Sight and Sound 2022: The Final Showdown

none of the "fuck offs" were directed at posters

xp it is a shame, the way you are being silenced

ineffectively, that is

I don't know--was that implication in my post, that I was being silenced? I'm rereading it...I don't think so.

To the delight of many, I'm close to impossible to silence.

Am I right in my impression that it seems to be more acceptable on modern-day ILX to cast aspersions on another poster's film tastes than on their music tastes? Or is that just a function of who in each group is expressing their tastes and who is critiquing them?

I have done both! Just don't post on ILM as much now.

I would never call you a cop, clemenza

To paraphrase Rupert Pupkin, better a hopelessly middlebrow, '70s-centric Paulette for a day than a cop for a lifetime.

Am I right in my impression that it seems to be more acceptable on modern-day ILX to cast aspersions on another poster's film tastes than on their music tastes? Or is that just a function of who in each group is expressing their tastes and who is critiquing them?

― Halfway there but for you,

Yes tot he first question. I was going to post ask why we're more critical about film tastes.

Only one way to find out, everyone start a thread about their 50 favourite films

Music is more abstract a form than film, thus there’s more room to allow people their subjective tastes

werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl)
Posted: 9 September 2023 at 04:18:56
anyone who voted for oasis is a cop

That’s a post about music tbf & you’ll encounter posts like it in countless ilm polls (it’s also obviously jocular and fine and not worth commenting on unless you’re weirdly addicted to making a big deal of your embattled position in polls that don’t matter)

Basically yeah. I try to generally never denigrate others’ musical preferences … they’re so much more tied in with the subconscious imo. Taste in movies, tho, is far more fair game

Also my taste in ILM terms is pretty clearly bad

It won't play.

How does Clemenza keep finding himself on the wrong side of history all the time?

Guy has a real knack for it.

Because history is right now, this moment--there's never a longer view.

And a message board is the world out there.

xyzzzz's question comes off better if imagined as two acquaintances debating shit over pints.

Pretty sure Goodfellas would show up in any aggregated list, so, as Gang of Four said, history is bunk (I don't care either way).

I try to generally never denigrate others’ musical preferences … they’re so much more tied in with the subconscious imo. Taste in movies, tho, is far more fair game

― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Saturday, September 9, 2023

I wonder if that's true, about taste in movies. Music isn't very often more abstract than film, so I'm not sure how it is seen as more universal, with everybody having equally great taste regarding it

My interest in films doesn't align with anybody I know personally, not family, friends, or acquaintances, only with the few of you who post about films here, and sometimes I'm not even sure about your tastes tbh. But that also is how I feel about my interest in music

The meta explanation I'd bring to the table is that most regulars here have had 10+ years of being mean about music on ILM and at some point it gets to diminishing returns.

dreadful thread so far ofc

third man

Because history is right now, this moment--there's never a longer view.

― clemenza, Saturday, 9 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Right. You are seeing the long view work now, where the films you love aren't the canon.

And you don't like it.

Dude, stop. Who cares?

Clemenza should stop feeling attacked when nobody is directly going off at him. That's tedious.

Says the poster who is the definition of tedium.

*Waits for the ever-reliable killer Youtube zinger*

But he's great company when he drinks!

Okay, I'll stop now

I give it until the rains break

For me this a three way tie for first between the obvious, boring picks of BLACK NARCISSUS, THE THIRD MAN and THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqSTcgE3aU

Never knew about this BBC miniseries of BLACK NARCISSUS until just now.

Did know that Black Narcissus was a real perfume, the scent of choice of Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman, to cover up the bodily and medicinal odors associated with his tubercular condition.

is that certain or TBC

*Waits for the ever-reliable killer Youtube zinger*

― The Thin, Wild Mercury Rising (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 10 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Good to see you knew what was coming. You are gaining intelligence. Hope that didn't hurt.

Tell us if it's hurting, we'll replace with a YouTube AI generator. Pack you off to a quiet life.

ILX Film Threads: The Final Showdown

I may not be directly going for clemenza these days, but I for sure am going after his canon, so it's probably a gray area

I was going to post ask why we're more critical about film tastes.

Maybe for the same reason that Metacritic scores can tend to be much lower for movies than for records - the notion that a film is nominally meant "for everybody", so anyone can take a shot at it, while most music is only going to reach fans of the artist or genre.

Also film and other dramatic arts have so many "practical" elements that anyone can examine and debate, while fewer people want to argue about how exactly a song should have been written or produced.

most regulars here have had 10+ years of being mean about music on ILM and at some point it gets to diminishing returns.

We've also seen all these poorly-aged twenty-year-old threads whose first post is: "Isn't (revered musical genius) just a twat?"

you're kind of all over the place there between "nominally meant for" vs "going to reach"- these are not opposites

likewise "anyone can examine and debate" vs "fewer people want to"

im not seeing any less accessibility or immediacy for music than movies in the ways being argued and indeed am surprised to even see the argument being made given how utterly subjective any such statement would necessarily be

If you want me to connect the dots, the people who (assume they) would have hated a record don't even listen to it. It seems to me that the idea of a "hate-watch" is more prevalent than a "hate-listen" (though ILM would be the place it would most likely happen).

i hear you

but im not convinced people hate watch entire movies

i guess the big difference i might see is you are a lot less likely to walk out of a movie regardless of how bad once you are in, you're gonna skip a song or quit an album for a lot less reason

and if you are committed to reviewing a movie/album you are really gonna resent sitting through a former perhaps if you decide its not for you?

taking that aside i think i still disagree strongly that movies are any more made "for everyone" than music tho

im not convinced people hate watch entire movies

Only come Oscar season

It wouldn't surprise if, say, Tsai Ming-liang thinks he makes films for everyone.

im not convinced people hate watch entire movies

Only come Oscar season

Or if you're on a long-haul flight! Which is how I saw Woody Allen's Scoop, possibly the worst film I ever got to the end of.

I've hate-watched the last couple of Wes Anderson films.

fire him out of yr canon

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Crash has my in-spirit second-choice vote

The thing is...Dead Ringers is as grisly if not more than the earlier films.

The casting of Brideshead poof Jeremy Irons gives it a veneer of respectability, I guess.

I love it, but to me it definitely has kind of an arthouse veneer production-wise that the earlier ones don't. It feels more "serious."

I don’t see the anger in Ringers as being any more palpable or powerful than in The Brood

(Not the misogyny, for that matter)

DR is funnier than The Brood. And co-stars Genevieve Bujold.

“What is your deal, chum?”

Art Hindle using a child’s drawing to cover up the bludgeoned face of a preschool teacher while her class cowers is pretty funny tbh

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

There it is, the same #1 as the Morbsies #1

CRASH (David Cronenberg; Canada; 1996) 4

my people

GOODBYE, DRAGON INN (Tsai Ming-liang; Taiwan; 2003) 7
GOODFELLAS (Martin Scorsese; USA; 1990) 7

My people ... deadlocked with there's-always-one people

thing about needing to always snipe about it is you're the group saying they dont want to talk about it

Well you've got me wrong there. I'm always very game to shit on Goodfellas

You guys sure like Kubrick

p good top5 if you remove the winner

Same number of votes for Crash and Annie Hall, which feels appropriate

Does anyone who dislikes any of these films literally think they should not be seen? Like would you advise a young film student "do not watch this, it's that bad"?

I would advise young film students to watch bad movies a lot, you learn a lot from them!

It's difficult for me to think of a movie that "shouldn't be seen" period but there's certainly a few on this list where I'd say "consider watching this instead, it's a better version of this sort of thing".

I would advise young film students to watch bad movies a lot

Ditto

What lesson does 2001, viewed as "bad", teach better than a run-of-the-mill bad film?

My advice to film students

'I have no general ideas about the cinema. I can only talk to you about my cinema.'
This International Translation Day, we recommend you preorder "My Cinema," a 400-page volume of writing by Marguerite Duras about her 19 films.
Arriving in December from: https://t.co/FTKmpvlL5J pic.twitter.com/WeFOictuey

— Another Gaze / Another Screen (@anothergaze) September 30, 2023