Pretend you have a ballot for the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list

i think i'd probably take issue with the idea that it totally works that way, but more immediately you're forgetting that this poll will be conducted post-hugo

Hugo will likely trigger a major re-evaluation of Scorsese's entire filmography...I can see where a mediocre decade could cut both ways. Maybe all the recent mediocrity makes Scorsese's earlier films stand out all that much more; but I also think there's a general loss of enthusiasm about someone when they play out the string, and that that can impact how you feel about the earlier work. I can think of musicians where it's worked one way with me, and others where it's gone the other way.

that GQ piece is vile.

if Sight and Sound isn't gonna honour movies post-1986, someone has to. I'm glad she's there, not giving a shit about Rules of the Game.

I wouldn't give up on Raging Bull yet in terms of a (barely) post-'70s film.

Yeah, not counting Raging Bull placing as a victory for post-'70s movies, Biskand.

Don't know if I'll get a ballot -- maybe they already went out -- and I'm too flibbertygibbet really to be much cop at these kinds of anti-historical monumentalisation, as the S&S peeps know, but I should totally rep for The Thing if I do.

Also Sir Henry at Rawlinson End.

Any ilxors get invited to participate? I promise not to (admit to) be(ing) jealous.

Question for Eric, Morbs, etc. If you had to pick one film post 1989 to vote for in S&S, which would it be? What about post 1999?

Respectively, Showgirls or Eyes Wide Shut and Inland Empire, probably.

first thoughts:

A Moment of Innocence

Mulholland Dr.

Recent films I'd back for all-time best: the Lynches, The Tree of Life and Être et avoir.

Être et avoir

English title: Come At Me Bro

Wow, that completely changes the tone of the film!

'double life of veronique,' 'my neighbor totoro'

lots of otm already. i can't really remember what 2002 included but i'd imagine that this poll will canonise a bunch of iranian stuff, maybe some slow Asian stuff like Hou.

when i think about post 89 films id vote for i get a little embarrassed at how conventional my taste is, but id vote for:

The Thin Red Line
A.I.
Eyes Wide Shut
Zodiac
In the Mood for Love
maybe Flowers in Shanghai?

trying to remember some more Euro or artier stuff but my mind's a-blank...

alternates to my two above wd be Close Up and Munich

i think part of my problem is that some of the movies post-89 that are real touchstones for me (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring, uh, springs to mind) aren't exactly what I'd call flawless masterpieces.

Question for Eric, Morbs, etc. If you had to pick one film post 1989 to vote for in S&S, which would it be? What about post 1999?

fantastic mr. fox, a scene at the sea, 35 shots of rum, the portuguese nun, through the olive trees...

more: giliap, take care of your scarf tatiana (or maybe ariel), looking for mushrooms, black rain

probably lots of others

ok more: nouvelle vague, commingled containers, long day closes, spirited away, the thin red line...

er giliap is 1975, i meant songs from the second floor

chungking express, heat, the blade, god knows what else

so many to pick from

Of the films you guys have listed, how close do you think they'd come to actually making your real ballots? Not even close? Kinda close?

a scene at the sea

this is such a rad movie!!

My post-'89 picks:

My Own Private Idaho
Carlos

If I had an actual, real ballot, I'd list Zodiac for sure. I'd probably do something I never do, which is try to be mindful of the poll's lineage and pass over Spellbound as too subjective a pick. (I realize Zodiac's pushing it.)

i'd throw 'an angel at my table' in there, but i'm inclined to put it in pretty much any movie list i make.

yeah that one. i love that movie.

Of recent vintage, would be tempted by Wong, but not sure which. In the Mood, Happy Together, Fallen Angels, he's the kind of guy (maybe like Tarkovsky too) where lack of a consensus "masterpiece" could keep him off a list like this.

http://www.tnr.com/article/film/102885/the-godfather-anniversary-restoration-cinemark-coppola

I stress the unity of the two films because later this year the British film magazine Sight & Sound will have its once-a-decade poll of film critics to find the ten best films ever made. It’s a game, of course, yet the poll has become a cultural standard because Citizen Kane has won five times now since 1962 and must be considered favorite to win again.

Fair enough, if that’s what people think, but maybe it leaves cinema looking a little passé if our dominant film is 71 years old. Has nothing come along as great since then, not even with all the technical plushness? But the editor of Sight & Sound, Nick James, has advised the electorate that every vote must go to an individual film. You can pick The Godfather and Part II but not as the two halves of one work. I regret that because I think it misses a quality in the work, and diminishes the chances of the total Godfather being voted best film—I’ll guess it’s the most likely threat to Kane.

Boo hoo.

The "total" Godfather now seems to willfully exclude Part III.

fair enough tbh

they shd be 2 movies tho, to pretend they're 1 long movie is to ignore the way that the second undercuts and inverts the first

Thanks, MZS's FB feed, for distracting me with this ongoing geekery:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/predictions-you-cant-refuse-previewing-the-sight-and-sound-greatest-films-poll-part-iii

my top candidates for #1 are all older than Kane.

but younger than Abel.

#teamvertigo

Well, #teamrulesofthegame really, but let's be realistic.

I wonder what made S&S reverse course on The Godfathers? Pushback from voters? From readers? From the estates of various directors who fell back of the combined entry last time?

Because so many of them are still alive.

The more people I find out have ballots in this thing, the more I have hope that there will be major upheavals.

Why so invested? All this all-time polling crap, about films utterly opposite in style, historical context, and aims, is even more of a parlor game than year-to-year lists.

"Major upheavals" would be just so much redecorating.

my top candidates for #1 are all older than Kane.

― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, April 24, 2012 2:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but younger than Abel.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, April 24, 2012 2:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

niche lols

i for one am looking forward to finding out what the best film is later in the year

it's definitely not king of new york because the original bad lieutenant is better

Based on the coverage in S&S it seems that 'Beau Travail' and 'Mulholland Drive' are the most likely contemporary films to place.

got a kick out of lookin at the voting breakdown from 02. zizek voted for dune and some nazi kitsch that ive never heard of.

james toback voted for get shorty

I think younger critics are less apt to hold specific titles in esteem that older ones, or if they do, in a less herdlike manner (ie the voters this time for TP: Fire Walk with Me will get nowhere). So I wouldn't guarantee a ton of upheaval.