Delayed Due To Projection Issues - the 2017 ILX Film Poll Results Thread

I mean we can hold the poll in midsummer if the pollrunner agrees, just don’t come the “huhhhh? I saw this last year I don’t understand how this could possibly have happened” shit every fucking year

https://i.imgur.com/50lXXJL.jpg

31. The Shape of Water
d: Guillermo del Toro w: Guillermo del Toro, Daníel Kraus and Vanessa Taylor
68 points, 4 votes

This was ok but there’s such a disconnect between the romantic, fanciful tone the movie aims for and the fact that it’s about a goddamn slimy fish monster.

There’s barely even a buildup to the romance! Sally Hawkins is making fuck eyes almost as soon as she sees the thing. Does she have a fetish for nicitating membranes or something?

Also can you imagine how ungodly this thing must smell?

― latebloomer, 24 December 2017

it stinks

For all of the hullabaloo over the interspecies romance, I thought it was the most underdeveloped aspect of the film. I liked it, but its a better piece of filmmaking than writing, for sure.

It's july and I still haven't seen Zama, so who's laughing now, huh?

Zama would have been my #1 if I'd voted probably

Simon!!

Vote for it next year

Zama was high on my ballot this year but after seeing how low it placed I'm definitely voting for it again next year

I never vote in these cause I only see like 30 movies a year

(I used to see, like, 300)

That’s a poor excuse, mordy sees three a year and even he takes the time to put together a top 3 ffs

Mordy did a top ten and half of them have placed already. this satisfaction could be yours too!

I don't really get the arguments over something like Certain Women (which I liked better the second time and voted for). It played in Toronto at TIFF, and then I'm almost positive opened for a short run in early 2017. I don't go to TIFF. Voting for it seemed perfectly reasonable.

I'm definitely voting in the next ILM album poll as i hear at least two per year these days

after seeing how low it placed I'm definitely voting for it again next year

assuming this poll is roughly based on Pazz & Jop, this should not be permitted

true, but if the poll were based on Pazz & Jop wouldn't we also be adding last year's votes into this year's, with Toni Erdmann would win two years in a row?

*winning

Is it me or is this shit worse than usual this year?

as i remember it, Dan, there was an asterisk for those albums, saying "received (x) votes last year" -- but they were not added

but i could be wrong

the points totals start taking some bigger leaps from here

https://i.imgur.com/z2gJlQZ.jpg

30. The Square
w/d: Ruben Östlund
78 points, 5 votes

a dark satire of the people atop the institutions of high contemporary art that won the palme d'or this year, for some reason. a couple great scenes and some quality dry LOLs, but overall i found it underwhelming and solidly an hour too long. claes bang is extremely handsome.

― flopson, Wednesday, 22 November 2017

wow

The good parts of this are really good tho

didn't like the trailer, reviews were mixed, and i thought Östlund's avalanche comedy was overrated

As someone said on the thread (& I said about I think wiener-dog) there is no surer sign of bankruptcy than going for the low-hanging fruit of “a satire of the contemporary art scene!”

that extended performance art scene at the fancy museum dinner started out feeling embarrassing but by the end was so brutal I had to look away

there is no surer sign of bankruptcy than going for the low-hanging fruit of “a satire of the contemporary art scene!”

tbf it is a satire about a whole lot of things, not just the art world. It's the AK to Force Majeure's pistol

couldn't stand this

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

TOO LOW!

(shrug) I laughed a lot, but it was easily half an hour too long

number 3 on my ballot, it rocks

Agreed that we should put off voting until at least July for the previous year.

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.

The vagaries and varieties of international film distribution ARE fascinating imho, worth discussing here and elsewhere - geographic patterns of taste and fashion map onto the way we receive/view every film that we see. For myself, I just use this poll - and the x film thread - as a diary of things seen and enjoyed. So if I were to look back at this poll sometime, I would remember that I saw Toni Erdmann for the first (and so far only) time in 2017, and then think back to the 'controversy' about it topping the Sight and Sound poll of 2016 w/out it being released in the UK at the time.

I got bored of Toni Erdmann and missed probably the last half -- should I go back and see the last half?

yes

I rarely watch contemp movies a second time and Toni Erdmann benefited from the second viewing.

the birthday party scene and the scene in the park afterwards were both amazing, and iirc they occur in the second half. plus Plainsong at the end!

https://i.imgur.com/MWalOU6.jpg

29. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library
d: Frederick Wiseman (doco)
86 points, 6 votes

Ex Libris is very much of a piece with At Berkeley and National Gallery: the day-to-day flow of what happens there, mixed with endless meetings where board members try to figure out ways to secure funding and keep the institution operational. I've thought all of Wiseman's recent films with the exception of Boxing Gym were great, and this one is too. I will say, though, that he finds more interest in those meetings than I do.

― clemenza, Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Oh we saw The Square and liked it recently (tt more than me) but couldn't be bothered to adjust our ballots to include it. Doesn't always hit but it is wonderfully disgusted at many of the right things, and it gets pretty weird towards the end too

The only film I added to new list.

for anyone who has a card from a participating library, the public library streaming app Kanopy has what looks like the ENTIRE Wiseman filmography (except Ex Libris) at the moment, I think maybe inspired by current interest in this film

liked it fine, just not quite enough to vote for.

the NYPL also has all the FW DVDs, which they did not 2 years ago.

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

26= A Ghost Story
w/d: David Lowery
96 points, 8 votes

I thought this was very bad, presumably there is no ILX quote bigging it up?

hi!