012 03:33 (1 year ago) Permalink
How many of you would shy away from voting for a film just because it's new(ish)? Do you feel that a film needs to gather a little dust and gain a little paunch before you would feel comfortable calling it one of the ten best films ever, or would you be comfortable declaring the all-time greatness of a film that just came out the previous year? I'm just asking in general, not specifically about the film whose title I'm obviously tiptoeing around (Green Lantern).
― Quiet Desperation, LLC (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 24 May 2012 03:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
that is yr most shameless troll evah
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 24 May 2012 03:57 (1 year ago) Permalink
i think it was a joke
yeah, i'd be reluctant to throw a brand-newish film on there. i think that's true of most folks. in the 2002 poll there were very few films from the mid-late 1990s on there.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:39 (1 year ago) Permalink
i might vote for a 90s film. maybe even early 00s. last five years just seems iffy for reasons i cant even fully explain/defend.
― me so fat (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:43 (1 year ago) Permalink
i'm waiting to see the raven at the local 2nd run theater before i finalize anything.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 24 May 2012 06:07 (1 year ago) Permalink
i am kinda with you in just fliply dismissing that guy's list as sorta boring, clemenza. i think i have made ilx lists and caved to pressure to include some canon titles so it doesn't look like i'm above them/so it looks like i know what i'm talking about.
who was the guy who made the weirdest list ever. i liked that guy. i'd be into including some recent stuff - didn't someone here refer to like millennial antiseptic arthouse, as a genre? that kinda thing. kiarostamis and tsais. there's gotta be some of the like internationally-fetishised breakout new international cinemas picks in the next poll.
― blossom smulch (schlump), Thursday, 24 May 2012 10:39 (1 year ago) Permalink
calling Kiarostami "antiseptic" is weird, Tsai too given all the stagnant water.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 24 May 2012 11:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
no you're right. i'm just throwing them all in together as ambassadors of new-thoughtful-world-cinemas. i think i read antiseptic as pretty much referring to tsai, though, or at least very delicate & deliberate branches of contemplative new stuff.
― blossom smulch (schlump), Thursday, 24 May 2012 12:07 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'm pretty sure that Summer Hours would place somewhere in my top fifty, and I've "only" seen it twice. As for Tsai or Hou, any person who's absorbed one of their films is justified in placing one of them on a personal list, if that makes sense.
― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 24 May 2012 12:44 (1 year ago) Permalink
So who would be on that list?
TsaiHouKiarostamiDardennesTarrHanekeWeerasethakulAssayasJiaCostaReygadasDenis
― Count-Dracula-Down (Eric H.), Thursday, 24 May 2012 12:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
Definitely Dardennes, Denis, Hou, Tsai, Joe.
― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 24 May 2012 13:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
Angelopoulos might be timely. I can imagine he would've got some votes in the past. Akerman, Martel. & depending how recent we get, the sorta Eastern contingent of Bilge Ceylan, Puiu, Mungiu.
i didn't love Summer Hours a lot? but I'm slightly blank to Assayas and Ozon &c.
― blossom smulch (schlump), Thursday, 24 May 2012 13:04 (1 year ago) Permalink
Much more of a Desplechin guy myself. Not that he'd show up on a hypothetical S&S ballot or anything.
― Count-Dracula-Down (Eric H.), Thursday, 24 May 2012 13:13 (1 year ago) Permalink
who was the guy who made the weirdest list ever
It wasn't Sight and Sound, but in one of James Monaco's handbooks, he surveyed a bunch of writers on the best American film between '68 and '77 or thereabouts. I remember B. Ruby Rich co-compiled a list with somebody, and it had stuff like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Ganja and Hess (way pre-internet, i.e. at a time when those films weren't such a fact of life). Wish I could remember the whole list, it really jumped out from the others.
― clemenza, Thursday, 24 May 2012 14:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
kiarostami is pretty sui generis, tsai is much more emblematic of the sort of asian "slow cinema" that (used to?) burn a lot of critics up.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 24 May 2012 14:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
tsai seems like a bit of a trend-chaser to me, actually, albeit an accomplished one. long takes? check. new extremity? check. etc.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 24 May 2012 14:09 (1 year ago) Permalink
Someone asked me recently who the best US directors of the last 25-30 years were, and I rather quickly answered Spielberg and Haynes. I suspect they are pigeonholed as too "popcorn" (still) and "academic," respectively, to pop up in many top 10s.
(likely more in this new media subset Eric refers to)
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 24 May 2012 14:33 (1 year ago) Permalink
oh i think haynes will turn up
lots of critics still have bias against spielberg, i doubt that will change much this time out and even if it did, there isn't really a consensus favorite. e.t.? raiders? jaws? jurassic park? schindler's fucking list?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 24 May 2012 14:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'd say the critical cult around him has mostly centered on ET, Empire of the Sun, AI, and Munich. Maybe Close Encounters too, among the undying Paulettes.
― Count-Dracula-Down (Eric H.), Thursday, 24 May 2012 14:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/video-essay-sight-and-sound-film-poll-jonathan-rosenbaum-on-satantango
― Count-Dracula-Down (Eric H.), Thursday, 24 May 2012 16:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
Love watching J.Ro walk around and occasionally throw shade at the camera.
http://lumiere.net.nz/index.php/on-the-difficulty-of-film-canons/
― old people are made of poop (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 June 2012 13:06 (11 months ago) Permalink
Ignaty Vishnevetsky demonstrates his random method and how he ended up with three films from 1981: http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/video-sight-sound-film-poll-ignatiy-vishnevetsky-on-how-to-make-a-random-top-ten-list?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Thursday, 28 June 2012 19:38 (10 months ago) Permalink
A nice defense of L'avventura (which I, for one, would love to see return to the top 10):
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/great-wide-open-l-avventura
― Eric H., Monday, 30 July 2012 18:20 (9 months ago) Permalink
(I mean, given it can't really be L'eclisse.)
i'd absolutely put it in my top 10
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 30 July 2012 18:23 (9 months ago) Permalink
I doubt I would put any Antonioni in my top 100, even though I like four or five of his films very much. I felt guilty about this til I read how much Orson Welles disliked his portentousness.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 July 2012 18:27 (9 months ago) Permalink
there's this great welles interview where he admits he refuses to see any movie longer than 100 minutes.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 30 July 2012 18:32 (9 months ago) Permalink
that musta been pretty late, he claimed to love The Last Picture Show (118 m)
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 July 2012 18:42 (9 months ago) Permalink
well, remember who was intellecutally fellating him in the early seventies
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 30 July 2012 18:43 (9 months ago) Permalink
yes but.... he was a bit of a fibber, I've heard
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 July 2012 18:43 (9 months ago) Permalink
Just because I love L'eclisse more than L'avventura now doesn't mean I'd exclude the latter from my top hundred.
ranked all-time lists are idiotic; there, I said it
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 July 2012 18:48 (9 months ago) Permalink