I Just Wanted To Take Another Look At You - the 2018 ILX Film Poll Results Thread

Please, no eating crisps during the feature, and for the full experience, don't read the thread on your phone.

I'll probably just end up watching it on my iPad 8 months later.

you and your titles! at least it's from a 1937 film (originally).

While people are finding their seats, we have some experimental short subjects to open the programme.

One might have thought there would be strong agreement on the year's worst, but it seems voters are mostly adept at avoiding the same flicks. Still, consensus was reached (with a quorum of two) on the following:

Disobedience (d: Lelio, w: Lelio/Lenkiewicz, b: Alderman) 6 pts
Boy Erased (w/d: Edgerton) 7 pts
Vice (w/d: Mckay) 8 pts
Mute (d: Jones, w: Jones/Johnson) 10 pts

A quorum was reached on one more new-to-viewers good film 1890-2017 than on bad films 2018:

青梅竹马 / Taipei Story (1985 d/s: Yang, w: Chu, Hou, Yang) 10 pts
Le Bonheur (1965, w/d: Varda) 13 pts
Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988, w/d: Davies) 13 pts
Cluny Brown (1946, d: Lubitsch, w: Hoffenstein/Reinhardt, b: Sharp) 14 pts
Playtime (1967, d: Tati, w: Tati/Lagrange) 15 pts

Oh, I saw Distant Voices, Still Lives last year and totally forgot about it! It would have made my new-to-viewers category. It's hardly my neck of the woods, but strikes me as being one of the best depictions of working class Britishness I've ever seen. Hearing Davies speak about it in the Q&A afterwards, it sounded like it was quite personally painful to make (and hard to fund).

hardly my neck of the woods

As in Northern, I mean

voted for Playtime, which I first saw last October. there was so much to look at in that film, I had to watch it two times in a row

xp ah was at the same screening i think!

beautiful film and, having not seen much davies, far more enigmatic in form than i expected! voted for that and taipei story; everytime i've seen a yang for the first time it's been a completely overwhelming experience

none of bad films i saw made it, and didn't see any that did because they looked bad

Nearly 800 votes were received from 28 voters for 222 different films.

There are more than one film in the top fifty that refer to types of mammal in the title. 13% of the new productions in the list were primarily photographed on film. 46% of the list are US productions.

Only one TV miniseries has made it in.

https://i.imgur.com/TlVOGHr.jpg

50. The Square
w/d: Ruben Östlund
SE 2017 digital
70 points, 3 votes

Placed at #30 in 2017, with 78 votes and 475 points

Perhaps not quite as good as his masterpiece Play, but a lot better than Force Majeure. I didn't see it as satirizing the art world as much as class structure in Sweden in general. Modern art being just as much an ostentatious display of societal power as the horse statue that get's broken in the first scene. It's not subtle, but I loved it.

- Frederik B, Wednesday, 25 July 2018

most things don't need satires -- most things are bad enough!

- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 25 July 2018

what, you're not gonna call out what's on RED and what's on Arri Alexa??

lol alfred otm

I liked Force Majeure but thought this sounded smug and unappealing when it came out. Maybe I'll sample it if it appears on any of my streaming services though.

I expect i will have missed most of the top 50. I'm very good at telling when I won't like something.

(so I don't go)

didn't vote in this poll, but i'm thankful this thread has a title i can click on at work.

oh so this thing again

xposts

nm, I just saw the running time.

yeah we were 2 of those 3. bottom of my ballot, but it was quite a short ballot, so i guess i gave it quite a lot of points! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

devvvine, we keep haunting the same places!

I really liked this at the time, though the effect has worn off a bit since. I remember loving the part with the infinite rubbish (non-metaphoric) enough to eclipse any deficiencies.

in the words of Scott Walker and Jacques Brel, NEXT!

there won't be too many more tt/imago double-booster wouldn't-have-placed-otherwise trash, treasure it whole you can

while

https://i.imgur.com/9zDuLX0.jpg

49. Green Book
d. Peter Farrelly w. Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly
US 2018 digital
71 points, 3 votes

Haha ok what the FUCK is this green book movie, how is it real. I saw the trailer and it was hilariously bad, it really feels like a parody trailer in the “simple jack” genre. Like, I might actually watch this it looks so bad

― wins, Monday, December 3, 2018

own up whoever u are

gotta be lurkers

or euros

lol smoke'em out

A joke post this early?

Or is that the element of surprise? Really, I'm hoping that's what this is...

Oh god okay. I’m sorry. I was asleep when I made my ballot. But also I went in expecting to hate it and didn’t. It was just way more free-wheelingly entertaining than a lot of the typical Oscar-bait and its (many) errors felt earnestly made and not nefarious, though I may well be wrong on that.

You are, dont worry.

It was right near the bottom of my ballot so I’m not the only culprit here.

I didn't vote for it, but I agree that Green Book is problematic but also entertaining

almost everybody I know in real life loved it

Dan In Real Life is not eligible this year

If it was a fakeout, I would have used this pic:

https://i.imgur.com/Xk0xk2P.jpg

lol

oh great! the "Old Town Road" thread redux

even thinking about that performance art scene in The Square a year + later makes me uncomfortable, it was so creepy

https://i.imgur.com/gZXbB6R.jpg

48. 江湖儿女 [Ash Is Purest White]
w/d: Jia Zhangke
CN 2018 DV-cam, digital, film
77 points, 3 votes

China in de jaren 2000, wat doen ze daar zoal? Ash is Purest White geeft op subtiele wijze een groot aantal hints. Het begint met een mooi kijkje in een small time gangsterwereldje. Redelijk goeiig totdat een mysterieus uitgelokte turfwar het leuke koppel uit elkaar drijf. Zij offert zich voor hem op en hij kan niet op haar wachten. Zo begint een fascinerende reis (richting het westen, gokte ik, mijn topografie van China is zwaar ondermaats) waar de hoofdpersoon nergens lijkt te kunnen aarden. Pijnlijk op zo'n zwijgende Aziatische manier en mistroostig maar ook weer niet te. Laatste 45 minuten lagen wat zwaar op de maag vooral omdat er nog echt weinig gebeurd. Ik zag zelf persoonlijke sores, een maatschappij in beweging richting een soort technologische moderniteit en landschappen die altijd hetzelfde zullen blijven. Ik ontwaarde ook een voorzichtig poëtische kritiek om de censors/geldschieters niet teveel tegen de tenen te stoten.

― OMC, Saturday, June 1, 2019

voted for this, not one of his best but still better than most working directors at their best. the moment of 'unreality' here worked for me a lot better than it did in previous films.

saw it at the 2017 NYFF, voted for it

as ever, towering performance from zhao tao

Second tier Jia, will likely make top 30 on my lis next year

The first act was perfect, it went a bit downhill after that, but still much better 99% of everything else released imo.

I rewatched The Square recently, and it's even better on the third watch. Put Ash Is Purest White pretty low on my ballot, but it's good. A lot better than Mountains May Depart.

https://i.imgur.com/By16AGA.jpg

47. Minding The Gap
d: Bing Liu (doco)
US 2018 digital
78 points, 4 votes

I thought ‘The Square’ was weak overall, but the scene with the man-monkey at the dinner was absolutely extraordinary.

* America To Me
missed this when it came out but streaming it through a Starz subscription and I can't recommend it enough. one of the cinematographers is Bing Liu, the kid who did Minding the Gap and my love for that led me here.

- forks, Thursday, 21 February 2019

have not yet seen MtG, want to

also haven't seen yet but this is on the iplayer atm uk folks

Made my ballot, though I think I had at least five or six docs ahead of it.

Can't wait to see what Bing Liu ends up doing next.

it is on hulu in the us and is worth watching

I didn't vote for any docs this year, though if I'd extended my Top 15 to a Top 20, the Rachel Dolezal and Garry Shandling ones may have placed. Mostly, though, I think I'm getting bored with the genre unless its about something I already really care about.

Minding the Gap is shown on Danish tv tomorrow re-titled 'When We Grew Up' (Da Vi Blev Voksne). I hate Danish re-titllings.

https://i.imgur.com/hzbqSIH.jpg

46. McQueen
d: Ian Bonhôte, Peter Ettedgui w: Peter Ettedgui (doco)
UK 2018 digital, archive
81 points, 3 votes

Also, when I got married to my wife Katy England, I had Alexander McQueen design for myself and my wife a suit with satin lapels and hemmed embroidery in the trousers and jacket with roses, in tribute to Gram Parsons.

― Boaby G, Wednesday, May 4, 2016

High fashion is not something I care about.

haha ok we got this one in too

xp

otm - I downloaded this for my partner. You'd have to pay me to watch it.

https://i.imgur.com/RDEYlrj.jpg

45. Museo
d: Alonso Ruizpalacios w: Manuel Alcalá, Alonso Ruizpalacios
MX 2018 digital
83 points, 3 votes

huh i guess youtube distribution means this ain't getting a cinema release here

haha ok we got this one in too

― imago, Monday, 24 June 2019 21:57 (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this one's really great. simon russell beale cameo is amazing

it's not quite gueros but what is

So happy for this to show up. Was a breath of fresh air at last years Berlin festival.

xp how did you watch it if i might ask?

xp have wanted to see gueros, have not heard of this

we bought it, maybe from the bfi player i think?

so, not in a cinema. but it was totally a 2018 film. oops what are the rules again

I thought ‘The Square’ was weak overall, but the scene with the man-monkey at the dinner was absolutely extraordinary.

YES 100%

xp oh no didn't mean that, just want to see it myself!

I'm delighted Ruizpalacios realized on the promise of Gueros.

The McQueen doc is about as good as the docs made for British TV about him. It's a sad story. The room in which they interviewed his aunt was extraordinarily beautiful, gave me living-room envy.

so, not in a cinema. but it was totally a 2018 film. oops what are the rules again

― imago, Tuesday, June 25, 2019 8:23 AM (nineteen seconds ago)

It only had to have a public cinema screening of some kind in 2018, not that you had to watch it on a big screen. Even a one-day, one-country release counts.

speaking of

https://i.imgur.com/kKAN5Im.jpg

44. Bros: After The Screaming Stops
d: Joe Pearlman, David Soutar (doco)
UK 2018 digital
84 points, 4 votes

haha ok we got this one in too

― imago, Monday, 24 June 2019 21:57 (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― imago, Monday, 24 June 2019 22:12 (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

watchable tv

by the top 40 we'll be outta your hair, folks

this was v compelling. "you're the love of my life"

DO NOT MISS THIS. Unexpected film highlight of the year. It's like Nigel Tufnel and David Brent had twins.

― aldo, Wednesday, 26 December 2018

it was absolutely brilliant.
best thing I have seen so far this festive season.
so many WTF moments.

― mark e, Wednesday, 26 December 2018

it's pretty tense. the scenes with them arguing are a bit too real in places

― ||||||||, Wednesday, 26 December 2018

Had to watch it again as there were too many howlers to fully absorb the first time

― PaulTMA, Wednesday, 26 December 2018

It seems very much like they were heavily involved in the decision making process behind the film, which makes it all the better, Matt really does think all these Spinal Tap / Alan Partridge words of wisdom are worth hearing. It's clear that he would not appreciate anyone laughing at him, but unintended brilliance is still brilliance. I would still be fairly interested in a real documentary about them, but this approach has somehow had a much better result.

― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Friday, 28 December 2018

ugh that bit where he chastises the session bass player for not playing with the intensity and passion of Flea....

― Michael B, Friday, 28 December 2018

Finally finished this and I have to say that although I came in for the LOLz (and there were quite a few), this story of sibling insecurities and resentments turned out to be quite touching. For the first half of the film, I was cheering for poor ol' misunderstood Luke, having to deal with a narcissic cretin of a brother. By the end of it, I found Matt, dim as he is, to be the more sympathetic of the two.

― baaderonixx, Thursday, 3 January 2019

agree with that even tho i feel it must be wrong.

― Fizzles, Thursday, 3 January 2019

I guess this is a british film?

aye, deluded brothers w zero self awareness from late 80s pop act prepare for a comeback gig. just watch a youtube cut of the best bits.

despite UK 2018 digital that scene is 100% Las Vegas

ok lol, it's a lot sweeter and more self-effacing than I would have thought from the title

Lol tv

Was 2018 that bad?!

lol better luck next time jia

I didn't vote for it but Green Book was fine as a movie in context with the rest of the Farrelly Brothers oeuvre. Best Picture material it is not, and it is a blinkered and retrograde film racially. But it's not that bad and works as a broad comedy. I mean Vigo just plays @NYCGuidoVoice, it's not that different from the cum in Cameron Diaz's hair or Ben Stiller getting his balls stuck in his zipper.

watching it was like getting my balls stuck in a zipper

OK, not these docs.

lol

I will say seeing it opening weekend with a packed (mostly elderly) crowd was kind of depressing, because pretty much everyone bought into the wish fulfillment of race relations that it presents. I'll never forget overhearing a woman to my left whispering "I don't think that was still happening" when they stop on the side of the road and see dozens of black people picking cotton.

xxl

Bless her smart.

wtf are these

lmk when the real stuff recommences

https://i.imgur.com/8hsjE0Y.jpg

43. 大象席地而坐 [An Elephant Sitting Still]
w/d: Hu Bo
CN 2018 digital
89 points, 3 votes

An Elephant Sitting Still is a very sad artifact, and mostly a waste of four hours.

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, March 24, 2019

I don't have 4 hours for anything

was it really 4 hours? I was looking forward to it as a standard feature-length film

number five on my ballot, claire denis's words are better than mine:

"In this apartment trapped in urban fog, we cannot see anything, the colors are subdued... We sense that it is daytime, but everything around us is gray. We feel captive in this apartment – in order to get out, someone needs to jump from the window. Little by little, we follow characters into the city at dusk. We discover this mysterious Chinese city, enclosing the different strata of China’s history, buildings under construction and ancient territories, and it is only once night has fallen that we see the elephant."

elephant shit

it sounds intriguing to me but maybe I will have to watch it in installments, not sure I can take 4 hours of a subdued gray film at dusk illuminating a mysterious chinese city all in one sitting

the first installment will dispel the intrigue

spoilers, Claire!

I may end up really loving it, just a feeling

didn't vote in this but I saw the square (ok with some great parts) and minding the gap (great)

my favorite film first seen in 2018 from previous years was Last Year at Marienbad, such an amazing film

followed by Twin Peaks: The Return, A Brighter Summer Day, Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Playtime, Close-Up, The Tree of Wooden Clogs, Meshes of the Afternoon, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, Colossal Youth

I'd only managed to whittle my new-to-me down to 11 by dumping an entire museum season of British Hitchcocks, before looking at the ballots and discovering I didn't need to bother weighting or deciding what to sacrifice next.

there have to have been so many different choices

More results tomorrow; UK folks are welcome to warm the thread up in the GMT morning by posting closed-captioned screencaps from After The Screaming Stops.

If you do that you'll be arrested and thrown in jail.

i didn’t vote bc i mostly watch Marvel movies but keen to see what yall watched & voted for

elephant shit

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is bad punning, not good

Elephant Sitting Still was no 4 on my ballot, although tbh it is overlong and repetitive but whatever does happen comes from a place (even if you don't know what happened to its director), and I think its one of the first Chinese films where the politics of the place just isn't there, as a thing that weighs in. I would probably go lower with it now but I'm glad it got in.

I'll vote for Jia next year. Which I regret because it might have put it above a doc on fucking Bros - oh yes! brb, going to brainlessly describe this as "compelling". wtf is it with you all aargh, just can't fucking unsee that.

elephant is more interested in talking about society through its effect on the individual's lived in experience and psychology than portraying society in of itself, and so lets the grey swathes of the city and the out of focus supporting characters just become a canvas.

does have an incredible chekov's gun moment

if it really matters, you have a few hours itt to explain how the directors of After The Screaming Stops did not craft an engaging and fascinating psychological portrait of two people trapped in their own resentments, working desperately every day of their lives to build internal worlds that aren't circumscribed by their personal limitations, only to have their decades of constructive delusion come crashing when met with each other's bubbles of self-belief

if i knew we could vote for tv i would have voted for limmy's homemade show

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi1lvLdwoTjAhUD1hoKHfFqAG8QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailydead.com%2Fthe-earth-dies-screaming-blu-ray-announced-by-kino-lorber%2Fearth-dies-screaming-poster%2F&psig=AOvVaw08XFjrfwuLt62F-WOS8GEs&ust=1561548254685325

lol

There are many profiles over the years which do just this -- switch the cameras on, give 'em enough rope, edit (juicily or otherwise). Its engaging because the personalities are that. It's not that fascinating, it would require you not knowing much about entertainment and how it twists (for want of a better word) the psychologies of people, to find it so. It's actually quite an antique construction, usually you would have a tv series made of this kind of thing and you'd spin a tale out of it on top now. I mean I watched and laughed at it and totally forgot about - thinking about it a bit now there is an element of 'let's laugh at working class people who made something of themselves and ended up places' to these things which rankles.

There are many arthouse films over the years which do just this -- switch the cameras on, give 'em enough rope, edit (juicily or otherwise). Its engaging because the ennui is that. It's not that fascinating, it would require you not knowing much about an elephant and how it twists (for want of a better word) the psychologies of people, to find it so.

dude you like it, just say its compelling.

Laugh at? Yeah, laugh at their foibles, as with any intimate documentary of larger-than-life figures, but it gives you the full picture as well. I ended up rooting for them, or at least compelled - yes, compelled - by their slightly tragic relationship. They felt like anomalies, as well - certainly not your typical senior pop stars - or at least, they felt like they were going about things in quite an odd and obsessive way

anyway it was low on my ballot so I don't care so much. there's definitely bigger fish to fry

People sure are interesting if you destroy them.

I thought the documentary ended up celebrating their individuality and zest tbh but whatever

It's not that fascinating, it would require you not knowing much about an elephant and how it twists (for want of a better word) the psychologies of people, to find it so.

This would be the best review of Dumbo ever, by the way.

I want at least half of the credit for that

Please tell me the fyre docs didn’t play in any theatres

a doc on fucking Bros - oh yes! brb, going to brainlessly describe this as "compelling". wtf is it with you all

Forgot the Bros doc premiered at London film fest as it may have snuck into bottom of my ballot.

as i mentioned in the other thread - they were set on having a red carpet premiere at lff so ended up paying for it themselves

a brief message

movies are so much more expensive now and everything looks so much worse lol

— Willow Catelyn Maclay (@willow_catelyn) June 20, 2019

sic wake up

https://i.imgur.com/Z8LIZH8.jpg

41= Ahlat Agaci [The Wild Pear Tree]
d: Nuri Bilge Ceylan w:Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Ebru Ceylan, Akin Aksu
TR 2018 digital
91 points, 3 votes

sic go back to sleep

I kid, I haven't seen that one yet.

I think I saw this this year and will vote for it next time

Oh actually I guess I saw it right at the end of last year, maybe the last thing I saw in 2018 (it was either that or the trier)

Anyway I really liked it although not as much as once upon a time in Anatolia

a January 2019 release in NYC (I missed it)

if you thought winter sleep was a towering masterpiece will you like this too

also, isn't that 42nd?

my turkish friends want me to see wild pear; gonna look it up

joint 41st xp

Kinda annoying but fine, at 15th on mine.

https://i.imgur.com/CZUE9qG.jpg

41= Le Livre d'image [The Image Book]
w/d: Jean-Luc Godard
CH 2018 collage
91 points, 4 votes, 1 #1

The Image Book... Sadlol. Nobody told me there would be large swathes without sound, and I'm still not entirely sure it wasn't a mistake. Much slower than usual, most of it the same thing he's done in decades, but a lot of the stuff about the arab world was kinda touching.

― Frederik B, Wednesday, October 3, 2018

after seeing The Image Book twice I'm convinced it's a masterpiece. he talks about Faust at the end but the movie is about Sisyphus: "Even if nothing had turned out as we had hoped, it does not diminish our hopes, for they were a necessary utopia." at 88, Godard despairs that the love of his life, cinema, is incapable of properly addressing and much less combatting human suffering. But he keeps going, dancing himself to death. The first time I saw it with friends, who expected a more rigorous and clear political movie (like Ici et Ailleurs), criticized the Central Region section as "problematic" and "othering," and while I don't necessarily disagree (it's all very armchair), I don't think it's a political movie, it's a man looking back at his life and realizing he's failed. Yet he continues. I find that incredibly moving.

I caught maybe a dozen of the films referenced, but I never got the sense that Godard was holier than thou or pretentious. He's always been pretty humble in his presentation and totally open about the creative process. His attitude is inviting, like hey, I'm going to try some stuff, let's see if it works and have fun. This stretches from Breathless to The Image Book. Does anyone except Godard understand even 75% of The Image Book? Probably not, but It doesn't matter.

― flappy bird, Tuesday, February 26, 2019

a 2019 American release; near the top of next poll for me.

xpost
Voted for TWPT - it's a bit like the Jia (which I only saw this year), not exactly a bold departure from their previous, better movies, but still with enough of the good stuff - performances, visuals, story - to make it p satisfying. The image that sic has used is from the film's best scene, which has a kind of erotic undertow that's mostly missing from the rest of the movie. It's also probably slightly too long (there's an extended theological conversation towards the end which unbalances the whole). Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is the masterpiece, for me, but then I like murder mysteries.

voted for the image book. don't think i made it past the surface, thematically, but still an incredibly captivating experience; even as just a light and sound show

https://i.imgur.com/eKTNena.jpg

39= mid90s
w/d: Jonah Hill
US 2018 Super 16mm
92 points, 3 votes

You can see Mid90s' influences all over the place (Gus Van Sant seems like an obvious one), but for a first film, I found this impressive--much more so than Eighth Grade, I thought, and as actor-directed debuts go, I liked it at least as much as Lady Bird. Na-kel Smith's character isn't the most demanding role--the benevolent, wise symbolic older brother--but he carries it off so well, I hope (and assume he will) get some year-end recognition. Lucas Hedges's real older brother is Smith's diametric opposite, and he's really good too. My first reaction to the event that sets up the ending was "Was that really necessary?" (stylistically, it's convincingly jarring), but the ending itself, I loved. The music sounds mostly mid-'90s, not much of which I recognized, but Hill will stray; there's a great minute of the Mamas & the Papas' "Dedicated to the One I Love."

― clemenza, Sunday, November 11, 2018

i liked the acting and the comic timing, the nostalgia was a bit much, the main kid's tv show t-shirts in the beginning were one detail that rang false. dialogue was full of exposition. thought lady bird was more idiosyncratic and interesting, but it was an enjoyable watch.

soundtrack was kind of the hip-hop version of the big chill

― symsymsym, Sunday, November 11, 2018

All that was left from TWPT was the hectoring voice of the main character but yes the love interest and the father were both wonderful. There was more to it.

Need another watch of the Godard, but even on a distracted watch on Mubi it's really impressive what he is still doing.

m90s: no

half-watched mid90s on Kanopy while I was finding most of the images for the poll; it's like a made-for-tv remake of Kids

https://i.imgur.com/Uq3jtwd.jpg

39= Thoroughbreds
w/d: Cory Finley
US 2017 digital
92 points, 4 votes

Image Book my #1 and favorite film of the decade

https://i.imgur.com/SZFI2Zn.png

35= 死靈魂 [Dead Souls]
d: Wang Bing (doco)
CN 2018 digital
98 points, 3 votes

I only had time for a shorter Wang Bing film, which I did vote for

https://i.imgur.com/2tECsPD.jpg

35= Acht Stunden sind kein Tag [Eight Hours Are Not A Day]
w/d: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
DE 1972 16mm TV
98 points, 3 votes

90 minutes to go on Eight Hours... Is this the least neurotic character ever played by Hanna Schygulla?

What comes across in the less distanced/Brechtian performance style is how good and versatile all these actors are.

Also I find Gottfried John ridiculously sexy.

― Dr Morbius, Sunday, 25 March 2018

Halfway through Eight Hours. I don't know who I like better, Grandma or Gregor--they're like the funniest movie old-people since Aunt Lotte in Stranger Than Paradise. (I know--TV, and they came first.) I wonder if Fassbinder considered shooting it in Cinemascope, just to accommodate Gottfried John's eyebrows.

...

I was a little apprehensive about seeing this. There was the length, obviously, but more in relation to my own sleep deprivation and whether I'd hold up. But more than that, I saw a dozen-plus Fassbinder films before I was 25--he was the guy whose every new film you rushed off to see if you were studying film in the early '80s, his and Scorsese's--but, except for Berlin Alexanderplatz a couple of more times--I never went back to anything after that. I just didn't know how his idiosyncrasies would hold up; some of those films I remember positively, some I doubt I'd have much use for today.

Really glad I followed through--liked pretty much the whole eight hours. The wedding party, in particular, was masterful, and there was so much humour. Of all that I could single out, I'd put Gottfried John's unwavering affection for his grandmother at the top of the list. Great soundtrack, too--I'm off in search of the Spooky Tooth song he used.

― clemenza, Monday, 3 September 2018

dead souls my number two, understand the running time (and subject matter) make it a tough proposition. but it's vital, captivating and haunting; an incredible documentation of oral history that interplays with the pretty haunting footage shot at the location of the camps. think someone said it on another thread but it's key that wang never prods or pushes the survivors, lets them tell their stories and keeps editing to a minimum

been awhile since I’ve seen it but I also think there's a lot here to be explored in terms of the ideology of ‘authority' and ‘work’ - and how the organisational structure of the camp kinda lasts to the bitter end when it’s meaningless

haven't seen eight hours..., would love to!

had 8H at #2

on Criterion

https://i.imgur.com/cYdagp7.jpg

35= Phantom Thread
d: Paul Thomas Anderson w: PTA & DDL
US 2018 35mm
98 points, 4 votes

Placed at #1 last year, with 416 points, 19 votes and 6 #1s.

what a windbag movie

- darraghmac, Thursday, 26 July 2018

latecomers

I may have voted for Phantom Thread both years, can't remember.

latecomers people who don't live in NYC or LA, the only cities in which it was released in 2017

i know, just kiddin

(US voters could've recognized NY/LA as part of their country and still voted for it last year... as most did)

won without their votes, a true champion

https://i.imgur.com/nhlDVpq.jpg

35= Can You Ever Forgive Me?
d: Marielle Heller w: Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty b: Lee Israel
US 2018 digital 6K
98 points, 6 votes

Can You Ever Forgive Me? was good and its place in the bottom half of a top 10 is appropriate in a relatively mediocre year

― flappy bird, Friday, November 16, 2018

6/10 - might have rated this higher if the trailer hadn't given away the entire plot of the movie

― Ward Fowler, Saturday, March 2, 2019

the queerest mainstream film I saw last year

First thing I voted for to place! No masterpiece--I had it near the bottom of my list--but I'll take McCarthy in more roles like this, pls.

It understands a central truth about writing: you need money and you lie.

I wouldn't make any great claims for it but I loved it anyway.

precisely

Also, I highly doubt anyone else here watches Jann (singer/songwriter Jann Arden's CBC sitcom) but between it and this film, middle-age-lesbian cringe-comedy seems to be a thing lately.

regret missing this one, will rectify soon

I wouldn't raise your expectations, but it's slier and fleeter than its trailers suggest, and I'd watch a series of movies about the McCarthy-Grant duo.

https://i.imgur.com/RwMEjXq.jpg

34. The Death of Stalin
d: Armando Ianucci w: Armando Iannucci, David Schneider, Ian Martin a: Peter Fellows b: Fabien Nury, Thierry Robin
UK 2017 digital 5K
100 points, 5 votes

Placed at 22 in 2017, with 104 points and 6 votes

I laughed so hard throughout Death of Stalin and also shivered and that's exactly what the film was about, in that regard it's a complete success, basically I don't agree with you guys but I love you all nonetheless.

- Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 25 July 2018

I thought it was very funny and surprisingly moving. I'd have preferred everyone to be British, i guess, it would have made more sense and been funnier. Isaacs was the bomb but Andrea Riseborough's performance was stunning as well.

- jed, Wednesday, 25 July 2018

Can you ever forgive me was my first pick to place as well! It caused me to experience emotions of sadness and didn't try to make the central duo suddenly prosocial at the end which is nice.

"Who the FUCK would want eternal life??" - Buscemi/Khrushchev

this movie was not good

ffs

just save yourself the bother and watch the "hilarious" trailer.

this was bad, panel show levels of unfunny

just watch the armando ianucci shows

go get yer Apatow

can only assume americans not having to put up with smug british comedy 24/7 makes this easier to digest

or smug British comedy fans!

btw sic, the VV P&J used to combine vote totals over 2 years (but wd not have permitted Phantom Thread to win 2 years in a row)

https://sovietmoviesonline.com/comedy/305-hrustalev-mashinu.html

don't watch that watch Khrustalyov, My Car!

Toni Erdmann won in 2016, placed at 40 in 2017.

https://i.imgur.com/dzek4Kj.jpg

33. First Man
d: Damien Chazelle w: Josh Singer b: James R. Hansen
US 2018 16mm, 35mm, IMAX 65mm
101 points, 4 votes

Saw this at the imax last night (because my wife decrees that we have to see all space movies at the imax). It’s not a great movie for that format, the handheld camera is a bit jarring at that size and my enduring impression is that Ryan’s Gosling has weirdly small ears. It does, however set up an interesting counterpoint with the lunar scenes being full imax as opposed to the rest of the film being regular widescreen, as well as going from jumpy handheld to serene. I guess that’s the point, also going from high activity to a very contrasting moment of serenity on the moon.

It also owes a lot to the right stuff, I found the colour and grain to match that film very well and the first scene is almost a mirror of Chuck Yeager’s last flight in that film. (Bouncing off the atmosphere rather than failing to reach space). It’s not quite as inspiring as the right stuff but it’s a much more personal film, very sparse dialogue, reflecting Armstrong’s character.

Worthwhile, I think although was pretty stoked for the queen biopic they trailed before hand.

― Ed, Thursday, October 18, 2018


Oh yeah, all that handheld camerawork really got on my nerves. I saw regular DCP projection fwiw.

Also forgot to mention that when I saw it, when they got the moon and the soundtrack went completely silent, we all heard Lady Gaga belting a song from A Star is Born playing in an adjacent theater. Lol

― flappy bird, Thursday, October 18, 2018

Finally saw this, loved it.

It represented Armstrong so beautifully.
His inscrutability, his steadfastness, his depth...but also how much he and all the Gemini & Apollo astronauts gave to the program, the deeply human cost of getting to the moon & the weight of the achievement of actually setting foot on the moon by showing how much had to go right.

I thought it was truly a beautiful movie, and a credit to
Armstrong & his family.

I never thought Gosling could pull off a characterization of Armstrong but hats (helmets?) off, he really killed it.

― VegemiteGrrl, Tuesday, February 19, 2019

in my top 10

A bore.

A well-meaning one though.

https://i.imgur.com/t86RIM6.jpg

32. Hale County This Morning, This Evening
d: RaMell Ross w: RaMell Ross, Maya Krinsky (doco)
US 2018 DSLR
104 points, 4 votes

tried this one a couple times too

made my ballot

thought this film was beautiful

In my top 5.

I really don’t have anything to say about Can You Ever Forgive Me. It’s the most “fine” movie I saw last year and the least likely I’ll ever revisit.

otm

For a documentary Hale County is extremely oblique and decentered, but it makes sense as an intuitive right-brained portrait of a group of people, and there are many beautiful auditory and visual effects and surreal juxtapositions of images

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is the best of the masterpieces, but I'd say The Wild Pear Tree is a masterpiece as well. Nuri Bilge Ceylan might be my favorite of the, like, praised directors working at this moment. Apichatbong is better, but irregular, ditto Hou Hsaio-hsien, etc. Every couple of years there's a new Ceylan, it's always different, nearly always great, and always in new ways.

The Image Book rose a lot in my estimation as I kept on thinking about it. What a way to go out if this is his last one. The parallels between the old man dancing until he faints, and Godard trying to talk but coughing. Beautiful self portrait in there.

Dead Souls on of the simpler eight hour films I've ever seen - ok, the only eight hour film I've ever seen, and yeah, eight hours is pretty much a day - but the point of showing the funeral close to the beginning, then later on showing all the unburied bones, then having the old, dying people tell their stories before it's too late, is very powerful. These victims deserve to be lamented, and if their families can't, then these eight hours can perhaps help a little.

I agree with that description, but it didn't cohere into a compelling result.
xpost

didn't quite cohere for me either, but I was more beguiled by the second viewing. I definitely want to see it again

https://i.imgur.com/sFjxbSI.jpg

31. Visages Villages [Faces, Places]
d: Agnès Varda & JR (doco)
FR 2017 digital
106 points, 5 votes

Placed at #15 in 2017, with 138 points and 10 votes.

amazed at that Varda quote; it seems old ladies like cats!

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 26 July 2018

didn't open over here till last autumn, ended up fairly low on my ballot. got the fun slightly bittersweet 90 i was promised without jr getting in the way too much

I liked the faces and the places

voted for this last year, it is another film I want to see again

Damn, I forgot to vote for Can You Ever Forgive Me... yeah, like I said, would've been in the bottom of my top 10. oh well.

agree that The Death of Stalin sucked

First Man was my #6, Chazelle finally put his crypto fascistic tendencies to good use in a surprisingly subtle movie that, given the subject matter and his previous two films, I expected to be completely over the top and noxious. it was really, really great.

had a hard time with First Man, Gosling as Armstrong seemed completely personality-free, and the movie felt inert to me. I was probably in a bad mood when I saw it, maybe will watch it again

https://i.imgur.com/rQxOOnH.jpg

30. Нелюбовь [Loveless]
d: Andrey Zvyagintsev w: Oleg Negin, Andrey Zvyagintsev
RU 2017 digital
110 points, 4 votes

really liked this film too, between this and Leviathan I'm impressed by Zvyagintsev and am looking forward to seeing what he does next

Man, lots of consensus ahead I guess

still a few more before we get out of the 4-votes zone

expecting an appearance from everyone's favourite soju aficionado soon

Gosling as Armstrong seemed completely personality-free

true to life!

The library never got Loveless.

expecting an appearance from everyone's favourite soju aficionado soon

― devvvine, Tuesday, June 25, 2019 4:04 PM (four minutes ago)

if Burning shows up outside the top 10 I will be disappointed

it won't.

you won't.

(i meant hong)

oh ok. that's another one that was in my top 10

i'm hoping for one in the top ten and a couple others round these waters

haven't had a chance to see The Day After, Grass, or Hotel by the River yet

up next is the one that decided me it'd be fun to track the format they were made in, silby

https://i.imgur.com/5d2Jmc2.jpg

29. 24 Frames [۲۴ فریم‎]
d: Abbas Kiarostami, Ali Kamali
IR 2017 desktop computer
114 points, 4 votes

my biggest disappointment of the year

wish this was much much higher

I loved this film!

I think I put it #2. But I won’t begrudge it not working on anyone. My enjoyment of it is purely my own.

With the Breugel painting at the beginning the making-pictures-come-to-life aspect seemed obvious in a crude sort of way. I’m sure was intentional as an opener. It didn’t really occur to me until Frame 15 or so that the static part of each subsequent vignette might have been the original still photograph? (still not sure). The CGI wasn’t what I’ve seen in other films, it was more crude but felt more natural, more surreal and dream-like than most everything else I’ve seen

my #5 I think? Definitely helped seeing it in a big theater and being in the right mood. Shirin didn't grab me because the whole conceit - watching famous Iranian actresses watching a movie - was obviously lost on me.

felt the same way about Shirin

in this film I liked the way each of the frames seemed linked by theme or visual content

That last frame was beautiful, with a person asleep at a desk in a stark modern room, the Wyler film playing in extreme slow motion on the screen and Love Never Dies on the soundtrack.

The view out of the windows of trees in a forest swaying in winter weather at dusk made me want to be in that room at that moment

My enjoyment of it is purely my own.

― Pauline Male (Eric H.), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 5:01 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It’d be surprising if it were someone else’s!

haha

Kiarostami's final film "24 Frames" , made in the last 3 years before his death in 2016, is, uh, something. He took a photo of a Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1565 painting The Hunters in the Snow and 23 of his own photos (many of them of snow-covered fields, or waves crashing on the shore) and imagined what happened before and after. He via computer tools added 4 minutes or so of action to each of the 24 shots. Some are wearying and repetitious with little happening, but others are special.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, January 30, 2018

need to watch it

https://i.imgur.com/xDM6vHv.jpg

28. The Rider
w/d: Chloé Zhao
US 2017 digital
117 points, 6 votes

following "the rider", i will be down for the choe zhao Eternals movie but boy am i having a hard time imagining how that will pan out

― forks, Wednesday, May 8, 2019

It was...okay. The boy is cute.

she picked the right person to structure the movie around, Brady Jandreau is really charismatic

It was subtle, it reminded me a little of Kelly Reichardt's films

https://i.imgur.com/kpJ3imT.jpg

27. Monrovia, Indiana
d: Frederick Wiseman (doco)
US 2018 digital
121 points, 4 votes, 1 #1

Monrovia, Indiana is straight out of a Faulkner novel. Tribulation and death in every scene.

― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, October 28, 2018

haven't seen this yet. that's a beautiful image

A hair less wonderful than Wiseman's recent run, but it made my top 15.

besides Monrovia - which I will definitely see - of the films on this list I haven't seen yet, the ones I'm most looking forward to are Ash Is Purest White, Elephant Sitting Still, The Wild Pear Tree, The Image Book, Dead Souls. I liked Frederik’s descriptions of the last three. After a somewhat traumatic experience with Berlin Alexanderplatz I'm approaching Eight Hours Don't Make a Day with trepidation.

one more today?

I'm up for it, but am surprised by how little attended this is. Wish people would post more here. Anything would do

https://i.imgur.com/CZmH9dR.jpg

26. Free Solo
d: Elizabeth Chai Vasarelyi, Jimmy Chin
US 2018 digital 4K
123 points, 6 votes

(doco)

I liked this a lot, but maybe not as much as The Dawn Wall from 2017, which shared one of its protagonists

that's a great still, but there were so many thrilling images from this film

I found it kind of nerve-wracking to watch

It’s not at the end of the day a great film, but did I or anyone else care while actually watching it? Hell no.

wish I had that kind of courage

just saw "free solo" last night. for me, watching it was an emotional experience. i was intensely into climbing at one point in my life, decades ago, when 'sport climbing' was not a thing yet, rock gyms were a rumored curiosity, and shoe selection involved a choice between just two or three brands.

my climbing was mostly done with two good friends. we lived in montreal, so spent most of our time in the adirondacks. all granite. climbing was the first sport in which my gangly body felt gifted and graceful. i had a lot of difficult things going on my head in those days, self-hatred, terror, stuff that has taken me decades to get on top of, but the slow vertical dance on those vast granite faces, the rhythm of crack climbing, the controlled exhilaration i felt when leading a pitch, the feeling of setting up secure anchors for my partners, ...purified me deeply, and after topping out, the sense of feeling, not just okay, but exalted, was incomparable.

some years into this, i had a bad accident. not climbing: a car accident. i emerged with nerve damage in my left hand. could no longer oppose the thumb (i'm only half human now!), grip strength rendered negligible. i've continued climbing, but nowhere near at the same level. mostly bouldering, some indoor stuff.

for me the star of "free solo" was el capitan. i couldn't take my eyes off it. like many climbers who haven't even climbed the big wall i suspect, the profile of el cap, the great crack systems, flakes and roofs -- much of it is imprinted in our mind, from simply looking at so many photographs, topos, and whatnot. hell i went twice to the ansel adams exhibit that recently closed at the museum of fine arts, just to stand in front of those exposures and feel the storm clearing out of the Valley. i don't know, i just love granite. and el cap in "free solo" presented so many facets. massive and terrifying, yes. but on a small scale: textured, multi-colored, intimate even. above all predictable, when it counted.

i was just struck by the beauty of the wall and of the climbing. in some ways honnold's ascent is the supreme way to pay homage to all of what that is.

― collardio gelatinous, Sunday, March 17, 2019

great post by collardio gelatinous

thought it was interesting that functional MRIs suggested that activity in the amygdala, the locus of fear in the brain, may have been suppressed in Alex Honnold

dude has some serious issues but holy fuck he can climb like a spidermonkey

I was surprised people thought that Monrovia, Indiana was apolitical, to me it described the whole place as a death cult. The creepy free mason ceremony, the priest at the end rhapsodizing about death, the pro-gun t-shirts, and of course, the constant work of that small committee (did anyone figure out exactly who they were?) to keep 'people' out of the city, no matter what. The reveal of their party at the city festival is one of the best side gags of 2018.

hmmmm, more of you should've seen Monrovia. (it's even been on PBS already?)

I don't see the point of these polls if seeing a Wiseman doc isn't due diligence.

no uk release yet

oh apparently it played for four days and i missed it, apologies

not seen yet but somehow the computer graphics aspect of 24 frames completely passed me by, thought it was just static long takes

close enough

didn't realize that Monrovia was available on streaming. I downloaded the PBS app on my streaming device and it's there! I will watch it this week

yes, that's great news

I have seen zero Wisemans to date but I really want to

Can't go wrong really with any of his first 10 movies. after that they get progressively longer (still amazing obv). my favorite of that first run is High School.

https://i.imgur.com/bgaeJj4.png

25. The Other Side Of The Wind
d: Orson Welles w: Orson Welles, Oja Kodar
US 1970-71, 1973-76, 1979, 2008, 2017-18 35mm, 16mm, Super 8
133 points, 5 votes

for all it's meta-narrative conceits and internal references, it's kind of remarkable how *little* like Welles the Jake Hannaford character is. Welles was not this macho showman universally hailed for making stars out of actors or with particularly intense relationships w younger actors afaict, and he certainly wouldn't have made anything quite like the film-within-a-film shown here, which (as others have noted) is closer to something like Zabriskie Point or one of the "acid westerns" than anything in Welles' ouevre. Welles loved dialogue too much, for one thing.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, November 8, 2018

i'll be pretty amused if they finish "the other side of the wind" and it turns out to be a huge turd, but you know almost everything welles had a hand in is, at the very least, interesting. as with that talk show above.

― amateurist, Monday, 11 May 2015

It made my list on the strength of my anticipation and the car scene; the making-of documentary helhped too.

I regarded it as a curio, nothing more, though some of the later scenes with Huston are compelling.

1970-71, 1973-76, 1979, 2008, 2017-18

Fantastic.

it's a lesser work in Welles' ouevre, and overlong, but still compelling

the making-of documentary was better

Agreed.

yes

mostly because watching Welles talk about films and making films is so reliably entertaining

I can think of few artists in any genre whose insights into his own work and colleagues, erudition (he's as likely to quote Shakespeare and Conrad as he is the NY Post), and charm come together as fetchingly as they do in Orson Welles.

is it in that doc that he IDs loyalty as the grand theme of his oeuvre?

what did i do wrong, daddy?

had it at 11

Yeah. He annoyed Bogdanovich in his 1970s interviews when he insisted that Kane betrays Leland (and the Declaration of Principles), not the other way around, just like Quinlan betrays Menzies.

cumming's framing in the making of doc was insufferable, and it also completely ignores f for fake if i remember. found the shorter a final cut for orson much more compelling

*Catching up* Love how Dead Souls made it.

I haven't seen any Wiseman - it's a gap ugh

Welles was not this macho showman

I bet he might've slapped Kael though

https://i.imgur.com/ljsHKWG.jpg

24. Paddington 2
d: Paul King w: Paul King, Simon Farnaby a: &al.
UK 2017 digital 2K
141 points, 6 votes

Placed at 21 in 2017, with 105 points, 6 votes and 1 #1

I didn't see the first Paddington and it didn't matter, I loved Paddington 2 and sobbed the entire time

- flappy bird, Thursday, 26 July 2018

ffs

lol what is this bullshit

Liked it, but didn't vote because it placed last year. Sorry, bear fans.

I bet he might've slapped Kael though

Franklin Pangborn-style maybe

watch the bear film Shakey, it's good

Nice

P2 is great

I did sob the entire time but that was probably aided by the fact that the previous day I flew to and back from Florida for a funeral. I didn't vote for it again this year.

Every year is a bear film year

if every year involved Sweaty Bigface being raped by a bear... maybe

I thought the bear of the year was the hairy Spanish dad in Summer 1993, holy shit

I liked it fine. Hugh Grant's been doing solid work for a while.

bear film 2 is fucking great; endlessly inventive visually and a genuine joy to watch

Bear > bros

A Bear Film Wes Anderson Rip

- Chris L, Thursday, 26 July 2018

https://i.imgur.com/QjF009L.jpg

23. Isle Of Dogs
d: Wes Anderson w: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, Kunichi Nomura
UK/US/DE 2018 stop-motion DSLR
158 points, 9 votes

Haha

I haven't had the desire to watch any new Anderson film in about a decade now.

Didn’t get to see the Welles film yet, might have voted for mark cousins Welles doc

This was superlative. My #5 but 4 was a split decision between that and the other best animated flick of the year. Wes Anderson is great and fuiud

If anything, the mise-en-scene of IOD reminded me a bit of David Hockney's variations on Chinese scroll painting, where multiple events are happening within the same frame, and in a horizontal, left to right direction.

― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 5 April 2018

this looked nice but suffered from usual wes anderson short-comings: no character development, unearned moments of emotion, rote plot with a chase and a crazy plan that just might work etc. i found myself sort of bored and done with it by the time they left the island.

feel like he's the one director who is most guilty of the novelist's crime of writing the same novel in various different ways.

also orientalist as hell and wes anderson is cancelled obv

― jim in vancouver, Monday, 9 April 2018

My review of this literally said it was one of the best films of the year, and then I didn't vote for it, or consider voting for it. What a difference a year makes.

I voted for 22 films, this might indeed have been 23rd.

I haven't had the desire to watch any new Anderson film in about a decade now.

Missing some of his best stuff, but if it's not your thing...

oh yeah, cultural appropriazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Was big on Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums at the time, but just lost my taste for him, I guess. Moonrise Kingdom looks appealing, though, so maybe it'll hook me back in.

it's... fine? the animation was endearing, the plot and baked in tweeness notably less so.

Moonrise and Fantastic Mr Fox are two of his four best imo

(with Rushmore and Royal)

A mark of how much I liked this: it was almost as good as FMF

Oh, I did like Mr. Fox. Weird that I stopped there, though, as I remember thinking that his films were just kinda getting to be the same thing over and over again, and that film certainly wasn't that.

Mr Fox and Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom are top tier. Mr. Fox might be his best ever imo

yeah i'd keep Fox and Tenenbaums and burn the rest

Grand Budapest Hotel is the post-Tenenbaums film of his I love the best

Gonna show The Grand Budapest Hotel in class tomorrow. I'm not a fan, but I'd rank it with Rushmore and Fantastic Mr. Fox

Rushmore is the best i think, Fox is a solid #2. But i think all his flicks are worthwhile. GBH is not what i was expected when i saw it, and all the better for it. Aquatic/Darjeeling are iirc considered his least worthy but i liked them both. Moonrise a step above those, Tenenbaums is one i never totally warmed to but it's good.

https://i.imgur.com/y3KCOpY.jpg

22. Support The Girls
w/d: Andrew Bujalski
US 2018 digital
162 points, 7 votes

Support the Girls kinda ran out of steam for me in the last half hour, but up until the point where Regina Hall leaves the film for a decent chunk of the third act, I was loving it (I wondered if the film either needed a stronger resolution, or if it should have just dispensed with the whole idea of resolution). Give Hall more lead roles!

― cryptosicko, Tuesday, June 11, 2019

My wife's reaction iirc was that it should be required viewing for anybody in a management position.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, June 11, 2019

liked it fine, tho mostly for Regina Hall

Regina Hall should've won more awards.

James Le Gros amusing too.

And typically gros(s).

The resolution to the scene where he follows the guy home to confront him literally made me LOL.

the haiku gag at the start of iod killed me, rest was mostly a disappointment.

support the girls opens here on friday

A Bear Film Wes Anderson Rip
- Chris L, Thursday, 26 July 2018

I gotta retract this, actually. All the production photos made it look annoyingly beholden to Anderson but my wife got me to watch it and I enjoyed it. It might not exist without that aesthetic but it was charming enough I was able to put it out of my mind.

Still have no idea what people saw in that nothing of a movie. Regina King is a good actress but she had nothing to work with, utterly unremarkable... I didn't dislike it but don't understand the praise at all.

I gotta retract this, actually

ha ha, glad / sorry I pulled it

https://i.imgur.com/v2FWOqj.jpg

21. Madeline's Madeline
w/d: Josephine Decker
US 2018 digital
168 points, 7 votes, 1 #1

Madeline's Madeline? Holy shit! Stunningly great, great images, great ideas, great rhythm to it all. Loved the use of Caroline Shaw.

There's just nobody else around delving into these aspects of performativity and empathetic storytelling the way she does.

― Frederik B, Monday, October 1, 2018

Wanna see, but not on any of my streaming services yet.

Morbs called it “diverting”, or something like that

My choice for Worst Film!

Can't get over that title

with morbs on this one

I'm sure thousands of worse films were made, but not that i saw.

My #1 and possibly the best movie I’ve ever seen though I’ve not seen very many relatively speaking.

made me certain bresson had the right idea re actors

mad's mad is on us amazon prime

Molly Parker is good, and she was terrible in this

I understand casting Miranda July as an annoying mom, but not one who kids would've murdered as soon as they could walk

it's on Kanopy too

I didn't have any expectations going into this, and thought it was unique and surprisingly moving in the end. Voted for it

https://i.imgur.com/3s8m9Bs.jpg

20. Annihilation
w/d: Alex Garland b: Jeff VanderMeer
UK 2018 digital 8K, digital 6K
182 points, 8 votes, 1 #1

I don't necessarily expect that much from the Garland adaptation of Annihilation, but I am interested to see how he handles the Biologist's perspective and some of the moments in which visuality seems to break down (like the encounters with the Crawler).

― one way street, Monday, April 27, 2015

this was pretty good. I think it might be an unfilmable book, though. too bad all of the creeper stuff was removed, and the mind control stuff taken out. I kept expecting JJL's character to snap her fingers and say a code-word. otherwise, what was her motivation? hand-wave, hand-wave terminal illness? my biggest overall complaint is that the psychedelia after the floaty alien thing (which was way cool) was droney and overlong. the homunculus was overdone, and the burning went on too long, and the plot could've been served better by more spacing at the beginning of the picture. oh well. maybe extended edition will have more of the initial disorientation stuff. it could also have less of Natalie Portman's back mid-affair.

― remy, Monday, March 12, 2018

At least we got mad's mad out of the way.

I don't often care for this sort of sci-fi, but it was well done.

gtfo this film was garbage

This feels like it came out forever ago. I thought the idea of "the shimmer" was interesting (and some of the fungal visuals were effectively icky) but Portman's backstory was underdeveloped, and the 2001 head-trip conclusion was a cop-out.

I'm struggling to even remember what this was about

Saw it a few weeks ago and it had an idea or two that never came off. xps

I supported the Girls.

I'm struggling to even remember what this was about

ripping off the Thing (and Solaris), mostly

some of the movies in this rundown tonight need running down!

At this point I'm guessing 3 of my votes didn't make the top 50 but if any of those three are in the top 20 I'll be pretty pleased

spoilers for silby only: lbh jrer gur bayl crefba gb ibgr sbe guerr bs lbhe pubvprf

a few that i've seen today. i watched annihilation on an airplane screen on a groggy flight, which was probably not the ideal state for the film, but i wish it leaned in a bit more into the existential horror. the scene with the screaming bear was by far the most effective in the movie, though i appreciated the balletic choreography of portman's final showdown.

support the girls was very good! i agree with whoever said it suffered in the last third (and whenever regina hall wasn't on screen).

pretty sure I know which three! I look forward to yelling about them later. xp

https://i.imgur.com/BU9ThCB.jpg

19. Roma
w/d: Alfonso Cuarón
MX 2018 digital 6.5K
186 points, 7 votes, 1 #1

A terrible disappointment, an example of nostalgia porn. No reason to be black and white, no reason to make the maid a poor, wronged creature. Yet it's going to clean up year end.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, November 15, 2018

I liked this. I think it's always kind of hard when someone makes more popular commercial movies and then makes something self-consciously arty. It can feel like an act of imposture. There's a nice myth that arty directors make arty movies because that's the only kind they can make, because that's who they are. We are resistant to the idea that "serious" is just another genre. Especially when someone pulls out all the obvious signifiers: like black-and-white, lack of soundtrack, slow-pacing, long takes, etc. There's something a bit too eager to please, a bit too A-student, about it. On the other hand, it is "just" another genre, but so what. I guess I would have had a lot fewer hurdles to get over if this was made by some European director I'd never heard of before. But none of that really matters. It's hard not to notice that this movie is pretty interesting to look at. The story is fairly simple and affecting. You could summarize pretty much all the plot in a few sentences. But it's mostly everything that would be left out of those few sentences that makes this a good movie.

― o. nate, Sunday, February 3, 2019

Worst part of my movie year was realizing, maybe a third or a half of the way through this one, that I agreed with Alfred.

avoided these last two

I'm also in Alfred's corner on this one. The B&W photography didn't even look good.

Worst part of my movie year was realizing, maybe a third or a half of the way through this one, that I agreed with Alfred.

― Pauline Male (Eric H.), Wednesday, June 26, 2019 3:14 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

avoided these last two

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius),

Lovely juxtaposition

How nice for you, how nice for Morbs, how nice for everybody.

haha i was comin back to do that joke

no reason to make the maid a poor, wronged creature

damn this story about alfonso cuarón's memories of his actual upbringing wasn't suffienctly manipulated to be woke

i love Alfred and Eric more than... Josephine Decker

it wasn't sufficiently manipulated to be art; if he's got memories to share and no way to make'em compelling, keep them in a scrapbook

xp Not surprising. Josephine Decker doesn't know who Alfred or I even are.

pretty sure Cuaron's real life maid was more fascinating (even when wronged) than what we see onscreen

that's what she says xp

INTERIOR: LIVING ROOM

Sofía: Cleo, can you clean up the dog shit in the garage?

Cleo: Yes, señora

CLEO LEAVES ROOM WITH BUCKET AND MOP

Sofía: Cleo, before you go out there, do you like the blue dress or the yellow dress for tonight's party?

Cleo: Señora, I'm afraid that is unpaid emotional labor.

Sofi: Slay.

TWENTY MINUTES OF MOPPING CLOSE-UPS TO RACHEL PLATTEN'S "FIGHT SONG"

would watch

Same!

Roma is my Number One, I loved it, but I'm a middle brow noob

Whiney's performative Ron Paul shtick does wonders for lousy scripts.

real middle brow noobs have watched at least one Werner Herzog movie

I'm also in Alfred's corner on this one. The B&W photography didn't even look good.

it's not even B&W, it's just converted

you guys are all crazy. this was a great film

Among many middlebrow qualities

real middle brow noobs have watched at least one Werner Herzog movie

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, June 26, 2019 3:32 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've seen six by now! :D

https://www.stageandcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Marina-de-Tavira-Marco-Graf-Yalitza-Aparicio-Daniela-Demesa-Diego-Cortina-Autrey-and-Carlos-Peralta-in-Roma-2018.jpg

I love this shot so much.

the crab represents obviousness

savage

certainly bigger than any crabs in the movies on my list iirc

you know, if someone wanted to see all the big crabs they can just come to this thread

irl lol @ devvine

not even B&W, it's just converted

This is actually advantageous in post, as one can manipulate the contribution of the RGB channels. Like using filters on BW film.

yeah i'm not sure if the work of postprod 'colorists' makes this especially noteworthy anymore

yeah I read that it's how most black and white films are made today.

I didn't particularly love the look of Roma on netflix home streaming, but thought it was stunningly beautiful in the theater

also had amazing sound design

lol just remembered this

Someone took a photo with their phone of a TV playing Roma, and the phone didn’t get the colour temperature right, and now Jeff Wells is convinced there’s a colour version of Roma. Incredible. pic.twitter.com/maq499JG9L

— David Franklin (@davefranklin) December 26, 2018

xp 'Twas no Bohemian Rhapsody on that front.

Idiot of the Year (tenth time): Jeff Wells

Jeffrey Wells is the only writer on film that makes Arm0nd look like a saint.

https://i.imgur.com/i0R3SaY.jpg

18. You Were Never Really Here
w/d: Lynne Ramsay b: Jonathan Ames
UK 2017 UK digital
200 points, 8 votes

this blew me away. one of the most gripping and cinematic movies I've seen this decade. reminded me of Good Time - the speed, the music, the city - but this was so much more mysterious and masterful. I think it's a masterpiece, rare example of pure cinema and style over story. so well edited and rhythmically dynamic. jonny greenwood's score is great, and the sound design throughout the movie is stunning. apotheosis of joaquin phoenix disheveled and mumbling. and my friend saw posters for it and thought it was a sequel to I'm Still Here.

― flappy bird, Sunday, April 22, 2018

I basically hated it lmao

― Simon H., Sunday, April 22, 2018

oh fuck this was last year wasn't it, would have made the end of my ballot had i remembered.

the first 30 minutes of Ramsay's preceding film kept me away from this one

the sheer mass of joaquin in this

My vote for Best Actor.

intrigued by flappy bird's description. I was distracted and missed a lot of this when I saw it the first time

i liked it, forgot it was only from last year. doesn't approach the level of good time though, which depicted an awesome mixture of joy and anxiety, manic intensity, in its depiction of a dirtbag's improvisation as he backs himself into corner after corner.

https://i.imgur.com/iw541Ia.jpg

17. La caméra de Claire [Claire's Camera]
w/d: Hong Sang-soo
KR/FR 2017 digital
202 points, 7 votes, 2 #1s

I adored Claire's Camera: 69 minutes of the quietest wit that blooms into an unexpected emotional climax.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, March 28, 2018

best film of 2018, roll on the poll

― devvvine, Saturday, May 11, 2019

my number one, its lightness belies its depth

this looks interesting.

yes great film

#7 for me

had hotel by the river and the day after lower on my ballot, assuming they won't make it. the former is the strongest of the two

I should have voted for Claire's Camera, though the sheer amount of Hong films fucks up my idea of which ones belongs to what year. Voted for Grass instead.

Yay at Madeline's Madeline and yay Silby. That one has stayed with me, ended up as #2 on my ballot. I can still feel the way the camera danced around. Or perhaps I'm imagining things, no matter what, it's a great feeling.

Somehow, I don’t know how, I left this off my ballot. Would have been #2. ;_;

I loved the scene in this where Manhee insists on taking a selfie with her boss immediately after being told that she is fired

big sleepy dog narrowly beaten out for best animal by the llama from zama

My #1!

No one's making films as musical and deceptively light as Hong is

Yeah he’s great, this was my #2

Hotel by the River kinda breaks the template (2019 US)

I love that it was shot over the course of one Cannes, his process is fascinating (or what I remember of it from the intro to my screening of cc)

llama from zama creates drama in alabama by reading rendezvous with rama

writes overnight during production, i think

sic how do you pronounce "alabama"

rhymes with "Obama"

Huge point in Hong's favor: his commitment to making 80 to 90-min movies.

xxp writes overnight, gives script to cast in morning, shoots, goes over footage in the evening. the theory of his approach is very much present in the film i think.

always with your vacuuming... xp

I even vacuum the theater.

I was imaginarily pronouncing those all like an American in my head, most of them are long "a" irl

Alabama doesn't rhyme with any of the other "-ama"s in that sentence

is the thing

I like that the camera in question is an Instax, it's a nice modest touch and is very suited to the character of Claire

save the drama for your meemaw

https://i.imgur.com/IVUtkB8.jpg

16. BlacKkKlansman
d: Spike Lee w: Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee a: Ron Stallworth
US 2018 35mm, Super 16, Ektachrome
225 points, 10 votes

this was pretty good, and even though I've been skipping his stuff for about a decade I have no doubt its his best in awhile. It still has some typical Spike problems - uneven tone + characterizations, random plot dynamics, intermittently terrible music. But what's good about it is very good, and sometimes it's whiplashing between humor and horror is very effective. Some random thoughts:

- you could've heard a pin drop in my sold out theater with that final shot with the flag, holy shit. oddly my immediate reaction was to think of the cover of Stankonia.
- The juxtaposition of different groups chanting "white power"/"black power" - idk what Spike was really going for there. To argue for equivalency of those positions seems positively Trumpian. But maybe Spike was just trying to make it clear that choosing a side is required?
- the KKK viewing of "A Birth of a Nation" seemed like a sort of inferior version of what Tarantino did with the Nazi propaganda film in "Inglorious Basterds", minus the payoff (ie everyone in the Nazi audience getting brutally murdered) and the underlying implication/complicity of the IB (or BlackkKlansman) audience.
- seemed weird that Zimmerman literally made no attempt whatsoever to sound like white Ron Stallworth.
- Stallworth cornering Zimmerman in the records room about him not putting any skin in the game distinctly reminded me of Spike and Turturro's similar scene in Do The Right Thing, where he gives Turturro shit for having black heroes
- I had no idea there was another acting Buscemi brother

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Pretty good is about right, and the audience loved it.

I didn't quite feeling though

I saw Claire's Camera in time to add it to my ballot but my first response was "what is this bullshit" and I didn't trust that, so I didn't include it on the main ballot or the worst-film side poll. I need to see it again.

you need to look at it again very slowly

how does one "look slowly", exactly

you vacuum your apartment while watching

straw poll: top 13 tomorrow, or just keep pushing today?

I watched BlacKkKlansman again before voting. A second viewing doesn't reveal anything other than that, for whatever else it is, it is just a super entertaining film.

keep pushing i say

i know getting worked up about the logic of films is pointless but that there was no good reason for ron to still be making the calls was really distracting.

aside from the dance number, i was not hugely entertained

More, sic!

Nah, stop. I gotta leave.

Stop at #11.

13 tomorrow, got to have a reason to get out of bed.

i think it will be 15?

Do the right thing (tomorrow).

https://i.imgur.com/Ma0Cc6J.jpg

15. Western
w/d: Valeska Grisebach
DE 2017 digital
231 points, 8 votes, 1 #1

Placed at 42 in 2017, with 46 points and 3 votes.

great film, didn't vote for it this year

- devvvine, Tuesday, 24 July 2018

great film, did vote for it this year

main dude has an incredible face

yes, he was great, hard to believe this is his first and to date only film role

had it 6th i think

the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet of German cinema finally arrives and it is good! (unlike most of German cinema these days)

I was continually thinking there was going to be extreme violence and thought it was interesting that the film kept subverting expectations

i was sort of expecting it to do that, but it did it in a way i wasn't expecting - if this nonsense makes any sense!

also read that Grisebach worked as a script consultant on Toni Erdmann, can see that she might have been influenced by that film

does a fine job of engaging with the cinematic and political connotations of the title without ever feeling like one

today's films have been very much of the 'need to see' variety

https://i.imgur.com/Ao3OHA1.jpg

14. Happy As Lazzaro [Lazzaro felice]
w/d: Alice Rohrwacher
IT 2018 Super 16mm
233 points, 9 votes, 1 #1

Happy as Lazzaro worthy of its Film Comment cover, and ekes into my top 10 of '18. Candide + magical realism + scabrous satire of modern Italy.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, December 28, 2018

thought this was great, and it is another subtle film that requires more than one viewing

also recommend The Wonders, her previous which I think I may love even more than this

lost me a bit in it's second act but that stretch before the 'jump' is superlative

I like how surreal the shift was

*did like

Yeah, I think I might prefer The Wonders, but it's a superlative work. She's my favorite Italian director at the moment.