ILX All-Time Film and Morbsies Poll: RESULTS Thread for ILX's Favorite Movies, Films, Cinema, Flicks & Moving Pictures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkDcuDVrHqQ

I need a documentary of the time he saved Joaquin Phoenix's life after a car accident.

I voted for other Herzogs but worried the vote-splitting had condemned him to no place, so that's almost as pleasing to see as The Green Ray.

I too voted for another Herzog but I figured this one would get on the list if any did. Like a lot of the poll entries, it sits on the line of "art film" and "edgy genre film".

Shout out to old-school, red envelope Netflix; Aguirre, Cries and Whispers, and Picnic at Hanging Rock were the first discs I ever received from them.

ha, I still subscribe to Red Envelope Netflix. Not everything's available for streaming!

(gets red pen ready to grade the wokeness of xyzzzz's ballot)

I wonder if watching himself in Burden of Dreams inspired what would come.

What do you mean, Herzog reinventing himself as a "personality"?

Partly, yeah.

https://cansesclasseled.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/008-taxi-driver.jpg

08. TAXI DRIVER (Martin Scorsese, 1976, USA) [1,403.47 points; 19 votes]
S&S: 16 | TSPDT: 15 | BOXD: 125

MORBS SEZ: "I like the remake better (The King of Comedy)"

The King of Comedy is really his most perfect work, like a better version of Taxi Driver without the violence and exploitation aspect. But the situations depicted in it are often so embarrassing it's almost unbearable to watch.
― Tuomas, Friday, August 15, 2008 7:03 AM

I like it but its way over-rated. Its like a Paul Schrader wank-fantasy with a awful "I told you so" ending. "Falling down" is a lot wittier and heartfelt although I dont think anyone takes it seriously cos Michael Douglas is in it and Joel "Batman and Robin-St Elmos fire" Schumacher directed it.
― Michael, Thursday, June 7, 2001 7:00 PM

So ridiculously better than Raging Bull and Goodfellas combined.
― boring movies are the most boring (Eric H.), Monday, September 14, 2009 12:22 PM

ok i will say that Travis seems inconsistent but in ways that make complete sense to me, it being the journey of someone who is losing his mind. And everything that happens to him sets him down on his path. Also the film spends a lot of time making sure that while he's a character to have some sympathy for, we see that Travis is never wronged or misunderstood. The other characters react to him in ways that are entirely appropriate, bc he's a creepy fuckin guy. obv of course Scorsese/Schrader/De Niro really nailed him, he's such a great character.
― omar little, Tuesday, January 28, 2020 1:27 PM

i don't really see how anyone can take the coda of the film (after the bloodbath) as anything _but_ some kind of fantasy. not only is the way its shot thoroughly (and clearly intentionally) dreamlike and disorienting (the most obvious example being the way cybill shepard appears in the rear-view mirror, like a disembodied portrait), but it simply doesn't make any literal sense. (one thing i noted was that the voice-over of iris's "dad" has the same awkward, staccato cadence of deniro reading the fabulist letter to _his_ parents.) it's interesting that neither schrader nor scorsese really seem to have intended for audiences to identify with the lead character, strictly speaking. but by making much of the film in an expressionist mode, in which we are aligned with deniro (and arguably inside his head-space), there's really an encouragement to do so. i think part of the point of the scene with scorsese as the taxi fare is actually to break some of that possible identification w/ bickle. what the character played by scorsese says is utterly harrowing/horrifying. bickle's initial reaction seems to be discomfort, but by the end he seems to be identifying with the rant and envisioning something similar. in other words i imagine this was designed by the filmmakers to be a moment where our reactions and those of bickle diverge in a very strong sense. i'm not sure if it has that affect on everyone in the audience though.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Sunday, June 10, 2012 10:22 PM

Cybill Shepard was always kinda J-Lo, wasn't she?
― Ally (mlescaut), Saturday, December 21, 2002 9:29 PM

LAST SCENE IS A FANTASY how many times do I have to say it
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, August 21, 2008 1:09 PM

Do you think it bothers Jodie Foster that she hasn't changed a bit - face, voice, mannerisms - in 30 years?
― milo z, Friday, August 31, 2007 11:23 PM

I think she sleeps okay.
― Alex in SF, Friday, August 31, 2007 11:23 PM

At least she's not a botox monster.
― marmotwolof, Saturday, September 1, 2007 12:30 AM

That still looks like a sequence in a Hou film.

I get that Taxi Driver is a ugh-yesterday kinda choice, but it dances a dangerous dance that no other Scorsese film outside of, yeah, King of Comedy does for me.

I like it but its way over-rated. Its like a Paul Schrader wank-fantasy with a awful "I told you so" ending. "Falling down" is a lot wittier and heartfelt although I dont think anyone takes it seriously cos Michael Douglas is in it and Joel "Batman and Robin-St Elmos fire" Schumacher directed it.
― Michael, Thursday, June 7, 2001 7:00 PM

lmao this is the worst post i've ever seen

I was one of those people who used to like thinking of the ending as a fantasy but in this era of Kyle Rittenhouse I don't anymore.

Yesterday's dark fantasy into today's depression reality is forever's masterpiece.

I like the remake better (Joker)

lmao

I like the remake better (Joker)

― adam t. (abanana), Thursday, 4 November 2021 bookmarkflaglink

That's right

ha, I still subscribe to Red Envelope Netflix. Not everything's available for streaming!

people always see the red envelopes next to my TV and assume i've kept them from years ago, for sentimental purposes. (which i guess is sort of true, in a way)

I've worn it out, but I like seeing it still high. I'm surprised it has withstood current trends--if any once-highly-regarded film seems destined for exile, this would seem to be one of them on a number of fronts.

Still room for Herzog's bad lieutenant, or have i missed that somewhere already

No movie ever defined more vividly a Type of Guy.

I'd say Network is another one where the satire has been eclipsed by reality

Has Raging Bull really dropped in status at some point?

<<I've worn it out, but I like seeing it still high.>>

Try watching it sober.

haha was gonna make that crack

One thing I've come around on over the years is that it seems to be either more or at least as much Schrader's film as Scorsese's.

Last film I saw high was 20 years ago, a classic martial arts film hosted by a friend at his local library. Didn't go well.

enter the draggin'

if any once-highly-regarded film seems destined for exile, this would seem to be one of them on a number of fronts.

Doesn't hurt that Bickle is pretty clearly the bad guy here.

Taxi Driver top 20 for me, still my favorite Scorsese however boring that may be. It crackles. It would be hard to overstate the impact this had on teenage me, mostly in making me want to move to New York. Of course by the time I actually lived in NYC it was the Bloomberg-Starbucks era. But I did visit a few times in college in the late '80s and Times Square was still a reasonable facsimile of Taxi Driver era, I was amazed.

Travis would definitely find his place in the world as a Q/Trump or INCEL guy.

instead of the military jacket he'd have one of those facebook tshirts thats like "YES i am a PROUD VETERAN, i have a SARCASTIC sense of humor, i have ANGER ISSUES, i was born in AUGUST, and i am a TAXI DRIVER!"

top 10 rules so far (although like a couple others I’d switch TD and TKOC)

i remember when i first moved to london and didn't know anybody and i replied to an ad looking for a room in a flatshare and they were like 'we're all really into movies and we have a movie night' and i thought that sounded fun and then i went there and they had all these dvds like kill bill and i was like hmm maybe not (lol the detail i left out was that I actually went out with work friends to the pub beforehand and came about an hour late and very drunk so they didn't want me to move in anyway)

― plax (ico), Thursday, 4 November 2021 14:28 (fifty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I love that this post has no context other than "FYI I am a snob"

it seems to be either more or at least as much Schrader's film as Scorsese's.

give Bernard Herrmann a share too tbh

xp (I'm assuming you don't consider that a slur, plax!)

xxp new board description

I like Taxi Driver and rate it highly but Bernard Herrmann's score over scenes of city lights reflected in puddles is the best thing about it

Herrmann, and DeNiro, and Foster...but I think I'd put Schrader at the top; so much of it seems to come out of a couple of hellish years he experienced in the early '70s.

(Add Michael Chapman, too.)

Your Lyft ride is arriving soon! Look for Travis in a grey Toyota Camry

*cancel ride*

https://cansesclasseled.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/007-the-rules-of-the-game.jpg

07. THE RULES OF THE GAME (Jean Renoir, 1939, France) [1,575.88 points; 17 votes]
S&S: 5 | TSPDT: 4 | BOXD: DNP

MORBS SEZ: ""

i had a hard time staying interested in the film until the last 40 minutes or so, which were fantastic. the rest of it i found kind of silly, really (and yes, i know there's a huge element of farce), and with a few very notable exceptions (renoir as octave, the chambermaid, christine's niece) i thought the acting was poor. the actress playing christine was especially awful - she's supposed to be beautiful, captivating, and alluring yet the reality is a woman who looks about 50 and has all the charisma of a wet noodle.
― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:15 PM

rules of the game sux, yes
― Dr. Alicia D. Titsovich (sexyDancer), Thursday, November 16, 2006 5:16 PM

The Rules of The Game is screwball?
― k/l (Ken L), Monday, September 5, 2005 10:12 PM

rules of the game >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> intolerable cruelty > rules of attraction >>>>>>> laws of attraction
― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, September 6, 2005 12:11 AM

i mean fuck any issues of "high" or "low" art, rules of the game is just the best film ever by any standards you'd care to name
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, September 6, 2005 12:57 AM

i can recall more than one convo where people were like "why bother with gosford park when there's already rules of the game" to much gnashing of teeth from this moi
― meryl streep post-brazilian (s1ocki), Sunday, January 10, 2010 12:13 PM

Very different tonally from ROTG; always with Altman you sense the sourness (not a bad thing).
― Hell is other people. In an ILE film forum. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, January 10, 2010 12:41 PM

yeah it's different, i just mean that there was one filmmaker in the 30s who was able (though no-one was able to see it in the end) to make a film with a similar theme and attitude. there were might even have been others -- iirc, hitchcock's 'the skin game' has a touch of it. (imo renoir had more teeth than people like to reckon now.)
― jive bunny and the masterilxers (history mayne), Sunday, January 10, 2010 12:46 PM

I saw Rules of the Game once and while I remember there being nothing wrong with it I don't quite get why it's always near the top of these things. Will definitely watch again someday. Grand Illusion had a bigger impact on me.
― Chris L, Friday, August 28, 2009 12:37 PM

I saw Rules of the Game a couple years ago. Good movie, but it didn't wow me or anything.
― Trewster Dare (jaymc), Thursday, August 2, 2012 11:27 AM

'the rules of the game' cannot share genre space with 'she's the one' or anything like that
― gear (gear), Monday, August 21, 2006 1:50 PM

I think if there's one consensus on this thread, it's that if you haven't seen Rules of the Game, do so immediately.
― or have I become completely absurd? (kenan), Friday, August 28, 2009 1:16 PM

I saw Rules of the Game once and while I remember there being nothing wrong with it I don't quite get why it's always near the top of these things. Will definitely watch again someday. Grand Illusion had a bigger impact on me.
― Chris L, Friday, August 28, 2009 12:37 PM

Yes, I don't know why this is THE Renoir. But maybe it will console me for the absence of Lubitsch and Ophuls.

LOL, accidentally posted before I could for sure confirm Morbs never really said anything about this one, but it does indeed appear that he never really posted a comment on it other than once saying he was about to rescreen it. He preferred La Chienne.

This was in my 25. Absolutely incredible film that deserves every single prop it receives

Actually, I know why this is THE Renoir--it's pretty in ways that are accessible to middlebrow moderns. Compare the Impressionists versus the "modern" schools of art that succeeded them.

it's mostly because it's funny, shocking, sad and it manages both its mise-en-scene and its pacing brilliantly

It's a French film from the 30s. Given how it's been so far I'd celebrate it tbh xp

La Chienne is great, and it was remade as one of my favourite Hollywood Fritz Lang films, Scarlet Street.