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

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.